There's something fractured in the air tonight. It's hanging in the air like an odor that you can't quite place.

Barker is dancing around my legs deftly avoiding my legs as I trudge through the slush. He can't sense it but it just goes to figure because he's currently smelling his butt. I stand in the slush feeling my shoes slowly absorbing the cold and I realize that I could be anyone right now. Somewhere a rich man is probably freezing his ass off like me, standing with a dog sniffing itself and wondering if they hadn't missed something along the way.

And somehow that makes me feel a little better. I think somewhere deep down I know I'm not always chasing after the right things, but that's okay because at least I know I'm meandering from the path. I know that when I get to the anti-climax portion of my existence I'll at least have seen the road signs on the way.

When Barker is finished we keep walking. I went to high school with a girl who became a model. Our little newspaper put a story about her and how she was going to be in some magazine. Now we both work at the same place. I never really talk with her but it seems kind of sad. She talks about what has happened in her life and how she's on her way back to the modeling world and all of that, but at the end of the day we still work in the same dead end job. The difference it seems is that she needs to work and I'm there for dental benefits until my next novel is picked up.

In other words, we're both pathetic, but for me the bar is much lower. I'm still I can still reasonably believe that I've got something more on the horizon. Everything I've gotten is something I've worked for. There's been luck, but I haven't been given any breaks. That's where I see the difference. And now I'm getting preachy.

I think maybe Barker's got it figured out. It doesn't seem to me that he compares himself to Lassie or Benji or Scooby Doo or anything. But then again, it wouldn't be much fun if I based my life on how I think a dog goes from day to day.

It's tit cold now. My feet are freezing. Barker doesn't seem to want to head back yet, but he's done all he's going to do tonight. It seems like I should be smoking now. I haven't had a cigarette in three years but the craving is nostalgia. Strange thing about it is I wasn't better off when I smoked, but somewhere hidden in there is a little glimmer of something. I start to trudge home. Barker would like to go wander some more, but after a brief pause he's on my heels.

Oh well. No need to dwell on any of this. Isn't going to get me anywhere either way and it's not like I believe half the shit I tell myself anyway. I steal a quick pat behind Barker's ears and then keep moving. The sound of slushy splashes under my feet and the ginger squish of it under Barker's seems to drown out my thoughts. God my feet are cold.

Guns, girls, tits and glory. The great civilizations of the world have brought us philosophy, great music and literature but this little corner of the universe has apparently succeeded only in creating intricate drinking games to correspond with late night soft-core cable porn. And then I admit to myself that I might be a little drunk.

I wish I could lie across the table and close my eyes for a second, but that's the drawback of sitting in a booth. It's uncomfortable to do anything other than sit, but at the moment I don't care and try to find a semi-bearable position. It's usually better to get the booth - you can sit sideways in them and you're not sitting in the middle of all the other drunks trying to negotiate their way through the restaurant at 2:32AM. Shit, is it really that late. Not that it matters anymore.

Susan and Jeff, my sister and her husband, are laughing too loud at something stupid right next to me. I don't know why I let them talk me into going out tonight. I had a vicious headache and that was before I drank too much. Behind my eyeballs is the shrill sound of my drunken sister's yelping laugh, but there's something right behind it. It's a little bit of a memory.

My Grandfather had a brother that died of meningitis when he was a teenager. My grandfather never said much about his brother other than that he was too smart to be decent and too decent to be smart. I always thought I knew what he meant by that, but I'm not as sure right now as the dull throbbing behind my eyes migrates over the top of my head and culminates at the base of my neck.

A toddler lets out a shriek of displeasure. Who the hell has children out at 2:30 in the morning? The child is angrily yelling staccato little cries of "no." The sad thing is that this is going to be the rest of his life until he has kids of his own - yelling defiantly at reality and getting away with it until it really counts.

I shouldn't be thinking this much. Without fail it will either piss me off or depress me at this point which will do wonders for my headache. I don't know about other people, but I've got little things I do to come down. For instance, right now I've got the old "Meow Mix" jingle music looping through my head. It's silly and annoying and freakishly relaxing. It's like the sound of ocean waves or thunderstorms for other people but instead of mother nature lulling them into a peaceful place I hear

Meow meow meow meow
Meow meow meow meow
Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow

I don't know how many times this has looped through my head when Susan nudges me.

"Hey isn't that Tasha?"

I look over before I realize that if it is her, I don't want to look at her. For a second I think it might be her. The hair's the same, long wavy with reddish highlights when the light hits it just right. She half turns toward me and I know it's not her. The nose is wrong, but she does look a little similar - similar enough to make my stomach twist up and drive my little mantra induced calmness away.

"Who's Tasha?" Jeff asks.

"Oh, it was a whole thing," Susan answers.

"Wait, was that the one who took the engagement ring, sold it off and then broke it off?"

And here it comes. Once the story starts to come out it just keeps coming in nauseous waves. Now that it's started it's best to just let it come. So Susan starts the fractured well-worn tale of me and Tasha from our unlikely beginnings, to how Susan always thought she was a bitch but didn't say anything to our, in retrospect, ill-advised engagement.

"Jesus, man, she did all that?"

My eyes are closed and I'm resting my head on the table. "Yes Jeff."

"No shit? Even that part where she made you pay the vet bill for her cat before she'd give you the title to your car."

"Yes Jeff."

Jeff is laughing and I hear the tell-tale sound of Susan slapping his arm.

"It's not funny," she scolds. "It took a long time for him to get over it."

At least they're back to the point where they talk like I'm not here. I try to find my center again.

Meow, meow, meow, meow...

Beautiful. They broke my song. It doesn't work anymore. Now I've got a stomachache to go with my throbbing head. I look over the edge of the table and see a pair of eyes starting back at me. The angry toddler is back. He looks at my disgustedly before shouting "no!" one last time before he retreats back to his table under the threat of getting his butt spanked again.

It seems like there should be more to it all. I didn't emerge fresh-faced and cocky from college thinking that I would end up at a dead-end job, unhappy and living paycheck to paycheck with what little ambition I used to have slow running out of me. I know I'm not the only one. I've met people I went to school with and they're tired with a mortgage and a couple of kids and seem to look forward to either dying of a coronary or at least making it to retirement in hopes that maybe then things will sort out.

Maybe the little kid had the right idea. Maybe if I could hang on to that defiant little snarl that defies all reason and logic maybe I wouldn't be here. Or at least I'd be moving on to something else.

My head still hurts.

Meow, meow, meow, meow.

Still nothing.

"We need to get going," Jeff says.

"Sure, break my song and then leave. I see how you are," I answer.