GIVING PREDATOR:

A SILVER FOX DUBCON ODYSSEY

––––––––

DICK CHRISTMAS

––––––––

My name is Harry Pace and this is the year I finally find out what I'm made of.

Up until now my life has been a series of goals, achievements, failures, and tragedies, but at no point did it feel like I was living a life; it only ever felt like I was living up to something—someone else's expectations, someone else's idea of what I should be, some prevailing wisdom about what it means to be a man and to be a successful one at that.

That all changes tonight.

A few things you should know going in: I'm a forty-six-year-old white male workaholic with a history of anxiety, I'm a career endocrinologist, and I'm also a widower. I haven't seen my daughter in three years and I rarely get out for anything other than groceries or work.

Every day I make myself the same breakfast—sliced avocado on a bed of arugula, a quarter cup of trail mix, and a snub-nosed bottle of pomegranate juice. Then I prepare my lunch to go: egg white salad on whole grain toast. Every. Day. Eating the same meals cuts down on stress and decision fatigue, according to the New York Times. People say it's easier for tracking calories and practicing portion control.

Today—I don't know why—I suddenly get the urge to vary it up, add a little spice to my life, so to speak. Before I fold my egg white salad sandwich up I decide to sprinkle some chili powder on it to give it a bite, but I misjudge the sifter cap and the chili powder comes pouring out. The egg white is now red and I'm in too much of a hurry to start over, so I take it as is and hope it won't matter.

Nine months ago I was approached by a private equity firm interested in buying me out of my private practice. This morning, the sale went through. I'm still processing what it means when I start gagging at my desk; I forget about the chili powder and end up sucking it all up in one bite and it hits me in the back of the throat, causing a choking fit. Everybody hears me, but nobody notices.

Once I've recovered from this, I make the rounds with my employees—the medical assistants, diabetes counselor, and nursing staff. They've known for months about the buyout, but none of them seem prepared. I tell them all how much they've meant to me—a lie that I fail to deliver convincingly—before handing them each a discreet envelope containing a generous severance check. This fails to move them as they take their envelopes begrudgingly and shuffle off with nothing more than a grumble.

I was taught early on that you never discuss money in polite company, but there's nothing polite about the way the buyout goes down. After the private equity firm made their calculations and subtracted a Fair Market Value salary for my clinical work, they ended up cutting me a check for just over one million dollars. After my employees have cashed in their severance pay, I'll be walking away from a twenty-year career with about nine hundred grand.

I won't be rich, but I will be able to loosen my belt a little bit and bide my time until I can start drawing a Social Security check. At some point, I'll probably have to take some part-time work, either consulting in the pharm tech space or freelance medical writing.

But for now, I'm free... and it terrifies me. I've never been without a job in my adult life, I don't really know anything else. I used to have my home life, but after my wife died that all dried up. I used to have friends, but they were her friends; once she was gone, so were they.

I look at the office one last time, then I get into my car and start driving. I think to head home and order some takeout, but then I think better of it. So I keep driving with no destination in mind. I drive aimlessly like this for an hour before I realize how long I've just been staring at the road, spacing out, untethered from reality or purpose.

Finally, I see an intersection and I blow through a red light and make it to the other side where I pull up to the curb and stare out across the boulevard at a tiny bar. It's the kind of place I would never think about frequenting, a grungy-looking place with a facade painted black and a frosted window, the kind of place that very obviously caters to a hip, young crowd, what people my age used to call “bohemian.”

There are two guys leaning against the frosted window out front, their faces obscured by a cloud of vape juice. They are wearing jeans so ridiculously oversized they could only possibly be the Jncos from my youth, but purchased secondhand from some edgy online boutique for the express purpose of being ironic.

The decision to go into the bar is so blunt, so sudden and unexpected, that I flinch on the way out of my car, almost as if I'm somehow betraying my own instincts.

* * *

The vapists beside the frosted window see me approach and smirk to each other.

“Unc,” one of them coughs.

The other one snickers, then chokes on his vape smoke.

Inside the bar, I am taken aback by the size of the place. What looked so tiny from across the street is actually quite spacious inside. The bar stretches back for what looks like a city block, opening onto a billiards room in the back. The main bar room is sparsely decorated with band flyers and a giant black rabbit is stenciled over the mirror behind the bar. A ping-pong table and an interactive digital jukebox sit against the back walls.

Most of the twenty-something patrons sit at the far end of the bar, while others stride in and out of the billiards room, shouting out drink orders over the din of chaotic music. The guitar work sounds less like a guitar and more like my next door neighbor trying to start his lawnmower. Instead of a melody, the vocalist delivers each verse in a flat, monotone voice.

I take a seat at the middle of the bar and repeatedly flag down the hipper-than-thou bartender with the three nostril hoops and arrowhead septum piercing. He sidles past me four times to recover a cocktail ingredient or a bottle or a glass, each time glancing in my direction peevishly before heading to the far end of the bar and taking someone else's order.

Finally, I bite. I rise from my stool and walk to the far end of the bar, taking a seat beside a bored-looking couple who look like they should be home on a school night.

“Excuse me,” I say loudly.

Nose Ring visibly rolls his eyes, then squints at me like I just said something in a language no one speaks.

“Uh, yeah,” he says.

“Can I get a drink?”

The young couple see me sitting next to them and get up, moving over to the restroom where I hear the girl say, “Uh, rude” and the guy say, “This ain't it, chief.”

“What kind of drink?” Nose Ring asks in a condescending sing-song.

“I'll just take an Old-fashioned,” I say, “on the rocks.”

He stares at me blankly.

“An old-fashioned what?”

“No,” I say, “an Old-fashioned—the drink.”

“Yeah, the drink is old-fashioned, got it, shock. What's it called?”

“An Old-fashioned,” I say emphatically.

This whole experience is becoming stultifying for the both of us. Nose Ring is losing his patience, pinching the bridge of his nose exasperatedly.

Suddenly, as if appearing out of a genie's bottle, a small young woman materializes by my side. She has the soft, cherubic face of an innocent little girl, but she's no little girl. There's a champagne flute in her hand and her tight little body is wrapped in a shimmering, dark bronze sequined dress with a deep V-neckline. She leans across the bar and smiles at Nose Ring.

“The young man wants whiskey and water with simple syrup, bitters, and orange zest. And you've gotta stir it, not just stare at it hatefully for not being a mocktail.”

Nose Ring arches an eyebrow and pads away shaking his head.

“Thank you,” I say. “I was starting to think I was delirious.”

“Maybe you