The Little Things in Life

So far, life has not turned out as I assumed.

I'm not sure why it would. I figured I'd be married (with children) and a professional success by now. But, what, exactly, have I done to further that end?  Yes, yes, I was an Army officer, and, yes, yes, I went to law school.  But I somehow thought competency and not butt-kissing was important in the one and that showing up as opposed to getting good grades was important in the other (to be fair, I did try for good grades, but As and I are like oil and water, so I quickly gave that up and rested on my race and gender and geographic good fortune).

Surely, loafing and being a southern white male would carry me through as it had for quite a many generations of my forebears (not true at all; they were quite impressive folks-ed).  As for marriage, all I've managed to do so far is occasionally date (usually) "unsettled" women.

So, here I am, a 32yo layabout, living in a ramshackle apartment with rats crawling in the walls . With two roommates, A and B.  No wife. No job.  Hell, my room isn't even my room; not really.  To get to it, I have to walk through B's room, which we partitioned off from the main part of his with a walkway girded by floor-to-ceiling curtains.

A warzone veteran and I live in another man's (basically) closet, a point that B never allows an opportunity pass to remind me.

That's my life right now.

So it was tonight that after a night of bar trivia (lost) and general malaise and the watching of unwatchable reality television ("Full Metal Jousting"!!!) that I trudged to my little fortress.

I was a trifle punchy though, indignant at the indecency of it all.

Standing in the pitch black of my walk-through, I paused, knowing my light-sleeping roommate was trying to ignore my clomp-clomp-clomping through a blocked-off sector of his room.  I waited just longer than should be acceptable.

And then I said in a breathy, sultry, seductive whisper,

"Tonight's the night, big fella!!!!"

And B, himself also in his thirties and unemployed and thoroughly disillusioned with the myths of success that we'd been brought up with, quietly and calmly responded in the silky pitch-black,

"I will $@#!in' kill you."

And good for him. Well done.  He hit the timing.  I set it up and he knocked it down.  The joke had been played and returned.  But, oh no, our banter had to continue.  We weren't done and it had to be followed through.

"Was that $@#! and kill me or $@#!ing kill me?  Because the difference is crucial," I asked, my lawyerly and classical training taking over and my need to know whether he meant a conjunction or a gerundive.

The beats were perfectly timed as I heard naught but the machete he keeps under his mattress ssshhhhhlllliiinnkkkkk!!!! as he pulled it out.

"Well, then. Good night," I said, gregariously and headed to my room.

"Good night," he muttered. And sssshhhhhhllllliiiinnnnkkk!!!! back it went.

It's shared misery that helps a man make it through troubling times; 'tis true.