Editor's note: You may want to read "19 Months" before venturing into this section. It may give you a little more perspective.

Something borrowed, something blue.

"There's something to be said for the child of smokers who doesn't smoke," she noted, pushing my heart to flutter by flattery. This is the same woman who, four weeks prior, had found a fin on the ground along Metropolitan Ave. and suggested we drink it away at the Pourhouse. Seeing as the five bucks would barely afford us each a cheap pint, I checked my pockets for a couple supplemental singles, found three, and confessed that I couldn't think of a better way to spend her newfound fortune.

Good morning: July, 1999.

I was a beaten man. I sat on the N/R subway--a 10-minute ride, my commute--with a knot of sickness and anxiety in my gut. It was a fucking miserable day--a miserable week, likely to slip into a miserable month--shaping up in my head.

////

At least one aspect of most everything around me disgusts me. You. Your friends. Your spouse. Your hair style. Your career. Your choice in footwear. Your treatment of waitstaff. Your unruly dog. Your unruly child. Your disgusting eating habits. Your fat fucking head. Your bitching about the weather. Your crying in front of all your coworkers when I fire you for being an incompetent, bitchy queen. Your acquiescence in the face of humiliation. Your ass licking for a $20 bonus. Your beggary in my face first thing in the morning. Your stench. Your mockery of my proper behavior. Your lack of vision. Your lack of perspective. Your lack of scope. Your dismissal of my rightness. Your refusal to live a righteous life without the crutch of religion. Your misinterpretation of my righteous life pursued without the crutch of religion.

Your fucking way. And everything else you say.

////

Shitty day. Rough day. Work was brutal, a non-stop procession of demands and requests. I got home, walked the dog, grabbed a six-pack at the deli, a bag of groceries and dragged my weary self home, dog in tow, still hyper even after his great bowel movement.

Then the key broke in the lock. Fucking thing broke.

A story I couldn't tell before. First of four.

One day at the ad agency, I spied one of my young lady employees leaning over the light box, loupe to eye, checking a slide for color correctness. She wasn't the most beautiful woman in the world, nor even in the office, but she certainly wasn't the least beautiful. By suburban office standards, for instance, she'd be a knock-out, the kind of woman every salesman would slither past whenever possible. She was worth a second glance, especially when she wore her short, black skirt, like that afternoon.

That dead, dying, killing afternoon, and I was desperate for a jolt of something to get me through. So I casually leaned back, looked around me for anyone watching me, and peeked up that temptress-making black fabric. Peeked up along those smooth, olive thighs, up the skirt of someone whom I considered something of a friend who was also my employee. And I saw a hint of white. Ah, white.

I leaned back a bit more, trying by force of will--contrary to the laws of physics and optics--to bend my line of sight on a parabolic arc down toward the floor and back up, more directly, up that skirt, to perchance catch more of the white. At that moment, I was granted a grace: she leaned forward just a bit more. And revealed more white.

Too much white. Much too much white. I was staring at the sides of her pad sticking out from the sides of her underwear.

I'd just gotten exactly what I deserved.

If I could do that, I'd never leave the house.

You're losing me, world. And quick.

I'm stuck in a classic spiral of self-hate, self-doubt and then back out and up to self-destruction. I am my own worst enemy, no shit. Tell me something that'll make headlines.

We're gonna need a bigger boat.

I've written it before, but I'll write it again for those latecomers to the party: I really am a mean, ruthless motherfucker. That doesn't mean I can't be a nice guy, thoughtful and considerate. I am a kind, polite and loyal man to those who deserve it; I'm a fucking puppy dog with certain people. The woman I've been dating thinks I'm just the sweetest thing. You, however, would do well to avoid fucking with those things I consider my moral, social and professional obligations. If you cross me once or compromise my honor, integrity or security--or the honor, integrity or security of one of those few in my circle of concern--then you're risking a lot more than you realize. For if your misstep involves anything over which I have any authority, you will witness my rage. You will feel my wrath and endure the legacy that my vengeance can become.

So just don't fuck with anyone or anything I consider my personal responsibility. That goes for my few friends, my fewer employees and those fewest of loved ones in my life. I have three things of which you should be wary: A coal-black heart; very little doubt in my ability to mete out vengeance in a painful, life-altering fashion; and an itchy trigger finger owing to chronic frustration, borderline alcoholism and a truckload of unresolved anger.

////

Why doesn't this work like the fairy tale of the simple man who wants to do good? Instead, I see the petty motives and successful results of stupid--and I mean stupid--motherfuckers all about me, and they have the last laugh. Always. Always.

I. Say. Goddamn.

////

Faggotty little blue shorts I've got on. Acceptable at morn, maybe, but only because they're better than long pants which just wouldn't work under such a hangover on such a hot day. Still fagbait at 11 p.m. under a fresh eight drinks. Hard to look hard with your calves showing, methinks, no matter how jailhouse your tattoo or how old your boots.

A story I couldn't tell before. Second of four.

The chick at the tanning salon is cute, but has a bit of a full ass. Pretty face, really, but I suspect she's into her second or third year of dining-hall gluttony and $5-pitcher nights with dorm mates. No matter--I'm not looking. Well, I'm looking, but I'm not looking, get me?

Some sloppy hog just left a booth, bitching and crabbing at the attendant for not having enough towels or whatever-the-fuck. Such a snotty tone should not come from such an ugly puss--it's just bad form. Be a cunt, sure, but at least make sure you've got sufficient comely ammo to carry it off. Else, you're just a cunt who shouldn't be taken seriously.

But even that bit of levity can't drag me from this funk. I'm waiting for Giselle to finish her session. A Cuban raised in Miami, she's normally coffee-colored (maybe with a dash of milk), but her years in New York City have drained her flesh of its pigment. She's as much a cracker as I am, and that pisses her off. Hence, the tanning. The warmth on her skin makes her feel good. She's just not good at winter.

As I was saying, even this pleasant, mundane time with her--one of my favorite pastimes, as it allows me 15 minutes of peace and quiet sitting in the salon's waiting room with the paper and watching people--won't elevate me.

It's a bad funk. And it's been surrounding me for months.

Look back and laugh?

It was two weeks before I moved to Philadelphia: Christmas Night, 1992. I'd been staying at my parents' house, broke, for a painful stretch of time. Bored, I went to a movie and then to the bar at the Marriott, which was one of the only games in town. I bought a cheap draft and sat at the bar, too alone to be left alone.

She walked up after three drinks, in tight leathers and such, sat down and asked if I wanted some company.

"What'd you have in mind?" I asked, more curious than consumer.

"What're you looking for?"

"What am I looking at?"

We danced around like that for a minute or two.

"I'm broke anyway," I revealed, thus ending the exchange. "Merry Christmas."

I left and went to another bar, where there were no whores and the drinks were cheaper. There, I drank three more beers and two coffees and talked with a guy from Annapolis who'd been to Atlanta and Pittsburgh in the last two days. At 11:30 I paid my tab and left, wishing the barmaid and my new friend a nice holiday.

It was, all told, a nice time. It was, in fact, my most enjoyable Christmas since the toys stopped coming.

////

We were in a tight studio--me and Tom--for a few weeks while I looked for a job and watched my wan savings account quickly sink into the emptiness of two meals daily and a barstool drunk each night. Tom had a job and went to his girlfriend's after work, to keep his own claustrophobia at bay. I woke up at noon to walk around the city and drop off a resume here and there. The bar around the corner always had 60¢ drafts, no special happy hour, so nothing kept me from going in at 3 in the afternoon and getting drunk with the old men while Jeanne the bitter waitress served me a turkey sandwich. I'd sit in there long enough to feel confined, walk home and go to sleep. Tom would come in and wake me up. So, a few hours later, I'd be back at the bar. Thank heavens I found a job within a couple weeks. It was either steady work or a hobby better than drinking, else I would've hanged myself in that closet we called our apartment.

A story I couldn't tell before. Third of four.

One night, my wife returned home from dinner and drinks with friends, stirred me from the groggy half-drunk sleep I was enjoying and enticed me to fuck. She got on top and grabbed my cock. While working me to excitement with two hands, she started talking. "So, you really would've liked this restaurant tonight..." she began. I interrupted her right away, noting that, as fascinating as such a conversation promised to be, I'd prefer to skip the idle chitchat during a prelude handjob.

Similarly, while lifting her head for a break while performing roughly the same task another evening, she noted that I hadn't put sheets on the bed. Instead, she noticed, I'd just been laying atop the comforter. This was more than a simple remark; it was a curiosity to her, something giving her pause. Again, I told her, I'd prefer to postpone the small talk.

Such was domesticity. It just couldn't last.

Get up, throw up, get to work.

Three bottles of decent beer down, two more in the fridge. After that, I'll work on the half bottle of Beefeater sitting in the bar, untouched for months. Problem is, I've got five bucks, a growling stomach and no tonic. I need the tonic; I like the tonic. (Gin straight up? Martinis? Fuck that. A splash of tonic, every time, measured just right, to make me happy.) How to eat and drink at the same time is my quandary. I suppose I'll scrape up some quarters, get the cheapest sandwich I can buy at the deli, plus a liter of tonic and work my way through the night.

It'll be a good night. A perfect night. If all goes as planned.

////

If I've got just one bit of advice for youngsters, it's to always know how much beer is in the fridge. Ideally, simply, there would just plain be beer on ice, but that's not the point. It's like never balancing your checkbook on paper, but always knowing how much is in your account. (Funny thing, though, that I'm terrible with my checking account, but I can tell you right now that I've got three bottles of stout, two bottles of Rolling Rock and a cheap bottle of chardonnay in my fridge. What's my account balance? I haven't the foggiest.) Point being: Always know how many bottles you've got so you're not caught in a bad situation one night.

////

I'm a mess. A fucking mess. It looks like the cats attack my face while I sleep. I look in the mirror each morning and find new red streaks along my cheeks or on my forehead. I hope it's the cats--if it's my own hand or the woman sleeping next to me, then I've got some other problems at hand.

////

No question--I've just reached my 30s. And I've got shit to show for anything so far. I haven't put my hard-earned wisdom and respect to any productive use, other than foolishly sinking all my spare earnings into a magazine. A fucking zine with companions written and produced by 15-year olds in Nebraska. Fucking waste of time. Of money. Of this life. Thank god it's over. Something better happen soon, or I swear I'll keep my promise to myself and go for a neckswing in the closet.

////

I'm not on your level. Whether that level is one of quality or urgency, I can't say. I just know--and this I found out only recently--that I'm not capable of producing crap. I can't seem to whip up those glossy fluff pieces. I'm also not as happy-go-lucky as I once imagined. When I was a kid, I was very easy-going, very flippant and light-hearted about things. I was an improv joker; never quite the class clown, because I never had the one-liners that the top-notch, A-list clowns had. I was filled more with low-key sarcasm, more suited to entertaining those people in my immediate area, rather than a large, class-sized audience.

////

Watch your children closely, for youth does determine the adult. For instance, I have it on good authority that Adolf Hitler had an adolescent fetish for what was, essentially, the Kraut precursor to what we know as the Betty Crocker Easy-Bake oven. Funny, huh?

If my soul has a shape, then it is startlingly similar to that of a For Sale sign.

Good times, those. You could get away with a lot without feeling bad. That's just the way it was. The way everyone acted.

We needed to find some new holes. Certainly not because we'd worked through all those around us, but rather because they weren't having anything to do with us. And never would, we knew.

I preyed on the weak, the disenchanted or unaccepted. (For dating, that is. During my eight-plus-year stretch as a thief and shoplifter, I concentrated on fuck-you-first victims: corporations, scumbag bosses, chain stores.) I could separate the emotionally crippled woman from the crowd as soon as I entered the room. I'd quickly size up the gash, then, in my own sly, quiet, insecure and competitive way, chat up the most desirable one I could conceivably land. Usually, it worked. And, usually, the women were attractive enough that I was never ashamed of the score.

So, sure. I had my share of drunken fumblings, but they were always followed by that agony of regret and self-loathing. Now, as a newly single man in his 30s, I've learned how to avoid that pain. I've learned what works and what doesn't work for me and my tangled, fragile ganglia. For instance, an overnight roll-around with a stranger doesn't work, while a night spent drinking red wine, writing while she paints and then finishing each other off sometime in the early morning hours--sunlight creeping slowly into the bedroom--does work.

////

He took a second round for every first of yours, and kept putting them down. Order one vodka tonic, say, and he grabbed a gin with a bottle of beer. But he always squared with the cash, is the thing. So he wasn't being a grub. He just drank.

A Hole in My Heart, a Knot in My Gut

The job consumes me. It's all I do. I wake, go to work. I sleep, thinking about work. Tough life, I can't kid you, but I also won't prop myself up further. I know that I'm doing more than you--and doing it better, I'll add just once--but I'll let you know that for yourself.

////

The weather is beautiful. Downright beautiful. The kind of day when I regret taking a full-time job. I should be home, windows wide, unshaven with last night's time at the bar still cloying to me like that cheap cologne common to suburban mid-managers. Walt Wanderlay should be on the turntable; the dog should be exhausted from his two-hour walk earlier that morning.

That's how it should be. And that's how it was, for 18 months. Then, I took the job.

The call came on a Tuesday, if I recall. I'd had no intentions of taking the job--first, I doubted it would be enough to keep me busy; second, I doubt it could pay me enough to give up my afternoons with Columbo.

Two days later, I accepted an offer. Six days later, I started my latest full-time job. For more details, see "From Breadlines to Deadlines."

Some Anthropology: September, 1998

I was in the sights of an awful, youthful death. I'm the perfect candidate, if only because I've anticipated it since my teenage years. Somehow, I've skirted the scythe's swing, and now I've got less than four months to reach thirty. Thirty, to me, is my home base, proof positive that I will live to die when I should. If I don't drive much, I reckon, the odds tip dramatically in my favor (I always expected to become an asphalt skid mark); and if I continue to keep my volume down, if not my mouth shut, in the drunken bar haze, I should be damned close to a sure thing for longevity, barring disease or natural acts of god or unnatural acts of my fellow animals.

I'm feeling cocky. I wouldn't say than I'm healthy, wealthy and wise--more like not so sickly, meeting my bills and less foolish--but I do feel that I can last another few months. Bring it on, fucker. Give me your best, and see if I crumble.

More Anthropology: Spring, 1997

What a life I've got. I must admit that it's pretty good these days. Freelancing may lead to a low-tide bank account, but the freedom is incredible. Well-worth the fiscal anxiety.

Thursday morning. I've got a few hours of work lined up for 11 a.m. Short subway hop up to 29th and Park--15 minutes, tops. The dog gets walked at 9:30, so I usually get out of bed at 9:15. Today, though, I'm wide-eyed at 8:45, so I get up and hit the computer.

The morning's e-mail takes 20 minutes. Skip those. Delete these. Answer this one. Save that one for later, when I've got more time to return the insults in kind.

The dog has been waiting patiently, but now starts to become anxious. Ten more minutes, I tell him. Not that I don't want to walk him early--but this mutt is a bastard sometimes. Walk him 10 early today? Tomorrow, it's 20 early. And tomorrow, no doubt, I'll need every minute of sleep until 9:30.

Turns out his internal clock is better than mine. It's already 9:30.

Throw on a hat and shoes, grab some paper to pick up his shit and stroll around the neighborhood.

////

On a usual day, I come back at about 10, the dog goes back down to sleep until 12. I make a pot of coffee and go back to the e-mail. If I feel good, I trim down the incoming box. Attack the critics; thank those with kind words. Read through the newsgroups. Maybe check out some websites for my Fortean Times column. That usually stretches until noon, when the dog gets up again.

Walk the dog. On a nice day, I take him over to the run, let him play with the other dogs and get out some energy. It makes him happy; it relaxes me.

On the way back, check the post office box. There's rarely anything other than promo CDs from labels who haven't yet caught on to the fact that Crank isn't a music magazine. I throw out the press releases, photos and packaging at the post office and bring the CDs to a nearby shop to sell them. (At one time, I took pride in not selling promo CDs. Then, I took a good look at the boxes of shit that were piling up. I just didn't have room for that crap. So one day, Amy and I borrowed a car and went out to Jersey, the trunk filled with CDs. We made about $250 at three shops, and still had at least 150 left.) I do not feel guilty in the least bit for selling those CDs. I don't sell everything--certain labels are exempt because they produce good material. Crypt and Empty come to mind. I'm sure there are couple others.

And those CDs so horrible that even the used shop refuses them? I leave them on the railing near the subway entrance. Let some bum sell them on St. Mark's for beer money. Doesn't matter to me, so long as they're not in my fucking kitchen.

////

When I've got work, I'm busy. I'll spend all afternoon and most of the evening trying to pay the bills, hacking out crappy brochures and flyers for marketing companies. Easy work. Easy money. It ain't art, but I'm also not an artist.

////

The dog is at my feet. It's 10:36 on a Thursday morning. I didn't make coffee, since I'm leaving soon anyway, but rather bought two cups at the deli. The first is gone, the dog is quiet and it's time for me to get on the subway.

I'm dressing nice today. Clean pants and nice shirt. I showered and shaved this morning after walking the dog, and I smell good.

I expect seven hours of work today. At $45 an hour, it'll be a good day. Plus, an another six hours earlier this week, and I've got a decent week--$585. Sounds like a fortune to some kid out in Ohio, but it's not. I ain't sniffing at it, but I usually need to make a little more each week--I like to average about $800 or $900--if I hope to keep paying the rent and going out to eat.

It's a good life right now. I can't complain a whole lot, so I won't try.

And More Anthropology: The Early 90s

I was forced to drink tea out of a styrofoam cup. Hot drinks, cold shoulders, no friends nearby. It was tea because my stomach was fucked up from too much midnight coffee and jug wine in the last few days; my ulcer was coming back after a two-year vacation. It was a styrofoam cup because I was a stranger there and I refused to bring my own mug which would be--in my head, by my standards--an admission of defeat.

Job to job, two or three days at a time. Paid each week for the hours worked, down to the quarter hour. Easy work, tough times, no health plan available. It I get sick or injured, it'd better be in someone's car or in a food store or department store so they'll pay my doctor bills.

Long days, rough nights, no plan in sight. I fight with my girlfriend every three days, which is exactly how often we talk to each other. Our love is freezing up like the lake near my parents' house in the suburbs, only I doubt our love's gonna thaw in the spring.

////

Cold months, slow years, no end is near. Another cup of coffee and I'm thinking clearer. I'm seeing sharper and feeling stronger. Although I can't write as fast as I want, I can't type as fast as I want, I'll try. Then I'll stop and sit and relax and have another cup of coffee. But shit, I can't keep still. So I'll sit down and try to get my thoughts--again--onto the page. And although I can't get it down as fast as I want, I'll try. Then, I'll stop and have another cup of coffee.

////

My memory is fairly good; not with faces or names or dates, really, but somehow I'd still say I have a good memory. Problem is, I tend to enjoy the immediacy of life. A lot of people I know--too many in fact--pay too much attention to their current lives. I'd say it's unhealthy to worry about the future too much, and it's unquestionably not good to worry about your past. But who says you've got to worry at all? My problem is that I tend to live and let it all pass by. I'm a full participant, mind you, and I enjoy living a whole bunch... I just don't pay enough attention to remember what exactly I said to whom about what, where, when and why.

There are people I'd give my soul to if they'd only accept it without paying too much attention to the giving. The way I figure it, people pay too much attention to the etiquette of sincere love that they often ruin the process with the analysis.

I can say this because I remember giving myself to people who paid too much attention to what it meant. And I ended up standing there feeling like a smacked ass. Unfortunately, my memory won't let me forget that; it's made me bitter.

////

The couple upstairs is fighting. Mike and Shirley. Their daughter, Mikea (yes, a feminized version of "Mike"), is crying and running about. Mike's calling Shirley a bitch; Shirley's screaming back that Mike's a useless piece of shit. From the second floor, Mike's the loudest, but Shirley's right, and Mikea's got the right idea.

The dogs outside my window think they're my alarm clock. One's big, with a guttural "woof," the other is a little piece of crap that "yipes" twice for each "woof."

At 1:00 a.m. last night I was dozing off with a glass of wine next to the pillow when five or six gunshots jolted me. Two came from the rear neighbor's alley; the others from the street. It happens once a month. I got up, put some ice in my glass, and finished reading my book. At three or so I fell back asleep.

With all the gunplay in the neighborhood, you'd think a stray bullet would hit one of the dogs, or Mike, and make my life a little quieter.

////

They will appreciate me only when they are gone, lost or vacant. They will call on me when they need to know, when they need to see that their lives have not been lived in vain, when they need to be reassured.

But just when they need me most, I will spit on their open hands as they plead with me for mercy and compassion, as they plead with me for peace.

For I am a vengeful, spiteful motherfucker, an eyeglass that shows you exactly what you are, so that you get that which you deserve, you filthy whores.

////

When I look out my bedroom window I see the backs of other houses. With my own light out, I stand in the dark and hope to see into someone else's lit life. But their houses are all dark, too. The neighborhood is dead at two o'clock on a Tuesday morning. The burden of the working class is the need for sleep.

Thank god I like my job, even though it gives me no challenge and I sit in a room alone. Thank god I like it because I can work nine hours on four hours of drunken sleep with only two cups of coffee. Sure, I work alone and I haven't met another person my age since three months ago when I was picked up by a woman named Julie. But that's little consolation, since she sat down with her drink, got to know me a little better and then left rather abruptly without offering her number nor asking for mine.

That could have something to do with the fact I like working and sleeping alone, and often sit up drinking, working on what will ultimately be my life's work. I thought it was her, at the time. Now, as I pour myself another drink, I know better.

////

All that's left of my childhood are a few carved initials on an old tree in the sparse faux-forest where I played. The day I went to properly say goodbye to it, the snow was covering everything around me and the cold gave me a rush, a dizzy spell that lasted a moment, and was quickly covered up by clear images. The woods were near bare, and a generic corporate building stood where we had built a treehouse one lazy summer.

But the snow covered up the factories and trucks just as quickly as it was covering up the trees and rocks of my childhood. The initials on the trees didn't mean much, even to me, and I'd gone lumbering through the woods looking for them. Those initials were long-grown, some names have changed, and most, if not all besides me, have forgotten that they once foolishly sought immortality.

////

"It doesn't count unless you fuck," I noted. I don't necessarily believe that myself, but I was there for my pal. He'd been talking about getting blown and how they were fucking around--but not fucking.

"This guy? Nah, I'm not concerned," he said, pulling a last swallow from the bottle. He left abruptly and hit the bar for another.

Ten feet away, on the dance floor, his girlfriend was swinging it around for some local pretty boy. He was cute, I guess, and had a shape even I could admire, but my friend is my friend. And she should show a little respect. Especially when he's buying her drinks.

////

I thought of her sometime last week, a briefly known redhead from college. I can't exactly say they were pleasant thoughts, not quite fond memories of our times together, not quite welcome memories. I didn't think of the time we slept out on the picnic table, staring at the stars like two kids in a high-schooler poem. I had confessed that I was falling for her; she didn't respond. I didn't think of arguing about her last boyfriend who kept calling every day; she still took his calls and chatted for hours. I didn't think of "I was just looking to have fun, Jeff..." Anything more than fun was reserved for the guy at the other end of the phone.

Thankfully, I thought of other things last week. The fun parts. The handjobs, the scratches on my back. Still, I can't exactly say they were a pleasant bunch of thoughts, because when I was done with the fun parts, all that remained in my mind was how much I liked her, and how stupid I felt when I realized I'd actually liked her too much. More than I had to, really, if you know what I mean.

////

Muriel the Dividend Expert had plumbing problems this morning after two weeks of vacation in Arizona. She grew up in Chester, NJ, and when she was a young woman, she went to Montclair for kicks. She has laryngitis. Sounds like she sucked down a bag of helium with her morning coffee. She has no soul. Plenty of quirks, maybe a little personality, but no soul to speak of.

Muriel, Marge and Marcia will teach Jeff, Joe, Jim and Julio--three M's and four J's--how to calculate dividends. Marge didn't know Julio was spelled with a J. She thought it was an H.

According to Marcia, some languages don't even have Ks.

What a crazy world.

////

I walked into the door and split my forehead open; I keep picking at the scab and the dried blood gets caught in the eyebrow over my right eye; my girlfriend ate my contact lenses that I could barely afford; they were in a styrofoam cup and she drank them down (saline and all) because we were quite drunk the night before. Now I'm wearing fucked-up glasses with the split frame and scratched glass. The utilities bill is due. The phone's been out for 3 months. My Mastercard is at its limit and I've never made a payment. My feet smell because it's been raining for three days. Oh, and the cats are in heat.

////

A cut some two inches long, but not deep at all, is healing on my right hand. A very dramatic cut, but will leave no scar worth mentioning. I was drunk at a bar, dragging up machismo from an utterly non-machismo being. It's appealing and a bit appalling to tell the fight stories, about the x-rays and hospital stays for the occasional fistfight. So utterly tempting to hunt an elusive history from a sparse string of mediocre stories. Nobody knows you, day after night, nobody knows you, sparing that you've told them; so many unconscious delusions, though, make it harder to compete with the truth. A once-exciting life is dropped to mediocrity by a loud story of heroism.

The key is to get the jump on them and not speak at all. Silence always conveys modesty, which in turn makes it look like you've got something to say... And so on.

A story I couldn't tell before. Fourth of four.

I am as angry as I've ever been. I am the picture of frustration, walking the streets with a scowl I've seen only on killers. My steps hit the pavement in a machine-gun rhythm, though I glide through the crowd unnoticed. But that is, of course, of course. I'm also the picture of blandness, catching only an occasional eye of an occasional girl. Not generally women, who are too know to know better than to look twice at a man on these streets. Girls, though, tend to be more foolish and revealing with their eyes. Even when I sit at a bench somewhere on a side street off 7th Ave., I sit with a cup of coffee and sometimes, as now, scribble on a pad to try to keep my head clear. No one notices. Which is good, because being noticed while scribbling in not now--and not ever--the point. I am the picture of unresolved desires and wants. There can be no more frustrated a man than I: married in a marriage sinking slowly beneath storm-swelled waves. And the job--oh, the job is pain, at least in this particular window. Pain.

And the cute girls walk by, unshowered at 4:30 p.m., seeing as they only recently got out of bed and shook off the persistent, cloying emotional drudgery of the previous night's activities. But I feel a little better now; these seven minutes have calmed me. So I go back to the office, late afternoon on a Sunday, to face another six hours of chore. Somehow, though, the chore--even with the pain--is less frustrating than much of the idle time of my life these days.

Forgive Me My Idle Sins

I'm the guy with the drink, sitting in the back, along the bar, probably next to the waitress station--where it's usually easiest to snag a stool--despite the inconvenience of having to squeeze to the side when the wench needs access, wondering what's wrong. Wondering what, exactly, has gone awry, to cause such pain. When, I seem to be asking, was it that my course changed? When did the wind change and I decided on a new tack to take me to some sort of security?

Security isn't, really, what I want. Not ultimately, that is, not in the end. There are far more important things, such as integrity complemented by moments of accomplishment and rewarded with sparks of bliss. To name just one. The pain can come, of course, in as many forms as it wishes. For who am I to request a control over, or, even more laughably, a subsiding of pain? Just so long as I feel satisfaction with the product of my actions.

///

I walk down Houston St., a few drinks into the evening, my outer body completely defined by the tension within. My eyes must be alight with anger, because I'm catching second-glances and doubletakes from women who walk past me, and, frankly, I'm not handsome enough to draw their stares.

///

But this is not the end, not by far. I made a promise that if I made it to 30, I'd make it to 80. I'm trying my best, I swear, to keep that promise. If I wake tomorrow and find myself alone in a hotel room, nothing to my name, no assets to speak of, I'm actually less likely to put the heat to my temple. Leave me in this life without change, keep me on this predictable course of textbook advance, and I'll break my pact and embrace the dark which I can imagine as nothing if not absolute.

But again: this is not the end. It is the end of certain chapters, if only because I insist that more chapters be added. I hate the thought that I'll be considered an epilogue, that this is the last narrative I'll offer up. I want more than a simple 500-word conclusion; I want a work-in-progress, put forth for interpretation while I'm working on the next volume.

We'll see, though. I may simply disappear, never to be seen again.

///

Oh, but the indecision and pain overwhelm me. I immerse myself in work to hide from decision. I avoid my family and past friends to avoid acknowledging that which I am, or that which I want to be. They are those who will surpass my temporary station and situation; if I cease to be with them, then I cease to worry about my larger self. In this way, I keep my current life in check and fail to fuck things up.

But since I applaud action, this is cause for great internal conflict.

///

The devil is a stickler for details, but he's much too busy these days to worry about protocol. He may make a deal or two with the occasional mortal, but he won't think much about it. In fact, I have it on good authority that he lets his secretary handle all the paperwork. She has a stamp with his name on it., and she issues all the checks herself.

///

I pity those who piss away their talent. I've seen friends waste away creatively because they insist that their genius has already been realized. What they fail to see--what most people fail to see--is that genius is developed. It comes with a body of work, not with one single action or production. Sure, some are embraced as geniuses after their first outing, but such love always flees with the second endeavor. Always.

Seeing as I'm prone to such schizophrenic episodes of emotion, though, I'm willing to attribute my pity to a bad day. On a good day, I'll simply dismiss the waste as yet another arrogant attempt of artistic folly by a short-sighted idiot.

///

And it's a big, ugly, black-as-my-heart-on-a-bad-day motherfucking iceberg lurking underneath. I still haven't found my angle of repose. The sides of my landscape keep caving in, burying me underneath a weight of doubt, anger and ennui.

///

What a waste of time to consider this. A stretch of time, sprawling at my feet, waiting for my cue, to do what I want. To see them the way I want, to conquer--or perhaps to acquiesce to--the world and drag myself to a life above the street-level ambitions and smog-clogged dreams of the rest of you.

///

Once again, there are just so many things to say. So many stories to tell. Unfortunately, I can't tell many of them, for fear of disrupting my own fragile emotional stability or the stability of those around me. Some day, maybe.

Life is not only far more complicated than we imagine, but people are far more nasty than they otherwise might reveal.

///

"'Farewell, friend. I was a thousand times more evil than thou!'

"And then it leapt from the Earth and went spearing upwards, its wild voice laughing mockery...filling the universe with its unholy joy."