In The Company Of Strangers
The exit sign kept blinking off and on. It gave an occasional reddish cast the poorly lit waiting room of the bus terminal. Seated on the grimy plastic chairs was a collection of the detritus of mankind. An older man, in dirty work clothes sat, stupefied clutching a brown bag and its half consumed alcoholic contents. In his gray, oil stained uniform he leaned back on the molded styrene only adjusting himself periodically to avoid sliding entirely out of the chair, connected in it's row to four others.
Across from him sat an obese woman in a flowered house dress. She had been pretty once, but time, obesity and a wicked drug habit had robbed her of that. She too sat unmoving and unmoved. She clutched in her hands what was in reality a cosmetic bag but to her it was her “medicine bag”. It was, in fact, full of enough narcotics to knock a large sized adult male unconscious. To her, it was enough to get her through today.
In the corner of the waiting room was the other occupant, the third member of the this mournful trinity. He was about 7 years old and clutching a greasy brown paper bag. In this was the possessions accumulated over a his brief, to everyone but him, life. The young boy wore a torn pair of dirty jeans that were patched and obviously too tight. The shirt he wore was faded, stained and uncomfortable as he had worn the hand-me-down so long that he had grown into and out of the shirt but it had never been replaced.
In and out of the waiting room drifted the various and sundry of humanity, each one looking for the connection to their next destination. Teachers, doctors and other members of the family of man walked by the boy and the others, seemingly without notice. Chairs were filled, for a time, and their occupants spent the moments waiting engaged in either an activity brought with them or simply staring at the ceiling or out the windows. All, in their turn, moved on through the waiting room, but the original three inhabitants remained, more or less, as they were.
As time wore on, the ventilation came on in the stifling heat and fetid air of the room. The smell of urine, stale cigarettes, and sour milk, were at points, overwhelming. The fan in the air conditioning blew but the compressor was less than efficient providing only tepid air but no real relief. Additionally, it made a thumping noise as the attempts at functioning were made. Rhythmic and heavy handed, the sound would reach the threshold of maddening just before the unit would kick off for a rest period.
The casual observer may not have noticed that there was any connection between the man, woman and child. They, for the most part, didn't speak to each other and the those words were not kindly. So it was that, when the woman opened her mouth to address the man, that it was startling to the boy who jumped and recoiled a bit, drawing back from both of them. She was reciting a litany of misdeeds, both real and imagined, committed by the man and bemoaned her fate of having ever known him. While she spoke the intensity and animosity grew. Soon her face, already red from the heat, was all but crimson from the exertion of excoriating her partner. She finished only when she began rummaging through the bag that she clutched, looking for another dosage of her favorite fix.
The boy watched in a mixture of fear, awe and horror and drew his paper bag closer to himself, endeavoring to be smaller, to think smaller, to appear smaller as to not draw attention to the fact that he too occupied this hellish space. Each blink of the faulty exit sign cast a light and then shadow on the face of the frightened lad and each pound of the ancient motor caused him to jump ever so slightly and then withdraw, pulling himself into a smaller and smaller bundle.
The man in work clothes roused himself from his stupor, angered by the harangue of his partner in hate. With slurred words, he told her of his hate for her and the regret of choosing to join her in this unholy partnership. His hateful words addressed her appearance and intelligence and integrity and anything that his booze soaked brain could think of to hail against her. He spoke words of hate, words of vitriol, words demeaning and abusive and at just the moment when it appeared that his anger was stirred to the point of actually rising to physical violence against the woman, he took another drink from the bottle wrapped in brown paper and slumped back into the grimy, plastic seat. Silence, but not peace, spread through the torrid room once more.
More people moved through the waiting room, smiling couples, happy families all on their way to happy destinations. But when the crowds moved on, the trio of misery remained. It was as the light from the afternoon sun beat most strongly through the dirty glass and the air conditioning struggled that the boy sneezed. It was a small sneeze, almost murine. The combatant pair looked at the boy and then at each other. The battle resumed in earnest, each party telling the other how they bore the responsibility for the boys care and condition and, almost in unison, both proclaimed their disavowment of any love, compassion or feeling of duty for even the most basic of the boy's care.
With each round of the newest battle the boy pulled his limbs closer and bowed his head lower, meanwhile the booming from the compressor had increased in volume causing the man and woman to ratchet up the decibels of their battle, all the time ignoring the reaction of the boy whose singular involuntary salute had spurred this latest onslaught.
As the afternoon sun faded, the man and woman stood now toe to toe, screaming and gesturing. The boy curled further and further in upon himself and the compressor's sound mimicking the blows now endured by a tiny, broken heart. The boy thought to himself that, if he were able, he would curl up so tightly that he would simply vanish all together. And so it was that amidst the noise and chaos, that the tiny victim simply vanished into the darkness of the dimming light and broken exit sign. The man and woman never noticed. For, from their perspective, the son of their bodies but not their hearts, had never existed anyway.
Across from him sat an obese woman in a flowered house dress. She had been pretty once, but time, obesity and a wicked drug habit had robbed her of that. She too sat unmoving and unmoved. She clutched in her hands what was in reality a cosmetic bag but to her it was her “medicine bag”. It was, in fact, full of enough narcotics to knock a large sized adult male unconscious. To her, it was enough to get her through today.
In the corner of the waiting room was the other occupant, the third member of the this mournful trinity. He was about 7 years old and clutching a greasy brown paper bag. In this was the possessions accumulated over a his brief, to everyone but him, life. The young boy wore a torn pair of dirty jeans that were patched and obviously too tight. The shirt he wore was faded, stained and uncomfortable as he had worn the hand-me-down so long that he had grown into and out of the shirt but it had never been replaced.
In and out of the waiting room drifted the various and sundry of humanity, each one looking for the connection to their next destination. Teachers, doctors and other members of the family of man walked by the boy and the others, seemingly without notice. Chairs were filled, for a time, and their occupants spent the moments waiting engaged in either an activity brought with them or simply staring at the ceiling or out the windows. All, in their turn, moved on through the waiting room, but the original three inhabitants remained, more or less, as they were.
As time wore on, the ventilation came on in the stifling heat and fetid air of the room. The smell of urine, stale cigarettes, and sour milk, were at points, overwhelming. The fan in the air conditioning blew but the compressor was less than efficient providing only tepid air but no real relief. Additionally, it made a thumping noise as the attempts at functioning were made. Rhythmic and heavy handed, the sound would reach the threshold of maddening just before the unit would kick off for a rest period.
The casual observer may not have noticed that there was any connection between the man, woman and child. They, for the most part, didn't speak to each other and the those words were not kindly. So it was that, when the woman opened her mouth to address the man, that it was startling to the boy who jumped and recoiled a bit, drawing back from both of them. She was reciting a litany of misdeeds, both real and imagined, committed by the man and bemoaned her fate of having ever known him. While she spoke the intensity and animosity grew. Soon her face, already red from the heat, was all but crimson from the exertion of excoriating her partner. She finished only when she began rummaging through the bag that she clutched, looking for another dosage of her favorite fix.
The boy watched in a mixture of fear, awe and horror and drew his paper bag closer to himself, endeavoring to be smaller, to think smaller, to appear smaller as to not draw attention to the fact that he too occupied this hellish space. Each blink of the faulty exit sign cast a light and then shadow on the face of the frightened lad and each pound of the ancient motor caused him to jump ever so slightly and then withdraw, pulling himself into a smaller and smaller bundle.
The man in work clothes roused himself from his stupor, angered by the harangue of his partner in hate. With slurred words, he told her of his hate for her and the regret of choosing to join her in this unholy partnership. His hateful words addressed her appearance and intelligence and integrity and anything that his booze soaked brain could think of to hail against her. He spoke words of hate, words of vitriol, words demeaning and abusive and at just the moment when it appeared that his anger was stirred to the point of actually rising to physical violence against the woman, he took another drink from the bottle wrapped in brown paper and slumped back into the grimy, plastic seat. Silence, but not peace, spread through the torrid room once more.
More people moved through the waiting room, smiling couples, happy families all on their way to happy destinations. But when the crowds moved on, the trio of misery remained. It was as the light from the afternoon sun beat most strongly through the dirty glass and the air conditioning struggled that the boy sneezed. It was a small sneeze, almost murine. The combatant pair looked at the boy and then at each other. The battle resumed in earnest, each party telling the other how they bore the responsibility for the boys care and condition and, almost in unison, both proclaimed their disavowment of any love, compassion or feeling of duty for even the most basic of the boy's care.
With each round of the newest battle the boy pulled his limbs closer and bowed his head lower, meanwhile the booming from the compressor had increased in volume causing the man and woman to ratchet up the decibels of their battle, all the time ignoring the reaction of the boy whose singular involuntary salute had spurred this latest onslaught.
As the afternoon sun faded, the man and woman stood now toe to toe, screaming and gesturing. The boy curled further and further in upon himself and the compressor's sound mimicking the blows now endured by a tiny, broken heart. The boy thought to himself that, if he were able, he would curl up so tightly that he would simply vanish all together. And so it was that amidst the noise and chaos, that the tiny victim simply vanished into the darkness of the dimming light and broken exit sign. The man and woman never noticed. For, from their perspective, the son of their bodies but not their hearts, had never existed anyway.
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... a snippet of a little boy's tragic struggle to survive.
