Freedom

II. MORNING: We often fail to help others.

A green anole in the process of shedding its skin, a tiny dinosaur reinventing itself, is squished under the work boot of the old man turning to sit down on the concrete step. He would never know he did it.

"My name is James, Jimmy," he repeats to himself in a whisper, confirming his existence, a morning routine now. Jimmy's mind wanders toward empty space if he lets it.

He is not really old but feels sick and broken with the sunken spirit of the old. He has to think about it to remember his age: 53. Today he sits on the porch of a derelict house on Jerusalem Street wherein whimpering newborn and watchful silent dog are king and brave knight. Jimmy senses only his bony rear on hard concrete and the fine glass bottle he is pulling from his pocket. The house is a random choice, just where he happened to stop on this no-breeze hot morning looking for a good place to drink in shade. The porch was as good as anywhere.

Jimmy's destitution completes him, isn't that what they say, makes him whole. Sitting there thinking before he starts his day. He has failed at everything except drink and loneliness. Sounds like a book or a movie or something. It didn't start this way, never does, true? He used to be young Alicia used to love him he used to get up and go to work every day good job with the city, tending the pauper cemetery, had risen to supervisor, two men under him, almost parallel but still, a supervisor, and then it just seemed like before he blinked hard his life disappeared into dust, like the dust that blew at the cemetery when it hadn't rained in a long time. He would wet the graves with a sprinkler or have one of the men do it, moving the sprinkler from spot to spot  until all of the graves had been blessed, he believed, by a gentle morning rain. He used to like the sprinkler's thwump thwump tat-tat-tat-tat-tat thwump as the only sound in his life.

Jimmy has always been thin but now bones shape his skin around them and hurt pretty much all the time and he "never shuts up about it," some son-of-a-bitch said at the mission last night, then laughed with the other men. Their laughter bent Jimmy, he has always been ridiculed, made him feel like dirt. Arthritis in the joints, can't help that if he wanted to, but the actual bones hurt now, somewhere inside the marrow maybe. Probably some special cancer that strikes one in a million going to take him down at just over fifty, or maybe it's just thirty years of working for shit pay that's kind of accumulated and coagulated, finally settling in to get some rest. Hurt becomes rest after a while. 

Booze makes the inside of bones feel better. Alicia doesn't want to see him anymore at all since he got warned twice and then let go by the city for drinking on lunch break what, five years ago now. Six years, maybe. It was just a sip or two to keep him going, did his job just fine, better even. But she'd just had enough of him after that. So he stays away from home, usually just wanders, finds a place to drink, sits, as now, on the steps of a boarded up house, eight o'clock in shade as steam begins to rise off the sidewalk. Days become years. Easy Jesus brandy slides in like a warm knife. A decent night of sleep last night at the mission after the men laughed, and now warmth circulating inside every vein. He always feels like a better person in the seconds after the first sip.

Jimmy hears something, thinks he hears something, holds the brandy bottle in mid-tilt. A faint high-pitched whine, coming from somewhere near, not sure if it's real, can no longer trust what he sees and hears. But the sound like crying reaches his warmed brain and sounds real and he worries, listening hard, setting the bottle down on the concrete step. He feels more alive with his attention on the sound. The warmth spreads and he takes another sip then sits very still with his ear toward the house.

Two people walk by, a mother and daughter or niece maybe going to school he guesses, and Jimmy acts like nothing special, gives a nice smile to them. They huddle a little closer and give him shaming smiles back, disgusted by him he can tell. Just walk on by, ladies. You don't matter anyhow. This sound belongs to me.

Jimmy empties the bottle with practiced ease and stiffly rises, decides to walk around to the back of the house through knee-high weeds and swarming flies stirred up from trash. He looks at the broken back door and then with a drunk's conviction and a drunk's fear walks inside, slipping through the unhinged unharmed, overcoming a dizzy swoon after stepping inside. He squints and his eyes adjust to the wrecked kitchen, the stove rusted and stripped, dishes in broken and stacked disarray, food wrappers and beer cans blown against cabinets by wind through the broken door. He shakes his head and thinks This is the worst place I've ever seen and then stands as still as he can and listens hard again, tottering a little then focused. The whimpering almost like a lost kitten seeps in from deeper in the house but with a low rumble now underneath it. Jimmy thinks about turning around but this sound belongs to him and he steps into the darker part of the house, leaving behind the kitchen's morning sun.

One step inside the dark room and urine and the room's chaos assault him and he stumbles, slamming his boot against the floor. The growl grows deeper and meaner. Jimmy's eyes adjust again, and the room becomes a pitiful hell he has fallen into. Jimmy sees the dog and fleshy shape next to it and recognizes the dog, a shepherd mix he has fed french fries and milkshakes to before.

"Hey, Mooch, what you got there, buddy?" and the growl eases at the sound of Jimmy's voice, so he keeps talking, crouches down with his hand out open palm, and Mooch whimpers and then barks a sharp hello, kindness is here. Dogs have always liked Jimmy, maybe his sadness calms them down, maybe sadness is more trustworthy. Mooch walks over slowly, head down in hopeful submission, placing his chin onto Jimmy's palm. Jimmy scratches and rubs his head and neck.

"What you got over there, Mooch? It looks like a little baby. Is that what it is, boy? Couldn't be a little baby, could it? Let's go see." 

Mooch leads the way like he has a prize to show Jimmy. The ragged stray has a full stomach and a human friend and has gained confidence. Jimmy follows, leaning forward to see more clearly before each step through bottles and needles and blankets and trash. Then he comes upon it and it is what he thought, a baby, lying there like the Lord in Bethlehem, floating above the trash. The baby no longer makes a sound and barely moves, only jostling its legs in gentle protest or possibly happiness at someone's arrival. Jimmy now stands over him and then kneels, afraid to touch him. Mooch sniffs the baby's hand and then Jimmy's hand as a gesture of permission and then sits on haunches beside Jimmy, who reaches down slowly, his hand trembling with determination to be a real person who would help this child.

The skin of the baby's shoulder is so soft against Jimmy's knuckles. He turns his hand over and caresses the baby with his softer fingertips, the head's wet hair, the warm cheek, for what seems a long time, wanting to feel love. How did this happen, how are you here, what am I supposed to do. The baby starts to cry and Jimmy goes still. Then the cry becomes a wail and Jimmy worries about someone hearing. He slips his dirty finger inside the child's mouth and the child nurses it and seems to receive tenderness from it.

"I can't help you, little one." Jimmy tears up a little himself now with the baby quiet around his finger. "Everybody'd be asking what you doing with a little brand new baby, Jimmy. They'd think I'd done something wrong and I wouldn't know what to tell them and they wouldn't believe me anyway."

Jimmy pulls his finger slowly from the newborn's mouth, which calms and closes. The eyes are clamped shut in deepest worry and Jimmy doesn't know what to do to stop the hurt and unhappiness of this tiny human.

"You don't want to be anywhere near me, little one. I am bad news to everyone I'm around. I'll leave a note for someone, maybe the fire station down there. You'll be okay, better without me. Someone better will find you. You'll be okay."

Jimmy rises to his feet and leaves heavily through the battered kitchen with Mooch trotting behind him, faithful to the human who rubbed his chin. Jimmy never finds a pen to write the note with and always remembers wanting to for the rest of his life.