Drop

Booted by my mother for flunking and drinking, I was a bad influence on my younger siblings, a blot on the family. She did not understand my pain. No one did. The bullying, the depression, all for being “different.” Excluded.

Now, unwelcome everywhere, I am booted in piss-stained DeWalts stolen from a near-dead wino. I sit looking past the boots at the feet of busy rich strangers. They don’t see me, a blot on the city. Excluded.

At night, furtive, hurting, huddled in a buttonless wool coat, jackpot of a dumpster dive, I warm myself by trashcan fires in filthy alleys. I wonder when’s the last time I brushed my grimy teeth—weeks, months.

Here there is no exclusion. We are family. Nobody asks questions. Everyone grubby is welcome for a moment of warmth, of acceptance. That’s all there is. Still, even without the vodka that I once used to escape the pain, it is enough.

Until today.

A garbage truck rumbled through our alley. Two grimy men hefted cans and bins and dumped them into the butt-mouth of the smelly rig. Before the truck crawled forward to the next bin, the guy who tended our fires--Roland, a skinny guy with the red beard and matted fur coat--climbed into the hopper and pawed the refuse for anything remotely edible, wearable, or usable.

The rig jerked forward, tossing Roland out onto the pavement. He landed on his head and lay still.

We all rushed to him, six or seven of us. We hollered at the garbage men, but they were rumbling out onto the street. They didn’t hear us. All we got was a lungful of diesel fumes.

Roland was dead.

Officials came and loaded the body into a medical examiner’s wagon and hauled it away like so much refuse. A few questions from police, and it was over.

Yup. Over. That’s when I realized . . . I decided . . . I’m done. No more. I cannot go on like this. I cannot end up like Roland.

The night is moonless and the bridge quiet. The river is a long drop down, cold and swift as my life. So will be my passing.

What’s at the bottom has to be better than this. Hell, I’m already there, at the bottom. No one knows I’m here.

No one will know I’m gone.