The Beggar's Garden by Michael Christie

and disuse. “By the mere existence of this city, would it be safe for me to assume the Cold War went all right, Hank?”
    â€œYeah, it went okay, Oppie.”
    â€œOh good,” he says, clearing his throat. “That’s good.”
Discussion
    At the country-and-western karaoke bar, it’s me, Oppie, and the woman who told her boyfriend not to break my collarbone, our beer glasses hydroplaning around a small, slick table. She is wearing Oppie’s porkpie hat in the flirtatious way some women grab and wear men’s hats, perched on top of her hair like she is balancing it there, her neck stiffened, hoping the novelty of it will provoke a new appreciation of what’s beneath.
    She is smoking too many of Oppie’s cigarettes, and I want to tell him she broke my collarbone and watch him rise to my defence, reducing her to tears with a bombardment of scathingquips. I decide against it. She and the beer seem to be providing Oppie with some kind of ballast, amnesty from the psychotic twister in his mind.
    Earlier, after we’d left the park, Oppie scampered into a dense patch of traffic and disappeared. When I found him he was a few blocks over with this woman on his arm. This place was her idea. Oppie introduced me as Professor Hank. I scoffed when he said it, annoyed by how proud he could still make me feel.
    The karaoke microphones have been monopolized by an old drunken couple who have feuded, proclaimed, wept, reconciled, and so far barely made it through a single song without one of them regressing to a bout of screaming “I fucken love you!” into the other’s face. Somebody said the guy who runs the karaoke got bottled a few hours ago and went home.
    I’m in the bathroom now, hoping Oppie will be there at the table when I get back. Everything, even the ceiling, is wet. The urinal is ancient, a stainless-steel trough. I’m pissing and it sounds like a sink. This is the kind of place where the line between beer and piss is blurry and rusted out, where one seemingly unifying golden liquid soaks everything, spewing and slopping from spouts and cups.
    I look at my steaming face in the dirty mirror and I come to the grim conclusion that I have to smoke more rock or go home. I consider stealing the stash and making off, but this seems too fiendish, and plus I think he could find me anywhere.
    I return to the table, where his arm is around her and she is talking. “They named that piece-of-shit park after you, huh? If you ask me, sweetie, there shouldn’t be a public square inch in this neighbourhood.”Oppie is smiling and vacant. He carefully finishes his beer and rises weakly from his chair. She turns to me and asks if she has seen me before and I tell her to shut up. Oppie mounts the stage and the old couple unexpectedly surrender the microphones to him. He brings them both to his mouth at the same time and begins.
    â€œGood evening, ladies and gentlemen, my name is J. Robert Oppenheimer and I’d like to thank you for this opportunity to speak before you this evening. I want to commence by buying everyone in the house a beverage as a sign of my esteem and gratitude.”
    No one cheers because no one is listening. A synthesized slide guitar strikes up the next song.
    â€œNo takers? Good, because I’m all out of money, which means there are only a few ivory nuggets left between me and something dark and unknowable.”
    Oppie clears his throat. Someone yells something in the crowd, but it’s not directed at him.
    â€œCrack cocaine, ladies and gentlemen. Some believe only the truly unhappy enjoy it, or rather need it. However, this hypothesis seems flawed. I have found its benefits extremely promising, but sadly not without cost. Like most things, it is a good servant but a bad master. Thus I believe control to be paramount, wisdom and knowledge trumping blind fear and temperance. To speak of regret is to ignore realities and inevitabilities.