Lithium, Chptr 15 – Xperience Fiction – by Liam Sweeny.

Their camp had an awning and a toilet, however makeshift and prone to collapse it might be. And in exploration news, Mel found a row of community water spigots, where people were also lined up, plastic gallon containers in hand. Mel found out that those gallon jugs were perhaps the most difficult things to find in the scrap piles. He also found out that all the garbage piles were referred to by all as ‘scrap piles.’

He and Andy were sharing a handful of Swiss rolls, one of the food pantry compromises. Max and Coop were likewise sharing, only theirs was a blunt. Mel put up a protest, of course.

“Andy’s gonna’ see a lot of this,” Max said. “As long as he don’t start doing it.”

“I’m right here.” Andy waved his hand back and forth. “That stuff smells like you fed a baby limburger cheese and breathed in the diaper.”

“Funny kid,” Coop said. “He reminds me of Blake.” He turned to Max. “You remember big man Blake?”

“Yeah, he had fucked up teeth, right?” Max said. “Like really fucked up. Like I couldn’t figure out how he ate?”

“That’s him,” Coop said. “Dead.”

“Dead? Really? What was it, drugs?”

Coop chuckled. “Yeah,” he said. “Blue chill pills.”

“What are those, downers?”

“Nope. Cop bullets. He was shot.”

Max leaned back slightly as he took a drag and passed it back to Coop. He coughed.

“What’d he do? I remember he was pretty laid back.”

“He had shit wrong with him, mental, you know? And he tried to shoplift at a grocery store, from what I heard. And he got caught, and it just went downhill from there.”

Mel felt the slight pressure around his temples that came with anxiety, depression, and dawning realizations. And then he heard a voice like an angel of mercy, come to pull him up and out of a morbid conversation that applied to him.

“Hey Melvin,” Hope said. “Walking by… saw you… you know the deal. Betty’s up. You want to walk over with me?”

Mel looked at Andy, as if to ask his permission to leave him alone, but he was engrossed in Coop and Max’s gossip. He just waved Mel away.

Hope held his hand as they walked. He could still feel her thirst through the pulse racing through her palm, but he had questions, one of which he didn’t dare ask. But he had others, and maybe the answer to one would answer the other.

“So how did you become homeless?” He asked. “I mean, you’re young.”

“Two things you never ask a woman,” she said. “Her age, and why she’s homeless.”

“I didn’t mean to ask you that, about your age, anyway.” He felt himself pull his hand away from hers, but her grip tightened just enough to express her intent.

“You don’t need to ask people how they became homeless,” she said. “People that are comfortable, with homes and jobs and cars, they need to ask. They need an origin story because they don’t believe an ordinary person can fall so hard. They need our origin story so that their world can continue to make sense. But you and me; we’re already here. We know how people become homeless.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you,” Mel said. Hope wandered into him and they bumped hips.

“Apologize when you’ve done something wrong,” she said.

They followed the path to the left fork. Mel did think of a question to ask.

“Do you know why we got a spot pretty close to the front?” He asked. “I mean, we just got here. I figured we’d end up with a spot way in back.”

“If you’re here long enough, you’ll grow to hate being up front,” she said. “It’s loud, cops are around there more… people like the quiet of the back nine, so it’s at a premium. Also, the back is lakefront.” She cleared her throat. “Pond-front, I should say. It’s a big pond, technically, and no one lives on it.”

Before Mel realized it, they were at Betty’s camp. It was practically a gallery of abstract art, rough work, sketches, and paints mixed on any available surfaces, covered in white spray paint to give them a base. Hope went over to the tent and tapped on a pole. Mel heard a zip, and Hope pointed to him and waved him over.

Betty looked to be in her seventies, with silver hair done up tightly with ribbons of cloth, likely ripped from clothing. She had a long dress with a tropical floral print. She had crow’s feet and laugh lines and a smile that set him at ease.

“So you’re new to the camp,” Betty said. “And you’re a painter, Hope says. Do you paint professionally, or as a hobby?”

Mel wondered if the answer would make a difference in how much she would ask for paints.

“I haven’t really sold paintings, but I’m serious about painting. I’ve been painting since I was five.”

“I’d love to see one of your paintings,” Betty said. “I’m sure they’re fantastic.”

Hope patted Mel on the shoulder. “I’ve seen one!” She said. “It’s in his car. It’s utterly transformational.”

“Thanks, it’s called “The Son.” It’s something I did when my son was a baby.”

“I’ll have to find you sometime and take a peek,” Betty said. “If that’s okay with you.”

“Sure,” Mel said.

“So now you need paints, maybe a canvas or two?” Mel nodded. “I have a professional set, fifteen oil paint tubes, eighteen brushes, all the tools and a nice wooden case. That and two eighteen by twenty-four canvases for a hundred dollars.”

A hundred. Ouch. If he bought it, it would leave him with just over thirty-five dollars. Nothing in the face of an emergency. Barely enough gas money to make a round trip back to Nashville. He couldn’t imagine Andy’s face if he spent that much on art supplies; he may as well sell a cow for magic beans.

Then again, painting was his best skill, and he knew he could make money, even in a homeless camp. Because that day, he realized that money existed everywhere, even in a repository for the destitute.

“Can you give it to me for seventy-five?” He said. Betty smiled.

“A man after my own heart,” she said. “Ninety.”

“Eighty”

“Eighty-five.”

Mel had to think if he had the money flat, considering she might not have change. He pulled out his remaining bills.

“You got yourself a deal.”

***

Mel wandered the camp with Hope, his paint case and canvases in his arms. He had thought of bringing them back to his camp before they started wandering, and Hope thought it as well, and even spoke the thought, but Mel knew bringing the art supplies back to home base would mean having to justify the purchase to Andy. The kid was young, but he was sharp enough to know how much money a good art set costs, and how much they had. Mel regretted counting it in front of him. And he felt guilty as hell.

As they walked the length of the camp, Mel couldn’t help but thinking he was in a war-torn country’s refugee camp. He imagined that the only difference between the two was the lack of bombed-out buildings. War-torn countries probably didn’t have as many colorful tents, either. Maybe he was thinking of a third-world country instead, where American tourist traps were well shielded from slums that looked almost exactly like the camp.

Hope swung her arm and his with hers. He was glad the case hand a handle, and he could hold that and tuck the canvases under the other arm. As uncomfortable as carrying them all was, the feel of her hand in his was ecstatic. If she was exuding a psychotropic venom from the sweat of her palm, it wouldn’t have been a surprise or unwelcome.

She was an addictive curiosity even in the way she dressed, with a hunter green jean jacket decorated with patches and pins over every square inch of it, glittery stretch pants, and a silver barrette holding a section of her blood-and-copper hair in check. She wore glasses but had to lower them on her nose to look at just about everything. Mel wondered if they were prescription, or just a personal affect, something she’d picked up somewhere.

Hope waved and called out to people who looked like they were just getting up.

“Hi Mildred,” she said to a middle-aged woman pulling a shirt off a clothesline suspended from two young red oaks. “How’s the new job?”

“Alright,” Mildred said. “Payday today. All’s good so far.”

“She has a job?” Mel whispered to her.

“She has two, but only one of them is new.”

“Why is she even here?”

“You’re young,” Hope said. “A baby boy. Half the people here have jobs.”

“I’m older than you,” Mel said. “Still don’t get it.”

“Of you want to get a place within driving distance of anywhere you need to go, Nashville or wherever, expect to pay, like, a thousand dollars a month. And you need a credit check, and a deposit… It’s insane to get a place. A lot of people here are working to save up.”

“Not everybody’s a bum,” she added.

The pond was far more beautiful and idyllic a place than Mel figured had any business being in the middle of a homeless camp. There were homes around; surely they would’ve come there to fish or swim. He thought that maybe they did before the encampment was there. He felt bad for them, oblivious for the moment that those people would vote to kick him and everybody else to the streets if they had the chance. Also, the encampment was private property – maybe the pond was a part of it.

Hope kicked off her shoes and socks, rolled up her stretch pants and walked about three feet into the pond. The water rose to the middle of her calves. Mel set his supplies down and did the same. The water was frigid for what he imaged it would be in the south.

Hope leaned down and cupped some water in her hand and rose up, dipping her finger in her cupped hand and placed her wet finger on Mel’s forehead.

“I now baptize you in the name of the homeless, the beggars, and the holy socks, ramen.” She giggled, and Mel followed suit.

They sat under a thick, old tree that overhung the pond. Mel wished he had brought a lunch, but instead, he had the case open. The brushes were horsehair, which beat synthetic on any day. Maple handles and good brass fixtures. He opened the ultramarine blue and squeezed just the tiniest amount onto his fingertip and rubbed it against his thumb tip. He liked the feel of the paint. The set was worth what he paid for it. He considered blessing Hope with oil paint, but soap was at a premium.

“I lived in L.A.,” she said. “Before, you know, before I ended up here.”

“I thought you didn’t want to tell me about how you became homeless?”

“I don’t want you to ask people,” she said. “But I’m telling you, so it’s okay.”

She picked up on of the brushes and swirled it over her arm.

“I was homeless for as long as I can remember,” she said. “I mean that. As long as I can remember, so think like three, maybe younger.” She took a deep breath. “We… lived in a tent city like this, but bigger, and more than one. In L.A., the tent cities are actual cities. There are actual shipping containers set up here and there. Massive.”

“I’m sorry,” Mel said.

“Why be sorry? It was home. I made the best of it. We had kind of a school, and I had a lot of friends. My parents were shit, but what was I gonna do?”

Hope set the brush back and picked up a palette knife.

“They won the lottery when I was twelve,” she said. “My parents. Won a hundred-thousand dollars, and that was after taxes. They were junkies, both. I think you see where this is headed.”

“They took off?”

“Cops found them in a drainage ditch, in a car they just bought. OD. Both.”

“Can I say I’m sorry now?”

“Yeah, but I’d already written them off,” she said. “So that’s me. What about you?”

Mel wasn’t ready to open a vein, but since Hope was sitting there bleeding for him…

“I had an easier childhood, I guess,” Mel said. “I was gifted. My dad was sick, mentally, and he took credit for my paintings and never told me. Mom never recognized me as her kid. Dad died of cancer in ’04, mom is still around, in a nursing home, with Alzheimer’s. I got Andy, who you met, from a dirty scumbag ex-wife.”

“Oh, and I have bipolar 1 with psychotic features and a handful of other diagnoses, and I’ll be running out of meds in a couple days.”

“I know you have bipolar; you suck at sharing, by the way,” she said.

“How did you know I have bipolar?”

“You try really hard to hide it, but I’ve seen it enough,” she said. “You know, if you didn’t try so hard to hide it, you might find some peace in the world.”

“I don’t think the world’s ready for me to just let it out.”

“You’re running out of meds.” Hope stood up. “We’ll soon see.”

***

Mel took a sip of fresh squeezed lemonade as he finished the shading on the Richards’s coat of arms. He had made it his specialty after he painted one on his camp and the other campers started commenting, asking where he got it, and requesting one for themselves. And so he started painting them, sometimes for cash, sometimes for barter. He made enough to be a regular guest at Betty’s with continual offerings for trade. Mel had even thought to set up a camp exchange, but Clifford was uneasy about the idea, thinking that it would attract unwanted attention. Mel argued the point until he could read the aggravation on Clifford’s face, then he relented, even going so far as to promise Clifford a free coat of arms.

The coats of arms brought something to the camp. In a way, it was pure color and decoration, and in an even greater way, it brought humanity to people the world had stripped of it. Mel could look up a Coats of Arms on his phone, and he could give someone ancestry. He could paint a coat of arms for them, and they could make their houses of cards into castles.

There were rough seas before the smooth sailing. When he first got back to the camp with Hope and the supplies, Andy’s eyes widened just enough for Mel to read. He wasn’t happy with either Hope or the paint supplies. When Hope had left, and Max and Coop had gone scrounging for supplies, Andy sat Mel down.

“Dad, how much did that art set cost you?”

“It really wasn’t much, if you-,”

“How much, Dad?”

“You don’t have to worry…”

“Was it over fifty?” Andy said. Mel stayed quiet. “More than fifty?”

“It was eighty-five.” Mel said. “Not much more than fifty.”

“Thirty-five whole dollars more than fifty,” he said. “We can’t afford that at all. Can you bring it back to whoever you bought it from?”

“I can’t, all sales are final.” Mel just assumed that. Betty never said one way or the other.

“So it’s okay for you to just waste money, but I can’t?” Andy said. “I did some work on the farm too. Where’s my cut so I can go buy Battle Cards?”

“Andy, it’s an investment,” Mel said. “I only have one skill that can pull us out of this, and it’s painting. For Christ’s Sake, one of my paintings is in the Guggenheim.”

“I wish she never told you that.”

“Picasso used to pay for lunch with sketches.”

“Good for Picasso, but you’re not him. He was world famous.”

“You don’t think I have what it takes to be world famous?”

Andy sighed. “Dad, I went into your pill box. It’s almost empty. The way you have them rationed out, you’re going to be completely out in four days, and you’re already low on your doses. I don’t want you to get sick and start acting weird. You told me I had to watch you, remember? When we were driving away from the farm? And then you come here, spending all our money on a paint set and a couple of canvases, when you can paint on any surface.” Andy lifted a plank of wood they’d collected. “Like this?”

Mel’s face was blush. He was angry with Andy, and he grappled with a good reason to be angry, but that reason escaped. Andy was right. He had exposed the manic spender and the illness had nowhere to hide.

Mel dug in his pockets. “Here,” he said, handing Andy a small pile of bills. “This is almost fifty dollars. It’s all I have left.”

“All we have left,” Andy said.

“Yes, that. And I’m going to use these paints to get us what we need here. It’s a skill as well as a passion. I can make it work for us; I promise.”

“Does that mean Hope too?”

“She’s just a friend,” Mel said. “And she knows this world a lot better than we do. We’d do well to listen to her.”

“I don’t care about her,” Andy said. “One way or the other. I care about you. And I hope she doesn’t end up being like mom.”

“I’ll never get with another Debra, don’t you worry.” Mel said. By then, Max and Coop had gotten back, so they went radio silent.

Andy had relaxed some since Mel found a way to make painting work. He had jobs lined up, and some of them paid decent money. Not “get an apartment” kind of money, or even “get back on your meds” kind of money, but it was enough to keep them in food, drinks, toiletries and other necessary items. And he could keep himself in paints.

He was nearing the end of his meds, and aside from some hypomania, he was okay. He didn’t want to think of what full withdrawal would feel like, as he would be facing it in a couple of days. His bipolar was tricky. He’d run low on meds before, and he would fly high at first, only to find that he was Icarus, and his bipolar was the sun. By the time he tasted a real crash, he’d have a refill. This time he’d not only taste a crash, but he’d swallow the damn thing whole.

He was up the night he took his last meds and sat before a canvas, paints by his side. Andy was sleeping, or so he hoped. He had a battery-powered lantern that he’d gotten in payment. He held it up to the canvas with one hand as he painted with the other, swinging the lantern gently, almost painting the canvas with its light.

Lines became edges, and edges became features, and features filled out with contour and depth, and color was brought to a face, a porcelain white that Mel spent an hour mixing on a small board, getting it just right. Another hour he spent on a crimson and a copper-blood, which we painted delicately, each strand cascading. Hope’s face came into being, as if he cloned her from the fifth dimension to the second.

More from Liam Sweeny…