Hey Nostradamus! By Douglas Coupland

"Yes. Manly colors. Burly walnut furniture."
"Hai Karate aftershave."
"Yeah, yeah - he still uses words like 'aftershave.'"
"And he invites his friends over for dinner parties, but the food is from some other period in history.
Cherries Jubilee."
"Baked Alaska."
"T-bone steaks."
"Fondue."
I asked, "What are his friends' names?"
"Chester. Roy. And Alphonse - Alphonse is the exotic one with a hint of 'the dance' in his past. And
Francesca, the beautiful but broke fifth daughter of a disgraced Rust Belt vacuum cleaner tycoon."
"Possibly someone, Francesca even, is wearing a cravat."
I thought Jason was the most talkative man I'd ever met, but I later found out he'd said more to me in
those two hours than he'd spoken to all the people in his life in the past decade. He was obviously a born
talker, but he needed a ventriloquist's dummy to speak through. Somehow that dorky giraffe on the
counter had pressed hison button, and we had just invented the first of a set of what I would call fusion
entities - characters, that could only exist when the two of us were together.
I asked, "What kind of car would Gerard drive?"
"Car? That's simple. A 1973 Ford LTD Brougham sedan with a claret-colored vinyl roof, white leather
interior and opera windows."
"Perfect."
In the end, I think the relationships that survive in this world are the ones where the two people can finish
each other's sentences. Forget drama and torrid sex and the clash of opposites. Give me banter any day
of the week. And our characters were the best banterers going.
When Jason left to go pick up his nephews that day, he took my number with him and called me, and
that was that.
* * *
Barb just phoned. She's arrived in Redwood City, south of San Francisco, where she works with Chris
- Cheryl's brother. The Cheryl. I'm no dum-dum on the score, but Jason and Cheryl was so long ago.
We move on, or rather, Jason sure tries.
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