BANK JOB

VILE SELF PORTRAITS, CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I got used to it.

I forgot what it was like to be okay. My brain became preoccupied with the elements. Whenever I went inside and thought about something other than how cold, depressed, hungry, or angry I was, the maelstrom momentarily melted away.

I struggled with the door as I entered the bank. Weak. Atrophied. The stiff row of tellers looked mean. I probably looked paranoid. I wore a smooth, reversible leather jacket and an orange beanie. The jacket was my mother’s. My backpack/wardrobe jutted from my shoulder like a growth. I forced a smile and stepped into line. The tellers droned from behind their towering glass partition.

"Nexsht." He was a lanky man in his mid-thirties with a significant lisp and a cobweb combover. He wore a crimson sweater over a white button-down, with horn-rimmed spectacles perfectly perched on his pasty face. His father hates him, I thought. Maybe we’ll get along.

"Hello, I have this check from my father…" I pushed it under the glass with my scuffed Massachusetts ID.

"Okay, lesh take a look here… two-thoushand." He inspected the crumpled check and frowned before he fed it through a scanner to verify its authenticity.

"Yeah, it’s for my rent. I just got a new place and the guy wants first and last in cash, so…"

"I shee. Give me jusht one minute, mishter Dean." He went into the back and whispered to a senior teller.

"Is there a problem?" I said just a decibel too loud.

"One minute, shir."

Lisp-man returned and began slowly counting out the money. I just stood there like a sap and eyed the cash. "One hundred… two hundred… three hundred… damn it!" A bill slipped his fingers and disappeared behind the counter. As he knelt to fetch it, the senior teller came forth with a phone pressed to his ear: "I have your father on the line. He says we shouldn’t give you this money. You need to leave, please. Now."

Silence can be beautiful and terrible. But not at the same time. I turned and walked back into the cold where I belonged. I sensed the security guard not far behind, his hand hovering over a revolver...

◆◆◆

Nighttime.

The ice solidified.

I crept from car to car and loaded my pockets with change so I could get good and drunk. En route to the liquor store, I passed the bank, which was closed, and felt a tremor of shame.

But it was just a tremor.

C’est Bon Market & Liquors. Samuel Adams. Harpoon. Stella Artois. Powerball. Mega Millions. Red Sox. The Hahvahd Tour. $14 t-shirts.

WE CARD.

CAUTION AUTOMATIC DOOR.

The store was intensely lit, each glinting bottle meticulously lined and polished, all different shapes, sizes, and colors. I headed straight to the swill and picked my poison: a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 bum wine, a tall can of Natty Ice, and a few whiskey nips. $8.75 for the lot. The cashier didn’t mind the change, and he never carded me.

He was used to strays.

I left the store and rolled a cigarette as I penetrated the heart of Harvard Square—The Coop, the Czarbucks, the myriad of hip eateries and overpriced retail shops. I was happy to have the booze, some golden shag from L&P, and Mom’s reversible leather. That I wasn’t dead. The traffic whirred. The snow sat on the ground. Stately people whisked by me on their way elsewhere.

And elsewhere was surely warm.

Hunger pangs jabbed my abdomen. I crossed the street, entered CVS, picked out a soggy chicken salad sandwich encased in hard plastic, and paid again in pilfered change.

Then I was broke.

I demolished the sandwich as I started down JFK Street toward the Charles. I felt like having a drink by the water. Halfway there, I rolled a smoke and lit up. I passed beaming young couples sporting college sweatshirts and irrefutable confidence. I was homeless next to one of the world’s most prestigious institutions, surrounded by people at the height of their lives studying art, law, health, and science. Building. Partying. Smiling. Falling in and out of love. And there I was, trudging past, blowing smoke into their pristine faces.

I reached the Charles, claimed a bench by the Anderson Bridge, threw my bag off, and swigged the first nip. It burned my throat, but I welcomed the pain. Anything was better than the grim reality of dereliction. I drained the second nip, then cracked the beer to wash it down. Life still stung, just less than before. I gazed at the dirty Charles. It reflected the city and the alacrity of society. I rolled another smoke.

Things aren’t so bad, I thought.

I moved on to the Mad Dog, a syrupy, cancerous sludge. I managed a couple of sips between hits of my cigarette. The ember burned bright against the inky night sky, right next to the Weld Boat House where the sophisticates rowed into presidencies and CEO positions, bought and sold by their fathers and grandfathers. My mouth throbbed, falsely soothed by the crap booze blitzing my system. One of my bile-eroded molars was sounding off, piling on the grief. It never ends, I thought.

Until you end.

I grabbed my backpack and stumbled through traffic into Memorial Park with the Mad Dog wrapped in a brown bag. The naked trees were reaching up.

Ready to catch the fall of man.

I killed the bottle and smashed it.

Several minutes passed as I walked, smoked, and shivered.

I spotted a laundry vent spewing steam and held my numb hands underneath it. Above the entrance of the building, 986 MEMORIAL DRIVE was printed in white on a moss-green awning. I need to defrost, I thought.

I entered the mailroom. Slots. Numbers. Keyholes. Delivery menus. Slushy footprints. Warmth squeezed my stomach, sloshing with gut rot and rancid chicken salad. I vomited on the carpet with a violent jerk. It stank of death and booze. Synonyms. I surveyed the scene, saw nobody, and slinked back into the night. Melancholic. Half hungover with an empty stomach. Not much else to do besides freeze and steal, I thought. This is who I am now.

This is me.

Time doesn’t matter when you’re homeless. The days of the week become absurd words. There are no friends, only other helpless humans trying to stay somewhat alive. Your sole focus as a vagabond is to forget that you’re a vagabond. And that’s impossible.

The clean-cut citizens won’t allow it.

After I plundered every car within a mile of the Square, I spotted an open garage housing an immaculate white Jeep. I tip-toed toward it, stepped cautiously over the light sensor, and tried the back door. I was exhausted. My spit tasted of puke and pathos. The door opened and I climbed inside. I rested my backpack on the floor and slowly shut the door. Faulty serenity enveloped me. I let my eyes close and hoped that nobody would find me. I couldn’t deal with anything more.

I just wanted to sleep.

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