Tick tock, tick tock. Damn the ticking of that infernal clock. How much time has it eaten? Greedy gobbler. I've blown out seventy-nine years of candles. First birthday I can remember was at Uncle Charlie's. Pin the tail and whack the piñata. Sugar high children kicking up dust in the living room, leaving dirty footprints on the carpet. Summer sun kissing peaceful New England suburbia. A real life Rockwell. I look in the mirror at a face I hardly recognize. Wrinkles drawn across it like the pencil marks of a sketch. A fleshy goiter hangs over my chicken chest. I still live in the house where I raised my children. Where my wife passed away. I still sleep on the same mattress where I found her lifeless. I was supposed to follow, but I'm still here. It's been five years. Living by oneself is hard at this age. I fell the other day trying to take a piss. Nothing's broken, but I'm still hurting. Pain does not go away. It lingers. Seventy-nine years I've endured. Today makes eighty.
	There's a knock at the door. The grandfather clock chimes the hour. I open the door. It's my daughter, Mildred. She's standing on the barren lawn. Grass has stopped growing since Margaret gave up the ghost. Nothing grows in the presence of death. The humid air creeps in as she comes through the doorway. Bright sunshine reveals my disorderly hovel. The smell of low tide rolls in like a ripe fart. I walk back to my corduroy recliner and slowly place my self down into its sunken cushion.
	Mildred shuts the door behind her. A purse hangs over her ham hock shoulder. Two massive calves support her bloated torso. The house is dark again.
	“Happy Birthday, papa!” She says, sitting on the white, nylon couch. It groans under her immense weight.
	I got that couch when Scott was born in '64 off of Louis Shaffer. Damn good couch. Fruit flies swarm a plate encrusted in last weeks meal on the right arm of the couch. They begin to fly around Mildred's painted face like tiny biplanes.
	“Thanks Mildew.”
	“It's Mildred, dad...” She says, swatting the flies from her face.
	I stare idly at the television. It doesn't matter what's on.
	“We're having a little get together at Q's house today for your birthday.”
	I don't answer.
 	“Doesn't that sound like fun?”
	I grunt.
	“Get ready!”
	She talks to me like an infant. No right to. I'm not even incontinent yet. I do everything myself, but I'm getting weaker. I'm getting slower. I forget often. I've forgotten my daughter's name at this moment and she's just said it. She pulls out her phone. The light from her phone emphasizes her developing jowls. A phone used to be something you made a call on. Called mother on the landline when I found out Marge was pregnant. Both times. Called an ambulance when I found Marge dead.
	“Q's house?” I'm genuinely drawing a blank. Whose “Q” and why would I want to go to his house for my birthday?
	She smacks her hot dog lips and sighs. Always becomes impatient when I forget.
	“Q! Your grandson. Scott's boy...”
	Scott? Yes. My son. Children, grandchildren, great grandchildren. Who'd think I'd be alive to see any of them. In my reckless youth, children weren't even a thought. It's funny what one woman can do to change the course of your life. Once you've seen one baby you've seen them all. Fresh smelling and plump, rosy cheeks. Unbalanced and unsure of the laws of gravity. Crying and screaming. It's a baby girl. It's '67 and I'm at the county hospital. Men are smoking unfiltered cigarettes in the waiting room collectively blowing storm clouds over their anxious heads. The color of this memory is red. It's the second time I'm seeing live birth. A vagina is an incredible organ. The way it stretches.
	“Ready?” She says, already halfway out the door.
	I shamble towards her with these noisy bones. I've been dressed in the same clothes since the fall. Too scared to change or shower. I smell. People expect the elderly to smell. I don't care. No one wears nice clothes anymore anyways.
	Now we're driving by the bay in Mildred's lopsided sedan. There's a rattling sound coming from its undercarriage.
	“Think your heat shield's loose.” I say.
	She turns up the radio. I can hardly hear the song, but it's horrid. Like a hot needle stabbing my ear drums. The bay shimmers like polished silver. Last time I took Scott fishing was here. He was about twenty-six. It was right before the birth of his third child. Or was it his second? How many kids does Scott have? Wish we could fish one more time. That'd be good. We used chicken nuggets as bait. Almost caught us a blue Marlin. Would've been an impressive photograph.
	A man becomes busy when he has a family. Some things need to be put off till later. A man looks at his life after all the best years have stretched far behind him and he realizes its too late to do those things. I'm thirty and Pepe is in bad shape. Every week I say I'm going to visit, but work and infants and marriage get in the way. He'll be alive next week. That's what I keep telling myself. But his weeks ran out while I still had weeks to spare. It was three years since the last time I saw him. I didn't get to say goodbye. I can never go back. In this stage of life all my regrets are like ghosts that won't stop haunting me. At least when I can remember them. There's not much I can do when my flesh is at its end and the brain is quickly following behind.
	Mildred keeps the car very cold. All the windows are rolled up. I want to feel the air on my face and smell the salt from the bay. I roll my window down.
	“You're letting out the cold air!”
	She rolls my window back up. I'm not a man anymore. You graduate from childhood into adulthood, take all the responsibility that comes with it, and then just like that it's like your a drooling babe again. No one even asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday. I have no say. No control. Oh, Margaret! How lucky you are. I wish I followed you.
	Thirty silent minutes pass. How many minutes of my life have been like this? I can't do the math for how many minutes I've lived. Haven't done math since I was a cashier at Ace's. My post retirement job. That was already 15 years ago. Jesus. I'm lucky the house is paid off and Scott pays the property tax. Social Security can barely buy me food.
	We arrive at a house I swear I've been to before. There are many people here. Some I recognize and others I've never seen. A large red and yellow bouncy castle greets us at the opening of the wooden picket fence. Children run barefoot through meticulously cut grass.  Each blade looks to be the same length as the other. Everyone towers over my hunched physique. It's also my great granddaughter's birthday. How could I forget?
	Mildred sits me at an empty patio table shaded by a large umbrella far away from the other party goers. Two big balloons are hovering underneath. It is an “8” and a “0”. I'm the oldest thing here. Probably older than this house.
	Splash! Young children jump into the in-ground pool. One of my granddaughters is in her skivvies watching them. Marge brings Scott to my solitary island. He furrows his brows behind the thick lenses of his glasses. His once beautiful head of hair reduced to thinning grays, baldness slowly conquering his scalp.
	“Mildred told me you fell again! Why didn't you tell me!?” Scott yells for everyone to hear, but no one really cares.
	I take my prescription sunglasses off, revealing my black eye.
	“Jesus.”
	Mildred crosses her fat arms over her pendulous breasts as she looks toward her brother.
	“Should we tell him”
	“Tell me what, Moldy?”
	“It's Mildred...”
	“We're going to hire someone to come and help you around the house.” Scott says authoritatively.
	“Help me out? I don't want any damn help! It's one bad fall”
	“And what if it's worse next time?” says Scott.
	The sounds of children screaming drown out our argument.
	It's time to eat. Everyone gathers around me at the patio table. Scott and his wife Janice bring aluminum trays of food, placing them on the glass table top. I can't eat half of the food because of the caps in my teeth. Eighty and I still have all my teeth.
	“Happy Birthday, grandpa!” says my granddaughter excitedly. She hugs me in a way that will make it painful to walk for a week. Her tits are practically bursting from her bikini top. This is Scott's oldest.
	“Thanks, dear. Can you get your pappy a water?”
	“There's beer and water in that cooler next to you if you get thirsty.”
	She sits next to her wife. Never thought the prettiest grandchild would turn out to be a lesbian. It's their unnatural child's birthday. How can a child have three parents? Her wife looks like a man. The world makes no sense to me. It is like a smearing of paints on a canvas that are supposed to represent an image, but I can't quite make it out.
	Mildred's daughter used to be her son. He's wearing a dress for the first time at my house, after the fall. Peach fuzz is growing on his face and his jaw is square. Mildred is telling me her name is Kylie. Is it Kyle or Kylie? He approaches me wearing a yellow sun dress. Her hair is longer than it was last time.
	“Happy Birthday, grandpa.” he says, putting on a feminine voice.
	“Thanks, Kyle.”
	“It's Kylie now. I thought we went over this.”
	Did we?
	She stomps away. Her face looks like the face of an angry man. His stubbly legs march over towards Mildred who is chatting two middle aged women. I can hear them arguing. My daughter says I'm too old to understand.
	“You can't dead name Kylie, dad!”
	Dead what? She's right. I'm too old to understand.
	No one has anything to say to me except “Happy Birthday”. My grandsons sit at a table off to the side of the house drinking beers and laughing. They haven't even made an effort to talk to me. They've heard all my stories, but I still like to tell them. Like the one about the time me and my old pal Timmy O'Driscoll drove all the way, cross country, from Massachusetts to California, drinking and smoking and gambling. I won big at a Las Vegas casino. Big enough to buy our house. Got lucky on roulette. Yep. That was the game. Bet it all on black. Although I don't think it was O'Driscoll, might have been Tony V. Was that before or after I was married? It was sometime in the '50s. There's an orange memory. Florida sunshine on my face, leaking through closed eyelids. There is panicked screaming. I open my eyes.  Little Scotty is drowning in the hotel pool. A lifeguard rescues him while I watch from my chair. All these years by the water and I never learned to swim. My legs ache and my mouth's dry. I don't even know where the beverages are. No one's offered me one.
	Once everyone's had their fill of food they scatter. I am once again alone. A solitary figure shrouded in shadow. Q and his toddler daughter play with a dog. A dog gets more affection than me. Margaret. I wonder where you are. They're are some beautiful women here. I don't think I'm related to them. I can't get erections anymore. My great granddaughter opens her presents near the bouncy castle. She rips into them like a lion into a gazelle. People are applauding each cheap piece of plastic that gets cast aside the moment a new shiny package has appeared. There are no presents for me. What can you buy an old man? More time? When the present opening is done they start trickling in the house through the back door, leaving me behind. One child stays outside running around for no particular reason. I don't know if this is a great grandchild or a friend of the birthday girl. Blue memory. I wake up from a long sleep. Marge is always awake before me, but not this morning. Old sports trophies are lined up on the wardrobe like soldiers. I take out my clothes and call out her name. Wake up. She does not answer. She does not breathe. She is dead.
	My body gets up. It is like a machine on autopilot. I'm feeling a sort of vigor as I shuffle my leather loafers over the trodden grass. The pool is empty and the gate is wide open. I stand over and stare into the water. I see my reflection. The water moves subtly, distorting it. Is this me? What am I doing stuck in the pool? No. This isn't me. This is a reflection, but the face is still hard to make out. The solitary child runs through the gate to put on a show for me. He's running and flexing his developing muscles. A little too hyperactive. He needs a good smack. I would do it, but these old hands are no match for such young flesh. He bumps me. There is no balance in these legs. Into the water I go. It burns my skin and eyes. I look up. The child is staring at me through the water. It is like looking into the past. He smiles then frowns, running away. This is what I wanted for my birthday. I close my eyes. It is dark again. I open my eyes and look up through the water. Is that Margaret?