His daughter, Penny, perches on the piano stool, delivering an exegesis on being dissociative as the father sits calmly on the cat-clawed leather chair, gob-smacked. Fortunately, this ramble only comes occasionally, but when she starts, he sinks into the worn black leather until he is one with the fabric.

Penny has been erratic since the summer before college. This included arguments that ended with the father invariably declared dead, with Penny disappearing to see Desiree, the codependent, self-appointed genius ex-girlfriend the father wishes he never met.

When Penny got ready for college, it was apparent that Desiree became too interested in playing Mom. Dwight concluded that he could no longer push back while withstanding the whipsaw hurricane of his daughter’s rapidly cycling mood swings.

After Penny graduated from college, Dwight ceased all communication with Desiree. However, Penny stays in touch; and the father maintains polite silence whenever Penny speaks of her.

***

Eventually, Penny leaves. Dwight walks her to the subway. They hug before she takes the stairs. He is sad, but grateful that at least tonight did not end with a fight.

The following morning is an exercise in the sharp struggle of dealing with a panic attack brought on by bad dreams, fueled by the realization he had gained too much weight and began to fear Death again.

Dwight was getting older and at the age where people his age—and younger—were dying.

Death to him was a paradox. He had spent so many years dealing with a now-deceased abusive ex-wife and a young adult child with some issues better responded to by a trained therapist—on top of the vagaries of his career—that the possibility of Death just did not fit into the equation. As a result, Dwight slid into a tautology where the concept of dying is processed to an anti-paradoxical logic.

He will not live forever; whenever he sits down, Dwight looks like he might give birth and is more tired now than three years ago.

Therefore, Death is on the table. Not at, mind you, raring to play a game of chess. Dwight wearily knew his demise was more likely than before, and he had better get to work on his potbelly. How he looks at things: Death is an object he can push away a smidgen at a time with efforts at healthy living, but no matter how he tries to rationalize the situation, Dwight realizes that while the end is not near, there is, however, an end.

The morning obsession with attendant terror done, Death can wait because Dwight needed to make the rent, again, as always, for two-thirds of his sixty years.

Walking down the street, he counted on making nine thousand-plus steps to the office. This was to push the death card a little further.

Dwight has earbuds on. Screw tinnitus.

***

Years ago—1992—Dwight and his friends, Brad and Freddy Parker, drove through a sleepless night in Austin in a battered white Ford Econoline working for a music conference.

It was already past sunrise when they staggered into a hotel lobby.

A gospel group performed an impromptu spiritual below them in the restaurant.

Freddy leaned against the railing. “Are we dead or something?”

Brad murmured, “I don’t know. Maybe.”

Dwight said, “No, we are as alive as ever.”

Freddy died a year before Brad, so Dwight is the last man out of the van. 

***

Dwight swipes his ID to go through the turnstile and enters the cavernous nothing toward the job. Twenty-third-floor Skidoo, and off to the café to pick up some food.

It is a buffet breakfast, and be careful about the sausage portions. You’re an old man now, Dwight, and you want to live and keep that card at the edge of the table for as long as you can.

He juggles Styrofoam breakfast, coffee, wallet and ID at the frosted glass door.

He sets up his laptop, plugs in his external drive and eats. 

His phone buzzes. The daughter is having another manic panic. 

Penny drops a dozen dimes in ninety seconds. 

***

The card remains on the table’s edge, and when Dwight is ready, he will meet Dwight and Freddy at the ledge.

Dwight waits a few minutes until the buzzing stops, taking in his breakfast with a modicum of sadness.

When he finishes, Dwight reads the messages, listening to gospel.