He stopped. The sun was a rumor behind the buildings. A garbage truck groaned in the distance. Life was starting again. The terrible machinery of morning. Showers. Coffee. Lies. Handshakes. He hated all of it.
The poem read:
“A veces estoy tan solo que tiene sentido,” he said aloud, rolling the Spanish like a loose coin on his tongue. Sometimes I am so lonely it makes sense. He stopped
And it was enough.
He lit a cigarette. The smoke curled up toward a water stain on the ceiling that looked exactly like the state of Nevada. He’d been there once. Lost a hundred dollars on a horse named “No Dice.” The horse finished last. The jockey later tested positive for heroin. That was the closest thing to a miracle Henry had ever witnessed. Life was starting again
The whiskey was gone. The gin was gone. There was half a bottle of cooking sherry under the sink, the kind with the pink label and a price tag that still had a cent sign. He considered it. Then he considered the window. Fourth floor. The alley below was a black trench full of broken glass and the silence of things that had been thrown away.
Below it, the final line he’d added:
At 5:00 a.m., he sat back down at the typewriter. He pulled out the half-finished poem and crumpled it. Then he put in a fresh sheet. The paper was yellowed, soft with age, like a dead man’s skin. He rolled it into place. He stared at the blank space.
He typed one more line. Then he pulled the paper out, folded it once, and put it in his pocket. Someday, someone would find it. Or not. That was the point. Coffee
He finished the sherry. The bottle joined the cockroach on the floor. He thought about calling someone. His ex-wife. His bookie. The woman with the gold tooth. But his hand didn’t move. The phone was an artifact from another century. A black rotary with a tangled cord. He hadn’t heard a human voice in six days. The last one was the grocer saying, “That’ll be four eighty-five.” He’d paid with nickels.