His records describe...

His records describe another derelict, wasted by warfare and consummate passions, ripped by currents of public demand. I have what you want and you should only ask -- or take. It doesn’t matter which. They persist because neither he nor they can imagine differently. They wanted booze, they wanted cigarettes, they wanted sex or something like it and he gave his all, his body to war, his lungs to smoke, his liver to beer, his mind to lust and now he’s old and broken at fifty, with children who want nothing because he had nothing for them. He wanted so much to be somebody and now he is a wasted body in the VA hospital.
Despite the records he wasn’t crazy when I talked with him. He accepted my prayers just as he accepted everyone’s desire. Each wanted something and each took a piece. They’ll send him home soon to resume his smoking and beer and his little garden of tomatoes and blackberries, the little plot where he buried his soul in the kindly soil, expecting something of which he never dreamt.