PART OF CHAPTER 10--THE DEPARTURE LOUNGE

“You think about dyin?” I continued, “That cross your mind?”

“‘Every third thought is that of the grave.’ Sure I think about it.”

“Ain’t pretty, is it?”

“No, it ain’t pretty…Nobody dies with any dignity, the only thing we can do is live with some.”

“Who said that?”

“I just did.”

“My mom had a tough death, but I don’t think about her much; I think about my old man from time to time.
Him I still think about. My mother was like ice in her cardboard box, just as angry dyin as she was livin, but my ol’ man…”

“Yeah, your ol’ man was a prick, but he had some heart.”

“Yeah, he was a prick, but he did have some heart, and humor, and a whole lotta bullshit.”

“I still haven’t forgotten you not comin to my father’s funeral, man; I was all by myself…”

“I had a needle in my arm in those years…”

“Who the fuck cares how you got there, but you shoulda got there…but my mom went out wearing head-phones, listening to “Ruby, My Dear,” and sucking down Courvoisier.”

“Not bad.”

“No, not bad…I gotta get high now just listenin to you. Why didya take me there?”
He smoked as much weed as I did cigarettes.
“Ah shit, Brazzie: Fucking phone sales?”

“What’s the difference?” he said as he tried to hold down the reefer. “It’s about survival; that’s all it’s ever been about,” he said, as he let it out. “You do the best you can with what you got. Period. End.”

“How the hell do you do that?”

“Not well.”

I wanted to be back on the massage table. I wanted to get high. I wanted Tina’s hands on me again. I wanted a spike in my vein. I would have settled for Hillary Clinton’s hands…no, no, not them, but somebody’s. Maybe a Percocet?…an Advil…Bayer, anyone?

“You’ll probably be good at it…”

“Oh, yeah…”

“Yeah, Heller; you spent your whole life honing your bullshit and now you have those poor fucks who have no one to talk to, who’s dying to have a conversation with somebody, anybody, to listen to you.”

“That’s great, man, thanks for sharin that…Sure, where the fuck they goin?…I’ll tell ya where I’m goin though—I’m goin ta bed…I’m gonna lie down, put a period on this fuckin day.”

“It’s a semicolon, Heller. It’s only a semicolon.”

(39-40 of pages 539)