This Is How He Leaves

It starts with t-shirts. They take up six cubes of an IKEA Expedit shelving unit. And they’re a mess. So one afternoon he decides to pull them all out, refold them, and sort them by color back into the cubes. He also decides they should take up no more than two cubes, which means carefully going through all of them and deciding which ones are either too old, too shrunk, or too full of bad memories to keep. He fills up four shopping bags and walks them three blocks to the Goodwill-variant in his neighborhood. (He does it in two trips because it’ll be good for his Fitbit count.)

A few days later he digs out eight boxes of comic books from the back room. He starts carefully going through them. But that proves too much, and he decides to just put them all out by the curb. They’re gone the next morning.

“What are you doing?”

“Uncluttering.”

On Saturday he gets up, makes a pot of coffee and starts going through the bookshelves. He manages to pack up most of the science-fiction, but only after reassuring himself that Philip K. Dick is, indeed, available on his Kindle. The rest of the pulps and paperbacks are easy. They fill up six bags. (Three trips. Good step count.) He returns and starts going through art books, comics tradebacks, design books. At the last minute he pulls a picture book that she gave him for Christmas out of a shopping bag. He opens it to where she wrote an inscription. He puts it back in the bag. And takes them to Goodwill. (Four trips.)

On Sunday he attempts to go through his records. And instead ends up listening to records he hasn’t listened to in a long time.

On Monday he rents a storage unit for the records.

Tuesday he spends three hours going through junk drawers. He finds eight pairs of glasses. Which he organizes by prescription. Each one getting gradually worse. Each year just a little less clear than the one before it. He throws them out.

He finds an old yellowed envelope containing the last letter his grandmother ever wrote him. He’s never read it. He won’t read it this time either. He saves it for the day he might have the courage to read it.

He finds his grandfather’s crucifix and he kisses it. The way he remembers his grandfather kissing it before he fell asleep every night. He puts that with his grandmother’s letter.

These things he puts in a small pile which he intends to keep. Then dumps the remaining contents of the drawers into the large plastic trash can at the bottom of the steps. (Daily floor goal reached.)

He finds his son’s birth certificate and cries. Then burns it in the backyard.

On Wednesday he empties the liquor cabinet.

On Thursday he fills three small boxes with assorted keepsakes, mostly childhood photographs, and mails them to his older brother and two younger sisters. They’ll be surprised to hear from him.

On Friday morning she leaves for a sales conference and he kisses her goodbye. He spends the rest of the day throwing out everything he has in the bathroom, makes himself a ham sandwich for lunch, and then cleans up the bedroom. He strips the bed, washes the linens and pops himself a beer. The doorbell rings within the allotted window, and he takes delivery of the new mattress. He pulls the clean linens out of the dryer, makes the bed, pets the dog, grabs his backpack, and leaves.