3900. RECOMPENSE

RECOMPENSE

This recompense is shoddy, and the

boats are rocking in the water. It is silent

where I sleep : some very old and run-down

room on the sailor's edge of town. Seaport

wayfarer, that's me. It's been three hundred 

years, in fact, since I've left the port. No

matter, you wouldn't believe the way the vain

and the proud still lie to me. A long time ago,

in the basement here, was a dog-fighting parlor;

drunks and violent veterans would bet and stammer

with their vehement tongues  -  about chances of

death, about outlasting time. The filthy curs, all

bloodied and crying, would die a nasty death.

It all still makes me sick, and I'm glad they

closed it down. I cried nearly every night. It

was better replaced, not so long after, by a

second floor brothel  -  a much better deal,

I always said. (Or, as Farley the drunk put it

'first it was dogs, now it's pussies'). Whatever

the situation may be, I am - as I said - still here;

the original ancient mariner who goes nowhere. 

Men are dogs themselves, I only now realize  -  

but it took me so very long to see.