Nathanael

and they die young

Please don’t get it twisted and think this is a ‘happily ever after’ tale. I’m sorry to tell you that it’s not. So stop reading now if that’s what you’d like to see. And don’t say I didn’t warn you. It’s an ugly story.

So ugly, it was deemed by the local daily rag to be unfit to publish. Though the hushed truth be told, the honorary mayor and distinguished city councillors wouldn’t approve if it were. Not tourism friendly. A story about the things this society pretends not to see. Like the poor lost souls that find themselves at the bottom of the Falls.

Or the ever growing number of homeless that inhabit the metropolis. These are the things that are never talked about. Things the city wants to pretend don’t exist. A plague, I’m sure, they hope will just go away if ignored for long enough. The first thing you learn walking on Lundy’s Lane near Main Street is that the city has a pulse.

And it does not match yours. It beats slower. Heavier. Like something old and decrepit turning in its sleep. The tourist lights still glow from Clifton Hill, and upriver. Neon candy colours splash against mist. But here, past the souvenir shops and passing pawn shop windows. The city exhales something sour. The Falls’ roar never stops.

A permanent distant thunder that reminds you there is something vast nearby, that doesn’t care if you disappear. That’s where I meet Nathanael, leaning against a brick wall. Sweating through the cold on this late, late afternoon in February. Twenty-something, maybe. Age dissolves fast out here. His face looks haggard, eyes look too big for his skull.

He grins when he sees me, the grin of someone who knows a joke you don’t want explained. “You feel it?” he asks. “Feel what?” I reply. “The wall.” He says “It’s humming.” He presses his ear to the brick like he’s listening for a train. I don’t hear anything, but I nod anyway. You learn to agree with the environment. “The city’s hungry,” he says.

“Always hungrier when it snows.” He adds as snow drifts down diagonally in front of us. Every flake looks diseased before it hits the ground. The area in front of the building where we’ve met smells like chemical sweetness. The perfume of a place where things rot slowly. Nathanael scratches his arms through his coat. The motion is automatic, insectile. He catches me watching.

“Body remembers the sickness even when it’s gone.” He laughs. I laugh with him. The sound dies immediately. We start walking. The Falls in the hours to come is a different animal. The sidewalks are scattered with people orbiting invisible needs. A woman asks us if we’d like a date, and becomes erratic when we politely decline. Like we owe her money. A man digs through a garbage can with frantic intensity.

Everyone’s eyes flick to everyone else’s hands. Hands tell the truth. Nathanael narrates the streets like a tour guide from hell. “That’s where my buddy Kyle dropped,” he says, nodding toward a doorway. He gestures to a bus shelter. “Couple nearly froze to death there last winter. Held each other all night. Romantic, eh?” His tone is conversational. Like he’s talking about the weather.

“You scared?” he asks suddenly. “I should be,” I say. “Yeah,” he replies. “Means you’re paying attention.” We duck into a convenience store. The clerk doesn’t look up from her phone. Nathanael doesn’t buy anything, just warms up for a spell. Having a look around. “You ever been dope sick?” he asks. “No.” I answer. He grins wider. “Lucky bastard. It’s like your bones are trying to escape. Everything hurts. Even your thoughts hurt. You’d sell your name to make it stop.”

Outside again, the cold hits like judgment. He checks his phone. Nothing there. Still, ritualistically, he checks again. Nothing. “Waiting on this guy.” He says. We end up in an underpass where the concrete ceiling sweats. A small congregation of bodies huddle around, the sounds of passing automobile traffic overhead. Someone coughs harshly.

Nathanael introduces me to nobody. Names don’t stick here. Everyone is a temporary condition. Time stretches thin. The roar of the Falls and the sound of traffic filter through the concrete like distant artillery. It starts to sound and feel intentional, like the city is grinding its teeth. He grows restless. “Should’ve been here by now,” he mutters. “Fuck’n guy’s late.” I look at Nathanael and ask curiously, “what happens if he doesn’t show?”

He looks at me like I’ve asked what happens if gravity stops. “I get sick.” He says. The word hangs heavy. Sick is a prophecy. He starts pacing, checking his phone over and over again. His movements sharpen, Sweat beads on his forehead despite the cold. “It’s starting,” he says quietly. His hands tremble. His jaw clenches and unclenches like it’s chewing invisible meat.

“Feels like bugs,” he whispers. “They’re waking up.” He sits hard, hugging himself. The transformation is violent in its subtlety. Ten minutes ago he was a tour guide. Now he’s prey. “I can’t do this,” he says. “I can’t do sick.” A figure appears at the far end of the underpass, hood up, face erased by shadow. The trifling horde stirs. Eyes sharpen. Hands reach into pockets.

The exchanges are fast, ritualistic. Money becomes folded paper. Hope becomes powder. Nathanael’s hands steady the moment the bindle touches them. “See?” he says, breathing easier. “Miracles.” We retreat to a concrete door stoop in an alley near a stairwell that smells of stale urine. The graffiti on the nearby walls feels aggressive, letters tagged into existence. Nathanael sits, opens up his coat and lays out his tools with reverence.

Spoon. Needle. Lighter. Each item has a place in the ceremony. “You watch close,” he says. “This is science.” He cooks the dose. The liquid darkens, viscous and promising. He draws it up into the rig, then flicks it a few times. “You ever think about what’s in this?” I ask. He smiles. “Doesn’t matter.” He ties off his exposed arm. A vein rises reluctantly, like it regrets participating.

“This is the part where the world stops yelling,” he says. The needle slides in. He exhales. For a moment, our surroundings soften. Another alley trip. His shoulders drop. His face smooths into something almost peaceful. Then the peace stretches too far. His breathing slows. “Nathanael,” I say. No response. His head tilts forward, mouth open slightly. A thin line of drool escaping.

“Nathanael?” He barely moves in front of my studious eyes. The air thickens. The roar of the Falls grows louder in my skull, a pressure wave. The graffiti feels closer. Watching. I shake him. His body is heavy in the wrong way. Like gravity has increased just for him. “Stay,” I say. “Stay with me.” Nothing. His lips begin to colour, a soft, impossible greying blue.

The wall hums. I swear it does. A vibration through the brick, through my hands, into my teeth. The city’s leaning in to listen. “Not like this,” I whisper. I search my coat pockets for my Naloxone kit. It’s not there, how could I have forgotten it? No miracle tonight. His breathing’s stopped. Time fractures. I dial 911 on my cellphone and do my best to describe where we are from the address numbers on a nearby building.

Every second becomes a room I’m trapped inside. His head’s slumped forward. His open eyes staring through me at something vast and private. “Come back,” I hiss. “You don’t get to leave.” The roar fills the alleyway. The Falls are inside my skull now, a flood without water. I keep talking to him as minutes pass. And in the corner of my vision, the graffiti shifts. Letters crawling. Shapes breathing.

The wall’s opening its mouth. This is what he meant. The city is hungry. And it is eating him. After what feels like an hour, red, blue and white flashing lights finally sear into view. Distant, then closer. Too late though, I know it. The knowledge sits heavy and certain. Voices bark orders at each other. Bright light floods the alley and the stairwell, bleaching the horror into clinical shapes.

They work on him with practiced violence. Compressions. Needles. Commands. I watch his body resist. And then… Nothing. Stillness. A paramedic exhales. A tiny shake of the head. The two of them empty of urgency. A wrist watch is glanced at. Time of death is spoken softly, and recorded. Like an apology no one believes.

Two Police officers are there now too, watching his blueing body lay there. The paramedics get into the ambulance and leave. Probably an hour goes by. Finally a coroner arrives. Not long after that Nathanael is zipped into a black cadaver pouch. The sound is obscene in its finality. He is lifted onto a mortuary cot. Loaded into the back of a discreet looking van, and taken away.

The stairwell exhales. I lean against the wall. It’s warm. Or maybe I am. The hum is gone. The city has swallowed what it wanted. Outside, snow falls thick and silent. It blankets the sidewalk in fresh innocence that fools no one. The Falls continue their endless roar. Ancient, indifferent applause.

An Ambulance sits a few blocks down the street, its lights flashing. I wonder if the same scene is playing out there. Oblivious people move through the night carrying their small catastrophes. The cycles replay, and tighten. The night’s just begun. Faster they run… and they die young.

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