He asked me if life was a game.

And if so, could one cheat?

“Yeah,” I told him. “You’re in high school. You take the classes that are required, and none that interest you because the bare minimum has been fair to you so far. You wear your jersey every Friday, though you’ll never see a down of football outside of practice, and you don’t even like the guys on your team. They go to McDonald’s after every game; the quarterback brings a fifth of vodka with him. He hands you the bottle, and when you hesitate, laughs and pours a shot into your shake, medium vanilla. The liquor and cream burn. The quarterback leaves with his girlfriend, the girlfriend who knows nothing about the valley girl you saw giving him head in the bathroom minutes prior to kickoff. You think of calling out to her but don’t; you tell yourself your hesitation is because of the drink.

"Five months later -- it’s Prom. Your date is someone you’ve been seeing for half of a year. She’s the kind of girl who laughs regardless of whether what you’ve said is funny, but she’s kind -- more so than you believe you deserve. While you slow dance with her you think of what your mother told you on the porch as you left, ‘I’m proud of you.’ You look at the streamers above and feel her hands at the nape of your neck and wonder if you could say the same of yourself.

"It’s midnight and you are standing in her bedroom. And then you are no longing standing but lying as she pushes you to the bed. She takes off your tuxedo, the one that you rented for $175, and when she falls into you, she tells you she loves you, and you tell her you love her too, though you know you couldn’t really love a girl who thinks the Rolling Stones are ‘anarchists.’ You break up with her before graduation, and as you shake hands with the headmaster you have never spoken to before you feel her breath in your ears.

"The summer passes. You go to a state school and find yourself with the same people you have been with for the past 18 years. Stupidly drunk every Thursday, Friday and Saturday you tell yourself life has never been better; Sunday’s hangover and stained sheets tell you otherwise. You get a job at the diner on Front Street because you know that the change found in the seats of your '82 Malibu isn’t perpetual. Every Thursday the diner offers the Early Bird special, and you hate that night like no other. They are heard before they are seen: the shuffling of polyester and white Reeboks across the linoleum. The smell of antiseptic and thick jasmine and tobacco and urine make you sick. Their plates are empty and the clock hasn’t struck 5:00. Age is an unforgiving son of a bitch, you think.

"You graduate as an economics major because architecture seemed too daunting, and 'too unstable' of a profession according to your father. A local insurance company is your first 9-5 job. The walls are gray. Your suit is gray. The coffee from the break room is gray. When your boss with the stained teeth invites you to play golf with him you accept though you know he’s the bastard who will order two Bloody Mary’s and a steak at lunch and expect you to pay for it. When you come home you fall onto your mattress frame and count the hours you have until you have to do it all again. Four years later and four years of nothing but Tylenol abuse and meetings by day and porn and reruns by night.

"Until you meet Lisa. She’s from Cleveland, has two cats, and is altogether too nice -- like your girl from high school. But at 27 you know you are on 30’s threshold, and at 30, you believe you’ll be too old to want for anything more. You meet her on January 22nd and marry her six months later. ‘Til death do us part, you say, and you feel your wedding band tighten around your finger. You buy a massive property in the middle of suburbia. Lisa coos about how it will be the perfect place to raise a family and how manicured the lawns are; you think of the white picket fence of your childhood.

"Four months after settling in she tells you that you will be a father. And you’re happy. Or are you? Liam James is born six pounds and four ounces. As he takes his first steps you are in a 7pm conference. As he says his first word you are treating a potential client to dinner. As he graduates middle school you are negotiating a sales contract. As he graduates high school you are at a convention in Orlando. As he graduates college you are given divorce papers. You saw it coming. You wanted it to, but when you sign your hand shakes and you find yourself wishing the pen would run out of ink.

"After the divorce, you and Lisa are stiffly cordial. You write to Liam on his birthday and meet him for a drink on Christmas Eve. 'My son,' you say when you see him, and he offers a weak handshake in return. Your mother calls you on what could’ve been your 15th wedding anniversary to tell you she has stage four breast cancer and three months to live. The champagne you are drinking from the bottle turns to bile in your throat.

"At her funeral in April, Lisa and Liam stand beside you. Liam has his mother’s eyes. What have you done. 'Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.' What have you done. 'For this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end.' What have you done. 'None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.'

"You see your mother’s body when you sleep and your son’s back when you wake. Six days after the funeral you crash your car into Cooley Bridge, Jack Daniel’s in your passenger seat. When you wake in the hospital you are told by the doctor that when you were rescued and almost certainly dead, you smile. You laugh -- you’re unsure of whether it’s because you were saved or because you almost escaped it all.”

He asked me if life was a game.

And if so, could one cheat?

“Yeah,” I told him from the hospital bed.

If only I could have told him otherwise.