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A/n This is the first original story that I have ever written. EVER
I feel that there may be different versions of this story in the future. There are potentially many different places I can take this plot line. But I wanted to put this piece out there and get some feedback.
Personally I believe that the iPod is the greatest invention in the history of man. No other invention had such an impact on my life.
The Toilet? I’ve never had to wipe feces and piss off my nano’s 2-inch diagonal LCD display with blue-white LED backlight.
Telephone? The last thing I need in the world is for people to have more convenient access to me 24/7.
The Clock? No universal time actually exists, only a local one. So really what’s the point? When the sun comes up it’s the daytime, when it goes down its nighttime. That’s all you really need to know.
Antibiotics? Man got along just find for a couple thousand years with only the use of herbs, leeches and mud. Antibiotics have been around for what, a hundred years? And are we really any healthier today?
The Computer? I’m not to sure about the details but I’m positive that computers were involved in the creation of nuclear bombs. And besides, if we’ve learned anything from The Matrix, I Robot and the Terminator, computers will eventually turn on us humans. Trust me, its science.
Anyway the weirdness started on a chilly Monday morning that had a distinct Thursday afternoon vibe to it. With my iPod in hand I stepped onto the balcony of my penthouse apartment. As tradition dictated, in the spirit of meditation, I allowed myself to get lost in the magical 180 degree view of the New York City skyline.
Ah, New York. I’d describe the breathtaking sight but really what more can be said about Manhattan that hasn’t already been said in a dozen Woody Allen movies? So I turned my attention to the sleek iPod nano in hand, running my forefinger across the anodized aluminum top and polished stainless steel back.
The little gadget in my hand wasn’t just a luxury item it was also a handy tool to my trade. Through no fault of my own I happen to be an inspiring writer. I discovered early on in life that certain genres of music could invoke deep emotions that I normally wouldn’t have access to.
So far my iPod held jazz, jazz funk, funk, blues, soul and r&b, fusion, boss nova, reggae and dub, neo soul and hip hop, trip hop and down tempo electronica, classic rock, alternative rock, heavy metal, grunge, punk rock, glam rock, pop rock, 80’s pop, 90’s pop, adult contemporary, easy listening, country music, even some classical stuff. The iPod wows you for hours. It’ll play up to 5 hours of video or up to 24 hours of audio on a single charge. All within that wafer-thin, 6.5-mm profile that makes the iPod nano one small big attraction, at the risk of sounding like a commercial, I can honestly say I have had some of the best times of my life with only my iPod and my brain.
Please understand an iPod is an introvert’s best friend and lover depending on what type of videos are on your drive.
For this to make sense, I will have to define what it means to be an introvert. Contrary to popular belief this does not mean that I am shy, nor does it mean I have poor social skills. Introverts by definition are people who are more concerned with the inner world of their own mind than the external world. Sometimes to the point where they come to find that interacting with others quickly becomes a draining experience. What does this mean? Well, while an extrovert will find interacting with other people energizing, an introvert will need to follow social interaction with time alone.
Personally I find that for every hour I spend socializing, I need at least another five to myself. I will lock myself in the bathroom, if necessary, to get it - even if I’m at a party.
But like other civilized people, I’ve got responsibilities: grocery shopping, finishing college, going to work, returning movie rentals and occasionally visiting friends and family.
That’s where the iPod comes in. Nothing says “piss off’ and “leave me alone” more effectively than an iPod. Hell, even if you are not listening to anything just stick the buds in your ear and nine times out of ten, unless there’s an emergency or you’re being robbed, no one will bother you.
And that’s just the way I like it.
So my fingers dance across my electronic miracle and I settled on the play lists entitled “The Sprint” The pulsating beats of Michael Jackson’s “Beat it” blare in my ears as I leave the apartment. By the time I hit the lobby I was jamming to Eddie Van Halen’s legendary riff.
Thanks to iPod magic the doorman doesn’t say a word to me as I shuffled past him. A simple exchange of nods is all that is needed for me to acknowledge his existence. By that point I had completely given myself to the song, I was seconds away from grabbing my crotch and breaking out into the moonwalk when I bump into someone. Instinctively I secured my iPod with my left hand and I check for my wallet with the other.
Now don’t get the wrong idea, it’s true that the streets of New York have gotten safer over the years but information like that only impresses the tourists. Real New Yorkers know that if you’re not careful, chances are you’ll take a brick to the back of your head and wake up with your kidney missing.
Or worst of all someone might steal your iPod.
My valuables protected I turned to the bumpee’ and came face to face with my next door neighbor, the ever pretentious and snobby Sam Childs. Sam is a young, ambitious, and well-educated city-dweller who has a professional career and an affluent lifestyle. I.E he was a yuppie.
Sam was the kind of guy who goes out of his way to talk to you about restaurants you couldn’t afford, movies you would never see, and women you would never have. He was a babbling brook of pompous bullshit, and worst of all his chit-chats go on longer than lent. But everyone has their purpose in life, at times when at my lowest I’ve had my spirits lifted by the singular notion that “at least I can kick Sam’s ass”
I let out a guttural growl that most people in Manhattan would recognize as the universal grunt of apology. New York etiquette dictates that one would wait for a return grunt but I didn’t want my hesitation to be misconstrued as willingness for conversation. At this point in my life I’d gnaw off my leg like a coyote just to get out of bad conversation
But to my surprise, without saying another word, he pushed past me and stalked into the building, leaving me confused and shaken.
“Whatever.” I said.
I turned away, gave a homeless man at the end of the block the cold shoulder, and then discreetly slipped into the sea of bodies that is the streets of Manhattan.
Things didn’t get weird until I was minutes away from home and my iPod cut off.
Right in the middle of “Manic Monday” by the Bangles
This amazed me, forgetting to charge my iPod was akin to me forgetting to wake up; blast through the day; forgetting to breathe even.
As I’m checking the equipment, I notice the homeless man from earlier is still there and something about him catches my eye. Or more specifically my eyes were drawn to him like they were being pulled by tractor beams.
He was African American. His clothes were predictably tattered, filthy and loose fitting. He is an older gentleman, with wisps of grey in his scraggly beard. There’s food, vomit and a few other unidentifiable stains on his overcoat; they compliment the deep cuts on his overalls. The big toe on his left foot peeks through a hole in his sneakers. (Those sneakers by the way were the cheapest pair of sneakers I’d ever seen in my life, seriously if they weren’t stapled together than crazy glue had to have been involved.) A coffee cup presumably filled with coins and a New York Yankees cap accentuates the rest of the outfit.
Oh and his face was glowing.
And I don’t mean that his face was glowing in the dusk of the day or something fruity like that. His was literally glowing, like a beacon.
My head swiveled back and forth, didn’t anyone else see this? I know New Yorkers were infamous for not caring but this guy’s face was aglow. That had to warrant at least a pause.
An old woman approached and I deftly stepped into her path. “Hey Lady,” I pointed to the bum. “Don’t you see his face? Isn’t there something wrong with that?”
She sticks her large nose haughtily into the air. “You’d think, in this day and age, we’d learn not to judge others on the color of their skin, but on the merits of their actions.”
The old bag walked over to the bum and dropped what looked like a dime into his cup
He thanked the woman and continued leaning against the building in a casual pose, as if his face wasn’t shining like a lighthouse on a misty shore.
“Hey, man. Are you ok?” I asked eventually.
He eyed me curiously before extending the cup out in my direction. “Spare some change.”
“What? Forget about the change dude. Why is your face glowing?”
He paused before looking me up and down. Then he stared at me with a blank expression on his face that quickly turned to one of sadness. I thought I saw a look of pity in his eyes, like I was some derelict mental case.
My stomach churned. That look totally pissed me off (I’ve got a bit of a temper, I’ll be the last to deny that).
“I’m not the crazy one, you are. You’re the one who is… homeless… and… ” Right when I was in the middle of the verbally tearing the bum a new one, it happened. For the first time.
I want to see her
“Did you just say something?”
The funny thing was; I knew he couldn’t have, because I was staring right at him and I didn’t see his mouth move.
“I didn’t say anything.” he replied.
I want to see her
The voice, I wasn’t hearing it, as much as it was echoing in my brain. It was the bum’s voice I was sure but his mouth wasn’t moving.
“How are you doing that?”
His right eyebrow arched and he examined me carefully. “Son, are you ok?”
I heard his voice again in my head and it was like ice water on my skin. So I turned on my heels and rushed home.
That night as I lay in my bed drifting off to sleep, I heard police sirens in the distance. A car alarm blared for a very long time, and every once in awhile I swear I would hear someone coughing loudly. And it would be immediately be followed by
I miss her
The sun didn’t come up the next day, or at least if it did you couldn’t see it under the gray clouds and through the drizzling rain. Weather like this seemed to dampen the usually noisy hustle and bustle of the city, and in my opinion, this was perfect weather for one to stay home and write. But I wasn’t at home, I wasn’t typing away in a warm and dry environment, I was standing in the rain staring at a homeless man.
And he was staring back.
And Mick Jagger was in my ear letting me know that love was just a kiss away.
We had been staring at each other now for about fifteen minutes, and the voice hadn’t returned. Additionally the old bum’s face was no longer glowing. Oh his face was deep and pensive with an aura of glow and radiance, but it wasn’t glowing.
I was a heartbeat away from dismissing the phenomenon as a random display of insanity, when the vagabond stepped forward.
His mouth moved and I heard “Street life, hell in the city. You got to really watch out for that street life. Say, it ain't pretty. You got to know your way around, or somehow you might get hurt… get hurt… get hurt.”
It took me thirty seconds to realize that it was Neil Diamond singing and not the old man. So I pulled out my ear buds and I was shocked to find that his face was now like the sun, shining in all its brilliance.
Instinctively I took half a step back.
A writers curse I suppose but there was a story here, I could feel it, though I couldn’t entirely dismiss the fact that I was insane. I was almost certain by now that if the old bum was really glowing, I was the only one who could see it.
He said, “Listen. I’m just trying to make some money here. Why are you messing with me? Is this how you get off? Messing with the homeless… ”
I slip the ear buds back on, now the Grateful Dead are beginning to jam and the glowing disappears.
I took the buds off and the glowing returned “Are you listening – “
On. “I know these rails we're on, like I know my lady's smile. We see a dozen dreams in every passing mile.”
Again Grateful Dead, but no shining.
Off. “Sir, do you speak English?”
It was insane. As I desperately tried to wrap my mind around what was happening to me, the old man started off down the street.
“Who is she, why don’t you just go see her?” I had no idea where these words had come from but before I knew it they were tumbling out of my mouth.
He stopped in his tracks.
Using the heel of my right palm I vigorously massaged my forehead “Did she die? Is that why you can’t go see her, because she died?”
He turned and looked at me. Face full of surprise. He licked his lips “What did you just say?”
There came an undercurrent of tension. I became overcome with feelings that sprang up abruptly. It was a sense of regret so intense that it staggered me. Somehow I knew that this emotion had not been born internally but was pouring into me from an outside source. But with the regret came a small revelation. I took in a deep breath. “No she’s not dead, she’s alive. And you’re ashamed.”
He charged at me and before I could put up a guard he had me by the collar.
“Who are you? What do you know about my daughter, Jasmine?”
The second he said her name I felt a jolt through my spine and something paramount to an icy hand clutching my heart. If that last hit I got felt like a wave of emotion this was a torrent and it was an assault on all five of my senses.
I heard the clink of ice cubes being dropped into a shot glass. I smelt the sweet scent of whiskey. I see its amber glow behind the glass. I taste the fiery aggressiveness of the liquor in my mouth. And I feel a tiny hand tugging at my pant line around the knees, trying to pull me away.
Finally I was swamped by a deep sense of regret and sadness. And when I came to he was still holding me by the collar, patient and calm, and yet I felt him shaking.
I want to see her
I understood now what I had felt was what he was going through. But I knew that I only had a few pieces of the puzzle.
“Maybe, I can help. Let me help” I muttered.
His eyes blaze for a moment but then he seems to regain some control and he let me go.
“Is there a problem here?”
The doorman appeared and the old man put his hands up to his shoulders. “I don’t want any trouble. I’ll be leaving now.”
“Wait!” My legs wobble, I was pretty sure they wouldn’t hold me up much longer so I take a seat right there on the sidewalk “I can help!” I shouted after him. He didn’t show any sign that he heard me. He just continued to walk away.
“Are you alright, Sir? Shall I call the police?” The doorman asked.
“No, I’m fine” I replied. “I’m cool.”
Needless to say I didn’t get much sleep. Too many things were running through my head at once. I mean what was this power… Was power the right word for what it? And if it was a power, where did I get it from. Why did it seem to go away when I was listening to music? Did I have this ability all my life, if so why had it been dormant until now? What triggered it now at this stage of my life?
And if that wasn’t enough, I how can I explain this… I felt that I still had some “residue” of the old man’s regret leftover inside me. In my soul. Though the feeling wasn’t as raw as it was earlier, I still couldn’t shake the feeling off completely.
I would eventually dub the entire incident “the weirdness.”
The next morning, when I stepped out of the building, the old man was there waiting for me.
“So you want to help me?” he inquired.
“Do you need help?”
“I do”
“Then I want to help you.”
“Why?”
It was a good question. I wasn’t A Good Samaritan by any stretch of the imagination. There was an interesting here of course, but there was more to it then that, after what happened yesterday I felt obligated to help.
“It’s…..because it’s absurd. You know the clash between make-believe and reality. Absurdity always makes for a great story.”
I guess it was a good enough answer for the old man because he just shrugged. “I can’t show up at her doorstep like this.”
“Well you know sex appeal is fifty percent what you've got and fifty percent what people think you've got.”
He looked at me like he was making some sort of decision. “You’re not, uh.” he extended out his arm and I took notice of his limp wrist.
“No that was a joke,”
“Oh, ok. The name is James by the way.”
“Weren’t you in the Shawshank Redemption?”
James stared at me with lost eyes.
“I’m Ben.” I told him. We shook hands.
He nodded. “So, son, where do we go from here?”
So I got philosophical.
Whenever I reach a critical juncture in my life I tend to get philosophical. I got philosophical when I left home to go to college (a decision I made on the basis that I was tired of talking to my family). I got philosophical when I broke up with my longtime girlfriend after she accused me of being emotionally distant. I got philosophical the eve before I decided to sit down and bang out my first novel.
For all intents and purposes having a strange homeless man bathe in your home has to be considered a critical juncture in one’s life. So I took a minute to wax philosophically.
Then I turned on the T.V.
Same old stuff in the news. Serious assaults, arson, nothing out of the ordinary for the most part. But there was one news item that caught my attention
The night before a mutilated body had been found in an alley just a few blocks from my apartment. What made this different from any other murder was that hieroglyphics had been painted in blood on the alley wall. It was the second such killing in three months. This must have been a huge story for a while. They had already given the killer a stupid nickname, the “Wall Street Slasher”.
It didn’t really make any sense but it had a nice ring to it.
As I was getting into the story I catch something through the corner of my eyes that shocked me to the core. I glanced over to see a full-grown black adult man approach me, naked as the day he was born.
He stood before me with water dripping from every appendage “You didn’t leave me any clothes.”
“I did, they were on the towel rack… next to the towels that you could have used to cover yourself up. “
“Oh right.” We stare at each other, together in quiet. The powerful glow around his face had been reduced to a waning light.
He sighed. “Well this is awkward.”
Awkward? Awkward was when my cousin broke into loud sobs one Christmas eve and instead of consoling her I went into the next room to watch basketball. (She kept on crying as the game went into triple overtime) That was awkward, this… there were no words strong enough for what this was.
“Ah, well.” he turned and went back in the direction of the bathroom.
I wondered briefly if I was making a tremendous error in judgment. But a commercial for Bose Quiet Comfort noise-canceling-headphones threw me off track.
Five minutes later I’m settling into a documentary about Hitler’s Last Days when James walked into my field of vision. He was now wearing a white T-shirt, jeans and some old sneakers.
“These clothes are a little loose.” he told me.
“Beggars can’t be choosers” I snorted. But my joyful mirth was cut off when I saw the gigantic sandwich and the can of light beer in his clutches. He threw himself onto the couch and placed the sandwich on a pillow.
“Where did you get that?” I asked.
“Kitchen.” he said nonchalantly “Hey, I was in your bedroom and I noticed that you had a lot of compact disks.”
There were a lot of things about that sentence that made me mad, but his attitude is the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“Did you touch anything in my room because I will kill you if you did. Trust me I will be swift and I will kill you.”
He blinked once or twice. “I didn’t touch anything.”
“Good because I don’t need you screwing around in there. There is a lot of expensive electronics in my room.”
“I noticed.” he took a big bite of the sandwich and starting chewing very slowly, savoring every second that he had quality food in his mouth. An eternity later he finally swallowed.
“You really need all that crap?” he asked abruptly.
I let the statement process in my mind before laughing out loud. “I get it now; you’re bat-shit crazy.”
“That’s no way to talk to a guest.”
I stifled a curse. “Guest? What kind of piece of shit third-world country is your behavior considered guest-like?”
He winced. “Young man, George Washington once said that only the foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing, it is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it. You catch my drift.”
“Of course, I understand completely, you’re bat-shit crazy. What the hell am I doing? Letting a bat-shit crazy homeless man into my house?”
“Hell I’m the one who willingly walked into a strange white man’s home. You could be that killer that everyone’s after for all I know. I’m the one taking all the risks.”
It was time to put all the pieces together. “So why are you here then?”
“Because you said you’d help.”
“I could have been lying”
“Indeed you could be. But it’s not everyday that a white man, who appears to be able to read minds, shows up and offers you help in the time of need. That’s not the kind of thing you ignore.”
“I can’t really read minds, I just… ” What the hell did I do? “I just kind of felt what you were feeling… I think.”
“Interesting.” he added casually.
“So, Jasmine, she’s your daughter. How long has it been since you’ve last seen her?”
“Just about twenty years.” he stared past the T.V into the past. His eyes moved back and forth as he watched a scene from long ago. “A few months ago I put the word out on the street about her and luckily enough it turned out she’s still living in the area.”
“You put the word out on the street for her?”
He smirked. “Finding someone in the city isn’t as hard as you’d think.”
“So why now: after twenty years?” I inquired
James cracked opened a beer and guzzled down a mouthful. “Funny story, a few months ago I was diagnosed with cancer.”
Silence
Someone cleared his throat.
An owl hooted…..probably.
I shifted in my seat and ran my hands under my chin. “Once I was walking down the street and I found a man's hand in my pocket. I asked, "What do you want?" He said, "A match." I said, "Why didn't you ask me?" He said, "I don't talk to strangers.""
James looked over at me. “What was that?”
“That, my filthy homeless chum, was a funny story. From the very funny Henry Youngman. It was the complete opposite of what you just told me. To be honest I’ve read murder confessions funnier than what you just told me.”
“Eh, what’s funny is subjective anyway.”
I drew in a sharp breath. “So the big C huh?”
A disgusted look came to his face. “What do my privates have to with anything?”
“What? No. I was talking about the cancer. How long do you have?”
He covered his mouth to suppress a belch. “Not much. Few months at best.”
Was it bitterness in his voice? I couldn’t really tell.
“Are you scared?” I asked and for a second I felt like an ignorant ten-year old again.
“Not really. My doctor assured me that death eases stress and tension.”
“Humorous. In face of such adversity, how brave” I clucked. “So, spill man. Why’d you abandon your family?”
“Number of reasons. For one thing, my wife changed. Before I married her she was quiet and docile.”
“What happened?”
“I married her, that’s what happened” He chuckled at his own joke “You know how it is.”
“No I don’t.”
He yawned and stretched. “But I can’t really blame her. The main problem was probably the fact that I’m an alcoholic.” He polished off the rest of the can “You mind if I grab another one.”
“Knock yourself out.” I said.
He got up, walked to the kitchen and came back a moment later with an entire six pack under his arm.
“There is such a thing as a functioning alcoholic you know. Or maybe you could have quit.” I told him when he sat back down. “There’s got to be more to it then that.”
He cracked open another can “What more do you need to know?”
“Look, Mr. Freeman, you better come clean or walk out of here without my help.” I leaned into my armchair and waited.
He groaned. “Why not? I’m a coward, Ben, and I was tired of it all. There was a point in my life where I felt that I had to have the job, the home, the wife - I had to raise children. But then one morning I thought “Why?” So my children can do the same thing as me, produce children who will then go through the same cycle.”
“Ever hear of a thing called therapy? I’m sure there were a couple of things you could have tried before abandoning your family.”
James threw his head back and laughed. “Things? It’s all meaningless son. Philosophy 101, even if you have a purpose in life, when you accomplish that purpose it loses all meaning. If your purpose in life is to become rich, once you become rich you have no purpose. Your life becomes meaningless.”
“But you can always find a new one. Get a new purpose.”
“Sure.” he mocked. “But how many GRAND purposes can a person have in one lifetime? Once you move onto a new purpose, the original purpose is lost forever. The more successful in life you are, the more purposes you lose. Imagine how messed up it is losing one purpose in life. Now imagine losing two or three.”
“Jesus.”
“What this means is the only time life has any meaning is when fail, or when you are in the process of achieving what gives your life meaning. Keep in mind that this is the case only if you realize what your life’s purpose is.”
He chuckled. “You said you liked absurdity well wrap your mind around the fact that we as humans cannot have meaningful lives. We must always want what we can’t have.”
“Christ.”
He leaned his head into his right palm and ran shaky fingers through them. “I hope you realize, Son, that we are on a rock careening through space. Does anyone ever bring that up?” He shrugged. “The only way out is oblivion.”
He then he took a long swig of beer.
“I guess you didn’t read the warning label on the bottle. The one that says: Consumption of alcohol is the leading cause of Alcoholism.”
He offered a smile, one that held no pleasure. “Listen, it’s true that I’ve got about as much self control as two rabbits on the third date but I like alcohol. I like being drunk. I actually like being a homeless. There’s not much labor in being an independent bum.”
I watched him drain two more cans. “Jesus H. Christ”
“Must you take the Lord’s name in vain?”
“Wait a minute. You’re getting religious on me?”
His thick bushy eyebrows furrowed. “Does that surprise you?”
“Well let me see. First of all you just ranted on how life is meaningless. Second of all you’re a derelict bum dying of cancer. How can you possibly believe in God?”
James’ head bobbed drunkenly up and down and once again he simply shrugged.
“Fair enough.” I wanted to explore further. To get the complete picture so that I could literally see the world through his lens. But for once I considered someone else’s well being over my own. Well his mental well being anyway, proceeding any further may cause additional damage. Last thing I needed was him going ape-shit in the middle of the night.
“Sorry about the lecture.” James slurred.
“Don’t worry about it. You're never too old to learn something irrelevant.”
“So what do you do?”
“Me? I’m a writer.”
“Written anything I may have read?”
I shifted in my seat uncomfortably. “Well no. I’m still editing my first novel. It’s practically done and I think it’s quite good.”
“So if you haven’t had anything published, how can you afford this place?”
“I work odd jobs here and there. Then there’s my folks. Hey, set your gaze upon my magnificent plasma.” I grabbed the remote off the coffee table and turned on the television. “The grass is always greener on T.V. What’s your poison - Letterman or Leno?”
He stared deadpan at the screen. “There was an insomniac friend of mine who always carried around a portable T.V. Every now and then he’d awaken me in the middle of the night to watch a clever young man, who I believe went by the name Carson Daly.”
I shook my head “Bat-shit crazy.”
I smoothed out my jeans, stepped to the side and let James move up to my bedroom mirror.
He twirled before the mirror. He was wearing an old suit from the back of my closest and pair of leather shoes. He ran his hand through his now clean-shaven face and smiled. He managed to come off quite distinguished looking.
“I hate to brag but I don’t look half bad.” he said.
“You clean up nice, James. You look like you’re ready for a court appearance.”
“I can say the same for you. Suppose you’ve got the women lining up around the block.”
I peered back at the mirror. “I get mine.” I lied.
“Surely there must be some young lady that you’re courting.”
“Courting? Hold everything, let me check something.” With as much melodrama that I could muster I pulled out my blackberry and tap a few buttons. “According to this it’s not 1875.”
He straightened out his tie. “You went a long way for that joke.”
“Oh yea? Well you,” I said with emphasis. “might want to take another whack at brushing your teeth. Your breath, dude, I can practically taste it. It tastes like stale farts.”
“So you’ve tasted stale farts normally?”
I was being riffed on by an alcoholic hobo, obviously a highlight of me life.
“Ok let’s do this thing.”
After a final wardrobe check we walked out of the apartment and down the corridor to the elevator.
“By the way I read your story.” he told me abruptly.
“What?” I exclaimed “When?”
“Last night when you fell asleep in the armchair. It was just lying around so I’d thought I’d comb through it.”
“It was in a box under my bed!” I stammered. “How much did you read?”
He pushed the call button for the elevator “Cover to cover.”
“Impossible! It was three hundred pages!”
“I happen to be a very brisk reader.” he replied aloofly.
My face dropped into my hands and I rubbed them vigorously across it. “Ok so what did you think?”
“You want the truth?”
“No tell me half a lie. Of course I want the truth”
He stood there silently for a moment “With all due respect… ”
“Oh Christ.” I groaned. “When someone says, “With all due respect” it means there’s an insult’s coming.”
“Whether it’s received as an insult or constructive criticism is up to you.”
I muttered something offensive under my breath and leaned against the wall. “Fine. What’s wrong?”
He looked me straight in the eye. “It lacks life.”
“What?”
“Oh, you’ve managed to imitate other contemporary writers very well. But your story lacks substance, emotion, heart. I didn’t buy the world you were trying to create.”
Frozen. I felt frozen in time. When I was finally able to move I reached for my blackberry.
‘Whoa. I’m getting a call from my friend Jack Shit. Don’t worry you don't know him.”
“I hurt your feelings, didn’t I?”
“Please. Like I’d care what some derelict who’s rotting from the inside thinks.”
The elevator doors slid open and we stepped into the elevator. “Listen you’ve got the technical skills, and you’d showed signs of real talent. I just don’t think you’ve had enough life experience. I could tell that from the writing.”
“And you’ve had a lot of life experiences?”
“I’m an alcoholic black man who abandoned his family and has been living in the streets of New York for close to two decades.” he grinned. “I’ve seen it all son.”
He had me there. “Touché. But you can’t really criticize the book since you’ve never written anything yourself.”
“I’ve never played baseball but I can tell when someone is bad at it and besides I was an English literature professor at Columbia for over ten years.”
His matter of fact tone would have been comical if I wasn’t currently nursing the deep wound in my self esteem. It occurred to me that I could challenge him on that fact but I quickly recalled last night’s appearance of Black Socrates.
“I thought it was a good story.” I announced weakly. “I mean… I… I’ve always enjoyed a good story, just like a good movie, or a good song. They can take you places you’ve never been y’know. I just wanted to be a part of that.”
“The best reason for having dreams is that in dreams no reasons are necessary. ’ A quote from Ashleigh Brilliant.”
“You’ve got to admit at least that it could be a wicked movie.”
“If it does become a movie, I won’t see it. That’s my movie review. I won’t see it and I hope they put that on the back of the VHS box.”
Something was welling up inside my body, but it wasn’t anger like I expected. It was laughter and it bubbled out of me before I could suppress it. “No one watches videotapes anymore, dude. People use DVD’s and of course you wouldn’t see the movie you wouldn’t be able to afford it.”
James chortled. “Touché.”
That’s when a bearded white bum oozed his way into the subway car. Carrying a walking stick, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses, he announced that he was blind in a thick hillbilly… I mean southern accent.
As always when a beggar comes on the train the eyes of the passengers are averted so as not to make direct eye contact. Noses are held by those downwind. Most of the passengers visibly shied away hoping that the homeless person won't come their way. As he passed by some took a peek at him to figure out whether he was faking or not and nothing more.
He was still on the far side of the car when he suddenly called out. “James!”
“Groundhog Day, is that you?”
“Yee-Haw.” The man named Groundhog Day rushed over, took a seat beside James, and shook his head. “Shoot th’ neighbor, I haven’t seen you in a spell.”
“It has been a while hasn’t it?”
“Well damn man where you been?”
“I spent some time roaming around the other boroughs for a while looking for someone.”
“Is that right? I reckon you don’t know about Ned yet.”
“No what happened?”
“Afghan Johnny bashed his head in.”
“Why?”
“That camel poker said Ned was looking at him sideways.”
“That’s a real shame G.D.”
“Well.” G.D said sadly. “Ned did like to look at people sideways.”
The thing I noticed about these men, as they clucked at each other like old hens, was their faces and hands. The bags under their eyes told the world that a truly restful sleep was a rare occurrence for them. Their hands were calloused and filthy and their faces were like leather - beaten down by New York’s unstable weather. I was suddenly thankful for the warm bed that waited for me at home. Hell, I was glad just to have a place to call home.
“Dude you’re not really blind.” I said.
Groundhog Day jerked his thumb in my direction. “Hey James, what’s with Captain obvious?”
“Don’t worry about him he’s a good kid.” he turned to me. “G.D. here is color blind, so technically he’s not lying.”
“K’ Next question - is your name really Groundhog’s Day?”
“Hell yes. They call me that because nine time outa’ ten I do the same thing evah day. I get up in the morning, I take piss, I ride the rails till the sun go down then I take a piss and go sleep. But when ole’ James is around he runs that plans right off the road. Hell we spent many a night careful considerin’ the nature of man, philosophizing, talking politics, thinking real hard on things and the like. Ain’t that right James?”
“That’s right G.D.”
“Where are you from G.D?” I asked. “Texas, Oklahoma?”
“East 154th street Bronx NY, born and raised.” he said with a puffed up chest. “Gang bangers, players, pimps, ho’s, government cheese and WIC checks, that’s what I’ve known my entire life.”
His head snapped towards the windows when the car came to a complete stop. “Whoa now, this is me.” He stood up. “James I’ll be sleeping at the Port Authority for the next few days, if you’re in the neighborhood, drop on by, we’ll play a hand of cards and get wasted like in the old days.”
He turned away from us and used his walking stick to tap his way towards the exit. His transition back into a frail, down on his luck blind man was silky smooth.
“That G.D’s a real character.” James commented.
I could agree wholeheartedly.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
“Still living that same dream.” James replied.
I did my best to smile but failed. James shifted back and forth on his feet, his eyes dancing with nervousness. I took a step back and looked at him suspiciously. At that moment I knew James was seconds away from making a break for it.
“You’re going to cut and run. We’re right at the gates of the Promised Land and you’re going to cut and run.”
“I’ve done it before. Jesse Owens can’t hold a candle to me. I need a drink.” he muttered. “Liquid courage, you know,”
Yes that’s exactly what his daughter needed. To see her drunken father slobbering and lazy eyed on the porch.
“What you need to do is to get your ass in gear.” I pulled him into the streets and dragged him by the elbow towards the house.
“No I… I don’t… what do I tell her?”
“Here’s an idea -- how about you apologize for shirking your responsibilities and being an asshole.” I said impatiently.
“That may work. But what do I say after that? What do the young talk about these days? People are still gettin jiggy with it, right?”
“First courting, now “Getting Jiggy” with it, what is this Quantum Leap? I think you two should have at least twenty years worth of stories to share. Try not to get it all out in one night.”
With all the gentleness I can muster I coerced him towards the house.
“I can’t.” he stuttered.
I was angry. We were headed towards a hideously anti-climactic ending, I couldn’t accept it. “You’re ruining the ending!” I shouted at him.
He grunted and tried to pull away from me. “This is not a story, you imbecile. This is real life.”
“Come on.” I shouted at him.
“No.” he looked at me with yellowing blood-shot eyes. “I don’t deserve this… I don’t.”
I wondered if I should just leave, throw the old vagrant a few dollars, and then depart. I could be at home right now, in a warm bath listening to Dylan.
“Dude…” I said gently ignoring my better judgment. “No matter what a person does, no one deserves to die alone.”
“What about Hitler?”
Had to admit he got me there.
James ran his hands together. “Twenty years and I’ve never had any regrets. I went with what felt right. Now I wonder did I go after the wrong things. Did I just make the wrong choices?”
“We all have to make choices.”
“Or do you only know what the right choices are when it’s much too late?”
“I see Black Socrates has returned.”
He peered up at me with a mask of bemusement on his face.
“James,” I sighed. “I want you to know that I’m prepared to break your legs and drag you into this house.”
He smiled. “Yea? Are you doing this out of the goodness of your heart?”
Before I could answer I heard the click of the door unlocking and we both turn to see the door of the house swing open. We watched stunned as a light skinned woman in a hooded quilt coat came obliviously through the door.
“Jasmine.” James muttered.
She stopped in her tracks when she saw us.
“Who are you?” she asked.
James and I exchanged glances and I nudged him forward and eventually with his eyes on the ground he said. “Jasmine. It’s me. James. Your Father.”
We tumbled into a deep silence which caused a sickening sensation in my stomach. I was worried that she would snap and begin to chastise him for everything that went wrong with her. She would reveal all the therapy sessions, embarrassment at school, all the bad relationships she’s ever had, everything that was a by-product of her father cutting ties with her at an early age.
Then it occurred to me that if I was worried, James must have been shitting his pants.
“I…” She closed her eyes for a moment and reopened them. “Do you want to come in?”
James simply nodded. “Can I just take a moment to say goodbye to my friend here?”
She wiped a single tear from her eye and nodded as well.
“So I’m your friend now? I don’t think I like the sound of that.”
“Thank you” he told me.
For the first time in a very long time I felt overcome.
He leaned towards me - there wasn’t a faint trace of light coming from his face. “I want you to be at my funeral.” He whispered to me.
“Oh come on.”
“No, I’m serious. I want you to be there.”
“Is that supposed to be some kind of a reward? You help someone out and then you get to be part of their funeral.”
I waved my hand in the air dismissively. “Come on get out of here, you bum, before you completely turn me away from vagrants of African decent.”
We solemnly shook hands.
“How did it feel James?” I asked.
“I’m not sure how things will go on from here but when she came through the door she was six again.”
“Cool.”
He turned away from me and a moment later, he followed his daughter into the house.
I stood there in the quiet for long while and I got philosophical.
What was the point of that entire adventure exactly? I had helped reunite a homeless man with his estranged daughter. That had to be a good thing right? I kicked a stone underfoot and started down the block. If I said my actions were totally selfless that would have been an outright lie. But in the end James seemed happy; and I felt pretty darn good as well -- a case of the end justifying the means, right?
I wondered was this thing with James a one shot? A freakish miraculous phenomenon, where I was for one brief moment in time, granted the power to help a fellow man.
I stopped. What if this wasn’t a one time thing. What if I had this power forever? Would that make me some kind of super hero?
Yea a super hero: like Spiderman.
With great power, comes great responsibility as they say.
I went home and started the first chapter of a new story
But no glowing faces.
After scouring the city for five straight weeks I was beginning to think the thing with James was a one timer. That is until I ran into Sam Childs on a dark rainy Wednesday evening.
He wasn’t looking very stylish that night. His suit was crumpled, his hair was ruffled, his face was pale and there were very deep scratches on it. He stared at me, no he stared past me. He was staring out at the world, eyes watery from the rain.
And his face aglow.
I’m in trouble
He looked awful. Worse than awful.
I’m in trouble
I discerned that he was in trouble. But how could I approach him? There was no love lost between Sam and I. There was no way he’d open up and allow me to help him. I had to try though.
Baby steps: I’d start out with small talk.
I approached Sam, armed with a topic that was the talk of the town. “Hey Sammy-boy, how’s my favorite young urban professional.”
His eyes darted back and forth. He grunted something inaudible in response and tried to nudge past me.
“Yea,” I gave him my cheeriest grin and reached for him. “Chill-ax for a minute, man. Hey, did you hear about the Wall Street Slasher?”
His eyes widened, his nostrils flared and he grabbed me by the wrist. I once again felt the jolt in my spine and the icy fingers covering my heart.
It all hit me at once. I felt the icy cool metal of the knife in my palm. I saw the fountain of blood gush into the air and splatter across the walls of an alleyway drenched in shadows. I heard the screams of a young woman instantly become replaced by the sickening gargle of a human being trying to breath while drowning in their own blood. The copper stench of blood reached my nose and I tasted its metallic tang on the tip of my tongue.
And beneath it all was deep sense of satisfaction.
I pushed Sam away. I took two steps back and doubled over vomiting, chucks of food and stomach juice splattered the floor. In a blind panic I pulled myself together and I dove into the building. I skipped the elevator and sprinted up the stairs. My legs didn’t stop moving until I had shut the door of my apartment behind me and scrambled blindly into my bedroom, snatched my iPod from a shelf and dropped to the floor.
I mashed my fingers against the face buttons, and eventually, mercifully, Sam Cooke’s soothing voice wafted through the buds in my ears, “a change gonna come, oh yes it will!”
I listened, and I cried.
Bullshit.
After my encounter with Sam I didn’t leave the house for three weeks. I lived only on delivery food and writing. I wrote like a mad man, it was like I was possessed. A dam had burst and an entire novel flowed out of me.
As for Sam he made a hasty exit out of the city after our encounter. The F.B.I found him weeks later in Texas, just a few hours from the border. They say he killed twice in his brief time below the Mason Dixon line.
Two people might still be alive if I had done something that day.
But hold on, as Shakespeare said “there be the rub”, I’m not entirely sure if I was supposed to stop him or help him escape.
It could have gone either way and I think that’s pretty funny.
But really what the hell was I supposed to do? Sam was the prince of a far off planet called sadism. It's too late for him.
I’m not Spiderman!
I’m just a kid sponging off his parent’s money. Nobody special.
Yet.
A few months later I found myself in a subway car staring at the young boy sitting across from me.
Her face was… well you know.
Why does he keep coming into my room? I feel so dirty.
My iPod had abruptly died on me. I had purchased a new one and kept it fully charged at all times just in case of emergencies such as this. But before I could pull it out I noticed the brat.
I feel so dirty
“God dammit.” I uttered.
I feel so dirty
Three months ago my life changed.
The question here is has it changed for the best or the worst? Well the jury is still out on that. But I can tell you one thing it’s definitely changed.
I feel so dirty
I held the fresh iPod in my left hand; I stared at for a long time.
I feel so dirty
I got philosophical.
