Hercules

Darkness surrounds me like a balmy overcoat in the snow. The drapes on the window of my room are never drawn and only the most persistent sunrays enter during the day. As at night, light from the bulbs and tubes of my neighbours and beyond coalesce terrifyingly and slither in from under the doorway. I haven’t always been perverse to light. I used to play football at the Methodist High School in the city of my birth. Our coach was a nun of the name Ms Hargreaves. Her skin was devoid of any lustre, gnarled, it looked as if it would relinquish its bearer altogether and fall to the ground in a lump. Nevertheless, she was sprightly as they come for a septuagenarian. Her alacrity earned her the name ‘Hercules’ among the students, which we thought was pleasant play. She would walk onto the pitch in her nun’s robes, with a stick as lean as herself, and order us on drills and games like an orchestra conductor, true to her trade, never actually touching the ball. I impressed her with my defensive strength and offensive vision and was told to mind the midfield. Eugene from the football team is still my friend. He often comes over for drinks and sometimes asks me for the keys to bring his girlfriend over. Poor Eugie. He owns half the city but cannot take his girlfriend home where his mum sits sentinel. Not that I mind. They always leave the bed perfectly made. And once his girlfriend did my dishes too, which was a pleasant relief from the smell but I still told Eugene it was unnecessary. They only come when I take the night shift at work.

My work. It is my understanding that in a few years my job would be executed by a machine, faster and cheaper than I am. Soon as they have enough data, I will be jobless, and my one-bedroom apartment with the leaking walls, the floor bed, the smelly kitchen, the rug with dirt embedded and the drapes that make everything dark and nice in my life; it will all be absorbed by the bosses, my life finding a happier reincarnation as a Bottichino countertop in a forgotten corner of the bosses’ bungalow, or their son’s aluminium hoverboard or a family trip to Maldives.

It is not my intention to malign providence and the bestowal of absolutely nothing upon me. Neither do I wish to convey envy of my friend Eugene or my bosses who have money and convenience and other things as I do not. It doesn’t bother me one bit. For hungry I came, hungry I will go, and hungry I remain while I yet draw my salary. And it is a fact well known that the greatest, most precious works have been borne by the starving and the drunk. We’ll just have to see what comes to pass.

 It is time for me to go to dinner. With Susan and Eugene. Eugie is coming to pick me up, it saves the cab fare and fills the distance with conversation. 

I put on a warm overcoat, wear a pair of jeans and take my sunglasses.

 Downstairs a most ominous whimpering welcomes me. To the left of my building door I see what I think is a rag but when I get closer, gashes of red glistening like the twilight sun, enlighten me that it is really a dog. His slate coloured form is undulating onerously. He is young, perhaps of a couple years, but mauled terribly and about to die, sprawling like a defeated soldier. I touch his neck. Bleeding. Crying Dog, you must’ve gone to the wrong parts, hanging with the wrong crowd. The dog bawls. I look in his eye and see he truly wants me to caress him one last time before he departs. I touch him gently on his scruff, and the dog cries, in half delight.

 I wish I had the mettle to relieve the dog of his corporeal coat and make his time that remains easier. But I can’t. This dog will live until he has to live and then die. Isn’t that the point of democracy(though dogs being not members of the esteemed electorate) to allow everyone to live until they die of natural causes. Natural causes is another quandary that bewilders me. In some places, natural causes is heart disease, cancer, diabetes, drugs and in others it is malaria, typhoid, pneumonia and worse, places where shrapnel, bullets and bombs are deployed like children’s pranks.

With a heavy heart, I leave the dog be and sanitize my hands. Eugene’s SUV turns the corner and pulls over. 

*

Now here’s a weirdo. Behold as he walks to my car- the ragged coat, the muddy shoes, the discoloured jeans. Look at his stupid sunglasses and say what you want to. Even though he is my one true friend, I shall not defend him. People like Kenny need no friends, are fortified, made of metal, that no tides of time or occurrences of fortune or passions of pleasure or periods of pain, nothing inhibits their honest tread. 

‘Hello brother man!’ I say as he hops in.

‘Hey Eugie. Thanks for picking me up,’ Kenny says in his grave manner. I begin to drive. 

‘No problem, Ken. Seatbelts, please.’

‘Yeah. Hey do you mind if I light up?’, as always, Kenny brings out his cheroot. 

‘What’s that?’ I ask. 

‘You know what it is.’ 

‘Haha. Yeah then light it up Ken and do pass it on.’ 

‘Yeah. Bro, I just saw the most horrible thing’ says Kenny. 

‘What horrible thing?’

‘A dying dog, man. It smelt and touched like death.’

‘Like death?’

‘Yeah.’ 

‘Well, Ken, that’s the way it is, you know.’

‘But he was so young. And bleeding so badly,’ Kenny says, blowing plumes of smoke like dreams from his mouth. I take my pass and allow myself a long pull. 

‘Ken. It’s a damn street dog. That’s what they do. Fight, bite and die.’ 

‘Yeah. I guess,’ Kenny says. 

The weed is piney and nutty good. City lights dampen the piercing cold of the night. We go past jalopies and on the pavements, girls nudge each other and point to my SUV. Yes, I know it is a thing of beauty. I wonder if I came around smoking sinisterly, and drove by these girls and asked them if they needed a lift, what would they say?

‘Ken.’ 

‘Yes?’

‘I think my girlfriend is going to leave me.’

‘What! Why?’

‘I told her about me and Susan. I told her how drunk we were and everything else. She cried at first. She cried a lot. But she hasn’t said a word to me since. Nothing at all. She only says, ‘Later,’ when I try to talk.’ 

‘Ah. Eugie bro. I wish I could help you. But you know I have as much experience with the ladies as you do with rolling a joint.’

‘Hehe. Yeah, well.’

‘Hey I think, whatever happens, it will be for the best. For her and for you.’ 

I nod. We stop in front of Eddie’s on 76, Central Street. Oh! Susan. Susan. Susan. On the arbitrary scales of attractiveness, she would be rated by a critical not ugly and by a liberal, not unattractive. Yet she elicits a strange feeling of helplessness in me. Her face, a rotund display of shapely eyes, stare at me diligently, bridged by a small nose that might be called perfect. I find her sitting there in a black dress looking all pretty and reminding me of sweet things.

 *

Eddie’s is new, adequately bright, the walls are on the pastel side of grey, the mahogany chic. I have had a couple of Salty Dogs, that’s gin and grapefruit and a third is on the way. The scallops are fresh and cooked well. I take notes in a book for the review I have to write when the two fools come in. Kenny inside a shabby coat and Eugene from his Milanese autumn-fall collection, over-dressed as always.

Ken comes and shakes my hand. Eugie kisses my cheek.

‘Ken do you always have to wear your sunglasses? Even at night? Even at Eddie’s?’

‘Yes, Susan.’ Kenny’s face is shrivelled up. Something isn’t right. I always wrench a barb or two out of him with the sunglasses. Only the weak will duello with those who do not hit back.

‘Hey. What’s up with him?’ I ask Eugene. 

‘I don’t know,’ he says.

‘Ken. Is everything fine?’

‘Yeah, I just. I just saw a dog dying near my apartment. I can’t get the image out of my head. It feels like I did something wrong, leaving it to simply perish on that sidewalk.’

‘Why didn’t you call a vet?’

‘At 9 in the night?’

‘Damn. I am sorry Ken. What was wrong with him?’

‘Oh, he was all cut up and bruised. Bleeding and crying. Bleeding and crying’

‘Maybe he is going away to a better place,’ I reply. 

‘But he did not want to. He wanted to live. I saw it in his eyes.’ 

‘Wait. Now. You cannot possibly know that,’ Eugene chimes in. 

‘I think I do.’ 

‘But I can’t get what the matter is. It’s a dog! A dog! I mean, thousands of humans are dying in Africa every day. Of unnatural causes’, Eugene says. 

‘Natural causes,’ Ken says. 

‘What?’ 

‘They die of natural causes. War and disease are things of nature.’

‘I see this is getting out of hand’ I manage to break it off, ‘Let’s order something.’

Ken wants a Cuba Libre, Eugie wants an Irish. They come. My Salty Dog comes too. I call for the scallops again. And a Chicken Francese. On the next table, I see a man and a woman exercising good use of the drooping tablecloth. 

The night is cold and the drinks are cold but we are warm like old friends. The talk turns to our school days. The boys speak of their football, reminiscing about the days of their past, which is the only thing the past is good for. I take out my book and make more notes. The barstools are too few, considering this is a city of singles. The artwork on the walls is too classy for the young. I see the owners have tried to go for a French Bistro/English Pub and I must find a metaphor to make fun of that. 

Suddenly, a hand lands on my resting hand. Two watery, eager eyes look into mine. A smile that I cannot believe I fell for, once, is wide and childish. The apparition belongs to Eugene. 

‘Do you remember?’ he asks, laughingly. 

‘What?’ 

‘How you would smuggle vodka in your water bottle and we’d drink it in the stands? During school hours?’

‘Yes,’ I draw my hand away from his. It is getting late.

Ken begins, ‘Tell me you guys remember Ms Hargreaves, the nun who was our football coach?’

‘How could I forget our very own Hercules! She was fierce!’ says Eugene. 

‘As good a coach as any man’ I say. 

 ‘Truly. You know I thought of her when I saw that dog today.’ 

‘Not the dog again!’ Eugene says. 

‘Should we call for the check?’ I say. 

The waiter comes and tells us that it is a compliments of the house situation. I resist. It will affect my writing. The waiter perseveres. We pay for the drinks. 

Outside, Eugene asks me, ‘Should I drop you too?’

‘No. I’m calling a cab’, my coldness affects him. He loses all colour. Ken hugs me. Eugene waves me goodbye from afar. 

*

I stand outside my building. Eugene in his SUV disappears in the corner, the world big and small beyond this street. He was a little silly before. But I feel good. The Cuba Libres had gone down well and I feel good and happy. At the building door, I stop and look at the dog sleeping or perhaps dying. Maybe it will be gone in the morning. But it whimpers again, looking right at me. Dear Dog! But you make me helpless! I am a heap of refuse just like you. Only my wounds are veiled, by this skin that I wear. Dear Dog, do not whimper, please!

I pick up the dog’s lump-like form, my arms cradle him as he cries and cries. He opens his mouth wide and lets out a single yelp that goes on until I am in my apartment. I put on a light. I lay the dog down on the rug and give him a bowl of turmeric milk. Sedulously, the dog laps it up. I tear a few bandages from the bedcover and soak them in alcohol and put the bandages on his wounds. He whimpers and tries to bite me. But I had anticipated that. My hand is sheathed in a length that I had cut from the bedcover. 

When I finish cleaning the congealed blood from his wounds, the dog breathes heavily and goes to sleep. His incontinence ruins my rug. But I do not mind. I sit there and watch him. Live as long as you can. If you die before the morning, I will bury you in the ground. If you shall live, I will take you to the doctor and make you all right. And then I will be to you, a happy host. And if you would want to get back on the streets, I shall let you. But tonight you stay here, dog. Tonight you try to live. Yesterday there was me. Now we are two. I call you Hercules.