Chapter 6 Some Evaporating Filthy Puddle of a Mess ~ Part 1

The space in the Rialto’s main theater is open and imposing, fully gray and altogether dirty, with dust accumulating in layers on the floor.

It’s Tuesday morning and I’m in the back, standing in the dark with my friend Joe. I put the cooler from Saturday’s work day on the floor and I open the little valve that lets the melted ice drain. The water rushes and surges out quickly because the floor has a gradual but steady downward slope, like most theaters do.

The work lights start to flicker on and we’re looking at the stream forming and pretty soon I announce that watching it has become the highlight of my day, even with the day still young. The course and rhythm of it is mesmerizing because it’s wandering the whole length of the concrete floor and there’s just enough light to reflect off of it as it forms tributaries and offshoots and meanders its way toward the vacant stage. With a clear mind of its own, it resembles quicksilver or some type of mercury experiment. Gliding like a snake and picking up dirt, it takes the path of least resistance in the grime and the stillness of the morning.

Before long, the cooler is empty, but this new creek in the middle of the theater’s floor still finds life as the end tries to catch up with the beginning, ultimately pooling near the bottom. And slowly the stream will dry, as time moves on, dwindling down to just a makeshift miniature pond. There it will evaporate by the Rialto's sunken pit, the very one where a man used to play a pipe organ in the days of Calvin Coolidge, before moving pictures had sound.

We eventually turn to go because the show is over now, and it’s just a filthy puddle really, even though it did render, at the very least, a clean path in its wake.

Truth be told, despite this highlight of my day, I feel like I’m in a bad place, my very own sunken pit, so this cooler-water-turned-old-porn-theater-creek may be serendipitous. You see, even this morning I wanted to venture into the open and imposing space of that big old theater and rush and surge at unseen demons that relentlessly taunt me. Their pressure seems almost unbearable these days, resulting in my gradual but steady downward slope toward indifference. And perhaps like what I've observed this morning, their hissing deception assures me that, while there may be a clean path in the wake I leave, ultimately, at the end of it, I’m just some evaporating filthy puddle of a mess.

So, my usual response is to fight back, on my own, swinging with fists of fury, as I’m wont to do, because I’m only human. I’m fully capable of picking a fight.

Show yourself! I’ll scream out to them. Cowards!

But my challenges and my goading won’t bring them into the light. They have no valor, nor the wherewithal to face me like a man. These minions are vile, sniveling, lying bastards who reek of brimstone.

And they much prefer to hide in the shadows.

From there they jeer and I guess I listen that maybe this faith and its required by-product of service and love has no choice but to reduce me and perhaps you into some dwindling, meandering conduits, some hapless victims of what we pick up and carry on behalf of needy others, reflecting not enough light as our passion dries up.

Then, they'll get me to boast. And rationalize. At the same time.

Look at everything I’ve done! When is it ever enough? Can I be done now?

As soon as it’s out there, they’ve won. Not only am I complacent toward what’s next, but I’m haughty and more than willing to point you instead to the trail I've blazed, the clean floor as evidence of what I’ve washed away.

The problem is, you're looking at me now. The pristine path I've highlighted for you leads right to me and you’re staring at me. But please don’t, because they've convinced me that I’m forever tainted, cynical and jaded to the core, some stagnant pool that's evidently been filled from a distant, empty source.

I hear them snickering in the corners now, apparently celebrating the highlight of their day.