What I have learned about Thom Babel through talking to him and by an old man who claims to be his friend
How it ends:
“He drew as if he wanted to paint his life into that picture. Actually, I can’t even say rightly what he wanted out of those drawings. All I knew is that when he drew he was scraping his life, soul, will, strength, in essence everything that a man needs in his life to live. He seemed like he didn’t want to live when he was drawing. He probably felt like there was no joy that he could ever gain in his life, so he had to find a place, even if it was in a picture where he could see himself happy.”
He said.“He was a very reclusive man, was he not?”
He asked.
I nodded and reached for my cup of coffee.
“I thought so. He never did seem like the person who would open himself to anyone.”
He said and reached for his cup of coffee.
The conversation was all his, and somehow he was not comfortable being the one taking the stage. He wanted me to take the stage, or at least come into the light and join the conversation, but I was more interested in getting everything out of him than interjecting what I knew about him.
“Well, after the war he was in a complete daze. Wouldn’t blame him for that. Until the war ended, we all lived like animals, stealing, mugging, selling anything we could get our hands into, god we even sold our closest friend so we could live. And all the sudden an army comes in and rounds us up, and of all the things to say they are here to feed us and shelter us. At first I thought it was some kind of a joke. But some days later they came back with more food than we have ever seen and fed all of us until we were about to burst.”
After that, he took another sip and closed his jacket up a bit. The weather was turning a bit chilly, and I was a little worried about the spaghetti that I boiled for lunch. But this maybe the last of the chance I’d have about knowing who he truly was. There was no way I was about to let this go after all that I learned.
“Anyways, it was hard adjusting to the way things went after the war. Understand, we all stole when we wanted to eat, and now we had to work to earn our living? And that if we worked we would have a place to live, not just a burnt barrack or an abandoned building, but an actual place to live?”
“But we adjusted, hard as it was we came to terms with the fact that war was over, and that we are to live like a civilized man, not an animal. And as we worked, our reasons came back, and as our reasons came back we started to grasp what we have done, and with that nightmares came.”
“I think he took it harder than anyone. I remember days when he was lying in bed eyes shut tight clutching himself and mumbling I’m sorry over and over. We all went through that days of our conscience eating itself out. Somewhere in our minds we knew that we could not and should not have done everything we did, but what could we have done? How could have we survived among the adults who were just as desperate as us and wanted to live even if it meant taking from the children? We convinced ourselves that we had to do this, or we will die.”
After saying that, he went quiet and didn’t dare raise another voice. It’s probably more than 70 years since the war, and it was still here. All these buildings that cover up the old war, and there were still people like him that still remembers.
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How it starts:
I met Thom Babel as a part of this community reach out program for the elders who were seeing their last days of their lives. We were to be assigned an elderly person that we would spend a good part of summer supporting, help them out with grocery shopping and all. I wasn’t really much for meeting anyone, but it did help greatly with my hobby of collecting life stories.
Back then, I was obsessed with collecting stories. I thought people had common ground to which we all stood, and collecting people’s stories would find me that common ground. I collected everything from what people had last night to the day people were born. The best was when I heard a story of a man who was born in Mars. But I also collected these stories because I felt like without hearing other’s lives I would have gone insane. Back then, I spent my days doing nothing but going to my job at the local bookstore, get whatever books I can get my hands on, go out to the local diner for dinner, go to sleep, and repeat. Sometimes I put in going out to the park to watch the fountain. But I digress. Thom Babel looked just like any dignified men in his latter years would look. He ironed his clothing so the crease would look like it could cut through bread. His beard was trimmed carefully to match the contour of his face, and he talked in a manner that even a hardened thug would be hardpressed and think to himself “Now here’s a nice man.”
I met Thom Babel, like I said, through a community program. The season was March. The air was clean, a bit crisp with chill but promised that Spring is coming soon. Thom Babel’s apartment was an ancient brick thing stained old with exhaust and bird feces. He lived on the third floor, the last one on the left at the end of a long hallway. When I fist met, he was in white shirt and brown corduroy trousers.
“Hi, my name is Gary,”“That’s enough, you’re only here because of the community program, nothing more is asked.”
That was our first exchange. Of course we had more later on, but at first he didn’t really make himself an available person for a conversation.As you could imagine, Thom Babel wasn’t really the kind that you’d get along with easily. In fact, he probably was the kind that knew what he liked and how he liked it, and did’t really appreciate anyone mucking about with his preference. He winced slightly when I placed the coffee cup the wrong way, he didn’t look quite happy when I got the wrong brand of bread, he didn’t like it when I would place flower vase on a wrong surface. He didn’t really raise any explicit objection, but you could see in his face that you were messing about in the world he created for himself.
But he never raised any objection. All he did was just sigh and make a face that said “What could I do? I am old, I can not move about like I used to.”
Naturally, we didn’t talk much. He had his way, and he was not about to change anything. And I was nothing more than an intruder into his life. He wanted to see me go as soon as possible, and all I could do was just stay out of his way.
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And we would have been just that, perfect strangers. But if it did, I wouldn’t have been here in this cafe with this packet in front of me. It’s been said that things happen the way they are meant to, but if that is true then all the children beaten to death by their parents, all the animals born and raised so they can be slaughtered and line the butcher shop window, all the wild lives in the rain forest that are probably dying by the seconds because the rain forest is vanishing like dew drops before the sun light, all those things dying are meant to happen?If the war didn’t happen, Thom Babel wouldn’t have to suffer everything he did, his mother wouldn’t have went through everything he said she did, and his friend wouldn’t have to suffer like he does, and I wouldn’t be sitting down in this cafe with this packet in front of me. But I digress.
So we spent the first month not really talking to each other. I stayed out of his way and he corrected everything that I have misplaced or put it down at wrong angle.
He did grew a little soft on me after a few months, for instance he started calling me by my name, but still he made that what could I do face and corrected what mistakes I made. But still we were not anywhere near at the intimacy I wished we would be with him.
Some more months passed and I was cleaning the bedroom when I noticed a rosary lying on a table by the bed. It was a simple wooden rosary, made smooth after years of being rubbed on by surface of flesh. It once may had some details on it, but everything was rounded out after years of being worn.
Then I heard Mr.Babel call to me. He must have been watching me so I wouldn’t mess anything up.
“Gary, put that rosary down.”
He said to me in a tone that was a little harder than he always used.
“I’m sorry Mr.Babel”
“Whether you are sorry or not is not the matter. Just put that rosary down and all will be well.”
So I put the rosary down, and he picked it up tenderly like it was something that could break at anytime, and he was trying to ask for its forgiveness about me touching it. After that, he made the what could I do face.
“That must be something important, right?”
“This is nothing you should have any interest in.”
“Well, it’s just that I collect life stories and I thought you might have something interest to talk about.”
“Maybe one day, young man. But for now, please just clean the room and do your job.”
And like that he went out of the room silent like he did going in.
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After some times, Mr.Babel became visibly ill. He grew thinner by the day, and before anyone could tell he took a deep fall and became bedridden. When December came, he looked like he was going to give up his ghost, and I was the only one left that could attend to him (He wasn’t admitted to a hospice because he refused to leave his apartment room).
It was an especially cold day when he called to me.
He called out to me, told me to sit by the bed and said
“Gary, you once told me that you collect stories, yes?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I am dying, and ”
“Mr.Babel please. You are not dying.”
“You are a poor liar. Now, I am willing to tell you my story. But first give me a glass of spirit. There should be a bottle in the pantry that I saved for the holidays.”
“I don’t know if you should be drinking.”
“Just do as I tell you.”
So I brought a bottle of spirit and two glasses to bedside, poured him some fingers of whiskey, and handed him the glass. He kindled the glass in his hands, took a sip, and started to talk.
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Life story of Thom Babel, as told by Thom Babel
I am not a good story teller, so I will start simple. I was born in this town. The year was, it was, my god it was so long ago, could you believe how much time passed? I was born on May 21st some 70 years ago. Let me tell you one thing, this town, back then it was not such a big town. It was some wayward stopping point where people exchanged goods and some men stayed for some rest. God knows how it rebuilt itself after the war.
It all looked different then. Every houses were made of bricks, none of this steel beam high rise existed at all. People used to drive their carts by the means of their horses leading them. Electric light was finally made, and people were surprised how bright things looked even after dark. I was a quiet child, spending my days in my mother’s arms reading whatever I could get my hands on. Whether I could read it or not was not the question. All that mattered was that I was spending time in my mother’s arms.
Strange, I could remember my mother, but I could not remember a thing about my father. But anyways the city was staring to shine bright, some of the carts were replaced by motor vehicles, goods were starting to be stored in a box that kept them cold and fresh. But the box did not last long, so people still needed to replace the box at the exchange so the goods could stay cold.
And the war started when I hit about 8. Everything is vague now, but I remember that some men were talking in a heated manner about the war. Of course no one believed that anyone would even dare to attack a town as small as this, so all that took place was talking. And the government, the government must have thought the same, that no one would even think to attack a landmass this small. And it worked for a while. At least until we, I mean the government started winning the war. It was not like we were winning on our own. The surrounding countries were gaining on them and they were just losing their footholds, that was all. And they saw us, this small land.
It was the last days of the war, and I was about 10 years old. I don’t believe the government teaches much about the great war these days, no? Good, that was one war where no sides stood victorious. Better get it out of the history and we can progress forward. Anyway, the invading force knew that there is nothing left of them if the next raid failed. And of course they knew they were losing, so they took every measure to break down our city walls so they can at least take what was left of the city. The raid went on for days, and the city wall stood brave, but on the 4th day the wall cracked and they poured in like locusts. The sound that the wall made when it crumbled, the marching of boots, the loud yelling of the soldiers and their guns discharging bullets, they still haunt my dreams.
The men took everything, light poles, vehicles, just about everything they could get their hands on. Our men died like flies, and the women were taken in to pleasure them. My mother was taken with them too. I was scared when they took her. I thought, my god I am now all alone. I am going to die. But somehow they came back to take me as well. So I was reunited with mother, but they have made a whore out of her.
And they treated her like one too. They had her anytime they wanted. They came in whether we were sleeping or having our meal. To them, she was just a facet to pour out their semen into. And she, she always had me close, even when they were having her. Some of the men eyed her as if telling her to get me outside while they did what they wanted, but she always shook her head no. So I watched her and every time they had her I thought, ‘But that’s my mother, she’s not yours, she’s my mother.’ I suppose now that I think about it she always kept me near because she feared that there might be more of the men waiting outside, and some of them might not care to violate a boy.
They had pleasure with her. Anytime of the day, if they so desired they would take her into their rooms and had her. Sometimes they even had her in front of me. It was a horrible scene. It was clear she wanted me to turn my head away, which I did, but the noise it made and the panting the men made were impossible to ignore. The creaking floorboards, those stale smell of rotting semen splattered over her, that smell of semen that had seeped into everything in the room, they were all unbearable.
This went on until the war ended, the surrounding countries came in and liberated us, we were given food and shelter, and we started our lives again.
Of course, it was not that easy, mind you. Everything was in ruins, and there was no way we were able to afford the lives we used to. We have just lost everything and the government was in ruins as well, so there were no help from them as well.
Those were years, and I am sorry but the memories still haunt me. Yes, I promised that I would tell you everything, but let this be something that I will be taking to my grave.
Of course we could not stay poor, nothing could ever stay in ruins forever. It was a lot worse when the war ended and people were actually starting to rebuild their lives. I’d see houses and apartments get rebuilt, and they would stand there unharmed with nothing to demolish it to rubbles. All those years of bombarding has made it really hard for me to think that anything could stand forever, yet there they stand like nothing could ever erode their existence. And people too, they started laughing and play music and some times they would even go out to eat. Unimaginable! People that I knew had all lived underground cowering in fear, bent over in hunger and somehow the world was recovering enough to actually enjoy lives again.”
”It was very surreal, those years. I could not believe that what was standing in front of me was real. Everything that I held in my hand felt light like air, nothing I ate tasted real, nothing I gazed looked like they were rooted in this world. I lived my life in haze, it was just impossible to think that those dreadful days were over and that we could all go out and be marry again.But mind you, there were moments when things felt like they were real. There were moments when I went to a cafe, had a plate of food whatever it was and felt as though things could all coincide with each other. There were days when I would wake up to feel something in the air that would raise my heart. But as soon as that moment is seen, it would go away just as quick.
Many years after the war, I thought about what my mother had to endure through the occupation. Her beauty placed her as the favorite pet of the occupying force, and that earned her meager living for both of us. And when they were bored with her, their perversity forced her into the lowest that a woman or a man should bear. They made her perform all sorts of horrible things. They did everything they can to break her. It was like watching a cat playing with its food until it was dead. And still she kept her dignity. She took the worst they could and she still kept her dignity.
When enough time passed that I felt like I could go on with life again, I started seeing two images in my head. One was that of a man who is stripping himself of his hair, skin, muscle, eyes, bones and turning himself into nothing. The other image was that of a centipede whose limbs were like rooms that held the worst possible humilimation a man could imagine. The images haunted me with out an end. Day in and out, I would see a man taking his skin and stripping himself of his flesh like he is taking off clothing. It was all unbearable.
These images, they haunted me any time of the day. It’s especially horrible when it rains. The rain drops hitting against the window of my room seems to tap upon a storage in my head and bring forth what I wish not to see again as long as I live.
What I’ve done, what I endured, they were all horrible. One should not be exposed to such things. Yes, when you look back at that time, you could say that I was simply a casualty of war, and what I have done after the war was simply a means to survival. But I assure you that no matter how much excuses you could say what is inside your head and heart will stay with you and torment you until the day you die. All I could say is, what could I do? How else could I have survived?
I am sorry, but I think I need to take a rest. Do not worry. I am just going to take a nap. I will be alright. If you could, please take care of the glasses, thank you. Yes, maybe tomorrow I will talk some more.--------------------------------------------------
But he never said anything more after that. He just spent the rest of his days staring out the window like he has finally let go of that final piece of his soul and he was now just waiting for his body to expire. I would implore him to go on with his story, but he would refuse by saying
”It has taken aging to this old flesh to come to start forgiving myself. I think it will take my death bed to confess anything. It’s all still too early.”
He died three months after. In his deathbed he took my hands and said
“I needed someway to get everything out of myself or it would soon eat into myself and all that would be left is this night that would never end where I will be forced to live those nights that I had to act out those horrible things to my mother again. I am sorry I had used you like this. But it was all unbearable.”
”If there is anything you may learn from this, let this be the lesson. Please understand that time does not heal all wounds. Wounds will stay open. They will turn sour, they will blacken, they will eat into flesh, they will ooze pus until your breathing stops. All that time does for you is to give you enough space to forget that you are feeling pain.”
And he took his last breath, and my community service was over like that.
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Afterwards to come before how it ends:
After the whole community service thing and some years later, I was greeted by someone who claimed to be his friend called.
It was a day in the beginning of December, days were starting to get cold, leaves that turned red and yellow were starting to fall, and I was hitting the 5th year of relationship with my girlfriend, and we were seriously thinking about maybe we could stay together until one of us dies.When he called I was boiling spaghetti for lunch.
“Hello, this is Roland Flint.” The voice said over the phone. “You do not know me, and that is probably for the better. All that needs to be understood is that I was a friend of Thom Babel.”“I was wondering if I could meet you over a coffee.”
And so it all started.
On the first impression, Roland Flint looked like a mouse that lived way too long on fiber and nothing else. He looked beaten, weathered, tired, and he had the air of someone who has accepted that he is about to die. Looking at him, I couldn’t help but think, how could this generation be so downtrodden that they all looked like they couldn’t wait to die?
We didn’t talk at all. All that Mr.Flint did was sip his coffee slowly and mentioned that he was a friend of Mr.Babel. That he met Mr.Babel during the war, that they used to live together, and grew up together.
“We did everything together, we survived together.”
And he went quiet again.
After some more silence, he said to me
“I’m here because Babel wanted to hand over his sketch book. God knows what’s inside. He never showed anything he drew. All I could tell was that he was he was drawing in somethings that he couldn’t keep in himself. Christ, he drew like he was scraping his life away so he could be gone from this world.”
“You know, Babel used to tell me ‘One day I will pass away, and I can not wait for the day when my breathing stops and I no longer have to be terrified of what my memories bring upon me. I truly can not wait for the day when I die. It’s oh so terrible, I wake up thinking that I have to live another day, and when night closes in, I weep because all that I have done come back to me through the cracks on the wall’ He also told me ‘I do not think that there is any happiness left for me in this world.’”
After that, he handed me a package no bigger than a notebook, and before I could say thank you or let me pay for the coffee, he got up, grabbed me by the hand and said
“Young man, I will be the last of the generation to remember the war. No one will remember what exactly happened after I die. You do not know the relief I get knowing that, do you?”
After that he fished out some changes from his pocket,threw them on the table and walked out.
I stayed in my seat and looked at the package. Inside of it was probably a sketch book that Mr.Babel has left for me. If I open it, I will probably see what he has seen, and with it I will join the ranks of them that remembers the war. But they are all going to die, and the war is over. And they all said in unison that they can’t wait for the day they will die and the war will finally be forgotten. How could I join them? How could I remember this and not disappoint them? I mean, what could I do?
