PROLOGUE – DOWN ALONG THE COVE
HE HATED THIS house and everything in it. The shredded sofa in his eight by ten foot room defiled by some feral cat—a former non-paying tenant. At least he could have something to relate to if the cat were still here. It would be better than trying to communicate with his landlord and roommate, Bob Seward, whose face looked like it had been on fire and someone had put it out with a pickax. Now curled up in a fetal position on the disgusting living-room couch, said roomie was down for the count.
“Beautiful.” He shook his head while downing the last drops from a fifth of Early Times. Closing one eye, he peered into the neck of the bottle. Gone. He let ‘er rip like Tom Brady throwing a Hail Mary into the end zone. Well, almost. Shards of clear glass were right at home in the kitchen with the burned-down cigarette butts, dozens of crushed Old Milwaukee beer cans, mounds of empty Stouffer’s lasagna cartons and pizza boxes, all left for the flies and maggots to divide and conquer. He tried to open his eyes but the glaring bare bulb was too much and he reduced them to slits. An ant army paraded up the ingress of the battered wooden door disappearing into a four-inch crack in the peeling plasterboard.
He wished he could get on a plane and go back home, but that jet had already left the tarmac, taxied down the runway, and was plummeting nose-first from the not-so-friendly skies. As for his wife, Eleanor—well, it was too late for that. He felt like calling Nick, but remembered his son hated when he called while drunk. How long had it been? The days had slipped into months, and months into—had it become years?
It came to him. About a year before on the phone, that one time Nick said, “Do the world a favor. Fuck off and die already.” Ungrateful kid. Would Nick even recognize him now? Hell, he could hardly recognize himself. Sometimes, when he washed his face in the sink, which wasn’t that often, he’d wonder who that fat old man was with the scraggly beard, deep lines etched in his forehead and venous nose staring back at him in the mirror.
Wasted half the time, He knew Nick had been too young to realize what was going on. His inebriated father could always hide it well. Not so much anymore. He thought about the season when he coached Nick’s Little League team. That hadn’t ended too well and Nick never really forgave him for what he did. He wished he had a time machine and could go back, begin it all again. How had it gotten so fucked up?
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