the man in the tide

A light drizzle like a moist fog blanketed the city. Despite December's raw weather, the downtown sidewalks bristled with consumers eager to complete their holiday shopping. I was among them, but unlike them, my hands were empty, free of shopping bags; I swam among the school, observing the annual chaos.
Lights were flashing.
Familiar holiday songs poured from the storefronts.
Children spoke of Santa's pending arrival.
Adults squawked into cellular devices.
And like sunken battleships from long forgotten battles, the panhandlers, homeless and lunatics were glued to the concrete floor, while others leaned against the polished marble of upscale shopping palaces. Voices and signs asked for change. A few of the desolate begged for nothing, asked for nothing -- their eyes said everything.
Several feet from the vagrants, a closed cafe's awning provided me refuge from the ill elements. Out of the mist, I lit a cigarette and watched the fortunate pass the desperate, the immaculate pass the forsaken. A bedraggled man in soiled clothing approached me as I returned the pack of smokes to my pocket.
"Pardon me, kind sir, but may I have one of those?" he asked, pointing at the burning cigarette between my lips.
The man's breath reeked of bourbon. I obliged his request. His weathered flesh told me he was in his fifties, but a glint of youth in his eyes hinted otherwise.
"Poor sons uh bitches," he muttered at the passing pedestrians. "They don't know how good they got it. Out here spendin' money on all this shit. Shit that's destined for a wasteland they'll never see. They've lost sight. All of 'em."
He paused, ashed the cigarette and yelled at no one in particular, "Y'all've lost sight!"
Few people paid any attention to the declaration. Just another sidewalk crackpot, they thought.
"What's that dirty man talkin' about, daddy?" I heard a small girl ask.
"Who knows, honey. Who knows. Come on, let's get home. Mommy's waiting for us," daddy responded.
The man removed a pint of Rebel Yell bourbon from his pocket, took a swig and sighed in relief, as if the sweet lips of salvation had graced his haggard soul.
"A widow died of cholera in 1939, leavin' behind four children doomed for an orphanage."
He turned away from the sea of humanity and stared into my eyes. His silvery blue eyes, piercing eyes, beamed something invisible into mine.
"You believe in ghosts, friend?" he asked.
"Ghosts? I don't know, man," I replied.
"Well, that poor widow . . . she's alive, floatin' in my head. Somewhere. You know, she sings to me at night. She sings these songs, these beautiful ballads that bring tears to my eyes." He took a drag from the cigarette and exhaled. The smoke and his bourbon-stained breath floated up, away from us, over the sea of strangers. And in a shaky, off-key voice he sang, "Oh my children, I love you so / Oh my dearest husband, I see your blood, in the cold white snow / Spring will soon come, I'll watch the blossoms grow / But not my children, for the Lord, He took me so.
"Sometimes I see her . . . her hair . . . hair like an angel -- clean, flowin'. She tells me her name is Grace, which was the name of my grandmother. It's her, my grandmother, inside my head. Singin', whisperin' to me, askin' me why her . . . why her grandchildren -- I have a brother and a sister. They're out east somewhere, away from all this shit. Anyway, she sometimes asks me, 'Why'd you kill my daughter, Richard?' You see, my momma was in a car accident -- a bad one. I rushed to the hospital and my brother and sister were already there, and I . . . I see momma on that clean white bed, surrounded by tubes and machines, her head was wrapped with a bandage. My brother and sister were by her side and they were just starin' at her with tears in their eyes, on their cheeks. And I'll never forget how they were starin' at her . . . like they couldn't believe that was momma. The doctor said her chances of comin' out that coma were slim, so we waited and waited, I don't know how many days. Nothin' changed. So we, my brother and sis, decided to . . . decided to . . . uh . . . pull the plug. Momma died and a few days later we buried . . . we buried momma . . ."
The man's words trailed off and he turned away from me, looked into the sky and the mist falling from it, and in a hushed voice said, "'Why'd you do it, Richard?'"
Tear's filled his eyes, eyes like shiny plastic. Silvery blue eyes, piercing eyes. He reached into his pocket and took a swig from the pint. The man stepped out from under the awning, glanced left, glanced right, and, looking into that sea of humanity, dove in, joining all those people. As he walked east, I tried to follow him with my eyes, but the tide took him from my sight. Amid the sidewalk chatter and Christmas music, I heard his voice, rising from the sea, singing, "Oh my children, I love you so / Spring will soon come, I'll watch the blossoms grow / But not my children, for the Lord, He took me so."

xx