Runner

I spill the popcorn after complaining about Berry spilling it last time, which is what I get, he says. I spend too long outside in the hall talking to a man in joggers with a ring on his right ring finger. When I get back with a new tub, I try my best to catch up without Berry’s help. When the movie’s over, I say it was alright. Berry says it was worse than the last one. We get dinner at an all-night cafe on Bardstown Road. Berry asks which beers they have on tap. I ask which hand is the hand you’re supposed to wear a wedding ring on. Berry looks at me with his eyes wide open, his oval mouth at a diagonal. The waitress smiles and shrugs as she turns away with empty glasses on a stack of brown trays. He tells me she was single, dude. I say I’m not asking about her. Berry looks around the cafe for the rest of the meal, asking me about different women. By the time we leave the hookah lounge upstairs, he’s under the impression that I like husky girls with headbands that punch in place. I run with it for the next ten years.