The Most Bangable Marvel Movie Characters

It’s a question as old as time: which Marvel character would I rather bang? No matter how many times you ask me this, I’m never prepared. 

I run through a list of potential superhero suitors in my head. I immediately cross off Bruce Banner since I feel like he wouldn’t listen to my needs and it would just be a terrible experience all-around. I also fear that he might snap halfway through and I’d be done for.

I recall the one time we were in Union Square, and a tiny green dude dressed up as the Hulk threatened to beat us up if we didn’t give him $40 for a picture he snapped of us after he stole our phones while we were eating lunch. That day we learned our lesson to steer clear of the mascots in NYC altogether. They’re emotionally unpredictable.

I then tell you, that if I had to choose, I’d do Captain America. Not only does he have a nice butt, but he seems like he would be a gentleman and call a cab for me in the morning then text to see if I got home okay. 

You snicker, disappointed with my answer, and tell me I’m vanilla, predictable, and that personally you prefer your heroes to have a little more grit to them. That’s why you’d bang Thanos because he’s so fearsome. So strong. You’re convinced that you would be his queen and the world would be yours in no time.

I laugh at the thought of you and Thanos being the ultimate MCU power couple, people clamoring for autographs, companies begging y’all to sponsor their space guns on Instagram, the eventual reality tv spinoffs getting made.

But the more i think about your choice, the more I’m convinced that Thanos would be boring in bed, and he would most likely just lay there like a dead fish, making you do all the work. That’s why, in my mind, Ant-Man is the obvious answer when it comes to most bangable.

One of the coolest things about Ant-Man is that he can shrink down to microscopic size. I feel like that would be a desirable trait for a partner to have, especially since they could easily sneak into a bank and steal mad money without anyone noticing.

Imagine how life changing 1 million dollars would be?

Probably not that much because I’d quickly spend it all on something stupid like trying to revive JNCO Jeans or lose it in a bitcoin trading scam. 

It’s a good thing this reality will never happen. Way too much responsibility for an idiot like me to handle but I have no shame in admitting that so it’s whatever. I guess Thanos it is.

With Feet at the Edge of the Abyss, Part 3

“You know what your problem is? You need to lighten up.”

The man is bald with a trimmed, black goatee. His eyes are sunken and dulled. By the inflection in his voice it seems like he didn’t introduce the conversation with this point. He must be responding to something I said. 

When I fail to answer, he elaborates on his advice to fill the space. “I look at you and all I see is me when I was your age—how old are you?”

“Twenty-four,” I say.

“Jesus. You know what I was doing when I was your age? I was shooting heroin on a mattress in a foreclosed house with four other degenerates believing we were gonna be rock stars. Now, I can see you’re not as far gone as I was. You’ve still got some of that light in your eyes, though you’re doing everything you can to kill it. I’m sure you know that. But I’m gonna tell you something I wish someone had told me before I ruined it all by being a stupid fucking kid. I want you to listen to this. Really listen to me, Henry: Hating the world does nothing but make the world hate you back. I wasted my twenties being angry and sad thinking the world owed me something—thinking I’d never grow old and eventually it would all make sense once I got X, Y, or fuckin’ Z. But it doesn’t work like that. I destroyed what could have been my happiest years because I thought it made sense to feel bad. And now I’m fifty years old. Fifty. Jesus…fifty. You know what I know now? Despite everything I did in my power to destroy my life and feel sadness and hate the world, those were still the best years of my life. Because I was young. I had the whole world ahead of me. There was hope despite it all. That’s why I thought I could throw it all away. I would never have admitted that at the time, but it was true. No matter how much I destroyed my life there was this little flame inside me that said ‘don’t give up. There’s still time.’ But now I’m fifty. There’s no hope anymore. There’s no time. So lighten the fuck up. Appreciate what the fuck you have. Get your head out of your ass and smile, before you wake up one day and see a bitter, miserable old man staring at you in the mirror. And trust me, it will happen. Faster than you think. This whole depressed alcoholic shtick is a lot less charming when you’re fat, middle-aged and bald. You have hope. Do something real with it.”

I blink.

The walls are blood red. The stools are red also, and they have tears in them. My stool wobbles when I sway too far to the right. Black lights glow in phosphorescent blues and purples across the graffiti tags covering the ceiling and walls like an invasive mold. Erratic punk music explodes all around me and drowns out any voices I would otherwise hear. There are paintings of naked women hung next to framed black and white photographs of midgets standing next to slain bears hanging upside down from ropes. The bar is busy. The people look like me—they look like they’re my age—but they have spiked mohawks and facial piercings and wear black leather jackets with patches sewn into them that say things like “SUCK MY CUNT, I’M A FEMINIST” and “BORN TO PAY TAXES AND FUCKING DIE”. I feel as though I’ve stepped into what Hell looks like to a Motörhead fan. I don’t mind this place.

Rebecca must be here somewhere but I don’t care anymore. It’s become far too interesting to play time-traveler and see where this takes me.

“WHAT WAS THAT?”

My head jolts up from the wood counter. Someone is screaming at me over the music.

“CAN YOU HEAR ME? I DIDN’T HEAR WHAT YOU SAID, MAN.”

I look over. It’s a man. The man is trying to talk to me. He looks like Zakk Wylde. He looks like he sells drugs. Am I buying drugs from him?

“I FORGOT WHAT I WAS SAYING,” I scream back. “I DON’T HAVE MUCH MONEY THOUGH. I GOT FIRED TODAY.” I pull on the collar of my shirt and point to my ex-employer’s logo over the chest.

Zakk Wylde looks at me for a moment. He seems confused. “WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, MAN?”

I point at the logo again. “I GOT FIRED TODAY SO I DON’T HAVE MUCH MONEY. CAN YOU FRONT ME? I’M GOOD FOR IT, MAN, I’M GONNA BE A PUBLISHED AUTHOR. YOU CAN BE MY PERSONAL DRUG DEALER. LET’S GO FUCKIN’ HOLLYWOOD TOGETHER, MAN.”

He pauses to sort through what I’m saying for anything discernable. “YEAH, NO—WAIT, WHAT? NO, I DON’T HAVE ANY DRUGS. YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT THE BOOK, MAN.”

“FUCK THE BOOK!” I scream reflexively. “THE BOOK IS SHIT. PRINT IS DYING ANYWAY, FUCK IT. BUNCHA PIECE ‘A SHIT MILLENNIALS TWEETING NUDES AND SKIMMING BUZZFEED HEADLINES INSTEAD OF READING A GODDAMN NOVEL. FUCK IT.”

“BUT YOU’RE A MILLENNIAL, AREN’T YOU?”

“THAT’S BESIDE THE POINT.”

“THEN WHAT’S THE POINT?”

“THE POINT IS…” I think about my answer. What has me so bothered? There’s this drunken little voice growling something inside my chest. He’s hiding between my lungs, nestled up against my sternum, and he’s growling words. I allow the world around to grow quiet, and when I can make out the words the little drunken man inside me is growling so intently, I mimic the words to Zakk Wylde as if I’m the magnified voice filtered through the other end of a megaphone. As the first word falls off my tongue, I can already feel the avalanche of a booze-soaked diatribe forcing its way up my throat. It’s too late now. 

“…THE POINT IS…NOTHING HAS EVER GONE RIGHT FOR ME. IT’S BEEN ONE MASSIVE FUCKING MISSTEP AFTER ANOTHER. I DESTROY…EVERYTHING I TOUCH. I’M LIKE THE SHITTY, BOTCHED, DOLLAR-STORE VERSION OF KING MIDAS. AND ALL I WANT IS TO BE BETTER. I WANNA BE NORMAL, MAN. I REMEMBER I USED TO SAY, ‘I’D RATHER BE FUCKED UP AND INTERESTING THAN NORMAL AND BORING.’ BUT THAT’S FUCKIN’ BULLSHIT, ZAKK WYLDE. I WANT A WIFE AND KIDS AND TO WAKE UP AND SMILE SOMEGODDAMNTIMES. GIVE ME THE NINE TO FIVE AND THE BEER IN FRONT OF THE TV AFTER WORK AND A YARD WITH THE WHITE MOTHERFUCKING PICKET FENCE AND THE COCKTAIL OF ANTI-DEPRESSANTS AND MOOD STABILIZERS TO KEEP ME FROM SWAN-DIVING OFF THE FUCKING ROOF. ANYTHING HAS GOTTA BE BETTER THAN THIS.

“BUT NOW THERE’S THIS BOOK. THIS IS THE BEST THING THAT’S EVER HAPPENED TO ME—IT’S ALL I’VE EVER WANTED, ZAKK WYLDE. BUT YOU KNOW HOW I ENDED UP WITH THIS BOOK—THIS GIANT FUCKING BLESSING FROM THE HEAVENS? BY BEING A SOCIOPATHIC, MENTALLY ILL ALCOHOLIC FOR THREE YEARS. NOW, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU EXPECT ME TO TAKE FROM THAT, ZAKK WYLDE? THAT THE ONE GOOD THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME WAS A DIRECT RESULT OF BEING THE WORST HUMAN BEING I’VE EVER ALLOWED MYSELF TO BE. IT’S LIKE THE UNIVERSE IS GIVING ME PERMISSION TO CONTINUE BEING A PIECE OF SHIT. IT’S SAYING TO ME, ‘DON’T CHANGE, HENRY. DON’T GET BETTER. IF YOU STAY MISERABLE, THEN YOU CAN FINALLY BE SOMEBODY. IF YOU JUST KEEP DESTROYING YOUR LIFE, THEN IT’LL ALL PAY OFF IN THE END.’

“AND IT’S NOT LIKE I HAVE ANY EVIDENCE THAT WOULD PROVE ANYTHING TO THE CONTRARY. THE UNIVERSE IS PATTING ME ON THE BACK FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE FOR, ESSENTIALLY, BEING A BAD PERSON. SO I’M ASKING YOU, ZAKK WYLDE, NOW THAT THIS HAS HAPPENED, WHY THE FUCK WOULD I WANNA STOP NOW?”

The man stares at me for a long time. “JUST WRITE ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE,” he says. He drinks from his beer. “WHO THE FUCK IS ZAKK WYLDE?”

I blink.

My face is twisted into a sob. I can feel the heat on the surface of my face as the skin puffs and tightens through the tears and stress. I am curled into the fetal position on Rebecca’s couch. Rebecca is there next to me, her arm loose over my shoulder. She is uncomfortable and doesn’t know how to handle this. Neither do I. I don’t know what’s caused this.

Her image fades in and out between blinks, and once the brief blackness is traded back again for the familiarity of her apartment, Rebecca appears in different positions, sometimes standing across the room, and I call out between terrified wails for her to return by my side.

An exercise occurs to me that my therapist had once taught me to use when amidst the throes of a panic attack. He called it a grounding exercise. I’m not sure if what’s happening to me is in fact a panic attack but it seems similar enough, so I try to retrieve from my fractured memory what the actual exercise is. The most I can pull is that it has something to do with focusing on anything physical and tangible occurring in the direct world around you—the point being to take yourself out of the intangible world within your head, if at least for a moment—but I’m so drunk that the most I can glean from the concept is to call out the name of the object closest to me, so now I’m screaming TABLE TABLE TABLE TABLE over and over like a mentally handicapped person as the tears begin filling the insides of my ears and the world becomes a giant bathtub.

Rebecca is there and she squeezes my arm to stop me, and says, “Calm down. Tell me what’s going on.”

“Did you know that penguins mate for life?” I say. Sobs and chokes cascade across the words like cement poured over a wilting garden.

“What?”

“Scientists have studied them. They waddle around and find a mate in the colony. Then they fall in penguin-love and they never cheat with other, bigger-dicked penguins or get a penguin-divorce. They stay together forever.”

“Henry, what are you talking about?”

“And then they make an egg and the mom goes into the ocean to find fish to stay strong for the dad and not-yet-baby, and the dad sits there with the egg on his feet for months, Rebecca. He takes care of it. He keeps it warm and safe. And she always comes back.” My sobs are intensifying now. I’ve remembered why I am crying. “She always comes back. They love each other.”

“Henry…”

“I want the egg. I want my penguin. Everybody else gets to have the egg. Everybody else gets their penguin. I don’t wanna do this anymore. I just wanna take care of the egg. I want my own penguin.”

Rebecca says, “Henry, I don’t know what to say.” 

And she doesn’t. She doesn’t say anything else.

I close one eye and order an Uber, asking Rebecca to type in her address because I’ve forgotten what city I’m in, let alone what part of town. “I have to go,” I say. “Today is over.” This is the closest thing to a fact that I can think of so it’s what I decide to say. 

And then I blink.

She has brown hair that looks coarse and brittle. It falls flat over her back and shoulders. Her nose is large and angular like a protruding triangle. I can’t see her eyes well enough in the darkness of the car. This bothers me. It’s hard for me to trust people if I can’t see the light in their eyes. Still, I carry on with mindless chatter, excited that the change in environment has measurably improved my mood.

Aiidongowantomayva is what my words come out sounding like, but she responds with, “That sounds like a day” and “Well, you’ll be home soon”, so from an outside perspective I must be making enough sense to sustain a dialogue. My tongue feels like it’s disconnected from my mouth.

Through the passenger window I can see shades of black and orange blending and pirouetting between each other as we pass through wooded roads and well-lit streets. We drive across a bridge and in the distance the city skyline burns with yellows and reds and blues all blinking and buzzing, and below us the river is solid and black. The current doesn’t seem to exist and it looks dead. I can’t imagine that underneath the surface there is anything any more alive than the stagnant river. I imagine that blanketing the riverbed is a graveyard of motionless, decaying fish and that’s all there is. Soon the whole city of blinking and buzzing colors will be no different, and this thought doesn’t feel saddening but only inevitable and I accept this.

The car stops. We’re outside my home. She is looking at me and I say, “You have cigarette?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Do you wanna smoke one with me?”

“Sure,” I say.

We step outside and lean on the back of her car. I light the wrong end of the cigarette so she takes it out of my mouth, turns it around and lights it for me. Under the natural light of the stars her facial features become more prominent, and by the forehead wrinkles and weathered, tired expression I can tell that she is probably in her mid to late-thirties.

She stares at me through the glowing cherry hovering in front of my nose and then says, “Do you wanna keep hanging out?”

Today I have not yet been left alone. I have become lost in the tedious storm of booze, barflies, blinding white noise, lackadaisical supervision, disarmingly poor social etiquette, black humor, masochism and self-hatred to the point where I can no longer recognize myself, all under the guise of either a celebration or a Leaving Las Vegas-style suicide mission, but in truth it has all only been for the sole purpose of staving off this exact moment. For the better part of a half-decade I have driven the hollow and numbing possibilities of excess to the brink of the edge. And for whatever reason it has not been until this night, this day of all days, that I have at last reached that edge, and am now finally left with nothing but the apathetic face before me, and the endless, black abyss of a realization staring back from beneath the ends of my feet: I am alone. And I am terrified. I am very, profoundly alone.

“Yeah,” I say.

She pulls out her phone. “I’ll find somewhere to take us.”

I’m not sure what this means but I want someone to take care of me so I don’t question getting back into the car.

“I’m off the clock,” she says. “Don’t worry, you’re not being charged.”

“Okay.”

She brings us to a park in the woods. I know this park. When we were little kids my best friend and I used to go deep down into the creek at the heart of the forest and catch salamanders. They would hide underneath the rocks close enough to the creek that small amounts of water would seep in underneath and provide them with comfortable homes. They were small and black and had two stripes running down their backs. Sometimes the stripes were red and sometimes they were yellow.

“This should work,” she says. “Come on.”

I get out and stumble on the uneven dirt, and she grabs my hand and leads me down the dark path towards the creek. We stop at a bench and she sits me down next to her like a toddler. It’s pitch-black and warm, and I can hear the running water of the creek just beyond the veil of the shadows. This creek is still alive. The salamanders are still alive under those rocks. I know it.

I feel her hand on my face and then her lips on mine, and I kiss her back because that is what you’re suppose to do when someone kisses you. Then she is grabbing me and groping at me, and her arms are around me and she pushes me onto the ground next to the bench. She begins taking off my belt and pulling down my pants and she takes her pants off.

“Put it in me,” she says.

“I think I’m too drunk,” I tell her.

“Kiss me then.”

I do and it hardens, and she takes my hips and pulls me in towards her.

“Condom?” I manage.

“My tubes are tied,” she says. “Put it in.”

I don’t know if I want this. I don’t know where the line is. No one ever taught me this. 

“Are you clean?” I mumble.

“Yeah, yeah, just do it.”

I don’t feel anything. She is silent as I do it. Rocks cut into my shins and knees until I know that in the morning the inside of my jeans will be stained with black, crusted blood. I don’t want this.

“I’m not gonna come,” I say.

“Alright,” she says. “Let’s go.”

We stand up and put our pants back on, and in silence we walk back up the trail I had taken a hundred times as a child. This park was my favorite place in the world. It was magical. Beautiful little creatures hid underneath rocks for us to find and the creek never stopped running and the trees swayed in the wind and protected us from the elements. Fifteen years ago this park was the most magical place I’d ever been.

We drive back to my home and she stops in the street, letting her car idle. We have not spoken.

“Do you even remember my name?” she asks me.

“Jordan?” I slur.

“It’s Jessica. Get out of my car.”

I step outside and close the door, and she drives away. I lie on the driveway and watch the stars until I feel the vomit rising in my stomach, and expel fourteen hours worth of liquor onto a bush. I walk up the steps, weave down the hallway, and collapse onto my bed, falling unconscious with every article of clothing still on me. 

I do not dream.

Two months later the psychiatrist will give me a new diagnosis and I will go back on medication. And I will crash and burn.

***

With Feet at the Edge of the Abyss, Part 1
With Feet at the Edge of the Abyss, Part 2
With Feet at the Edge of the Abyss, Part 3

With Feet at the Edge of the Abyss, Part 2

The mall is one of the first places I think of when it comes to environments that reinvigorate my suicidal tendency—along with strip clubs at two in the afternoon on a weekday, classrooms with those florescent lights lining the ceiling that house masses of dead insects like state-run morgues, and the intake room in a county jail—so today of all days a particular and not unfamiliar kind of warm, prickling excitement pulses inside my chest as we pull up to the Jefferson Square Mall.

Rebecca grabs me by the arm and leads me towards the entrance as an obese couple holding overfilled tote bags lumber past us. They smell like grease, like they were standing over a deep fryer for an hour before walking out, letting their odor waft over and sting my nostrils. They are a perfect encapsulation of what I picture awaits us inside the mall, and the prickling warmth intensifies.

Rebecca says something about needing shoes and hangs a left once the doors open. The smell of heavy perfume assaults my nostrils, twisting around the lingering greasy odor of the couple we’d just passed. I don’t know what store I’m in but there are mannequins everywhere and they wear cashmere sweaters and high-waisted shorts and tank tops and I hate it here. Women are staring at me so I follow Rebecca into the aisles of women’s shoes. Hundreds of shoes. The aisles aren’t tall enough to hide between so I plop down onto the carpeted floor at Rebecca’s feet like a hound and light a cigarette.

I can see the wheels spinning in her head before she turns around to identify the smell, dropping a pair of boots onto the ground. “Henry, what the fuck are you doing?” she snaps, horrified. “Put that out.”

“It smells awful in here,” I tell her. “I’m clearing my palate.”

A single puff of gray-white smoke floats up over the aisles before Rebecca snatches the cigarette out of my mouth and smashes it into the carpet.

My eyes widen and my face lights up. “That’s destruction of property! Look what you did! Oooooo the mall cops are gonna arrest you!”

“Shut up. C’mon.” She pulls me onto my feet and hurries me away to another area of the store before the old women catch on. “Please just behave yourself for twenty minutes, can you do that?”

“I can certainly try, home-wrecker.”

“Stop calling me that.”

I follow along for a few minutes before growing bored and taking off towards the exit, where the mall proper opens up and my fear of open spaces takes hold. I wander along the storefronts, wearing my sunglasses as a protective shield to combat my social anxiety, until reaching a Starbucks. I order a tall black coffee (“Whatever the small one is.”) and mention to the barista something about how I’d stick my head underneath the espresso machine and flip it on if I had to work her job. I then say something about how the urge to end one’s life is totally normal, and follow that up by asking if they’re hiring. They aren’t.

I shuffle back through the aisles of perfume and lingerie before spotting Rebecca at the checkout desk. She’s talking to a pretty, young blonde who stands straight and looks like she’s never been dirty in her life. They’re talking about the details of returning old clothes and buying new ones, and how much can she get taken off from the price of the new ones for selling the old ones? It’s painfully unriveting so I jump up and sit down on the counter between them.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

She’s taken aback and can only respond with an uncomfortable chuckle and a tap on her nametag with a polished and manicured fingernail. I lean in and close one eye until the word Alicia comes into focus.

“Do you like your job, Alicia?” She shrugs and returns her attention to the transaction with Rebecca, but I continue speaking with the drunken belief that what I have to say is more important than their capitalistic endeavors. “You should quit. Quit right now. You don’t need this job. This job needs you. Empty that register, pocket the cash, and let’s get outta here. You and me, let’s go get drunk—what do you say, Alicia?”

Now that I’m unemployed and thoroughly intoxicated, I’ve decided that the American nine to five job is slavery of the masses, and it’s now my duty as a newly enlightened radical to set free the Great Unwashed, one young, attractive working-class woman at a time.

Content with my enlistment speech, I lean back and pull out another cigarette. A look washes over Rebecca’s face like she’s watching a man gouge his own eyes out with a spoon. Nobody speaks. I try again to elicit a response after recognizing that the silence will go on indefinitely until I fill the uncomfortable space I’ve created. “So,” I continue as I light my cigarette, “you mull that over, Alicia. Decisions like this are a hard choice to make, I get it.” I drag the harsh smoke and cough up phlegm into the back of my throat. “But look at me! This is a free man you’re looking at! You’re looking at pure happiness right now, Alicia. Let’s break those shackles!”

Rebecca grabs me by the shirt, pushes me off the counter, and whispers, “Get the fuck out of here and wait for me outside. You’re gonna get us arrested!”

“Good!” I shout, walking backwards towards the exit, the cigarette hanging limp between my lips and the middle finger on my good hand pointing to the ceiling. “Let ‘em! I’ll become an icon for the free man! I’m Nelson fuckin’ Mandela, Rebecca! See these wrists? No shackles, baby, no shackles!”

With that, I walk outside and crumple over onto the sidewalk to sit underneath the dull white sunshine and wait for Rebecca. With no audience left to witness my antics, the humor drains away, and I’m left again with nothing but the desperate reality of my situation. The thoughts and memories I’m trying to suppress begin to bubble up and spin in circles like a merry-go-round behind my eyes, and the overpowering urge to drink returns. I recognize, as I sit here on the hot cement in front of a Macy’s department store in the middle of the afternoon on a Monday in the summer of 2018, that there is nothing short of suicide that will free me from this bear trap of a life I’ve stepped on.

I tell Rebecca that I’m not getting back into the car unless she drives me to a liquor store, so she does and I pick up a pint of Jim Beam. Typically I’d go for Old Crow to ensure that I’m going to be punishing my body as much as possible, but today I’m still trying to hold onto the vague notion that I’m celebrating. The image of my arm outstretched through the open car window fades in and out behind the formative stages of a blackout. The coffee splatters across the passenger door and wicks off in the wind.

“What did you just do?” Rebecca says.

“Nothing,” I mumble, refilling the half-empty coffee cup with whiskey.

I continue to sip at the bitter drink as we move at a glacial pace through rush hour traffic down the highway. Rebecca tells me a story about how she thinks a guy she’s been seeing is ghosting her because the last time they hooked up she let him fuck her in the ass and when he pulled out she accidentally shit on his dick, but I’m tuning in and out because I’ve found a bump on the inside of my lip and I’ve realized that it must be cancer. My tongue runs back and forth against the unsettling protuberance as I catch some of her monologue:

“It was everywhere. It was all over him, all over the sheets. I’d heard about that kind of thing happening but that has never happened to me before.”

I indulge her: “So, then what happened?”

“I mean—he was cool about it. He was like, ‘It’s totally fine I can change the sheets,’ and then he jumped in the shower.”

I laugh. “And then what did you do?”

“I waited until he got out and he said I could still stay but I was like, ‘I think I’m gonna go home now.’”

“And then you did?”

“Of course I did. I couldn’t even look at him after that.” She grimaces and moans, “Ohhhh my GOD, Henry! That’s so fucking embarrassing, of course he ghosted me.”

“No, see, that’s where you fucked up,” I say. “You have to stand by that shit. Literally.”

“That’s not funny.”

“No, listen to me. You should have owned that shit. Owned it. Said, ‘Yes, I shit on your dick. That’s my shit right there on your dick. You defiled my ass with that thing and this is an all too typical consequence. Now embrace this situation and accept me.’” Rebecca keeps her eyes forward and remains silent. I pull down on my bottom lip and lean over to study the bump in the rear view mirror. “Hey, Rebecca,” I say, eyes trained on my reflection. “What’s the survival rate for oral cancer?”

“Not low enough. Where do you wanna go?”

I forgo the liquor mixture in my cup and pull straight from the bottle. “Bar.”

Rebecca exhales like she’s blowing out a cloud of cigarette smoke. “Henry…”

“Look,” I snap, “either you can come with me or you can drop me off and I’ll go somewhere by myself.” I can hear the anger coming through in the words slogging off my tongue but can’t stop it, my mind too muddled by the mist growing thicker as the alcohol’s effects begin to take over.

“Alright, Henry,” she sighs. “I’ll come with you to a bar.”

“Okay then,” I say. I sit back and drain the contents of the little white cup. “Thank you.”

The bar’s walls are an unattractive shade of white tinged yellow after past decades of cigarette smoke stains. The booths are a deep forest green with black splotches in the leather where past patrons spilled their drinks or bodily fluids. The floors are carpeted. This was a terrible choice by the owners. One should take the same consideration into the choice of flooring in a neighborhood bar that a pet owner would before bringing home a dog that hasn’t yet been housebroken. If I owned a bar I would forgo carpeting entirely, and line the linoleum floors with layers of newspaper. This would cut down on the cost of custodial work and present the ambiance of a hamster cage, but the trade-off would be worth it. 

These are the only details that I can differentiate at this level of drunkenness—obtuse and abstract details, the kind of indistinct shapes and visuals that make up the world through the eyes of an infant. I don’t recognize this place.

To cut down on the cost of a heavy drinking habit I order a tall glass of soda water, situate myself in the last booth at the end of the bar, pour out half the glass underneath the table when no one is looking, and fill up the remaining space with the whiskey from the pint hiding underneath my shirt like an unregistered firearm. I must be dancing between levels of consciousness because I know my eyes have stayed open, but when I turn to the right Rebecca is there looking at me.

“How long have you been there?” I ask. I can feel my tongue swelling and struggling to form the necessary consonants to articulate the sentence.

“I’ve always been here.” Her answer is ominous and I begin to feel uncomfortable.

Her lips are moving again. She starts to say something else but I blink and an abrupt fog overtakes me, and when my eyes settle back into my environment I’m at the bar with a drink in my hand. I’ve forgotten about the whiskey concealed in my clothing, or perhaps I’ve drank it all because when my hand slides down next to my balls I feel nothing in the space where a plastic bottle should be. My back is to the bartender, and as I scan through the sparse crowd for Rebecca, my line of sight is drawn back to a pair of eyes watching me from across the room. The eyes are piercing and appear yellow in the dirty glow of what little lighting this bar could afford. They belong to a large man. He stands hunched over with a hand leaning against the pool table, and he is staring. These are the facts I know. After another moment of discernment I recognize the shadowed form of another man standing beside him. His eyes must not have been trained on mine when I first scanned the room because I didn’t notice him, but now the large man is talking to the other man, and has directed his attention towards me as well. Now there are two shadowed figures, large male figures, staring at me from across the bar.

I’m not unfamiliar with these kinds of looks, whether they’re for good reason or just a false assumption funneled through my skewed, paranoid perspective. In either case, though, this moment demands action, and I vow to fulfill that demand. But whatever my response will be it, it will require a deft and diplomatic approach:

“What the fuck are you looking at?” I shout. 

A few heads turn. I’m not being clear enough. I point at the shadowed pair, who’ve still refused to break eye contact. “You! And you! What the fuck do you want?”

The larger of the two is the first to speak: “Just checking out the view.”

What kind of threat is this? Are these mind games? I can’t think of anything clever or threatening enough to say so I settle on, “Well, stop it. It’s creepy.”

I look away. Where is Rebecca? Rebecca will be able to make sense of this. My feet make contact with the sticky carpeting and I set off across the room, on a mission to leave this place for calmer waters. But as I search, all the faces begin to look the same. They meld together into one swirling soup of eyes and mouths and eyebrows and ears. The people become as inanimate as the walls and the carpeting that reminds me of walking through a shallow bog. I’ll never find her at this rate—she’s become furniture now.

Before I can communicate this realization to the man with the handlebar mustache and cowboy hat standing beside me, I feel the firm grip of a hand upon my shoulder.

“I have a question for you.”

It’s the large man from before. His eyes are no longer yellow but a light brown. He isn’t blurred like the rest of the bar. He’s larger up close and the intimidating energy he exudes demands my attention. 

“What do you want?” I say. I try to appear formidable despite our six-inch size difference and my inability to keep my center of balance.

His face softens. I can make out the shape of a strong jawline beneath his beard. “Well, more like a proposition.” His voice is light and bounces across the syllables almost like he’s singing a song.

“Where’s your friend?” I ask, ignoring his subtle invitation for me to inquire further.

“He’s waiting.” He points to a corner of the bar and waves, but all I see is a small gathering of similar-looking people all crowded together like livestock. “Brandon likes me to interact with our potential business partners; he stays behind the scenes. I’m—”

“Creepy,” I interrupt.

“The star.” He smiles at me—a subtle, crooked smile. This fucking guy is flirting with me. “Have you ever been on camera?” he asks.

“Well, I heard the government watches you jerk off through your webcam.”

“Sure, that counts.”

“Then probably.”

“What’s your price?” he asks.

“Excuse me?”

“Do you like blowjobs?”

I hesitate and squint at the large man. “…Is this a test?”

“Do you like getting blowjobs and getting paid for it?”

“That’s a loaded question. Who’s doing the blowing?”

“Let me clear this up: We’ll pay you a thousand dollars to let”—he points back over to the corner and one of the faceless livestock waves at me—“that guy Brandon over there film you getting head. That’s it. One grand to get a blowjob.”

“Yes, but—”

“Tyler. Pleased to meet you.”

“Tyler, who is doing the blowing? Who’s doing the blowing, Tyler?” I don’t know why I’m repeating myself. I already know the answer.

“I am,” he winks. “The star.”

“Right.” I look back over my shoulder: Rebecca, where the fuck are you?

Tyler takes my arm and pulls me back to focus. “Is that something you’d be open to? You’d be in and out in thirty minutes tops, dude.”

“That may be a conservative estimate.”

“You’d wear a mask; nobody would know it’s you.”

I study the man’s physique and try to gauge how difficult it would be to imagine I’m getting my dick sucked by Scarlett Johansson if I focused hard enough. Shit, I’ve always told people I’m about six percent gay anyway—thirteen if I’m drunk. I’d make out with Frank Ocean. And there was that bartender at the Blue Dolphin with the choker and that ass in those capris that elicited a certain unanticipated reaction out of me. A thousand bucks is a thousand bucks. A hole is a hole, right? “Are you gonna shave that small mammal off your face?” I ask. “I feel any stubble and I’m out, man.”

Tyler laughs and rubs his chin, and before he can answer I feel a small hand touch my waist. Rebecca’s voice twirls over the Motley Crüe song blasting across the bar: “Hey, Henry! Where the fuck have you been?”

I whip around. “Oh, hey. I’m talking to my friend Tyler. He wants to blow me on camera for a thousand dollars.”

Tyler waves.

“That’s nice,” she says. “I think we should go now.”

“Well, hang on, we’re negotiating.” I turn back around and finish the liquor in my glass, misjudge where the nearest table is and drop the glass on the floor. It hits the carpeting and remains intact. So that’s why it’s there. “Fifteen hundred plus thirty-three percent of the sales revenue…thirty-three and a third. You, me and Gomer over there.” I wave to one of the cattle. It doesn’t wave back. I must have waved at the wrong one.

Now that a fourth party has entered the equation Tyler becomes more reserved. “You know what? I don’t think this is gonna work out. You have a good night, man.”

Before I can reevaluate and renege on my counter-proposition, Rebecca’s hand pulls me across the bar towards the exit. She’s saying something but I can’t make out what she’s trying to tell me. I’m fading again. It occurs to me that I can’t recall how we got here or where we were before this.

The last thing I remember is tearing away from her and yelling, “I’m buying a shot for the road!”

***

With Feet at the Edge of the Abyss, Part 1
With Feet at the Edge of the Abyss, Part 2
With Feet at the Edge of the Abyss, Part 3

With Feet at the Edge of the Abyss, Part 1

I step out of the car and recoil beneath the morning light. My eyes have difficulty adjusting through the hangover. I’m ten pounds lighter, retching from the stomach pains, and have allowed my beard to grow out for too long, giving me the appearance of a dope sick street kid. I am back to showing my discontentment on the outside for everyone to see. Forever a misery loves company kind of person. I’m not proud of it but it’s a reality. We all have weaknesses.

The bender has lasted a good ten days since she left me, and I have no intention of letting up. I’ve just started getting on a good roll here. I intend to walk into the office smelling of misery and pussy and six different kinds of liquor. This is me giving up. This is my I couldn’t care less if you fired me right now face. Look at that smile. 

Walking along the parking lot towards the door, I wave at the homeless woman screaming and banging her fists against the chain-link fence next to the sidewalk. She comes out mostly at night and screams about the government, her sweatpants dirtied from soiling herself, slapping herself in the face out of a frustration I won’t be able to understand, but today is one of those rare days when she’s out amongst the working class. Like a raccoon so sick with rabies that it’s unable or uncaring enough to return to hiding until the moon comes back.

I catch the eyes of my two bosses through the glass door. Their eyes are wide and frightened. They tear through the entrance before my hand touches the knob and line up side-by-side blocking me from coming in, as if were they not to do so, I would bust through with force. One is Kyle. He doesn’t like me and I don’t like him. He’s thirty, overweight, with a bald patch at the crown of his head that’s been eating away at the black hair but no one will tell him. It looks like a clearing in the middle of the forest. He hands me an envelope and I’m aware of what’s happening before either of them say anything. 

Tom speaks first. “You can’t come inside. Here, walk over this way with us.”

They don’t want me to be seen getting fired through the window. It would be bad for morale. Rebecca is in there working with her ex who has a micro penis, and I know this because she tells anyone who’s willing to listen. Norman is in there pinching Rebecca’s ass every time he gets into a room alone with her. Joseph is in there drinking pinot noir out of a can of La Croix. Alex is sitting at her desk eyeing Joseph in the hopes that she can catch him in the act and snitch her way up the corporate ladder. Harold is in there recovering from last night’s coke binge. Everybody hates everybody else but no one says it until someone leaves the room. But I’m bad for morale.

There’s a long pause. I hold the check in my hand. Two years wasted at this place. The best thing I got out of the experience was fucking two of my coworkers. They know this. They have no real reason to fire me, any more real than why they could fire Matt or Rebecca or Norman or Harold or Alex. They just don’t like me. I know this. They fire people when they don’t like them. They don’t like me because I don’t like them.

“Look,” Tom continues, “we all knew this was a long time coming. You haven’t been pulling your weight for months. You come in late and sulk around and you ruin the mood of the office.”

What else, Tom? What else? Tell me. Tell me you smell the pussy. Tell me you smell the liquor on my breath.

“And it’s time for you to move on. I don’t want you making a scene, and we need you off the property or we’ll call the police.”

Kyle hides behind Tom’s wide frame. Tom is one of those golden boys: Handsome, built, college-educated, played football on scholarship, got right out of school and started his own business. Fucks his girlfriend who looks like a Barbie doll until you get her face wet. I’ve suspected that he used to fuck Riley before me. We stopped getting along after he found out I was dating her. I’d fuck his girlfriend for the sake of equilibrium but she’s not my type.

“Is there anything you wanna tell us?” Kyle pipes up.

“No,” I say. “You made your decision already. I’m not begging for anything.”

I begin to turn around. 

“Oh wait,” Kyle says, “you need to sign this.” He hands me a clipboard and a pen. On the clipboard are some words about me. Underneath the words is a line for my signature. “It’s just to state that we lawfully terminated you and you got your last check.”

“Of course,” I say. I sign and hand it back with my signature: Fuck you. “Hope that works.” 

I spit on the ground—an unsatisfying dry glob of viscous white from the dehydration—and walk away back down the parking lot towards my car. I already know what I’m going to do. 

Chaos. I want chaos. Give me chaos.

“Henry, wait!” Rebecca’s voice stops me as I’m getting into the front seat. She comes running up and pauses before speaking again. “What happened?”

“Fired,” I say. “Got the boot. Terminated. Voted off the island.” The heat is getting to me. I begin to feel uncomfortable standing under the sun like this. My legs feel like soon they won’t be able to hold up my weight any longer.

“They can’t do this,” she says. She seems visibly hurt. “This is bullshit.”

“Fuck ‘em.”

“Please don’t go drink.”

“Of course I’m gonna go drink. I’ve been broken up with, blocked and fired all in the same flaming shit pile of a week and change, this is the prime example of when someone should go drink.”

“Henry, it’s ten in the morning.”

“Good, then I’m getting a head start.”

“This is just gonna make things even worse. Think about the morning.”

“You don’t get it,” I say. “I’ve got nothing. I’m fucked. I’m sure in a few days I’ll have some clarity and see that things will be fine and I’ve got something to live for but right now I’ve got nothing. And maybe things won’t be fine. Maybe this is it. If I’m ruining my life then let me enjoy it for a minute. I don’t care anymore.”

“Don’t give me that shit,” she says. She’s getting angry. Her face grows narrow. “You’ve been enjoying this the whole time. You like destroying your life. You see that, right? You’re not as big of an asshole as you think you are, but for some reason you keep trying to live up to how you see yourself. Get better. Stop doing this.”

I step back into the car and turn the ignition. “You got a cigarette?”

Rebecca ignores me. “I’m gonna call you after work, okay? Be safe. I’m serious.”

“Yeah.”

Stupid piece of shit idiot you don’t deserve her you deserved to get broken up with you deserved to be fired you deserve to hurt yourself you’re broken you’re unlovable everyone hates you everyone should hate you do it do it do it hit the car hit that car faster you pussy do it no one will ever love you you’ll destroy everything you ever touch your brain is broken drink until you’re sick then people will see you’re sorry punish yourself until people know you’re in pain I hate you.

The beauty of dive bars is that they remain dark no matter what time of day it is. I sit down in the corner beside two older women. One recognizes me. She’s the mother of a girl I slept with. She doesn’t know that though; she thinks I’m gay. I can’t remember why she thinks that but I’m not interested enough to clear it up. Telling her I fucked her daughter might do it, but again, this doesn’t seem like the time.

“Hey, it’s you…Harry!” There are lipstick stains on her teeth. She drinks the same beer I always see her drink. She comes here every day.

“Henry,” I say. “Yes.”

“We’re celebrating!” She points to the bartender, a short, balding man with discolored teeth. “Get Harry whatever he wants. I’m not dying!”

The whiskey shot lands in front of me and I drink it before speaking. “We’re all dying. Don’t fool yourself.”

“No!” she shouts. “I got the blood results back, I’m not gonna die!”

The woman next to her coughs up something onto her sleeve, wipes it underneath the bar and slams her hand down. “Well, goddamn! Margaret you dumb slut, I told you it’d be alright!”

“I know, I know! I’m gonna be okay!” She smiles wide, revealing the receding gum line that’s turning black from age and cigarettes. “Today is gonna be a great day! Another one for Harry and Tammy!”

Hurt yourself. Drink until you hurt yourself.

Another one goes down. I order a third. The inside of my head begins to swim. I drink again and I’m reminded that I no longer have a source of income. I am unemployed. My thirty-one year-old with the fifty grand a year and the 401k and the fear of intimacy is gone. There is no rope to climb out of this.

I step outside and the contrast between the darkness of the bar and the light of the outside world strikes me behind the eyes, like looking at the reflection of the sun on a piece of metal. I sit down next to the soup can people use for an ashtray and look for her number. It stares at me for a long time before I dial *67 and call. Six rings come. They are long and painful and with each pause my breastplate dislodges itself farther away from my chest until all that exists is the heavy, fluttering heartbeat. It bounces against the inside of my body like a bullet in an empty steel room. Then the familiar robotic voice again. Leave a message after the beep.

“Hi, Riley. Yeah. It’s Henry. I know you hate me and you never wanna see me again but I just got fired and I need that money you owe me. So unblock me and call me back. Or don’t. Just send the money in some other way that doesn’t require communication. PayPal. Venmo—well I don’t have that one. Send a carrier pigeon with a check if you want. I don’t care. Anyway. I’m gonna stop talking now. Bye.”

Unsatisfied with the last message, I call once more to clear up any confusion that may get in the way of me getting my money. It doesn’t ring this time. The number you are trying to reach is unavailable, says the robot. A young couple walks past me with their child. She wears a pink dress and has a hairband with Minnie Mouse ears on it. She holds a balloon in her right hand and her father’s index finger in the other. The mother smiles at me when she sees me looking at them. I get up and go back inside the bar.

The only problem is that if I’m not going fast enough or I hit the tree at the wrong angle, I may survive and wake up as a quadriplegic. Or brain dead. Then what? You’re depressed and crippled. Or if you kill someone on accident while you’re on your way over the cliff. Then you wake up depressed, crippled, and handcuffed to a hospital bed. Then you’re really fucked. Can quadriplegics get prison time? Where do they go? Are they let loose into the general population like everyone else? Do vegetables get prison time? Or is that a free pass if you go into a coma after whatever crime you commit? Someone must know this shit.

“What’re you thinking about over there?” says Margaret.

“Nothing.” I drink down the next shot. I’ve lost count at this point. The world is blurry though. It’s easier to find the humor in dark things now. That’s always a sign. You get that warm fuzzy feeling when you think about punishing yourself. That’s another sign.

“What happened to you, man? You look too sad for someone your age. You’re not supposed to look like that for at least another…twenty years. You’ll give yourself wrinkles.”

I look at myself in the mirror. I hate you.

My phone starts vibrating inside my pocket, filling the space where a proper answer would have had to go. There you are. Right above the bottles, under the clock you can’t read any longer, all lit up in neon. Nothing’s changed. What’re you going to do about it?

“Hey! Are you gonna get that, Harry?”

Kill yourself or run away and do something with your life or go to rehab. Get another job. Do anything. As long as it’s not nothing. You can’t sit here and do nothing. You did nothing for three years and you got a book out of it and now you need to change. Nobody wants to read another book—

“It’s buzzing, man! Don’t you hear that?”

Nobody wants to read another book about a guy who never did anything with his life. You’re writing the same goddamn story over again—you see that, right? This isn’t an option any longer. You’ve lost all the ties that were keeping you here. Either kill yourself or—

“Hey, Harry!”

“YEAH FUCK, ALRIGHT.”

I answer the phone without looking at who’s calling. I don’t recognize her voice at first. Through the drunk and poor cell service her words come out garbled and masked in static. “Henry. Helloooo. Henry?”

“Yeah, Rebecca.”

“How are you?”

“I’m good. Margaret isn’t dying. We’re all good.”

“Where are you?”

“Say hi to Tom and Kyle for me.”

“Are you at a bar?”

“Tell them fuck you for me. Tell Tom I fucked Riley better. Make sure to tell him that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Did you know that? Tom fucked Riley and so he doesn’t like me because of her. He thinks he can fire people for being Eskimo brothers but you can’t do that, Rebecca. We live in a society. We have laws. We have laws to maintain order, Rebecca.”

“Jesus, Henry. You’re drunk.”

“Bingo.”

“I’m coming to get you in an hour.”

“Nope.”

“Yes I am. You’ve been getting drunk at the Sparrow for four hours. You’re gonna come with me and help me run errands.”

“Shit. Has it been that long?” I look up at the clock with one eye closed. The hands’ doppelgangers fall back into themselves and come back into focus. “Well, how ‘bout that? You’re right. I guess time flies when you’re having fun!” I hold up my hand over the bar until the bartender high-fives me. “Hear that? I’m making friends, Rebecca. Companionship. Don’t worry about me. I’m fuckin’ aces, baby.”

“I’m gonna be outside in one hour. Answer the phone when I call.”

“Yes ma’am.” I lean in towards Margaret, pointing at my phone with one hand over the speaker, and whisper: “She’s mad at me.”

“Bye, Henry.”

“See ya later, home-wrecker.”

“What?”

I hang up and order another drink.

Could you even find a gun? You could ask James, I’m sure he’d love to help you out with that. His was nice too. But what about those stories you hear about the guys who aim a centimeter off and blow out a chunk of the brain but survive to be disfigured freaks. Or you miss entirely and your jaw explodes. Shelve that one for now. You have Ativan. How many Ativan does it take? There’s no way they gave you enough, they’re not stupid. But what if you drank enough with what you have? Like a lot. Like a fifth. That would have to do it. I’ve heard pills is the most painful way to go though. But that’s what you’re looking for, aren’t you? If you wanna be hurt so bad. Are you a pussy now too?

“During couples therapy?” says the bartender. “That’s heartless, man.”

I clap and throw my hands out by my sides. “I FUCKING KNOW, RIGHT? It’s not just me—she’s a bitch, am I not alone in this?”

Nods from the group.

“Tell me at least you didn’t have to pay for the session,” Tammy cuts in.

I look down at my drink and smile with my teeth, embarrassed. The room erupts. “AW MAN, C’MON.”

“I think I’m the only person in history that had to pay fifty bucks to get dumped.”

“Jeeeesus, Harry,” says Margaret. “Well, we know why she left you then…you got no spine!”

The room erupts again. 

“HAHAHA!”

Tammy reaches over Margaret to place her hand on my shoulder, knocking over an empty glass on the way. “Look at it this way, kid: You got plenty more years to mess up. Best to get ‘em all outta the way while you’re young.”

“Okay, okay, I’m not done though.” I shoot down the whiskey, click my tongue to diminish the burn. “And…and! Wait for it…I got fired today!”

The group emits a long collective groan.

I’m laughing now, struggling to get out the words. “And—hahaha—and! The girl who destroyed it all is coming to get me right now! I’m friends with the home-wrecker! Hahaha. The girl who tore apart my relationship still has her dirty home-wrecking claws in me! I can’t even come while I’m fucking her unless I think about Riley! Ha!…ha.”

The laughs slow down. The bartender’s eyes raise and he bares his teeth in an awkward grimace. Tammy pats my back. Margaret drinks from her beer until it empties.

Reality washes over me and I slump forward. “Shit,” I say. “There’s a real fine line between funny and depressing.”

There’s a quiet pause, then the bartender comes over with another full shot. Some of it spills over the glass when it touches the counter. “Hey man, you’re lucky. You know why? You’re free! You can do whatever the fuck you want! My girlfriend won’t let me do anything as long as she’s around. It’s a prison. I can’t smoke, I can’t drink, we can’t fuck unless the lights are off—and even that’s once a week at the most. She’s got my balls. But you know what? Right now we’re here! We’re off the hook. I come to work and I play country music—”

Margaret interrupts: “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that, Bill.”

“…I play COUNTRY MUSIC”—the bartender turns up the volume. Hank Williams fills out the corners of the room until his voice echoes—“I smoke as many cigarettes as I want, and I get to talk to people like you. While we’re here, there’s no worries in the world. What’s her name?”

“Riley,” I say.

“Fuck Riley!” he shouts. “Drink that and forget about it. It’s that easy.”

I take the shot. I sit in the burn and follow the pain as it slithers down the center of my body. I try to stay with the pain for as long as it exists. The bartender is wrong. We aren’t free. We’re more trapped than most people. It’s just easier for us than most to forget that fact.

My phone is vibrating again. It’s too soon to be Rebecca already. I take it out of my pocket and on the screen reads in big, capital letters: UNKNOWN CALLER. I stare at the screen. This should be sending a stabbing panic up through my stomach. My pupils should be dilating. My palms should be sweating. My face should be going pale. Unknown caller means someone found me. It means someone wants to kill me. It means there’s a death threat on the other side of this conversation. It means my life is about to be torn apart. My paranoia and delusions should be sending my body into shock. But it doesn’t. I don’t care anymore. Come kill me. Great timing. Bring it the fuck on.

I answer the phone. “What the fuck do you want?”

A long, uncomfortable pause drowns the space where my paranoia should go.

“Um. I—uh. This is Henry Gallagher…correct?” The voice lilts to a warm chirp to disarm my aggression, then back to a weathered growl like sand paper against rock, the way a man talks to another man in a professional setting.

“How do you know that?” I say. “Look, you know where I am: The motherfucking Guilty Sparrow like always, so come down and put one right between the eyes, big guy. I fuckin’ dare you. Give it to me, baby. One-way ticket to Dead Town, population: HENRY. Let’s do this.”

“What are you talking about?”

I look around and realize everyone is staring at me, so I get up and walk outside. When the sun hits I suppress the vomit at the back of my throat. “Alright…who is this?”

“Ahem…this is David West, editor for Lighthouse Publishing. You sent us a manuscript a few months back; we apologize for the delay in getting back to you. …You’re the author of The Skipping Record Waltz, correct?”

I stare out at the row of buildings in front of me. People go in and out with bags in their hands, children on their arms. Dogs are tied up and left at streetlights while their owners buy things they don’t need. I don’t understand what’s happening. Was Lost Weekend real? Can you drink yourself into insanity? Could I reach out and touch them if I wanted, or would this all fall away into the padded white wall of an institution? 

“Yes, I wrote that,” I say. “Who did you say you were?”

“David West, editor for Lighthouse Publishing. Look, Henry—can I call you Henry?”

“Sure, Dave.”

“Great. Henry, I’m gonna cut to the chase: We’ve read your manuscript, and have decided to offer you a publishing contract.”

“You’re fucking with me.”

“No, I’m not…joking with you. We’d like to publish your book. We’ll have The Skipping Record Waltz in major bookstores across the country, in libraries, military bases; audiobook is another option, along with the opportunity for book signings if that’s something you’re open to. We’ll print, market and sell your book. You’ll get a twenty-five percent royalty rate for all books sold, which will go up to thirty percent once…”

I begin to realize that this is an important phone call. I’m wasted for one of the most important phone calls of my life. The voice on the other line drifts away behind a shrill ringing in my ears, but the ringing doesn’t hurt. It’s not alarming. It’s like violins. Thousands of violins playing inside my head. I feel a smile rising up across my face. I feel like screaming, crying, laughing, dancing, singing—anything other than melancholy numbness. I feel present again. It’s like the blood in my body has remembered that at some point it stopped flowing, and with one burst of electric life, all at once every vein has erupted with vibrancy and returned to its forgotten purpose, like watching the power come back on in a major city after a blackout.

“Hello? Henry? Does that all sound good to you?”

“Yes, yeah,” I say. “That sounds fine.”

“Great,” David says. “I’ll send you over the contract by Wednesday and once you sign we’ll get started. What kind of work do you do?”

“Nothing,” I say.

“Oh. For how long?”

“A couple hours.”

“Well. I hope this turns that around for you. Congratulations, Henry. I’ll be in touch.”

“See ya, Dave. Sorry for the murder stuff.”

The call ends. I’m shaking. I sit in the sun for a while, my mouth hanging open. This is one of the best and worst days of my life. This calls for celebration.

I burst through the door and sit back down in the corner. The reflection in the mirror is grinning a big fat stupid grin. Everyone is looking at the reflection in the mirror grinning his big fat stupid grin.

“Well,” says Margaret, “who’s coming to kill you?”

“No one, Marge,” I tell her. “No one is. I’m getting published.”

“I don’t know what that means,” she says.

“I’m getting published,” I say again. The words inflate and barely fit out my mouth as I say them. They’re the best three words I’ve ever spoken. “I’m getting my book published.”

“Book?” says the bartender. “I didn’t know you wrote.”

“I’M GETTING…MY FUCKING BOOK PUBLISHED.” I can’t contain the weight and size of the words any longer. They crawl out of me like a great beast. “FUCK THAT JOB! FUCK RILEY! I’M A PUBLISHED FUCKING AUTHOR.”

“Wow, that’s something,” says Tammy. “Y’know, I just love that Stephen King fella. Now that’s a writer, I’ll tell ya.”

I ignore her. My body is on fire. This is the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. I’m twenty-four and this is the happiest moment of my life.

“ROUND OF DRINKS ON ME,” I shout. “YOU’RE MY BEST GODDAMN FRIENDS, WE’RE IN THIS TOGETHER NOW. BILL, YOU DRINK TOO. C’MON, MAN!”

We spend the next half hour drinking and laughing and slapping each other on the back because we’re drunk and I’m getting published and we’re friends now. Even Bill sneaks a Jell-O shot once he’s out of view of the camera.

Then it happens. Like a black wave of sewage water it strikes the back of my muddled head and pierces through the flash of contentment. The elated lightness floating up through my chest is pushed down, and cobwebs are rebuilt in the darkness that replaces it. The universe gave me thirty minutes. And now I am back. While the people around me laugh and spill their drinks, my attention is brought back to the face in the mirror. 

Look at you. This won’t work out. This won’t change a thing. You will still find something to hate yourself for. You are still you. No matter what you accomplish, no matter whom you trick into loving you, you know who are you. None of it changes who you are. You are still broken.

I am sinking further now—no—spinning, as if I’m attached to the end of a great big drill, and I’m relentlessly being ground into the hard earth until the sunlight is barely peaking behind the dirt and soil and worms, and there holding the drill, looming above me, is God, and at that moment I become completely submerged, until I can no longer draw breath, until it’s all I see. And I am left there, a corroded nail serving no purpose but to infect the roots of the plants above me with my rust.

The one thing that I have wanted my entire life, the single accomplishment that I had always told myself would save me from the pit I’ve nothing else but to dig deeper, what I told myself would finally make me happy, has happened. And I am still miserable. The greatest thing I have ever done in my entire life made me happy for thirty goddamn minutes.

My head sinks back into the drink in front of me. The smile fades. The world once more turns eight shades darker. I no longer have something to celebrate. I have yet another tragedy to drown in liquor.

My phone rings. Rebecca is here.

I close my tab, stumble out across the sun-glinted street and collapse into the passenger seat. Rebecca is there staring at me, trying to gauge at what level of inebriation I currently reside.

“You have fun?”

“Yes,” I say. “I made friends.”

“You told me.”

“Good, I’m glad. Let’s get a bottle.”

Rebecca turns off the corner, heading for the freeway. “No. Not until we go to the mall so I can return some clothes. Today you get to practice self-restraint.”

“Clothes?” I shout. “CLOTHES? This is no time to return CLOTHES!”

“It is for me,” she says. “And obviously I can’t leave you alone.”

“I’m not a child,” I mutter, picking at some lint stuck to the collar of my shirt. It’s not until this moment that I realize I’m still wearing my uniform.

“I didn’t say you were.” She slaps my shoulder. “Now put on your seatbelt.”

***

With Feet at the Edge of the Abyss, Part 1
With Feet at the Edge of the Abyss, Part 2
With Feet at the Edge of the Abyss, Part 3