The door slammed shut.
“Good,” the only muttered word manageable in my drunken state. Raising my head from the table, I caught the fading headlights sneaking through the torn curtain. Soon silence again surrounded me---except in my head. The questions of why my life had come to such a low point, without sight of an upward turn. It seemed as if every day there was something new pushing me further down, deep into this hellhole of an existence. Was this an “existence”? No, it was more like a nightmare that I was hoping to awaken from. Somehow managing to stand, I grabbed the empty bottle. Knowing it was empty, but in need of its sense of companionship. There was nothing, no one, left to hold. To the living room. Dropping myself down into the couch. Trying to focus on where the remote control could be. Maybe the bitch took it. Thinking that thought over and over in my head. No matter how ridiculous it sounded at first, the more I repeated it in the thought, the more believable it became. The more believable it became, the angrier I got. Had things gotten that bad? So bad that she would stoop so low to create that one more ounce of inconvenience? So bad that I would think this thought? Fumbling behind the cushions, I found it. “A third body found,” stated the newscaster. Then gabbing away the headlines soon to be further detailed in the upcoming news broadcast, but first the commercials. Then the rasping sound of the absence of signal. Wondering if they had finally shut-off my cable box. That would be the coup de etat of the night. The company that started me on this downward spiral. Twelve years of dedication and hard work. One mistake. The scales seemed to be skewed to fit the desires of those currently in power. Poof, I was gone. No, they couldn’t even think of anything else but showing me the exit. Hell, there were others who crossed the line more severely than I did. Did they get the ax? Nope. Suspension, time-off without pay, demotion, anything but the door. Yet, with me it was so easy for them to say “adios”, without the “amigos”. Yes, they would be the ones who would want to put the cherry on top of this pile of dog dung tonight. Laughing at how they could force me to drunkenly bypass the converter so I would only get the basic channels. No HBO. No Showtime. No ESPN. The company. The assholes. “Oops,” I said to the empty room, realizing that I had inadvertently changed the channel on the television and not the converter. Returning it to the news just in time to catch a glimpse of the field reporter standing outside a very familiar house. “Yes, Charles, I’m standing in front of the victim’s house,” the screen changed to show the studio newscasters looking at the inserted picture of the field reporter as he moved closer to the residence, “Police sources have yet to state whether this death, or even the previous two cases are related.” “Well, that’s to be expected,” Charles smugly replied, then followed with his experienced reasoning, “The speculation of a series of related murders, not to say this third death is the result of murder, would cause undue panic within our community.” So nicely put, Chuckie-boy, I thought to myself. The female anchor nodded, “Dan, what information have they released regarding the deceased?” “At this time the only information that has been officially released is that the deceased is an elderly woman. Her name currently being withheld pending notification of her family. She was found this morning by a hospice nurse,” Dan pauses, “And that is pretty much it at this time.” Charles, brows positioned to make us all believe he is in thought before he spews his journalist wisdom...but I knew better. When I was with the cable company, I did a couple of service calls at his residence. Booze everywhere. He even tried to get me to hook-up an extra outlet for nothing. Thinking that just by mentioning that he was Charles Dunlap, co-anchor of the 11 o’clock news, that I would be so “happy” to do it for him. Hell, if people knew the porn tapes he had in his bedroom...he wouldn’t be Mr. Bigshot in this little stupid “wanna-be” city. I had enough of this, catching a last glimpse of the victim’s house, changing the channel in time to catch the commercial break of the Jerry Springer show. That house...what was so familiar about that house? Pounding in my head, going through those alcohol distorted memory files of my brain. Probably did some cable work there. In my tenure with the cable company, I probably worked on half the homes in this community. That’s it! It was on one of the service calls I did on my last working day with the company. Matter-of-fact, it was the last call of that day. Thirty minutes later at the shop I was officially handed my last check and shown the door. That poor old lady. She could barely see, but she still had to have her cable TV. Said it kept her company. She got upset when I told her that her problem was in her set. She didn’t want to believe me. It would not have done any good to bring in my test set...she couldn’t see anyway. That’s the way it is all the time, people don’t want to believe that it’s their set that’s bad. Nope, not their television, had to be the cable. Always the cable. I don’t understand how with her poor eyesight she could tell the difference anyway. Jerry is talking with some couples about friends sleeping with friends’ fiancees of the same sex or something like that. The screen goes to its silent blank screen as I press the “off” button of the remote. Tired, but not sleepy. Closing my eyes, hoping the silence in this room will slowly creep into me and put away all these negative thoughts and feelings. Shove them right out of me. Shove them right out of my life so I can get myself back together again. So I can get my life back together again. Or at least so I can get some sleep!!! Doesn’t matter anyway, no job in the morning to go to anyway. Unemployed---and possibly soon to be divorced. Things couldn’t get any worse, could they? Yes, they can and that’s what scares me...that they will.
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