Tuesdays with Pro Patria Morrie

On the bus yesterday I met a hobo by the name of James Cromwell Stearns or alium, something in that vein. There he was, bag-in-hand--Colt therein, forty ways to assuage his weariness. He struck up a conversation with Roberto, an ex-army man lacking lower teeth (retaining only hounds), far too compromised to lay claim to Hellenic Formalism. I must say, James found Roberto quite distateful; my expectation of his expectoration mounted with his threats to grace the Spaniard with the same. The full carriage rattled on silent, rapt to their salvos yet uncaring. But a revelation (more apocryphal, but as evocative as John's) averted apocalypse; they were, as James said, brothers-in-arms. Army and National Guard! The great gulf of ethnic hate which rended their clattering jaws was bridged in a moment by an idea precious enough to break all bonds of enmity. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. Roberto reintroduced himself to his new compadre as Robert; James sublimated into Jaime; the two became fast friends and struck up a discourse on the encircling hounds who they, by their valor, had driven off. Through men like them the veil endures. As they conversed, a woman of fading charms and slackening face escaped her unfortunate placing between them, leaving the platonic lovers to rejoice in freedom.

Tragedy marred that day. Robert had to disembark, leaving Jaime (the miracle passes; James again) no outlet but your self-same flawed narrator. He tells me his quest: a search for a lost loved one, a son he cannot find. But the heartfelt plea is duplicitous in its irony; the drunk man shows me smiling a picture of a Costa Rican sloth he tore from a magazine, one of several identical images he bears. For sloths, being a sloth is okay (opines James), but not for man. The pallor in his eyes precludes ignorance of his words' import. A wandering nous strays to the Lyceum, and James regaled me with tales of his noble father's alma mater (alma mater virumque cano; broken meters, sour wordplay) which the son sought in heart alone, not deed. Man precludes himself from paradise's open gates. His skills were all pro patria; a sharpshooter, straight as an arrow (perchance to dream). That route in living lost, he had found a true friend, an ever-present intervener less intravenous than his other joys). His last candle, lit for Messiah. He quoted Solomon's Proverbs: laughter cures all ills, a salvific panacea (so much for sola fide). I questioned his textuality, and he referred me to the font and source (Dasani: replenish the source within). Sola scriptura. That at least pleased me. I've yet to confirm. But, like the lost visage of Robert, James vanished forever by destiny's inscrutable hand, and I alighted at Bleecker.