All My Friends Are Dead, Tom

I’m like Dad you must know some people back on the East Coast. He’s like I know a lot of people. If I went back they’d have to schedule to see me. Like I was the Pope. But all my friends are dead, Tom. Acquaintances, sure, but all my friends are dead. 

I couldn’t stop laughing. Not at him. At the truth of it. It was a joker laugh. I never considered that he had people he really loved: brothers, drinking buddies, classmates. Apparently all of them dead.