Must Be Nice

 Act I: The Empiricist

Kids never look away. Most sit up, some even wave. They concede to me a look reserved for strays at a pound their parents might adopt someday. I hate it when I make the odd one cry. I know I appear like a rag doll covered in recycled cloth and paper, shifty and vile, hand half-outstretched; let's leave out what has become of my face. Even though the effect is part of the act, scaring a kid is ideally not how I would like my spare change.

Adults are the ones desperately reaching for their center-locks, window-locks, and whatnot. All this time not once looking in my direction, even as their faces and spines stiffen like some exotic poison kicking in. Willing the lights to turn green with the tightened grip on their steering. They then act as if I would obey their head bob, nod or wave and leave them be. The want me away lest my breath (it is bad, I agree) seep into their metal cocoon leading to a horrific death. People, I am a beggar, not a highwayman! I’m not leaving ‘coz there’s no other place to be. By the way, want to ensure drivers always keep their eyes on the road? Hire homeless guys to walk the shoulder every few miles.

I catch them at the traffic lights at the third exit from the Highway. It's been my spot for the better part of the month. It's the exit to the coast, and conveniently situated at an underpass. Shade and camouflage. This is the beginning of the season. Traffic is not expected to pick up for at least another week. The pickings are all mine, as here I'm the only "unhoused person" hoping for a handout. Even better, no cops. For now. Speaking of pickings, the ‘hits’ are better if there is a kid’s window I could smudge.

My shoes have been a shambles for a while. Now no more than a shell made of leather, foam and twine held together somehow. The woolen socks had worn to let at least one toe peek past. Like a veiled woman repelled by a relentless breeze, my toes curl inward every time it senses the elements, now no more than a peel of rubber away. As if cringing from an awful yet inevitable Fate.

There's no art to any of this. Just living, getting to at least one meal a day at a time. Or a sweet escape with a pill, needle, or both. It is but a layer of dust and grime that separate us.

This last expedition was ideal. They decided against killing the mood mining their cup-holders for loose change, and instead, expeditiously got rid of me with a crisp note. I could tap-dance. Thank you, Sir. Must be nice.

Act II: The Cynic

That was a 20. A twenty. For a bum. If my husband could have it his way, we would wire money ahead to every no-good road-roach, if only to save him the discomfort. What happened to small change? Are we rich now? Would that vagrant have kidnapped us otherwise? It’s a half hour to the hotel without traffic. Keeping thoughts to myself ensures a peaceful transit, minus the ‘silent treatment’ I would otherwise get dished.

The kids were bored into their handsets, until the lights matched us with the Troll of the Underpass. Being the only car at a red light also means the deity provides you his undivided attention. As the figure lurched near, a couple of meek requests for foreign aid started off from the back seats housing our emo sub-teenage souls. Now miraculously off their online avatars and all in favor of good old socialism. Maybe just for getting them off their damned headsets and screens, I guess, my husband decided the beggar deserved an annual bonus. Did that guy just do a bow or curtsy or something? I can’t even.

I bite my tongue. Light changed, released brake, and zoom. A bit much though, for the tyres did squeal and probably smoked. The prodigals in the back surely thrown back in their seats, and back to their online troughs. No cops in the area, hopefully.

These people are coddled by the Government; I’m sure he earns enough from this gig over and above what those doles, soup kitchens and shelters provide. Enough for some primo uncut you-know-what on the side. Must be nice.

Act III: The Stoic

Most traffic interdictions or “stops” are either down to bad-luck or bad driving. It is bad luck if you were up to no good otherwise and a cop catches you while, say, speeding. It is bad driving when you decide to try a Formula1-adjacent start while rocking a mere family van. Tyre squealers/smokers are a pet peeve of cops, and I am no exception. The only ones who should be doing this are rich kids in souped-up rides with money to spare for the ticket. Not some 3-row fully laden minibus headed to the beach.

My perch is a few hundred yards from the exit where I get a first-class view of the route. Radar is enforced. It is also a No-Solicitation zone. There are signs posted to these effects. I call in to dispatch and ease onto the ramp. First task would be to light up and pull over racer-boy or girl. Most likely worth a Ticket, but we’ll see. On the way back, I would be making acquaintance with the latest moocher menacing this stop light.

No way they’re getting away with this. What are these people thinking? Must be nice.

The Taste of Water

I hate waking up like this. I hate waking up to this.

Feverish, but with no fever. An overwhelming sense of fatigue that weighs on my limbs. Head groggy, from a night of drinking? Or did a fever just lift? My mouth nearly always blanched dry. A tongue that registers barely any taste, save for the nauseating sourness left by a pill reluctant to go down the gullet.

My ears begin ringing again, and I begin an early morning ritual of extravagantly opening and closing my jaw hoping to ‘pop’. Whenever the ringing rises to the wheezing of Short-Wave radio, a jiggling index finger in that ear is the only tuner I have available; there’s indeed very little of self-help that’s not been attempted.

There is no respite from any of this, it has been so for so many months now. It is like the pain-laced stupor that welcomes one waking from surgery. For me, it marks every morning.

These might as well be symptoms of sunstroke. But the only bit of sun I am ever allowed is the few hours in the prison yard.

I have a few weeks to go on my sentence. Not that I care. There’s nothing much on the outside for a tax fraud pushing sixty, all worldly possessions now with the State, all relations probably sucking off better endowed teats. I have not become bitter over time, only too realistic. For there is no human condition more ‘real’ than imprisonment. I may one day be free of these walls but will never not shudder at the clinking of a damned lock. Prison takes away your freedom but for a while, it shreds your humanity forever.

For me, it also took a swing at my immunity. Six months ago, the virus hit. The symptoms were roughly fever, cough, cough, cough blood then die in pain. It was hell at the Cantonment Prison; infected prisoners and infected guards in the same sick-bay or even cells, others in the corridors or wherever you could prop a pillow. The Chief Warden was replaced twice, Guards came and went. Some dropped while on duty. Nobody wept for them, of course. Sadly, many of ours endured the same Fate. Though it is rumored the only guy on death-row is still alive and well. Word was that it was worse on the outside. But then, the inside is the only world we are expected to know.

We had pills, inhalants and injections mandatorily prescribed. Or randomly, who knows. Blood tests, or at least samples collected, almost daily. Nobody dared ask what and wherefor. It’s a prison. To the outside world this might not be news, but it sure wasn’t something we were used to. These are places where humans are left to die for want of a torniquet. Prisoners failing to live was not an overall concern. It was the contagion that mattered. If it were a fire, they would have just left us to char.

Three months into the mayhem they carted me away. By then, the administrators had it much under control. Guards didn’t drop dead as much as cough up a baby for a few weeks. Or so I hoped. Very few returned to work though. For us inmates, the badly infected ones were being shunted out. For further tests, or something to that effect, we were told. I am all for science. Finally, the virus caught up with me. I had a few brushes earlier, but when it had me at last, I ran a fever that drove me to delirium. I really don’t remember much of it. I later learned that I had passed out with the first set of medications they put me on.

It is a lot less prison-like in this place. Lot more white-coats queueing up to take samples, peeking into my ear, checking for pulse and, of course, more of the meds. Just no fellow inmates. It is just me in quarters more than twice the one I left behind. Food is decent, as in, clean. I still cannot taste anything to save my life. One of the scour marks left by that fleeing organism. Nowadays chewing followed by swallowing has become a chore. I can’t complain, apart from the incessant rattling inside of me I wake up to.

I sat up. It’s time to eat. It might be a chore, but it got to be done. Meals are seldom served at the prisoner’s convenience. I got rid of the prison tee which was reeking of sweat. I pull on another from the clothesline. Less prison-like or not, Guards generally don’t take kindly to ‘improper attire’, and I wouldn’t want to be denied food, or worse.

The surly, hook-nosed guard is nowhere to be seen. He should have been on duty overnight. I am pretty sure I heard his voice and the muffled thump as he let in the day shift.

I hear a familiar shuffle approaching. This would be an easier day, if not a bit of fun.

Here comes my man. He's from the plains, like my wife. Has the drawl, and the marked lack of irony, who knows, maybe they are related. Were related. He had gotten himself married a month or two ago and has been putting on the pounds. The other guards tease him a lot; 'is she getting you pregnant' and so on. He can't keep a straight face, now that it is a blob, and scowls and rants at them. What an oaf. Just what his friends want to hear, and they hoot and holler at every shift change.

Even so, he is kind to me. The only one who addresses me by name. Almost with respect. Maybe because I'm older. I'm older than the whole lot of them, but then, prisoners are never extended the courtesies of the outside.

I hear the shutter creak, and that ruddy face present itself. He always seems on tiptoe. Starting off with that wide-eyed look past me as he scanned around the room. Then his gaze finally nestled on me, with a wonderment as if he found an emu in a dingo’s cage. It’s the same with him. He would never have lasted a week back at Cantonment.

“Umm. I heard something”. He began. Seemingly ill at ease. Did he catch the virus? He normally starts with a sheepish “Good Morning”, like a kid in class.

“You had two weeks left, correct”?

I felt myself catching my breath. That is never a question to be answered. That never need to be a question. Only a prisoner, only one who ever did time, would realize the nightmare it portends. The only measure, an ever-reducing timeline, a countdown if I may, that a human in here need be aware of. Every breathing second.

I found myself standing. I said nothing. I couldn’t. He continued, as if I just agreed to his.

“They say they cannot let you go. Not that you are ill. It is something else. They say it is in your blood”.

I must have said something or grunted. He repeated, “That’s what they said. The blood results have come back”.

He looked at me, almost smiled, then abruptly averted his gaze. He is a nervous kid. More jangling of the key bunch. 

I really didn't know what to say. I always knew freedom held no promise. I have no one to go back to. But now I would be held here for no reason other than that I survived? There were rumors back at Cantt, of “extensions”. They just tack on a few more weeks or months. For science.

He put the tray down and kept looking away. Same jangling of the keys. I had once told him to act more 'guard-like', you know, soldierly. He should be running a store or running errands. This kind of soldiering is not for him. Always the kid who forgets homework and can't muster any interesting excuse. 

“They say you can't get the disease”. He paused, then looked up. There was a pained expression I never seen before. “I mean, you can get the disease, but not get sick. As in bad sick, the not die kind”. 

“They want to keep you. I tried asking why, but the new Deputy shooed me away. He said the HQ is sending a truck full of doctors and equipment. I must start making camp for them”.

“I'm sorry”.

He quickly turned and stepped out. Then slammed and locked the outer gate in a few quick jolts. Probably the first time he managed it without a fumble.

I left the tray and its covered contents in the slot and picked up the water cup. These are sealed and fancy these days, no more plastic tumblers. I must have taken a large gulp, and almost choked. They should go easy on the chlorination. At least they’re doing that properly. 

It tasted. After all this time. How I missed the taste of water.

Mending the Gap

I have been staring at my Resume for quite a while now. Not the best use of a Saturday evening, but then, what else have I got to do? Weekends are a social construct, created solely for the employed. So here I go, parsing from end to end, working all the way down from the summary on Page 1 to the list of references three pages later. It has been the same funk; pick a spot to add a bunch of detail, or turn of phrase, wait awhile as if the ink needed to dry first, then hurriedly hit Backspace to get rid of it all. Looks like it is all in there, yet eerily incomplete. Blather in active or passive voice, is still, just that. Even a machine would conk off if tasked with writing its own brochure and service history. I tried doing this at a waking hour, late in the night or with and without some Bourbon in me. Nothing seems to work. I need to focus. This late afternoon surge is fueled by coffee, for a change.

 

As ever, the head-hunter wanted me to 'rehash it a bit' as it 'held promise' for a 'role’ at a ‘prominent client' of theirs. I have 'heard' those 'words' so many 'times' over the last year or who is counting, it has long since stopped evoking pessimism, gallows humor or sighs. I just know she just assigned me homework, and like a sullen teenager (whenever was I that young anyway, feels like I was born forty-five) I'm at it under protest. Reformat, rephrase, never say 'embellish' as it gives the game away. Attach it to an online form, and then for some reason, key it all again into the next page of same form. Slap on a Covering Letter, lest the topless contents scandalize modesty. Hit Send. Then wait for lightning to strike.

 

It is a copy of the original that I've been slaving over. I should have just updated the one she had marked up. But could not shake the fear that I would screw it up, vandalizing an ancient relic while trying to restore it. These chills often creep up on me, my heart starts racing and body flinches at the imaginary buzzing of a swarm. Which reminds me, my anxiety medication is due a refill. My luck is due a refill. Mental health is a social construct, affordable only to the employed.

 

The summary reads like a criminal record. In a fair world it might even be considered one. All the pointless things I set my mind to, cheered, fretted, and often got an ulcer over, as life happened around me. That's almost thirty years and four months of working for money. What a colossal waste of time.

 

So, what did I do recently? What did I do? Well, for starters, my last ‘brand name’ employers gently set me downhill by firing me at the very start of the pandemic. While the world was wondering whether chicken soup and/or brandy worked as prophylaxis, my employers of nearly a decade, had very uncharacteristically managed to see the Future. A Future with the virus, a Future in suspended animation. Also, a Future without me, along with a few hundred others packed off weeks before the first alumnus would succumb to the plague. Now, that's uncanny foresight. Got to hand it to them. Come to think of it, they should be hooting that from every damn rooftop. That they haven’t yet is self-effacing humility bordering on the cute.

 

I was told repeatedly that the Organization was in considerable pain owing to the decision to let us go. Over the phone where they broke the news along with the usual passive-aggressive boilerplate, in the Termination Letter short of a Crying Face Emoji and then the oh-so-predictable Press Statement. Pain, presumably from where they had to stick all those pink slips. Repeatedly. Heaven forbid a bad Quarter should befall the firm. The virus may be cruel to mortals, but can you imagine the beating the stock would take?

 

Then there’s The Gap. The indelicate term head-hunters use while referring to the virus-pocked years. I stayed mostly indoors, mostly healthy, mostly alone and mostly without steady pay. I lost my job twice, my home for good, visitation rights (I can’t even), and almost my sanity. I’ve been in and out of jobs, some just to keep the wheels turning. I’ve been selected multiple times never to hear from those folks again, let go as businesses folded, had at least one horrible video interview fiasco that led to rejection. I was even offered a position where I was passed over earlier, as their eventual pick died of the virus a few weeks in. It is not as much a gap in my CV, as bullet holes left by an automatic. Tragic, explainable, yet somehow unmentionable detail on my professional summary, as true Résumé connoisseurs abhor any vacuum. Any blip is to be sandpapered into the background. Like some Court Historian sneaking away any mention of the Royal Concubine from posterity. Seems to be an industry norm. Passed down from antiquity; I'm sure some hapless survivor of Pompeii would have been made to explain away that inconvenience.

 

Now back to the document. I simply cannot seem to edit this anymore. "It is a story that we're telling" as one particularly unhelpful recruiter recently chimed. The catchphrases set to snag onto any resume search are not amenable to creative writing; expertise in Java and Java expert are both the same. And untrue, either way. I’ve never coded in decades, at least not since my third job. That one was short on pay but long on life lessons. I left the job and that City to nurse a heartbreak. Never been there since. I’m little over a decade removed from being “sixty-four”, but there used to be a rather fetching Beatles fan who loved to hum that tune with me.

 

I digress, and that’s the whole deal. It is not only that the well-worn resume has little give for creative flourish; they are tuned and taut from years of “story-telling”, paeans to my glory (of course, all under relentless fire), couched in the most environmental-friendly humble-brag in the market. Every line’s a winner. I also walk with each line into the past. Of years, spending almost every waking hour creating this celebration of mediocrity that my life seems now. Instead, I could have loved, listened, traveled, been more reasonable, been more available, been more Dad. Every line’s a loser.

 

In the time the world was at a standstill, I gave all I could, while taking only what I needed. I volunteered, raised money, gave money when I had, clapped for cops & caregivers, ran errands for neighbors, stood in line to get my share at the food-bank, stood in line to unload trucks at the Care Home, ached with the vaccine, wept it didn't come sooner. I lost money, I lost touch, I lost friends and neighbors, just like countless across the world would have. I miss not being able to spend more easily, I miss those who passed, I miss being ‘busy’. I miss the old life I had. Even top-shelf booze. Yet, do I want everything back? Or, for that matter, anything back as before? I've never felt so devoid of worry in like forever; not the money worry, that I got plenty. The working person’s worry: worry I might not measure up at work, my raise, the next appraisal, the daily 'stand-up' call, the snarky client. Don’t care anymore.

 

Everything ends. I need to find something that makes the rest of my days worthwhile.

There’s no gap in my resume. The resume is the gap.

Islands in a Stream

There was a couple already seated at the café as I walked in. I was not expecting customers an hour before opening. The government has its ways, and a rather garbled and breathless call from my regional boss was to get to the shop immediately.

The light was low, and I didn’t know who they were until the woman turned around. I almost tripped as I rushed in. She was my wife. Still is. But why here and now? Our eyes met, and I noticed her lips pursed as she fought the inkling of a smile. She just stood up abruptly, and stepped to one side, hands behind her back, eyes forward. I looked over to her accomplice, a short, squat gentleman and much older. He barely acknowledged my existence, continuing to peer at what looked like our purchase ledger.

“Inspection”, she then muttered in my direction. As if to break the ice or give me a hint. As I paused to take her in again, it occurred to me that this, after all was the Health Inspector. For reasons best known to these Small Gods, deigning us with a presence at 8 AM, the shift crew barely into their aprons.

I put on a smile for her, but she had already looked away. Well, it seems they both agree I'm not worth a nod or smile.

The Inspector remained seated, feasting his eyes over a table strewn with bound volumes, file folders carrying our logo, and at least one framed inspection certificate pulled from the back kitchen. I am sure he scared my crew enough to pull off all these. He did not bother to return my introduction or my greeting, as I pulled up in a chair across him. This was coming, for we were informed he would be looking up franchisees in the area. But a walk-in well before opening hour was not expected. 
I typically don’t turn up until 11, and the guys on the early shift were at a loss handling anything other than coffee. I would have preferred a small fire.

I was surprised I didn’t recognize her sooner. Isn’t that odd, the way we sense another’s presence, instinctively knitting together the happy shapes we have come to love and caress. Yet over time, these instincts come stapled with a sea of memories. I would know her from a moving silhouette, just by the way her chin may drop while looking away. That unmistakable glance down and to her side, as if checking her profile on an imaginary mirror. She just did that, while I’m sure dragging her eyes away from me. Lingering but only for a moment, then the bevel gear smoothly let her face line up ahead. She always hated that metaphor, especially the part about gears in her head. Also, inopportune; first time I tried that line, she woke up from a nap with a crick of the neck, and then promptly blamed me.

Those were good times, of a sort. In that life, I serviced industrial equipment for a living. She tried her hand at all that could keep things moving along. Tuition for kids in the neighborhood, office assistant at the local Cooperative Bank. You know, whatever helped make ends meet. It was not easy loving and living in Mumbai, not for those who had known better of both elsewhere. It is a city that trims your time and space, and as the grind starts getting to you, you realize there is little use of either. Only a matter of time, before the Island City makes islands of each other.

It used to be a point of mild argument as whose idea was it to move to the city. In a sense, still unresolved. Before long the point of order ceased to even be mildly amusing. As we moved jobs, rentals, neighborhoods and luck, it became the cancer that ate away at whatever constituted ‘us’. We never had illusions of the high life, the city provided enough to get by, just never enough to cash-in and leave.

Now I realize why I didn’t recognize her sooner. She was in her Civil Defence attire, a dark khaki saree and blouse combination. More resembling the mud she had to scrub off after directing early morning monsoon traffic. Would have been a poorly received wisecrack, if I had ever tossed it her way. But by the time she started dressing up for this part-time Government job, we were well past speaking to each other. I had started spending the better part of the week in the northern suburbs, at work and away, while she eventually moved in with her elder sister. We had no children, and that was the only blessing.

We hadn’t spoken in like forever.

It is a recent addition to a Health Inspector’s team, this man or woman in uniform. It was never the norm, not until recently. Rumor has it, a small hotelier decided to ease one such pesky inspector into a vat of sambhar. Stale, of course, and thankfully cold, saving a life.
Coffee Shops are not rough trade for the Public Health department, so only the lady civil guard.

I have been managing this place for a few months now. It is a steady pay and a steady place of work. There was a charm to working the skills I learnt at the Polytechnic, and all those years honing them. Not to mention the travel. I would have stories to tell around my itinerant lifestyle, of far flung factories and their boilers, and the sorry characters that ruled over them, to a warm-hearted audience of one. Busy chopping veggies, or packing for the next day, ready with a laugh, egging me to tell more. Now that I live alone, and work here, I wonder what I saw in all that travel. Or maybe it is just that there are no more stories to share.

The shift supervisor hovered with a cup of coffee. The Inspector would have a muffin. Another muffin, to be precise. For he’s been on this steady diet, apparent to me from the row of empty spaces encroaching on the display. My assistant’s “Madam, would you like…” was immediately cut off with a hum and nod of her head. Eyes blinking all the while. Her way of turning down something with overt politeness. Ran in her family, she used to say with some pride. She insisted that refusing food, or at least making the effort to, was good manners, while I happily tucked in whenever we visited as family.  It always triggered a back and forth of ‘why-you-eat-so-much’ and ‘why-not’ all the way back to our one-room apartment, until we kissed each other to silence.

She did not seem to have had anything since walking in here. Not even a bottle of water. Now the Inspector would have no more, as he magnanimously waved away a croissant being presented by the thoughtful supervisor. The visit might just be ending. I stared at the super, hoping to convey merely via facial muscles, that he had to stop feeding the trough since no one pays for all this. 

Pushing aside the last folder, the Inspector was up and about. He would have a report in good time, and there was a campus franchise nearby he had to raid before ten. All this spoken in a monotone, to no one in particular. He marched to the doors. Yet a thousand worth of inventory was gone, and yet there was the supervisor, looking over the counter hoping to take another order.

She had already turned and begun to make a beeline to the doors. It was then I noticed the white stitched-on mark on her left shoulder, a single inverted ‘V’. She never told me she had been promoted. The doors chimed as they stepped out.

This would have been quite a story too, had I someone to tell this to.