The year after we were fired from DuckGoose — or de-optioned or fucked over or whatever the legal term was — was pretty depressing.

Post-production was always a grind, but now it was made even more insufferable by our lingering bitterness. And our lingering bitterness was made even more insufferable by our well-meaning former employees who would report to us about how horrendously disorganized the production of Suit & Tie had become since we'd left. Which for some reason was supposed to make us feel better.

Hey, guys! Remember how when you ran the show it was a well-oiled machine? Well, good news! It's total chaos now!

Um... yay?

Creatively, Tammy and I were pretty tapped out. We did manage to sell our Guest House pilot to CBS, but that was basically a pity fuck. We pitched to a room full of executives who knew and liked us — executives who had heard about Tom's transformation and were now seeing Tammy in person for the first time — and they didn't have the heart to pass on our idea. We dutifully wrote the script and only got a handful of rewrite notes, which was a pretty clear sign they weren't particularly invested. When we turned in our revised draft they thanked us and then our script vanished forever. Or, to use TV executive parlance, it was "in the mix."

We also scrounged up some film work, rewriting a tremendously stupid animated film about anthropomorphic cicadas. It was clearly a suicide mission. The concept had a lot of flaws, the biggest one being that it was about cicadas which are insects that (a) nobody cares about, and (b) spend seventeen years dormant underground doing nothing until they briefly emerge in a noisy swarm for a few weeks after which they are never seen or heard from for another seventeen years. The studio hired us knowing the script was in shambles, but we had previously salvaged three of their projects and they hoped we could do it again. But this one was beyond saving and our hard-won reputation as miracle workers took a pretty big hit. That studio never hired us again.

The moral of the story: When you volunteer for a suicide mission, you're probably going to die.

But in a way, our career felt like background noise. What I remember most during that time were all the surgeries. Three of them, in fact. The last one was Tammy's. But the first one was mine.

————————-

Sensei Gilbert finally warmed up to me. It was at the conclusion of a Saturday class in which we learned some really cool techniques for dealing with a gun-wielding attacker, none of which, Sensei sternly cautioned us, was likely to work in a real-life situation. "Your best bet is to toss him your wallet and run away," he said. But we practiced the techniques anyway, as a last resort.

He also talked about the psychology of an attacker and how important it is to make him think that you are not a threat, that he is in control and therefore less likely to shoot you. "Cry. Beg. Ideally, you should even pee yourself." We didn't practice that technique. But I was sure I could do it, if the need ever arose.

Ninja!

Anyway, after Saturday class Sensei and the dojo loyalists would all go to lunch at a Japanese (of course) restaurant. I had never joined them and didn't plan to go that day, either. I had my gym bag slung over my shoulder and was about to bow out when Sensei stopped me.

"Hey, Pirate!" I had taken to wearing a black head wrap to class, prompting the other students to refer to me as The Pirate. Everyone thought it was a stylistic choice, that I was either trying to look cool or hide a bald spot, but actually I was doing them a favor. I tended to sweat prodigiously and without my head wrap there would have been puddles on the mat.

(That all said, it did look cool. And, yes, it happened to hide my bald spot.)

"How come you never come out with us?" Sensei asked. "Think you're too good for us?" This was typical of Sensei's sense of humor, always on the attack.

"No, Sensei. Just spending time with my kids."

"You didn't tell me you had kids." He seemed oddly offended by this, as if I deliberately withheld the information from him. "Boys? Girls?"

"Two girls, Sensei. Both teenagers." I held a finger-gun to my temple and pulled the trigger. I was being very unfair to my daughters whose adolescence had not, on the whole, been particularly difficult. But people always laughed at my mimed teenage-daughters-related suicide and and Sensei was no exception.

"I have two girls, too," he said.

"I know, Sensei." He raised his eyebrows in surprise, so I explained. "The picture on your desk."

"Ah. Yes." Then his whole demeanor changed, turning wistful. "I haven't seen them for, oh, it has to be five years now. Zoey's nine and Alice has to be... six?" His eyes went up to the ceiling as he rechecked his calculations. "Yes. Six."

I know it's a tangent but I've never understood why anyone would want to have children that late in life. My kids were born when I was in my early thirties and I barely had enough energy to keep up with them. Sensei was in his late sixties when he had his. What on earth had he been thinking?

Then Sensei told me the story about his ex-wife, the narcissist who relocated his daughters to Hawaii against his wishes. She refused to let him talk to them. Sensei sent them presents every year. On their birthdays, on Christmas. But he knew that they never got them. Or if they did, they weren't told it was from him.

"I've arranged for each of them to receive a package from me after I die." For a conversation that started with the words Are you coming to lunch? it had become awfully grim. "I want them to know who I was. I want them to know that I was thinking about them. I want them to know that their Dad loved them."

"You never know, Sensei," I said hopefully. "You might see them again."

He shook his head slowly, tears in his eyes. "My ex will never let that happen." He tensed the muscles in his face, trying to regain the appearance of control. His grief was heartbreaking but also amazing. The manliest man I had ever met — a warrior in the literal sense of the word, who had killed for his country and, if the rumors were to believed, for hire as well — brought to his knees by two little girls.

"Life can surprise you, Sensei. Patience and perseverance." I had learned from Darian that the nin in ninja meant patience and perseverance, which he had helpfully pointed out, didn't just apply to the ninja but was, in fact, another awesome life lesson.

He smiled sadly. "Go spend time with your daughters."

"Will do, Sensei."

"And if you tell anyone I was crying," he said, sounding like himself again, "I will kill you."

I had no reason to believe that was hyperbole.

When it came to judging people, Sensei was very black-and-white. If he didn't like you, he really didn't like you. But if he did, he really did. And thanks to the fact that I had sired two daughters — who might have been horrible, for all he knew — I now fell into the did category, and we struck up something of a friendship. He would periodically call me into his office to just shoot the shit. It was mostly me listening to his anecdotes, which was fine because he had led a fascinating life, and having opened up to me about his lost daughters, he opened up to me about other stuff, too.

And now that he took me more seriously as a person, he also took me more seriously as a martial artist, which really didn't make sense, but like I said, when he was in, he was all the way in. This was a mixed blessing, though, because he started using me for demonstrations. I learned a lot, but it really hurt. Being on the receiving end of Sensei's techniques was a skill of its own. You needed to go with his energy if you wanted to minimize the pain and avoid injury.

Unfortunately, I wasn't particularly adept at that, as became painfully clear one evening when Sensei was using me to demonstrate a technique called oni kudaki, which is a lock designed to destroy the shoulder. (Oni kudaki means "demon crusher," I guess because demons live in your shoulder or something. I'm really not very well versed in Japanese mythology.) Sensei explained that if you do it right, it takes very little effort to cause tremendous damage. And he was right, because he did it on me fairly softly and I felt something snap.

"Ouch!" I said. "You crushed my demon!" (Well, that's not exactly what I said. What I actually said was somewhat screamier and laced with obscenities.)

My not-as-contrite-as-you-might-think Sensei offered to fix my shoulder himself. He was a practitioner of acupuncture and acupressure and probably some other worthless Asian bullshit, but I declined. Generally speaking, I was not one to run to the doctor at the first sign of pain. It was less about stoicism and more about laziness. Going to the doctor's office was a tremendous time suck and tended to procrastinate unless I was sure it was serious. And this, I was sure, was serious.

"The doctor is going to want to do surgery," Sensei warned. "Wait and see."

I waited and I saw and, yes, my orthopedist recommended surgery.

He had an overlarge and somewhat misshapen bald head, like he was an alien from an advanced civilization on an early Star Trek episode. And it only helped that his name was Dr. Zadra, which was the perfect name for someone performing reckless, unsanctioned research on a remote planet halfway across the galaxy.

When he asked me how this had happened, I explained what oni kudaki was and he was horrified. "That is literally the worst thing you could do to a shoulder."

"I'm pretty sure that's why we do it."

He shrugged. "Whatever floats your boat." Which was a weird expression for an intergalactic renegade scientist to use.

Then he showed me my MRI and pointed out the damage. "You're not going to be able to fix that by burning sage and dancing naked in the woods." I had told Dr. Zadra about Sensei's critique of Western Medicine. He wasn't amused.

My surgery was on an outpatient basis. Samantha drove me to the hospital and waited the five and a half hours it took for Dr. Zadra to repair my shoulder, then drove me back home and got me situated in front of the TV. We were still not back together. Our relationship had gone from chilly to lukewarm cordiality, and I couldn't tell whether or not that was an improvement. Maybe a thaw. Maybe anger yielding to indifference.

In any case, this was my third surgery under general anesthesia. The first two were an appendectomy and hernia and in both cases I woke up to find that they had shaved my groin for some reason. I figured that that if I woke up from my shoulder surgery with a shaved groin, we were no longer talking about a medical necessity, but a twisted anesthetist fetish.

Anyway.

I am pleased to report that the operation was a success and my pubic hairs unmolested. Dr. Zadra gave me the good news along with endoscopic photos of the surgery. The inside of my shoulder looked to me like canned seafood. It all went so smoothly that this story would hardly be worth telling, except for two things.

While sitting in the waiting room, playing FarmVille on her iPad and munching on stale vending machine cookies, Samantha met someone. His name was Devin. And they hit it off.

And coincidentally, right after my surgery I met someone, too. Her name was Vicodin. And we fell in love.

So here's what happened. Dr. Zadra gave me a bottle of pills in case I was in severe pain, which for the most part I wasn't. I took one or two pills early on and then declared them unnecessary and switched to ibuprofen. Plus, there was a prominent warning label on the pill bottle: DO NOT MIX WITH ALCOHOL. It was accompanied by a clip art image of a martini glass that was circled with a line through it. As cautions went, it seemed pretty definitive.

So I contented myself with my usual red wine. Of course, with my arm in a sling it would have been extremely difficult to use a corkscrew, but I had thought ahead and bought a case of table wine that had a screw cap instead of a cork, which I could open with one hand. (And you may be thinking, "A screw cap? Isn't that really low class, especially for a self-professed wine snob like you? Well, I will spare you the gory details of the ongoing vintner flame war in the cork vs. screw cap debate and just say, No.)

It was after I had consumed a fair amount of wine that things went awry. I took another look at the warning on the Vicodin pill bottle and it no longer seemed that definitive to me. First of all, the warning lacked an exclamation point. It stood to reason that if it was really dangerous, there would be at least one, and ideally three or more to really drive the point home. That was just common sense.

Then there was the matter of the martini glass. Surely, I thought, that wasn't chosen randomly, but to represent the type of alcohol that was dangerous to mix with Vicodin. Martinis were made with hard alcohol, eighty proof or even higher. The alcohol content for red wine was a trifling third of that. Compared to a martini, red wine barely even qualified as an alcoholic beverage!

And let's be honest, I was feeling a little sorry for myself. I hadn't been to the dojo in weeks and it would be months until I had healed enough to return. I felt my muscles and martial skills — such as they were — atrophying; the gravitational pull of inactivity dragging me inexorably down into self-pity.

Also, I suppose it is worth mentioning that Samantha was out on a date with Devin. Although Samantha disputed the use of the word date, downplaying the significance of this rendezvous with a cavalcade of weak synonyms — hang out, meet-up, get-together — and the liberal use of the phrase "as friends." She was, I think, doing that for my benefit, to soften the blow, but I kept at her, forcing her to admit that when a guy spends a couple hundred dollars for orchestra seats to Backbeat at the Ahmanson Theater followed by a couple hundred more dollars for dinner at The Water Grill... it's a God damn date.

"Fine, Aaron!" she finally exploded. "You're right! You're right about it being a date! You're right about everything! Are you happy now!"

(You can file that under, Victory, Pyrrhic.)

From the beginning I handled the Devin thing very badly. As an adult you think you're going to deal with things more maturely than when you were a teenager, but for me at least that wasn't the case. Even though Dr. Stephanie had laid down the ground rules — "no lying, no spying, no details, no accusations, no mockery; basically, don't be assholes" — and we both agreed to them, I was petulant and petty. I confess, I never actually thought Samantha would do this; not for lack of opportunity, but because deep down I didn't really believe she'd even consider seeing someone else. And it stung.

In hindsight, it is clear how much this particular wound was self-inflicted. I took one gratuitous potshot after another at Devin — who, by the way, I never met, which was definitely best for all concerned — which could have only made him seem more attractive by comparison. A night out with someone who just wanted to enjoy her company and not try to start — and then insist on winning — another pointless argument would be a welcome respite.

And so here she was, my wife, dressed for an evening out with Devin, wearing in a pretty blue off-the-shoulder cocktail dress and silver teardrop earrings that I had bought her as a birthday present a few years back.

"The girls are sleeping over at a Eleanor's house" — a friend of theirs — "so you don't need to wait up for them." I nodded. "So... have a good night."

"Yeah, thanks. Have a good time with Devin." My attempt at indifference fooled nobody.

"Look, Aaron, if you don't want me to go..." She trailed off and in that pregnant silence there was an opportunity to put a stop to all this. It remains a mystery why I didn't.

"No worries, baby," I said, cavalierly, hurtfully. "It's all fair game from the waist up, right?" It was meant to upset her, but it massively backfired as hit me that above the waist really was fair game.

Thanks again, Dr. Stephanie!

She opened her mouth to say something — probably Fuck you! — But changed her mind. Instead, she took the high road and brusquely walked away, shaking her head.

So, yes, as the night grew long and my loneliness more acute — and Samantha's car stubbornly refused to return to our driveway, leaving me free to imagine in vivid detail what was happening on her non-date — I tossed two pills in my mouth and chased them down with long swallow of Argentinian Malbec.

Before we continue I want to be clear: That was a fucking terrible idea!!! (See how impactful three exclamation points are?) Which should have been obvious at the time, but with what we now know about the opioid epidemic? Good Lord!

By the time the evening was over I had consumed an entire bottle of wine and a couple more pills as well. It quite literally could have killed me.

That all said...

Holy Crack Pipes, Batman! It was soooooooooo good!

How do I even describe it? OK, have you ever made a really great peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Where the proportions are absolutely perfect? The peanut butter and the jelly in complete harmony like an edible yin-yang symbol? It was like that, but with drugs.

I was blissfully floating on a cloud of good will. Alone but not lonely. Present but far away. Aware of everything and nothing. Wrapped in a blanket of pure love. And not shitty human love, either. But something purer. Cosmic. Eternal. All the pain was gone. The physical pain, the emotional pain. I worried about nothing. I was angry bout nothing. Had I, in that moment, been texted a picture of Samantha and Devin doing it doggie style I am sure I would have thought, Look how much fun they're having! I'm so happy for them! And dogs are great, aren't they? I should get a puppy! And name him Vicodin!

I recall being surprised by how fantastic it all felt, which was really dumb of me. But I had been brainwashed, growing up in the Just Say No eighties, only focused on the negative aspect of drugs. Addiction, damage to body and mind, corrosive impact on family, relationships and work. Why, I wondered at the time, would anyone want to do that to themselves?

And the answer was that drugs were amazing! Obviously! People don't throw their lives away for something that's just meh. Nobody would have seen the movie Castaway if it meant they had to share dirty hypodermic needles with a bunch of strangers. Nor would they suck dick in an alleyway to get money to buy green beans. They do it for drugs.

I didn't do any of that, as far as I can remember. What I did do was turn off the lights and activate the Visualizer on iTunes. Mesmerized, I spent hours staring at the computer-generated light show that pulsed in time with the music, colorful floral fireworks exploding in the digital mist. Listening to Comfortably Numb while I was comfortably numb. Heaven.

I didn't remember getting into bed, but I woke up there, on top of the covers, wearing my underwear and one sock. My bladder was filled to bursting. Through the window I could see the lightening sky of early morning. Which I discovered a few minutes later — after relieving myself and vigorously brushing my wine-stained teeth — was actually the darkening sky of late evening. I had slept for something like seventeen hours.

I wish I could say that losing the entire day convinced me never to do that again, but it didn't. Don't get me wrong, I knew that what I had done was risky, but then again I felt absolutely fine. So obviously, my body could handle it. And besides, I still had a lot of pills left and it seemed wrong to let them go to waste.