The young madman

I could say that, without shame, I would have given him the good Lord without a confession. I probably would have taken him quickly in my arms too. He is one of those faces that attract me, that move my desires and my crazy desire to have someone with me.

I know many of these souls, these humans, young or old, bearded or slimmed down by old age. These are men, a hope for a peace that I claim. A chimera certainly, because, until now, what I have touched and loved has flown away, has not stuck to my skin as they are told in books and myths, as they are told on television.

This one, at the beginning of that freezing afternoon, was sitting near the train door. Maybe in his early twenties, curly hair like Nelligan. I could have sworn it was Nelligan. Tender, feverish eyes, lost face, sometimes fuelled by a grin coming either from a crazy idea or a schizophrenic dream. Without any real muscle, a pair of jeans that were too short and showed puppet ankles.

From time to time, his gaze met mine without dwelling on me. But during these moments, I could admire his balanced features, his round irises of opium, his beard of an awkward virility. I saw a man in it, a force that didn’t seem to be able to hold its own.

Moreover, his profiles, both the left and the right, his profiles that I could often observe because his face did not stay in place, they were not as well designed as his haggard facade. I repeat, I would have taken him in my arms, this madman, probably, this child-man wounded by a possible tare. I would have brought him home and placed him in my bed, not to usurp his flesh, but only to cling to him and remember the warmth of the stormy innocence of an emotional and lost youth, the one that languishes in my memories, that I let slip away like all of you who weave your wool, your lives on creaking looms.

I often meet some of these men. They are waves planting on the waters of life. I know nothing about them, nothing about their saliva, much less their fever. And if I could know them all, would my thirst be conquered? Asking the question is the answer. And the answer is to want to keep drinking and believing.