Chapter One: The Note on the Fridge
Every memoir starts with a tragedy. Some start with war, some with famine, some with fathers who were too drunk to remember their children’s birthdays. Mine started with a Post-it note stuck on the fridge.
“I’m leaving.”
That’s all it said. Two words. My wife, partner of twenty years, the woman who knew how I liked my eggs and how I hated her mother, erased half a lifetime with one lazy pen stroke.
I stared at it for what must have been an hour, though it could’ve been three minutes. Time does strange things when your marriage detonates in front of your eyes. Then I did what any self-respecting man would do: I cracked open a beer and considered whether the note was a joke. But she wasn’t the joking type. In fact, in twenty years, the only time she laughed was when the dog farted during Easter brunch.
So no, she was gone.
What a Man is Supposed to Feel
You’re supposed to feel grief, I think. That’s what they say in those glossy lifestyle magazines she used to buy. Grief, loss, mourning. All that Greek tragedy stuff.
Instead, I felt… confused. And then something else. Something that crept up on me slowly, like a cat. The word whispered in my brain, louder and louder until it was practically screaming:
Freedom.
It was like being released from prison, except the prison had decent cooking.
The Bucket List of the Newly Liberated
Suddenly, a whole universe opened up. The things I’d never done because she said no:
- Climb a mountain. She said I’d die. She was probably right, but dying on a mountain sounds heroic. Dying in IKEA while arguing over curtain rods? That’s just embarrassing.
- Run a marathon. She said my knees weren’t built for it. Maybe not, but my legs still work, and now they don’t have to walk behind her in a mall for six hours.
- Fine wines and expensive cigarettes. She said they’d kill me. Joke’s on her—life kills you, anyway. At least I’ll taste like a Bordeaux vintage when I go.
- Women. Oh, the women. For two decades I was faithful, a saint among sinners. I turned down temptations. I ignored possibilities. Now? Now I could live like a pirate, chasing skirts in every port, fucking everything that has a skirt and breathes, even if most of them were smart enough to avoid a middle-aged man with back pain.
Of Course, Reality Bites
But before all that, before the grand adventures, before I could live like Bukowski with a gym membership, there was reality. Reality said: you’re tired. You’re forty-five. You had two beers at lunch. You need a nap.
So I lay down on the couch, the note still stuck to the fridge, the beer sweating in my hand, and I whispered to myself, “This is it. The beginning.”
And then I fell asleep, snoring like the free man I had just become.
Epilogue of a Beginning
When I woke up, nothing had changed. The note was still there. The fridge was still buzzing like an old man clearing his throat. But I knew—deep down—that my life had.
From that day on, I was no longer a husband, no longer a domesticated beast, no longer the man who asked permission before buying another pack of cigarettes. I was reborn.
Reborn as what? That part I didn’t know yet. Dirty old man, poet, mountain climber, lover of women, chain-smoker of fine cigars?
Time would tell. But at least time was mine now.
This is the epilogue from my upcoming book How I Became a Dirty Old Man (like Bukowski).
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