The suburban loser takes his youngest son golfing one spring afternoon. It has been raining all morning and the sky is still overcast, but they nearly have the whole course to themselves. At the third hole, the suburban loser tells his youngest son to check this out and holds the golf club above his shoulders as he runs up to the tee, just like how Adam Sandler slapshots the ball in Happy Gilmore. He slips on a wet patch of grass and his legs fly out from underneath him. It sounds like a snapping branch when he lands and his left foot points out in a way that doesn’t look right. His youngest son drives the golf cart back to the clubhouse as fast as it can go, his teeth chattering from the wind that is picking back up, shouting help, my dad needs help, but there are no other golfers on the course to hear him. The suburban loser spends the rest of his summer in a leg cast. Whenever one of his sons joins him in the living room to watch TV, the suburban loser turns the volume down and says things like he can't believe this happened to him. He had so many plans this summer. He wanted to surprise the family with a beach vacation. His eldest son will look at the ground and nod his head while his youngest son will grab the remote and turn the TV back up. When he has to run an errand, one of his sons drives him to the bank or the post office and lends a shoulder to the suburban loser as he pushes his flimsy aluminum scooter up handicapped ramps, and if he falls because he misses a tiny bump in the sidewalk, they wrap their arms around his stomach and lift up, even as he glares at them and calls them motherfuckers because they didn’t notice it before he did. If it’s a good day, the suburban loser will take them out to lunch afterward, picking one of the cafes or bistros from the list he keeps on his computer. He’ll order big reuben sandwiches and ceramic mugs of French onion soup with melted cheese for them and grab a paper takeout menu before they leave so he can add it to the manila folder in his desk drawer that he keeps for memorabilia like this, planning one day to rank them based on food, service, and atmosphere. One Friday night, he invites his eldest son to the movies. A new comedy starring an actor from SNL they both like just came out, and even though all the regular tickets sold out, the suburban loser gets a handicap and companion ticket. They arrive thirty minutes before the previews and sip their sodas watching the local commercials as the theater slowly fills up. Most people in the crowd are the same age as the suburban loser’s eldest son. Lots of friends, a few couples on dates, and even one girl the suburban loser’s eldest son had a small crush on. They all stream past the suburban loser in the front row, some of them catching sight of his bare toes sticking out of his upright cast before quickly glancing away, maybe mistaking the smell of bacteria from the dead skin on his foot for artificial popcorn butter. As soon as the movie is over, the suburban loser says it’s a bathroom emergency and he needs his help getting up. He pushes a group of teenage boys to the side as he scoots past them in the hallway and flips them off as he rolls by. They didn’t know how bad he needed to pee. Coming out of the bathroom and feeling better, he rolls over to his eldest son sitting on a bench and quotes one of his favorite lines from the movie. Did we just become best friends, he asks, a bit louder than he intended. Did we just become best friends, one of the teenage boys from earlier repeats down the hall, laughing and pointing at the suburban loser and his eldest son.