Winter Greens

Sartre once noted that the universe is devoid of signposts. The unsettling comfort of an existence completely lacking anything resembling guidance or direction was appealing to me until I discovered life outside of dormitories and regulations enforced by totalitarian regimes.

Sophie, a barista at the local café, mentioned to me over a cigarette that life without signposts is mostly absurd. And I guess I believed that for a while too.

Ade’ met me for coffee the other day. I had recently lent him my copy of Dr. Thompson’s experimental analysis of the American dream, and in light of my friend’s unique position as a journalism student, I was curious as to his opinion of Gonzo’s school of thought.

“Maybe a little overrated,” he said, sipping a slightly bland cup of El Salvador. I don’t remember the region. “That being said, Hunter S. Thompson was revolutionary, no doubt. I mostly agree with his tactics, and I fucking loved the piece on the Kentucky Derby.”

“You would,” I remarked. “Don’t take that the wrong way. It was my favorite bit, as well.”
Ade’s glasses slipped a bit down his nose, and he pushed up the brim and gave his nose a quick tap. I think this coffee must be laced. I don’t tell anyone about my rampant paranoia, at least not anymore.

Elle tells me it’s irrational. “That’s silly,” she’d say, striking a match to light her impeccably rolled spliff. No one follows you. That’s the point of living in a big city. You blend in with the crowd and get lost.”

And I know that this is true. Just last night on the way to a card game with some of her ex-coworkers a city cop shone his headlights directly into a car making an illegal u-turn. A little red pinto or something, driven by a woman with unusually distinct hair, even visible at night inside her car as it spiraled out in clumps from her head. She pulled behind us after the law enforcement passed, driving erratically, and passed us, pulling into an alleyway. Maybe paranoia is in the air in this town, or maybe she was really guilty. The glimpse of her eyes I managed to catch revealed the crazed look of a felon on the run, but I could be wrong. The point is, she got away, for whatever that was worth. Rack up another victory for disorganized crime. Or socio-political disestablishmentarianism, depending on your point of view.

But I can’t shake the feeling that someone or something is attempting some sort of voyeuristic, non-verbal communication with me. Maybe it’s just that the subtleties of spoken language seem less subtle to me, somehow. Maybe it’s just a warped psychological second-guessing I apply to myself and the way I read the signs, or lack thereof, constantly bombarding me like gamma radiation.

All that to say, I didn’t tell Ade about my suspicions that there might be illegal narcotics in our ceramic mugs. Never mind the fact that employees of the city’s water company were recently exposed for being in on an international cocaine ring. And never mind the glassy distance in the marketing executives’ eyes as they dart from shimmering coffee urns to glinting reflections on silvery patio furniture. And never mind the distinctly bitter post-nasal drip creeping up the back of my throat. And never mind the way my hands erupted sporadically into Parkinsonian tremors. Or the speed at which my mind processes millions of firing synapses as I involved myself in conversation and introspection simultaneously. Or the intense desire to chain smoke Pall Malls.

I wiped my finger under my nose and said, “Do you think Thompson was usually on as many drugs as he claimed to be in Vegas? I mean, aside from the ether.”

“Oh, I doubt it. I mean, despite the drug culture he was immersed in, there was no way he could possibly have compiled coherent notes, much less—“

“But that’s the point, he didn’t have coherent notes.”

“Well, no, not for Fear and Loathing, but for the greater body of his work, he probably just, well, you know, smoked a little grass and drank a lot.”

I sipped at my cooling coffee, frustrated at its lack of intensity. I should have gotten espresso. But I don’t trust espresso, or the baristas who prepare it, or the machines they use to make the stuff.

We caught the train heading north from downtown after a bit. The concentration of non-verbal communication on board the generally silent Metra is overwhelming sometimes. The book readers are always fascinating, prominently attempting to display the knowledge they are ingesting, which usually takes the form of mass-marketed spy novels and the like. But there’s definitely a message being sent by the literature chosen for train rides.

The car was packed, and an obese man sat across from us, wearing pants easily two sizes too small for his bulging waistline. The zipper sagged down to the middle of his fly, and instead of exposing embarrassingly colored underwear (which I came quickly to wish was the case), his pimpled and hairy upper crotch gaped open at us. I nudged Ade.

“You think he feels a draft?”

Three businessmen in suits and ties laughed loudly on the opposite side of the train. They couldn’t possibly have heard me.

Laughter in public makes me nervous, especially when it is clearly derisive and mocking. Most laughter sounds this way to me from a distance, and my immediate inclination is to check my stride and lower my eyes. It seems logical that it is directed at me.

The self-importance of the men laughing gave me a measure of security, however. They continued talking loudly, and I ignored their financio-babble.

A girl with dark hair and glasses dressed like a college bookseller in a navy jumper and black stockings kept bumping into me as we were standing on the packed rush hour express. I figured at first it was just the swaying of the train racing down its tracks. But with each run-in she inched closer to me and lingered longer at the point of contact, her unremarkable ass edging up slowly but surely to my hip. I caught her glancing at me, not directly, but through the dirty reflection of the windows. She turned her eyes away quickly, an obvious admission of guilt. I should have done something, but I endured the uncomfortable closeness for another twenty minutes until she disembarked to transfer.

I suppose that it’s because I wasn’t raised in a large city that I have a larger sense of personal space than most people tend to allow me. A coworker (for two unceremonious weeks until she quit) named Karen used to practically rub noses with me every time she spoke. She was also close to twice my mass, and I could always smell the distinct aroma of over-boiled asparagus on her breath. I mentioned this to Elle, and she reminded me of the episode of Seinfeld where Elaine dates a man Jerry dubs as a close-talker. After that it was all I could do to keep myself from calling her that to her face. Further support for my paranoid theories transmitted itself to me via the Fox network, when the very episode made a rerun appearance the next night. I neglected to mention my feelings on this supposed coincidence to Elle.

Disembodied evidence like this frustrates me because I can’t respond any coherent way. I much prefer the kind of subtleties that come from actual people, because I am afforded the opportunity to add subtleties of my own to the conversation (or lack thereof, as the case may be).

Elle was waiting for us on the couch at our apartment, smiling sweetly as Marty wagged his stump of a tail.
“Some chick named Erica called for you. Does she work with you?”

“Yeah, she’s the boss’s new secretary.” I laid my coat on the orange step ladder in the middle of the living room. It had been there for probably two months now, used last to take down Christmas decorations in mid-February. “Did you take a message?”

“She said you left something.”

I stepped into the other room to make a call while Ade joined Elle on the couch to watch Simpsons reruns and fill the air with as many types of smoke as possible.

“Erica, it’s Chris.”

“Yeah, hi. You left your briefcase in the hallway. I thought you’d want to know.”

“Alright, thanks,” I said, strolling back into the living room. “I gotta go downtown again, left my journal at work.”

“Can’t it wait til tomorrow?” asked Elle. Marty looked up inquisitively from her lap.

“I wish it could. I’ve got to type a few things up to turn in in the morning, though,” I said, throwing on my jacket. “Keep the couch warm for me.”

“Love you, babe,” she said mid-inhalation, smoke rolling out of her nostrils.

“Love you, too.”

I headed back to the train station, my feet weary and my head spinning with a contact high. I lit a cigarette on the platform in front of the no-smoking sign.

When the train finally came, I found a seat across from a scraggly teen who hadn’t showered in weeks. His face was sunken and aged, and he blinked and squinted constantly. When he lifted a black sleeve to scratch his arm, at least a dozen infected needle-holes were visible.

I closed my eyes, pretended to ignore the stagnant presence of society’s underbelly. I hoped it wasn’t a prediction of my own demise. I was reminded of high school health class where they teach you about cannabis, and how it’s a gateway drug. It looked like this kid had found the gateway to hell, complete with Dante’s warning across the top.

I dozed off with the rhythmic clatter of the train’s wheels against the tracks, and woke up, staring strait ahead into blue eyes. Sitting across from me, clad in beatific sheets of pure white was a girl with a book in her hand. I didn’t even bother to glance at the gold-lettered title. Instead, I looked out the window and smiled as I played my favorite game: piecing words together on billboards until they spelled a message. It’s the best way I know to read the signs.

I’m in the half-dream state that is mid-morning. The winter sun burrows through the shades and romances its way onto the covers but she’s full of shit; it’s cold as the ninth level and has been for weeks.

Janet sleeps next to me, facing the wall. There’s a two-inch gap between her hips and mine, and each time I place my hand on her side it seems to rivet her like a needle. Maybe my hands are cold. Maybe she can remember in her sleep the agony I inflict daily.

I don’t envy her. Each time I withdraw into my own little world, she bears the brunt of my insulting behavior. I’m unequivocally a monster after my fourth bourbon, especially after a twelve hour shift at the coat hanger factory.

There is no pride in the employ of the largest coat hanger conglomerate in the United States. (It doesn’t help that the primary source for coat hangers is actually the Philippines.) So I, in turn, take little pride in my own life, deriving pleasure out of the most perilous and positively dysfunctional ways. My days off are spent drinking heavily, when I am at my least self-distructive.

This morning I groggily wander about the house, embroiled by my pounding headache and dry mouth. Janet still sleeps. Peaches, her rat of a canine, has made his way onto the receding warm spot I left moments ago, and looks up at me without any recognition of my superiority as a species or as an authority figure.

I brew coffee from a tin, cut it with what’s left of last night’s alcohol, and slurp it down while watching footage of the Korean War on PBS. I am confident I am the only guy at the factory who even knows what PBS stands for. I know Janet doesn’t.

The first glance in the mirror is usually one of disgust and the urge to break the glass, or the face behind it, is generally overwhelming. This morning, however, it appears someone has beaten me to it. The panes that once swung open to reveal a medicine cabinet lay in pieces on the sink and across the bathroom floor, intermingled with the occasional drop of dried blood.

The blood spots are so perfect, the splatter patterns untouched. I stare for a long time at the different spots, each with its own unique shape perfectly preserved on the bathroom tile. It is only after a few moments of this that I notice the difference between one of the spots and another: a new one has appeared, bright, vibrant and with the slightest sheen visible from the reflection of the light bulbs, in contrast to the dried brownish color of the rest.

I lift my right hand to examine it, and it appears that I am indeed the culprit. Perfectly strait gashes are scattered across what used to be my knuckles, and the cut on my ring finger has reopened and is glistening. This, too, proves fascinating to me, and I am enraptured in the slowly flowing shade of crimson over the crevasses of the back of my hand.

I stumble out of the bathroom, narrowly avoiding shards of glass with my bare feet, and return to the bedroom.

“Sorry about the mirror last night, babe. I don’t even remember it happening,” I say, lifting the dog from my place on the bed.

He whimpers slightly, and I wipe the hair from her ears. Then I notice the blood. It is no longer fascinating, and I lift her eyelids, revealing pupils dilated beyond recognition and rolling sloppily from side to side. On her nightstand, the pills are mixed and scattered.

“Oh shit, oh shit. Hang on baby.”

I race to the phone, my fingers are stained and they in turn stain the nine and one on the dial.

“Please state the nature of the emergency,” a cold and distant voice requests.

“She’s O.D.’d and bleeding to death. Send an ambulance,” I scream and hang up.

I return to the bedroom, and lift her head. A razor-like sliver of mirror falls from her neck, and an ocean of crimson gushes onto the sheets. I lift the shard into the light, glinting not unlike Excalibur must have the first time it was hoisted from the anvil.

I plunge it deep, deep into skin until I reach bone, and then repeat until the sirens take us both away.

He spat; his mouth was dry, and so what had started with the intention of being a phlegm-soaked splatter ended as a frothy dollop. It broke the plane of his lips, parched with fatigue and bitterness, and flew a cresting arc through the air, while his fists stretched the lining of his beige coat pockets to the point of breaking.

The name on the grave was J. Palmer Epperson, Jr., and the ball of spit landed exactly three feet south of the period at the end of ‘junior,’ directly above the left elbow of the man buried six feet underneath the soil. The rest of the rough stone read “1945-2003. Loving Husband and Father.”

The inscription on the beige jacket above the left breast pocket read, “James P. Epperson III.” He wore a matching set of beige pants, and a standard issue Navy hat.

He stood for a while above the final resting place of his father, his body shaking with rage and regret, alone under a cloud-streaked sky. It was mid-winter, and though no snow had fallen yet that year, the breeze carried with it the scent of wood burning stoves and a coming frost.

James shivered when the wind picked up, and pulled his coat tight around his neck and shoulders. He looked up at the threatening heavens as a hawk flew overhead, low enough to make out the rusty coloration on its tail feathers. The vaguest hint of a smile crossed his lips as he followed the hawk with his eyes until it dove behind a cluster of trees in the distance. James folded his legs underneath him and sat, propping his back against the side of his father’s headstone, and pulled a knife from his utility belt and began to whittle away at twigs he found on the ground around him. The grounds of the cemetery were well kept, and he quickly ran out of fodder for his blade, and returned it to his pocket and closed his eyes.

When he reopened them his field of vision was blocked by the scrawny legs of a young woman. The black stockings cascading down her calves were torn in numerous places, even down to her feet where toes stuck out haphazardly where shoes should have been. She wore a gray skirt and a navy blue hoodie draped over her shoulders; her fingers played with the zipper.

“How long have you been watching me?” James demanded, blinking his eyes and checking himself over.

“Long enough to know this is your daddy’s grave. Were you close?” Her leg shifted, pivoting on the ball of her foot, school-girl like.

“No,” James said, standing up and brushing himself off. “Who are you?”

“Name’s Raven. I live up yonder,” she nodded her head in the direction of the hill behind the cemetery. No dwelling was visible, just a patch of trees and tall grass like a mohawk on the crest of the ridge.

“I was just leaving,” James grunted, brushing past her.

“You didn’t leave no flowers or a note or nothing,” she called after him as he walked away.

“I didn’t intend to,” he spat over his shoulder.

“It ain’t right to disrespect the dead like that. You got to pay your respects, or it’ll haunt you.”

James stopped, spinning on his heals and pointing to his name tag, “He already does. I’m wearing his fucking name on my chest.”

“That ain’t all though, is it? He’s got inside you, ain’t he? And you can’t escape it, can you? I’ve seen your type.” She held her hands on her indistinguishable hips.

James stared her down for a minute, taken aback at her piercing appraisal. A hawk’s cry was audible, and the skies deepened and sleet began to pelt down like bullets.

“I went to war for him,” James called out above the din of the water and ice striking dead leaves and headstones.

“He died when you were away?” came her answer. She stood less than ten yards from him, but was barely visible with the haze interloping between them.

“Took his own life the day I shipped out,” he said, and turned away, covering his head with his jacket as he dashed for the edge of the cemetery. A hawk cried out in the downpour as it flew overhead, dodging marble-sized chunks of freezing rain as it soared upward and into the storm.