The Scot

"A Place for the Eye to Rest" is made up of stories which ask questions or reveal elements of the human condition and experience, written in an easy to digest and entertaining manner in order to be a place for the mind to rest and to contemplate the world around us.

The Scot

In a subway in Barcelona, Spain, we encountered a homeless man. In the ensuing conversation we noticed his obvious British accent. He informed us he was originally from Scotland. This is his story:

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I grew up in a typical family: parents, brothers, sisters, small but homely house. There was not an excess of money as Da had a tendency to consume any excess money in the form of liquid libations which he consumed during social encounters at local establishments catering to this activity, surrounded by his contemporaries who were engaged in similar activities. In plain language, dad drank up any unspent money in alcohol at pubs with his fellow drunks as companions.

As one would expect, those companions were more than happy to consume anything purchased for them, so we seldom had enough money to cover all our living expenses and obviously had little or nothing for extras or luxuries.

My education was public and meager, and largely unappreciated by me, so not the focus of my attention or energy. As soon as the law would allow, I dropped out of school and got a job as a dishwasher at a local hostelry and brought home money for my mother. She used it to supplement the family’s survival which was provided by my father.

After a few years of monotonous drudgery as a dishwasher, I was promoted to the position of prep cook. I began to enjoy my work. With the promotion came some increase in pay and some status. After passing along funds to my mother, I now had a little to save. Prep cook led to line cook as I applied myself to learning the cook’s craft.

As a line cook, pressure increased at work. It was hard, rushed and often thankless. The good thing about this was that I had the opportunity to learn about the cooking process and when I went home after a 12 hour shift, I was so exhausted that I rarely went anywhere, spent any money or got into any trouble.

When I was promoted again to a more advanced cook’s position at the same restaurant, it seemed as though opportunity had arrived for me. I now had some status, at least in the kitchen, was making more than a survival wage, learning new techniques every day, and also saw some semblance of a future ahead of me.

I began to have a few hours a week of disposable time. Like all lads of the area in their 20’s, I started to notice the available girls and think about forming a family. Ultimately it’s what I did. I fell in love, got married and suddenly had small children toddling about. Small children and a harried and stressed out spouse; often a recipe for problems. Children need clothes and toys and spouses need comforting and outlets for stress and boredom in order to stay sane.

As the only source of income for the family, the pressure of it all rolled downhill and landed on me. After long hours over a hot stove in a pressure cooker of a kitchen, the tall, cold beer at the corner pub tasted just right. And led to two beers and before I knew it, I was trapped in the familiar pattern that had captured my father’s life. It seemed so familiar and acceptable to me as I had been exposed to it during my childhood.

Unlike my mother who had settled for her role as wife to a drunk and mother to her children, my wife was more independent and less accommodating. She found a baby sitter, a job for herself and then divorced me!

Now this was new territory for me. I now had a job, an accompanying reputation as a talented and capable chef, adequate income, congenial friends, but no family.

A job offer at a larger, more established restaurant on the European continent came my way. Without family ties, and with the offer of more money and more prestige at the new restaurant, I took the job and moved to a big city in Spain.

At first the new situation seemed ideal. I was making plenty of money and lived well. I had autonomy in the kitchen and ran the staff and production with little difficulty, although much stress. I had a comfortable flat, although it seemed cold and lonely with no family to share it.

Then things began to go off the rails. Rather than return home to a quiet and empty flat after a shift spent in the loud and tumultuous kitchen, I began to frequent the local tavern. Like the experience in Scotland that had cost me my home, family, and marriage, this frequenting of the tavern would cost me dearly. I no longer had much in the way of excess funds, as keeping friends in a drinking environment involved treating fellow revelers to rounds in order to keep the party going and the relationships intact. This was not altogether surprising as alcohol was the one thing we had in common.

But that was not the worst of it. Then came the moment when I had had a wee bit too much fun, and was late to work. And then I missed work altogether, sleeping through the shift and not even being aware that my second chef was covering my absence.

One day seemed like another and rather than waste time going to cook, I just went directly to the tavern. After many warnings, I was fired.

Then with no income, not motivation to get another job, I realized I had no money. I was locked out of my flat and lost all my clothes, my furniture, my dignity and my future. But I still had my friends, right? But not for long. Since I could no longer buy them drinks, they began ignoring me, as being worthless. I had become a consumer, a hanger-on, rather than a provider.

So with no job, not status, no income, no reputation other than being undependable, a drunk, friendless and family- less, I become homeless. I resorted to sleeping wherever I happened to be when I collapsed from either fatigue or inebriation. I began asking passersby for money just to get by. I had somehow taken a wrong turn and was no longer on a well-lit street, but headed further and further into the darkness of what seemed like a hopeless future.

I no longer drank quality alcohol, but whatever I could afford or beg for. As a result, I felt sick most of the time, ate poorly, had no health care, lost weight and my teeth from neglect and debauchery.

So here I am today, talking to you in this stinking subway in the bowels of Barcelona. I am a long way from home in Scotland, tired, dirty and hopeless, lonely and even further from where I was when I was a talented and respected chef. My only hope is that you will give me enough money to allow me to purchase enough alcohol to forget where I was, where I am now, and how I got here.

I can’t even say that I won’t use anything you give me for alcohol because that would just be a lie! I have tried to dry out, but the process is just too painful and I have no safe place to do it. No one cares enough about me to see me through it. I guess I am just destined to live like this, waiting for an anonymous and miserable death.

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With that he ended his story. While it broke my heart that he represented a life and talent wasted, I could see that he represented much more. He represented choices made long ago that had come back to haunt him. Rather than choose his wife and family over feckless friends, he had taken the easy path and chosen not to face the reality of his life and stand up to its challenges. His downward spiral had passed by other opportunities for redemption. But the draw to a dark future was the easy way, and became like a magnet to the metal of his resolve. The ultimate destination was not a pretty one, but it was a destination of his choosing, so we left him to it.

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