These fucking hospital beds, I swear it’s like they make them this uncomfortable on purpose. Jesus Christ, it’s not like I want to stay.

The food sucks, the television’s worse and whoever invented the idea of the sexy nurse has never been laid up in intensive care waiting to die. Not that there’s anything wrong with them, they’re very sweet and professional, but it’s unnatural being mothered by somebody twenty years my junior.

Not like I can say anything about it. Or the parade of wet-eyed loved ones. Haven’t been able to talk for days and I feel myself falling off my bones. Can’t feel the doctors poke and prod anymore. Only dimly aware when they come to empty the pans that collect whatever runoff I can still produce.

One thing I can still feel is my breath and that’s a second to second struggle. It’s heavier than anything I’ve ever lifted but I keep fighting. Damned if I’m gonna lay here while they shove in one of those tubes.

My son comes to see me most. Christ what a sight he is. Look at him. No, really look. See? Shit, it’s like I never have before. Those shoulders. They’re strong enough to lay the cross beam of a long-house on. Here is a young man who could support the world like Atlas himself, though he’d never be dumb enough to try.

Can’t stand to have him looking down at me like this, but he fucking shines. The day he was born, I can’t even describe it. When the tests came back, I could have kissed the sky. Instead I kissed the doctors. Every one. Fuck were they freaked out, but the wife understood.

My son’s brain, chest, blood… all clean. The boy had none of my defects.

He hasn’t gotten around to kids yet, but he will and I knew they’ll be even cleaner of me.

Couple of my friends in attendance. Haha. I’m going first fuckers, see you on the other side. Ah, don’t look at me like that. It’s okay I swear, please just don’t look at me like that.

All these people, who’d have thought? I must have done something right.

Shit, maybe a few things.

My wife and I met in a bar in Pheonix. Fuck, do I hate Arizona. I was just there doing a reading for some weird book or another and I’d stopped in the shittiest bar I could find so I wouldn’t have to talk about writing. There she was. We locked eyes and within an hour we were giggling like children and loading that juke.

I told her that I loved her smile, and that the juke didn’t take dollar bills or credit cards, just quarters. We clutched at each other like sailors to mainmasts in the pitch and roll of a gale. We swayed until they threw us out.

She went two years ago.

Darlin, I’ll be there as soon as I can figure out how to leave. I hope in spite of everything that you still haven’t found anybody you like better.

Unless it’s Muddy Waters. I could forgive you Otis Redding, too.

There’s my publisher. The fuck are you doing here? Ah, I’m only kidding. Without you I’d probably be nothing, not like anybody was searching for that bullshit I put on paper. You bring any whiskey? Tell the nurse to get creative and hook it up to the IV.

Hard to tell if they’re here all at once or one at a time, but the clarity of thought is amazing from this fixed position.

The knife wound I picked up in Paris almost vanished in the sallow, wrinkly skin of my arm. Ever get stabbed in French?

That young Algerian girl took me to get stitched up. Good thing the guy with the knife hadn’t been that serious about it. What the percocet couldn’t kill, her eyes took away.

I’m being an asshole, focusing on that memory.

Some things never change, do they? Me and my self-authored legend. It’s been so long now that I can’t even tell where it leaves off and I pick up. The rowdiest, bullshit best-seller nobody’ll ever read.

My life, it’s been good. I guess it’s just now in this forest of visitors that I can finally see each of the trees and they’re beautiful. Deep green and russet hued, green like her eyes and red like her hair. Which her? Doesn’t matter.

If I can forgive my wife Muddy Waters, she can forgive me some nameless red head.

I hope I see her over there. My wife, not the redhead. Christ, why can’t I leave? Sorry everybody, but I’m past ready.

I’m proud of myself you know? Sorry nobody has ever heard me say that. Staring at all of you, I’m proud of the life I scratched out of the dust even as I see the blowing wind wiping it out.

To the tune of these beeping machines and the squeak of the nurse’s sensible shoes on the linoleum, I’m proud.

“You all set, my friend?”

The man in the pin-stripe three piece has kind eyes and a fedora tucked under his arm. I find to my great pleasure that I can answer him.

“That’s a helluva hat, man. Stetson?”

He smiles. “Borsalino.”

“Very nice.”

“You ready to go?”

I look around at the people in the room. “Are they gonna be okay?”

“They’re gonna be fine. They know you loved them very much.” He pauses, as if deciding whether or not to say what he says next. “You gave them much more than you think you did.”

“Thank you for that.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Where are we going?”

“Peoria, 1867 to start. From there it’s up to you.”

“Hot dog, ace. Let’s motor.”

Smiling, the man in the gray pin-stripe reaches out a hand to the frail shape in the hospital bed. The beeps on the machine slow, slow, slow and then stop.