never beat up a retard

I would NEVER beat up a retard, Z says. NEVER, he repeats for emphasis.
That's good, I say as I sip my beer.
Or anyone like me for that matter, a cripple, he adds.
That's good too, I think but manage just a grunt over a second slurp. Uuuh.
We sat there watching the boy pull tricks on the bike, Flora making a turd center soccer field for all to see. I took another sip and just lost it laughing. Z joined in. Sometimes the circumstances, proverbial or otherwise is just too absurd.
Christ man, when will this shit let up?
Right. I dunno, he says. He says it in that way that is resigned to the fight. The bring it on thing that gets us both into such trouble. For some reason, just at that moment I thought of Nurse Ani. I followed Nurse Ani from the lodge in Montana, back east and then out to Jackson Hole shortly after I had finished the Rutgers degree. Ani, in a sense, is a pivotal human in my life's path. Her father turns out was a known figure in the art scene in Philadelphia before I ever made a picture worth spit. She must have liked the way I looked because I was so damn immature at that time, worse than now, that I could barely imagine putting up with me for a second. Once I left the poor girl in the airport at Salt Lake and drove home without her when I knew the end was near. Now that's some shit. She took the shuttle home and I jerked off for a week while we worked out the new arrangement - she leaves, I stay, done deal. We weren't right anyway so I'm glad it went down that way. I remember taking her to the kennel (one of my many tests) and seeing her concerned expression at telling me, Rose, I don't like this. The kennel is a tough test and I feel for any poor soul that must endure it (the test) for my sake because if you fit in too well, well then there isn't a need to make a union but if you completely dislike it then it makes for some frustrating sex for a few weeks but ultimately the black flag. I am born a tragic thing, yes? But filled and filled again with sunrise, yes?

So I sit here with a notice of divorce. For the six or so who started reading this two years ago when I started it, drunk and on pills in the darkest recessions of failure and pain over the loss of my wife in such horrid circumstances, facing all of the judgment and decree this heartless place could muster, you will recall this pending divorce. It's here now. It came. And in such a way that leaves me in the same awkward fashion that started us in the first place. After waiting the few suggested months and not hearing a word either from counsel or court or estranged family I investigate and find the document filed on the 21st of January, 2009, City of New York, County of New York, State of New York. I order a copy and there it is, laid out in front of me. I stood staring at it for a second, kind of crinkling the pages and lay it down ironically right next to the thesis work I had set aside and picked up again around that day in January, probably a cold and snowy day and set about the work to finish the stupid thing. I laugh again at the tenacity of this endurance and remember my grandmother who said, probably the last words she spoke to me from her death bed, You'll lose her to the city. Not sure why she felt compelled to say this but now I see the premonition. The dying know things. Balls of electrical discord are not meant for domestic life and I'm a ball of electrical discord. At least not before we're 35. Yes, 35 seems a good round number. I'm laughing again, thinking of Z's good advice, never beat up a retard. 'cept if it's yourself I suppose. Still laughing. As such we are.