Mom had a small bank teller’s 401(k) I used to pay for cremation and settling her (and my) credit card debts. I probably should’ve used it to pay down the mortgage a little bit. Instead, I lived off it for almost two years. I quit the job at Newbury Comics. Besides being grief-stricken, depressed, existentially bereft (and vampiric, did I mention vampiric?), I worried that I might be unconsciously gnawing on or syphoning off my coworkers if I spent too much time around them. I didn’t (and don’t) know how this vampire thing totally worked. Yeah, the big feeds seemed to happen at night, when people were sleeping, but it’s clear to me that Mercy chewed on me like I was bubble gum whenever we hung out together. Though, I have never been physically recharged or reinvigorated after a shift at work. Quite the opposite. And I feel like a beat-up person in their mid-forties. Or mid–four hundreds. Christ, can you even imagine living half that long and what that would do to your head, your spirit? No, I don’t think you can. Our new advancing ages turn us all into cowards eventually.

How about a mixing straw? I loved chewing on them.

Anyway, I left the job because I didn’t want to drain and sicken my punk or punk-adjacent comrades in black T-shirts, Doc Martens or Vans, hole-punched piercings, and sleeve tattoos. And I left because the store had long ceased to be a record store (sure, we sold some records, though vinyl collecting was now an exorbitantly pricey hipster niche pursuit), and had devolved into a pop-culture kitsch store; a Johnny Rotten on a coffee mug, Star Wars and Disney T-shirt and desk-calendar repository.

Besides, I needed more time to look for Mercy. My social media and White Pages search for her wasn’t getting me anywhere.

To that end, I will drive to Rhode Island tomorrow.

* * *

It is a blah kind of early November afternoon in New England. Gray and Calvinist. But for the first time in almost a year, I have purpose. I make the ninety-minute drive to the College Hill area of Providence with every expectation I will find Mercy.

Present tense! Urgent! Sexy! You’re driving by my old apartment right now!