An intro to you
You burn bridges. Piss in the wind. Tug on Superman’s cape.
Caution is not your friend.
You’ve broken three teeth. Seen the dentist five times this year. He pretends like he’s worried about you but is secretly thrilled because you’ve helped finance a much-needed kitchen renovation, thus causing his wife to finally shut up about it.
You’ve fractured your collarbone once, your hand twice. The doctors and nurses at the ER know you by name, wrinkle their noses at your odor, at the booze burped up by your pores. They’ve long since written you off as a lost cause. There’s one nurse who’s hasn’t, who instead gently mops your face with a cold, wet wad of paper towels. She calls you “sweetie,” slips pamphlets for AA into your pockets. You don’t find them until you’ve sobered up.
Then you chuck ‘em.
#
Your new favorite pastime
A fist mashes your nose. The crunch reverberates in your head. Galaxies of bright pinpricks flash in your vision. You taste blood.
The fist pulls back, slams into your gut. You crumple. Now you taste bile.
A boot plows into your sternum. There’s a pain you haven’t felt before. Maybe a cracked rib. Maybe a broken one.
A bouncer breaks up the fight, throws you out of the bar. You’re in a heap on the sidewalk. You grip a signpost, pull yourself up.
You stagger home. Pain shuts out everything but itself.
You grin, thankful for that much.
#
Why you are the way you are
Sleep isn’t easy. Ironic because you come from a family of heavy sleepers.
They’re such heavy sleepers that they didn’t hear the smoke alarms go off and burned to death in a house fire. A house fire you caused.
It was a freak accident, but still. You’ll never smoke a cigarette again.
One father. One mother. One sister. One brother. That’s the cost of your carelessness.
You see their faces in your dreams. They’re reduced to melted wax, runny and dripping. It’s like this more often than not.
You wake up. Dark bags hang from your eyes like sad change purses. You age ten years in two.
#
Angie! Annnnnn-gie. And Ted.
A piercing shrill cleaves the world in half. You bolt out of bed. Your head’s a junk drawer full of jagged glass and rusty nails. Your stomach’s a gas station toilet brimming with the ghosts of bad decisions.
You trace the source of the noise to the kitchen downstairs. A chubby young woman waves at a smoke alarm with a spatula. She’s completely naked. An intricate tattoo of a trout decorates her entire left ass cheek.
She doesn’t notice you as you lift a decorative wooden oar off the wall. The paddle has a lighthouse painted on it. One of the many beach-themed tchotchkes, courtesy of your mother, that festoon the walls of your parents’ – now your – beach house.
You walk up behind the woman, lift the oar, smash the alarm with it. Quiet is restored as bits of white plastic rain down.
The woman jumps, turns, looks at you, a crinkly joint between her lips. Her face is carved from alabaster, every line and curve copied from an angelic blueprint. She pinches the joint from her mouth, says she wanted to surprise you with breakfast. She holds out the spliff, asks if you want a hit.
You whisper, “Who are you?”
Squinting, she replaces the joint between her lips, takes a long drag, holds it. She says, “Seriously?”
You nod, prop the oar against a wall.
The woman exhales, grins through the smoke. “I’m the girl whose ass you fucked last night.”
Your stomach burbles an urgent message in Morse: O-U-T-B-O-U-N-D. Then it explodes into your throat. You double over, blow chunks on her feet.
Calm as can be, the woman goes over to the sink. She jabs the joint in the corner of her mouth, puts one puke-covered foot in the sink. She hoses it down with the sprayer, then does the other. Her flexibility is remarkable.
She takes a smoking pan off the stove. Presumably what set off the alarm. She drops it into the sink. Clang!
She marches up the stairs, stops halfway. She slaps her trout, says, “That’s the last time you take a trip down thisHershey highway.”
She continues her ascension as you hork directly onto the kitchen floor.
The doorbell rings.
You go to the front door, open it.
A police officer stands there. His nametag says, BENDIS. His badge says, DEWEY BEACH POLICE DEPARTMENT. He starts to say your name but stops halfway. His eyes are trained on your midsection. You look down. Your shriveled schwanz dangles in the open air.
He tells you you’re under arrest for assault and public drunkenness.
You barf on his shiny black shoes, spatter the cuffs of his pants. He says he’ll let that go if you put on some clothes.
You turn to find something to wear and run into the young woman from before. She’s fully clothed now. Her tank top and short skirt fit her like a bologna skin.
Officer Bendis says, “Angie?”
“Hey, Ted.” She continues past him then stops. She turns, says, “If you’re gonna arrest this asshole, put him in a cell with somebody mean. I shouldn’t be the only one who gets fucked in the ass today.” She goes to leave but stops again. She glares at you, says to Bendis, “By the way, if you’re in the market for some weed, you’ll find a bag of it on the kitchen counter. Bye.”
“Sorry, kid,” Bendis says, “that one I can’t ignore.”
You spew vomit down the front of Bendis’s uniform.
He sighs.
#
Chitty-Chitty-Chitwood, Esq.
You’re summoned to court.
Your lawyer is some pasty, overworked, underpaid, wispy-pated business card dispenser of a public defender named Byron Chitwood. He drinks lukewarm coffee out of a paper cup with playing cards on the side, calls you “pal,” smells of peanuts and knockoff Drakkar Noir.
You like him instantly.
He explains your irrational behavior to the judge. Cites your dead parents, your dead brother, your dead sister. Explains the house fire that you inadvertently caused, that you suffer from survivor’s guilt and quite possibly post-traumatic stress disorder. The guy you assaulted, the one who has a bit of a black eye, nothing more, drops the charges.
The judge, no fan of you or your behavior, still fines you a thousand bucks, sentences you to a hundred hours of community service. Just because she can.
#
Things to do in Lower Slower when you can’t sleep
Unable to sleep that night, you drive northwest, into the farmland that blankets much of Lower Slower.
You find an abandoned trailer park. It’s all cracked windows, faded siding, overgrown everything.
You get out of your car, wander around in the dark. Don’t even try to be quiet. An animal – cat? gopher? raccoon? – darts from underneath a powder blue doublewide, crashes through the brush, scurries inside a cinderblock…something or other. A well?
You enter the doublewide the animal abandoned. Tufts of pink insulation like cotton candy vomited out of broken ceiling tiles nearly touch the threadbare carpet. The hot mustiness of the place makes your skin as comfortable as a scratchy wool overcoat. Booze sweat soaks your clothes within minutes.
You crash around the place. Punch out the remaining window. There’s a pain in your arm. Probably a cut. You put a finger to it. It comes away wet.
Soon after, in the jaundiced glow of your car’s dome light, you inspect your wound. It’s a cut, alright. About three inches long. Deep. Pouring blood. Barely missed the vein it runs alongside of.
Pity.
#
A nurse. A Hope. A blowjob.
At the emergency room, there’s a girl. Young woman. Old enough to drink, young enough not to handle it well. Far be it for you to judge, though.
She’s dressed in jean cutoffs, a white tank top. Scuffed low-top Chucks. Everything but the sneakers looks painted on. She’s not wearing a bra, not that those bee stings need one. A sleeve of colorful tats covers her right arm from shoulder to mid-forearm. Her bleached-blonde hair shows brown at the roots. You wonder if maybe she’s from that busted trailer park. You wonder if maybe she was the one who destroyed it. Is she trash or does she trash?
She argues with one of the nurses. The one who’s nice to you.
The nurse sees you staring. She takes the girl’s tatted arm, leads her into a treatment room across from the curtained bed you occupy. Closes the door behind them.
Moments later, they emerge. The girl stomps off toward the exit. The nurse watches, sighs.
She walks over to you, manages the type of forced smile one gives a stranger in passing. She gently takes your lacerated arm, lays it on a bedside table. “My daughter,” she says. “Quite the handful.”
You receive eighteen stitches.
**********************
In the ER parking lot, the tattooed girl sits on the hood of a car. Smokes a cigarette. A pack of P-Funks lay on the hood beside her.
You focus on the cherry. Glowing. Eating the tobacco and paper behind it as she inhales.
It still gets you. Still makes you see the house. The house in flames. Your family trapped inside. Somebody with an official-sounding title – medical examiner? fire investigator? – said they most likely asphyxiated before the flames got them. Were they dreaming they were drowning before they died? That somebody was choking them? Did they dream it was you? Because, in a way, it was.
She offers you the pack. You shake your head no, open your car door.
She takes a drag, says, “You’re the asshole who starts bar fights, right?”
You stare.
“I’ve seen you around,” she says. “My mom said you killed your family.”
You stare.
“It’s the pain, right? That’s why you do it. Fight, I mean,” she says. “One pain dulls the other.”
You stare.
“I totally get that.” She drops her cigarette on the macadam. It makes you flinch. She grinds it out with the toe of her Chuck. “I’ll hit you if you want.”
You shrug, close the car door. Step toward her.
She hits you. Right in the jaw. Closed fist. Knuckles sharp. Not a ton of power behind it. But enough to hurt.
Your hands clench. She stares. Dares you with a look.
Your right hand loosens, grabs her crotch. Squeezes. She makes a sound like “Eeet!”
She punches you again. Harder this time. In the stomach this time. You double over. Reach for a nearby car for balance. You straighten up. Suck wind.
She kisses you. You taste cigarettes. Smell stale beer, plumeria.
She pushes you in between her car and another. Drops to her knees. Gives you the world’s sloppiest blowjob. Grabs your freshly stitched arm, digs her nails in. You remember a time long ago when you would’ve worried about popping stitches. That time has passed.
In less than a minute, so has the blowjob. She kisses you again, spits your come into your mouth. It’s salty, has the consistency of a vigorous loogie. You swallow.
You zip up. Say, “Seeya.”
“I’m Hope,” she says.
You get in the car. Drive away. Glance at your arm. A tiny archipelago of red soaks through the bandage. You can see it even in the low light from the dashboard.
Bitch drew blood.
“Hope.”
Hardly.
#
A green vest under an orange sun
The neon green safety vest is way too big, keeps slipping off your left shoulder. You correct it, and it slips off your right.
One of the Rehoboth Beach Public Works guys gave it to you when you showed up at City Hall, said you were there for community service. The guy, name of Vince, then took you and six other young-ish looking people out to Route 1 to clean up the median.
You trudge through the grass, pick up stray food wrappers and beer cans with a chintzy mechanical claw. The refuse goes into a big black trash bag that’s clutched in your other hand. The bag flutters in the humid, late August breeze, as difficult to control as your life is.
A few of your fellow miscreants whisper to themselves, look in your direction while trying not to look like they’re looking in your direction. You’re well-used to this kind of thing by now. Let them have their fun.
You shotgunned three cans of Natty Ice before you left home. Chased those with two shots of El Toro. The buzz keeping your insanity at bay is wearing off, and you’re starting to feel itchy. A little sunburned, too. The skin on your bare arms is red and tight. Figure your neck is probably the same.
A flattened McDonald’s French fry box waves to you from a tuft of overgrown grass. You reach for it with your claw. Snag it. You go to put it in your bag when a half-full can of Bud Light hits you in the head. Some of the beer spills out on to your shirt. Such a waste.
A bunch of cackling frat bros cruise by on the southbound side in a Jeep Wrangler with the top down and the doors off. They point and laugh at you. Before you can consider the consequences of your actions – your default mode – you launch your claw like a javelin at the driver. It pings him squarely in the side of the head, bounces back onto the median.
Douche Bag slams his brakes, skids to a stop. The cars behind him do the same. A stroke of luck: there aren’t any fender benders. Douche Bag gets out of the car, stomps toward you. He wears a white ball cap backwards, aviators, board shorts, flip-flops. No shirt. A tattoo of a flaming soccer ball adorns his left delt.
You can’t help but grin, clench your fists.
“The fuck you think you’re doin’, asswipe?” It’s Vince, the DPW guy. He was trailing you and the others in a DPW truck, keeping a watchful eye. Now he’s out of the truck, stomping over the median toward you. You open your mouth to respond. Vince breezes right by you, gets in Douche Bag’s face. “Fuckin’ throwin’ beer cans at my guys, fuckface? We’re on the job, cocksucker!”
Douche Bag fires back about calling his dad, his lawyer, suing, blah blah blah pampered white kid shit.
Vince, several inches shorter than Douche Bag, doesn’t back down. “Get the fuck outta here, fuckstick! I don’t care who your cocksuckin’ daddy is!” He pushes Douche Bag. “C’mon, shitstain, take a poke at me! Know how many cops I know? Have you and your dickwipe friends locked up for assault!” Douche Bag’s friends pull him back to the Jeep, and they leave. Vince gives them the stink eye as they leave, wags his head, turns around. Retrieves your claw from the grass as he walks over to you.
You pick up the can of Bud, give it a shake. Still a few swallows left. You hold the can at your side, wait for the other shoe to drop.
“You okay, pardner?” Vince says.
You’re not used to this question. Don’t know how to respond.
“Y’alright?”
After a moment, you nod.
“Fuckin’ little pricks,” he says, handing you the claw. “You’re out here rightin’ wrongs, and they’re addin’ to it. Little fucks.”
Without thinking about it, you tip the can to your lips, guzzle the remains. Still a tad on the cold side, even.
Vince laughs. “Man, that’s some hot shit! I wudn’t here, betchu woulda fucked those guys up, huh? I seen you ballin’ your fists.”
You shrug. “Least this way I got some beer out of it.”
He laughs harder this time, claps you on the shoulder. “C’mon and getchu some water, man. You lookin’ pretty red.”
You both walk over to the truck, your fellow miscreants watching you for a few moments before they get back to work. There’s a big orange Igloo lashed to the truck bed with heavy-duty bungee cords. Vince takes a paper cone from a plastic sleeve, fills it with water from the spigot on the side of the cooler, hands it to you.
You slug it, fill it again, slug it. Do it several more times. The water’s cold, clean. You had no clue you were so thirsty.
“Say, man, whatchu doin’ tonight?”
Getting fucked up. Getting in fights. Getting arrested.
“No plans,” you say.
“You feel like comin’ out with me and m’buddies?”
This is how you make a friend.
#
Hard to Starboard
A Wednesday night in late August means the bars in Dewey ain’t gonna be packed. Some action, sure, but there’s plenty of room to breathe, move around.
Optimal if you want to get into a fight. Which you do. Kinda.
Kinda, because in all the time you’ve lived here, nobody’s ever wanted to hang out with you. Certainly nobody’s ever invited you out with them. As much as you don’t give a shit about anything, you aren’t exactly looking to ruin the good time of somebody who’s trying to be nice to you.
Thus, instead of getting obliterated before going out, you have only a few beers. Four, to be exact. No chasers. Then you head to the Starboard.
It’s only a little after eight, so there’s a decent crowd, but nothing crazy. Shouldn’t get much worse, either. Some cover band is playing “Livin’ on a Prayer” on a black riser in a corner of the bar when you walk in. Was that riser always there? Have you ever seen a band play there before? It occurs to you that you’ve never been here without being ossified drunk. There are probably tons of little things you don’t remember about the place.
But that bouncer, the one with the ‘roid muscles and the goatee, the one keeping a sharp eye on you, him you remember.
You ignore him, go to the bar to order a drink, and there’s another thing you don’t remember: Hope bartends here. She has her back to you as she dumps some ice in a plastic cup. Pours in vodka, Red Bull. Finished, she turns around, spots you.
She stares, blushes, but it’s instantaneous at best. She quickly recovers, hands off the drink to a customer, takes cash off the bar, puts it in the register.
She turns back to you. “Hey,” she says.
“Hey,” you say.
“Um, getcha somethin’?”
“Bud Light.”
She turns to fish a can out of a fridge. You dig in the pocket of your shorts, come out with some cash. She puts the can on the bar top, and you give her the cash. Far more than you owe, even after tip.
“Need change?”
You shake your head no, take a pull off your beer.
“You sure?”
You manage a grin. “Yeah.”
She grins back. “Thanks.” She puts the money in the register. “So, uh, is there gonna be trouble tonight?”
“Meeting some people here,” you shrug, “so.”
She smiles. The skin under her eyes crinkles. Her face looks young. Her eyes don’t. “Tryin’ to behave?”
You shrug again.
For a moment, neither of you say anything. Just look at each other. As if you’re having a staring contest. There’s a hand on your shoulder. You tense up.
“Wassup, bud?”
You relax. It’s Vince. And a bunch of his friends. Lots of tats. A few missing teeth. A few wedding rings. A few shaved heads. But shaved because they’ve lost their hair. Because they’re all older than you. Maybe early to mid-thirties. You get the impression Vince invited you out because he thinks you’re around their age. Because you look as old as them, if not older.
Drinks are ordered, introductions made.
Vince tells his buddies about the thing on the highway.
Hope hovers nearby, keeps glancing at you as she makes drinks.
Vince says, “And this little pussy had a tat of a fuckin’ soccer ball on his arm.”
Hope looks up, says, “A soccer ball?”
“Yeah!” Vince says. “And the shit was on fire! What kinda ink is that?”
One of his friends pipes up: “Kind dudn’t know soccer ain’t a real sport.”
Everybody laughs. Even you. Even though you played soccer in high school.
Another one of the guys: “Wait, Hope, didn’t ya date that dude?”
She nods. “Drew. Total fuckin’ asshole. Slapped me around one time. Broke up after that.”
As if on cue, Mr. Soccer Ball Tat and His Merry Band of Douche Bags walk into the Starboard right then.
Others might call this fate. You call it dumb fucking luck.
Drew sees you and Vince, and you and Vince see him. But, wisely, Drew and his friends go to the other side of the bar and order drinks. He still has that white hat on, but he’s wearing a shirt now. A shirt that’s conveniently missing its sleeves. That future regret of a tattoo begs pathetically for attention, screaming, “I’m white, but I’m cool!” to anybody who’ll listen.
Another bartender tries to serve him. He waves her off, motions for Hope, who’s still facing you.
“Looks like fuckface needs ya,” Vince says.
Hope turns, glares at Drew. Shakes her head no. Turns back to you. “This is gonna sound shitty, but whaddaya think about me using you to get under his skin?”
Drama’s the last thing you need. But that doesn’t mean it’s the last thing you want. Drama is a distraction, after all.
You shrug.
“Make out with me real quick?”
“Sure,” you say.
She leans across the bar, takes your head in her hands. Kisses you. Hard. Tongue and all. Doesn’t hold back. You put a hand on her shoulder, pull her toward you. This goes on for several moments. Finished, she turns around, reaches into the fridge, pulls out a cold one, pops it, hands it to you. “Thanks for that. This one’s on me.”
You finish your beer, take a long swig from the new one. Keep your eye on Drew the whole time. Much to your chagrin, he doesn’t take the bait. Doesn’t even nibble.
But he looks plenty pissed. Which makes you smile. Right at him.
#
Painful wish fulfillment
You get your wish on the Forgotten Mile.
After leaving the Starboard, your first thought is to head home, to revel in the remarkable fact that you had a good night for once. You had fun hanging out with Vince and his buddies. You left the bar out of your own volition instead of being thrown out. The bouncer even gave you a small nod on your way out, as if to say, “Thanks for not being a dick. Maybe come back again?” To top it all off, Hope gave you her number. For once, things fell into place instead of falling apart. It was an unexpected – if not welcome – change of pace.
But then you figure you’ll try to squeeze a little more joy out of the day. A drop. That a nice walk might be a good way to end the day. So you stroll toward the Forgotten Mile. That stretch of Route 1 between Dewey and Rehoboth that nobody really gives a shit about.
Suits you perfectly.
You make it almost to the Bay Road Package liquor store when something hits you in the back of the head. Something heavy and very hard. You go to your hands and knees, and beer sprays from a busted can. Wets your face, your hair.
Running footsteps sound to your right. Then somebody kicks you in the face. Force of it flips you onto your back.
The shitheads who ambushed you come into focus. It’s Drew and his Merry Band of Douche Bags. There’s Fatty, Dopey, Shorty, and No Neck.
Those scenes in the movies where a gang of dudes surrounds one guy, but they come at him one at a time instead of all at once? This ain’t like that. Drew and his Douche Bags come at you as a group, hit you from every direction. These coddled motherfuckers really know how to cause pain when they want to.
You do your best to fend them off. Even get off a few shots. You’re pretty sure you break Fatty’s nose, and you deliver a devastating blow to No Neck’s balls, and you yank the little hoop earring out of Drew’s left lobe, but that’s about all the damage you’re able to do.
You, on the other hand, are worse for wear. You feel your nose break, your eye socket cave in. There’s a sharp pain in the back of your head that makes your vision go bright and then dark. A kick in the ribs causes another sharp pain, and it very quickly becomes harder and harder to breathe.
One of the assholes pulls you to the curb, puts your arm over it. Fatty jumps, brings his whole marbled self down on your arm, which of course snaps. You scream until you wheeze. Your tear-blurred eyes deliver disheartening news: the bone didn’t puncture the skin, but boy oh boy, it came fucking close.
Your screaming makes the jagoffs pause. Panting and groaning from their own injuries, they look down at you. You try to look up at them, but your eyesight is not working like it’s supposed to.
One of the shitheads – Dopey? – says, “Dude, is his eyeball out?”
“Fuck,” Drew says. “I think it is.”
Shorty: “Uh, could this guy die?”
You hear the gears in these imbeciles’ heads grinding together as they come to the realization that, if you do die, they could all be looking down the barrel of a homicide charge and, as a result, life in prison, where their asses will be made to gape wide on the daily when the inmates run train after train on their soft, privileged asses.
“Fuck, man,” Drew says. “Let’s get outta here.”
They beat feet. Leave you there bleeding and broken.
Then it’s quiet. After a few moments, you try to get up.
Fail.
Try again.
Fail.
Once more.
Make it to your knees. You see double of everything. Try closing the one eye that wasn’t punched in.
And there’s the pain in your chest. Worse now. Breathing is quite the chore.
You shuffle forward a few feet, cradle your broken arm. Remarkably, your legs still function rather well.
You wheeze, shuffle, wheeze, shuffle. Then you fall over, barely catch yourself with your good arm. You lay on the sidewalk, stare up at a streetlight.
You knew it’d end badly one day, but you never thought you’d be laid out alone on a sidewalk. You figure this is penance. Penance for being so irresponsible, for not cherishing what you had when you had it. And, really, this is what you wanted all along. What you wished for. Whether it’s on a sidewalk or in a bar or in your own living room, what’s it matter? The end’s still the end.
Fuck, maybe you’ll see your dead family soon enough. But you doubt it. You ain’t that lucky.
There are lights. They strobe from somewhere above you. Red lights. Your vision has really taken a turn for the weird.
There are voices, too. One that’s especially familiar. A woman. “Oh, fuck, I know this guy,” she says. “C’mon, let’s get him inside.”
There’s a trundling of metal, something rolling toward you. You look over. It’s a stretcher being wheeled out of an ambulance. Look back at the streetlight.
The woman’s face hovers over yours. Angelic, perfect. Have you died? “Hey, remember me?” she says. “I’m here to help.”
Angie. Angelface Angie.
“How?” you wheeze.
She and her partner lift you gently, place you on the stretcher. “Anonymous 911 call,” she says.
You’d bet everything you own that Drew or one of his flunkies made that call. A little something to keep in their back pocket so that, in the event you do die, they could say they did something to keep you from doing so.
They get you situated in the ambo, and Angie starts working on you, trying her best to get you stable. There’s not a lot she can do, though. You are in a bad way. She tapes some gauze over your bad eye, splints your arm.
Angie calls to her partner as he drives the rig. “Hey,” she says, “radio ahead and tell ‘em we need a medevac ASAP. This guy needs to go to Christiana. Probably gonna need a chest tube, too. Pretty sure his lung is punctured. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he has some internal bleeding.”
“Copy that,” her partner says.
You start to close your good eye, succumb to oblivion.
Angie lays a hand on your forehead. “Hey, don’t go to sleep. Stay with me.”
“Sorry…” You muster a breath. “For being….” And another.
“Save your breath. Make it up to me later.”
#
A moment of clarity at 2,000 feet
Soon you make it to the hospital, where the docs pop in a chest tube, reinflate your lung, prep you for flight. A bit later you’re in the air heading north.
Laying there in the helicopter cabin with nothing else to do but lay there, your mind does the one thing you don’t want it to do: it revisits the past. Really zeroes in on it. It’s why you started in with the drinking and fighting in the first place – you were trying to shut all that crap out. But now, being well and truly sober, all that crap creeps back in. Specifically, the night of the, ahem, incident.
It was the day after Christmas, and you were in PA, visiting. You’d been out of college all of, what, a year or two? You were living in Northern Virginia at the time and came home for the holidays. Your brother, Kevin, and sister, Lexi, were home from college.
After dinner that night, Mom, Dad, Kevin, and Lexi had the bright idea to play a board game. Monopoly.
You said you were gonna pass and meet up with your friends. But your dad, he guilted you into staying. He was always so goddamn good at laying a guilt trip on you.
So you sat at the table with the stupid game, played with your stupid family. Thing about Monopoly is, it can go on for hours. Literal fucking hours. Which it did. Game went for a little more than three hours that night. You know because you kept glancing at your watch over and over, all the while lamenting that your precious time was being eaten up with that dumb game.
Thinking back, it isn’t a particularly good memory. It’s not like you enjoyed yourself. Meanwhile, Kevin and Lexi were smiling and laughing. They did enjoy themselves. They liked and valued spending time together as a family. But that wasn’t your thing. You liked to be out in the world. Anywhere but stuck at home with them. So, really, you don’t remember much about what you talked about or what any of them were up to because you never cared enough to pay attention.
When the game finally ended – your mom won – you glanced again at your watch. It was a little before 11:00. You still had time to go out. Not a lot of time, not as much as you’d like. But better than nothing.
You helped pack up the game, and everybody headed to bed. You couldn’t believe that Kevin and Lexi didn’t have anywhere else to be. Or wanted to be anywhere else. They were fulfilled. They were perfectly at ease going to bed after spending significant time with their family. But ain’t no way you were gonna let the night end on that note.
Everybody went upstairs, and you went to put on your coat. Just then, your dad said, “Got somewhere important to be, huh? You were lookin’ at your watch every two seconds.”
You didn’t know what to say, so you just shrugged.
“Why are you always running away from us?” he said. “Are we that bad?”
You didn’t ever feel violent toward your family, but in that moment, you very much wanted to punch your dad in the face. Why’d he call you out like that? Why couldn’t he just let things be?
The worst thing was that his last question was rhetorical – yes, they were that bad. Yes, they were a burden. But admitting that would make you the asshole, and you didn’t want to be the asshole. And being reminded that you were an asshole only added to your indignance. “No, of course not,” you spat. “What kind of stupid question is that?”
He chuckled, shrugged. “Yeah, guess it was kinda stupid, huh?” He paused. “Anyway, I’m going up.” He started to ascend the staircase. “Have fun and be careful.”
Good and irritated at that point, you went outside. Got high. Smoked a few cigarettes. For some reason you can’t possibly explain, you threw the final butt into a shrub, the bottom of which was ringed with a skirt of dead, dry leaves. Even though you ground out the others on the driveway. Then you got in your car, went out to meet your friends. Came home later to a world on fire. Your world.
Laid up in that helicopter now, you wonder if maybe you meant to burn the house down. Maybe your resentment ran that deep. It’s a notion that makes you want to throw yourself out of the helicopter, because otherwise that thought is gonna torture you ad infinitum. And only death will stop it.
You thought you were gonna die on the sidewalk, maybe even in the ambo. But you didn’t. And now that they reinflated your lung and are making every effort to ensure that you get medical attention as quickly as possible, you’re pretty sure you’re gonna live.
Shame.
#
An outro to you
You recover. Takes a while. Everything hurts.
During physical therapy, your mind drifts. That heavy, sad feeling you carried around all that time turns into anger. It’s that anger that causes you to see the future. A possible future, anyway.
You get out of the hospital, decide to up your game.
You learn fighting styles from different disciplines. Kickboxing. Kung Fu. Muay Thai. Pick up a little something from each.
You go on the same as you always did, carry on with dumb shit like drinking and fighting. Only this time you’re able to inflict more pain. Take on groups of dumb assholes who aim to ambush you.
You put the moves on Hope, start dating her.
When Drew and his Douche Bags come for you again, you let Drew take a swing at you, lean into it, take it right behind your left temple, where the bone is the hardest. It hurts, yeah, but Drew breaks his hand on your head, then you break several of the fingers on his other hand and his arm.
And then you cripple his jagoff buddies, send them to the hospital, too. And you do it in front of a crowd of people who can testify that, yes, you were acting in self-defense. Certainly makes things easy for ol’ Chitwood.
This is your anger-fueled daydream. This is what keeps you going: the thought of hurting others rather than hurting yourself. Hurting them badly.
In other words, you learn nothing. You can’t learn to forgive Drew and his Douche Bags because you can’t learn to forgive yourself. Shit, maybe you never will.
During this stupid little reverie, your physical therapist makes a comment about your name, how it’s not one you hear every day. “What made your parents pick that?” she says.
You’re named Trenton, after New Jersey’s capitol, where your parents met. A city that used to be worth something.
Apropos for a person who used to be worth something.
END