It was the last day. The last evening. The last night. Then it would be tomorrow.
Fargo thanked the waitress who brought them their cups of tea and set it on the rickety plastic. He snatched his before it could spill and sipped the hot liquid. James blew out a cloud into the October evening air while his tea cup stamped a coffee stain on the cheap table. A cool breeze rustled past them, almost apologetic for the intrusion, and vanished somewhere in the slowly swelling night.
Lights came on. Golden fairy lights that wound around the outdoor cafe like a fairy ring, promising to keep the night out. They would fail, Fargo mused.
“So, bought and packed everything?” asked Fargo.
The cigarette between James’ index and middle finger glowed red as he took another drag. “Yeah, everything’s done. Finally. Goodness, I should not have let things be for the last day. All that walking, all those shops. My legs are killing me.”
“I told you,” said Fargo, smiling. It was the last day.
“You told me,” said James.
“But you didn’t listen,” said Fargo, sipping his tea. The last evening.
“Come on, man, I already had enough of an earful from my mother. I don’t need you poking a hole in it as well.”
Fargo shrugged. The last night.
“So five years, eh?”
James scratched the hairs on his chin. “Yup. I will be old and done by then. Man, thirty two.”
“Don’t go loafing around though,” said Fargo. “It’s not college.”
James pointed a finger at him. “Like you didn’t.”
Fargo scoffed. “I am not the one going to a prestigious foreign university. And that on a scholarship. How’d you manage that? Did you beg on your knees?”
“You see, Fargo, I did this extremely obscure thing called ‘applying’ for a scholarship,” said James. They looked at the sky. Night’s curtain was unfurling faster now, shrouding everything in inescapable darkness outside the fairy circle. “Why didn’t you apply?”
“Eh.”
“What eh?” asked James, crossing his arms.
“Just eh,” Fargo said, shrugging, taking another sip. “Didn’t want to.”
They stayed silent for some time. James opened his mouth and closed it again. He looked at the sky again. “Tommorrow will be the first time I’ll be flying.”
“Nervous?”
“A little.”
“Don’t worry,” said Fargo. “I’ve heard that a plane crash kills you instantly.”
“Oh, gee, thanks, I was really worried about that,” said James.
Fargo grinned. “Or at least that’s what I heard.”
Night fell. Evening left. James extinguished his little torch. “Come, let’s walk around. Then I will drop you off.”
***
They had haunted the town for years since they first met in school. James Lincoln and Fargo Fitzgerald; two boys running, and jumping, and not taking anything seriously, neverwere going to take anything seriously. The world an infinite playground, the adults an everpresent nuisance, each day an adventure, every night a bore. Two boys fleeing the world, two boys chasing the world, two boys who would never change, puer aeterni, Peter Pans, lost boys, little rascals to the end of the world and kingdom come and beyond. Then age came at their heels, grasping, clutching, suffocating; age ran faster, and caught up, and snatched their skin and flesh and bones, and exchanged them for larger and sturdier ones, shook their brains until it oozed out all the growth hormones and flooded their veins and arteries and marrow, and they stopped running and jumping, and instead gave themselves to walking and talking about literature, philosophy, life, death, the inscrutable mystery that was woman (which they never figured out), the place that sold the best dumpling for the cheapest price, and if farts could be stored in cylinders to burn and cook with. Still they took nothing seriously. Age took this one defeat in stride. It knew some battles could not be won.
The teens didn’t run so much anymore, so age didn’t need to try so hard now. Now it changed them slowly, methodically, almost like a sculptor, but instead of whittling away, it added. It pulled out their limbs for their long sleeves, hammered their shoulders for their cardboard collars. It planted hairs on their faces and watered them daily so that Fargo shaved once a week and James never. The day came when the labor of age was done, and the two were now in the prime of their lives. Age got up and went away, knowing that now they were built, they would just crumble in time.
They somehow finished college. And now here they were walking in the night talking like they always did, retracing completed thoughts and discussions, as if they were songs and fairy tales, and coming to the same conclusions they had come many times before while their feet trailed the same places they always did until each stone and plaster knew that Fargo and James were walking again like they always did, day after day, night after night. However, they would notice that there was a lingering beat to their stride now, as if they walked unsure, not quite straight like they used to like two unstoppable Newtonian motion objects, but haphazardly, like they were afraid to step down on a landmine.
The cafe came back in sight again. James went and fetched his scooter, and they rode for Fargo’s home. Both said nothing, until James stopped in front of a field that was washed by the wan surge of the rising moon.
“Let’s walk a little,” said James.
They walked under moonlight and talked about all the things they had talked before until they had exhausted everything. Then they thought of new things that they had never thought to think about. Fargo talked about animals, babies, and books, and video-games, and stories, and bicycles, and, of course, the ol’ reliable, ever unknowable woman. James put in things like the moon, the sea, the floods, democracy, difference between courage and bravery, similarities between languages, and how was the best Indian playback singer. They were like wizards conjuring up spells, bringing all the things of the world into that now quite little field, like Adam naming all the beasts of the land, the air, and the seas, they christened all.
They debated many things and came to some conclusions. They figured out that the babies were truly evil in a scientific sense, that video-games were both a waste of time and the fulfillment of it, that Kishore Kumar was the best of playback singers, that courage and bravery were never really well-defined, and one thing that was certain of women were that they were kind of like men in a manner of speaking and the claim that they were from Venus was highly exaggerated. The barren field laid fecund by the two sons of Adam.
Overhead they had the piercing shrieks of the aeroplanes like raptors hunting for prey. They came from the east, a light shade in the black sky with a blinking red eye, and went out into the west. Some came back from the west and sought the sun descending into the underworld. Fargo and James left the field a cemetery.
The scooter came alive, its golden eye piercing the night. Fargo’s home was around the corner. Fargo got out. There was a road to the right, a downward slope that looped around his house. One of the streetlamps was winking rapidly, throwing down lightning on the sleeping dogs.
“Let’s walk a little,” Fargo said, pointing at the road that blinked in and out of existence. James looked at it and got out. Silent, they walked now and their emptied hearts could not come up with anything anymore. Their philosophies had reached their zenith, their debates had been put to rest a hundred times by now. Politics never changed, and the old times were always better than the new times. The old people never got it, and the young ones would be too late to get it. The world turned and turned, and sooner or later, one arrived at themselves.
“Ever walked through here?” asked James, nodding at an alley.
“Never,” said Fargo who noticed the alley for the first time. “Don’t know if it loops or not. Could be a dead end.”
“Let’s go find out,” said James. “It will be an adventure.”
They went in. The alley boasted no lights like the streetlight at the entrance, and it was taking some time for their eyes to adjust to the darkness.
“Can’t see a thing in here,” said James. “We are going to fall and break our legs.”
Fargo laughed. “Remember that time we got drunk at the wedding? And how we were trying to get home, stumbling and mumbling?”
It was just a wedding like any other he had gone to. Envelope of money at the entrance, write your name in the list, go in, greet the smiling bride and the groom, go to the banquet, and eat, and hope there were servers for a second helping. This time though James would be able to convince Fargo to take a sip. Then he would convince him to take half a glass. By the next glass Fargo was happier than the groom, and there were two James trying to put two glasses in his hand.
“It’s a wonder you remember,” said James and laughed. “You were wasted. I was half dragging you home. And then you kept singing that Kishore Kumar song. Bye bye, miss, goodnight, kal phir milenge…”
Fargo remembered that song. It was blasting in the banquet with other classic songs.
“Shh, softy,” he said. “Don’t wanna wake the misses in the houses. Rangeela din beeta, rangeeli raat aaye…”
The two boys started a duet. Fargo grabbed James’ shoulders, imitating their previous drunken adventure back home. James lolled and slurred the lyrics. Softly yet gladly they sang that only dust and mice heard them. Then, Fargo hit something and was lurched back. James straightened himself and caught him before he could fall.
“Oh, sorry,” both Fargo and a new voice said. Their pupils now sufficiently dilated, they saw an older man getting up on his feet.
“I didn’t see you there,” he said. “Hope you two boys are okay.”
He stared at the two. Fargo looked at him.
“Nah, we are fine,” said James. “Sorry for bumping into you. We weren’t watching.”
The man didn’t say anything. Fargo felt strange. Something felt off about the man. He felt goosebumps rising on his arms. Was he dangerous? Fargo was about to say something when he thought he saw the man smile. It was really hard to see in the dark. Then, he thought he heard the man chuckle. He said a ‘sorry again’ and walked past them.
“Strange man, wasn’t he?” James said while Fargo looked back at the back of the retreating figure as he dissolved into the night. He thought he heard him sing. Both came out of the alley and took the main road back to Fargo’s home. Outside, they hugged and shook hands.
“Early four o’ clock?” asked Fargo.
“Yup, good night,” said James and rode away. Fargo stared until the scooter disappeared around a corner.
***
It was October again. Four years since James had died. They found him asleep in his dorm room bed never to wake up again. No disease, no foul play. Just an unnatural natural death. Life went on. Fargo married, made a son and a daughter, got a job in an advertising agency, and bought a house. Life was good. The leaves bloomed golden brown and covered all the paths and the roads.
It was the same day again, that very day when he had spoken with James for the very last time. Life stopped on that day for Fargo just for that day. He felt listless, more so than ever before. He left his family at home and ventured out. He went to the old haunt. The cafe was turned into a supermarket now, the fairy lights replaced with flashy banners. He looped around the roads, crackling emberless fire under his feet. He then went away from there and found the field now a cluster of residential buildings. Did they know what treasures lay buried under its foundation? A lone plane, a white blemish, slid silently over the hills.
It was evening when Fargo went back. The streetlamps turned on in front of him like an overhead carpet guiding him home. Then, he saw blinking from the corner of his eye. It was the road with that one lamp that couldn’t keep its eye open. Memories threatened to burst his brain and spill down his ears. He took the road and down he went, and came to the alleyway as dark as the night eight years ago. He went in blinded by images flashing behind his eyes. All seemed upside down. He heard footsteps and whispers in a vague harmony. He hit something and was thrown back. He heard the yelp of a boy and saw two of them in front of him, one holding the other. He got up, dusting his hands.
“Oh, sorry,” he and the boy who yelped said. Goosebumps rose all over his body. His breath quickened in his nose. He felt his heart drum against his chest. Old words came to him and slipped out easily as if they were his.
““I didn’t see you there. Hopefully, you two boys are okay.”
“Nah, we are fine,” said the other boy, not looking a day older, his beard darker than the night. “Sorry for bumping into you. We weren’t watching.”
Fargo didn’t know what to say. He calculated all the words in his heart and weighed all the questions in his brain. He looked down at himself strangely. He looked like he was about to fall again. Finally, he chuckled. Life went on, didn’t it?
“Sorry again,” he said and brushed past them.
“Strange man, wasn’t he?”
He felt his stare on his back. Then, the footsteps died away. Softly, he started to sing.
Bye bye, miss goodnight…
