A Unique Solution

Concentrating, she brought the hammer down into the middle of the word Limoges and had one sweet moment of relief when the plate fell apart. At first, when the state took her kids she went for complete destruction. But that just meant that she had to clean shit up or live in piles of broken glass.

So she’d cleaned up the mess. Then checked herself into a detox and then went to their stupid meetings and then said the shit they wanted her to say. Within two hours of getting the kids back, she had the dope man on the phone. Anyone would need some chemical help if they were in her situation.

Now the kids were gone for good. Good. She had work to do.

For blocks, her careful mosaics of broken china and ceramics were a testament to what even a broken mind is capable of.

She decided that those six plates would be enough for today. The vacant peach smile of a porcelain shepherdess caught her eye. Would you just look at how perfectly placed those blank eyes were? She began to shake a little. She hadn’t even thought of it but now she could see how incredibly perfect this was. Even having gotten much better with the hammer, this one was going to be tricky. But a fleeting cushion of calm descended and, clink!, the shepherdess's head rolled away with one perfect jagged bit of broken porcelain neck.

She was careful going out these days, making sure to cover herself completely. Pulling the old shopping cart behind her, she kept her gaze down. All around her the slam and hustle of the city barely registered. Mouths were working, she could see that and sirens, she could hear those. Mostly, though, she felt as if she could walk through walls, buses, even people. The noise in her head blocked nearly everything around her.

There it was, the shimmering base of the lamppost she almost finished yesterday. That was real. Her work was something she could hold onto. She didn’t even glance at the traffic signal and just stepped into the street as she always did. Sometimes that resulted in blaring horns and vibrations of agitation. Today, though, the lone taxi swung around her almost spitefully refusing to run over someone who would probably welcome it.

She used to be only able to crouch for five or ten minutes tops before her legs ached and her back screamed in protest. Now everything disappeared as soon as she picked up her hammer.

Yesterday she had fit the curved bits of some delft teacups into a series of daisy chains that spiraled up to where the base of the lamp post met the pole. Today’s plate shards would fit perfectly into the open spiral. This lamp post was on a small island in the middle of traffic and the constant movement on all sides did wonders for her concentration. Penned in by even the muted noise and motion her mind stopped feeding on itself and she could work.

It was getting colder. This would be her first winter out here. She’d deal with it. Selecting each next piece used to be time-consuming and frustrating. She’d try piece after piece, and sometimes giving up, she’d just glue anything into the spot to break a rising paralysis. Parking meters were riddled with her mistakes. But then the city had come by to scrape off her wrong choices.

There he was again. That bum. Dammit. He seemed to think she wouldn’t see him over across the street. The messed up thing about him was that he was solid. Nothing else was. If that bum thought he was going to get any money for booze off of her he was in for sad times.

She brought the hammer down smartly and destroyed the image at the edge of the plate.

She hadn’t felt anything for such a long time that the choking fury that rose was a shock. Eyes red-rimmed, she looked up to see the bum swaying slightly. He was younger than she thought. Tightening her grip on the hammer, she half stood and then sank down. Let him stand there all goddamned day and wait. She glanced into the box. She tapped the hammer against the sidewalk. She finished obliterating that dead piece of plate. That helped.

“You don’t worry about the thugs from the city coming by and scraping all that off?”

He’d somehow gotten out to her island without her noticing it and when he spoke, she lifted the hammer menacingly. He backed off some. She set her jaw and kept her arm tensed. It had been a long time since she’d said any words out loud. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t like she had anything to say to this loser. She just hefted the hammer a couple of times and glared at him. He shrugged but held his ground.

“Maybe you’re right. Just because the bastards come and remove your work doesn’t mean that it’s ever really gone.” He leaned against the lamp post, being careful not to touch today’s work but living dangerously nonetheless. “Everyone who comes by here sees it, it’s there, it’s in their memory now. That’s not going away.” He looked sick and she figured that she could take him out easily enough. Let him pretend they were having a conversation.

“Look, can you help me tonight? I can’t sleep out here one more night. I swear to God it’s gonna kill me to spend one more night out here.”

And there it was; the reason for all this buddy-buddy shit. Screw that. Screw him.

Turning away, she surveyed her work. The blue and white delft spirals were nicely filled in with the smaller, daintier chips of Limoges. She was satisfied with the contrast. It wasn’t too noticeable, but it worked. She would probably sleep tonight. With a full sigh, she began packing up.

“Say, wait. Listen. No stop, listen.” He leaned down to lower his voice. “I know where there’s some seriously great stuff you can use on these. No really!”

A shape-shifting gang of laughing kids drifted across the island, one pointing at the base of the lamp post. There was a short flurry as the many-headed amoeba stopped with this or that mouth yawning out incomprehensible crap. One hand pushed out from the bulk and, just like that, the bum put his solid self between the amoeba and the lamp post.

“Whaddaya think you’re doing? Git your dirty hands away from this if you want ’em to stay attached.” He seemed to get bigger and the amoeba backed away, streaming faint fuck you’s and bite me’s.

She pulled the bungee cords around her box and stood up. He wasn’t going to shut up, was he? Nope. Sure enough, she began walking and there he was, right behind her, still jabbering.

“No, wait. Seriously. You got to see this stuff!”

She kept walking, right into traffic and he followed her into the oncoming horns blowing. He kept blabbing and she kept walking. How was she going to shake this moron?

“…curved, beautiful, stained glass, like from a church or something!”

What? She stopped and turned to face him. He saw he had her and, to his credit, he toned down the mania. She waited.

“You see that big new department store where that old church used to be? I was past there earlier and there’s this corner window that looks out over the park.” He stopped and looked around as if someone might be listening. And they might be. She stepped a little closer. He nodded and whispered, “I got a plan.”

She weighed this. The light was fading and it was really cold now. Dimly and from far away she heard that she was hungry. But stained glass! Then she almost smacked herself in the forehead. The shepherdess’s head. She wanted to dismiss it but knew better. Some pieces were only perfect at perfect times and she may have missed her window with the head. But she couldn’t chance it. She owed this bum nothing so she simply turned and headed back to the island.

“Wait! What? Where…wait, don’t leave me. Fuck don’t go. I’m dead serious, you got to see this stuff and I can get it for you. Wait!”

She didn’t pay any attention. Maybe he’d follow her, maybe he wouldn’t. She figured she’d have just enough light left and she knew exactly where that head needed to be. She glanced back. He was standing there, looking stupid and panicked. What a loser. She jerked her head and didn’t wait to see if he’d follow. He would. The bum was nothing but a big old dog.

Back at the lamp post, she realized that she was going to have to tell him to back the hell off. No way could she work with him hanging over her like that. She swallowed, flexing throat stuff that had become set and silent. More swallowing and coughing.

Finally: “Wait.” She pointed across the street. “There.”

“Ok.” And just like that her dog heeled.

She lowered herself and ran her hand over today’s spiral. She found it, the right place. Sliding her finger into the slight depression left between china and delft, she was satisfied. Yep. This was it. The shepherdess would be looking straight down the boulevard and would see her mother before she arrived for her dutiful weekly visits of food and recriminations. It was a little tricky getting that little head situated just right, but the direction of the porcelain gaze was important and worth all the fiddling.

Because her bum was solid in this darkening world of shades and wispy trails, his restlessness was distracting. He paced. He picked at his head, examining each bit of whatever it was he was pulling from his matted hair. He sat down and stood up. He talked to himself. He walked right to the edge of the street with his fists planted on his hips.

Finally, he settled down.

It was sort of a shame that the curly brown porcelain hair had to be set against the lamp post, but there were all sorts of shames in this life. Weren’t there?

The head fit with complete precision and not a smidge of glue seeped out the sides. Geeze, her legs hurt. Creaking as she stood, she glanced over to the bum. He perked up. She packed up and shut down her brain. It had taken time, but now she knew better than to listen to that monster. Movement was what mattered and so she got moving.

“And so, like, I was not ever expecting to be out here on the street. Ya know?” She kept hoping that not responding would shut him up. Not a chance. He had captive ears at last and she got the whole sad predictable boring story. Nice childhood in the suburbs, good college, marriage to the dream wife, two-point-five exemplary children, purebred dachshunds, promotions, bigger house, new cars every year, manageable cocaine flirtation, fat and comfy.

He had it all. Until he didn’t. Nothing new about this.

She stopped listening. He thought it all mattered, but it didn’t. He thought that having lice and sleeping on the sidewalk and getting his shoes stolen put him in the pit of hell. He had no idea. A hot shower and a night in a real bed would fix everything in his universe. She wasn’t going to clue him in about hell, real hell. Already she could feel it the way cockroaches take over a kitchen when the lights go out. Like dirty, stubby fingers prying into the sides of her eyes to get at the quiet bought by today’s work.

“I won’t do it. I tell you that. Not one more night. Nope. I don’t care if all I get is five minutes with my head on that pillow. I don’t care what they do to me. Wait, there’s something I need to get here.”

They cut down an alley and he kept right on blabbing. It was getting hard to tell which noise was inside her skull and which was coming out of his face. Grim and determined, she was going to get that goddamned glass. That’s all. It registered that he’d picked up a brick from a tumbled stack of debris, tossing it up and down a bit before apparently deciding it would do. She supposed this was not a good sign, but all she could do now was hang on until they got to the glass.

They came back out onto the boulevard and finally the bum shut up. Traffic swished by leaving trails of color and light. Then the first shards of silver and black began to crowd out her vision. Shit. Damn it to hell. Long before the active days of addiction, before the noise, she’d begun having these visual migraines and they just were not entertaining anymore. They were scary and annoying at the same time. She had to place her feet very carefully. Thank God the bum had shut up, not that she could hear him over the rising mutter of a thousand voices. Bits of silvery webbing shot out of the growing rumble of black shiny mess that had already blocked a third of her field of vision.

She could smell the glass before she could see it. Smooth, perfect, alchemizing the light to change the color of the sidewalk under her feet. The calming scent of stasis pushed back against the silver and black. They’d reached the corner where the largest window faced the park, framing what was probably the most heavenly bed she’d ever seen.

It was a sleigh bed with elegant, curving lines piled high with a golden duvet and achingly soft pillows. The enormous expanse of plate glass was framed by a mind-blowing jungle of stained glass fruits and vines. She’d never seen such work. The tangle of stained glass held onto the heavy plate glass with one heavy, undulating line of lead and each apple, each grape and even the leaves of stained glass were molded in the most exquisite bas-relief. Every piece of fruit bulged out elegantly, glinting in the lamplight.

“Yep. This is it, sister. Now listen, this is important.” He stopped and scratched his crotch and then vigorously scrubbed his hands through his hair and growled. “Ok, here’s the deal. I need a witness. I need you to see this happen cuz after this, I’m gone and no one’s gonna know what happened. Someone has to know. Put it into what you do. Leave a record. Got it?” He was peering intently into her face. “Right? Got it?”

The throat and talking bits worked, not good, but enough.

“Right.” She couldn’t remember the last time she made eye contact with another person. Somewhere behind her eyes, she felt a tiny click as something fell away. “Yes, I got it.”

“Ok, good. Stand back and get ready to move fast. It won’t take them long so you’re going to want to grab as much glass as you can as fast as you can and then get the fuck out of Dodge.”

He hefted the brick several times with the scariest smile she’d ever seen and then he heaved it with all his strength through the lower right corner. The colored glass crumpled inward, decorating the duvet. There was one endless swimming moment before the whole shining, glittering sheet came crashing down.

“Move!” For a big guy, he was fast and just like that he was up in that bed, pulling the duvet over himself. She pulled herself together and began scooping up sharp handfuls, armfuls of the colored glass. This probably hurt, she could see blood happening, but a high, hard exhilaration had taken over. She dumped as much as she could into her box. It was next to impossible to walk away from the treasure still all over the sidewalk, but her box was overflowing and now there were people everywhere. Being so solid in this ghost world, she was surprised that no one seemed to see her.

Who was the ghost here anyway?

And here came the sirens.

Something stopped her from fleeing with her treasure and she tucked herself off to the side to watch. The poor bastard hadn’t even gotten his five minutes in the bed before the city’s finest were on site and in action. At first, he just was dead weight and she watched the four cops who’d clambered into the open window trying to wrestle him out of the bed. One of the cops grabbed his hair and that turned out to be the mistake. He went ape shit. He roared and began flinging his attackers around the confined space. Clubs appeared and the bum’s heroic stand was even shorter than his little nap. Big and mad as he was, he didn’t stand a chance. Worse, he’d hurt a couple of them and they were pissed. Long after he’d given up, they kept pounding on him as they dragged him and the golden duvet out onto the street.

With a couple of final kicks to his guts and his head, they seemed satisfied. Other vehicles arrived and the clean up got underway. Brooms, police tape, laughing men shaking their heads. The broken bum was loaded into an ambulance that would take him to some emergency room and then to jail.

Well, he was right about not sleeping on the street tonight anyway. He was right about being gone. There were caseworkers and institutions waiting for him.

She stayed put. They’d done one half-assed job on that clean-up. She watched them joke around, throw their stuff back into the trunks of their vehicles and drive away. And still, she stayed put. The big sheet of plywood wedged into the window blocked a lot of the light and, of course, all the color was gone. She’d seen something else out there on the sidewalk that she had to have. As each broom sweep threatened it, she’d squinted and sent out rays to control the arc.

Once when it was almost certain that it was going to be swept up she barked and startled the sweeper.

It was so late that it was early when she unfolded, stretched, and went for what was now hers. Until she stood up, she hadn’t realized the perfect silence that filled the endless six inches between her ears. She paused. There was her heartbeat, her breath. A solid, three-dimensional car swept by and she could see the driver’s features. His eyes met hers. She watched for any other traffic before crossing back to the scene of the crime.

Three of the bum’s bloody teeth were scattered near the base of the building. She scooped them up. For the record.

© Remington Write 2023. All Rights Reserved.