dobermans

“Why are you like that?”

Huh. Quite a tough question to answer, for sure, he thought. “I guess because that’s the way I’m supposed to be…” he said.

“That’s a cop out. You choose to be the way you are.”

“But you’re the one who believes in fate. In destiny. Not me.”

“Fuck you asshole.”

“That’s better. We can go back to drinking now.”

“I hope you drown in that glass, you sick fuck.”

That made him feel good. To be called a sick fuck. He was certainly sick. But a fuck? That means there’s a chance, right?


Lots of shit in my eyes. Pollen. Sawdust. Dirt. Sweat.

It’s a good day for eye drops.


This old pair of flip flops.

They were given to me by my ex.

The only pair I’d ever owned up until last summer, when I got a two dollar pair at wal-mart.

Now, I’m throwing them away. Putting them in the trash. Another reminder I’m finally at ease with tossing. I’m amazed at how I hold on to things. Give a reason, but know full well what the real one is.

Well, another anchor gone. Cast away. Cut the rope. All that nonsense.


The words come out a lot easier when I’m drunk. Yet lately, I haven’t enjoyed drinking. It hurts. Physically now. Not just mentally. It had to happen, sooner or later, would’ve rather it been later to be quite honest. It’s a shame because I like being drunk. I like tapping that vein that doesn’t seem to want to open up unless it’s been liquored up a bit. Like a cheap whore. Of course, I have no idea what a cheap whore is like, so maybe it’s completely different? New goal: fuck a cheap whore. It may change my perspective on life. Probably not. Definitely not. But how can I know unless I do it?


The lady told me she had a job for me. I was broke, wearing dirty clothes and hadn’t brushed my teeth in six days. So I said “Ok.”

We drove to her house. Me in the back of her beat up old Toyota truck. The day was nice. A tad warm, but still nice. I didn’t notice how bad I smelled while we were moving.

The city isn’t coming back the way I’d thought it would. I don’t think it ever could. In a decade or so, not much of what I loved about this place will be here anymore. Just the river and the music.

The car stops at an abandoned warehouse. The sign out front says “J.H. McClintock and Son.” It looks like there used to be an s at the end of Son, but someone obliterated it with a hammer or some other tool. I want to believe it was the son. Reality tells me it most likely was dad. Of course, mom or wife or girlfriend could have played a role. Sounds like a good idea for a book. I pull out my notepad and scribble it down. It’s just another random thought that will soon be lost. I have boxes of notes just like that one. I haven’t read most of them in years. The old “when I get old” or “when I get the time” excuses just don’t matter anymore. They’ve become the fact of the matter now. I sigh.

“You ok young man?” the old lady asks.

For a second I smile. She called me young. Ha. I was in a bar last week with a friend of mine. He’s 31. His wife is 25. The waitress asked me if I was his dad. Guess old hits hard when it does. And according to one fat, manly-looking waitress at a chain restaurant, I have been struck.

“I’m great ma’am,” I reply. “What do you need done here? Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here since the storm?”

“Well, my son lived here for two years after the storm,” she said. “But one day, he stopped coming around. That was five years ago. I haven’t been inside at all. I wanted someone to go in and see if he’s in there.”

“Whoah, you mean he may be living in there still?”

“No. No. No. I think he died in there years ago. Because he never was the kind of kid to disappear. He always told his mother where he was going.”

She handed me the keys to a giant set of locks. All kinds of them. Deadbolts and chains and pad locks and combination locks and levers. It was crazy.

Finally, after 30 minutes of jimmying with locks and WD-40, the door was open. I peered inside. It was dark. It smelled. Not of a dead man, but of old rotting paper.

“What was this place?” I asked.

“An old book binding factory. But people stopped buying books. Then they stopped reading. So, printing folks like us just blew away.”

“Yeah, I was a newspaperman myself before it all went to shit.”

“Oh? That’s lovely. I miss my paper.”

“I miss the paycheck. And, of course, the smell of a freshly printed paper with my byline in it.”

“Sad times we live in. Sad, sad times.”

“Ma’am? I’m going to go in now.”

“Ok, young man. Just be careful. We used to have Dobermans that watched the place for us. They could be feral ones in there still.”

“I seriously doubt it. This place was sealed up tight. Like a …” I caught myself before saying what I was thinking. I looked at the old lady, she was short, grey haired and looked like she had lived a great life. I once hoped that I could look like that one day. Doubtful now.

Inside, the place was like a time capsule. Books strewn about. Some finished. Some not. A giant press was still loaded up with a roll of paper. Looks like they shut it down in the middle of a run, expecting to come back the next day. Then the locksmith showed up instead.

An office was in the back. The door was slightly ajar. I peered in. On a cot, there was what appeared to be a suit. It was covered in dust. I put my flashlight on it. There was her son. A note was beside him.

“Mom, I’m sorry. I had to. Love Jeremy.”