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.
The phone doesn’t ring because the wire is cut. The mail doesn’t come because the box is empty. The woman doesn’t come back because she finally got smart. I am a museum of bad decisions. Admission: your last good day.
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.
Just the dark.
The poem read:
Don’t save me. I’m finally home.
Then he wrote:
At 4:00 a.m., he poured the cooking sherry. It tasted like regret mixed with cough syrup and a hint of rotting plum. It was perfect. He drank it warm, straight from the bottle, standing at the window in his underwear. The city was a grid of yellow lights, each one a cage with a different kind of animal inside. Couples sleeping back-to-back. Insomniacs watching infomercials. Children with fevers. None of them knew he existed. None of them would have cared if they did.
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.
He looked at the cockroach again. Then he looked at the last line he’d written. He smiled. Not because he was happy. But because the cockroach, at least, had died doing what it loved. Nothing. He finished the sherry
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 cockroach died at 3:17 a.m. It lay on its back near the base of the typewriter, six legs pointed toward the cracked ceiling like a tiny, overturned throne. Henry Chinaski, or whatever was left of him, watched it for a full hour. He didn’t kill it. It just ran out of reasons to keep going.
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. His ex-wife