i don't even know why i'm typing this it's almost three in the morning and the house is so quiet i can hear the fridge humming from the kitchen... i'm fifty nine and i'm the manager at the first national branch on the corner of oak and state and i think i’ve spent the last thirty years becoming someone i actually hate but i guess that’s just how things go when you have a mortgage and kids who need braces and everything else that comes with being a real adult... i used to be so different i had this room in our first apartment that was just for my canvases and my charcoal and i thought maybe i’d be one of those people who actually MADE things but then the bank offered me the promotion and i realized being an artist is just another way of saying you’re going to be hungry forever so i took the desk and the tie and i never really looked back until lately... lately it’s all i can think about because the people who run the manufacturing plant out on the east side keep coming in for these massive expansions and i know exactly what they’re doing... i see the paperwork that they don’t show the city council and i know the way they handle the runoff and the way they treat the guys on the floor who are just trying to make a living but every time bill miller comes into my office and shakes my hand and tells me how much the town depends on me i just sign the papers anyway... he has this way of looking at me like we’re part of some secret club and i guess we are because if i didn't approve those loans the whole town would probably dry up and blow away but then again maybe that would be better than what we have now... i mean i don't even — whatever it’s not like i’m the one actually dumping the stuff in the river right... we had dinner at the country club last thursday and the whole time i was just staring at his hands thinking about how much grease and oil must be under those fingernails even when they look clean and i felt like i was going to be sick right there over the prime rib... bill was laughing and talking about the new line they’re putting in and how it’s going to bring fifty more jobs to the county and everyone at the table was nodding and calling me a "pillar of the community" for making it possible but i know the safety reports are fake... i saw the real ones in the back of the folder and i just closed my eyes and pushed the folder into the shredder because i didn't want to be the one to stop the party... i don't know if this counts as a crime or if i'm just being dramatic but it feels like a crime when i'm trying to sleep... i see the river every day when i drive home and it’s not the same color it was when i was a kid and i think about how i used to paint the water with these deep blues and greens but now it just looks like liquid lead or something... i feel like i’ve sold my soul for a 401k and a reputation as a "good man" but i don't feel like a good man i feel like a liar who wears a suit to hide the fact that i'm just as dirty as the machines in that plant... i tried to pick up a brush a few weeks ago but my hand was shaking so bad i couldn't even make a straight line so i just threw the whole thing in the trash and went back to checking my email... maybe it’s too late for me to be anything else and that’s the part that really hurts because i'm almost at the end of the line here...