Chapter Four

Despite all of the people standing around in the bar, I could still hear the birds outside. That is what I first noticed. Then I noticed the reason it was so quiet, in one of the corners of the bar there was a man in his early thirties wearing pleated dress pants that looked like they had been dragged behind a car on a gravel road and a plain white shirt. He had no shoes or socks on but he did have a few weeks of facial hair growing and a revolver to the bottom of his chin. His eyes looked like he had rubbed Vaseline in them and his words were about as shaky as a horse drawn wagon. He spoke of losing his job, losing his family, losing hope. These kinds of suicides are the worst. Not only do they feel the need to end their miserable life but also they have to ruin a perfectly good day. How selfish. Behind him on the wall of the bar there were pictures hung up. Some were of patrons with arms strung around each other smiling at the camera from the bar; others were of men in booths slouched over a glass.

Two particular pictures caught my eye while the man was babbling something about losing jan or jean or joan or whatever. It doesn’t matter. But these two pictures side by side, although similar did not belong together or here at all. The first was a photograph of a Blue Jay serenely sipping from a creek. Nothing around it, It is just minding it’s own business. Content. The other however was an oil painting of four hawks circling the area around a river. Near this river were many trees and other elements one would expect in a nature painting. These aerial predators are always on the move. maybe they have a leader. Perhaps not. I like to think that what they do is similar to the way when you’re walking and talking with someone and you believe you are following them, but it turns out they were somehow following you.

My focus returns back to those around me. Bobby is nervously looking around holding the cat while Frank is just staring at the man like I just was. Bobby looks hopefully to us for answers and Frank just shakes his head. These things just happen. Not usually like this though.

But back to this man and his final words, he is frantically arguing with those around him. Maybe they care about him; maybe they just don’t want to clean up the mess. It’s hard to tell, because the reasons they give him are sub par at best. It’s the whole you have a lot to live for, you don’t know what’s going to happen, trust in god speech that everyone mildly suicidal has heard at one point or another. In the midst of all this so-called reasoning, the shoeless revolver man starts yelling, “no. shut up. NO! NO! NO! SHUTUP! THAT’S IT!” and he cocks the revolver. This small metallic click silences the room. And among the crowd one could hear some faceless person whisper, “please be reasonable.”

“This is the most reasonable thing I’ve ever done.” And without any warning the room simultaneously erupted in noise, I’m not sure if the gunshot caused the screams or if the screams caused the gunshot. Nonetheless the wall behind the body that is now on the ground is covered in blood, brains, and bits of skull. That is except for the blue jay picture. That is untouched.

The three of us walk outside to talk and try and make sense of all of this. Shakespeare is freaking out in bobby’s arms clawing and trying get down, not knowing what just happened. Frank grabbed him out of bobby’s arms holding him extremely close to his chest, comforting him. “So what do you think we should do?”

We all just stood there in silence for the longest time. A man wearing dirty work clothes walked out of the bar and looks at us knowing that we aren’t from around here. “What brings you folks here?” I answered back, “looking for work, maybe a place to stay. What was all that in there?” looking around like he didn’t want to be heard he told us of how what the guy back in there said was mainly true but just warped out of proportion, he didn’t have it all that bad apparently considering most people. “yeah, he lost his job and his woman but he had a place to stay. Old place out on the other side of town.” Frank and I looked at each other knowingly although we didn’t know what he meant by the other side of town since all sides are the other when you’re in the middle.

Thanks to that man’s death, the three of us now have hopes of proper shelter. We decide to ask around where it was this guy lived and then check it out and see if it will suit our cat and us. When one thing dies, another is born. When one is left homeless, another finds a home. Setting off to find a place to put down our roots, remorse for this nameless dead man soon starts to set in.