ONE DAY I WOKE UP and realized I was vermin. Unlike Gregor Samsa in Kafka’s story, it didn’t happen overnight. My metamorphosis was long, perhaps as long as my life. But one way or another, one day in midlife, I awoke, had a vision, and realized something had to give.
It wasn’t one of those look-in-the-mirror moments in the movies, confronting my own face and seeing a stranger. My vision was a sight seen through bloodshot eyes: a display of Budweiser cans scattered about in my temporary digs, their
