The End of the Game -

Okay then! Here it is, after months (Years! Ed) of procrastination and starts and stops, here is Ryans Final story.

If you haven't read

Live from the Game

and preferably

Long after the Game

, this will mean a lot less to you - there's lots of references to character and events in those stories. Here, go read them now. We'll wait for you.

All caught up? Good.

Now, the reality is that this will never be something everyone will be happy with. That's inevitable. Some people will be angry that the story isn't exactly what they want to happen. I can't honestly help that; I wrote what I had in mind for Ryan (after two aborted attempts where I just didn't like the story being told.) Remember, he and the rest of them are Not Real. This is just a story. Try to be kind.

I did do this as a series, since that's what I did for all the others. It's long - 71k words, so buckle up. All four parts were submitted at once.

Thank you Daniel Q. Steele for lending me the Bonne Chance. That is a classy guy, that one.

Edited by AintNoSunShine and also by a newbie editor for me, a new local author friend, OffRoadDiesel.

Writing Ryan is a gift. He's just so much fun to detail his inner workings. I have no idea where it all comes from; I'm convinced he's real, that he lived and died and now I'm just channeling a real person, because I have no other explanation for where his internal dialog has its origin.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did writing it.

The End of the game.

I sat there, as I finished the letter in my hands, a sole tear dripping down my cheek. When it was done, I sat back, the letter crumpled in my fist. I stared off into the distance for a bit, then finished the glass of Jameson Blue Label I had half drunk, clicked off the light and just sat there for a bit.

Then, because I was aware that I was just being dramatic, and there was no one there to see it, - the kids were at Deanna's and I was alone, - I got up, locked the front door and went to bed.

I lay awake, thinking about the letter, what Lydia had to say, the last time we'd been together. Words had been said. I'd been pretty angry about being blindsided by the whole situation. Her tears. My anger. My... reliving the past. I guess I never really did get over what happened with Deanna. I thought I had. Then Olivia, and now... this. I thought that with Lydia I'd finally gotten past it. Repaired some of the damage to my psyche. Started living again, instead of just existing for the kids.

Apparently not, since the old insecurities had immediately resurrected themselves, and I'd been harsh and upset, and Lydia had just seen it in my eyes.

She was gone now. Left for who knows where, Timbuktu, I shouldn't doubt. And why shouldn't she? I'd yelled at her, angry for keeping things from me. For the danger she'd brought to my family. Me, thinking one thing, and reality being quite another. As usual. I guess I'm just more stupid than I thought I was. I seem to have this blind spot for women like Deanna and Lydia. I must have done something really terrible in a past life. I just wish I could remember what it was. Maybe it would have been worth it?

So, yeah. I guess I should tell you the story, so you have a clue what I'm going on about? I mean, you sat there and read what happened in 'The Life Of Ryan', - such as it is, - in the two other stories I told, so yeah, perhaps you need to know the background on this one?

As with all good stories (Good? What am I thinking??), it starts with a woman. Or a ship. Ships are women, right? They are all 'she', aren't they? So, ship, woman, take your pick. It really doesn't matter.

* * *

I laid in bed, having one of those hazy dreams about cars and engines, - although now I come to think about it, I wonder why? It's not like I give much of a crap about either, really. Anyway. It was Sunday. I lay in on Sunday. Always have. Always will. As long as the kids are somewhere else, obviously.

I've read a fair amount about people who consider Sunday mornings their 'their time', so to speak. People who use the morning for contemplation. Silence. Thinking about their week. Coming to terms with their lives. Catching up on home chores. Drinking coffee and curling up with a favorite dog-eared book. Using it as time to reconnect with partners, with no distractions. People for whom the time is sacrosanct, and to interrupt it with the world would be profane. That taking your time on a Sunday morning is an essential part of retaining sanity in a hectic modern world.

I'd thought about this thinking and reasoning a lot, comparing it to my Sunday ritual, and I'd come to the conclusion, - after careful contemplation, lots of consideration of this point of view vs that point of view and much discussion and debate with like-minded intellectuals, - that I laid in on a Sunday morning mainly pretty much because I was an incredibly lazy shit.

But this morning at... let me check... nine thirty-seven a.m., I was awoken from my godlike slumbers because my cell phone was buzzing fit to burst, ready to vibrate itself off the Q charger next to my bed.

With one eye open, I glared at it, hoping to scare it into quiet by the sheer force of will of my stare, and failed miserably. It never works, but I never stop trying. There's some line from Einstein about doing the same thing repeatedly and being surprised when the same results happen or some such, but I wasn't thinking about that. I noticed the name of the caller was Deanna, and I just reached out to answer it, not even wondering why. I may not be married to her anymore, but she still apparently had sway over my phone-answering decision-making.

"Yes?" I answered, a little snappishly. It's not like Deanna doesn't know my Sunday ritual, after all.

"Hey Ryan. Not had your morning coffee yet, then?" came the way too animated voice for nine thirty on a Sunday morning. God save me from ex-wives.

Struggling to sit up a bit in bed, I replied, "No, you know me Deanna, I don't have my morning coffee on a Sunday till I've at least written two chapters of my autobiography, run three miles, rebuilt a raptor rocket engine and milked the neighbor's cow. What. Do. You. Want?" Alright, I was laying on the sarcasm a bit thick.

"Yeah, I know. Still in bed, right? Look, can I...come by? I need to see you. We need to talk."

Now, I know those four words are supposed to strike fear into the hearts of men, when their women say them. It's like a trap you can't escape from. Nothing good ever came from those words being uttered from a woman to a man, particularly not in stories like this. But, Deanna was my ex. Her hold over me was well and truly broken. She had married again, with a new baby, and I had nothing to fear.

That didn't stop a feeling of dread coming over me, though. Almost four years on since she had married her new beau, six since The Event, as my friends and I had taken to calling the situation that caused me to divorce her, and she still could make me feel... well, something. Whatever this was.

"Sure," I replied wearily. Then I stopped and thought. This was not Usual Deanna. She didn't just 'drop by'. If we had to speak in this way, it was usually something bad about the kids. I mean, we did talk, and we were friendly... after a fashion. We were never going to be best buddies, not after our history, but it's not like we hated each other, or went out of our way to avoid each other. We even socialized occasionally, in a very strict sort of way. Very carefully considered social settings and the like. It's not like we'd ever go out and split a bottle of wine or anything. I think she wanted to be sure she gave the right impression to her husband, and me, well, I had buried my feelings for her deep down and didn't want any possible resurgence. So yeah,

arms reach friendship

was what it was now and I think we had both come to terms with that.

So this was new. And there was a sort of urgency to her tone, too. You can't be married for as long as we had been, and not know someone else's moods.

"Are you okay, Deanna? Is everything alright? The kids are okay?" I asked, suddenly a little more concerned.

"Oh no, everything is fine. A little hung over, which is somewhat the reason I need to talk to you. But no, everything is okay. Garret is fine, and so is Trey. There are no issues at home. Kids are fine too, as far as I know. No, this is more about you," she replied, quickly, and in a reassuring tone. Garret was her almost two-year-old, she'd had with Trey, her second husband.

"Me?" I questioned. What could she possibly be concerned about with me?

"Yes. Look, I don't want to do this over the phone. Can I stop by?"

I shrugged and then realized she couldn't see that. "I guess so. Give me an hour to take a shower and make myself presentable. I'll get the coffee on."

"See you then," she said, and then just dropped the connection. That was Deanna. Once she communicated what she needed to, the Conversation Was Over, with capitals. Nothing had changed there. I idly wondered how Trey dealt with that. Certainly not with the wit and flair I had, I was sure of that.

I put the phone back on the charger and considered her call. Weird and unusual, but nothing I had to be too concerned about; my life with her was over, dead and buried, and as such, she had no hold over me. Now, all I had to do was remember that.

I got out of my pit, did my ablutions, got dressed, fresh clothes, yes, I'm not a slob. I may be older, but I'm not a wastrel, and made myself some breakfast. Yes, I had a bacon sandwich. What of it? Fuck you and your healthy eating judgement. God made pigs tasty; it's not my fault.

I put on the coffee, and for once, actually got the percolator out instead of just the Keurig. I have no idea why, just... it felt like that was the right thing to do. Deanna's coffee was famously bad; it was a thing of local legend. How someone could make such terminally bad coffee was a subject of much hushed discussion in the Chicagoland area. You had to go to some effort to make it as bad as she did. It was like she went out of her way, and spent extra time to make it as bad as it was. But for her, it just came naturally. It was a thing of much puzzlement and discussion, outside of her earshot.

And then I had an Irish coffee and to hell with Sunday Morning. I am an adult, and if I chose to have whiskey in my coffee at ten thirty on a Sunday Morning, to go with my bacon sandwich, I shall do so. And screw anyone else's judgement on the subject! I nodded at my own extremely virulent, - but just as weak, - justification and supped down the coffee like a champ, while chomping on the bacon butty, as the charming Brits put it, like, well a pig in a trough. I'm single. Fuck you and your judging - we've already covered that. Honestly, how are we going to get through this story if you keep judging me??

At ten-forty-nine, the front door chimed and I opened the door, and there she was, looking... well, not great, if I'm honest. Not in a 'wow, she's let herself go' kinda of way. More a 'Jesus, what the hell did you get up to last night?' kind of way. Like she'd been ridden hard and put away wet, which is not either a phrase or a thought I wanted to have about her now that she was someone else's wife.

"Hard night?" I asked in a snide way, gesturing her in.

She gave me the finger as she brushed past me. Some patterns never change.

"Where's the coffee? I need some..." she said, breezing into the kitchen. Noticing I had the percolator going, she exclaimed, "Oh, the good stuff! Great!" and then made herself a cup.

That was the weird thing about Deanna. She knew good coffee when she had it. Did she just not understand how absolutely terrible her coffee was? Was it some retribution on society for some long-in-the-past ill she'd forgotten, but was still making us all pay for? No one really had the guts to ask, least of all me. It was just a mystery for the ages.

I sat down at the round table we had in the kitchen and she joined me. She stroked the wood of the table. "This lasted well. Remember when we got this?"

I shifted uncomfortably. Yes, I remembered when we got it. It was at an estate sale we'd been to, when she was desperately into garage sailing, to pick up stuff for her house staging business. Grabbing furniture and wall covering and nick knacks, - Sorry, 'small accouterments', - to help make a house more palatable for potential purchases had been her life then, and garage sales was the perfect place to pick up this stuff cheap. But I wasn't in the mood for a trip down memory lane, and I think she caught it.

"Yes, well..." she said, to no one in particular, and then took a sip of the coffee, wrinkling her nose. "Jesus, you always did like it strong."

"And you could never make it, either. Look, Deanna, much as it's nice to see you... what's up?"

I wanted to get to the point. The kids,- Saffron and Jamie as the youngest; Paula was eighteen now and had spent the night at a friend's house, after some party she'd been to. One last hurrah before college, I'd been informed - were at her sisters, a weird thing they liked to do every now and then. Deanna's sister, Melissa, was never my favorite person, nor I hers, but for some reason, in the past few years, she'd suddenly shined up to the kids. I think realizing her child-bearing years were behind her had mellowed her, if anything could, and suddenly she was more interested in being An Aunt, with capital letters. I've no real idea of her motivation, and cared even less deep down. But, if she wanted to be a part of their lives, and the kids were amenable, then so be it. A different point of view - even hers - was probably good for their outlook on life, if only so they could appreciate a good parent (me, obviously) when they saw one.

I'm sure her heated pool didn't have anything to do with it. Our kids weren't mercenary. Well, not much, anyway. Okay, a shit-ton. If you've got it, baby...

"Yeah, right. Yes..." Deanna murmured, suddenly avoiding my eyes, holding her cup in both hands and finding it suddenly incredibly interesting.

"You said it was important. We 'had to talk'" I sarcastically mimicked using air quotes. "I'm here. So talk."

She sighed, and put down her drink, still holding it with both hands.

"Now I'm here, I don't really know how to begin." She stopped for a second, and then looked directly at me. And I saw into her eyes and almost started at what I saw.

Her eyes were wide. No guile. Just, glistening full of unshed tears, an expression of pure... I don't know what. Contriteness? Empathy? What?

She sighed again.

"I was out last night with Crystal and some of the girls," she said, as though it explained everything. Which it did.

Crystal was a hard partier. Another entry in the 'not my favorite person' log.

"She's moving to LA with Charley, you know. He's got a new contract out there for Drive Time." Charley Riggs was her husband, a slightly right-wing shock jock DJ, who had been waking up Chicago for the past ten years via his radio broadcast, and also subtly reinforcing right wing thinking injected with humor, with an insidious amount of success. Also, an unknowing cuckold, for Crystal, - a real estate sales lady with whom Deanna had had a loose partnership, - had been screwing around for years. Honestly, I blamed her a fair amount for what Deanna did, her little fling, which ended our marriage. Not quite the example I'd have wanted for Deanna, if I'd had any clue back then what was going on.

I'd caught Deanna, and used Crystal, - blackmailing her with my recently discovered knowledge of her infidelity, - to get information on Deanna's indiscretions, sending her back to her husband with the admonition that she was to be as good to him and she'd been nasty in the best possible way, if you get my drift. By all reports, it had gone well. He'd even started a morning segment where he talked about some of the things she'd started doing for him, and while it wasn't something I'd be comfortable talking about publicly, apparently she loved it. Her sales had tripled, and without her having to put out for anyone else either. She got to discover a little vicarious verbal voyeurism kink. A win/win for everyone. Except for me, but then I had come to terms that I was a perpetual loser in the game of life, so whatever.

"I was aware," I answered, taking a sip of my own coffee. Slightly overdid the whiskey in it. Oh well. Practice makes perfect. Better than not enough, was my motto.

"They leave next week. This was her last hurrah. I went out with her and a couple of the girls from the office. It was... nice. Oh, don't look at me like that. It was all chaste. Lots of booze, and nothing like that. She's still terrified of you." Deanna could see the wrinkled look on my face. Crystal plus a night out previously did not bode well for her fidelity. I'd threatened her pretty hard when pumping her for information, and I don't doubt she still felt her marriage was in my hands.

"She asks about you every time I see her. She's still afraid you are going to out her."

I shrugged. I couldn't care less about her any more. Her husband was a somewhat decent guy, with some far-right tendencies he spouted off on occasionally, but they were more disagreements about belief sets. He wasn't a bad fella and he loved his wife, so I wasn't about to destroy his world. He and I, surprisingly, got along quite well when we were thrown together. Proof that different ends of the political spectrum could get along, as long as you kept sight of the things that you agree on more than the things you don't.

"Anyway, I ran into Polly last night. She was out with some of her friends. She seemed surprised to see me, but then... well, you know. I got A Talking To." Somehow Deanna managed to talk in capital letters.

Polly was Simon's wife. Simon is an old friend, from before either of us were married. It's all very complicated, if you haven't followed the other stories of my life. Simon and Polly were friends of both of us, and while Simon had helped pick me up from the disaster of my marriage, Polly had just cut off Deanna entirely. No second chances there. Polly was as disgusted with Deanna's behavior as Simon had been, and it was just Cold Shoulder all the way, not that I suspected Deanna had reached out anyway. She was sensitive about what people thought of her, and wasn't going to put herself in a position where she was vilified by old acquaintances, no matter how justified. I'm sure she'd just stayed away. I'd never asked Polly outright if Deanna had ever contacted her, but she'd never said anything, so I thought I was safe in assuming.

Polly was a slightly odd duck, very much walking to the beat of her own drummer. She wasn't weird or outlandish, or anything like that. Well, beyond dealing with Simon, and his deep dive into whatever hobby consumed him at the precise moment. That required lots of eye rolls, sarcasm and the ability to just not look at receipts from whatever must-have kit he had just bought, to bring him up to par on whatever new fancy he'd decided on. Simon was like that, - instant deep devotion to a new hobby, and then a year later, dropped on the floor and onto the next thing. I figured he was more into the kitting out for whatever hobby he was embracing than he was actually doing it. To each their own. If you can afford it, what's the harm?

Like I said, it took the right kind of personality to put up with that, and apparently Polly had it. What she also had was this quirk where, if she felt strongly enough about something that you'd done, or something that was affecting you, she'd find a way to tell you, flat out and bluntly, what she thought. If she thought you needed to know, that she had some strong feeling on it, it would come out.