Curmudgeon For A Day, Part 2

And that’s all Bruce did from that moment up until Saturday morning. Nearly 48 hours of little-to-no movement whatsoever, except for bathroom breaks and producing additional alcohol from his liquor cabinet. Also, in that time, he had three separate pizzas delivered, two of his garbage cans in the kitchen overflowed and began attracting flies, and Bruce binged-watched more than five separate television shows, watched nine movies, and accumulated a total of only four hours of sleep.
Bruce was robotic. His cognitive human functions had ceased. His heart was pumping out fumes. His stomach growled on several occasions. More gray hairs began to sprinkle out of his beard. When flies began flying over his unkempt hair, he nary twitched an arm muscle to shoo them away. He could have been stung by a wasp or a yellow jacket and he wouldn’t have twitched. Bruce had never felt so alone.
Finally, on Saturday morning, a seasonably warm and balmy early December afternoon, Bruce partook in his monthly ritual. He drove his black Mercedes out to Eastern Long Island to spend the day with his parents at their five-bedroom waterfront mansion overlooking the Long Island Sound. Bruce always considered it the most fun day of each month. He and his father, especially on warm days, would sit on a patio overlooking the Sound, drink beer, and just talk about life. Other moments, he would assist his mother in preparing an elaborate meal. As Bruce was an only child, his parents relished each one of his visits. Bruce, after he moved out on his own for the first time following his college graduation, made a promise to visit his parents at least once per month, regardless of distance or cost, or good times or bad times.
This visit came during a very difficult time for Bruce, but he was in no mood to discuss the absolute worst past few days of his life. His parents had not yet been informed of his laying off nor the acrimonious circumstances behind Karen’s departure. Naively, they assumed that Bruce was beginning to move on from Karen. Bruce, however, adept at producing poker faces in adverse situations, produced the best he could possibly muster for his caring, loving, yet vigilant parents. However, out on the concrete patio overlooking the sound, surrounded by light-green shrubs bristling from the gentle blow of the sea breeze, adjacent to a 45-degree angle ravine descending towards the sound, Bruce’s father, Edward, sensed something amiss. Sitting in bamboo-weaved chairs with camouflage cushions, with a glass cocktail table sandwiched in between, Edward, a pot-bellied 6’4 inch with the same military crew cut he was given more than 45 years ago his first day at Marine Corps boot camp, only a lot more whiter, and dressed in a black polo shirt with low-cut khakis and light brown wing-tipped loafers, studied his only son’s weary brown eyes. Bruce adjusted the buttons on his white pinstriped shirt, then adjusted his dark blue jeans near the crotch area. His fidgety demeanor was unusual to his Dad, who knew his son as well as he knew his own wife or anyone else in the world. Their relationship is based on honesty and integrity, and any hint of dissension from such a tradition would be met from either side with curiosity and a slight hint of suspicion.
“Bruce,” Edward said in his drawling, gravelly accent that crossed between Charlton Heston and a New York mafia don, “I’ve never seen you this fidgety. Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?”
Bruce remained silent as he focused his eyes on the whitecaps of the sound’s waves. The crashing waves eased his troubled mind, but they could not eradicate the nasty vibrations inside his soul. Nonetheless, he continued to be evasive.
“Dad, if you’re wondering if I’m coming out as gay or something, give it up,” Bruce said with a grin, in a feeble attempt to pass off humor. His military-strong father saw right through the ruse.
“Nice try, wiseass,” Edward growled. “Now come on, Brucie, you know you can tell this wily old man how you feel. It’s not like I’m going to ground you or anything.”
“I just had a rough week at work. Nothing really to whine about.” Bruce took a large gulp of his beer. That was his father’s next hint.
“Son, this old marine can’t be BS’d. I did two tours in Vietnam, and if my ankle were still intact, I would have gone to Iraq just for the poon tang. I’ve seen the worst humanity has to offer, and I can tell when someone is hiding something.”
Bruce took a deep breath, then clasped his lips upward in an arch formation.
“I know all about Karen,” Edward said. “Forget her.”
“Yeah, well did you know she aborted my baby?” Bruce snapped. Edward nearly spilled his beer while doubling over in laughter.
“Dad…” Bruce angrily declared. Edward continued to laugh, then slapped his flaky hand on his son’s now-trembling right knee.”
“That’s a great one, Brucie…whooo! That’s a doozy!”
“Dad,” Bruce shouted, creasing his eyes downward in indignation. “Karen aborted my child.”
Edward finally ceased his laughing, but continued to grin at Bruce. He still thought his son was joking.
“You can laugh at your own joke, son.”
“It’s not…a joke. That insufferable little twit admitted it to me Wednesday night. It was the first time we have spoken since the break-up. I didn’t want to talk about it today. I just wanted to enjoy our time together.”
“Bruce, I…oh my God…”
“Yeah,” Bruce replied, folding his arms.
“I…I’m speechless…how could she actually do that to you…oh, and you never told me or your mother that she was expecting!”
“That’s because I didn’t know about it either until Wednesday. It was the first time I had spoken to her since she left.”
“Then, you know what? She’s unfit to be a mother. In a way, you should be glad.”
“That’s the same thing she said.”
“Brucie, I…I don’t know what to say. If there’s anything I can…”
“You shouldn’t. She’s right. It’s all my fault.”
“Don’t let her manipulate you like that. I always had my suspicions about her.”
“No, Dad, she’s absolutely right. I’m a bum! All I do all day long is go to work and watch TV. I don’t exercise, I don’t socialize, I don’t do charity events or volunteer, shit…I barely even travel!”
“And that’s why she left you?”
“Well, that, and because I’m a fucking pussy. I never stood up for her. I took her for granted!”
“Bruce, you’re not a pussy…again, she’s manipulating you.”
“It doesn’t matter…she’s gone for good and…she just…she had the nerve to…” Tears forming in his eyes, Bruce chugged the remainder of his beer, and tossed the empty bottle into the water in front of him.”
“Brucie,” Edward pled, standing up and rubbing his son’s shoulders. “I get you’re angry, and I can’t imagine what Karen put you through. It’s horrible, but you…eventually, you just need to move on.”
“And how do I do that?”
“Well, you immerse yourself in the things you love.”
“I already have.”
“Well, what else do you love besides TV and work?”
“I only have one of those things now.”
“You got rid of your TV?” Bruce shot his father an angry look of death, creased his eyelids downward, and slowly shook his head. “Oh,” Edward somberly replied.
“I found out the day after I spoke with Karen. After ten years and two promotions!”
Edward’s clammy hand, once grasping a beer bottle tightly, had loosened its grip. Seconds later, the bottled rotated forward, and small drops of barley-based liquid dripped onto the concrete below.
“Brucie…”
“Don’t say anything, Dad. I deserve it. It’s karma.”
Edward took one long, labored breath. No words that would come out of his mouth could possibly ease the magnitude of the revelations his son had just brought forth. “Bruce…I mean…I can’t imagine…that’s the kind of stuff that would cripple most men.”
“Thanks, Dad, I really needed to hear that right now.”
“I’m sorry…it…it was an inappropriate joke. It’s just…wow…I’d been through ‘Nam twice, and I’ve interviewed some pretty fucked up people with fucked up stories in all my years as a shrink, but…I’ve never heard anything like this.”
“Well, now you have. Congratulations.”
“Normally, I’d take offense to that snarkiness, but…I really don’t blame you.”
“Honestly, Dad, it’s a miracle I’m even here today.”
“Were you gonna off yourself or something?”
Bruce sat silently, arms folded.
“Brucie?”
“No, Dad. I wasn’t going to off myself. That said, what else do I have to live for? Karen dumped me, she killed our baby, and I lost my dream job. All I have left are you and Mom. If neither of you were around, I’d probably consider it.”
“Well, shit son, don’t let me or your mother be the reason you don’t move on with your life!”
“I’ve done what I wanted to do with my life. What else can I do?”
“You’re extremely qualified and accomplished. Just find another trading job!”
“Where?”
“I don’t know? Siberia?”
“C’mon, Dad.”
“Son, you’re the expert on this stuff. You know where the jobs are. So you had a little setback! That’s life!”
“This isn’t just a setback. This is a cliff collapsing out from underneath me, plummeting 20,000 feet to the ground to my bloody death.”
“So, your solution is to sit around and sulk?”
“That’s just a short-term solution. But you’re missing the point, Dad. Look, fuck Karen. I don’t need her anymore. And I know I can find another job anywhere. In time, I will. But it’s more than just that.”
Edward’s psychiatry instinct inevitably overtook his mind. He knew his son didn’t want any shrink tactics to be played on him, but Edward felt his only son’s problems were too deep and too profound for him to not at least offer a professional perspective.
“If you don’t feel suicidal,” Edward calmly inquired, “then what do you feel like?”
“You want the truth?” Bruce glumly asked.
“You can tell me anything you want, son.”
“I feel like my life is a lie. Everything I’ve ever worked for, dreamed for, and aspired for, has succumbed to reality.”
“And what reality is that?”
“Our lives don’t matter. Hope is an illusion. You are not special. We are not special. Only a select few in life are fortunate enough to get everything they’ve ever wanted. The rest of us just angrily go through the motions every single day for the rest of our lives.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Edward bluntly replied with a chuckle. “Brucie, look, I’ve gotten everything in life I’ve ever wanted. I served my country with honor, I got my doctorate, I’ve built a great home, I have a great wife and an incredible son, and I’ve helped people. But the truth is, humans always desire more. We’re never satisfied! We’re greedy, Brucie! That’s just the way it is!”
“Yes, but I got what I wanted in life – a great job, and I once had a great fiancée, or at least someone I thought was great – and now it’s all gone! You haven’t lost anything! I’m angry!”
“It’s going to take time for that anger to subside, son.”
“Yes…but…I’m not the person I want to be.”
“How do you mean? You’re a brilliant, compassionate you man, Bruce. What more do you want?”
“To be feared.”
Edward’s eyelids shot upward like a bullet discharged from the chamber. “Feared…wha…what in the world do you mean, feared?” he asked.
“You know how badly bullied I was back in school because of my weight? I mean, most of the popular kids thought I was autistic or had down syndrome or something. I would never stand up for myself. I was afraid of the consequences.”
“What do you care about something that happened almost three decades ago?”
“Well, that same push-over mentality carried over to my adult years. Dad, haven’t you noticed how I tend to recoil in horror at the thought of any kind of adversity? You realize how much I hate confrontation?” “That’s not necessarily a bad thing, son.” “Yes, it is. It’s part of the reason why Karen left me. She thought I was a pussy, and she’s right! I’ve never stood up for myself. I should have told off my boss the other day or negotiated for my job back. I shouldn’t have cried to that damn police officer after I filed the missing persons report for Karen. I should have questioned my professors more. I should have questioned my education…”
“Okay, Bruce, I get the point. But listen, you can’t just go back and change the past. All you can do is the best you can with what you have right now.”
“Well, I’m tired of being a pushover. I’m tired of being bullied. For once, I want others to know exactly how I’ve felt my entire life. I want to be the one that everyone fears. I don’t want to carry any feelings whatsoever within me. I want to feel infallible. I want, just for one day in my life, to be a curmudgeon. I want to be like God and Satan combined!”
“Well,” Edward replied after an awkward pause, “um…here’s to your blasphemy?”