Austin Nights

by Herocious

compartmentalized. I fish into the open-air ice cooler by the counter and surface with 24 ounces of the good stuff.

  “I only have this temporary paper license,” I say. “The DMV took my Florida one.”

  I hand the pockmarked man a folded sheet of paper with a black-and-white printout of my mug and salient characteristics.

  “It’s okay,” he says, “I’ve seen your ID before. I remember you’re over 21.”

  I think he unfolds the starchy paper for nostalgia’s sake.

  “Yeah,” he says, “they did the exact same thing to me when I moved from Canada. They took my Canadian driver’s license and gave me this sheet of paper. Why didn’t they let me keep my old license? I don’t know. It’s still valid, like dual citizenship. Next time I move, I will know to change my address and get two licenses. Then I’ll only surrender one.”

  Bridget understands this procedure all too well. She says, “That’s exactly what I did! I still have my Florida driver’s license even though I surrendered one.”

  “Good job,” says the pockmarked man. “Now you are both Floridian and Texan.”

  He swipes my card. I sign my name.

  “Can we get some brown bags?” I ask.

  We’re about to walk out the barred door and make copper bells jingle when:

  “You remember last time you were here?” I can see the Canadian is talkative tonight. “I don’t know if you heard already, but do you remember that guy you were worried about?”

  He points to the sidewalk corner outside, where, once upon a time, a crawling man collapsed and curled into the fetal position. We look at the corner. Someone is sitting on the bus bench tonight, wearing a straw hat and playing the ukulele. No one is passed out.

  “Yeah,” says Bridget, “with the gash on his forehead.”

  “They found him dead,” says the pockmarked man. “Right around here.” He points to the southwest. “They found his body behind a house.”

  “In an alley?” asks Bridget.

  “Right around here,” says the pockmarked man. He swallows. “He had been dead for two days before they found him. People used to call him Monk.”

  “Monk?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” says the pockmarked man. “That’s what people called him. I don’t know his real name. I think he died of dehydration. It has been hot in Austin.”

  “And alcohol doesn’t hydrate,” I say. I say, “That’s too bad.”

  I want to offer my condolences. I’m empathetic. With Reserve brown-bagged in my hands, the news saddens me.

  “I did call the ambulance several times for Monk,” says the pockmarked man, “in the past. He was hurt badly some nights. He got into fights. But I stopped calling because I always had to fill out paperwork.” He swallows. “What could I do?”

  What could you do? What could we do?

  The three of us look at each other. In my mind, I’m thinking about the last time I saw Monk. I didn’t know his name on that searing day. The air burned the hairs in my nostrils. I was on the way to the public library, and Monk, Monk was sitting behind a bush on a wall constructed by Mexican stonemasons. He was trying to keep cool. He was trying to live another day, and this shade was his only respite. Not the shade of a house, not the shade of friends or family, but the shade of a bush on the northwest corner of Congress Ave and Oltorf St, on a stonewall. I stood right next to him as the streetlights cycled red, yellow, green, as the orange hand unfroze and changed to the cobalt pedestrian, I stood right next to you, and my mind was focused on you. But I didn’t give you money, and I didn’t give you food. In fact, I had neither money nor food on my person. I would’ve given you food, Monk. I would’ve given you a beautiful apple.

  Monk, Monk, with your pale cheeks and pale hair, with your pale fire burning on an empty tank of paled hope, your memory is invoked within the pages of my memory.

  PEASE FEED

  GOD BLESS

  AM HUNGY

  The copper bells jingle as we leave with the weight of Monk. The Austin night greets us with her full moon. I turn to the love of my life and admit she was right to be concerned when we saw Monk bleeding from the head.

  7

  For six years, I made daily entries into spiral notebooks. Everything about me could be found inside these notebooks. There was no holding back, no secrecy. With time, they became quite the liability. Still, I lived for these notebooks, which is to say, whenever my days got irritatingly redundant, whenever these notebooks became uninteresting and tiresome, I knew a change was necessary.

  For six years, these notebooks made certain I stayed in one place only as long as I could grow within that place. Once growth was stinted, these notebooks wasted no time to beg for a new beginning.

  While it’s true new beginnings can be found in the same place you’ve lived in since day one, new beginnings can also be had in different places. I think it’s important to live in different places. I think there’s meaning in looking at familiar things and thinking, This is the last time, and moving on to first times.

  0

  Abe is the one who tells us the truth about The Oaks. He says:

  “Last year they dumped a lot of capital into fixing it up. They painted the buildings all funky, did landscaping, and improved the plumbing in all the apartments. Before that, this place was home to drug addicts and the deranged. Some of them still live here. I’m sure you’re aware of that.” He pulls on his cancer stick. “You still see them walking around. They’re out at night. Sometimes you’ll hear the odd scream. But now it’s a lot of St. Ed’s students. The turnover has gotten better though since I moved in with my wife four years ago. They have to do something about the damn Lollapaloozas, but the drug addicts and crazies can’t afford the rent anymore, so they’re either moving out or getting kicked out, slowly.”

  St. Ed’s, or St. Edward’s, is the 125-year-old university across the street.

  Mindless Mohawk goes to St. Ed’s.

  “Have you had any close calls?” asks Bridget. “Anything dangerous?”

  “Not really,” says Abe. “Two St. Ed’s students used to live two floors above me.” Abe points up. “One night I had to pull someone over who was going upstairs for the soiree, and I said, ‘Bring me one of the guys who’s throwing the party.’ A few minutes later, one shows up, and I yank him inside and let him listen to the awful noise. ‘I can’t sleep, man. My wife can’t sleep either. We have to work tomorrow. Can you please have some consideration and turn down your music?’ He couldn’t believe how noisy it was in our place. He apologized and agreed to quiet down. A little after that, they moved out. Other than those Lollapaloozas, this place has been great. You just have to make sure to get to know your neighbors. Same as you do anyplace you live, you know?”

  Bridget and I quietly nod. We don’t tell him about Sara, or about the drug dealer, or about the mindless Mohawk’s Lollapaloozas.

  “What about sirens?” I ask. “Do you hear an abnormal amount for a city this size?”

  “Not really,” says Abe. “Why, do you?”

  I shrug my shoulders and raise my bushy eyebrows.

  “Enough to make me wonder,” I say. I say, “Especially at night.”

  Off in the distance, the Catholic carillon tolls time.

  6

  I’m not sure if Michael has a point this time. He puts so many conjectures out there, but I always find holes. What makes it even worse is he doesn’t stay with one idea for long. He just tests them. He just bounces them against me to see if they’ll stick.

  His latest idea is that people are getting whiny. That’s the word he uses, whiny. Like usual, I let him talk. He believes he’s whinier than his parents’ generation, and his parents’ are whinier than his grandparents’ generation, and his children will be whinier than his generation.

  His children?

  I can only paraphrase his idea. Basically, he’s saying each previous generation is stronger than their progeny. Kids today have more excuses than their parents. These kids have too man
y options, too many ways out.

  Michael believes kids today are more sensitive. They have no self-reliance. They go to the doctor too much. They’re quick to seek help. They work too hard to create an identity, pulling from all the forms of expression available. Kids are fragile, artistic. They have smooth hands and feet. They spend too much time inside.

  He says, “I’m whinier than my father, and my father is whinier than Granddad. Gone are the days when people were made of iron, when they stood for something definite.”

  He says, “People don’t think in absolutes anymore. Everything is relative. Relativism is slowly weakening the beast inside us. Soon it’ll fill its lungs with air for the last time and tip over dead.”

  I can see where he’s coming from. But I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing. While there seems to be a case for arguing each succeeding generation is less practical and more abstract, or whinier, isn’t it also undeniable we’re making progress in many different ways?

  Since the generation of first settlers, haven’t we succeeded in taming the wilderness, haven’t we made a record of our knowledge and learned more on top of that, haven’t we built libraries and railroads and cities, haven’t we created art?

  7

  Route 71 becomes Ben White once you reach Austin City Limits, but for as long as it is Route 71, the rolling plains of central Texas are stunning, especially at the start of spring, when all the wildflowers color the hillsides. Bridget never did pick any to take with us on the