Drinking with the Grim Reaper

No mojo, I tell ya. "Oh, Fred!" I laugh. And he laughs, too. The mood swings in our conversation continue. We start laughing and having a great time and then we remember that Fred thinks he has only three months to live.

Towards the end of the night he really starts to fade. His fingers get tingly, which has been happening a lot, and he is dizzy. He becomes frustrated. "It won't let me forget it's here," he says. He adds that he feels electromagnetic impulses now. For example, if he gets a text message, he feels it pass through his head before it appears on his phone. He can't even go near a computer.

"What do you want to hear from your friends?" I ask. I've been trying to reassure him all night. Maybe he doesn't want that.

"I just want someone to say, 'That sucks, Fred, I hear you,'" he says.

We drive to my house and I set him up on the couch in a mound of flannel and down. On top of everything else, he has no health insurance, no job, and nowhere to live. "This sucks, Fred," I say.

"Thank you," he replies. "It does suck." And we hug goodnight.