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He took my empty glass back and looked around. "My father bought it for me when I started college. Until then, I lived in Baltimore with him. He worked at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center until he died."
"So you came to Manhattan and lived here all by yourself?"
He nodded. "He hated that I was moving away, but I wanted to come to New York to Columbia, get away from Baltimore – and him."
"Why him?"
He shrugged. "He wanted me to become a doctor like him, and I was in rebellious youth mode at the time. I wanted to study psychoanalysis. So I came here. When he couldn't talk me out of it, he made sure to come here and buy me a place to live. He wanted me to live here because he'd been so happy here and so he made the owner a offer way over its market value. It was his only real splurge despite his wealth. He approved because it was a rent-controlled building and he let the other tenants stay, not raising the rent once. Such an idealistic socialist…"
"It's yours now," I said. "Have you raised the rent?"
He shook his head and smiled. "Nah. I'll let the current tenants keep the units until they decide to move out. Rent controlled units are so rare, it's a shame to lose them. I keep this place just for the memories."
"Sounds like a bit of his socialism rubbed off on you." I raised my eyebrows.
He grinned. "It's just lazy rich boy, actually. I can't be bothered to change things." He glanced around. "I don't want to."
While he put the glasses down, I stood in the center of the dim apartment beside an old leather wing chair next to a fireplace. I was completely surrounded by Drake's things from his life – his music and his books and his father's old possessions. I felt like I was seeing right into his mind.
I liked what I saw.
He missed his father. Couldn't part with his things. The living room was crammed full with furniture. I just knew it was his father's for it looked like it belonged in a man's home – all leather and dark wood and overstuffed. There was a huge old wooden desk up against the window and one of those wooden office chairs on rollers. Taped up boxes sat stacked high in one corner, marked with Dad on them.
"Is this your father's furniture?"
He smiled briefly. "Yeah, I know. Sentimental, right? When he died, I couldn't bring myself to sell it or give it away so I closed up his apartment in Baltimore and had it shipped here."
I smiled to myself. "How often do you come here?"
"I practice here," he said, standing a few feet away, staring at me. "Luckily, old Mr. Neumann downstairs is practically deaf, so it doesn't bother him."
"You practice here with your band?"
"No, just me. I come here when I have time off and just play."
"Do you ever have time off? You sound so busy… Your surgery. Your band. The foundation. Your subs…"
"I'm rich. I only work as much as I want to. Interesting cases only. I keep busy."
"Do you play this?" I went to an old acoustic guitar that was attached to an amp standing next to the desk and wall of books. "I thought you played the bass guitar."
"I play lead and acoustic as well."
On the table beside the guitar was a piece of sheet music. Something by Simon and Garfunkel. "Old Friends/Bookends". On the top of the sheet music was a hand-written note.
'To Liam. From your 'old friend'. E'
It looked like my father's handwriting, the E for Ethan. I held the piece of sheet music up and beneath it was a faded Polaroid of my father as a much younger man and a man who looked very much like Drake, with dark hair and a jaw covered in stubble. Both wore fatigues and had dog tags around their necks. They stood side by side smiling at the camera, their arms around each other's shoulders. It looked like it was taken in Vietnam for the background was jungle.
"Oh my God," I said, staring at the Polaroid, a hand covering my mouth. "This is them." I turned to him and he nodded, smiling softly.
"Your father gave that photo and sheet music to my dad a long time ago. I remembered them when I came here tonight and found them so you could see."
I looked both over, amazed. "They really were friends." I glanced up at him. He had a strange expression on his face. "Somehow, I didn't really believe it. Like it was just a story my father told me about this crazy doctor friend of his from 'Nam."
He came to my side and took the photo out of my hand. "They thought they'd be friends forever."
That made my throat constrict when I thought of Liam dying in a plane crash. How this apartment – the furniture – the Foundation – were Drake's way of keeping his father with him.
