Some nights it got real bad. On those nights the liquor failed to help. Nothing seemed to ease the mysterious ache inside him. He found himself shuffling down the block to hop the Metro. He'd ride it downtown and get off somewhere near Union Station. From there he'd simply wander aimlessly between the avenues of concrete and steel towers. It was a lonesome downtown and he could feel the isolation in his very bones.
He'd hike for hours up and down the avenues, the boulevards, the streets with such ironic names as "Hope Street," or Flower Street." And he'd pull his coat a little tighter each time he stepped over a sleeping wino, or when he passed some brightly lit lobby of an office building. There was always a security guard inside, garreted behind a monstrous countertop. They all wore sweaters with ridiculous epaulets and little shiny badges. They ate their midnight dinners out of brown paper bags with their faces palely lit by walls of surveillance monitors.
Whenever he paused to look in, he was always met by a dirty look, a fierce scowl that said "move on." And he'd move on to cross another street. A lone car speeding past would catch a discarded newspaper in its wake. The pages would dance and spin across the pavement with a forlorn scraping sound. He'd look up to the sky and there would be no stars. Never. And he'd keep moving past sprawling construction sites, past shuttered restaurants and department stores, past parking structures and vacant lots. Sometimes he made it as far as 4th Avenue. Skid Row, where thousands of lost souls shuffled about under the weight of misery, delirium, and addiction. He'd find himself pulling his coat even tighter around his compact frame. He kept one hand in his pocket, switchblade cradled in his palm, finger on the trigger. He was always ready for something to happen. Indeed there was a part of him that secretly wished for something to happen, for some lunatic or would-be mugger to accost him. Then he could act. Then he could give in to the instantaneous demands of the body. He could lose his mind for a bit and simply react to the physics of the situation. It would only take a spilt second to get the blade out and press it home. He had rehearsed it many times. He would not be easy prey. He was a tightly wound spring ready to snap at the slightest provocation. But it never happened. The zombies gave him a wide berth.
They never messed with him. They could tell. They knew he wasn't right in the head. And so he would eventually make his way back underground to catch the train home. He'd sit alone surrounded by so many others. He'd scan their faces when they weren't looking. They all seemed to be as lost and desperate as he was, garishly lit beneath the florescent lights.
He'd climb out of the seat at his stop. A sigh would escape him as he mounted the steps back out into the night. Down the familiar block to his little apartment that felt more and more like a cell with each successive smog-blotted sunrise. He always locked the door behind him -- two deadbolts and a security chain.
Then he'd swallow a dose of sleeping pills and wash it down with a shot of vodka. In his bedroom he kept the radio tuned to static, white noise to drown out the city beyond his dirty windows. He'd pull the covers tightly around his neck, close his eyes, and beg for sleep to come. It never came without a fight.
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