- What’s the matter?

- Cow done gone.

- Mhm

- Rabbit stew for supper again. Cribbage at the pool hall.

- Did you hear the one about the lady preacher from Tennessee?

- Yup.

We walked together back toward the sighing city. Mama Cass came out of the drugstore and waved a handkerchief at us, but Frienzo kept walking.

- What was that about?

- She owes me twenty bucks.

- Maybe she was flagging you down so she could pay you back.

Friendzo looked at me, dumb as an ox.

- Don’t you call me an ox!

- Sorry. Let’s go see what she wants.

We retraced our steps but Mama Cass was nowhere to be seen. Then I spotted a note under a welcome mat.

Dear Friendzo,

Lovingly,
“Mama” Cass Elliot (from the Mamas and the Papas (the fat one (sorry)))

I looked at Friendzo, but he was still reading the letter. Dumbass hooked-on-phonics Friendzo. Come on. He finally finished reading and looked up at me. We were silent for a moment, until the guy whose doormat we were standing on came out of his apartment and told us to scram. As we hightailed it out of there I looked at Friendzo again, and he looked at me. Then he tripped on the curb. Goddamn clumsy Friendzo. We sat down on a bench outside the drugstore.

- There sure are a lot of drugstores this part of town.

- Mhm. So what’re you gonna do about Mama Cass?

Friendzo stood up.

- I have to go to her.

I knew it was coming, but that didn’t make it any easier. We’d been down this road before, when Mary Lou Retton told me I needed to stop seeing Friendzo so often. I stood up and shook his hand, slipped a stick of Juicy Fruit in his shirt pocket. Like old times. He walked away and I realized I was going the same way, so I hung around a bit and played count-the-rabbits. At sixteen I headed toward the subway station while all around me the city hummed and bustled, imperious and indifferent.

Clamzo was just what I expected — 6’8″, ginger-bearded and thin as a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. What I wasn’t expecting was his flower collection. Friendzo had told me Clamzo’s metier was begonias, and yeah, they were nice. But then I saw the squid.

A cylindrical aquarium, as tall as a man and as wide as a really fat man, held nine small, blue squid, jetting about like Higgs bosons. I asked Clamzo how much for a pair.

–Ten clams, he said.

I pulled out a Hamilton and started picking out the nimblest squid, but Clamzo just shook his head.

–Ten clams, he repeated.

I knew then whence came Clamzo’s name.

I called my clam guy, Rudy and he came running. I told him what I needed and asked what he was doing in Hoboken. He said he was here for the campfire and left as quickly as he came. Friendzo told me he was going to a diner for some grits ‘n’ whey, so I tagged along. The grits were outstanding but the whey merely decent. After we finished we got back in the Geo Tracker and headed back home, squid and bouquet in our respective knapsacks. I wondered whether I hadn’t done my squids a disservice by separating them from their fellows. I pulled them out and gazed intently at their big eyes. What’s next?, they seemed to ask me. What hearts will I find, what great fjord will I gaze upon? I put them back and stared out the window as great heavy drops of May rain slanted across the glass like amoebae.

The evidence was there, I suppose. The top hat. The cane. The musket. The train.

The bratwurst. The egg.
The cornmeal. The peg

But I couldn’t wrap my head around it. This wasn’t Friendzo. This wasn’t right. I held my breath for a couple of minutes to clear my head, exhaled, and realized that I was stepping on my cat’s tail, and had been for the past few hours. Sorry, Jakob Dylan.

I went into my study for some quiet reflection. Could the Friendzo I have known ever done it? Was his heart so cold? Was his conscience so deficient? Was his garage even big enough for such a mass suicide? I thought about all the times I’d been to Friendzo’s house — for drinks, for barbeques, for weekly cult meetings. I don’t remember once thinking to myself, “Hey, you know, that garage Friendzo’s got would be just the right size for a gathering of 412 people, a gathering that would turn into a mass suicide once Friendzo stood upon the high altar and announced that it was time for everyone present to take his or her cyanide capsule, the one Friendzo and I had given to each person (attached to a keychain, so there’d be no excuse to be without it) upon his or her entry into the cult.” That thought just never occurred to me. And I was on the lookout for those things! Hell, it was my job to find the perfect “mass suicide spot.” We thought about renting out a hotel ballroom, but then how would we sneak the altar in? It’s a huge altar, you know.

He gave me kind of a funny look. I asked if I could borrow a pair of pliers. He said he could do me one better, and bought me a house. But what am I going to do with a house? I can’t afford the taxes, or the upkeep. I sold it and used the money to buy some straws for the wet bar in my basement. Purple squiggly ones. They’ll be a big hit at the next bridge tournament. Hopefully this time Winslow Homer shows.

What flavors did we make? This is an excellent question, one deserving of a thorough explanation. The first flavor was a fascinating balance of figs and rutabaga. The contrapuntal interplay between the delicate figs and the muscular rutabaga was a highlight of the evening, a bold bit of culinary daring that paid enormous dividends for Friendzo and me.

Our other creations were no less astounding. We had happened upon some fresh arugula and were not about to waste it — with the Mahi Mahi filets that Friendzo found in the freezer, we were primed for a cavalcade of spectacular flavors. Of course, we needed a little something else to make this ice cream a true delight. After an extended deliberation period, we decided on cumin. This ice cream was, metaphorically speaking, a home run.

There were other flavors, of course — many others, but I’ll not bother you with all the sordid details. While the ice cream-making took most of the evening, there was still time for further excitement. Friendzo was getting all Andrew Marvell on me, saying that there wasn’t time, but I convinced him that indeed there will be time. We called up Jeremy Bentham for some whist and asked him to sample the ice cream. He’s an awful whist player, but he does have quite a refined palate for ice cream, giving several simple but extremely helpful suggestions. Who else would have thought of adding chives to the raspberry-sunflower sorbet? Not Friendzo, that’s for goddamn sure.

The wind blew the mill’s blades only slightly, and they moved like the very second hands of the clock that would tell some true time well outside man’s erudition. And we watched it for a minute as we rode up. A minute of true time, reckoned by no Babylonian calculus. The millkeeper spoke to us from his throat and hoarse.

Come to see about the mill.

Aye-yup. We be.

The wind too stop and start to rightly be called wind. Grass choked out by viral weedgrowths. I sneezed a soundless expulsion of breath, and Friendzo scratched his elbow dumbly. The millkeeper was anxious to get the tour going. He was eager to sell.

Fellas, I’m anxious to get this tour going.

Do you think he’s eager to sell, Friendzo?

I think he be.

You there. Millkeep. Are you eager to sell?

Truth be told, my boy, I am.

A turning point, that. Friendzo drew his Colt .45 and opened it. He drank deeply, downing it all at once like some terrible medicine. I sneezed again.

We’d like to see the trapdoor.

Aye, gentleman. Wise boys, ye.

We be wise indeed.

Friendzo was sweating at this point — sweating terribly. Like a rhododendron in heat. He stripped to his undershorts and stood upon his horse, hollering mightily to the heavens an exhortation. That there might yet be some slight succor in this our most troubled era. I told him Come along now, Friendzo, and he sat back down as we rode to the trapdoor room.

A wild-eyed skeleton greeted us, dancing loose-limbed like a mortal gumby. Not the first skeleton Friendzo and I have seen. No, sir.

An array of trapdoors, untold variety and incalculable value. The makers’ names embossed on each blazed like beacons of another age, when trapdoors and mills assumed their rightful place as the height of high society status indicators. Wertzengeist. Friele. Hammerflower. I could sense the history of these trapdoors, the homes they’d known, the masters they’d served. The great men — Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Schrempf – they had all known the beauty of the finest trapdoors.

The decision was simple after that. I glanced at Friendzo and nodded. He glanced at the wall and nodded. I glanced at a mouse and nodded. The mouse glanced at some cheese and nodded. The cheese glanced at Friendzo and nodded. Friendzo glanced at the wall again and nodded, a little more vigorously this time. I glanced at Friendzo’s horse and nodded. Friendzo’s horse ate the mouse and nodded at the mouse’s widow. I glanced at the cheese and then ate it. Friendzo ate the mouse’s widow and glanced at me. I nodded.

Millkeep.

Aye?

We’ll take the mill.

My great-uncle taught me that there were no stars, only silver buttons in the carpet up above. I killed my great-uncle, with a spoon.

If you thought there was more to this, you were off the mark, my friend. Real bad. Real gone.

With my newfound grub abilities, I think I’ll be running for Congress this year. I have found that the most important part of being a good friend is letting people know that you are a grub champion. This is what I aim to accomplish for all of my great friends. I want the world to be a happy land, and let’s be careful where we step, now, because there are worms coming through the cracks in the pavement. Don’t worry, though — there is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.

Janezo and I danced a bop number for a bit, then she smoked some meth and I avoided her for a little while. I saw a friend of mine from high school in a hallway and I stabbed him with his own hunting knife, in front of a bailiff. Then I murdered the bailiff with my necktie and dragged both bodies to the judge’s chambers, where he was dressed as the Emcee from Caberet. I snapped a few photos of him and dropped the bodies at his feet. If you don’t tell I won’t, I said. Tell what?, he replied with a shrug. That’s right, Judgie. That’s right.

I made my way to the lobby. Friendzo was there. He was going to trial for stealing a thoroughbred from Rashaan Salaam. Goddamn Friendzo. Always crashing the same car. He’ll get off, though. If Salaam ever wants his Heisman back, that is. Otherwise, I have a very attractive offer from Ki-Jana Carter to return what ought rightfully to be his.

Soon enough, Janezo met us by the granite Ten Commandments out front. The mood was tense, but I lightened it by lighting a match and lighting Friendzo’s hair on fire. Scary, sure, but I knew they were just extensions. Made of basil, so they smelled just fine all lighted and glowing. We stared as they burned, slowly up the stalks. The evening came galloping in like a racehorse kicking toward the finish. Frothed clouds gently bled through with reds and violets, capping the mountains to the east in the absence of snow. A hawk above, and I squinted to see it as it chased the orb now settled in its cumulus bed. It was dark by the time the fires burned through, and we said good night and turned for home, three faces weary with the heavy load of a life among man.