If There is a God
My nose scrunches at the putrid scent of winter as it wafts through the air, clutching at all my senses. Chills rake up and down my spine in a repeated fashion, almost like a relative you despise but drowns you in their love anyway. Except, this is not love, and winter is not welcome in this house. And by this house, I mean my body, for I have not had a home for some years, and this season seems to remind me of it the most. The streets, who have been my closest and only friends, abandon me come first snow. Lost under the blanket of pure spite, I am left cradled under porch roofs. It appears my bones become as fragile as the ice which crunches under winter boots, and as time goes, I can’t help but want to melt away with it. Desperation is an all too familiar feeling, but no more potent than the loneliness that resounds in my ears like the cruelest of Christmas carols.
The payphones are few and far between these days. Still, I make my way over to a stranded booth, nonetheless, hoping my holey coat blesses me with some warmth in my endeavor. With a few coins jingling at the bottom of a styrofoam cup, I call my only son.
“Dad!” He answers with a joy that has since left me, and I allow it to linger a few seconds into the silence that follows. “Dad?”
“How are you?” My voice crackles like a fire, holding as much strength as I can summon.
“I’m good! We all miss you, though. TJ misses you the most.” My grandson babbles in the background, and I wish I could be there. “Are you going to make it?” Through this winter? I am not so sure, but I don’t say that. Instead, I respond,
“It doesn’t seem so this year. Plane ticket prices have gone up, and my job’s cut my hours,” I can hear his face fall through the phone like a glass plate being shattered, “But I’ll try to book a flight as soon as I can.” He pauses, and I do the same, though I think for very different reasons. In the fleeting moment, I attempt to hold my composure, but I’m sure he’s simply finding a way to not sound so disappointed.
“I know it’s not the same since mom’s gone, but you don’t have to spend the holiday alone, dad. W-We can come to you if you’d like!” My shame takes over as I shut him down as gently as I can. It would devastate both him and me to see what I’ve become, for I am a fraud and, even more so, a failure of a father.
“Nevermind me,” I say in an attempt to raise his spirits, “I’ll go over to a friend’s house, drink lots of wine, and see you soon enough. I promise you, I won’t be alone.”
“Alright, dad. I love you and have a Merry Christmas.” He sounds disheartened, but I simply reply,
“I love you too and tell Sam and TJ I send my love.”
“I’ll let you give it to them yourself. Bye, dad.”
“Bye.”
The telephone hangs on the hook, and I feel entirely empty, resembling my promises. How horrible it is to lead a harrowing life filled with lies and deceit. I just about crumble into myself, feeling the blizzard of emotions I hold all year to eventually come to today. It causes me to shudder, but from the outside, it would appear that I’ve been overcome by the cold. Indeed, I have been overcome.
The subway does not offer much refuge in the dead of December, but perhaps it can provide more than the friends who have forsaken me. Most people are indoors now, huddled together with family, waiting by a glowing tree and a burning fire. Me, I have a deserted subway to remind me that this is now my home. Not many linger, and I hope the ones that do don’t stay for long. Some solitude would do me some good now. Though this world owes me nothing, it has taken everything, and all I ask is to have these final moments to myself. Gabrielle, the vendor, leaves her station, and I think that, maybe, there is a God. And though he has ignored every one of my previous requests, this is his mercy.
There is little weight on my heart as I go over it in my head. In these moments, you expect despair and destitution to ravage your body, but it doesn’t. It knocks gently on the imaginary door of my home and joins me for one last look at the life I’ve led. The sound of the trains coming and going billows over the platform as though a somber requiem. I tell myself that this is better, that this is easier than presenting myself for all my falsehoods and shortcomings to the only thing that is pure and good in my life. I will not be what corrupts him. The misery I can live with, my guilt I can stomach, but not his.
I can make it look like an accident. I can pretend as though I am stumbling drunk and mistakenly took a step too far. They’ll never know. One foot in front of the other, as sloppily as I can muster, I begin to tread towards my end. In this, I free him. In this, my love remains untainted by who I’ve become. I can hear the far away hums of the oncoming train and brace for the fall into grace’s arms. If there is a God, may he be kinder to me in the next life and may he look after my son in this one.