Change

He lay in bed wondering why he was awake.

The sun was up but it was only 5 a.m. and today was his day off. He sat up surprised to find how awake he was. For him mornings were often fogged over, on the rare chance that they existed. Maybe it was the dream, he thought. It hadn’t scared him as much as pushed him. Maybe it was right – it was time to change. Move on. The idea sent butterflies bouncing in the bottom of his stomach. A genuine smile stretched across his face, unforced, moving beyond his control. This was usually the opportunity he’d take to congratulate himself; a go-team pep-talk. But he decided against it; he wasn’t going to talk to himself anymore. That habit was getting dropped too. Everything was changing.

He walked to the window to look at the new day with fresh eyes. His chest expanded to fill his lungs through his nose. He coughed, likening the experience to walking into a glass door. Inside didn’t have the fresh air he wanted. That was on the other side of the dirty window. They just let some air in and everything would be fine. The thought made him laugh a little to himself as he strained against the initial hesitation of the old casement window.

The sills had a layer of grit – courtesy of the rain blown in. Below the floor showed similar characteristics before becoming effectively buried beneath a decent layer of clothes and unopened mail. In the kitchenette, the purple fluorescent light glowed a strange color because of the brown tinted tile lining the wall around the stove. Every time he saw that subdued hue he thought of the grease thick around the mortar, thinning to a dull brownish-yellow. It felt very unnatural.

Men aren’t supposed to live like this. The more he thought about it the more the studio seemed like a cage he couldn’t leave. It squeezed tight around him. He stuck a dowel under the window so that it would stay up more than halfway. No matter how big the window was open, there was no chance for a cross draft. The warm humid air of the shut up room didn’t satisfy him anymore. In a panic he threw open the door and walked quickly, without stumbling, outside.

On the catwalk, 5 a.m. felt clean and cold on his skin.

How long had it been since he woke up this early? Sure, he saw 5, 6, 7, 8 a.m. all the time at the ail end of a bender but waking to it was a different sensation entirely. He had the whole day ahead of him now since he didn’t have to sleep it off. Time to quit drinking; make a clean break with his old life.

These thoughts skimmed through his now conscious mind as a breeze blew the smell of lilac bushes faintly over him – he never noticed them. The smell tasted crisp over the familiar dry hang over in his mouth and what felt like an ashtray lodged in the sinus cavity behind his nose. He moved to the railing to lean his head over, trying to find out where the bushes were. His hand brushed his dark hair back until he turned his head just enough so the breeze caught and held the hair out of his face. He shut his eyes trying only to feel the wind.

The doors droned with the pounding downstairs. Opening his eyes he saw the dingy man banging on doors at the other end of the parking lot. His pattern was erratic and he hardly ever waited for an answer. Morning suddenly lost some of its luster. Maybe the dew was gone or the sun was at a bad angle to make it sparkle. Maybe sharing the morning with someone else brought him back to reality. The guy had obviously not been to sleep yet for the night. Probably still wired from crack or crank – jittery like that.

Looking at him the man saw someone who he identified with; this guy was his foil. That man was everything he didn’t want to be. Here was a dirty man who was out of place in the morning. It was a new day but the same one as every other day for this guy.

The man on the balcony wanted to identify with better things in life than with addiction and poverty.

His critical eye turned in on him and he saw the ridiculous site he presented to the world, holding onto an aluminum railing covered only in a pair of red boxers. On his way back inside the concrete was cold under his feet. With every step he felt his organs squeeze. Better than coffee he thought.

Inside he bundled up his stuff to pack. It was a loose organization sharing few traits with order. Time to leave. If he stayed here any longer he would slip into his old ways. He threw only what he needed onto his bed trying to leave as soon as possible. Most of the stuff in the apartment was junk anyways. A scene played out in his mind:

In the back room the thrift store employees sorted through the donations. Their job was to figure out was suitable for reuse, pricing its value with handwritten tags. They rejected the garbage bags full of his stuff. Not suitable for human use, one of them said. Everything that wasn’t thrown out was priced low to make sure it didn’t hang around the floor for years. Even in his own fantasy people did not even want his stuff when it was sitting outside the dumpster, free for the taking. It made him laugh out loud.

Now he could get nicer stuff, not that he cared much about that sort of thing. It was just that he had to redefine his new self. This new person pitied the simple bastard who used to be in control before 5:00 a.m. What a waste of sentience. Now he was actually going to do some good for the world.

The knock came at the door. He shoved a pile of dirty boxers and socks in the shapeless nylon suitcase, ignoring the visitor. Another knock didn’t startle him as much as the shadow cutting a chunk of his light. The haggard man’s face shown in the window, hands cupped between his eyes and the glass. Seeing the screen as an ineffective deterrent, the man inside put down his packing to go to the door. Another knock as he grabbed the knob made him engage the chain before cracking the door open.

Neither or them spoke during the eternity that existed in those ten seconds.

“What can I do for you haggard?”

“I need to use your phone. It’s my car.”

The guy’s teeth were small and yellow; his breath indicated that they were rotting out. It was crank then.

The man inside did not recognize him belonging to anyone in the complex. His three word story was weak. After all, even this shitty complex had a gate at the entrance of the parking lot. Next door was a Mobil not 50 yards away with a pay phone. He looked into Haggard’s cold grey eyes and found what he was expecting. The grey was frozen without much depth behind the initial color.

A 2 hour conversation could not have revealed more to each other. Each wrestled with something going on inside their heads. Haggard shifted from foot to foot quickly, without end. It looked like it took a lot of restraint on his part not to force his way in. The other man did a similar shifting of weight but it went on in his mind. In the end he resigned himself to helping this guy. His new life wouldn’t involve turning his back on people in need, even if that need was Sudafed and ether.

“I have some change in a cup that I could give you for the pay phone. There’s one at the end of the driveway down there,” he said, craning his neck in an exaggerated motion to point to gas station.

Haggard eyes didn’t take the bait. He stayed focused on the man. His mouth opened a few times to say something but the words came out too fast and trailed off quietly into indiscernible ramblings. The man knew this guy was looking for the right excuse.

“I’ll get the change. Hold on.”

In one motion he shut the door and turned around to get some quarters. Haggard’s shoulder stopped the door before the handle caught and his weight threw open the door, sending fragments of brass chain scattering onto the floor. Before the man could turn back around he was face first into a pile of clothes still on the ground. A knee crushed the small of his back, effectively pinning him down while fists landed rapidly on the back of his skull. Haggard screamed a guttural sound and smashed the man’s face against the floor peaking out from between the dirty clothes. The man wasn’t listening to Haggard’s yelling, not that he would have made much sense of it. All he could think about was the change he wanted. He reached out his hand for it. Haggard pulled on the man’s hair, holding something sharp against his exposed throat. All he could think about was the change.