diagrams and haunted sleep [00]
His identity today is named Dave Tillman. Insurance salesman, city-councilman hopeful, married-his-childhood-sweetheart Dave Tillman with absolutely everything to gain but more recently everything to lose, because these days he can't remember when he starts drinking, and all he knows is that he passes out sometime around midnight and wakes up with a bottle in his hand and a headache almost every. single. night.
That Dave Tillman.
He knows he didn't always used to drink. He used to be a proper, Christian, 'no, thank you, and I'll have a sprite' kind of guy. He believed in moderation and control. He also believed in True Love with the capital letters and everything, except his wife told him a month ago that maybe this wasn't how it was supposed to go, maybe she was supposed to have dated at least one other person in her life, and maybe she'll take their one year old baby with her. He started drinking, then, and once or twice (or more) he followed her to her new apartment, and then he was arrested, and then his boss told him, hey, take a few days off. Clear your head, please. Don't come here anymore, please. It was cute at first, but now it's just pathetic. That was also the day he was told about the restraining order.
Depression doesn't begin to cover it. He lost the one person he used to define himself, he lost his baby girl, and now he's going to lose his job. Lose. Loss is a better word, but it isn't bitter enough.
Hopeless. Treading water. Just him and the scotch. Thank you, we'll be here all night. (And night and night and night.)
It's maybe nine'o'clock when he summons the energy to leave his apartment and go down to the automat to get his dinner. He can't cook, but he's been very good at collecting nickels and so he'll always have something to feed himself. He's a little drunk when he arrives and bumps into one of the (mercifully empty) tables before digging out enough change from his pocket to pay for a tuna fish sandwich wrapped in wax paper. On his way to his seat, he brushes against that same table, only this time his pocket gets caught on the edge and all the nickels (thirty, maybe forty, fifty) fall out of his pocket with a clink clink clink clink.
Oh. Of course.
That Dave Tillman.
He knows he didn't always used to drink. He used to be a proper, Christian, 'no, thank you, and I'll have a sprite' kind of guy. He believed in moderation and control. He also believed in True Love with the capital letters and everything, except his wife told him a month ago that maybe this wasn't how it was supposed to go, maybe she was supposed to have dated at least one other person in her life, and maybe she'll take their one year old baby with her. He started drinking, then, and once or twice (or more) he followed her to her new apartment, and then he was arrested, and then his boss told him, hey, take a few days off. Clear your head, please. Don't come here anymore, please. It was cute at first, but now it's just pathetic. That was also the day he was told about the restraining order.
Depression doesn't begin to cover it. He lost the one person he used to define himself, he lost his baby girl, and now he's going to lose his job. Lose. Loss is a better word, but it isn't bitter enough.
Hopeless. Treading water. Just him and the scotch. Thank you, we'll be here all night. (And night and night and night.)
It's maybe nine'o'clock when he summons the energy to leave his apartment and go down to the automat to get his dinner. He can't cook, but he's been very good at collecting nickels and so he'll always have something to feed himself. He's a little drunk when he arrives and bumps into one of the (mercifully empty) tables before digging out enough change from his pocket to pay for a tuna fish sandwich wrapped in wax paper. On his way to his seat, he brushes against that same table, only this time his pocket gets caught on the edge and all the nickels (thirty, maybe forty, fifty) fall out of his pocket with a clink clink clink clink.
Oh. Of course.