02/03: Hard Weather
Posted by: Captain Forehead
The weather turns hard. It is cold and getting colder. We stand around a pile of broken furniture and trash set alight. The smoke is probably not healthy, which is why I have placed myself upwind. The other guys do not seem to care — not sure why I do. I know it is Sunday because there is a small hand-held radio on and we are all feigning great interest in a football game, as if we had something beyond limp loyalty to wager. Christmas is near, the decorations the city has lined the streets of the shopping district with indicate. They did not decorate this shantytown hiding behind abandoned buildings and rubbish — Matilda did, hanging a wreath she stole off of the front door of a fancy pet store attached to the front of her shopping cart. As cheery as that may be, it is cold and getting colder.
Rubbing the hands of once greatness together, flames stretching to lick the flesh, I shook my head, again in self-disgust. I know things must change. I know I must do something. But what? How? Where is the energy, the passion for goodness when the day grinds you into the ground? When you are crushed by exhaustion in the course of accomplishing nothing, what is left to do something — especially when the something is as rewarding to those who are helped as it is to the soul, but does nothing to help put a roof over your head, and roofs are nice is something learned when they are absent. (I always took roofs for granted, thinking they were just another example of man’s growing softness, until I began living without one and felt nature’s relentless coarse caress.)
I take a deep breath. The air is thick, so much so that I feel I can chew what I am breathing — but who wants to chew the putrid stench of nature’s recycling decay? Perhaps breathing the heavy soot coming off of the burning pile is not such a bad idea.
“Nah,” I grunt, passing on the bottle making its rounds.
“Here,” Du grunts back.
I may not want to drink this time, but I still need to pass the bottle along. Taking the bottle, I prepare to pass it along, but Geez cannot take it from my hand. He tries, but something righteous within will not let it go.
The alcohol in this bottle, it is doing no good. What would happen with these men, with me, if we stopped numbing ourselves to the day, causing all days to become a giant blur? Something to consider, to discuss perhaps, except that before the conversation can occur, Geez tugs with all of his might, using both hands, and pulls the bottle from my hand. Only he did not have control of it himself and it fell to the ground. Three men diving to save the bottle were not quick enough. The bottle bounced off of its edge. The fire sniffed the alcohol and swallowed it quickly, providing a rush of warmth. All were stunned, staring at the grimy face of one once glowing goodness.
It might have been a good time to discuss what we were doing using alcohol to escape any purpose in life, but they were not in a mood to talk. En masse, they rushed my gentle and generous soul and began to punch and kick me as they insulted me incoherently. I did not feel threatened by the feeble, barely pulsing men, so simply absorbed the hits into my frailing body. Coming from the other side of the building I heard carolers singing “We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.” I am not sure if I actually heard the last words or finished it myself, as I was struck in the head with a blunt object — a brick — and knocked beyond subconscious.
My head is killing me. The bump is sore, tender. No one seems to know who threw the brick. No one really cares where anarchy rules. They seem really pissed about the booze. Did I have a hand in doing a little good? In reducing the severity of inebriation? In giving them one day not numbed? Does it matter? Do I care any more than they care?
What I do know is I am alive and I want to live. Not like this, this is not living. I know that this is not where I belong. Checking my pockets I find nothing. I remember the emergency money in my small change pocket: $32, folded tight and small. It’s a start.
The breath of another day is a start, and all any of us needs is a start.
A start. We need only to begin to succeed.
Rubbing the hands of once greatness together, flames stretching to lick the flesh, I shook my head, again in self-disgust. I know things must change. I know I must do something. But what? How? Where is the energy, the passion for goodness when the day grinds you into the ground? When you are crushed by exhaustion in the course of accomplishing nothing, what is left to do something — especially when the something is as rewarding to those who are helped as it is to the soul, but does nothing to help put a roof over your head, and roofs are nice is something learned when they are absent. (I always took roofs for granted, thinking they were just another example of man’s growing softness, until I began living without one and felt nature’s relentless coarse caress.)
I take a deep breath. The air is thick, so much so that I feel I can chew what I am breathing — but who wants to chew the putrid stench of nature’s recycling decay? Perhaps breathing the heavy soot coming off of the burning pile is not such a bad idea.
“Nah,” I grunt, passing on the bottle making its rounds.
“Here,” Du grunts back.
I may not want to drink this time, but I still need to pass the bottle along. Taking the bottle, I prepare to pass it along, but Geez cannot take it from my hand. He tries, but something righteous within will not let it go.
The alcohol in this bottle, it is doing no good. What would happen with these men, with me, if we stopped numbing ourselves to the day, causing all days to become a giant blur? Something to consider, to discuss perhaps, except that before the conversation can occur, Geez tugs with all of his might, using both hands, and pulls the bottle from my hand. Only he did not have control of it himself and it fell to the ground. Three men diving to save the bottle were not quick enough. The bottle bounced off of its edge. The fire sniffed the alcohol and swallowed it quickly, providing a rush of warmth. All were stunned, staring at the grimy face of one once glowing goodness.
It might have been a good time to discuss what we were doing using alcohol to escape any purpose in life, but they were not in a mood to talk. En masse, they rushed my gentle and generous soul and began to punch and kick me as they insulted me incoherently. I did not feel threatened by the feeble, barely pulsing men, so simply absorbed the hits into my frailing body. Coming from the other side of the building I heard carolers singing “We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.” I am not sure if I actually heard the last words or finished it myself, as I was struck in the head with a blunt object — a brick — and knocked beyond subconscious.
My head is killing me. The bump is sore, tender. No one seems to know who threw the brick. No one really cares where anarchy rules. They seem really pissed about the booze. Did I have a hand in doing a little good? In reducing the severity of inebriation? In giving them one day not numbed? Does it matter? Do I care any more than they care?
What I do know is I am alive and I want to live. Not like this, this is not living. I know that this is not where I belong. Checking my pockets I find nothing. I remember the emergency money in my small change pocket: $32, folded tight and small. It’s a start.
The breath of another day is a start, and all any of us needs is a start.
A start. We need only to begin to succeed.
