I See a Darkness

It was simple enough to explain. There were too many things piling up around me?taxes, doctors and the like?and there wasn't a goddamn thing I could do about any of them. Just let time pass, just let the people I was counting on and waiting for send me the paperwork, or make a decision or get operated on. Once they did, well, then I'd be able to start scratching things off the list I carried with me, neatly tucked into my cigarette pack. Until those things happened, however, I was going to spend the weekend guttered out inside, mired in a heavy, anxious, frustrated depression.

I first smelled it coming on late last week, for reasons completely unrelated to the crap pile mentioned above. I came across a 10-year-old reference?a musical one, actually?to what I used to be like. Upon hearing it for the first time in so long, I thought to myself, "Man, I have gotten old, and I have gotten soft." Those are bad things to realize. On the bright side, at least, when you can point at the reasons for your despair and malaise, that usually means there's a way out. The day-to-day, then, merely becomes a process of staving off the thick darkness until it passes on its own, using whatever distractions may be handy. It becomes a kind of trench warfare.

(I guess you could describe all of life that way.)

But then again, no, the more I think about it, this melancholy was even older than that. It reached back much farther than this weekend, or coming across that old song last week. Fact is, I guess the darkness has never really left me. It's buried now, more than it used to be. It's farther from the surface. A little taste of luck in its various forms these past few years helped pile the dirt on, there. But even as things were going well, I could feel it.

It's kind of like a hangover that way. At least when you drink long enough to have the hangover reach "perpetual" status. They're no longer isolated conditions?instead having merged into one long, slow, queasy hum. It's always there under the surface, and even when you're feeling good, you know the only reason you're feeling good is because you've drunk it into submission already that day.

If that makes any sense. I think it will to at least a few.

Thing is with that darkness I'm talking about, though, is that I never know what form it's going to assume.

Riding back to Brooklyn on the train in the evenings, the brain loosened up with alcohol, the guard lowered, all those bad thoughts would come up for air. I'd find myself filled with an unimaginable rage, directed at anyone and everyone around me.

"Look at you!"

I never actually said anything aloud, of course. Not so anyone could hear me. Always kept that contented smile on my face, just waiting. Every gesture I could discern, every bit of reading material, every bit of footwear and clothing, every smell oozing from the pores of the people around me brought the venom to a boil. I found something to hate in every attribute of everyone on that train. If they moved too slowly or bumped into me from behind, if their shoes scraped or clomped, if they were pushing strollers or riding bikes or standing stock still, I found reason to wish them dead.

But I always kept that smile on my face, would speak to them in gentle, pleasant terms if they spoke to me. All the while my brain would be screaming.

This would happen?and continues to happen?almost every night.

I would seethe until I reached my front door, and finally find myself alone and free of them again.

What's strange is that it never starts until I get on the train. And it's always stopped the moment my apartment door closed behind me.

Morgan and I could wander around for half an hour or more after leaving the bar, and everything would be cool. It would be pleasant and comfortable, and this kind of rage was nowhere to be found. Get me alone on a train, though?

Of course that may make perfect sense. When we leave the bar, I'm in complete darkness. Can't see a goddamn thing. I hold tight to Morgan's arm, and she dances me around the gates and the curbs and the garbage cans. All this time I know that I'm with someone I can trust and can talk to. Once I'm on the train, I can see to a certain limited degree. I can at least see enough to realize two things:

1. This world is pretty goddamned ugly, and

2. Everyone looks the same to me.

I may have mentioned this before. Though there are certain exceptions?i.e., most of the people I know I might be able to pick out of a police lineup. But most people? No, uh-uh. Race doesn't matter, gender doesn't matter, clothing and hairstyle only make a minuscule difference. Everyone looks the same.

Sometimes I wonder if it's a sign of some sort of mental illness. It probably is, but so what? I'll add it to the list. And then I'll keep smiling.

When I get off the train in Brooklyn, once again I'm in complete darkness, but alone this time. So out comes the cane, which without fail gets stuck in fences and sidewalk cracks. And there are always those lovely folks who don't understand what the cane means, and so get mad when I run into them. And those people (though rare)?children mostly?who still shout things. I bide my time. I continue smiling and talking calmly and quietly. I try to keep in mind that when I get home, I'll be able to breathe once more. The darkness will retreat once again to wherever it is it hides.

Thinking about it now, I guess that pile of crap that had me so flummoxed this weekend is nothing but sissycakes. At least in comparison. Like I said, at least it's all something that I can point at.