Our man Evans knows he has problems. That would be abundantly clear to anyone in his situation. He has surface problems and root problems, and his problems are not being solved by hiding from them in a lousy apartment in Toronto, cut off from his family and friends (except one). However, after being cold-shouldered by Carrie and making a fool of himself by gulping down half a dozen glasses of wine in fifteen minutes before teetering out of a room full of her friends, he is not one to simply forget his other problems. No. Not our man.

Our man Evans is not a one-problem-at-a-time kind of guy. He is a compiler. A compounder. It is entirely possible to imagine him lost in a forest and running from wolves, thinking, "Of course this would have to happen when I have a toothache and my pants need hemming."

Is this a criticism? It could be, but not necessarily. Some people are detail oriented. Some people, like Evans, are "big picture" people.

It's a gloomy picture that Evans is looking at right now, because he thinks he has blown his shot at meeting someone who might hold his hand through the dark woods he is lost in. Carrie brushed him off, he made an ass of himself, and now he's even more isolated than before in this stupid city, lonely, hopeless, and being followed around by his own personal storm cloud of guilt about what he did to Trish.

Trish. He still hasn't talked to Trish, not once since he left, and here he is getting all bent out of shape over Carrie, some girl he barely knows. It's clear to him that he is a bad, bad person. And not only is he a bad person. Life is bad. It's all just bad, bad, bad.

Some of you may judge our man at this point, thinking that he is a pathetic, self-pitying loser. Some may play an invisible violin and say, "Oh, poor muffin. Does baby want his bottle?" Some may even suggest that if it's all that bad he should just open his veins with a discarded tuna can and bleed to death in a dirty back alley, ending his misery in an appropriately wretched final act of drama.

Some of you however, may remember a moment when you felt the same way: when you were screwing up again and again, when you felt that whatever good qualities you had were being overshadowed by forces at work against you, and for just a little while you felt like you had a storm cloud of your very own following you around. Most of us have felt like that now and again, and usually these feelings pass after a stretch of time. What is setting our man apart is that while for most of us time heals wounds, for Evans it only allows them to fester.

If it should be the case that you have never had a moment of self-doubt or self-loathing, or if you have never thought for even a moment that life can be bad or that things are not going your way, or if you have never once suspected that your problems are too big for you, than it may be the case that our man Evans is in fact not your man Evans, and this story is not actually for you. If this is true you are still welcome to read on, but please keep in mind that we are not all the same and withhold your judgment until the whole affair has played itself out.

* * * * *

Now to return to the big picture that our man Evans has in his mind. It's important to point out that it is not all bad. There is a glimmer of light in the big dark picture, and that point of light is something that Evans is thinking he might use to clear away the rest of the darkness. For as much as Evans is taking a masochistic pleasure in his gloom, he is also trying to imagine a way out of it. And tonight the idea was given to him: art.

Creative expression, right? Give shape to your problems, give your dark feelings a way out, and out they will go, right? It's a possibility. Catharsis: ridding yourself of negative feelings by giving them expression. Not a new idea. Not at all. But it hadn't occurred to Evans. He hadn't seen any way to clear away the darkness inside him without hurting those around him. That's why he left his family and fiancee behind: he didn't want to hurt them any more.

But making art would allow him to get some things of his chest in a less harmful way. And it might just give him something to do with himself instead of sitting and staring at the wall and feeling miserable all the time.

So as much as he tries to focus on pain and misery as he walks, he finds himself thinking over and over again about the sculptures he saw in the gallery: the trash magpie, the hunchback robot waiter, the horse-knight riding a lizard steed, and on and on through the menagerie Thomas had created to share with the world. Evans could do that. Maybe not sculptures. Something else. And maybe creating art could have some part to play in rebuilding what even he realizes is a totally demolished sense of self-worth.

It's not very late when Evans gets back to his rented room. Most of the wine buzz has evaporated from the walk, and he fixes himself a peanut butter sandwich with sliced bananas with a beer from the fridge. Only one beer left. Restocking will have to wait until after payday.

He has his snack and lingers over the beer, making sketches in his notebook. He tries to sort out his current predicament with the ladies, making math problems out of it. Evans plus Trish equals Trish happy and Evans unhappy. Evans plus Trish minus Evans equals Trish unhappy and Evans unhappy. Evans minus Trish plus Carrie equals Evans a little less unhappy. Evans minus Trish minus Carrie equals Evans even unhappier than before. The equations on the page look like little poems.

At one a.m. the phone rings. He picks it up.

"Evans? It's Carrie."

"Oh. Hey."

"Hey. Look, I'm sorry if I was a bit harsh at the gallery. I was only teasing when I called you an asshole. I thought maybe I hurt your feelings."

"Yeah. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to react to that."

"Right." She pauses, clears her throat. "Well anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I wasn't actually mad or anything."

"It's all right. Did you want to meet up somewhere?" he asks. "Talk or something?"

"What, now? It's one in the morning."

"I could go over there. Or you could come here. Or somewhere else."

"Don't you have to work in the morning?"

"No, not until the evening. But if it's too late, I understand."

"Well yeah, it's late. And I have to work at the book store tomorrow. Not until eleven, though. Um...oh, what the hell. Do you know where my store is? There's a coffee shop on the corner called New World Bean that stays open. Did you want to meet me there? Is it too far for you?"

"No. I know where it is. It's maybe twenty minutes walk."

"Okay. I'll be a little longer. See you at maybe two?"

And shortly before two o'clock our man is sitting in New World Bean with a cup of coffee, watching the sleepy-looking staff mop the hardwood floors. Carrie enters and Evans sees she's still wearing the clinging blue-and-brown paisley dress, although she has her jean jacket on over it now. She smiles and gets a coffee before coming over, the look on her face sheepish as she approaches.

"Sorry again for the gallery," she says.

"It's okay. I'm sorry I didn't call. I was embarrassed about...well, you know."

"What?"

"You know. In bed. I was a bit less than impressive."

Carrie blows on her coffee, darts her eyes toward him and looks away again. "Yeah. I wasn't sure if that was my fault or what."

"No. My head's not in a good place right now. Look, can I level with you?" She nods, and our man unburdens himself, explaining about his recent past, about Trish, about running away and hiding out in the city while he tries to get his act together.

"Wow," Carrie says when he's finished. "Trish, huh? Are you over her?"

He takes a deep breath. "I'm over her in the sense that I don't want to be with her," he explains, "but I'm not over the situation. The guilt of dropping her and running off. Not knowing what to do next. I'm not over all that."

"But do you still love her?"

"I guess I do. I want her to be happy and I feel like shit for causing her all this pain. But at the same time I don't want to marry her. I don't want to go out with her. Really, the idea of seeing her again puts me off. I wish I could just disappear for real, or make her forget I ever existed. I wish there were a nice clean coward's way out."

"Do you think you'll ever go back?"

He nods. "I'll have to sooner or later. Just to face everyone. My parents don't even know where I am. Sooner or later I'll have to..."

"Be a man?"

He nods. "Yeah. Be a man."

They talk on and split a piece of cake. She tells him about her old boyfriends and he tells her more about his past. Eventually they walk back to his place, and in his little rented room they climb into bed. They kiss for a long while, pressing against each other before giving in. He goes down on her, lingering between her legs, bringing her off before attempting to mount. When he does, he again finds himself not up to the task. They work at it for a while, and she eventually finishes him off with her hand. They kiss for a while more and eventually fall asleep, his arm around her naked shoulders, her hand on his chest.