I’ll take one depression, on the rocks

It was dark. Darker than he could remember. No stars. No moon. Just the vastness of the universe. Day turned to evening and eventually into the night and the emptiness of the sky. He was tired but had no desire to sleep for fear of where that might take him.

He thought for a moment. “A cocktail?”

“Nah.”

“A cigarette?”

“Not in the mood for the smell.”

“A joint?”

“The paranoia. Just what I need.”

There was a loud exhale through his nose. “How am I supposed to do this? Does anybody care if I live? I have that frustration. That frustration. It’s like when I was in customer support and had to explain and re-explain a procedure over and over, but the caller never seemed to get it right. Nah, that’s stupid.”

He couldn’t think straight. He no longer cared about anyone else’s emotions or well-being and believed they didn’t care about his. He didn’t even really understand the permanency of death at this point. He just knew he needed to leave this world and the unending pain.

He believed it would never get better. He was consumed by the words his brother told him while he was still married to The Narc. “You were a mistake. You never should have been born. Nobody ever liked you. Mom and Dad both told me they never wanted you and you grew to be a waste.”

A heavy sigh, closed eyes, and rubbing his forehead lead to those thoughts, again. “Pills? Razorblade to the wrist? Step in front of a train? But what if I screwed it up? Better yet, what happens when I screw it up? Don’t you have to leave a note? My kids? They hate me. The Narc. The lies. Those god dammed lies.”

As he pondered next moves, he feared the possibility of permanent brain or physical damage more than death. He thought it was completely normal that if offered a pill that guaranteed his demise, he would take it.

He placed his right index finger on his nose rubbing it up and down. “Jesus, I have hair on my nose. Who has hair on his nose? I always loved my family and it turns out they never cared about me. Wait. Stop. They do want me. Dead. They want you dead. My kids. Brother. Sister. But my brother who waited a lifetime and worked his ass off to get it finally achieved his goal. Inheritance. Woo hoo. And splitting an inheritance with only one person was the golden ticket. Hang on, you’re not dead, and they still managed to cut you out of Mom’s will. That’s because you are weak. You gotta give everyone credit. The Narc took your kids and all your stuff. She just ignored the Co-Parenting agreement. My brother changed Mom’s will before she died. Everybody stuck it to you. And you let them. So, it’s all on you.”

He let out another exasperated sigh followed by his left hand running through his hair and his eyes opening.

“You Can’t Do It”

“Why you taking the easy way out. You still have so much to offer. You just don’t know it yet.”

He rubbed his eyes and rolled his shoulders. He had gone from the silence of the night and the insults in his head to hearing a voice he recognized.

“I gotta be stoned.”

“Nope. A little tired maybe.”

It was his cousin. He thought about him every day. The little brother he never had who was taken from his family much too early. “No young man starting out in his mid-twenties needs to leave the planet unless, well, unless…”

“Okay, stop with the justifications. Stop trying to figure this out. I’m with you now. Let’s leave it at that. I now get why I’m not on earth anymore but I’m still with you. And you gotta stop with that crazy talk. Trying to ice yourself?  You have no plan. There is no pill. Razor to the wrist? That’s frowned upon up here.”

“Hang on, just wait a second. The only thing more exhausting than being depressed is pretending you’re not.”

“Listen, it’s not as bad as you think. The broken will always be able to love harder than most because once you’ve been in the dark, you learn to appreciate everything that shines.”

“Wow. That’s uh, well, seriously profound.”

“I can’t take credit for it; it was on Twitter.”

“You get social media?”

“Oh yeah. Moses is pissed off that he posted the Ten Commandments on Facebook and he hasn’t gotten any likes. I saw this one too and it’s pretty good. “Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by a**holes.”

“Maybe I’ll have that drink now. Josh? I mean it is you, right? Jesus. How long you been here?”

“Long enough. People are talking about you. How are you handling all of this?”

“I’m guessing you see it for what it is, huh? Dude, you are a good-looking kid. You getting laid up there? My God. If I looked like you, I probably would’ve had more confidence. I definitely would have gotten laid a lot more.”

“Yo, when you lived in New York City, you were doing very well. Florida probably was not the best move for you. You lost whatever confidence you had. You let everybody run your life for you and then your marriage. She just crushed you. Totally.”

“Yeah, well, no use crying over spilled milk. I mean…”

“I see we need to chat. Uncle Warren says hi. I was glad to see Aunt Margie. She looks great.”

“So, I guess when you get to heaven, they pick that point when you were at your best, huh? I mean you didn’t see her with all the problems?”

“Well, I was watching and saw everything. Most of it I watched with your dad.”

“So he knows. He saw what they did?”

“Oh, he saw. He was shocked. Totally shocked. It broke his heart. But he was more shocked at what The Narc did to you.”

“He knew?”

“Not until well after I got there. He thought you were happy. Really really happy. I explained you loved your kids and could not see your life without them and her daily threats about taking them away from you. I then explained some things and we watched together what she was doing to you. And what your brother and sister were doing.”

“Didn’t you guys have any power to help or stop it or make me happy or something?”

“It doesn’t work that way. It’s not like the movies. Oh, and when the bell rings you don’t get the wings, but we are praying for you.”

“Terrific. Prayers. Can’t you just walk down the hall and talk to the big guy directly?”

“No. Like I said it doesn’t work that way. But he knows me and whenever I pray, I know he is listening.”

“Wait. Hang on. I love that movie. I used to watch it during the holidays with my old man. It’s A Wonderful Life. At the end, Clarence gets his wings when the bell rings.”

“Like I said, a movie.”

“Another myth down the drain. Yeah but surely you know I’m not me anymore. Forgetfulness, confusion, and disorientation. Making even the smallest decisions is agonizing. It affects not just my mind but also my body – I start to stumble when I walk or become unable to walk in a straight line. I swear I’m clumsier and more accident-prone. Josh, it’s like I’ve become, in my head, two-dimensional – like a drawing rather than a living, breathing creature. I can’t conjure my actual personality, which I remember only vaguely, in a theoretical sense. I swear I live in, or close to, a state of perpetual fear, although and this’ll sound stupid, I am not sure what it is I am afraid of.”

“Alzheimer’s? Dementia? I mean it took your Mom.”

“No. Depression. There is this heavy, leaden feeling in my chest, like when someone you love dearly has died; but no one has – except, perhaps, me. I don’t know how else to describe it. I feel acutely alone. It’s like viewing the world through a sheet of plate glass; no, more accurately, a sheet of thick, semi-opaque ice. Thus, my personality – the normal, accustomed “me” – has changed. But… well, John Keats, the poet had a great line about depression. “I’m in that temper that if I were underwater I would scarcely kick to come to the top.”

“Hang on. I’ve seen those other negative emotions in you– self-pity, guilt, apathy, pessimism – making it a deeply unattractive illness to be around, one that requires unusual levels of understanding and tolerance from family and friends.”

“Yeah well, I’m low on both…the family. The friends.”

“You got both. You may have scaled-down, but those that stuck by you are really there for you.”

He rubbed his hands through his longer than usual, curly gray hair.“Jeez. You really see a lot up there. I need a haircut, don’t I?”

“Okay focus. Stay with me. It’s kind of nice when I get to tune into it. But you were abandoned. Totally abandoned.  They left you to rot. You were so outside of yourself with her that you became of no use to anyone. If you had been talking this way back then, I can see the suicide stuff. But you survived her. I know that now you have to pick up the pieces but it’s only gonna get better.”

“Hey, you run into The Narc and her father?”

“No. But, I mean it’s a big place.”

Yeah, that’s because they’re not there. I know exactly where they are.”

“Look, forget them. Maybe you need to redirect that anger. Don’t move on but perhaps do something extraordinary. Ya know? Leave your mark. Let people know you were here. I’m gonna steal a phrase that is relevant down here. You matter.

Smear Campaigns

“Wow. You are plugged in. Seriously, I don’t matter. You aware of the smear campaigns? The attacks on me. I’m not kidding man. The boys absolutely hate me.”

“They do. For the time being. They have gone through life-changing events. You. Now their mother. If it’s true what they say about boys not maturing until they’re in their mid-twenties, you gotta give it time.”

“But all the stuff she was saying to them about me. She lied to them. She lied in court under oath to a circuit court judge. All for what? For what!”

“Calm down. Smear campaigns are some of the most horrible things that narcissists do. The extent of the means, methods, and lengths that narcissists will go to, to lie about, and turn people against you is chilling. I know that it’s very likely you understand how devastating it is to have the people who used to support you turn on you. And the more you try to expose the truth, the more people don’t believe you.”

“When this happened to me … having family, friends, and colleagues and even my sons’ side with The Narc, I was so traumatized I thought I was gonna die. I had no idea how I was ever going to win my life and key people back. Yeah, Right. Those were her words. Yeah. Right.”

“You lost me.”

Focusing On The Negative

“A woman from my old neighborhood tapped me on the shoulder a while back. I’ve done my best to avoid everyone from there since my divorce and had I seen her coming I would’ve turned the other way. What she was doing in that parking lot, I have no idea.”

After smiling and saying, “Oh, hello. How’s the family?” she gave me a look of disgust.

“Well, nice seeing you,” I replied as I forced a smile and continued walking.

“I shouldn’t say anything. You’re a pig. A horrific animal. What you did to that beautiful family. You should go on trial for what you did to your wife. You killed her.”

“I stopped and put my head down. I was biting my lips and exhaled. “I was married to a narcissist.”

“Yeah. Right. She was a narcissist and you were this perfect guy. You were the greatest dad who ever walked the planet. That’s why your kids hate you and you were banned from your son’s high school. That is not what I heard. I heard you were abusive, a drunk, a drug addict and quite frankly you hated working. You never even tried to support your family. You spent all of your money on drugs and walked out without leaving them anything. I also heard that you begged your wife to marry you because your father was dying. Her mistake was trying to love you. If she was guilty of anything it was that she waited too long before dumping you. Now everyone knows what you are. I hope those kids never talk to you. I even heard you stole their Bar Mitzvah money to support your drugs. Very clever the way you masked all of this from everyone. But we all know now. Quite frankly, you disgust me. You didn’t even pay child support. I heard how you yelled in court and you just wanted your stuff back and had no money and for some reason, the court felt sorry for you. It’s no wonder you were not given a co-parenting agreement. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must be going.”

“Oh, I did see that. The Narc never told anyone that you were paying child support or that you had a Co-parenting Agreement. In fact, she was telling people that you wanted nothing to do with your kids. And that was followed by how she just wanted you to stop harassing her and the boys. She never cared about the money.”

“That’s ALL she cared about. The money. And as far as the child support? You don’t get a choice. If I didn’t pay, I would be in contempt of court. And how about her blocking my phone number on their phones?”

“I get it. I saw it, but…”

She Never Stopped.

“So how did she get away with it? How did she get away with these smear campaigns? Smear campaigns against me and believed by family, friends, and even clergy?”

“As hard as it is to understand, narcissists get away with it all the time. My theory is that some people thrive on hearing horrible things about others and wanna believe it. Maybe thinking YOU are so terrible, makes them feel better about themselves.”

“When it happened to me and I heard some of the crap that she was telling people, I laughed because the lies were so ridiculous. Surely no sane person could possibly believe that stuff.”

“But they did. Wouldn’t you if somebody started spewing crap about somebody you knew? You would eat that up. You love to gossip. It started when you were married and continued well into the divorce. The lies. You were a drug addict. You were an alcoholic. You were abusive to her after the kids went to bed. Her sister hated you from the moment you met her. I got news for you, she never did. You stole her money. You stole her father’s money. You stole the boys’ money. And of course, the ever-popular you begged her to marry you. “

“Yeah? How about I’m in a satanic cult, I put valium in guest’s food, I’m into incest, I torture animals, I call children vulgar names. I couldn’t believe that people who knew me and professed to love me could actually believe these things about me. But they did.”

“Okay. All of that happened. I don’t know how you didn’t kill yourself back then? But you didn’t.”

“Look, Kid, this led to my brother and sister shunning me. It took The Narc to show me that my brother and sister had no regard for me. Maybe I was surrounded by narcs. They manipulated my mother’s estate and re-wrote history. My mother had only two children, not three and six grandchildren, not eight as my two sons were excluded as well.”

“No. It did not. Your brother saw an opening. He is quite devious and has no feelings. All The Narc did was show you what he was. By the way that’s a big deal up here. Being a nice guy, like you, is important. No feelings? Just knowing your brother would do nothing to help another person and steal his brother’s birthright? Well, let’s just say down here it’s called karma.”

“The side note here is that for years before meeting The Narc, I gave, and I gave to my nieces and nephews. Crazy Uncle Syndrome? Yes. But I enjoyed it, never understanding what it was doing to me. The Narc and the family exposed so many of my weaknesses. It’s as if I was like Rip Van Winkle and fell asleep for twenty years, and now I recognize nothing.”

“So, tell me what you learned about narcissists. I mean give me the laundry list.”

“Fine. But wait. Karma? You think?”

“The list?”

“Here. Here’s my list. I never leave home without it. Here goes:

• Narcissists are self-obsessed individuals who control others for their personal gain; they use a few specific tactics for getting and maintaining control.
• Narcissists guarantee success by targeting codependents: the narcissist takes advantage of the codependent’s shortcomings. Me, Josh, me. I was a freakin’ codependent my whole life.
• Narcissists also try to make others feel special to gain control; for example, they might complement or flatter the individual to get them on their side.
• They then go on to play with difficult emotions like shock, awe, and guilt to maintain control over their victim.
• Narcissists also gaslight or practice master manipulation; they weaken and destabilize their victims to gain control.
• The last one, they’re hot and cold with their target, meaning that they utilize positive and negative emotions or moments to trick others. 

“Okay, so that was my list but wait, there’s more. I relied on my parents for advice. I relied on my brother and sister to escape the troubles of my life. I relied on other opinions at work before deciding anything. I never trusted myself.”

“Steve, you are right. Narcissists often find success in controlling others because they target codependents. They do seek out those with codependency characteristics. The narcissist reinforces the codependent’s shortcomings where they are manipulated to believe everything is their fault or that they are responsible to fix any problems with the relationship. I saw it with you while I was down here. You became afraid of her to the point where you lost your sense of self by believing all of her distortions.”

“You saw it, huh? A good friend said that one day, all of this will be over and at least you will know who loved you and who didn’t.”

Reason to Stick Around

“He’s right. That doesn’t make you feel better right now. I know. It hurts, but just so you know, everybody saw it. You always were and still are such a good guy. I ponder why people are so quick to believe such bad things and I have come up with a few reasons. You wanna hear what I got?”

“You wanna drink? I need one.”

Pushing his chair away from the table he saw a bottle of vodka and two glasses with ice. He starred at the bottle, shook his head, and reached for one of the glasses. “Where on earth did that come from?”

Josh’s face lit up. “One is she never genuinely cared about you, her feelings were shallow and superficial to begin with. Another is that she was a good liar and you were gullible enough to believe her without stopping to ask questions. I also think there might be some jealousy involved and perhaps she wanted to see you fall. The final reason is simply that these people are stupid and easily led. Knowing the reason why doesn’t change the fact that she used your family and friends to hurt you. I’m not sure whether that is worse than the ones who turned on you.”

Steve finished his cocktail and reached for the bottle. “You really want me to answer?”

“No need. Narcissistic abuse is devastating. There are no two ways about it. The narcissist comes at you, your identity, your life, like a wrecking ball smashing everything to pieces. The smear campaign is just one more of the abusive narcissist’s tools custom-built to destroy you. Sense-making is so critical to your recovery journey. It is an instinctive reaction to any trauma while moving towards resolving the inexplicably awful.”

Steve started tapping his fingers, one at a time, on the table while Josh continued.

“The spreading of misinformation is not necessarily restricted to verbal communication. Some may go so far as to falsify documentation to prove their wild claims, substantiating that your brother and sister have narcissistic blood when they falsified Aunt Margie’s estate removing you and your sons. To get you where it really hurts, they target any person available to them who matters to you. No one and nothing is off-limits to the narcissist. At least you held on to me.”

“Come on. Don’t you remember all the crap she was telling me about you? But my life seems to be like that song, by Nine Inch Nails. Johnny Cash recorded it a few months before his death. There is this one verse I can’t get out of my head, “What have I become my sweetest friend? Everyone I know goes away in the end.” My father at seventy. Seventy! Never met my kids. My mother. Nobody even told me she passed away. You. I had a friend down here. I was asked to be his best man. She did everything she could to rip that apart and I let her. I let her.”

Now What?

“There will never be an adequate explanation for the horrendous act of being smeared with such vindictiveness. Particularly from the person you were married to. No reasoning will ever excuse The Narc, nor account for the betrayal and broken trust you feel towards those in your previously solid support network who have lapped up the narcissist’s lies. Having said this, understanding her motivations may help you acknowledge what kind of person she really was.”

“You’re kidding, right? You sound like a freakin’ college professor. What are you saying? Therapy right? I’d be in seven days a week.”

“College professor huh? Therapy is a great idea. Before they send you down, you become an expert on the very issue you are going to talk about. Okay, brace yourself. Having pinpointed receptive audiences in those who have not established a boundary with the narcissist, gears shift, and overt statements are made.”

“Yeah, for the most part, people who did not know me. The English translation of what you are saying goes something like this, it’s people I may have had a relationship with but not much. Definitely strangers. And even people whose kids I coached in West Boca Basketball. They didn’t know me but then she goes and tells them all of this crap and I say nothing so it must be true.”

“Yup. And at this point openly makes claims that are completely fabricated, as well as frequent projections detailing events that have taken place…except that upon their retelling suddenly you’ve both swapped roles. A reality switcheroo: you are the abuser, and she’s the victim. This is the aim of the game. To portray her as long-suffering at the hands of your crazed and abusive mind.”

“Let me tell ya, she used to say, “Oh you think you’re a victim.” And I thought about it. I never said any such thing or even thought that way, she did. But now I am the victim. A victim of her stupid smear campaign.”

“And this way, the risk of being held accountable for her behaviors and actions is minimized. And the likelihood of understanding from others of their need to break free from you, and receptivity to their new target, is increased.”

“So what are you saying? I’ve upset the apple cart?”

“You caused a significant narcissistic injury, the framework she clung to was fractured. Annihilation took place. Very briefly, the reality of her false self as a fabrication surfaced. And then that narcissistic rage kicked in, and the drive to re-establish control and power over you went into hyperdrive. Her approach here was far more manic and backed by pure malevolence. In this scenario, making you suffer in any way possible for daring to breach her delusional belief system is what consumed her. Either way, the actions of someone who sought to malign the support networks, and character of one who is already hobbled from the suffering endured from their abuse, is beyond cruel. Monstrous in the extreme.”

“Pretty horrifying right? Malevolence. That’s a good word.”

“Steve you have set yourself free. I know about her smear campaign and everything else. I hope that talking it through is of some comfort. Of course, not for the fact of the gross losses you’re coming to terms with. The comfort lies in knowing you’ve made the choice to remove from your life a person capable of such calculated maliciousness. You can now begin your healing having cut the cancer out.”

Chugging his cocktail, Steve noticed the bottle was still full.

“In choosing to stay because of your fear of the smear campaign, and a million other very frightening possibilities, including her threats of turning your sons on you, what happened? I’ll tell you what happened. You acknowledged what she was: an abusive narcissist that you were fearful of. A cruel, damaging human being, who actively pursued harming you and you actively decided to stay because of this.”

“This was not cause to stay, huh?”

“These were the very reasons you needed to leave. I know you were fearful of your safety and the kids, whether physically, psychologically, financially, in whatever way… but you needed to break free years ago. But now. Now you are free. Are these people who she smeared you to really gonna hurt you? You must heal. Death is not an option. If it were, you’d have done it already.”

“But my kids. They actually believe that her father is putting them through college. They believe I’m an ass. They believe my mother was horrible. Two people disliked my mother, in her whole life, two. Her brother-in-law, the guy who married her sister and he was a nasty guy. A terrible man. And my wife. The woman my parents demanded I marry. Eight grandchildren and six absolutely adored her.”

“Ya know what can truly make you crazy is thinking about her unstable behavior.  Her personality and mood swings in the blink of an eye. She molded herself into whatever the occasion required to the point where you didn’t even know who she truly was or ever was.” 

“Who would have thought that your wife telling you that you are “hopeless at everything, not good enough, pathetic, and crazy,” is actually abuse? It’s systematic, planned, and continual abuse to make you feel inadequate. When you’re in a relationship with a narcissist, over time you will lose your ability to speak up. You don’t intend for this to happen, yet it does. Staying silent and not retaliating against her was the only way to appease her and to avoid the possibility of another confrontation or further conflict.  Josh, you don’t realize when you’re in the moment, or maybe ever, that this behavior is a form of abuse. You just don’t. “

Staring at his glass, Steve reached for it and chugged the remainder. “Why the hell don’t I feel buzzed?”

“We’ll talk about that at another time. Back to what you were saying. It’s because a common misconception is that emotional and psychological abuse is not as harmful as physical violence. However, there are scientific facts to disprove this. Physical injuries typically heal, whereas our mind is a different matter.  Her abuse could manipulate your mind to the point where you began to question your own thoughts, right? Her pathological lying had you second-guessing your every word and action. You knew something was not right, as your relationship had changed beyond recognition, and you did not understand why.”

“Look, here’s what’s happening. It’s a variety of emotions. The most common?  Worthlessness: I never did anything right in her eyes. Confusion: The rapid changes in her personality. Her behavior shifted from being attentive, affectionate, supportive, and kind, to distant, cruel, and devious. Oh, and unsound: the pathological lying. I never knew what to believe. Her ability to look me straight in the eye and question my accusations when I called her bluff was baffling. And she was an energy vampire. whenever I did challenge her which was not much. Oh, and the jealousy thing. I did not know it at the time, but she was jealous of anyone and everyone in my life. Phone calls. She listened to my phone calls, walked in, told me she thought I was so busy. “Of course, you have time for everybody but me.” I would hang up and find her. That’s when the manipulation, or whatever you call it began. “I didn’t tell you to hang up. Don’t blame me that you just hung up.” While shaking my head and walking away, she did it. “I thought you were so busy.” That was when the wasted time began. the energy drain. She had to let me know that she was in total control. Thirty, forty minutes of that and she would walk away as if I was a lunatic.”

Time to Move Forward

“Great. All done. You now know it. You gonna lament over it? You just detailed all the reasons you should fight to stay alive.”

“But that’s just it. I’m just too tired to fight.”

“Steve, my intention was not to pour salt over an open wound, but to help you understand that you are not going crazy! Again, you were simply in a relationship with a narcissist.  One cold, hard fact is that she was never going to change. She was never going to revert to the loving, kind, and adorable woman you fell in love with or at least acted like when you first met. That was a façade to trap you in her spell, which worked. Believe me when I tell you that the woman you were dealing with at the end was her true self. But it’s over. Done. You gotta move on. I’m here to tell you things will get better. You just need to believe it too. I’d love to tell you we are all rooting for you but where I come from, we know the outcome. I can’t tell you what that is but when I tell you it’s worth staying around, I mean it.”

He poured another drink. Putting down the bottle it vanished. He went to pick up the glass and noticed there was nothing in his hand.

“What? So that’s it? You’re going?”

“I’ll be back. And quite frankly, I’m always here. I’m in you. A part of your soul and that’s a good thing. I’ve told you what you need to know. You must do the rest and the rest is staying and living and waiting and learning there is something and someone for you. It might take some time for you to figure it out but that is what life is all about. It’s trying to decipher what took place. Then you use that information and allow it to dictate what the next move is. But you are entitled to happiness. There is extraordinarily little entitlement in life down here but happiness, we all deserve that, don’t you think? And those who go out of their way to do harm, intentionally do harm, it may seem as though they’re getting undue happiness but keep an eye out. It’s fleeting. And those who have been stepped on and abused and had their lives disrupted, do not ever stop believing. We talk a lot about the story of Job. In fact, that was the first story I heard when I arrived.”

“Job. You mean the bible? They actually talk about the bible there? And let me tell ya something, if it was such a good story, how come I never ran into anyone named Job?”

“Easy there Champ. Slow down.  Let’s take a step back. Job was a wealthy man living in a land called Uz with his large family and extensive flocks. … God boasts to Satan about Job’s goodness, but Satan argues that Job is only good because God has blessed him abundantly. Satan challenges God that, if given permission to punish the man, Job will turn and curse God. He never did.”

“I know. In the story, Job deals with a lot of shit. You meet Satan?”

“And at the end of the day, God gave him back everything because he believed, and more. It all worked out. Think of this as a test. You already took the hard part. All you have to do now is stay awake.”

“And?”

“Well, that’s up to you. Look, I gotta go.”

“And?”

“No. Never met Satan. That’s a good thing. It’s pretty much a hierarchy. He and God have dialogue, but nobody is really asked to join them when they do meet.”

Steve pursed his lips and raised his right index finger. “So, um, hey, something good is coming?”

 “I’ve been accused of saying too much when I see you but Uncle Warren doesn’t want you to worry.”

“Oh yeah? How’s he doing?”

“Oh, he’s great. Everybody gets to be in a place that made them most comfortable.”

“Let me guess. He’s holding court at The Hideaway Bar.”

“It’s nice to know where to find him. He said to tell you that he’s always there for you. He just feels as if The Narc was his fault. Ya know, he really pushed her on you.”

“Well, I have a mouth. I coulda said no, and I could’ve fought for the girl I really loved. The girl I wanted to marry. The one I think of every day of my life.”

His eyes sparkled as the corners of his mouth slid upwards. “You keep believing. Try, no don’t try. I want you to give up the negative thoughts and understand I was here to tell you that very soon everything will make sense. No more death. I know you believe. Now you need to use your heart. Keep believing. I’m always here.”

“I saw that smile. What do you know? Hey, before you go can I get another drink?”

He stared out the window without moving anything but his sleep-deprived eyes. “Where’d he go? What just happened? I gotta be losing it. I am seriously tired. I know what I just saw. Maybe he’s right. I get the feeling it’s like this, if you talk about killing yourself, you’re not doing it, then maybe you don’t do it. Remember that part about it’s frowned upon up here or whatever he said. Can you imagine my luck? I can end up spending eternity with The Narc. The Narc would be telling people I’m feeling sorry for myself because everything is about me. Wait a second. Who’s everybody? Hitler? Manson? Okay. Okay. I get the point. Helluva way to make it, huh?”