THE PALE LIGHT OF SUNSET: SCATTERSHOTS AND HALLUCINATIONS IN AN IMAGINED LIFE

Toy Beggar - -1969

165 1969 Toy Beggar It is my birthday and I am alone and from somewhere along the coast a wind blows down on me, picking up spray from the tops of small breakers and driving it, needle-like, across the narrow strand of deserted sand and into my face, a cold storm of the mind. The chilling water runs down my forehead and past my eyes, and I know there are some tears there, mixing with the sea spray. A man shouldn’t be alone on his birthday , I don’t care how old he is. I am sorry that it is my birthday. I didn’t want it to come, to crawl up on me with the weight of another year, another load of long hardscrabble months that keep loading my shoulders, pressing me flat. Another year of waiting. I am just . . . feeling sorry. It is total bullshit, to feel sorry, but it is my right, on my birthday. I think I will do it just this one time, here, alone on a beach at the edge of a jungle that I have been sleeping in for weeks, and will continue to sleep in until they let me get the hell out of this fucking country where hot storms rage in from the ocean and into the countryside, twisting La Ceiba trees from the soil and flinging them whole into the tarpaper shacks of the people. People who had nothing before the storm, and have less afterwards. The beach runs for miles, finally blending into the jungle. I walk toward the far end, knowing I will never get there, the sun falling into the jungle Lee Maynard 166 behind me. Finally, I turn and walk back toward the miserable little town, walking on the far edge of the sand, close to the water, feeling the force of the wind increase, blowing hard against my thoughts. If this scene were in a movie, I think, it would be edited out, a cliché rightfully left on the cutting room floor. An hour later I am nearing the town and can see the long stone breakwater that juts into the gulf, a tiny part of it lit by a single bulb mounted on a leaning post. And then I see him, sitting under the light on a broken wooden crate, waiting. On bright warm days people from the town walk out on the breakwater . They fish, talk, hold hands, drink beer and look at the few tourists who manage to find their way into the town. Probably lost. And some of them beg—always the young ones. As he is doing. Only he is sitting there in the near-dark, with no one to beg from, all the people blown back into town by the hot wind. I move closer. He is maybe eight, maybe ten, no older, although it is difficult to tell. He wears shorts and a t-shirt that are too large, making him look smaller still. His skinny arms and legs stick out of his clothes like the articulated limbs of a puppet. He is barefoot. He is dirty beyond belief, a grit and grime that have become part of his skin, part of who he is. His skin and hair are of such a color that I have difficulty seeing where the hair begins. He does not move. There is no need. There is no one else on the breakwater, no one for him to move toward. I watch him from a short distance, see that his eyes do move, following me, waiting for me to come closer. As I then do. I catch his look and hold it, not wavering. Closer. When I am but two paces away, he holds out his hand, palm up. I look around, looking for the other children, The Pale Light of Sunset 167 other adults, looking for someone, anyone, anyone who is with this tiny beggar, waiting. There is no one. The boy is a toy beggar in the warm tropical night. Alone. I reach into my pocket. I have a handful of “Limps,” the local currency, virtually worthless. I put the money in his hand. He closes his fingers around it and slowly withdraws his arm, the hand holding the money coming to rest in his lap. After that, he does not move. I wait, but he does nothing, says nothing. It finally occurs to me that...