Trading Places
Trading Places
By Fabio P.
We would meet at home after work drink Campari and go to the sauna. Religiously we would sit in the sauna, until the sweat dripped down our chest. He would tell me about Sweden, how they loved the sauna. Then we would jump in the pool, then the hot tub. After that the pool again, then the sauna and the pool once more. “It helps the immune system”, he told me, “In Sweden they go to sauna then they jump in the lake”. “I read about that when researching Finland back in high school” I told him once, “Sometimes they even have sauna out in the middle of the lake”. “Every building has a sauna. Usually on the top floor”, he would say, “and they love vodka and strawberry juice”. He was so much cooler than I ever was he traveled the world, alone.
He would talk about his journey. How he ended up with a son and a full time job surprised me sometimes. He told me how it all happened, but it never seemed like those were his intensions. He wanted to go to Australia. No wife, no kid. But shit happened. We started living together when I was twenty. I got the living room he got the bedroom. He still seemed like the seventeen year old kid he was in his stories.
We would drink together, a beer at dinner or a few beers at a club. Once we got drunk at home, it was the night before he went to Italy. We were taking shots in our kitchen that was the size of a large cubicle, except we had the gold-flaked black granite counter tops. On the sixth shot I mentioned that I might need to slow down, I will never forget what he said.”Slow down, what are you? A pussy?” Poking me in the chest, “You will get this shot! Don’t be fucking pussy!” I took the shot and many more after, without throwing up. I felt comfortable being with my dad, sturdy not wobbly. I would have thrown up with any one else. Before he went to sleep that night he told me. “Tomorrow my son, I will be in Italy, drinking with my dad, and tomorrow I will the son and he will be the father”.