Through the Eyes of the Subjugated

As per usual I was there; in that godforsaken bar just like any other morning. Wasting away like most other Nocturnal Dipsomaniacs that frequented the place did. The clock read 3:14 A.M, but all I knew was the sun was nowhere in the sky and I’d only been awake for a couple of hours. My attention lied fixated on the ceiling fan that had one loose screw that made it vigorously shake above the other occupants; I’d like to think I was always watching out of fear, just in case. But maybe I was hoping; Hoping that one of these days it would just give, under all that strenuous motion.

”James!” My head snapped in place at the sound of the bartender’s harsh Brooklyn accent. Living his days in Manhattan after his woman kicked him to the curb. “Anotha one? Gettin’ pretty late, huh?” We both knew why I stuck around, I pound a shot of Ever clear, that went down as smooth as water, washing the bitter taste his comment left in my mouth. “I just don’t know how to break it to her….” I said. Must’ve been a rough night for him, judging by his unusually cold demeanor. “Ya got bout half an hour walk to figure it out, you can start there. You know, some people would actually like to sleep.” He said.

I started down the sodium infused culmination of orange and yellow street lights within the unforgiving New York cold. lighting the familiar steps that my subconscious mastered despite the sickening dizziness. But not my decision making though, that was apparent as I counted the $8.73 I had in the palm of my hand, in downtown Manhattan. I let out a deep sigh, knowing that was it. It’s been a while since I’ve felt what I’d consider love for her, the hospital bills I’ve been paying felt more obligatory than an act of irregularly displayed sentiment. But it still stung knowing I couldn’t save her if I wanted, regardless of the deep rooted sense of relief.

“You know you still can, Jim.” I heard a deep voice behind me as I fell down attempting to turn in response, a voice, charismatic like a performer, a stand-up comic maybe. “J-Jim?” I stammer.

“Your aspirations of endless wealth,

A prolific amount of comfort and money?

For in return you sacrifice your health

To achieve happiness. A notion that is quite funny.”

I went into a cumulative stasis of both fight and flight as I instinctively reached for my knife and threatened to call the cops, embarrassingly cracking my voice. The man stepped closer, he was fitted with a Bespoke, silk Italian suit, but I didn’t know that at the time. Most of his facial details remained dark; As well as my eyes exhibiting an immense stinging sensation consequent to looking at him. As if I was gazing upon a blanket of snow with freshly awoken, crusted, optics. The voice came again,

“You will find the proposition I bare comes with no catch.

Well, Not one of tangibility anyway

And all I need from you is to open this here latch

And allow your discomfort to settle at bay.”

He held a brief case up, speaking rhythmically. I mutter, attempting to speak “I-I don't” then without missing a beat, he places a polished cane on my chin, turning my head down the alley that lied parallel to us. As I blinked the far end of the alleyway arose in front of me, as if the length of the backstreet was squashed into aught; accompanied with a luxurious oculus styled mirror, strung up on the abnormally clean brick pattern, broadcasting my reflection to be that of the man staring back at me.

“The prize that lies within your thighs there

Will just about square the prayer you bare that accounts for your need to ware where you wear

Crashing nights of infidelity compiling

As you lie smiling, beguiling despite your confidence reviling to a mere speck.

Face it you’re a wreck,

Now what's really important to you?

Isn't it about time you check

Now that your woman is losing her native hue” his words spiral around in my head as if layering on top of each other, over and over again. A harsh wasp like buzz living now within my skull feeling as if it’s about to erupt.

“But I guess it wouldn’t hurt bidding adieu

not like she has much use to you.

Now that she seems through….”

he stops for a mere beat.

“And I've never been one for the scholars,

But logically it just seems like a big waste of 20 thousand dollars” his demeanor subsides into a more nonchalant state. “t-t-twenty thousand-” I say, my breathing devolving into a sporadic frenzy as my heart proceeds to execute the most intense timpani solo I could physically handle.

“Yes, and it’s a simple exchange,

All you have to do with your signature is arrange

In this little black book you may find to be quite strange.

I vaguely remember taking a pen from the man's hand, and signing. I awoke in my apartment with a gasp. My head then retreated into my arms due to the piercing shriek of my phone. I tiredly meandered my way over to the phone picking it up with a groan “hello…” I said. “Yes hello this is NYC health and hospitals calling regarding your wife's chemotherapy payments, are we speaking to James Warner?” A professionally distant voice inquired “Uh-huh, this is James…” I replied. An unsettling pause is shared, vaguely hearing the sound of file paper “M-kay. darlin?- it says here you haven't made a payment in about…. Three sessions.” Another pause is shared as my brain refused to conjure up a response. She continued “and collectively that is going to equal about…. $20,000” My heart suddenly dropped as I shout “I thought we agreed on $1,000 a session” she answered very quickly, as if expecting that response, “yes, that was before the addition of Cyclophosphamide for her worsening symptoms, like we talked about last week.” I then picked up on the leather briefcase through my peripherals, settling on my bed with a little black book on top. “Hello, Mr. Warner. Mr.- Mr. warner!” My eyes, moving in a rapid function as my brain thinks over every possible advancement. “Mr. Warner, are you there?”. Recognizing it’s hearing sound but not processing any of the words she said. I then very softly responded “I don't have the money. I-I would like to take my wife off of chemotherapy.”

I then hung up the phone without a second thought. Nothing registering in my brain other than this dark brown briefcase with a little black book idling on top, consuming just about every neuron in my mind, as I began autonomously walking towards it with a swaying motion. Feeling that very familiar sensation of my heart beating out of my chest as I placed my hands upon the case and the perimeter of the notebook. My mouth salivating at the touch of the slightly textured material clashing with the texture of the skin on my clammy thumbs. leaving a darkened streak of sweat as I dragged them across the surface, My mind preemptively braced myself for the worst whilst also simultaneously running through all the possibilities. I frantically clawed the latch, swinging the briefcase open; my heart coming to a halt at the beautiful sight of $20,000, composed of $50 bills in four uniformed stacks bound together with very elegant seeming bill straps. I lost it… I lost my composure as I frantically sprawled the bills all over my brown and yellow stained mattress that lived it’s days on the dusty, depthless, area of my concrete flooring. Maniacally Screaming while rubbing my face in the crisp, clean currency that juxtaposed every other facet of my life up to this point; taking a moment to realize the briefcase had somehow closed when landing on the floor. Coming to my senses I pick up the case to stash my newfound love, opening the briefcase again, and being greeted with an additional $20,000. Those aforementioned senses I came to were thrown out the window as I ruptured into another rabid mix of screams and excited laughter… repeating the process over and over and over again.

It’s been three years since I've been given the pleasurable gift of meeting that strange man. I spend the majority of my days now, peering out the plate glass window, that spans from the floor to the ceiling, of my penthouse suite. Attempting to fulfill my life with the things my father and the father before him, couldn't even dream about doing. Which of course, worked for the most part, though fulfillment is certainly a tricky concept. but my grandmother always had a philosophy that I now abide by, “I’d rather be unhappy with a golden trash can, than unhappy while eating out of a trash can.” I always looked up to her, she did the better part of raising me, attempting to balance out the nights of alcohol induced screaming emitting from my father. As I look out into the sea of buildings, I can't help but feel this overpowering sense of pride. The pride that was so strong, it made me forget about those days spent as a cockroach, swimming in the intrusion of countless other Insecta, that fed off the remnants of the upper class. Admiring my subtle reflection through the window more than the view that I’ve grown tired of. My clean shaven face, my Stuart Hughes suit with a midnight blue pocket square tucked into the breast, the charming smile I've practiced in the mirror for months on end every morning.

I'm then taken out of my trance as the phone begins to ring. Mildly puzzling me at the reality of it being my dining room antique rotary phone, that I picked up at an auction a few months back, instead of my cell that I generally rely on. I hesitantly pick it up, “Hello?” I say. “Yes hello this is NYC health and hospitals calling regarding your wife’s chemotherapy payments, are we speaking to James Warner?”. New York City hospital... I shut down at the sheer sound of it, drowning in the slimy, sticky, shame that was synonymous with that amalgamation of letters.

I hang up the phone with a swift slamming motion of my hand, as soon as the phone makes contact, cutting the line, it begins ringing once more. As the ear piercing ringing plays out, my mind then begins to fully understand the context of the familiarity within that line, which makes me pick up the phone again. “What?!” I cried. Another long pause, that took me all the way back to that day, the deafening silence that is exacerbated by my brain attempting to predict the proceeding events. “Why did you let me go, James?” I knew the voice in an instant, I screamed with every ounce of my focus being channeled into a threatening demeanor, “Don't ever call here again, this is not funny!” I hang up the telephone once more, an action followed by the sound I could only describe as the classic Ching that is specific to the clear cut design of those retro rotary phones. I begin breathing heavily, schlepped along with a feeling of seemingly low iron induced lightheadedness and lack of vision that I haven't felt in years. I stumble, unable to escape the voice of my wife as I hear her say “I devoted my life to you, and you couldn’t even be there when I needed you most,” I cover my ears gripping the back of my head with my finger tips, not even muffling the sound “why did you never visit…. Why couldn't you tell me you loved me!” I violently scream, desperately trying to drown out the sound, my throat reciprocating in unbearable agony, as if I had the worst case of strep; to which I just simply screamed louder.

Upon opening my eyes I find myself in my bathroom, crushed by the sight of who was staring back at me, my eyes wallowing up at the exhibit that laid there. My old, tattered denim jacket, my inconsistent shave from a dirty, slightly rusted razor coupled with bumps that was indicative of the hand soap I used as substitute for shaving cream, that scared look in my eyes that I carried around all the time, my yellow stained teeth that I would often brush with Evan William. The sight of myself made me sick to my stomach, I swallow, as a feeble attempt to hold back the vomit; Still fixed on this representation of myself, derived from the animalistic impulse of curiosity. My vision became narrower and narrower as all I was left with was the sight of me, and this mirror. I turn around to exit the bathroom to find that there is no exit, there is no bathroom, there is no me. Just falsified memories of who I once was tainted with the impressions of who I’ve become, I fall to my knees, supporting my torso with the palms of my hands planted on the solidified darkness in place of the floor, hearing that familiar, deep, charismatic voice, echoing in the confines of my head.

“I gave you the chance to give your life meaning

With the medium you thought was necessary

To extract the reality from your dreaming” A crucial reminder of how much I absolutely despised the way this man talked, every word penetrating my ear drums like daggers. Creating this radiating pain in the back of my head.

“Now here you are chubbed with the glutinous value of greed

Indeed, successful in the shatter of what it really means to succeed

Though you bleed the same color anyone else bleeds

Wrapped up in your broken ambitions, left as nothing but a man of deeds”. Indulging in the futility of covering my ears again, gripping my skull once more. This time not to dampen the sound, but as a sad attempt to reduce the excruciating pain of my cranium.

“And to SIT! AND PLEAD! for the gift of those who concede

To the will of the bill that has lead you here on your knees

Paying the fees of the ease that comes with being a pile of self-indulgent feces” his voice, devolving from his casual, self assured disposition, to a combatively, horrifying, distortion. Each word now seeming to fatally impact every inch of my body, I lose all sense of being as every shred of perception I held for the world disintegrated into fragments of familiar imagery that meant nothing to me, just an array of shapes, colors, and patterns devoid of any individualistic properties. I feel the perspicacity of my identity escaping through my nails as my psyche begins to crack under the pressure, with the pain of days spent as a child, spinning with my arms out, having the blood rush to the tips of my fingers. I fall down onto the side of my head. Feeling a slightly warm streak of a single tear crossing the bridge of my nose being pulled down by gravity. I drown in a wave of, for the most part, incomprehensible noise. But not his voice though, that was crystal clear. Praying for god to kill me, overwhelmed with every one of my senses being stimulated with the utmost anguish; when all of a sudden, the noise stopped with an echo in my head, that made me unsure if I was ever hearing anything to begin with. I slowly came up to find that same little black book from 3 years ago. Upon opening it, above my signature was the phrase.

“Don’t shed any tears

I’ll see you in three years” followed by a winking face and a bunch of blank pages. Time is a construct I've lost touch with, but I've filled the better half of eternity attempting to retell that story as a pathetic hope to retain who I was. Citing it until I run out of seemingly endless pages.