This Is Where I Leave You

boxer who jabs and moves before the counterpunch can arrive. Arguing with her never failed to make me dizzy.
    In the end, I kept the watch; there was never really any question. The Citizen was relegated to the little compartment in my sock drawer that held a set of keys to our old apartment, a couple of obsolete cell phones, my college I.D. card, a couple of Japanese throwing stars from my brief ninja phase in junior high, the foul ball I’d caught off Lee Mazzilli at Shea Stadium when I was a kid, and a handful of other artifacts from versions of myself long since dead and buried. And now the Rolex said three o’clock in the afternoon. I needed 30some time to think, to consider the situation, figure out my next move. I fingered the buttons on my cell phone, flipped through my list of contacts, but I already knew I wouldn’t call anyone. Maybe Jen and I could still fix this thing, and if we did, we wouldn’t want anyone looking at us funny. I knew irrevocable damage had been done, innocence had been lost, trust slaughtered, but still, it was the age-old conundrum: If a wife sleeps with a boss, but no one finds out about it, did it actually happen? There was no one to call, no friends who weren’t also connected to Jen. I thought about calling my mother, but my father was in a coma and she had enough to deal with. My life was in a free fall, and there was nowhere to turn. A cold sense of desolation lodged itself somewhere in the base of my throat, and suddenly I was no longer enraged or devastated, but terrified of the immense, throbbing loneliness that was only now closing like a vise on my internal organs.
    I drove through Kingston’s small business district, past the train station, to the I-87 overpass. I pulled over and watched the interstate for a while, the eighteen-wheelers and early commuters speeding past just ahead of the afternoon rush that would soon choke the northbound side. I considered getting on the highway and driving north, stopping only for gas and donuts until I reached Maine. I would find a small seaside town, rent a little house, and start over. The winters would be rough, but I’d trade in my Lexus for a rugged pickup truck with chains on the tires. I’d get a job, maybe something where I worked with my hands, drink at the local pub, adopt a one-eyed Labrador, and make friends with the fishermen. They’d tease me about my roots, maybe even affectionately refer to me as “New York.” In time, I would develop the faintest down-east accent. There would be a woman there, also from somewhere else, also running from an ugly past. She would be pretty and vulnerable and we would know each other instantly, would love each other fiercely, the way only two damaged people can. Nothing else would matter. Everyone in town would come to the wedding, held in the gazebo on the lawn of the town square. We’d be congratulated on the marquee of the local diner, right above the blue-plate special. But then reality reasserted itself. There would be no small house in Maine, no one-eyed Labrador, no pretty, dark-eyed woman to make me whole again, and for a moment I sat there and mourned them. Then I turned the car around, still trembling - I hadn’t stopped since I’d left the house - and headed back into town, telling myself the interstate would still be there tomorrow, but for now, I was going to have to find something a little closer to home.
    There’s not very much I’m proud of when it comes to the weeks that followed. I went into hibernation in the Lees’ dank, rented basement, growing roots on the sagging couch that the advertisement had called a “day bed.” The room smelled of mildew and laundry detergent, and when it was quiet, I could hear the lone, bare light bulb humming in its socket. I watched television pretty much nonstop. I rarely showered and grew a beard. I masturbated joylessly. I shaved the beard into a goatee and gained fifteen pounds. I composed long, humiliating e-mails to Jen, rage-filled diatribes and pathetic entreaties, tapping away furiously on my BlackBerry until my thumbs burned, cursing, excoriating, imploring, begging, and, ultimately, deleting. I lay there at night, staring at the ceiling as the house’s ancient plumbing shook and clanged violently behind the thin drywall, picturing Jen and Wade going at it like porn stars to the rhythm of the banging pipes. Bang! Bang! Bang! And then climax, to the rumble of water through the walls every time one of the Lees