The Half That You See by Rebecca Rowland (best summer reads .TXT) 📕

then I’ll get the fire going. He wrapped the bulky down comforter tighter around his still-shivering body and opened an overhead cupboard door to get a plate. As he reached in, Gary spied a rounded, green bottle on the back of the shelf.

"Look what we have here," he said, holding up the lantern for illumination. “I drove all the way to Marquette for you.” Gary retrieved the bottle of Armagnac and held it carefully in his hands. "I wanted to have something special for our dinner with the McNealin's and Doug.” He unscrewed the top and took a long drink of the strong, amber liquid. Better be careful there, Gary-boy, the tiny voice in the back of his head admonished him. You know how just a couple beers really fucks you up.After two glasses of Armagnac with dinner that night, you couldn't even get the pole up for Donna. Bet she was wishing that Dougie would have been between the sheets that night!

Tears of anger and frustration began to roll slowly down Gary's face then unleashed in a torrent. He was a city-boy, born and raised in the white-bread Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills in a 4,000-square foot house with running water, cable TV with 300 channels, and central air-conditioning. Out here, he was out of his element.

Way out of his element.

“Quit the pity-party, Gary,” he said, wiping tears away with the back of his hand, then grabbing a plate and filling it with a block of cheese and the hunk of venison sausage that Ray McNealin had given him. “You need to eat then start a fire. Then you’ll figure out something after that.”

He placed the plate, bottle, and lantern down on a large, ornately carved oak dinner table that Donna had insisted they buy, no matter the extravagant price tag, and sat. His entire body ached and Gary felt decades older than his 43 years (but not when you were humpin’ away on your 31-year-old wife, right, Gary-boy?  That sweet pussy was the best fountain of youth there is. Too bad it’s Dougie that’s now givin’ her his meat stick!)

Gary pulled the comforter close, took a small bite of the venison sausage, then washed it down with another large gulp of the Armagnac.  He had to focus, to stick to the task of getting a fire going before he froze to death, but it was so damn easy to dwell on his mistakes, on what-ifs and maybes, to get lost in the memories of how he ended up in a freezing cabin smack dab in the middle of the American equivalent of Siberia.

“You made bad choices,” he said in a quiet, defeated voice, “or no choices at all. Just let stuff happen and hoped it would all turn out well.” (And what’d your old man used to tell you? Hope in one hand and shit in the other and see which fills up first!)

A small bite of cheese, then another long drink of the Armagnac, and the memories came flooding back like a crazy-quilt film festival, complete with screen shots from This is Your Life, Gary Alan Chandler!

First scene: Gary met Donna at a local comic book store a week before Christmas. She was there to get something for her then-boyfriend’s 10-year old son. Gary was instantly drawn to her—as was any heterosexual male who had a heartbeat and cock—two inches taller than his five foot, seven inch height, with shoulder-length dark auburn hair, a finely featured face that held an easy Hollywood-white smile and sparkling green eyes that captivated Gary the moment he looked into them. He helped her pick up some comics (Spiderman and Batman, always solid choices), then, despite his usual shyness, walked her to her car, a 2016 Porsche Cayman (her boyfriend’s car, he would find out later), and in a burst of courage, gave her his business card. She took it, telling him that if she ever needed help in picking out comic books, she’d be sure to give him a call.

Which she did less than two months later on Valentine's Day.

Scene two: It was a whirlwind romance, as Gary’s deceased father would have said. Donna called Gary and told him that she had broken up with her Porsche Cayman boyfriend and needed someone to talk to, that Gary seemed so kind and friendly at the comic store, and she hoped he didn’t see this as too forthcoming, but would it be all right if they met for coffee and talked?

After two cups of decaf and multiple drinks at a local bar, they ended up at Gary’s house and fucked until the sun came up, then fucked some more. She was totally uninhibited, willing and wanting to do everything and anything. Gary fell immediately in love.

He learned a bit about her—after high school, she was a dancer at various strip clubs until she was 21, then a model for a semi-legit modeling agency out of Tampa, Florida for five years before giving it up, tired of the traveling and the constant sexual harassment. After coming back to Michigan, she had taken a job as hostess and employee manager at one of Detroit’s newest upscale lounges where, she told Gary, she could “be myself and still be well-paid without having to suck and fuck every dickhead with a contract and cash.”

Three month later, one week shy of Memorial Day, they were married.

Scene three: A month after their marriage, Gary received notice that the software company, where he was the well-paid, lead design engineer, was sold to a multi-billion-dollar Chinese conglomerate. The new company had offered to double Gary’s salary if he moved to their newly built U.S. headquarters in Mississippi.

“There’s no way in hell I’m moving back south,” Donna said. “I’ve had my fill of rednecks.” So, without further thought or consideration, Gary accepted a seven-figure buyout of his contract and for the first time since he was twenty-four years old, became unemployed.

But you didn’t care, did you, fat boy? You were