Again asleep, adrift on an ocean of mud, sliding deeper into the maw of death. When, jerking awake, aware of cramps, sleep in eyes and hard on pressed into a blanket bed.

Coming through the walls: “Mmmmnn, gonna take you around the world” this was the perpetual song of Smokey, any moment his cracked black face would peer ’round the curtain I held for a door in summer.

“Howya doin?” he sat unbidden on a worn rickety church chair.

I told him I was o.k. and to get some coffee from the pot on the floor, he reached over for a coffee’d brown mug, shook some sugar into it, swilled it to stir and sat back beaming at some part of himself I never had figured out.

” What happened to your bed?” He knew and I knew he knew.

Our silence settled between us, grew into comfortable as I waited for him to move on to the point. Smokey never asked questions unless he could provide a better answer than your own. He swirled his coffee again, ” I reckon milk would only spoil this… Suppose, just suppose I knew where there was a mattress…”

I lay, waiting; neither of us was going anywhere. In these moments lay great and terrible opportunity, silence in itself held no fear, only a promise that something would follow, men create the acts that follow silence, silence itself is comfort, it is only what we do to break it changes worlds, minds and beauty.

I told him that since the fire in my last mattress, I was in no hurry to bring death near again. I had fallen asleep after a night beginning with laughter, gentle faces and alcohol drunk in friendship, only to end in anger, half heard voices and faces twisted by spirits too strong to master. Whether I’d pulled the stove too close or plain fallen into oblivion still smoking was difficult to say. Suffice to say that the blankets left and I were not in haste to renew the possibilities…

” Hush now” He was hanging on to some excitement, “this is a  pretty good mattress, its been out for a couple of days now, tomorrow it’ll be taken away, unless somebody claims it. The floors o.k. for summer sleeping but winter? You’ll freeze down there…”

I knew he was right, but I’d only been asleep for an hour and wanted more. In summer I could sleep for days at a time, in winter the cold coming through the windows scared me too much to huddle down into my blankets, hence my dependency on the spirit stove to keep me alive and my flirtation with death. Death I knew would come as an old and trusted friend, open armed and dangerous with a smile, I wasn’t scared so much as wanting to choose the killing ground. I wanted to go loudly into the night, fighting and kicking every inch of the way. A mattress on fire was a shitty way to go, I’d be asleep, then unconscious by fumes and  would not see death and stare into his soul as he did mine.

“I’ll be back later, about nine, d’ya think you may have this coffee warmed up by then? And he was gone.

I lay down again and thought of the erection I’d lost during his talk, how could I bring it back and what would I do with it if I did? I slept, again thinking of mud and death.

About eight I heard the church bells in the far off calling the faithful to their knees. I lit the stove, put water into the blackened saucepan and waited.

I was good at waiting. I had once been a patient boy, good around the home and polite as I opened presents for my birthday, Christmas, Easter. The boy was long gone, slipped into fields of buttercups and green, the man wrapped bigger around that earlier shape was not patient anymore only good at waiting.

At nine I could hear Smokey singing his way through the dusk.

“Howya doin?” his head big and shiny in the light from the stove, his face cracked and beaming with a grin: “got that coffee warm yet?” The water was bubbling away, probably been boiling for ages and I hadn’t noticed as my thoughts had drifted over inner landscapes. He reached down for his cup, put hot water into it, swilled and threw that through the doorway

“Y’havin’ some?”

Interpreting my silence he poured more water into the pot, repeated his throw then poured more in with coffee grounds from a silver twist by the sugar bag. We drank in quiet contemplation, would I/we find this mattress, what awful adventures lay ahead of us in this warm night? I could see Smokey hugging himself, something was happening here for him, something unsaid between us, yet visible, tangible.

” Y’ever been to the art museums? Seen those paintings? I love those things, could’ve done that myself but, well, y’know…” he drifted into staring at the stove flame.

I didn’t know, one way to fuck up down here in the lower orders is to ask too many questions, to ask why another was a fuck up like yourself was an invitation to another more dangerous dance. I waited.

” I painted, went to art school, exhibited. I fell in love, one of those white girls who don’t believe in racism, but their daddy does… I fell into the weed, Hell; I rushed headlong knowingly into the weed. We had the beautiful brown baby, daddy pushing me to get a job, to sell my ‘arty’ paintings, do sign writing, make some money, whatever, y’know?”

I didn’t. I didn’t want to either. Being a store for somebody else’s dreams was not my plan, but I could wait. I’d heard these stories before, though maybe not this particular one, eventually I would end up holding too many stories like this and would have to move on, find a new place to stay before they would want, need and begin to insist upon hearing my pain, just to level the score…

” anyway, I got busted, lost my girl, my baby, Daddy set the cops on me just to get me gone… Mmmmnn, gonna take you round the world” He sang softly, the light catching his eyes, I thought he’d finally gone over. “Tonight it’s over, my masterpiece comes to an end, the jigsaw is done, I need your help to finish this and then I can move on. It’s over.”

He told me a story as we stumbled our way through darkened streets, dodging the cop cars and others who may have wished us harm.

The story focussed upon his art, how through being on the streets, though he no longer could work with paints, colour, many years ago he’d had a concept: a Map of the World made of ‘found’ objects and tonight was the final piece.

He led me through alleyways stinking of piss, puddles floating condoms and dead cigarettes. Dragging me along in his excitement toward his goal.

We found it, leaning against a wall, a red striped, ticking covered single mattress. The cloth handles sewn into the side were busted, we picked up an end each, as I did, fleas bit my arms. Hungry, starved rageful fleas that hadn’t eaten, drunk for days. I flapped my arms, tore my clothes off to tear them from my skin, Smokey standing there laughing at my dance.

I told him I wasn’t taking it. He stopped laughing

” I’ll fix it, I’ll get some flea powder, look, you’ve got to have it it’s my last piece, its over, you’ve gotta take it, this is the last piece of my world.”

He stood there pointing at the last piece of his World Map.

I stood there, half-naked, feeling the bumps coming up on my arms and legs and I knew my waiting was over. Here was the ultimate stalemate that my life of waiting had led me toward.

Smokey, finally, totally crazy at last and me already going cold in this black night because I wouldn’t take this flea ridden mattress with its piss stain: A map of Africa…