Not Such a Weird Duck By Adam Kluger 

Into the cab

In a daze 

Leaving the bar

About to take leave of my senses

A complete lightweight all these years later

Just as Franz said, “Well I guess if you have to go —then go.” I shot from the crowded, noisy bar on third avenue with the Knicks down by almost 20 at the half,  as a pleasant but insistent feeling of complete incapacitation washed over me. An old familiar, friendly feeling that I really haven’t felt that often as of late. Years now, really.

It was high school when I first met Franz, he was known as the student who could drink more beer than anyone. He went to a rival high school. We became friends through friends and over time he became my best friend although he is best friends with most of his friends and there are probably only a few people who are just like that. 

They act like beacons that spread light or in Franz’s case, wisdom. Common sense. 

Guidance. Conviction. 

With a moral compass that is based on —Franz himself.  

His family were all legendary heroes, fighters, wise men, gangsters. 

He once let it slip at college where we roomed together that when his IQ was tested in high school it was determined that he was a genius. As a boy he was also a master equestrian and steeple chase champion. 

Franz can cut through the BS and connect with your soul if you let him, with just a few words or a look. A sarcastic jibe. Or by simply repeating one of your silly excuses for doing this or that wrongly. Badly. Dumbly. 

So funny. So true. 

Breaking the Franz rules? 

Do it at your own risk. 

There must be 100 bugaboos that set Franz off like a weird sort of duck.     I’ve been guilty of breaking more “Franz rules” than most. 

Don’t slurp your iced coffee while talking with Franz on the phone 

Don’t spend too much time on your phone if you are out with Franz

Don’t answer the phone improperly 

Don’t break plans

Don’t keep him waiting

Don’t ask him to do favors or to pay your regards to anyone

Here’s a new one. I rolled up some pieces of bar napkin into little white balls and created earplugs to blunt the loud bar noise. Franz did not like that.

“Speak up, Bug…I can’t hear you with those stupid napkins in your ear. Ridiculous.”

Franz and I then engaged in a fun passive-aggressive game of hide and seek—or tag at the bar —wherein one person, Franz,  makes the other person, me, guard our barstools from interlopers in the overflowing bar, while a certain other person, Franz, goes outside for a ramble to make an important 20 minute business call or personal call —although it is a Saturday. Then, after 20 minutes, Franz  buzzes by the barstools, with me still “on guard” to motion he is now going to the John. 

Twenty minutes later, after that, Franz comes back to the barstools and I motion in the deafening din that the Knicks are down big and that I am going outside to do some gardening. 

And back and forth it went for about an hour that involved a steady flow of bottles of Budweiser—the king of beers, while Franz drank Alagash, a fancier IPA, in a glass. 

I tried in vain to encourage Franz to join me in drinking some shots of Jack Daniels to celebrate the Knicks even being in the playoffs. Franz resolutely refused and I did all four shots by my lonesome while muttering an unflattering invective at Franz who nodded stoically at me as if he knew all I was thinking, all that I knew and all I would do next —and damn if I wasn’t sure that he didn’t. 

“Make a prediction.” 

“Either team can win. Toss up.”

“Way to be a complete and total pussy, Bug.” 

“Hey you asked… I told. What’s your prediction?” 

“Knicks lose by 9” 

They ended up losing by about 14. Franz was mostly right— as usual. 

I got home at half-time. Lurched unsteadily into my building while Franz probably drank his Alagash at the bar with quiet dignity as the young bar patrons erupted all around him in cheers and “ooohs” and   “fucks!” at each success or failure by the Knickerbockers. 

On the topic of success, Franz is quite a success at work, and with his family too, by the way. Top shelf.

Franz works really hard and when he calls me between his business meetings to shoot the shit, he will occasionally kill time with me talking about life and things of importance and funny, silly things too,  and he will make fun of me and my bungling ways and well-intentioned misadventures and make me belly laugh —before he invariably says “gotta go” 

and I don’t really know how we have gotten on so well all these years now— a period of time that has spanned decades and milestones and marriages and kids going to college. 

I’ve never known a friend quite like Franz. One who sees all my foibles and failures and still never tires of poking fun at the way I wear my shirt inside-out or how I try to snag the better seat at the bar —or call “shotgun” on car trips with the guys-or how I typically arrive late to our meet-ups with a lame excuse or how I have occasionally invited other unexpected friends I know to join us – which Franz hates —-or how I have flouted social convention time and again or one of Franz’s many rules on decorum and propriety. 

“Bug, you need to get rid of all your old boxes of books in your apartment. It’s time you get rid of stuff and stop being a hoarder. You need to grow up and put away childish things. Make significant changes and level up. You might not want to hear it but it’s getting tiresome watching you continue to run aimlessly inside a giant hamster wheel.”

“Franz, I believe that Jefferson and Franklin both valued their libraries as a source of wisdom, ideas and magic.” 

“Dude, throw out the shit you don’t look at and make your apartment more livable. It’s not that hard. Throw out one box at a time. 

“Ok.” 

Maybe age has turned Franz into more of a pedant or conservative prig. Either way, time has also polished Franz into a diamond of a man. 

He is the top guy at his company for a reason. 

His common sense, intelligence and acumen for business are apparent to anyone who has ever overheard one of his business discussions. 

Direct with deadlines and deliverables discussed quickly and with humor. 

Franz just seems to always know what the right thing to do is. With his work. His family. His friends. 

I told Franz my new mantra was,”and I’m learning..” He replied, “It should be learn and make appropriate changes… or change and work harder.” 

“Those aren’t mantras they are action agendas”

“No, they should be your mantras.”

“Are you going to drink that shot of Jack or am I going to have to take action here?”

“Go ahead. I have errands to run later”

“On a Saturday?”

“Every day, Bug”

“Franz, I don’t think you even know how a mantra works. It is supposed to modulate your mood or mindset when you say it.”

“Trust me I know what a mantra is”

“I do trust you…but I don’t think you really do” 

And so it went for a while longer till I settled the bar tab quickly and dashed out of the bar in an evolving state of inebriation. Leaving Franz with a disgusted look on his face, a new glass of Alagash, we then pounded fists, and I was a bat out of hell through those heavy wooden doors. 

I lucked out immediately as the rain started to drizzle and poured myself into a yellow taxicab with the outside of the windows spinning in dizzying reflections of raindrops, neon and faceless people —back to my small, messy, apartment to sleep it off until waking again in the middle of the night. 

Adam Kluger

Artwork of Franz and Zigarooski by Dreck

Banner Image: The interior or a bar and a bar stool from Pixabay.com