The Sum of Dreams-Part 2 (Adam/Yaeko)

[black_hat]

At age eighteen, he was told:

 

“Get out, disease carrier. You smell of death,” the old matron kindly informed him one evening when she requested a private chat. She thought she would ask after the weather or his plans for life. In a few months, he’d technically be a man.

 

A good luck would have sufficed.

 

“I…beg pardon, ma’am?” he stammered, clutching his hands together. He hadn’t his weakness but the eternal feeling of fear of closed rooms would haunt him forever. At age eighteen, he couldn’t know what forever was in terms of the body, the flesh, but in terms of the soul, he knew the horror of eternity.

 

“Don’t you think I know you visit those filthy, sin ridden dens of those vagabonds and whores? You don’t think I know where you get your money from?”

 

Adam gaped, his blue-eyes widening. He was dead broke, no a shilling to rub together, and this old lady who had raised him herself thought he was richer than the King? Really…

 

“It would be news to me. I’d like to know.”

 

“The grave-robbing.”

 

He almost passed out. “.…You think I…you think I’m a…excuse me, you’ll have to say that again.”

 

“You heard me. If not, where you do get the money to indulge in your vices that will burn your soul in hell.”

 

Ah. He would never have the pleasure.

 

“Um…where did you get the notion? I’ve never been a frequenter of graves. Have you been there to know, ma’am, because  honestly, I-.”

 

She held up an old cross between her fingers. Molding and rusted silver, crooked to match the quirk of her chapped mouth.

 

He couldn’t say a word.

 

“Been through my drawers, then. And here I thought the attraction was just to my bum. It was the pasty, white drawers, the entire time,” he muttered, rambling.

 

“Get out. I won’t have you bringing diseases in here.” Ignoring him. Like he was not important even though she might as well be sentencing him to death without a recommendation or money.

 

Adam wanted to say that for her information, he stole that cross off a very lively fellow—he could attest; one doesn’t usually flee from dead people.

 

It seemed like it wouldn’t help. He knew, in a way, that she had gotten the idea in her head when he visited the grave of his old, young friend.

 

Oh, to hell with you, the infernal woman who would rot away in her desk, in her dirty bed. No one would know who she was, who she had been. She was the evil, wicked wretch in the stories that tried to deter the hero. She’d die in pain, he hoped. She’d die alone, he prayed.

 

Not before she heard the stories of his life, and then—only then—she’d know how small she was.

 

He had been planning to leave, anyway. He had the world to see.

 

A world where there weren’t stupid, ignorant women to make him feel less than a man. It was lucky that he hadn’t left the statue within reach of her greasy grip.

 

 ***

 

At age twenty-one, he was told:

 

“Get out of the way, you bloody twit.”

 

“Oh, sorry. Sorry,” he said, and scrambled out of the way of the men. They lugged down the barrels of goods and one rolled his eyes. Well, his one eye.

 

Adam worked and worked to be a sailor.

 

He lifted and pulled and carted—bloody carted—again and again, back and forth, and sometimes, even up and down.

 

They thought he was too fair to take the baking sun. Too weak to pull the sails. Too scrawny. Too virginal.

 

He’d run to taverns with them, and hear of their stories, and drink with the worst of them. He took pride in drinking the conceited bastards under the table. Eventually, it became about the drinking itself.

 

The room he had managed to live in was a box, a casket of sorts. He could hardly stand being in it. The walls were a terrible white that seemed to stay at him, seemed to remind him of his sick, old, young friend. It was all around him, not touching him, but going past him.

 

With no windows, no one knew he was inside. No one knew he existed. No one missed him.

 

Yet it was painful. Distantly, he could feel the statue in his jacket pocket and the beauty of it and the nastiness and disease of himself. The tramp. The rogue. The thief.

 

Before long, the drunk.

 

He had needed money. The matron had given him the notion. He blamed her, every time, when he had to pay for his presence.

 

“Have you been with a woman, lad?” One man asked. He looked at the women, the English roses with thorns and faded beauty by a weathered fest of insects (hence, the English man. Case in point.) He didn’t want to contribute to their average-looks, their breasts sagging and voices booming like a tornado dropping from the clear blue sky.

 

“I’m waiting for the one,” he had answered honestly.

 

Last time, he had every spoken honestly about his feelings on the matter. Wouldn’t know what to do, they whispered.

 

Months and months bled into one long day of the same old thing.

 

Then one day, by chance, by rote,

 

“I need a man. One extra man only!” a harsh voice bellowed across the place where only the men with all the time in the world spent it. “One man to go to India. We are one man short.”

 

A young, red-haired fellow was on his feet before Adam could dream up the thought.

 

“Ah, well…you’re good enough.”

 

Fuck that.

 

The red-head turned to gather his things and disappeared around back. Adam followed, jade-statue in hand. One hit to head, usurper of dreams was down and out. Unharmed though he’d have a hell of a headache in the morn.

 

Adam showed up in his stead, with the lad’s cap on.

 

“Who the hell are you?”

 

“Um, my friend, uh, James, got a little green around the gills. Right terrible headache. It just so happens I’ve got nowhere to be for the next few months.”

 

“You mean, nowhere you’re wanted…”

 

“Nowhere on land…ideally?” he asked, hopeful, and stood up straighter.

 

“…Beggars can’t be choosers, I reckon. Come on.”

 

He hurried past the captain, his life finally starting.

 

***

 

Also, at age twenty-one, he was told:

 

“Good Christ, clean up this mess.”

 

Maybe he should have rethought the whole seafarer thing.

 

Magic carpet—infinitely preferable. Turns out there was something that made him sick. He hung over the side of the ship and got in touch with his inner feelings. His inner feelings were life-changing, and he wanted that all out in the open. He spent his time hurling over the desk, and even after being on the sea for some weeks, living the legend, he was the one who was sick most of the time.

 

All the time, actually.

 

He expected a sword too. He wiped his mouth and looked back to see the men laughing with each other, the subject himself. Naturally.

 

They liked letting go over the rope on the sails when he was on the other side. It would drag him about like a small girl by an over-grown dog. It should have hurt his hands but he never paid much mind. He tried laughing it off. Tried to see the humor in it, but it became clear they did not appreciate being humored.

 

Black-eyes, not withstanding.

 

Then he discovered something else. A rather potent something else. The distinct possibility that storms do occasionally come up and drag whole ships down to their depths.

 

“That looks…uh, ominous,” Adam said to the sailor next to him, pointing out a black, fierce storm in the distance.

 

“Oh, that. It’s just a wee bit of rain.”

 

Hours later, he was being pissed on by the universe. There was so much rain that the boat was going to sink. He was going to be eaten by monsters of the depths. The damn, damn, damn wee bit of rain was going to drown him. It so dark it appeared as if the night had eaten everyone else in the world but himself. The glimpses of barrels flying through the air, as if in retribution for all the times they were lugged around. The thunder sounded as if the very gods were angered.

 

He couldn’t hear over the hissing of the water, or the sound of his own cries,  and stumbled forward to the deck, to make the dear, old captain take this seriously.

 

“Just keep looking at the stars, men,” the captain called out, appearing perfectly composed.

 

“WHAT BLOODY STARS?!” he bellowed. The captain looked back in disgust.

 

“I told you it would be bad luck to have a woman on board,” someone muttered. Before he knew it, his fist was in a bearded man’s face. The false teeth bit into his hand but he didn’t stop. He was out of himself.

 

“I’m the only one around here who has any fucking intelligence, you miserable fuckwit, if you were half the man I was, you wouldn’t be braiding your hair!”

 

He wasn’t sure if that made sense. He couldn’t tell as he was tossed below deck to spend the night sliding across the splintering, spinning hull from side to side.

 

He wasn’t alone by the end of it. Other men had balked. Other men seemed to know insanity when they saw it.

 

“What we need here is a change in direction,” Adam said, when the storm had quieted. “I think a new perspective would be in order. Someone…reasonable but not familiar with all of you. No bias, there, right…”

 

The captain found out about this little motivational chat. Apparently, democracy died with the Romans, and Adam sensed he was about to be fed to the lions.

 

When they reached land, he slipped off the ship quietly and was late getting back on.

 

Couldn’t be helped.

***

 

At age twenty-three, he said:

 

“All right. Just going to lay all the cards out on the table, because I’m going to go easy on you. I’m going to be sporting and-.”

 

The Japanese man’s arm moved like—well, to be cliché, like the fucking wind.

 

“Good! Christ!,” he yelped, feeling his own knife fly out of his grip. He peered in the direction of where the knife went and saw that it hung perfectly against the tree. “…That’s an excellent shot!”

 

That was his introduction to life in Japan. He should have taken the hint.