HAPPINESS #1 E-Book

Uri Rogoza

• Herausgeber: Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 264

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

As adults, people stop believing in Santa Claus. Paula Bush, 32, has never believed in him and other tales. A boring youth replaced a miserable childhood, then a hated life began in hated Brooklyn. Paula has no money, no plans, no normal sex, which romantics like to give various vulgar names. Despaired, she invents and gives the world of cocaine and marijuana a new sinful joy, to release "happiness" on its streets, the equal of which it has never known before!.. What will her idea turn to? An exciting adventure? Foolish death? A complete change of fate? What has to do with this an unusual street tramp with eyes the color of flowing water, whom Paola will meet on the street in the middle of the night? ..

Leseprobe

Uri Rogoza

HAPPINESS #1

As adults, people stop believing in Santa Claus. Paula Bush, 32, has never believed in him and other tales. A boring youth replaced a miserable childhood, then a hated life began in hated Brooklyn. Paula has no money, no plans, no normal sex, which romantics like to give various vulgar names. Despaired, she invents and gives the world of cocaine and marijuana a new sinful joy, to release “happiness” on its streets, the equal of which it has never known before!.. What will her idea turn to? An exciting adventure? Foolish death? A complete change of fate? What has to do with this an unusual street tramp with eyes the color of flowing water, whom Paola will meet on the street in the middle of the night? ..

"Who understands nothing but chemistry doesn't understand chemistry enough "

George Christopher Lichtenberg.

Looked like I’d done it. Gotten things started anyway.

Time to pity the world.

No other way to put it, I was gonna unleash a plague…

But I felt nothing even remotely like remorse. Mother Earth would get exactly what she deserved. The bitch. She’d given me nothing but sloped shoulders, a flat chest, a flabby ass, and legs like bowling pins.

Plus wispy white hair, skin as pale and thin as toilet paper, and a slit for a mouth.

And she expected me to feel something like shame or compassion?! Really!?

Only Mother Earth’s favorites wish her well.

But this isn’t about me…

I stopped and looked around. The subway station I’d left twenty minutes earlier had faded into the background. I was alone. It was near dark. The street’s old warehouses had been scooped up and soon would make way for cushy lofts. But, at the moment, it wasn’t a pretty picture. The ruins were fading to black in the early February gloom. Boarded-up windows and doors howled in the wind. Phantoms haunted the crooked chimney tops. A rat scurried across the street.

Shivering, I promised myself I’d turn right toward Benson Hurst at the next corner. True – leaving the subway, I’d picked a long and dangerous path home. But I had something I needed to get done. Now, though, seeing where I was, I knew I’d gone too far, even for an idiot like me. But it would be stupid to go back: I had the courage to make it to the next corner.

My thoughts quickened with every step. What had the world given me, Paula Bush, aside from the wonders just noted?

I was poor, thirty-two, and alone. Joyless. I’d had three fleeting lovers my entire life. (I don’t count Jack.) Cashed monthly checks from Uncle Sam and rented a single bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. Off Cropsey.

True, Mr. Kipnis, a teacher, had shown me the miracle of chemistry in a high school science lab. If not for that, I have no idea how I would have lived. Or struggled on… There was Jack, who I already mentioned. Skinny, luckless, another loser. Like Paula Bush, an outcast, but a male version. And then there was Daisy. Sweet, rosy-cheeked, cheerful Daisy. We’d waitressed together for all of two months in a nearby greasy spoon (which burnt to the ground), and ever since I’d enjoyed the gift of her friendship. Having a girlfriend like everyone else helped me feel like I wasn’t a total freak.

I remembered the last time I saw her, and smiled in the dark…

People always talk about the power of positive thinking. It probably works, because up ahead a reddish fire flickered. A few people, motionless, glowed in the light of the flames, and from a distance appeared to be cast in bronze.

This was exactly the reason why, leaving the subway, I hadn’t rushed down my usual alley, but had selected a long and dangerous route.

The researcher in me came back to life. I had little doubt I’d succeed. But decided to have a snort for courage anyway. I grabbed the flat bottle of bourbon from my back pocket, peered off into the dark, and squatted on a creaky board. Except for the silhouettes frozen at the distant fire, there was absolutely no one around. As if it was an abandoned film set.

The bourbon was smooth and delicious. I was such a wretch, I felt I deserved a pop. Deserved it like never before…

My mother, Jane, had moved to New York from Idaho. She arrived pregnant, unsure who my father was, had me, and worked to survive.

As long as I could remember, she’d worked more than one job. Cleaned cheap Brooklyn flop houses. Dispatched taxis. Washed dishes for some neighborhoods hole in the wall. We bought just food and necessities. Shoes or soap. Never went out. Recently, I’d tried to recall even once when my mother spoke to me tenderly. Kissed me goodnight. Sang a lullaby on the edge of my bed. Try as I might, I remembered nada. But I could always see her short and sturdy country build, her stern face – like a boxer’s. Strong hands, ready for the toughest work. No jewelry. If she had lovers, I knew nothing about them.

Today, of course, I would ask her why she’d wanted such a life. No happiness, no pleasure. Not even a dream of ever having these things. But back then, years ago, first as a plain young girl, later as a hideous teenager, it would never have occurred to me to wonder.

My high school, Lincoln, was hell. The cops were there several times a month. If not a week. The school served mostly blacks and a steady inflow of transplanted Russians. They were the scariest. I didn’t become an addict by accident. It was probably because, even at a wonderland like Lincoln, no one had any use for me.

Do I need to tell you that school went in one ear and out the other? All of it. Every last bit. Except for chemistry… Chemistry…

At first, I couldn’t believe that they were ready to part with such a miracle for free. Something truly fabulous. A real miracle. Watching chemical reactions inside the thin glass walls of a large flask, I felt like a Morgan, or like Sabrina. Or another the world’s top witch!

I probably gave myself away somehow, because Mr. Kipnis ambled over to me one day.

“I see that you’re interested, Paula. If you’d like, you can stay after school…”

If I’d like?!…

Life started to make sense. I suffered through classes waiting for the bell. Then, finally, I could get into the room that smelled magical – of chemicals and witchcraft.

If Mr. Kipnis had been a pedophile, I would have been easy prey. But he was just a lonely old nobody who lived near the school. At first, I’m sure, he didn’t even understand how much the “extra lessons” meant to me. I learned quickly. Remembered everything. Couldn’t understand how anyone was interested in anything else. If official, permitted, working magic exists in the world, smelling somewhat bitterly of chemicals… I remember how, at 15, I was utterly convinced that I would accomplish something beyond the deeds of even the ancient alchemists. Synthesize gold! And of course I’d present the first ingot to Mr. Kipnis.

The jobs I had after graduation turned out to be so horrible that I would have offed myself if I had not dropped by to see him at home almost every evening (just like after school). He’d aged. Walked slowly, was always short of breath. But his eyes glowed with youth when we spoke about things I’d not yet learned.

“You know, Paula…” he would rumble while looking through my notes, “you’re becoming a great scientist… No kidding, a great one… A pity I won’t live to see the day…”

Strange, but he said this on the same night that my mother died. Her death made as little sense as her life. While cleaning stairs at a hotel, she felt stomach pains. But instead of going to the doctor, she got some aspirin from the manager. When he found her an hour later, sprawled on the cheap carpeting, he anxiously called 911, but it was too late. She died from a ruptured appendix.

When I received the urn with her ashes, I realized I’d never asked her any questions. Not why she’d come to New York. Not about my father. Nothing.

For the next week, I’d doggedly searched for a note from her, or some sort of diary. I did find, hidden in an old shoe box, $80,000. Turns out that, crazy as it seems, she’d been squirreling away money. There was also an old, silver chain with a small locket. When I opened it my heart skipped, but it was empty.

Mr. Kipnis died not long after. The man who’d shown me that life had meaning. Who believed that I would become a great scientist.

“I’m not a great scientist, Mr. Kipnis,” I told the departed – I talked to him often. “But I invented something far better than the philosopher’s stone I dreamed about as a child.”

Again, and not for the first time, I was struck by a wave of vindictive pride. After all, I’d already conjured the most important magic. One small task remained. Cash it in…

I stood decisively. Stashing the flat bottle in my back pocket, I walked off through the night toward flames flickering in a barrel.

From thirty feet away, I could feel the fire’s pulsing heat. With a drop of sweat at my temple, I opened a button on my coat. The homeless crew didn’t see me. Or, more likely, couldn’t have cared less about Brooklyn ’s criminal nightlife, or anything else happening beyond the warm and well-lit circle that was their home for the night.

There were three bums. Two sat quietly on opposite sides of the barrel, transfixed by the flames. The third stood a bit to the side in a strange pose. Even through his rags you could see he was terribly thin.

I approached them, not even trying to hide. None of them moved. That gave me, a scientist, a chance to observe them up close. And choose a subject for my experiment.

A solidly built, middle-aged guy was closest to me, sitting on a crate, red-faced either from booze or the heat. Long, unkempt hair and a matching beard made him look like a cross between Karl Marx and Robinson Crusoe. Or like a wise, old orangutan. Maybe it was the gloomy calm with which he stared into the fire.

The one sitting on the other side was younger and seemed a bit more concerned about his appearance. He spit nervously through his teeth now and again, picking at his pants and furiously scratching a thin ankle.

Dermatitis, came to mind immediately. Can’t select someone who’s so sick… There was nothing unusual in the pose of the third guy, or so it seemed from a distance. He was simply peeing. Though intently and at length.

His stream hit a mound of garbage with such force it seemed he was hosing it down. Like with some sort of spray cleaner.

It turned out there was a fourth bum. I hadn’t spotted the older black man at first. He had wrapped himself in a worn blanket next to “rash-guy.” He slept like a rock and looked like a corpse.

“Why… or, how?” I asked myself. “How did I conclude that he’s alive?”

Suddenly I sensed that the vagrants could see me clearly. Maybe they’d even spotted me from a distance. But had reasonably concluded that one more batty woman, wandering through the night in a Brooklyn industrial zone, was no threat to anyone.

The “pissing boy” finished his business. Then he too sat at the fire, wiping his hands on his shabby coat. Worn atop a second, identical one. His age was hard to guess. Grayish, bulging cheeks, bags under his eyes…

“You hungry?” The bum’s voice startled me. “Have a seat…”

His eyes, surprisingly bright and intelligent, looked right at me.

I lost it.

“No, thanks… Just… I won’t have anything…”

“Well, sit with us anyway, since you’re here already.” He leaned over in the dark and put another crate down next to his. “Don’t just stand there…”

I already regretted the whole thing. But I had no choice. The crate was sturdy but rough. An intolerable heat radiated from the barrel. The bum sitting across from me never stopped scratching and spitting. The old black man who I had thought was sleeping seemed increasingly likely to be dead.

The “orangutan” smoked slowly. From an inside pocket he pulled out some cigarettes, nothing cheap – a slightly rumpled pack of Marlboros. He deftly caught one in the corner of his mouth and stretched for a smoldering splinter. He wore terribly beaten-up, leather gloves.

It was time to decide.

“Listen. If you come with me for a bit, you’ll eat dinner, have a hot shower, and I’ll even get you high. Sorry, I’m not inviting all of you. That’s not possible.”

I was even surprised at my voice. Crisp, businesslike. With just a hint of cynicism.

“What luck!” “Rash-guy” immediately stood up.

But his ecstasy was replaced immediately with glum, street smart caution. “You’re not… don’t have AIDs, crabs in your pussy, or anything? ‘Cause, see…”

“For starters, get your skin looked at, you fool!” I almost blurted. But I stopped myself. For no real reason, actually. This crew needed to hear things in their own language.

The “orangutan” shot me a strange, sidelong glance. Then turned back to the fire, taking a deep drag. The third did not react at all. No response. I didn’t even consider the old man who resembled a corpse.

“Fine, don’t get insulted!” “Rash-guy” was obviously sorry he hadn’t accepted the invitation immediately and unconditionally. “And him,” he nodded at the grey-faced one, “don’t even bother. He doesn’t speak a word of English! A refugee from… where was it… Romania! Never talks. Just moans in his sleep. Lets you know what’s on his mind. You live far?”

“Honestly, you look like the best match,” I calmly said to the “orangutan.”

He raised his bright, unblinking eyes to me, and something in them flashed briefly. Suspicion, or pity, or alarm… I couldn’t tell.

“No, young lady, you’ll have to excuse me, but that’s not my sort of thing,” he answered in a hoarse but strong voice. And for some reason I felt insulted.

“Great American Hero, a most righteous dude!” “Rash-guy” shrilly giggled. “As for me, well, that’s a different story…

“By the way, boys, I didn’t say a word about sex!”

“Right on,” “Rash-guy” spit through his teeth. “Why even bother talking?! It will all work out. In the best way possible! You won’t be sorry, sweet buns!”

“Well, okay, you don’t want to play nice, you don’t have to,” I said, standing decisively. “Good night.”

I marched off into the cold, slushy darkness. Which meant that my experiment wouldn’t come off. No big deal. The day had been a success anyway.

“Rash-guy” shouted some monstrous obscenities at my back. Then went silent. If he knew that I had ten times his appetite for sex, he might not have calmed down for quite a while.

The poorly-lit intersection where I planned to turn toward lights, people, and home was already visible in the distance. I knew that I had a ways to go. But that didn’t frighten me. I’d warmed up at the fire, so I had something to think over. And something to remember.

* * *

When I say “remember” I mean the last few months, colored with horror, risk, and ecstasy. With a taste of the life that I’d heard so much about. But was experiencing for the first time.

Half of my life had passed – all my previous years – like a single week. They had soaked into my soul like a spot on a used bed sheet. Revolting and disappointing.

Of course, after the death of my mother, I had to think about the future. How to waste the rest of my life. I didn’t have the money or schooling to think about further education. I hated menial labor.

True, I could have tried some non-standard options. Like becoming another Mother Theresa. Or going to Africa to care for the type of people you see on television, the ones who look like political prisoners of the Nazis. Or the opposite. Joining a terrorist brigade. Planting bombs at train stations and in subways for the sake of phantom ideals.

Either good or evil would surely have filled my life with new meaning. But I, of course, chose neither. Just moved from our decrepit two-bedroom into a decrepit single bedroom in the same neighborhood. It was enough for me. The first thing I did when I entered the new, small apartment, which smelled like dust, was something I could not have done in my mother’s sight. I turned an old table into a small and neat laboratory. Witch Paula now had a place to work.

I did my witchcraft at that very table. I read books and the latest chemistry journals borrowed from the public library over on Benson Avenue. And was surprised by human stupidity. Authors thought in banalities and were often just plain wrong. But were as egotistical as if they had invented atomic weapons or found a cure for cancer.

I stayed humble. I invented, easily, quite enjoying the process, a new laundry powder, a non-evaporative agent for wipes, a new fluid for markers, and all kinds of other things… But my polite letters to the top executives of leading companies went unanswered. Completely.

I tried calling. But their receptionists’ plastic, condescending voices made me realize I was being mistaken for a local eccentric…

Just like that. My witchcraft actually worked. But no one in this stupid world would have anything to do with it.

I lived on government checks, but occasionally was forced to work. Those stretches of stoop labor were the worst times in my life.

But my main problem was sex. More exactly, it’s complete absence. No, I don’t blame men, don’t think that. I myself would never have chased the swanky Paula Bush I saw in the mirror of my cramped bathroom every morning. But still…

I lost my virginity at 29 to a young black man who was desperately bored at an all night gas station. He’d probably sniffed a bit too much glue. The dark Brooklyn night also helped. Whatever! I wish him nothing but health, happiness, and money!…

Because, later, things only got worse.

Almost every night I had dreams that would have made an experienced sex therapist blush. I jumped up on my pillows. Panting and sinfully happy… And, of course, I enjoyed banal masturbation in the shower.

My second “man” was an older, drunk immigrant. Another character from nighttime Brooklyn. I should probably mention that he raped me. And I also helped the poor guy a bit!!…

Next was the loser programmer Jack, narrow-shouldered with glasses, who lived nearby, in the building across the street. As I already mentioned, I don’t count him. Take my word for it, you wouldn’t either. The first time we were together, he came right after getting into bed next to me. The second time we tried he couldn’t get it up at all. Though the both of us did everything we could…

Nonetheless, Jack and I became friends. Two confessed losers at work and at sex, and, in general, life. Two sad Brooklyn loners. We couldn’t help becoming friends.

My body’s true joy was Chris Bailey, from Louisiana. He’d gone to a real acting school. I was not used to being around such beautiful people. When he first spoke to me I almost fainted! We hooked up more than once. More than twice. Three times! Moreover, the first time we ended-up, not in my “single,” but in a luxurious, by my standards, studio in Greenwich Village. Chris rented it so he could walk to class in five minutes.

True, the intimate joy of my life did not come cheap. Chris borrowed $70,000 of the money my mother had left me, then stopped answering my calls. Later, he was kicked out of his studio, then disappeared entirely.

“What were you waiting for, you toad?” I angrily asked my reflection in the mirror. I understood the money was gone. And Chris too. “People like you either pay for their pleasure or masturbate in the shower…”

In principle, I didn’t care. But I was upset by the thought that my mother’s trembling hands had scraped together that money for a grand total of just three orgasms…

The idea for my creation came to me completely by accident. Although I’ve heard many times that nothing in this world happens by accident.

At the library, the latest issue of The Journal of the American Chemical Society was checked out. The young Chinese guy at the counter suggested I take instead a new publication on the chemical aspects of human brain physiology. I didn’t want it. I figured I wouldn’t even understand half of the words. But I stuck it in my bag anyway.

It turned out to be simpler than I thought, and even somewhat interesting. And just that moment on the television (I often left it on when I read or worked) there was a report on the customs police. Muscled cops leading angry, smart German shepherds, circled a seized station wagon. Guys with automatic rifles stood nearby, poker-faced but loose. The customs officer, celebrating their fifteen minutes of fame, showed the reporters the contraband. Small, neat bricks of cocaine…

After dropping the chemistry book on the floor, I froze. It had all gelled. Lord, how simple…

The thought was born complete and clear, as if it had appeared not moments ago but had been years in the making. It all made sense. And I already knew what would happen…

I can only vaguely recall the next month.

I would step away from the table only to fall face first into my pillow and sleep for a few hours. Then splash my face with a little cold water and return to my chemicals and computer.

I shut out Jack, who worried about me. I turned off my phone, explaining nothing.

I left home just once. To get a few chemicals. Thank God, they were readily available and inexpensive.

I worked in a completely unorthodox way. And with a strange, hysterical conviction to see it through to the end. But, at the same time, with cold calculation. If that’s inspiration, then it’s far from the most pleasant sensation on Earth…

Everything turned out to be more complicated than I anticipated. But no cobwebs of doubt could cling to my brain, swollen as it was with chemical formulae. I hadn’t know that such conviction was possible. Pitiless, absolute, and a little evil… As if I truly were a witch.

When I realized my idea had worked, it was either dawn or sunset, I couldn’t tell, and I had no idea of the day or date. Staring dully ahead, I felt neither joy nor relief. Nothing like I should have. After sitting in a stupor for some time, I went into the bathroom on trembling legs. I craved a hot bath more than anything, but feared I might drown. So I just stood under the shower for a while. I somehow managed to towel myself off and fall on the unmade bed.

But I didn’t sleep right away.

“A name… The name is very important, like christening a ship…”

My tortured brain refused to work. The decision came by itself. Out of nowhere.

“Happiness! Of course, happiness. Happiness No. 1…”

Feeling indescribable relief, I slept for more than a day. I really don’t know how long. Erotic fantasies didn’t disturb me. A witch, brew finished, deserves some rest…

I woke refreshed and energized. Bright winter sunlight filled the room. Blinding and distracting. The desktop computer, which I’d forgotten to shut off, had gone to sleep. But thank God it still worked. The red light blinked occasionally, resembling an eye. Jack had pieced it together from three others that the super had tossed, then gave it to me.

“How did I manage to succeed?”

I woke up with this calm yet unforgiving thought. My long chains of formulae were definitely error free. They rose before my eyes, which were sensitive to the bright light, as if my brain hadn’t slept with my body, but patiently waited until I awoke. I hadn’t invented just some laundries soap. The human psyche is magic. It cannot be broken down into formulae…

I jumped out of bed. Brushed my teeth in a flash and flew into the shower. Hot streams of water in my face, I already knew what the day would bring. And now I understood doctors – the ones who just couldn’t wait to test a vaccine. Anything to do it faster, faster…

I had the presence of mind and patience to tidy the room. And even order a pizza – the refrigerator was as empty as if it had just been delivered from the store.

One measured and packaged dose of “Happiness No. 1” was in a small white square in the center of the table. I sat for a long while just staring at it. Trying to experience the fatefulness of the moment, but feeling none of it. So I just reached out a hand, opened the package, and carefully tipped its contents into my mouth.

Back to the present, and… turning west as I rounded the corner. The next few blocks were sunk in gloomy darkness. But headlights and streetlights glowed in the distance. This was the Brooklyn where I had been born and raised. The Brooklyn that had become my world. Bleak and joyless, perhaps, but I had no place else…

“So far, nothing!” I angrily rebuked myself. To succeed in witchcraft I needed to stop being such a loser…

Behind me (perhaps I was imagining it) I heard furtive steps. But I didn’t look back. Strange, but at that moment, when for the first time in my life I had something to lose, I was no longer afraid.

It started at the exact moment when the first grayish grains of Happiness No. 1 fell onto my tongue.

I had not only succeeded. The potion turned out to be a miracle.

No dizziness, no nausea, no hallucinations. Instead, in a few moments, every cell of my monstrous body was filled with a joyous lightness. A feeling… of great good fortune, the best!

Cold pizza was the most delicious food on the planet. My old “single” was spacious and comfortable.

I wanted to hit the streets. At the door, out of habit, I glanced in the mirror. And saw a smile. I looked beautiful. For the first time…

But this was nothing compared to what awaited me outside. There, it turned out, I found, truly, the best of all possible worlds. No one was trying to cheat me. All of the people walking past were wise and generous. They all wished me well. Handsome men’s eyes lingered on me. And not because I acted like an idiot, no. There were no side effects at all. I even felt like going for a drive. Only problem was I didn’t own a car.

Everything around me made sense somehow. Was happy, good, and wise.

Happiness No. 1 did not dull my mind. The opposite. It cleared my vision and showed me the true essence of life. And the essence was that God exists, the world is perfect, and you are destined for success and love.

When it got dark and the streetlights came on, the beauty became completely unbearable. My body paid perfect attention to me. But at the same time it seemed to pulse with a happy gratitude.

I forced myself to grab some take-out and head home. The feelings weakened as if they were a bit winded. But this was even more delightful. Happiness and beauty lived everywhere one looked, all around, in every random thought.

I went to bed, not forgetting to set the alarm on my cell phone for six in the morning.

And quietly fell asleep with a smile. Just like a happy child.

That night, I dreamed. Not the hysterical, frightful orgies that I sometimes recalled, ashamed and embarrassed. But something bright and gentle. That I’d forgotten by morning, like a normal dream.

I also woke up easily. And a few seconds before my phone’s alarm melody started. Happiness No. 1 had an aftertaste. A feeling of lightness and existential joy. And the ability to see the special sense hidden in every motion and object.

After quickly washing up, I went out and in ten minutes was at Coney Island Hospital. Where I asked for a thorough drug test. At a minimum, the request sounded suspicious. But the middle-aged female nurse with a man’s face and a prison guard’s attitude was impossible to surprise. She took a blood and urine sample and asked me to return later in the day.

Do I need to say that nothing resembling a narcotic was found in my happy brain? It was a total victory! I, the self-taught witch Paula Bush, had given the world not another narcotic, but happiness! Happiness No. 1!! Maybe, I thought for the first time in all these years, Mr. Kipnis was right and I really am a genius?

The quiet footsteps behind me had become so obvious that I turned to look.

Nearby, hands in his pockets, wearing a dirty but warm-looking raincoat, calmly stood a homeless bum. The solidly-built one from the fire. With long hair and a beard. Whom “rash-guy” had for some reason called “American Hero.” I’d dubbed him “orangutan.”

“No need to be scared,” he said quickly and hoarsely. “No reason.”

I shrugged.

“Why would I be scared? Huh?!”

I wasn’t bluffing. In the last ten days I’d met with people who made that Brooklyn bum look like a drunk Santa Claus.

“Changed your mind?” I didn’t know if this should make me happy. I was no longer in the mood for experiments.

“No,” the bum said after a pause, “That’s not it…”

“What then?” I was totally confused.

Maybe he’s not quite all there? That was all I needed… I was glad that with every step the civilized part of the city was getting closer. Lights, people, police…

It was as if “Hero” read my mind.

“Just don’t think I’m crazy or anything,” he reassured me, smoking as he walked.

He paused, searching for words.

“It’s simply that, you know, I don’t think it’s worth it for you to go where you’re going…”

“What do you mean?” I said, surprised, stopping in my tracks.

The bum stopped too, as if afraid to violate the five or six yard distance between us. And looked at me.

“What strange eyes he has – light and very lively,” I thought for no reason.

“You understand…” the bum continued, taking a drag and then exhaling a stream of bluish smoke. “In a word, I… I can sometimes sense what’s about to happen to people. Just don’t ask how. That can’t be explained. So I’ll say it for a second time: Don’t go where you planned. Got it?”

He said this very seriously, not taking his eyes off me.

“A total schizo!” On that point I had no doubt. “What a nightmare. And the thing is you can’t tell by looking…”

I set off again. Perhaps even faster than before. The bearded one kept following me. For some reason I thought it best to speak up.

“For your information, I’m not on my way anywhere, just home. Or do you think I should spend the night next to your wonderful little barrel?

The last bit I said with a malicious laugh. But the bum didn’t react. Once again, he resembled a thoughtful orangutan, schooled by life.

“Honestly, that’s just what I was going to suggest. Mickey won’t lay a finger on you, I promise. And the Romanian and Old Man Bob are nothing to worry about. They’re like kids…”

I couldn’t resist and stopped again. Civilization was close.

“Listen, are you some kind of simpleton? Has ESP? Or are you just plain crazy?”

He didn’t answer. He was a bit unsettled, it seemed, and rocked from one foot to the other. My confidence grew.

“I made you a proposal. You turned it down. You, in any case… What the hell are you up to here anyway?”

“By the way, about your opinion…” the bum’s eyes once again flashed in the darkness. “What do you need this for anyway? Seriously… I’m surely not looking to get fucked,” I said angrily. “I already told you that.”

“Then why are you here? To do the world a bit of good? You lookin’ to save your soul?”

“Maybe I should just tell him the truth?” I suddenly thought, wearily. “Otherwise, this will never end…”

“Listen, all I offered was dinner, a hot shower…”

“But what do you want?” the “orangutan” asked, looking me in the eye. But I easily held his gaze. The last week had thickened my skin.

“In exchange, I’d like you to try a drug while I observe. It’s not dangerous, don’t worry.”

The bum sniffed, upset.

“Got it. Test your drug on the homeless. Not a new idea, nor very original.”

“Just don’t tell me, pal, that you’ve never touched drugs. I won’t believe it.”

The “orangutan” fell to thinking, as if remembering something distant and important.

“What do you mean? I smoked grass a few times. But that was in another country… not in the States.”

“How law-abiding! I’m not talking about weed here,” I cut in sharply, deciding to end this strange conversation. “So, you agree?”