A Beer and a Lecture

“What do you think I should do now?” Leo asked, shooting a puzzled and curious anticipatory look towards Mattie, who had his lips on a cold beer bottle that he soon set down beside him. Momentarily breathing out a mist of cold air, Mattie asked, “What are you talking about?”

Leo was deflated, and the anticipation waned sharply with Mattie’s response. He turned to stare forward, shaking his head in disbelief that might have turned into disgust before he turned to Mattie again and said, “Why do I bother with you? You never pay attention! I’ve already told you what’s bothering me, but you seem indifferent. Just finish your beer so that we can head home. You seem drunk, so I will drive you home since I called you here.”

“Well,” Mattie said, “to be fair, you’ve told me many things. I’m not sure what issue you need advice on.”

“Really, Mattie?” Leo was disappointed and couldn’t hide it, but all Mattie did was grin and then explain, “Tell me the issue, and I will give my invaluable wisdom that you so desire.”

“You know you don’t have to gloat because I come to you with these things I struggle with,” Leo said.

Mattie turned to face Leo and placed the now-empty beer bottle behind him. Leo had hardly touched his bottle, and a bead of coalesced droplets could be seen on the abandoned bottle that now looked pitiable. Mattie glanced at it from time to time, thinking about saving it from being undesired—a dreadful way to feel, even for a bottle of beer. However, the temptation waned every time Leo narrated one of his long tales of problems he had heard but didn’t seem to end.

“Tell me what happened this time,” Mattie said, looking more serious.

They sat at the abandoned section of the bar, the bench at the balcony. They had both seen the numbers dwindle regularly at this dingy bar they visited whenever they needed to hang out. It wasn’t far off, and a 30-minute drive always sufficed on good days. The only delay came about when Mattie needed to jump over the gullies in the shack-filled lodgings with a motif of corrugated iron sheets on every side. From the road, Leo wondered how Mattie lived in the slum. Leo had never been there but looked at it from afar, secretly admitting to himself that he loathed the conditions with a passion. He suggested, though not directly to Mattie, that he needed to live in a new neighborhood, but Mattie would never leave. Mattie would always say, “You’ll never get it.”

They had spent many evenings at the bar that overlooked a busy street populated with rowdy, suicidal motorists who would often brawl over the most trivial of things. Like when one was mocked for carrying a pink face towel because he couldn’t find his handkerchief, but that wasn’t all—they continually mocked him for the pink, a color they called “girly,” often taunting him for the “kitchen cloth” he carried around in his pockets. They were always loud enough so that those at the low-hanging open bar above a restaurant were often not spared the drama.

“My girlfriend left me. It’s what I have been telling you all evening,” Leo said.

“Well,” Mattie began, taking on the aura of a professor taking pains to lecture a promising student who seemed to find trouble on a matter that should have been easy. “If you admit that she left you, then technically, she is no longer your girlfriend, as you seem to suppose…”

“But…” Leo interjected, but Mattie’s statement now sank in, and he was pondering. Mattie continued, “No buts here, you’re going to have to pull yourself together.”

Leo kept silent.

“If I’m to bluntly say it, then I will, so that we get this over with: your stinking narcissistic attitude towards life deters you from seeing through the fog, and you keep on wondering why they leave you. Isn’t it enough evidence that you still even call her your girlfriend?”

Leo scoffed, “Says someone who has never been in a relationship.”

“Well,” Mattie explained, “it should humble you that even in your umpteenth relationship, you have learned nothing. I only need to see how you do it to know how not to do it.”

“Mattie, your problem is that you worry too little, so you end up not getting a lot done,” Leo said. However, by this time, he had accepted that he was a defeated man, and the attempt at salvaging his reputation was halfhearted and unintelligent, to say the least.

Mattie held Leo’s beer in his hand. “It’s warm already because you couldn’t drink it. It’s how good things pass you by as you bask in your narcissism, your failed relationships, and the beer alike. I will save the beer from you. I’m sorry I couldn’t do the same for the girlfriends who had to tolerate you before they saw the sun.”