More Gray Than Blue

CW: Contains themes of substance abuse and suicidal ideation.

More Gray Than Blue

He doesn’t really wake up because he never really went to sleep. He just sort of shifts back and forth on the tired old mattress in an ever-increasing state of discomfort for a few hours after he shuts out the lights until the sun is fully up and he knows that any prospect of sleep is gone. Then he rises, and he feels every bit of his 55 years in his lower back, knees and a dozen other places. He grabs a towel and heads for the shower, passing by the room where his only son used to sleep. He needs a few Advil and has no need for the bathroom mirror, instinctively turning his head away from it and towards the unadorned opposite wall as he passes.

Still, toweling off in the bedroom a little later he unintentionally catches a sideways glance at his torso in the cheap full-length mirror mounted on the wall - the run-to-ruin abdominal muscles covered with a layer of fat, shingles scars and old, fading, unnecessary tattoos scrawled there to impress women whose names and faces he can’t remember - and he turns away from that too.

But somehow that makes him think of her. He doesn’t feel good when he thinks of her so he puts on some dumb sports podcast to make him think about Steph Curry or Bill Belichik or whoever they’re talking about today while he puts on his jeans, heavily faded now and more gray than blue but still holding in place somehow. Still doing what they were built to do, which is enough to help him do the same, and once he is fully dressed he takes the Sig Sauer 9mm pistol from his bedside drawer and tucks it away in his jeans, along with his wallet and keys, thinking about everything as little as possible. Then he tucks half a strip of Suboxone under his tongue, hoping it might inspire some appetite and some energy.

Before he leaves the shithole two-bedroom apartment he’s been living in for the last few years he fills the bowl all the way to the top with dog food and lays out two large bowls of water. Bruno is still sleeping at the foot of the bed so he just leaves him there in the half-light and tries to close the apartment door as quietly as possible. Just before he does his eyes fall on the picture of his two kids, Aiden at 9 and Margot at 6, the backdrop of Kaanapali Beach dropping away behind them. He hung it there when he first moved in, more out of a desire for the appearance of decency and legitimacy (the same reasons why he hung his framed Stanford MBA diploma) than anything else, but recently it has come to look more like the faces of two aggrieved jurors each time he passes it. He shuts the door and pulls the iPhone from his pocket.

He texts her: Hey, you need to come up and get Bruno asap. I have to leave town for an emergency. Sorry for the short notice. The key is under the rock downstairs as usual. He has enough food and water until tomorrow.

He sends it, and after a moment of consideration adds a follow-up: Thanks for everything.

And then: I’m sorry.

Out on the street it doesn’t take long to get from where he now lives to the nice part of town, where people maintain their landscaping and wash the luxury imports in their driveways regularly. But he knows what lies behind many of those doors. He once lived there too, or somewhere much like it anyway. Before the oxy became the central focus of his life. Before all the wreckage and ruin.

A Marin County Sheriff’s officer in a Ford SUV pulls up behind him at the intersection just a few blocks before the on-ramp to 101 South. He keeps his head level, thinks about his plates, and only breathes right again after he pulls into the Starbucks parking lot and sees the Sheriff’s SUV roll on past. He really doesn’t want his kids to read some newspaper version of the story about how their dad ended up killing, or was killed by, a local cop. He has a plan and that’s not part of it, but he’s definitely not going back to jail today.

On the highway traffic is moving along nicely. It’s almost mid-day, and early in the week, with good weather to boot, so things couldn’t be much better. The ride from San Rafael down to Corte Madera takes less than 15 minutes, and for once he kind of wishes it might have been a little longer. There’s no real rush.

And so from there he winds his way up the hillside towards Mount Tamalpais following the directions spit out by his iPhone and before long he reaches the parking area for the start of his hike. He’s only ever been there on the weekends before so he’s never seen it so uncrowded. He slides his 4-year old leased Honda into a parking space right near the trailhead entrance before looking around a bit and then exiting the car. Some clouds are starting to roll in over the Pacific from the northwest, as they always do.

His mother used to be proud of him. He finds it hard to let go of that even now, knowing that her mind is nothing but mush, or whatever is left after twenty-something years of non-stop daytime TV viewing combined with deeply ingrained “old white lady privilege”, firmly supported by the steel of a self-affirming network of daily telephone conversations with those just like her about all the ways that their idyllic life of retirement in suburban New England is being existentially challenged by immigrants at the southern border and people who don’t clean up after their dogs properly.

He wants to ask her how many 9/11 attacks her flawless lifelong career in lower management at IBM survived, or how many pandemics, or how many rounds of corporate restructuring layoffs, but he knows that she will just miss all the points he is trying to make and keep staring down her nose at him all the same, only angrier and more confused.

He feels pretty good as he first starts making his way up the trail but it doesn't last long. Not long enough in any case. Soon the oxygen and endorphins are overwhelmed by the joint pain and the depression that has been painting his sky black for far too long, but he pushes all that to the back of his mind and keeps on going, his legs pumping along unquestioningly just as they always have. The trail follows a switchback pattern up along the hillside and despite the cool weather and his leisurely pace he still finds himself sweating pretty heavily before reaching the apex.

When he does get to the clearing at the peak he is at once pleased to see that he is the only one there and displeased to see that the coastal fog layer has now rolled in too far for him to see the ocean. That was really the whole point, and the reason why he has been scouting online weather reports for the last few days. A series of memories comes to him then, sublime in nature. The unsteady breath of the wind, a mote of dust in the air, his daughter’s voice somewhere behind him and the endless nothingness of the Pacific rolling away to the far ends of the earth. He feels his own heartbeat in his ears for a moment, but then he hears the sound of some little kid running up the trail not far behind him and that all just vanishes.

“Hey Mister Black Shirt, catch!,” the little kid yells, and barely before he has a chance to look up he sees a Nerf football sailing in his direction. He catches it more out of instinct than desire, only realizing afterward that he is wearing an old, black Sick Of It All t-shirt bearing the raging Oriental dragon logo, his once-favorite band.

“Nice catch! Sail it back to me, man!” the kid yells, dunking his knees for a moment before running a slant route towards the edge of the clearing. He starts to wind up for the throw but then stops and just holds the ball, feeling old memories swelling up from his palm and momentarily thinking about why he was there and whether or not he should just leave right then. But a moment later a Golden Retriever comes charging up the trail with a man in a dark blue tracksuit, presumably the kid’s father, following behind it at a jogging pace. 

He points in the opposite direction of the clearing before throwing the ball with almost all his might. The kid has skinny legs but he knows how to use them and catches the ball in stride and then runs up closer to him as the man in the dark blue tracksuit works to get the Retriever’s leash back in hand. The kid throws the ball back to him again and this time he catches it but then just lets it fall aimlessly to the ground as he turns away.

“What the fuck, man? Are you gonna be my QB or not?,” the kid asks. He looks back and actually finds the semi-offended expression on the kid’s face sort of funny but the man working to wrangle the Golden Retriever stops, looks up and submits the simultaneous question-imperative, “Hey Sean, I thought we talked about the language?”

The kid named Sean looks back and forth between the only two adults there before hanging his head to mutter a quiet apology towards one while shuffling his feet towards the other. Another moment or so later the effort to catch the runabout Golden Retriever continues and the kid grabs up his ball and throws it again. This time there is zero effort to catch it.

“Yo, man. What the fuck? My coach says ball control is everything. Who are you? Mister Butterfingers?”

The man attempting to wrangle the Golden Retriever looks up and yells out, “Language, Sean! And leave him alone if he doesn’t want to play catch with you, please!”, and somehow it is immediately apparent in the way those words are spoken that he is not the boy’s father. Perhaps a step-father or an uncle, maybe. The dog keeps running but the football just sits there.

He looks at the kid briefly and then quietly walks off 25 or 30 yards back down the trail, assuming that this will send the intended message. No such luck. The kid quietly grabs up the ball and floats forward, apparently oblivious to the social barrier that has been erected between them. Up ahead there’s a bench planted for weary hikers by some old rich fuck from Sausalito who has nothing better do with his money so that becomes the next logical stoppage point for the unwanted dialogue. 

He takes a seat, hangs his head and does his best to look uninterested as he stares at the ground between his feet. The kid looks at him for a second or two, twirling the ball in his right hand, and then just turns back and jogs off towards the clearing. A short time later a thought occurs and he pulls the pistol from the back of his jeans, removes the cartridge and drops all but one bullet into his palm. He only needs the one and there’s no reason to leave a loaded gun laying around for whoever might come along later. 

He stands and throws the unneeded rounds down the grassy hillside stretching out before him and then sits again after returning the gun to his jeans. He lights a cigarette, the first one he’s had in a very long time. It tastes horrible and after just a few pulls he drops it to the ground and stubs it out beneath his heel. He semi-crushes the rest of the pack in one palm and then tosses it into the refuse container positioned next to the bench.

He doesn’t want to think about anything - only just do what he came here to do - but he finds that almost impossible. He thinks he might vomit for just a second but then the feeling is gone. The man in the blue tracksuit with the Golden Retriever and the kid with the ball keep on moving down the trail back to the parking lot, only the dog looking at him as they pass the bench.

He closes his eyes, waits for what feels like ten minutes but is probably closer to five, then he looks up and down the trail to confirm that no one is currently approaching. With this done he pulls the pistol from his jeans and in what is almost a singular motion he racks the only remaining round into the chamber, places the gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger.

Click.

He has owned this Sig Sauer for almost five years. It is a fairly expensive handgun and well made. He has fired over a thousand rounds through it and he has kept it very clean and well-oiled. It has never jammed even once before. Not one time.

He sits there on the bench for a while and no one comes along so he just leaves the gun, with the barrel extended and still locked in place from the misfire, there in his lap. The fog keeps rolling in. Eventually he starts to feel cold. He didn’t think to bring along a jacket or hoodie. Didn’t think it would matter.

So he gets up, removes the jammed round and throws it off into the grass with the rest and then starts walking down the trail towards the parking lot. After a while he begins disassembling the pistol and throwing the parts off into the woods on either side of the trail. Eventually there is nothing left of it and he reaches the parking lot.

He pulls the iPhone from his pocket and texts her one last time: Never mind. Everything is good with Bruno. I didn’t have to leave town today after all.

He hits send and then drives away.

THE END