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I once knew a man named Farfoon the Wise. Everybody loved Farfoon. He drove an Chevy Caprice. It was black and blue, looked like a side of beef after training with Rocky Balboa. Farfoon would pick me up in the Caprice with a bottle of hobo wine between his legs. It was never more than half full by the time I climbed in, and I never hesitated to climb in.
Farfoon had come to this town from somewhere else. I always assumed it had to be somewhere far away, but maybe he just moved down from a town a couple of miles away. It wouldn’t make a bit of difference, but there is something fine and liberating about hanging out with an escaped convict from a country a thousand miles away. I’d just rather it be that way.
Farfoon was wise, but never smart. He could tell you what Democritus might have said about seeking gold or social status, but he couldn’t tell you where to go to get away from a cop sniffing around your car. One time we were making a run just over the county line to pick up some finery and what-not and the dumb fuck got pulled over with and ounce and a half sitting on the seat next to me. Luckily for us, as soon as the cop walked up Farfoon started to puke out the window of the Caprice. The liquor on his breath induced the cop to get his breathe-right adaptable esophageal tubes out of the car, giving me just enough time to hide the stash. It’s true. Always better lucky than good.
Sometimes me and Farfoon would sit around my kitchen flicking beer caps at the windows. The window would chip and crack, but never break. We’d sit around and shoot the shit about books or philosophy or just get shit faced and not say a goddamned thing. It was sometimes quiet but never silent, and we liked it that way. Occasionally, another straggler would darken the door to my house and sit down. We’d wait for him to speak, then pass the wine across the table. The bottle would be passed until it was time to open a new one. The bills were pretty high, but Farfoon knew a guy at a local convenience store who let him have a few cases at cut rate prices each week. I never once paid.
Some mornings I would wake up and think to myself “You got it coming in spades.” I knew exactly what it meant, but I kept it to myself. There was no time for a warning, only condolences when Farfoon crashed his car into a highway overpass late one night. I heard it took the fire department a couple of hours to get the body out of hte twisted steel. That was Farfoon, fuck you until the end of time. I’m a lot better at smiling while I cry than I used to be, but someone has to put on a brave face when it comes time to sit around my table with a bottle of cheap wine and the laughter of Farfoon.
Now I don’t flick bottle caps at the kitchen window. Instead I toss small gray stones that I picked up in the yard. The window is about to go, all cracked to fuck and back. I don’t want to be the one to break the window, but I know it has to be me. I’m the only one left over from all those nights out hell-raising. Everyone else is married, or moved on, or dead. The only one who still demands a toast is Farfoon the Wise. He just wasn’t so smart.
