Book Description

The old khaki jacket is frayed around the collar. One of its straps is hanging loose. The metal buttons that closed the front are tarnished and the wool lining is worn in places. The Field and Stream label is grey from years of rubbing against the back of a neck. Its various reporters pockets are empty now. Its been around the world and back. It smells of London, Paris, Prague and Rome. It carries the scent of a hundred trips and a thousand memories. But mostly it smells like Rodger. The jacket made its last trip home in April. I keep it under my pillow and make the bed around it. I lay in the dark every night holding it to me. Lonely, shaky and scared, I smell his smell and breathe him in. Im doubled over the jacket, holding on to this solid evidence that he was here. This piece of him that was left behind. Curled into a ball in the middle of the bed, I keen. Not mere crying, but wrenching sobs I pull deep from my chest, my legs, between my legs. Every part of me that loved him is aching with grief. I cannot stop. I went looking for a gun and found a vibrator. Theyre both long, thin and end with a bang. I had decided that living alone I should have protection. Rodger had a pistol somewhere buried in a closet. Wed hidden it up and away when Katie was a baby. But where? I dug through the top shelves of my closet and found tons of old books, some photos and my first communion veil. No gun, but a bag of gag gifts way in the back. And lo and behold, what fell out but a long, narrow box. At first I wasnt sure what it was, but I turned it over and there in living color, bright lime green, was a dildo. Given that the bag was filled with anti-aging pills, fake Viagra and the like, I figured this was a remnant of a birthday gift to be given or received. No clue. But there it was. I pulled the thing out of the box and turned it over. It felt weird, like, well, plastic. It was sort of clammy but that may have been my imagination, or the revolting green color. I touched the end and the damn thing started buzzing. I couldnt stop laughing. Here I am, fifty years old, sitting alone in my bedroom, with the Hulks tool. What the hell now?