Canalit

When I Ruled the World

Among the Spirits beneath, whom I seduc'd
With other promises and other vaunts

-John Milton

“I got hooch, Paolo.”

I didn’t recognize the dirty rags, his voice, or his face, but the long, thin wrinkled bag in his hand suggested something stronger than Tbird.  He stood in the circle of the sodium vapor light near the First Street underpass.

“Come on up,” I told him, shivering under my dirty bundle of blankets. Companionship is welcome, even from a stranger, and the hooch would ease the cold.  It’s sheltered up here, but fierce gusts can blow through unexpectedly, chilling the bones and agitating the spirit.  There was an appeal in his voice, something above street grit audacity; something commanding.  He climbed the concrete slope to my nest under the bridge, held out the bottle, and I took it.

“That’s top shelf scotch,” I told the stranger after a healthy belt.  Tremors of pleasure rippled through me.  “Better than anything I drank before I lost the world.”  I handed the bottle back.

“I used to drink it when I ruled the world,” he said, lifting the bottle to his lips.

“You got a name?”

“Milton will do as well as anything.”  He handed the bag back my way.

“I used to teach Milton,” I told him.

“Appropriate,” he replied, “for a former teacher’s fall from grace.”

I tightened my grip on the bottle for leverage or as a weapon.  “She was of age.”

“To each their choice of sin,” Milton mused.  

“Do I know you?”

“Everybody knows me,” he replied.  “They seek me out but deny my acquaintance.”

“Maybe I should do the same.” I said, drank from the bottle, and ignoring the etiquette of the dispossessed, held on to it. 

“Look, Paolo, we’re a lot alike.” He reached for the bottle I wouldn’t relinquish and frowned.  “When I ruled the world I took all I could get and the best of it. But it was never enough.  I kept taking. . .”  With a flash of movement he snatched the bottle right out of my hand.  “Until they turned on me.  The worm always turns.”  He looked down the street to the next bridge, took a swig, and glanced at the bottle.  “Got to make this last.  I got five more stops.”

I watched Milton descend the concrete embankment.  Then I bundled up tightly against the harsh wind.  Finding no comfort, I turned over and assumed a fetal position, my back to the chill.