Max stumbled in through the cemetery gates his button-down attire, and black silk tie were strewn on his body. The bartender was right to cut him off when he did, as Max was definitely drunk. He walked the pathway with one step after another, but not with the intent in knowing where he was going, he was just going. The night was crisp with a slight chill. His mind was still problematic as the course of events of the day was what lead him to the bar in the first place looking to drown his sorrows in something brown and robust. One after another, he would down the drinks as he told the bartender or anyone who would listen about his terrible day.
Max stumbled over a curb of the walkway as he now planted his feet on the saturated dew lawn. Like most cemeteries, the idea was to be serene, memorable, and respectful of the dead and as Max began to stagger between headstones, plaques, and monuments he was less like any of those things as he mumbled curse word and profane speech still distraught by the events that transpired earlier in the day. His mind was devoured by the now as his spirit crumbled inside of him. Finally reaching a point of exhaustion, Max fell to his knees at the foot of a cemetery monument with a sculpted lion head on top. He sat there, reviewing the steps from the day.
Max's morning couldn't have played out any better waking up in bed with a beautiful young thing he was seeing. Things seemed to be getting serious as they were spending more time together, but she never brought up the question to who or what they were so when she needed to hang out she'd call him. For a while there he thought the job she had as a magazine editor and fashion designer kept her busy and unable to date. She told Max the first time they met, which was at a fashion gala that she liked what he did as a job. As he was an art dealer and that at some point, they started sleeping together. That was about a year ago now, and nothing seemed like it would change.
After heading to the gym before work was the first hint of things going wrong as his team lost every pickup game they played, which didn't seem like much to anyone but Max who was a highly competitive guy. At the gallery is where the crisis hit when a cell phone video of an artist he was backing went viral of him making racial slurs and statements that just would offend just about anyone. Max and his assistant Joyce watched the released video over the gallery's wifi connection. Fear shuddered down both their spines as Max backing the artist would for sure catch some flack. He had supported this artist finally getting him a show at his gallery after years of cajoling and soothsaying to high powers that be in the art world. There were even some who told Max to leave the artist alone as he was a powder keg ready to go off. Max was now on the verge of losing his reputation and possibly gallery funding after going out of his way to back a racist.
Max began moaning in front of the lion head monument he figured within a day he'd be old news. It was his reputation he feared most was on the line. He turned to the lion-headed statue as though it was a person and pleaded with it them and pleaded with God holding the lion's head between his hands and began saying "No, no, no, no." In a moment of silence, he read the inscription on the monument, which read "here lays a man of great fortitude and ambition, overcoming numerous obstacles to live a life that some say was impossible." Rest in peace Alexander M. F. Johnson Jr. The inscription spoke to Max in all the alcohol and foggy head. He could come back from this a seed of hope sprung forth within him, yet he would have to sober up to be sure. As he pondered some more in the shadow of the monument since seeing the viral video, he felt some type of peace and dozed off to sleep under the lion-headed statue of Alexander A. F. Johnson.
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