The Grey
Life, Chapter IX
I
remember the first time I saw Angst after they decriminalized pot. I
was still living in Los Angeles then, and he had flown out to meet
with his publisher about a book he had written. I picked him up at
the airport, and as we were walking out through the crowded streets
to the nearest subway stop, he reached into his breast pocket and
pulled out a joint. "We can do this now," he told me,
lighting it up. I remember looking all around, at all the people
there were, all the cars trying desperately to squeeze by, saw the
narrow looks and the smiles.
We
crossed the street in noon daylight, feeling the soft hands of the
drug encase our conciousness, drinking the divine drink of the sun,
passing the joint between us in hallowed silence. It was a tense
first few minutes together, the first time we had laid eyes on each
other in over two years. I knew that the years since we had graduated
from college had been hard on Angst, but they were nothing like they
had been for me. But if the young shadow walking on my left knew
anything about me he knew that I knew, knew everything I had been
through when it really mattered, was with me when the bloody,
shattered fragments of my life were staring at me terribly from the
battered streets, hazy in the flourescent streetlight, all jagged and
reeking of violence.
"How
is everything with Allie?" I finally asked him as we lumbered
down into the earth, were sucked down the gaping hole like a jaw. The
noise of the city slowly receded, was taken over by the loud
murmuring of men all around. This place under the earth, this object
into which the endless flow of humans never ceased to eddy, was
dusty, dank, and as we passed through the gates - dropped our tokens
through the slot - I felt as though I were weaving my way through a
flourescent forest.
"We're
getting divorced," he muttered gravely, adjusting the shoulder
strap of the small bag he carried.
Yes,
I knew they had been hard on him. In these last seven years he had
only managed to publish three short stories, one in Playboy, one in
Omni, and one in the New Yorker. That last break had been a real
encouragement, and, I suspect, had launched him into the successful
conclusion of his latest work, a novel called These Tall Ships of
Earth, that Harper and Row was going to publish. It was the only work
for which he ever received any formal recognition, and even that
short burst of stardom was doomed to a quick extermination. I am glad
that I never pursued the ambition to write, because I have no wish to
suffer what Angst did, knowing exactly what it was that he could not
have every second of his life. I prefer to keep the objects of my
terrible longings obscured.
But
as we sat there in that dim subway car together, neither he nor I
knew that he was just about to reach the pinnacle of his professional
career. There were other things on our minds. His career seemed to be
dramatically improving, and it was yet not too long before this book,
just after the turn of the millenium, in fact, that he caught his
wife with the next door neighbors. And now they were getting
divorced.
How
strange to think. He had met Allie through some friends of mine in
Sacremento. It was the same night he gave up on trying to get his
first book published. I know that because he couldn't keep quiet
about it the first few weeks after they started going out. He would
feel compelled to tell anyone who would listen about how she had
inspired him, about how he had decided to drop his first novel so
that he could concentrate on writing the new one. It was
disconcerting how obvious it was that already he depended upon her,
needed someone to help him deal with those abysmal convictions of
failure and inadequacy. So it must have put a horrible strain on
their relationship when nobody wanted to publish the novel she had so
ignobly inspired.
I
didn't know what to say to him them, so I didn't say anything. He at
least deserved that much. As we were seated in the cavernous subway
car and after he had a chance to relax, Angst tried breaking the
silence. "I heard from Drusus the other day." He paused as
if for me to say something, but, like before, there was nothing yet
to say. "Seems like he and Nancy are doing well. Hull'uva
wedding they had. Remember that?"
O,
yes, I remember that. I remember what he had asked of me when he
asked me to come.
"All
shit-faced and dancing drunk. Where did those days go, David, huh?
Things aren't that carefree anymore." He stopped again, and I
just looked at him. He dropped his eyes, suddenly daunted. Then, he
shrugged. When he spoke next, a hint of seriousness had creeped into
his voice. "Hey, I don't know. I just seems like - well, it was
a long time ago, that's all. Almost like - almost like it could all
be -" But he didn't finish.
"What?"
I asked him finally. "What were you going to say?"
"Nothing,
David." He tried to wave the comment away, but now there was all
too much to say.
"No,
really, what? Forgotten? Where you going to say 'forgotten'? Do you
really think so?"
"It's
just, well - we were all friends."
"And
we still are," I finished, crossing my legs adamantly. "We
still fucking are." I sat back and spread my hands before him,
almost in the manner of an offering. "You know, man," I
tried to tell him, but my voice was hijacked by trepidation, and all
I could manage was a hoarse whisper. "You know that I still -
know that he's still -" But I couldn't go too far along certain
paths of reason, especially since there's never anyone who knows
everything about what's happened to you. So I tried again, and this
time mustered the strength to speak with a full voice. "You just
don't understand, Angst, everything we went through. You weren't
there in that room with them."
"Neither
were you."
I
cut him a tight glance out of the corner of my eye. "You don't
think I've been there? You don't think I'm there every fucking moment
of my life?!" My voice had risen, and I noticed then that the
people sitting next to Angst were looking over. "What?" I
snapped at them, a tight, middle aged woman with streaks like stars
on her face and a fat mole under her bottom lip and her friend, whose
glasses made her eyes into sickly eggs done over easy. The one with
the mole gasped, and both turned quickly, offended, away. I saw Angst
smile out of the corner of my eye, and his mirth moved me enough to
allow a shred of a laugh onto my face.
"Did
you see Canine on television the other day?" Angst asked me,
abruptly changing the subject. I would have answered him sooner, but
the serious rocking of the subway car as it hurtled under the streets
of the city groaning reached me momentarily.
"Yeah,"
I finally managed to respond. "Looked good, didn't he?"
Angst
nodded his head. He looked so forlorn as the dancing patterns of
dirty light came at him, passed over him, out of the ensuing
blackness outside the windows. "I never knew his name was
Emmanuel. I always heard you call him Canine."
"Yeah,"
I answered dimly. I wasn't really listening. "We always called
him Canine."
"He's
done pretty well," Angst went on, "for a man - in his
condition."
But
I couldn't hear him anymore, either. I was listening to other voices,
watching the shadows of things past and trying to discern the shawl
they had thrown over my life. Poor Angst. He must have thought he had
lost me. But that's something that had already happened, longer ago
than he would care to have thought.
Hearken
ye, O infidel, to the infinite, abysmal passions of our forefathers.
Haven't we suffered enough? What is God, that he has afflicted us
with intelligence, that he has abandoned us to the madness of our
dreams? I have no need of him, for he has betrayed humanity. He has
preserved the price of blood.
Hear
me, heathens, harken and hear! To what breach of human nature have
you led me?
Look,
the stars in the sky are mocking us. They are an illusion. The light
they shed is old, stale, and their bodies are elsewhere. What need
have I for eyes that lie, for the chemistry of our organic nature
when it cannot perceive what occurs throughout all space and time?
All
the statues around me are weeping now. They are hunched in obdurate
pain, facing me as if to concentrate the brunt of their dispair on my
withered flesh. But these are statues. They are merely reflections,
are they not? Dusty images.
The
sentinels of despair are tall, peculiar beings with lean hands. They
do not have to walk to reach us.
Our
growing knowledge may be a bane. All the things we had once to keep
our faith, all the mechanisms we had constructed for ourselves so
that we might preserve the precious balance of our sanity, are slowly
being stripped away. We can see nothing more than the men in ancient
times except that all the things they believed are false. Our
knowledge leads us to despair, to nothing but horror, because it will
leave us all empty and incomplete, and we will have nothing to grab
onto, nothing to steady us. Then we will fall like the abatross
through the infinite void, and our screeches will stretch out around
us in all directions, and still, none will hear them. There will
hardly be enough room in our brains for our own voices.
But
I never wanted to believe this!
I
torment myself unnecessarily, and I believe like Emmanuel that
humanity is made out of the stuff of Infinity, and that forever will
won't let its children wander off into a mad slaughter of
rationality. But such tenets are difficult to refute when there
exists nothing in our knowledge to contradict them. And yet man was
made and forever walks this earth without the knowledge of death, and
while he yet breathes he will remain ignorant of that most important
aspect of his existence. So the question should not matter, should
not be important -
What,
do I rave?
The
idea used to sicken me, but I have come to love the great cocoon of
sovereign non-committant melancholy that now scours the moltage
grains of my visage. It has sustained me more than once before when I
knew that nothing else would. I just wish it wasn't etched on my face
for all to see. I wish I could hide it, or hide from it, or suffer
some escape.
Already
I can feel the dread again, the deep, dark, diabolical dread that I
thought I had been able to annihilate. But I knew the risks when I
started this meager attempt at a confession, at some sort of
convincing absolution. But it is not over yet. No, it hasn't even
begun.
Salvatore
pulled into the Amco station on St. Paul, just south of Mount Royal
Avenue. "We need gas," he informed us all, jabbing a finger
towards the dashboard.
"Sure,
man," Antonius agreed, "but make it quick. We've got to be
at the Eight by Ten -" a quick glance at his watch "- in
fifteen minutes."
"Whatever,
man," Salvatore replied, shaking his head. He pulled the Accord
to a stop under the cement awning and turned to look at us in the
back seat. "Yellowman won't come on for at least another hour.
And doesn't he have some cheezy opening act or something?"
Already,
he had opened the car door and was swinging himself out of the car.
"Yellowman
doesn't have any opening act," Antonius continued, but it was no
longer apparent to whom he was speaking. Salvatore had slammed the
door shut.
I
made a move for one of my jacket pockets, but the only things I could
find there where some used kleenex and a crushed soft pack of
Marlboros. It was empty. "Hey, Canine," I said then, "move
your seat up. I gotta get out."
"No,
man," Antonius returned. He was slouching deeply in the seat,
filling virtually all the space alloted him in that tin sardine can
Salvatore called an automobile. "We've got to be at the Eight by
Ten soon. Real soon. It's already eleven."
"So?"
I answered, shrugging. "Canine, move so I can get out."
The
cold, early December air tore at my face, and I was instantly
reminded of how much I hated the winter, of how dark and cold the
world seemed. I never seemed to see the sun. And the grimy city
sucked up into nothing what little light there was. It was like
wandering in gloaming for a couple of hours before the hungry
darkness could reassert itself.
I
passed Salvatore on the way to the booth. He was filling up the car,
puffing on a cigarette. "Where're you going? To buy some
smokes?"
I
nodded, walking past him.
"Try
to hurry, dude," he called after me. "Antonius is getting
impatient. You know how he is."
Yes,
yes. I knew how he could be. Sometimes I couldn't understand how I
had gotten along without him and other times I wondered if I wouldn't
have been a thousand times better off if I had never breathed his
air. And the fact that he never said anything to me about Shanai, not
a word, was a constant irritation in the background of my thoughts. I
wasn't sure what it could mean, that he understood or that he
condemned.
He
receded a bit, naturally, and we were never again as close as we had
been when I first knew him, but he remained my loyal friend to the
end, I think, although there are those who do not share that opinion.
But I could not understand why he would pay the price of the martyr,
or what he hoped to achieve by it. But that sacrifice, the payment
that was forced from him each day he saw us together, was never
absent from the hollow crooks of his eyes, and that winter I often
found it difficult to look upon him without feeling something wrench,
and wonder why.
The
thick, misty, bulletproof glass of the window loomed suddenly ahead
of me. The face trapped behind it was thoughtlessly smeared into a
dull oblivion. I could not make out the man's eyes, just a dark patch
of vague looking flesh in a cage. As I focused my sight upon the
window, I realized that there was already someone there. It was an
old, hairy man hunched over and gnarled.
And
how ragged a man. My eyes were drawn to him instantly, perhaps
because he was the only clear, sentient organism in my sight, or
perhaps because of the way his skin seemed to tremble with the weight
of death. Dull, grey hair tumbled in dry gasps from his face, spilled
absently down the front of his chest. His left elbow was cocked
precariously over the top of a cane. It was straight, but in many
ways that noble stick seemed as worn as its master. There was a
manner of comfortable care in the way he stood, balanced on the top
of his cane, as if at the merest touch of the wind he might topple
over and sink into the cement.
I
came to a stop just in time to hear him ask the faceless man or the
manless face behind the glass for a pack of Luckies. His voice was
filled with so much gravel that it was barely possible to distinguish
the words.
There
was movement behind the glass, faint and unsure, and then the thick
hiss of the intercom interposed upon the silence of the open night.
"What?"
"I
said a pack of Luckies!" the old man snapped. His entire body
shuddered as if under the effort of spitting out the words.
The
smudge of flesh started swimming about in its pool of flourescence.
While he was waiting, the man in front of me held still, and as I
stood there quietly the strained rattle of his unsteady breath
laboring in his chest reached my ears. It seemed to take inordinately
long for the attendant to find the cigarettes, and while we were
waiting I afforded a look back at the car. Salvatore was speaking
energetically with Antonius through the window. Money was being
passed between them.
When
I returned my attention to the window, I saw that the old man had not
even so much as shifted his weight. A quarry of granite there was in
him. Eventually, the metal drawer underneathe the window slid open.
The old man was already lifting a twisted hand, streaked and covered
with hair that had decayed beyond grey, clutching a five-dollar bill.
As he brought it to the level of his head, I could see it was
twitching uncontrolably. A chill shudder passed through me.
They
grey container slammed shut, and through the silence and the wind and
the cold of winter, I could hear nothing but the broken breathing of
his man in front of me. A moment later, the drawer opened again, and
this time there was a stubby, white pack of smokes inside. While the
old man was reaching for his tobacco and his change, I saw the smudge
behind the glass lean slightly forward, uncertain. A moment later,
the harsh hissing of the intercom broke once again.
"Sorry
for the delay, sir," the man's incorporeal voice crackled to us
disembodied. It hesitated, unsteady, before continuing. "It's
just - I've never sold a pack of those things before, and I've been
working here a long time. Didn't even know anyone still smoked 'em."
The
old man clutched his smokes in a battered hand for a moment before
hiding them away somewhere in his dark clothing. And then, as he was
turning away, I heard him grate, almost as if to himself, "That's
because we're all dead." Now he was shambling away.
I
stared after him, amazed at how quickly he was able to move.
Something inside wanted to burst out laughing.
"What?"
The broken voice leaked from behind the glass. But the old man either
did not hear or disdained to answer.
But
I could not take my eyes from him. Somehow he had managed to keep his
face hidden from me, and for some reason I would really have liked to
have got at least a glimpse of his face - of what must have been his
sharp, hawk eyes.
I
dimly became aware that the voice through the intercom was
distressed. "Hey, you! What'll it be?" I hesitated before
answering, my sight still lingering after the shape that had so
simply allowed itself to be swallowed by the utter darkness from
which it had emerged.
"A
pack of Luckies," I answered finally, a rueful smile spreading
across my face.
We
arrived at the Eight by Ten not too late to miss the second song and
were hardly rewarded. The place was small and crowded. It was
difficult to get drinks, and there was an even greater and more
fundamental problem - not a single person was smoking any pot. And
Yellowman, he knew it. We stood watching together for a couple of
minutes from the second floor balcony, then backed away in agony.
There was no trouble finding ourselves a place to sit, but it was not
very secluded. Our displeasure was ragged on our faces, and the smell
of testosterone throbbed in my nostrils, but then Salvatore pulled
out a bat of a hash joint. Despite the commercial reggae and a sober
crowd, we knew things would look better if we were stoned. Some real
rostamen materialized out of the crowd and smoked with us, even
deigning to offer us some of their kind bud, but they weren't much
for conversation, and after everything was smoked they quickly
disappeared.
"Dude,"
Canine said dimly, an unlighted Marlboro dangling loosely from his
mouth. "This really sucks." The statement was plain and was
met with a stark silence of agreement.
"Hey,
Emmanuel," Antonius asked after a moment, "can I have one
of those?"
"What?"
"I
said, 'can -'"
"You
can call me Canine, dude. You always have."
"Right.
Well, can I have one?" "No? What do you mean, no?"
"I
mean what I said. No."
There
was a moment of silence in which I realized I was the next target.
"David
-?"
But
I was ready. I had drawn out the squat, soft package of Luckies from
my pocket and presented it to him. But he didn't seem to notice that
they weren't the usual Marlboros.
"Thanks."
I
passed him one and watched as he lit it. He prepared a rather large
drag. The inhalation was quickly followed by a stark look of
displeasure. "Oh, man! What is this?" He help up the
cigarette like a gun.
"Filterless,"
I answered, laughing.
"What?"
Salvatore inquired, jutting his face before mine. His eyes, red with
passion, floating like orbs in the abyss of his features. "You're
smoking filterless?"
For
the night, at least, I knew I was safe.
We
lapsed into an uneasy silence, and I decided to light up another
smoke. It was some time before Salvatore remarked, "This crowd
is pretty weak."
"Yeah,"
Antonius agreed, looking off somewhere. "Everybody's white."
"What's
that supposed to mean?" Canine asked softly. I thought I heard
something bending dangerously in his voice, but that edge of ferocity
was apprently lost upon Antonius.
"You
know," he said, waving his arms about himself. "Everybody
here is white. Most of these people wouldn't know good reggae if they
smoked it."
"What
does that mean, that only black people like reggae?"
"Hey,
man, cut the crap. Don't try and lay your guilt trip on me again.
I've heard it all before. I've heard it from you when you're drunk,
I've heard it from you when you're tripping, I've heard it -"
"Hey,
will you guys shut the fuck up?" Salvatore suddenly cut in. "I
didn't come out tonight for a political discussion."
"Why
don't you get me a beer then?" I asked him, smiling. I reached
into my back packet and pulled out a ten.
Salvatore
looked at me for a moment, feigned disbelief rippling over his face,
before he answered, "Why don't you get yourself a fucking beer?"
"No,
dude," Antonius continued, ignoring us. "I'm sick of it.
I'm sicking of people telling me what I can and can't say. Anyway, it
doesn't solve anything. I'm going to feel the way I do, and telling
me I can't doesn't change anything, it just makes me mad."
"So
you're saying people should be able to say whatever they want,
whenever they want, without taking care they aren't offending
anybody?"
"Welcome
to America, Canine. Look, if someone's challenging your heritage and
he won't back down it's your natural born right to go over and kick
his ass. That, I guarantee you, he'll understand."
"And
get thrown in prison. They'd throw us all into prison if we didn't
wear a suit to work. They want us to be just like them."
"Here,"
Salvatore suddenly snapped, hurling himself to his feet. "Give
me that money."
I
handed him the ten and watched him disappear into the massless throng
of bodies.
Antonius
shook his head slowly. "Look, man, we were here first. Love it
or leave it."
"No,
man." Canine was growing more serious. "You guys brought us
here in the first place. And you know what? I never forget that, not
one fucking second of my life that I'm walking around in the street.
You gotta let us be who we are, and stop putting conditions on our
freedom. You don't know what you're talking about, anyway. You're
white. You owe us."
"What?"
I couldn't keep myself from speaking. "What did you just say?"
"It's
ridiculous that you deny it," Canine continued, speaking
directly to me. He puffed needlessly on his cancer stick, speaking
intently and certainly, his eyes alight and consumed with the
confidence of a firm opinion. I had never known him that way. "You
don't believe any compensation is due?"
"No,"
I replied calmly. "I don't. That's the way shit happens. Sorry,
but black people aren't the only ones who have suffered. Deal."
"I
don't give a shit about other people! All I know is that I get pulled
over far more often than you, and I always feel like I'm explaining
myself. Shit, half the time it's to another fucking black guy!"
"Hey,
look, from what I remember at school, the Africans initiated the
slave trade themselves." I glanced at Antonius out of the corner
of my eye, saw him pasting me with eyes slightly surprised - as if I
had never spoken before. "Four, five hundred years ago, the
Europeans were just another civilization rushing along the timetrack
to dominate the world. At the time what they did was perfectly
acceptable. What, there was no slavery in Africa?"
"And
the Africans," Antonius continued before Canine could cut in,
"were the least technologically advanced peoples in the
proximity of Europe. Culturally, I don't know, but the Indians, the
Chinese, the Europeans - shit, even the Aztecs - they were all
civilized powers."
"They
only had more advanced weapons. Oh, so it's okay to enslave an entire
nation, just because you can?'
"That's
the way things worked back then."
"Yeah,
well it wasn't so long ago."
Antonius
shrugged. "I didn't have anything to do with it."
"Whatever.
And then you try and kick us out, but the thing is we aren't Africans
anymore, and we don't want to go back. This is our country, too. We
are the fucking ones who built it up, while some ugly white
motherfucker sat on his fat ass and sipped lemonade on his veranda
and eyed our women in the fields.
"So
you don't think we're owed anything? Not even respect enough to let
your children play with our children, to let us sit at your dinner
table? Let me tell you something, you have no idea what it's like to
be a black man growing up in America. And what's worse is that most
of the obstacles are hidden from people like you. The fucking
government sells crack in our neighborhoods to keep us from thinking
straight. But there are those who came before armed with words of
hatred whose solutions people like myself are not unwilling to
consider. Take what cannot be had. That is how many revolutions
begin."
"But
there will be no revolution," Antonius answered softly. "White
people have all the guns."
"Really,"
Canine returned severely. He wasn't flinching at all.
"I
wonder where Salvatore went?" I muttered to myself, suddenly
feeling the need for something bitter down my throat, something that
if I drank enough of would fuck me up.
"Look,
man," Antonius said, smiling mockingly. He was tapping his foot
on the floor. "You said it yourself. The media creates a fear of
the black man. So once you guys start popping people and it looks
organized, the fucking government will come down so hard you won't
even have a trial."
"Trials
don't mean anything if you're a black man."
"What
I don't understand," Antonius said then, "is why the
assimilation hasn't occured. It seems to me that the blacks in this
country have contributed to their own racial problems. Look at the
Asians. The work ethic is alive in them, and that, at least,
Americans can respect. But the blacks, I don't know. The impression
is that many of them have given up, or resorted to thievery and
deceit because it's easier. Because they think we owe them
something."
"Why
work in a country that has enslaved you and pretended to set you
free? Naw, fuck that shit. Segragation. We will grow stronger on our
own. The longer we remain dispersed, the more your weakness infects
our purer spirit. Don't you see them walking around school, like
cadets in the army? There is real militarism, real power, in all this
passion. A new sense of ethnicity."
Canine
leaned back, brought his hands behind his head, and smiled knowingly.
"When we strike we will catch you offguard. Your love of luxury
and laziness will be our greatest advantage."
Antonius
looked into Canine's eyes deeply, seriously. I did not know what he
was searching for there. "I can't dig your shit, Canine,"
he said at last. "We're friends, remember? Are you going to kill
me when it comes time? Are you?" No response. Antonius sighed
and tried to smile. "Well, all I meant is that I can't be held
responsible for what my ancestors did. And, well -" a wild smile
spread across his face "- I love you man." He feigned
emotion, choking his voice, and leaned forward as if to embrace
Canine in a bear hug.
Roughly,
Canine shoved Antonius away. "Fucking asshole," he muttered
darkly. "It's not a joke."
"Are
you guys finished yet?" Salvatore's voice cut between us
clearly. He was standing in front of me, shoving a beer in my face. I
took it from him and gladly sucked down half of it. Salvatore resumed
his seat next to mine and started talking to Antonius about this hot
chick he had met at the bar. I tried listening, but the conversation
did not interest me. When I looked over at Canine I saw him staring
back at me blankly, passionlessly. I was momentarily taken aback by
that gaze, at the still purpose I glimpsed lurking there. Never
before had I considered him different from any of the rest of us - he
had always been Canine - but now I sensed that that he was always
aware of it.
"Well,"
I offered to him, vainly attempting to banish the serious specter
that had arisen between us, "here's to the love humanity."
I offered him the butt of my Sierra Nevada.
A
rueful smile flickered across his parched skin. "Yeah," he
agreed, raising his beer. "To fucking humanity."
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