A Man Of Integrity?

In my misery I be.

Life is hell on the streets, cut off from all living life. Friends, family, fun, fucking - all gone. Worst part is having to keep up a facade of normalcy. One day, I just decided to give up and let the real me show: scruffy, depressed and alone. Go ahead, mock away, I can't stop you. And that's how I sat on a sidewalk bench watching people pass by in all their unmitigated glory on a Sunday afternoon, none having made decisions as poor as mine.

Imagine my surprise as someone actually approached me. Red flags went up everywhere, knowing most likely someone spotted my pain and saw me as an easy target. I know some who make whole careers out of that. Anyway, this guy was different. He had a suit and a smile and an amiable air. I remember thinking: Jesus, that's one hell of a con man's act! That's when he made his offer.

"I want you to have this gold bar."

Strange. No set up, no introduction - you have to gain the mark's trust first. Then he pulls out an actual gold bar and shows it to me. And after proving to me it's real, I said:

"I can't accept that."

"Why not? You're down on your luck and I want to help. Simple as that."

"I'm a man of integrity. Such wealth does not reflect my true station in this world."

"So what?"

"I'm using my life to prove the injustice of our economic system. They told me work would fulfill me. It has not. They told me if I did an honest day's work I would get by. I did not. They say this is the only way to live. It is not. My misery proves their precepts are false."

"No one needs you to do that. The injustices will provide proof on their own. You're throwing away your life! What of your truths? I'm offering you a way out."

My truths I do not want to face. Yet a man must have integrity to survive! And this fellow wanted to buy mine (or at least that's the story I'm going to tell). "No, sir! I'm on a mission from God. All of mankind is depending on my misery. There is a better way to live and I know it! You cannot silence me with your gold!"

So he got up, walked a few steps and turned back around. "Now why would gold silence you?"

And he left me sitting there feeling like an idiot. I didn't really just pass up a way out of my street hell, did I?

Then a girl in a sun dress stops in front of me, her demeanor and smile radiating like the sun. And it was me she was smiling at! Talk about being just what the doctor ordered, she matched exactly my secret dream for sexual healing. I must put my best foot forward for one such as she!

Her inviting smile pulled me off the bench and her life-filled eyes never left mine as I nervously approached her. Dear God, she saw right into my soul! In religious terms, this is what you call being "saved". But I must prove my worthiness and integrity to her, harboring no lies. So I slapped her.

The radiance snapped as she rubbed her cheek. "What the fuck is your problem!"

"All my relationships end up in failure. I thought you needed to know that I would only hurt you in the end. Impressive for me to admit that, huh?"

But for some reason she got real angry, storming off and shooting me the bird. "Loser!"

"Yes, but I told you that first!"

I'm sure she'll dwell on that and give me sympathy sex later. But that wouldn't be salvation, would it? I didn't just pass up a chance to be saved did I?

She was actually better than this,
more intelligent eyes

At the shelter they force me to take weekly therapy because I'm "such a miserable git no one can stand to be around you." Not my fault if I'm the only one who has integrity. At least this time I had a couple of instances where I could prove my greatness and get them off my back!

But after I told my story of the gold bar, my therapist just made a weird look at me and said nothing. Perhaps I've awed her with my terrific trueness, I mused. What fanatical devotion I showed! Her words didn't match my fantasy.

"No one could be that stupid. No one. You must be making this up." I assured her I was not, a tad confused at the disappointment. "Then what you're telling me is you don't want to face true responsibility but rather take on that which is not your own. Tell me what your fear was."

"My first thought was: who needs integrity when you've got a Maserati? But that would mean my life has no meaning in what I'm doing!"

"The truth will set you free."

"Whatever!" I sulked, arms folded and forehead creased. What the fuck else am I supposed to do with my life? All I do is dream. But the therapist was scowling back at me (unlike most, this one doesn't take any shit. I so dread her - and crave her), so I told her about the sun dress girl and how amazing she was. She was borderline screaming now.

"You did it twice? You don't have integrity! You have a life ruled by fear!"

"That's one way of looking at it," I defended, not believing it myself. I sat in the chair, cowed by her disgust and wondered if I had just passed up on a life of my dreams. I would have never chosen the path I'm on had I thought I had a future in this world. Dear God, what have I done?

"I'm sorry," I confessed. "I'm sorry about what I've done. I can't live with this."

"No doubt! How very pathetic. You see, the difference between you and others is most don't get handed such gifts! The greater the gifts handed to you, the greater the responsibility."

"Well, you're not helping much on the suicide front there." I started to open up at last. "It's just that it's easy to believe in me - but not in my life."

"Tell me, why is it you believe in yourself?" she asked, breaking me down.

I smiled for the first time, a flicker of light. "That's easy: I believe in love."

"But if you believe in love, why is there no love in your life?"

"Oh, that's easy too," I was freely confessing now, "because I have no real integrity!"

Oh, shit...