Michael Writes Again

I met the madman when I was eight. He was heap of grease and dirt. I ignored him, feeling uncomfortable that he, a stranger, was so close to me. He sat on the curb under the fluorescent bulbs outside of The Arrow Liquor Shop—the small store next to the supermarket my dad was once kicked out of. I suppose my dad thought it was in some kind of defiance that he bought his alcohol so close to it.

I stood outside in the cool night with one hand on the long concrete pillar that held up the walkway covering. It was one of my dad’s rules. While he was inside the liquor store, I was to keep one hand on the pillar outside. It was a hard rule to follow. He was often in there a long time and my arm would get tired. I was afraid of his open palm slaps and the snap of his belt, so I kept my arm up while his barking laughter resounded from somewhere among the aisles of bottles. I heard him talking to someone (probably the owner) among the drinks I wasn’t allowed to drink and saying swears I wasn’t allowed to say.

“He just stands there.” It was the madman, talking to himself. He held an unlit cigarette out in front of him like he was about to sing into it. For a moment I thought he would. He opened his mouth and inhaled. He held his breath, and I did too. Then he coughed a rattling stink of air and spat on the asphalt in front of him. His shoes were torn gray sneakers, and I caught the small print of newspaper stuffed behind the holes.

“I think I will,” he continued to no one except, perhaps, the cigarette. I looked away quickly, afraid he would see me watching him. I strained my neck to peer into the open door of the liquor store. My dad had gotten quiet, which meant he was probably drinking. I was sure it wasn’t actually allowed for anyone to drink inside the liquor store, but my dad did it anyway. He knew the owner and the owner liked him. I was sure the owner wasn’t supposed to drink there either, but I saw him do it too.

The owner appeared. He held a can of Pabst my dad often drank. He was shorter than my dad and round. He wore a brown apron over a stripped blue shirt that puffed out at the sides. He scowled as he walked toward me.

“Excuse me, sir, is my dad still in there?” My fingers stretched to the pillar I needed to hang onto.

He shut the glass door and flipped the small hanging sign from “open” to “closed.”

“Hey, Carlos,” I heard the owner say loudly. “Why do you always bring your runt?”

If my dad responded, it was lost behind the glass.

I turned to see the madman had lit the cigarette and was letting it perspire ribbon smoke ghosts. He still held it out in front of him, concentrating on the smoke as I imagined fortune tellers gazed into crystal balls.

“I will, but they won’t understand,” he said to the smoke. He turned to me and I felt my hand tense against the pillar.

His eyes were dark like mine. His brown leathery skin folded on itself in heavy lines. Curly black hair covered his face from his cheeks down to his neck. He smiled at me, a jagged grin of yellow teeth. I wanted to smile back out of politeness, but I was stunned.

“Look at you look at me,” he said in a voice that I recognized being reserved for pets and small children.

“Hello,” I said, still shocked and still unsmiling.

He laughed heartily, his eyes not leaving mine.

The door to the liquor store opened and my dad stepped out carrying an open case of beer under his arm. Without a word, he tossed three empty cans into a trash bin nearby. He walked away from me toward his large Buick and opened the door and adjusted the seat. I ran toward him and squeezed my way into the backseat before he knocked his seat back and got in. He heaved the case onto the front passenger seat next to him. Before my dad closed the car door, I heard the madman laugh again.

“Look at you look at me.”

“Why does that man say that?” I asked my dad.

“There’s no one there,” he snapped.

My dad pulled a beer from the case and opened it. He gulped a mouthful and placed the can in a cupholder and started the car.

As we passed the entrance to the liquor store, I slid to the passenger’s side of the backseat. I looked for the madman and found him floating in his silent cloud. He followed the Buick to the edge of the parking lot and approached. He grinned at his reflection mirrored in my window. As we sped out along the dark open road, he hovered nearby, still smiling into me from outside the glass.

“Look at you look at me,” he said.

I smiled back as the yellow cadence of streetlights twisted, the cold black ground became the sky, and the sickening sweet scent of beer mixed with smoke.