These aren't the stories your mother told you.

No, these are the other stories.

Graveyard Shift, written by Matt Butcher, narrated by Ian McEwen.

I didn't start with night work out of any sort of preference.

The first few weeks of this circadian rhythm, shattering my new sleep cycle, were difficult as all hell. But the pay was good, and right

this moment anyway, that's all that matters. Strange how expensive your wife can be when she

ain't even your wife anymore. You find yourself paying out more in child support than you did when the damn kids lived in the same house as you.

And when you didn't suspect there was part of your neighbor, Carlos, in them.

Just like I now know there was a part of him inside my wife.

I'm the bad guy, though, of course.

It's not something I even try to dispute.

When I found out about Carlos,

I'd gotten blind drunk on a skin full of tequila,

and in my drunken stupor had struck my wife so many times she'd been hospitalized.

They said it was as though she'd been attacked by an animal.

Sometimes, when I drink, when I used to drink like that anyway, the inner beast took over.

I would become this violent monster with a hair-trigger temper and a gap in my memory wider than the Mississippi.

I was no stranger to starting a bar brawl over some low-life giving me the hairy eyeball,

or to waken up bloodied and bruised in an alleyway after a night on the liquor.

There was a monster inside me, just waiting for any moment it could break free.

I've stopped drinking now, at least publicly, as the court said, I had to be sober if I ever wanted

to see my kids again. And believe me, I do. So very much. So much so, in fact, that I've taken

...