sleeping, drinking, fucking

I stared at the mailbox for at least 20 minutes. It had graffiti on the sides that read “the U.S. is doomed” and “fuck the mailman, mom did.”

Chuckling, I finally put my envelope in the large metal bin. I sighed before letting go of the grey handle. Grey because the blue paint had long ago disintegrated from the thousands of hands touching it over the years.

Those twenty minutes were a whole lot longer I thought about whether or not I should apply for the job in the town of my dreams doing something I really wasn’t qualified to do, but I really wanted to get to that town, was a whole lot longer than the seconds that it took me to drop a letter in the same box three years earlier. That letter was to my ex-girlfriend. I’d dug up her address on the internet. One thing I’ve always been able to do is find people and their addresses. I’d done it for a buddy of mine. Found a former friend who became a federal prisoner. I’d found a Major League Baseball player’s address for my former ex. It was one of the reasons I think she agreed to start having drinks with me. Drinks that led to thoughts that led to actions that led to heartbreak. Twice.

But the day I sent her a letter. Over two years after she’d dumped me with the lines “I hate doing this because I still love you” and “Love is not enough.” I wrote the letter in a fit of self-pity and self-help book reading.

I didn’t think twice after pouring my heart out in page after page. Didn’t think twice about it at all. I just licked the envelope, went to the post office a few blocks from the tree that I wrote the letter under, a tree that me and her had spent time under, and mailed it. In this very same mailbox.

I hadn’t thought about it until the second I dropped the resume and such in the box.

“This is that box,” I thought.

Bad omen, for sure.

That original letter went to that address. She had since moved. But, in the great way the post office does things, it eventually found the right address. Months later.

So almost eight months after I mailed the letter. I got a response. Via e-mail.

“You violated us by sending me that,” said the letter in an e-mail sent by another friend so as I didn’t have her e-mail address, I’m sure. “Please don’t try to talk to me again. And I don’t think it’s a good idea that we meet.”

I felt numb reading it. I’d been excited and nervous for a second or two. Then deflated.

I drank a lot that night. I think. I really don’t remember.

I don’t remember a lot about my life in late 2008 and early 2009.

I got dumped right before all this. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. Better than getting laid for the first time. Better than my first kiss – which I’m not even sure of the where or when. It may have happened at Longwood College in 1990. It may have happened on frat row at UVA in 1990. I really can’t be sure anymore. I used to be very sure it was on frat row. But now? Not so much. I think maybe it happened at my friend D.J.’s house party. She made us kiss to get into the party. Me being a virginal kisser, I didn’t want to do it. And may not have. I don’t remember. Lots of grain alcohol that night. Acutally dumped the end of a trashcan full of the stuff. Almost got beat up.

But D.J. saved us.

Just like I saved him a year earlier when he started talking about “Niggers” in my dorm room. “Niggers are everywhere. Niggers are stupid. Niggers are dumb. Nigger, nigger, nigger.” Well, my roommate was black and I stood up and told him “leave. Now.”

He did. And I watched in horror as he stood outside waiting for me to come out. My roommate staring at me.

“Jimmy, he’s a dick,” I said.

“Yeah…and?” he replied.

“And you won’t see him again.”

I grabbed a bottle of Jim Beam and poured two double shots.

“Here you go, buddy,” I said, handing him the shot glass.

“Fuck you, Randy,” he said, taking the shot glass and downing the brown sludge. I returned the favor.

Three hours later we were hugging each other and drinking Mad Dog 20/20. He barfed it on the wall. I put a Motley Crue poster over it. Where it stayed until June when we moved out.

The moment I removed the poster we looked at each other and laughed.

“Been a long year, hasn’t it?” Jimmy said.

“Not at all, my man. Not at all.”

“That was a long night.”

“Yes. And a long time ago.”

I’m still friends with D.J. And Jimmy. Although neither of them has ever been in the same room at the same time again. As far as I know.

I only saw D.J. at my 20-year high school reunion. He married an extremely hot woman.

Jimmy is a big wig at a college now.

Me? I’m a copy editor for a dying newspaper in a shitty little town.

I guess we all got what we should have.

And I’m still wondering if I’ll ever talk to my ex again.

Once an idiot, always an idiot.

Sleep. Drink. Fuck.

One day, my teeth will fall out and I’ll just sleep and drink.