Literary criticism- Jon Orsi

The sun began to rise.

An old man wept.

As the day withdrew the nights wet, the puddles of sea water reduced to a white shale that crusted between the cobblestone and glazed the aging docks. The tears too began to dry in the cracks of the old man’s face. His wool sweater, though torn and patched, remained clean. His beard was now almost completely white, but his grey face muddled the image of purity. Most of the bartenders in town knew him as Atticus, his real name had long since been forgotten.

Portsmouth, like any New England shipyard, is forever draped in an inescapable sheath of the ocean. To some, the smell invites, it is rich in life, nourishment, and the rawness of humanity. To others, it is the smell of death and decay. It sickens. Atticus had taken on this aura. He had for many years lived off the sea and the port town. He ate very little besides what he could fish, his lungs took in the night sea breeze, they expelled the morning fog. Atticus often thought his blood must be more rich in salt than the average man. He had heard that most men are roughly seventy percent water, he did his own calculations and figured that in his case that number would probably be significantly lower, and the part that was water, he concluded, was probably swimming with allege, or perhaps had a few tiny krill floating around. It generally felt that way anyway.

Most days he would have been up for hours by now, but it was autumn, and the mornings were harder to bare. What little comfort his cardboard manor provided, it seemed a more pleasant place to be than on the cold pre-dawn street. Even though the sun had broken, he was the only life that could be seen around the docks. Usually, when boats were harbored there, the shore would be a busy scene. Since the surge of cod moving off the coast of Nova Scotia, almost every boat was out trying to bring in a killing. Every man on board would work sleeplessly during rushes like these in the hopes they would make enough to pay for bar tabs, alimony, holiday presents, sometimes a cheap ring or necklace for a new girlfriend. Most of the men had good looking girlfriends, but they, like the fish, would only be around a short while before the whole of it ate them up.

From time to time, Atticus actually made a few dollars writing love letters to some of the men’s girlfriends. His thirst, stronger than any, rendered his hand useless on deck of a ship. It was that same thirst however, though this time redirected, that made his hand crash down on paper like a ten foot seawall of a nor’easter storm. What he wrote was generally short, but it was always enough to make a few lonely girlfriends –or at least his throat- wet with its beauty.

Now awake, he shook his heavy arms from their slumber; his arms rose, stretched toward the sky, and then fell to his hips. He searched his pockets for bills, feeling no paper, he pulled out a hand full of cold coins. Pawing through the dull metal, tallying his day’s bankroll, Atticus came across freshly printed coin. It’s luster caught the morning rays and flashed his foggy eyes clean. Seeing now what he couldn’t before, Atticus noticed the edge of things. He noticed the edge of his sad home, wilting towards the ground, the edge of the docks that grew into the sea, and he noticed the edge of the sea bending into the nothing beyond. He noticed the end of things.

He noticed too, that the shiny quarter he found was Canadian. “Why the hell did they name it a Looney anyways?” he thought to himself, “well,” he said quietly, “I barely noticed, I don’t think anyone else will.”

He stuffed the coins back into his pocket and stretched some more. He ran his massive hands through his thick hair, and then down to his face. It felt cold. Rubbing color back into his cheeks, Atticus decided his primary need was nourishment, once he got that settled it would easier to face the day.

Most bars around the country don’t open until a certain hour and have to close at certain one too, due to legislation. Atticus knew this, he’d seen plenty, and he’d been most everywhere. But in Portsmouth, and in places like it, legislation is only recognized by the types that pass them. Sunrise, however, was a commonly understood and respected rule of order. If you’d been there all night and weren’t out by sunrise, you would be thrown out. If you’d been asleep all night and weren’t in by sunrise you’d be late for work.

Atticus sat down. The long bar was made of old ship masts, it had been coated with lacquer so many times that it looked as though it were housed in glass, or under several inches of impenetrable water. Down the long bar, sat a row of men, most in thick wool, none were in their usual bright orange slickers. Though he was friendly with them all, he took his seat next to his closest companion.

Mikko was tall and broad, most of them men were quite the same, but he was significantly taller. Though Atticus commonly –but falsely- called him a Kraut, Mikko was from a long line of Finnish settlers that made more money fishing in New England then they ever could have back home. He certainly looked the part. His fine hair was so blonde it looked almost white, which made his pink, sun-burnt face stand out all the more.

“What’s the deal here?” asked Atticus

“What do you mean?” responded Mikko

“Well, when I woke up, none of the boats were around. And I get here and you’re all here, how’d you get back so soon?” Atticus asked.

“Oh, we got back yesterday old man. I mean, I think a couple of the crews are still out getting at it, but we hit it so quick that we had to unload up in Maine.” Said Mikko

“Well,” said Atticus slowly, “where’s your boat then?”

“Oh, well captain had us dock up in Bar Harbor, there were a couple problems with some of the radios and we tore one of our trollers. Its all getting worked on up there, we gotta go back up in a few days. A couple of the kids in town up there gave us all a ride down yesterday. They’d drive us back up when we needed it. I think they were bored. I don’t know what they expected to be going on down here,” Mikko paused to place his breakfast order, “but we all got them wicked drunk yesterday. Where were you?”

“Sleeping,” Atticus said.

“And what would you like?” said the barmaid to Atticus

“Beer. A pint,” replied Atticus. Noticing her shift uncomfortably waiting for the rest of the order –she was new- Atticus continued, “Dark beer. Gotta have some protein right?”

“You were asleep?” Mikko asked, continuing where they had left off.

“Yes,” said Atticus

“When?” asked Mikko

“All day” he responed coolly

“Wow,” Mikko said, “heavy sleeper.”

“Something like that,” said Atticus letting out a sigh, holding back a yawn.

“You’re quite a mess you know,” said Mikko, “I mean I love having you around and all, but you’re a damn mess.” The silence was all that need to be said in response. “You know,” Mikko continued, “work out here isn’t that bad, I mean you bust ass for about a month, come home with full pockets, eat well, sleep well, get laid. It makes life all the more worth while.”

“Now look here kraut, your forgetting a few things,” said Atticus, clearing his throat, preparing for his soliloquy, “A, you’re a dumb-ass kid, smarten up. B, I have worked on a ship before, probably around the same time your Nazi father raped your poor Polish mother. D, I still do work. In fact if it hadn’t been for the work I do, you’d probably still be a virgin. And three, my life is just fine, always has been.”

“Sure it’s fine,” said Mikko, “but your kind of life ain’t worth while. I mean what does your day consist of honestly? You wake up with the sun. You drink. You write and tell these little stories, all of which are complete bullshit anyway, I mean I highly doubt you did any of the things you say, and then you’re usually so drunk by mid-afternoon you pass out before the sun does.”

Mikko stopped, he had started with great conviction, but stopped when he began to see Atticus’ eyes wither and moisten. He had expected to see him cry. He did cry. His tears did not fall on sad face however. Instead they fell into an open and wide smile. Atticus’ grin was so large it pushed others out of their barstools. It tapped the men at the jukebox on the shoulder and kissed the cheek of the waitress. Laughter boomed out of deep and unseen area of his broad frame, spraying the salted tears across the bar and into Mikko’s confounded face.

“You think I give a damn?” Atticus roared in between a barrage of “HE-HE” and “HAW-HAWS.”

“Yes, what you say is true,” said Atticus, his laughter slowly subsiding, “but Mikko my boy, I just don’t give a damn. You see, I know-I know that I’m no a good bum, I know I’m a dirty old man, and probably a damned ugly one at that. But I don’t get swayed by things like that, in fact I don’t let life sway me at all, I let it run through me just as fast as I’m running through it. As a matter of fact, I’m probably dying right now, as we speak, but at least I’m dying to live. You and your life…you’re just livin’ to die my man, livin’ to die.”

Solace was restored to the bar, Atticus gazed upon Mikko with familiarity, he smiled back with disbelieving wonder. Their meals were served: Mikko with his steak and eggs, Atticus with his beer.

“Come,” Atticus said, “together as old friends, let us sit in peace, and break the night’s fast.”

“Zee-Deutch…” Atticus said, wagging his head in mock-European fashion, “…what a sorry lot.”

As the sun rose into a high fixed position, the bar emptied out and filled again. New faces, old faces, same-old faces. Whether it was the morning of heavy drinking or his old failing eyes, the faces looked all the same to him. And all the same faces looked to him. They looked to him with the same thirst that his eyes had while set upon the morning sun, sometimes the morning bottle. He was drunk now and the rapidness of his stories embodied this. In a matter of minutes he could have the entire bar in stitches with laughter. In just a few minutes more, he could have them weeping into their glasses, turning their beer into the sea for which they wept. For many hours he was the story he told. He was the woman they desired, beautiful and naked, beckoning with lust of a thousand wives. He was the father they hated, or the mother they missed. But as they day drew on, and the liquor ran forth, he became the liquor. His eyes grew wild, his skin receded into his bones, and he became a skeleton of himself. His great size shrank to a thin, frail frame. And he was ugly, and wicked and all together despised. The bartenders threw him out into the street. There he lay: inhuman, yet mortal.

The sun set.

An old man dreamt.

Atticus awoke, coughing and climbing to his feet, he staggered and had to brace himself against the wet brick wall. Tossing the hair out of his eyes, Atticus noticed the young man staring at him from across the street.

“What do you want?” Atticus barked. The young man said nothing, only looking more frightened now the before. “Now see here boy,” he continued “don’t give me that queer look or I’ll-”

“I’ve been watching you all night,” the boy interrupted, “not-not in a weird way.” He said recognizing the implications of his first statement.

“What the…boy I ought to give you one hell-of-a beating. You can’t just let an old man sleep? You got to creep around him and like a little freak?”

“No, you don’t understand. I…I thought you were going to die. You looked like you were dying. I’ve never seen anybody drink that much.” Said the boy, hesitant but his true voice had begun to come to him.

“Well then, you’ve never seen me, and never will again. Get the hell out of here,” said Atticus, collecting his things.

“I just wanted to help you, or rather I just wanted your help I mean,” said the boy, trying to sound defiant, but sounding all the more childish instead.

“Oh…oh yeah? Help with what?” inquired Atticus. Even though he was quite a bastard he wasn’t entirely cold-hearted. This showed in him from time to time, this being one of them.

“Well your tall friend there, the Finn, he told me what a good story-teller you were. How you’d write love letters for guys if they paid you. The whole ride down here that’s all he could talk about: you and your stories. I kept turning my head to ask him more questions I almost ran off the road. Finally he agreed to introduce me, we actually met last night, but I don’t think you remember,” said the boy, looking both ways, then crossing the street, “my names Miles,” he said holding out his hand as he hopped up onto the sidewalk.

“I remember,” said Atticus, “even if I forgot, I remember. Welp, if a love song is what your after you gotta pay me, and you can start by buying me a beer. As I said before I got nothing, ‘cept, let’s see…a pocket, two actually, full of empty, and a headache.”

They walked down the street, towards the sea. They both figured that another bar would be more appropriate due to last night’s show. The footsteps matched and mirrored the same hollow echo. It rattled back and forth, against the brick walls and the front windows of salt water taffy stores, bait shops and cold homes that lined the narrow street. The dual echo became one as it pinged on in front of them and found its way out to sea.

They walked for a few minutes and settled on a small bar called the Isle of Shoals, it was an expensive place, but the boy had promised to pay. The entrance was facing inland, but this allowed for the patrons to sit in grand view of the cold Atlantic. The great glass windows that comprised the eastern wall were still wet and frosted with sea mist. Even though the bar was empty they took a seat at a table in the far corner of the open room.

“Two beers and two lobster bisques,” Atticus called out across the empty floor, “don’t worry they got the best bisque in the whole town here.”

“Oh yeah, I trust you,” said Miles.

They sat facing the sea without speaking. The only thing making noise in the bar was the bartended in back igniting the stove, and sorting various pans and dishes. The sunlight that came through the window mirrored the sad grey overcast sky. It was the type of light that seemed to emphasize the ugliness of things. It started to depress them both.

“So what exactly is it that you want?” asked Atticus finally, “It’s not a common thing for me to do work for people I don’t know.”

“Oh,” said Miles his mind elsewhere as his thoughts slowly formulated.

“I’m not saying I won’t help you, I’m just saying it’s not everyday-”

“Well here’s the deal, I’m not very good with words, I’m not very good with women, and basically I need something that can help me with both,” said Miles.

“I can understand. I sympathize, not saying I’ve ever had problems with either, ‘specially not the women, but I can sympathize. So if you’re not got with words and you’re not good with women, then what are good at? Or should I say what good are you?”

“Ha,” Miles scoffed, “Well I’m good at plenty. I was good in school, great actually, a great athlete you know-”

“I meant in life,” interrupted Atticus, “not high school kid, what are you good at in life?”
“Well, well I guess I don’t really know. I know that’s just high school but that was a lot, I grew tired of it, and instead of going off to college I got a job on a boat and I’ve done that ever since. I guess I’m a pretty good worker, a good fisherman,” said Miles looking for approval.

“Yeah well that is something to be proud of,” said Atticus taking his beer and bisque from the bartender who had just walked over, “but there are a lot of good workers out there, and this town is full of good fisherman.” Atticus set his bowl down, spilling a little over his fingers. He licked them clean. “I told you it was some good bisque here.”

“Well if what I’ve done is so…minimal, then what is it that you do that makes you much more…mighty?” Miles said defensively.

“For starters, I see what you mean by having trouble with words...just kidding-lighten up. But I do plenty, I’ve done plenty more importantly,” Atticus said.

“Like what?” challenged Miles, looking him in the eye but laughing just a little.

“Like what? Ha, that’s a good one. Well let’s see: I’ve sailed around the world-twice. I’ve slept with the most beautiful women around the world…sometimes twice. I’ve run with the bulls in Pamplona, I’ve shot elephants in Africa, killed a few men. You know, things like that.”

“I don’t believe you.” Miles said simply

“Oh no? Check that out,” Atticus lived his sleeve to show massive scar that ran from his forearm on up to the sleeve and beyond, “it goes all the way over my shoulder and on to my back. Got that when I got thrown out of a moving train in the Yukon Territory. I was headed up to Alaska to marry me an Eskimo, lost a poker game and several of the men on board didn’t like that fact I had no way to pay’em.”

“Well what happened?” asked miles.

“That, my boy, is a long story.” Said Atticus, looking out again at the sea, rubbing along the length of his scar.

“I’m here the rest of the week. You clearly don’t have anything else to do. Besides its early, we just got breakfast,” pleaded Miles

“My point exactly, we just got breakfast, let me eat first then maybe I’ll tell you,” said Atticus directing his attention back to the table and down to his food.

They ate their soup and sipped casually at their beer. More people started to come in, they mumbled in corners, and draped themselves over the bar. Atticus began his story. He continually had to excuse himself and start the story over, from an earlier point in time in order to clarify all the events. He eventually started from his birth and began the story over once again. As he grew from infant to child and child to man, Atticus himself grew. He started the same withered and sorry man Miles had seen, sleeping in the gutter, and was now alive and quite large.

His story spanned the globe. He acted out scenes with his fingers and his hands. The morning sun finally broke the overcast clouds and cleared the windows of their dew. As his story progressed his actions became more animated. He would describe wild fights with gypsy beggars on the streets of Cairo. As he would describe the gypsy tossing him into a fruit stand, a breaker outside would crash on the rocks below. The force of water meeting land would shake the room, ringing wine glasses together as they hung above the bar.

The peripheral patrons soon became the people in his story, ambling about the busy London Underground, placing drink orders- waiting for their tickets. The waitresses, swooping in with plates full of glasses became the exotic belly dancers Atticus made love to in the inquitess dens and labyrinths of Constantinople’s underground. The dark wooden floor turned to the sea-stained deck of a ship. And the stools on which they sat were no longer stools, but the weary crow’s nests of an old Barbadian ship that struck aground and sent Atticus plummeting, nearly to his death, on the bare coral below.

The story went on, the days light did too, but even as the sun set, the room was still full of light. The bar was in fact so bright that ships out at sea mistook its glowing windows for a lighthouse that should have been twenty miles north. Atticus’ size at this point was enormous; his hands spanned the table top. His shoulders became the Italian Alps he once braved, his white hair: the loose snow caps that nearly killed him.

He cried lilies for the love that had left him. Atticus knuckles bleed, then his nose and mouth followed suit, for he spoke of fights lost and respect never regained. He began to shrink as he spoke about liquor, his breath smelled of it, though when Miles looked down he hadn’t finished his one beer. He soon was himself again, laughing deeply and wiping the sweat from his brow. The room, again, drew dark. The artificial light dimly showed Atticus’ smile. He sighed a happy and relieved sigh, he looked down at his beer but did not reach for it. It was completely dark out side so neither of them looked towards the sea. Instead, Atticus looked directly at the boy. Miles remained in a fixed gaze, though he was looking directly back, Atticus knew Miles was not looking at him, he was looking far beyond.

“How was that?” Atticus asked. Miles did not answer he was still looking at something far out of reach. “Yep,” said Atticus, “that was my life’s story. One of my life’s stories I should say. I got plenty more if you got the time.”

From the look on Miles face, it seemed that time had stood still, or that it was moving, decades by the second. It was a long time before he spoke:

“I don’t really know what to say. I mean that was beautiful. That was really, that was really something. I’m surprised you could even remember all that, all the detail. How did you remember all the detail from all those things?” Miles asked

“Oh, well I didn’t remember them. I just made that up. As I went along you know?” Atticus said, laughing a little at the boy’s gullibility.

“So you just lied to me?” said Miles, “you just lied to my face the whole time?”

“Well no,” said Atticus, “that was all real, I made it up but it was real. Truth is made you know. You didn’t just experience nothing, I didn’t just tell you a bunch of nothings.”

“Yes, you told me nothings. You told me lies,” said Miles tightly.

“You don’t seem to get it. That was all real. My stories are all real, I always tell the truth, even when I lie.”

Miles didn’t speak or look up from the table for several minutes. He appeared to be crushed, as if the whole thing had been taken away from him, a whole life had been reduced to nothing.

“So you’re not what you say you are, your not…anything besides a drunk. You ridicule me for having nothing, but what do you have? What do you really have? Nothing,” Miles said coldly.

Atticus’ eyes fell to the floor, “You’re right,” he said, “I don’t really have anything. It’s been a long time since I did. I’m just an old man, a drunk. I live in a fucking box for crying out loud. It’s been a really long time since I’ve had anything.”

“I used to have plenty. In fact I had everything, I really did have everything. You name it, but I couldn’t hold on to it. It didn’t seem at all real to me, it felt like it would disappear if I closed my eyes for too long. And it did. Too many nights out, too many nights I don’t remember, too much time with my eyes closed. Everything I had went away. Now how the fuck is that real if it can just end? My stories don’t really have much to do with me, if they did they would end too and I couldn’t go back to them because they would only lead here. Everyone I know is trying to be happy, they slave all day, they marry women they don’t love, or who don’t love them. But me, I can marry who ever I want, I can be anywhere I choose. I can live forever as long as I don’t tie myself to something. I drink because I want to forget this place. In a story I do forget this place, it doesn’t exists, it’s transformed. If I focuse or attach myself to these material things, whatever they are, I could never go beyond them. Life is an anchor, poetry is a sail. Sever the rope. Fly high. Live forever.”

Atticus, now soured, reached down for his beer. It was warm and flat. It had been sitting in front of him, half drunk, all day. He downed it in one motion, in another he ordered several more. He drank those too before Miles could lift his head. Wiping his mouth clean Atticus said:

“ ‘Preciate the beer, I’ll write your damned love letter- love song, whatever the hell it is. Mikko will give it you to when you give him a lift.” He rose and placed his empty glass on the table. He walked over to the door and turned, he wanted badly to go back to the table and apologize. He wanted to tell Miles everything, and anything he wanted to know. But his strength wouldn’t allow it. Instead he turned. He walked out leaving the door open.

Atticus knew that Miles was his son. He knew this the moment he first met him in the bar, that’s why he tried to erase him with whiskey. He knew Miles, his whole life, when he looked into his wide eyes that next day. He knew his whole life even if he’d never experienced much more then his birth. While he could see Miles clearly as his son, he could see Miles in no way saw him his father. This gave him the strength to leave; it gave him the strength to write the poem which he gave to Mikko very late that night.

The sea welcomed Atticus; it did not attempt to push him back towards the land, towards Miles. He did not panic, he did not remorse. He smiled. He was not killed. The sea became a story, Atticus became its hero.

The sun rose

An old man died.

When Miles went down to the docks to meet Mikko, the letter was tucked safely in his breast pocket.

“How’d you like him?” asked Mikko.

“I don’t know what to say,” responded Miles

“I don’t know if there is anything to say. Here,” Mikko said, handing him the letter, “that’s all he left me, that’s all that you need.”

It was a long time before Miles read the letter. He opened it and studied it before giving it to the girl so he could keep up the façade that he had written it. The letter worked. They read it together in bed that night.

The sun set

Two lovers became one, and together they became children once again, forever.