Frailty

It’s daylight at 4:00am and I’m in the despair of a local late-night diner drinking stale coffee with a foul stench of tobacco lingering in the air. It’s a night like no other as I am in distress, startled and yet, oddly different.

My name is Anthony Greenwich and I’m an average nobody with a regular job working at a large-scale retail shopping mart. I have no direction home in regards of what I want to do to feel normal and not as sedated as I feel currently. I am not depressed, angry, hateful or any emotion that bear need of a reason to feel as such. I am a leaf falling from a tree being pushed along by the swift breeze of the cool wind.

“Anthony! Come on!” shouted Tim as we were approaching the local watering hole “Anchors and Ale.” It is a cozy, but friendly pub that we go to play our favourite rock songs on the modernized juke box and enjoy a cold beer poured so elegantly by the same staff that we notice on our weekly visit. The beer light amber in color, with a perfect froth top just to the brim. We always appreciated a well poured beer.

Time after time we would play pool or just discuss what’s going on in our lives and for the most part it has been ordinary from my perspective as there really isn’t anything going on, but Tim was a very visceral guy. His idea of life was not about what he did, but the idea of earning a wealthy living and in that notion, he would be happy. And why shouldn’t he? There are millions doing it every hour, day and year. It crosses my mind each day, but it creates a state of perplexity and I begin falling further into a limbo of the unknown why I am so distant or passive in contrast to Tim.

Tim was a student of the labour force as an electrician and was just a mere glimpse away from graduating and entering the workforce. Tim would exclaim: “life is about opportunity, it’s about seizing the moment when it arises. You know…that phrase when in carpe or wait, I don’t know. The beer is beginning to take its toll, but you know what I’m talking about.” I hesitated for a moment before responding; letting his comment sink into my mind to contemplate whether or not it made sense to me, but for the most part it was nothing I haven’t thought about.

“I know, but Tim it’s easy for you to say; your father is in the labour force as an electrician, you grew up into that environment from your father, and most importantly you see what your father is like. I think you’re living a reflection of his life Tim and I mean no offense by that, but it doesn’t work that way for me.” Tim gazed at me with such distaste, I was certain he was going to be extremely defensive in his response. “You know what Anthony, you could be right, but who fucking knows? I just know to me it’s fine and that’s alright by me.”

The serious conversation had cooled down from this point and we just began gabbing about at sports and music as per usual.

Money. It’s the universal means of life and yet it seems nobody seems to contemplate even for the briefest moment in what money costs. Money to me was an escape or temporary delusion from reality and if only for a moment or a lifetime. I find myself desiring money becoming a slave to it, but at the same time I deeply despise it. It is the root of evil and the foundation to conformity life. I know people sometimes say: “it’s a love hate relationship” in regards to their partners or job, but I think that is the epitome of my relationship with money…a love hate relationship.

It’s 12:29am and we have worn out ourselves in an evening of drunken debauchery and I was feeling quite fatigue as I returned from the restroom. Tim decides that he is to head home and we part ways as he lived a couple block north from the pub and I westward. As I near my ordinary, white duplex home I notice my father vehicle is missing and the house radiates with a luminescent aura as every light in the house is on. At this point I’m thinking to myself pondering what is happening, so I stagger my way into home to find the scent of smoke coming from the kitchen. I follow the gazing smoke and to my demise there is my mother; bruised, battered, blood trickling down her left nostril and tears drifting from here eyes onto her red cheeks.

“Mom! Are you alright?” I exclaimed wondering frantically what had occurred during my drunken absence.

“You…you..you’re father had been drinking all night and he came home in a raging fit and just lost it. He was screaming at me because of our debt. Son, we are in a tough time, your father works a tough job that doesn’t pay as well as it could and well I’m not really contributing waiting tables either. I’m not saying it was right of him to hit me, but I’m just explain why he was screaming at me said my mother in a very timid, fearful voice.

“It makes not one bit of fucking difference. He is a coward and all of this for what!!? Money? If it was money that caused this, I would have given him all of my money.” My mother inhaled the cigarette, closing her eyes as I gaze into her bruised cheeks, still red from the very hand that used to play catch with me as a child.

I was furious, drunk and in a fit of rage and ironically it hit me. I, just like Tim have more in common with my father than I’d imagine. Here I am drunk, angry and ready to bludgeon him the moment I lay eyes on him for what he did to my mother. Just as Tim was close to his father and his work; I was close to my father, but I had no idea until I bear witness to the state of my mother. And this whole ordeal started because of money. I could not bear it anymore.

And it hit me, suddenly and it was as clear as bright blue azure sky. I need not retaliate, and I never want to be in such a fit over something so…so meaningless. Yes, I thought to myself. Yes, I know what I want to do now, I don’t know which way I will approach I thought, but I know I need to help people for no child, woman or man ever must feel the way I felt tonight.

“Mom go get some rest, I will clean up this mess” I exclaimed. She approached me slowly, wiping the tears from her face and the scent of smoke, images of what my father had just done had me beginning to tear up, but I contained myself to the extent to let my mom rest.“You’re the best son a mother could ask for and don’t ever forget it” she said and made her way upstairs into her bedroom.

At this point I was at the verge of finishing tidying up the broken glass and the displaced kitchen chairs and the clock struck 3:32AM and I was nowhere near in the mood to sleep as I am riddled with a stale taste of beer. I made way for a late-night diner just down the road to late night diner for a cup of coffee to sober up. The waitress approached with a deliberate yet concerned face and asked: “What will it be hun?” in a soft, calming voice. “I’ll have cup of coffee with cream please.” And not a moment too soon the stale coffee hits my lips and I’m staring down the cup thinking what a nightmarish night, but even odd enough I felt animated in an odd sense, but it was a feeling of progress; a feeling that I have not felt in quite some time.

“You look as if you just saw a ghost” said the waitress. “you could say that” I whispered.

“Are you ok? Would you like something to eat?”

I felt some compelling force as for whatever reason this waitress is taken in to my looks of despair. If at any moment I needed help or simply a hand per say now is the time and I can’t help, but feel nothing, but the utmost gratitude for her act of kindness. It was as if the universe was aware of the matter and dark energy almost like a black hole looming just above me if at any moment it was about to lure me into darkness.

“No thanks, but thanks for the offer. I’m fine the coffee will do for now.” I said with the smallest smile.

I was reborn and for the first time in my life and I felt purposeful. The nightmarish circumstances of what I witnessed tonight have taken toll on me and my family no doubt, but to move ahead in life you need to experience things; good or bad for they shape a person and the waitresses simple question of how I was doing was the end of a previous chapter in my life and onward to a bright and new beginning of another.