Twenties

Unfortunately, Craig's 27th birthday celebration consisted only of a Purdue football game on his 27" television in Syracuse, NY. Nothing noteworthy happened during the game, aside from the fact Purdue won, which I am hoping is a reality as I type it because I don't remember if that actually happened (that they won). I flew to Syracuse to spend his birthday with him, but we weren't exactly on incredible terms at this point. I know for sure we ate his birthday dinner at a piano lounge type joint called Daniel Jack's in Armory Square, Daniel Jack's which Craig likened to "an alley with a restaurant in it". Craig wasn't positive he was happy in Syracuse. He teased about me moving there, but in the very next breath he would insinuate that we were confidently breaking up, 100 per cent. The annual blizzards of central New York had already been forecasted, if had not already begun. And Craig was in for a long rude-awakening of a winter.*I headed back to Detroit from Syracuse to learn that my work transfer would be to St. Louis, MO. Were I to accept, I would be working on the Cardinals' new Major League Baseball park, receiving a cost of living adjustment check, which was shiny and new to me, and exposed to a city I had only seen once at 14 or so, and again at 18 alongside my new college friend whose parents lived in Ladue, the old money neighborhood of the Lou. So Craig received all of this as a late birthday present, while he battled winding snow-blazened unlit backroads, while he searched for my replacement at local neighborhood bars, while he worked enough hours to positively choke a work horse. Basically, at 27, Craig broke up with his girlfriend. Not that he hadn't tried to before, but it had never stuck, possibly because she kept knocking on his door, ever-the-nuisance, or potentially because he never did find that replacement he was hoping to find and continued to return to her seeking solace. (Again, see Aimee Bender's story titled "The Meeting" for additional characterization of our relationship). But he really did break up with her, when he was 27. He stopped calling her. He stopped thinking of her--or so she believed, while wandering the streets of St. Louis with wide and curious eyes, scared. For 3 months they weren't together.*I hope I never learn what took place during that time. I hope I can convince myself that Craig spent those months missing the girl he had brought this far. Regardless, in hindsight, Craig's 27th was likely not his best of the twenty-somethings. He worked too much. He drove through too much snow. Too many times he stumbled in and out of his neighborhood bar in Manlius on any given night of the week. But maybe I claim 27 wasn't his best because it wasn't my best of his. Being broken up was painful, and lonely.*In April of his 27th year I flew to Syracuse, anyway. I didn't ask permission, there again knocking on his door, the nuisance. But he took me back, and the rest of his 27th year we spent here and there, several times in St. Louis where I lived, several times in Syracuse, once on a return trip to NYC. In his 27th year he added a couple, or one? Big Ten football stadiums to his repertoire that I'm sure he'd love I mention, but I didn't jot those down in memory. He saw Major League baseball St. Louis style. He went to the Thousand Islands, saw Boldt Castle. He built a casino in Verona, NY. He spent a lot of time without me, so it's difficult for me to pin everything down from 27. He was only 27 for one year, and I did lose a lot of it. But I'm glad he's back in my life. Hopefully for good.