1
A Fool and a King
by William James
‘Over the hill and through a fog, far from this world you’ll find me, there I walk ever in circles, still searching but never finding, blindly reaching, never grasping.’
I’M IN A DREAM or something close to it when I’m disturbed by some menace, some lurking inconsiderate who speaks alas in earshot. Who is this with disembodied voice? Old fool. Fiend. “Time eyes were opened, and ears were listening,” he says. I don’t know who he’s talking to, or for that matter where the hell I am, that is till I remember that I’m in Frisco, Texas, caught up in the business of getting drunk, and I like to take my work seriously -- I see him now the blabbering halfwit, through a pair of bleary eyes, this unknown speaking figure, and yes, it’s me that he’s addressing. “It lives, and how nice of it to join us,” he says.
2 The dark blur of his shape comes into focus as a bald man with prominent high cheekbones, like some comic book super villain.
His head all edges like it’s carved
of genuine mahogany. I see no more of his garb than a black woolen jacket, and though he sounds old he looks to me between 29 and 59. But I can’t tell, being honest. The place is dark and I’m not sober. “Are you speaking to me, Lex Luthor?” I bear a close resemblance to the actor Steve Buscemi, I’ve learned to fire pre-emptive strikes. The bar is called The Chihuahuan, a narrow modern establishment with no windows. After a long counter, a trio of steps lead down to a square space which I presume as a dance floor.
But it’s midweek now and there are but
three people on the premises, just two of them blessed with the wisdom of 40% liquor.
And though it’s only a
short time after noon, dimmed red lighting gives the place a nighttime vibe.
I’m sitting on a high stool at
the curve of the counter with my back to the entrance, four shot glasses lined up in front of me, and two of them empty.
I don’t know what’s in the other two, I
asked the barman to surprise me. The man in black sits three stools away on my right, hunched in at the bar and looking at the ice in the tumbler he’s holding.
3 “Yea, I was speaking to you,” he says, “speaking of a pit I was, brimful and black with the fallen.” To my surprise his accent isn’t Texan or even American, it’s unmistakably Russian, but I’m not going to satisfy him by asking of it. “Well go talk to someone else about it,” I say. He looks intimidating so far as I can tell, but I’m too far gone to concern myself with something mundane like intimidation. “No.
I want to talk to you about a pit they call
the bottom.” I point my thumb at my chest, “Well I don’t. I’m not much of a bottom talker.” “I seen you mulling over it before. You think you’re in that pit, don’t you? But you ain’t.” There’s grit in his voice and pain in his eyes.
I
say to myself, there’s a man who knows how to fall hard and far.
And though I believe him, I’ve no interest in
hearing of his pain or revealing to him anything of mine. “How’d you know anything about what I been mulling over?
I was thinking about Big Thunder Mountain in
Disneyland, about holding my hands in the air.
But if I
was sitting here thinking about being at the bottom, that’d be my own affair.” “I took a trip there once, some time ago,” he says. “What rides you go on?”
4 “I’m not talking about Disneyland, I’m talking about a place you weren’t just sitting there thinking about.” I massage the hairs of my chin with my thumb and index finger. “How did you get out?” “I didn’t, I guess some don’t.” I’m curious but don’t care for the distraction, my aims stop at drinking till I pass out or the money’s gone.
Preferably the former, if I pass out before the
money’s gone it will be better for me financially, any accountant worth a damn will tell you. “You came from New York?” he asks. “Yes.” “Drive all the way down here to get drunk?” “Yea, pretty much.” “Stupid. They already got bars in New York.” “Let me write that down.” “Idiot. I wonder what your name could be if it’s not Ignorance. I’d say it’s the only name you deserve. Tell me, is it Ignorance?” “No, I don’t think so. See I had a name once but I lost it, now I’m nameless, just a troubling breeze that blew in unannounced. What about you you old prick? Will you tell me your name?” “Name,” he echoes numbly. He still hasn’t looked at me. “My name is Old Fool but they call me many things.”
5 “Do they? Are you well known then Old Fool?” I take some peanuts from a small bowl on the counter in front of me and nibble on them.
I’m hoping my question stays
where it is, lingering in the air unanswered. I’m hoping we can sit again as islands, drinking in an untouched quiet. “Yes. As he that is loved and hated and idolized and ignored.” I roll my eyes. “Bit grandiose for a Tuesday. I just asked you who you were.” “I am that I am.” I down another shot, wiping away the resulting residue with the back of my hand. “Well, what the hell is that supposed to mean?” He turns his head to mine.
His voice becomes stern
and solid, adopting a rich distinctive timbre. widen in developing intensity.
His eyes
I watch and marvel at
their unrelenting gaze. “I am the first born from the dead,” he says. “I am the beginning and the end. I am Elohim. I am Ahura Mazda. I am Maheshvar. They call me Abba, King of kings and Lord of lords. I am Al-Wāsi the vast, the all embracing. I am a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” As he speaks my reaction runs the gamut from intrigue to disinterest.
By the time he’s stopped
speaking, I’ve settled in the state of unimpressed.
Just
6 another drunken halfwit I think and toss a hand dismissively to show him. The barman is mopping the counter with a dirty cloth, admirably ignoring the conversation between today’s visiting dignitaries, no doubt a practiced discipline. “Speak up won’t you,” I say. “I said I’m God,” he says. “God in a bar. Bit cliché isn’t it?” “Is it? Maybe I like bars.” “Maybe. So Russian God, which god are you?” “None of them. All of them. I am one. An irreligious god who does not lend himself to doctrines, one to judge man not on the prayers he’s learned; one to judge him alone on his actions.” “We all need a hobby, but didn’t you just quote the Bible to me strange non-religion affiliated god?” “Ah yes, but then not just the Bible. I used multiple known names for God from various devotions, all of which are representations of the same equally incorrect and popular misinterpretations.” “Through a glass darkly,” I murmur to myself but my words don’t go unheeded. “The glass through which man views God is not merely dark my friend. It is black, for through it man sees nothing, and understands even less.”
7 “Is that so? Well I’d say you’re just a jackass with delusions of his own divinity, and a tongue that won’t learn to be shy. Wouldn’t you agree Old Fool? You can tell me if I’m close.”
I extend an arm towards him.
“King of kings and lord of lords. It seems we’ve more in common than I’d thought. For though it may surprise you, and though I’ve lost my name, I carry yet a title, see I too am a king.” “The king of what?” he asks. I adopt a regal air. “I am the Loser King and my reign has been a long one. My realm spread far. My throne weaved of failure and rejection. I am the jester of my own court, performing to myself alone and not amusing either of us.” “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,” he says, “be the crown of gold or failure.” “And you know that more than I do, for to be king is a burden and one of your stature all the more. I think it must be just as Atlas with the heavens on his shoulders. Tell me, highest of kings, is not everything demanded of God?” “Yes,” he says, “everything is demanded of God.” “And tell me further Russian God, when you go to bars, are you in the habit of having much money on you?” I inquire. “No. I’m not in the habit of having much money.”
8 “Then I’m afraid we’ve nothing left to talk about, see your worth to me was your pockets and you’ve told me they’re not large. It’s sad to say then it seems the rumor was a lie.” “What rumor was that?” asks Russian God. “They said it to me some time ago. They cupped a hand around my ear, and said to me in a softly spoken whisper that if you grant God an ear, he’ll buy the rounds. They said it, and they swore to me that it was true.” “Then their truth was a lie, for God is broke now, was broke before.” “Well then here’s to that,” I say, complete with sardonic grin. I raise my glass and down the last of my shots. “It’s nothing to raise a glass about,” he grumbles. “Tell me this,“ I say, when I’ve recovered, “see I’m curious, what would God know of the bottom? Or of failure?” “Take a look around you,” he says. I take a look around me. I see empty seats and silver walls. “I meant that metaphorically,” he says. “God rarely talks décor.” Like an unspeaking extra in a movie, the barman -- a young gangly red haired lad -- pours a straight double
9 whiskey for Russian God and then the same for me, never asking either of us for money.
After this he makes his
way down to the other end of the bar where he washes some glasses. His generosity changes my demeanor and I raise my new drink in salute to him, “Well you’re a good lad Michaleen!” I cry in a Hollywood Irish accent, “May your crocks overflow with gold, and the shamrocks in your garden gather like the moss.” The barman ignores me. “He’s not Irish,” says Russian God. “But sure look at him, he’s got red hair!” I protest. “It’s hardly a passport.” “It’ll do for me.” I toast Russian God too, but it goes unreturned. “Hey, while I have you here, when I was six years old, every night before I went to bed, I asked --” “-- Fuck off Buscemi,” he snaps, “I’m not here to talk unanswered prayers.” I slap the counter then drum it rapidly, emitting a burst of inane laughter as a more mischievous temperament takes over me. The swing hinge inner door behind me creaks itself open and closed and a moment later a three legged yellow Labrador limps past me and curls up by the stool of Russian God.
10 “Who’s that?” I ask. “That’s my divine messenger. He’s sort of like a canine angel Gabriel. He follows me wherever I go and delivers the message of God.” “Really?” I say. “No. It’s just my dog you idiot.” “What’s his name?” I ask, “I have a fondness for the creatures, whether they be four legged, or three legged like your dog or meself first thing in the morning.”
I
slap the counter again, laughing at my absurdity. “His name is Loser,” says Russian God. “Then he is one of my subjects,” I raise my glass for the dog. “Why did you bestow a name on him like Loser?” “Because he lost,” says Russian God. “Is that another metaphor?” “No.” I peer around the bar and see Loser curled up with eyes closed. “He seems a tad tired.” “He’s full of energy,” says Russian God, “but he’s in want of ambition to throw it at.
He gave his leg away
in apathy and didn’t care a damn.” I scratch my cheek lightly with my index finger. Russian God raises his glass for a drink and takes a sip. “I thought vodka was mandatory to Russians?” I say, my head cocked like a misunderstanding dog.
11 Russian God frowns in irritation, puts down his drink and caresses his forehead with his middle and index finger.
He then places a hand into his jacket’s breast
pocket, retrieving from it a lighter and cigarette.
He
lights his cigarette -- they let you do that in Texas. “I don’t think Russians are constitutionally obligated to vodka,” he says, “but then I could be wrong. You see, as has been discussed, I am not Russian, nor even man.” “No, you’re the one true God, but how am I to truly know it?” He takes a drag. “Well that one is easy. As was said on ye olde long lost ancient scroll: God, in his infinite wisdom -- that none shall ever question -- will for reasons known only to him, only appear to dipshits in bars. And you, my bar found friend, are about as dipshit as they come.”
He makes his own sardonic grin.
“I never caught a copy of that ancient scroll.” “That’s because it’s long lost,” he says. “Well maybe says I but then maybe you’re not God at all, but in fact the other, that one they call the father of lies.”
I point an accusatory finger at him, “the one
that dwells in flames.” “Maybe I am, but if I was him I bet I wouldn’t be calling you dipshit. And right here I’d be sitting smiling beauty pageant smiles, probably getting in the
12 rounds. I’d have a horrible agenda but a terrific pair of breasts, and I wouldn’t be so shy about the latter. But see that ain’t me, cause I ain’t here for you, I just came here for the whiskey.” I sigh aloud, just more than half amused by the unrelenting enigmatic sincerity of the fool sitting here in front of me.
I am quite sure that he irritates me,
doubly sure that I enjoy it. The conversation lulls, the silence that I’d hoped for earlier at last arrives but I find myself no longer wanting it. “Loser King,” he says eventually -- I sense a slight slur to his voice; he is holding his glass as he talks -“you who knows nothing but ignorance. You came here a coward, you’ll stay here a drunk, lost in self-pity and seeking to hide behind an endless line of drinks. Loser King, who was it forced you out? Or did you drive down here of your own accord, escaping from a life you’ve lost you’re now afraid of fighting for?” He punctuates his question with a stern drink. take a stern drink too.
I
The kick is strong, it make my
eyes water and that’s just how I like it. “Oh,” I say, “you want a doctor’s note? Let me tell you the tale of the Loser King. He was born in loss and there he made his home. Sadness took him, and see after some time he found a beauty to it. And so he claimed her,
13 Lady Sadness, as his own; loved her as his wife, his concubine and friend. And as was his fate, they have ever since then been as one, not a day are they apart, for their marriage is a marriage untroubled.” He laughs a hoarse low laughter. “You’re not on Oprah dipshit. I got two dollars in my pocket and a three legged dog to feed. Lady Sadness can go and kiss my ass. I ain’t got time for your maudlin ramblings. A man without a problem ain’t a man. You got one, go take it on and stop making so much noise.” “And how’s it I do that?” He shrugs, ”I don’t know, go ask someone who gives a shit. Maybe you grab your problem, bend it over, stick it to it good and hard from behind.” I think of a book I read once by Dale Carnegie. I think he never talked about bending problems over and sticking it to them good and hard from behind, but maybe Dale Carnegie’s sentiments were just the same. “Listen to me,” says Russian God, “one time, a few years back, I met a man in the desert. Do you know why he was in the desert? Because he had cast himself out on the sands from the guilt of his own sins. He was lost. Dying there of dehydration and starvation. The desert was a desert in Texas though the name of it now eludes me.” “Did you save the man?”
14 “No. I told him he was a dipshit and then I kicked sand in his face.” “How long were you in the Scouts?” “The man, he got angry. He tried to kill me but he had no strength. I walked away and he began to follow me powered by a maddening drive within. But the blisters on his feet meant he could no longer walk. He had to take to all fours and crawl after me. I kept on calling him dipshit. I kept kicking sand in his face. We started in the morning and ended late at night. By then he was mostly blinded, and his skin red and raw from burning. He had nothing left. He could no longer move. We had reached the highway that ran through the desert and it was there that I left him to die. But some people they came in a car and they saw him by the road. They gave him water and they brought him to the closest hospital.” “Did you get a merit badge?” “In the end, the man was okay.” “What’s your point? This man in the desert, he had fallen to prayer for help? Russian God’s face contorts at the suggestion, as if he’s swallowed something sour. “No, he wasn’t the praying type. He didn’t pray for help for prayer to him was pointless. He didn’t pray and God didn’t save him. Do you know what it was that saved him? It was two things. It was the man’s own effort and
15 it was the people’s effort. Remember that and have the key to aught you wish, for effort may win all.” I take another drink. yet.
I’m not done with insincerity
I haven’t come for lessons.
I’ve come for booze
and peanuts. “I get it. Yes. I do. You’re point is if you’re dying in the desert and someone kicks sand in your face, it’s probably just the creator of the universe showing you a highly abstract and metaphysical doorway into your own salvation.
I’ll bear it in mind next time I’m
sunbathing in the Sahara and forget to bring my canteen. If I see some fucker coming out of the horizon and it isn’t Omar Sharif, I’ll make sure to keep the head down and just head for the nearest road, so we can skip all the pythonesque role-play.” My eyes wander the bar throughout my response, intent on averting his.
When I do look back in his
direction, I see a pair of unamused eyes glaring at me from behind a passing veil of smoke.
They are the
coldest eyes, eyes that could sober a drunk and level a losing argument. Without diverting his stare, Russian God holds his left hand out before him, his fingers splayed and rigid, his palm facing upward.
He takes another drag and flicks
away the ash with contempt.
He brings his cigarette down
carefully till the lit end is pressing gently against his
16 left hand’s palm.
He is grinning at me now, enjoying the
alarm I feel my eyes concede.
I want to help his burning
hand but I don’t attempt to do so. He is still glaring at me, and though I am looking away again, I can feel those piercing black marbles boring into mine and calling me to his.
We make eye
contact once more, and at once I am transfixed and puzzled by what it is I’m staring at.
Somewhere there
within his eyes I think I catch a glimpse of madness, a serene controlled insanity. He pushes his cigarette fast down into his palm till it finally extinguishes, and at last he breaks his eye contact.
He takes the butt and places it in the ashtray
before him, then he closes his left hand slowly into a fist and takes it off the counter, hanging it limp by his side. “Impressive,” I say, doing my best to sound unimpressed, “but I’ve seen children’s magicians do better.” “Just an old parlor trick,” he says, ”do you have a trick?” “Yea,” I say, “I lose real good, not I a king who would wear his crown lightly.
I’m the best damned cooler
Las Vegas never had.” Russian God smiles, but it’s a far cry from the menacing grin I saw before, it’s one of those kind smiles
17 people make when you don’t see any of their teeth.
With
his right hand, Russian God deftly takes another cigarette out of his breast pocket and places it in his mouth.
He then retrieves his lighter and lights it.
“Isn’t it sad when a man chooses to run from his problems rather than to stay and face them?” “I don’t know about that. I’m training for a marathon.” “Maybe you are, but I’d say now’s a good time for you to reveal something more of yourself.” “I tried, I think you called me maudlin.” “You called sadness your wife. They do bad poetry across the street on Thursdays.” “Okay. What if I was to pretend for a minute that you really are God? What if I was to ask you a question?” “What do you think that question would be?” “Nothing unique, in fact you’ll think it rather trite, but I have to ask it anyway. What is it I did so wrong? What was it I did so bad that my life ended up like this?” I’m unpleasantly surprised when emotion becomes apparent in my voice.
It cracks and somewhere an ancient
rusty cog begins to slowly turn within. I feel my lacrimal glands, for so long dormant, setting into motion, but manage to suppress them before they further expose my growing vulnerability.
18 “End up like what?” I don’t give him an answer, but Russian God provides one in its stead. “Like a drifter with no home. A listless man without purpose. A man with no job, with big debts rising and the last of youth leaving, fading till it’s gone forever like the shadow he ceases to cast. A man who has lost a lot of things, but most of all himself.” He leans in, there’s steel in his eyes and gravel in his voice. “You tell me dipshit, you tell me if I’m close.” “You’re pretty close.” Russian God is a good cold reader.
He takes another
drink, and I feel as if I have at last evoked some pathos. I can see it on his face. “You’re an idiot,” he says, “get some real problems.” I am not a good cold reader. “Is there a woman in this?” he asks. “What do you mean?” “I said is there a woman in this?” he asks again with less patience. “There was a woman once.” He takes a moment to scrutinize my face, scanning it for signs of something, then he looks away shaking his head disapprovingly.
19 “So you’re just another asshole that lost his love, who was she then this fairytale princess?” I consider avoiding the topic, but decide instead to embrace it. “She was the right one, you know when you know that? You just do, and well I knew it. Never got to tell her; and now all I have left is the memory, cause we didn’t take the road we should have taken.” “And tell me who’s fault was it that you didn’t?” “Would it surprise you if I said it was my own?” “No. It would surprise me if you said it wasn’t.” “I won’t say it wasn’t, because I can’t.” “Cut you deep, didn’t it? Left you all scars. You’re all scars but you want to heal them, not with someone else but with her.” “Another forlorn fucker trying to win a woman’s heart.” “That’s an age old tale that’s been told too many times.” “Yea, well fuck it anyway, it’s too late for me now. She’s gone and shut the door, and she couldn’t give a damn. And so the past will remain the intangible past, what might have been and never was, must be forgotten.” He stubs his cigarette out -- this time in the ashtray. “Maybe, yea, maybe it’s too late,” he says.
20 Maybe isn’t the reassurance I’m looking for. If hope is a lie, it’s a lie I’ll take with both ears. “You didn’t move on,” he says. “I guess I’m a man slow to change, even slower to acceptance.” “Complicated are the minds and hearts of simpletons. So what are you waiting for? Go home, go ruffle some feathers.” “How can I go home when I just got here? I just made my break, got to try and make it work. I’ll have to see what happens.” “Will you? You’ll have to see what happens? Is that it?”
He slams his fist down on the counter. “Well, I’m
going to tell you why you lost and why you will again.” I take a drink cause I know I’ll need it. He goes on, “Your greatest sin was silence but how deafening its roar. Listen! And you’ll hear it yet as it echoes through the years…see you, guilty of being indolent and comfortable, you put all your faith in me, didn’t you? And none of it in yourself, and so you sat back, waiting for someone else to solve your problems; believing, like the fool you are, in the great fallacy that is inescapable fate. That is why you lost. See what you failed to realize is that the fate of a man is not immune to change. No. Maybe God helps you along your way, maybe he doesn’t, but a man should not be stopping to concern
21 himself with such. He should get on with it, and leave God to his own devices. Cause he ain’t got time to wait around for help. The clock keeps ticking and the hour’s getting later. Now is always the time you fool, before you wake tomorrow in elder years drowned in whiskey and regret. Now, is where a future’s born, and where a future dies; now, is where entire generations are collapsed or built. The clock ticks ever on and on. Tick tock. Tick tock.” Russian God rises from his stool.
His movements are
slow and he looks suddenly so much older. Loser rises with him and limps past me for the exit.
I turn with him
and watch him standing at the doorway, waiting for his master. “You know, I’d say if you wanted to fix things,” says Russian God, “maybe you should get home, try and make amends for that colossal list of fuck-ups you no doubt left behind. But then that’s just the wisdom of an old fool, a man who drowned himself in whiskey, and with nothing to show for himself in life but two lousy bucks and a three legged dog.”
He takes two one dollar bills
out of his pocket and places them down before him on the counter, then he downs what’s left of his drink and brings the glass down on the notes. “Go home Loser King, maybe lose something more of yourself.”
22 “What could I have left to lose?” “The crown upon your head. Anyway, it’s time for me to go.” “You leave me a lot to think about Russian God.” “I’d say the time for thinking has passed.” Russian God walks slowly for the exit.
He doesn’t
look at me as he passes but briefly places a hand upon my shoulder.
I see from up close the dark cavernous
entities he has for eyes, they are not threatening, just sad. “You’re not really God, are you?” “Not really,” he says with a wry smile, “maybe just the man you might become.”
He continues walking towards
the door. “You think it will work out?” I ask suddenly.
He
stops walking again and turns around to face me. “What?” he says. “My problems. You think I’ll work them out?” “Maybe. But that’s for time to know. Anyway, I have to go, this isn’t the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Fuck off.” Russian God continues unceremoniously out the door, bereft of halo or celestial light. If he was God, he came before me as a foul mouthed whiskey drinking Russian, accompanied by a three-legged Labrador.
And I don’t
suppose, given the choice, I’d have wanted it any other way.
23 I stay at the bar after they’re gone. empty, even the barman has disappeared.
The place is
I sit there in a
state of bemused contemplation when suddenly I hear a whelp behind me. doorway.
I turn to see Loser standing at the
He hops towards me.
As he approaches I somehow
feel that he’s returning with the real message Russian God had wanted me to hear. Loser positions himself beside my stool, cocks a hind leg and urinates on the side of my trousers.
I let
him do it too, watching his mouth hang open in what I swear is a smile, well not just a smile, but as shit eating a grin as a dog is ever likely to have.
As he
continues to relieve himself, I catch a glimpse of his collar. Loser.
I see a name there and note the name’s not After the dog is finished he limps back out the
door and I never see him or Russian God again. The barman reappears.
I order another double
whiskey, being sure now of two things: the first one is I need to change my trousers, the second one is that it was just a drunken old man with a high tolerance for pain and a fondness for good Jameson. “Just a crazy Russian,” I say aloud, smiling manically at the approaching barman. me to pay.
This time he asks
24