But the little boy wasn’t comforted. His big bright eyes filled with water, and though the tears didn’t slide down his rosy cheeks, the man who lost something grew sad and his stomach ached.
“No,” said the man who lost something, “I wanted...” but the little boy just kept staring and the tears just kept welling without fall.
The man who lost something crouched down on one knee. He lowered himself down to the little boy’s level.
“I just wanted.”
Still no change, and the man who lost something felt awkward. He wobbled a little and steadied himself. He switched knees.
“I just wanted...”
“There you are!” said the little boy’s big sister—“Mom’s been looking all over for you,”—in the bossy way that big sisters have of addressing their little brothers.
Her little brother showed no sign of having heard a word of it. He kept staring at the man who lost something through the swell of tears that wouldn’t drop.
“We better go find her,” said the big sister.
She took the little boy by the hand and tried to walk away, but the little boy didn’t follow. His arm extended and his body jerked. The big sister turned back toward her little brother, his hand still in hers.
“What’re you doing?” she said.
He didn’t answer. He was staring away from her. She followed his eyes to the eyes of the man who lost something. His eyes met hers, and the three of them formed a triangle of sorts, angles without lines.
“Who’s your friend?” she said to her little brother, her eyes still on his friend.
Again, the little boy didn’t respond, would probably never respond to either of them, so the man who lost something took the initiative back from whoever had taken it, and responded for him.
“I was trying to ask him a question,” he said.
“He’s not supposta talk to strangers,” she said.
“I understand. I was just trying to ask him if...”
“You’re still a stranger,” she said.
“Then you,” he said. “Have you seen a...”
“I’m not supposta talk to strangers either.”
“I’m trying not to be strange.”
The man who lost something knew that it made no sense. He was gambling on his ability to frustrate a child into speaking with him.
“I just want to know if you’ve seen a man around here.”
As he was speaking, a drop of rain fell from the sky and landed on the big sister’s nose. She looked up as though to assure herself of where it had come from, and, satisfied with her initial impression, said, “It’s raining,” and the rain fell violently, hurting their heads and hands and faces.
The men and women and children in the crowd ran with shrieks and cries and curses to their homes or to the cover of the awnings that extended from certain storefronts along the street. The man who lost something and the little boy and his big sister didn’t move. The man who lost something hoped the little sister would forget he was a stranger in the chaos the downpour created.
“So have you seen him?” He had to speak loudly because of the rain, and his voice became shrill again. “Have you seen him?”
“Yes,” said the big sister, already soaking wet.
“Where?” screamed the man who lost something. “Where’d you see him? Where’d he...”
“There you are,” said the mother of the little boy and his big sister. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
The girl grabbed her mother’s hand, but the little boy...
“Let’s go,” his mother said, “You’ll catch your death.”
She picked her little boy up with one arm and held his big sister’s hand with the other, but as they walked away, the man who lost something grabbed the big sister. Her arm extended and her body jerked.
The mother turned around sharply, revealing an expression of shock and of anger. The man who lost something released the little girl, but the mother’s expression didn’t change. She was no less shocked or angry.
The rain was still pouring down. The mother, like the big sister like the little boy like the man who lost something, was saturated, her clothes sagging from her body, her face distorted by streams of water streaming, and it was a terrifying sight.
“What do you think you’re doing!” she screamed.
There was blood in her voice. There was blood and guts, and the man who lost something couldn’t answer. He was still crouching in the rain on one knee. A puddle had formed around that knee, and he was getting the chills. He dropped to his other knee. Two knees in a puddle. It was pathetic.
The man who lost something didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to say. He wouldn’t have been able to say it if he did know what to say. He wanted to beg forgiveness. He wanted to explain that he was nothing but a man who had lost something. He was nothing but two knees in a puddle. He was the equal and opposite reaction, not to a man who took something, but to the act of taking something.
The expression of shock left the mother’s face, and the anger, abandoned or purified by shock’s sudden departure, made the man who lost something tremble and swoon. He tried to ask her about the man who took something, but his voice was the voice of trembling and swooning, which is no voice. He tried to apologize, but his voice remained no voice, and his stomach hurt like nothing. He tried to reach out and grab the big sister’s arm.
He reached out and grabbed the big sister’s arm.
The mother didn’t try to say nothing. She said nothing. She ripped the big sister from the man who lost something, and the big sister cried out in pain. The sound was unbearable, blood and guts again. The mother dragged the big sister and the little boy away, almost running, and they didn’t look back to see the man who lost something fall face down.
When the man who lost something awoke, there were two police officers nudging him with their boots. He didn’t know they were police officers, but it was clear to him that there were boots nudging him—his ribs, his shoes. He decided to play dead.
One officer, the one who had been kicking more than nudging, continued to nudge, or kick depending. The other one, the one at his feet, stopped nudging, and walked, around the man who lost something, to his head.
The man who lost something wasn’t very good at playing dead. He was breathing so heavily that, despite the rain, his breath was causing ripples in the puddle near his mouth.
“He’s alive,” said the officer who was standing over his head.
He squatted down to get a better look at the man who lost something. The man who lost something still didn’t know that the two men were police officers, but he couldn’t help opening his eyes to evaluate the situation. The officer saw him open his eyes, and tried to squat even further, bending his head so low that his hat fell into the puddle beside the man who lost something.
“He got your hat wet,” said the officer who was still nudging the man who lost something.
He poured more energy into the next few kicks.
The man who lost something didn’t react. He’d seen the hat in the puddle, and realized that the men were police officers. It hadn’t crossed his mind that two police officers might be interested in finding out why a man was lying in the middle of the street on a rainy morning. He knew, or thought he knew, why they were there, and it didn’t have anything to do with loss or taking.
He jumped up quickly and took a few steps backward, trying to keep both officers in view at the same time, trying to ensure that he could run if he needed to run. But his movement startled the officer who had squatted down low, and he fell back, landing in another puddle.
“He assaulted you,” said the officer who had only stopped nudging the man who lost something because it was no longer practical.
He drew his gun.
“He just startled me,” said the officer who had fallen over. “I fell over.”
It took a while for the officer who had fallen over to convince the other officer to put the gun back i
n its holster, but he finally did. When, guns in holsters, the two police officers turned back toward the man who lost something, the man who lost something had partially disappeared.
Partially, because the tips of his shoes were sticking out from behind the mailbox on the corner. The police officers had been trained to find suspicious characters and interpret suspicious behavior, and they were not fooled. They knew the man who lost something was still in the shoes.
“We know you’re back there,” said the officer who had drawn and holstered his gun.
The man who lost something didn’t respond. The kicks in the ribs had been painful, but the threatening of his life was just too much. That officer, a police officer who would draw his gun on an innocent man, was a bad police officer.
“Everything’s okay,” said the other officer. “Just come on out.”
This was a pleasant police officer, a good police officer. If both of the officers had been good, the man who lost something wouldn’t have come out from behind the mailbox, because if they’d both been good, he’d never have hidden behind a mailbox in the first place. Good police officers don’t pull guns on innocent men.
He didn’t come out.
“We just want to make sure you’re alright,” said the good police officer
“What about the gun?” said the man who lost something.
“He put it away.”
“What about that lady and her kids?”
“What’s he talking about?” said the bad police officer.
A feeling of relief washed over him, and he remembered—this wasn’t about an angry woman and her unhelpful children. He hadn’t awakened, face down in a puddle, to the nudges of two police officers because he’d grabbed a little girl’s arm, but because he’d lost something, or because someone had taken something.
“Nothing,” said the man who lost something.
It was almost a blessing that these two police officers had come along when they had. The trail, if there was a trail, was getting cold, was being rinsed away by the rain. The man who lost something was wasting time behind the mailbox. He stepped out and walked toward the officers.
“Shit,” said the bad police officer.
The man who lost something looked like shit. His clothes were dirty and slimy and wet. His face was bruised from the fall. He looked like a vagrant. The two police officers probably thought he was a vagrant.
“A man took something from me,” said the man who lost something.
“The guy who knocked you out?”
You know it isn’t the case; the man who lost something knew it wasn’t the case, but it was such a long and ridiculous story, the losing and taking and screaming and men and women and children, “Yes,” said the man who lost something. “The guy who knocked me out.”
The bad police officer removed a small wire-bound notepad and a ballpoint pen from the breast pocket of his uniform shirt. He uncapped the pen and flipped the notepad open to a blank page.
“What’s he look like?” said the bad police officer.
The question caught the man who lost something off guard, not because he didn’t know what the man who took something looked like—though he didn’t—but because he couldn’t see why it mattered, as though a man who was sufficiently handsome, or sufficiently ugly, had a right to take something.
“I don’t know,” said the man who lost something.
The bad police officer looked down at his notepad, but he had nothing to write on it. He wouldn’t have been able write on it anyway, because the rain had dampened the page and smeared its light blue lines.
“Let’s go,” said the bad police officer. “This guy’s wasting our time.”
“Wait,” said the good police officer grabbing the bad police officer.
His arm extended and his body jerked. The bad police officer waited.
“Was he short or tall?” said the good police officer.
“Maybe,” said the man who lost something.
The bad police officer turned to walk away again, but the good police officer kept hold of him.
“Was his hair light or dark?” said the good police officer.
“I don’t know,” said the man who lost something. “I don’t know what he looks like.”
By then even the good police officer was losing patience. He probably wouldn’t have stopped his partner from walking away again, but his partner didn’t try to walk away.
“What’d he take,” said the bad police officer.
It hadn’t crossed his mind. The man who lost something didn’t know what the man who took something had taken. He didn’t have to say it. He could tell from the bad police officer’s expression that the bad police officer could tell from his expression.
“I guess,” said the man who lost something, “I could go through my pockets and see what’s missing.”
He began to search his pockets. In the left front pocket of his pants he found the keys to his apartment; in the right, cigarettes and matches. In his back right pocket was his wallet, and in the left breast pocket of his coat he found a stick of chewing gum. He thought maybe he remembered having more chewing gum, but he could never keep track of how many sticks out of a pack he’d already chewed.
“What’s missing?” said the bad police officer.
“I don’t know,” said the man who lost something.
He put the gum in his mouth and chewed.
There was a pause. None of them spoke. The bad police officer didn’t walk—or threaten to walk—away. The good police officer couldn’t think of any more questions to ask. It was a moment of silence for whatever was missing, an unspoken eulogy for something lost or left out.
And it was making the good police officer uncomfortable.
“Why don’t you let us give you a ride home,” he said.
“I only live over there,” said the man who lost something, pointing across the street at a three story walk-up.
It was true, he hadn’t made it very far before the man who took something took something.
“Then go on home,” said the good police officer. “Give us a call if you remember anything.”
But the man who lost something wasn’t listening. He hadn’t turned back toward the police officers after pointing at his building. He walked across the street without a word. A car braked hard in order to avoid hitting him, and the driver yelled “Fuck you,” before speeding away, unaware that there were two police officers looking on.
The police officers were looking on, but they took no notice of the car and its driver. Their eyes were following the man who lost something, still crossing the street toward the man who took something, whom they didn’t yet know was the man who took something, whom they didn’t yet know was the man whom the man who lost something thought was the man who took something, whom they would never be quite certain was the man who took something.
“Give it back!” screamed the man who lost something, shrill again, and he pounced at the man who took something, though he was still a body-length away.
He fell short, landing on his face.
The man who took something stood as though waiting for the man who lost something to get up and pounce again. The man who lost something got up and pounced again, knocking the man who took something to the ground, screaming “Give it back! Give it back!” as he tussled with the man who took something, who didn’t tussle back or give it back.
The good police officer was the first to reach them, and he pulled the man who lost something from the man who took something. The bad police officer arrived and helped the man who took something to his feet.
“Let go! Let me go!” the man who lost something screamed. “He took something from me!”
The good police officer had to struggle to hold him back while the bad police officer searched the other man’s pockets, more because it was his duty than because he believed the man who took something had taken something. He found nothing, literally nothing, not even lint in his pockets.
“This man ha
s nothing.” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the shrill screams of the man who lost something, and his own voice became shrill. “He’s taken nothing from you.”
“He did!” said the man who lost something—“He has!”—struggling against the good police officer’s bear hug.
“Calm down,” said the good police officer, “calm down,” but the man who lost something continued to struggle screaming for several minutes, before calming down, too exhausted to continue, going limp in the arms of the good police officer.
“How do you know this is the guy?” said the bad police officer.
“He’s been watching the whole time,” said the man who lost something.
“But how do you know this is the guy?”
The man who lost something had no answer.
“Then we’re gonna have to let him go,” said the bad police officer, and he let him go.
As the man who took something walked away, he looked over his shoulder, an inscrutable expression on his face. The good police officer assumed it was a look of fear, fear of being pounced on again. The man who lost something saw a knowing look, a triumphant look. The bad police officer didn’t catch it at all. He was trying to be unobtrusive while checking his pockets, his belt, his holster to see if anything was missing, and his stomach was beginning to ache.
You know the feeling by now. The same one the man who lost something had as he walked up the stairs to his apartment building. He was dirty and slimy and wet. His face was bruised, his muscles were sore, and he could taste the blood in his throat from all of the screaming he’d done. He opened the door to the awful possibilities of a life with meaning.
oh, little so-and-so
A man about my age sees a little girl standing in the middle of a busy intersection, blowing a whistle and flapping her arms like a marionette. He assumes she assumes she’s directing traffic. Traffic is flowing smoothly. No accidents are happening.
It isn’t a matter of whether he wants to move toward her, to help her. He moves toward her to help her whether he wants to or not, as though there are strings attached to each of his limbs, strings so fine that they can’t be seen by the eye that doesn’t mean to see them, unless they catch the glare of the sun just so, and even then the eye that doesn’t mean to see them doesn’t know what it’s seen.
The Awful Possibilities Page 6