The Waking

by H. M. Mann

  “I guess I really don’t know who I am,” I tell him.

  I wonder if I ever knew.

  I was someone’s little boy once. I knew that. And look what I’ve become.

  “I don’t know who I am.”

  “I think you do,” he says. “You’ve just forgotten. And as soon as you get completely clean, you’re gonna start remembering, and when you do, I know you ain’t never gonna stop talking.”

  And when I’m through talking to Slade another hour later, I’m so exhausted that I actually drift off to sleep, and when I wake up after only a few hours’ peace, I don’t have to turn on the light because the darkness isn’t so bad anymore.

  5: Marietta, Ohio

  During what I hope is my last bad day of withdrawal, in and out of sleep, hot and cold and hot again, I dream of Mary.

  She’s holding our baby down in the front of St. Benedict’s next to a black priest with white hair. She looks like an angel wearing a white dress, her hair tied back with a white ribbon, her feet bare, and her eyes dancing with light. I call her name and run down the aisle, but when she sees me, she escapes through a side door holding the baby close to her. I chase after her to the corner of Crawford and Centre and see her standing with the baby at Freedom Corner across the street. But try as I might, I can’t cross Centre because my legs feel dislocated, like they aren’t a part of me. When I step off the curb, a wall of rain comes crashing down, yet through that rain I see Freedom Corner, and it’s glowing gold, glowing so bright that Mary and the baby are nothing but smiles and eyes.

  “Let her go,” a voice says beside me, and it’s St. Benedict himself with his white hair only his arms aren’t stretching out anymore. His hands rest on my shoulders.

  “I can’t let her go,” I tell him.

  “Set her free,” he says.

  “I can’t set her free.”

  Though I know it’s a dream because statues can’t talk and it never rains just on one street on the Hill though it feels like it sometimes, I’m awake in this dream. I can even smell the crackle of the lightning and feel the rumble of thunder under my feet.

  “Go to her,” St. Benedict says, and when I turn to thank him, he’s gone, too, flying to the top of the church, his arms spread as usual as if to say, “The whole wide world is yours.”

  The rain stops, and I run to Freedom Corner, feel the solid granite under my feet, touch the Stone of Origin, which is supposed to have come all the way from Africa. Then I see colors in the sky, true colors of white and blue colliding and clashing with black, brown, and tan in the sky. I call out for Mary, but she doesn’t answer.

  “Let it go,” another voice says. “Let it all go.”

  “I can’t let it go.”

  “Let it go,” the voice says again. “Set your spirit free.”

  “I want to take her home, I want to take her home, I want to take her home!” I cry.

  When Abassa appears in front of me, I wake with a puddle of sweat on my chest, my hair so greasy that my pillow has become an overgrown sponge. “I want to take her home,” I whisper, hoping to drift back to Freedom Corner in my dream, even though Abassa scares me. “I want to take her home,” I whisper again, but the dream is gone.

  And so is the pain in my bones.

  My skin, though swathed in sweat, is smooth. No goose bumps.

  My eyes, though crusty, aren’t dry anymore. I don’t have to blink them as much.

  I rush to turn on the light. Then I start folding my blanket and sheets, even folding all the towels in the head that I used for blankets when I would curl up in there. If I had the mop, I’d get to work right now. I line up all the empty milk jugs against a wall and look at my feet, vomit-spattered, stank, ashy as the moon, and they’re on the floor holding me up.

  I’m standing, and I don’t feel dizzy.

  A few minutes later, Slade comes through the door. “You all right?”

  “Yeah,” I say with a laugh. A laugh! I haven’t laughed … I haven’t laughed in years. It doesn’t even sound like me. “Yeah, I’m all right.”

  “But the light was on.”

  “Yeah. The light is on. I turned it on.” I spread out my arms. Now I have goose bumps. I’m posing like St. Benedict.

  He looks around me. “You’re through?”

  “I think so. What time is it?” Why I want to know this, I have no idea. Time might start to mean something to me.

  “Past midnight.”

  And Mary’s sleeping. “How many days since Pittsburgh?”

  “Five.”

  One hundred and twenty hours. “Do you think I could get a shave and a shower now?”

  “Sure.” He turns away. “Man oh man.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  He turns back, his eyes full of tears. “You made it, man.”

  “Yeah. Thanks to you.” I stick out my hand. “I’ve been meaning to shake your hand.”

  He wipes his eyes with his shirt. “Don’t take this the wrong way, man.” He takes my hand and pulls me to him, saying, “You made it, you made it.”

  I pull back. “Yeah.”

  “You know it ain’t over, though, right?”

  I nod. I heard a reformed junkie once at some program at Ebenezer tell us, “Heroin talks to me every single day, but you know what I do? I talk to God, and God is louder than heroin.” I wonder if God would give me a listen.

  “One step at a time, huh?” Slade says.

  “Yeah.”

  “You gotta be hungry.”

  “Yeah. Nothing too, um, heavy.”

  “Sure.” He smiles and laughs. “Well, well, Manny Mann. Let’s go make you human again.”

  I follow him down the stairs and realize that I haven’t been outside in the air for five days, and it tastes good, so cool and so fresh. And when the first drops of warm water hit me in the shower, I feel layers of dirt, layers of grime, layers of filth sliding off me down the drain in the little communal shower stall, but I don’t look down. I look up into the spray.

  “You gonna take this soap eventually, right?” Slade asks, holding an orange bar of Dial.

  “In a few minutes.”

  He slaps the bar into my hand. “Sorry there ain’t no shampoo.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “Your towel’s out here, and I’ll, uh, get your room cleaned up, get you some clothes. I’ll be back in a few.”

  “Take your time.”

  Even soap smells better, and I scrub like I’ve never scrubbed before, turning my arms red, my legs red, my scalp red, trying to wash away the shame of so many years, but the scars are still there.

  “But they’re healed,” I whisper. “They’re healed.”

  Maybe I’ll get Mary’s name and my son’s names tattooed over them. Yeah. I need some tattoos to erase it all. I hope Slade gets me a shirt with long sleeves.

  When I dry off, I see pasty, white, sagging skin and blue veins everywhere. I could be someone’s grandpa. Or a road map. I just need me some sun. Once I get my color back, I’ll feel my age again. I just need me lots of golden sunlight.

  I towel off my head and try to finger through clumps of hair. “And a haircut.”

  Slade returns with some creased tan pants and a long-sleeved jean shirt. “Had to borrow them from the captain’s wash. He’ll never know.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I didn’t think you’d want to wear his drawers, so you’ll have to go cowboy until Marietta.”

  “Okay.” I pull on the crisp pants and shirt, buttoning the shirt at the cuffs. I look down at the two-inch gap between my stomach and the top of my pants. “I might need a belt for a little while.”

  “You’ll fill up fast.”

  I follow him back to room thirteen and touch the numbers on the door before entering. Lucky thirteen. I’ll never be superstitious about that number again.

  Inside I see a pair of boots, one much darker than the other. “Are they mine?”

  “Yeah. I found the other one in another container
. Coal and the rain got to it.”

  I slip them on, one beige, one black. I have me on my feet.

  “And I’ll get you some socks as soon as that load’s done.”

  He plugs in an electric razor and blows on the blades. “We got us some work to do, Manny, and if you don’t mind my saying so, you could use a whole lot of weave cut out of that head.”

  I fluff the top of my hair. “It ain’t weave, Slade.”

  “Well, we can’t have you go out of here looking so, um, natural. You look like a dented microphone.”

  “Un-dent me then.” I sit on the bunk.

  “Don’t flinch,” he says. “This ain’t the sharpest razor in the world.”

  “I trust you.”

  And then my hair, all the black curls, even some grays, come tumbling down onto the towel around my neck. He edges me up as best as he can and even cuts some thin sideburns down my cheeks.

  He steps back. “You look shorter.”

  “Because I am short.”

  “And you’re looking about forty-five, forty-six now. You might lose another year or two if you get rid of that moustache and goatee.”

  I rub my soft, fuzzy goatee. “I’ve never cut it, been growing it since I was a kid.”

  He waves the razor in front of me. “Trust me on this, Manny. You’ll look years younger without that dirt on your face.”

  “All right.”

  I watch Slade concentrating so hard, that razor looking like a big black pencil in his hands, as he trims off my fuzz.

  “What’s your first name?” I ask.

  “What you wanna know for?”

  “Might be a good name for my son.”

  He steps back and rubs his eyes. “Luke,” he says hoarsely.

  “Luke Mann,” I say. “Got a nice ring to it. Maybe I’ll give him ‘Out’ for a middle name.”

  “Luke Out Mann?” He coughs and blinks. “You gonna keep doing that?”

  “Doing what?”

  “Making me tear up. It ain’t manly.”

  I feel a bulge in my throat, too. “I’ll try not to.”

  He continues cutting under what he calls my “pointy ol’ nose” then stands back. “You might be only forty-two, forty-three now. Check yourself out in the mirror.”

  I take the towel from my shoulders and brush some hair off my shirt before walking to the head. It sure beats crawling. In the mirror I see … an old man with more wrinkles than Auntie June. My eyes are bloodshot from lack of sleep, my nose has a few scratches on it, and my cheekbones are threatening to cut through my cheeks. I see a man who needs to get some years back. I’m afraid to smile since I haven’t brushed my teeth in … when’d I brush my teeth last?

  “Slade?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You got a toothbrush and toothpaste for me?”

  “Got to get that in Marietta, too. Sorry. Got some mouthwash, though.”

  “I’ll need it.”

  “You can say that again. Haircut all right?”

  I run my hands over my head. Smooth, very smooth. I didn’t know my head was so pointy, like a peanut. “You do a mean edge-up, Slade.”

  “I can take more off if you want.”

  I only have a quarter inch of hair left. “It’s just right. I’ve lost enough weight as it is.” I return to the bunk, but I don’t want to sit. “Would it be all right if I just stood outside for a while?”

  “Yeah, and leave the door open, air it out in there.”

  “Good idea.”

  While Slade goes about his business, I look past the lumpy red football field at the bends and curves of the river ahead as musky forest breezes fill my lungs with life and moonlight shines on my face. Little towns all lit up like Christmas float into view then recede with another to take its place further on while a train whistle sounds long before I see it. The stillness, even though we’re moving, and the calm, even though the river is as angry as Slade said, add up to peace, just like that old song says. Peace like a river. And when islands glide by, some of them long and skinny, others circular and fat, I wonder who lives on them, or if anyone ever did, all alone on an island floating in the fog.

  Day breaks gray, brown, and yellow, and I’m still standing at the rail as the river seems to straighten itself out, one straight shot, Slade tells me, into Marietta.

  “See all those blue, pink, and white flowers?” he asks, pointing to the shore.

  “Yeah.”

  “They’re gonna be strawberries, millions and millions of strawberries.”

  Though it’s kind of mean to make a man’s mouth water for fruit when he’s just had five days of the runs, I smile.

  “You smell ‘em?”

  “No.” I sniff the air. “But I smell something.”

  He pats my back. “You’re just smelling the dew and the earth, Manny Mann.”

  Good smells. I’ve missed them.

  “Water’s up quite a bit or you might be able to see all sorts of animals on the shore.”

  “Like what?” Only animals on the Hill were dogs that could kill you.

  “You name it. Deer, otters, herons, quail, squirrel. I once saw a snapping turtle big enough to feed a family, and I hear there are water snakes big enough to eat fish in one bite.” He winces as some country music blasts from somewhere below us. “I hate that music so much! You like bluegrass?”

  I don’t even know what it is. I shrug.

  “That’s the Ohio River for you, nothing but bluegrass and country. I tried to get work on the Mississippi so I could get away from that noise. I’d also be closer to home.”

  “Where’s that?” And I’m surprised I haven’t asked him that yet.

  “St. Louis. East St. Louis, Illinois, to be exact, home of Miles Davis.”

  “Who?”

  Slade’s face widens out, his mouth an O. “You never heard of Miles Davis?”

  “No. Did he play for the Cardinals?”

  The O gets wider. “The Cardinals? Miles played with lots of folks, but he never played for the Cardinals. Miles played trumpet, man, he played cool jazz.”

  “Oh.”

  “He sneaked on and played with Dizzy Gillespie when he was just fifteen. You have heard of Dizzy Gillespie, right?”

  “Yeah. The guy with the big cheeks.”

  “Right. Davis was just plain cool, man. He even played with Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. You have to have heard of them.”

  “They were …” I see pictures of them in my head from on the walls at the Crawford Grill. “Saxophone players.”

  “Yeah. Too bad about Charlie, dead at twenty-nine from the same stuff that you’re beating. Anyway, because of Miles Davis, I am a big fan of jazz in any shape or form, but here I am, hooked to a boat on the Ohio playing bluegrass.” He checks his watch. “Got to get ready to dock this crate.”

  “So the captain can see his girlfriend?”

  “Shh,” he says, and he winks. “Engine trouble, remember?”

  “Right. Engine trouble.”

  The sun seems to flush the clouds after that, shimmers of light receding, flashing, and the water becomes muddier. I see only the tops of trees where whole islands used to be because of the rising water, and I look up at folks looking down from an L-shaped bridge, watching them watching me. On the other side of bridge, I see a magnificent old steamboat, the American Queen, tied up near a sign on a hillside that says “Marietta” in all capital letters. When we don’t stop right away or turn up another river we pass, I wonder how or if we’re going to get to Marietta at all. Maybe we’re not stopping.

  Farther south, though, we slide into a long dock on the Ohio side, railroad tracks just up a hill, and men stream out from under me throwing lines, laughing, joking, and generally whooping it up. But it’s not like a regular dock with people there waiting for us. It’s kind of all by itself at the edge of some woods.

  “And how is that dysentery, Mr. Mann?”

  I turn to see the captain wearing nearly the same thing as I’m wearing. “
Better, much better.”

  “Are you well enough to disembark?” he asks.

  “I think so.”

  He shoots out a hand, and I shake it. “It was good to have you aboard, Mr. Mann. I hope you have a safe journey from here on.”

  Which means I can’t come back. “Uh, yeah. I can make my way back. Thanks for the ride.”

  He turns to go then pivots back to me, squinting. “You were lucky this time, Mr. Mann. Next time you do any canoeing, don’t do it at night in the middle of a river during a rainstorm.”

  Canoeing? I haven’t been in a canoe since Camp Allequippa. “Yes, sir. Thanks for the advice.”

  He steps closer and hands me a roll of bills. “The men wanted you to have this, for your trouble. There ought to be enough there for bus fare back to Pittsburgh.”

  There has to be two or three hundred dollars in my hand. Just having it there, feeling it in my hand, starts me thinking about things I don’t want to think about. And I hear a voice, an old scratchy voice …

  It’ll feel so good, Manny, so good …

  God, I’m starting to sweat. “I can’t take this.” I put it out in front of me palm up.

  So good, like liquid sunshine.

  He doesn’t take the money. “The men collected it just for you, Mr. Mann.”

  “Yeah, but …” And now my mouth is watering.

  Just a little stick, and the world will be golden warm.

  I take a twenty and shove the rest into the captain’s hand. “Let them, uh, let them have a nice dinner out. On me.”

  The captain blinks. “You have a problem with our cook?”