Two Hats are Better than None

They sit on the table by my computer. My two straw cowboy hats. Both screaming out loud to be on the road, to be far away from the hurt and confusion, the place where I feel like a renter and an enemy....at best.

Both are classic in style and I can get lost in another persona when I place one of them on my head. The problem is: how do I get out of here without hurting the ones I love and which hat should I wear?  Granted, the first question is a bit more important than the other, but they both weigh heavily. I guess it is due to the fact that when I look at the hats (and I pass 'em many times a day) I am reminded, constantly reminded, how much I hurt inside.

Should I spill my guts on these pages for the world to see? I've been hemming and hawing over it for years now. Never really saying, but always hinting. What happens then? I guess fucking what was always going to happen, what was meant to happen, I just haven't had the fortitude to face it. I will draw the curtain open upon the last act of my life's play. That's what it really comes down to, I cannot fathom that this is it, the last act. The old show business idiom "Always leave them wanting more". Does this apply?

Saturday night at my job in the bookstore, an intriguing long-haired cashier, who happens to be an old man. Give me a fucking break. Ringing up the sales, trying to sell memberships, making small talk with the unwashed minions. Without fail a well-groomed, tanned exec and his trophy wife plunk down their beach books. Speaking in low voices, but just loud enough so that I can hear, they carry on about going to the Hamptons and the parties and the sand and surf and "wasn't it a shame about Robin Williams" and all the other bullshit that dribbles out of their mouths like a chaw of chewing tobacco run amok.

A manicured tanned hand pulls out a wad of bills, fat enough to make even a rich man grimace, casually tossing a couple my way. I make change noticing that his fucking shorts are even ironed for chrissakes. Am I just jealous? Probably. Do I want to roll in the mud "doing" his wife? Yup. Fuck it.

 What was the final of the Mets game? No one knows, no one really gives a shit. It's Saturday night and I will be going home to a woman, who after being together for over 30 years, don't really care for me anymore. That's it. Pure and simple.

I do so wish life were like the movies. My wife and I would each have an epiphany and, teary-eyed and blubbering, fall into each other and face the world as friends and lovers. That is what is supposed to happen. But it won't and the longer I wait for it to happen, the darker and more painful my world becomes.

So my two hats wait patiently, and as long as my head doesn't grow or shrink they will fit for years to come.