On the 13th of June each year Brent McGee would bake himself a cake. Every year the shelf at his grocery store expanded its variety of flavored cake mixes, but his choice was always the same. Strawberry cake mix with Funfetti icing. He liked the colored sprinkles and the doughboy on the packaging reminded him of his mother. But as time passed, this routine, the solitary trips to the grocery store and the purchasing of the cake became an anxiety-inducing act. He began to sense that there was something wrong in this. Sensed it in the way the clerks would stare at him, how they'd pass each other glances that said, "Oh boy, here he is again." Though Brent was unaware, the employees of this particular grocery store had this date circled in their calendars, under it a scrawled doodle of a green-haired man making a loony face. He felt shameful, and learned to be quick in public.
On this particular year he sat amongst the miniature planes stockpiled on the shelves of his RV and filled himself with cake and icing. He was alone on most days. He scribbled, "62? Don't recall, happy birthday to me," in his leather-bound journal. His salt and pepper hair had become less pepper and more salt with time, but otherwise he felt the same as he did the previous year. Brent made a habit of covering up his roots with the emerald-colored hair dye, and took pride in the fact that he could pull off this color. "Emerald City green," as he called it, was a shade not even the teenagers he associated himself with would venture to wear. Speaking of which, if one were to wander around the nearby parks in the late afternoon, it is possible that they'd catch Brent in his 62-year-old glory, leaning against his vehicle with a swarm of brain-washed teens. They admired his sense of style and the introverted way he did things. He was polite, and pretended not to notice their weed stashes in the hollows of trees. He was the sad old dog who followed the puppies around.
