He always answers the phone by telling the date. "July 4th," he says.
"Sorry I didn't call you last week," I say to him. "I was out of town, and then we had a power outage one day...it was a busy week!"
I tell him an anecdote about the power outage all over the country. Within a couple hours, theories were spreading about impending earthquakes, volcano eruptions, military coups...by dark we had power again.
"You're such a charmer," he tells me. "You could sell sand to the Arabs."
We laugh. Together.
Very slowly, we have been building a kind of relationship. When I moved to North Carolina, he was able to come visit me twice. We started calling more. I began noticing that sometimes, we were having genuine conversations. And sometimes, I honestly enjoyed talking to him.
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