The Bleak Discovery

How sad and dreary I felt, all hollow inside, eager to get it all over with once and for all.

The eagerness to get it over with was a reference to life, a conclusion that it was not worth it, that it was all conflict and disappointment, that I had reached the end of the road.

I stared down at the road below. It was getting late and only a few vehicles passed, mainly trucks, the kings of the road driving by night, their lights flashing brightly.

After taking one final sip of the tasteless, lukewarm liquid that passed for coffee I stepped back inside my dreary motel room in the middle of a patch of nowhere in South Florida. I stared at the four walls surrounding me and they stared back. I said nothing and neither did they and I viewed their silence as a blessing.

Bleak, how often that word had been flashing into my mind during the last few rapidly paced days. It all began with a bleak discovery, one that turned my life upside down and made me increasingly eager to punch my ticket out of my life.

As I sat there on the tired looking brown sofa I stared once more at the gun on the table in front of me. I had never cared about guns before and never had the desire to own one, but now that gun before me was my ticket to punch myself out of the rat race called life after I punched out two other tickets before mine.

Those tickets belonged to my wife Ginny and someone I had believed was a close personal friend. Jovial Harry and his wife Mabel had been our neighbors on the near north side of Chicago. Ginny and I were crestfallen when Harry and Mabel got a divorce.

Mabel moved to Las Vegas and got a job as an assistant manager at a hotel on the Strip. Harry meanwhile moved to Fort Lauderdale and settled in with an expanding real estate company. He began encouraging us to move to the land of sunshine and, with Ginny continuing to encourage, I decided to move my accounting practice to Fort Lauderdale. There were so many of my clients, especially those in retirement, who had moved there that it did not even take a lot of adjusting to make the move.

For a while things seemed to go fine, but then there was that day, the one where everything became bleak, that day of dramatic discovery. It came for me after I got back from a meeting at a client's condo in Stuart. It was the day when Ginny generally went to the beauty parlor so I decided to swing by my old friend Harry's place before heading home.

By now, considering the preamble, you have probably guessed what kind of a discovery I received, that bleak one that hit me between the eyes. I thought I had spotted Ginny's car in the guest parking lot. No, I concluded, it's one that resembles it.

There was no resembling the chuckles I heard as I approached the door. They were patented Ginny and a little on the loud side, yes, because she never did hold her liquor all that well. For the only time in my life I became a Peeping Tom, finding just a tad of space in a curtain parting to see all I needed to observe.

Harry still had his shirt off while my giggling wife was slipping into her dress with a little less coordination than usual considering the liquor absorbed as part of the general party scene. It was definitely a moment of shared bliss.

I drove back to our beach condo and did some quick thinking. I needed some time to myself. One of my transplanted Chicago clients, Larry Shapiro, had a trucking business in Orlando. I needed to drive there and go over his books, a trip I had been putting off for a few weeks due to heavy activity with Miami area clients.

So I left a note explaining everything to Ginny except, of course, why I really decided to take my trip then. I wanted to get away before she arrived since I did not want to run the risk of a scene right there, before I had a chance to mull things over.

Except for the fact that Larry, a clever observer of human nature, asked me a couple of times why my thoughts seemed preoccupied, the business trip went well enough. I then holed myself up in that dingy motel room on the road to nowhere, the same place where I was seemingly headed.

I took the last few nips from the bottle of Jim Beam I bought at the liquor store down the road. It enabled me to get a good night of sleep. I then began my drive back to Fort Lauderdale and the business at hand.

The three of us used The Cove as our favorite hangout, a bar with a great view of the Atlantic that was the watering hole of a semi large hotel that did a good business. It was a half mile from the condo where I lived with Ginny.

Ah Ginny and the soulful look in her expressive blue eyes, who implored me to move to Florida. She was a skilled actress. In fact, she did it professionally in Hollywood for a while, landing a few television spots before returning home to Chicago, where she met up with me and we tied the knot. Her finest acting performances were for my benefit.

Afternoon was rapidly departing. The sun was setting and I got a snapshot look at its imposing redness as I swung my car into The Cove's parking lot.

A few stiff shots of bourbon can do amazing things when it comes to loosening the tongue. This is what happened to me when I spoke to Jack my bartender friend.

Jack was the kind of guy you liked confiding in, a broad-shouldered, good looking guy with a deep tan and curly blonde hair. He had played football at Miami U. and had a brief stint with the Tampa Bay Bucs. Jack had a good following and the ladies really liked him. The more I confided the more tight-lipped his expression became.

"I don't wanna speak out of turn, Mark, but I've wanted to talk to you about Ginny for quite a while," he said with a slow awkwardness.

"Don't be bashful on my account," I quickly responded, anxious to hear more.

"Yeah, she's gotten real friendly with Harry and I could see it developing," Jack nodded, "but there's more, much more."

"Go on, I'm listening."

"Well, I mean, not that long after you folks moved here she made a move on me. Ginny's a good looking lady, good face and figure. She looks good but I backed off. She's not only married but to a guy I consider a friend."

"Glad one of you is loyal, Jack. Thanks. Please continue."

"Okay, so there's Harry, like you've been telling me. I see that too. I was looking for the right time to break it to you without you coming apart. I mean, I wanted to help."

"Again, thanks. But what else is there?"

"Okay, so there's Juan. Slender guy. Cuban. A golf pro at the club down the street. Know him?"

"I've seen him in here a few times."

"So Juan and his wife called it quits a while back. He's lonely. Juan comes in here one night and Ginny drops by for a drink. Next thing you know they're talking."

"You don't need to fill in the blanks," I tartly replied.

"Yeah, you get the picture. Well, last night I thought we'd have trouble in here. Juan came in first. He left thank goodness a few minutes before Harry came in. I mean Harry's furious. He's found out about Ginny and Juan and he's fuming."

"He's concerned about loyalty. How about that. He never thought that with me when he and Ginny were getting so well acquainted."

"You know how things go," Jack shook his head.

I bolted down the rest of my drink and rose slowly from my stool.

"I'll be seeing you, Jack, and thanks for being a friend and leveling with me," I waved as I began moving toward the door.

"What's your hurry?"

"I've got some thinking to do and I'd just as soon not be around when Ginny comes in with Harry, Juan, whoever."

"I catch the drift," Jack chuckled. "So long, Mark."

To think I was about to use a gun for the first time in my life.

For what?

It was time to start over and not surrender to one bleak vision and terminal events that did not need to happen.