CURTAIN CALL

I find humor in the most unlikely places.

My signature is in a book. A ledger, similar to those found in an earlier era hotel, with gambling and a bar, and whores for lease by the half-hour.

I stare at my hastily and shakily applied signature, which registers as barely legible. I am one of them now. In the club. We won’t know each other when we pass on the street or at the grocery store. We will indeed have a ghost on a leash, trailing us like a loyal, baying hound, though. My name is right below Amos James. He is below Mary Ramos, and she is below Constance Wells. I scan to the top of the page, and the ink-stained names dry and blow away like leaves on Autumn’s concluding exhale. There are so many names and pages in this ledger, in this drab county morgue, where the curtain calls are reserved for an audience of one.

They said he jumped. But I’m not so sure.

They said he had fentanyl in his system. A trace of cocaine, too. That sounds right.

They said a local woman was found in an alley. He was seen running. I have no idea at this point if that is true or not.

I carry a small plastic bag filled with his belongings to my car. I set it in the passenger’s seat. I think about buckling it in. My boy would have appreciated the dark humor of that thought.

The name below mine will likely be his alleged victim’s Mom or Dad.

I stop snickering and drive.