Author: Barrett

What was it I was supposed to get again? Six pack of beer, bottle of wine and a twosix of vodka? I hate vodka I hope I don’t have to drink any of that shit. Maybe I could get rum instead, would anyone notice? I should just stick to what I’m supposed to get, what’s the point of agreeing on something if I just break my word? Will that be enough liquor or too much? There’s four of us, I think it will be good. Will it be too much? I think it will be ok. We’ll be pissed, but I guess that’s the point.

Here’s the little liquor store now. Haha, I wonder when they’ll know me on a first name basis. Then, there’s always a different staff member here, they’ll never recognize me. That’s ok. Who wants to be recognized at the liquor store? OK. What beer should I get? I’m putting up with vodka, I should at least get beer that I like. How drunk do I want to be? What a stupid question? How drunk do I want to get? Should I get pissed should I go crazy should I dance on top of tables? Haha. It’s fun to joke in my mind but I don’t like the bitterness that floats along with this stream of thought. Do I even want to drink tonight? Am I just drinking because that’s what there is to do? That’s what life is. You drink with your friends.

Maybe a hefeweisan. I like that, not a beer I’d want to get drunk off of but it’s something nice to just have the flavor of. Shit, it’s not cheap though. I suppose the good things in life cost money. That’s ok, it’s just money, there’s always more of it. Sure, let’s get this, maybe if I expose my friends to this they’ll like it and we won’t always have to get vodka. I guess everyone has different taste though, if you like vodka you like vodka. Everybody seems to like vodka, I’m the odd man out.

Where is the vodka? Here it is, at least it’s cheap. Is that why people like it? Just because it’s cheap? Maybe liquor is like a drug and this is just the easiest way to get a hit. Let it disappear in some orange juice and without having to deal with the liquor itself: boom, you’re pissed. I like the taste of a lot of liquors, does that change alcohol being a drug for me? Hell, it’s so cheap, I’ll get the bigger bottle.

Now for the fun part. Which wine should I choose. I’m no connoisseur, I don’t know what things should cost, but I figure I need to get something that is at least expensive enough so that if anybody sees it in the store they won’t think I’m a cheap fuck. It’s all the same to me. This bottle will be fine, I like the shape of it.

OK so what’s the damage at the till? Christ! How many hours did I have to work to pay for this. Well, we’ll share the tab, but still, that is more expensive than I thought. But it’s a night out and the good things in life cost money. Wasn’t I just thinking that? This is a heavy load to bring back, I should’ve driven to the liquor store but then it was such a nice day. It still is a nice day. A sore shoulder is not such a thing to suffer through. I guess I’m looking forward to tonight.

I’m trying not to look bored. Karen is talking about work. I guess it’s good to be talking about something. At least the food is good. It’s nice that Karen wanted to come out, but, I wonder if she really wanted to see me or if she just had a night to fill and I was the name that came to the tip of her tongue. Still it is nice of her. We’ve known each other for so many years, since early childhood, maybe it doesn’t make a difference if we really like each other anymore. Maybe there’s just something for being with each other, for knowing that she was there with me when I wasn’t who I am now.

The restaurant is lovely. Karen always had good taste. I usually hate fusion food but this is done right, I’ll have to remember this place. I wonder if I should tell Karen how much I like it? She always likes to feel like she’s the dominating one in our relationship. I don’t want to give her more to work with. There are lilacs in the corner, real ones. You don’t see real flowers so often anymore, it’s a nice touch. I will tell her I like this place very much.

I tell her, “Karen, really this place is wonderful. Thank-you for taking me here.”

She smiles graciously, saying “I thought you would like it, I came here a few weeks ago and there was just something about it that screams you. I made a point of taking you here.”

She is beaming and that is good. Nice of her to think of me. Did she arrange this night just to show off to me? That’s a mean thought, then, there is often a bit of truth in mean thoughts. That’s what makes them so mean. Still, it doesn’t change the fact that it is nice to be thought of.

I used to be the one who talked more than Karen. When we were young girls together in high school she was so quiet, I’m not even sure why we became friends. We were always so different. Funny, how in childhood just sitting next to a person can make you become friends for life. Maybe it’s not so different now, all these decades later, being friends with your coworkers, your neighbors. That’s ok though, I guess. She has been a good friend. I think she talks more now because of me. And maybe I talk a bit less now because of her. Maybe it’s good to talk less, maybe it’s better to listen. I wonder when we switched positions?

Of course I am listening to her and responding. It’s a pretty good conversation, she’s talking about how she’s aspiring for this new position. How it would be meaningful work. I hope she gets it. She deserves it. I just am not fully here tonight, my mind just a bit distracted. It’s like trying to stand on one foot, I’m just not able to get a steady balance tonight. I’m just a bit off. Nothing’s wrong, maybe it is just the weather. Sometimes I feel the changes in pressure in my head. Or maybe I’m just having a sugar low. Or maybe it is just one of those days. If I could I would just go for a walk by myself, maybe get some dark chocolate somewhere and just enjoy my aloneness. I wouldn’t do that to Karen though. This is where I need to be, this is what I need to do.

Out of the corner of my ear Karen says something I’m not expecting.

“Could you say that again?” I ask.

“Sure, sorry, I shouldn’t talk with my mouth full.” she says, “I was just asking if you’d heard what happened to Angelica? Remember, from high school? She was a bit of a friend of yours for awhile wasn’t she?”

“Yes,” I say, “I definitely remember her. What happened?”

Karen loves telling a juicy piece of gossip. I used to like that about her but now it just seems a little bit exhausting. Why does every conversation I have need to be so serious though? I wish I was more light hearted. She launches into her artificial sadness mode, whatever the news is she wants to seem like it hurts her even though it doesn’t. “Well,” Karen says, “My friend Susanna heard from her friend Laurel, who keeps up with everybody from high school, that Angelica was crossing the street after work a few days ago and got hit by some driver who just didn’t see her. Apparently, and I certainly hope it’s not true but I fear that it is, Angelica died right there on the spot. She leaves behind a husband and two kids. Tragic, isn’t it?” Karen looks at me with these big expectant eyes, does she know what Angelica was to me? She can’t. I don’t like her staring at me. I tell her that it is tragic and make small talk with her for a few minutes. I don’t want her to know the pain in my heart, it is private. It is just for me. I tell Karen about how excited my husband Paul is with the current lease rates on Toyotas, I tell her she should look into them. Then I tell her I need to use the ladies room.

I go in and thank  god it’s empty. I lean on the counter and I stare at myself in the mirror. Angelica is dead. When was the last time I thought about her? It’s been years. Does it make a difference to me that she is dead? Yes, yes it does. It should. Funny, how with Karen we have been friends for so long without really getting to know each other. With Angelica we were only friends that brief spurt of life, that one summer, yet, yet, still maybe no one in the world knows me better. Knew me better. She is dead. Do our memories together die too? Even when I never talked to her, never thought of her, it was still nice to know that somewhere she was out there and in her mind she would always remember me as that young girl who I’m not anymore, staring at her with eyes that could never have looked so innocent.

Both of our lives moved on after that. We loved each other but we were too young for that type of love. I think we were both afraid to commit to what a life like that would have meant. At least I know I was. It was innocent. It was wonderful. Do we idolize our youth for what it was, or do we idolize it just to have the memory of something beautiful in our mind, even if it is not true? Did her hand as it touched my face really make me feel the way I remember it? How can she be dead? How can she be dead? How can it be that all that time is gone, that life has moved on, that I won’t just wake up in my parent’s house and think of my sweet Angelica, my great secret. Everyone should have a great secret. Life is so unfair, that time only lets us go in one direction. I want to go back. I want to do things different. I want my life to be more than it is.

I have been in here too long. Karen will be getting impatient and start guessing why I’m taking such a long time. Just taking a really long shit dear Karen! I don’t want her thinking that I needed a moment to myself to think about Angelica. She remembers things like that, uses them against you because she doesn’t know how vulnerable other people can be. Just because she has such a thick skin shouldn’t mean that she should be allowed to puncture holes in others. I stare into my eyes one last time. Are these really the same eyes that used to sit inches away from Angelica’s face? My face has changed but my eyes are the same. I want to cry for what is lost, for what could have been and wasn’t. I need to get back to Karen.

The Greyhound was late. Isn’t it always late? It was after a fifteen hour journey that I arrived into Rapid City and I was exhausted. All I wanted was to be in a place that I could call home and instead I was going to spend a week with Tom. At the time I hadn’t seen Tom in over five years and I remember getting off the bus with this feeling of trepidation. Nothing too intense, mind you, this isn’t the start of a Stephen King novel. It’s just I was about to spend a week with someone who I’d long called one of my best friends even though I wasn’t really sure if we really knew each other anymore.

I was the first one off the bus because I hate being late. Even though the bus was out of my control, I was ashamed to be starting off by being a nuisance for Tom. Had he checked the bus schedule to see if it was going to be on time? I wouldn’t have. He was there though, in this ancient Volvo station wagon that looked like a relic from a decades old commercial and he was smiling. This big radiant smile. This sincere happiness to see me writ all over his face and it made me happy, so I cracked a big fat smile right back at him. Squeeking out of the back of the Volvo was this little pug, monstrous creature in the wrong light, yet here his manic freneticism was just a nice accent on a lovingly vivid scene. My smile grew even bigger.

“Good to see you Tom.” I said.

“Good to see you Bob.” He said.

We just stared at each other for a second, maybe both wondering if after five years it was still OK to hug, but that only lasted a second. A hug still means something, maybe a hug is one of those few things that have meaning and this hug had meaning. Makes me miss Tom just thinking about it, though I don’t think I could hug him today with that same ease. It’s amazing how time passes and it doesn’t pass. We broke the hug, he grabbed my bag and put it in the trunk while I got into the car.

“Whose this big bruiser?” I asked, tickling that perfect spot between the pugs ears.

“We call him T-Rex, because he’s so fearsome.” Tom replied, keeping a straight face while he watched the road. The little pug was at this moment belly up on my lap, with a great amount of dignity yelping for his belly to be rubbed.”

“T-Rex,” I said, “I like that. Must be quite the guard dog, no criminals could mess with this chap”

“Oh, no. He’s a terrible guard dog,” Tom said, “Being so good looking means he gets all the babes and by the time night rolls around he’s about as tired as a creature can be. If anything, I’d have to warn Rex that there was a burglar.” I grinned into myself, we don’t need to talk about who we are because we know each other. Friendship does mean something, I guess.

The drive through Rapid City to Tom’s house had me looking out the window. I’m not really a small town person, I don’t have anything against them, they’re just not really where I ever ended up. I like them though, I like the feeling that this isn’t some place where you need to be somebody you aren’t. You can just be you and people will respect that, even if your name is never lit up in lights or your mug never shows up on the television. People just living their lives, maybe I could get used to that.

We drove and drove, longer than I had been expecting. My god, he lives in a suburb, I thought. I didn’t even know towns this size could have suburbs but there we were, turning into his cul de sac. Nice little house he had, maybe it didn’t have a picket fence but it was close enough. He took my bag for me and let me walk in first. Maybe the house was little but in my long life I’ve never had so much space to myself, not before I went to Rapid City and not since. After being in apartment after apartment, people always living on the other side of the wall from me, walking into Tom’s house made me want to yell at the top of my lungs. Yell just to see how loud my voice could go, to revel in the fact that no one would care.

Out from the kitchen walks Brandy. I hadn’t forgotten that Tom was married, but I suppose it had slipped my mind a bit. He’d gotten married just a few months before, there hadn’t been a wedding. Brandy was looking lovely, this glow in her cheeks. Maybe it was the first time I’d seen her looking happy. Tom goes and gives her a hug and then I’m next in line. Even though I’m not really the hugging type I give her a bear hug.

“Congratulations, Congratulations and Congratulations.” I said.  She blushed and said, “Thanks Bob. Let me show you to your room.”

“This house is really great Brandie.” I said to her and I meant it. It was obviously a first home but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. A home is different than an apartment or a house where you are living month to month, a home is a place where you put your heart into it and here there was heart . She led me into my room which was bright and airy with a perfectly made bed dominating the center. Tom came into the room as I was putting my bag on the bed, saying with no small amount of satisfaction, “This will be your wing of the house. Brandie and I sleep on the other side of the house. Everything here is just for you.”

“Well thanks a lot Tom,” I said. After all this time it seemed my friend had become a pretty decent fellow.

—

Of course we were going to be drinking deep into the night. I think Tom had quieted down in the years since we’d seen each other and was looking to let loose the same way we did when we were kids. I had calmed down too, though in a different way than Tom, but I could do him this favor. Make for a night an illusion that things, just for a moment were the way they had been. I wanted that too, for a night.  He had the biggest bottle of vodka I’ve seen in my life and was rambling about how cheap it was. I nodded and made all the right noises but vodka is vodka. I guess I was judging him a bit, I don’t think vodka is a good choice. This night was going to be about Tom though.

The entire night was just a hoot. While looking back at my memories they pass like a montage, yet  I’m pretty sure at the time the night felt like a drunken montage as well. I remember pedaling some bike up a hill and being so drunk that I couldn’t understand how to switch the gears. I would just keep toppling over and then Tom would laugh so hard at me that he would topple over. We were smoking cigarettes or cigars or something, though I don’t remember it, just their taste on my mouth. Brandie said we stayed up till four in the morning, which I find hard to believe, but why would she lie. It wasn’t one of the best nights of my life, but then it was a very beautiful night. It was fun. It reminded me of why I was friends with this fellow in the first place.

—

The next morning I woke up groggy as a hibernating bear. I remember my brain flashing on for a second: where am I where am I where am I, then the first sight that I knew was the real world and not the fantasy of a dream was Tom’s mischievous smile conquering the room. Now what, I wondered, was he so happy about? And why, I also wondered, is he not feeling this same brain dead hangover as me?

“Mornin Bob. So, do you remember what you said last night?” He said with an airy seriousness. I heard Brandie guffaw in the hall. What did I get myself into last night, I wondered.

“Of course, I remember every word. I remember telling you my undying love for Brandie and how I should never have let you steal her.” I countered back at him. Brandie gave another laugh but Tom just seemed to brush my parry aside. Whatever it was that he was in such a damned good mood for, he wasn’t going to let me spoil it.

“Well Bob, remember when I dared you to paint your toe nails, and you said I could paint them if I could get to them? Do you remember saying that?” He said, I nodded slowly. There was some fuzzy recollection of this, why on earth had he cared so much about my toe nails? I guess everybody has their own strangeness.

He just rolled right on, “Well I bet you thought that I would have to fight you to paint them. But you know me, I like to think outside the box. Plus, beating you up is no fun anymore, I’d hate to break something on you. Bob, check your toe nails.” What the hell, I thought. Brandie came into the room laughing her head off. I pulled my sheets up and I’ll be if he hadn’t come into my room in the night and painted each one of my toes a different color. Brandie and Tom are in hysterics with each other, looking a merry picture except at my expense! He’d come into my room. He’d violated my personal space. The more disgusted I looked though, the more Brandie and Tom laughed and they broke me down. OK, I thought, this is a little funny. I cracked a grin that evolves into my own barrel laugh. As they say, when in Rome. This maybe isn’t the fun I wanted to have, but hell, let’s call it fun regardless.

—

After stepping out of the shower I heard Brandie yelling, “Breakfast is ready.” Now normally I would never eat breakfast, yes, I know a bad habit. That day though, after all that liquor, well some pancakes or whatever deliciousness it was I smelled from Brandies kitchen, well that was exactly what I was in the mood for. I threw on just a pair of good old blue jeans and a shirt and as quick as you could say bacon hashbrowns I was sitting down at the table with Brandie and Tom.

I remember thinking: wow, what a spread. Really, I was figuring this whole marriage thing might have something to it. Tom was yapping at me about the toe nails, even taking a picture to send to friends, but by this time I was thinking it was pretty funny too. It’s good to let loose in life, to just laugh a good barrel laugh and let it be honest. There was a smile glued to my face and it wasn’t leaving. I was just swimming through the food. French toast slathered with butter and soaked in good proper maple syrup. Bacon that you could sink teeth into. Eggs just runny enough that your could soak up the yolk with a piece of bread. My god, just thinking about it and I can feel my stomach rumble.

“You know, Bob, for somebody so small you can really pack the food away.” Brandie said to me, with a gentle smile.

“Well,” I said to Brandie, adding some more butter to my French toast, “Where I come from, it’s not good manners to make fun of a fellows bulimia.”

She looked me straight in the eyes to see if I was joking but I’d kept a straight face and the smile wilted right from her face. She stammered, “Oh Bob, I’m sorry….” Christ, I thought, what had Tom been telling her about me that she would even entertain this. I said to her, “Oh please I’m just joking.” but it felt like the mood was spoiled a bit. The food was starting to feel like a heavy weight in my stomach and it became a bit tasteless.

In the corner was Tom just giving Brandie a 10/10 glower. This sour face could teach lemons a lesson. How quickly, I thought, the clouds can come in front of the sun. We all kept eating in silence, I think all of us realizing that somehow the record of our morning had come off kilter. All of us wanting it to get back to smooth sunny tunes but afraid that maybe this static was the new norm. Actually, no, I think already at this point there was something in Tom that just wanted to strike, to be vicious. Every person has a demon in them, has something outside of their control, I think Tom’s was always closer to the surface.

After breakfast Brandie took the dishes away. Tom and went for a bit of a stroll just around the block and it was a nice time. We just chatted to chat and I forgot about the awkward breakfast. Tom’s mind is quite a lively one, he was keeping me on my toes.

“Well, if the government debt is 90% of GDP,” he was saying to me, “And an economy starts to be damaged at anything in excess of 90%, then isn’t the time to change our financial motivations right now? We are crossing a threshold.

“Yes, it’s true.” I replied, “But the fact is that we aren’t doing small scale experiments trying to gauge the right way forward. We have an all or nothing shot. We decided to follow this route of taking on debt to spur growth and everyone would agree it hasn’t met even the lowest benchmarks. But to count it as a failure is the difference between building a house where the roof is unfinished while it’s raining, and starting fresh again in the rain. We might have built this wrong, or at the wrong time, but this work has started something, and an incomplete start is still better than starting at zero.”

He nodded and we kept walking on. Talking and talking, isn’t that the foundation of every conversation. Yet, it felt to me like his heart wasn’t fully into it. His mind was elsewhere.  We got back to the house, this part I remember very clearly. He walked in and looked Brandie up and looked Brandie down. He noticed she was eating peanut butter and this is what he focused on, but I’m sure she could have been doing anything and it would have been the exact same result.

“Who, the fuck, said you could eat my peanut butter?” he said to her. Voice calm but the restrained anger making the words bubble. They hit Brandie hard, like fists, like she knew where this conversation was going to go. That she knew this was going to hurt.

“I asked you a question? Why don’t you say anything back? Why are you eating my peanut butter?” He said, his voice even more seething.

“I didn’t think it was a big deal….” She said until Tom cut her off, now shouting in that broken voice of a little boy, “Didn’t think it was a big deal? You take my shit, you think everything is yours? Who gave you your fucking life? This house? Those clothes? That car? And that isn’t a fucking enough? You have to take my peanut butter too. You know what you are, Brandie, you’re a bitch. An ungrateful bitch.”

I was just sitting there shell shocked. How can anyone who just a few hours before be brimming with love for a person let it invert so quickly? I opened my mouth to say something but I suppose I was a coward because no words came out. Brandie, her eyes filled with tears dissipates into the master bedroom. A moment of silence befalls where Tom seems to be waiting, anticipating Brandie to make the next step. Suddenly there was a crash and Tom seems almost happy, like there is a game being played and Brandie has just played into his hand. He had this reptilian grin for just a second, then he stood up and knocked on the door of the room. There was crashing and booms.

“Let me in,” Tom said calmly. “Let me in Brandie, don’t do this.”

“You’re making me do this, Tom, you’re fucking making me. Fuck you.” She screeched back, punctuating syllables with crashes of items hitting walls.

“Now, Brandie, you’re being irrational. Please, just calm down. I want to talk to you like you’re an adult but you’re not let letting me do that are you? Are you going to calm down.”

“No. Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare talk to me like that, like I’m a child. You started this.”

Tom’s face had become reprehensibly reptilian by this point, I can’t even stare at him. I wanted to leave but I guess I really was a chicken, am a chicken. I just sat right there. “Now Brandie,” Tom cooed, if you don’t open this door I’m going to have to break it down. Now we don’t want that do we? So are we going to open it or no?” There was silence on the other end of the, then the click of the door being unlocked. Then there was silence. My god, I thought, Tom is enjoying this. He was loving this.

My mind turns on. Where was it before? In sleep. Will this be death, one day, that blackness that was me a moment ago without this wake up? Where am I? My eyes are still shut. Something doesn’t feel right. Maybe every waking up feels like this. Maybe this is that moment of time that I forget in the morning every day, my brain being for a moment like a new born babes as it restarts. No, this is not normal. Why am I sitting? I don’t ever sleep when I’m sitting. What the fuck. Shit, this has nothing to do with sleep. I’m awake now. Fuck. I feel empty. I don’t want to open my eyes. I’m covered in something. Christ.

1. Let’s be a man. Where the hell am I? Let’s open my eyes. Ok ok. Ok ok. My brain isn’t clicking into gear. Am I thinking rationally. I’m being a baby. I just don’t want to open my eyes. Well, fuck it, now they’re open. Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. Oh fuck. I’m covered in blood. Jesus shit, is it mine, am I dying, am I in pain? I don’t feel hurt. I feel kind of awake and a bit out of sorts but not hurting. What is going on? What happened last night? Yeah, I was at a bar but where did my night end? I can’t remember. Did I drink that much? Christ. I should have been smarter. I should be smarter. OK. OK. Just let everything be ok today, let all of this just have some simple explanation and I will be better. I’ve learned my lesson right? I cross myself. OK. OK. Where am I? I’ve never been here before. What a fucking shitty room. OK. I’m sitting in a corner and it looks like a studio apartment. Where is this? I’m covered in blood and there is blood covering the room. What has happened? The room is small, cramped and squalid. I don’t want to be here. Empty beer bottles line the kitchen counter. Pictures of long ago celebrities in cheap frames cover the wall. There are boxes full of clothes and paper cluttering every corner. Oh god. And what’s that in that corner. Oh my god, it’s a person. A man. And he’s covered in blood. Oh god oh god. What happened here?
2. I stand up. Oh shit what a head rush. OK, I’m in a weirder physical state then I thought. Is it this panic that has flooded my mind? I can’t stand right now though. OK. Let’s crawl over and look at this man. I don’t recognize him. He has been stabbed. I….I……I should check for a pulse. Oh…o….oh god. He’s dead. He’s dead. There is no pulse? Am I sure? I’ve never had to check for a pulse before, could I have done it wrong? Maybe I did it wrong. OK let me do it again. No. No. He’s dead. Look at him. Holes all over his body. Blood everywhere. Who is this guy. Oh my god, where is his killer? I need to get out of here. I’m going to be killed next. OK. Let me stand up for real this time. OK. Three, two, one. Here I am. I’m up. Let’s get out of this shit hole. Let this scene just dissolve into some nameless dream, let this not be real. Could this be a lucid dream? I’ve had them before. How did I get here? Maybe this is a dream? I don’t remember getting here. I wish I hadn’t drunk so fucking much. Christ. OK. Well. Well. I can’t pretend this is a dream because what if it isn’t? Let me get the fuck out of here right now. OK. OK. Which door is out. That one is just a door to another room. Where’s my wallet? Just let me get out of here. Wait, there it is. In the corner. In the corner with a fucking bloody knife. I know that knife, that’s my pocket knife. It’s covered in blood.

I’m back on the ground. How did I fall here? Why didn’t my legs keep me up? Why is my knife covered in blood? How would this killer have gotten my knife? Is that the one that he used to murder this fellow? Brain! Fucking work. Fill in these fucking details. Fuck. OK. OK. Let’s get out of here. I’m covered in blood but that’s ok, I’ll get out of here and call the police and they’ll capture the fucking murderer who did this.

No! A flash lights something dark in my mind that I won’t want to see. I don’t want that thought to bubble to the service. Let me look at other spots of my mind. Let me distract myself. I don’t want to confront this idea. It is not something that should be brought up. Oh, but I can’t  keep it at bay. Please, please, please. No, no, no. Oh here it is, like a light switch in pitch black I’m blinded. Could I have stabbed this man to death? I have never committed a crime before in my life, I’ve never even been in a fight. The knife is just for cutting fruit. Yet, there is a man dead here, in the room with me. Here I am covered in blood, carrying my knife that is covered in blood. It can’t be true. I’ve never seen this man before. I’ve never been in this room before. Why did I drink so much? Why would I have gotten so fucked up? Last night was a fun night but what happened? Where are my friends? How could no one have taken care of me? What the hell.

1. Let me calm down. Time is precious right now. My brain is subtly telling me that I was the one who stabbed this man. I know because unconsciously my fear of a killer barreling through the door and killing me is gone. I must know at some level that I am the killer. Oh my god. I killed a man. I killed this man. Who was he. Ugly wasn’t he? That’s a terrible thought. What’s the difference? I killed this man. I’m a killer, I’m a killer, I’m a killer, a murderer, a sinner, I am Satan I am the devil I will never go to heaven. I am going to go to prison. How could this have happened. What should I do? Can’t I just make this so it didn’t happen? Can’t this just all go away. I am not a bad man, I am not a killer. I may not remember last night but I know myself. Maybe this guy started the fight? Why am I in this apartment? Is this his apartment? Maybe he invited me over for a drink and he wanted to rob me or kill me or something and I just protected myself? OK. That would be less bad. Would I still be a killer? No. No, I would have just been protecting myself.
2. So what should I do. Should I just call the police and throw myself at their mercy? There must be some evidence that this man was a bad man. But, what if there isn’t? This could destroy my life. I’m supposed to go to work tomorrow. What would my parents think? What other options do I have? I remember seeing on TV a criminal feeding bodies to pigs. Or there is that show where the drug dealers use chemicals to melt a body into a sludge. I can’t do either of those though, that’s not me! What do I do? I don’t exactly have a feed lot of pigs and I’m definitely not some chemist. What do I do? Why can’t this just not have happened? Ok. Ok. Ok. I need fresh air. I need to get away from here. But I’m covered in blood. What if I killed this man in cold blood? What if my drunk self just killed this man for some drunken reason and that would make me a murderer. My life is ruined. I couldn’t have done that. My life is ruined. Why did I drink so much? This all didn’t have to happen.
3. So what should I do. I want to make this go away. What if I just change my clothes, there must be clothes in the closet. Then, well, well, well let’s be honest brain, what are my options? I could burn this building to the ground and get rid of the evidence and maybe everything would just disappear and be like it was before. What if there are other people in this building, what if they were to become trapped? But there has to be fire escapes and fire alarms. How do I burn this building down if it has fire escapes and fire alarms? What if all I do is draw the authorities attention to here? Could I just clean up the evidence? I can’t remember how I got here though. I must be on some video camera somewhere. Where is a phone? It seemed smart not bringing my phone out last night so that I wouldn’t take the chance of losing it. Who should I call? I only know my mother’s number offhand. I can’t call her. What do I do what do I do what do I do?
4. Let me be a man. Let me be a man. Let me call the police. Let me tell them the truth, that I was fucking drunk and just don’t fucking know what the fuck fucking happened. Let me be a man. Let me be a man. Let them try to piece all of this together. Fuck it, fuck my life, let it be ruined, whatever, fuck it. If it turns out that I did kill this fucking guy, well, let them lock me up. I should be locked up if I could have done this. OK. Ok. Where is the phone. Let me just act now without thinking this through all the way. Let me just act. Here is the phone and I am dialing and and and, what will happen?

Barrett Nash goes to the bar across the street for no particular reason other than the fact that it is close and it has vegetarian chicken wings. What is a vegetarian chicken wing, he wonders. It’s made out of seitan, but what is seitan? He’s in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, just for a day and a night and a day, killing time before taking a late night bus to New York.

The bar is called Remedy and Barrett is familiar with it because it was used as a landmark that took him to “Not a Hostel,” the illegal hostel that’s been set up in the neighborhood. While he’s never been to Pittsburg before, he’ll leave it with fond memories, mostly due to the time he spends at Remedy.

When he walks in its busy. It’s a Saturday night, of course it is busy, but Barrett forgot that it was  a Saturday night. He’s been on the road for a few weeks and time has a habit of disappearing when you’re on the road. He was looking for a quiet night but it doesn’t seem like that’s going to be in the cards and before he gets two steps away from the door a man blares into his ear the question, “Where you from.” Barrett tells him he’s from Canada and the man, who introduces himself as Keith, maybe because he is a bit drunk or maybe because he is just excited to have an out of towner to talk to offers to buy Barrett a drink. Why not, Barrett thinks, a drink is a drink and he sits down.

While Keith is yelling to the bar tender to get Barrett a beer, the name of which doesn’t land into Barrett’s ear, Barrett takes a look around the bar. All bars are the same aren’t they? Sure, there’s a superficial layer but once you scrape that away a bar is a bar, it is just a reflection of the people sitting in it. This bar is full and raucous, a full bar with a line of older men watching baseball backed by maybe a dozen smaller tables where small groups of men and women talk to each other with serious gazes.

The beer comes and Barrett tells Keith it’s fantastic, even though it just tastes like every other lager he’s ever had. It’s been brewed in Pittsburg and it’s polite to cheer for the home brew. Keith is with two other friends, he’s introduced to them and they form a bit of a group for the night but neither of them remember his name and he never really catches their names. Maybe one of them was called big Tom? Big something. Or maybe he’s just a big guy. The big fellow tell Barrett not to even look at the menu, just to order the honey mustard chicken wings. Barrett figures why not, but the big man nearly falls off his seat when he hears Barrett order the seitan vegetarian chicken wings. “Why would you want to do that?” Big Tom grumbles. Barrett says he’s a vegetarian and Big Tom mumbles under his breath a bit but he just seems to enjoy grumbling. He’s buying everybody drinks throughout the night and you get the feeling that he’s all bark, no bite. That he’s having a great time. The other fellow, let’s call him Pony because of his long Pony tail, defends Barrett for being a vegetarian. He doesn’t really seem to care, he just seems to want to be jumping into the conversation.

The night carries on like this, with Big Tom, Keith and Pony talking to Barrett. They’re telling him about what makes Pittsburg a great city, they’re telling him about their favorite sports teams and what makes them great, they tell him about America’s past, present and future. They seem to be talking for a love of talking, for a love of what they’re talking about and a sincere pleasure of giving their opinions to someone to whom these opinions are still fresh. The conversation is good, Barrett is having a great time.

Keith in particular is talking a mile a minute, full of passion. He works for the railway, yet, he says he used to be an artist. One might wonder if this duality is the reason why he is talking so fast, perhaps he is trying to prove something. The conversation is good, soon Pony and Big Tom fade away leaving just Barrett and Greg to talk one on one.

Barrett is listening as Keith describes what makes Pittsburg such a great place to live. “You see,” says Keith, “Pittsburg is not a city. It is all these neighborhoods. Sure, it’s a big city, but it’s a big city made out of small neighborhoods. You get to know each other.”

“It does seem like a really friendly city. It doesn’t feel like