Dick has a friend named Harry. You have heard me mention him earlier on. He is his best friend from way back. Harry walks on water you know, and knows everything there is to know about...well...everything. Just ask him. Harry also like to have his way. When they go out, they always go where Harry wants to go even if Dick doesn't particularly care for the place. When Harry has a project he needs help with...like putting in an air conditioner, ripping out cabinets or moving to a third floor apartment with no elevator, all he has to do is snap his fingers and Dick comes running. He also gets him to help shovel snow to clear walkways at various properties he owns because he is too cheap to pay someone to do it. Its not that he can't afford to pay people, because he can. Harry has money...lots of it...unfortunately its all tied up in real estate. But why pay someone to do all these things when Dick will do it for nothing. Basically, Dick is Harry's bitch. He's like a loyal little dog. What ever Harry tells Dick he should do, Dick does. For instance, Harry had always told him that if he had been drinking and got a flat to just leave the car. If he tried to change it and the police stopped to help, he could get arrested for drunk driving. Harry knew this because he is member of the auxiliary police in one of the surrounding towns. He said the best thing to do was to walk away from the car. Which was not a problem for Dick. Over the years he had a habit of walking home from bars at all hours of the night. Once his friends accidentally left him at some dive in the city. He didn’t have a cell phone at the time or enough change for the pay phone. He had only one quarter and it cost more than that to call our house from in town. So, he started walking. Every time he came across a pay phone he would try to call, but until he reached one close enough to be able to use his quarter, he had to keep walking. The good thing was that by the time he was able to afford the call home, he had sobered up and I didn’t have to deal with a drunk Dick when I went to pick him up. Usually that was the case. I would get a call at 1 or 2am from him, slobbering drunk, telling me that he was walking home because he and Harry had a fight, or Harry wasn’t ready to leave and he wanted to go home. He would never ask me to come pick him up, he would just tell me he was walking. I always wanted to say, “That’s nice dear, see you in the morning.” and hang up. But, if course I never did. I wouldn’t do that because in spite of all his faults, I loved him and he loved me. He needed me, so instead of leaving him to wander the streets alone in the middle of the night, I would get dressed, get in the car and go fetch him, which is what I did once again that night. When he got in the car that night I asked a question that had been on my mind since he called…“Why didn’t you take a cab?” “Huh?” he said. “You know, a taxi?” He answered me with that condescending tone in his voice that would make me want to bitch slap him…”Ah…I didn’t have enough cash on me.” That’s what he said, but I knew he was additionally thinking…”stupid”. So I said, “You could have paid when you got to the house.”, additionally thinking….f$*#@ng MORON!” With that he just shrugged and said he hadn’t thought of that, closed his eyes and spoke no more. No, “I’m sorry”, no “Thank you”…nothing, just snoring. I of course did what I always did…nothing. The next day life went on as usual. We never spoke of it again. That was our usual. Don’t talk about it, just bury it with everything else we never talked about. That burial ground was getting very full, too full for any marriage to survive.
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