They were sitting in a diner, the only one they’d ever been able to agree on, at three in the morning.
“So, you’re really going to do it, huh?” asked one.
“Yep,” answered the other. “I’m really going to do it.”
“Like…for real this time?”
“Of course, and frankly, I’m a little offended by the doubt you’re throwing my way right now.”
“It isn’t doubt; more of a dreadful anticipation. You know, kind of like the Y2K thing, or the 2012 apocalypse theory. Will it or wont it happen kind of thing.”
“Well,” said the other one raising his hand for the waitress, “I can honestly guarantee that this time it will in fact happen.”
“Hmmm.”
The waitress arrived. She was middle aged and black with swollen ankles from either working a double or onset diabetes. Her hand trembled as she poured the coffee. Then she was gone. The two of them looked the menu over despite ordering the same thing every day.
“But why suicide?” one of them finally said. “It seems so final.”
“With suicide that tends to be the general idea.”
“Hardy har. But really, enlighten me.”
The other set his menu down and slid it over to the edge of the table. “Well,” he began, “since the divorce, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, about life and the grand scheme of things.”
“Go on…”
“And that thinking has awakened in me several reasons for wanting to die.”
“Such as?”
“Well, let’s start with the fact that in one week I’ll turn fifty.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Allow me to reiterate: In one week I’ll turn fifty and I have yet to achieve anything of significant value.”
“There’s your job.”
“Arguing on behalf of pedophiles and rapists? That isn’t much reason to want to live.”
“But you’re good at it. You win more cases than you lose. Isn’t there something to be said for that? Something to be said for doing exceptionally well in one’s profession?”
“Hmmm…not really. Not to me, anyway. A man needs some kind of success to feel validated, sure, but it’s got to extend farther than what he does for money. If great financial achievement was all that mattered in life, Robin Williams would still exist, would he not?”
“Point made.”
They sipped from their coffee cups simultaneously and set them down in unison.
“Let’s get back to fifty,” said one.
“Let’s,” said the other.
“It’s really not that old.”
“It’s certainly isn’t that young.”
“Haven’t you heard fifty is the new forty?”
“Haven’t you heard lying to ones’ self is detrimental to personal development?”
“Said the man who considers suicide a viable option. How is that for personal development?”
“That’s just it,” declared the suicidal one. “There’s no more to develop on my behalf. At fifty I will have achieved everything I ever set out to do. I’ve done marriage, I’ve had the career, what else is there?”
The other one scratched his head. “What about children?”
“What about them?”
“Perhaps fatherhood could give you a new lease of life.”
“The way it has you?”
“Touch-e,” said the not suicidal one, thinking about his incarcerated son, his just knocked-up seventeen year old daughter, and how the events of that did anything but instill in him a new lease on life.
A waitress came by to take their orders. It wasn’t the old black one this time; it was a younger one, Puerto Rican looking with ample measurements, large hips and ass.
“I’ll have two eggs over-easy, six strips of bacon, hash browns—you know what? Make that fries, instead,” said the suicidal one.
”I’ll have the same thing plus pancakes,” said the other.
The waitress scribbled into her note pad, then walked away. The two of them watched her as she did so. She swung her hips like giant edible pendulums and her uniform hugged her voluptuous torso.
“Alright,” began the one that wasn’t eager to die, “I’ll do you one better this time.”
“Shoot.”
“Sex.”
“I’ve always enjoyed it.”
“You could lose yourself in it.”
“A common practice for men our age.”
“Precisely. You see, you view your age as a detriment, and you view your marriage and career as boxes to be checked off.”
“More or less.”
“But you fail to see yourself in real relation to them. You’re a man of experience now, a man of accomplishment. You’ve been there, done that. You’ve amassed a small fortune, no?”
“I’ve done alright.”
“My point exactly. You are eligible. Nothing excites a woman like success. If you allow yourself—I mean if you really put yourself out there, you could sail to heights unknown, maybe experience the great sexual awakening that ignites all midlife crisis.’”
The suicidal one nodded slightly, then gestured for the other one to come closer. The other one leaned in over the table.
“Do you recall being young and learning to masturbate?” the suicidal one asked.
“What man doesn’t?”
“Okay. Consider this: Imagine trying to abuse yourself now the way you did then. Three, four, sometimes five times a day. Just whack, whack, whack, whack. Rub one out at dawn, in the shower, on your coffee break, on the way home, and again before bed. Then factor in the weekend.”
The other one thought about it, then said, “There’d be no way.”
“Why not?”
“It wouldn’t be the same. The act wouldn’t mean as much somehow.”
“Right. It wouldn’t mean as much because everything is different now compared to then. The body changes, the mind changes, the little things we find so exciting in our youth can’t muster so much as a fart now.”
“But the metaphor you’ve just used pertains to masturbation. I’m talking about sex with another person.”
“Is there that much difference?”
They were silent then. The young waitress came back and refilled their cups. When she walked away the not suicidal one gazed at her again. The other did not. They both sipped their coffees, decided they needed more sugar, and took turns pouring some into their cups.
“Is it the divorce?” asked the one that still wanted to live.
The other one bristled. “I’d like it better if you didn’t think so low of me,” he said.
“I meant no disrespect. I only wanted to know if you’d be doing this had the divorce never occurred.”
“I would,” the other one answered swiftly. “For me the exit comes at fifty regardless of marital status.”
“And you’d have left your wife a widow?”
“Yes…”
“But—but—she’s your wife.”
“What is a wife? What is a marriage? It’s often defined as an institution, and I think that’s accurate, but it’s an institution cut from the same cloth as prison or a mental ward.”
“Oh come on,”
“No, no, no, it’s quite true. Think about it. You follow the same routine every day. You come and go on a usually ridged schedule with often severe consequence if not followed. Your meals are usually predetermined, and your behavior is monitored. You’re told what to do, where to go, and failure to do so triggers an endless nagging that you’ll ultimately succumb to anyway.”
“But you’ve still got your freedom.”
“Have you? Listen, in some minimum security prisons, certain good behavior criminals are allowed to leave the prison on a good faith system. They go to work every day, earn a living, and are even allowed to leave at will on days off with the understanding that they return each night before lights out. Can you list any differences between that and marriage?”
“I can think of a couple. For example—“
“And frivolous luxuries don’t count. Don’t list anything pertaining to sex, the internet, television, cars or fine dining. I’m strictly talking about a man’s existential experience in both places.”
“Oh. Well, when you put it that way I guess there isn’t.”
The suicidal one raised his coffee cup and sipped from it, then the other one did. Then the diner door opened and a group of young men walked inside, mostly black with two or three Hispanics. They were boisterous and loud, wearing loose fit clothes as they positioned themselves at the counter. Soon they were making so much noise that no one else in the place could hear themselves talk. The suicidal one turned halfway around in his booth.
“HEY!! YOU GUYS MIND KEEPING IT DOWN OVER THERE?!”
The group turned to face him one by one, angry but respectful in their own ways. Then they turned back around and placed their orders, silently. The one that didn’t want to die was impressed.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” he said.
“What’re they going to do, kill me?” said the other one, and the two of them laughed.
The young waitress arrived with their food. It was fresh off the stove and it smelled divine. The suicidal one sliced into an egg then dabbed a crispy piece of bacon into the yoke. The other one began on his pancakes, drizzling them with syrup and butter before forking a slice into his mouth. He then focused on his eggs.
“So that’s that,” he eventually said.
“Yes, that’s that,” answered the suicidal one.
“And there’s nothing I can do to change your mind?”
“No, there isn’t.”
“Absolutely, positively nothing?”
“Afraid not.”
“Alright then. I guess that settles it. Do us a favor while you’re still here, eh?”
“Anything.”
“Pass the salt.”
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