Before the Cock Crows

I can't remember ever having seen him before we met. He told me once that he had peered inside the door of my shop one day, and that I had smiled at him, but it isn't something I can remember. Though, I suppose there's every chance that he could be right; he always did have such a good memory for the small things, it was the type of thing he would latch onto. He told me it was what had given him the courage to step inside my shop when it had started raining the following week. That is the encounter I remember.

I remember him ducking into the shop in his red anorak; small, skinny and bedraggled with his beer-bottle glasses, grizzly beard and gummy mouth. He had smiled at me and said “Hello,” and I had asked him how he was. He had begged an apology, saying that he was only looking for a dry shelter. I simply smiled at him and offered him a coffee. He had been so simple and childlike and as refreshing as the icy rain that fell in torrents beyond my shop door.

He came in everyday after that, “to get out of the rain,” he would tell me, and I would smile and offer him a coffee and we would talk. It wasn't long, though, before the rain stopped, and still he would come “on an errand,” he would say, “for my pal.” But his 'friend' would never receive what he had been sent for. Instead, he would sit and drink coffee, and we would talk. I never told him much about myself; he never seemed very interested. He was content to tell me his own life story instead. He was naively selfish in that respect, but in his mind he was only a child and it endeared him to me even more. I enjoyed listening to him talk; it made all of my problems seem trivial. I was a twenty year old, single mother of one. But, I had a home, and I knew there would be food on the table every night. He didn't have either of those luxuries. He would tell me about his mother in Glasgow, and the church he went to. And when he got himself into a shelter, I was so happy for him.

I often wondered about his mother, and how she could allow her own child, her son, to go homeless. I would think of my own baby boy, and I would grow angry at a woman I had never met, because nothing could excuse it. He was her own flesh and blood, and she allowed him to live vagrant, penniless and illiterate. I never broached the subject with him, it never seemed any of my business and he seemed happy enough with his life, though I suspected he didn't know any better. But through my anger, the only shelter I offered him was my shop from the rain, and the only sustenance he received from my hand was a coffee with milk and two sugars. My regret for his life did not go that deep, and he seemed to unknowingly make my excuses for me.

He had a much simpler way of looking at life, such a one minded view of the world. Mostly, I pitied him; he would never truly be an accepted part of the world he loved so unconditionally. And yet, there were times that I couldn't help but envy him. I wished that I could see the world from his eyes; look at it in black and white, instead of the endless haze of grey that coloured my life. He liked everyone, and he was happy to think that everyone liked him; those who didn't held no sway or place in his life. He appreciated everything at face value, for the joy it could bring to life. He was an impossibly optimistic person, who saw the good in everything and everyone. He was a dangerously open person too, who kept secrets from no-one and was willing to let anyone in. And somehow, he never got hurt. Then there was me, and my cynicism, and the protective walls I had so diligently built around my son and I. I was always so careful about who I let in, who I cared for. And where had it gotten me? Lonely, poor and in debt.

He would ask after my mother, and my son, neither of whom he had met, and seemed genuinely pleased when I responded “well,” though his inquiries went no further. Sometimes, he was content to stand and stare at me whilst I worked; something I always found uncomfortable, but I never commented. The first time I mentioned him to my Mother, she had smiled and laughed and said “I think someone might have an admirer.” And as much as I tried to laugh my mother's comment off, it stuck with me.

He had soon started going to classes; literacy and numeracy, and he loved them. He would come to the shop afterwards and tell me what he had learnt, and his pride and excitement was infectious. I felt like a proud mother, despite the fact he was twenty years older than me. I would give him words to spell, and sums to complete, and soon he was writing. The first letter he ever wrote was to me. It was short and simple, to his “best, best friend.” It brought a tear to my eye, and I wondered when I had become the most important person in his life. There had been a queasy flutter in my stomach that day, and my mother's words rang in my ears.

The customers had gotten used to him, and they would talk to him, thought more out of politeness at his inquiries than anything else. Some had taken to teasing him, but whether through embarrassment, or his inability to discern a joke, it never ended well, and soon they were ignoring him. He was special, and everything about him was the all-or-nothing attitude of a child, and I seemed to be the only person who understood that.

He came to me one day with a gift, and I learnt a lesson that day that every child must learn: Your mother is always right. He had received some money, not what those of us who understand the value of money would consider a substantial amount, but to him it was a small fortune, and he had seen fit to buy me a gift. It had been as I stared down at his offering, reminiscent of a lovers, that I realised his view of our relationship had changed. The flowers and chocolates weighed heavy in my hand, but nothing to the guilt and dread that sank in my stomach. I had made no comment other than to weakly thank him. The smile that encompassed his face lasted the whole of the day.

I had started to feel awkward in his presence; the knowledge that he no longer viewed me as his friend, but as something more, sat prominent in my mind and I started making excuses to avoid him. I knew there was no way I could talk to him about it; the extreme way in which his mind worked would never have allowed for him to come out of it undamaged, and so I did the only thing I could, selfishly, think of. I used work as an excuse, because I knew he would never be able to tell the difference, and if I seemed distant during our conversations, he never made any comment.

He soon noticed something had changed, though, and in his desperation to hold onto me, he became almost obsessive. I realised then that I would have to talk to him, and end the friendship. I spent countless hours envisaging conversations and ways I could end things, but no matter the words I were to use, or the excuses I were to give, there was only one truth: I was going to be removing the most important person, and only constant, in his life.

All too soon, we were hurtling back into winter, bringing with it the icy torrents of rain, and his excuse of shelter. I knew I would have to do it soon. I wish now that I had gotten the chance to speak to him, maybe then everything would have turned out differently.

It was a dull day in November when it happened, but it was a dry one. I don't remember the day being rainless, but I know it was because I would never have sent him from the shop if it had been raining. I had sent him away for the day, telling him to come back another time because I was busy, and even though it wasn't true, I found myself things to do to ease the guilt that plagued me. I spent most of the day thinking of what I would say to him, and the few customers that entered my shop commented on his absence. I realised then that he had become as much of a constant in my life, as I had in his, except that the quality of my life would be no different without him in it. It was by far a colder day than any I remembered.

Some of the customers who entered my shop that day told me that they had seen him, that he had been getting hassle from some hoodlums, but I shrugged it off. He had been getting hassle from trouble-makers for as long as I had known him; they liked to pick on him because he was small and weak, and didn't know how to fight back. I wasn't worried; the street vendors in the area had taken to keeping an eye on him, and if the youngsters had ever gotten too much, he always came into the shop.

The day was nearing dusk, and for the most part my shop was empty, except for a few of my regular customers. Despite the gloom outside, the night was actually quite cheerful, and I perceived no reason that anything should be amiss. My thoughts were far from my little friend, and sat instead with my son and his up coming birthday and where I should take him. The first indication that anything was wrong, was the complete lack of any sound to be heard from the usually bustling street beyond my shop door. It seemed to chill the night, and for a moment dread settled on me like a tonne weight. I had little time to dwell on it before one of the street vendors was at my door, calling for me to come outside. I sat for a moment, and stared at the now empty doorway, and for the briefest of moments, the dread seemed to intensify and grew so heavy that I saw no way of being able to lift myself from the chair. My body seemed to move of its own accord, and I have no recollection of how I came to stand in the doorway of my shop. The scene that met my eyes is one that has haunted me since.

I did not recognise him at first, and I was puzzled as to why I had been called, but sure enough it was him; it was my little friend. The world seemed to slow around me and stop, until the only sounds that existed were the frantic beating of my heart and my own harsh breathing. There was no movement around me except for the jarring of his little body as he stolidly took every blow. I wondered at the back of my mind why no one moved to help him, and yet made no move to do so myself. Detached, some distant part of my mind stayed with my son and his birthday and a day planned at the Zoo, and I found no way through the chaos of my thoughts to run forward and help him. I stood, like everyone else on the street, and watched as his small body was thrown around the stone pavement on which our feet rested. It seemed to take and eternity, his assailants seeming never to tire, and I, not wanting to watch, could not help but punish myself in doing so.

Finally, mercilessly, they stopped; grown bored, they moved away cheering and laughing, and left behind them the shattered body of my little friend. Though friend I could not call him, because still I did not go to him. He lay lonely and friendless on the ground, and I should have thought him dead if not for the slow rise and fall of his chest. My own breath came in short, painful gasps, and my eyes stung where tears should have been; but to cry would have been to allow myself a kindness I did not deserve. Slowly, his head dropped onto his outstretched arm, and I caught sight of his ruined face. His eyes were the only things I recognised any more. Shaking, his arm rose slowly, so that his crooked, red painted hand extended towards me, and in his eyes I perceived an understanding greater than my own; a forgiveness I would never allow myself. His eyes grew brighter, reflecting the lights of the streets around him, and his hand dropped. Slowly, I watched his life leak from his eyes until the light was gone and there was nothing of my little friend left in them.

I could not comprehend what it was I had just witnessed; no grief came to me; I did not believe what my eyes were telling me. The world sped up now to blurs and flashing lights, so that the only clear thing to me, was him. My world then was centred on him, as for so long his had been centred on me, and still I did not go to him. The night flashed blue around me; it was a cold unlike any I had felt before, but it did not assail me from the air, it claimed me from the inside, and I shivered and longed for the warmth of the shop at my back. As I watched the paramedics load his broken body and take him away, I turned back into my shop, back to the things that mattered: my son, my shop and bills to be paid.

I did not think of him that night when I returned home to my son, not did I dream of him when I lay myself down to sleep. It was not until the following morning as I stepped out into the pouring rain that I remembered him. An image flashed through my mind; a memory of him, bedraggled, small, and skinny, with his red anorak, grizzly beard, and beer-bottle glasses, flashing me a gummy smile, and begging shelter from the rain. I knew then that I would never find my shelter, that he would rain down on me forever. And in my penance I would bear my downpour.

I learnt later that it had started when he had tried to help a young lady the boys had been harassing.

----

I saw him again today, but no-one else could. The sun was bright and warm on my skin. He waved and called out to me, his best, best friend, and a familiar heat warmed my cheeks. I didn't answer him, I just dropped my head and pretended I hadn't heard.