Old and Cold

by Jim Nisbet

  SEVEN

  SOMETIMES, LYING IN MY NEST AND LISTENING TO BENIAMINO Gigli on somebody’s orphaned earbuds, I think that it may just be the perfect way go out. You discern with precision. I’ve got the massive overdose of oxycodone, stashed in one of the hollow tubes of my Denali Summit tent. Don’t forget, by the way, that much in the way that lame is an anagram of male, Denali is an anagram of Denial. I figure I could wash it down with a third martini and maybe make it back to the nest from the bar before the inner sun sets. While I subscribe to the woman’s breast theory of martini drinking—one is not enough and three is too many unless you’re a dog—wouldn’t it seem obvious that on the last day, on that day of all days, I get to have a third martini? Guys like you, the smart money says, can always come up with some excuse to make any old day special. You say, perhaps even taking out one or another of the earbuds to make your point, I got a good daydream going here, you fuck. Good daydream? the smart money cracks back, it’s like you got a minidisk playing in your mouth. No, on the contrary, I’m telling you, if you leave me alone, I can get through on my own cerebral dime and for maybe an hour the rest of the world will be safe from egregious depredation. Why don’t you make like Cannonball Adderly, the smart money suggests, and for maybe the rest of your life the world will be better off, and beyond. You know, I declare, you can maybe make the case that some psychopaths are beneficent, but that just means you’ve never encountered the genuine article. Have you ever considered, I continued, before the smart money could interject, the fact that I have managed to channel my alienation, by way of getting paid for it, I am in fact a superior citizen? Remunerated moral turpitude makes you a superior citizen? I think not. I, on the other hand, think so. You need to reconsider. You need to back off, you’re messing with my daydream. The reek of the acreage of filth in the general vicinity of your unwashed ass cheeks messes with everybody else’s daydream. How can I put up with this? This, my own super-ego accusing me of anti-hygienic turpitude. If I were indeed your superego, that’s what I would be here for. But, quite the contrary. Alas. The contrary indeed. You’re here to make sure I don’t get caught, or chastised, or penalized, to insure that my disguise remains efficacious. But, do you not see that your disguise has become yourself? Of… of course I see that. Careful. Uncertainty, like hesitation, is death. And… vice versa. The self has become the disguise. I have pared my needs to sleep, warmth, some external discomfort due to weather, what vodka I can legitimately buy, the odd stint of employment, an occasional fit of rage, channeled at best, highly destructive at worst… What else? When the fit threatens, I walk to the Pacific and gaze. That’s not what happened the last time. No gazing. None. Introspection, maybe, but that came later, after many martinis. These days, in fact, that’s the only access I have to introspection. All else is speculation. Well, but, that was a job. Are you sure it was a job? Sure I—. If so, where is the money? The money… Why, it’s spent. Spent on a drunken spree, just like always. Are you sure? Of course I’m… Well, no I’m… Now that you mention it. Now that you bring it up… When’s the last time we went to Union Square? Why, three days after the beach—no? And when was the beach? Three days before we last went to Union Square. You’re talking in circles. Well, the next stop after that is concentricity. Oh, how I yearn for concentricity, as I conceive of it, the very meeting place at the center, where all this restlessness will surcease. It’s rumored, it’s spoken of, in certain texts, religious texts. Though not in others. In others there are hints of… results, karma, karma is action, deed, event—nothing more. The mind does not know wherefore. One sleeps in a nest under a bridge, a freeway overpass, really, hard by the police station, for security, and not far from the Office of Social Security for convenience, one kills people for money, money paid under the table, one gets by. Who is to say, other than these sacred texts, whether or not that the present pathetic existence is the result of a previous pathetic existence. Shouldn’t that be previously pathetic existence? In any case, how could they know? Why would they care? Well, they want to skate on the contingencies of their own pathetic previous existences. Clearly. Why else would they assay such a difficult topic, if not for self-interest. Well, since other people are interested in the results of their investigations, it might be called enlightened self-interest. And isn’t that a neat trick. The next step would be to get them to pay for your investigations, that is to say, vendible self-interest. And voilà, you’ve got your church. Each to his own. I can’t go there, I can’t attend, and, since I have no money, they don’t want me. But there are organizations, individuals, who would take you under their wing on account they perceive it as their duty to mankind. Helping one another. Ah, there was a woman once. Despite which, you didn’t come to this pass as a misogynist. Nor, for that matter, a mystery writer. Excellent point. But what is this, if not a mystery? Where’s the mystery? She arrived, she sniffed, she departed. Ah so, first act, second act, third act. I’d forgotten. Shakespeare incapsulate. It was a very long time ago. If, in the interim, there’d been any design changes… You’d be the last person to inquire of them, or to inquire about them. Got me covered. My modus operandi. No, you’re m.o. is arctic martinis, built with vodka drawn from the Well of Doom. I don’t see that it’s working, particularly. That’s the problem with this outdoor life, it’s good for you, salubrious, one might say, much in the way that, say, huevos nopalitos might be good for you, were it not for the cholesterol. Better, in other words, than eating? I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. You know… It’s inevitable that you get caught. Why do you speak of that now? Here? Today? That’s a cop over there. Two of them. How can you tell? It’s the flannel shirts, the sensible shoes, the jeans, the nylon jackets, the identical moustaches, the pasty complexions and a certain heaviness about the jowls. I think you have something there. Let us hale them. Better we should wait for them to hale us. Good morning officers. Officers, says the one, looking to the other, his companion, who does not take his eye off of us. Now why would you draw such a conclusion as that? It’s the shirts, the jackets, the bulge in the small of the back, under the nylon jacket, the bags under all four of your eyes, the unkempt state of the two moustaches, the near-constant anxiety about the ‘Niners—you need more? The two of them consider you for a moment. Then one of them shows you a photograph. Don’t touch it, he says, pulling it back, just look at it. Remain downwind, please. While a bad photograph, it’s sufficiently detailed to reveal a smiling young couple, she embracing him from behind, her chin on his shoulder, the two of them absolutely trusting the possibility of the image the camera might give back to them. A handsome brace of Caucasians, you allow, clapping a lid on your hostility. Do I know them? Do you? asks one of the officers. I do not, you reply. Should I? Do you know I know them? It’s not for lack of confusion, you gesture to either side, that I find myself in my present circumstances. We have no idea whether or not you knew them, the officer says, turning the photograph so that he himself might have a look at the young couple. Could you speak up, I ask him. The traffic doesn’t interfere much with my stream of consciousness, but it does hamper ordinary communication. So you don’t know them, he shows the photograph again. Don’t touch it. I withdraw my filthy claws. Not that I recall. Never seen them. Not that I recall. What’s your name? Not that I recall. Come again? Not that I recall. We need to see some identification. Please. There’s the Social Security paperwork, of course. But I don’t drive or have an address. So you must once have been a dues-paying member of society, an officer says. What is this, you gesture left and right, if not society. How’s that. He shows me my own card. In order to be eligible. It must be true, I tell him. What did you do? Before she left me, you suddenly blurt, I wired missiles for that big Air Force contractor, down to Cupertino. Wired missiles, the guy says, incredulous. It was morally repugnant, you advise him. Not like being a cop. Where is this going? his partner says. Take it easy, the first cop says. That’s a nasty bruise on your head, he says. Once a week, you gesture left and right, I get beat up
out here. Everybody does. Did you report it? You laugh in his face. These people are dead, the first cop tells him. What am I, a potted plant? his partner snaps. Yeah, you say, to no good purpose. You stay out of this, the first cop tells you. You shake your head. The very movement gives them a taste of your effluvium. Wasn’t this interview your idea? you ask him. I believe it was, his partner says, looking at him, not you. My card, I remind him, extending a filthy claw. Pinching its corner between thumb and forefinger, he dangles it above my palm. I grasp it. Social Security doesn’t pay you enough to get your own place, huh, he says, not unkindly. I drinks a bit, I tell him with a shrug, and you need a fixed address. Do the math. Somebody subtracted this nice couple from the world’s equation, the first cop says. His partner winces. You just look at him. After a while, he blinks. How can you live like this, he abruptly expostulates. I haven’t heard that question in a long time, you say to him, not without tenderness, how kind. Do you know the poem? If he’d been bitten by a bullet ant, the guy could not have started more violently. No, his partner says with a charmed smile. Let’s have it. Left fist on left hip, with the right hand somewhat aloft, you let them have it.

  The world is too much with us; late and soon,

  Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;

  Little we see in Nature that is ours;

  We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

  This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,

  The winds that will be howling at all hours,

  And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,

  For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

  It moves us not.—Great God! I’d rather be

  A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

  So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

  Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

  Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

  Or hear old Triton blow his wreathéd horn.

  The sound of traffic over our heads and at right angles to that of the street below, seemed momentarily to have dimmed. For once you can actually hear the hundreds of plastic bags, trapped in the concertina wire atop the chain link fence, as they rattle in the westerly. If you were sufficiently paranoid, the graffiti on the abutment might have ceased their wriggling. But you back is turned. Both cops sigh loudly, each in his own way. Try reciting that, next time you’re drunk along the parapet below the Cliff House on a stormy night, the smart money suggests to them, for the which, in a private aside, he congratulates me on having completely derailed the conversation. Wordsworth, the second cop says softly. I think that’s Wordsworth. Think? you respond. The fuzzicle knows! Fuzzicle, the second cop smiles. I haven’t heard that in a long time. The term or the poem. Both. What’s it mean, his partner, who is considerably younger, more earnest, less jaded, harder, and maybe stupider than the second cop asks, narrowing his eyes. The term or the poem. The term. It’s hard to translate, the second cop, pocketing the photograph, tells him. So is the poem, I guess. If you can’t hear the music, I can’t explain it to you, he adds, as Louis Armstrong once said. Certain neighborhoods in this town, I confide to his partner, they’re only to happy to lick fuzzicles. The implication was, of course, that maybe they might want to take a trip to one of those neighborhoods. It’s a lot tougher around here, I gesture at our surroundings. Here we educate them. A truck with a loose roll-up door on the back of its enclosed bed slams and bangs its way under the overpass. To me it sounds like crockery swimming upstream against my tinnitus. To the cops it sounds like gunfire, and they duck while reaching for their weapons. Whoa, who, you say. Take it easy, fellas. Four, the friendlier one explains as he straightens up, count them, four cops got shot in Oakland last week. Dead? you inquire tentatively. He nods. And I can see that his partner is wrapped about as tight as it’s possible to be wrapped while remaining on his side of the invisible fence that stands between us. On his side of the badge, in so many words. I’m sorry to hear that, I say truthfully, for, truthfully, there are some real motherfuckers out there, some of them with automatic weapons, which thought the smart money congratulates me for having the presence of mind to pronounce out loud. It’s the upper-case G God’s truth, the second cop says to me. But what’s it have to do with this asshole, his partner interjects, clearly drained of patience. This guys is not an asshole, his elder corrects him, he is a citizen until proved otherwise. How about them ‘Niners, I brazenly query. The younger guy raises an eyebrow. I thought everything was okay until they passed on renewing Sybley’s contract, he says in all sincerity. I can see you know how to mix with the hoi polloi, I tell him. Or maybe it was the smart money tells him that. This is the most sustained conversation I’ve had with another human being since I applied for Social Security, two years ago, or was it one, I’m beginning to lose track. And then they fucked up on their first three draft picks, the younger cop continues. His partner, however, is watching me. So they’ve practiced this routine, and maybe they’re not so far out of their depth as they want to appear to be wading. But it’s them on my territory, at the moment, and not the other way around. They’ll never regain the glory of the seventies, you tell the guy kindly, but with certainty. Or was it the eighties, I’m beginning to lose track. I wasn’t around for that, the younger cop says, narrowing his mouth, I’m tired of hearing about it from you old guys, I want a piece of the glory, like, now. It’s all about building, the smart money says to him, somewhat paternally, and his partner agrees. Takes time, he says to the kid, to build up the bench, get the drills regular, to lock in conditioning, to gel the team, to find the magic. You know? Yeah, I jump in. The magic. They’re taking they’re sweet time about it, the kid grouses, and I’m getting old waiting for them to find it. Old? His partner and I both get a laugh out of this. Damn, observes the smart money, you haven’t laughed out loud in a long time. Say, you say aloud, until you guys showed up, things out here have been slower than sub-zero suppuration. You should come around more often. Most of the other people out here, you gesture right, you gesture left, only want to talk about scatological homologues. Most of the time, anyway. Scatology can be most poetic, the second, older cop points out. Are we still talking about the ’Niners, the first cop asks suspiciously. Because if we aren’t we need to be getting on with this. There comes a pause while these two now both watch me expectantly. I shake my head, puzzled. And what, exactly, I ask, is ‘this’? It’s a criminal investigation, the kid jumps in. This couple, he indicated the breast of his partner’s shirt, wherein by then resided the aforementioned photograph, got themselves most cruelly terminated at Land’s End last night. The only witness we can find says he saw a homeless person very near to the scene. He looks at you. No, says the smart money, he’s looking at you. Then he’s looking into a black hole. And that just about narrows it down, doesn’t it, I tell the cops. It does, actually, the older of them replies cheerfully. There’s only a little over six thousand of you. He shrugs. And you’re not all that hard to find. Six thousand? you say. And you’re going to talk to all of us? Just the men, the younger one says, a little over half of you. Fifty-two percent, his partner puts in. Three thousand three hundred and sixteen adult males. The rest are women and kids, the younger cop clarifies. You’re talking my language, the smart money tells him. He frowns slightly. How’s that? I just love arithmetic, he gets to hear. I’m sighing deeply, if inwardly, I tell the smart money, sotto voce of course. I prefer poetry, the older cop gets to say. I repeat, I repeat, you’re going to talk to all of them? All of them, the younger cop says, if that’s what it takes. But we’ll probably narrow it down considerably before then. Good luck, I say. You want a card, so you can call us if you hear anything? No phone, I offer lamely. I thought all you people out here had phones, the old one says, these days. Where’d you hear that? I ask him. Just observation, he replies. But sure, I say, cozening up to the obvious, give me a card. You never know, says the older cop, dealing me a calling card, from a deck of them secured with a rubber band, its corner pin
ched between his thumb and forefinger. Yeah, I say, taking its opposite corner likewise, as a matter of courtesy and perhaps hygiene. You never know.