Thank You, Mister Hangus
One November morning in Chicago, when I was staying with my brother Don and his family in an apartment above a saloon called Broadway Joe’s, I woke up and said, “Out there, somewhere, there is a story; I will go and see what it is.”
I was needing a story because Don and I were attending a creative writing class at Bezazian Library on West Ainslie, and the moderator, a one Bob Emerine, called on each of us in the group to read aloud something we had freshly written for that week. Because tonight was class night, and because I didn’t have anything written yet, I thought, “Wat da hey, might as well go try and flush something out; there’s a million stories out there.”
I unveil my plan to Don. He offers “Rotsa ruck,” for encouragement and tells of a time that didn’t work out for him. Then I am gone. Mounting my trusty, black, one-speed Schwinn bicycle, I head for the park.
The beach is deserted, and I am thinking how neat and clean it looks minus the summer’s mass of human bodies and, especially, minus the summer’s mass of humanly used cans, bottles, and papery trash. I find the scene “bee-yoo-tee-ful.” Looking out across the watery waters of Lake Michigan to the waters’ end, as far as I can see, that is, I find it fascinating to think about how this world turns and holds in space like it does. It is a fascinating piece of wonder work.
On I peddle to a park bench some distance away.
“Here,” I say, “I'll jot a few thoughts.”
I remember Don’s response to my plan. As he offered me a cup of fresh, steaming hot coffee, I said, “I’d like it, but no, I'm going out — even if I have to suffer.” His “Oh, gonna suffer one outta your twenty-four hours, huh?” gave me a laugh while peddling, so I decided to jot it down. As you can see, I was hard up for something to write about.
As I was jotting, a man who was sitting alone on a bench up the line wanders over to chat. So I pocket my jotbook and pen and listen to see about his life.
He has gangrene in the toes of his left foot that pains him a lot, and all around that foot there are other parts that pain him, too — continuous pain. We talk about that. He has just come out of a Presbyterian hospital and had been in and out of many hospitals, here and abroad. He regards life as very precious, a sacred thing, but this continuous pain makes it very unpleasant for him. He asked his doctor, “Can’t you do something for my pain?”
“I’m sorry Mister Hangus,” answered the Doc, “but it’s something you’ll have to learn to live with.”
I sit there feeling compassion for Mister Hangus, and wondering how does one regulate oneself to a life of continuous pain?
It becomes very plain, after listening to Mister Hangus for some while, that he never had much of a life at all. He was born in Scotland and raised by very strict parents who only allowed religious vocalizing in the house, even in the matter of songs. From what I could gather, the worst thing Mister
Hangus ever did was when he’d get off with others and sing, “Flow Gently Sweet Afton,” or “Bobbie Burns.”
“Ah,” he says, “There was a song!”
“Bobbie Burns,” he says, “lived and talked and walked with the poor. He was a wholesome, honest man; and if any of the rich were crooked, watch out, he’d tell about their dishonesty in verse, and they wouldn’t deny it either, because they knew he spoke true.”
Then I remember that Bobbie Burns was one of Abraham Lincoln’s favorite poets. Lincoln was really a man of truth himself, so I think of how truth beckons to truth.
Curious, I ask Mr. Hangus what he thinks is the purpose of life?
“Wouldn’t know, wouldn’t know,” he answers. “But I can tell you one thing, there are many disappointments in it.”
And then he tells me how his family has a history of poor blood circulation, and how one niece, a very beautiful girl, had to have her leg amputated when she was only seventeen. She went to one doctor, he says, who told her she only had a sprain, but she didn’t remember spraining anything. So she went to a second doctor who told her she had gangrene and that he would have to remove a portion of her foot. So that was done. But the foot got bad again. So this time the doctor decided to remove her whole leg so there would be no chance of a recurrence. Now the girl wears a false leg, but you can’t even tell it, she does it so gracefully. The ending of this story is that the girl married a prosperous farmer, and they seemingly have had a happy life together.
I never find out how many were in this family, but there was one sister, he said, who could really belt out hymns — “Wake the dead,” so to speak. Once, when Mr. Hangus was in a hospital, he requested her to sing “The Lord Is My Shepherd” but I do not know if she consented to do so, or whether it would have been permitted there. I can well fathom, though, just how strict his parents were, because he related that when both passed away, his sister was now free to do as she pleased — she being seventy years old.
“They were very strict,” he says. “When I was a boy, I had to act like a lady.” When he would open his mouth to say something, his mother would answer, “Think before you talk your words!” He says that now he regrets that he didn’t take more chances in life than what he’d done, because he feels himself dying and he hasn’t really lived.
Then I have a flashback about the carousing I did the other night — which I now no longer regretted. And this was the story, I know, that I came out for. So, thank you, Mister Hangus.