The Man In The Drink
Part 1 of 2
Alexander Rutledge walks down the street in the early hours of the morning. He has no companions or compatriots. Not now anyway. But last night he did. Last night, everyone was his friend. Every hearty backslap was aimed squarely at his ego, overcompensating for the discomfort they felt when they looked at him with forced enthusiasm.
Last night they had to; he was the benefactor of the bar, the patron saint of patrons. You see, he had come into a fair bit of money. Much of the night is a blur to him, but he remembers the money. The feel of it, the cottony fibers of cash money, slightly stiff, coarse on his fingertips.
He remembers that the day leading up to last night had started the same as any other. He awoke in the small alcove he had staked out now nearly a half a year ago. The rain protected indentation he called home was shielded from the view of police and pedestrians by a scrubby thicket of shrubs.
Just as he did every weekday morning, he awoke to the sounds of commuter traffic. Once the cars started passing by, he knew it would only be a matter of time before the foot traffic followed. Feeling the hard edge of scar tissue running parallel to the line of his cheekbone, he thought of the scrutiny that accompanied foot traffic. He made his best effort to avoid scrutiny. Hurrying, he looked cautiously through the thicket and, seeing no one, he slipped carefully through the path, past the brambles and out into the morning sunlight.
From here, the day seemed filled with possibilities. From here, his personal poverty did not hinder his ability to breathe in a new day. The early rays of a fresh start inspired him to believe anything could happen and that any door could open to him. Embracing this feeling, he strode out into the day to meet it head on.
Long ago, Alexander had allowed himself to be labeled. Conniver, a label he wore without apology; beggar, a label he could not abide; alcoholic, a label he greedily imbibed. With these in mind, as they always were, he began his route. He sifted through the familiar dumpsters and wandered the usual alleyways searching for aluminum cans, edible morsels, saleable goods, and useable clothing.
His day would go on like this until he had collected 50 cans or until fate smiled upon him and handed him a faster path to six bucks. Five for a refill on his prescription bottle of hooch from Dr. Sam down under the freeway and an extra dollar to pay his taxes.
He always kept his eyes to the ground, scanning for change and unfinished cigarette butts between dumpsters and trashcans. This practice had the added benefit of preemptively avoiding eye contact. Alexander counted himself among those who preferred to navigate humanity in blinders. He had no need of anyone’s pity. Today, as luck would have it, a five-dollar bill blew right across his path.
Alexander focused with all the clarity he could muster on the bill flitting with the autumn leaves recently released from their servitude. As the windswell increased the money’s lead, Alexander took two fast steps. The cans in his knapsack rattled a tinny tune to the rhythm of his footfalls. He was gearing up for a mad dash. Something moved on the edge of his vision and he unwound abruptly, bringing himself upright. Nervously, he etched the scar on his cheek with his finger and took stock of his surroundings. He spied the tail of an alley cat disappearing behind a dumpster.
The bill had escaped him and he sighed up at the sky. The morning was wasted. He lamented the fact that he had only a dozen cans to show for it. Alexander wanted to cry, if only for a moment. Instead, he gathered his resolve and went back to work.
He licked his lips and softened his focus, allowing the world to wash over him. He imagined the world moving through him as though the hooch was in fact pumping through his veins at that very moment. As the hours passed, Alexander Rutledge continued to poke through the rubbish and squirrel away his finds. He snapped to attention, flinching at the sound of a fast-moving bike courier and delivering him briskly back to the real world.
Feeling the heat on the back of his neck, he looked up to see the sun high above him. Things were getting desperate and no real progress had been made. At this late hour, measures must be enacted in order to fill his prescription in time.
That meant going to see Mitchel.
Alexander didn’t want to go see Mitchel. He never wanted to see Mitchel again, but off he went. He started down the road without delay. In time he came upon Mitchel’s obnoxious home. On a gravel lot sat a school bus painted a flat black, long out of commision. It was a massive hallway of sleep spaces for deadbeats and ne’er-do-wells. Alexander knocked aggressively and waited. The over-sized rear door to the bungalow swung open in a wide arc, just missing Alexander as it did so. A woman with a big, slicked-back pompadour lounged near the opening. She scurried across to put her finger in a hole in the door frame to keep the blaring alarm at bay. “Whatchu want?”
Alexander looked into her eerie, black-on-black eyes. “I’ve come for Mitchel.” he said, trying not to let on that her mousy appearance made him uncomfortable. “You nasty,” she squeaked. “C’mon.”
He popped himself up over the bumper and entered the vile tunnel.
When Alexander stood up, he glimpsed the sentry’s small son who looked up at him, startled. The creepy kid quickly went back to the moldy cheese he nibbled with both hands.
Alexander moved past the outhouse seat that had been nailed over a hole in the floor where a pissing, pregnant preteen was preening herself in a dirty mirror. He skirted around the edge of a man who planned to never leave the place again seeing how he was a solid 8 inches wider than the doorway. He bristled past a bald man meticulously brushing his singular tooth. Alexander recoiled from the stench of a recluse wrapped in pungent robes. After passing through the great and small horrors of the hall, Alexander Rutledge finally came to Mitchel’s sectioned off portion. He cleared his throat.
“Yes?” From the other side of a cardboard divide the friendly voice continued, “Come in, and know me better, man!” Alexander didn’t let the jovial tone lure him into complacency about what he was here for. The dark deed on the other side of this door couldn’t be softened by the ridiculous sights he knew he was about to see.
He opened the door and found Mitchel lying topless in the middle of a dirt covered floor. He wore daisy dukes and cowboy boots and should have been wearing a sombrero. His long hair and thick beard looked as though he’d bathed in a vacuum cleaner bag. Mitchel laid in the dry and dusty dirt, rolling and giggling like a schoolgirl. He was surrounded on all sides by baby ducks and geese chicks. They pecked all around him, eating the seed from the dirt. They hopped on top of him, picking the seeds from Mitchel’s hair and beard. Alexander stood somberly before him, hands folded at his waist, not letting his guard down. Mitchel squeaked, squealed and squinched through the giggles. “You know the score. A buck a bird, 50 kernels each.”
Swallowing hard, Alexander turned away. He stood before the cardboard exit and put his hands in his pocket, fingering the empty hip flask. He turned back towards Mitchel. “Fine. But, I get to leave through the front.”
Mitchel didn’t miss a beat. “There’s a one dollar prefered exit fee.”
Miserably, Alexander stepped into the pen that had been constructed where the driver’s seat once stood. Adult birds were bound in place, their long necks restrained at the base. He wrapped his fist around the neck and began shoving corn kernels, one at a time, down the bird’s throat. He counted quietly to himself and when the count reached 50, he went on to the next bird in line.
The second bird, not nearly as fat or lethargic, resisted. Every kernel was a silent struggle, the duck exhaling protest through its nostrils. Another desperate man had severed the bird’s vocal chords. At least there’s that, Alexander thought. At least he didn’t have to sever their vocal chords.
Alexander made his 50 count on the third bird. He choked back tears, hesitating before grabbing the neck of the fourth bird. One, two, three… He was just past the halfway point. A fair wage for an honest day’s work wasn’t beneath Alexander, but this… twenty seven, twenty eight… each kernel of corn was another nail in the coffin. Another tally mark on Alexander’s ticket to hell. Fifty.
The fifth bird looked into Alexander’s eyes. He knew what was in store for him, having witnessed the four birds who had gone before him, having experienced it himself day in and day out. The future foie gras frowned as much as is possible for a duck. Alexander picked up the first tiny liver bomb and began again. He wanted it to be over. He wanted to be finished as soon as possible, but the farther along he got the slower he stuffed. The fifth bird was nearly finished and the sixth loomed ahead. Alexander and the fifth bird, both breathing heavily through their noses, mucus running down their faces, stood silent and ashamed.
Shaken, Alexander’s outstretched hand trembled before Mitchel. “Give me my money.” Mitchel looked up from the dirt.
“That’ll only leave you with four dollars if you still wanna go through the front.”
Alexander made a gimme motion and Mitchel handed him a worn and beaten five dollar bill.
“Just the four,” Alexander panted.
“This is all I have,” Mitchel grinned.
Alexander looked towards the hallway of horrors. His eyes welled up. He hung his head and slowly made his way back to the sixth bird. He floundered in an overwhelming despair as he once again counted to 50, compulsively concluding the cruelty. He folded open the front door and walked away without looking back.
He made his way to the bridge without stopping. Alexander had his money and the race against the clock was on. It was a race he had no intention of losing. He weaved through traffic, vehicle and pedestrian alike. Mostly, he avoided what he thought of as common people, members of the human herd, a herd he had once been a part of. But now he was outside the flow of that herd, neither a shepherd nor a wolf.
He made short work of the journey and made the spot with mere minutes to spare. The doctor, however, was not in, having taken enough of his own medicine to fully deplete the supply and pass out soundly on the cool cement beneath the bridge.
Ready for part 2? Read it here.
