just follow the cat

Part 2 - How to Start Your Day

Thursday, November 11

Room 902, Maryland Avenue Motel

Baltimore, Maryland

When Aldrin Springlet opened his eyes, he noticed a greasy smear on the wall opposite his bed. Although the same greasy smear had been on the same wall since Aldrin moved into Room 902, it looked a little darker than it had the day before. Or maybe it was a just little shinier or a little larger. Whatever it was, it was definitely something. He had no doubt that something was different and he felt equally sure that he'd never figure out what it was. Not on this day. For sure, not on this day.

Aldrin looked around the rest of Room 902 and took stock of the ghosts who occupied the room with him. Most of them were still asleep. In fact, only the pallbearers were awake at that hour but it seemed like they rarely slept these days. They greeted each other with the usual nod and then they took their positions on either side of the coffin. Three on each side. Aldrin on the right. In the middle. Aldrin's father in the coffin.

With a grunt that had gotten louder over the years, the six men lifted the coffin and put it on their shoulders. At first, Aldrin felt the full weight of the coffin and his father's body. Then (like every other day), that weight began to ease and it seemed like the coffin was no longer pushing heavily down on his shoulder. Instead, it was brushing lightly against the old t-shirt he slept in most nights. Aldrin, you see, was a few inches shorter than the other men. And by virtue of their height, their shoulders had assumed most of the burden during that short walk from the bed to the bathroom.

When they arrived at their destination, Aldrin thanked them for their work. Their time. Their concern. Then he shut the bathroom door behind him and said, "I'm a small man who has never carried his weight."

Outside his bathroom window, Baltimore was still dark. The streetlights below were burned out or had been shot out years before. The result was total darkness. Or rather, almost total darkness because the street itself was sparkling as bright as it ever had. Little bits of glass had been woven into the surface of the road decades before. They seemed to catch hold of any light (no matter how dim) and turn something bland into something beautiful.

On most nights, Maryland Avenue looked like a gleaming pathway for the gods. But not on this Thursday. When Aldrin looked out at the sparkling ribbon below his window, he thought of that old movie where the slaves were captured by the Romans. He remembered the final scene with all the crucified men lining the road to Rome. In a way, they seemed like the burned-out streetlights in Baltimore. They were dead or near dead and they had served their purpose in life.

Then again, it didn't have to be that way because each man was offered his freedom if only he would betray their leader. If not, each would be crucified. With the men squirming nervously and looking for some hint of an answer in each other's eyes, one of them finally stood up and called out, 'I am Dædalus.' Then another man did. And another. And another. 'I am Dædalus.' 'I am Dædalus.' Then hundreds and thousands of men did the same thing and the Romans crucified every last one of them along the side of the road. That long line of dead and dying men reminded Aldrin of an endless column of burned-out streetlights stretching from Baltimore to Rome. Yet, below their crucified feet, you could still see the sparkles in the road. And each sparkle called out, "I am Dædalus. I am Dædalus."

Aldrin shook his head hoping to erase the picture as quickly as possible from his mind. And he said to himself, "All I've ever wanted in my life is one more chance to be that first man. The one who stood up before any of the others. That doesn't seem like too much to ask, does it?"

Then he slowly opened the bathroom door and nodded to the other ghosts (all of whom were now awake). He nodded to the woman in the sailboat, the wounded squirrel on the Charles Street, the man in the long (long) sweater, and the baby at the bottom of the hill lying between two burning islay trees. These were Aldrin's four seasons of cowardice. They were the meaningless moments in a miniscule life that had somehow became meaningful. He didn't know how that had happened, but he apologized to each of the ghosts for disappointing them. He apologized to the spring squirrel who thought the green on one side of the street was greener. To the man in the summer sweater soaked through from an unexpected downpour. To the woman in the autumn sailboat trying to un-stick the boat from the sand. And lastly, he apologized to the winter baby who cried or didn't cry on the coldest day in years. On that morning, Aldrin ran away from the cries.

Finally, Aldrin sat back on his bed and opened the small notebook he kept on the nightstand. There was a nickel inside it holding open the book where Aldrin had last left off. Each page had two column of tally marks. Hashes in groups of five. At the top of the left-hand column was the word Heads while the other column was topped off with the word Tails.

Aldrin flipped the coin.

"Tails again," he said. Then he noticed that there almost as many tails as heads now and he added. "Just about equal. I wonder what that means."

Eighteen months ago, on the day that Aldrin moved into the Maryland Avenue Motel, he flipped the same nickel and he recorded what happened. For the first 7 days, the coin landed on heads and ever since that day there were always more heads than tails. But now the numbers were evening out.

Aldrin shook his head again and mumbled, "Really. It seems like it should mean something."

Before laying back down to take a nap, he pulled an index card from the nightstand's drawer and wrote a note to greet his new neighbor. Then he slipped the card under the door connecting the two rooms.

x = y = x