Larry, Curly, Moe and Josiah

My friends had gotten the idea that I was avoiding them. It wasn’t the first time I had left town to do work on farms or other things, but with my illness before that and even the semi-isolation that started before I first met Kendra, I guess it had been a long time even by pandemic standards. Josiah and a few of my other friends insisted on coming to visit me at my home. I had one of the nicer apartments in the friend group. It wasn’t big, it was a studio apartment, but I kept it clean and I had a fire escape that was big enough to act as a balcony. I had had visitors maybe twice since the pandemic started. I’d caught the virus twice in the first year alone so I didn’t let up when others did.

I tried to delay the get together at least until after the city council meeting so I could prepare for it and focus but they pressed the issue. They said I’d missed all the parties when the pandemic was declared over in the spring and summer. I asked if they kept getting tested like they should and they insisted they did, and that they would before they came over. They wouldn’t take no for an answer and ended up coming over with drinks and party favors the night before the city council meeting—Larry, Curly, Moe and Josiah.

The city council meetings were on Thursdays, every other Thursday, which was why I didn’t want to miss this one. They were in the mid-afternoon, so I figured I’d be fine. It should have been a quiet night but I got the feeling they thought they were doing an intervention.

-What’s been going on with you?

-I spent six months working out in California with my cousin. You know I spend a lot of summers like that. And I caught covid before that, so you know, it’s a strange kind of celebration.

-That’s not what I mean. You’ve been absent. I mean, you’ve pulled away before but now it’s like your mind is somewhere completely different.

I didn’t want to mention Kendra.

-A lot of reflecting, I finally said. Things are getting bad, but they don’t have to. We can be better for everyone.

-Have you given up on the cause?

-What cause? I wanted to ask, but instead I went into the work I had been doing on an American kind of Marxism, seizing the means of production and the apparatus of the state for the masses through the legal and cultural means available, the Constitution and the American Dream. They were not very impressed. After a couple of drinks, I even brought up the idea I was toying with of being expand the U.S. across the entire Americas. My form of Marxism could become continental, if not global. They laughed me off and said that each country had to foment its own revolution, but I told them that’s not how people work. They’re coming here and when we bring Marxism here we can bring it everywhere. That got us to talking about the past, and the wild arguments we’d get to in the college debate club to get a rise out of the liberals and moderates. Reminiscence is shelter from having to deal with where the past led and where it’s going.

I managed not to bring up Kendra the rest of the night, even as an unnamed subject of my romantic interest, but after several more drinks, more to get rid of them than to open up a conversation, I said I’d been planning to go watch the city council meeting the next day.

-That’s a great idea, one of my friends broke in, we should protest.

Unlike many of my friends who faded away or I grew apart from, Larry, Curly and Moe didn’t have spouses or children. They had jobs sometimes. Larry had a job at city hall, as a custodian.

-Larry works at city hall now, Curly chimed in. He’s got a special mission, he added, and the three started laughing. Josiah gave me a glare.

-What are you doing with yourself? Josiah asked me.

-I’m surviving, I said, and stood up to start to corral the company out of my apartment.

-We’ll meet you to protest, huh? Moe asked me as they were leaving.

-You’re really going to do that? I asked. And Larry?

-I’m headed over there now, Larry said, to prepare. Josiah smiled at me, but I was lost. I didn’t like it.

The next morning I went to city hall early. I thought maybe Larry would have used his key to get in and vandalize the city council meeting in an act of protest, to delay their business. In any case, I didn’t want to be around them. I ended up bumping into Badger while looking for the bathroom. We spoke briefly and warmly.

-Where have you been? She asked me.

-What do you mean?

-I heard you were out of town for a long time.

-I did some farm work in California.

-Working with your hands is important, she said, looking at her own. That’s the real work. It’s the best way to stay out of trouble. A lot of your friends haven’t.

-I’m working on them, I said, but I wasn’t sure what I meant. I’d like to work on you, I blurted out.

She smiled as if she were expecting it, even though even I wasn’t.

-I’d like to see what that means. I think your ideas are half-baked but your passion isn’t.

-Thanks, I said before I could think about it.

She excused herself, I had found myself in front of the women’s bathroom looking for the men’s.

I decided to stay and watch the city council meeting like I’d planned. I’d forgotten about Josiah, Larry, Curly and Moe. Three of them showed up. Larry wasn’t there. The meeting got under way but they didn’t protest like I expected. What I didn’t expect is for Curly to take a shot at Kendra, or for me to end up taking a bullet for her.