“In The City”
I
Antonio Marsel woke up, as usual, to the commotion of the dumpster in the alley on the other side of his basement window being emptied noisily into a growling garbage truck. Only one sound could be heard above the metallic thunder, and that was the bellowed curses of the garbage-men, commenting loudly on the disgusting nature of the refuse. Today’s highlights, as heard through Antonio’s window, included a dead cat, a hypodermic needle, and a puddle of vomit that apparently was not accurately projected into the trash can. Antonio covered his head with his pillow, to mute the sound, but all he heard when he did this was the pounding of his own brain, recovering from last night’s dosage of alcohol. This was a daily dilemma for Antonio… which was worse? The internal throbbing of his head, or the chaos of the outside world? He decided he didn’t want to deal with either, so he reached out to the floor next to his mattress and felt around until his fingers came across the shape he was looking for, a smooth oval pill. He swallowed it dry, and waited for it to work its magic.
However, a few minutes later, instead of being relaxed, he only felt on edge. The noise from below was gone, but now a beam of the first light of dawn was concentrated on his eyes through a hole in his window shades. He shifted himself, to avoid it, but just the knowledge that it was there made him feel like it was cooking his skin. With a sudden movement, Antonio threw his blankets off and got up. He was still fully clothed in what he had worn last night. He sniffed at his shirt, and decided the smell was tolerable enough not to change. Looking down, there was another pill on the floor, near where he had grabbed the other one. That explains why I’m so on edge, he thought, I took the wrong one by accident. He picked up the pill that had eluded him before, and gulped it down.
Jittery and waiting for the downer to kick in, he left his room and went into the main room, which was a combination kitchen and living room. His roommate Paul was asleep on the couch, in what looked to be an extremely uncomfortable contortion. There was an empty fifth of whiskey lying sideways on the table in front of the couch, so that it looked like it was pouring air into the full ashtray next to it. Their friend Jesus was slouched over in a torn-up chair, also asleep. A cigarette butt was wedged between his fingers, dangling over the armrest. There were burn marks on his knuckle where the cigarette had burned itself down to his flesh. Antonio could also hear a hissing noise, like static from bad television reception, emanating from upstairs. He had long since adjusted to this noise, which he had heard every day for the last six months without being able to identify it.
Antonio didn’t stop to consider of this sound, or the people in the living room, and continued towards the countertop that contained a stove, microwave, and sink. He wasn’t exactly hungry, but something in his mind told him that he should eat. Rummaging through the cabinets, he set aside some cold medicine and batteries and found some popcorn, which he put in the microwave. He plugged it in to turn it on (it had been broken for a long time; the timer didn’t work, and it was stuck in the on position, so the only way to turn it off was to unplug it). He sat at the table while he waited, and slowly his head began to drop towards the table top.
A few minutes later, Paul awoke to a piercing chirp that was made ten times worse by his hang-over. He yelled at the noise to shut the hell up, and was about to roll over to go back to sleep when he smelled smoke. He dragged himself up, so he could see over the back of the couch, and saw a stream of black smoke seeping from the microwave, flowing upwards to the ceiling, where it gathered around the smoke detector. He saw Antonio slumped over the table, and shouted, “Ant, get your ass up and turn off the microwave!”
Antonio just mumbled unintelligibly and wrapped his arms around his head so that Paul’s continued protests wouldn’t disturb his drugged sleep. A battle of wills ensued, with both of them trying to ignore the shrieking (Jesus was not to be disturbed, he continued sleeping). Paul finally gave up and stumbled over to the microwave. He unplugged it, but the smoke detector was still chirping inanely. He picked up the broom that was leaning against the counter, and removed the alarm with a couple of sharp blows. It let loose one last whine as it landed on the ground and was silent. Then, with a swift kick, he swept the chair out from under Antonio, who hung suspended, as if sitting in an invisible chair, before collapsing to the floor. Antonio opened his eyes slightly and swore under his breath, like a soda bottle releasing carbonation.
“Shit man… what’d you do that for?” He asked, squinting his eyes and trying to make out Paul’s figure standing over him.
“Your popcorn’s done,” Paul said matter-of-factly.
“Oh… thanks.” Ant said hesitantly, unsure how to receive Paul’s sarcasm.
He shuffled over to the microwave and shoved a handful of burnt popcorn into his mouth, dropping pieces on the floor.
“This is the last of our food… do you have any cash to go to the store?”
Paul pulled a wad of money out of his jeans pocket and put it on the table.
“I managed to unload that terrible meth that we made last week on some dumb-ass kids. Told them it was really good stuff and they were gullible enough to believe me.”
“Good,” mumbled Ant through a mouthful of popcorn “I’m getting sick of popcorn. We really need to get some real food. The rent’s due in a couple days too. I figure we can be a couple weeks late on that though.”
“Is there anything we need to do today?” Paul asked, changing the subject.
“No. Not until tonight.”
“Well, then, I’m going back to sleep. I’ll see you tonight.” Almost immediately, Paul dozed off. Ant decided there was no point to his being up any longer, so he went back into his room and slept until late afternoon.
It was a dry summer evening, and the sun was beginning to melt into bright pinks and oranges on the horizon. As Paul and Ant were leaving their apartment building, they saw a dimunitive old black man tending to a small garden in the tiny front lawn of the building. They often saw him out there, watering and fertilizing the plants, which were gnarled but tough. Occasionally, colorful flowers broke the monotony of green and brown, but these were very few. There were some dead branches on some of the bushes that needed to be pruned, but hadn’t been. As they passed, they heard the old man mutter something under his breath, obviously disapproval directed at them, and turn away. Ant didn’t care, but Paul still had a horrible headache from the events of the last night and morning, and was feeling very disagreeable.
“What’d you say, old man?” He asked, turning as he stepped off the last step.
The gardener cast his eyes up from his work for just a second, then resumed his work, ignoring the question.
“Goddamnit, I asked you a question!” Paul asked even louder.
The old man stood up slowly, pushing himself up from his knees, “I was just complaining about the weeds here, that’s all,” he said, gesturing towards the ground. “They’re killing off my beautiful plants,” He held his gaze on Paul, despite Paul’s attempted intimidation.
“Yeah, that better be all you said.” Paul snarled, satisfied with what he perceived as a victory.
Paul marched off down the sidewalk, with Ant following behind, struggling to keep pace. They were headed towards their usual corner that they dealt drugs from. The intersection was perfect for them; remote enough to escape police notice most of the time, but busy enough (at least with the type of people they were looking for) to let them make enough money to get by. They didn’t need to harangue passers-by to make their sales, at this time of night, everyone mutually understood everyone else’s intention. A street thug walked by Ant and Paul, obviously in search of someone to mug, but left them alone. He knew there were easier targets to hit, without weapons. They had a somewhat symbiotic relationship: he tried not to rob people before they completed their transactions with Ant and Paul, but got a small number of unfortunate customers afterwards. He then sold the drugs he had stolen back to them at a fraction of the price Ant and Paul would eventually resell it for. There were dozens of other mutually beneficial interactions in the ecosystem that was the corner of Washington and Park. Without this, they would have been driven out of the intersection long ago by police.
Paul and Ant took up their position a couple buildings south of the intersection, on Park. During the cold and blustery winter months, they took shelter in a nearby alley which shielded them from the wind. It was their way of knowing when the seasons had really changed. Of course, the weather never really affected their business, since their customers would trek through any weather to get their fix. In any case, the weather was warm and only a little breezy tonight, so it was a good day to work. Paul leaned against the building with his hands in this pockets, and surveyed the scene. It was unusually quiet for a city, but for this place, at this time, this was normal. This place was an anomaly, a part of the city surrounded by somewhat busy parts, but isolated such that few people had any reason to go through or near it. So, the only people who went here were the ones who wished to escape notice. The only sound was the intermittent metallic tapping of a fire escape ladder being nudged against a metal porch by the gentle wind. This silence routine made Ant somewhat nervous, so he started whistling just to provide some noise. Paul’s head had been pounding all day, so the whistling was like a knife through his brain.
“Would you cut that shit out?” Paul snapped “It’s irritating.”
“Yeah, sure.” Almost as soon as he stopped, Ant started tapping his foot instead.
Paul didn’t have to say anything, he just glared at Ant this time. Ant stopped tapping, but snapped back, “Jesus Christ, what’s your problem today?”
Paul ignored the question and went back to assessing the situation on the streets today. The traffic must have been worse than usual today, he thought. A few more cars than usual were passing by, which meant that people were using this street to get around some other traffic jam. It was going to be a while until it would be safe to make any deals. He glanced over at Ant, who understood the situation as well, and without a word directly concerning drugs, they mutually agreed to go get some dinner first to kill some time.
There was a Burger King about a half of a block north, so they made their way over there. They ordered a couple of burgers and fries, with no drinks. When the cashier turned around to tell the burger assembly-line drones what to make, Ant reached over and grabbed a couple of large cups to fill up at the drink fountains. They came to this restaurant a lot, and never, ever paid for drinks. The workers there knew the scam, but simply weren’t paid enough to care.
Receiving their food and filling up their new-found cups, Paul and Ant took a window seat, so they could see when traffic started to die down. Without exchanging any words they ate most of their food. While they were sitting there, a dirty old woman carrying at least 10 shopping bags full of junk shuffled up to the window and started staring intently at Ant. He pretended not to notice her. He didn’t know her, and she was obviously completely insane.
“Dude, you notice that?” Paul said, glancing up at Ant without moving his head.
“No, she’s only burning a hole in my head with her mind.” Ant replied, trying to move his lips as little as possible, as though by not moving he might become invisible.
“Insane…” Paul mumbled, and concentrated on his burger.
They finished up their food, but she still hadn’t left. The traffic should have died down enough by now, but they really didn’t want to look up to check, for fear of kick-starting some kind of lunatic raving from the old woman.
“Well, we can’t sit here forever,” Paul said, getting up. As they walked towards the door, she followed them like a magnet attached to the side of the building. They rushed ahead, to get to the door before she did, and as they turned quickly to walk back to their corner, she started screaming at them, trying to catch up to them, but unable to. Most of it was unintelligible, but they caught something like “And I want it in three days, not four!” Paul and Ant just kept walking until they were out of hearing range, or she gave up. They couldn’t tell.
“Man,” Paul said once they back to their corner, “that was weird.”
Ant grunted agreement.
“You know, it’s funny. If anyone else had pulled that kind of shit on me, I’d have been on him like that,” Paul said, snapping his fingers, ”but she was just too crazy. I mean, it ain’t right to yell back or threaten her or anything like that,” He laughed, “At least we can stick up for ourselves when it counts.”
Back at the corner, night had descended. The buildings, four to five stories each, were silhouetted against the orange colored cloud cover. There was little traffic now, maybe a car every 15 minutes or so. When they returned, there was a skinny white man standing in their usual spot. They recognized him, having sold him some methamphetamines two weeks ago. He looked like he had been awake for days, and this was probably an accurate guess.
“Hey,” he said in an unstable voice. “You got my pictures?”
“Yeah,” Paul said, taking out of his pocket an envelope that he had gotten from a nearby pharmacy. They found this was a decently discreet way to transport drugs, and pass them. “They cost a lot to develop, you know.”
“I understand that. Highway robbery.” He said, and with a trembling hand, took a roll of cash out of his pocket. It was a huge wad of money, but it was mostly ones and fives.
Paul stood there and counted it while the white guy nervously eyed the envelope tucked in the crook of Paul’s elbow.
“Alright man, everything’s cool. Get out of here before it gets too late, white boy.”
He scurried off, leaning as he turned the corner, like a truck going up on two wheels.
“One more deal tonight and I think we’ll have enough to cover last month’s bills.” Ant said, doing the arithmetic quickly in his head.
Unfortunately, it was a quiet night after that. They left, deciding to pay the water bill, but not the gas bill, tomorrow.
A couple of weeks later, on the weekend, Paul told Ant about a party that he had heard about from his cousin.
“It’s tonight, and it should be awesome. Plenty of booze and weed, and probably plenty of other stuff. And tons of fine ladies too.” Paul said convincingly, as though it was going to take a lot of convincing to get Ant to go. “My cousin knows how to find a party.”
“Well, if you put it like that, I don’t know how I could refuse.” Ant said, patiently bearing Paul’s unnecessary harangue. Paul tended to preach to the converted on this sort of matter; he would go on trying to persuade them even after they had assented.
The party was in the same neighborhood that Paul and Ant lived in, so they walked the three blocks. They didn’t actually know the guy who was throwing the party, except by reputation. He was known only as Hobbes. He was the type of person that no one would do wrong, not because he was a good person, but because he was quite possibly psychotic. He had been gathering power in the city by running a Mafia-like protection scheme with the neighborhood businesses, where they paid him to protect their stores from his own minions. There were rumors that he owned an abandoned apartment building somewhere in the city, which he used exclusively for torturing his enemies and disposing of evidence. Everyone had heard their own unique rumor, one person would say that he tested street drugs on his family, another would say that he had a harem of women, but that a friend of a friend had known a guy who was killed by being forced to eat a cubic foot of dirt. These rumors didn’t really scare anyone, because they were really scared of the fact that the truth was probably far worse than the rumors.
Paul and Ant didn’t care about these rumors at all. They just wanted to have a good time, and this was the first good party they had heard of. When they got there, they looked around and realized that they didn’t know anyone there. The music was loud and bass-driven, almost so low and loud that it could be felt more than heard. Paul could tell Ant was a little anxious about this, and tried to assure him, “Don’t worry, I’ll find my cousin, he’ll hook us up.” Paul disappeared into the crowd in search of his cousin, and Ant walked around, trying to look like he belonged. He saw that Jesus was there, but already passed out in a chair in the corner, in the exact same position as always.
He met back up with Paul about a half hour later. By now, both of them had drank their share of booze, and were giddily sociable by now, even towards the strangers at the party. This was aided by the volume of the music, which allowed two people talking to each other to have two separate conversations. This made conversing with strangers very easy.
“Did you find your cousin?” Ant yelled above the pulsing bass line of the music.
“No, it’s a whiskey sour.” Paul replied, holding up his plastic cup up in front of Ant’s face.
“Check out that girl I’ve been talking to over there,” Paul gestured with his cup towards an extremely attractive girl, who looked to be about his age. She saw him looking over towards her, and gave a little wave with a smile.
Ant didn’t hear what Paul said, but could tell what he meant and who he was pointing at. He congratulated Paul on his good find, but his mind was elsewhere, as he saw a circle of people passing a joint around. Without another word to each other, they went their separate directions.
While Ant was waiting for the joint to get around the circle to him, an older, bearded guy who was sitting next to him tapped him on the shoulder. “Your friend’s really got some balls, messing with Hobbes’ girl.”
Ant hadn’t really heard him because of the volume of the music, and was also distracted since he was anxiously awaiting a hit of marijuana, so he just absent-mindedly replied, “Yeah…”
Not a minute later, a bubbling of loud voices near the dance floor rose over the music, getting everyone’s attention. The bubbling spread outward as each successive outward layer heard the commotion, until the sound dominated the audible portion of the music, producing the strange effect of still feeling the music, but hearing something else entirely. Ant, lingering towards the outside of the party, was one of the last to be reached by the noise. Almost at that instant, he realized what the older man had said. This realization immediately sobered him up, and forgoing the joint, he moved towards the disturbance near the dance floor, making his way through the crowd like a swimmer through mud. He feared that he already knew what had happened.
He was right.
Paul was arguing loudly with a smaller black man with a large scar running from his ear to his nose. The man was absolutely still, seemingly listening calmly to Paul’s shouting. This seemed unnatural, since he wasn’t in a defensive posture expected of one being berated by a much larger man. Paul either hadn’t made the connection about who this man was, or was too wasted to be rational. In any case, he was at his most insulting and belligerent right now.
“Listen, you little shit,” Paul roared, spraying Hobbes with saliva, “she started talking to me! Don’t come over here getting on my case because she’s a fucking slut! I’m not the one…”
He was cut off by a cobra-like jab to the mouth from Hobbes. It was so quick that it made more of a snapping sound than the usual sound of someone being struck. The suddenness of the blow stunned Paul, who didn’t have time to hit back before a couple quick hooks knocked him down. Hobbes grabbed Paul’s collar, and, with strength belying his size, dragged Paul out of the party, towards a staircase, upstairs to unknown torment.
Ant had watched this while trying to squeeze through the crowd, which was also trying to get closer to the action. As soon as it was over, though, everyone in the party went back to their one-sided conversations, and Ant was able to get to the staircase as Hobbes was about halfway up the first flight of steps. Ant hesitated for just a second at the bottom, then ran up the stairs, tackling Hobbes at full speed, and landing on top of him on the steps. Before Hobbes could throw Ant off, Ant palmed his head like a basketball, and slammed it twice into the corner of the top step. Without checking to see if he was still conscious, or knocked out, or even alive, he grabbed Paul by the shoulders, bringing him to his feet. Looking around, he saw a bouncer-type giant headed their way through the crowd.
“We need to get out of here fast, out the back,” Ant ordered quickly, “There’s a guy coming towards us from the front.”
The staircase continued downward, so they followed that, knowing that all the buildings had the same architecture, and that there would be an exit into the back alley from the basement. Without stopping, they plowed through some cleaning supplies that were being stored in the corridor before the outside door, and hit the pavement of the back alley running.
IV
“Christ,” Paul said, almost jovially, “that little shrimp sure knows how to throw a punch.” He rubbed his jaw appreciatively.
They were back at their apartment now. Paul was sprawled out on the couch, grinning ridiculously at their fortune of still being alive.
“Do you know who that was!?” Ant asked, pacing behind the couch on the creaky floor. He was still breathing heavily from the dash back to their apartment.
“Of course, it was that crazy fucker Hobbes.”
Ant was stopped pacing and was silent for a full minute. All that could be heard was that static-like hiss from upstairs.
“You knew that and you still went after him like that?” he asked incredulously, with anger starting tinge the edges of his words.
“I’m tired…” Paul started.
“I don’t care if you’re tired,” Ant interrupted, ”Tell me why the hell you did it! I put my ass on the line for you!”
“Would you let me finish?” Paul said. “I’m tired of taking shit from everyone around here. Hobbes’s girl wasn’t even that big of a deal, it was just the breaking point. How was I supposed to know she was his? He thinks he’s so damn important that everyone should know. Mainly what’s getting to me is being hassled by cops, being guilt-tripped by ‘law-abiding’ citizens about our job. Because that’s what it is, it’s a job. We get the money we need to eat and sleep from dealing, and they have to get self-righteous and say that what we’re doing is wrong, but it’s just fine for them to go on selling booze or cigarettes.” He stopped with a sigh. Ant was still silent and suddenly very tired. Paul continued.
“You remember that old guy out in the yard a couple weeks ago? The one I yelled at for complaining about his weeds? He’s the one that really got to me. He’s the one I was pissed at tonight. It took me a while to realize it, but he was insulting us. You probably caught it right away, but I didn’t. He was saying we were weeds, and we’re poisoning his precious community.” Paul snorted. “He should look around. What’s so great about it?”
“Besides, what’s so bad about weeds? They’re plants, just like his flowers. Life is life. But everyone wants to see beautiful red roses, not ugly weeds. So they pull the weeds, toss them in the compost heap.” Paul was getting tangled up in this more than his current state allowed, and he started to trail off.
“But, shit, man… I mean… weeds have a right to live too.”
Paul was right, and Ant knew it. Like any living and breathing human being, they were just trying to survive by any means possible. They dulled their frustrations and pain with drugs to make it to the next day, with the sole purpose of each day being to endure as long as possible, and maybe have some good times along the way. They sold poison to their fellow man. They were obnoxious and confrontational. It wasn’t a noble life, it wasn’t a pious life, nor was it even a particularly joyful life. They tried, however, to see what the next day would bring, and despite their actions, were still people, whose dulled pain was still pain, whose actions were necessary, whose attitudes were justified.
Ant had absorbed all this, but still had one concern.
“You’re right. But we have to get out of this city fast if we don’t want to end up with Hobbes going at us with whips and chains.”
Paul nodded in agreement.
“Where will we go?” he asked.
“Does it really matter? How many places could be worse than here?” Ant said, matter-of-factly. A sly grin twisted across his face, “Besides, weeds can grow pretty much anywhere.”