The Film Club by David Gilmour

a black sky. Night was at its peak. We came out into a square, a dirty-brown cathedral squatting at one end, a lighted café on the other; three or four tables sitting near the middle of the square. We sat down. A white-jacketed waiter disengaged himself from the brightly lit interior and came over.
    â€œSeñores?”
    â€œDos cervezas, por favor.”
    Out they came, two ice-cold beers at four o’clock in the morning.
    â€œI’m sorry about that business back at the hotel,” Jesse said.
    â€œThere are a couple of inviolate principles in the universe,” I said, suddenly chatty (I was delighted to be where we were). “One is that you never get anything worth getting from an asshole. Two is when a stranger comes toward you with his hand extended, he doesn’t want to be your friend. Are you with me?”
    As if a thirsty genie had joined us, the beers vanished in their bottles. “Maybe we should go again?” I said. I held up two fingers for the waiter and swirled them around in the soupy air. He came over.
    â€œHow do you keep them so cold?” I asked. I was having a good time.
    â€œQué?”
    â€œIt’s okay, no importa .”
    A bird twittered in a nearby tree.
    â€œFirst one of the day,” I said. I looked over at Jesse. “Everything okay with Claire Brinkman?” He sat forward, his face darkened. “None of my business,” I said mildly. “Just chatting.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œShe looked a little distraught when we were leaving, that’s all.”
    He took an aggressive plug of his beer. For a second I saw in that gesture how he drank when he drank with his friends. “Can I talk to you frankly, Dad?”
    â€œWithin reason. Nothing gross.”
    â€œClaire’s a little bit on the weird side.” Something cold, something not so nice crept into his face like a rat in a new house.
    â€œYou want to go a little gently with Claire. She hasn’t had an easy time of it.” Her father, a sculptor I’d known in high school, had hanged himself with a clothesline a few years before. He was a drunk, a bullshitter, an asshole, to boot. Just the kind of guy who would off himself without the slightest thought for his kids, how they were going to take it.
    â€œI know that story,” Jesse said.
    â€œThen tread softly.”
    Another bird started up, this one behind the cathedral.
    â€œI just don’t like her that much. I should but I don’t.”
    â€œAre you guilty about something, Jesse? You look like you just stole your grandmother’s necklace.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œIt’s not fair to be mad at Claire because you don’t like her more. Although I understand the temptation.”
    â€œHave you ever felt it?”
    â€œIt’s disappointment.”
    I thought it might end there but it was as if there was a thin wire extending from him at that moment, that it needed a tug so the rest—whatever it was—could come out. Which silence seemed to serve.
    By now the sky had turned a dark, rich blue, a red bar running across the horizon. Such extraordinary beauty, I thought, all over the world. Is it, you had to wonder, because there was a God or was it simply how millions and millions and millions of years of absolute randomness looked? Or is this simply the stuff you think about when you’re happy at four o’clock in the morning?
    I called over the waiter. “Do you have any cigars?”
    â€œSí, señor.” His voice echoed in the empty square. He produced a pair from a jar on the counter and brought them over. Ten bucks each. But where else would you get a cigar at this time of the morning?
    â€œI’ve been phoning another girl,” Jesse said.
    â€œOh.” I bit off the end of a cigar and handed it to him. “Who?”
    He said a name I didn’t recognize. He looks furtive, dishonest, I thought.
    â€œJust a couple of times,” he