I'm hot and I'm restless

I can't sleep here one more night

It's over but I can't end it

So I take a bat to your windshield instead

Maybe if you're pissed you'll leave

Maybe you'll save me the trouble

Do us both the honor, sever the dream

It's not like I never lost a fight in my life. I just never lost to a three hundred pound college lineman before. It's worse, trust me.

I'm not sure why I decided to get into it with that particular kid out of the hundreds packing the bar that night. Jerry says I'm crazy and he's right, but usually I check myself before knocking too loudly on death's door.

In prison I got into a boxing program to keep in shape, sharpen my body and mind so I'd always have the upper hand in defending myself. I trained hard and a few weeks ago I easily outran Angel up six flights of stairs, even though he just got out of the marines this past year.

I definitely wasn't in good enough shape to take on that dude, though. He smoked me.

The last thing I remember was his fist coming around to connect with my face.

Makes me wonder what they feed these Iowa boys.

"Mr. Mercer. Can you hear me, Mr. Mercer?"

I turn my head toward the voice, wondering where I am, why everything's so bright. I'm seated, but I don't remember sitting down.

"We have your sister-in-law on the phone, Mr. Mercer. Do you understand?"

I don't understand, but I nod anyway. A phone is placed to my ear.

"Bobby?" a female voice says softly. I don't recognize it.

"Who is this?" I mumble. It hurts too much to speak normally; the right hinge of my jaw feels like it's got a screw driven through it and someone's pounding my eardrum with a sledgehammer.

"Bobby, it's Camille. Jerry's wife. Are you okay?"

I shrug, raising my eyebrows. "Should I be?" I ask, a chuckle dying in my chest. I get a little wacky when I'm in pain. I cuss up a storm or I start laughing; sometimes I do both.

"Oh, Bobby," she says, her voice strained. "Why d'ya gotta get yourself into so much trouble?"

I grunt, not up to responding with a sarcastic remark. I can hear her starting to cry on the other end of the line. I can hardly focus on her words because my head keeps drifting in and out of the clouds.

"I'm so sorry, but I can't tell Jerry about this... He got so upset when you left... I feel guilty...just want what's best... You understand, don't you? Please, just stay away... I know it's wrong for me to say it... Are you listening? Please say you understand... I'm sorry... We're all better off without you," she whispered, right before the line went dead.

I'm suicidal and disowned. Once the pain in my head came down to a manageable level, those two facts hit me like a Mack truck doin' ninety.

I knew I couldn't go back to Detroit from the moment I left. Not even a guy like me can keep getting away with walking out on his family on a whim. I'm getting my just rewards—nursing a concussion, eating through a straw, living out of my car.

I could lie to myself and say I've seen worse times from a crushing, emotional standpoint; but in a way I haven't. This is what rock bottom looks like for Bobby Mercer, and it ain't pretty.

I'll survive it. I always do.

Most people would say I don't have it so bad. No one would guess it looking at me, but I'm no idiot when it comes to money. I've still got plenty of cash in the bank from the three years I played hockey and I never touched a dime of it. Ma even invested some of it in CDs or whatever for me, so over the past several years the sum has grown.

So yeah, I'll have a place to live and plenty of food to eat. That never changes. This time it just so happens I'm paying for it with money I earned legally.

If I can find a place with a vacancy, I have more than enough dough to pay rent in freaking Iowa until I get a steady job and then—then I'll wait...

Nice thing about Iowa people. They always assume the best of others. My new landlord showed me the efficiency I'd be renting from him right before I signed the lease. He asked what happened to my face and I told him it was a hockey accident. He smiled and told me a story about his son getting his teeth knocked out with a baseball bat. If he suspected I'd lied to him, he didn't let on. Must've figured it was none of his business, if he did. I like that—people minding their own problems. Makes me wish I'd ditched the big city life a long time ago.

If I had, maybe Jackie'd still be alive. Doubt anyone would've busted a cap in him in this state. No one packs around here. They solve things with their words or their fists—like men. I see college girls fearlessly walking the streets alone at night.

I like that a lot.

If I was anyone else, I'm sure by now I'd think eastern Iowa might be a nice place to settle down, raise a family.

I drop my single duffle bag in my new room, looking around at the empty space that's all mine. It's bigger, nicer than any room I've ever had in my life; cheaper too, ironically enough. And so God awful lonely.

"You shoulda been here with me, Jackie," I whisper—I still can't speak normally without causing myself pain. "You coulda gone to college while I worked. You could've majored in music or drama or whatever, started a band here, found a girlfriend. You coulda lived—if I hadn't let you die that day..."

I don't have a bed, so after going to the bathroom I sit down with my back to the wall and draw my knees up to my chest. I don't even bother to take my boots off.

I left home so many times, and for so long. Funny isn't it, how you don't miss things until you can't have them anymore? Things like family...

I sit up all night with my eyes wide open, reliving the horror and despair of my childhood—before I became a Mercer.

I've looped full circle. I started out in the world small and alone. For nineteen years I knew love and hope and belonging. For Jack's entire lifespan I lived happy for the most part, even though I didn't meet him until he was eight. Then, more than ten years later, he died, and I'm right back where I started.

It's gone. It's all gone. What's worse is I keep expecting Ma to walk in and wrap her arms around me, tell me she's proud of me, tell me I'm gonna be okay because I'm strong.

She's gone—and I'm afraid my strength's gone with her.