Over and over I asked Cal if he was all right, begging him to let me see his eye, but he just kept making that noise. When he finally straightened up, I realized it wasn’t because I’d blinded him, it was because he was laughing so hard he couldn’t form words.
Once he composed himself, he ran to the nearest bathroom and examined his wound in the mirror. I’d missed his eye by a hair, and the hook had carved a tiny but deep gash into the skin right below his lower lid that you can still see today if you look close enough.
“Nice job,” he said. “That’s definitely going to leave a scar.”
We retold the story to each other from our individual points of view a dozen times over the next few hours, and Cal’s version got gorier and gorier as the night went on. Right before we fell asleep, he asked me what had been going through my mind when I thought I’d taken out his eye, and I told him all I could think was that if I’d blinded him, he wasn’t going to hang out with me anymore.
It was dark and quiet, Cal in the twin bed next to mine, a small bedside table between us, but I knew he was shaking his head because I could hear the sound of his hair pulling and swishing against the crisp pillowcase.
“Harp, we signed a contract, remember? It says we’re best friends, and best friendship is bound by commitment, code, and honor. There’s nothing you could do to make me not hang out with you anymore.”
“Nothing?” I said in disbelief. “Come on, there has to be something.”
He thought about it and said, “I guess if you stole my girlfriend. I mean, if I had a girlfriend, and you stole her, then I might hate you.”
“Well, that’s fine, because I would never do that.”
“Obviously,” he said.
“Obviously.”
October was still waiting for me to make the call.
“Here’s what I think,” I said. “Now is not the right time to tell him.”
“Joe—”
“No, just hear me out, OK? He’s gone for what? Another month? He tells me every few days how much he’s looking forward to the show at the Greek. It’s a big deal for him to play it, and it’s a big deal for him to share it with me. And, to be honest, it’s a big deal for me to share it with him. For once, I’d like to not let him down.”
October rested her head on my shoulder and sighed.
“And what difference does it make if we tell him now or when he’s back?” I asked. “It’s the same information, and it’s not going to go over well, no matter what. If we wait, we can do it in person. And we won’t ruin his big homecoming. I feel like I owe him that.”
I meant every word I said to October that night. As difficult as I knew it was going to be, I had no intention of bailing on her when the time came to confess to Cal. But the situation was a lot like vowing to go to Brooklyn back when I was a kid. As an idea, it seemed utterly possible. But ideas live in very specific futures, and not all futures arrive.
“I know you’re not going to like what I’m about to say,” I mumbled. “But waiting until he gets home also gives you time to change your mind.”
“I’m not going to change my mind,” October said.
“Yeah, well, it’s possible you might. And in this scenario, no harm, no foul if you do.”
I was too tired to mull it any longer. I stretched out on the couch, pulled October down beside me, and for a while we were lost in our own thoughts. I ran my finger up and down her arm in a figure-eight pattern around the bandage that was still there, and she was quiet, but I could feel her ribcage moving in and out with her breath.
After a few minutes she said, “OK.”
“OK?”
“We can wait until he gets home. But you need to give me your word, Joe. You need to promise me that immediately after the show, we’ll sit him down and tell him. I’m going to trust you on this.”
Like I said, I had absolutely no intention of bailing on her.
I lifted her hand, kissed her palm, and said, “I promise.”
We fell asleep there. And hours later, as daylight was just starting to outline the trees and the sky to the east looked like it had been tie-dyed, a deep tangerine fading to apricot, I awoke in a fog and imagined a scenario in which Cal was in the house, looming over us on the couch. Only, in my imagination he was a giant, as tall as a redwood, his body stretched so that it appeared to narrow as it rose up three hundred feet high.
From above, Cal surveyed us, livid and bereft. And I tried to experience his reaction to finding his girlfriend in my arms, pictured him pulling me to the floor, beating me to a pulp, and telling me what a shit I was.
Then I thought, no. That’s not what he would do at all. And I imagined him glaring at me with pity, laughing. Crazy madman laughter like a mental patient as he knelt down beside October and tapped her on the shoulder until she opened her eyes. Once she did, he leaned in toward her face and said, “Just so you know, Harp doesn’t keep his promises.”
TWENTY.
“Aristotle’s notion of happiness,” Sid said. “Go.”
We were sitting at the little round table in his office, on the second floor of Moses Hall, near the Campanile on the Berkeley campus, a pot of Folgers on a trivet between us, discussing my thesis.
“Well, first of all,” I said, “Aristotle’s notion of happiness isn’t what most people
