For What He Could Become Read online

Badge No. 2515

  Date: 6/5/68

  Time: 1732 hrs

  ANCHORAGE POLICE DEPARTMENT REPORT

  Case No. 68-2577

  Date 8/15/68

  Name Bill Williams

  Location Alley between A & B St. 4th Ave.

  Date of Birth 10/10/25

  Arresting Officer Sgt. J. Striker

  Officer’s Narrative of Event:

  Bartender called from the Union Club to report a group of people gathered around a dumpster in the alley between A & B Street off 4th Avenue. I responded 2110 hours to find a couple fornicating in the dumpster and others gathered around watching. Several were able to run away however, this suspect was unable to stand without support and I booked him on suspicion of overindulgence of alcohol. The fornicating couple is on a separate form. Their names are: George Norton and Lily Watcha . See Case # 68-2578 and 2579.

  Officer’s Signature: J. Striker

  Badge No. 2515

  Date: 8/15/68

  Time: 2215 hrs.

  He had upgraded his drinking to hard liquor and chose vodka. If he was careful a bottle could last him two or three days when he was working. That was a good time for Bill Williams. He saw George fairly often at the bar, he had a place to call his own, and he had friends.

  “So this is what jail is like,” Bill said.

  “Your first time?” his cellmate said.

  “Other people told me about it. What you here for?”

  “Drunk. It took you two days to come around. How much did you have?”

  Bill shook his head. “Don’t remember.”

  “My name’s Lefty. You’re Indian, aren’t you?”

  “Half.”

  “Indians have a tough time with booze. I’ve known a lot of them.”

  “Now you know another one,” Bill said.

  “It’s not like I need to know another drunk. I’m bad enough by myself.”

  Bill got off the bunk and walked to the door, then turned around.

  “How long do they keep you here?”

  Lefty shook his head. “About as long as they want to, but usually a day or two. How long you been drinking?”

  “You mean this time?”

  “Since you started?”

  Bill thought back to when he first met George pulling his cigarette smoke through his mustache into his nose. That was the first week after he got to Anchorage, that would make it 1945.

  “This is 1968, right?” Bill said.

  Lefty nodded.

  “I guess twenty-three years.”

  “You’re holding pretty good for that long.”

  Bill lay down on his bunk. “Twenty-three years—what a waste.”

  Lefty looked at him. “You get that buzz when you drink? I mean—man, I was in trouble with booze from the minute I had my first drink. The court ordered me to go to Alcoholics Anonymous but it didn’t stick. Met a lot of other drinkers—nice people, too, but they weren’t in my class. I guess I was in a class by myself.”

  Bill closed his eyes. “What a class, huh? Yeah—I get a buzz from it. Feel right with the world. Seems like it takes that sometimes to just get through a day, doesn’t it?”

  “You got that right.”

  There was no need for Bill to go back to work at the school. A replacement had been hired. His final check was enough to cover his room rent and some food for another two weeks.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The outline of the men was cloudy and lacked color, and Bill blinked several times. Through his bleary eyes he saw that they were well dressed and were talking and laughing as they came off Fourth Avenue and headed up G Street. He pushed himself up from the concrete step he’d been sitting on and fell in behind them.

  He reached out to touch one of them on the sleeve, but his fingers fell short. He increased his pace. His shoes had no laces in them and they flopped like sandals. By the time they reached the middle of the block, he came alongside the shorter of the two men.

  Still talking, they didn’t notice him. He was used to that. No one wanted to notice him—it was up to him to make his presence felt. That’s what George said. “Let them know you’re there. They’ll give you something if you stay with them awhile.”

  He started to reach out to the man’s sleeve, then changed his mind.

  “Excuse me,” he said.

  The shorter man looked at him but continued walking.

  “Could you spare a dollar for a sandwich and coffee?”

  The taller man looked over at him. “You’d better go eat at Bean’s. It doesn’t cost anything.”

  ‘They’re closed now.”

  Don’t argue with them, George had said. Just tell them you’re hungry.

  “I could really use something to eat.”

  “Go on, now. Go down to Bean’s.” He looked at his watch. “They’ll be open in another hour.”

  They headed toward an office building across the street. Bill could hear them talking.

  The shorter one said, “Jeez, I didn’t think they’d hit you up right on the main drag.”

  “That guy’s been around here for a while. Sometimes he’s not that bad. Looks like he has a snoot full today, though.”

  “What in the hell’s the city going to do about this? You can’t have drunks pan-handling up and down Fourth Avenue.”

  “Hell of a thing.”

  Bill looked up, caught sight of the flag waving from atop the wooden pole in the square, and determined to stand at attention and salute the flag. He tried to line himself up with it and stay straight, but he wasn’t steady enough on his feet. He squared himself with a lamppost that was closer. There was less movement, but his body was still weaving. He lifted his right arm, bending it until his index finger touched his eyebrow. He held it for a moment, then swung his arm back down to his side. His eyes were moist and he could hear his heart thumping in his ear. He turned, looking for the concrete step he’d been sitting on, his legs unsteady, as if the action and movement had robbed him of any remaining energy. The step was half a block away, and he thought to go there but decided instead to go look for George.

  As he rounded the corner at Fourth and D Street, George waved at him from the alley. He and a man Bill didn’t know were sharing a bottle next to the dumpster. He licked his lips, feeling his coated tongue slide across them. George passed him the bottle and he took a good drink. When he swallowed, he waited for the warm glow to begin in his stomach and move into his chest and up to his head. That gentle flow of warmth that eased his mind. He felt the bottle being taken from his hand, then he smiled and found a place to sit down. The bottle was nearly full. This would be a good afternoon.

  Bill awoke to odors worse than any he’d ever smelled in his life. It was dark. What little light there was came through parted curtains on the one window in the basement room.

  “Jesus…” he muttered, half in pain, half in prayer. He looked around. Bodies were lying everywhere; on the floor, on the couch, in the three large upholstered chairs. He listened. Snoring. Some coughing. Wheezing. He looked around. Slumped into one of the chairs was a big Eskimo he thought he knew from the Salvation Army, but the light was poor— couldn’t be sure.

  He turned on his elbow to see who was next to him. It was George. So they’d come in here together last night. Well, at least it was warm, and he could see the light outside, and over the awful odors of the drunken men, he could smell breakfast.

  He sat up. He had pain in every part of his body, and when he closed his eyes his head swirled. Always clockwise. Sometimes the colors would change, but never the direction.

  George stirred, turning his face in Bill’s direction. His breath smelled worse than the room.

  What could make breath smell so bad? You sucked it in and blew it out and it came back smelling like death. He turned away from George.

  George Norton, Athabascan from Fort Yukon, Alaska, 56 years old, widower, father, grandfather, friend and drunk.

  Bill Williams, Athabascan from Arctic Village, Ala
ska, 45 years old, never married, friend and drunk.

  He started to lie down but it hurt too much, so he stayed seated on the concrete floor, the cold seeping through his clothing and tightening up the knots in his legs.

  He tried to remember a meal where he’d sat down and eaten something. A woman? The only woman in his life had been Ilene, who hadn’t really been in his life. He wondered if he could just think about dying—and die. If the spirit gave up before the body did, and you could just think yourself to death. Because what was going on with him sure wasn’t living.

  He heard footsteps, and then the lights popped on.

  “Good morning, people,” said a cheery young man in a uniform. Blond hair, big smile.

  “Breakfast will be served after morning prayers. Please wash up in the bathroom at the end of the hall downstairs. And then, before you come upstairs, I’d like each of you to think about what God means in your life today. Not yesterday, not last night when you came in here, but today. For today is a new day filled with the promise of God’s love and His devotion to all of you. We’ll start in fifteen minutes, and all who attend morning prayers will be served a good hot breakfast. So… good morning and may the light of the Holy Lord Jesus shine on you forever, starting this very moment.”

  He didn’t exactly bow, but he sort of bent from the waist, closed the curtains leading into the hall, and disappeared from the lights he had turned on.

  Bill figured it was kind of like a club show. Says his piece, lights dim, curtains close, and the next player is on. The next player is supposed to be the mighty Lord Jesus. How could he shine any light on me? There’re thirty guys down here and there isn’t a light shining on any of them. We’re all dead. Nobody in this room is alive any more. They died inside long ago, and it’s just a matter of time before their shells die. By God, these shells are tough, though. Hard to kill. The heart is easy to kill but not the shell.

  Bill pinched himself. He squeezed hard and twisted. It didn’t hurt. He dug his fingernail into the back of his hand. He pushed hard, trying to get it to cut the skin, but it just left a groove that didn’t hurt. He began to hit himself.

  He couldn’t feel it.

  He pounded himself harder. His shoulders and chest— then his stomach. His fists were clenched and he swung his arms in circles, slamming them into his upper body.

  “Damned shell!” he yelled.

  George sat up and stared at him. He flung an arm over Bill’s arms, but the action was weak and he got his arm thrown back at him.

  Bill peeled back his jacket sleeve, jammed his left arm into his mouth, and bit into the flesh.

  He felt that. He wasn’t dead inside. His arm jumped, but his teeth had opened the skin and the taste of his blood soured his mouth.

  “Hey! Hey!” someone yelled.

  There was a commotion, but few of the men moved. They had seen the fights and the seizures and the accidents, and they would see how this one did. They looked interested but did not interfere.

  Bill started to cry. It wasn’t the pain of the bite, it was the pain of living. Blood ran down his arm and from the corner of his mouth. It wasn’t a lot of blood, he had missed the arteries and veins, but he had gotten through the shell.

  The blond soldier stepped into the room and with clear eyes and determined strides stepped over the stacked men and got to where Bill sat, blood and tears mixing in a puddle between his legs on the concrete floor. The man rested his hand on the back of Bill’s neck and very slowly began massaging it in small circles.

  He said, “It’s not right for these men—these souls—to come here and not find a way out. Life without hope should not be denied to anyone living.”

  Then he bowed his head, his eyes closed. When he lifted his head and looked around him, everyone in the room was standing, heads bowed, watching him as he continued to rub Bill’s neck. There was not a whisper. Not a sound except for muffled noises from the kitchen upstairs.

  The soldier helped Bill up, and the two of them walked through the faded curtain that acted as a door and up the wooden stairs that had hollows worn in them from fifty years of footsteps and into the sanctuary and behind the benches with the smell of oatmeal and coffee and toast filling their nostrils and driving out the odor of the sleep-off room. There was some sunshine coming through a yellow leaded window and somehow up here it wasn’t so bad.

  As the captain started into the morning prayers, the blond soldier, who Bill could now see was a lieutenant, slid in beside him, poured some peroxide into a cloth, and washed Bill’s torn arm. Then he held the cloth under the wound and poured some into the teeth marks. He did it until the peroxide stopped bubbling, stretched a gauze pad over the wound, and taped it down.

  He must have been a corpsman. First aid—clean and simple. And he’d done it while his mouth and his heart said prayers.

  The bite hurt now, but Bill smelled the food and knew he was hungrier than he was in pain. If he could stand the prayers, he could wait for the food. He hunched over—he’d learned you don’t feel as hungry when your stomach is shoved together in a hunched position. He would wait this thing out, eat, and get the hell out of here.

  Behind him a man was mumbling out loud, providing a running commentary after everything the captain said.

  “Who’s he?” Bill asked the blond lieutenant.

  “Jawbones is what we call him. His real name is Joshua.”

  “Does he always go on like that?”

  “Most of the time. He lives alone out near the park, so when he comes in he tends to talk a lot. Seems like he tries to remember what talking is all about. He’s a good enough guy. Just wears on you a bit after a while.”

  “He’s wearing on me already.”

  “Somehow we each have our shortcomings—wouldn’t you agree?”

  Bill pulled up straight. He ran the statement through his mind. It went over and over like a short looped tape replaying the same words. Then it stopped.

  “My God—I’m one of them,” he said aloud.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It was a good enough day for Anchorage, partly cloudy but warm for fall. The leaves were turning on the birch trees, and the aspen and alder were close behind. Bill and George walked toward the graveyard.

  “Reminds me of hunting season,” Bill said.

  “You want to go hunting?” George said. “I’ve got a gun.”

  “You got shells?”

  George blew a snort out his nose. “Course I’ve got shells.”

  Bill tucked his coat around him, the buttons and zipper long ago broken, and they walked toward the shack.

  First the whiskey bottle came out of the cabinet and George took several swallows, wiped the bottle rim, and handed it to Bill. Bill tipped it up, then took the gun from George. He hadn’t held a pistol since the war, and he turned it over in his hand, feeling its weight and the soft clean smooth lines.

  He stretched out his arm and held the gun at full length. The gun wasn’t steady, but once he drank more whiskey the gun would calm down and sight correctly. He had shot “expert” in the army and he could shoot this gun.

  He knew about guns and he knew about animals and he was going hunting. He hadn’t hunted since he’d left the village. He didn’t feel very good but he hadn’t felt good for a long time, and this day was no worse than any other. If they could get some fresh meat, it could be like the old days.

  “Where?” he asked George.

  “Down behind the Burger King,” George said with a loose flinging of his arm in the direction of Tudor Road.

  “The guy at the gun shop said we could hunt anywhere?”

  “That’s what the man said.”

  He reached for the box of shells and opened the loading gate. The nose-heavy shells slipped into the cylinder and he moved it to the next opening, loading six rounds. He took another long pull on the bottle.

  George opened the door and they stepped out into the day.

  “My gawd, it’s bright,” Bill said. The light slammed h
is eyes shut. He tried to walk, but it took a minute. When he closed his eyes, he started to spin. He opened them, and they burned…squint…tears coming fast to his eyes…then squint just enough so you don’t wobble…blink so you can see…walk to that tree and stand still for a moment.

  “The moose’re this way,” George said. “Why you standing there?”

  Bill didn’t answer. He just stood at the tree, blinking.

  George laughed at him. “You a big hunter with six shells in your gun and you stand there and wait for moose to come up to you?” He slid to the ground and lay there and looked up at Bill.

  “At least I can stand,” Bill said.

  He smiled. The air was good. They’d been inside too much. Too much whiskey. He breathed in as much air as he could hold and held it as long as he could. He let it out with a gush, and when that air was gone he pushed with his insides to squeeze even more out and he could smell the bad air, the air that had been in there for the last six years. They would go hunt now and then they would cook the meat and it would feel good to do that. He walked past George on the ground and down the trail toward Burger King. George picked himself up and followed.

  Following the trail, Bill felt good with the sun on his face. At the bridge over Fish Creek, they stopped. There were tracks in the mud everywhere. Moose, dogs, people, bicycles, all mixed together. Bill knelt down and felt the tracks. They were old and frozen. Then he heard George chanting down the trail. He half-turned to quiet him down and saw the moose—a cow and a young bull, looking at him over their shoulders from about sixty yards up the creek. His head seemed clear now as he pulled the pistol from his belt and held up his left hand to quiet George.

  The moose, who lived every day with people and dogs and cars, turned their heads and bit the slim branches of the willow trees. Bill moved to the edge of the bridge and leveled the gun. It wavered.

  “Damn.”

  He rested his hand on the guardrail, squatted, and leaned against the upright post. He aimed again. The cow lifted her head and looked up at him, unconcerned.