Wolf
Дух волк
He was wearing trenches in the flooring of the motel room, pacing that same route in the grey lino, over and over, window to door, window to door. Smoke, cough, drink, think, count the steps it takes – one, two, three, four – four strides: the cheap room was four full, gangly strides long – value for money, if there ever was. A place on the highway where the solitary wolves go to lick their wounds together, cast out and alone but as an entity in their separate corrals; a pack of sorts.
Whatever she had made him, he was still a solitary wolf.
It was evident in the foyer where he had stood at the desk, and counted four out of the seven other people who could possibly be in his exact same situation. Four. Four men of varying ages and levels of sobriety, all of them alone. The other three had been together, a mother and her two children, the youngest tearful but the oldest with the same vacant, beaten expression as her mother, holding her hand and staring into empty space by the halogen light hanging from the low ceiling, painted a familiar shade of unholy magnolia.
Oh yes, he thought now as he threw his last cigarette out of the window. This surely is the house of the broken.
The repair shop of the world?
Oh, no.
The trashcan.
He wasn’t signed in under his real name. Stealing a glance at the book, he guessed that not many people were. The broken mother could sign in as Madonna, and the woman behind the desk would not so much as raise an eyebrow. Tonight he was Abe Sapien, unhuman as ever in jeans and a clean white shirt, and he felt more like himself than he had for quite some time. Solitary wolves are never at their sharpest in company, castrated by the life of morning coffee and evening television, offices and curtains and bank statements and car washes and dinner with the in-laws and sex every Tuesday. The eyes go dull and the fur loses its lustre, and, with his teeth filed down and his belly full of too much bland food, he forgets what it was like to live in the woods on the edge of his senses, and it becomes all he knows.
This old dog had learned a new trick tonight.
He had learned to run away.
She had told him, his beautiful young wife in his beautiful clean house, shouting as her artistic young husband, she had told him that she didn’t understand him. He had been pleased at this; the day someone understood him would be the day he would feel like giving up. She had told him that he was impossible to live with. He didn’t find this too difficult to believe – she had only known him for eight years, and it had taken longer than that for him to learn enough about himself to not live in self-loathing. She had told him that he had no morals, and he had thought to himself that that was an interesting observation – maybe he did have a slightly skewed idea of right and wrong, but he had witnessed so much art made from things that were further towards the black, so much beauty in the widely accepted wrong, that he supposed it had all turned to shades of grey for him now.
And so he had stood up, and she had taken a step back, shocked, thinking that maybe he would sink to hitting her, that maybe he was like all the other men on this lovely street in this Very Nice neighbourhood, and that she had stepped out of line and would be promptly put in her place. He hadn’t – he had thanked her, and kissed her on the cheek, coolly and calmly. She had heard him say something about wolves, and he had bounded up the stairs, coming back down some twenty minutes later with two large bags, said goodbye and stepped out of the door, down the garden path and driven off in the smaller, cheaper car.
Five hours later he had found himself walking into the halogen foyer of the building where the trash gives itself new names. He found that it wasn’t one of those places that changes your mind – just the way an empty container should, it acted simply as residence to his thoughts, and he found himself thinking that it was really rather nice, for all it’s cracks in the walls and patches on the paint that could have been a wayward drink thrown in anger or escaped during a clumsy fall, or the blood of someone who had been given the keys to this room and found it not so soothing.
It was drawing close to morning, and he sat down on the bed, regarding the window and the blackness beyond it, and the way it acted as a mirror, one amenity that was absent in this sparse room – stared at himself through his wise old eyes in his young, moonlike face. Elephant eyes. Wolf spirit. Wolf. Man. Elephant. Four. Abe. Wolf…
He fell asleep and dreamt of forests and moose, and living on the edge of his senses.
Whatever she had made him, he was still a solitary wolf.
It was evident in the foyer where he had stood at the desk, and counted four out of the seven other people who could possibly be in his exact same situation. Four. Four men of varying ages and levels of sobriety, all of them alone. The other three had been together, a mother and her two children, the youngest tearful but the oldest with the same vacant, beaten expression as her mother, holding her hand and staring into empty space by the halogen light hanging from the low ceiling, painted a familiar shade of unholy magnolia.
Oh yes, he thought now as he threw his last cigarette out of the window. This surely is the house of the broken.
The repair shop of the world?
Oh, no.
The trashcan.
He wasn’t signed in under his real name. Stealing a glance at the book, he guessed that not many people were. The broken mother could sign in as Madonna, and the woman behind the desk would not so much as raise an eyebrow. Tonight he was Abe Sapien, unhuman as ever in jeans and a clean white shirt, and he felt more like himself than he had for quite some time. Solitary wolves are never at their sharpest in company, castrated by the life of morning coffee and evening television, offices and curtains and bank statements and car washes and dinner with the in-laws and sex every Tuesday. The eyes go dull and the fur loses its lustre, and, with his teeth filed down and his belly full of too much bland food, he forgets what it was like to live in the woods on the edge of his senses, and it becomes all he knows.
This old dog had learned a new trick tonight.
He had learned to run away.
She had told him, his beautiful young wife in his beautiful clean house, shouting as her artistic young husband, she had told him that she didn’t understand him. He had been pleased at this; the day someone understood him would be the day he would feel like giving up. She had told him that he was impossible to live with. He didn’t find this too difficult to believe – she had only known him for eight years, and it had taken longer than that for him to learn enough about himself to not live in self-loathing. She had told him that he had no morals, and he had thought to himself that that was an interesting observation – maybe he did have a slightly skewed idea of right and wrong, but he had witnessed so much art made from things that were further towards the black, so much beauty in the widely accepted wrong, that he supposed it had all turned to shades of grey for him now.
And so he had stood up, and she had taken a step back, shocked, thinking that maybe he would sink to hitting her, that maybe he was like all the other men on this lovely street in this Very Nice neighbourhood, and that she had stepped out of line and would be promptly put in her place. He hadn’t – he had thanked her, and kissed her on the cheek, coolly and calmly. She had heard him say something about wolves, and he had bounded up the stairs, coming back down some twenty minutes later with two large bags, said goodbye and stepped out of the door, down the garden path and driven off in the smaller, cheaper car.
Five hours later he had found himself walking into the halogen foyer of the building where the trash gives itself new names. He found that it wasn’t one of those places that changes your mind – just the way an empty container should, it acted simply as residence to his thoughts, and he found himself thinking that it was really rather nice, for all it’s cracks in the walls and patches on the paint that could have been a wayward drink thrown in anger or escaped during a clumsy fall, or the blood of someone who had been given the keys to this room and found it not so soothing.
It was drawing close to morning, and he sat down on the bed, regarding the window and the blackness beyond it, and the way it acted as a mirror, one amenity that was absent in this sparse room – stared at himself through his wise old eyes in his young, moonlike face. Elephant eyes. Wolf spirit. Wolf. Man. Elephant. Four. Abe. Wolf…
He fell asleep and dreamt of forests and moose, and living on the edge of his senses.
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