Stig Sæterbakken, himself a suicide, once wrote, “It’s the prayer we direct toward any great work of art: God, take this pain away, which is me.”
Happened by accident. Quite by accident. The old man stepped into a grey area. A slippery slope and he had a bad habit of making questionable friends and making questionable decisions. Used to stay out late, too. Nothing good happens after two in the morning.
Notice there’s no song that goes, gotta be two a.m. somewhere.
Don’t care who or what you are. The old man seemed to grow bigger. Scarier. I’m gonna tear your face off and use it as an oven mitt.
Eric Hoffer said, “guard against fear, self-righteousness, and wishful thinking, for these blunt the mind and the senses.”
Either everybody counts or nobody counts. That was his current operating principle. Maybe was always, always, his operating principle. But he found himself consciously conscious about it right now. Everybody’s lives matter.
The young redhead was physically attractive, if you like that type. The old man did. Stuck between what she wanted and nuance, he did the best he could with what he got. She seemed to be happy, said she was happy, probably was happy and he liked that type.
Closing time: You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.
They didn’t know if she had tamed him down, not completely, but down. Or if he had just gotten too old to be that stupid any longer. Or if some different factors coalesced. Which is not an easy word to spell.
He was secretly pleased with himself and she knew he was happy, too. He liked being that type. Thoughts screamed quietly in and out and around his brain. He was listening to a PBS documentary about a better man.
He needed money and he did what he did. Now he had money.
The hat. The sunglasses. The beard. The car. Nuance. Another tricky word.
The lawn guy gave him the name. Heisenberg.