"The supportive friend" opens in the spring of 1983 in a small town outside of Los Angeles, California. It's the middle of spring, and the narrator asks a friend, "What's wrong with you?" The friend replies, "I'm alright" . The narrator tells the friend that he's been cooped up in his house for a while, and that he doesn't want to go back home. The friend tells him that they're going to get out of there, and they'll be back soon. He says that if his girlfriend's boyfriend isn't with her, she's going to be a "paranoid freak" , and she'll turn into a "pathetic suck" because she only knew the man for five minutes . He tells her that he loves her, and he just wants to help her get over her "puppet freak" problem. He's just trying to make her feel better, he tells her. He adds that if her boyfriend is not with her , she won't be able to "turn anybody off" because he was "not all that i-great ! . . i just tried to help !" . They're back in the water, and it's clear that the narrator and the friend are having a good time. They don't eat any of the fish that they catch, but the narrator says that they can't "kill" the fish, because they've been fishing for a long time. The two of them decide to head back to the city, where the narrator is sure that the "rich movie star" will be happy to see them. He also tells the narrator that he and his girlfriend are "happily engaged lucky guy" and that they are looking for their "jesus." The narrator