I was drunk in the bathtub, struggling to recall how many pills I had choked down. 

"There’s the warning they need in those pharmaceutical ads on TV!” I wheezed. “'Could be difficult to count when trying to end it all. Ask your doctor if you're healthy enough to end it all.'"

            The missus, perched like a tyrant queen atop the toilet, zoomed her little video camera up in my face. "You're barely making sense," she shrieked. "If those were your last words, they were all garbled. Try again, Herman — and don’t slur!"

            I pulled myself together the best I could, grinned big for my afterlife audience.

            "How do I look?" I wanted to know. "If I’m all smeared, you can tell me. Seriously."

            "Oh, you’re always serious, Herman. I tried to warn you the Jacobson kid's party was not the place to go following your muse. Balloon animals and magic tricks, Herman. That’s what parents are paying for. No more, no less. Nobody gives a shit you consider this clown business your artistic calling. Life’s too short for such nonsense.”

            I nodded, or attempted to.

            “Think about this, Herman. I’ll never be able to show my face around town again! And those children — those poor children will never be the same!"

            The bitch was right, of course. But a lot of people are never the same every day.

            More often than not, it doesn’t kill them. They survive.

            I survived, too. Somehow.

            Because the next thing I remember, I was naked out in the front yard bushes. Beneath pink-orange streetlights. Puking up everything except my grease paint and wig.