It doesn’t make any sense. Fucking a whore would clearly land me in the Bad Husband category. No getting around that.

Am I just humoring poor Jolene keeping her on the line like this?

“You should go,” I say, and it’s weird I don’t hate how my voice sounds. “Go listen to my note. It’s too late for me.”

“No! It’s never too late! I will get you laid, Uncle X! I’m not giving up on you!” Her words are just noise now. “WAIT!” she shrieks, surely sensing my apathy at winding down and checking out for good. “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIT!!!”

“Hmmm?” I ask almost absentminded.

“Why won’t you do it?” She’s gone from roaring to whimpering in a breath.

“What?” I’m having trouble piecing together what’s going on.

“Why won’t you go get laid?”

“Oh yeah,” my attention snaps back into place, but feels fragile like ice about to crunch apart again. “I don’t think I could be good to Caylee if I’m out fucking whores, y’know?”

“But why?” She sounds frustrated, as if I’m being hard-headed and refusing to see something so clear. 

“I don’t know.”

“You love your wife?”

“Yeah.”

“But sex with her could never make you happy?”

“No, it couldn’t. I mean, maybe we could make it nice, so we feel close or whatever. But I’m never gonna get from Caylee what I really want.”

“And she doesn’t deserve to have you treat her like shit for that, huh?”

“No, of course not.”

“But you’re thinking of fucking every hot girl you see already, no?”

“Right, I am.” I see where she’s going, and close my eyes, looking forward to silence.

“Then just fucking do it! Go fuck a nice whore, be happy, come home, don’t pester your wife, and keep being a fucking good guy! What’s the problem?!”

“I guess when you put it that way…”

Neither of us say anything for more than a few seconds.

I peer over at the sunset and feel a world much bigger than the one in my lost head calling me home.

“Uncle X, I want you to do something for me right now, ok?”

“Sure,” I answer with a sigh.

“Go message Figgles back.”

“What? Why?”

“Just do it, alright? I have this funny feeling . . . call it one of those only-you-and-I-see-what’s-really-going-on things, y’know? Like, maybe I’m using our special brand of insight right now? Remember, like we talked about?”

“Yeah, I remember,” I say. “Ok, I will.”

I stand alone on the rooftop, and take another moment to feel at one with the uniquely Southern California sunset I got going on all around me . . . like a bright desert sky that just up and learned how to be a tad cooler by adding a shitload of red, some whites, a few light-blues with purples, and other colors, especially down low near the horizon.

An obedient puppy, I bring up my message history with Figgles, and type: I’d love to go whoring out there, dude. It pretty much sucks here. It’s all hostile n shit.

I stare at my words, waiting for more, but then decide to just press SEND.

I hear Jolene’s voice cussing me out to a beat in my mind. I love how she’s become a voice in my head.

Figgles writes back: Yeah, man! For my fortieth, I went and dropped a grand at this fucking classy-ass whore establishment. UNBELIEVABLY hot girl, bro! And she fucked me HARD, for hours, like she was fully into it! Nothing could be better than gourmet whore, dude!

The phrase gourmet whore stays with me and makes my legs wobble.

I write: And it’s all legal there?

His reply is immediate: ALL LEGAL! So they got regulations and standards. It’s clean, and no-hassle. Bro, here’s my whore’s page on their website...

I click the link beneath his words, and see a level of blonde bombshell beauty that countries likely would have waged war over in times past. She’s fucking stunning, and her smile looks so genuine and uncontrived, like she really is living out her damn highest dreams raking in thousands by enthusiastically fucking spazzes like old Figgles for hours on end.

I scroll down to see reviews at the bottom, and scope the first few five-stars out of hundreds, skimming through stories of couples whose relationships were salvaged after a few weekly visits, and other heartwarming tales.

I type: But does your wife know you fuck high-class hos?

He gets back to me within seconds: Na, man! My wife’s good. No reason to shake things up at home, eh? I go out whenever I can afford it, do my business, and come back ridiculously happy for the next while. Makes all the regular wife shit bearable, eh? The nagging, and todo lists, and relative visits, and all that sludgy shit.

I smile. Of course I’m by no means convinced. But it’s funny to think I live (or have lived) in a world where gourmet whores are really the answer to so many problems that I and my oldest friend face.

As if he’s reading my mind, Figgles writes: Come whoring with me, bro! It’s worth it. Save up. Get a second job. Give a fucking year of your life (that’s gonna go by anyway) to putting aside a few grand, and we’ll go on a proper paid-gash-binge when you come out! I’m talking doing lines of cocaine and other drugs with world-class whores while we fuck them them in a mansion for a weekend. Nothing’s worth more than your experience, bro. Nothing!

I don’t know what to say. I peer down at the place I plan to leap to at the base of the building, and feel a total stillness in the air, as if reality itself is poised to let me go. 

But then again, what Figgles is proposing (Jolene too) seems to be for me to shout a big “Fuck you!” to reality, and go wedge my face in a fine whore’s ass for a night or two . . . to do what I actually want for once.

I type only: Thanks, man!

Should I call Jolene back?

Should I jump?

I wish I could say some untapped decisive part of myself rises up on the inside, has me take life by the balls, and sends me out immediately to start earning whore-and-coke-bender funds.

Instead I just sit and look ahead, ever more realistically, to how much of my life would have to actually change for me to successfully get myself to New Zealand to take Figgles up on his crazy offer.

Is it worth it?

Fuck, I wish I knew.