Down To Sleep Page 12

  A sudden burst of heavy snow engulfed him, and the lights and all else disappeared in the whiteout. All that remained was the cold, and the distant beating of what Stringer could only hope was his heart.

  * * *

  No one dreams of growing up and becoming homeless. No child sits and gazes off into space on rainy days fantasizing about one day living on the street, being destitute and alone but for those other forgotten and discarded souls like you who inhabit the corners and alleys and parks and roadways. No one dreams of dying alone in the snow, of urinating and defecating in public, washing in a friend’s blood and eating his flesh in order to stay alive on a freezing winter night. No one strives to be a derelict.

  No one sane.

  In those rare quiet times when there was room to dream, to forget the harsh realities of life and pretend things were different, Stringer preferred to think of himself as an adventurer, a world traveler and explorer too full of restless courage to ever settle down and live a mundane, traditional life.

  So while in this nameless city with two other road-dogs he’d met months before, despite the weather reports warning of the worst blizzard in years, he’d opted to stay one more winter night. They could’ve followed the same route most guys did, the same route they had for countless winters, escaping the north for the warmer southern regions this time of year—and eventually would have—but Owen had been so sure another night wouldn’t be all that bad. Surely one of the shelters in the city or one of the homeless camps found beneath deserted underpasses or in abandoned buildings and alleys throughout the city would have room for the likes of them, and in the morning they could hop a train out of town and begin the trek south. But they’d been turned away at the shelters, all of them full, and being unfamiliar with this particular city, they had yet to locate any camps when the blizzard struck. Cold, hungry, and trapped in the storm, they started across a frozen bay abutting the city in the hopes of eventually reaching the suburbs on the other side, miles in the distance. But they had not gotten far when the storm had forced them to take refuge in the bowels of a monument only a mile or so offshore, a reproduction of a small fishing vessel—a memorial dedicated to local fisherman lost at sea over the years—and a day and a half later were still attempting to survive within its granite hold while the blizzard raged on.

  When Tinker froze to death it became apparent that no one would live through this ordeal unless certain risks were taken, certain sacrifices made, and if there was one thing Stringer took pride in after all his years on the street, it was staying alive. No matter what he was faced with he did whatever was necessary to survive. Survival was all that mattered. Survival was all there was, because there was nothing worse in this wide world than to die unnoticed, nothing worse than to be just another bum in the street.

  Until now.

  * * *

  “Not here,” Stringer mumbled, crawling along the frozen pavement. “Not in the street. Please…please, not in the street.” In the distance he could see the silhouette of a large building across from where he had fallen.

  Through the sprays of snow he was able to discern a church with wide granite steps, a seaman’s church that catered to sailors and their families. A church overlooking the ocean and the monument from which Stringer had come. A church for lost souls, for those the sea and the elements had taken from this world, a church for those they left behind and for those yet to come. “Please,” he begged the storm, still trying to make it to the steps. “Please . . .”

  His legs would no longer work. Paralyzed and sobbing only feet from the curb and church steps beyond, Stringer dropped his face to the pavement, into the snow. As he neared his final breath he forced his head up so that he could see the statue of the Blessed Virgin on the church steps, head bowed as if she’d been expecting him and had already begun to pray. But as the snow blew past, during one pocket of clarity, Stringer noticed other forms standing on the steps as well. Priests, perhaps?

  “Help me,” he said, hopeful they had heard him. “Help me.”

  Just before his eyes slid shut the dark forms began to descend the steps, moving silently through the snow in his direction.

  * * *

  The sound of water echoed in his ears. Not running water, a more natural sound like waves softly lapping a nearby shore or the runoff from a mountain stream trickling into an otherwise quiet cavern. His eyes opened but sight came to him gradually, painfully, the skin flaking and cracking as he blinked. Blood or ice or both slid along his cheeks.

  Someone was standing above him. He was lying down and someone was standing above him, looking down, watching. Stringer swallowed, gagged, coughed for a moment, the sound ricocheting along the walls of wherever he’d been taken. He struggled to bring the person above him into better focus. Squinting, he saw the face of an older man, his skin weathered and cracked like leather exposed to the sun for long periods of time. A knit hat covered his head.

  “Where am I?” Stringer asked, his voice gurgling, weak and foreign.

  “Where do you think?”

  “The last thing I remember is the church.”

  “You think you’re in the church?”

  “I don’t…I don’t know. Is that where I am?”

  The man’s eyes stared at him dully. “That church is for seaman. Living…and dead. That church, just like the monument in the bay, is for heroes, for men trying to earn a living, trying to feed their families and those who died trying. You found the monument to us in the storm and it gave you shelter. It gave you shelter and you desecrated it. Now you expect sanctuary in our church, is that it?”

  “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” Stringer tried to move but didn’t have the strength. “I didn’t desecrate nothing.”

  “We saw what you did in the hold. We saw what you did in the snow.”

  “I did what I had to do to survive,” Stringer said, biting his bottom lip in the hopes of preventing it from trembling. “You got no right to judge me, who the hell are you?”

  The man stared at him.

  “Where am I?” he asked again.

  “Under the ice…In the ocean…On the street…In the snow…Does it matter?”

  Stringer looked down, saw that he was covered with a blanket, and it was wet. His body was still numb. “I can’t feel my legs.”

  “Couldn’t save them,” the man said. “Frostbite.”

  “No…God, no.”

  The man motioned to his right. Stringer’s head lolled to the side.

  Another man who looked much the same as the first, only a bit younger, stood grinning at him. In his hands like trophies, were Stringer’s legs. They had been severed below the knee. Others moved silently from the shadows to form a circle around him.

  “You took my legs,” he whispered, tears streaming like ice water across his cheeks. “You took my fucking legs.”

  “The storm took them.”

  “This blanket,” Stringer gasped, “it’s soaking wet and it smells and I’m—I’m so cold. Get it off me.”

  The others all held their hands out, as if warming them over a fire. A wooden match seemed to materialize from nowhere into the older man’s hand. He struck it against the side of his leathery face, lighting it then holding it over Stringer as he leaned closer. “The blanket is soaked in gasoline, Joel.”

  Joel. No one had called him that in years.

  “This can’t be Hell,” Stringer gasped. “C-Can’t be.”

  The old man seemed amused. “Why not?”

  “Am I dead?”

  “No,” he said. “We are.”

  “But, I—I can see your breath. All of you—I can see your breath—I can feel you shivering.”

  “Of course you can.” The man smiled. “The dead are always cold.”

  As he dropped the match Stringer was lost in a sudden burst of flames and the deafening sounds of his own screams.

  * * *

  As the sun broke over the horizon, shining on the city and surrounding bay, day
light brought with it a renewed sense of hope. The blizzard had passed and the city was slowly awakening from its hibernation. What had been deadly for three days had now turned delicate and beautiful as warming rays of sunshine reflected off a vista of virgin ice and snow.

  Slowly, the world had begun to thaw. Snow-plows and other vehicles crowded the avenues while pedestrians bundled in their best winter clothes hurried from corner to corner, from coffee shops to offices, from the still chilly morning air to the warmth and shelter and security of their workplaces, embracing the solace and routine of their daily lives. If anyone noticed the body on the side of the road it didn’t seem to faze them in the least. No one stopped, no one even looked down for more than a quick, distasteful glance. But the body was there, slumped in the gutter in front of Saint Mary’s, a huddled mass of frozen flesh burned beyond recognition.

  This gruesome display was nothing new however. In blizzard conditions or on extremely cold nights the homeless had been known to set fire to themselves…and even to each other.

  Later, someone would eventually either report it or the authorities would notice and call in a wagon to haul it away, so no one gave it much thought or paid any particular attention. Because despite the weather, there was no hurry.

  After all, it was just another bum in the street.

  MAN ALIVE

  This constant sensation of impending doom is neither a death wish nor a suicidal inclination, rather a caveat of instinctual, unknown origin. It festers then attacks, butchering everything in its path like a cancerous growth until nothing remains but its ever-strengthening presence.

  As I drive toward my destination in a car I am certain will not survive another winter in New England it occurs to me that the weight I have gained in recent months has left most of my wardrobe tight and ill fitting. My nervous stomach growls at me as I push away fears that I’ll end up walking should the car fail me.

  Despite a gripping chill in the air and a forecast that threatens snow the sun stubbornly leaks through cracks in an otherwise drab sky. All the trees stand bare, branches like bony fingers reaching toward the heavens, their once beautiful foliage gathered into piles or scattered about along gutters and alleyways. Those odd spindly forms conjure in me visions of concentration camp survivors I once saw in old news reels: spiritual entities stripped of things far greater than mere health or basic human dignity.

  I arrive at my appointment several minutes early, as is my custom. The building is new, and only a scarce amount of the available office spaces have as yet been rented. I follow a vacant hallway to #3, as the advertisement in the newspaper instructed. The door stands open to reveal a small office. A desk and two chairs have obviously been hastily arranged just inside the entrance, and a tidy young woman in a leather swivel stands, leans across the desk between us and extends her hand. “Good morning,” she says.

  “Good morning. I’m here about the ad in the paper.”

  “Your name?” she asks through a pearly smile.

  “Richard Cray.”

  “Great to meet you, Richard. I’m Ms. Pearson.”

  I glance at her nametag, which reads: Susan. She offers a noncommittal smile and scans the résumé I hand her with ice-blue eyes, then sits down and motions for me to do the same. Her hair is blonde, and flips up on the ends like Carol Brady’s. Her outfit is conservative, professional; her makeup subtle and her personality prepared, studied, stiff. Every movement, each comment, is calculated.

  I sit before her like a helplessly bloated bug, trying my best to seem interested in what she has to say. Something about some new all-purpose cleaner their company is marketing and how sales reps are expected to go door-to-door. She is in her early twenties, which makes her at least ten years my junior, yet she shamelessly speaks to me in a tone one might use with an addle-brained preschooler.

  “I’m going to be honest with you, Richard.”

  “All right, Susan.”

  “Please understand,” she says, “I’m simply offering a little constructive criticism here. Appearance in this line of work is key. When you sell directly to people in their homes you need to have a certain…how can I put this?”

  “I understand,” I say softly.

  She offers her chilly hand a second time. “I certainly wish you the best of luck with your job search.”

  “You won’t hire me because—”

  “I’m afraid you’re just not what we’re looking for at this time,” says Susan with a wink. “But thanks so much for stopping by, I’ve enjoyed talking with you.”

  A pair of dark rubies dangling from her ears catches my attention. I picture Anna wearing them instead, and immerse myself in the fantasy of presenting my wife with such an extravagant gift come Christmas morning.

  We often go without heat and dine on cans of chicken soup and crackers just so we can pay the rent. Even if I had a job I couldn’t afford something so expensive. Why then must Anna pay such stiff penance for my failure as a partner, a husband, as a man? I lie to myself, as I’ve become prone to do, pretend I’ll do whatever is necessary to buy earrings just like Ms. Pearson’s. Not only will I find a way to purchase them and many other presents, it will be a fresh start for us both, and I will remember how to be satisfied with my existence as a man who has never realized his most basic dreams.

  “Mr. Cray?” Susan says, disrupting my thoughts.

  I blink; focus. “Yes?”

  She returns my résumé and forces another smile. “Have a nice day.”

  “Those are beautiful earrings.”

  “Oh,” she says, as if she’d forgotten they were there. “Well, thank you. They were a gift from my husband.”

  “You’re a lucky woman,” I tell her. “Your husband must love you a great deal.”

  “I’m sure he does.” She folds her hands and places them on the desk. “I’m really quite busy.”

  Five minutes later I am behind the wheel of my car, puttering along to my next stop. Not exactly sure of where that is, I pull into a small coffee shop that advertises an array of inexpensive breakfast specials.

  In the lobby I purchase a local newspaper from a vending machine then follow a hostess to a booth in the back. I order coffee for now, turn dutifully to the Help Wanted ads and fold the section over to better hide the heading.

  The waitress returns and asks if I’ve seen the specials. I order eggs with toast, and, pen at the ready, begin my search. Where once dozens of opportunities were listed only a handful remain. Of course there are always positions available selling cars or insurance, but I have a wife, responsibilities, and cannot work for straight commission. Years ago I could have made ends meet with such a job, but no more. During the early years of our marriage I’d had an edge. I was in shape physically and emotionally, and harbored the confidence and drive of three men. These days I stare at unfamiliar images in the mirror and try desperately to cover the bald spot on my head with what few strands of hair remain. It is someone else I see in that glass. Someone tired…someone weak.

  If only I could get a good, restful night of sleep without assistance. Nestling playfully in Anna’s arms used to be enough to make me feel whole, but now, after dark it is a liquid companion I seek.

  I had a dream last night that I was being chased by demons. Through thick, unwavering darkness rolling in off the water like a dense fog they came, circling me, their hideous jaws snapping with drool, their voices low, tortured howls. Because I have endured such experiences for so many months I no longer refer to them as nightmares. They talk to me, these demons. They come to me in the night and whisper things I do my best to ignore. Lately, nothing short of my defiant screams can quiet them.

  “Hey,” the waitress asks, hovering next to the booth with my breakfast in hand, “are you OK? You all right, mister?”

  I nod, notice the other customers staring at me from the counter the way a crowd gathers to study the carnage after a car accident. I pay for my meal without eating it, venture back out to my car as a light snow begins t
o fall. Just down the street is the city’s retail district, numerous small shops arranged into neat little rows.

  Christmas music blares through tiny speakers mounted on the posts of streetlights, and I walk toward it. Bright red and green ropes of industrial-strength garland strewn from telephone poles runs the length of two blocks. The intrusive ringing of a bell echoes along the street and a strong aroma of freshly roasted peanuts fills the air from a sidewalk vendor’s cart at the corner. I purchase a small bag and continue on.

  The streets are crowded with people, none of whom seem to notice me. I zip my jacket, tuck chin against chest and walk into the frigid wind. As I move along the block I find the source of the loud ringing. A young black man in a hooded sweatshirt and jeans stands next to a donation kettle waving a large silver bell. He smiles at me as I slow my pace, and I read the placard on the pavement next to him.

  PLEASE HELP THE HOMELESS.

  I open my wallet; find a five and three singles. It is all the money I have until Anna gets paid at the end of the week. Even then, most of her earnings are already spent, owed to countless bill collectors on accounts long overdue. The collectors flood our mailbox with threatening letters, harass us over the telephone at all hours and sometimes even appear at our door demanding payment. They are a relentless, mean and unforgiving lot who will haunt my memory long after the debts have been forgotten. With a wonderful feeling of defiance I fish two dollars from my wallet and drop them into the kettle.

  In a small courtyard between two stores I find a pair of cement benches, both vacant. I decide to sit and watch the world as I often do; fascinated by the number of lives being waged in haphazard unison. The snow becomes heavier, the air a bit milder. A young woman stops, puts a mountain of packages and bags down on the sidewalk and begins the process of removing her crying daughter from a stroller. As the woman struggles with the harness that holds the toddler in place the child’s eyes lock onto my own and her crying softens. The longer the girl focuses on me the more serene she becomes, eventually even sporting a wide toothless grin. Little ones have the power to see what others cannot. I make a genuine attempt to return her smile but suddenly find myself hurrying back to my car.