“I’ve been an idiot.”

I said this to him, but didn’t expect a response. He wasn’t the chatty kind, and he was busy, chopping out two thin lines of coke on the locker room bench with the platinum card in his fat fingers. His fat fingers were part of his fat hand, which was harnessed to his fat arms. This line was for breakfast. Later there would be two lines for lunch, and for dinner he’d drink a nourishing shake. This diet really wasn’t doing anything for him.

He looked at me sideways and motioned to the line he’d put down for me. On the locker room bench. Where people had sat, naked. It was putting me off, the thought of them doing that, sweat and dead cells. By the time the second return part of my head shake was in effect, he’d already sniffed it. He was fast for such a chunky guy.

“She was the one for me, and I let her walk out of my life. I’ve got to find her,” I said. He looked at me again, head tilted to one side. I didn’t like his face, I decided. It was made of easy rides and school tie scholarships. He slumped against the bench, cocked his head and snorted a couple of times. Get the last couple of grains down, why don’t you?

“Just go and fucking do it, then. Don’t tell me how you’re going to do it. Just do it.”

He had a get-up-and-go attitude, sitting there on the floor. What would kill this man, I wondered. Would a knife make it through to the heart?

“You’re right. But I don”t know where she is. She could be anywhere in England, or married by now.”

“I guess you’re fucked then.”

“Sympathy is not your strong point,” I said.

“Why should it be? You’re sorry enough for yourself. You don’t need my help.”

“You’re a beautiful person inside. I can tell. When they come to me to deliver your eulogy, after everyone else has refused, I’ll be sure to tell them I’ll do it. Then I’ll go fishing.”

His nose had started to bleed. He hadn’t noticed yet. His eyeballs weren’t rolling in their sockets, but they weren’t static, either. More like they were following a slow fish in a big tank. I couldn’t tell what colour his eyes were anymore, they were so black.

The only time I’d done that stuff I was so drunk I didn’t notice it. Sniffed from the top of a workbench, aged nineteen. It must have been weak. Back in those days I was so thin a gust of wind could have blown out my candles.

Sometimes I didn’t hate him. Sometimes he was right on. He was a challenge, but he was good for the odd pearl of advice. I fetched him a glass of water. He tipped it over his face, shook his hair a little. That colour-glo t-shirt, it went crazy when the water hit it. Yellow to green-black, instantly. Looked liked blood. Good times.

“What stops you from taking the shot, do you think?”

That was a question I’d asked myself before. It often stayed in my mind, humming quietly, until I fell asleep. I became a solar calculator, face down, waiting to switch off. Until I did, the crystals displayed a number.

“I don’t think I deserve it,” I said after a thinking for a long time. “I give up, not because it’s easier to give up than fight, but because there’s nothing worth fighting for since she left. And it’s a loop. It’s a pattern that comes back. When I think there’s enough in the tank, it just runs dry, engine dies. Emotion pisses out of me.”

“You are a sad individual. You pretended you weren’t.”

I cracked open a beer. These bottled beers had about three gulps in them, and gave you a headache if you drank more than four. I resolved to drink five.

“I’m working on it,” I said.

“You’re a work in progress. Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

“OK. Get the clubs.”

“I thought I got to be caddy this time,” he said.

“Next time.”

“It’s always next time.”

The crowd had gotten there early. They were all there in their Pringles sweatshirts, pleated chinos. Wannabes. Hole whores. And not a one of them under forty-five. It wasn”t like I was going to get any action, being the caddy. But it would have been nice to have the opportunity.

“One wood?” I offered.

“Why the fuck not?”

“Because this hole is one hundred eighty-eight yards?”

“I’ll go gentle. Give me the wood?”

“…Are you sure you want me to give you the wood?”

“That joke will never get old for you, will it?”

“As your caddy, I recommend the one iron. Smooth, sleek and econ—”

“As the man who writes your paycheck, I recommend you hand me the wood.”

“Yes, sir.”

I handed him the three wood. He grimaced, but played the shot.

He totally sliced it, but it caught a hard wind in from the east. On the green.

The crowd made cheering noises.

Thomas Perry is a music writer by trade, and runs a weblog called Tracks from the stack. He loves Korean films, indie rock, his family, friends and his three cats.