Abdicator

He has freckled skin, salt and pepper and caramel hair, sturdy fingernails, and his name is Gabriel. He drives a taupe Audi TT, a car he saw at church as a child, the color of the walls, something soothing that speaks luxury to him. He still goes to that church and after he stops at the deli on the way home to get a few things for lunch.

He goes out for drinks with The Boys and Some People From Work and his wife knows the difference, but he doesn't do that so much anymore, not since he had a kid. His wife also said, "You can't go out so much anymore." Gabriel now drinks in his chair at home, or on the porch, or sometimes at dinner, although he'd be lying if he said he still has the taste for the stuff that he once had.

He mows the lawn every weekend in one hour and ten minutes flat. He has a garden that he tends and flowers that he grows. He has a shed filled with fresh tools in fresh dirt, spiders and creepy crawlers in the corners that scurry when the light hits. He has always had the hands of a worker, though he is only now beginning to use them.

He isn't sure if he met his wife now that she would love him. He doesn't doubt her love for him, or his for her, but the question lives. He called her beautiful until she went out with him. He praised her hair, her dresses, her smell and her shoes. He praised her lipstick and how it left just enough of a mark to make him feel proud. He recognized and understood her better qualities and was silent on them, mostly. He praised her continued adult education, if only because she seemed bored around the house. She was a good mother, a good wife. She is a good woman, and he is lucky beyond measure.

He doesn't get seated without reservations anymore. He doesn't get out of fender benders. He watches his neighborhood change, slowly but surely, there is a bus route now. He visited his hometown recently and hardly recognized it. This was the corner where the auto shop was, and now it is two Mexican restaurants. Everywhere around him are Mexican restaurants. Gabriel has never been one for tacos.

He has never been one for asking. He has never been one for wanting. He has never been one for waiting in line. But as the wealth gap widens and the sea levels rise, he cannot help but look out the window, at the bicycles, the chalk lines, and all the drawn curtains, and feel like he doesn't belong.