Cabin by the ledge
He’d put the hundred dollars under the door mat. The man on the email had said that was a fine price for what he wanted to do. Now he sat at the table, his hoodie soaked with nervous sweat and all of the wipings of more tears than he knew he still had in him.
The letter was to his family. And he couldn’t finish it. There were never the words. Certain effing things always seemed ineffable.
The room around him had canoes and empty fish tanks. There were pictures of people he didn’t know. And a bunch of old books that looked like they’d never been read, at least not for decades.
He looked again at the also tear stained paper he was trying to squeeze his soul into. He wanted to explain to his boy, why he’d left all those years ago. He wanted to express to his friends how it was that a man spends many people’s inheritances in an Indian-run arcade where smoke burns your eyes and machines sing mind-numbing songs to chirp at your spine until it collapses with the rest of your anxiety-ridden soft tissue.
He wrote a few more sentences:
“Mom, Dad, I’m sorry I couldn’t be the strong person you dreamed and trained me to be. I always knew you disappointed. . .”
