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“There is no shame in it, man,” Clyde said. “It’s cool if you have feelings for a great girl like that. We are happy for you.”
Marty nodded in agreement.
“Well, thanks,” I said. “I’ll be sure to include all of that in a newsletter.”
We joked around for a bit and then decided to fix some food. I grabbed a few of the steaks I’d packed into the cooler and threw those in a pan over the fire we built. The sun was just starting to set and the temperatures in the desert were now really starting to drop. That was fine; I loved the cool evenings out here with perfectly clear skies. You could see all of the stars.
I used to lie around as a kid and think about all of the stars up in the sky and the galaxies. Each one of those stars had a different solar system with it. I figured there had to be intelligent life on some of them. I used to dream about being an astronaut and going to space. I would one day land on another planet and greet some creature out there, but then I found out that you had to have great grades and be a “school” person to have a shot at it. I was not a “school” person. As a matter of fact, I hated school. I hated the structure, the rules, the way the other kids would tattle on me anytime I had the guts to do something fun to break up the boredom. They would be entertained and then they’d tattle on me like a bunch of little, whiny assed bitches.
Sometimes I fantasized about tracking some of them down and enacting a special kind of revenge on them. That would be so sweet. They wouldn’t even see me coming. Hell, with my money I could pull that off so easily.
“Do you ever think you are getting married again, man?” Clyde asked when we were eating the steaks later.
I looked at him trying to determine if he was actually being serious, or if he was still joking off something from earlier. He was serious. Why was this moron asking me this?
“Are we talking about our feelings or something now?” I asked. “Did this become like some kind of a feelings retreat or whatever?”
Marty was laughing now. He hit Clyde in the arm. “You are an idiot. I hope you know that.”
“What? I was just curious,” Clyde said.
“No,” I replied. “I got married once and that was more than enough.”
“Why? Was it that bad?” Clyde asked.
“Wow, man. What is your deal?”
“It’s that girl, Mary. The new girl he’s dating,” Marty said. “He told me the other day he was thinking of popping the question.”
I was shocked. “Damn. Another one bites the dust. I never took you for the married life, Clyde. I guess you fooled me. I could have sworn you’d dedicated your life to full on bachelorhood.”
Clyde blushed and played it off. “I said I was thinking about asking her. I never said I was going to.”
“You probably know that Mary would say no,” Marty chuckled.
“Shut up,” Clyde protested. “She would not say no. That woman digs me.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“What do you mean? I just do.”
“No, you never ‘just know’. You never ‘just know’ about anybody. Clyde, listen to me. That woman is looking for a guy to marry to help her squeeze out some babies before she gets too old. It happens to all single women once they hit thirty. That biological clock is no joke. All women suddenly become crazy with being parents at around that age.”
“Really?” Clyde asked.
I tried not to laugh. I was essentially talking out of my ass, and I was three beers in at this point. I was right in that crucial point between being totally full of it and actually speaking some truth, as I understood it. Plus, Clyde was one of the dumbest friends I had. He was very gullible and believed just about everything I said. But he was a big bastard and great in a fight if you ever needed him on your side. On top of that he looked like a young version of Dolph Lundgren and all the girls were always gathering around him. He was easy chick bait. For these reasons, and the fact that he was dumb as a rock and easy to mess with, we kept him around. For entertainment purposes mostly.
“You moron,” Marty said ruining my fun. “He’s messing with you.”
Clyde gave me a dumb questionable look. I could no longer hold it together. I burst out laughing.
Clyde hit me in the shoulder. “You dick!”
“I know,” I said. “I am a jerk. And I’ve made peace with it.”
He lightened up and started laughing with me and Marty. Honestly, I felt that of the three of us Clyde would probably enjoy being married the most. He was just a good type of guy who would be happiest with it. He hated dating and he was not good by himself. Clyde had always been one of those guys who really needed people.
