Page 160 - Where the Dream Ends ebook

Marc Erdrich

They had depended on him and he had let them down. It was
only a matter of a few weeks before they parted ways.

For Ed, it had been the job of a lifetime, an important spot
with a major public relations firm, an upward trail of money
and prestige. With that gone, he floated from one miserable
job to another, until his father died, and then his mother be-
came ill, and he decided to leave town.

* * *
Harry knocked on Ed’s door. There was a long wait before
the door opened. Ed was dressed in nothing but his under-
shorts. His hair was a mess and he had deep circles under his
eyes. He looked like shit. The apartment was a mess: dirty
dishes piled sky high in the sink, dust balls everywhere. To
most people, that would have been enough evidence of Ed’s
depression, but not to Harry. Once, just out of college, the two
of them had shared an apartment downtown that had a fire
escape outside the kitchen window. One winter, they stacked
piles of bags filled with garbage on the fire escape instead of
taking them to the basement and putting them in cans, figur-
ing (correctly) that the garbage would freeze out on the fire
escape and they had nothing to worry about until spring. They
were practically run out by the neighbors who reported them
to the landlord.
The mess in Ed’s apartment was only part of the story. The
real story was in Ed’s demeanor. Tall and handsome, Ed now
looked older than his years. He had several days growth of
beard on his dark face, and he could barely keep his body erect.
Despite his height — he was six inches taller than Harry — he
seemed shorter than Harry had ever seen him.

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