The Cold

The snow was miserable. He hated being so cold. It felt like his bones were plates of ice. Charley scuttled over the ice. He had left the apartment to find more dirt. To find a new home where he could be king (or queen- he wasn’t really sure what the difference was). This white dirt was painful to his tiny little legs. Steam rose from a hole in the ground. The steam felt as good as the sun on Charley’s legs, only slightly less “clean.” Charley climbed into the hole, hoping for a utopia of warmth and dirt. Had Charley had the ability to smell, the stench from the tunnel under Rouse Street might have offended him, but to his antennae, the scent was just another trail in his insect vision.
The cold was terrible. Charlie preferred the warmth of a fire, a wool blanket, and an aged scotch. Sitting down to a dinner of cold pasta and spinach was therefore not very satisfying to Charlie’s palate. He thought about having a drink afterwards, just to warm up a little. He knew it was a mistake, but it was just so cold. A roach scuttled across his counter and into the crack between the cabinetry and the wall. Charlie disliked roaches. They reminded him of fleeing from the dark. He remembered when the men from the IRA had burst into O’Connell’s looking for him. He had stolen over $1 million from the IRA’s safehouse, and had reported it to the police, who found dozens of illegal weapons in a highly televised raid later that day. He fled the thugs in the pub, and had made his way home as quickly as he could. Drinking had gotten him into this mess with the IRA. Screw it, one shot wouldn’t hurt.
The tunnel was surprisingly cold, but Charley knew he was near the apartment – the scent of diluted laundry detergent used in the apartment’s laundry room was discernable even here. Following the tunnel towards home, Charley came across a mountain. Unbeknownst to him, this mountain was none other than Felix, the homeless man who inhabited the tunnel. The man had brown hair and seemed to be sleeping brokenly. Climbing over the mountain of newspaper and dirty old clothes, Charley retreated further into the tunnel, seeking the warmth of his home over this clinging, dirty warmth in the tunnel. Up through cracks in the foundation he went, scuttling through electrical wiring, and hiding from the nasty creatures that inhabited the walls of the Jupiter. There seemed to be far more cockroaches than normal, which frightened Charley.
It had happened one night without pre-meditation. Finn, the largest man Charlie had ever known, had accused him of possessing a weak liver. Charlie showed him the meaning of a weak liver. By midnight, the pub was out nearly a quarter of its alcohol, and Finn was lying face down at the bar in a large puddle of it. Still angered by the insult to his manhood, Charlie stormed out of the pub and found himself three hours later in the IRA’s headquarters. A small townhouse on the opposite side of Little Ireland, the townhouse was used more as a hideaway and safehouse than anything else. Charlie knew how he would pay back the IRA lieutenant. He found the false wall panel, wrenched it apart, and took as much of the money as he could fit onto his personage. He awoke the next morning in his basement, lying next to the washing machine full of money.
He found room 1313M safely locked and as warm as a tavern before the last call. Charlie was sprawled over the table, a bottle of something knocked onto the floor. Charley navigated carefully past the spilled liquid towards the glass box he called home. A prison only when he wanted it to be, as he had burrowed many tunnels through its plexiglass siding. Next time, maybe, the weather would be kinder, and he could find a better patch of dirt to start his own colony.
It was 6am when the alarm sounded. Charlie woke with a start and a splitting headache. The whiskey was a bad idea. He decided to go get some coffee from La Choze. He had heard somewhere that coffee helped with hangovers. Stepping outside the Jupiter, the cold, snow-filled air bit at his eyes. A woman passed him coming out of the building. She smelled like O’Connel’s. A momentary panic filled Charlie. He turned his head away while taking a quick glance at her. He hadn’t seen her in any of the IRA hangouts. Exuding relief, Charlie walked towards the coffee shop. He had to figure out what to do.