Remnants, a Vignette

The tangle-bearded man walked down Fourth Street. All he needed was some water, and everything'd be just fine.

Eating never helped. As long as he took it easy through the day, he wouldn't have to eat and he'd have enough energy to keep himself through the night.

He'd tried the seminary first. After the seminary kicked him out, after the colleges and the research facilities showed him the door, after the shelters and the churches and the soup kitchens turned him away, he took up begging. He couldn't bring himself to hustle like the homeless under the bridge, so he satisfied himself by parlaying his meager talents at parlor trickery in exchange for anything to keep his mind off the clouds and the skies.

The bearded man no longer cared about changing the world, and he no longer cared about setting an example. He just wanted to find a dark, dark hole and get very, very drunk.

Water. All I need is some water, he told himself over and over.

The coffeeshop. The new coffeeshop at the end of Fourth Street, they have water. The bearded man shuffled across the street, steeled to ignore the pushy automobiles, but it was late at night and there were few about, just the slow taxis picking up the last of that night's club denizens.

The coffeeshop was always open. Someone, somewhere, always wants coffee. He drug himself up the short flight of stairs, shared between the coffeeshop and a small community theater, and went inside, shielding his eyes from the bright light and cheery smiles of the coffee drinkers.

"Excuse me," said the middle-aged woman behind the counter, "can I help you?"

"Water," he said. She smiled back at him, cocking her head to one side.

"No problem," she said, pulling a paper cup from behind the counter.

The bearded man waved his arms. "No, no," he said, slowing pulling a greasy bottle from underneath his jacket like it was stolen property. "In here."

She looked at the bottle, cocking her head to the other side. "Well, it's a bit irregular . . . "

"Aren't we all," he smiled. She smiled back, taking the bottle from him. It disappeared beneath the counter. All the tension left the bearded man's face when he heard the sound of running water. It almost made him smile, it was almost that good.

"So, what do you do?" she asked him, putting out her cigarette on the side of the counter. This is called polite conversation, he reminded himself. Say something polite.

"You're looking very nice tonight," he said, then remembered he didn't answer her question. "I mean -- I don't do much," he stumbled, quickly staring down at his dirty fingernails. Her nails, he remembered, were clean, but her hands were worn from a lifetime of minimum-wage jobs and unresolved love affairs. "I try to be polite," he explained. "It's important." He couldn't find it in himself to meet her eyes. "Um, you, you do look nice tonight."

"Oh, I wish we got more folks like you in here," she said, putting the greasy bottle full of water in a paper sack and handing it back to him with a sigh. "Aren't you just an angel?"

The bearded man twitched, like he'd stepped on a live wire. "Ah," he said, jerking the bottle under his arm. "Ah, please," he said, holding up one hand, blinking uncontrollably and backing away slowly. "Please don't call me that." The tangle-bearded man shielded his eyes from her face, running away from the coffeehouse, its shiny lights, its blissful patrons.

He found himself a nice, broken alcove in the alley out back and slowly took the greasy bottle from its brown paper sack. With a wave, the bearded man turned the water into wine and proceeded to get divinely drunk, dreaming of spirits far removed from the cold, hard ground.

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