but when he got in the shower and the hot water hit the back of his neck, he felt a ferocious urge to hurt himself. He hadn’t been able to keep Marita with him. She knew it didn’t make sense to stay with a crazy, sick man, a ruined person. What could he give her? They didn’t even get drunk together, he and his pills kept her from having fun; he often had to go to sleep early because he was dead tired. He talked to her about poets and his childhood in an empty house. He’d gone with her to bury her friends because he knew all about that, about death and friends who were never coming back.
