“Is it just you here?” Kyle asked with a laugh as he walked into the apartment, six pack in one hand, cell phone in the other. Kyle always marveled at the place every time he set foot inside for several reasons. For one, he had to walk up a flight of stairs just to get to the front door of the two bed/two bath apartment. For two, one bedroom/bathroom was up another flight of stairs once he was inside. The design of the location just blew his mind.

“Aye!” Aaron answered, bouncing off the ratty sofa. Aaron was a big man, not overweight or anything, just large in a general sense of the word. He stood six foot four and weighed in at just under two hundred twenty pounds. Had his face not still looked like it belonged to a twelve year old, he would probably be intimidating. “Sarah and Matt are still at work. I borrowed Sarah’s keys from her earlier.”

“Borrowed?” Kyle was still laughing, not entirely surprised that Aaron would steal Sarah’s keys so he could hang out at her place. And in his defense, she had given them all permission to throw a small party at her apartment; it was not their fault they did not work when she did. “Will she be over at some point?”

Aaron shook his head, not in response to his friend’s question, but in acknowledgement of Kyle’s obnoxious crush. Kyle had that lovesick look in his eye every time Sarah was around, and Aaron was growing tired the other man’s obvious romantic feelings. It was probably in hopes of impressing the young woman that Kyle had elected to wear a fucking suit to a going-away party. Maybe if he had known that Aaron would only be breathing for a few more months that suit would have consisted of more than just a pair of grey jeans, a black button up, and a blazer that was a size too small.

How could anyone know that Aaron would get his face blown off by an IED in Afghanistan just eight months after this night, though?

“What do you got?” the big guy asked instead of answering Kyle’s probe of Sarah’s future whereabouts.

“Bud Light Platinum,” the smaller man answered, setting the six pack on the coffee table in front of the sofa. Aside from the couch—which was in dire need of deep cleaning—and the table—which was stained and scratched and losing its finish—the living room was bare. There had once been a high backed chair and a recliner as well as an old TV, but in order to pay his share of the rent in December, Matt had pawned all three, even though they actually belonged to Sarah. While Matt lived there, the place was definitely hers.

Neither Aaron nor Kyle minded the barrenness of the place. Somehow it fit, this emptiness, a good match for the stained carpet and the stale cigarette-smoke smell. The apartment was dingy and dirty and a little gross, yet they all still came over to hang out and drink too much shitty beer. They all fit in as much as the emptiness and stained carpet, these petty criminals and burnouts.

“When are Isaac and Glenn getting here?” Aaron asked when Kyle sat down next to him, grabbing a beer and officially starting the party. The four of them—Aaron, Glenn, Isaac, and Kyle—did life together, even though they had very little in common. They all spent their days doing different things, working different jobs, taking different classes, breaking different laws. But at least four nights out of every week, they were together, invading a booth at the IHOP on 35 and Main Street, drowning in cheap coffee and syrup for too many hours. Those moments full of pancakes and cigarettes somehow made up for all the other moments that separated them.

“Glenn is off work at nine, Isaac at ten. Looks like it’s just you and me for at least a few minutes.” Kyle also grabbed a beer, twisting off the cap, and clinking the bottle against Aaron’s. They drank in silence for a time, both young men pulling out different packs of cigarettes and lighting up their smokes almost in tandem.

The two men had known each other for years, the silence between them not awkward or forced. There just seemed to be no words worth saying, not yet. They finished their smokes and beers, each grabbing another bottle and continuing the process they had already begun. Someone knocked on the door as they were finishing beer number two.

“It’s open!” Aaron called, his voice a boom that did not at all match his face.

Glenn strolled in, using both hands to wipe the front of his shirt as he entered, his customary greeting. Nobody really knew why he did this, he just did.

“What’s good, gents?” he asked, grabbing a beer from the six pack and standing in front of the coffee table.

“Just waiting right now,” Kyle answered, looking up at his friend from his seat on the couch. Glenn still wore his work uniform: black pants, black shirt with the Pizza Hut logo, black apron tied around his waist.

“Sarah’s still at work,” Aaron went on to explain why it was just the two—now three—of them in her apartment.

“Bet Kyle’s a little upset at that.”

“Fuck off, man.”

“Called that shit.”

“Isaac still working?” Aaron asked, interrupting Glenn’s jeering, even though he had thought it was funny. Everybody found Kyle’s crush funny.

“Yeah, but he should be off soon. This the only beer we have?”

“Yes, sir,” Kyle answered, his defensive posture melting under the possibility of more to drink.

“We need more then,” Glenn stated, lighting up a menthol as he did. “There’s the Shell up 121.”

“Time to venture!” Aaron announced, jumping off the couch again. He put his hands on his hips, striking a heroic pose, and grinning like an idiot. The stance was like Glenn’s wiping the front of his shirt: just something he did. Kyle sighed as he stood up, acting aloof but excited for the adventure.

“We could stop by 8’s first, have a round really quick,” he offered, stretching as if he was tired. Both Glenn and Aaron liked the sound of that. The three of them left the apartment, Aaron using the pilfered keys to lock the door behind them as they left. Glenn reached for his own keys, intending to drive the party to the bar.

“Might as well walk, brother,” Aaron said as they bounded down the stairs. “It’s less than a block from here.”

“True…” Glenn answered as he considered their transportation options. Car keys in the one hand, emptiness in the other, he balanced each wordlessly, before agreeing with Aaron. The three of them walked out of the parking lot and hit the sidewalk going west on 121.

They were a motley bunch, the three young men who had known each other since boyhood, each dressed in a uniform unique to their own twisted sense of style. Glenn still dressed for work, not giving a shit that he was no longer delivering pizza, his long blonde hair whipping about in the February wind. Kyle in his pseudo-suit, once-blonde hair dyed black and slicked back, a poor man’s Christian Slater several inches shorter than his companions. Aaron, the tallest of the group, striding along the sidewalk in his cut-off jean shorts and faded blue t-shirt, his goofy smile giving him the appearance of a very large toddler. It took them less time to walk to 8’s than it would take Aaron to die of massive trauma in November of that year.

The bouncer there was required by law to check their IDs even though he personally knew each man was twenty-one. As usual, there were fewer than twenty patrons mingling inside of 8’s; it wasn’t exactly a popular bar, unless it was a tournament night.

“What can I get you boys?” the bartender asked, the same bartender who had gotten Kyle so trashed on his twenty-first birthday on Four Horsemen that Kyle had entered the woman’s restroom to vomit, the same bartender then entering the restroom to haul Kyle’s drunk ass out of the bar.

“Three Four Horsemen,” Kyle answered, sliding a crisp twenty dollar bill over the bar to the heavily-bearded man serving drinks. There was challenge in Kyle’s order, as if he knew the bartender would scoff at his newfound love of the drink that had fucked his shit so thoroughly up not eight months ago. “Jaeger variety.”

“Make mine the whiskey kind,” Glenn piped up before the bartender could pour the drinks.

“C’mon, you pussy,” Aaron sneered, his grin still affable as he shoved the smaller man in the back.

“What? I don’t like Jaeger.” Glenn had a tendency to get defensive about his drinking habits. This was when he still enjoyed a shot or two of whiskey, before he spent a majority of his time hiding deep in bottles of cheap vodka.

“Wait,” Glenn said before they drank, needing to follow their unspoken rule. “What is this for?”

“Here’s to swimming with bowlegged women,” Kyle answered immediately. The Jaws toast was always his go-to.

They drank, coughing as much as most twenty-one year olds do after downing hard liquor. Glenn ordered another shot, straight whiskey again, Aaron and Kyle declining a second round. So he drank alone, the other two joking and laughing. Had they known this was to be their last night together, maybe they would have taken Glenn up on the offer.

With that warm feeling in their bellies that only strong drink can provide, the three of them left 8’s, making for the Shell station that was just across the parking lot. Each lit up another cigarette, smoking their various degrees of lung cancer as they plodded along the dirt path that separated the bar from the gas station.

Kyle went and grabbed a case of Budweiser while Glenn and Aaron finished their smokes outside. Exiting the gas station with the beer in hand, their mission was almost complete. The trek back to Sarah’s took them half an hour.

“I have to pee!” Kyle yelled as they entered the apartment, stepping through the door and into the dining portion of the living room. There was a folding table up against the wall, a table they were going to use for beer pong very soon, and a door that led to Matt’s room just off the kitchen. Inside the room was a single mattress, several pairs of dirty jeans, and nothing else. The bathroom inside the bedroom was much dirtier, but Kyle chose to ignore the disgust he felt at living in such a manner. There was a knock on the door while he was in the bathroom.

Isaac was as tall as Aaron, though rail fucking thin. He weighed maybe a hundred fifty pounds and his Black Label Society t-shirt and basketball shorts hung loosely off his frame. In his hand was a bag full of bitch beer—Smirnoff Ice this time; he had not yet developed the stomach for actual beer. He was both the youngest and newest addition to the group. Whereas Glenn, Kyle, and Aaron had met fifteen years ago on a summer league swim team, Isaac had joined the now-foursome only a year and a half ago, a coworker of Glenn’s who had rounded out the group quite nicely. While others played guest roles often—Matt, Sarah, Brandt, even Kyle’s brother Simon—the group really consisted of the four of them. Glenn, Kyle, Aaron, and Isaac were the corners, the edges, the perimeter that housed all of the other people in their various lives. And now they were saying goodbye to one of those corners.

Nobody expected it to be a permanent farewell.

“Beer pong?” Glenn asked in everyone’s general direction.

“Bitch pong for Isaac,” Kyle responded. Aaron laughed and Isaac just scowled.

They unfolded the table and found the cups stashed away in the cabinets from the last time they had played over here. Kyle wondered if maybe they should clean the cups, but kept his concern to himself. The balls, thank god, were brand new, hiding out in Isaac’s bag of bitch beer. Since Isaac couldn’t drink real beer, it was agreed upon that they would play singles. Glenn and Kyle opted to go first, pouring two beers each spread out into ten red cups.

Beer pong has the potential to be the Monopoly of drinking games: it can take forever and friendships can be lost. Not the way the four of them played, however. Kyle’s and Glenn’s game was just half an hour long, and way too close for comfort in Glenn’s eyes. Both men ended play with a single cup left, but Glenn managed to sink his last shot. As the reigning champ, he had to stay at the table and play Aaron. The results were similar, Glenn winning again with two cups still on his side. Isaac stepped up then, pouring two Ices into his cups. During this third game, the front door of the apartment opened.

“Sarah!” Aaron called, wrapping his large arms around her and picking her up in a single motion before she could even say hi or put her purse down. Bear hugs were Aaron’s specialty and she just laughed through the whole ordeal.

“Glenn, Isaac, good to see you boys,” she greeted when Aaron had finally put her down. She smiled in Kyle’s direction, but stayed silent. His crush was not exactly hidden from her, and Sarah had left her flirtatious mood at work.

“Hey, Sarah,” Kyle said, not noticing her indifference, trying and failing to sound impressive. Had he known how this would eventually play out, would he have kept trying?

“Nice to see you too, Kyle,” Sarah answered, her smile dazzling him. Amazing what a smile can do to a boy still so new to manhood. She knew what her smile would stir in him, had known the last time she had bared her teeth in his direction. If she was aware that they would fuck in a month, that he would fall headlong in love with her, and she would not be able to reciprocate, that she would inadvertently hurt him, maybe she would have smiled in a less tempting way. Maybe.

The trouble with the future is that it is impossible to predict, impossible to know how to act so that the best possible world will one day exist. If they could know where their lives would end up—if Aaron knew that the Afghanistan desert was going to be his tomb, if Glenn knew that his penchant for binge drinking was going to lead to several stints in rehab, if Kyle knew his depression was going to eat him alive until he choked on the business end of a twelve gauge—would their last night together as a full group be spent playing beer pong or flirting with the wrong person?

The future tried to push itself into the present, tried to warn the four men, but was hamstrung by the rules that governed it.

Isaac’s and Glenn’s game ended with Isaac having to drink the four cups full of beer left on Glenn’s side of the table. Since beer and Isaac’s stomach still vehemently disagreed with each other, Glenn downed them all in victory. He was table champ that night, and nobody could take that glory from him!

“I got next,” Matt said, sliding the last two beers out of their cardboard prison. Glenn reset the table, visibly wobbling at the other side. Drunk would become his norm over the next several years, sobriety a suit he only bothered to put on when he needed to ask his parents for money. But that night, drunk looked good on him. He beat Matt like he had beat everybody else.

Too bad they were now out of beer.

As they all checked their phones for the time—surely it was not past midnight yet!—a silence came over the six of them in that apartment, one that laughter and jokes and flirtatious remarks could not shake. They all knew why they were there, drinking more than they usually did at this point in their lives on a Friday night: one of them was leaving. How do you say goodbye to a friend, to a brother, properly? Nobody had an answer to that question.

Earlier in the week, Aaron’s paperwork had officially gone through. He was leaving Sunday morning for basic training with the United States Army. Each person there was proud of their friend, each in their own way. Glenn had bought him a round on Wednesday, the two of them getting plastered at 8’s. Kyle had had dinner with him and his family on Tuesday night, reliving the glory days of high school over plates piled high with spaghetti. Isaac had taken him bowling just last night, Aaron drinking a pitcher of beer over those few games. And Sarah had offered her and Matt’s place for this very get together.

A get together that needed more alcohol before it descended into tears.

“Guys,” Glenn spoke up, his words as shaky as his stance, “I’m going to be sick.”

He tottered into Matt’s bathroom, leaving the rest of the group in the living and dining rooms. It would be hours before anybody saw Glenn again.

“Do you have any liquor?” Kyle asked, looking directly at Sarah. She just shook her head at the boy, before turning her gaze to Matt, raising her eyebrows in question.

“We did…until last night,” Matt said, looking down at the carpet instead of at anybody.

“For fuck’s sake, man, you knew we were getting together tonight!” Kyle again, throwing his arms up in frustration.

“Maybe you should have brought more beer!” Matt shoved his finger into Kyle’s chest. Everybody just sighed, sick of the macho bullshit the two of them seemed to secrete when they were around each other. The number of arguments that had escalated into fist fights was reaching a count close to thirty by this point.

“I thought other people would bring alcohol!”

“What if we call someone?” Isaac asked, his voice a tight sigh. He only really interjected to keep the two assholes from resorting to blows. “Anyone we know that might spot us a bottle?”

Everyone began to brainstorm, to think, of anyone they could contact who might have alcohol and be willing to share. Nobody, not a single person in the room, mentioned relocating the whole shindig to 8’s, even though the bar was still open. One could not accuse the group of always flexing its collective intellectual muscles.

“Bettencourt,” Kyle finally said. “Bettencourt probably has a bottle or two we could procure.”

“You’re going to call someone underage to try and hook you up with liquor?” Sarah asked, the sarcasm of her words so palpable it could almost be seen coming out of her mouth. “Tony mentioned something about throwing a party tonight…”

“That. Sign me up,” Matt said.

“That is a good idea,” Aaron began, rubbing his beardless chin and looking around. Both Isaac and Kyle were visibly scoffing at the idea, neither one really a social butterfly around people they did not know. “How about this: Kyle, you call John, see if he’ll spot us some liquor. If the answer is yes, you go get it and we’ll go to Tony’s while we wait. If answer is no, we all go to Tony’s now. Yay or nay?”

“Well, since Kyle’s already on the phone, I’d say that’s a yay,” Isaac answered when nobody else spoke up. “Though I want to amend your plan. I’ll go with Kyle to pick it up if Bettencourt can supply it.”

“Sounds good. And break!” Aaron intoned, putting his hand in the center of a non-existent hurdle and launching it ceiling-ward.

“Alright, I got us a bottle,” Kyle said some minutes later.

“Party time!” Aaron called, already moving towards the front door. Sarah and Matt followed behind, the three of them leaving the apartment before Kyle could explain any further.

“He said we could have it if I’d smoke with him,” he said to Isaac when the others had left. “I’m pretty buzzed, man, and haven’t smoked in about a year. You mind taking this one for me?”

Kyle knew that Isaac had only been high a handful of times in his life, but he had learned the hard way last New Year’s not to mix his marijuana with his liquor. The two were not peanut butter and chocolate in his opinion. Isaac remembered that particular party—who didn’t?—and considered his options.

“Are you good to drive right now?” he asked Kyle, needing to know before he could make this decision.

“No sir.”

“I am. I’ll drive us, I’ll smoke in your stead, and we’ll come back heroes.”

“To being heroes!”

“We should probably tell Glenn we’re leaving, huh?”

“It’s what heroes would do.”

They both poked their heads into the bathroom, where Glenn had removed all of his clothing except for his Dark Side of the Moon boxers. Kyle had seen his oldest friend strip nearly naked before when hugging the toilet and cracked up at it all over again. Isaac, on the other hand, had never seen this side of their drunk friend.

“What the hell, bro?” he asked over Kyle’s chuckling.

“I had to get comfortable!” Glenn slurred without raising his head off the floor. Both Kyle and Isaac wondered how dirty the floor was.

“We’re going to Bettencourt’s. Everyone else went to Tony’s. Just stay in the bathroom, man.”

Glenn raised his thumb in mute agreement.

John Bettencourt was a childhood friend of Kyle’s brother and lived just east of Sarah on 121. Pulling out of the parking lot, Kyle laughed at the fact that every location of the night was situated somewhere on 121, like this stretch of tarmac was the only road that mattered. Maybe it was.

“What’s good, man!?” Bettencourt boomed as he opened the door on Kyle and Isaac. A brief handshake turned into a hug as the two men entered the dump of an apartment. Trash was piled in almost every corner, some of it in bags, some of it just stacked, accidental modern art. Isaac would have called it “Millennial Man” if he could have placed it all in a museum.

“You remember Isaac, right?” Kyle asked, taking a seat at the small table just to the left of the door. The chairs around it were padded with scratchy wool, the kind of chairs that were popular in the 80s. John had probably pilfered them from some dumpster or off the side of the road. On the table rested a very large handle of Sailor Jerry Rum and a bong that had just been loaded.

“Yeah, man,” he answered, the slight giggle in his voice giving away the fact that he was really fucking stoned.

“Well, if it’s alright with you, he’s going to smoke for me. I’m pretty drunk at the moment and don’t feel like getting cross faded.”

“Yeah, that’s cool, I get it. It’s just we haven’t smoked together in a minute, man!”

“I know, I know. It’s been years, bro.”

John and Isaac both sat down, John flicking a Bic to life and ripping the bong like there was no tomorrow. In a sense, there was not a tomorrow, not for him. Every day of his adult life would look exactly like this one had, every night full of the same kind of bullshit this one was full of. He would bounce from dead end job to dead end job—smoking copious amounts of pot during each of these employment stints—well into his thirties. It is not that he would settle down and live the life of a family man or anything; he was just going to get fed up with it all, live in a deep-seated dissatisfaction, always wondering what kind of man he could have been.

But tonight, that future was still a fantasy, still unable to push itself through into the present. The only realities were the two men sitting at his table, bong and booze between them. He passed the bong over to Isaac.

“Man, the last time was that night at Hedrick, man. You remember that shit?” John was laughing now, the memory of his birthday three years ago something that always brought a smile to his worn face. At the age of twenty, laugh lines were already settling into wrinkles.

“Fuck! How could I forget that mess,” Kyle responded, laughing himself at the absurdity of that night.

Isaac was still trying to figure out the intricacies of the bong, not quite sure how to smoke out of it. His only experience with marijuana up to this point had been in the form of joints, so this contraption was like magic to him. After several seconds of quiet investigation, he put the lighter to the bowl and gave it a shot. It was not the best hit, but it was good enough for a novice such as him. Coughing and sputtering, he set the bong back on the table. No smoke came out of his mouth when he exhaled.

“Dude, let me show you how,” Kyle suddenly said, his frustration at Isaac’s pitiful attempt outweighing his desire not to be too fucked up, taking the bong and ripping it just as hard as John had, but slowly, so that Isaac could see just how to do it. He exhaled a ghost, one that would haunt the three of them for the next several minutes, before it dissipated into the ether. “Make sense?”

“I think so,” Isaac said with upraised eyebrows, taking the bong again and giving it another go. His exhale came out in a cough, this time a cloud of smoke erupting out of him.

“Oh, buddy!” John exclaimed.

“There it is!” Kyle joined in. “Now I gotta tell you a story, man.”

Nine times out of ten, Kyle’s stories began with “We were so high…” or “We were so drunk…” with the occasional “So I woke up in a puddle of my own vomit…” While the majority of these tales involved stupidity and illicit behavior, he definitely knew how to tell them. He was kind of the group’s storyteller, at least for the moment, and Isaac had loved listening to the way he told them, even if he had been present for the event that would become a story.

Looking back, this night is one of Isaac’s favorites, even if Kyle is no longer around to tell it.

“So, it was Bettencourt’s birthday, and it was about a month before school was starting up again. This was to be our last hurrah before the summer ended, before I had to stop smoking again for the season. It was John, Simon, Me, Mike, Caleb, Frank, and this cat I just met that night named Zeke. All of us wanted to smoke minus Caleb and Frank, and Zeke said he was just going to get second hand. Didn’t want to fuck up his voice, he said.

“Obviously we couldn’t smoke at John’s place: his parents were still around. So our brilliant asses decided we were going to shoot some hoops at Hedrick Middle School. At least, that’s what we told the parentals. We grabbed a ball, hopped in two cars—Caleb and Frank took Frank’s Mustang, the rest of us in my old Taurus—and headed out. Simon had a piece and a water bottle and constructed a bong for us. I totally miss the days of water bottle bongs.”

Kyle took a break from speaking to hit the actual bong. Isaac was clearly baked, his eyes bloodshot and his mouth twisted into the biggest smile. John was laughing quietly in his chair.

“We get to the middle school,” Kyle continued, his voice husky from the smoke, “and park right next to one of the portables. The car was facing the football field. Remember that; it’s important. Frank parked near the basketball court, and him and Caleb actually played for a few minutes. So I was in the driver’s seat, Bettencourt in the passenger, Mike behind me, Simon in the middle, and Zeke behind John. Simon got the thing together and loaded, and we started passing it around. We made it through one circle when Caleb came up to the car and gave us the basketball. Still not sure why he did that. As we were gearing up for the next round, John got hot. August in Texas, five dudes smoking in a car. It made sense. That is what saved our asses.

“I turned the ignition, blasting the AC. For some unknown reason, Zeke just happened to look up once the car was started, saying he saw a man walking towards the car. Every one of us turned where he was looking. Sure enough, here comes this motherfucker just waltzing right to us. All of us had the same thought, but only Simon vocalized it: is that a badge? I shit you not, this guy was a cop!”

Isaac spat out the hit he had just taken, smoke flying to every corner of the room. John’s only thought was gratitude that it was not liquid coming out of Isaac’s mouth.

“Now, remember that we’re facing the football field and that the car is on. Everyone is yelling drive, so I slam my foot on the brake pedal and John throws the car into drive. We all watch in a mix of horror and awe as the cop starts running, but not for us. He’s headed to his car which is parked where Frank and Caleb had been. This dude is expecting me to reverse and hit the street. That isn’t what we do at all, man!

“Before I gun it, Mike decides he’s going to bail. He also happens to be holding the fucking bong at this time. He throws his door open and makes it halfway out of the damn car before Simon grabs onto his belt and holds him in place. So as I hit the gas, Mike is only in the vehicle because Simon is holding onto him. He pours the bong water all over my brother as we hit the football field. I pop the curb off the field going like forty and Mike finally crawls back in and gets the fucking door closed. By the time the cop even gets to his car, we have hit the parking lot and make the street. My lights are off and we hit side streets, taking the most convoluted route to get back to Bettencourt’s. We get there, not having seen a single cop car or patrol light, turn off all the lights in the house and hide under the kitchen table.”

Isaac’s mouth is just agape, completely enthralled by Kyle’s story of escape. John is still laughing his ass off from across the table.

“Like an hour later, Caleb and Frank knock on the door. We have no fucking idea where they’ve been, but we’re convinced they’re just a decoy and that the cops are waiting for us outside. So we don’t open the door until they can convince us that there are no authorities with them. And that’s the story of how we outran the cops by driving on a middle school football field.”

“Holy fucking shit, dude!” Isaac’s words are more laughter than actual speech, but both John and Kyle are high enough to understand what he is trying to say. “That’s absolutely incredible!”

“Only time I’ve actually had to evade officers and it was goddamn terrifying. I never want to have to do it again. But it makes for a great story, huh?”

“The best story,” John pipes in, his smile contagious. The three of them devolve into stoned laughter and mirth for a solid ten minutes. Kyle gets up first, stretching and yawning like he has just woken up, Isaac on his feet shortly thereafter.

“You want a bag for the Sailor?” John asks, knowing the other two are about to leave.

“That would be great, man. Don’t want to get caught stoned and carrying a bottle of liquor I’ve gotten from a minor while in the company of another minor.”

John ran—well, walked a little faster than normal—to the kitchen, returning with a large Goody Goody Liquor sack. Placing the bottle inside, he handed the package to Kyle who held it with both hands in front of him. He and Isaac strolled out of the apartment, promising Bettencourt they would be back for more pot and stories, making their way quietly down the stairs so as not to wake the neighbors.

They never did end up going back, the shared bong and procured bottle of Sailor the last things Kyle or Isaac shared with John.

Silence was their aim as they meandered through the parking lot back to the Camry, Kyle looking down at his scuffed dress shoes hitting the cracked pavement the entire time. He figured if he looked down, he could not see other people. And if he could not see other people, they could not see him. It was a fool-proof plan to the baked mind of the twenty-one year old.

Reaching for the handle of the car once he had reached it, Kyle found the passenger’s side door locked. Finally raising his gaze from the ground, it took him more than a few seconds to realize Isaac was not with him. How had he lost such a tall motherfucker in the near empty parking lot? Panic that can only be brought on by too much bud told him Isaac was likely dead and he would be next, that there were snipers on the roofs and ninjas in the trees, and there was no escape. His only weapon was the bagged bottle of rum, but given the dire circumstance, he would have to make it work.

Just as he was raising the bottle out of the bag to slug any and all assailants, Isaac sauntered over. He looked so relaxed, which made no sense to the still paranoid Kyle.

“What the fuck, man?” Kyle whispered, though he wanted to yell. “Where did you go?”

“I had to take a piss,” his tall friend said. Now the serenity plastered on his face added up.

“Where did you piss? I thought you had died!”

“What!? No! I went behind the dumpster,” Isaac responded, using one of his freakishly long arms to point in the general direction of the fence-enclosed dumpster.

“Let me get this straight: you felt like taking a piss, outside and in public, while you are baked as fuck at one in the goddamn morning as your friend carries booze scored from somebody under age? Do I have that correct?”

“That about sums up the situation, yes.” Isaac had unlocked the car and was sliding behind the wheel.

“Might be the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever fucking heard,” Kyle said behind fits of quiet laughter as he put his seatbelt on. When he was done cracking up at another absurd night, he fished his phone out of his pocket, looking up Aaron’s number.

“We have the package. Headed back to HQ. Also, we baked as fuck.”

“Good shit! I’m headed in that direction and will meet you guys there.”

Phone conversations were usually that short between the four of them. Isaac and Kyle remained quiet on the way back, the reticence of the phone bleeding out into meat space. This was the hallmark of a good friendship, Isaac thought, not needing to talk but still feeling connected. This was how he felt while around these three men: connected. He belonged to this group and he liked belonging. The smile he wore was only partly because of how high he was as he pulled into the parking lot. Aaron was waiting at the base of Sarah’s stairs for them.

“Matt and Sarah wanted to stay at Tony’s, but I wanted to see my boys. And I knew you’d come through, you beautiful fuckers you!”

Aaron led the procession up the stairs and then into the apartment, Kyle sandwiched between him and Isaac, Isaac holding rear guard. The flat was just how they had left it: beer pong still set up; empty Budweiser cans spilling out of the small trashcan just outside the kitchen; Glenn still hiding in the bathroom.

“We’re going to have to rally him,” Aaron pointed out. He was trying to come up with some kind of plan, knowing how testy Glenn could get when he was hugging the toilet. Kyle had other ideas.

“PUKE AND RALLY!” he yelled as he stormed into the bathroom, not giving a shit about the time of night or how Glenn might actually be feeling.

“Puke and rally!!!” Glenn shouted back, jumping off the floor and charging into the living room in nothing but his boxers. “Oh…right.”

“Here you go, man,” Kyle said behind him, holding out his black pants. “We’ve brought the liquor! Bro shots!”

Aaron had already poured four generous shots of Sailor Jerry into mismatched shot glasses. Straight liquor still made Isaac queasy—something he would grow out of—but he knew he had no choice in accepting the drink. Someone had called bro shots after all.

“What’s this for? What’s this for?” Glenn was really antsy, clearly still drunk, but now a functioning member of the party again. Everyone kind of scratched their heads, looking first to Kyle, but when he just shrugged, they all clammed up.

“To brothers,” Isaac spoke up, not normally the one to dedicate their drinks. “The ones you’re born with. And the ones you choose.”

The boys all smiled, liking the toast and the sentiment. They pounded their shots, the rough rum ricocheting off their throats and landing with a thud into their already alcoholic stomachs. There were coughs and grimaces and “whooee”s as the young men dealt with the burn.

“Another round!” Aaron demanded after they had recovered. Kyle and Glenn agreed, but Isaac had to pass, his stomach needing a break. He was plenty drunk from his Smirnoff, plenty high from John’s pot, and was good where he was in terms of inebriation. But he watched with mild amusement as his friends, his brothers, poured the liquor down their gullets.

“I’m going to step outside,” Isaac said, something unknown pulling him from the living room and away from the group. It was the future dragging him outside, but he didn’t, couldn’t know that, the sudden melancholic ache in his chest foreign and frightening, a cold fist punching through his sternum and wrapping itself around his heart. All he really knew was that he needed fresh air.

Stepping back out into the early February morning, he gulped, needing the oxygen to burn through his high and drunk so that he could think. He needed to think, but he didn’t know about what. Call it fate or predestination or god or whatever, but the future needed him to think.

Isaac was the only one who was going to make it, the only member of the group who would survive adulthood in any meaningful way. The future had pushed its way into the present, finally ignoring all the rules that normally bound it, to provide this one moment of clarity to this one young man. He didn’t know why or how, but Isaac just knew that it would only be him, and standing under the crushing blackness of space outside Sarah’s apartment that realization was somehow comforting.

It was also isolating, but Isaac wasn’t granted any more than the knowledge that he’d succeed against all odds. He didn’t know what kind of loneliness that success would bring, didn’t know that his path would take him places his friends could not follow. The future could not show him Aaron’s death, an IED in the desert halfway around the world. It could not show him Kyle’s death, a shotgun in a shitty motel room and a suicide note with only two words written: forget me. It could not show him Glenn’s battle with substance abuse, the rehab facility in Arizona, or the open road he would turn to when he finally felt his addiction was behind him. It could not even show him how he would succeed, what kind of brilliant man he would become, just that he would in fact make a great name for himself.

Isaac’s shoulders slumped even as his breathing became easier. It was a bittersweet moment, this very clear knowledge that his life was going to be beautiful, and he was not totally sure how to handle it. This knowledge told him there would be no more stories from Kyle, no more absurd nights with Glenn, no more good advice from Aaron. There would be no more pancakes and cigarettes with his brothers.

The future had moved away from the present, unable to stay for very long. Just giving the young man the briefest of glimpses into what was to come was almost impossible. But it had done it. Isaac knew.

“Hey, man, you alright?” Aaron asked from the suddenly open doorway.

“Yeah,” Isaac answered. “Just thinking about this group’s last night on earth.”

“Jesus, dude, that’s melodramatic. I’ll be back after basic. And then there’s leave and shit.”

Aaron wrapped his arm around Isaac’s shoulder, leading his friend inside where more shots were waiting. That ache that the future had stirred in Isaac’s chest stopped throbbing and the present beckoned with the promise of a still wild night. Somebody had put on Bohemian Rhapsody and Glenn handed him another shot.

“To waking up still drunk instead of hungover!” Glenn cheered.

They all slammed the shots, Isaac savoring his, knowing it would be one of the last.