It’s high school reunion time, and people are returning home, to the town Sam and I grew up in, where we live now. We are sitting around a conference table in the law office of one of our classmates for an informal pizza tasting, orchestrated up by yet another classmate, an insurance agent, who has flown up from Dallas. It’s trippy, us now; hair gray, soft-bellied, with mobility issues. The conversation takes that morbidly predictable turn to classmates who are no longer with us. Someone jokes that since the class salutatorian died, does that mean everyone moves up in class rank? Those of us with kids and grandkids boast or bite tongues, waiting. Sam provides a rundown of our crew because someone has asked and as he is speaking, I am compelled to amplify his descriptions because family is everything, and I am me.
The guy who never married and has no kids says I feel sorry for all your grandchildren, that this is the fucked-up world they have to grow up in. Thump. He has said the unsayable, words that strike fear into your heart of hearts, words you can’t admit you’ve said to yourself.
Someone else makes a comment about the pizza crust and I climb out of the crater on that. Good texture, but lacking flavor. More cornmeal on the bottom? We are from New Haven, and we know our pizza, man. This, we can say.