THE PASSION CHRONICLES. HELPING A FRIEND MOVE...

 Special to El Rrun-Rrun

My compadre and I were drinking brewskies and burning some bird in his backyard when the call came.

"I need to move," said Ruben (not his real name). "I caught Jezebel messing around town with another man. I ran her off. Now I need to move from this apartment. I need your help."

"But why does he have to move?," I asked my compadre. "The bitch is gone. Why doesn't he just stay?"

"Too many memories," was Ruben's curt reply.

Grudgingly, I asked my dad for the use of his pickup truck (that's why Ruben called. He knew I had a truck.) I also knew that Ruben lived in an upstairs apartment. And I remember that he had bought some very solid furniture to please her. 

I wasn't looking forward to carry them down the flight of stairs.

"Where is he going?" I asked mi compadre. 

"He wants to place them in storage until there's a vacancy at some apartments." 

"I see," I said, although I really didn't.

Sure enough, the huge oak sofa was the killer. We suffered bringing it down and then suffered placing it in the storage.

Ruben only kept his wall entertainment system and we left him with a six pack of beer and an empty apartment. It was depressing, but that's what he wanted. We did our part as camaradas to lend him a hand in a moment of crisis.

A week later, Ruben called me to say that a vacancy wouldn't be available until perhaps a month later. Could he stay over my place until then?

"Yeah, I guess," I said. "It'll only be a few weeks, right? I asked.

"Yeah, man," Ruben said.

Two weeks turned into two months and Ruben, wanting to drown his sorrows, would crawl in through the door after 2  a.m. after the bars had closed and put on music on his killer system.

"Blame it all on my roots,I showed up in boots," would start to bellow from the living room as I lay asleep in the bedroom.

"Come have a beer. Don't be a pussy," Ruben would say. Every night.

Finally, he he got the word that an apartment was ready and I gladly borrowed my dad's truck again and my compadre and I  helped him move his stored furniture (including the mammoth sofa.) 

Sure enough, it was on the second floor and we labored to haul his furniture upstairs. 

But I was only too glad to get Ruben out of my hair after two months of Garth Brooks and his damn boots.

Months later my compadre and I were driving past Ruben's new apartment and he asked whether we should go see him and see how he was doing. I said "no," remembering the chinga we had endured to move all this damn furniture from the second-floor apartment to storage and then from storage to another second-floor apartment. I had enough.

"Oh, c'mon. Es camarada," said my compadre,

"Oh, Ok, I guess it couldn't hurt to go have a beer with him," I conceded.

We knocked on the door and heard some movement inside.

"Si esta," my compadre said. "Someone's coming."

The door opened and to our surprise guess who answered?

"Hi," said Jezebel. "Ruben's in the bedroom. He'll be right out. How have you been?"

"I guess they made up," said my compadre aside when she went to get Ruben. 

"Well, if they break up don't even think of calling me," I said, with murder in my mind.