May We Be Forgiven

to the house. They build a wall of boxes across the back of the living room, and then, as they bring more, it becomes an installation of sorts, a cave. What’s amazing is that each box is exactly the same—they are all unmarked white cardboard, fourteen by fourteen by fourteen. Whatever I might have owned that didn’t fit isn’t coming back. I accept delivery and give them each twenty bucks as a tip.
    “After so much, that all we get?”
    “I lost my job,” I say. “I have no life.”
    I cannot begin to unpack. It is all that I can do to simply go on. I go back into the yard. After dark, I go back into the house, make myself a sandwich, get a blanket and pillow, and head out again. Tessie doesn’t want to go—she curls up on her bed and refuses to budge.
    Alone, I sleep in the lounge chair out back. I’ve never slept outside at night before. It’s something I always wanted to do, but honestly I was scared. At this point I think, what’s the problem? I have nothing to fear—in fact, I have become the guy they’re scared of.
    In the early morning, as I’m walking Tessie, still wearing the same clothes as the day before, now dirty and damp with dew, the cop from the day before spots me. He pulls his squad car over and asks what I’m doing.
    “Walking the dog,” I say.
    “Where do you live?”
    “Over there,” I say.
    He escorts me home and seems unhappy when I take the spare key from under the fake rock to let myself in.
    “Most people don’t use the spare key,” he says.
    I shrug and open the door. There is a note on the floor. “You suck, cheapskate. You need pay more.”
    I show the officer the white box installation of “My Life,” I take him on a tour of the house, the upstairs bedroom, and explain why there are no bedside lamps. I point in the direction of George’s office, where there are lots of family photos, from when “times were better,” whatever that means.
    “Looks like you’re in the right place,” the cop says as he’s leaving. “Stay safe.”

    I t happens a little while later, when I’m brushing my teeth, a creeping sensation, like water is rushing in, like I’m going under. I brush, I rinse, I look at myself in the mirror. There is a pain in my head, in my eye, and as I’m looking, my face divides, half of it falls, as if about to cry. It just drops. I try to make a face, I grin, a sloppy half-smile. It’s as though I am mocking myself, as though I have been hit with novocaine. Using the butt of my toothbrush, I poke at my face, almost stabbing, and feel nothing. As I am standing there, I realize I am sort of slouching, like a tipped marionette. I am using only one arm. I walk out of the room, stumble. There is the sensation of plastic wrapping around my head, not exactly pain but a kind of liquefaction, as though I am melting and trickling down my own neck. I’m watching as my face continues to fall; it goes entirely slack—I have aged a hundred years. I want to change my expression but can’t.
    I assume it will pass. I assume I’ve got something in my eye, soap, and it will wash itself out. I come out of the bathroom and finish dressing—it seems to take hours. I’m exhausted. I don’t know whether to lie down or to keep moving. It occurs to me that I need help. The dog is looking at me strangely. “Did something happen?” I ask. “I can’t understand what I’m saying, can you?”
    My right leg is like a rubber band, springing, firing unsteadily under me. I want to call my doctor, but besides the fact that I can’t remember his number, I can’t seem to work the phone. Fine, I think, I’ll drive myself to the hospital.
    I make my way out of the house and into the car. I put the car into reverse, and then realize that I don’t have the key and the engine is not running. I take my foot off the brake and get out.
    The car rolls down the driveway.
    I vomit where I am standing.
    The car rolls into the street and into the path of an oncoming car. An accident happens.
    Somehow I am still standing in the driveway, next to the puddle of sick.
    The cop who arrives is the same one who knows me from the park. “How can you be drinking so early?” he asks.
    I can’t answer.
    “He wasn’t in the car,” the woman from next door says. “He was just standing there.”
    I try and say the word “hospital” but can’t; I try “ambulance,” but it is long and soupy; finally, “MORON” comes spurting out, perfectly clear.
    I make a gesture, the same