All of my childhood heroes are old. It's strange watching the tributes on the television set, a brief interview or two accenting their past accolades, thirty five second sound bites over-shadowing the years I lived and breathed biographies and statistics. A wrinkle in Ricky Henderson's face betrays his stolen base record. If you ever saw the gray hair and defeated, tired eyes of Bret "The Hitman" Hart, you would never guess he was the greatest Professional Wrestling Champion of all time. Even Bo knows that no one knows Bo Jackson any longer. Mike Tyson, he's got that shit all over his face to match his rap sheet.
I don't know where I'm going with this. I guess people disappoint me. Damn them.
I'm old now, damn me. I tried so hard. Someone asked me if every person I had sex with counted as one drink per night, would I be tipsy, wasted or dead. I'd definitively be dead. It's nothing short of a miracle I've never gotten an STD. I've shared my share of needles and straws. I've done everything I can to stymie getting older, but it's here.
I should be glad that I'm not dead. I've so many friends I could tip this drink to toast their memory; so many haunted nights of laughter echo through the cavernous cathedral of my heart, prayers to the dark lord of nothing presiding over an empty congregation. I think tonight I almost lost my girlfriend over the stupidest of fucking arguments. She'd be alive, but if I break up with you, you're pretty much dead to me.
"I never get to see you." "You work too much."
I'm working too much to buy a fucking engagement ring, but I can't exactly spill the news, can I? After getting off work at 10pm on July 3, I was back for a 6am-10pm shift over the holiday. Why? Because in addition to my salary, I received sixteen extra miscellaneous hours (holiday pay for actually working it), in addition to sixteen hours at time and a half of my average hourly rate divided from my salary. Basically, I had sixteen hours at $40/hr, plus sixteen "miscellaneous" hours at $25/hr, ON TOP of my salary, which is substantial.
Then, in this pay period, the 1st-15th, I picked up miscellaneous overtime shifts on my days off, resulting in 34 hours at $40/hr, and 16 extra hours at $50/hr, the latter being tomorrow, when I go in at 2pm and get off at 6am. Yes, it's my day off, but goddamn it, this is not only paying for the engagement ring, but also our entire vacation this September.
Not to mention I'm TWO months ahead of my bills, which is TWO MONTHS more than I ever have been.
But I understand. She get's off at three, and spends her afternoon alone in our nice house, the pets her only company. There's no adult conversation. Since we moved from downtown in The City, she doesn't really have friends. I think she's terribly lonely, and that, ladies and gentlemen, breaks my heart into a million little pieces.
Somehow, above all odds in the entire fucking history of the universe, I have a modicum of financial success, and my personal life suffers, yet when I am poor and destitute, my personal relationships are at their finest. Money is a terrible, awful thing. I do know, above any relationship I have ever been in, that if I were to lose her, I would collapse and tumble to the ground. I would curse the sun and crawl into the depth of a darkness so deep the devil himself would dare second guess venturing forth into my cave.
I think that's the truest paragraph I've ever written.
It's strange though, this distance. We're two ships in a large bathtub, guided by the hands of children, drifting further and further apart, praying no one pulls the drain. We're men and women in awe of Prometheus' gift without knowledge of war or destruction.
This is stuff we need to talk about. But here I am sharing it with you, this double whiskey and coke, and interviews with my aging icons on the television.
My 32nd birthday lingers, a shadow around the corner, guiding me into the future with its crooked finger. I've been someone's hero before, and for that, I am truly sorry.
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