＃１０６

    “Listen,” I told him. “You are an old man wedged into the gutter and a castle of stolen beer. I am a young man — I am fierce and in good health. If you were only to ask my help, I would throw you over my shoulder and get you somewhere, because I am strong and for a young man to use his strength to proper end is his greatest joy. But do not presume to judge me. Do not believe that you might break my shield. Do not beg at me this way, you sod, blanketed in expectation that I should owe you something. It wasn’t me that put you here.”
    The old man shimmers his hands over the empty bottles as though casting a spell. “I have pilfered these, true. And you are a young man. But you are wrong about all the rest.” TK; pacing & **
    “I am not.”
    “You are very much so.”
    “Old man, be honest. You crave my money. Your intentions are naked, completely naked to all who pass, and I pity you if you had thought them hidden.”
    The old man straightens. His chest is hoisted skywards by invisible, prideful hooks. His legs still splay out across the bottled castle, but they lock up some, reverse rigor mortis — a stiffness that says to the young man TK

////////////////////

---

not sure where to take this; first thought is to observe that it's the YOUNG MAN who is really the expectant one, who expects the homeless guy to forgive him for not donating; at least the homeless man is honest about his intentions, directly asks for money without any serious expectation that any given person will actually give it. But the young man EXPECTS forgiveness, expects not to be hassled, expects not to be pressed on the morality of keeping the change in his pocket to buy a Coke instead of giving it away. it is the young man who is entitled and his shield is more fragile than he thinks

The old man straightens, legs still [remove ‘still’?] splayed out across his nest of despair but now below a chest hoisted skyward by invisible, prideful hooks. “I inte

^^^ too much sss the alliteration doesn't work and there are too many descriptive words overall. Even the reworked para in text rn needs another go

bolded bit is awkward mouth feel, blubblubblub clash with the hard chhhest/skkkyward/hookkkks phonetics coming

**There’s some story here about exactly how the old man pilfers the bottles, I want to say that he does so openly and the bottleshop employee simply lets him. But I’m not sure the thematic takeaway is worth the wordiness & tangent to explain it. Am I just communicating that the employee pities him? The young man clearly already does, so what new is being added?

Maybe there’s something here that

1 Dec: This draft is not ‘true’ as written. I like the image of the man shimmering his hands over the bottles; it conveys a shaman-like vibe that alerts the reader to incoming wisdom (and so perhaps I don’t even need to say the “like casting a spell” bit, just let the image speak for itself?) but ultimately it didn’t happen, and the fact that it didn’t happen is hindering my ability to finish this off in a way that doesn’t feel contrived.

EDIT 2024-12-05: what I mean by “didn’t happen” is not literal, because ofc the dialogue didn’t happen at all (even internally), but that’s not what the old man was; think #97!! I’m inventing a wizened dude that has an articulation of his philosophy all ready to go on command, whereas he was (not that I know him, but to my eyes) just a very conventional homeless dude that asked a bit halfheartedly for money. Actually that’s it - what’s dishonest about my thought above is that it would be the old man stating he has the intent to gain money but not the expectation of it, but it feels more true to say that the guy didn’t even want my money. It was kind of a…. hurt reflex? Like itd been declined so many times that he’d not only lost the expectation it would work but even the intent to; he didnt make a serious effort at me, he just kind of vaguely body-language conveyed the prospect that there might, maybe, perhaps be some semblance of a relationship here but he gave up on it before it even got to the “perhaps you could help me out” insinuation. The insinuation existed in my head for sure (if you see a homeless person next to a Coles you automatically assume they’re there to court spare change) but it wasn’t the actual truth of his being at that moment.

I think to finish writing this I need to figure out the young man, not the old man. He’s this character that walks past and is… like, kind of the only agent in the situation. The old man is a person w moral value but he is not in a place (at that second) to exercise real agency; he’s been too hurt by life and people like the young man. So it’s the young man that walks past with this unique bundle in his head, in terms of the two people in the situation and their understanding of it, of the potential space of interactions they could have. He can act without consequence either way and actually more importantly there is an UNRESOLVED NEED that he ends up with; he does have that need for forgiveness and non judgement (both the old man’s and self-judgement) after all, but instead of paying $2 for it in the form of a coke or something from the shop, instead he goes back home to write about it on Substack in frankly this very self gratuitous way even taking into consideration that it's fictional & a rebuttal from old man is coming (EDIT 2024-12-05 fml that intro is painful to reread now. blah blah im so strong, fuck you).

So clearly theres something there, but now he also realises that it’s not captured adequately/fully by that “I need to feel good about myself and being judged for not giving money makes me feel bad” statement. it’s maybe closer to say that the homeless man’s potential to ‘break his shield’ would be breaking an illusion of agency, calling attention to the young man's *inability* to do good at its simplest and most convenient and perhaps the young man does not actually know how to exercise volition at all but is merely drip fed illusions of it when it is compatible with subconscious self interest. And the only thing scarier than believing he could be a better person if he made more moral choices is realising that perhaps all his choices have been made already. That he chose to become the person he is – this person that does not do enough good - who fostered and permitted the growth of these now-lumbering, inevitable forces in his head that have stolen & coopted & puppeteered his free will so completely that he can no longer even choose to do the best possible thing at the minimum possible cost and at maximum convenience. A reversal, too: the young man thinks that he is an agent and the old man not, but the truth is the other way round.

So then the old man is some kind of Charon, no? A ferryman to not the afterlife but THIS one, this very realm of mortals who may act, and being unwilling to surrender his obols for passage across the Styx the young man instead wades down into the water and is swept away, again and again and again, drowning his will and agency anew with every failure to exercise them. The outstretched hand is not that of a beggar but a saviour . . . that fatal oarsman reaching down to pull him from the blue, redemption but the price of Coke and the reward a life worth living, a full life, a chosen one . . . and yet still the young man perceives the hand as demanding too much of him. At first, he declines its grasp. Eventually, as the rapids sap his strength, he will become too weak to take it.

… is that it? It feels like it shouldn't be it. It feels like I deserve some big answer here, some masterstroke philosophical wrapup that preserves my agency in the very end, or does not rest so fatalistically on the theme of its loss forever. But I can find nothing. No reason to disbelieve what I have drafted. No reason to disbelieve not just that I failed this test, but that the failure represents such a total abandonment of basic volition that I am now more effigy than man.

I could have done something if I'd wanted to… couldn't I?

Why didn’t I help him?

Why didn’t I help him?