The Wheezing Royalty

  “I’ve never seen a good-looking homeless couple.”

                                                     -  George Carlin

So there he was-- an asthmatic crow, his head bobbing for anything that would save him.

The corrupted air had jilted his lungs.  His gizzards were sore and distended like a rich man with gout.  If there was a better way he hadn't figured it out yet.  He wheezed into the black night and could hear the voice of his little man inside.  He kicked the bottle of empty booze and watched a plastic Pathmark bag blow in the breeze, the ripples caused by the wind made him think of his Snowshoe's wavy fur and her delicious bouts of OCD early in the mornings when she'd spread her tongue halfway around heaven trying to get clean.  She had the cleanest coat he'd ever seen.

 "You should get rid of the cat," the doctors advised.

 "Never," he said. "That cat's saved my life."

 "She's ruining your life, you're asthmatic..."

 "I'm allergic to lots of things, including this cashmere sweater.  It's ruining my neck," he said, "and he took it off to expose the red patch of skin percolating beneath his Adam's apple.

 "Don't wear it," the doctor said.

 "It's all I've got," he said.  "Besides, it's nice isn't it?"

 "Yes, but --”

 "Well if it’s all I've got I've got to make the best of it.  I'll be all right, all I need is a little Aloe Vera.  Wished that'd work for my lungs.  You think that would work for my lungs?"

 "No," the doctor said, annoyed.

 "You never know..."

 "You'll get sick."

 "I'm sick already."

 "I'm going to give you an inhaler and some steroids."

 "I'll take the inhaler, but I don't want the steroids.  Last time I took those, I couldn't find my friend."

 "You're..."

 "My man in the boat.  And when you're not feeling well, last thing you want to do is fight to find your friend, you know what I mean?  It makes peeing a humiliating experience."

 "Steroids may tend to cause shrinkage, but it's only temporary -- "

 "Tell that to the athletes. If I was making a couple million maybe I'd be able to divert myself from my loins but honestly, after my imagination, and my lungs -- well, they're all I've got."

 "Don't forget about your cat."

 "Oh no, never. But she's a different being.  She's outside of me."

 "Uh-huh.  Besides the labored breathing, what else can I help you with?"

 "I keep hearing this voice -- "

 "It's the wheezing."

 "No, no, no.  Besides that voice, I keep hearing this...sound in my head."

 "Uh-huh."

 "Like a passing political campaign van, the ones that make those announcements--"

 "The recordings through the bullhorn?"

 "Yes.  I keep hearing that in my left ear, then it gets chased out by an Ice Cream truck."

 "Could be a side effect -- "

 "Of this city, yes.  Yes, it is.  But then wouldn't I become inured to it?  Two nights ago I was up all night due to construction down the block."

 "They're doing construction at night."

 "No, they're doing construction in the morning.  At one in the morning until four in the morning."

 "Must have been an emergency, water mane break could -- "

 "No, this was no water mane break.  Trust me, when you've got limp lungs you always know what's working and what isn't."

 "And what do you think it was?  You think they were doing this for fun?"

Freemont stared at the Doctor.

 "Surely, they weren't -- "

 "Think about, doc.  If you had millions of dollars to play with, you'd start to get bored.  It's normal.  You'd think to yourself: 'What can I do today?'  Instead of fixing a hole, you'd try to make one...get everyone's mind to wash down them...See?  You'd find ways of...agitating the general public.  Especially if the general public wasn't in your zip code or at least a solid half-mile away."

 "Do you mean to say - !"

 "Ssshhh," he warned.

 "Do you mean to say," the doctor whispered, "that the construction workers are doing this on purpose?"  And his voice nearly cracked when he said "purpose."

 "Absolutely not.  They're just working.  In fact, I know some of those guys.  I'm talking about the man on top who grants them permission, who gives the order...to make the noise."

 "What medications are you on?"

 "None.  That's why I'm here.  You think having a limp lung makes me paranoid?"

 "I think having extreme allergies can cause slight hysteria, making you feel susceptible -- "

 "To being a pawn?  To being abused?  Che Guevara's asthma didn't shoot him, doc."

 "No.  But his desire to end the wheezing did."

Freemont stared at the doctor, not knowing what to say.  The volleyball match had come to an end and his chest puffed out the way a boy's juts when he fancies himself a superhero or some kind of caped crusader.

He decided that's what he needed.  A cape and a cane.  It would go well with his cashmere itch and Albuterol breath.

He drank a black coffee on the corner and waited for his bus.  His breathing calmed down and he ate a fresh orange from the vendor beside him.  The meds were beginning to take hold of him, he felt light headed and his gait became less a march and more of a tap-dance upon the sidewalk.  He felt giddy and a dumb smile belying his brains raised his cheeks like Venetian blinds, line by line -- his muscles had flexed upward and now he looked like some fancy drunk or a college stoner.  They couldn't make him out, but the vendor knew the deal: "You remind me of a young Mahatma.  When he was a lawyer."

 "Oh yeah?  Does that mean I'll live the way he did before he gave up all his fancy clothes?"

 The vendor didn't reply.

 "What would he have said about all this money in the clouds?"

The vendor began to arrange the apples and oranges on his stand.

 "You know, I'm convinced I have asthma because of our society, what do you think about that?"

 "Maybe you should write a book," he said.

 "Nah, no one would read it. And I don't like writing."

 "What do you like?"

 "I enjoy waking up in the mornings.  I don't mean getting out of bed, but I enjoy watching the sun rise when I can.  And I enjoy breakfast and anything having to do with breakfast.  I enjoy getting ready...and then afterwards, it seems as if without no warning life just does a quick turn-around and knocks you into a corner and says: gotcha!'  Ever feel that way?  That maybe we're all being banged around at somebody else's expense."

 "America is great country."

 "There are no great countries.  Only great people.  And if you had the honor of meeting some great people you'd realize they put any great country to shame."

 "And you are great?"

 "No, I'm not great.  But my wife is," He said with a soft thrust of his chin.

And so the Lady Victoria approached his wheezing G-clef profile like a haunting piece of music.  He called her "Frau Hofner" because she reminded him of a McCartney walking bass-line but when she slowed it was more a James Jamerson groove, like the tempting notes of a hypnotic Temptations ballad, but calling her Motown in that area wouldn't have been prudent(the Apollo spinsters would have been jealous).  Twice, the banshees on the buses accused him of being her pimp and once the ruthless curbstone kids called her a bitch on account of her impeccable style.  But it was not so much her clothes, it was her beauty.  She tried to "plain Jane" it for a while, but since it didn’t suit her she donned a cape in order to compliment her Flapper-hat and cigarette legs.  They looked as if they had fallen from a rejected chapter of a Fitzgerald novel.  One in which a Sultan and heiress had run off together, presumably in a yacht or motor boat in some orange-water-sky...celebrating all they could in each other’s eyes and ears.

Well, he certainly didn't care for Fitzgerald, and was more of a Hemingway-and-

Their craziness was elevated to eccentricities by the people around them and, when in supremely generous moods, they were regarded like royalty - whether it was on the street, a park bench, a newsstand, or a diner.

Later that same day they had been pleasantly accosted by a drunkard who swore on his dead mother's grave that Freemont's name was Goldie and that he had been a "bad motherfucker" in his time and he chided Freemont about going "straight," but ended up praising his cool style and his "fine woman."  He was completely captivated by Victoria 's charm and beauty.  He called her "The Queen." 

He told Freemont: "Don't forget me, man.  You's my home-boy, motherfucka.  You's my number one black ben, you know what I'm saying?  You Goldie, my man, and I remember when you had two, three bitches on your arm - !  Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry Queen...Don't forget Teddybear, baby, alright?  Today's my birthday!  Today's my 50th birthday, man...and I -- " he burped -- "I ain't got shit to show 'n tell...I got nothing to make nothing, man.  Like Billy Preston said."

 "And Shakespeare before him," Freemont agreed.

Teddybear's drunken face sobered in a devastatingly serious gaze. "Oh, shoot...Really?"

 "Yes, but Billy said it with more finesse."

 "God-damn, I like the words you use, man!"  He lit up like a Christmas tree. 

 "God-damn, ma'am!  Thank you! Thank you! Oh, I'm sorry.  I'm sorry, Goldie,  I didn't mean to damn God in front of your Queen."

 "Makes no difference to me, there's no God anyway.  If there was you wouldn't be out here tortured on your birthday and...Neither would we."

 "Oh, man.  That's powerful, Goldie.  You my main muthafucka."

 "I used to be," Freemont fictionalized, "but...those days are over.  I'm trying to get off this plantation."

 "Well you got yo'self a head start," he retorted, pointing to Victoria.  "Get me a horse like that and I'd ride my ass right outta here..."

 "Yes," and the Queen tried to smile,regretting she'd given him the dollar, "I'm sure you would."

 "You'd make anyone's dream come true," he injected into her disappointment and this time, he meant it.  "You're beautiful.  Beauty's truth, you know."

 "Not if ugliness rules the world," she said.

 "Damn right, girl.  And you smart, too -- so I ain't gonna fuck wit' yous, no mo'.  You two are some serious mothers.  Show your shit, strut your stuff, don't take no shit.  You too cool..."

 "Well," Victoria was about to say.

 "Or, maybe--maybe you just too good. I lost my momma when I was five.  Five.  I miss her every day..." Teddybear turned slowly on his heels and walked a few steps into the darkness.

Teddybear had lost.  Freemont and Victoria had been given up.  There was something that each party could never quite understand about the other, but a genuine sympathy for what the other had endured.

Arm in arm, the tramps walked into the bar beside them.  It was a medium sized bar with a lounge and assorted young-urban-professionals, a few dilettantes, and perhaps a genuine loner or two.  They had just missed happy hour and had barely sixteen dollars between them.  She ordered a Cosmo, he a glass of water, and they shared her drink slowly and exquisitely as if the night would last forever.  They had to go out every now and then just to see if they were still alive and available to the planet.

And they were always re-assured of their existence when some unfortunate soul asked them for money or "spare change."    Freemont said, sadly, to one alcoholic down on his luck: "We got no spare change, we are spare change."

The bum thought he was funny. "And what am I?"

 "You're loose change."

HAH! Hah-hah-hah! And he laughed himself into one of the asthmatic crow's wheezes, painful and dry, and his hoarse voice struggled to get the words out:     

 "You're no better than me.  You think you're better??"

 "I didn't say better.  We're different.  We're spared, passed over.  You're loose and goosed, that's all.  Let's compare lint, I bet you got more lint in your pocket than I do."

They turned their pockets out.  Victoria stepped aside and made sure she was not being part of Freemont's spectacle.  The bum had more lint.  He won the bet.  And he felt good about it.  The asthmatics embraced and wheezed in harmony and went their separate ways.

Counting the lines on their palms, the lovers realized if they ever had gotten a lot of money, they would never forget the people who enriched their lives.  And they would never forget the horror of poverty and having to lie about who they were, had been, could be...But there was no "could be", there was only the lingering present tense which uttered: convictions keep you poor, loyalty keeps you rich.  And love, that tenuous but muscular invisible string, would keep them just a little better than human.

(c) October 2009

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