This isn’t going to work out if Roger has to walk through this shit every Wednesday. And going around it is out of the question. That’d be two or three times longer of a trip.
He better find something, something worth walking through this neighborhood. Roger feels almost like he might puke.
High class Save-Mart.
Not a bad idea, puking. No ammo, though.
Next time. If there is a next time.
The best Roger does is hocks a big glob of snot-mucus-saliva and spits it on the next mailbox. He’s actually surprised when no alarm goes off.
A mailbox security alarm. It’ll happen if it hasn’t yet.
He spits on one more mailbox which is shaped like a swan which is part of one of the last houses in the neighborhood. A good thing too, he started to dry heave a little when he gathered up that last snot ball.
This is where the houses start to look much blander.
Bad paint jobs.
No mow lawns.
No swans.
Kid bikes.
Cars parked all over the road.
Plain chain link fences.
Lots of gray.
Roger can breathe here. Natural smells. Less unnatural, anyway.
Better.
Less nice. But it’s still shit. These houses are still houses. These ignorant people are still ignorant people but just the poor more whores who can’t do wrong right. Roger thinks of some bums he used to know.
Where’s that damn grocery store?
Where’s the food?
It’s early afternoon and Roger is getting to a point where his appetite is trying to feed itself with hatred, with disgust, with the over abundance of ignorance.
With anything but food.
This is the first and last trip to the north. Roger knows this now. He’ll wait until tomorrow to go back. He’ll have to find some food here. There’s no way Roger could make it through the shit-fancy neighborhood without up-chucking all over that fucking swan mailbox.
No way. He wouldn’t miss it for the world.
Chapter 28
Roger found some food last night. Marty’s Market threw out a bunch of post-expiration date hot dogs. He ate two and brought the rest of one pack with him.
Ammo.
Roger went swan hunting late last night. He got his limit.
Chapter 29
It’s raining.
Roger is back at the main part of the river. He’s underneath no-tooth’s bridge. It’s raining so hard Roger can’t see the ripples from any single drop hitting the water.
Roger likes it when it rains mostly because most people don’t., because it’s a part of nature, because it just happens, because it covers up the steady hum of humanity with the steady hum of nature. There is one problem when it rains, though, and that’s having to share shelter. The only other time Roger sees more bums in one place is at Dark Alley.
Or used to, anyway.
It’s early afternoon but it looks darker than the late evening.
It’s grey dark.
Roger shares the shelter of the bridge with that damn no-tooth smiling bum, three bums he doesn’t recognize, two men in fancy suits and two bums he’s seen at Dark Alley. The bums were there when Roger tried giving his speech.
The zoot-suitors are trying to act tough because they think Roger or the other bums give two shits about their expensive watches or their high-fly-koala-skin wallets which hold two hundred dollars cash minimum at all times. They keep their coats unbuttoned so they can puff out their protein powder pecks. One guy keeps pulling his pants up all tough like. The other guy stands like superman or super something like that.
Roger can’t decide who he hates more; the suits or the pansy Dark Alley bums. They look so opposite. And yet they are so very similar.
One would think the opposite of wrong is right, but not in this case.
The two bums from Dark Alley are talking and keep looking over at Roger. It’s starting to piss him off. He turns away and stares into the grey rain, his back facing those weak-minded-lead-fed-to-them-as-a-kid bums.
God damn bums.
Damn suits.
Fucking no teeth.
Then something happens. Roger is staring into the rain and cursing hell and everything in it when his mind goes quiet. Time seems to stop or disappear or vanish or something.
Somehow Roger sees, among the mad rush of rain, a single raindrop fall beautifully, gracefully, silently, but with such force that only nature can create. He’s sees nothing else, nor does he feel anything else.
He can feel that single raindrop falling.
It’s not objecting to anything.
It’s free.
Weightless. Law-less. Serene.
Then it hits the surfaces of the water and shit hits the fan. Roger is snapped back to every shitty thing by a tap on the shoulder and the sound of a voice.
Roger turns around.
“Did you hear me?”
Roger looks at one of two faces. It’s the two dumb bums from Dark Alley. He doesn’t respond to them. He can feel an explosion of rage, uncivil disobedience, anarchy, animosity, madness.
“You must be crazy.”
“I think he is. Just look at him, way too much meth.”
“What a damn loon.”
Roger snaps. He violently shoves one of them down to the ground, jumps on top of him and pins him there. Roger punches and punches and punches the shit out of him in no more time than it takes for the other bum to tackle him off.
“You son of a bitch!” The bum says as he tackles Roger. He lets loose his own street given fury.
Roger gets punched in the nose.
Not again. It just healed up. Well maybe this will straighten it out, not that it matters.
Roger can feel the warm blood pour down his nasal passages and down his throat. He wishes he had some hot dog still in his stomach. Blood should do, too.
Right on target. Roger spits a bunch of runny, half-clotted blood straight into the bums eyes, then pushes him off and gets up.
Now the blood from his nose changes direction and rushes out of the front.
The two suits are over by now, cell phones in hand like guns. “Hey guys, knock it off! Knock it off! Break it up, will ya?!” One of them says, pointing his phone at Roger and the bum.
Roger just looks at him as blood gushes out of his nose.
Call the cops, you prick. Make someone else do the work work work.
“Christ guys! Act like men! Civilized men, for Christ’s sake! Don’t make me call the cops!”
The fight is over. Roger has a blood bib on the front of his shirt.
“What the hell’s wrong, huh? What’s the problem, anyway?” one suit asks.
Roger looks down at the two bums still on the ground. He grins a little in his victory, not enough for anyone to recognize as a grin though.
“Huh? You guys fighting over food or something? Jesus!” the suit pulls out his wallet and takes three twenties from it, then offers it to Roger. “Here’s a couple of bucks. Go buy yourself a nice meal and a new shirt on me. We’ll all just forget this even happened, alright?”
Roger stares at the money. The zoot-suit is holding it between his index finger and his middle finger. It’s folded in half and fanned out perfectly.
This guy must practice holding his money.
What a piece of work.
Roger smacks the money hand. The bills flutter to the ground. Roger walks away. He has nothing to say to this low life lost soul, nothing Roger could say would have any impact.
“You low life bum! Think you’re too good for my money?! I got news for you, you’re the scum of this town! The lowest of low! I pay taxes for the streets you live on, you piece of shit!”
Roger keeps walking. He passes the unfamiliar bums who are staring like bewildered goats caught licking their butts. They have nothing to say to Roger. Even if they did, they’ve been beaten to the point of submission for so long they wouldn’t have the courage.
> It’s raining harder now than before, coming down in waves.
That dumb ass suit man is still yelling. He’s going to go home to his wife or whore or both and tell them all about how heroic he was tonight, how he saved a bum’s life by dashingly intervening between a dangerous fight amongst a few homeless people. He will say how he really hates to see people, even bums, fight, how he wishes we could all get along in this world because life is just too short to waste on bad feelings. There’s no doubt he’s getting laid tonight.
Roger’s almost out from underneath the bridge.
And then there’s that no-tooth bum sitting there just before where the rain is coming down. He’s staring and smiling at the rain.
How can someone be happy in this damned place? A place like this? A place where up is in and down is out?
Chapter 30
Roger caught a cold last night. He was only in the rain for ten minutes or so before he found some shelter underneath an overhang outside of some business a few blocks into a business district away from the river.
The cops came and told him that as soon as the rain quit he’d have to leave.
It rained all night.
Pig cops.
They started asking questions like cops do. Modern day wannabe-Sherlock-Holmes-power-trip cops.
‘Where’d you get that nasty break on your nose?’
Toys-R-Us.
‘Where do you live?’
Anywhere, dumbshit.
‘Do you know where the homeless shelter is?’
Just after the tittie bar. That’s why Roger can never make it there.
‘Do you have family you can stay with?’
No, what about your family?
Damn cops.
Roger heads straight for Hermit Bridge. It’s been enough of this shit. It looks like it might rain again soon, too.
Roger has a dumpster dive run on his way and comes up with some old Chinese food, some stale cereal and a three pack of single serving chocolate puddings. He doesn’t usually dive in dumpsters he’s unfamiliar with because it can be risky, but this is an emergency.
He has enough for three days, easily.
Five, if he needs it to be.
Roger needs time to think, to breathe, to get it together. He needs to calm down, focus on his goals.
He’s losing. He’s losing to an enemy who uses weapons of lies, deceit and control. Its’ army consists of the entire world.
Man and manipulation.
The devil must be jealous of this place.
Chapter 31
Roger is relieved to be hiding under Hermit Bridge.
He’s been here a lot lately. Too much.
Way too much. He even broke his word when he said he wouldn’t be back here anytime soon.
But after this stay, he won’t come back for at least a week. No, two weeks.
But where to go if not here?
Dark Alley?
The overpass bridge from two nights ago?
North?
Yea right.
Chapter 32
Breathe, Roger, breathe.
Don’t think anymore of that.
Don’t lose.
Those men in suits. They offered him money to get cleaned up, to get some food, to start a new life. Out of pity.
Pity.
Money?
Roger can’t help but think about that night. It’s one of the worst nights he can ever recall. That whole night was a disaster. Roger wasn’t ready for it either. The suits, the fight, the no-tooth bum, the cops, the cold, the…
The raindrop. That single raindrop he saw.
He sees it now, full view in his mind.
The vivid singularity amid the many.
The great nothing it represented.
The see through.
The sharp, crisp outline.
The silence.
Roger has never felt quite like he did when he watched that droplet fall. It was beautiful. It was something. It was right.
Roger thinks of only the raindrop for at least another hour; the way it acquiesced to the rules of nature in every way without even being aware of them, the serenity in not having the burden of a conscience, the way it didn’t scream when it met its end, when became the water it landed in.
It was perfect.
And those bums shit on it.
Roger tries to think about just the moment with the raindrop, but he can’t. Those less-than-life bums keep trampling all over it.
It’s ruined.
Tainted.
Infected.
Mutilated.
Skewered.
Lost.
Roger should’ve ignored them or ran from them or something. Anything but what he did.
What if Roger just missed what he’s looking for?
What if that was the only opportunity? What if that feeling does happen again, but all Roger can think about is beating those bums?
Chapter 33
Roger saved the pudding for his last meals at Hermit Bridge. He saved them because they keep the longest out of what he had.
He’s getting sick. Not from the food, but it’s his cold. It’s getting worse.
Roger wouldn’t have got sick if he didn’t get into that fight, if those suits didn’t intervene. He wouldn’t have had to go into the cold rain if they weren’t there.
Roger has been getting really sick. Sick to a point of having to lie or sit down most of the time just to stay awake. He’s just going to have to wait this one out. There’s no way he could make it back to the city without passing out.
-
It gets worse.
He needs to get better. He can’t die now. Who will show the world what’s wrong with it? If Roger’s light dies, what then will shine in this dark, sad world?
Roger can’t die now.
He won’t.
He coughs and pain shoots through his entire respiratory system.
Breathe, Roger, Breathe.
Fight it.
Live…
Chapter 34
Another day passes. And another.
That’s three days from Roger’s last meal.
This is the real deal.
He’s only getting worse. Not even the amount of rest he’s getting is doing anything. He wakes up every few hours now.
Chapter 35
Water and shrubs isn’t cutting it.
It’s time to go.
He needs to get to the city.
Now.
Chapter 36
He’s going to lose.
He needs to go a hospital. That, or a free clinic.
He needed serious medical care yesterday.
Get up, Roger, get the fuck up and go.
His knees shake as he rises. Blood rushes to his brain. He would’ve puked right there if he had anything to throw up. His vision starts to go. He almost passes out.
No.
No way.
Roger comes to.
Get to the city.
Now.
He takes a few steps.
A few more.
Don’t think about how bad it is. Don’t think about how close death is.
Think about the hospital.
Think about life.
Living.
Living.
Living.
He’s not going to make it.
Roger passes out. His last thought is of how shitty the smell of a hospital is.
Chapter 36
Roger wakes up.
That smell. He’s in a hospital. He hasn’t even opened his eyes yet and he knows exactly where he is. He’s not even happy about being alive. No ‘whew!’, just ‘ugh’.
How did he get here? Did he make it there himself? Roger can’t remember any of it after he fainted. It may be that his will to survive carried him the rest of the way, even if it meant doing so without any sort of consciousness.
He does remember having a weird dream, one with the raindrop in it. The no-tooth bum’s face was reflecting off of it. Just smi
ling.
Smiling.
Roger opens his eyes. There’s a stale bright light to greet him. A nurse is tending to some other patients in the same room. They’re all in beds spaced equally apart. Roger’s bed is closest to the window.
It’s raining.
Roger almost smiles. Then he smells that sterile-stench-stale smell of the hospital.
Roger hates hospitals.
“Oh hey there!” It’s the nurse. She’s pretty, but so ignorant. “You’re alive, mister. How about that?”
Roger stays quiet. He hates a faker. She’s a faker. Roger knows a faker when he hears one.
“It’s good to see you making a full recovery! We did everything we could, but it was still by chance that you survived.”
It wasn’t chance. Roger wasn’t going to die. Not yet. He couldn’t.
“You’re lucky your friend found you when he did, otherwise, there wouldn’t have been even the chance. He sure is a chipper fellow.”
Friend?
Who’s that?
Roger looks around quickly.
“Oh now he’s downstairs right now. Ran to the bathroom, I think. I’ll go get him for you.”
Don’t. God, don’t.
She goes to find whoever Roger’s friend is. Roger doesn’t have any friends, doesn’t need any. She must be really confused, more than the rest.
Roger tries to get up and leave. Sitting up is all the farther he gets before he feels his entire body ache and yell at him to stop moving.
Everything hurts. He gives up and lies back. By the look of things, this place isn’t much to look at. Some hospital.
Roger closes his eyes. He makes sure to breathe through his mouth. It doesn’t taste as bad as it smells, if you don’t think about it.
“Here he is!” It’s the nurse again, coming in through the doorway to the room. Her arms are wide like she’s presenting something grand.
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