Short Story: Glaucous

Abraham doubled over to contain the bile that swelled in his throat coughing himself awake. He threw his head against the foot square whole carved in the wall, his hand fumbling with the latch to press open the shutters. Looking down the street he could see the sun crest over the whitewashed buildings that dotted the Brooklyn shoreline. The sight of water and city was both familiar and unsettled him in the same breath. The buildings did not bear the rough stone or painted brick he was used to. The shore did not have the same rolling platinum clouds over head. They had been replaced by an alien sky of pale blue with buildings of red brick and wood. His cool summer breeze had been blown away by a lingering humidity that seeped in through the walls and floors leaving a damp film on his skin.

It wasn’t until he rolled from the window frame that Abraham realize he did not know his surroundings at all. The room was totally foreign to him and he had no memory of arriving it or even where it was beyond Manhattan. He stumbled across the dusty floor through the unhewn door only a foot from his cot. Beyond an equally confining hall stretched the length of the building with a half dozen other doors on either side. At the end a woman looked to him then raised her finger to her lips, in hushed movements she ushered him down the stairs. He trudged after her obediently his hand raised in a gesture of complicity as they passed a door into the tavern.

“Alright well you survived both the drink and the night so I suppose that is good.” Netty whispered. Looking around he only had the vaguest recollection of the prior night.

“I am sorry I don’t remember much.” Abraham fell onto a chair in the center of the room, his head bobbed with every movement.

“That’s no surprise lad. You came in half dead then drank enough to kill the other half.” She laughed from behind the bar. After a moment she produced a glass of water then placed it in front of him.

“I see, I apologize.” Abraham straightened.

“Not a worry, happens nightly to some poor soul. You do owe us for the room. I had my husband Thomas dumped ya in there when we couldn’t pry you from the bar.” She nodded her head towards a where a stool lay on the floor.

Abraham flushed. “Ack, well I can certainly pay you.”

Netty raised a thin silver eyebrow the green eyes beneath surveying him. “You sure about that? Men who find themselves in the state you were in last night tend to either lose their wallet or their life. Why Thomas got into a fight with two Brits who were trying to conscript a man not much younger than you had a wee bit too much to drink just last month.”

Abraham closed his eyes, he couldn’t feel the weight of his coin purse on his chest but he had a fuzzy memory of his leather satchel beside the cot where he had woken. If he couldn’t find the coin purse he had a few pieces of silver sown into a false bottom in the satchel. What was left of his inheritance it was all the money he had in the world. “It seems I may have misplaced my coin purse but I have a bit.”

Netty didn’t react visibly but took on a subtle air of righteousness. “So let’s say you’re broke then. Have ya got work?”

“No, I didn’t have anyone who could set it up for me and only the money for the fair and some food.”

The old woman swung her head back and forth confirming something to herself. “Have ya been apprenticed?”

“As an artist.”

“Then you aint got no hope of work do ya?” She cackled at him.

Abraham shrugged. The plan had never been a solid one; necessity wouldn’t allow it he conceded to himself. It had been born of horrors which he pressed from his memory thankful he had made it this far with what little resources he could muster.

“So nowhere to stay, hardly no money, no job, and no training of any use.” Netty looked around the tavern. “Alright well my husband is strong enough for sure but he is far from a diligent man and this place could use a touch up. You’ll paint the tavern inside and out, well call it a month’s rent for your room.” She stated in a frank bravado that would have put armies at her disposal.

“Mighty kind but I am not sure…”

Netty whipped her finger at him, chiding him the way his mother had when he was to be sent to bed without dinner. “No arguing. I can’t have your death on my hands. The good lord wouldn’t allow it and he’s taken enough people that has passed through these doors lately so unless you want to settle the tab for your room.”

Abraham hadn’t known what to expect when he arrived in Manhattan. Beyond the voyage all his plan had consisted of was finding his sister. Food, shelter, work, those were the realities a desperate mind fended off to give way for dreams of something better. The delusional denial of a hard future to give light to the briefest flicker that should he escape one hell he could find some semblance of heaven. Now confronted with the arrival of them he wanted to weep in gratitude then sob until the losses flowed out of him. “I am an artist so it seems only right.” Overwhelmed by the mercy, he let out a bittersweet chuckle.

“Good man, now we have whitewash in the cellar though you’ll have ta start by scrubbing the place down tip ta toe.” She flung a rag from beneath the bar into his lap. “There’s a horse trough outside and a well pump in the back. Don’t use none of the good water though.”

“I see.” Abraham said kneading the damp cloth in his hands. He walked from the dim confines of the tavern into the brilliance of a summer morning. Looking up he saw the narrow hole in the wall which marked his room just above the shingle which read “The Esquire and Redeemer’s Tavern”. On the diagonal he could see the heavy stone of Trinity Church. He wasn’t a man of faith; he had been broken of that. Looking over the street, filled with people of all walks of life at the start of their day he saw all the good he thought had been burnt from this world. He took in a long breath, the first he counted as an American.

 

Glaucous: of a pale yellow-green color, of a light bluish-gray or bluish-white color, having a powdery or waxy coating that gives a frosted appearance and tends to rub off

Author’s Note: Day 20/365: Continuing from where we left off yesterday with Abraham’s story.  You can read the first part HERE.