Damn right!

When I finally arrive at Eddie’s bedroom, I might be too late. The bedroom is dark and fuzzy, which might be a me-and-my-shrinking-corona-of-vision problem. My chest is full of shrapnel. I sway and limp to his bedside on feet that are fully numbed. I am winding down, but I still have a few ticks left. I bet. Eddie’s aging face is graying and wrinkled. So is mine. I don’t need a mirror to know that. I don’t like seeing the part of me curled atop Eddie’s chest and, sorry, I will not tell you who or what I see. I’m keeping that for me too. I say, “I could stand here until I can’t stand anymore and watch you shrivel up, you fucker.” I wearily climb onto the bed that’s as soft as a marsh and I crawl onto Eddie’s chest and part of me tantrums and howls and beats its mighty fists against me as I reclaim it. No one likes a whiner, right? Eddie’s face has gone a splotchy, puffy purplish red. A hiss splits his lips when I shift my weight. I say, “You will be visited by three other spirits,” just to fuck with him a little more. I roll off Eddie’s chest and bed. He coughs and retches and gasps for air. Whole but still split in a way I’ll have to learn to live with, I mosey out of the bedroom a hero or antihero to no one, myself included, and that’s okay by me. By the time I get to the garage, Eddie stops coughing and switches to shouting out hysterical threats and entreaties to God-sanctioned vengeance. As if. But before I’m smote, I hustle out the garage’s side door, into the floodlit yard, across the grass, and over the fence (not very gracefully) to the beach. And I don’t hear Eddie anymore. There’s only the wind and waves.

Fucking mosey. You crack me up.

So, hey, remember when Mom asked about how I would end this book?

Well, I’m ending it now, by choice, with me walking on the beach. Maybe I’ll just walk for a while, up the coast, see how far I get. No more crossing the old desert sands, at least not now. I’ve had enough of that and, frankly, I’m fucking exhausted.

Like all stories, this is one about failure and temporary victory. What makes this one different (good, bad, or indifferent, and all shades between) is this book contains me. Well, it holds the parts of me, big meaty chunks of me, that I’ve named Art Barbara. In the pages and between the covers is who I am and, eventually, as it will be for all of us, the who I am statement will turn to past tense.

But what about ME? What are you going to do about me????

Hey, so this book is like my casket, yeah? Maybe it’s morbid to think of this book, or any book, as a coffin, but hang with me for one more moment or two (despite the cost).