Cleaning out his fridge had never been this satisfying. As the jugs and cans and plastic canisters flew against the wall and alternated between splashing and shattering, Adrian experienced what he was sure was nirvana. Fuck you Kraft. Fuck you Richfood. Fuck Nestle and McDonalds. Fuck Campbells. Fuck! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!

He sank back against the wall soaked with milk congealed in semi-sweet chocolate and felt the slow, slithering slug of a roasted red pepper crawl across the back of his neck. The American Dream. It's like dating a whore. You work your ass off for scraps of pussy that've been passed halfway around Brooklyn. Then you get dumped for the next doe-eyed chump, one who hasn't been bled dry yet. Well, Adrian chuckled, at least he wasn't Owen. Better to bleed to death than become a vampire.

Adrian lifted himself up, found his can of National Bohemian, which had turned to swill, and chugged it. He never drank Natty Boh before because it tasted like fermented garbage. Funny how shit changed. Of course, the taste of Natty Boh never changed. People start and stop drinking it all the time for other reasons. For Adrian, maybe after ten years of getting his face stuffed in shit, garbage started tasting like butter rolls.

Adrian waded through the swamp of scattered cans and bottle fragments, staggered a few steps and collapsed at the entrance to his bathroom. Jesus. He rolled onto his back and pulled a half inch shard of glass from his thigh. Life hits you with tragic ironies. You can have anything you want, but you'll never know what you want. Blood was welling up, oozing down his leg, splattering crimson droplets on the marble bathroom floor. He maintained the pressure on his thigh. You'll want things you don't need. Things that are bad for you. Things that will kill you. That will obliterate you. The bleeding slowed. Funny story. A man once told him that if life were a game, money was the only way to keep score. After he got the high score, he realized he was an autistic chump who had lost his wife and kids to a fucking game. The end. With blood still seeping between his tensed fingers, Adrian got on one knee and lifted himself up using the bathroom doorknob. The shower was only two feet away. He had to get to the shower.

Owen had fucked him, but that was expected. Adrian saw it coming two years ago, five miles away. What surprised him was the effete manner with which Owen handled the demotion, as if anything more brutal would have crumpled Adrian like a Prius getting t-boned by a Ford Excursion. As Adrian, broken and naked, crawled shivering into the shower stall, he realized that Owen thought he was a bitch. And honestly, who could blame him? Adrian had always taken the safe route, the deterministic one. Yale undergrad to Harvard MBA to Merrill Lynch associate and then Lippensetter senior trader. What a fucking joke. He looked up and let the hammering rain from the Danish high-pressure showerhead wash over him. Water sizzled across his back and chest, turned into a dull trickle by the time it reached his stomach and dribbled down to mix with half-dried blood into a pretty pink juice that went down the drain with a persistent slurping sound. He was expected to take the demotion, work his way back up, maybe wrangle a director's position out of the whole mess. Fuck that, Adrian thought. It takes a burst of irrationality to break the dismal cycle of the prisoner's dilemma.

Dressing with the focus of a sniper, Adrian pondered his choices. He settled on a clip-on tie, the one he wore to prom, the one that couldn't prevent him from getting laid, despite its best efforts. Adrian smiled at the thought of it. To fail at one thing so that it could serve another purpose. Another one of those tragic ironies.

The office was two subway stops away. The polished glass door squeaked shut behind him and Adrian, for the first time in his life, was uncertain of what to do. He scanned the room and locked his eyes on the receptionist. "Uh...pardon me. I have an appointment with Owen Lippensetter."