Chapter 1: Of wine and Razors

     First, picture this: a sixty-nine-year old bearded man, bespeckled and unnaturally pink in color, sits in a frayed wicker chair in the kitchen of his cabin somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Sixty-nine years old is old, he realizes, though he doesn’t particularly feel old. Just call it a hunch.
     In one hand he holds a bottle of Boone’s Farm wine, strawberry.
     In the other, he holds a razor.
     Beside him, just to the right of a cluttered cedar kitchenette, a shallow stream flows, quietly gurgling out into the living room and down the stairs, where it cascades into the basement. The stream is not carpeted — though an oversized welcome mat of synthetic green grass sits by the wading pond at the foot of his bed, should he ever wish to wipe his feet. Slender reeds grow alongside the stream, dipping here, lilting there. Blackberry brambles climb the surrounding walls like grade school children investigating a playground fence.
     There are no fish in the stream anymore — not like in the old days. Just some rocks and the occasional Pepsi can. The trout moved away long ago. Early one December morning they packed everything they owned into old boxes and swam off.
     “Where are you guys going?” the man asked, having never before seen trout lugging overstuffed suitcases and milk crates jammed with books of poetry.
     “Suburbs,” they said.
     “Oh,” he said.
     The stream is lifeless now, an underwater trail of rocks and the occasional Pepsi can, uncarpeted, flowing from beside the cedar kitchenette, out through the living room and down the stairs, where it cascades into the basement.
     Now picture this: the bearded, bespeckled, unnaturally pink old man in the wicker chair suddenly addresses you, as if you were some old college roommate who stopped by on occasion for a cup of coffee and a cheese danish.
     Hello there, he begins.
     Welcome to my kitchen.
     In one hand I hold a bottle of Boone’s Farm wine, strawberry.
     In the other hand I hold a razor.
     Why? you ask.
     Excellent question. You’ll fit in just fine around here…

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Chapter 2