The pork roast is in the iron pot fat side up, like the bare back of a pasty, overweight guy passed out upon a mattress of sauerkraut and apples matter-of-factly, unresponsive to the beer and chicken broth splashed on top of him.
Gary is on the phone, reintroducing himself to his mother. Last night he said, apologetically, I wonder what it must be like to begin a new year not knowing whether you will live through it.
He struggles with grief's suffocation, its undertow sucking him into unfamiliar depths, further out and further out from his bright, dry, breezy beach of Signals catalogs and upholstery swatches and New Yorker cartoons.
The year begins with a groan—the expected hangover, the late, groggy start. My body moves to heal itself again, perfunctorily. For the date has not been reached when my organs can clean out their desks, take home their mugs and placards, or cash in their vacation. The job of taking me metabolically forward continues—a bit less efficiently, though, like the enthusiastic, unsteady song of an old dishwasher—into a pointless future.
The boys nap at my feet like two wiry throw rugs, so certain of their lives with us, so happy within their rituals.
I drink the rest of the beer I didn't pour on the pork.
Gary hangs up the phone.
