It’s 4 AM now and I’ve just finished running 4.5 miles.  I get a fleeting sense of accomplishment.  There’s still more I could do though, I just know it.  I see if anything has to be cleaned but my anal daytime self has made it so that there isn’t a speck of debris to be dealt with.  I head to the white room and open up the medicine cabinet.  There are some blue sleeping pills I could take but I’m not sure I want sleep just yet.  I have a full bottle of Xanax that I haven’t broken into yet.  Xanax will make me sleepy enough for an hour-long nap, and then I can usually spring back to life with a raspberry-blue-energy drink.  I take a couple of the tiny white pills and jump into the shower.  I cover my chest in manly scented body wash.  I get the stink of the 4.5-mile run off of my skin and down the drain.  I feel the comfort of the Xanax as it dissolves under my tongue and into my stomach.  What this tiny white pill does once it is in my stomach, I don’t know.  All I know is that it makes me feel happy and a little bit sleepy/dreamy.  After the shower I dry off and grab a small handful of the little white pills chased with a Dixie cup of water.  If I’m going to be using I might as well get the most out of the experience.  I put on some clean clothes and move to the red room.  The red room is where I usually can escape for the longest amount of time.  The computer opens up whole worlds of thoughts and ideas.  With all the social networking sites that now exist I can’t help but delve into my past.  I often wonder what motivates people to disclose so much of their personal lives to the Internet.  I think most people don’t even realize how many billions of people have access to their personal photo albums.  I start feeling sentimental and yearn for old comfortable feelings.  I always do this to myself.  I torture my eyes with the past.  I like to think of it as motivation for the next day.  A small mantra, or idea, in the back of my head saying, “This is what you were.  This is an example of how happy you can be”.  I examine my current self and can’t fathom how I could possibly ever be like that person that I was in all of those photographs.  Then I look at the other people in some of the pictures.  People that I used to make happy.  When was the last time I even saw some of these people?  Jesus!  It’s reaching 5 AM and my eyes are heavy but determined.  I head to the white room to swallow some more white pills.  I get back to the red room and I know I shouldn’t but I do it anyway.  I hack into my first girlfriend’s account.  Her passwords have always been a combination of the name of her childhood cat and the current street that she lives on.  She told me this years and years ago and I still remember it.  This is the first time I’ve hacked into her account at 5 AM.  I’ve done it before at 2 AM and felt guilty about it and walked away without any snooping.  But, this time it was 5 AM and I wanted something.  I needed something… evidence or a relic that tells me that I made the right choice by not falling asleep tonight and pushing myself to stay awake.  I find a photo album of her most recent vacation with her soon to be husband.  This still irks me.  We haven’t dated in years and I’ve had a number of relationships since her but she was my first love.  The girl I will always measure every other girl I meet up against.  And now, she will be forever unavailable to me as she ties the knot with somebody that I’m sure isn’t half the person that I am.  I pan through her latest vacation photos and something seems familiar.  Like, way too familiar.  It’s pictures of her with her fiancé but an awful sense of déjà vu courses threw me with a dizzying effect.  I run to the green room and dig through some boxes till I come up with a physical photo album that I take back to the red room.  It’s the album of her and I when we were both 17 and in love.  We had just lied to our parents about a vacation that we were taking.  We claimed that we were going to a friend’s beach house with a whole bunch of people but instead we went on a secret vacation to some small town in Northern Wisconsin that had a cheap hotel.  We had a disposable camera with us that we passed back and forth taking pictures of each other as we toured through the scenic riverfront town; twenty-seven photos of the perfect vacation.  Now, here, years later and with some other dude she’s taking the same photos!  I hold up the aged photo of us embraced in a kiss, a close-up photo that I took with my right arm outstretched catching our heads together with the river in the back round.  I hold this picture against the computer screen that shows the newest version of this photo.  Her, with her haircut short and him dressed in a suit and the back round this time is a scenic European lake.  I’m being replaced!  It’s the same exact photo just I’m no longer the male character and the setting is different.  This isn’t the only example of memory replacement.  I count twelve more photos that have far too much in common to just be a mere coincidence.  Did she knowingly seek out to replace our memories?  Or was this just a sub-conscious act of hers to get back those old feelings of falling in love for the first time?  I go back to the white room and finish off the bottle of Xanax.  The happy feeling that they usually give me is replaced with discontent and disbelief.  In the back of my head I always pictured the two of us getting back together.  I wasn’t sure how or when but my mother always said that, “if it truly is love, then it will find a way.”  Well, this latest evidence is telling me that love can be replaced.  Memories can be squashed out and that I can become expendable.  While I pray for a blue morning to wash this feeling away, I fall into a deep Xanax induced sleep.

Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen…..nothing….. Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one………nothing.

In the end there’s just this awful darkness.  Empty and stretching forever.  Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four….nothing, nothing nothing.  Twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven, my eyes slowly open and I’m in a hospital.  Twenty eight, twenty nine, thirty…..saline iv and a charcoal cocktail.  Thirty one, thirty two, thirty three…. A doctor looks grim and shakes his head at me…. Thirty four, thirty five, thirty six….my mom is there holding my hand….my father by the window looking so sad….they speak and I hear an echo of what they’re saying.  They tell me to stay strong and maybe we can beat this.  I try counting backwards, I try and reverse time.  Nineteen, eighteen, seventeen…”he’s not getting better, we’ll have to move him……sixteen, fifteen, fourteen……I close my eyes again as I feel my body moving… thirteen, twelve, eleven…..there’s beeping and shouting, my iv got ripped out.  I see the blood but I feel nothing.  I feel I cannot connect my mind with this body.  Ten, nine, eight.  This time the voice is sounding other worldly.  It lets me know that the choice is now up to me.  I can count down to zero and roll over and die, or stop my bad habits and wake up and be alive.  Seven, six, five, four three, two one…..inhale deep and open my selfish eyes.

“Honey, have you met Chad? He’s a great guy. He likes the White Sox’s too.” Yes I have met Chad and the man does not like the White Sox’s. He likes the Cubs and the Sox. There’s a big difference. You can’t like both teams. You have to choose one and live and die with them. To say you like both is to say you aren’t a real baseball fan.

“Hey, my name’s Eric. I think we met a few months ago at some other get together like this.”

“Oh, right Eric; the man who chided me for liking baseball.”

“Right, that Eric” I wasn’t going to get into it again with this guy. I excused myself and went to the balcony and lit up a cigarette. There was another cigarette smoker outside too. She was holding her cigarette in front of her and hadn’t lit it yet.

“You need a light there?”

“I’m not sure. I quit smoking a year ago but I woke up this morning and as I was filling up my car I went in and got a pack. Didn’t even realize I had done it until after I was in the car and pulling away. It was just so natural.”

“So, you haven’t had any yet today.”
“I held one in my hand earlier. I had it in my mouth ready to light it. I really, really wanted it but right as I decided to go for it my boyfriend rang the buzzer and I gave up on it. He’d kill me if he saw me smoking.”

“Is he here at the party?”

“Yeah, but he has to talk to all his lawyer friends as if he never sees them at work all the time.”

“I can’t stand lawyers. Somehow I’m going out with one though.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I can’t stand lawyers either but yeah; somehow I ended up with one.”

“How long have you guys been seeing each other?”

“Four months now.” This triggered something in her and she lit the cigarette, inhaled deeply, and blew out the smoke with a smile.

“Beautiful.” She stayed in silence as she got reacquainted with her old friend.

”Well, I’m glad you’re smoking again. The world needs more smokers.”

“It sure does; we’re a dying breed.”

“So, what is it that you do for a living?”

“You mean, how do I get my money?”

“Right.”

“My sister and I own a flower shop. She’s into the flower side of it and I’m more into the actual running of the store.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

“Yeah,” she said this with hesitation, “it’s just that I don’t see myself doing it for another year. I want something more. I want a job that takes me places … or maybe a job that helps people.”

“Flowers help people. They’ve smoothed over tons of fights for me.”

“I can always tell when guys are buying flowers when they’ve fucked up.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, they always come in and hastily choose one of the already sorted bouquets. They won’t get the cheapest one or the most expensive one. Always the middle grade one. One that won’t put a big dent into the twenty they hand me before the rush out to start the healing process.”

“I wonder if I’ve been to your store.”

“It’s a block away from here, that way, Fullerton Flower’s.”

“Nice location.”

“I know.” She finished her cigarette and looked over towards me and looked me up and down. “You’re a real estate agent.”

“Yes and how’d you know?”

“Real estate agents are usually easy to pick out. The phony ones are even easier.”

“Can you guess my other job?”

“Yeah” she stayed silent though.

“Well?”

“Teacher, probably younger kids, I’d guess fourth grade.”

“Almost, I teach fifth graders English.”

“Do you like it?”

“I love it actually.”

“That’s good. A teacher would be nice; summer’s off, working with kids.”

“Yeah, it is but I usually work during the summer. Teacher’s don’t always get the greatest pay so I need everything I can get.”

She pulled out another cigarette and lit it without hesitation.

“Would you like another drink?”

“I would love another drink.”

“What would you like?”

“Beer. Always beer.”

“I’ll be right back.” I walked back to the party I despised. Claire, my girlfriend, was laughing amongst all her lawyer friends. This was the first time I ever felt hate towards her. The thought scared me and I quickly grabbed four beers and headed back to the balcony.

“Yeah, I kind of want to avoid that scene as much as I can.”

“Understood.” We opened up our beers and drank. They tasted good. They tasted like summer.

“My name’s Eric by the way.”

“Oh shit, we never introduced. My name’s Evelyn.”

“Thank you. Unfortunately it isn’t my given name. My original name was Blanch Furgess. How could somebody ever name their kid Blanch? It’s just so ugly.”

“I had an aunt named Blanch.”

“I bet she was ugly. Oh shit, I’m an awful bitch. I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to say that.”

“No, it’s fine. Her looks matched her name I guess you could say. I was never a fan of auntie Blanch.”

“Well, Eric, how long have you been seeing your friend in there?”

“Six months as of two days ago. Can you believe I forgot our six month anniversary?”

“Oh god no, how could you?” this was all said with heavy sarcasm.

“Yeah, I needed flowers to smooth that one over.”

“Middle grade bouquet?”

“I thought about it but I wasn’t in a rush. I like to pick the flowers out myself.”

“Oh wow, I thought only the gay guys that came in did that.”

“Well, my father’s gay.”

“Really?”

“No.” She laughed. It wasn’t even a good joke. It was hardly a joke. Her laughter was nice though. It seemed more genuine than the laughs that came through the screen door to the balcony. We had both managed to finish our first beers and we opened up the second round. Evelyn lit another cigarette and I followed suit.

“Where’d you grow up?” She asked but I wasn’t able to answer. A man came out and glanced over me and stared at Evelyn.

“What are you doing?”

“Hey Todd, this is Eric.” He ignored this introduction and continued starring at Evelyn.

“Why the hell are you smoking?”

“Oh, Toddy, I’m really sorry.” She obliviously wasn’t.

“Unbelievable.” He said this and took off.

“Well, that’s my Toddy. Isn’t he a charmer?” More sarcasm.

“Yeah, he seems like a great guy.”

“I should actually apologize but I’ll finish this beer first.”

“My ex-girlfriend used to always yell at me for smoking. I ended up having to be a sneak about it and not do it in front of her.”

“Why’d you guys break up?”

“She decided she wanted to live in India.”

“Oh, makes sense.” We sat there talking for a while more. Nothing important, our life stories, abridged of course. We finished our beers and she excused herself to go say sorry to Todd. I stayed out and finished my cigarette and then had another one. got up and went and stood next to Claire. Claire O’Donovan; valedictorian of her high school, national merit scholar, proud graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, annoying laughter, a success and a half.

“Oh hey Eric, you having fun?”

”I’m having a blast.” 1 walked away from her and grabbed the bottle of whiskey we had brought to the party. I went back to Claire and told her I needed to make a phone call and that I’d be right back. I went out the door and found the elevator and hit thirty five, the top floor. I got out and searched for a door that would lead to the roof. I wasn’t sure if this apartment had a roof top but most of these places had fancy roof decks put in around 93′ when it became the cool thing to have. I found the door and went up. Fancy it was. It was surrounded by thick glass and had big circular lights lining the whole thing. There was wooden lawn furniture spread about and a girl in the corner smoking cigarettes. She was sitting down and it was dark but I knew it was Evelyn by the way she was smoking. I walked over and sat down next to her.

“I thought you were going to go apologize to your Todd.”

“I was going to but he was laughing with his lawyer friends so I just decided to leave and try and found a roof to sit on.”

“This is a nice roof.”

“Yeah it is. Chicago is beautiful.” While we sat there smoking and drinking we started to see firework shows off in the distance. Not just a few, there seemed to be at least forty different shows going on. It was July 5th and I guess some towns have their big shows on the 5th, instead. The rooftop next to ours was having a party and the music was loud and clearly audible.

“I’m going to break up with Claire. Claire, that’s my girlfriend. ”

“When did you decide this?”

“Today.”

“Why today?”

“Well, I was going to just act distant and cold for the next week until she called me out on it but I think I should just end it now and not waste my time.”

“I’m breaking up with Todd.”

“When did you decide this?”

“Just now.”

“Why?”

“No reason.” She said this and leaned over and kissed me. I put the whiskey out of harms way and let my back fall to the ground and my hands fall all over Evelyn’s backside. We had sex to the music of Bon Jovi’s ‘Living on a Prayer’ and relaxed afterwards to the sweet vocals of Otis Redding’s ‘Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay’.

“Well, that was fun.” Evelyn said this as she grabbed two cigarettes out of my pant pocket. She lit them both and handed me one and came back down next to me. We stared out at the faded stars and blew smoke out to make them even less visible.

“So, when are you going to break up with Todd?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“I think we should go down there holding hands and let them know together.” We laughed at this but then it became clear that this was the way we would do it. We sat up and got our clothes back on.

“Let’s get drunk first.”

“Sounds like an awesome idea.” The whiskey bottle had been half full when I brought it up to the roof and we finished it off in about an hour. We were both drunk; Evelyn stumbled as we walked back to the party. We walked in with our hands held together. I suddenly was hit with a wave of panic, a panic which Evelyn noticed and she squeezed my hand tight. “May I have everyone’s attention?” Evelyn yelled out and scanned the room. The party had cleared out quite a bit and now the only people left were Todd, Claire, and three other couples and the ugly lawyer that always tries talking to me about his boat.

“Eric and I are now a couple and can no longer see our old mates.” Everyone just looked at us confused. “See ya,” Evelyn said and looked at me and we took off and to the elevator. While the door was opening we heard the party door open and Claire and Todd come charging out. They were far down the hall but closing in fast. Evelyn and I got in the door and hit the close door button. They were within steps as the elevator closed and they were probably able to get a glimpse of Evelyn and me locking our lips together.