The Old Man Without The Sea (Sans Lightning In A Bottle)

Letter to the Editor: “The Also-Ran and the Lightning Strike“

To the Editor:

I am an old man living in a beautiful cage. If you saw me today, you’d think I was Benjamin Franklin’s ghost marooned in Frederiksted—balding, weary, and wearing a thin “wife-beater” tank top with swim trunks loud enough to wake the dead. I sit here with my spectacles perched low on the bridge of my nose, looking over the rims at a reality that no tourist brochure would dare print. I’m not flying a kite to catch lightning; I’m just trying to catch my breath in a biological haze.

DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY.

Outside my window, the sun glares off the concrete roof of the neighboring building. It illuminates three “loaded” disposable diapers, tossed there in a fit of maternal rage by my neighbor, Millie. They sit baking in the eternal summer heat, within smelling distance of my unit. I wish I had a long pole to reach out and hook them—to clear the rot from my field of vision—but the strength of my youth is a ghost, and the “Authority” has no interest in trash they can’t see from an air-conditioned office.

DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY.

Inside, the battle is more intimate. My kitchen is a cabin straight out of a Charlie Chaplin film, where the cupboards open by themselves and the antagonist is a Brown Rat with the grit of a flying Mexican chupacabra. Behind my “also-ran” Frigidaire, a rodent met its end against a live electrical line, leaving a sticky Rorschach test of blood across the energized outlet. I eye the Chlorox bottle, but I’m afraid of the spark. I don’t want my epitaph to read: “OLD MAN IN LOUD SWIM TRUNKS DIES CLEANING RAT BLOOD.” – DON’T DIE TODAY. DON’T. JUST DON’T DO IT. YOU HAVE PLENTY LONG TO LIVE AT THE BEACH IN CANE BAY.

DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY.

Now, the battle has moved to the closet. I hear the scratching six feet from my bed—a frantic, rhythmic sound against the wall where Sgt. Major James once sprayed foam to try to hold the line. The creature is beautiful, it is undeniable. Anyone can see that. Even I with my poor vision. But if it ain’t paying rent,it cain’t stay. I told my landlord the old biker motto: “Gas, grass, or ass—no chicks ride for free.” If this rat wants to nest in my clothes, lick my leather shoes and sniff my old peanut butter jars, it has to cough up some coin, It’s pay up or shut up time for that damned rodent.

I’m told it’s a “common” problem. I’m told to buy a glue trap. But as I sit here in my “Ozempic-Franklin” frame, sipping cold “No Country For Old Men” coffee and listening to Mozart symphonies and the scratching of the brownish-white “manicou” in the dark, I realize the rot isn’t just in the rafters. It’s in the heart of a territorial system that sees a human being in distress as simply a piece of garbage to throw away while the seated bureaucrat hums a happy tune and the diapers bake in the sun and my mind begins to slowly turn over in a stir-fry of mental confusion.

DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY.

Respectfully,

An Also-Ran Freedom City, Frederiksted Town