If Fitzgerald didn’t make you feel absolutely miserable, then he had failed. He barely failed.

Everyone in the office went to celebrate Bethany’s birthday. Cake he thought self-righteously! Their fat asses should be eating celery sticks; instead they bought marble cake with some kind of cavity inducing butter cream icing. Janice had picked it out.

“That icing almost looks like the color of your husbands casket, doesn’t it? That beige was . .” Janice stormed out of the room, her face flushed red and a dozen emotions tried to spread over her face until she wept in her hands, the memory still fresh.

It seemed involuntary. At least it had been the last time he bothered to think about it all those years ago.

Maybe it stemmed from the constant criticism he received from his father. Then again his mother berated him at every chance . . when she wasn’t sober that is.

The truly sad thing is that no one would ever grow to care enough to find out why he behaved that way, or even who Fitzgerald really was.