Skip to main content

16 March 2020 – The One – #10: City Secundus – Segment 5

The main character (MC) is now in the thick of it: The Second City, complete with what one might expect in and around a large-city harbor and its docks. Having been on the water for many months, the MC’s adventures are beginning to show on face and body. This segment has two main settings: First in a tavern, and then in an alleyway. In the latter, the MC meets another woman, but unlike the abusive, river woman, this one appears to have good intention. As you read, consider two things: 
1) How do the experiences in this segment fit with what has gone before, and 
2) What impacts do the experiences have for the MC’s future?



The nervous girl serves the food with a fork 
on a chipped white plate. The meat smells like prey
long dead – a slab of flesh from a butchered cow 
not hunted or caught running but raised tame
cut down inside a wicked, narrow fence
I recall brilliant rainbow-scaled bodies 
flopping in the bottom of my red boat
If a creature is fated to be eaten
final honor should be granted to it
to look into the hunter’s eyes and see thanks 
and mourning before death comes to close eyes
All this rises unbidden instantly
I stare at the meat and something once green

“Is something wrong?” the girl asks nervously
“I’ll let you know.” I say not looking up 
“Please pay me now,” she asks quietly 
“Of course.” while handing her the right amount

My appetite burns and I start to feed
on soggy vegetables and then the meat
Two bites let me know how long ago
the poor beast’s slaughter hurried it to death
I leave the rest, push back from the table, 
stand and glare at the man behind the bar
He stares back through narrowed lids—one corner
of his mouth twitches sarcastically                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

“Is this your way of getting rid of strangers?” 
I challenge him demanding an answer
“Everyone who comes in here’s a stranger.”  
He jerks his head disdainfully toward me  
“Think what you want.  It’s not my business.”  
He turns pretending to clean the bar top.

I’m tempted to pick a scrap but decide 
this is a small-time cat fight in a place
of far more perilous predators
Grabbing my pack, I stare angrily
Argose unleashed looks over his shoulder
            as if to say, what are you waiting for?

I walk out to the street in air as stale 
as the tavern’s atmosphere, and I search
for fresher air and open space – suddenly
I begin to feel feeble and nauseous
With unexpected violence my stomach 
erupts and I have only enough time 
to reach the gutter before I wretch out 
a gray and yellow stream - a putrid flow 
pitiful amid the clicks of scuttling feet.   
Argose leaps and is at my side licking
            and pawing at my arm
Rain drips off building eaves and runs trickling
            into gutters washing away my filth
I’m dizzy and slack-legged and can’t go on
I tie Argose’s leash to my rope belt
            trudge off and find a long alley to rest
Halfway I must slide down leaning and sick
            again, trying to stay out of the rainstorm
            under a door lintel, I don’t care whose
Argose curls up next to the wet threshold 
My head spins: I can barely sit upright
In a few minutes, I vomit again
            this time, no gutter rush washes away
The mess spreads with the rain pooling ugly
Despite this, I nod off to raindrop-rhythm 
Argose wet but warm and near – soft breathing

Sometime later, Argose stands and growls low
            at scraping behind the door, sliding bolt
The door opens and knocks me off my perch
“Woa – hoa! Who’s this sitting outside my door?”
I reel and fall, my hand splats in my mess
Argose leaping is at my side licking
            my face and pawing my arm
I stand wobbling, grabbing the upper arms
            of a woman dressed all ‘a black: a dress
                        swings ‘round her ankles and loose head scarf frames
                                    her furrowed face, wisps of gray hair escape
                                    curling lazily down her forehead 
                                                and her black face – her chin and neck reveal
                                                sloping blotches of dark spots everywhere
                        a hundred wrinkled lines interweaving
                        across her forehead, cheeks, and drooping lids
                                    so low I wonder how she can see from under them
She reaches round and grabs my elbows
“There now. I’ve got you. You won’t fall so long
                        as you relax and don’t fight me
Turn slowly now and step down off this landing.”
She slips one hand down to my wrist
            and the other on my shoulder – the hand
            on my wrist looks like its veins are about to burst
                        all roped and knotty, yet skin loose as silk
I still hold her arms for fear I will fall
            off the stoop and a second time in my vomit
She lifts my soiled hand that grasps her right arm
            and with two fingers she dangles my sleeve
                        then drops my arm like the soiled thing it is
“That’s no way to greet a lady,” she smirks 
“Sorry,” is all I can think to say now
I know what a wretch I am and how I smell”
She stands, hands on hips, smile deepens until
            full glory of each inch of skin peaking 
out from her widow’s weeds
I turn, step down, as Argose turns playful
            prancing, weaving and turning in circles
The dark woman teeters down the three steps
            faces me with piercing glare but smiling
I realize I’m staring – my face flushes
Argose pushes his nose into my leg
All this happens flashing, and then she speaks.
“You look like you’ve eaten a mangy cat 
            all pale and shaking with spittle drooling
“Yes, but not a cat; rather, soured food
            in a tavern over there,” I point out
“You can’t be too careful in this district.
            They’ll sell you slop, take your money – Farewell!”
“Yes, that’s it exactly. Like I was some
            criminal vagabond come to rob them.”
“I can see their view. You look quite scruffy.”
“I’ve been on the river for some months now
            and haven’t had much chance to groom myself
            except with river water and comb twigs”
“Yes, you smell like that is all you have done
Say, I can’t stand here now talking with you
Someone I knew died and there’s a funeral
            down by the river – he wants his boat burned
                        with him aboard, then after drowned in water”
“I’ve never heard of that way of going
Seems like a sad waste of a good boat”
“Well, he’s from the north where people are strange
Apparently, his people sail widely
but I really have to go now or . . . say,
            why don’t you come with me to the burning?
                        unless you have something better to do
                        there will be food after the boat goes down.”


Background
Once again, I draw on my experience of city after city in the decades I travelled for my work. Never knowing what the next meal would be: awful or magnificent. I never had it so bad when it came to sleeping accommodations; I always had a bed and a shower. Still, I often felt like an innocent waif at the mercy of the people and conditions of the concentration of heavy-breathed entities and gray buildings. I couldn’t wait to get back home – to another city.

Exploration 1: As the MC enters the City and the tavern, the following thought arises. Do you have any opinion or feeling about it? Do you find the statement congruent with events up to this time?

“If a creature is fated to be eaten
final honor should be granted to it
to look into the hunter’s eyes and see thanks 
and mourning before death comes”

Exploration 2: Compare and contrast the bar experience with the next scene wherein the MC meets the woman in black. How are they similar and how different?

Exploration 3: This seems like a good time to fill in Argose’s origin. Google his name. Compare/contrast what you find with the canine of this narrative.

Exploration 4: What do you make of the woman in black? Do you have any inklings as to how she will add or subtract from the narrative?
















Comments

  1. If we're going to eat animals, we need to respect them. I don't think the animal can appreciate your gratitude when you have a knife in your hand.
    That's a pretty bad bar. Fortunately the woman in back seems simpatico.
    All I could find on Argose was the character in the game World of Warcraft.
    The woman is ugly but she's not evil. She invites MC to the funeral and the funeral supper. MC must be getting hungry. The woman will likely impart some wisdom along with supper.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Argose/try Argos and you will find:
    Argos is the name of Odysseus' faithful dog in Homer's epic poem The Odyssey. When Odysseus returns home to Ithaca in disguise, Argos (now much older than when his owner left him) is the only one in the household who recognizes him immediately.
    Yes, the woman in black is an inverse of the river woman - we shall see what that means.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment