BAM
Kindness and Decency
On Saturdays I liked to play Russian roulette and listen to songs about suicide. You can Google them these days. But, I ran out of vodka. Otherwise, I’d still be at it. Now, I’m in this store. What were the odds one aisle of toilet paper, tissues, and paper towels would divide me from a different bullet and a reunion with my lost love. Six months since she died of cancer. A neighbor suggested I saw a grief counselor. He didn’t know jack. When Dad died, I saw a shrink for the grief. The young doctor gave me a bunch of “goals” to fulfill. “Bah! My woman’s worth more than some goal,” I said to my neighbor. It wouldn’t bring her back anyhow. Days ran together now. I got up, threw on my overalls and rain boots, ran errands, and came home to the house. The house we bought together, the one we raised our sons in, the place we spent almost half a century holding hands, making up, kissing, and then yelling over piss pot seats. It was the place where meat and potatoes never got old. The house where we laughed at the boob tube one moment, cried at it the next, and never got sick of reruns because we watched them together. These days, it’s the house our kids left and forgot about, or the house where I lived alone. Where I watched her die. Like I said, I came in here for vodka. No one played Russian roulette without vodka. Oh and I needed paper towels. I used to never remember the stubborn things. Then the boy in the cereal aisle just started shooting people all of a