Dave always had something to prove. Maybe it was the Navy, maybe it was the fact that his kid got yanked from his life, maybe it was just the way he was wired—some deep, relentless itch to measure himself against something, usually me.
We were in Mission Beach the night Tyson got his ass handed to him by Buster Douglas. Moose’s bar was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with drunks who still believed Tyson was invincible. The plan was simple—do the rounds, scan the room, act casual, don’t look desperate, but keep the radar up.
I saw her first. A blonde, sitting near the right side of the bar. Locked eyes for a second, nothing more. I could already tell she had a little something extra, something that made her stand out from the usual barflies and broken girls looking for an escape route. Dave took a shot at her first—no dice. She wasn’t interested. He moved on.
I waited a beat, finished my drink, then made my move. Thirty minutes later, Dave was pacing the bar like a father who lost his kid at the river, checking the bathrooms, scanning the alley, coming up empty. Then he stepped outside and there I was—on the hood of his car, mid-act with the blonde he wanted.
It wasn’t the first time for me, but it was the first time Dave caught me.
She went back inside. I followed. Dave was at the bar, drink in hand, jaw clenched. Didn’t look at me. Didn’t say a word. Tyson had lost, the energy was draining out of the place, and it was time to go.
We got in the car, silence hanging between us. Just as we were pulling out of the lot, Dave slammed the brakes.
“I get it,” he said. “I get it. You’re a good-looking guy. I get it.”
I looked at him. “Dave, if you could’ve had her, you would’ve had her.”
He gripped the wheel, nodded, and pulled out onto the street. But that moment—it lingered. It was always there.
Months later, we were drunk, swimming in the apartment pool, sneaking in after hours. No one around, just the sound of the water and the distant hum of the freeway. Out of nowhere, Dave grabbed me, flipped me underwater, and held me down. Way too long.
When I finally broke the surface, gasping, ready to swing, he looked at me, dead calm.
“I just wanted to see if I could do that,” he said.
That was Dave. Always measuring, always sizing things up.
Years later, he became a bartender at the Elephant Bar, then a lawyer, then a husband to some low-hanging fruit that fit right into his life plan. Facebook says he’s happy—big house, two kids, wife in yoga pants pretending she still loves him.
We don’t talk much anymore. Maybe because our friendship always had that undercurrent—something unsaid, something unresolved. Maybe I just don’t like what he became. Or maybe, deep down, I always knew we weren’t built to last.
