![]() ![]() His wife, Barbra, sat on the couch, her posture tepid, shoulders loose, head slouched, no acknowledgment of his existence. Release, that was always how he had thought of it. What was the point of it? He had so little left to give him joy, or the approximation of it. A thousand bucks gone, a visit to the bathroom stall. But even then, he’d blown through that pleasure fast. He’d been at the casino earlier, hanging with the young bucks. ![]() All the things he loved to do, smoking, drinking, walking off his frustrations, those pleasures were gone. ![]() And he had coughed his way through his cigar, the smoke tonight tickling his throat vindictively. The bottle of Scotch had been sitting too close to the window for months, and the afternoon sun had destroyed it, a fact he had only now just realized, the flavor of the Scotch so bitter he had to spit it out. The pacing came after the cigar and the Scotch. He made it from one end of the apartment to the other in no time at all-his speed a failure as much as it was a success-then it was back to the beginning, flipping on his heel, grinding himself against the floor, the earth, this world. ![]() Not much space for it in the new home, just a few rooms lined up in a row, underneath a series of slow-moving ceiling fans, an array of antique clocks ticking on one wall. He was an angry man, and he was an ugly man, and he was tall, and he was pacing. ![]()
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