I thought fuck it, I’ll go to the bar for fifteen minutes before picking up my kid. Johan’s last night. After all. I was so close to not going. I wanted not to go. I’d lined up all the reasons: exhaustion, late work, family. In the end there was a half hour window and I realized I was powerless not to go. I strode there quickly, emphatically. Imagining the scene. Maybe it’d be crowded, I wouldn’t even see him. Maybe he wouldn’t remember my name. All of these were possibilities. But I was going all the same. When I arrived the bar was subdued, just a half dozen people. Some gazing at the Mets on TV. At the far end Johan was chatting with a little group. When I got his attention he came right over and I said is it really your last night, he said yes, we shook hands and embraced. I bought him a shot. Mezcal for him and Jameson’s for me. I told him all the right things, how we’d miss him, how I had to see him one last time. Where was he headed? I asked. Imagining some far-off place, a young, untethered man’s adventure. Chile maybe. Thailand. Spain, Morocco. He said Manhattan. Some stupid-ass Irish bar in Hell’s Kitchen with a fiddly-diddle name. I wished him well. You’ll be missed, I said. He thanked me and we shook hands again and hugged and I threw a few extra dollars on the bar, not enough, and I walked back out.