I came to in an alley with my face on the pavement. I rolled over on my back. Garbage cans rose above me. They were full of rats. A well heeled crowd strutted past the alley. A television in a bar blared. Shit, I thought. It happened. It really happened. I'm on the God damned street. I'm homeless. I realized I still had a bottle in my hand. I took a swig.
The rats froze. Their teeth glittered. One of them spoke. "It looks like someone's on the skids, boys."
"What's the matter, punk?", jeered another. "Cat got your tongue?" "The poor kid's depressed.", sneered a third rat.
"Passed out in an alley with a bottle in his hand? Duh!", laughed the first rat.
A fourth rat leaned over the rim of a garbage can. "Hey, fellahs, let's take a closer look." They slowly climbed down to the sidewalk and crept toward me.
I heard a snicker. "It looks like he's down for the count. This could be quite an opportunity."
They surrounded me and closed in. "See what's in his pockets!", hissed one.
"Those ears look tasty.", growled another.
They were on top of me now. My vision blurred and I felt myself fading in and out of consciousness. They began to sing:
"The world's an angry world and God's an angry God.
It's survival of the fittest and dog eat dog.
There ain't no place for love and compassion.
It's eat or be eaten, that's the fashion.
A rat's a rat and a man's a man.
There ain't no difference and that's God's plan."
I felt a rat sniffing at my ear. "Smells delicious."
"I saw that ear first!", snapped another.
"Both of you are going to have to get through me!", muttered a third.
A fourth rat laughed loudly. "For God's sake, you greedy bastards! There are two ears, plenty for all of us!"
"Sounds like we got a damn socialist in the crowd.", grumbled the first rat.
The second lunged. "Let's get him! There'll be more for us."
The third rat stood in his way. "More for me!"
"All for me!", screamed one.
"All for me!", screamed another.
Suddenly the television in the bar went quiet. The rats perked up their ears. The back door of the bar swung open flooding the alley with light. The rats darted off into the darkness. The shadow of a large bartender rolled over the garbage cans. A sack of garbage sailed toward my head. There was a voice. "Hey, buddy! I didn't see you there!"
I groaned and sat up. "Please, no recriminations. I'm drunk in an alley. I know that."
The bartender looked me over and made a decision. He bent down and offered me a hand. "Come on, pal. I'm all closed up. You don't look like you belong here. Come in where it's warm and have a proper drink on me." I finished the bottle, tossed it into a can and took his hand.
"So what's your problem?", he asked as he poured me a double scotch on the rocks. "A girl dump yah?" I put my hand to my face. "A beautiful girl?", he smiled. "with eyes that swallowed your soul and tits that took your breath away?"
"The most beautiful tits I've ever seen in my life and eyes that will always haunt me."
"What did the bitch do, lead you along, cut out your heart and leave you flopping like a fish ?"
I slapped my hand on the bar. "It wasn't her fault!"
"Ouch!, winced the bartender. "That's the worst of all, no one to blame. Ouch! But wait, there's more. You're no spring chicken. You've been through this before. I have. There's more, isn't there?"
"I know too much!", I gasped.
"Oh, shit!", moaned the bartender as he turned his eyes and palms up. " I could hook you up with an assistant DA. Do you need protection?" He leaned close with genuine concern.
"I wish it was as simple as that.", I sighed, looking up at him with gratitude for the first time.
"Well, what is it?", he demanded, beginning to lose patience. "Fraud, rape, drugs, murder?"
"All of the above and more."
"OK, it's closing time!" He reached for my drink.
"God damn it! I don't know how to say it!", I blurted. "There's so much! There's too much! No one knows how bad it is and in a New York minute it's gonna be too late!"
I could see the bartender weighing his options: try and throw me out and tangle with a drunk lunatic hopped up on adrenaline, clock me when I wasn't looking, or talk me down and coax me out. I think he chose the latter. "OK, pal. Spill it."
"Go on, spill it!", I heard another voice whisper from behind the bartender. The rats had got in and were crawling through the bottles on the back bar.
I swallowed a mouth full of scotch. "She had a plan, a plan to fuck me and indoctrinate me."
The bartender winced. "So what's the big deal? You don't want to ever listen to them anyway, just fuck 'em." I could see him reaching for something under the bar, probably a can of mace or a gun.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry.", I sputtered. "You did me a favor. I'm lost. I'm drunk. But I have something to tell everybody. We Americans have been played for fools for decades. We are not a democracy. The people who really run the country don't give a shit about us or it. They're drugging us with propaganda and stealing everything we have."
"No shit, Sherlock! When did you figure that one out?", laughed the bartender.
"And most Americans don't give a damn anyway.", I answered.
The bartender snarled. "What the hell are we gonna do about it, take the sons o' bitches to court? You have to take what you can and fuck everyone else!"
"And we have become a nation of thieves.", I shot back.
"Listen, Pal. If you want to go all commie pinko on me, you’re wasting your time. Why don’t you go check into that Occupy camp down town? I should have left you in the alley."
"But you didn't. You helped me." I took a deep breath. "Let me start somewhere. Unions! They're destroying the unions in the country! With no union money to compete with, they won't have to spend any money at all to buy elections."
"Who gives a fuck about unions?", the bartender shot. "They're just a bunch of corrupt thugs with pensions and health care and paid leave and all the shit that none of the rest of us have." He reached under the bar again.
"OK, OK!", I stammered. "I'm leaving."
The bartender looked long and hard at me. He pulled his hand back out from under the bar. "Alright, buddy. Tell me your story." He filled up my drink.
I took a swig. The booze descended on me. “I'm in the restaurant business. I used to own one.” My vision doubled. “I got started tending bar, a Greek bar." I put a hand over one eye. “I like the Greeks. I went to Greece when I was a kid. A couple of months ago I returned.” The lights in the bar grew dim and snuffed out.
copyright 2015
Richard Talbot Hill
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