He is not a lazy man, not a cruel man, not a sick, sad, or even unsuccessful man. He is just not the man I wanted to become.

He sits with his feet propped up on a desk reading a book. 

 

He hoped his voice wouldn’t change tonight. “Old Man River” was coming up and he could do the accent, the bent back, the glory-struck expression. He knew how to use the whites of his teeth and eyes. 

I know all about wails. Candide had a wail around his garden, Jonah had a whale-wall deep-down in midpassage. Meursault had his wall of sun. Bartleby, Melville’s man, had his cubicle and his staring wail.