Three years into our relationship, restaurant dinner conversation had become forced. We clearly knew each other, so favorite color and most liked movies are out. We talked off and on all day through phone, e-mail, and text, so ‘What happened at work today?’ has clearly already been covered by dinner, plus I’m not allowed to talk about work too much or fear his ‘dead-eyed zombie’ stare of doom. And we knew most if not all of each others ‘interesting stories,’ we both variously relate to friends and family when gathered. We, in fact, knew each other’s stories so well that we can usually tell them better than the other.
In our day-to-day lives this lack of conversation topics was fine, as we could both retreat to our separate TVs or computers, but face-to-face in a restaurant, on a ‘date night,’ we were put to the test. And the mine field to dread is that twenty minute barren valley of dust between the ordering of the food and when it arrives. In this gully you actually have to talk, and not just blather (as it’s a ‘date,’ as he reminds me) but talk about something interesting, compelling, something that reminds your partner why he quit drinking to be with you. In short, you have a twenty minute window where you have to justify your entire existence to your mate, or be left to perish alone on a ice floe.
It is for these terrifying conversational instances that I search my memory all week for ‘just the right story.’ And when I remember one that I have not entertained my dear Thaddeus with, I hold on to it until just the right moment, to lay it out to him, to remind him why he loves and cherishes me, and why he puts up with all of my crap.
“Is that all, ya’ll?” The Chili’s waitress smiled, a wad of green gum clenched in the corner of her shiny white teeth.
“Yes, thank you.” I smiled.
She shook her golden locks like Miss Congeniality, turned and strode away grandly.
I looked over to Thad, who looked small and miserable. The restaurant was crowded and loud, both of which he hated, but this had been his night to pick-so Chili’s it was. Something about a guacamole burger he liked or something, I wasn’t sure, but I certainly agreed. He sat hunched, eyes darting from the boisterous table of high-fiving frat guys to one side of us, to the table of two guffawing corpulent couples on the other.
“Hey,” I said, leaning in to him, “Have I ever told you the story of Dan Diamond?”
“No, who’s that?” he looked suspicious, sipping his sweet tea.
“Remember that first apartment I had back in 88’, the one that was part of the old cut-up house?”
“Where you lived in the back, upstairs part?”
“Yeah, yeah…well, while I was living there, this old guy moved into the house out back. It was just a tiny place, and he had a kid with him, like a little kid. But we shared the same parking lot, so I ended-up meeting the guy and his name was Dan Diamond. He was an old country man, probably fifty, kind of a John Wayne type, but on real hard times. The kid was his, named Billy, or something like that.”
Frowning, Thad said, “Did you sleep with this man?”
“No, that’s horrible. Now shut-up and listen to my story.” I continued, “So it was around Halloween, and I guess this was one of those times you and I had broken up…”
“And you were sleeping with the neighbors…”
“Shut up!" I barked. "So it was around Halloween and I remember because I had made up a bag of candy and treats and took them over to the little kid, he was probably 8 or 9, because they were real poor, and I just thought it would make the kid happy. Anyway, Dan Diamond ended-up inviting me over for dinner one night after that, and we ate in his little dirty house, but he fixed big steaks and we sat and talked and he told me his story.”
“Uh hum…” Thad said drinking. I could tell I was losing him, as he was not much one for exposition.
“So Dan Diamond was from some small far flung little Oklahoma dirt town-Antlers, Pink-something like that…“
“Pawhuska,” Thad smiled.
“Exactly! Maybe Pawhuska. Anyway, Dan Diamond began as an electrician, and by the time he was 30 he had moved to Oklahoma City and started his own company, Diamond Electric, and he had 20 or 30 guys working for him, and this is when we were kids back in the late 70’s, and he had a big enough company that he had TV ads that would play on Channel 25 during the old Count Gregore Creature Features that played Saturday nights…”
“Oh my god!” Thad gasped, “I remember those commercials! The vans were red and gold with a lightning bolt going through a big diamond!”
“Exactly!” I was thrilled, as he seemed completely enthralled.
“So what happened to him?”
“Well, that’s what I wanted to know! So over these big charred steaks in his little grubby apartment, he went on to tell me that about this time when he was just making it big, he was still a big ol’ drinker. And one night he was out carousing when his truck pitched off into a bar ditch while he was on his way home from some cowboy club. He was thrown from it, and ended-up almost dead, in a coma for about two months.”
“Oh no.”
“Exactly. And they didn’t think he was going to make it, but he did. And when he woke up, he opened his eyes and the first person he saw was this Nurse named Rita, and he said to her-now these are the first words he’s spoken in two months-he said to her, ‘You’re the prettiest thing I ever seen. I’m gonna marry you one day, little lady.’ And three months later they were married in Vegas!"
“Good for him!”
“I know! And the whole time he was in coma, his main business partner, Chet, or Slim, or something…”
“Earl, Junior, Cletus…”
“Exactly. But his main business partner, Chet, had been running the business, so everything was fine and dandy there, so Dan Diamond could go off and marry Rita, once he recuperated. Then they moved to a big ranch out in the country with a hot tub and they had their son, little Billy, and they lived just happy as they could be-for a while.”
I stopped to take a drink of my Diet Coke.
“Yeah? Thad asked eagerly. “So how’d he end-up poor, living behind that crap shack of a place you lived in?”
“That was not a crap shack. It was okay for my first place.”
“You had to walk through the bathroom to get from the living room to the bedroom. The bathroom was the hall.”
“Okay, fine. But anyway, everything was great with dan Diamond until…" I paused, "Dan walked in one day to find Chet doing it with Rita, in Dan and Rita’s bed!”
“I knew it! Rita, you whore!”
“And Dan threatened to kill them, and they both ran, and she ended-up asking for a divorce, and she got half of his business, but didn’t want their kid at all. So she just left little Billy with Dan.”
“Terrible, terrible Rita.” Thad said, shaking his head.
“Exactly. And it was about this time that Ken realized that while he had been in the coma, Chet had fixed the books or something, so Dan was actually terribly in debt and had no idea, so Chet ended-up getting away wall the money, leaving Dan broke.”
“Bad Chet!”
“I know. So in one fell swoop Dan Diamond lost his wife, his ranch, his hot tub, his company, all of his workers…”
“And all of those pretty red and gold vans with the lightning bolt going through the big diamond.”
“Yes. And then Rita went off and married Chet in a big wedding up in Tulsa.”
“Horrible.”
“I know. And Dan was left penniless, trying to find work so that he could at least put food on the table for him and his little son.”
“That’s terrible.”
“And that’s where I met him. All of this had just happened weeks before he had moved into that little apartment behind mine. So here he was, poor and sad and desolate, no job, and no money.”
“Poor Dan Diamond.” Thad, the more emotive and empathic of the two of us, looked around sadly.
“I know. It was a real tragedy.” I paused dramatically as Thad eyed me. I continued, “But about a week after the meal where he told me all of this, I was having some friends over for a party, and we went out dancing up in the City or something, and I didn’t get back until way late. So the next morning there was this knock at my door about 9 AM, and I stumble to get it, and look out the window and it’s Dan Diamond. And I’m hung over as Hell, in, I dunno, probably a kimono with mascara running down my face…”
“Because it was 80's.”
“Exactly. Because it was the 80’s. And I open it and am, like, ‘Yes?’ and Dan Diamond says in his gravely old man country voice, ‘Michael, I need you to level with me. I just need you to level with me. I saw you go into your house last night with my ex-wife Rita. And if you are having an affair with her, I just need to know it, and you just need to tell me, because you need to man up and just tell me.’ And I said, ‘Dan, I’ve never met your wife. I had some girls over last night, and maybe you thought one of them looked like Rita…’ And he cut me off and said, ‘No. No. It was Rita. I know it. I saw her come up here with you. Is she still inside?’ and then I realized he was serious, and more importantly, I began to freak out as exactly at this moment I realized that Dan Diamond was completely bat shit insane, and probably all of what he had told me over that dinner we had was some sort of giant crazy lie.”
“No!” Thad gasped
“Yes! I know!”
“So what did you tell him?”
“I just pulled my kimono up close and said, ‘Dan, you are mistaken,’ and I was shaking at this point, but I said, ‘I have never met your wife. You know that.’ And the look in his eyes, oh, that look in his old beady country eyes: He wanted me dead. He absolutely believed his wife was inside my apartment, and I think he was ready to kill me to get to her. So I just said, ‘Dan, I have to go now,’ and as I shut the door on him I just knew then and there he was going to kill me. And as I backed away, I could hear him outside breathing. And then he hollered, ‘Rita! I know you’re in there!’
“No!” Thad said louder than he meant to, then looked around embarrassed.
“Yes! And I just pressed myself against the opposite wall, terrified, on the other side that that rickety cardboard door, and then after what seemed like about thirty minutes of him standing out there breathing all heavy, he just went home.”
I stopped to take a breath. Thad sat motionless, his mouth open.
“And that’s the last time I ever talked to Dan Diamond.” I continued. “We saw each other in the parking lot once or twice, but I never said anything to him again, never made eye contact, mainly because I was afraid he would kill me with his big country hands."
“Good God!” Thad sighed.
“I know. He and his son ended-up moving away a few weeks after that, which was good, as I was scared for my life every night till he left. And I’ve never seen him since.”
“Wow,” Thad said thunderstruck. “So you think he was completely insane and just made up that whole story about Rita and Chet?”
“I guess, I have no idea. We know the stories about the red and gold vans are real, but I don’t believe any of the rest of his story. I don’t know what to believe. But once he accused the gay guy of having an affair with his skanky old truck stop wife, I knew he was completely off his rocker.”
“Poor Dan Diamond.” Thad looked down to his hands.
“I know. Poor Dan Diamond.” I repeated.
“Here is your order,” the perky waitress said, wheeling back up to our table, “these plates are hot, so be careful…”
She placed steaming plates of food before us.
Thad looked over at me and smiled and I knew that I had justified my existence to him for one more date night.
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