Trevor and the Chinese Restaurant, and Me.

It was late afternoon and I was sitting in a booth of a long-closed chinese restaurant. Not a take-out place with torn linoleum and crates of soda and napkins everywhere. A decent one. Red walls. Gold trim. Recessed lights. A large empty fish tank and bamboo prints the size of murals on each wall. Throughout the empty dining room I could see the ghosts of a hundred thousand customers and staff and nights and I could hear the chatter, laughs, children, greetings, celebrations. I sipped at the beer Trevor had brought us and watched it all and when Trevor came out from the old kitchen it all disappeared and he sat down across from me.

"So what do you think?" he asked.

"It's a nice place."

"Yeah. I'm kind of in love with it. Price is good. Location's good. Fuck man." He drank from his beer and shook his head a little. "Fuck. This could be it."

"I'm happy for you, man."

"Yeah." He smiled and nodded. "Thank you. Me too. Christ, I'm trying not to be too excited, you know?"

"You should be. The dream."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, but if it fails, fuck, I'll be crushed."

"Unless you're diving headfirst, don't do it. Get excited. You'll need it."

"I know, I know. You're right. Headfirst or nothing at all."

I sipped at the beer and looked at the empty fish tank and wondered if it was for fish or lobster. "You tell Sam yet?"

"No, not yet. She's at her moms and I don't know, I wanted to surprise her, I think. Do the whole hands over her eyes thing."

"You think she'll be into it?"

Trevor looked around and smiled. "God, I fucking hope so. That money is gone. I bought it this morning."

I laughed. "I didn't know that. Bold."

"Yeah. I had the chance and I thought 'go for it.' Same thing I did with Sam."

"I hate you."

"I know buddy." He smiled.

The light of the evening began to burn out and we finished our beers and left the booth and dining room and as I walked out the door Trevor stopped and looked over another of his pieces of the dream and I wondered if I should overdraw for groceries or if I didn't mind freezer burnt green beans again.