Slow Ecclesiastes

PART ONE

Our thought cannot reflect a phenomenon in its entirety at one stroke, but is constituted of knowledge which, in a dialectical process, approximates reality, and is lively and infinitely variegated.

—Mao Zedong, On Dialectical Materialism, 1937

(translated: Nick Knight, M.E. Sharp Inc., 1990)

Chapter One. Alton

(Kansas City, Missouri, July, 1997)

Three hours after midnight in Kansas City, Alton pushed open the door of the 7-Eleven, stepped out from the dry and cool interior of the store, and entered the muggy summer heat. The humidity was thick with the cooked rot of July and the insects congregated to scour the exposed surfaces of the city clean. Moisture condensed on Alton’s bare arms and neck as he stood in the parking lot, flanked by a pair of public telephones and a flaking brown-painted steel garbage bin, belching its breath of half-eaten hotdogs, unfinished cokes, and residue of ice cream decaying in the bin’s open belly. A thin swarm of flies lit and unlit from a Slurpee cup to a candy wrapper to a half-eaten apple piled up over the rim of the bin. Alton looked down at the ground and encountered a veritable mosaic of modern life. The sticky faces of mounds of gum were caked with grit; some extended tendrils, thinning as they stretched a pace’s length across the asphalt. Comet-shaped stains of extinguished cigarettes trailed ashy tails in whichever direction the foot that snuffed the butt had dragged them. Wandering along pheromone paths between gum and ash filed ants. Alton looked up. Moths followed jagged trajectories along the row of incandescent bulbs exposed beneath the front awning.

At three o’clock A.M., Alton entered the insect world, which, as he briefly scanned the vacant parking lot and empty street, was in a much greater state of activity than its human counterpart. Crickets were chirping in the tufts of grass sprouting from the corner of the building. A cicada sounded its stuttering call from the spruce sapling, struggling to die in the shadow of the store. A lone beetle ventured from a tuft of grass onto the handicapped-accessible sidewalk ramp. Upon finding itself surrounded by gum and ashes, the beetle apparently thought better of the venture, turned, and scrambled back into the surrounding darkness. A minute later, a roly-poly of greater courage followed the beetle’s path onto the sidewalk and began a journey across the broad expanse of concrete, culminating in the safe sanctuary of the gap beneath the garbage bin.

Somewhere in the city behind Alton, maybe on Troost, a siren sounded. The wail emerged from the South and disappeared into the North, leaving in its wake the low rumble of unseen early morning delivery trucks, inaudible until the siren’s passing had drawn Alton’s attention to it.

At three A.M., with his shift at 7-Eleven over, Alton walked the four blocks home under the humming, ambivalent scrutiny of the streetlights, each possessed of its own nebula of moths. Beads of sweat formed around the individual whiskers of the stubble above Alton’s lips. He swiped at it with the length of his forefinger only to find, moments later, that it had already been replenished.

Three ante meridian! And nothing to be done about it.

The street that Alton turned down was empty of people. The maples and pines in the yards of the apartment buildings shielded him from the porch lights and threw their leafy shadows across his path. Before he knew it, he was home. Towering at the top of the yard’s steep incline, the building bared its chipped-brick teeth like a two-story-tall monster and dared Alton to approach. The mixed music of more than one stereo escaped through the cracks in the building and unhesitatingly introduced itself to Alton’s ears.

Alton cast his eyes from the building back to the sidewalk, providing an inviting path past his apartment and back into the darkness. Following this impulse, Alton circled the block. Three minutes later, arriving again in front of the building, he found it unchanged, refusing to welcome him home.

Unperturbed, Alton walked the four blocks back to the 7-Eleven and emptied the trash from the bin into the dumpster on the side of the building opposite the dying spruce. The colony of roly-polies who had settled beneath the garbage bin were disturbed by the sudden disappearance of their shelter. The mist of flies followed the garbage from the bin into the dumpster, where they were acquainted with many other flies, all vomiting their digestive juices onto the abundant and odorous feast, then sucking the mushy residue up through their straw-like mouths. Alton replaced the bin on the sidewalk, much to the relief of the roly-polies.

The workers inside the store watched Alton but did not come out to question or greet him. His co-workers were decidedly less than friendly with him. When he considered reasons for their aloofness, Alton did not think of his natural tendency toward reticence nor of his solitary disposition. Instead, Alton suspected that his co-workers, eighteen and nineteen years-old, saw in him an unwanted vision of their own future, a decade or more down the road, still emptying garbage cans in the middle of the night. He did not blame them. For his own part, Alton preferred an ambiguous future. He tried walking home again.

Beneath the patterned orange and red overshirt, collared in solid green, Alton’s T-shirt was soaked with perspiration. A slight breeze picked up and chilled the sweat on his arms and face. Another ambulance siren sounded. Alton arrived at his apartment building and confronted it. He grasped the iron hand-rail lining the concrete steps that climbed the yard to the stairs of the porch. His mailbox, one of a dozen black squares arranged in two rows on the brick face of the building, was propped open, as were several others, with advertisements informing him of deals on pizzas, automobile servicing, missing children, and groceries. He stuffed the advertisements into an adjacent box, from which similar material had already been removed.

Since the wooden frame around the door was broken and the bolt of the lock no longer extended into anything but a gap in the wall, Alton pushed the door open without turning the knob. In the hallway, he passed the rows of iceboxes, originally designed for the delivery of ice and now nailed shut. When he had first moved into the building, the doors to the iceboxes had been free to slide up and open. When some of the residents, acting on a curiosity prompted by scratching sounds, complained of finding squirrels inhabiting the iceboxes, the doors had been permanently shut. Now, the squirrels had a secure, secluded place of residence. Frequently, the human tenants would hear them passing through the walls up to the roof.

The building was old and beautiful. Its ornate wooden banisters followed the narrow stairs up to the second floor at both ends of a straight hall that ran the length of the building. Its scuffed wooden floors filled the rooms. Alton creaked up the stairs and discovered that the landlord had left another note, folded in half, taped to the wooden door of his apartment. Knowing that the note would contain the landlord’s terse remonstrations, Alton ignored it, until, after several failed attempts with the key, he conceded that the lock to his apartment had been changed. He dropped the single, useless key on the worn, blackish-maroon carpet lining the second-floor hall. He scratched at the stubble on his face with one hand as he carefully peeled the tape from the door. His attention was momentarily diverted by rock music abruptly blasting from the apartment adjacent to his, where a pair of homosexual drug addicts known to him only as Tom and Rick resided. Unfolding the note, Alton read in the landlord’s cursive scrawl: Your Out, Deadbeat Asshole. Mngt. Alton let the sheet of paper drift to the floor. Neither the content nor the style of the message surprised him. The last message he had bothered to read had gone: Get Out, Deadbeat Asshole. Mngt. The first message received three months before, when he had stopped paying rent, had been similarly succinct: You Pay Me Rent. Are You Some Deadbeat Asshole? Mngt. The eviction came as no surprise.

Alton descended the steps from the second floor to the back door of the building, which lay against the wall, violently unhinged, next to the doorway. The back door opened into a small thirty foot by twenty foot yard, ringed by maple trees and shrubs with a green dumpster as its the centerpiece. There Alton observed with some irritation that the landlord (he couldn’t remember his name and knew him only as Mngt.) had not bothered to remove his stuff from the apartment before changing the lock.

Standing in the doorway, Alton dabbed at the sweat forming on his brow. Even at three a.m., the relentless swelter of the Kansas City July did not yield a respite. The breeze that had cooled him earlier could not find its way into this culvert. Alton frowned as he considered how to break into his apartment.

He slowly climbed back up the stairs and stopped in front of his neighbors’ door. He could not name the musician responsible for the music which emanated from behind the door, although the songs themselves were recognizable from the many nights he had listened to them through the thin filter of the wall. Alton knocked on the door, firmly so as to be heard above the music. He knocked for three or four minutes, increasing the force of his raps during the lull between songs.

Midway through the second song, Tom energetically swung the door wide and was framed in the doorway breathing heavily. When Tom recognized his neighbor, his expression fell dramatically. He searched for the appropriate words since those on his tongue had been prepared for an alternate visitor. Hey, Al, he said in a confused tone between pants. His forehead too was coated with a layer of perspiration. The building, predating refrigerators, also lacked air conditioning.

Alton, Alton corrected him, raising his voice to compensate for the roar of the music, now much louder to him once the door had been opened.

Yeah, Tom said. Tom sported the abnormally thin limbs and gaunt face of an addict. His blond hair was dyed and matted on one side, tousled on the crown. He was barefoot and wore cut-off jeans and a yellow tanktop. He fidgeted, running one hand back and forth along the length of the other forearm, as he waited for his visitor to respond. I thought you were Rick.

I got locked out of my apartment.

Happens to you too?

Yes, agreed Alton, inaudible beneath the music. Several times in the past, he had let Tom and Rick gain access to their apartment through his place, when they had lost their keys.

Tom abruptly turned and led Alton down the short entryway, into the main room, around an over-turned sofa, upholstered in rough, formerly ochre fabric. As Tom stepped onto one of the sofa’s cushion, he turned to Alton and said something, but the music was so loud that Alton could not make out the words. Alton cupped his palm to his ear, to indicate that he hadn’t understood. Tom stepped over to him, cupped his own hands around his mouth, forming a tunnel that he connected to Alton’s ear, through which he bellowed, Couch fell over.

Alton winced at the piercing shout and backed off. He nodded to show Tom that he had understood the message. The couch had fallen over. It was as clear as day; the evidence could not be denied. Were the couch on trial for having fallen over, a jury of its peers could, with only a minute’s deliberation, confidently deliver a verdict of guilty. Alton felt momentarily heartened that he lived in a country where falling down was not a punishable crime, not so much as class-D misdemeanor.

Tom hadn’t taken another two steps toward the wide-open glass door leading to the balcony before he turned and made another unintelligible statement.

Alton walked over to the stereo and hit the STOP button on the tape-deck. The apartment was momentarily flooded with silence, as their ears tuned down. However, after a moment, they heard reggae music pounding up from an apartment on the first floor and across the hall. What? asked Alton.

I thought you were Rick, Tom said.

Alton glanced across the room at the doorway leading to the bedroom. Laid across the doorway, were two lamps. Both were intended to be used as floor lamps, with the bulbs and shades fixed atop poles about five feet long. However, they were both lying on the floor, their shades bent and torn. One of the bulbs had been shattered. The two lamps were plugged into electrical outlets, one on either side of the doorway.

I don’t know where Rick is, said Tom. I lost him at the hospital.

Alton glanced back over at Tom. What happened?

Tom stared over the sofa at the remains of the two floor lamps. We were having a duel.

With lamps?

Light sabers, Tom answered. Swords with lights at the end.

Alton nodded. He could see the resemblance. The thought crossed his mind that Hollywood blockbuster movie executives could achieve a different effect if they opted for similar, less extravagant props. Many were the theater patrons who would appreciate the subtle change of pace, or so Alton imagined.

Intending to demonstrate how easily a lamp could be employed as a light-saber, Tom paced across the room and came to a stand still in the midst of the broken glass. He picked up the lamp with the broken bulb, its shade stained with dried blood. Tom wielded the lamp like a baseball bat swatting an imaginary cloud of gnats surrounding him. En garde! Tom shouted, swinging the lamp. His maneuverability was compromised by the bulky stand at the base of the lamp and the fact that it was connected to the wall by a relatively short cord. Abruptly Tom abandoned the lamp, setting it carefully upright, and walked over to the glass porch door. Like that, he explained, Except at first the lights were working.

Tom must have won the duel, Alton thought, since Rick ended up at the hospital.

Tom frowned. He peered out the door into the darkness beyond the concrete balcony. He stepped out onto the balcony with Alton trailing him. When the bulb in my light-saber broke, it cut Rick’s face. The lady at the hospital said he was going to have to get some stitches. They led him off. I thought they went behind a curtain but then I peeked in the curtain after about twenty minutes and no one was there. I don’t know where they took him. It was the kind of thing you would expect to see at a magic show, except with an elephant or a jumbo jet instead of Rick.

Alton glanced along the building to the balcony behind his own apartment. The easiest way to gain access to it was to pull himself up onto the roof, walk across the flat roof, and lower himself back down. He had seen Tom and Rick do it several times. With this intent, he jumped, caught hold of the rim of the roof, and hauled himself up and over the edge. A second later, Tom followed him up, although Alton did not know why. He had no intention of inviting him inside. He was just going to collect his things and get out.

It was the night of the new moon and the sky was dark with its absence. Some meager ambient light of the city filtered through maples behind the house and around the taller apartment buildings on either side, illuminating the tarred roof. As he walked along the edge of the roof, toward his balcony, Alton spotted someone lying down on his back in the center of the roof. A puffy white bandage covered half the face from below the left eye to the jawline. There’s Rick, Alton said, pointing Tom’s roommate out to him.

Rick! said Tom, as he sprinted the dozen steps separating them.

Rick gazed up at Tom silently.

What the hell are you doing on the roof? I thought you were still lost at the hospital.

Again, no reply was forthcoming from Rick, who remained rooted to the roof, his eyes focused on the pinpricks of stars.

Tom squatted down beside Rick and noticed the orange plastic pharmaceutical jar discarded on the roof with the white, child-proof lid cast a couple feet away. Tom held the empty jar a couple inches from his face, squinting to read the label and determine the previous contents. God damn it, shouted Tom. You ate all the painkillers. Son of a bitch, you didn’t think to give me any. Tom glanced over his shoulder at Alton, who had remained in place, watching the two roommates. I won the light-saber duel, Tom said to Alton, but I didn’t even get so much as a lousy 250 milligrams of…, Tom paused to read the label on the jar, Lortab. Tom returned his attention to the supine man, tempted to grab him, haul him to his feet, and demand satisfaction. Tom was taken completely unaware, when Rick reached up, seized him by the nape of his neck and engaged him in a vigorous and amiable wrestling match.

Alton lowered himself from the roof down to the balcony of his apartment. The glass door was locked but he gently jimmied it a couple times before the lock slipped. As he slid the door open, he heard Rick shout up from the roof, Alton, don’t open the door!

Accompanied by a burst of barking, an adult Rottweiler launched itself out of the shadows of the apartment and onto Alton. The impact of the dog’s weight threw them both back against the steel rail of the balcony. Alton’s back jammed against the metal bar and pained lanced through his side until the dog’s teeth tore into his right arm just below the shoulder. Alton threw up his hands in desperate self-defense, catching the dog in the midriff and lifting it up over his head and the railing. It took a little more than one second for the dog to fall twenty feet and hit the potholes of the asphalt driveway separating the apartment building from the adjacent one. Following the sharp, broken yelp at impact, the dog was immediately silenced. Alton slumped down on the balcony. His arm was bleeding and his back felt like it was bruised and probably scraped raw.

Rick and Tom’s heads appeared over the edge of the roof looking down at Alton. Rick said, I told you not to open the door. The landlord left one of his dogs in there.

Tom asked, Where’s the dog?

Alton slowly turned his neck and gestured with his left arm over the edge of the balcony. The motion sent a wave of pain across his back.

You threw the dog off the balcony? Tom asked incredulously.

Alton shrugged. The gesture caused him to groan.

Rick lowered himself down onto the balcony beside Alton. He saw the blood on the sleeve of Alton’s uniform. He knelt down to inspect it in the darkness of the alley and pronounced, That dog bit you pretty good.

On the roof, Tom had moved over several feet so that the balcony no longer obstructed his view of the driveway. Staring at the shadow of the dog thus exposed, Tom declared, I think you killed the dog. Tom walked back over to his own balcony and lowered himself down. Before he returned inside his apartment, he muttered loud enough to be heard on both balconies, God-damned dog-killing maniac.

Are you alright? Rick asked, once his roommate had disappeared from view.

Alton grimaced.

Other than the chunk out of your arm? Rick clarified.

I think I fucked my back up, falling against this rail, Alton said.

Rick took no notice of Alton’s reply. When I got back from the hospital, I saw the landlord changing your lock. He told me if I saw you that I better tell you not to try to get in because he left a dog inside. That dog was barking all night. That must be why Tom turned the music up.

Alton frowned. He didn’t point out that Tom had frequently blasted the music when there were no dogs hidden inside his apartment.

You were too quick, though, Rick said, in retrospect.

Alton slowly righted himself so that he was leaning slightly more comfortably against the steel railing.

You better wrap something around that arm and go to the hospital, Rick advised. I’ll get something from the apartment.

There’s a pillowcase on the mattress, Alton suggested.

Rick disappeared into the apartment. A moment later, the bare bulb, hanging at the end of a chain dangling through a hole in the center of the ceiling, threw its hard light around the room. The tiles of the ceiling sagged in one corner of the room and were stained with a dirty brown residue extending in a vaguely crab-like shape about ten feet across the ceiling. The center of the crab was a dark brown, were the rain that leaked through the roof emerged at each storm. The appendages of the crab were a lighter shade of brown, extending at right angles as they followed the trail of water along the edges of the square tiles. The walls in that corner of the room were covered with a yellow paint which had blistered and bubbled up from the surface due to the regular saturation of the wall. The heads of nails jutted up from the wooden floor, where the planks had twisted and warped beneath the leak. That half of the room was left completely empty. The other half contained a twin-sized mattress, resting on the floor with a sheet and a pillow. Rick returned carrying the pillow case. Wrapping the dingy cotton cloth around Alton’s arm while Alton winced, Rick said, I’ll get Tom to take you to the hospital. Rick did not have a driver’s license and, owing to the jar of painkillers he had taken without regard for the scheduled dosage, was in no condition to drive regardless.

I’m going to get my stuff first, Alton said, forcing himself to stand.

Entering the bare apartment, he lugged the olive drab army duffel bag out of the closet with his left arm. He stuffed the clothes from the shelf in the closet into the bag and then dragged it into the bathroom and tossed the toothbrush and razors inside. He lugged it back into the room and set it at Rick’s feet, who remained standing in the center of room, periodically glancing up at the light bulb, which he had set swinging.

In the kitchen, Alton removed a cardboard box and a brown paper sack from underneath the sink. The sack was filled with photographs and letters. The most recent letters were from Percy, who he had met in the army and who now wrote letters to him from a prison in Maryland. Placing the cardboard box on the counter, Alton carefully set in it a wooden and brass mechanical coffee grinder, a stainless steel kettle, a steel coffee pot, and a plain white ceramic mug. From the freezer, he removed a half pound of coffee beans and added that to the contents of the box. Piling the sack on top of the contents of the box, he hauled it out into the room, grimacing with the strain the slight weight put on his arm and back. I’m ready, he said to Rick.

Rick picked up the duffel bag and followed Alton out the front door, leaving it closed but unlocked behind them. They exited the building through the back and slipped around the corner of the building, beneath the maple trees, to the driveway, where they found Tom standing over the inert form of the dog, whose rear legs were arranged at an unnatural angle in a large pothole. Tom tentatively nudged the head of the dog with the toe of his tennis shoe. It’s dead, he pronounced in the grave voice of a surgeon informing the family that their loved one hadn’t pulled through the operation.

Tom, we’ve got to take Alton to the hospital, Rick said, staring at the trickle of blood leaking from the mouth of the dog with morbid interest.

What about the dog? Tom asked.

What about it? Rick said.

Are we just going to leave it here? The pitch of Tom’s voice rose with his concern. The first person that drives down the driveway is going to run right over it.

Rick envisioned the scene: still dog, dark alley, reckless, racing car, and guts exploding from seams in the side of the dog where seams were not meant to be. Let’s get out of here before they do.

After a moment’s hesitation, Tom agreed; his thoughts had followed a similar course and he too did not want to see the dog get run over. The three men walked out to the street. Alton put the box and duffel bag in the trunk of Tom’s old Plymouth. Tom drove Alton and Rick over to the emergency room at Baptist Medical Center on Troost. During the ride, Tom began considering aloud the landlord’s reaction when he came to check on his dog tomorrow or the next day. He’s not going to be a happy camper, Tom decided. Rick and Alton did not respond and the conversation ended there.

At the hospital, Alton gave a false name and address since he had no intention of paying the bill for the services. Rick stood beside him as he provided the false information, saying nothing. Looking at the bandage on Rick’s face, the nurse at the check-in desk asked if the dog had bit him too.

No, my roommate hit me with a lamp, Rick explained.

The nurse pursed her lips then asked Alton if he knew where the dog was and whether the dog was up to date on its rabies shots.

Yeah, the dog’s lying in a pothole with its spine snapped, Rick said, answering the first of the nurse’s questions and ignoring the second.

The nurse looked at him questioningly, waiting for the answer to her other question.

It might have gotten run over by now, Rick offered.

Do you know its shot history? The nurse persisted.

Sure, lied Rick, who felt that if Alton could give a false name, so could he.

And? the nurse asked.

Having lost interest in the nurse, Rick turned away and said nothing more.

The shots. the nurse demanded.

Alton too wandered out of the conversation, which continued for several minutes, over to the waiting room, where he joined Tom, looking morose. First, I don’t get any painkillers, Tom said to Alton, sticking out a finger, so he could keep track of his miseries. Second, a dog gets thrown off a balcony. He extended a second finger so that he was now making a peace sign. Third, there’s no peace in this belligerent world. Another finger uncurled. He gazed at his fingers. Now he was making the Boy Scout pledge sign. Fourth, my father made me join the Boy Scouts where I had to wear those awful green colored shirts and those damn red…handkerchief things. What are they called?

Damn red handkerchief things, I guess, Alton said. Sitting in the chair, his back ached. His arm was numb.

I never wanted to join, said Tom, I was coerced.

Rick arrived in time to catch Tom’s last statement, which he ignored.

He sat down next to Alton and said in an admiring whisper, Man, I should have thought to give them a bogus name when I came in this afternoon.

Alton nodded. In a socialist country, medical care is free to all.

Rick pondered the statement for a moment before he pointed out, But we don’t live in a socialist country.

I do, said Alton. He felt it was a reasonable expectation on his part, since he was, after all, an employed, contributing member of society, if not a registered voter, and a veteran to boot.

Rick and Alton waited patiently for a doctor to appear. Rick’s eyes followed the stream of patients that passed by the waiting room, headed to the emergency room. Some were on stretchers and some on foot. Some were shrieking and others were silent. Some leaked blood and some didn’t. Tom fidgeted nervously. In contrast, Rick’s peace of mind seemed imperturbable.

Fifth, Tom said, holding his hand out, fingers and thumbs spread apart, I had to be born to a race with opposable thumbs. He gazed at his hand with consternation. He rotated it and gazed then at the veins on the back of his hand. I ask you, is there any justice in this world?

Before it became clear to Tom that Alton would not answer, Alton was summoned by the nurse.

The doctor who bandaged Alton’s arm, made no attempt to strike up a conversation. He simply bandaged the wound and handed him a slip for a painkiller prescription, to be picked up at the pharmacy one floor down. There were no stitches. It suited Alton since he did not want to have to make a second trip to the hospital in order to have the stitches removed and risk confronting the staff after they had discovered the false name.

Alton returned to the waiting room to find Tom sitting glumly, slouched down in his chair. His hands were clamped over his ears and his face was fixed with an expression of disgust. Rick’s eyes were elsewhere, following a daydream. Rick wore a thin, summer cotton dress-shirt, a dull lime green, with white plaid stripes of varying thickness. On the side with the bandage, the shirt was stained with blood. Alton had not noticed the blood before. Judging from Rick’s expression, the daydream which absorbed him was happy but confusing.

Cheer up, Alton said to Tom. I’ve got you some painkillers for your troubles. He waved the prescription slip and winced. Waving was a bad idea.

Tom eyes lit up and a smile formed on his face. He jumped to his feet, launched his hand into the air, and declared, To the pharmacy!

Rick followed mutely. The drugs seemed to be taking their toll on him or, perhaps, he was simply exhausted from the trauma of his injurious day. At the pharmacy counter, a sleepy pharmacist demanded cash or insurance card in order to fill the prescription. Alton grimaced and took the prescription slip back. They left the hospital empty-handed with Tom in a completely disgruntled state of mind. It was now 5:30 a.m., two and a half hours since Alton had gotten off work. Tom drove back to his apartment, parking on the street in front of the building. Rick, who had appeared to be comatose in the back seat of the car, said from behind closed eyes, Where are you going, Alton?

I don’t know.

Alton and Tom got out of the car and Tom opened the trunk. While Alton slung the duffel bag over the shoulder of his good arm and gathered the box in both arms, Tom tried to haul Rick out of the backseat but encountered some difficulty doing so. Alton stepped out into the street. On the other side of the car, Tom had managed to extricate Rick about halfway from the car. Tom’s brow was lined with the sweat of his effort. His breathing was rough and he had begun uttering curses at his unresponsive roommate.

Alton turned to them and said, Thanks, but at the same moment, Rick shouted at Tom that he was pinching his arm. Alton’s word went unheard and he turned, crossed the street, and left.

At 5:45 A.M. the city buses were running and Alton considered heading down to the homeless shelter. He knew he could hang out there for a couple days until he found a new place to stay. He had done it before. Alton hopped on the Main bus and headed downtown. The bus was still mostly empty this early in the morning. Of the two other passengers on the bus, one looked like she might ride the air-conditioned bus all day and the other looked employed but unhappy with an existence that required him to be on the bus at such an early hour.

Alton got off a couple blocks from the shelter and began lugging the duffel bag and the box down the sidewalk. He scanned the sidewalk in both directions. Percy’s mother lived just down the street from the shelter. She was a notorious early morning riser and speed-walked every morning through this undeniably dangerous neighborhood. Alton hoped to avoid her. At the moment, the coast seemed clear, but his progress was extremely slow owing to the pain that jolted through his arm and back at each step. When he was within a hundred feet of the shelter, the sky was beginning to lighten and a woman’s familiar voice called out behind him, Alton?

Alton remained facing forward and the woman briskly walked around him, turned, and faced him.

Why it is you! she said with delight then, noticing the torn and bloodied shirt, she added with concern, Sweet Jesus, what happened to you?

The woman standing in front of him was a robust sixty years of age, sporting a hot pink jogging suit and white tennis shoes. On her face, she wore a pair of plastic-rimmed glasses with huge bi-focal lenses. Good morning, Mrs. Riley, Alton said with a smile. Alton had known her for about seven years, since he and Percy had gotten out of the army and Percy had persuaded him to move to Kansas City. When Alton had first arrived in town, he had stayed for a couple weeks at Mrs. Riley’s house, until he had found his own place. He had seen her on and off after that, often had supper with her and Percy. She had treated him as her own son, for a while, before Percy went to prison, now four years ago. After that, Alton had stopped visiting her. He suspected that she would have welcomed him had he visited her, but he knew she was a crazy widow. Mrs. Riley’s chief eccentricity was her saintliness; Alton had never heard her utter a bad judgment of someone, never heard her or heard of her insinuating a criticism to someone or about someone in their absence. She seemed completely incapable of a malicious thought or unkind word. All Alton’s observations of the widow supported this notion. He could only spend so much time with her before he was ready to puke.

An extension of Mrs. Riley’s idiosyncrasy was her preoccupation with the recognized saints. She knew every one of the apparent hundred billion saints that the Catholic church had canonized over the past twenty centuries and invoked them all in the appropriate circumstances.

Facing Alton, Mrs. Riley, examined the pained expression on his face, the bandage on his arm, his tattered 7-Eleven uniform, the box in his arms, the army duffel bag slung over his back, the red sleeplessness in his eyes and the black hemispheres of sleeplessness beneath them. You look like you’ve had a rough night, she said.

Looks like it, said Alton.

Care to share your sorrows with an old lady over a cup of coffee and a doughnut? Mrs. Riley said with a smile.

I don’t know, said Alton, who would have preferred to collapse alone in a corner somewhere.

Where are you going with that box and the bag?

The shelter, Alton said, nodding down the street.

That’s everything you own? said Mrs. Riley, in a voice that was only half questioning.

I got evicted this morning, Alton admitted.

Looks like you got worse than evicted, said Mrs. Riley, pointing a thin, white finger at the bandage on Alton’s arm and the blood on his shirt. You get in a fight with the landlord?

With the landlord’s dog, Alton said, shaking his head as if somehow he were responsible for the encounter.

I’d hate to see the dog that did that to you.

Me too, Alton agreed, thinking by now several cars must have run over it.

Well, I can’t see you staying in a shelter when I got that whole house to myself… Mrs. Riley began.

From the first moment that Alton had identified Mrs. Riley’s voice calling from behind him, he knew that the meeting would inevitably contain this invitation. He had been mentally preparing himself to decline the offer. By no means was his refusal due to a lack of appreciation of her hospitality. On the contrary, Alton knew that he would be catered to in her house. Rather, his refusal stemmed from a simple unwillingness to share his troubles. All his troubles were his own and he didn’t want anyone else to tamper with them or to advise him how to deal with them. In fact, they weren’t even problems or troubles to him until he thought of Mrs. Riley trying to fix them. An additional deterrent was the fact that Mrs. Riley like all mothers, including his own, was crazy.

No, Alton said firmly, making no attempt to sugar coat his words. He opted for the blunt response, where there was no possibility of being misunderstood and where, at worst, he would be thought of as lacking in tact, which, in point of fact, was the honest truth. I’m just going to put this in the shelter.

Mrs. Riley conceded to Alton’s wishes. The shelter had opened at five and Alton tried to drop off the box and the duffel bag in a storage room of the shelter, but the workers refused to let him; the room was already overflowing with abandoned junk. He ended up hauling the bag and box with him on their walk from the shelter down to the a doughnut shop several blocks away. Mrs. Riley moved in brisk jog-walking style while Alton trailed along behind.

Can’t keep up with an old woman? Mrs. Riley cheerfully called over her shoulder. She seemed to love being an old woman and frequently mentioned it.

Alton shrugged and winced. When I was attacked by the dog, I scraped my back up something good.

In response, Mrs. Riley reduced the stride of her steps but decreased neither her rapid pace nor the controlled swing of her arms.

Over weak, black coffee and glazed doughnuts, seated around a hideous orange plastic table, Mrs. Riley asked Alton for the details of the dog fight.

It went like this, Alton related, First I opened the door, then the dog went ballistic on me, shoving me back into this steel rail, then I accidentally, and luckily, threw the dog off the balcony.

Why was there a dog in your apartment? she asked.

The landlord wanted me out of there. He changed the lock. I was entering through the balcony door. After a moment, he added, I didn’t know a dog was inside.

Mrs. Riley looked perplexed. ‘You’ve got a job, don’t you? she said, poking at his uniform. How come you weren’t paying the rent?" To her thinking, not paying rent was the only reason for which someone would evict Alton.

Because the ceiling leaked, Alton explained, Rent escrow. You know there are laws that say if you aren’t getting what you paid for then you can withhold the rent. That’s what I was doing.

A big leak?

A flood every time it rained. Half the apartment was unusable. The leaking ceiling had never really bothered Alton since the apartment was twice as large as he needed. Still, on principle, he had withheld the rent.

Mrs. Riley said, I know all about a rent escrow from back when I was working for the city and you have to file for rent escrow with the county. Then you pay your rent to the county until a building inspector says the problem’s fixed. Once it’s fixed, then the county decides what percentage to give back to you and what percentage to give to the landlord.

Alton looked at Mrs. Riley as if she was describing some brutal custom of a primitive civilization. Yeah, well I was doing the unofficial sort of rent escrow where you don’t file with the county. He added, If I had called a county inspector over, he would have condemned the whole building and I would have been out of the place all the same. And I would have been out three months rent to boot.

Mrs. Riley didn’t argue with Alton. Having finished her doughnut, she sipped her coffee. There’s no point in taking up a cot that somebody else can use at the shelter when you got a whole house you’re more than welcome in.

Mrs. Riley, Alton began in a defensive tone, This is my business and I’ll take care of it myself.

Mrs. Riley laughed. I’m not trying to steal your troubles, Alton. Her face took on a serious and benevolent expression. I’m just trying to help a friend, who could probably use it.

Come on, Mrs. Riley, you’re not fair.

Why not?

I don’t have a good reason, Alton admitted with pride, because he was convinced that in this world he didn’t need a good reason.

Of course you don’t. You’re just a stubborn, proud man. There was no note of disapproval or judgment in Mrs. Riley’s statements. She made the declaration as if she were stating the obvious, that all men were stubborn and proud, at least all of the men that she had ever come across.

You don’t have to get upset. You made an offer. I turned it down. That’s all. It happens all the time.

Mrs. Riley stared into her coffee, unsatisfied with Alton’s explanation.

Alton felt uncomfortable. That’s just how the world is, he added needlessly, wishing he hadn’t come. The coffee was horrible.

Ah, said Mrs. Riley, as if everything had suddenly become transparent to her. I know exactly what you’re talking about.

Alton seriously doubted that Mrs. Riley had the slightest idea of what he was talking about, since the thoughts weren’t even fully formulated inside his head. Even if he had tried to explain, even if he knew himself what he wanted to say, he would have had no faith in being successfully understood, and thus his doubts would have remained.

Mrs. Riley perceived the doubt in the Alton’s sagging posture and tired expression. You don’t believe that I understand, Mrs. Riley said behind a smile. You think an old woman hasn’t learned a thing in this world, or if she did, she’s forgotten it all. But I know. I know all about why men and women alike refuse assistance and offers of kindness. I know why.

Alton swallowed another gulp of the doughnut-shop coffee. Why? Alton asked in resignation.

Because you’ve given up the struggle, Mrs. Riley declared, her voice in full stride by the end of the sentence. You think you’re just going to wander off on your own, watch the world move past you. If you took me up on my offer, there’d be a glimmer of hope that things might get better for you. But you don’t want that hope.

Alton half-heartedly listened to her words. Mrs. Riley believed in the perfectibility of human existence, which Alton did not. Mrs. Riley was ruled by the fix-it mentality, which dictated that all things, regardless of their condition, could stand to be improved. That he should think differently seemed beyond her comprehension.

Alton had doubts about all of Mrs. Riley’s assumptions. When he thought of the events that had befallen him since getting off work, the words, glimmer, hope, and better did not make an appearance. On the contrary, the key words for the morning were insect, roof, and dog. These thoughts flashed through Alton’s mind. Betraying none of his thoughts, he said, No, I don’t want it. I don’t want anything to do with your glimmer of hope.

You don’t want it because you don’t believe it’s real, declared Mrs. Riley, still refusing to concede to Alton. You think it’s a false hope. You think it’s a self-deception to believe that the world can treat a person right.

Alton had no clear-cut opinion on whether he agreed with the thoughts that Mrs. Riley attributed to him but he was exhausted and did not feel up to the task of explaining himself. He replied, Yeah, I guess I do.

I told you I knew why, Mrs. Riley said, nodding triumphantly.

You did. I didn’t believe it but I should never have doubted you.

Do you want to know where I learned it?

Alton sighed. Not really, he mumbled, already knowing what was coming.

The Bible.

Alton forced himself to maintain a neutral expression and silently congratulated himself for refusing all of Mrs. Riley’s assistance. He wanted nothing to do with the crazy woman or her Bible.

You look like you’re about to throw up, Mrs. Riley said, shaking her head. You look like you’ve got a poison viper sitting across the table from you.

Alton raised his hands to try to defend himself. The movement caused the wound in his shoulder to send a sharp thread of pain down his arm and across his back. He winced.

Mrs. Riley cut him off before he had uttered a word. Let me tell you what the Bible says about why a man gives up hope in the world. Mrs. Riley cleared her throat and said, I turned me to another thing, and I saw that under the sun, the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the learned, nor favour to the skilful: but time and chance in all. As she recited this verse, her voice was not at all rigid with quoting but rather succumbed to a pleasant rhythm.

Alton listened to the verse and smiled despite himself. That’s pretty fine.

Mrs. Riley repeated the quote and added, Ecclesiastes, 9:11. Mrs. Riley lowered her eyes to the table. Now that I proved to you I’m not an idiot, are you going to stay with me?

If that’s what you want, Alton conceded, shamefully defeated by Ecclesiastes 9:11.

All right! hooted Mrs. Riley. Let me help you with your stuff. I ain’t crippled with age yet. How heavy is that box?

I got it, Alton insisted.

You said you hurt your back. Let me help you.

I got it, Alton repeated.

If Simon of Cyrene could carry the cross for Christ to Golgotha, then I can certainly carry this box of yours the few blocks to my house.

Shamefully defeated by the virtues of Saint Simon of Cyrene, Alton handed over the box. There was no arguing with Mrs. Riley when she started invoking the saints. He was able to arrange the duffel bag much more comfortably with his arms free. They walked beneath the early morning sun, as the streets began to fill with traffic, to Mrs. Riley’s one-floor two-bedroom house. They arrived at quarter to seven and Mrs. Riley let him into the house. She told him he could use Percival’s room, since it was unoccupied. This was the first mention made of her son between them that morning. She herself didn’t enter the house but to set down the box in the entry way. Glancing at her watch, she said, I’m going to have to hustle my old butt if I don’t want to be late to mass. She was out the door.

Alton moved the duffel bag and the box to Percy’s room. When Alton had been staying at the house with Percy, years ago, he had slept on the couch in the living room. There was no need for that now. He gingerly removed the uniform and his T-shirt. The house was air conditioned at about 80 degrees and, with the absence of humidity, felt wonderful. He took off his shoes and socks and collapsed face down on the bed still wearing his blue jeans.

Despite his exhaustion, he drifted around the edges of sleep, while his back tightened and arm ached. He thought of the individual parts of his body as a collage of bubble gum and cigarette ashes on the sidewalk, disjointed, separated by asphalt. Before long, he began daydreaming about the aesthete.

The aesthete was part rumor and part invention, a hermit who lived out in the woods in Tennessee. Word of the aesthete had first reached Alton via vagrants and hoboes passing through Kansas City. Their disjointed stories had been filled with drunken, grandiose praise for the old man’s profound and unconventional wisdom. Although, Alton knew little of the man, doubted that he really existed, for years he had taken the idea and developed a personality to fit the image of the man in his imagination. One of Alton’s favorite daydreams was speaking to the aesthete before bed.

This morning, still lurking around sleep, Alton addressed the aesthete. Aesthete, got chewed up by a dog today.

Idiot, said the aesthete. The aesthete had transcended the world of material worries, in which one might find a problem like a dog-bite. The aesthete preferred to be approached with the problems of the mind and spirit.

Aesthete, said Alton, I’ve come to the house of a saint.

Watch your step, advised the aesthete, Saints are a dangerous ilk.

Chapter Two. The Aesthete and his Acolyte

(East Tennessee, April, 1973)

In East Tennessee in 1973, a woman who would a decade later be known as Mama Sanchez presented the aesthete with a three-year-old boy. The sleeping child was left at the door of the aesthete’s hut one afternoon, while the aesthete was meditating in the forest. Having vowed three years before never to see the aesthete again, Mama Sanchez was nowhere in sight when the aesthete found the sleeping boy. All the same, the aesthete knew who had bestowed this gift upon him. The aesthete could smell the sweet aroma of Mama Sanchez all over the unlucky child.

The aesthete nudged the gift on the shoulder with a gnarled toe. The gift awoke, looked around at the forest and the hut and the old man in befuddlement and wailed for all he was worth.

Amid the shrieks, the aesthete asked the boy his name.

The boy cried all afternoon, into the evening, waiting for his mother to return.