Enoch's Folly

Shanks remembered something he’d been told about the wretch and thought to ask him, something about his work with city hall, but considered in a second or two what could be lost and what could be gained and held his tongue.

  They reached Little Vincent’s – they timed their walk to perfection and he knew and was ready. The pieces of pizza unsold and unsalvageable, those laid out early and for unknown reasons unloved, Vincent put in a box and provided them outside the rear door. He did not do this because he wanted to shame them, he swore black and blue, and apologised for the trash and rotting junk and cat’s piss. He did it because he knew he could not do it for everyone who was hungry and didn’t have a cent, which he said was a big crowd and he was right.

  Shanks remembered a story about Little Vincent and the wretch, something about them knowing each other a long time ago, but if they had it did not show, they were civil, Vincent being one of the few respectables to let him keep his dignity and the wretch was always polite, but there was no sign of history, no acknowledgement of any life other than this one they lived now.

  The truth was uncomfortable for both men and they spared one another. Two boys with much in common and the same curve balls thrown their way mostly but one a little smarter and a little harder than the other. The wretch refused to say it was a question of a little more luck, he felt he owed Vincent that, and all the others. He and Shanks leaned against the wall while Vincent stood in the doorway. The wretch narrowed his eyes and looked out of the corner of them in squint to see Vincent as only a dark shape in a rectangle of light, the little guy was smoking and around the blackness of his head was a blue halo catching the light within, he smoked and leaned and his off-white apron was stained and splattered mainly red and his hands were rough and aching and would stink of garlic for a while. For years even, he suspected.

  Vincent told them he was going to stop smoking and they laughed. They did not understand why anyone would do that if they could still get tobacco and he looked into the little crumpled paper box and told them he had two tailors left if they were interested or they would go out with the trash. Vincent sure as hell wasn’t going to give them to his employees, every one of which was his own kid, he said, and the men took the cigarettes and smiled, Shanks’s crooked teeth glittered strangely and there was a rough charm to his expression. The wretch’s smile knocked the joy out of almost anyone who saw it, and it was reaction it inspired that was the most cruel aspect of his rotten stumps. But Vincent - he smiled back. It was the least that could be done for an old friend.

  He offered his matches, and from then on almost every second visit he would again declare he was giving up cigarettes, and insist they took his last two smokes.

  Fed and now better able to focus they left, with one mission in mind; to destroy their minds and buy a few hours of peace before sleeping at sun-up, which would bring the warmth they needed for the luxury of remaining still.

  Shanks realised they were near to Speranzo’s old place, a friend of his from his short time at the plant. He was a local hero of sorts, a war veteran who lost a leg but gave everything he had away at every opportunity. As they walked, he remembered the last time he and the Wretch had visited there.

  That night, like most nights, had brought with it desperate times, and they hoped Speranzo had some surplus wine and knew his wife wouldn’t mind as long as they kept fairly quiet. She was a seamstress, and often donated clothes to the orphanage nearby. Cruel people, the kind who hate acts of kindness motivated by selflessness rather than vanity, said her greatest charity was her marriage – but people are sick that way.

  She had opened the door that night and smiled, but a strained smile. She told them her husband was not there and they were shocked. Shanks knew the man stayed in at night, with his wife – and now he was gone and she was pale and Shanks stepped down one step to reach the level of the wretch and closed his eyes. He told her he was sorry for intruding and she told him no, not at all. The terrace house, home to two families on every level, had always seemed to the two men a lively beautiful place – a palace – and now they saw it clearly as a rotting place, badly built and prematurely aged, built without warmth or care. Stomachs twisted they said goodbye and she asked them to wait a moment. She returned with two green glass flagons in small basket bottoms, chianti style, and handed them to the two men. She knew she would not see them again, and they her. The wretch, despite his shakes and terrible thirst, had tried to refuse – but she told them of a third bottle that would be hers that night and they thanked her and left.

  That night, that awful night, the two men had felt more alone than ever before.

  Tonight, Shanks remembered Speranzo. “It means hope,” the man had said – and they’d both laughed. It had been ten years.

  They walked, collars turned up against the wind. Shanks held their pooled money in his right hand, buried in his pocket. Soon enough they found a place they knew which knew them, down an alley, where the bottles were brown glass and without labels. They left the alley triumphant, coats heavier than before.

  The park would, in Shanks’ words, have too many coppers or too few, so they found a badly-lit church with a deep doorway. The wine was enough to see them through until morning.

  “When the sun rises it will be a new day,” Shanks offered after they sat down and opened the first bottle.

  The wretch smiled his smile. “Sure, but it will be shining on the same old world.”

  He wondered, just in passing, if he would eventually forget his real name.

  *

  Jensen and Carter.

  Kristian bounced the names around in his head. ‘Jensen, a barber. Danish, an immigrant. A nineteenth century man. Already an outsider, he took a black apprentice, Carter, in a small town. He would have lost most of his clientele at first… And he would have known it would happen too.’

  Kristian pondered it. Jensen had been, in his small way, an extraordinary man. If he’d been born a prince, or into big money, or a political dynasty, his way of seeing the world might have lit a light seen for hundreds of miles, maybe even across seas.

  What Jensen had done was still startling, 40 years later. It would probably be startling in 40 years’ time. No. Kristian put that notion out of his mind. Things had to change for the better – he had to believe it. The ox is slow, but…

  He lay on the floor, his jacket rolled under his head and his hands on his chest. Beside him, in single bed, was Watson. The old man’s voice rumbled:

  “That Jensen must have been an interesting fellow.”

  Kristian laughed, a short single ‘ha’. “You were reading my mind Mr Watson.” He paused. “It’s funny. When he came to America he probably thought it would change him, that he’d become an American. And both things happened, I’m sure, but by the sound of it he changed this town more than it changed him.” Watson hummed in agreement.

  Planning was something Kristian admired but for which he had no talent.

  His mother, a meticulous organiser of things, had told him to break the year in to manageable parts. He barely managed to break the day in to manageable parts. Next move – retrieve Mr Rosti from the clinic. What then? It was ridiculous he told himself. Take three strangers to the big city. In his pocket was his brother’s address written on a battered card. He wondered if he still lived there. Perhaps he’d missed a letter since leaving Havana.

  Kristian knew exactly how many towns he’d lived in since he was sixteen. Each one a new start, each one a new failure. He’d picked things up along the way; bits of one language or another, a bit of skill with engines and wiring, some boxing, enough poetry to impress himself. Then he’d run. It was pointless and meaningless. I’m not a man – he thought. I don’t even know what a man is.

  His grandfather had been a man, maybe. Of the old school, stoic as flint. Utterly devoted to his wife, his children, and his God. Wiry, his accent bristling out rarely from behind a silver beard, his eyes somehow terrible in their resolution. Kristian had feared and revered his opa.
The old man had seemed indestructible. But, like all men, he was inevitably destroyed. We are all destroyed in the end, some spectacularly, some silently – but the end is still the end of all things. Opa had believed in the resurrection and eternal life. Kristian had by now decided he’d seen enough – not only the absence of evidence, but also the evidence of absence. If God was ever with us – he thought – He isn’t now.

  Kristian watched an insect he didn’t recognise crawl across the ceiling. He wondered why Mr Watson was silent. He listened to the older man breathe. He was awake. On cue, he rumbled again.

  “I wonder if Mrs Hatfield is alright. She is, from memory, an early riser.”

  Kristian noticed the blue early light of day creeping under the rolled down blind. For the first time, he contemplated the fact it was morning.

  “When you talked about Jensen before, how did you know I was awake?”

  “Your breathing.”

  Kristian remembered sharing a room with his brother, listening to him sleeping - breathing deeply, jealous. Even as an adolescent he had been plagued with insomnia.

  Insomnia. An unremarkable word, but one which described a pedestrian sort of hell. Insomnia so often caused by the mind, is not just a condition but a sensation, a feeling, a presence, and it that sense it begins in the heart; an overwhelming emptiness. Non-insomniacs could never understand just how wonderful it was to feel full of physical tiredness, because they experienced it on every ordinary night. Kristian and his fellow sufferers knew, because for them the emptiness was unending. The weird hollow feeling, not strong enough to be called dread but some kind of stagnant fear, sat in his chest every night and smirked at him. ‘You will not sleep’. And he knew it was always right. Usually he would start to fade out not long before the first bird chirps.

  The blue light was turning yellow.

  “How did you sleep, Mr Watson?”

  “Not terribly well. I am worried about Mr Rosti. Alone in that place. His leg is bad.”

  “His leg will be ok…

  Where are we going Mr Watson?”

  “You’re the one driving.”

  “Have you been to New York City before?”

  “About one thousand years ago.”

  “What did you do there?”

  “I was a sailor. It was a short stay.”

  “What will you do there this time?”

  “Find some work on land.”

  “I have no doubt that you will. Hopefully once you do, you can put in a good word for me.”

  There was a light rap at the door.

  “Mrs Hatfield?”

  “Yes.”

  “One moment.”

  Kristian waited for Mr Watson to dress before opening the door. Kristian was still in yesterday’s clothes.

  Mrs Hatfield, immaculately attired, looked at Watson but not Kristian as she said good morning.

  “Wonderful of Mr Carter to accommodate us, wasn’t it?”

  Kristian looked back at the room. A stern single bed and floor space of perhaps three feet by seven, alongside several stacks of books and two wooden crates.

  “Very much so… where did you sleep?”

  “I believe it was Mr Jensen’s room. Mr Carter had lodged with Mr Jensen, as you know, but on inheriting the store decided to retain his room and leave Mr Jensen’s quarters as they were.”

  “With one exception,” Kristian offered.

  “Excuse me?”

  “No doubt Mr Jensen was removed from the room by then.”

  Mrs Hatfield would normally have tolerated the off-colour humour, but today was an unhappy anniversary and it went down like a lead balloon.

  “I imagine you will want to see Mr Rosti as soon as possible,” she said to Watson, who smiled.

  Mr Carter was in his kitchen, which was also his dining and reading room, preparing breakfast for one.

  “You’re awake.” He said cheerfully. “I’ll put on more eggs.”

  “Never mind Mr Carter – and thank you. We will need to be going right away, we will pick something up for the road.” Mr Watson answered.

  “Thank you again,” Mrs Hatfield added. Kristian shook Carter’s hand without a word, and the three of them were down the stairs and in the street moments later.

  “Not the sentimental type, are you?” Mrs Hatfield said quietly.

  “Not really.”

  It wasn’t until days later that Mr Carter would find two ten dollar bills folded on top of a long note from Kristian, sitting on top of one of the book piles.

  Mr Watson and Mrs Hatfield got in the ambulance, Watson insisting that Mrs Hatfield take the front seat. Kristian hesitated, hovering at the front of the vehicle, staring at the bonnet. She watched him as he watched the bonnet. He was fixated – but unfocussed, his eyes far away. She knew he was seeing something, but not what was right in front of him. She wondered what the trigger was. Watson whispered ‘is he okay?’ and she whispered back that she didn’t know. She examined the bonnet as best she could, but didn’t see the tiny piece of human skin caught just under the maker’s shield. Kristian had. There were two hairs on it – dark blonde. Arm hair, Kristian guessed. His eyes refocussed, and he took a handkerchief from his pocket and used his thumbnail to scrape the relic away. He got in to the car without a word and started the engine.

  The streets were almost empty as they pulled up outside the clinic. A plywood sign hanging in the window gave 8am as the start of visiting hours but the glass doors were propped open. Kristian hopped out. “Wait here”. He was back in less than a minute. “Mr Rosti’s sleeping – but once he wakes he’s good to go.” Mr Watson said they might as well walk around town while they waited. Mrs Hatfield agreed and Kristian shrugged.

  It was hot for an August morning. The town was quiet early in the day and the three of them walked in silence, Mrs Hatfield and Kristian a little slower than they would normally, with Watson a pace behind them.

  After a few minutes Watson cleared his throat.

  “Conversation helps me navigate, if it’s not too awkward. And besides, there’s a lot of catching up to do, I’m sure. Incomplete strangers have a lot of blanks to fill in.”

  Mrs Hatfield obliged. “What do you enjoy, Mr Watson, when the café in Paradise is quiet?”

  “The wireless.”

  “The news? Baseball? The soap operas?”

  “Everything but the soap operas. I like hockey. I follow the news programs closely. Some radio plays. Every now and then, but not often, they do Shakespeare on the radio – usually as a serial.”

  Kristian lit up. “The BBC does that very well. Not long ago I was in Spain, and now and then was able to listen to the BBC. It was like an oasis in the desert. Do you have a favourite?”

  “Anything but Othello.”

  Kristian laughed.

  “…Richard II.” Watson’s face changed. That sightless gaze seemed to see everything. “I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.”

  They drove in silence for a few moments.

  “It doesn’t get the press it deserves.” Kristian offered.

  “Richard III is more fun – but…”

  “People like a bit of fun with their tragedies,” Mrs Hatfield spoke. “Otherwise it’s too true to life.”

  Kristian watched her. He’d already assumed a few things. Death, poverty, certainly a widow. Typhoid? Cholera? Had her family been hit by Spanish flu? Or some man-made disaster like black lung. A typically American story. He wondered where her family was from originally. Did they come out on the Mayflower? In a fraction of a second he studied her face again. She wasn’t Slavic or Latin. Did it matter? Did it make a difference?

  “I struggled a bit with the language at first. I imagine it’s easier to understand on the page, but I liked the sound of it, like the King James Bible, so I stuck with it and pretty soon didn’t miss a thing… What about you?” Mr Watson added.

  “I know it puts me alongside countless schoolboys, but I like Hamlet.”

 
Mrs Hatfield allowed herself the tiniest smile. “Some people strive to be obscure, but what’s the point? Like what you like. Be who you are.”

  “This above all: to thine own self be true. It’s your favourite as well, isn’t it?”

  She did not answer.

  Mr Watson remembered Mrs Hatfield’s story about the Cannon family. He wondered if that was where she developed her interest in Shakespeare.

 

  They had reached a tiny park, a rectangle of grass around a statue, a life-size man in a dinner suit holding a violin, on a three-foot stone pedestal in a circle of earth, dotted with small purple flowers. Watson reached forward and put his hand on Kristian’s shoulder.

  “The grass.” The older man said.

  They slowed down.

  “We’re in a park.” Watson smiled.

  “Not much to it.”

  “I noticed – no shade.”

  Mrs Hatfield leaned toward the base of the statue.

  “There’s a statue. Wallace Henry Hartley – Nearer, My God, To Thee.”

  “And nothing else.” Kristian looked. “How absolutely bizarre.”

  “Was he a preacher?” Watson asked.

  “He’s holding a violin…” Mrs Hatfield thought the name sounded familiar, but only dimly.

  Kristian smiled an odd smile. “He was a violin player from Colne, in England.”

  “He’s a long way from home.” Watson offered.

  “He never made it here. I knew a guy from Colne – who was also a violinist. Sam was his name. Said musicians from Colne were the noblest, most heroic men around. Hartley here was the band leader on the Titanic. Sam said he stood on the deck and played until he and his boys started to slide into the Atlantic. I wouldn’t have heard of him if it weren’t for Sam. Funny…”