by Hades
The drunk threw his arms around me, yelling out my name in happiness. “Mi Salvador, Fich! Ay como no te allava? I misss you, Fi-hiccup-ch!” All his speech slurred as the spit steeped from his alcoholic face.
“Si, si, Mi, amigo.” I pushed him into safe distance and tried to help. Looking back, it was comforting to know that I tried to help the man. Every time I ran into him my feelings of anxiety left. I became more and more concerned for his well being at each encounter. We sat, that time, as he drank and I tried to coach him; yet all my animosity towards the bottle left me. It had always enraged me before, when I had seen my uncle with it. Though I had tried and tried to convince him otherwise, he always had it, and I had always taken it from him and smashed it on the sink. I hated the liquor; but now we sat and I allowed the beverage to go down his throat, slowly sliding down as I counseled him without constraint or compulsion. The sun was going down, and I spent the sunset with a bum that evening, but it was good.
* * *
The next day, I saw Noelia. I was looking for the bum, but found her instead. It was disappointing for me and it must have been obvious to her. For the first time she misinterpreted me and thought that I did not want to see her at all. That was not it, but I had to find the transient – she had to understand. Fortunately, she spoke to me about it, for the sincerity between us remained. I tried explaining about the bum, but she did not take it too well, I could tell. It hurt her. What a brute I was. Instead of calculating the significance of it correctly, I weighed it with an improper scale.
I didn’t comfort her, as I should have. All I did was place my arm around her, then went on with my obsession towards this drunken man. In the pit of my own search I found “escape” in the face of a bum. So I walked with her a while, in search of the bum. To my great luck, I didn’t find him. I wanted Noelia to see and have pity over him as I did. Maybe she would help him. He could even be in her care a bit, for she was such a kind person and so worthy of my trust. But I also didn’t want her to be too close to the bum. She was mine and I had to protect her. He was a dirty man and not good enough for her presence. So my thoughts were silly and contradictory.
We weren’t together long. She shopped and I went along. I was impatient and bossy, demanding her to put things down, which I thought were of no value. Little toys for her two brothers, or for her cats. These things were impractical. They were too much money and of no use. She could spend her money elsewhere, on some food or vitamins for her health. Such was my attitude and it wasn’t pleasant for her. Thus our “good-bye,” for that day, came quickly.
She would miss me, but I was a different man now. One that caused her much distress. Hopefully tomorrow I would act differently. Could I not change back to the man she’d met? I’m sure she thought. Couldn’t I turn back into the person she’d fallen in love with? Now I was just a pest who changed her day from bright to rain; made her unhappy and pulled her down with harsh remarks of rudeness.
As she left for home, she looked over her shoulder to see the man she loved so dearly. Her eyes were full of suffering, for the joy was lost. I left, disregarding how important it was to make things better. I was lost in the land of sorrows, along with the drunkard that I had to find. Perhaps I’d join him in his way, for today I had no desire to counsel him.
I found him quickly, drinking on the sidewalk. (Ironic it was that I could not find him when Noelia was with me. Now he was there as if he’d been there all along.) I sat beside him and asked for his bottle. At first he flinched and tried to hide it, fearing that I would take it from him, but then he saw that I too needed drink, so he shared it with me gladly.
This is what I had become: A bum in the gutter, like my friend. Even my mind shrunk back in embarrassment. But I was consumed with resolution, determined to make myself fall even further. Ramon (which was the drunk’s name), remained with me until the bottle was empty. When it was, he looked at me petulant, as if I were the one who drank the whole of it, then left and threw a shrug in my direction. I was no longer a trustworthy friend to him. Instead I was greedy and thirsty and drank it all!
I would have bought us more if he had asked, (funny he didn’t think of that), but he didn’t give me a chance to offer. It was just “up and go” with him. I guess he must have thought of me as an equal instead of a means for supporting his bad habit. That thought was humiliating as well. How could a drunk, who had been drinking all his life, find me equal and unable to buy some booze. I guess I must have looked the part. Too bad... We could have very well gone off to merry-land together, instead of fight. But that didn’t stop me. Any store was more than willing to sell the product to an American! Hence, I began with a pint of rum and ended with a bottle of “whatever” (as long as it was fermented).
(Somewhere I’ve heard not to mix strong drinks; but it was a wives’ tale, because I’d always done it that way. As a youth, while experimenting with the “magic drink” (the drink that gave so much courage and made one to be the life of the party), I’d often had to mix whatever it was that was available to me, because I was not old enough to buy some for my own. That often meant I’d have to combine beer and strong drinks to reach the desired “buzz”. And what heights I’d climbed – it had been such fun – but now where had it taken me; I was just another bum.
Time was passing as the bottles ran out, and the urge to find the drunk one returned. The sun was going down again and there were only a few places left to look. I walked and searched them all, but didn’t find him, and there was only one place left. It was an alleyway, between a small liquor store and a club.
Both these places were so unlike anything I was used to in New York that I had to laugh. The club was nothing more than a beat up hut with a crummy band, and the bar was little better, but far below normal standards. It was between these two places where my drunk often went to look for bottles that still held a few drips for his thirsty tongue. Sometimes he even got lucky and found half-used bottles, or even whole ones. It was an easy place for him to find the juice and the supply never ran out. But I never made it to that alley. I found him somewhere sooner . . .
Before my eyes laid the saddest thing I’d ever seen. There he was, dead, on the street with a crowd of people all around him. The crowd had gathered around the accident scene, where a broken carriage and the remains of a once live man laid.
“It’s just El Condenado,” said a lady that was stretching on her tiptoes to see. A horse and buggy had been carrying several barrels to a nearby store when it had crashed into the staggering bum. One of its wheels broke right on his back, snapping him! The result of such an impact caused two of the barrels to come crashing down to smash him to his death. Ironically, they were full of ale and it spilt all over the streets with his blood. There the last of my friend’s life-fluid mixed in with that cursed foam that was the cause of his death.
I wailed over the grim sight. My compassion had run deep for this homeless man. He looked so helpless there, in the middle of the crowd that had assembled to see what had happened. Then they discovered it was he that had died (and not someone of greater importance), so they left him there, dead, as they had left him in life.
Another lady yelled, “What are we doing? It’s just the bum who’s dead! Let the death-man take him, not us!”
Then another. “It’s the bum, and good riddance! He was of such nuisance anyway, I’m glad he’s gone!”
“I bet all the bars won’t be that glad,” cried yet someone else... And so it went on, in jest of the dead. I had to interrupt such heartlessness, for they were hounds, so I ran to the scene and stood in the middle of them, where they had to listen.
“How can you people say such things?” I yelled, and the attention was on me. Empty faces, feeling no remorse, but wondering from whence the admonition came, stood curious to hear me out, so I continued the sermon, a little mad and critical at this point.
“How can you all know what is best for this poor dead fellow? How can any of you be so cold and so wrong? He was a frie
nd to me, and I’m sure to many people – even though he was shunned by many! He was a friend to anyone, really, if anyone ever gave him the chance... Where is his family and his friends, or neighbors at least? Isn’t any one of you acquainted with him? Isn’t any one of you decent enough to be interested in the least bit for this man?”
Everyone stood silent for half a second, bruised by my accusations, but then the heckling broke out. They all replied, as if I had offended their ancestry, in one mad union against me.
“What type of reproach is this? Who is this man?” yelled one older fellow. Everyone was mad for a moment, and probably thought about mobbing me. They spurred me aside with all my accusations and shouted “bandido!” so that I could not get near my friend. Someone must have carried him away sometime, for I waited for a while, but when everyone was finally gone and I could again get closer, the body was removed from its spot and the spill was licked up by the dogs.
Such rudeness, I thought. These are imbeciles! My excuse for them was that they were savages, but even so, they bothered me much. Even savages would not be such rats... Oh well, what could I do?
On the long walk to my pension I thought about what they had said and began to ponder. What if they were right? I wondered... This man might have been better off dead than alive in this world of grief. At least now he was far from all those wicked people. Who was I to know what was best for him? Maybe it was true. Maybe he was better dead. How could I know his pain? It had to be better for him this way.
But I did know his pain. I only thought that because I was so sorry for him. I had much grief of my own, but I knew there had to be something better than death. Yet, as a vortex, day by day, I could feel myself draining into his fate. I was a man vexed from all the world, as he had been, and now this world had taken life again!
The more I thought of death, the more it burrowed through my organs and made a killing of my sanity. What if they were right, I kept reciting. What if they were right?... And then I cracked again. What if I’m just like him? I am a bum; no job, all liquored up.
“Maybe the town’s-people are right, don Finch,” I said to myself again.
“But how can you know?” answered the voice that startled me. A little man beside me spoke the words and his face was the life incarnation of everything that embodied my doldrums. There stood my foe, this slippery man of illusive death. I grabbed him by his coat collar and raised him several inches, ready to pound him. There was no escape for him now, while I forced his confession out of him.
“How can you know what I am thinking?” I screamed. “Are you the one who keeps sending me those dastardly notes?”
Ah yes, and I would have smashed him there.
“No, no, don Finch, I just heard you speaking to yourself about it. Perhaps you are going loco sir.”
I dropped him. He was shivering and he ran. Maybe they were right. Maybe everyone is right about me and the drunk. I am going crazy! Maybe I’m mad already! Everything’s just happening too fast. My head, my moral and the whole situation made me sink to deeper trenches as I walked back to my room. I was alone and sad to the world.
I finally got there, and there it clung. It was on my door, sapping and quivering as a ship on the sea of gloom, ready to be read and to bring its precious cargo of calamity crashing down upon me. What else could be done? So I took it and read.
My eyes drooped down, line upon line. How could anyone write such a thing? It was as though the ghost of my dear friend had come to possess the pen of perdition, to write it. His were the wailings of a creature cursed at the bottom of evolution. My friend purged dry in Hell-fire, reaching from the pit in order to bring his accusations upon me. It was a confirmation of my unworthiness to stand absolved from past neglect. All my chances for that had left with him, down to Hell, he said. Written not in his handwriting, but by that same fiendish hand that had always brought my fate: stuck on some parchment to my door. This time it was in English.
TRANSIENT (Homeless)
Cold face of skeleton that kills from hence to hence.
I have no hell I have no roof.
Burn, burn
Born of the blood to lie in the gutter and wait to die
So tired and so wishful of another self – some other fate
But tragic soul-wrenched fortune of my own
Comes from the bottle that brings me awful bearing torture
Please cease the pain
Of helpless hands and weakened arms
My heavy-laden heart soaks through my skin
And makes me wince to see it lasting
So please . . .
Place me quickly to my doom
So sudden death
So soon may fall.
Part 2
The VooDoo Hunger
My head woke with a loud ringing. At first I thought it was the doorbell, but then remembered where I was. There were no such things as doorbells here; the ringing was caused from the alcohol I’d consumed the night before and from all the emotions that were staggering in my head. It felt as though I’d gone through a grinder; not knowing which way was emotionally upright. I was hung over, but that was the least of it.
The strain on my psyche, as a result of the drunk’s death (a death which pantomimed my uncle’s death), was what gravitated me toward the ground. I was on my first steps towards dying. Funny, it was the first time I really thought myself to be fiscally failing and falling into death. Before, I had wished to die, but never actually diagnosed myself as going towards that hole in the ground. This time, however, things were looking bad and the matter was worth taking into serious consideration. I had to ask myself if I really thought I was dying. Was I expecting myself to be defunct soon or at some future point in time?
My reflection on the subject didn’t bring the answer, so the thought was dropped, although there might not have been any answers anyway. Nevertheless, the whole event gave room for a whole new revelation in regards to my psychological development. If I were evolving toward madness, surely I had taken a few more steps just then.
With a new lightness of body, I cleared my mind and made my way to the bathtub. It was good that I decided to bathe, for it had been a while; although a marvel, since I suppose it would have been more logical that I not bathe, seeing the state of mind I was in. I got in and turned the shower to cold. The water was a wake up to life; not only in its’ invigorating sense, but frothy to the joy of living. It reactivated some of the vigor and vitality that was left in my heart, though I never liked cold showers; yet if living different was what I was doing, then it was being done in every aspect, even in the shower.
Next came the shave: every stroke a perfection, taking old with it and making youth. Then I made ready with the after-shave, deodorant, brush and rinse, comb, ironed pants and shirt with tie, pressed socks and polished shoes. I was ready for the office, only there was no such place to go, just this island. It was my office now... No room overlooking the city, now it was streets with carpets of sand. Was I a bum looking slick? I had no reason to look pretty.
I was a fired man, although no confirmation of it had come yet, as was the practice with my boss. In all my years at the paper, whenever anyone got fired they always received that nice “follow-up confirmation call” to assure them that it hadn’t just been a “spur of the moment” bluff of indignation and that “yes” they were fired. I supposed I would have to receive that call before things were certain, but I was sure that it would come soon enough.
The shower was nice, but was no remedy. All hopes for peace of mind had gone and I was soon to die with them. The cleaning and shaving were just catatonic actions from a dementia that made me do irrational things. Even when the “dress-up” would have usually been a sane act, now it was done during some deranged moment where it made no sense. What was it for? What did I need to look good for? Nothing! I wasn’t doing it to impress Noelia. I was going there, but not to impress her. Things were far from synchronization between us for such a need. Love drove me to her,
but my ride on the lunatic seesaw kept all motivation uneven.
I wish I hadn’t chosen that day to become insane. Unfortunately that choice was the one that would end up dragging us through the mud. Perhaps if the drunk hadn’t died I wouldn’t have fallen temporarily into a brain coma.
Thus I walked, with the mental capacity of a zombie. They said there were real zombies on the island and perhaps I was one of them, for I walked and nothing happened inside. All brain activity had shut down, except for the involuntary functions. It remained that way, “a blank,” most of the way to her house, until I caught sight of the “sour-trees”. It was a sudden wake into “compos-mentis,” an abrupt jump-start into thinking. Who knows what had happened? Up to that point everything was a blank, but the trees brought me back.
They were planted on the sides of the paths, each with a thousand oranges reaching from their branches. They looked good enough to eat, but once plucked and tasted they resembled more a lemon; equally bitter and full of acidity. These trees were everywhere.
Of course I didn’t pluck an orange. I’d tried that before and been tricked as all the rest. But the sight of them sure made me want an orange. That made me think about the stupid fable the islanders all believed concerning these trees.
As the story goes, a long time ago the devil was bored as he went about his business of molesting people. Now, as God was planting his orange trees, the devil caught sight of what he was doing and decided to counter it. He went to his lair and made up a seed that would yield a plant equal in every semblance to the one God had planted, except that the fruit it would yield would be bitter to the taste. The exterior of it would fool anyone into thinking that it was the real thing, but would soon disappoint that person that tried it. And so the devil was pleased with his work and went about watching where God would plant his orange seeds, then he’d hide and wait until God had finished his work and followed up to plant his seeds along side of them.