It was a night he would not soon forget. The news had devastated him, similar to when his wife told him it was over and then laughed as she walked out that door. It was the kick to the groin that brings you to your knees and puts God right in your face to where you can smell the tuna fish sandwhich He had for lunch.
This morning, eyes red and swollen, he reeked of cheap booze and the caustic sting of nicotine. Bottles littered the floor of his seedy flat, like so many dead soldiers giving mute testimony to the sanctuary he so perilously sought and yet once again could not find. Unfiltered Luckys stubbed out in an empty pizza box stood at attention, somehow mocking him for the precarious tumult of this life. He sat on the threadbare sofa bathed in the flickering light of the black and white Magnavox, another Lifetime movie starting about a violent man and the courageous wife who will stand up to his brutality.
He plumbed the dark depths of his persecuted soul for answers...Why was there not faith, reverie, or reward in this tortured existence? Everything seemed so promising, so vibrant, so recently. Had it only been days before, in Florida, when he had savored the sweet scent of citrus-spiced anticipation? The heady bouquet of victory? How could the fickleness of a manchild turn his world so completely upside down? Why! Why!
