I Commend My Spirit

 

I Commend My Spirit

By

Matthew Benbenek

 

The last light of the day peeked through the curtains onto Iggy as he lounged against the headboard in Room 412 of the Woodford Hotel, dragging the life out of their last cigarette and thumbing his lucky silver dollar. Across the room, beyond the pile of pizza boxes, lay Michael, passed out in soiled clothes and clutching a half-full bottle of whiskey. Iggy left to the bathroom for another aspirin: his teenage liver was not used to the toxins. When he came back, Michael’s hand had shifted, spilling the dark swill onto himself and the cream carpet. “Hey, wake up!” Iggy ran over and ripped the nearly empty bottle out of his grip.

Michael awoke: “Whaddya you doin, Igg? Hogging all the Jack?”

“You poured it out! Can’t you smell it?” Michael felt his chest then scraped the wet shirt off and threw it into a nearby clothes pile while Iggy gulped down the dregs and collapsed back onto the bed. ‘What day was it? Thursday? It must have been almost a week since we ran away,’ he thought. Fighting through the crushing headache, Iggy struggled to sort out his jumbled mind.

 

The man collapsed on the side of ‘Sewell’s Pub’ caught Michael’s eye.

“Who’s that?” Michael asked.

“I dunno. Out-of-towner probably.”

Michael walked over to the man and looked him over. “I think you’re right, too fancy for these parts. In fact, he’d look downright respectable… if he weren’t piss drunk!” Michael laughed. He knelt down to take the man’s wallet. “Ooh, look here Igg.”

“What?” Iggy said nervously, standing lookout.

“Longines.” he said with a crude accent, holding up a watch. “It’s Swiss. You know how much one of these is worth Igg?”

“Couple hundred, I dunno. Can you hurry up?”

Michael shook his head, grinning impishly. “Try thousands, pal.”

They left the man in the gutter, Iggy, uneasy, following behind the impenitent thief.

 

“Any more bottles over there?”

“No, we’re all out.”
Michael pouted. “How much money have you got?”

Iggy went to his coat and emptied the pockets. He pulled out the Chesapeake Line ticket to Norfolk, an empty pack and his wallet.

“I’ve only got about 40.” he said, checking his the wallet.

“That’s it? Check my bag.” Michael said pointing to the corner as he put on some dry clothes.

He opened the ratty bag, Under a jacket Iggy spied a dark, shiny lump. He reached in and pulled out Michael’s revolver.

 

“Watch. Do it like this.”

Iggy stood back as Michael raised the gun and aimed down the sight at the glass bottles on the stump downfield.

BANG

BANG

Bullet splintered the browned bottles, scattering shards into the overgrowth.

“You try.”

Iggy took the gun and tried to copy Michael. He lined up the sight with a red label on one of the larger bottles. He pulled the trigger.

BANG

The bottles stood untouched, the bullet whizzing by them, and the gun snapped Iggy’s wrist back.

“Ow.” He rubbed his sore wrist. “Where did you even get this thing?”

“I lifted it from my dad’s drawer. He won’t notice. He never even shoots it. Just uses it to threaten me sometimes.”

Iggy handed back the gun. “Well, I’m no good.”

“Just keep trying. Here, watch me again.”

Michael aimed downfield and blasted another bottle.

 

“Why’d you bring it?” Iggy said, holding up the gun.

“You never know, Igg. Big city, lotta crooks out here.”

“Like the pawnbroker?”

“Hey, I told you, he knew it was hot. It was the best we could get.” Michael’s face was growing redder. “Hey it got us here, didn’t it?” he said, defensively.

Iggy looked back in the bag. “With mine, we’ve about two-hundred. A little more.”

Michael winced. “Why don’t we pawn that coin you’ve got? That worth anything?”

He grabbed his pocket and shot back: “It’s not for sale.” Iggy regained his composure. “How much for another bottle?”

Michael looked around at the trashed room, then responded:  “No, we’re going out tonight. I’m getting bored just sittin’ here.”

“Where? At least you look old enough. I can barely even pass for my own age.”

“Igg, you’ve got a lot to learn.” Michael said, with the smug grin he always gets when giving Iggy advice. “Your age doesn’t matter if you go to the right places.”

 

The lighthouse keeper peered through watch port onto the rough waters at the signaling light. A small fishing skiff was beaten about in the dark choppy waves. It came in too late, thought the old man. Over at the control mechanisms, he adjusted the light, gears sending the the lantern sweeping across the bay to guide the boat.

Quietly, Iggy opened the door to the lighthouse quarters and tried to sneak to his bedroom without his grandfather noticing, but the wind slammed the door shut. He cursed. It’d been nearly a year ago now, but still the house was foreign to him.

“Ignatius, is that you?” the old voice called from above.

“Yes. I’m tired, I’m going to bed.”

“Come here for a minute.”

Iggy groaned and climbed the spiral stairs up to the watch room.

“You haven’t been home all day. What have you been doing?” his grandfather said, in an unconvincing, scolding voice.

“I was staying at my friend’s house.”

His grandfather sighed. “I know this isn’t the nicest place to live but you can’t just leave for days without telling me. I worry you know—”

“Yeah, alright. You done?” Iggy snapped.

His grandfather was taken aback.“Are you hungry?”

“No. Can I go to sleep now? I’m tired.”

“Of course.”

Iggy started back down the steps.

“Wait, would you like to learn how to operate the beacon?

Iggy stared blankly back at him.

“I think you might find it interesting.” the old man weakly added.

“Not at all.” he said, trying to act as cold as he could, and left.

“Oh. Well, goodnight then.” He hung his head briefly, then went back to tuning the clockwork, illuminating the dark waters.

 

In the spring dusk, the two youths navigated through Norfolk’s streets to the outskirts of the city center. Michael was right, Iggy found, as the first pub they entered, D.D.’s Club, did not hesitate to serve him. Michael sat Iggy down in a booth, away from the regulars, with a pitcher. They drank in silence, both sick of each other’s company. Iggy looked around naively at his first bar while Michael’s gaze was focused on the dart board. Chugging his glass, pouring another, and downing that as well, Michael got up from the booth and marched over to the game.

“Wait, where are you going?”
“Watch and learn, Igg.”

Iggy watched him walk up to the gaunt wastrel running the board, then followed after like a lost puppy.

“How much for a game?” Michael asked, strutting up, chest puffed.

The ragged, skinny man leaned against the wall, eyeing him up. “You any good?”

“You’ll just have to find out.”

The man took the toothpick out of his mouth and picked the darts out of the board. “Twenty Bucks, Cutthroat Cricket. You go first, kid.”

Michael took his place at the line. In the first round he hit two twenties and a triple eighteen. He neglected to tell the man he’d been playing since his Dad brought him to the bar at age ten. The man followed with only a single seventeen and Michael won the match handily, closing the board by round fifteen. He took the man’s money and used it to buy another round. “Igg.” he called.

“What’s up?” Iggy said, who was keeping busy flipping his silver dollar in his hand.

“Another?”

Iggy shrugged.

“Cheer up.” Michael said, handing him a beer. “Come watch me win us some more money.” Michael walked back to the man in the corner.

“Kid, where’d you learn to throw so good?”
“Up the coast a ways. Small town.”

“Country boy, huh? Well, country boy, I say you got lucky that round.”

Michael’s head was inflating. “You trying to lose again, old man?”

“How about we raise the stakes.”

“Alright. How much?”

“How much you got, son?”
He hesitated, then spit out: “How does two hundred dollars sound?” Michael turned to Iggy and winked. Iggy was nervous now, but he trusted Michael.

The man thought about it for a minute. “Alright, boy, you’ve got yourself a deal.” He leaned forwards to shake it closed with Michael, bringing his face into an angle with the sharp light that emphasized his skeletal features.

 

Iggy sat alone in the parking lot behind the school, carving words into the cement wall, his backpack flung beside him.

An older kid walked around the corner, cigarette in mouth, stopping for a moment when he saw Iggy, then lit up and started towards him.

Iggy tried to avoid looking in the other kid’s direction, but he was soon in the boy’s shadow.

“You’re the new kid, huh?”

Iggy turned, trying to ignore him.

“You speak English? I’m talkin to you.”

“Ya, what else?” Iggy said, trying to muster enough courage to scare the boy away.

The kid smirked. “I’m Michael. What’s your name?”

“Iggy,”, he said shyly.

“That’s a weird ass name.” Michael laughed. Iggy looked back down to his carving, embarrassed. “So, Igg,” he said, emphasizing the ‘G’ sound harshly, “I hear you’re living in the old lighthouse.” He puffed his cigarette. “With that creepy old man.”

“Not by choice, believe me.”

Michael offered him a smoke and he took it, coughing violently after inhaling. Michael laughed at Iggy again. “So what are you doing out here in the boondocks?” He didn’t respond, but Michael wouldn’t quit. “Oh, you’re going silent again. I see.”

“My Dad died,” Iggy said suddenly, staring down Michael.

Michael was unphased and took another draw. “Lucky.”

 

Iggy stared in awe as Michael got off to a hot start, closing the twenties, sixty points up on the man. Then favor shifted. Hitting double bullseye twice, then sweeping through the bottom: sixteen, nineteen, seventeen, fifteen, the other man had a commanding lead and before Michael knew what had happened, he’d lost the match. The two kids stared dumbfounded.

“That’ll be two-hundred dollars, champ,” the bony man said, posting up against the wall once more, chewing on a toothpick.

Michael shock morphed into anger. He visibly shaking, then exploded: “You cheat!”

“I won fair and square.” the man said, grinning.

“You hustled me!” Michael screamed. He tried to stand his ground, but his eyes were welling up and soon a drop ran down his face.

“Are you crying?” the man asked laughing. “Hey everybody, country boy here is crying!”

The bar erupted, everyone now staring at them.

“I’m not crying!”

“Alright kid, enough. Now, the money,” the man said, holding out his hand.

Michael gulped. “I don’t have it here.”
The man talked to the whole bar again, playing the crowd. “He doesn’t have the money, he says!” This was met with a cacophony of boos and vulgar exclamations.

“I’ve gotta get it from the room. It’s not far.” Michael tried to explain.

“Think I was born yesterday, kid?”

“It’s true.” Iggy interjected. “We’re staying at the Woodford.

“Shut up!” Michael hissed, at him. “He’ll stay” he said suddenly, pointing at Iggy, “until I get back.”

Michael ran out before Iggy could protest. The man laughed and sauntered over to Iggy,

sitting on the stool next to him. “Two more” he said to the barkeep. “One’s for you,” he said, tussling Iggy’s hair. “You’d better hope your buddy is true blue.”

It was a very long time Iggy sat at D.D.’s Club, trying to ignore the nasty words coming out of the man’s mouth, waiting for Michael to return. He ran his finger over the outline of the face on the silver dollar in his pocket to keep calm.

“I’ll be damned. You’re in luck kiddo,” the man said, looking out the window. Iggy turned, squinting out the smudged glass to find Michael walking up towards the bar slowly.

The man popped up to face Michael as he walked through the door. “Well, you got my money?” he smiled. Michael stood trembling, staring at the man,silent. “Can you hear me son?” he laughed, and looked around the bar for approval.

Michael reached back and pulled out the pistol, aiming it at the man’s chest.

The man’s face paled over for a second. He looked down the muzzle, then up to Michael’s scared face. The man burst out laughing, and the rest of the bar joined him. From the underneath the counter the bartender grabbed a shotgun and pointed it at Michael.

“Oh you can put that away Patty, the kid ain’t gonna shoot me.”

Michael was sweating and trembling harder.

“Steal Daddy’s gun, did we?” he cackled, working the crowd. “Hell, he probably gave it to ya hoping you’d get shot up trying to use it.” The bar laughed even harder. “Then again, if I were your father, I’d probably have shot myself out of disappointment.”

“Shut up!” Michael yelled feebly, but nobody in the room bought it.

“You don’t even know how to use it, do you?” The man moved closer. “Give it here —” the man said as he reached for the gun.

BANG

BANG

The man clutched his chest, staggered and fell into a table.

BANG

The bartender blew Michael over. A woman shrieked and chaos broke loose. “I’m calling the police.” the bartender said. Iggy jumped down to Michael’s crumpled body, its muscles struggled slowly under the tattered, reddening cloth.

 

Iggy crossed the street. “Wait up!” his Dad cried. He looked behind him and saw his Dad crouching in the middle of the road, picking up his lucky silver dollar. Iggy felt his pocket where he kept it, only to find a newly bored hole. “I didn’t know you still carried this thing.” he said, inspecting it in his hand.

BANG

A truck barreled through the crosswalk plowing over his father. Brakes screeched and people screamed. Iggy darted over to his dad’s side, almost getting hit himself. He stared down at the still and broken body. He was already gone.

Soon Iggy was surrounded by sirens and flaring lights. “Are you alright?” a policeman knelt down to ask him, but Iggy was unresponsive, transfixed down at his father. They finally had to drag Iggy away to bring in the stretcher. He sat on the curb, ignoring the policeman, clutching his lucky silver dollar.

 

Michael grabbed Iggy’s arm weakly. “How does it look, Igg?” he groaned, quietly. Blood was pooling underneath him now. “Because it don’t feel so good.” His breathing was growing heavier.

“It’ll be alright, help is on its way,” Iggy said, but he knew they wouldn’t make it in time.

“Iggy, I get him? Tell me I got him at least.”

Iggy looked over to where the man sprawled, unmoving, another man checking his pulse. Before he could inform Michael, he felt the bloody grip slip off his arm. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Michael’s face, imagining the color running out, expression shrinking. Iggy rose slowly and backed away from the body.

“Hey kid, don’t go anywhere!” the bartender yelled.

Iggy panicked and ran out through the door of D.D.’s, darting into the nearest alley and crouching in the shadows. Iggy curled up behind a dumpster, wandering pests skittering around him. A fly buzzed around Iggy’s head, dodging his swats ear to ear, occasionally landing to rest. For a minute this went on until finally he made contact, slapping it away. He tracked the bug as it flew upwards, towards the fluorescent alley light but before reaching the light it was stopped, stuck on the thread of a spider’s webbing. It tried to escape, wings buzzing, frantic. The more it struggled the more the fly became bogged down.

Iggy looked away. He burrowed closer to the wall, with nowhere else to go and cried.

 

“What’s wrong champ?” his dad said, coming over. “Don’t cry.” He tried to comfort his five-year old, hiding the fact that he was hurting even more.

“Where’s Mom?” the child cried.

He exhaled. “She left, son. We’ve been over this.”

“When is she coming back?”

“I don’t think she is Iggy.” This did not seem to console the child.

“Promise you’ll never leave me dad.”

“Ignatius, I can’t promise you that,” he said carefully. “Look, I may not always be near you, but I’ll always be with you ‒ here.” As he said that, he touched Iggy’s chest. The child stared back blankly, not understanding. The father kept thinking. “Wait here, I’ll be right back,” and went upstairs. He came back down and handed Iggy a large silver coin.

Iggy wiped away a stale tear to look at the coin. “What is it?” he asked.

“It’s a silver dollar. My grandfather gave it to me. I want you to keep it with you and whenever you’re lonely, all you have to do it feel that it’s there, think of me, and you’ll know that you’re not alone.”

 

Emanating from his chest, a calming wave washed over Iggy: his heart slowed to normal and  the fear tensing up his muscles faded. He wiped off the tears with his bloody sleeve and looked up at the fly. It had worked its way over to the edge of the trap, limbs straining under the adhesion, fluttering violently to propel itself forward until, finally, it crossed the last strand, flying up to buzz around the beckoning glow of the streetlight.  

Iggy unfurled, stretching out and up, and ran right out of that alley, driven by something: fear or anger or hope, Iggy didn’t know. He ran through the streets of Norfolk, his internal compass navigating him past the Woodford Hotel, to the station and onto the train. His mind ran as the train chugged through the coastal country and he closed his eyes.

 

The flat pebble skipped across the cold water until it collided into a rising wave with a plunk, sinking to the waterbed instead of riding into shore with the night tide. Iggy threw another in after it.

When he ran out of rocks, Iggy sat down on the sands of the hidden beach Michael had shown him, resting his head on a downed tree trunk. He stared out at the open water and at the blinking signals of boats flashing across the waters: some coming in to dock and some only just departing. The longer he looked, the more his vision blurred, the shiplights indistinguishable from the distant, twinkling stars.

Iggy snapped out of his daze when the curtain of light from the beacon passed through his line of sight. He noticed he now had company; a small fox had emerged from the woods, sniffed around the beach, glancing at Iggy occasionally. The fox sauntered over to Iggy’s backpack on the grass and started to dig at it. Iggy reached around in the sand until he found a rock, then through it at the fox. It hit the animal in the side, sending it scampering back into the woods. Iggy sat, alone again, and gazed back out into the speckled night.

 

He reached into his pocket to feel his lucky silver dollar but instead found only a coin, foreign to him. He took it out and inspected it: the same embossed face, the same ridges as before, but the coin had no value. He looked up and across the car from him his Dad materialized. Iggy looked at him curiously but couldn’t bring himself to say anything. The apparition smiled at him warmly and, cautiously, Iggy smiled back. Another passenger entered the car and his father was gone, but not really.

When the train reached his stop he pushed out the door and he ran off the platform.. He ran through the quiet village square and past Michael’s parents house. Outside Sewell’s Pub a gutter drunk stumbled in front of him, holding out a cup. “Any spare change youngin?” he slurred. Iggy opened his wallet to find he’d spent all of his money on the train ticket. He felt in his pocket and, after a moment’s hesitation, plopped a coin into the wino’s cup.

The man shouted a blessing after him as he kept running out of the village, past the last house, past his school off the paved path. He now knew the grass that he ran on as he cut through the graveyard, sprinting by the tombstones and their memories, into the wide field, the crickets chirping mechanically, pushing him on. He ran all the way to the edge of the murky bay. On the summit of the bluff, he stared out into the dark horizon that melded seamlessly into the cosmos; for once, among the choppy waves he could see no lost boats. Then, turning uphill, where a modest country cottage stood with a tower attached, and atop of the tower a guiding light, Iggy ran home.

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