The day before Christmas I was shitshape on the Ezekiel Docks, down by the Nutria Nugget Riverboat. My ex-babydoll, Ms. Wanda, was onboard. I was not. The situation, of course, was partly my fault. I’d misremembered Taco Tuesday and—instead of buying a bag of fajitas—I’d procured a subpar tuna tartare sando and a bottle of bubbly. When she realized this, Ms. Wanda’s heart turned to coal like a neglected spud on the grill. She kicked me off the heart-shaped bed inside our Executive Suite, then booted me off the starboard side of the Nutria Nugget, right into the river, which, all things considered, was a non-spondoolie, since I’d paid for our fare with misappropriated municipal funds.
I was metaphorically up Crapalachee Creek, damp from defenestration, watching the Nutria Nugget float away in the gloam. On board, Ms. Wanda was likely already coupled up with Mr. Benji, her back door man (and also the quartermaster), whom I very much wanted to punch in the beard (on account of him bein’ privy to her skivvies). Ms. Wanda had a hard time stayin’ single, whereas I’d been flying solo for most all my life. Glancing down at my knockoff Casio, I knew it was only a matter of time before the two of them wore out the waterbed I’d reserved for our Yuletide canoodling (perhaps pausing to feed one another dill gherkins from a Christmas pickle tree). I wanted to know none of this. I wanted bad luck kept far away. I wanted to be gone from a seedy strip-hole like Ezekiel, Mississippi—someplace bad love wouldn’t come down on me.
It wasn’t a happy notion watching the sun set on another romantical misadventure. It wasn’t a good feeling knowing all this was something I’d brought down on myself. I didn’t want another year living the way I’d lived this one. I felt like taking a header out at Grungey’s Bungey. I opened my hand and took a gander at the pyrite engagement ring still sweatin’ in my paw—the exact one we’d selected at Dirt Cheap only weeks before—and while I watched the riverboat disappear across the horizon, I knew in my heart of hearts this time I’d lost her for good.
