George Is Alright.

The door opened to a dark room filled with the smell of stale smoke and liquor. George sat there, his head against the back of a recliner with his eyes wide open. He looked like he hadn't slept in months.

"George? The door was open."

His head dropped and he smiled. "Come in."

"How's it going?"

He chuckled. "Tommy."

I walked over and sat on the bed. His eyes half-followed me. It made my head hurt, just being there. "You been alright?"

George nodded. "I've got great friends and more money and pussy than I know what to do with." He laughed again.

George hadn't been alright in a long time. He had driven most of his friends away, lost a half dozen jobs over the last four years, and hadn't been laid in about as long, unless he'd paid for it. He motioned towards the mini-fridge

"There's some beers if you want some." He knew I wouldn't.

"Thanks."

His head hovered over an almost lifeless body. His fingers stretched out and then curled back again. It was painful to look at him, the remains of a friend who'd been a mentor and told me a million lies over the years to help me stop being a coward and shape me into the kind of man he'd stopped trying to be.

"You want one?"

He shook his head. "Nah. They'll keep."

The unwelcome sunlight slipped between the blinds, falling against his dark blue shirt. I couldn't think of anything to say. It had taken a long time for him to become like this. Those of us who whispered behind his back couldn't pin it on a single event.

He'd gone through a bad breakup with a nice girl. He'd helped put down a half dozen sick animals on his grandparent's farm. He didn't talk about the time he lived in Tennessee, except to remind everyone that Memphis was as bad a shit hole as any place he'd ever been.

He'd gone through a ton of coke and weed back then. A lot of people wrote him off. When he finally got it out of his system, we thought he'd come back around. I guess it wasn't the kind of thing anyone gets over. He was clean except for the booze, but everything he'd lost was gone forever.

He stood up and shuffled over to his computer. He clicked around until sleepy music came on.

"You been writing?"

He glanced at me. "I guess."

"I've been working on a few things. Nothing very good."

He nodded. "Send them to me." He took a slice of cheese out of the fridge and ate it. "Did you work today?"

"Yeah." It was hard to tell if he was making conversation or if he cared.

"How was it?"

I shrugged.

He stretched and looked at the clock. "I guess the mail's come. You want to go out for a bit?"

"Sure."

We walked to the mailbox. He stuffed an ad for a car lot in his back pocket and rolled a cigarette. "I hate smoking inside. It makes everything smell like shit." He watched the smoke trail off. "I'm glad you don't smoke."

"What have you been writing?"

"My memoirs." He cut a fart and laughed.

I laughed too, until everything was quiet again. Being around George made me uneasy. He was like a caged animal, made tame by years of nothing changing. You never questioned the totality of his defeat, but always wondered how deeply buried the natural instincts were.

We walked back inside, into the darkness.

He grabbed a beer before taking a seat in front of the computer and I sat on the bed again. The glow from the screen made him look sick. He rummaged around in the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a bottle of vitamins. He took one and washed it down with the beer.

He clicked around on the computer again, and scrolled through a document. "I really have been writing my memoirs." He took another pull off the bottle. "It's all bullshit, though. All ego. If I even remembered the truth, I don't think it would amount to much." It wasn't something either of us wanted to talk about, so he changed the subject. "How's Amy?"

"She's alright. We had a fight the other night. Well, actually, she just yelled at me while we ate a thirty dollar meal."

He nodded. "That's why I eat at home."

We talked about nothing for a little while longer, then he put on some old movie by a German director he loved. We watched it for a bit, until I decided it wasn't as good as he remembered or maybe he wasn't in the mood for it.

We went out again and leaned against his car. He smoked as the sun dropped behind the trees and the mosquitos began their quiet night flights. The gray blue sky turned his face to ash behind the bright red cherry.

"I hate the city, but sometimes I miss living there."

"Why don't you move?"

He shook his head. "I've got a good life here. I'll probably just stay here until I die."

He hated the sound of it as much as I hated listening to it. We both knew it was true.

Living in the city had been hard on him. He'd spent too much time there. He'd poured himself into the fast paced life and spent every minute of every day laughing at asshole's jokes. He'd networked and been the life of the party. Everyone loved him as much as he'd hated himself. Out here, he didn't have to face any of that. He felt like he was better off empty than living in the city.

It was getting late.

"I'd better go."

He nodded. "Send me that stuff you been writing."

"I will." He took another long drag off the cigarette and looked out into the night, into the distance of all that dark nothing. "I had a good time."

He smiled. "Me too."

He watched me drive away and I kept the radio off for the whole drive home. I could picture him going back in for another beer, sitting in front of the computer, hacking away at the keyboard for a few hours, until stopping for a bit and falling asleep in his chair.

George hates for people to see him like this. He prefers the loneliness, because he doesn't know any other way to face each day. He knows he's not alright and probably won't ever be again. Everything he writes is a memoir and it's all bullshit. He'd never tell it as a sad story. He changes the names, talks about raising hell, and laughs off how the characters should have known better.

George laughs a lot when there's nothing to laugh about and I don't ever feel like there's anything I can do about it.