“I think it was because I never took out her trash.”

Bob and I were at the coffee shop, spit-balling on what may have been the reasons behind his most recent break-up.

“I don’t know, Bob. You guys weren’t living together. There should be no expectation of trash-taking.”

I was fighting to pay attention. As in all of Bob’s breakups, the post-mortem could be brutal. Afraid of leaving stones unturned, he pored over every detail, but not, apparently, until I was there to bear witness. Over time I’d learned to keep my responses short, hoping in vain that sparse use of language would bring the conversation to a speedy close.

“Maybe you’re right about the trash.” Bob paused, his gaze skyward. “But if it’s not the trash, it must’ve been the time I left her on the kitchen floor.”

This was new information.

“What?”

“Yeah. We overdid the drinking one night and she was having problems navigating the steps in her house. I managed to get her up the first flight and into the kitchen. I figured I could get her up the next flight and into the bedroom but while I was taking a break she started hurling.”

Bob looked at me with true sorrow. It was a look of failure. I’d seen it before, mostly in my bathroom mirror.

“Well, did you at least clean up the puke?”

Bob’s demeanor lightened. “Oh, yes, of course. I kept cleaning and cleaning, but she kept barfing and barfing, so I kept cleaning until I thought she was done. But she wasn’t done. She was just reloading.”

“And then what?”

“Well, then I was afraid to take her to the bedroom, which is carpeted, whereas the kitchen floor is Pergo. The Pergo would be much easier to clean, you know, with the hurling and all. So, I left her on the kitchen floor with a pillow and some towels. I thought that would be safer but, when she woke up a couple hours later, she was angry that I left her there.”

I nodded and took a moment to contemplate both sides of this revelation, to consider how a drunk Bob might have handled this type of situation, and felt empathy for both parties. Yes, Bob should have tossed her over his shoulder and gotten her to bed but, setting aside the moral imperative of duty to one’s fellow man, Bob’s tale was mostly about two drunk people making bad decisions. To an unbiased listener, her level of drunkenness was apparent, but it was harder to guess where Bob might have been on the blood alcohol scale. He had managed, after all, to get her up that first flight of steps and, according to him, had the wherewithal to sop up a fair amount of the gastronomical aftermath.

Despite the lingering question of Bob’s own lack of temperance and its affect on his ability to provide an assist with the second flight of steps, I decided it was right and proper to give him grace. Bob being Bob, under the circumstances I was sure he did the best he could. Monday morning quarterbacking wouldn’t change anything, even if the post-game analysis might provide insight into things to avoid in the future—like drinking too much.

He continued. “I think that was it. I think from that moment on, I wasn’t her hero anymore. I tried to get it back, you know. Hero status. I tried to make up for the screwup by doing other things, like getting her trash cans from the curb and walking her dog. But it was too late. I think once it’s gone, there’s no getting it back.”

Bob sipped his coffee while I contemplated how one gains, or loses, hero status. I could see how women would naturally peg Bob as a potential hero, at least in passing. Tall and built like a linebacker, Bob would be anyone’s first pick for their dodgeball team, and it would be natural for women to gravitate toward someone who looked like he could beat up the bad guys. So maybe Bob and, by extension, all men, are sort of automatically granted hero status by the women in our lives. At least at the beginning. Maybe hero status is something more to be lost than it is something to be earned. Or, most likely, it is a combination of the two. A sort of ethereal general ledger, full of credits and debits.

Suddenly interested in the topic, I dug deeper.

“So…Bob, did she ever say you were her hero? I mean, with actual words? Before the whole puking incident?”

Bob scratched his chin. “Well, yeah, of course.”

“Like when?”

“Like the time she wrecked her bike on the trail and I carried it all the way back to the car. And the time I changed her tire on the highway. And the time she was sick and I left work to take her to the doctor. And the time…”

I cut him off. “Okay, I get it. The words were spoken and not just implied. But, you know, Bob, it doesn’t sound like she set the hero bar super-high. I mean, if all you have to do is take her to an appointment, couldn’t we all be heroes?”

Bob paused. “Maybe it’s the small things, you know? Maybe all it takes is to do the little, unexpected things. Maybe I just had to be there for her and, in the end, I wasn’t.”

Potential 5 Love Languages rip-off notwithstanding, this was perhaps the most perceptive thing I’d ever heard come out of Bob’s mouth. Had he been reading psychology books on the sly? Other than sports, I’d never known Bob to read anything he hadn’t been forced to read. I was impressed, and told him so.

“Well, thank you for that. Maybe I’m evolving.”

“Well, maybe you are, but let’s not get carried away.”

Bob smiled. “I’ll try to do better next time.”