“I am the former President of the United States of America.”
Tattoo Boy laughs.
“They said let it go.” I look at the boy and the tattoos crawling up his neck and onto his face. “The weight of the world. That’s what they meant. It’ll wear you out.”
“And drive you crazy. Yeah, old man?” Tattoo boy flashes filed teeth.
“I am not crazy.”
“Then tell me again who you are?”
I punctuate my speech with pregnant pauses, orator style. “I am the former President of the United States of America.”
Tattoo boy laughs with his whole body, bare gut jiggling beneath vest and ink. He waves others of his ilk over and gestures toward me. “Hey dudes, meet the President of this great nation.”
A cadre of misfits and addicts, skinny, scarred, toothless, and pierced, surround me.
“Hey Prez! Where’re my food stamps?”
Where’s my tax cut?”
“Where’s my $100,000 a year job?”
I cover my ears and slip away. So many dark alleys to hide in. So many doorways to lie in, drinking myself down the river Lethe.
With just a stroke of my pen, did I pull the trigger that killed so many young men and women?
I notice my hand. It’s dirty, the nails jagged, the cuticles torn. Didn’t I get a manicure twice a week? My clothes emit a sour smell. The sleeves of my jacket fray at the ends. I touch my face. The hairs bristle many days beyond a five o’clock shadow.
My shoulder slides down the glass door of a deserted store front, knees hunch to my chest. I’m not the President.
The doctor at the free clinic said delusions are common for those with my condition. He gave me a packet of samples and a prescription. I tried the pills, used every sample. But I never filled the prescription. The hands shaking, the head aching, I can take. But when my tongue felt like a roll of toilet paper and I bobbled like a caricatured doll on a Chevy dashboard, I’d had enough.
And maybe I wanted to think I’d been President.
I stand, yanking my pack higher on my back. My stomach growls signaling time for the Mission line.
Cops stop the dealers at the bus shelter ahead. I go around the block to avoid them, not remembering why they shouldn’t see me, but knowing everything changes if they do.
The big Indian, I mean Native American, Rafe, motions me forward. No one objects when I cut in line. He’s the boss down here.
“How you doing, sir?” Rafe grins. He nudges the shoulder of the younger man next to him. “Nev, meet my new friend.”
I’ve heard about Nev. There’s a street legend about him and a gang of feral cats. I don’t know the particulars, some legends are best shrouded in mist.
Nev turns “Holy shit!” He knows me. It’s in his eyes. “Mr. Pres?”
It comes in a flood, like a CNN news flash. Bodies with faces blown away and severed limbs. Hospital beds and wheel chairs inhabited by those who should be too young to need them. Coffins draped in flags. Bullets shot into the air as a final ironic salute.
My shivers become an earthquake pulling me apart from within. I struggle to stay conscious, although a part of me wants to slip away.
Nev touches my cheek. I raise my eyes to meet his. He has known shame and despair, as I have. “You have done good things. Remember those. Not just the bad.”
A bit of warmth nudges at the chill.
But it’s not enough. I veer away, fumbling for the flask in my breast pocket.
Image by Bennett Knight via Unsplash