88*

He had already said goodbye to his dog ten times, but he couldn’t help to hug him four more. The hot tears went cold as he shut the back door of the house and for the first time in a week he remembered that it was late December, the day before Christmas Eve, nine days until January. New year, new start.

Forty-five days had passed since the event horizon. Seven days ago everything went black. Six days since keeping the 24-hour rule alive. Five days earlier came the flu and hopefully not something related to the previous “unprotected” evening. Three days from when his clothes stopped fitting and less than 48 hours ago he watched the moon eclipse with the next in line*. Yesterday belongings were packed. Today— it was fucking over.

The text message came within the hour. A request to occupy that which he had vacated. A decade of friendship that hinged on his ability to create opportunities while the lessor waited patiently to take credit, capitalize and conquer that which he did not.

Sloppy seconds

Dogs under the dinner table

Vultures circling above

—-

Knives. alcohol and disguises. Hack, kill and destroy. She didn’t have to worry, no one was paying attention, not even him. Shiva the god of destruction. Party City was out of that costume, but she went as the Devil— Beelzebub, Meryl Streep, Roseanne Barr.

Karaoke was scary and he stood by as she sang her theme song, “Material Girl”. “25 Minutes To Go” was his choice and in hindsight it was fitting. The two words he woke up to felt like a rope around his neck, “No future”. He tried to break it down. “No future with her or not future at all?”

Books, junk mail, used napkins, anything that he could put a pen to had those words on them. He scratched them in to the picnic table in the backyard with a dinner knife and they felt like they were seared into his heart with a hot iron. The words left his lips so many times that they began to lose meaning.

—-

1992, the Kentucky Wildcats NCAA Basketball team lost in the Final Four to the the Duke Blue Devils. Kentucky was up by one point with 2.1 seconds left on the clock. Christian Laetner of Duke caught a cross court pass and hit a turn around jumper at the buzzer to win the game. Ten years old, he watched his Dad, who was a Kentucky Alumni, die a little that day, the same way his Dad heard him dying over the phone that night while throwing up in the driveway. Sick. Not drunk. Annihilated. Hank Williams playing on a broken turn table*.

—-

His new apartment was small, like a prison, an island, exile. You can’t jump off the balcony when you live on the first floor. His friend lived in a high rise and it was tempting, but he didn’t want to die and twins* weren’t worth the pain. The story went that a couple the building over had a lover’s quarrel and one jumped off the balcony to prove a point. Point made.

—-

271 days later he got sick of missing his dog. E-mails, texts, phone calls, coffee, boredom. It reminded him of running in to someone from High School who won the superlative for “Most Likely To Not Be So God Damn Boring Over Coffee” and should be forced to forfeit the award Reggie Bush Style.

He got in to his car to leave and wished it was an ‘82 DeLorean.