Snapshots from a bad week... Sunday We clean the basement. It takes the better part of two days. In 30 trips we lug my past to the curb: 20 overstuffed black plastic bags, 2 32 gallon garbage cans and several miscellaneous bundles bound with green neon surveyor's string. We are always the ones lucky enough to sift through the mildew, rotting wood and debris of my failure, old failure. Why me? Why my wife? How can someone leave pieces of themselves, their lives, in every corner and just and just and just walk away? The cellar air is clogged with oily fumes of lassitude and the solvent vapors of alcohol. How far does one actually need to fall before the safety line draws taut? I stumble awkwardly, turn an ankle, upon the skeletal remains of days and plans ideas and dreams. New pain for old injuries. Old pain, new injuries. It slices in both directions. I deserve the wounds. I love these wounds. I poke around in them with a filthy stick. I am hoping for blood poisoning or staph. I am hoping to create obvious scars. I am hoping for disfigurement, so that everyone will know. The basement is clean. It took the better part of two days. We lugged my past to the curb: 20 overstuffed black plastic bags, 2 32 gallon garbage cans and several miscellaneous bundles bound with green neon surveyor's string. This is not the end. Monday The pictures from the holy cities are not promising. We are re-learning that it is impossible to spin death and mortars into a daydream of flowers. Tuesday She says almost casually, "All of the prophecies are aligning. He will be here soon." I worry that living alone is starting to collect on a past due note. I worry that dementia has opened a the closet door. I worry that she stays up too late watching 2AM armageddon and brimstone television programming. Mostly, however, I worry that she might be right. Wednesday Leave it to my generation to celebrate the day that needles and blue steel ventilated a sealed, inviolate space. Leave it to my generation to not follow the pattern. We do not celebrate the day Washington and his wooden teeth withered away on an old age bed. We do not celebrate the day a pistol ended a quiet night at Ford's Theater. We do not celebrate the days assassins spoke through long rifles in Dallas or Memphis. We do not celebrate Elvis, dead in the bathroom with his pants around his ankles. Leave it to my generation to celebrate death over life. This is stupid. Stop the music. Cease the elegies and conspiracy theories. Come out from under the bridge. No more gatherings at the greenhouse. Do they even know when this hero was born? Leave it to my generation to get it all so very wrong. Thursday The 20 overstuffed black plastic bags, 2 32 gallon garbage cans and several miscellaneous bundles bound with green neon surveyor's string we placed at the curb have drawn a Notice of Violation from the town Code Enforcement Officer. We have placed too many bags at the curb on the wrong day of the week. The limit is five bags and they can be placed no sooner than 24 hours prior to pick up day. This is one of the freedoms that young and poor Americans are sacrificed for: the freedom to be told on what day and how much of your past you can put to the curb during one calendar week. It will take another month to dispose of my past. We will haul five bags to the curb for the next four Wednesdays. So much for my dream of a quick, clean escape from these memories. This is not the end. Friday Part I My dog has diabetes. She is the third being in my inner family circle to be so diagnosed. Sugar pursues me, a mute, diligent assassin. Friday Part II Plans turn to ash. Old nails spiked through new flesh. Stop... listen... Does this hurt? No. How about this? No. Stop... listen... Did that hurt? Yes. Should I do it again? Yes. Stop... listen... You should no longer race this insanity. I smell something...burning. Plans are ash. Nails enable religion. Saturday My wife carried, kicked and dragged the refused bags of my past off the curb and up the driveway. This is a story of collateral damage. The ones wounded by accident, without intent, out of thoughtless self absorption. The innocent. These are the ones that deserve tears. The rest of us deserve cob webs and hate crimes committed on our front stoops. This is not the end.