The room felt vacuous and transparent. The men discussed football with great enthusiasm, as if it had been them catching the interception, running the punt return; breathless after the game, with droplets of sweat beading down their gladiator brow. At best, they were high school athletes, and now weekend warriors, spending their Mondays selling vodka in liquor stores or installing air conditioning. Some even went to bed each night in the same rooms they slept in as boys, their little league trophies still adorning their shelves.

After three beers and what felt like hours listening to the others’ mindless chatter, Bill wished for a thorn to prick against his finger--for something to offer an entertaining distraction. He wasn’t particularly masochistic, but strange urges sometimes compelled him to strange acts. The drink had stripped away something of his, a part, like his arm--whose existence he had never questioned.

When he had arrived, he was welcomed into their new apartment, given a firm handshake by all, and even a tour.

“Damn, look at that television,” he had said, seriously impressed with the sixty inches of high-definition. “Are those the lazy-boys with the refrigerators built in?”

They all sat around the IKEA kitchen table, long enough to fit all eight men without any crowding. When the conversation died down, and the beers ran dry, Mike, who rented the back room, flicked his empty beer can which rattled around on the faux-pine table before settling.

“Who wants to go downtown?” He said, and stood up from his seat.

The men all raised their beers, and drank up.

Bill would have liked to say the night ended with a romp of the village bars, with shot glasses raised and maybe a blond’s panties down around her ankles in the bathroom.

“I’ll meet you guys down there,” he had said.

Before he left, he took one last glance at the punching bag hanging by the door, the mini-motorcycle propped against the stove, and the beer cans left everywhere like children’s soldiers, and then he went home to his wife.