West Village, SoHo, New York Jack never made it to bed.
After drinking a few beers and popping an Ambien, he fell into a sleep that was so deep and intense it could better be classified as a coma. Howie had thought about trying to shift him from the couch to the guest bedroom but then decided it was easier to shift the bedroom to him. He tucked a pillow under Jack's head, threw a light blanket over him and turned in himself.
Carrie was propped against pillows watching the end of Law and Order on TV, the last thing he wanted to see. He cleaned up in the bathroom and slipped into bed next to her, noticing how she seemed to look thinner every day.
Okay, so she'd got the diet thing cracked, which was something he couldn't do, but, man, all those creams and shit that she put on her face every night kind of defeated the whole point of losing the weight. The way Howie figured it, women lost weight and stayed trim to look more attractive for the guys in their lives. If that was right, then what the hell was the point of buttering your face with some snow-white poodle-crap cream and lying in bed in nightwear that wouldn't give a mac-flasher from Riker's Island a twitch in his pants? Unless of course, she's screwing someone else. The penny dropped like a grand piano from the roof of the Chrysler building. Howie grabbed the remote and turned the TV off.
'Hey, whatcha doing?' squawked Carrie. 'I was watching that.'
'Tell me straight, Caz. Who the fuck are you fucking?'
Only the white poodle crap cream hid the blood draining from her face.
Carrie waited a couple of heartbeats, wondering whether to lie her way out of it, or feel grateful that the big ugly secret was finally out there for her big ugly husband to see. 'I don't know what you mean,' she lied, trying to buy time.
Howie had never considered hitting a woman, until now. Now he could happily punch her lights out. Not so much because she'd been balling some other guy, though for some members of his family that would be reason enough, or even because he'd been too stupid up until now to figure it out. Nope, what really pissed him off was that he'd dropped a whole twenty pounds in weight and missed all those meals in what was plainly a pointless attempt to stay attractive for her and keep her in his bed.
Well, fuck her! He didn't want her in his fucking bed anyway. Howie's inner rage took over, and before he knew it, he was on his feet, giant hands grabbing and lifting his side of the bed.
Carrie tumbled on to the floor and crashed painfully into the wall.
'You cheating, cocksucking cow!' he said, then banged the bed down, like a weight-lifter with his last lift.
It hit the ground and made the noise of a small bomb as the wooden legs on his side splintered off.
Howie looked at the marital bed and saw it metaphorically. 'Well, it looks like it's all well and truly broken.'