“Hey, man,” I said. “Remind me to drink here more often, will ya?”
“What, at Elie’s Place?”
“No,” I laughed, three whiskeys in and starting to feel pretty fine. “In Alaska. You have no idea how much cheaper this shit is here than it is in Connecticut.”
“Brother,” Eli said around a shockingly loud belch. “If I never go to Connecticut, not once in my whole goddamn life, I think I’ll be able to die a happy man.”
“Nah, come on. Don’t get me wrong. Everything is stupid expensive there, but it’s a great place to live.”
“Oh yeah?” Eli asked, giving me a sideways glance that made it clear he didn’t believe me for even a millisecond. “Why don’t you give me one good reason? Give me one good thing Connecticut and New York and all of those fancy places have that we don’t have here in Ashville.”
“Well, for starters, we’ve got more than one bar.”
“We’ve got two, actually, but I get your point.”
“See?” I asked, laughing. “There you go. Easiest thing I’ve ever done.”
“Hold on there. I didn’t say I agreed with you. For starters, you only need one bar to get the job done. Second off, you already said the bars in your new neck of the woods are stupid expensive. So why would I want to go and drink there?”
“Alright, fine. Point taken. But there’s more of everything, Eli. There’s more restaurants and movie theaters. The apartment buildings. Pretty much everything. Anything you think of that you could get here, you can get somewhere else, but ten times better.”
“I hear ya. I do. But tell me. If we were to go outside and take a look at what there was to see, would you be able to say the same thing?”
“I’m not sure I follow you,” I said slowly, although I was almost sure that I did and knew that he’d managed to find an exception to what I considered to be a hard and fast rule. “Every place you go has air, Eli.”
“Nah, brother, not the freaking air. I think you know that, too. I’m talking about the view. You look out there and tell me there’s land that pretty every place you go. And shit, why not throw the air into the package, too? You can’t tell me that the air in New York City is anything close to as sweet as this. Not even in your fancy Connecticut. Go on, try it. You tell me it’s as good, and I’ll tell you that you’re a liar.”
“Well, I did go to law school,” I answered with a grin, willing to back down when I was beaten, but not wanting to have to come right out and say it. “So lying is kind of what I’ve been trained for.”
“I gotcha. At least I think I do.”
“What about you, man?”
“What about me? I just run my little barber’s shop, like I told you earlier.”
“Sure, I know that. I just meant, shit, I don’t know. Do you ever think about getting out of here? Do you ever think about getting out of Ashville?”
“Me?” he asked me with such a genuine look of surprise that I almost felt stupid for asking the question in the first place. “Why would I want to do a thing like that?”
“I don’t know. Because there’s a whole world out there. There’s plenty worth seeing, worth doing, outside of Alaska. Believe me, I’ve seen enough of it to know it’s basically endless.”
“I don’t think that’s the way it would work for me, man.”
“But why? I guess that’s what I don’t get. Why not?”
I had a feeling I was starting to sound something on the abrasive side, and there was a part of me that knew the best move at this point would have been to drop it and drink my drink. The thing was, I couldn’t seem to make myself do it. I knew it wasn’t my place to grill Eli the way I was, especially since I hadn’t bothered to be his friend in almost ten years. But I couldn’t make myself drop it, couldn’t make myself let it go. I needed to know.
I needed to know how a guy, how anyone, any of the people laughing it up around me in one of two town bars, could stay in Alaska and be happy about it. I needed to know how they could make the choice to live in a town, to make that choice every fucking day, and for it to be the same town that I still had nightmares about winding up in again.
“I don’t think there has to be a real why, Neil. Or let’s put it this way, it’s not something I’ve got the words to tell you the reason for. It’s my home. It’s the place that makes me feel easy in my heart. The idea of living someplace else, it just doesn’t sit well with me. You understand?”
“Yes and no. I believe that’s the way it is for you. I also believe it would drive me fucking nuts to have to be here any longer than absolutely necessary. I need to be out there, you know? I need to be out there where it feels like life is really happening.”
“Sure, I believe that. But tell me, brother, what about the women?”
“What about them?” I asked casually, signaling the bartender’s attention for another round and taking my sweet time answering a question, the meaning of which I knew damn well. “They’ve got women everywhere. You know that.”
“Shit, Neil, you know what I mean. You said everything’s better in places that aren’t here. Does that same thing go for the women?”