Our neighbor ran a small extermination business from a remodeled garage behind his house. Some weekends we’d sneak in, fascinated by a wall display of such mounted horrors as a freakish two-headed moth with a 12-inch wingspan. Later I discovered that every exterminator had one of these as part of their standard franchise package, fabricated by XYZ Pest Museum in Silver City, NM.

I did my best, which is nothing, which is what you’ve come to expect.

The parallel life his father had always sensed, shimmering just out of reach, riding a limitless cusp of possibility that never materialized.

Book II:
After the booze ran out.

To become accomplished is to experience a great loss.

Sick with worry, half-mad with hope. Talking to an empty room. Help is on its way.

In the last year of his life, his work was monochromatic. Yellow, the color of his yearning.

Far too finely wrought to be good.

never not trying too hard

The cat who joins you at the back window to watch squirrels on the lawn; the dog who briefly rests his head on your lap on the bench in front of the food co-op; the toddler one table over, offering her bottle to you—all touchingly unaware of what a shit you are.