Blood to Filth
by Ben Tillman
There had been a time before this period in my life when I truly believed that I was going to become a chef. I lived food. I thought food. I studied it and marveled at all of its infinite possibility. I read, cooked, experimented, and jotted down menu ideas on cocktail napkins. I was consumed by the feats of my heroes who had proven their mettle in the panic and anxiety of the kitchen, and was determined to be as much like them as I possibly could. Alas, what I had really become was a drunken caricature of myself in chef’s whites trudging my way through a gloomy, miserable, alcoholic reality. I was barely able to eat at all, much less be inspired to be creative where food was concerned. The whites that I had once worn with pride were now filthy meat-stained reminders of how sad and apathetic I had become. This particular evening was much like any other during that time of my life. It was past the witching hour, but before the baker and I were attempting, yet again, to make it unscathed into my apartment so that I could chase oblivion until the responsibilities of necessity forced me to begin the cycle again. This night was no different. Or so I thought.
I had closed the bar again and was trying to steady myself for the walk home so I could get some sleep before I woke to do it all over again the next day. Thus was my routine: I would break from my leisurely bar time to run over to the Chevron and buy some beer or cheap wine (as they closed before the bar did) and then hide it in the bushes so that when I left, I could reclaim it and have something for breakfast. Then I would wake shaking violently, pray vehemently that I hadn’t drunk everything the night before, then try to hold enough booze down to get me to work so that I could drink some there and re-engage the whole cycle all over again.
I had looked around to ensure that no one was watching, pulled my case of beer out of the bushes, and attempted to maneuver down the streets of Albuquerque on foot at two o’clock in the morning. The oppressive air was consumed by silence and humidity. The oddly soothing hum of street lights, and the cautious swoosh of the occasional automobile piloted by someone probably drunker than I, were the only noticeable sounds.
I made it off of San Mateo Boulevard without incident and was working my way down my street when I noticed a couple of younger males working their way up towards me. I don’t remember being too alarmed, but I do remember crossing the street as I was just a block from home and didn’t want to have any contact with anyone--be it friend or foe.
As I moved along, with my beer becoming heavier with each step, I could hear the soft crunch of feet aggravating the gravel like some bizarre dance competition wherein two people are forced to dance in a bowl of dry cereal. The footsteps were faster than mine, and this fact sliced through the syrup of drunkenness that had established itself inside my skull and enlivened some distant sense of latent self protection. I knew that they were either going to bother me or were involved in some kind of hour-appropriate activity that I didn’t want to be a part of. Either way, they, like I myself, were probably up to no good and were worthy of at least trying to get rid of quickly.
And yet what was asked of me was of no consequence at all in of itself. There in front of me stood two handsome, young Hispanic males in white undershirts with pleasant demeanors and a simple request for a spare cigarette. Certainly I would oblige. As I reached into my breast pocket to fish out a smoke, the thoughts of assault and battery were non-existent.
While looking into my pocket, I was first aware of a horrendous snapping sound that was creepily reminiscent of bone being forcibly removed from its rightful place. It wasn’t until moments later that I realized the sound was emanating from my own skull. I didn’t even realize that I was being attacked and was on the ground with a savage beating my face, pinning my shoulders to the dirty pavement while his accomplice kicked me incessantly in the kidneys over and over again.
I don’t know how long I was on the ground, but at some point I came to and realized that I was either unconscious for a few seconds, in shock, or was out of my body. Whatever the reason, as I realized the gravity of the situation and came to my now quite sober senses, I sat up as if Zeus himself had violently blanketed me with a jolt of theistic electricity. In rising this way, my first tormentor was thrown off of my shoulders and the other missed his last kick. There was no thought in the process and I was not, nor ever have been, a fighter or a tough guy. In hindsight I was only able to get them off of me by sheer adrenaline.
I don’t remember them running. I don’t remember how long I was down on the ground. The first thing that I did notice was that my beer was gone and my cigarettes were strewn across the asphalt in a broken and bloody mess. Then I realized that a: It was my blood, and it was everywhere; b: This had all happened over a case of beer; and c: I would have to figure out how to get smokes and breakfast in the morning. All I could do at that moment was either go completely insane at the new low I had found myself or laugh hysterically. I chose hysterics and laughed until tears slid down my face intermingling with the blood that was still pouring from my face and mouth. As much of my life as I had devoted to food and its taste I was now being force-fed the salt from my own tears of hysteria and the acrid metallic tang of my own blood. Be it from shock, or grief, or catharsis, I sat there laughing on the curb dressed as a filthy, bloody mess for what seemed like hours.
The consequences of my choices were laid in front of me. I pathetically asked myself if I could beat the game. I just wanted to be okay. I just wanted to drink successfully. I just wanted to not hurt. I just wanted to be okay. I had always been a good person and thought that perhaps I just drank too much. I wanted to not think. I wanted oblivion and was finding that its price was far too precious for me to pay. My medicine had turned on me.
As I sat on the curb, I gazed at the defeated cocoons of paper and tobacco besmeared with blood and toyed briefly with trying to piece them back together before deciding that all was lost. I wearily and shakily rose and began to hobble in the direction of my apartment. With each step, the bones in my face angrily irritated one another. I was amazed at the amount of blood that was collecting on the concrete and chef’s “whites.”
As I approached the stairs that I would eventually have to negotiate, I noticed a neighbor that I’d never seen before sitting on his stoop smoking a cigarette presumably having seen the whole affair from his own stronghold of desperation. All I can remember as I started to navigate the stairs to my door was him asking me, without much contempt or concern, “Are you okay?”
With this lazy inquiry into my condition, thoughts became mental Alka-Seltzer brimming over the sides of their bone container, which had proved too small to restrain their mushrooming mass: I didn’t want to be this way. I was a good boy once. I just want this to stop. Why are you asking me this? Did you watch the whole thing, you sonofabitch? What’s wrong with me? Whose fault was this? Did you know that I was going to be a preacher one day? Am I okay? Am I okay? What do you mean by that? Is that a rhetorical question you dumb bastard? Do you see lots of folks walking around at four in the morning covered in blood and gore? Am I okay? Is that a philosophical question about my existence, or are you asking about my physical well-being?
After the long mental diatribe all I could do was look at him and try, for the first time in a long time, to speak the most truthful sentence that I could muster without malice or manipulation.
All I could say was:
“No.”