Tonight I decided to crack open a can of pilsner given to me by a dead man. It was months ago now, maybe August of last year, when he opened the fridge and said, “Here, have this,” handing me a tall boy in a decorative can. By then, we sensed his end was near, but the doctors wouldn’t confirm it until a couple weeks later. But the day he handed me the beer was a good day. He was happy and wanted to cook dinner. He had bought steaks. And walked us, his daughter and me, through the process of cooking it, exactly as he would, were he not worn down by disease.
I took some video of him meticulously shaving garlic with a small knife, rubbing down ribeyes with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. We seared them with garlic and butter in a cast iron skillet and put them in the oven for exactly eleven minutes. The steak was served alongside one of his “famous gourmet salads” and we covered everything in a special blue cheese dressing. The brand was originally from a local restaurant long dead, but the King’s Grocery on the corner of West Club Blvd and Roxboro Street is the only game in town who still manages to carry it. A local secret he seemed not keen to take to the grave.
Later that night, I took home the beer and put it on the door of my fridge. And a month later, almost to the day, he died. My dearest friend, now a dead man forevermore.
The pilsner has been in my fridge going on six months. Everyday I’ve seen it, when opening the fridge to get cream for my coffee, to pack my lunch for work, to take out ingredients for cooking dinner, for assessing what I need at the grocery store. Many times I have contemplated opening it. After his funeral, on Christmas, at New Year’s, on my birthday, on Valentine’s Day, all dates carrying some kind of relatable importance. But today is Tuesday. No holiday, no birthday, no occasion. It’s just Tuesday, it could be any day, like the commonplace, unremembered, flyover days we used to have, just because. Beers after work, beers because of work, beers with dinner, beers on the porch, at the oyster bar, at the kitchen table.
Beers shared with friends often happen on days that go unnoticed and undesignated as special by a note on the calendar. And yet an unassuming, commonplace beer gifted to me months ago has now enabled me to share a drink with a departed friend. Until right now, nothing about today has been particularly remarkable. But tonight, with every sip I take, I transcend the barrier between life and death. I drink an Old Man’s beer and smile at the unintended symmetry of the perfect drink on the most common of days.
