Labrador (from the Munich Tales)

LABRADOR
By Michael Kroetch

He was with his best friend Paul at the hospital. Paul´s wife was having a baby. They waited a long time. Then they got the news that the baby wasn´t alive when it had come out. Paul rushed to see his wife. His friend stayed outside and looked down at his shoes, trying to think of what to say when Paul came back. It took awhile. He thought it would. He saw a couple of nurses talking together far down the hall and laughing a little bit, putting their hands up to their lips in embarrassment. They were young and pretty. Even at the distance he was from them, he could see they took good care of their hair and fingernails. They were the sort of women he would like to go out with and possibly become involved. He looked down at his shoes again. They were okay shoes, but a bit more beat up and worn out than he would have liked. The nurses might not notice this at first, but in time they would. It would come to bother them probably. He decided there was no point in trying to even begin talking to the nurses. They were too arrogant for him anyway. Then he thought of Paul´s baby and felt bad for thinking about the nurses at all. He needed to be here completely for Paul and not be thinking about kissing some nurse in a broom closet. Not that they would. Or would they? Women were sometimes so unpredictable. He had been with plenty over the years, but it always seemed like right when he thought he knew what was going on in their heads, they suddenly wanted to move to Spain or have a baby. He knew Paul would be devastated. He knew he was the wrong person to be here for Paul at a time like this. He was great for Paul if it was being around for some poker game or horror movie or all-you-can-eat at Hoot´s. But this, he was crap at this kind of thing. All his old girlfriends would agree. Then he thought again about kissing one of those nurses in the broom closet. With his luck he´d get his foot stuck in a mop bucket and go flying out onto his keister into the hallway and land smack on his ass right in front of Paul and his crying wife. What an idiot he was. Maybe it would be better to just leave now and spare Paul the embarrassment of what was to come with him invariably finding a way of making an ass out of himself and making things even worse for Paul. But he couldn´t let Paul down, couldn´t run out on him. That wasn´t what you did in times like this. You stood by and offered the shoulder to lean on. Paul would have done that for him. He knew it. Paul was the guy you could depend on. He didn´t really understand why Paul liked him at all. He was always letting people down and letting them pay the bill. It wasn´t fair. Paul deserved better. He looked around, trying to find somebody who could be Paul´s friend instead of himself. The doctor by the cardiology sign would do nicely. The doctor probably had three kids—one already in college, the other two active in sports and volunteer work. The doctor had raised his kids right and knew what it really meant to be a father. Not like him. He was a flake, not a father. No woman in her right mind would ever dream of wanting him to do a parenting project. She would be better served having a labrador retriever help her raise her young. That's when Paul came out, teary eyed. He put his arm around Paul´s shoulder and walked with him like that for the entire distance of the long hallway. Neither of them spoke.