The Day the Whole World Closed

Habakkuk, our former prophet had gone back to his roots, he now wasn’t from an exotic place, his real name wasn’t Habakkuk, he wasn’t a prophet nor a seer, he was now more a pimp that had fallen in the snow in Times Square, and he had gone back to the ghetto that he was from, back to the poverty, back to his people which were thugs and petty criminals, an AIDS ridden malediction of drugged humanity; he had gone back home because he was no longer hiding from it, because having had sex with a whore he had lost his only escape from the shanty town of his youth and of his fears.

There he walked the streets, said hello to the cats and stayed away from the dogs which took the time to snarl his way; it was a bright sunny day, a perfect day to examine your roots, “Why do I come from this place?” He went to the house that had grown him, where he witnessed the sweet family beatings, “Jesus must have been an abused child too, he never got over guilt or wanting to be punished…” He remembered the belts, the hangers, the brooms, the books and piggy banks thrown his way, somehow his guardian Angel Gabriel always made sure that most homemade projectiles missed, but occasionally one would hit its intended target and the pain would revoke any previous failures. He remembers when rocks the size of a turtle would crash through the window and land to nestle by his side, never forget that rock that could hit your skull, never forget that rock that was bigger than your brain, never forget that that rock that had access at any time, that had no bus schedule; never forget that rock laying there next to you in bed, lacking the hollowness of the zombies that, having been unable to sleep, opted instead to practice their long shot.

Here was where the maladies played with Habakkuk’s innocence, here was where he could never figure out the world from the start, in this little tiny town called Belen, where women could not walk home alone so they took the frightened eight year old with them and presumed it was safe for him to return by himself with all of his imagination painted on the night canvas. The returns were never physically safe, boyish slurs and iron bars noticed his back, occasionally he was lucky enough to just get a nice punch, feel his jaw for a few days after that, made him doubt cowboy movies forever, no one could take all those punches. Thirty three years had passed before he could bring himself to return to this place, only his father still lived here, he was very sickly, Habakkuk had come with the looming fear of a final separation.

The town was practically painted all in white or red, an occasional yellow or green but really not for the houses eerily made of brick, squared brick, squared brick with its reddish hues which muster insanity and trashed any hope of possible escape. Habakkuk got away, one lucky day he got to walk away from this place and forget himself long enough to become a major prophet and a successful astroplaner, now his magic carpet had run out of fantasy and he was back inching into himself every fear just like those that he had as a child. Habakkuk was a classic sufferer of “Culpus Paranoia.” Defined in the venerable Velazquez Dictionary of Mental Illnesses as: “Culpus Paranoia: fear of feeling guilty about something that one is not yet guilty of.” As you can imagine a very debilitating condition, in which our boy could in this case dream up charges against himself without warrant.

In this instance Habakkuk was feeling that he was going to become like this place again, that he had never really escaped and that within minutes he would once again be an endemic part of the whole of Belen; and our Habakkuk did not want that and yet he felt that there wasn’t enough of anything else in him to fight the irresistible urge of being part of the scum of Belen again. Sure, even as a child he had not felt a part of this place, but the truth was he was unable to face the truth, that is where he was born, the universe tells you that you are born where your desire energy survives with its desire. Why Habakkuk had, according to the laws of the universe, wanted to be born in Belen and selected his parents as he indeed had, only he knew. Habakkuk knew and believed this to be true and now he was helplessly standing in the middle of this plaza, where all his memories of youth rose to their maximum size and with the old ladies that only dressed in black and parked their mollusk bodies on the benches, yelling at him, “You never left, you never changed, you never were anything more than what we are all here, good for nothing donkeys; and the only difference between you and us boy, is that you thought you didn’t belong, see how far you gotten!” Habakkuk looked down at his shoes firmly on the plaza’s brick floor, he looked up and got surrounded by a traveling circus of flies, which promptly made off but for some that stayed tangled in his nostrils.

He asked a couple of folks passing by where he might find his father, “Moises, have you seen Moises?” Everyone knew Moises, he was a drunk from times past, a man that had a genius of a brain, and the mind to speak it, where he could only make bitter friends of all. Too rabid rapid for his town, he still could never leave them, oh he tried, there were adventures and opportunities dangled that could have changed everything, except that his brain always sabotaged them. Why? Well that is anyone’s guess, the son didn’t know, the ex wife didn’t know either, everyone was aware of his brilliance but the man thought too much and too hard, and the drink wasn’t able to shut down that piercing brain, he could never quiet down the incessant mental notes, ‘specially because he had shut down his emotions tightly so that they would not feel what he felt as a child. Rivers of blood had flooded his eyes, children drilled by their parents and men going down river after having had sex with a machete. Some people see horrors and write them down to feed off of them, Moises was different, he locked it all within, he didn’t want anyone else to have to witness the tragedies, and he was not a sane containment vessel, tight inside of him he was being eaten away by witnessed atrocities.

Moises was laying on top of a white concrete bed. He liked things that were harsh, it was part of his being tough campaign, he was looking straight up at the top of another concrete bed right above him, only three feet no more from him, the sun was translucently dancing in all of the white, a color that rejects the sun is a color that keeps it moving, going, crossing itself, there was a sun show going on and father and son meet after thirty three years of absence.

It is obvious the father is suffering internal pains that he will not share with the world, his hands are crossed across his chest, he is wearing a gray suit, white shirt, black shoes and socks, but no tie. He is all of 78 years old and he still talks like a brilliant man full of certainties, proofs, facts and social formulas which if properly applied will make the world a better place, but people will not listen, he always finishes his brilliant statements, “no one is ever going to do it because they are idiots.” This rings tons of memories upon the son, he remembers being the incessant child idiot, a father that could rule complex mathematical terminology and deduce the logic squared from an inference ruler, was the man that Habakkuk the mystic heart had chosen for a father; you could see him now asking the universe, “I would like a father that is my precise opposite.” The universe didn’t flinch, it complied, Moises always thought that his son was too soft, too woman like, weak even, and there was nothing more intolerable to this fine Moises intellect than weakness. Neitche’s overman was the quintessential Moises, “I will never surrender to the vacuity of your nonsense, I shall prevail in the end even if now I must endure the harshest of critics, and I shall not endeavor to populate my humanity with fear or with weakness, I shall accept the expedition to the unknown blunder rather than accept the gentleness of a common life.”

Tough was a very tough way to live. Moises had had a very rough life, certainly his own doing, his own doing, he had refused to listen to anyone else and the universe was the only one that gave him what he wanted, the chance to be a coffin for fears, there they all went to be kept locked up for life. No one of course knew what would happen to all those fears, locked in severe confinement, upon Moises’s death, no one knew, but fears have certainly longer lives than humans.

Habakkuk sat on the floor next to his father, his father did not acknowledge the thirty three years of distance between them, nor did he acknowledge Habakkuk wearing some strange colored wool hat, orange, black and yellow.

Habakkuk with timid voice, “Hello father.” Moises turned to look at his son, his tiny eyes, skinny body, man could not weigh in at more than 90 pounds, “Hello son, how are you.” Hello son how are you. Irritatingly I was hoping to learn Habakkuk’s real name here, “My son…”, I don’t know why I was expecting more from this encounter, Habakkuk knew his father and wasn’t surprised nor moved, but I really wanted something more, instead all we get is the piercing sun, dancing around the white everything with impunity, a dying father acting out as if 33 years was only yesterday, and Habakkuk tolerating the whole thing!

“Are you feeling pain sir?” “No, no pain here.” “Have you seen a doctor?” “I don’t need a doctor, what do I need a doctor for, the only thing the doctor wants is my money, and I don’t have any money, and they don’t have the cure.” “Father it would make me feel much better if you saw a doctor, I will pay for the doctor.” “Those doctors don’t know nothing, I am treating myself that’s enough.” Father was taking herbs and holistic medicines, and he felt that he had the right prescription and undoubtedly that was the truth. In the meantime he was dying of prostrate cancer.

The neighbors had told Habakkuk that father had been there for days, only getting up to make himself toast and coffee or to get his incessant diet of cigarettes refilled. Now, Habakkuk, sitting on the floor, next to the bed saw the smoke coming from his fathers shaking fingers, only now, so involved he had been in their encounter, so involved that only now he saw the chain smoking that had started when his father was six years old. “Father lets go for a walk shall we?” His father always liked to go for a walk, always, there was never a bad time for a walk, not even rain could impede his father from walking, the question merely showed 33 years of distance between the two hearts.

Moises guided like Mc Arthur marching his troops, “this way… …over here… through here we can see some beautiful flowers…” And so they went on their little excursion, the man full of energy and life even as his life was coming to an end. Moises would point out some of the fallacies of the government, nothing much that Habakkuk could comprehend for he read nothing that had to do with current affairs, he read about things that were cosmic in nature, he had no time for the little world, but his father was a master of the little world, everything that was happening here today, he knew. Habakkuk did not want to get himself in an argument with his old man, instead he complied with as few responses as possible “yes… aha… that sounds right to me…” and the truth was that his father could carry on a conversation by himself so Habakkuk wasn’t really doing anything very much necessary under the circumstances.

They got to a plaza that had been the center of trade and commerce in town, when we speak of that we mean onions, tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, tamales and morcillas, chickens with feathers, pigs, pigs so fresh… anyway you get the picture, a true farmers market; his father lit up another cigarette and almost falling out of character climbed up a certain group of stairs, came right to a corner that seemed away from the plaza and still you could see the whole plaza from it, smiling bright eyed, “here is where I had many trysts, oh this spot holds many bosoms, ah, ha, ha, ha, such a foolish young man I was, all those blunders… ha, ha, ha, and here I barfed as often as I spat… surprised this floor hasn’t dug itself an acid hole…” Habakkuk saw his father happy recollecting those bygone days of drunkenness and carelessness and womanizing which had ended the day the whole world closed, ended the day the whole world closed. The day of his divorce. The day his wife left him. The day his children left him. The day he walked into an empty house.

After the dancing recollections they returned to Moises’s house, and father noted that he needed a nap, so he went back to his concrete bed, where now the late afternoon had subdued the sun and the old man. He smiled at his son and remarked “You came a long ways to watch me die.” Moises quickly went into a feeble snore, and Habakkuk sat on the floor, there next to his old man, when he suddenly heard a thump slapping noise. He looked under the bed and engrossing his eyes there were a bunch of Banana Slugs hosting some kind of a massive convention, only falling off occasionally from their upside down enterprise. He fixed his eyes on them slugs, big yellow bodies, two and half inches more, he watched them slimy things and didn’t try to count them, the repetitive sameness of each member to the group would obliterate any count before it was done; permissive in their lack of defense, Habakkuk watched them fall and climb back up and persist, where above was his father, sleeping one of his last few sleeps.