Condom on the Roof

By Eric Day

I hate heights, but it's worth it. This night in middle December, out on the roof alone, stringing Christmas lights. Doing my part. On the peak of our Tudor home I rest, breathing clouds in the night. Half the house is finished with lights, all sides of me steeply declining away.

In my denim jacket that was once my father's I've found my secret condom. I overheard another married man say he carried one in his golf bag because you never knew what could happen. We're talking death here, he said. And I went and bought one three years ago and put it in the jacket my wife never looks in because of wear and dirt. When I was thirteen I bought a condom from a machine in a bowling alley bathroom. I fed the machine quarters with a trembling hand. I thought, adult gumball machine, as I turned the crank. The face of the machine showed a man with a blonde mustache in a doorway eyeing a brunette in a silk dress holding a glass of champagne. Ribbed. Lubricated. Sheer. Like wearing nothing at all.

Continued...