The Paper Cup - A Dysfunctional Love Story

He wore the same tattered clothes every day, or so it seemed. His baggy, reinforced cotton work pants bore the stains of house paint, spackle, caulking compound, deli sandwich oils and mustard, and, oh yes… coffee. The hefty fabric loop on one pantleg clearly identified them as authentic carpenter pants. After all, he was in fact a carpenter. Over a white T-shirt he wore a flannel button down shirt, seldom buttoned. On his feet were tan, leather work boots with strong, stiff souls – good for crushing beer cans accumulating on the floor of his truck.

The bedroom from which he emerged each morning - their bedroom - was dimly lit, grossly cluttered by mounds of clothing collected over time by her: hand-me-down-clothes, yard sale clothes, Salvation Army clothes. No effort was ever made to organize or manage the clutter. It just seemed to rearrange itself over time. Night after night, coming home late and drunk, after she unleashed her anger upon him, he would stumble into that hoarder’s den and pass out among the mess. The room smelled of cigarette smoke, stale beer, sawdust, and unwashed bedding drenched in alcohol infused perspiration. It smelled of…well,  it smelled of him.

It had been years since he and she slept in the same room, in the same bed. Each evening, after he had passed out, and the kids had gone to bed, she would sit long into the night smoking… hating him… smoking… hating him… slowly sipping the last of the convenient store coffee he had dropped off to her that morning before heading to work. It had been cold, now, for a long time, as had their relationship. She hated what her life had become. Once again, she would quietly cry herself to sleep on the living room sofa, the last cigarette of the day snuffed out inside the empty paper cup on the table by her head. Once again, he would bring her another fresh, hot cup of coffee in the morning.