“I should have gone home to change first,” said Karl, scratching at his collar.

“Yeah, you look pretty weird in your coffee-shop get up.” Burns slid into the booth.

“Says the guy who still wears a baseball cap turned around backwards. I took the damn apron off, at least. I don’t know what I’m going to do with these clothes, either. They made me pay for them out of my first check, did I tell you about that?”

“Endlessly.”

The waitress came over with laminated menus, but Burns didn’t need it; he ordered the double cheeseburger with hashbrowns and a side of onion rings.

Then he glanced up. “Wait, what do you mean, what you’re going to do with the clothes?”

Karl looked around, as though there might be spies in the diner. He leaned over the table. “I got fired,” he whispered.

“From Perky Pete’s?”

“There was a little misunderstanding between me and upper management.”

Burns picked up a couple of the little tubs of half-and-half from the cup on the table, and stacked them end on end. “Who did you piss off?”

“I like how you automatically assume it’s my fault, rather than the capitalist machine engineered to grind down my soul.”

“Oh, dude, it’s coffee. A chimp could do that job. Press the button, coffee comes out. Press another button, milk comes out.”

Karl sniffed. “I’ll have you know that proper coffee-making is an art. But yeah, I totally blew it.”

“Did you give a speech?”

“I might have given a little one. Oh, by the way, you’re paying for my dinner tonight.”

“Naturally. I owe you, anyway. Saving me from my mom balances out the whole getting-fired thing.”

“Does she always lurk outside the bathroom when you’re in there? Because dude, that’s unnatural.”

“I’ve got a favor to ask,” Burns said.

“A mother-related favor?”

“I need you to go fishing with me this weekend.”

Karl started to say something, but the waitress arrived with the plates. She gave Burns a big smile, one of those edging-on-flirtatious looks women had been giving him for years. By now he knew the protocol, smiling back, a knowing look in his eye to mask the creeping dread in his heart.

Then Karl reached over to steal an onion ring, and Burns smacked him with the fork.

“Leave ‘em alone, I need the energy to recuperate from my injury.” He showed Karl the bandage.

“You were joking about fishing, right?”

“No, I’ve got to get out of town. My mom wants me—”

“Dude, I’m not going fishing. What are we, seventy years old?”

“Fine, but we’ve got to do something. We have to be out of town this weekend. She’s trying to set me up with someone.”

“That’s your problem? That’s the big emergency that requires an escape route?”

“You don’t understand.” She’s a girl, and I’m gay. “She’s the daughter of my mom’s pastor, and now my mom is dreaming of church weddings and grandkids and…” He shuddered.

Karl had picked up the bottle of ketchup, and was reading the back. “High fructose corn syrup? Jesus. This stuff is poison. It’s like when this lady came in to Perky Pete’s today—”

“Please, one story at a time.”

“Okay, so where’s the issue? Haven’t you already slept your way through every woman in town? What’s one more?”

“Damn, Karl, if I’d said that, you would have been sitting there lecturing me about feminism. No, I haven’t slept my way through the town.”

“So you’re going to make me go outdoors so you can avoid this woman?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Nah. I hate the outdoor stuff, Burns.”

“You always say that, and then you always end up having fun. Remember the kayaking last summer?”

“I have a vague memory of mosquitoes and water moccasins.”

“And we did a little rock climbing last month.”

“You did a little rock climbing. I stood on the ground and warned you about the perils of falling.”

“Come on, man. I need this from you. If I go by myself, my mom will know I’m just trying to avoid this girl.”

“I still don’t get why you’re trying to avoid her,” said Karl.

Burns took the ketchup bottle from him, and poured out a puddle of it on the plate. He ignored Karl’s look of horror as he dipped the onion ring in.

“You know my family is pretty religious,” Burns said.

“Religion is—”

“I swear to god if you say the opiate of the masses I’m going to punch you.”

“Why yes, Burns, I am aware that your family are regular churchgoers.”

“The thing is, their pastor and I have a history.”

Karl raised an eyebrow. “How lascivious.”

“Not that kind of history. Goddamn. No, he’s just really judgmental and nosy. He likes to know all about your life, and you know, when I was a kid, I used to confide in him a lot.”

“Man’s best friend is his pastor.”

When I was a kid, I was sent off to a camp he ran…

Nope. Not telling that story. In fact, that memory could be filed away in the great dark fog that hid all the embarrassments and humiliations of Burns’ life.

“I didn’t have anybody else to talk to. I was different then. You know, fat, asthmatic, no friends.”

Karl said, “You keep eating those onion rings and you’ll be right back there.”

“Dude.”

“I’m just saying, you’re always working out and doing crunches and whatever other horrible abuse healthy people dole out to their bodies. Why trade in your six-pack for LuAnne’s greasy-ass onion rings?”

“My point is, I was always really insecure, and so I told him all about my fears, the stuff that made me sad, the way I resented all the kids in school. And I know he’s told his daughter about all that.”

But not about the camp. Surely he wouldn’t have told her that.

“So you’re going to make me go on a fucking old-man fishing trip because this guy might’ve told your blind date about your adolescent sorrows?”

“Basically.”

“No!”

“What else do you have to do? You just lost your job, so you’ve got the free time.”

Karl shook his head, and this time Burns let him steal an onion ring off his plate. “I’ve got plans. Mostly involving me being in the hospital when Simon beats me to a pulp for getting fired.”

“Your brother isn’t a violent man.”

“He’s so wrapped up with his damned rich boyfriend these days, the last thing he wants is to hear about my personal tragedy. He’s going to think I blew the job on purpose.”

“You didn’t?”

Karl rolled his eyes. “Look, even great thinkers such as myself need jobs.”

Burns snorted. “Tell me you didn’t have a speech prepared from day one about the evils of the coffee industry.”

“It’s a bloody business,” said Karl.

“You always do that. The minute you get nervous, out come the damn politics. My mom called you a communist.”

“What?” said Karl. “I’m not a communist. That’s ridiculous. I’m much more of a Georgist! You know, when Henry George wrote Progress and Poverty back in the—”

“You can have every single onion ring on my plate if you stop right there.”

Karl smiled triumphantly and pulled the plate over. “See? Politics has its uses.”

“Especially if you need to feel better about losing your job.”

“See, I would think your mom would love me,” said Karl between crunches. “Ideology is important. What’s more important than what you believe in?”

“What you do, for one thing,” said Burns, contenting himself with the hashbrowns. “Actions speak louder than words.”

“Pfft,” said Karl. “Anybody can act. But your intention changes everything about your actions. What you believe is the bedrock. It’s what’s at the foundation of the person you are.”

So it’s okay if I lie about who I am, thought Burns, as long as deep down I’m doing it because I don’t want to hurt my parents?

He was trying to think of a response that would be funny instead of a downer, when Karl’s face fell.

“Oh, shit, I gotta go.”

“What?” asked Burns. “You had plans? But you invited me here!”

“I know, but I totally forgot I was supposed to go see my folks tonight. My dad is having trouble with his computer. I got all distracted and it slipped my mind.”

“Lord save us from parents with technology,” said Burns.

Karl scratched his collar again. “I really don’t want to wear this shitty polyester over there. It’ll just get them talking about the damn job, and I’ll have to confess I got fired, and I’m not ready for that yet.”

“So change?”

“I have to. Will you drive me home?”