When I woke up this morning, my head was full of fog. Grey cheeks and a limp body wrapped in dirty sheets. I peeked through the window and it was all fog out there too.
I have been in Dublin for four months. I was scheduled to be home in the fall, but I couldn’t get packed the day I was supposed to leave. My things turned to lead all over the rented room and then I got poisoned by some fast food I knew I shouldn’t have eaten. I planned to book another ticket, but never got around to it after I drunkenly offered to man the bar below my flat as my neighbor/bartender turned friend got swept away in a dalliance. She swore she’d only be gone a week.
I make myself sick with coffee and finally head out to walk around, hoping the fresh air will quell the quake in my bones.
There are many paths that lead me to the river, but I never plan which one I’ll take.
It occurs to me that maybe I will leave tomorrow.
It is misting out and my glasses bead until I can’t see a thing out ahead of me but blurry lights.
I tuck into a pub without a thought and ask for a half glass of beer. It is soft in my throat and warm in my belly. I use the bar napkin to wipe my lenses. Now pink cheeked, I return to the slick cobblestones to smell my way to the water.
Silver and gold light quiver on the river’s surface, alive by reflecting the living.
As I cross the last intersection to reach the Liffey, standing there is a slender man with a mental line thrown in. His hip is cocked to the side as he leans; his elbow hangs on the wall and hooks into a fist, which holds up his head. He has on a cap with a herringbone pattern that has been worn into a blur of dirty sage. When I get close enough, I get a whiff of him. He smells like aged layers of the same cologne and whiskey. I smile feebly. His smile is toothless.
“Shouldn’t you be painting?”
“I’ve been trying to paint, what am I supposed to paint about?”
He scoffed like he knew the answer but wouldn’t tell me.
“And what are you all tangled about, then?”
He sets his eyes back out across the river and nods in that direction.
I follow his gesture with my gaze.
It is the same patch of buildings and sky and river and bridge we have taken in almost every day since I’ve been here.
“I just hate the crane,” he says.
There is a looming doom of change that comes with such massive reminders of construction in the sky.
“It ruins the view.”
“It’s been here ever since I have,” I reply.
He takes me in from the corner of his eye like he isn’t sure I also don’t ruin his view.
“I should tell you, I’m leaving tomorrow,” I blurt out.
Then he regards me straight-on.
“Why, Frank. That’s a shame. Why didn’t you say sooner?”
“Just decided. Come for a bite? To commemorate?”
He licks his bare gums inside closed lips.
“Somewhere with soup?”
“Sure.”
I rush home to book a plane ticket and begin to consider my funds on the way. I know I have little bundles of cash stockpiled throughout the flat, but it’ll be a feat to get them put into my account before the bank closes for the evening. I decide not to bother and that I can fuss with the logistics tomorrow.
Sweaty from my wasted haste, I change into a jumper with thin, vertical stripes. It’s a dreadful sweater and I hate it, but there’s no stopping the stench of my flop sweat without a shower once it’s started, so I don’t mind the single-use sacrifice. I’ll burn it in the morning.
I bend over at the waist to shake out my hair.
There’s no mirror in my apartment, but I assume I look fine enough for a last impression.
I pin a note to Matilde’s door to meet me and Tom at Sandra’s.
I know it’ll bother her to come all the way to Sandra’s when a pub where we drink for free is right downstairs, but I suppose I don’t want it to be so convenient.
I arrive first, of course, but at least I had the sense to buy a small bouquet of flowers on the way over, so I won’t be totally alone.
I put them in the middle of the table…
Matilde arrives not long after with her current love affair in tow - a beautiful artist named Leonard who doesn’t eat or speak but, according to Matilde, has a devastating gift.
I can smell their entanglement and take down a vodka to cleanse my palette.
“So. You’re leavin’.”
“Yep.”
She glances down at the flowers on the table.
“Just booked my ticket this morning.”
When Tom arrives, Leonard leaves for a cigarette and never returns.
Matilde always brightens when Tom comes around. I guess he reminds her of another old man.
“Tom!”
“Hello Dreary,” he calls her, and then, “Frank,” with a gentle grip of the fingers hello for me.
“Nice flowers. A token of your affection for our dear, nearly departed Frank here?”
Matilde looks over at me and smirks. I feel hot all down my back and open my mouth to explain, but Matilde answers before I can.
“Well, of course! I can hardly imagine what life will be like without his little shuffles to and fro above my head all through the nights.”
“I paint at night.”
“Well, of course you do!”
“What’ll you do with all your paintings, Frank?”
“I’ll have them shipped,” I manage in a dry croak.
“Sensible.”
Someone brings us pints and cheese and Matilde drags Tom through the idiotic trivialities of Leonard.
“All I want is boundless love,” she drones.
I erupt from my chair, flowers in hand, and announce that I must depart.
My abruptness doesn’t seem to startle them much.
They wait for me to say something else. I think about offering to leave them each a painting.
“Rather silly of me to have brought you flowers, I guess. Seeing as you’re leaving.”
Matilde smiles, her sweet lips like two slices of a blood orange.
“I can smell their entanglement” <3
I was waiting for Stephen Dedalus to show.