Albert, Himself — Jeff W. Bens

On a humid evening on the streets of New Orleans, Albert Fitzmorris thinks he sees an angel - a woman in a pale dress with a shimmering halo of golden hair. Watching as she floats up the steps of a French Quarter hotel, Albert imagines a new life, free from loneliness and yearning. He envisions the path to his redemption. Albert's life is deceptively simple. He lives with his widowed mother. He plays poker every week with his deceased da's aging cronies. He sells fish in a market in the Quarter. But Albert's inner world is complex: convincing himself that he is protecting the people he loves, Albert lives by half-truths and deception. When Albert's ex-girlfriend, Eileen - the mother of his nearly three-year-old daughter - moves on to a new boyfriend, his inner life is set in turmoil. Afraid he is being displaced in his daughter's heart by another man, that his mother considers him a disappointment, that his dead father would see him as a failure, at thirty-five years old Albert plunges into doomed romantic fantasy. He pins his hopes for salvation on elusive, illusionary Chelsea, the blond woman - the angel - whom he tracks down and who, against all odds, just might help set him free.