On That Day Then

Originally written July 30, 2008

You knew all along how this story was supposed to end. Where we are now and what we have always been meant for.

I live in the 111 East Chestnut high rise in the aristocratic border along the Gold Coast and Streeterville neighborhoods of Chicago, one half block from the John Hancock tower overlooking the magnificent mile. My name is James McLaughlin. Esquire. LLM. I am an attorney for an industry defining financial services company. I am twenty-seven years old.

I believe in taking care of myself. A balanced diet should include a strict adherence to a maximum daily allowance of calorie intake and should always be supplemented with high efficiency multi-purpose vitamins. In the morning, after I enjoy my blended mixed fruit whey protein shake, I’ll begin my rigorous exercise routine bench pressing my body weight. In developing full body definition, I concentrate on nine muscle groups in my hour long lifting session. This approach, which has yielded a loss of twenty pounds in four months all the while adding the same in well toned muscle, should be followed as a difficult, yet successful course to realizing your perfect self image.

After I finish the set of three hundred stomach crunches, I use a deep pore cleanser lotion popularized and favored by the French as fashioning a youthful yet dour expression. In the shower I use a water activated foaming gel cleanser, then a Balinese papaya body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your skin out, and makes you look older. Then a tensing, firming moisturizer, then an eye balm followed by a final anti-pollution moisturizing protective lotion.

In the beginning, nine years ago where we all started, there was an idea of a James McLaughlin. Some kind of abstraction. Only a design of my fictional imagination. Something, perhaps, simply illusory. Within that moment I spoke of the dreams of days of future past. The lawyer and politician brought together in the white walled high rise apartment overlooking the lights of the city below. In spite of myself, and all the adventures we had together, I found myself home from the dark side of the moon without anything in my possession save for my name, my Irish passion and the dream we once had together.

Witnesses to my confession each, in this moment everything exists exactly how it was suppose to on that day then, and nothing can ever take that away from us.

There are no boundaries left to cross. The distinction drawn from our delusions and realities have blurred together in a brilliant blinding light on the horizon, calling to us as if to say we are not done yet, that this is not an exit. Everything I have ever fought for has now come to pass, and without fail, without disappointment, over and over again. In this moment together we finally understand the meaning of it all. The unbridled passion of the Fighting Irishman, the capacity to push all reason aside for the Big Bad, and the audacity of the American Psycho to let it all just simply slide. Come with me, let’s see how this all ends. I promise nothing anymore.