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.It beat sitting at the table alone and thinking about how I'd been eating alone for more years than I cared to remember.My home was small.I'd had the same one-bedroom apartment with the same furniture for nine years.It wasn't a bad place but it was nothing special.Other than Sean, I couldn't remember who the last visitor was.When I was with women, I didn't take them there.There hadn't been many of them, anyway.I thought when I first moved in I'd only be staying a couple years, that maybe I'd eventually buy a house and get married or have a dog or something.But it hadn't happened and I'm not sure why.The job, I guess.At least that's what I told myself.I concentrated my energy on my work.In each room of the apartment there were stacks of newspapers with my stories in them.I liked to reread them and save them.If I died at home, I knew they'd come in there and find me and mistakenly think I was one of those pack rats I'd written about who die with newspapers stacked to the ceiling and their cash stuffed into the mattress.They wouldn't bother to pick up one of the papers and read my story.On the computer I had only a couple of messages.The most recent was from Greg Glenn asking how it was going.It had been sent at six-thirty the night before.The timing annoyed me; the guy okayed the assignment Monday morning and on Monday night he wanted to know where I was going with it."How's it going?" was editor-speak for "Where's the story?"Fuck him, I thought.I sent back a brief reply saying I had spent Monday with the cops and was convinced of my brother's suicide.That out of the way, I would begin exploring the causes and frequency of police suicide.The previous message on the tube was from Laurie Prine in the library.It had been sent at four-thirty Monday.All it said was, "Interesting stuff on Nexis.It's on the counter."I sent a message back thanking her for the quick search and saying I had unexpectedly been tied up in Boulder but would pick up the search package right away.I thought she had an interest in me, though I had never responded to her on anything other than the professional level.You have to be careful and be sure.You make a wanted advance and you're cool.You make an unwanted advance and you get a personnel complaint.My view is that it's better just to avoid the whole thing.Next I scrolled through the AP and UPI wires to see if there was anything interesting going on.There was a story about a doctor being shot outside a women's clinic in Colorado Springs.An anti-abortion activist was in custody, but the doctor had not died yet.I made an electronic copy of the story and transferred it to my personal storage basket, but I didn't think I'd ever do anything with it unless the doctor died.There was a knock on my door and I looked through the peephole before opening it.It was Jane, who lived across the hall and down one.She'd been there about a year and I'd met her when she asked for help moving some furniture around when she was setting up her place.She was impressed when I told her I was a newspaper reporter, not knowing anything about what it was like.We'd gone to the movies twice and dinner once and spent a day skiing at Keystone but these outings were spread over the year she'd been in the building and nothing ever seemed to come of it.I think it was my hesitation, not hers.She was attractive in an outdoorsy sort of way and maybe that was it.I was outdoorsy myself-at least in my mind-and wanted something different from that."Hello, Jack.I saw your car in the garage last night so I knew you were back.How was the trip?""It was good.It was good to get away.""Did you ski?""A little bit.I went out to Telluride.""Sounds nice.You know, I was going to tell you but you already left, if you're ever going away again, I could take care of your plants or pick up the mail or whatever.Just ask.""Oh, thanks.But I don't really have any plants.I end up traveling a lot overnight for the job, so I don't keep any."I turned from the door and looked back into the apartment as if to make sure.I guess I should have invited her in for coffee but I didn't."You on your way to work?" I asked instead."Yeah.""Me, too.I better get going.But, listen, once I get settled in, let's do something.A movie or something."We both liked DeNiro movies.That was the one thing we had."Okay, call me.""I will."After closing the door I chastised myself again for not inviting her in.In the dining room I shut the computer down and my eyes caught on the inch-thick stack of paper next to the printer.My unfinished novel.I had started it more than a year earlier but it wasn't going anywhere.It was supposed to be about a writer who becomes a quadriplegic in a motorcycle accident.With the money from the legal settlement, he hires a beautiful young woman from the local university to type for him as he orally composes the sentences.But soon he realizes she is editing and rewriting what he tells her before she even types it in.And what dawns on him is that she is the better writer.Soon he sits mute in the room while she writes.He only watches.He wants to kill her, strangle her with his hands.But he can't move his hands to do it.He is in hell.The stack of pages sat there on the table daring me to try again
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