He stopped at a recessed back door of a furniture store and with an audible sigh wearily sat down, wedged his back against the door and shoulder against the jamb. He hugged the half empty bottle of cheap wine with both arms as if it were grand Bordeaux. Breathing deeply, he let his chin slowly drop to his chest. He knew the moves well from watching his father slowly commit suicide with progressively shittier and shittier booze in greater and greater quantities until his liver called it quits. He sat like this, pretending to be almost asleep, while waiting for what he knew would happen in a few minutes. To pass the time and distract himself from the cold concrete against him, he let his mind wander. He wondered how his mom was doing since checking in with her by phone last week. And made a mental note to call first thing in the morning. She now lived with her eighty-two-year-old sister in Flint fucking Michigan, the only place he could think of that ranked worse than Detroit as one of the world’s most unlivable shit holes.
