Eugene

Eugene sits in the same seat at the end of the bar that I tend in a small rural Missouri town everyday for hours drinking iced tea. When he finishes a glass he doesn’t want it to be cleared, he likes to collect them on the bar top. He strategically leaves a few ounces of liquid and some ice in each one and after he accumulates six nearly empty glasses he begins to combine them into one glass. His final glass of the day. The perfect glass of iced tea. Balanced. Cold but not as cold as when I served it to him. The ice has melted just enough so he can chew on it comfortably without it bothering his sensitive teeth. After he finishes his final glass of tea he gathers his belongings into a worn out plastic bag from Aldi and leans on his cane as he walks to the door. He always lingers like he’s forgetting something or like he has an empty feeling inside that has left him always searching for something he can’t quite put a finger on.

I think I can though because I think I’ve been searching for the same thing. I don’t combine my glasses though I leave them empty and get anxious until the bartender comes by with another.

I’ve been walking home because my car battery is dead and I can’t afford a new one. The walk only takes an hour and gives me time to convince myself I’ve cleared my head. My mailbox catches my eye every time I turn onto my street and I check it often like Roberta Sparrow when I’m at home. Usually, it’s full of printed ads suggesting what I do with the little money I do have. The glossy flyers typically display people with families using products or services that make their lives more convenient, smiling at me as if to suggest I too could feel this level of joy for three easy payments of $99.99.

I think about the artist who designed the flyers, probably from a cubicle in an office with muted walls and a passive aggressive note left over the sink in the break room about the dishes. I collect the flyers in a shallow cardboard box I once used to carry my groceries home from Aldi and use them to start fires when my anarchist friend Mikey comes over with his mandolin to play folk music together in my backyard.

Sometimes there’s a letter from my friend Charles in the mailbox. We met on the Pink Line back in Chicago and used to walk through his neighborhood holding hands. He always wore a black cap and he flipped it frequently during our walks, depending on what gang claimed the territory we were crossing over. He taught me how to do yoga on the sidewalk and how he remains centered, grounded and peaceful even though his world has always been violent and chaotic.

The first time we kissed, he led me into his trap house and nervously paced around while I sat down on the sole piece of furniture, a worn out red folding chair resting a few feet away from the fly trap hanging down from the ceiling. I watched him hesitate adorably for a few minutes and then stood up and put my hands on his face. He pulled me closer and as his lips met mine I felt his energy and his love not only for me but for the entire world. His light was brighter than mine even though his world was darker.

He walked me to the train and paid the fare for both of us. I took his hand and while resting it on my lap I noticed a vertical scar extending from his wrist to the crease of his elbow. I ran my fingers over it sympathetically and he told me it happened when he tried to leave his gang then changed the subject by giving me affection. I put my head on his shoulder and when we made it to my stop he walked me home. Then he ghosted me.

A few months later I got a message from his brother in Mississippi saying he had been trying to track me down for a while. I gave him my address and continued burning the contents of my mailbox until a letter came from an inmate at Cook County. Charles told me he never stopped thinking about the last day we spent together and that he would be released in three years. I never stopped thinking about that day either. His undying compassion for humanity and the scar on his arm. I started thinking that maybe whoever put the scar there was searching for the same thing Eugene and I have been searching for and how fear was preventing them from finding it. I thought about the cop who arrested Charles, what they do with the glossy flyers in their mailbox and what’s stopping them from finding it. I don’t know what’s stopping me but I’m going to the beach in three years. Maybe I will find it there.