Free The Intruder by Peter Blauner

stopped taking his Haldol since that night at the shelter. For the past week, he’s been out on the street 24-7, scavenging for crack money wherever he can find it. Things have changed. His beard is getting mangy and there’s lice in his hair. His skin is rough and scabby. The purplish bruise on his right elbow won’t heal. And the fence in his mind that used to keep his thoughts ordered and separate has come down. Now ideas and memories are jumping back and forth like frolicsome sheep.
    The past is the present and the present is the past. I was in a dark wood and I lost my way.
    From behind the bathroom house, he watches a group of children crawl into a tunnel made of tires, and all of a sudden, he’s back on the floor of his daughter’s room, playing with the trains he gave her for her sixth birthday.
Who’s God? Shar asks, pushing Thomas the Tank Engine along a wooden track.
    God made everything, he tells her.
    God took my mother from me.
    God made me suffer. God made me lonely. God made me cry. God made me put needles in my arm.
    Then God gave me you, to make up for it.
    Having Shar in his life was like holding a sunbeam in his hand. Somehow he knew it couldn’t last. The love he felt for the child was unbearable. He knew he wasn’t meant to be this happy. Sometimes he thanked God for her, other times he cursed him because he knew he would lose her. Six years old. She was like an angel sent to earth, to make sense of his senseless life.
    Did God make the trains? she asks.
    I guess he did.
    Did God make you a conductor?
    I’m a motorman, sweetie.
    Oh right. Did he make you a motorman?
    I suppose he did.
    Why?
    I don’t know.
    I know. She throws her warm little arms around him. Everybody has to do something, Daddy.
    When she was taken from him, it was like the sun was blotted out.
Then he’s back in the playground. A small girl in a green jumper runs up to him, stops, and raises her huge liquid brown eyes to him.
    “Hello, baby. Where you been?”
    He stoops to pick her up. His heart is so full that it hurts. His little girl has come back. Forgive me, daughter, I have sinned. He starts to put his arms around her.
    But then he sees this isn’t Shar. This is a stranger’s little girl. She doesn’t even have blond hair. Her nanny, a hard-faced Irish number in stonewashed jeans and Nikes, pushes him aside andscoops her up. Looks over her shoulder. Shame on you, ya filthy bum. Trying to touch the children. Shame. Shame. Shame.
    He backs away, wondering who has stolen his life. He wants to lash out and hurt someone the way he’s been hurt. But who? Who’s responsible?
    In his mind’s eye, he’s back in the hospital corridor, with the cops waiting to talk to him. He sees the poster on the wall: BABIES ARE GOD’S WAY OF EXPRESSING HIS OPINION THAT THE WORLD SHOULD GO ON. But why should the world go on? They know it’s his fault.
    The doctor comes out and looks at him with baggy eyes.
    I’m sorry, Mr. Gates, we lost her.
    He cries out in pain. God is punishing him.
    His scream echoes across the asphalt playground and stops the children’s playing. Soon a cop car arrives.
    What’s the problem here?
    No problem, officer. I’m just enjoying the sun.
    All right then, just move along. You’re making the children nervous.
    Keep moving. Keep moving. The pain and guilt are more than he can handle alone. Someone else must be responsible.
    He leaves the playground and starts to cross Amsterdam Avenue against the light. A blue Gran Fury comes hurtling toward him and for a second he thinks about stepping into its path. Come on. Kill me.
    But then he looks up and sees Shar waving to him from across the street. The pale little hands. The flapping blond hair. That helpless toothless smile. This time he will save her.
    Wait for me, baby. I don’t want to lose you.
    As he steps off the curb, the car goes sweeping by and she’s gone again. Like the wind of Christ. Stations of the cross—stations of the IRT. Watch the