Tekamthi seemed to know before it even happened. He never rode the subway, never. It was one of the few things anyone who knew him could have told you. Yet Balthazar noticed him right away. With Hopper dead in his arms, Balthazar turned and saw William Tekamthi sitting there, with a look in his eyes that expressed the deepest sympathy imaginable. It was almost an apology.
As for the rest of him, Tekamthi was obviously agitated. He was shaking a nervous leg, a hand clumsily grasping it as if to make an attempt to stop it. The other hand sat on a hip, and Tekamthi sat not entirely on his seat, as if he did not want to be seated at all, and every jolt threatened to grant him his wish. Other passengers noticed him more than they did the dead man, which actually seemed appropriate. He projected gravitas, but the kind that was not self-important, and was thus all the more attractive. He was not a man who would easily be lost in a crowd, unless he wanted to be, a skill he had long ago perfected, but one he did not always bother with, because it was tedious, and Tekamthi was not a tedious man.
“We’re going to have to get that off this thing,” he said, to no disagreement. “When does it stop? That poor soul might be the only one who could tell us.” He was fast warming to the situation, compensating for his own defects and embracing the need that had brought him here, like a second skin. Now he clung to a pole as he inched closer, no longer seeming out of place but rather a native of this jet stream, like the man he was helping mourn. “Don’t let go.”
It seemed the best course to follow. If Balthazar did, Hopper’s death would become apparent even to those who would rather ignore this complication to their day at all costs, even going so far as to tell themselves outright lies they had no intention of actually believing, but rather for the convenience of it. It would have been easier for these people to overlook Hopper if Balthazar made an announcement and had the subway stopped prematurely, because they could have at least written the stunt off as a prank. No, if he let it slump, the body might contort unnaturally. What people most believed in were the strict confines of what they expected. However strange, then, that they found him cradling this body, it would have to continue, until the next stop. Balthazar would just have to bear this weight.
“I don’t envy you,” Tekamthi said. “It must be difficult, especially if you knew this man, even for a moment. It’s gone, isn’t it? Replaced by a perverse echo? He still projects calm, but now it’s the calm of release. He used project containment. They’re so close, yet so different, opposite forces, two sides of a coin. That’s what people fear most of all, about death. They fear what they will leave behind. Will they be remembered for the way they wanted to be, or the way they actually were? Will their absence be regretted, or simply mourned? Will their absence mean anything but absence? What will they have taken away from the world?
“It’s ironic. People spend their whole lives taking things from the world, when what matters in the end is exactly the opposite. You can never truly take anything, but you can give. The giving is the accomplishment of living. Our friend Hopper here gave everything. He kept nothing for himself. He gave us the idea that containment does not have to be negative, does not have to be selfish. It does not even have to be obvious. I’m guessing that you will find this release more troubling as the days advance, because it will mean that much more to you. You will realize how much he gave. We think of life as something we need to fill with accomplishments, but accomplishments are not ours alone. They belong to all of humanity. We alone pass them along from generation to generation, never to a single individual, and never from a single individual. We see men from time to time who happen to have made visible contributions, and call them our great men, but in the end, they did nothing that was so different from any other man. They were not so great. They just happened to win more attention.”
“You’re talking like Cotton Colinaude,” Balthazar said.
“And you’re talking again,” Tekamthi said. “And I see that you did find him. It was easier than you thought, wasn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Balthazar said.
“Of course you wouldn’t,” Tekamthi said. “Ah, Balthazar, you still have a good deal to learn, don’t you? Both about yourself, and the world around you.”
“I know myself,” Balthazar said.
“You certainly think you do,” Tekamthi said. “It’s really quite charming, you know. I applaud you. You are one of the most unique people I have known. That is no small fete. I have known many people in my time, many interesting people. Everyone is interesting, you know, if you take the time to find out. Perhaps I’ve just been blessed with an abundance of that, time, but I have never been misled by this assumption. You could get lost just exploring this notion. Everyone has a story, and it isn’t merely a one-note anthem, but rather something to be explored, and once you do, you will find that it does not resolve itself easily, in your mind. It lingers. We attach ourselves to family, naturally, but you could just as easily form such a bond, if you so chose, with any random person you met. Take that man, for example.”
Here Tekamthi indicated a rather tall man, well-built and dressed in jeans and a polo shirt, drumming his fingers against the window behind him, who did not seem at all aware of Hopper, or the conversation that had sprung around him.
“I wonder what your first assumption would be,” Tekamthi said.
“I would ignore him,” Balthazar said, “because he probably does not have anything of interest for me. Sports, aggression, and all that.”
“You yourself are involved in aggressive activities,” Tekamthi said. “I would not have assumed that from your appearance. In fact, I would assume that you were a relatively indescript office type, if it weren’t for your stubble and weary eyes, though the dead eyes themselves might lend credence to my initial assumption, assuming I did not read into that as well.
“At any rate, why dismiss him even at that?”
“Because I don’t relate to the type,” Balthazar said. “Because the type doesn’t relate to me.”
“Look closer, Balthazar,” Tekamthi said. “Tell me what you see in the way his raps his fingers.”
“I see impatience,” Balthazar said. “Again, nothing I would not have guessed.”
“Tell me what you see in his eyes,” Tekamthi said.
“I’m not going to do that,” Balthazar said.
“Why not?” Tekamthi said. “Are you embarrassed?”
“It’s just…awkward,” Balthazar said.
“You’re afraid,” Tekamthi said. “Tell me, do you have a theory for what he may be doing, where he may be going?”
“No,” Balthazar said.
“That would necessitate intimacy,” Tekamthi said. “Looking beyond the surface. You are not in the least interested to find out?”
“It probably has something to do with his abundance of testosterone,” Balthazar said. “Like I said, I’m just not interested in his type.”
“Which you are still assuming,” Tekamthi said. “Character traits do not create a character. They create character traits. You can define the traits, but not the character, with them. And then you realize you have nothing at all. You cannot tell me a single thing about him, not his past even?”
“That would be impossible,” Balthazar said.
“Every person carries a mark of their life in their appearance,” Tekamthi said. “Our parents gave us the clay. We molded that clay. You’ve already taken a superficial aspect of his appearance to heart. Do you observe anything else? You have never seen him before. Can you not tell me who he is? Can you not read anything into him? Why can’t you?”
“Because it’s impossible,” Balthazar said.
“Nothing is impossible,” Tekamthi said.
“Plenty is impossible,” Balthazar said.
“Within reason,” Tekamthi said.
“Exactly,” Balthazar said.
“And this is within reason,” Tekamthi said. “Try.”
“He’s wearing a polo,” Balthazar said. “I suppose that doesn’t quite fit into my, uh, stereotype. So points to you on that.”
“Dig deeper,” Tekamthi said. “Look into his eyes.”
“He’s wearing loafers,” Balthazar said. “Another point to you. I wouldn’t have guessed that, either.”
“Balthazar,” Tekamthi said.
“All right,” Balthazar said. “His eyes. His eyes. They’re…moist. My god, they’re moist. You knew this all along, didn’t you?”
“We don’t look for what we don’t want to,” Tekamthi said. “You will notice that he’s holding shades in his other hand. He’s not even trying to hide it, even though he could. Tell me how this fits into your stereotype. Tell me how you are not superficial.”
“I feel as I’ve violated him,” Balthazar said.
“You’ve violated yourself,” Tekamthi said. “Not all violations are evil. Some are revelations.”
“You won’t be able to sell that one very easily,” Balthazar said.
“No, I suppose I will not,” Tekamthi said. “But I have been able to distract you long enough. Our ride has ended.”
Balthazar almost didn’t believe him, but it was true. The subway had halted. The man they had been discussing was no longer there. Balthazar had stolen only a few glances at him, yet even those had seemed too many, Tekamthi’s prodding too much. But the old man had had a point, hadn’t he? Another lesson to learn, another one he had not realized was necessary.
They carried Hopper’s body through the terminal and out into daylight again. If anyone had noticed, Balthazar was not made aware of it. They continued on until they reached a resting spot in the park, which was virtually abandoned. Tekamthi suggested they leave Hopper on a bench, which at first Balthazar thought to dismay out of hand, until he thought about it. There was really no other choice. As unceremonious, as undignified as it would be, it was the best option. No one would have expected anything more from Hopper’s death. It was all they would have given him. There was no one to claim his body, not among all the souls he had touched on his journey, because he had given them what they needed and left it at that. He needed nothing for himself, and that was what struck Balthazar as why this would be appropriate. He appreciated Tekamthi’s wisdom, or whatever it amounted to. His experience, as Cotton would have deemed it.
He and Tekamthi left the park behind without another thought. There were still things they needed to do. Tekamthi had yet more to teach Balthazar.
No comments:
Post a Comment