You feel as far from the man and woman crossing the street as your flesh is from Pluto. A dog trots beside the couple. You have seen three dead dogs in person. Two died of unnatural causes and one of natural causes, if cancer is natural. You aren’t certain.

Failed relationships accumulate; the failures and the aftershock of which scar your emotional foundation are no different from the time you whiffed that golf swing. Your skin buzzed with shame and fear. Bubbles formed under your arm and neck hairs. Your vision blurred. You focused on the ball, and it split into pieces as small as the suction cup divots that festooned its surface. Your mind had established grand expectations in those seconds between the missed swing and the second swing. After swing five, you went home, your vision wet and foggy, with angry tears. Insults ricocheted off the nylon-lined roof of your car and the leather-laden interior, as the recent memory of the error grew more violent in your mind. Drinking led your fist to your temple. When you were feeling nice, you’d use an open palm. You’d been trying to self-love here and there. Hangover splinters shot about in your head like fireworks, and your temples were as tender as well-prepared beef. 

Back to those swings. Your first love, like that first swing, was simple. Confident and desirable, you tore open your crevices, revealing any squirmy wet bugs that prefer the dark. Did ya no good. Looking back, you let in some real creatures doing that—the kinds that eat squishy bugs. 

#

This morning, you had three glasses of whiskey with three splashes of coffee and a leftover taco of the scrawny dollar-menu fast food variety. 

#

When you were a kid, your brother beat you once in a way that warranted legal action. A few years back you went camping with him, poisoned him with atropine, and left him. The plan had been to split off; he had to trek back east, and you wanted to spend a couple of days alone in the woods to sketch trees. You maintained this relationship for years, and you liked his company while not forgetting your purpose. Loyal friends relinquish control over one another. Your brother trusted you with his life, and you tried your damnedest to take it. You failed. Y’all still talk sometimes. 

#

After three whiskey coffees, you started driving. The promise of more whiskey motivated the move, but the liquor store didn’t open for two more hours. You drove around. Several joggers, some pretty ones, too. Boys and girls. Looking wasn’t fucking. 

#

Your best friend’s wife touched your cock once. Cock and fucking are words you only say in your mind. You got the lash for curses growing up. One day, your father asked rhetorically, as if stating a fact, “You cuss in your head though?” You took that as approval. She touched your cock. Sucked it even. Everyone had too much to drink. Your mind was clear, like you wiped it with Windex—an entire bottle of bourbon or not. She devoured you, and you sat on the couch. 

#

After whiskey coffee and the cute runners, you thought there was no harm—it was a cool chill idea even—in going to see her. Your ex-wife. Not your best friend’s wife—the one who gave you drunk head on a couch several years ago while her husband was passed out on the floor behind the couch. This her has a family. You watch her sometimes. It was only digital watching until she blocked you. The restraining order forced you to get a new car—an errand that consumed all of yesterday. 

#

The last man you trusted, an old basketball coach, treated you fairly so he could stuff your mother. More playing time. Ice cream after games. New sneakers. After he slept with your mother and left, which you knew because she yelled at him, “You just wanted to fuck, right? Just fuck and leave!” They had been fucking for months, you realize looking back, so he didn’t just fuck and leave, but he left. The next guy tried to buy you shit. You told him, “You want to screw my mom? Buy her gifts, not me.” Remember, you don’t say fuck out loud. Mom wasn’t easy or anything, but she had boyfriends after Dad decided to shoot up in every motel across the South and Midwest. 

#

Coffee whiskey in your system, visions of runner’s bums in your head while outside your ex-wife’s place, you see them emerge. Dog. Kid in stroller. New husband. Ex. You remembered it as you sat in the liquor store lot with a bottle in your glovebox. Properly soused now. 

#

Seven years ago, before the best friend-wife-couch-blowjob, your wife spent time, lots of it, blowing her now husband. She said you didn’t blow her, so she blew him, and you said it was because she didn’t want to be blown by you. You threatened to blow your head off. She blew her top and called your bluff. You beat your head against the wall. Too soft. So, you went outside and beat it against the masonry. Just right. You were dizzy for a week, and you puked. She left. You drank. Her dog was a fair price, by your estimation. Like the fair price your brother paid for beating you. And the price your best friend paid after he stole $10,000 from you. A scam. You poured yourself into the back of his wife’s throat. Fair. 

#

You drove forward fast. Your truck growled, and you thought it weird for a dog to walk on two legs. It was a shame for your wife’s—ex-wife’s—family to lose such a peculiar animal. 

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