This Hell (with affection)

“Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they all look that) I would put my finger on it and say, 'When I grow up I will go there.' The North Pole was one of these places, I remember. Well, I haven't been there yet, and shall not try now. The glamour's off. Other places were scattered about the hemispheres. I have been in some of them, and . . . well, we won't talk about that. But there was one yet — the biggest, the most blank, so to speak — that I had a hankering after.

True, by this time it was not a blank space any more. It had got filled since my boyhood with rivers and lakes and names. It had ceased to be a blank space of delightful mystery — a white patch for a boy to dream gloriously over. It had become a place of darkness.”

― Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

5AM, Christchurch, Hereford Street on a Saturday.

The desk clerk had his back to me when I went outside to smoke a cigarette. I walked a bit east of the hotel to where there is a pair of trash and recycling cans. Smoking there allows me to cast my cigarette waste in the rubbish bin rather than on the street. It is something I try to do back in the States and seems doubly necessary and respectful here. You don’t go into somebody else’s house and leave shit lying around. Christchurch is in what seems like constant construction, has seemed so every visit I’ve made over the past decade, ever since the earthquake. My hotel is steps away from the nearly demolished cathedral.

We are on a prolonged delay, so I have nothing but time. My poverty prohibits me, so I’ve spent this tenure looking at the blank spaces on the map. Marlow was off. They are still there, these blank spaces, but between the buildings, among those willing to concede, and under the sprawl of that constant construction. I am Marlow waiting in the outermost station, here it’s Christchurch, and our dear winter-overs stranded on the Ice are each their own special versions of Kurtz. Overdramatic maybe? Fuck an apology.

As I smoked and leaned against a makeshift wooden barrier beside a large field of gravel, which might be the foundation of either a new carpark or that of a new building, a drunken Kiwi stumbled upon me. The sky was deep dark and the fool Orion was clubbing some poor bear above our heads.

In these scenarios, it is best to look down or somewhere in the distance, a trick to avoiding interaction that I’ve learned from years of living in New York. He was clutching a can of something to his chest and made some sound that approximated speech and that I suppose was “good morning,” or “how are you?” or the like. He finished this sentence with “mate,” so I assumed the comment was benign. But I’ve been wrong in the past.

I grunted my own approximation of good morning and he walked a little beyond me, some short distance between where I stood and the hotel. Then he turned and asked me quite clearly and sincerely if I was okay. It was thoughtful and, although I was still quite suspicious, I looked up and said I was fine. He then asked for a cigarette, which I grudgingly handed over. He’d won the battle for interaction and the door was now open.

I grumbled in concession to his well-earned victory. I have a personal policy of handing out cigarettes to anyone who simply asks for them, but never to anyone who asks to buy one from me. I’ve been hard up and lived rough and I remember the comfort, however brief, a won cigarette provides.

He said thank you, teetered, and informed me enthusiastically that it was a Saturday, then dramatically offered me a sip of his beer. His stance mirrored Orion’s above us. As he held out the can, I lifted my hand and declined, said thank you. He asked if I wanted some coffee and I told him I was about to go get some anyway. After he mumbled something else incoherent, he wandered on and I finished my cigarette beneath the quiet workless construction sites.

After retrieving some coffee, I returned to the hotel and called the Polak in New York to chat briefly before she headed out to work.

Later, when I went out to get more coffee and smoke another cigarette, the drunk Kiwi (who I suspect is homeless) was still outside, but with some others. There was a woman, in rags, straddling a bicycle and listening to Björk on a portable speaker. The drunk Kiwi was standing beside a crew of three other street people in various degrees of disarray and dilapidation, just outside the 24-hour market where I get my coffee. He asked if I made it home okay. Then before I could answer, he said I still owed him ten dollars. I just smiled and kept walking.

In the hotel lobby, the desk clerk was mopping the tiles and a woman emerged from the elevator. She was in evening wear and had on some solid high heels that rang loud as she stepped out and across the lobby. I grunted good morning in that way that I do, and she only smiled. I suspected in the moment that she was not a guest at the hotel, perhaps only a guest of a guest, if just for the night.