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Better than the Sun
By Robert Doyen November 30, 1995
 The humid air covered me in sweat as I walked down the sidewalk with my backpack slung over my left shoulder. I walked in no particular hurry and in no particular direction. All I knew was that I had decided that morning and I was glad.
It was so hot that rings of sweat were beginning to form on the armpits of the undershirt that I wore beneath my solid white leisure suit. The lapels flapped against my face every time the wind blew, but today that was not very often.
It was my favorite suit. I remember buying it for two dollars at a garage sale a few years ago. Sometimes I would just stand in front of my cracked, body length mirror and admire myself in it... posing and flexing and feeling so proud. Then I liked to take it off and lie naked on my bed to get the full effect of my unsheated, egg carton mattress while I watched the roaches scurry in and out of the cracks in my ceiling. I admired their resiliency.
I don't remember why I kicked the mirror that one time. I just remember watching it shatter into a million pieces, and then cutting my hands as I tried to pick up the shards and stare into the tiny reflection they made.
"You'll never guess what I saw," said an old homeless man, grabbing me by the shoulder and startling me out of my daydream. His skin was all cracked and wrinkled, like the paper from an old grocery bag, and his eyes were hiding deep in their red sockets.
He said he saw a bird.
"God it was so beautiful," he said, spitting each word out through his ugly, toothless mouth, " All I wanted to do was touch it. Really, that's all I wanted. I was so close, it was on that fence over there... right over there. Can you see it? Can you see that it made me cry?" His eyes seemed to beg to me, as if somehow I could bring the bird back.
It took me a few seconds to break free of the shock that he put into me, and when I did I knocked loose his grip and walked quickly away to escape the sounds of his weeping.
He reminded me of my uncle; poor by choice and living on the streets in Chicago. Poor by choice... at least that's what my parents would tell me whenever I asked.
I never actually understood what my Uncle had been on trial for. All I knew was that it somehow involved my cousin and that they would not let me go and watch the hearings no matter how much I begged. They never would tell me what happened. I think I know though. I try not to think about it, but sometimes it creeps slowly into my mind like a slug, leaving behind a trail of slime.
I felt no pity for the homeless man.
As I continued to walk, leaning forward to adjust for the incline that I had come to, I began to listen to the rhythmic pitter-patter of my tennis shoes hitting the pavement, like a drum beat, and I tried to make it sound like the beat in my favorite song... "Deep" by Pearl Jam.
In front of me, beyond the hill that I was climbing, the top of a building seemed to grow out of the ground. The closer I came to the crest of the hill the larger the building became, and when I finally reached the top I saw that it was an old, abandoned warehouse, several stories high.
The sign across the door said "condemned" and every window was loosely boarded up. The exterior was covered in random graffiti, ranging from gang slogans to artwork, and the whole thing seemed to lean slightly to the left.
Close to the corner of the building I saw a hole that looked just big enough for me to fit into, so I decided to try to go inside.
Funny, the outside had seemed so full with its graffiti and boards, and character, but inside there was nothing. The old warehouse was completely barren, except for the debris that littered its floors.
There was a flight of stairs in the middle, and I decided I wanted to go see the roof. I walked so slowly up those stairs, being careful to avoid the missing planks, and holding onto the unsteady handrail for support. It was an old wooden staircase that curled like a snake up to the top. Each time a board creaked I feared it would give way, but at the same time I did not care. Did not care at all, because life as I knew it was over. I had decided this morning, and I was glad.
The light burned my eyes as I opened the door to the roof. It was covered by loose gravel that made a crunching noise as I walked to the edge. When I got there I jumped up onto the ledge and looked down at the ground eight stories below. It seemed to call my name.
It reminded me of the time when I was in the fifth grade, and Jeffrey Belcroy was taunting me to jump off of my roof. We used to hang out every day at my house.
“What’s wrong Rick, are you a girl?” he said, “do you have a vagina?”
“No!” I yelled back, “shut up Jeff.”
“Richard has a vagina, Richard has a vagina.” Jeffrey chanted and when I couldn’t take it anymore I jumped from the section of my roof above my door that was closest to the ground.
I did not know to bend my knees when I landed, and the pain in my left leg was immediate and excruciating. I was in a cast for three months.
I guess I was lucky when I did it though, because later that week when Jeff tried it he tripped on the gutter and landed awkwardly on his head. He died instantly. I went to his funeral on crutches, and cried the most that day when I looked down to see his signature on my cast. I still have that thing somewhere. It’s been twenty years now since he died. Somehow I always felt like it was my fault. Damn that stupid boy.
My climb to the roof had made me hungry so I sat down and reached into my backpack for my bologna sandwich and thermos of milk. Then suddenly my meal made me remember another incident from my childhood.
My father walked in on me masturbating when I was fourteen. I was in my room and he had just returned from Wednesday mass early to see me because I told him I was sick. Actually I just didn’t want to go.
As soon as our eyes met he slapped me so hard across the face that it spun me down onto my hands and knees.
“Son,” he told me in a deep, almost growling voice, “This will not be a house of profanity.” I had heard the same thing many times before for less severe infractions upon “His” word, but this time I felt that I was holding myself up by the fingertips upon the cliff’s edge to a leap into Hell.
Then he grabbed me by the arm, pulling me onto my feet and towards the hallway where he threw me in the closet and locked the door.
I think six days in the closet was longer than I deserved. My claustrophobia drove me mad as I did what I could to pass the time between when my food was served. My meals would be quietly slipped in to me and then the door would immediately shut behind it leaving me to eat my bologna sandwich and milk in the dark. Not a hello was ever spoken until I was let out, and forgiveness was what I was forced to give…kneeling… hands clasped together, begging to the Lord as the wooden switch thrashed upon my back.
I don’t remember what I told my friends at school. Something about the flu.
“Again?” Nurse Jaffey would say through questioning eyes.
I remember when she told me I should go see a psychiatrist. That was in the fifth grade, right after the time I tried to cut off Suzie Patterson’s finger with some scissors. The teacher stopped me before any real damage was done. Too bad, I thought her blood looked neat... more black than red really.
She always irritated me so much, and her favorite thing to do was to poke me with pencils right in the armpit where it hurt like crazy. One day she pants’d me during lunch while I was holding my tray and getting ready to pay for my food. I dropped my tray immediately and reached down to pull my shorts back up as orange juice, lasagna, and green beans splattered all over my legs and onto the ground beneath my feet. In my mad dash to pull my pants back up I tripped on the now slimy floor and fell down. Everyone in the cafeteria laughed at me. That was three weeks after Jeff had died, and the impact from the fall forced me to get back on crutches for another week.
The next day she poked me again with a pencil during art class, and that’s when I grabbed her hand and squeezed her pinky between my scissor blades. I wish I would have cut it off.
She left me alone during our middle school years, as did most people, and when we reached high school age she moved to another school on the other side of town.
In high school my stays in the closet grew more and more frequent, as my father kept me chained to a God fearing paranoia. No infraction upon “His” word was too small.
Even through college, as I lived at home the whole time, my father would put me in there, though it happened less the more I learned how to avoid his wrath.
I graduated from college when I was twenty three and finally moved out when I was twenty six. It felt like such an odd freedom. It took me until then to realize that "His" wrath was not actually God's, but my father's, and it made me mad at them both.
Now that I was finally away from my house, women were no longer forbidden. The first woman I was ever able to be with became pregnant though I had only been with her once. She never let me see the child and moved away a year after it was born. I wish I could have seen it. Sometimes I wonder if it looked like me.
I never spoke to her or my parents, or pretty much anyone else after that, living off of the government in my small downtown apartment.
But then suddenly this morning I had decided... finally made my own decision, and I was glad.
I reached again into my backpack and pulled out my father’s old hunting rifle that I had learned to disassemble to fit into my bag.
He taught me how to hunt with that gun when I was seventeen, teaching me how to aim with small targets and then dragging me out of bed on those cold mornings to wait for a deer to come into the clearing that we looked over.
"Don't be afraid to kill it son," he would tell me, "it's just an animal. It has no soul." Then a deer did come into view, and I was not afraid as my bullet exploded in it's heart.
The gun was assembled now and it was a new sensation looking through the scope as I dragged the viewfinder along the street. It seemed odd to me that I felt at the same time less and more scared than when my intended targets had been paper or animal.
Then a man in a suit walked across my viewfinder. He looked about forty, wearing thick black glasses and carrying a thin briefcase. I began to trace him in my sights, outlining his body with the center of my crosshairs, and my finger began to slide slowly up and down the trigger.
Suddenly I pulled my eye away from the viewfinder, and looked down at the ground with my own naked eye. I couldn't decide if this was what I wanted to do. But then, I never had known how to make my own decisions. They had always been made for me by God and my Father.
In my moment of indecision I decided to finish off my sandwich and milk. I noticed that the gravel was beginning to stain my suit grey. Then I looked back into my scope. The sidewalk had become busier now as people left their homes to eat lunch.
Now my sights fell onto a woman carrying a child in her arms. She wore a flowing red dress decorated in floral patterns. I lined my shot up between her eyes. Again my body became tense as I held her in my sights. Again it was time for me to make a decision. I still wasn't sure. So before I pulled the trigger I decided it would be nice to look at the sun. It was so radiant... it reminded me of God.
I decided I liked the sun better.
Looking back into the middle of my crosshairs I found myself seeming to stare directly into her eyes.
"Just an animal," I thought, "it has no soul," and I pulled my sights away from her head and fired.
Her child's head exploded into a million pieces as the bullet turned to shrapnel in its brain. The woman's mouth and eyes flew open as she dropped the child onto the ground and fell to her knees. Her body was covered in blood. It was black like Suzie's.
I kept my sights on her long enough to see her raise her hands up to her face and scream at the blood and bone fragments that dripped from them, then I searched for a new target.
All of the people were running now so it was harder to aim. Finally I was able to draw a bead on a large man who was about to duck into a small bread shop. I fired quickly, and although my aim was slightly off I did hit him and he fell immediately to the ground.
Knowing that everyone was finding cover now I did not wait to savor this hit, but began right away to look for another.
I found another in a bearded young man who had decided to hide on the wrong side of a car. His entire body was directly in my view. The bullet flew through his neck and he shook for a few seconds before he died.
The streets were nearly clear, but I could make out one more person walking along the sidewalk after pulling my eye away from the scope.
When I captured him in my sight, I discovered that it was the homeless man.
Somehow he was staring right at me. He held a limp, bloodied bird in his outstretched hands and tears were dripping from his cheeks after passing through the wrinkles that acted as canals on his weathered face. I rubbed my finger up and down on the trigger of my rifle, but I could not bring myself to squeeze it and I pulled the sight of the gun away from my eye and rubbed the barrel across my sweating forehead until its heat burned my flesh.
Now I began to hear sirens in the distance and I could tell that the police would be here soon. It did not frighten me however.
I took my eye away from the scope and decided to look down. The ground wanted me. It tugged so hard at my shoulder that I thought it might first pull itself up to me, but I would not give it that chance.
I put the rifle down, and, after jumping back onto the ledge, I decided that I would let the ground have me.
I'm glad the last thing I saw was the sun. After all... what's better than the sun?
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