And so we went to Thirsty Thursday, as her short-haired friend liked to call it. Thirsty Thursday was the cutesy name for the four of us gathering around her friend’s dining room table making stilted, domestic chit-chat and drinking poorly made gin-and-tonics.

Thirsty Thursday used to just be three, but her friend went and got herself a boyfriend – bald, midwestern, decently friendly. He worked in a train yard, kept a tally of how many vagrants he busted riding the rails.

I drank six poorly made gin-and-tonics, slept until 2 pm. I woke up with a terrible headache and a half-baked plan to take up model railroad.

“Enjoy yourself last night?”

Her voice rattled against the insides of my skull, causing me to wince. “I always do.”

“You wouldn’t shut up about trains and” – a dramatic pause – “their symbolism as great modernity or some shit.”

I dropped my head back on the pillow. “Sounds like something I’d say. Trains are always going forward after all. Progress.”

“Whatever.”

I closed my eyes. “Remember how I used to live next to some tracks?”

“Yeah. I used to fantasize about your death by train.”

She heard me sigh, then added: “Now that would be progress.”