dmseay

Silence. Dead quiet. No noise. Nothing.  No frogs or crickets. Wrong year for cicadas. Too early for semis on 41 in the darkness of morning. Soon, it will be light. 

I sit here in this men’s room at a closed gas station south of Chicago. There is shit smeared on the walls. The smell of a urine soaked floor keeps me awake. Water from a faucet slowly drips. Writing on the mirror states, Jose Was Here, in a smeared silver color. Where is he now?

I crack the door open and see the beginnings of the day. Lights on poles turned off. The sun cracks through clouds. Time eludes me. I only know night and day. Light and darkness.

Bills in my pocket are gone. Small change jingles loosely in jeans that are now too big for me. I have three cigarettes left. Body aches. Forty-five miles left on my journey. Hog butcher for the world, Sandburg said. Hog butcher for the world indeed.

A station wagon filled with junk, trash, and various items pulls up. He rolls down his window and sees me leaning on a parking post. It’s an old man with a white  beard and red suspenders. Wire frame glasses on the tip of his nose.

Where you heading? He asks.

Chicago. 

I can drop you on the Southside, he tells me. Over by back of the yards. Is that cool?

Yeah. Sure. Thanks.

You wouldn’t have any gas money, would you? I move my head from side to side. I see. Well. Get in.

I open the door and place my feet among crushed beer cans. Plastic Pepsi bottles. Cartons of cigarettes.

You smoke? He asks.

Yeah. I got three left. Trying to save them.

Open up that carton of Viceroys and take a pack. Go on. I know what it’s like to be broke.

Thanks.

What’s in Chicago?

Poetry, I tell him.

Hog butcher for the world, he says. Hog butcher for the world. We both laughed. Read a lot of Sandburg?

Some. When I was in college. Mostly stick with the Beats these days.

Ginsberg. Kerouac. Gary Snyder.

Yeah.

I dig them, too.

The old man dropped me off at a gas station on the far Southside. I’ll be damned if he didn’t give me a twenty.

Spend it wisely

I saluted him as he drove off. Stuffed the green in my pocket. Lit a smoke and began my walk up Halsted. Past Canaryville. Past Bridgeport. Past Maxwell Street. Past Greektown. Past sins I’ve committed. Welcome to Chicago.  Hog butcher for the world.

Flowers on curtains. Sunlight coming through blinds. A wooden mantle with framed pictures on it; some in color, others black and white. The air-conditioner whines.

I sit here staring out the window in the late month of August, hoping October comes soon. Green. It is too green. What was fresh in April is now dull to the senses.

Give me death. Orange, rust, and yellow with reds turning brown, withering, falling to the ground. Kids marching through piles of nature on their way home from school. Jackets buttoned. Noses running. Lips chapped. Summer has left us.

I wait for the dying months. The frozen ground. Ice on wires. Salt on sidewalks. Winter’s seasoning. Every year, the same great flavor. Death  never disappoints.

Things never go according to plan, he said. You can try. Try all you want. You’ll still get stuck in the middle.

Right, Junior said. Truest words you’ve ever spoken.  Seems like everything up to this point has been a lie, he stirred his coffee. Like when we were kids. You said there was no Santa Claus. Well, I wasn’t ready to hear that just then. It angered me.

Santa Claus angered you? Some fictional character’s non-existentence angered you? Said the old man.

And that time you told me the dog ran away.

Right.

You killed it, dad. Shot it out in the woods.

So what if I did? You weren’t taking care of it.

The son took a sip of coffee. He lit a cigarette. Pointed to his father lying in bed. It’ll catch up with you. It’ll all some day catch up with you.

You think so?

Yeah.

We’ll see.

You’re an evil man, pop. Just plain evil. The devil made you in his own image.

They both laughed.  Maybe so, dad said. Maybe so.

Let me ask you something. You ever cheated on mom?

I’ve cheated on everyone. 

The old man closed his eyes. He did not wake up.

There’s no directions on how to do this, he said. No map charting out the territory. Not even a compass. We just go. Travel out of instinct.  Follow our guts, Denny told him.

Guts, huh? You’ve done this before? Right? Tom lit a cigarette. 

Don’t smoke.

What?

No smoking for right now. They’ll smell it on you, Denny turned the ignition. Gotta go in there clean. No smells. No food or alcohol. No smoking. Nothing. Hear me?

Yeah. I hear you. Loud and clear, boss.

Hey. You don’t have to do this. I can find someone else, Denny said. You weren’t my first pick.

Hmmm. I see.

You weren’t even my second.

Got desperate, did you? Tom laughed.

Right.

They drove down the street in the Dodge Dart. The dice wrapped around the mirror bounced as they went over potholes.

Did you ever read Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky? Denny asked Tom.

Who? What?

A book by Dostoyevsky. A Russian. Went off to Siberia under arrest. They were going to kill him. His life was spared. Anyway. Long story short. He wrote Crime and Punishment. About this kid who kills an old woman. Think it takes place in St. Petersburg, Denny paused. There’s this detective in it. Kind of like a Columbo character.  He’s investigating this Crime. He keeps going back. Asking questions.  Denny laughed. You should read it.

Tom pulled his gun out. Placed an unlit cigarette to his lips. Made sure the clip was in the firing arm. I don’t read, he said.

No? What are you? Some kind of Neanderthal?

I’ve had enough of you. Pull over.

What?

I said, pull over.

Fine.

Look. I don’t like you and you don’t like me. Let’s just get this done. OK?

Yeah.

Right?

Sure.

Tom placed the gun back in his pants and accidentally pulled the trigger.

Jesus, Denny yelled. Jesus H. Christ. Your fucking nuts are blown off.

Tom’s head leaned against the window. He shrieked in pain. Crying. Yelling.

We gotta get you to a doctor. An emergency room.

And tell them what?

Good point.

Just shoot me, Tom told him. Put the gun to my head and shoot me.

Denny did as requested.

I tried to tell you, he said to her. Tried to tell you all about it, she blew smoke in his face. This is truth. And truth scares people. Makes them run away.

I’m not going anywhere, she told him. Why should I? ‘Sides, I got no place to run.

Right. We both burned bridges a long time ago. Can’t go to Philly or D.C. Baltimore is out of the question.  Hell, there’s folks looking for us in Chicago, too.

She took a drink of her whiskey.  Well, she said. We’re running low.

Yeah.

Gotta figure something out.

Right, he scratched his forehead.

How much money you got? She asked with a smile.

Hundred bucks.

That’ll get one of us to New York. She put her head in her hand with her elbow bent.

What’re you saying?

Put me on a Greyhound to New York. You can hitchhike. Here’s fifty. Keep it. You’ll need it. We’ll meet in Washington Square a week from today. At noon.

You sure about this? The kid asked.

We’re in a jam. Get to New York and start all over again.

He slid the hundred over to her.

You’ll see. Everything will work out fine.

Washington Square? He asked.

Yeah. She kissed him. We’re going back there. This time, it’ll be different.

I hope so.

Trust me.

OK.

Make sure your phone is charged. I’ll text you on the way. She got off the barstool. Bye for now.

Washington Square?

Yeah. Everything will be fine.

OK. I love you.

I love you, too.

What were you going to tell me?

Nothing. Nothing at all.

They sit on a leather couch with holes in it, burn marks from cigarettes. The television is a small black and white with rabbit ears pointed up towards the ceiling. Orange and white Christmas lights blink on an old plastic tree in the corner. It is August.

The Andy Griffith Show is on. This is the one where Jack Nicholson is being framed for a crime. Andy knows he’s innocent.

Sheriff Taylor is a very wise man, he says. He’s a fair man. One who stands with the law. Beers were popped open. The old man offered her one. The young lady took a drink and placed it on the hardwood floor in front of them. He held his. Felt the coldness of the can in his hand and wiped his forehead with the condensation.

I’m glad you could come over, the fat man says. Nobody ever comes anymore. Not my kids. Or my cousins. Nobody. I don’t even know who my next-door neighbor is. He laughed. But I’m glad you stopped by.

My pleasure, she told him. The chubby brunette lit a smoke as well. Jack Nicholson behind bars. Behind bars. Ain’t that something. 

Yeah. This must’ve been way before Easy Rider.

Easy what?

Easy Rider, he said. Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Nicholson, who plays George Hanson, ride motorcycles across the United States. The old man took another swig of beer. Fonda’s character is called Captain America. Can’t tell you how it ends. Heartbreaking.  The end of the American dream.

That so?

Yeah. He walked over to the TV and turned the sound down. Looked at the clock. Well. I guess it’s about that time. He reaches in his pocket and pulls out four twenty dollar bills. Here, he tells her. Take it.

You don’t want me to do anything?

Oh, honey. You’ve done enough.

OK. Call me again sometime. My number’s in the book.

The old man nodded and opened the door for her. He turned up the television set. It was The Twilight Zone. Jack Klugman was a trumpet player who pawned his horn. He sat and watched. Drank his beer. And thought about her.

Crickets chirping. A frog splashes from lily pad to lily pad. Wild dogs run in packs. Howling. Barking. A bear growls.

The shack is run down. Boards missing. A rusted roof with holes in it. A wet dewy ground of yellow grass is the floor. A folding chair in the corner.

He sits outside in the rain, watching the light show in the sky. Lightning in streaks. Yellow and white. Kind of blue in midnight’s sky. He waits for a calm.

Sticks and logs on fire. Bologna on a stick. A sleeve of Ritz crackers. Some old potatoes with eyes. He peels the skin with a pocket knife. Boils them over a flame. Takes count in his head just how much food he has left. He’s fine for a week. 

Dollar bills in a metal lock box. A thousand bucks. He gave his fortune to the ex-wife; looks at her picture now and then.

A tall blonde with blue eyes. She always wore red lipstick. Rouge on her cheeks. Eye liner. She was sweet and nice. She earned it.

That was years ago when he was a city dweller. Back when he cheated people out of money through stocks and bonds. The highest bidder wins.

Now he does nothing but reads the books he brought out to the woods. The Odyssey, The Iliad, The Holy Bible (King James). Each book with a hero. A traveler. Men in search of truth. So many questions.

The lightning has stopped. No rumbles of thunder. He crawls into his shack and closes his eyes. He is at peace.

He knocked on the door wearing a suit bought at Goodwill. Wrinkled.  Faded brown with pinstripes. A pair of wingtips with holes in the bottom. Worn-out soles. No one answered.

As he walked down Broadway, he noticed trash on the sidewalks. Burnt foil, glass pipes, Zig-Zag wrappers, a half chewed chocolate bar, brown newspapers, crushed beer cans, all of it making a trail of no precise pattern. Just city debris. Waiting for no one. Fossils that had been there for years.

Cats crossed in front of him as he took a seat on the curb; knees up to his chest. The old man took out a pack of Newports and selected one. There were three left. No change in his pocket, just loose lint and a book of matches three quarters used. The wind blew out most of them.

The saggy man used to have a Zippo given to him from a friend he stood up for at a wedding. It was copper, and it shined. He cried when the groom gave it to him on the steps of the court house. The best man knew he wouldn’t see him again. He knew his rowdy days were over. Wives do that to you.

These days, he flew solo. In and out of seedy bars. Buttered toast at a three a.m. diner. Sanka stirred in a cup. It’s lonely at the top, he whispered, laughed.

So. She wasn’t home, he said to himself. Or, with some other guy, shook his head. What do you want with her anyway? Just cost me money, I don’t have. He got up and began walking again. Jumping over cracks. Singing in a low voice. September Song.

A tiny spider crawls across the bathroom floor. Dogs bark from far away. Torn blankets covered the boy.

He sat in the rocking chair, flipping through channels. News programs, midnight movies, old television shows, and a cooking program flash across the screen. The fat man sips coffee and chews on miniature candy bars in a glass dish beside him. He looks over at the wrapped body; he ain’t moving.

A cigarette burns in the ashtray. The big man rolls another. He is skilled at this. In the homeless shelters, he used to sell packs of them for a few bucks. That was back in Denver when he was traveling across the country in a rusted Chevy pickup. Long hair blowing in the breeze with the windows down. Radio tuned to different stations as he hopped from one town to another. Talk radio, oldies, and country music kept him awake along with the smells of alfalfa fields, cow shit, and diesel exhaust. He was a long way from Albuquerque.

But now, a body lies there with a couple of bullet holes in it. Johnny walked over and kicked the dead hustler. Not moving, are you? He says. Stay right there. Don’t go anywhere. He laughs and grabs a gas can from under the kitchen sink. Johnny skips around the stiff and pours gasoline all over the blankets. That should do it.

A match is lit and thrown. Another and another are tossed down and begin to ignite. He watches for a bit. Says goodbye. And walks out the door.

As Johnny pulls out of the driveway, he watches as the whole house catches fire. He stops for a minute from down the dirt road and nods his head.

Doing the Lord’s work, he whispers. Doing the Lord’s work.

I listen to jazz from a transistor radio. Boil my water for instant coffee on a hot plate. My refrigerator is small and holds my beer and bread, peanut butter, a bottle of vodka, and an orange or two. There’s a small sink below a medicine cabinet with a mirror on it. Every day, I look in that mirror and watch closely as wrinkles form, skin becomes leather, and hair turns gray. Where did he go?

Years ago, I walked all over Manhattan. Going into bars, jazz clubs, diners at four in the morning. I looked immaculate. 

Slick the black hair back. Put on a sports coat. A pair of suede shoes. Pants that fit just right. A cigarette dangling from my lips; thinking I was Mickey Rourke or Brando. The pope of Greenwich Village indeed.

Women came and went. Leaving me behind for some salesman. Maybe a dentist. Someone with a future. A home in Connecticut. A brownstone on the Westside. They sought higher opportunities.

And here I am. Still in the city. Still hungry, but with a gut. The legs are weak. Voice is scratchy. People change. 

Coltrane plays on the radio.