Back when he was young it would be a weeknight with no plan to do any real drinking. Someone's friend might come over and there might be two people in the kitchen cooking, with a few standing around drinking tallboys. Summer would've just began and so people were getting used to not having to worry about classes. The second

tallboy

would come without much contemplation.

The third was where you would need to make the decision. Many summer evenings Howard would crack open the third, and then dinner would somehow finally be eaten at the table. A lot of pasta. And then before he knew it it'd already be ten and they'd be drinking the last of their fourth tallboy, which meant they had drunk eight beers. All unplanned.

That's what he loved about those years. Nothing was planned. Things just happened. If he could do it again he wouldn't even be that into the booze. There was something deeper that represented a free spirit, the booze had been a byproduct.

He didn't know how many people were still alive out of all the friends and friends of friends who used to visit. His younger grand nephews and nieces told him that he could check that kind of stuff on the internet, on the apps, but he didn't want to though he did have a craving to know what was happening in the lives of those still around. But damn, he couldn't give himself into those apps. He had his reasons. Those apps did something. Played a trick on people. Made them think that they were having relationships with people when in fact the apps concealed that these weren't relationships but transactions. Not the kind that made you feel more whole, but the ones that left you feeling empty at the end and wanting more. That's why Howard preferred not knowing what had happened to all those people. He preferred being in the dark, with the memories.