chapter 6: chicago or "let's see what happens"

by tomorrow night i will have met my new family,
moved into my new house,
and begun my next task for the son of david.

i'll meet new people
make new friends
who need him as much as i do

and i will love them
and love them
and love them.

when he shows up, i won't be surprised.

the breath of frigid air after the exhale of smoke.

he had these aspirations of being a writer, a beat poet, a rapper, a teacher, a famous musician, and a silent revolutionary. everything was perfectly designed and had a consistent underlying utopian aroma.
but as he expected (and hoped)
he had come to the inevitable place where he stood at the edge of everything that was familiar
and looked out at the world completely unversed.
he asked his father if it were safe to jump






and his father said

of course not.
but the consequence of not jumping is too severe.

The terrible concequence of procrastination and compromised decisions.

There are sounds like foghorns or morning alarms that are trying guide this once was inamorato, but he's so far gone that these sounds seem like a crowd in a close tunnel, a cacophony echoing all over the place and bouncing from ear to ear.







And everything reminds him of it. Payphones start ringing and lights turn red with nobody else around. It's like he's suppose to be still. but he's not still, not ever. Stillness means wasted time, and any wasted time opens the gates for some sort of muse and unwanted thought.

And so he continues moving. He doesn't ever go anywhere, really; he's satisfied with circles. He has to pay the bills and the child support food and has to have enough left over to buy his emotions from Kenny, the guy who cleans up the bistro after closing time, because the emotions he has are far too cumbersome to cope without an extra hand.

He goes home every night to his desk, his bed, his couch, and his refrigerator. He reads his book, drinks cheap wine, and writes letters. Tonight he's on letter number forty-five. They're letters to his son.

Letters telling him everything.

Why he's not with him, How much he loves him, how sorry he is, all of his problems, all of his addictions, all of his regrets, his advice on how getting through school, his advice on women, how to fix up old Mustangs, how to catch a baseball, why the Red Sox are the only team worth rooting for, how beautiful Spain is in autumn, all of his favorite music, how his band sounded in high school, how he had taken the captain of the cheerleading team to prom, where the best coffee place on the west coast is, how he met his son's mother, how he wrecked the car because he was drunk, how his love left him because of his state, how sorry isn't enough, how he can never forgive himself...

He doesn't quite remember if he repeats anything in the letters. He tries not to, because he has so much to say, and can't waste paper and ink on things he's previously stated.

When he's finished, he takes the letters, seals them, and adds the postage and address. He takes one last look at it and walks into his bedroom

opens the bottom drawer of his desk

and drops the letter in.

Six years past.

Sometimes I find myself angry

Sometimes sad.

Sometimes confused.

But all of that is selfish.

Freeman

So I met this man the other day
Freeman
dressed in his suit and hat
on the corner of Commerce and 9th.
You always see people like that, you know?
Nice clothes that have run slightly shabby
and they call to you to see if you can spare some change.
It never really made much sense to me,
the irony, I mean.


I spared him
my fifty cents that i had in my pocket
and bounced.


I made my way to Dave's Dogs across the street.
"2 hots. 1 with chili, 1 yellow relish.
oh, and a coke if you could."

Freeman starts screaming.

Like, flat out belting in the middle of the road.
Cars speeding past, honking, people staring, industrial smells, freakin..
people throwing trash at his feet all day... and he just can't take it anymore and he yells





STOP!! EVERYTHING'S SO F*CKING LOUD!! JUST STOP!




and everything did.








...guess everyone's glances got too loud for him.
He kicked his cup full of money for his "bus to Memphis" and nickels and dimes went rolling every-which-a-way.

He kinda paced around for a bit then just sat against the wall of some store and just watched the world slowly gain back his momentum.

I walked over to him after he'd chilled out and sat down. I kinda awkwardly hit his shoulder with the outside of my hand and said

"thanks."



he looked at me just really baffled.
Any sane person would do the same. and he WAS sane. probably more so than anyone else on Commerce St.
But I didn't really have anything else to say... I mean he had the nerve to stop downtown. He had the competency to pull the power and volume of glances into something everyone could see.



So I just kinda smiled ineptly and walked away.

What else was there to do but smile?

The two sat on top of his car, both in an utter daze. Anxiety had set in about 5 hours ago, but all the worry eventually led to numbness. His back was on the hood of his '87 Toyota and his eyes were set on the orange-red clouds above his head. She had her knees pulled to her chest and was looking down at the city below them. They didn't come home the night before. It would've been nonsensical to do so, the thought of sleep wouldn't have crossed their minds.

They hadn't spoken in about a half hour. They had prayed, cried, and mused to extent their bodies could take. Now it had become a matter of rest and waiting.

He closed his eyes and managed to smile... perhaps out of stark submission to the situation. What else was there to do but smile?

She looked at him and said half-smiling and asked, "Any good news?"

"Well, I'm going on twenty-four hours without sleep, i haven't showered, I'm going to be a father in nine months, and I'm most likely to be excommunicated... and i just got hit with an absurd epiphany. Now how I came to this conclusion, I couldn't begin to fathom... but somehow, I'm positive that two cups of coffee and a sunrise might take our minds off of the fact that we've completely demolished our chances of ever being perceived as reputable human beings."

"That was a lot of big words for you. I'm impressed."

"Eh, I've had a good 5 hours to think about it." She smiled. "So? You, me, some coffee?"

"Yeah... yeah I think that would help."

They didn't move. They kept their eyes fixed on the sky.

"What do you think of the name Emory?" she asked.

"Isn't that a band?" she smiled again. "I like it."

A broken pipe and an unopened Bible (revised)

Life had hit him hard, and repeatedly.

he was punch-drunk and prostrated; an effete of waste of space.

He had known for ages what he should have been doing, but God's hand seemed a bit unsatisfying, at least until now.

He was out of money, out of love, out of heroine... which had really been all the same to this point, and he stood alone in a bummed out room with a broken pipe and a tattered bible laying open, with the spine up against a wall. He held a note balled in his fist that he had reread and reread a million times in the past hour, not out of disbelief or anything like that, but out of inability to really comprehend it. There was nothing confusing about the language, only what it was asking.

You may hate Him, but He still loves you. He'll help you up and clean your face along with everything you are. Just ask Him.

He loves you, and so do I.
I hope to see you again someday.

-Bekky

He didn't understand. He believed in God. He also believed God hated his guts and didn't care if he stayed face down in piece of crap apartment forever. God had taken everything he had made himself to be, everything that was important, everything that would have been good for him and eradicated it right it front of his face.

He was angry... so incredibly choleric. He tried to get himself riled with this rage that he had become so comfortable in. It was so much easier to be pessimistic, to pick up his gear and keep going the way he had always been going... But he couldn't go that way anymore. He'd run face first into a barricade that he was just too fatigued to climb. He couldn't push himself back to his feet, and no one on earth would still want to help him.

He was angry, but only at the fact that he was helpless. he didn't know how else to react. he rolled on his side.

There was the Bible, tattered, with the pages bent up against the wall he had thrown it at earlier. He opened his hand. He read the note once more.

"You may hate Him, but He still loves you. He'll help you up and clean your face along with everything you are. Just ask Him.

He loves you, and so do I.
I hope to see you again someday."

Love.

He knew what love was. He had people who used to sign their letters to him in "love." They either left without warning, died, or stole his cash and supplies and then left. They loved him long enough to get what they wanted... and why not? That's precisely what he did to them; an eye for an eye. it was fair. Love was fair, all strings attached.

he rolled on his side to set his view on the Bible. It was a bunch of words written by old, middle eastern men who thought they knew something no one else did. They knew love like Bekky knew love. Unconditional, forever-and-ever-no-matter-what love. That was then Jesus walked around healing people. It was easy to love when a God is roaming the streets performing miracles left and right. These days love is harsh, miracles don't happen, and cities don't welcome the nice guy with palm leaves and cheers...

And for a split second he stopped thinking. He stopped his pain, his muse, his anger... everything, and just looked at the Bible.

There had to be some sort of love. Bekky had it, or she wouldn't have given him that Bible.

He loves you, and so do I.

He reached for the Bible, pulled it towards him and moved the kinked and ripped pages back into place. He then closed it and pulled it towards his chest, and embraced it.

He held it tightly, helplessly, hopefully. He needed something, and nothing in that room had helped. Tears started to run down his cheeks and onto the floor as he squeezed the Bible closer to his chest; so close that he could feel his heart against it.

he was still prostrated. he was still disoriented. but no longer effete, no longer worthless. to himself yes; but not to God. He didn't know how to love himself, so God loved for him.