One's Misery, Another's Freedom, Part 2 (Working Title)
Apr 02 '03
The Bottom Line ...... just keep reading......
Approaching five in the afternoon, she figured she ought to slip down to the food bank again, for a little snack, to barely get her through the evening. The suppertime hours were usually more busy than any other time of the day. Perhaps because by that time, you’d give up on trying to get through the entire day without anything solid in your stomach.
This evening, the kind volunteers cooked hot-dogs for the lucky ones who got to the front of the line. Agnes matched the hot dog with another cup of coffee. Another one. Coffee doesn’t seem to go as far as it used to. It was almost a waste of time to drink any of it, as the effects of it scarcely lasted longer than the time it took to drink the coffee itself.
She found herself a seat, one of those flimsy chairs with the wooden seats and the rusted metal legs. The person sitting across the table from her was somebody she didn’t recall seeing before.
“Hey, how are you?”, she greeted. She often liked to be friendly to those who lived as she did.
“Oh, pretty good,”, said he, a man who looked about late twenties. “Pretty hungry!”, he laughed.
“As we all are.”, she confirmed.
The man was eating from a bowl of Zoodles, a bunch of pasta-shaped animals that would seem more appropriate for children, but, when you lacked the ability to purchase anything more filling, cheap swill from a wounded metal can was as coveted as a can of caviar would be to an upper class gathering.
“Quite the meal we’ve got here, don’t we?”, the young man jibed. His voice,balanced between contempt and flippancy. A listener would find it difficult to extract the stronger emotion. “Pasta-zoo animals in a bowl. Suppose it’s the poor man’s substitute for real animal meat.”
“No different from my hot dog and coffee.”, she smiled.
Other people were lined up at the front counter. Many of these people wouldn’t be able to find a proper seat to eat their food, not this evening, anyway.
“Pretty busy, here , huh?”, he asked.
“Yea, it’s like this everyday.”
“I’ve never been here before actually. Lately, I’ve been having... cash flow problems. I’ve.. been shacking up in many different places...”, he said, fumbling for the first bit of the phrase. “There were a few nights I’ve slept out on the park bench....”, he added, his voice growing almost boastful.
“Really!”, she was impressed. “You cleaned yourself up quite well, I must say.”, noticing that his hair has the lightness of having been recently shampooed, and that his clothes were less faded and wrinkled from wear. “Most of us look homeless... you don’t.”
The man grinned, too proudly, it seemed. “My hair doesn’t get too messy, my clothes stay pretty clean. I sleep in all the right places
“So... where do you live? A mansion?”, she joked. “A mansion where they don’t feed you.”
“Me... “, hesitating slightly. “I stay with whomever I can. With whomever will take me in.”
“If not, you live in a box!”, she kidded.
“Yea, yea, exactly...” He eats a few more pasta creatures. “A box....”
“Oh well, someday you might be able to move up to a two-floor box!”
“Can’t afford the duct tape.”, he said.
“Shame!”, she grinned.
They continued eating, savoring the fact that they were lucky enough to fill their stomachs at this moment.
“I don’t think I even have any more than a dollar left, guy.”, she said. “It would be great to have a few more dollars, maybe buy a real meal once in a while.” Agnes had only less than a dollar in her pocket, in her entire possession. She figured that the guy sitting across from her, despite his good hygiene, was in equally minor economic circumstances.
The man grinned quietly, as if he were seeing her situation, and perhaps even his own, from a distance.
“If you had a lot of money,”, Agnes continued. “...what would you do with it?”
“Oh, me, I’d go out and have a blast with it. Get f*cking loaded!! Buy some nice stereo equipment.....”, he said knowingly.
“Where would you put it?”, she asked, stunned.
“In the three story box built with the duct tape that I’d finally be able to afford.”
Agnes noticed out of the corner of her eye a person walking in with a television camera. It took her a few seconds to think that perhaps this was for the local news. Television was a completely alien medium to her now. To her, Seinfeld was still on the air, and reality programs didn’t exist.
“If I had a lot of money.... “, Agnes spoke, ignoring the television crew, “I wouldn’t know what to do with it. I’d probably just want to be allowed into a store, and buy something.... anything!”
“Why wouldn’t you be allowed in a store?”, not understanding.
“No reason.....”, she lied. “Ah, it wouldn’t matter..... I’ll never find any money....”
“Why would you say that? You just aren’t looking in the right places --- you could find the right person that will give you a million dollars - or something like that.”
Agnes gave more of her focus to the television cameras during the man’s speech. “Hey,”, she jested. “... it looks like you’re going to be on TV.”
The man’s eyes widened, as if in shock.
“Over there behind you...”, she pointed.
The man turned his neck, his movements appearing stiff. He saw for himself the TV camera, apparently from the local CBC.
“Those f*cking news cameras - they’re just there to gawk at us hopeless cases. They don’t give a damn about us!”
Once she became aware of the fact that TV cameras record the things around them, Agnes grew embarrassed. The embarrassment forced her eyes, her face away from the camera, even though it was about fifty feet away. “I wonder -- I wonder what they’re filming us for -- what the story is about?”
“Oh, it’s probably something about the government wondering what to do about all of us poor idiots. Maybe the government ought to scrap the CBC and give it to people who actually need the money! Public broadcasting, my a*s!”
The man paused his bitterness, and stared at the bowl of pasta. Agnes let her eyes wander to the left, vainly pretending that the cameras were not there.
The man quickly rose from his seat. “I’m not hungry anymore. I’m getting out of here. Have some Zoodles. Hope to see you around.”
The man walked away from the table, frantically looking for another way out of the building. He noticed the back door, near the kitchen, and exited the building.
*
The television crew had retreated long before Agnes decided to brave the cold streets again for another afternoon. That guy was correct -- the cameras wanted to gawk, to stick their noses -- or lenses -- where they didn’t belong. The people who carried the cameras didn’t have the nerve to speak to any of the poor saps who made the food shelter their first choice in cooked food.
If they had interviewed anyone, what would those people say? Or would they be too scared to speak to the outside world, the world they wandered like ghosts with a distinctive, repellent odor. Ghosts that you could see, but pretend were invisible, if they came ever closer, giving a chill to your heart.
One of those ghosts managed a moment underneath the spotlight. He was an old man; more than an impoverished member of the homeless -- he was a landmark of the back alley. But his notoriety grew more vulnerable to the elements, never having lived in a stable home for God knows how long.
He died, underneath a cardboard box and next to a garbage bin. His smell didn’t change -- it was still the stench of misery, but this time, he would never have the opportunity to clean himself up.
On the Saturday edition of the local paper, he was on the front page. Top story. Agnes never gave much notice to the fact that Prince Edward Island was so small, so quaint, that it would permit expensive ink and paper to create a likeness of the loss of an old, decrepit homeless person. All she thought was that it was quite something to see him with a big write-up in the a paper.
If only they gave him a big write-up when he was alive. Maybe he wouldn’t be homeless. Maybe he would have had something to eat. Maybe he wouldn’t have been out in the cold and gotten sick, deteriorating until he could no longer survive the war with his own body.
The front pages were of a more worldly, advanced nature nowadays. Talk of another war with Iraq, a country already impoverished, through encomnic sanctions from the outside, and by brutal repression on the inside. Agnes could never appreciate the notion of living in the ruins of a large city, where many people were forced to starve, where it was almost impossible to live in decent conditions. She thought that food kitchens were a necessary evil, but her experience of evil was very timid. An Iraqi family would love to live in the sort of apartment that Agnes made little effort to try to afford.
A white car turned the corner, near where Agnes was walking. The window on the driver’s side was partially open, a thumping bass squeezing through the narrow space. Agnes did not recognize the piece of music. She was getting older, losing touch with the world that she wandered through day after day. Her age became a barrier -- all that she saw was witnessed in a fog. If the driver were to park beside her, and ask her if she liked Eminem, she would have queried if the driver were referring to the regular chocolate filled version, or the version with the peanut center. If that same driver were to ask her what she thought about the impending war, about George W. Bush, Agnes would have thought the driver was crazy, because Bill Clinton took the presidentship away from Bush years ago. What was Bush doing fighting Iraq again?
The rap music faded away, slowly, as the white car bent to the right, turning another corner. Some people appeared behind that corner, walking in the opposite direction. Some had bags from stores, some had cell phones. All had objects that Agnes would never be able to possess. She didn’t know how to possess them. She didn’t know how to go about finding a place in the world where she could legitimately be allowed to possess them.
She walked around the bend in the sidewalk, roaming closer, reading the faces of the people who were in a higher level of existence. Their faces were like carefully carved, smoothed ivory, incapable of eroding, of becoming dirty. Their faces appeared fake, artificial, unreal.
She saw another person exiting the mall. He stood, searching the area, as if he wasn’t sure where he parked his car. The man was tall, lanky. He was carrying a bag, with the Radio Shack logo upon it. There was something about the physical demeanor that struck Agnes as familiar.........
She continued her pace. She was about seventy five feet away from this individual. Her mind reacted with a belief that the rest of her could not believe.
That man from this afternoon. The man who managed to have neat hair and clothes despite his verbally advertised poverty. Who had the nerve, not always easy to contain, to enter a food bank, and eat a bowl of Zoodles. Who right at this moment was carrying a bag of electronic equipment, as if he were one of those artificial people beyond Agnes’ range of vision. The bag was not transparent, but Agnes could understand that something was inside that cost genuine sums of money.
He obviously bought it. If he had stolen it, he would have hid it somehow, rather than brazenly flaunt his purchase.
...... where would he have received the money?........
Suddenly, he turned toward her direction. Agnes froze. What would he say if he saw her? What would she say?
But just as she thought that she’d have to avoid his glare, he turned to the street, to a parked car. She was close enough to the car that she recognized it as the white car that passed her by earlier.
The man opened the passenger door, and entered the car.
Agnes carefully stepped closer, hoping that her movements would not be noticed. She saw more closely, the person who was waiting for him. A woman, appearing as if she had barely escaped her teenage years. Brunette hair that was treated casually; she washed it and dried it, nothing more. Chubby face, round cheeks. Large-breasted, generally full-figured. She didn’t look as if she were poor.
.... where did the car come from? Where did this girl come from? Was she picking up homeless men, taking care of their every need........
The couple in the white car behaved with an familiarity that was subtle and abstract to Agnes’ eyes -- they appeared as if they knew each other intimately, in possibly every way. Agnes was unable to hear anything that the two were saying, but guessed that the conversation was nothing as irritable as where their next meal would come from.
..... what happened? What did I miss?........
The car began its reverse movement to the street. The thudding basslines returned for an encore.
She couldn’t understand what she saw. The man had been eating with the other poor souls. All the other poor souls would be wandering around town in between meals. But this guy was driving in a car with a good-looking woman, after buying stereo equipment. Why was this happening?
She wasn’t willing to move from her stationary position, on the sidewalk. She felt miserable -- she wasn’t able to feel anything except the core of her misery. This time, her feelings weren’t voluntary. She was unable to stop herself from feeling like the pathetic being that she was. She had the urge to slump down on the sidewalk, to lie down like a dead body. Careless of how others would react. She wouldn’t have cared if people unexpectedly tripped over her, or stepped on her fragile limbs or her weak stomach. She was not worth any more than that.
“Hey, move along, there.”, a voice erupted.
Numbed, bewildered, Agnes turned around to face the voice. The voice came from a young woman, apparently a clerk at one of the shops along the street.
“I don’t know who you are,”, the young woman continued, a twinge of concern in her speech, “, but there’s a lot of customers trying to get inside, and you’re... you’re kind of in the way.....”
Agnes had been standing on the far edge of the sidewalk, almost touching the edges of the parked cars. At least, she was standing five feet away from the building. There was much room to maneuver. But the point was taken.
“I know that I’m in the way. I’ve been in the way for almost a year.”, she says regretfully. “Me being in this town, is all that makes me in the way. But I’m not able to open the manhole covers and hide inside, so all I can do is apologize.......”
*
She walked, morosely, to the next corner of the same block. Going around in circles, the story of her life.
She approached another reminder of the things she didn’t have. It was the local branch of the Toronto-Dominion Bank. As with the shops inside the mall, the bank flaunted its openness to all who could afford her. While closing her affections to all who didn’t have what she wanted.
She didn’t want to accidentally brush up against the bankers in their suits, or the regular customers. She didn’t feel like hearing another request to get out of the way of the rest of the world.
Her head instinctively turned to the window. Behind it was the bank machine, the ATM. She noticed a guy just departing from the machine -- she saw him as he left. he looked distracted. She couldn’t guess at what would distract him, not having lived deeply in the real world to inherit such mundane concerns.
She looked back in the direction where the man came from, and saw that he had forgotten something. The dull green of the twenty dollar bills, peeking out from the slot on the lower section of the automated teller machine. Like a metallic excuse for a hand, shyly wanting to pass the money over to whomever would accept it. Whatever that man was distracted by, it was strong enough to make him forget about his very own money.
Nobody else was approaching the cash machine. The money was flaunting itself, but nobody was interested.
She could have only imagined how much money was there. Was there only one twenty dollar bill? Maybe there was two, three, four........ More money than she had at one time in nearly a year. Tempting, very tempting.
Maybe that man had a secret as to how he got the money to go to Radio Shack. But until she discovered it, she decided to go by her own wits......
She opened the glass door. Walked into the small room. Slowly. Carefully.
The money was there. There was no doubt about that. This was somebody’s cash. But who’s name would be on it?
It would be hers.
She would have asked for it, for a portion, if she had seen this invisible person who wandered away from his transaction. She would have only received a very tiny portion, if any at all.
At this moment, there was no person she had to beg to. No person that she had to cajole. Yet, ironically, the money was being blatantly offered to her, unlike at any other point during her domestic misery.
She frigidly moved herself closer to the machine, until she was directly facing it. Stiffly, she rotated her head back and forth, left to right. Nobody had entered the room.
For a few moments, she stood still. People who passed by might have naturally thought that Agnes was just another customer, making a mundane transaction. Or they may not have noticed her at all.
Her hand broke open the quiet cocoon of her rigid frame, and clenched the valuable papers, before clumsily stuffing them inside the jacket pocket.
Fingers spread open the pile of bills. One. Two. Three. Four. Eighty dollars. What would she do with it all.........?
She went back out into the street. The temperature of the air had not changed. But her body felt much warmer, as the excitement boiled within every part of her.
*
The bootlegger on Dorchester Street. Now, here was a business where she’d most certainly be welcome.
A person who sells you booze in a place such as this does not care who you are, or what you wear, or what socioeconomic status you belong to, or are forced into. Just as long as you can pay.
Sometimes it could even be a warm place to spend the night. Unlike those bars that stay within the law, your local bootlegger will still be open for business past two am if need be. Just as long as you can pay for your drink.
“Hello, there. I’ve not seen you in a while.”, said the bartender.
“Nope....”, she smiled.
A couple of men sat at a nearby table. They noticed Agnes as she walked by.
“Agnes, old lady!”, one cackled. “where have you been all this time?”
Agnes looked over at the two. “Oh, just out and about.”
“Out and about? Well, you haven’t changed a bit, that’s for sure.”
“Well, that’s good. I didn’t want to come in looking like a total stranger in this place.”
She turns to better regard the bartender. “Hey, there, I’ll have one of your patented homemade drinks.”
“No problem, my friend!”, as he walked over to the fridge, aging and splotchy with yellow rust. “So none of that watery store-bought stuff for you, tonight, huh?”
“Absolutely not! Tonight... is a sort of a celebration for me.....”
He returned with a bottle of beer. The bottle was authentic, the liquor was not.
“Here you go.”
“And here you go.”, passing him a twenty-dollar bill.
The bartender knew the history of this particular customer. Twenty dollar bills were not a standard part of that history.
“Wow, you have changed since last time.”
“Yea, well... I got a few bucks.”
“What did you do -- hold up a bank?”, the bartender laughed.
Agnes laughed too quickly, hoping to block the man’s unintentional investigation.
“I’m not telling!”, she teased. Safe for a while.
She traded the sight of the bartender with the regard of the bottle she had in hand. Finally, she could get away with more than one drink this evening. She didn’t even spend time to savor the actual drink. She drank every ounce inside the bottle as rapidly as possible. About forty seconds later, she slammed the hollow bottle onto the counter. Any harder and the bottom would have split.
“Jesus Christ!”, she squirmed. “that’s the worst-tasting swill I’ve had in... well, since the time since I’ve been here last.”
Seventeen dollars rested near the back of her hand.
“Another?”, asked the bartender, expectantly.
“Do you have to ask?”
And another. And a few more after that. The hours moved on. This night was a return to form, after then months of nothing. Of only being able to buy one drink, and stealing a few mouthfuls. Now she returned to her full strength.
“Hey, old lady?”, bellowed one of the old men at one of the tables. “How’s that stomach holding up?”
Agnes laughed outwardly. The texture of the alcohol stimulated the formerly dormant portions of her brain. “It’s great!! It’s the happiest day of my life! I’m a rich, rich woman!!!”
The men around the table took special notice of the last comment.
“Rich? How did you get that money? Standing on street corners.”
The bartender laughed with a bitter embarrassment. Agnes, however, didn’t seem to appreciate the directness of the comment.
“Got some money for me?”, another man joked. “My unemployment checks are running out!”
Agnes turned to the bartender. “You must arrest this man... he ‘s soliciting in a public place. He’s about to bring shame and disgrace to this respectable establishment.....”
She was becoming more and more assertive and expressive.
“What are you going to do about it?”, the bartender playfully mocked.
“Well, I ‘ll tell you what I'm gong to do. I will buy you a drink.. .because I have a good heart. I do not care that you haven't’ made any effort to earn this drink. I will give it to you. You seem to have a good face. I can hold all sorts of trust for you. It’s okay.”
The men looked to each other, their glances speaking complexly.
“We’ll have some over here too”, said the second man, “.. since you seem to be so generous to us this evening....”
What did she get herself into?
“... you can afford it. It’s only fair that we all benefit from your generosity.”
Agnes glanced at al the men from the table. She understood that she painted herself into a corner with her words, and her actions. She wasn’t able to utter a world. She became the person on the street, trying to avoid her own intimidation.
*
Hours later, Agnes was still a customer. No longer as lively as she once was, however. Her head rested upon the counter, as the rest of her body fell into an alcoholic slumber, unbothered by the raucous activity that wouldn’t cease until close to sunrise.
A few of the people who stood close to the bar found themselves amused by the sight, in a knowing fashion. It was considered a droll sight when somebody dared to take alcohol drinking to the edge, although the feeling was tempered with that twisted pride that only frequent drinkers understand. Like a group of soldiers paying honor to a fallen comrade.
The bartender, noticing that Agnes was becoming unwanted entertainment, went over to her, in hopes of gaining a shred of attention from her.
“Hey, get up...”, tapping her on the arm, “Leave some room for the customers who still have the mobility to hold a glass.....”
“..... uuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggghhhh......”, Agnes moaned. It wasn’t even a pathetic attempt to form a word. The sound was nothing more than an isolated grunt, completely severed from any linguistic discipline.
“Get up....”, he said, frustratingly. “I don’t want to have the cops bust this joint because of something that went wrong......”
Most of the time, someone who drank too much would suffer little, except the loss of some vital cells inside the brain and other organs. But, occasionally, it was all too possible that intoxication could take a fatal turn. Especially considering that Agnes was drinking something akin to moonshine than legitimate beer.
A quiet panic throbbed inside the bartender’s head. He had been on the job that night three years ago, when the police raided the house. This after someone had the misfortune to die outside the front porch, due to what was claimed to be alcohol poisoning. The intoxication committed the crime at about four in the morning, by slowly infected all of the victim’s vital organs. The victim had been inside the bar, sitting at the table with his buddies, since nine pm, never once expecting that life would take a vicious turn, and punish him for his gleeful choices that evening.
A half dozen or so people were lined up at the bar, but the man behind the counter focused his line of sight at a couple of men sitting at the nearest table.
“Tim, George... come over here for a sec....”, he called.
The men parted from their seats, and walked over to the swinging panel that separated the bartender’s domain from that of the customers’
“Looks like you got yourself one wasted old bag!”, George laughed.
“Yea....”, the bartender smirks, selfishly, worried about his own hide. “She’s drank a lot. God knows if she’ll survive the evening. I’ve got to get rid of her.... Tim’s okay to drive, I think.....”
“Christ, man, I had five or six drinks in the past four hours,”, Tim admitted. “I’m not worried about a thing. All of the other three a.m. drivers are just as drunk as I am, so it will cancel each other out.”
“Thanks, man!”, the bartender said, smiling. “Besides, this person’s homeless..... so it’s not as if you would have to wake her up to tell her that you’re taking her home. The whole city is her home....”
“No problem....we’ll take her far away enough...”
George lifted Agnes off from her seat. She was still making the occasional grunts, as the two men drug the woman on her feet. The rest of the crowd cheered, as if a boxing champion, having slugged through twelve rounds, had been defeated, and drug off the ring.
Once outside, they roughly laid her out in the cigerette-stenched back seat of Tim’s beaten old car.
*
Conclusion
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Member: David Macdonald
Location: Prince Edward Island
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About Me:
Alice, a story in nine parts, posted on Sept 24, 2008 - http://www.epinions.com/content_5241348228
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