My wife agreed to marriage counseling before the great divorce,
and of course, she picked the counselor. This is it; one session, one shot at redemption. I waited with bated breath for the day to arrive.
It did. We met at his office, where hope was dashed to shreds like a ship
on a coral reef, like dreams of domestic bliss made of glass and shattered on the kitchen floor with no broom to sweep them up.
We shouldn't get lawyers and go to court. We should have a funeral and sing, Rock of Ages, because divorce is the death of a family.
The room is nice and cold as ice, and he's friendly, boisterous, and bold, but here's the clincher, he wore an eye patch. Maybe he had surgery or some type of injury, but everything he said was drowned out by the voice in my head that screamed, "He looks like a pirate, and no fucking pirate is going to tell me how I should have been a better husband." I quickly scanned the room for a cage where he kept his parrot, which usually sat on his shoulder and sang old songs of the sea. I glanced at his right hand, but conveniently it was hidden by the desk. Now I was sure. It wasn't a hand at all, but a hook, that he used to scratch his ass, or to spear the shreds of broken lives left over from a long day's work. His hand was probably a casualty, lost on a voyage to a shark he tried to advise.
I leaned over and whispered in my wife's ear, "Where did you find this fucking nut. Long John Silvers?" The humor eluded her like the sunken treasure did the old sea dog that sat across from me. I swore if he said, "Aye aye matey." I would smack him, and jack his ship, and maybe my wife and I would sail south to the Caribbean, not to the ride at Disneyland, Pirates of the Caribbean, but to the islands, where we would lie nude on the sandy beaches and drink Pina Coladas, or some other fruit-filled umbrella drink, until we were so drunk we couldn't see straight, and all our problems would sink like the setting sun into a brand new horizon. But the old scalawag had no pirate lingo, so the hour came and went, our money was poorly spent, and it was lunchtime, and I was bent on seafood.