get out now!

I've abandoned this sinking ship for greener pastures.
http://imminentbystander.wordpress.com/

...feel free to read everything I wrote previously
below

30

The Subway restaurant chain gave me the title of ‘sandwich artist’ to soften the blow of working there. I was much more than just a sandwich artist though; I was also a sandwich thief. At the time I was sixteen and pretty much living in my car so having a job where I could take bread and cheese and cold cuts was a major plus. Chip Gonzalez was a guy I’d known for several years from school and he and I often worked the same shift. He’d worked there longer so he was in charge of training me. If you have ever dined at a Subway then you can imagine that the training is pretty elementary. The only part that gave me trouble was mastering the credit card machine. Whenever I told a customer the price of his or her purchase and they pulled out a Visa or some other card I would retreat to the back and let someone else handle the transaction. One time Chip was in the back pooping or something and a guy came in and ordered about six foot longs. I gingerly made the order with a smile and the customer was pleased with my handy work. Thirty something dollars was the total it came to and he handed me a card from his wallet. I don’t think I even tried to maintain my temper or play it cool. In vain I tried swiping the card to make the deal go through about five times and I could tell that the customer was growing concerned.
“Just go.” I said angrily. The guy did not know what he had done to upset me but he seemed to want to make it right. He offered another kind of card and I refused to touch it. I wasn’t really upset at him but I just wanted him to leave before Chip or anyone else came around. “It’s okay, just leave.” I instructed again with a softer, gentler tone to let him know that no words were necessary on his part. Like a man who’d just been granted a second chance at greatness, he bolted for the door holding six feet of dinner with all the fixings. As he stepped through the exit he turned and we exchanged glances. We would never see each other again. He could not ever come back here, there was risk of discovery and all other future orders placed would be eclipsed by the shadow of today’s uncanny triumph.
What most people don’t know is that behind the glass sneeze guards where the food is prepared are little stickers that prompt workers on what to say to the customers. ‘Would you like chips and a drink? Would you like a special?’ and things like that. One night I added a new suggestion sticker with masking tape and was proud to show Chip and another worker that they now had the option of ‘would you like me to masturbate on your sandwich?’ I vowed to use it on the next person who came in. That next person happened to be a grizzled middle aged man. He looked fresh from a hand callusing job and I pegged him as being hungry but I was wrong. A lady named Cheryl was manning the cash register, Chip was eating cookie dough from the walk in freezer and I was running my plastic gloved fingers through the lettuce tray, as I was fond of doing. Our hoary shopper approached Cheryl and asked for change for a quarter to make a phone call. Later on I realized that it was an odd request since back then phone calls were only a quarter but at the time I was too excited about my imminent prank. Cheryl opened the register and the grey hair put a gun next to her nose. He said something like ‘give me the fucking money’, Cheryl shrieked and could not decide whether to place the bills into one of our clear plastic bags with the company logo or a black trash bag. The bandit became annoyed so I stepped in and made the executive decision of going with the clear insignia bag. The lettuce I had been fondling was very fresh and moist and it transferred from my gloves to the dollars that I shoved into the little sack. There wasn’t very much in the drawer since it had been a slow night but I estimated the thief got away with enough to have bought one of our party platters with drinks and chips included. With money and gun in hand the guy then ran out the door and was gone. There had been only two other customers in the store, a pair of heavyset women who were seated with an infant.
“We just got robbed.” I told them. “Would you lock the door?” I asked them since they were closer. The two ladies screamed through mouths filled with tuna salad and ran to the rear to huddle with Cheryl. Chip walked over to the door and locked it and he and I sat at the table where the frantic women had abandoned their young. The baby was playing with a toy that came with its meal. The toy was obviously a choking hazard so I took it away.
Several days later a couple of cops came by and told us that the store had been robbed several times previously. I knew a kid named Tony Weldon who’d held it up a year or so before I worked there. He had put all the employees in the same walk in freezer where Chip had been lazing about during our stick up. The same two cops came by a week later with six mug shot pictures.
“Was it one of these guys?” They asked me. All but one of the men were black and since the guy who robbed us was white I said it looked most like the white guy, but I wasn’t sure. “Why are you not sure?” The lead cop asked.
“Well.” I said. “I remember the guy I saw was taller and bigger.”
“Well this guy is bigger than what he looks like in this picture.” I was told. I said if it was any of the six men I was shown then it would have to be the white guy. The cops told me I had done the right thing. I don’t know if they meant I did the right thing by giving over the money so easily the night of the robbery or by implicating their favorite suspect. We lived in a small town.

Eh' , I was sick

Thursday was the third day I’d been confined to my bed by the flu. The last time I was sick must have been almost ten years ago. This time it was bad, all my muscles atrophied from 3 days of little usage. I was only moving to go to the bathroom and those trips were becoming less frequent because I wasn’t eating. By Thursday morning though I was feeling well enough to get out of the house. I needed juice and I felt bad that I had not done my part by buying anything these last few days. I was really stiff in my movements but the store was close. My appearance was awful and I figured that it would help keep contact with others to a minimum.
I made my way to the bodega without much incidence to speak of but on my return home I spotted an old woman coming towards me in the opposite direction. She was brittle and shrunken, her vertebrae had collapsed upon itself, like a pirate’s telescope stored away for later use. I was sure that she didn’t have the energy or the want to cross to the other side to avoid me. She had a conversation hungry gleam in her eye and I could see her jaw starting to warm itself up for the formation of words. I thought about ducking between parked cars and darting to the other side of the street to dodge any transaction but my weakened state didn’t allow for speed. All of the cars immediately to my right were parked damn near bumper to bumper and I couldn’t get through anyway, I noticed a break up ahead about 15 paces but to get to it in time would mean I’d have to rush and my intention would then be blatantly obvious to the old woman. I guess I don’t mind being socially rude so long as others don’t notice I’m doing it. I accepted the circumstance as inescapable and walked ahead in my sedate, sickly pace and hoped that just a nod would suffice. As we neared each other I kept my eyes trained ahead as best I could but I couldn’t help notice her locking on to me out of my periphery.
“Be careful!” She yelled when we were still 10 feet from each other. I didn’t swivel to look for danger, only turned slowly downward to face her.
“Hmm?” I murmured. My downright lazy response would most likely have gotten me stabbed had there been a real threat, but what she was warning about didn’t pose a serious risk though.
“The sidewalks.” She said turning and poking the air behind her. “They’re so full of cracks and holes.” She quickly brought her poking hand back around to balance on her grocery cart so as to not succumb to the sidewalks herself.
“Yeah, it’s the roots of the trees, they just keep growing up and pushing up that concrete and breaking it.” I told her.
“Yeah, not long ago, my friend was walking on the streets and fell right through.” She brought both hands up in the air now to illustrate her point. The withered hands shook and came back down fast on the cart handle bar like she was beginning a roller coaster descent.
“Oh no!” I found my voice sounding more interested than I thought it would be.
“Yeah...” The woman continued on about her friend’s misfortune with the broken walkway. While I listened I noticed my mouth had turned to a smile unconsciously. My smile then reminded me of another time.
I was living in a house in Gainesville. One day I walked into the living room and found my roommate Kenneth watching television from the couch. He had the T.V. tuned to a music channel that was showing a behind the scenes type of show featuring the pop singer Jessica Simpson, it was total garbage. The starlet was talking about how she’d found true love and Kenneth wore the foolish, contented grin of a clown. He was a grown man-child with no grasp of or interest in his own life and his viewing preferences spoke to that. I was disgusted.
“Kenneth.” I’d said, “Look at yourself.”
My memory drew to a close and the old lady was still telling her story. “…So I tell everyone to watch out for those crumbly walkways.”
“Yeah, it’s dangerous.” I agreed.
“You got far to go?”
“No, not far, but I got to take these here sidewalks. I could walk in the road but a car might get me.”
“Oh no!” She gasped.
“No, I’ll be fine, but if I do get hit by a car I’ll make sure it’s a nice car so I can get some money.”
“Okay.”
“You have far to go?” I returned her question and then started to feel a little weakened from my illness. She told me about how she was going to the store for citrus. When I sensed a break in her story I made for my departure.
“I must go home now, I’m sick, be careful.” I said
“Okay, you too.” Her mouth was open while she shook her head up and down. The mouth was not in a smile, just agape like she was expecting a treat. I couldn’t see what her eyes were doing behind her dark glasses.
“I hope you win the lottery young man.”
“I hope I do too.” I told her and turned to walk away. I heard a sound come from her when my back was turned but I wasn’t sure if it was a word directed at me or maybe just a hiccup. I turned back around and saw her steering deftly around a raised cement and tree root protrusion. I wasn’t really concerned with what the sound was; I knew I’d play the conversation over a few times in my head anyway.

(Insert clever idle here)

Before I came to a stop at Bedford and Broadway the workers were attempting to flag me down like I was piloting a rescue helicopter. I’d asked Rob to translate for me in order to get the best guy for the job. Two young men approached the passenger side with hopeful expressions.
“You speak English?” Rob asked, forgoing the translation.
“Un poco.” One answered.
“He speaks a little.” Rob told me unnecessarily. Across the street several other workers started to make their way towards the van to make a bid. One bearded guy was crouched in a position like a child playing jacks would be. He rose slowly and raised his hand as he walked over. At first he looked a bit menacing but as he got closer he shrank. His clothes were oversized and billowed with the wind and gave a false declaration of size. The polo shirt he wore hung down to mid thigh in a style that is seen on small children with hand me down wardrobes.
“We need someone who speaks English.” Rob and I continued to instruct in alternating turns. The different men all took shots at convincing us of their fluency but most could not do more than point to themselves and offer ‘I speak’. The bearded guy pushed his way through the crowd with an urgent and fearful disregard like a child who’d lost his mother in a grocery store and he was met with little resistance. When he reached the van the bearded guy’s arm was still raised and his facial expression was one of terror. His eyes bulged wide from their sockets and his exposed upper teeth gnawed at his surrendering jaw. His raised hand dove finger first to his chest.
“I’m speaking English.” He said.
“Yeah.” I agreed, tired of the interview process.
“Yeah.” He continued while his eyes darted around. “I speak Eng…” He trailed off. The other men had resigned now to patting the worried, bearded guys back in congratulation. Some of the other men rubbed his shoulders like a boxing coach would do in the hopes of psyching up a fighter for battle. But the guy still looked uneasy, like he had been trapped by his good fortune.
“Hop in.” Rob and I overlapped. The sliding door opened and some supplies rolled out as the guy scrambled in laboriously.
“Let’s go.” His ‘t’ silent. “I can smoke in here?” He dug into a pouch of tobacco before anyone answered.
“What’s your name?”
“Honres.” He mumbled, his tongue involved with a rolling paper.
“Henry?”
“Amdes.” He corrected
“Am-dez?” I slowed the vehicle to turn around in my chair.
“Eh.”
“Andre?” Rob guessed correctly.
“Yeah.” Andre answered and lit up his rolled cigarette.
“Where are you from?” I asked without thinking. I then regretted asking the question, knowing that I’d initiated a second strained conversation for an answer that I didn’t really care about. We stumbled back and forth with Andre’s answer a couple of times before Rob heard Puerto Rico. I pulled to a stop in front of Rob’s building and he got out.
“Good luck, let me know how it goes, tell the judge that it wasn’t public urination, you were passing a kidney stone.” I said and then wondered if Rob knew that kidney stones pass out of the same route as piss. He smiled and left.
“C’mon up front.” I told Andre and he crawled over the rear of the passenger seat, his small khaki covered legs kicking around in the air.
“So.” I began. “How long you stand out there…for work?” His answer was mumbled and I couldn’t understand it at all. By default setting I continued to ask small-talk types of questions and got answers that I could only respond to by nodding. Andre chain rolled cigarette after cigarette and never stopped smoking and I assumed it was his method to avoid talking. At a red light I rolled a smoke from my own pouch of tobacco and attempted to bridge the language gap.
“Fuego?”
“The lighter.” Andre handed me his lighter and started on another cigarette himself. His watch featured a giant plastic diamond mounted over the numbers.
“I like your watch.” I was truthful.
“Mywrendgimewhasz.” He told me. We rode in silence for a while on the way to the job.
The streets of Midwood swarmed with Hasidic Jews celebrating the holiday. We arrived at the home of a couple that was waiting for their table in order to entertain guests.
“Oh, here it is at last.” The woman answered the door as though the table were simply levitating up the steps.
“You’re a beast!” I told Andre after we had set down the massive piece. He smiled in bewilderment.
“This is as big as it gets?” The woman asked her husband twice before he relayed the question to me. I told him that it extended further out with the help of table leaves. They waited unhappily for the table to extend itself. I offered that I could extend the tabletop and the wife’s glance told the husband to tell me that that would be best. When the furniture was at last placed to their satisfaction I announced that the transaction had come to an end and the time of payment was upon us. The woman wrote a check from a small table by the front door. As always I stood to a side and feigned interest in some piece of household ornament as though I were oblivious to what I was about to receive. Apart from the check the woman also plucked a twenty-dollar bill from her purse and held it out. I smiled and moved toward her and the money and the door. At the last minute it seemed to dawn on her that the bill might have acted as a conductor for my filthy commonality and she swatted it down to the surface of the table.
“Thank you.” I said with all sincerity.
“Oh, it’s not even our house.” The words sprinted from her with clumsy uncertainty.
“It’s very nice.” I responded without processing her statement, I’d heard the word house. We both grinned awkwardly. I assumed that we realized simultaneously our disinterest in what the other had said, and then realized that the other had also come to this conclusion.
“Let’s go Andre.” I said. He’d been as still as a cigar store Indian propped in the corner but when I said his name he reanimated. Swathed in moving quilts that flowed from his shoulders to the ground and covered most of his head, he looked like a mummified prince awakened for the sake of fulfilling a curse. He hovered between the woman and I and then down the steps.
“Thanks again.” I gave as I stepped out the door. Her mouth seemed to start to form into the origins of a word but the door closed between us before any sound could escape.
Before our next job I stopped at a bodega to get some water. I asked Andre if he would like something to drink.
“Water, juice, soda…?”
“Coca-Cola.” He answered.
“Coke?”
“The can of.” He held his hands several inches apart from one another to signify the size of a can and I nodded. The store carried only twenty ounce bottles of soft drink and when I returned to Andre with more Coke than he had expected he smiled like I had just called him a beast again. He was smoking a rolled cigarette and I rolled another of my own to keep up.
“You got the lighter?” I asked when I was ready to light up. He reached in his pocket and handed the lighter to me without looking over.
At the next job a young lady was waiting for us at the foot of her steps.
“Come on up.” She was friendly. “I’m sorry, there’s…no smoking.”
I turned to match her gaze and saw Andre coming up the steps with a lit cigarette in his mouth.
“Andre.” I immediately felt embarrassed by my parental tone but I had to finish what I’d started. “You can’t smoke that inside.” I ended with a more employer-ish type of inflection. Andre looked a bit betrayed, like I had switched sides.
“I finish the smoking.” He pinched through his dusty teeth. Upstairs we were shown what was to be moved and then left to our own devices. The apartment was on the third floor and I could see that Andre’s legs were growing tired inside of his baggy pants. With each trip his look of fear became more amplified and he started to mutter curses under his shortened breath. I would ask him if he was okay and he would look to me and say something undecipherable and start laughing in a strained rhythm. I would then join in the laughter so he would think I was savvy to the joke, sometimes I would pat his back for added confirmation. After a while we took a water break. He removed his cap for the first time to wipe his brow. I’d been wondering if he was bald under there but in fact he had an admirable, sweat soaked mane. At that moment I recalled something that Rob had said to me at some time earlier, ‘Mexicans don’t really lose a lot of hair sometimes, you see old ones with big, beautiful heads of hair’. I started to laugh; Andre smoked and laughed along nervously.
“More working?” Andre asked after lunch and I said yes. I’d gotten a text message about a third job and we headed deeper into Brooklyn. We arrived at an apartment shared by two young guys.
“Hans.” The first guy introduced himself. The second little guy nodded.
“I’m Granger, this is Andre.” I turned to point at a bare wall. I kept my gaze and my finger trained on the spot where I’d gestured toward so as not to look foolish. We all stared at the wall for a minute before Andre trudged inside and filled his rightful place. Hans and friend had only Ikea furniture and Andre and I carried it easily. In the lobby an old woman had taken perch by the front vestibule.
“You must remove.” She spoke with an Eastern European accent and pointed at a stack of phonebooks that I had propped the door open with. After a moments thought she smiled and qualified her statement. “When you are done.” One of her slippers had been abandoned to the tile floor and her naked toes wiggled feverishly. I laughed and said that I would remove the books.
On my next trip up to the apartment I found Hans’s little friend firmly rooted in an air guitar solo to a System Of A Down song. Hans stood nearby participating with what was either approving nods or stifled head banging. The little friend looked up at me and halted in embarrassment, thought and then continued. He probably figured that I’d seen a decent enough amount of his performance that to stop now would be a more damning indictment of his behavior. He finished the song strong but I can’t help but feel that his show was compromised at some level by his self-consciousness. As the tune died I surveyed the room for what I would carry next and my eyes fell on an open box. There, resting atop the other loosely placed items was a large purple dildo. I looked up quickly so the others would not see what I’d discovered but Hans and his friend were performing showy but mitigated rock maneuvers. I figured Andre would be not far behind me so I lingered near the dildo. Simultaneously I wanted to be the one to present this amusing find to Andre and also shield him from it to avoid a possible outburst of laughter. I waited by the box and contents as long as I could for Andre but when Hans looked questioningly toward me I had to continue working and hope for the best or most entertaining outcome from my co-worker.
“A lot?” The elderly woman asked of me as I walked through the lobby. I said that there was not much more and she looked comforted. While I loaded boxes into the van Hans’s little friend came downstairs to talk to me.
“So.” He began. “I have this other mattress that I need to go to Manhattan.” He looked around and shuffled his feet like a nervous kid asking for a date to the prom. I guessed that in his perfect world I would offer to run this additional errand free of charge. I told him that I would take his mattress but it would cost him extra money. The prospect of more money dissuaded him but he slunk around while I worked like he thought his presence would change my mind. I imagined that he imagined that since I’d seen him at his vulnerable guitar mime act that there was a connection between us or a debt owed to him. After a few minutes Andre came down with a box and disrupted the stand off, his face was in its normal posture of angst and I could only guess if he had seen the dildo.
On the final trip the lobby woman smiled and nodded at the stacked phonebooks. I nodded in return and moved the books from the door.
“I’m sorry.” She said. “I am old.”
Unable to deny her statement I presented her with a smile that was hers to interpret. “God bless you.” She followed up. Without thinking I mimicked her words.
“God bless you.” I sounded strange to my own ears. I don’t remember ever saying that to anyone before.
I got into the vehicles cab a moment before Andre and when he climbed in he had a weird little grin.
“Wha you think of those guys?” He asked as we readied for departure.
“I don’t know, they’re alright.” At my answer his face grew more grotesque, a mixture of delight and disgust I would describe it as. “Why? What do you think?”
“They are funny.”
I knew what he meant by ‘funny’ but I asked him what he meant anyway
“They have ses.” He told me.
“Oh, you think they are gay?”
He shook his head up and down and his tried, exaggerated expression began to take on new definition to me. I rolled up a smoke from my pouch to divert course. When I put the cigarette to my lips Andre held his lighter out to me without me asking. I put the van in gear and accelerated. The boxes I’d stacked in back shook and stumbled a bit, and then everything settled into its place as I drove away.

The sorentinos

“Hey Mr. and Mrs. S.” I call out as I step out my door.
“Hello son.” Mr. Sorentino says.
“Hi there, how are you?” Mrs. Sorentino adds. I walk over to their porch and up the first two steps and I tell them I’m well and they smile dreamily and nod. Mr. S has a pair of binoculars around his neck and I ask him what he’s spying.
“Birds.”
“Birds?” I say. “Let me have a peek.” Mrs. S continues to smile and nod and rock in her chair. Mr. S hands me the binoculars and smiles the way older people do sometimes. His mouth opens wide like the smile serves a second purpose of letting him breath deeply. I’ve seen him smile differently at times, a youthful grin full of teeth, usually when I tell him something humorous. I ask him where the birds are and he extends his arm and then his finger to point at a tree two feet off of his porch. I follow his finger as it traces the tree bark up to a knot about 3 feet up. In the knot is a tiny bird. I can see it and it’s movements clearly from where I am without aid but I lift the binoculars to my eyes anyway.
“Yeah, I see ‘em.” I say. Both the Sorentino’s smile and nod.
“Let me ask you something.” He says. I wish people would just ask me questions rather than asking me if they can ask. The request always makes me anxious and anticipatory of bad things but I grant Mr. S a pass.
“Where you going son?”
“Oh, just to work.” I say.
“Where, whadaya do?” He has asked me this question a couple of times before but he never seems to remember my answer. I tell him and he smiles and laughs.
Mrs. S says “Oh, that’s nice.” I stare at their political campaign sticker on their door. They support a candidate different from my own and I avert my gaze so they won’t notice me looking. They don’t notice me looking. Mr. S asks me again if he can ask me a question and I agree.
“What’s this Craig, Craig’s…” He is wondering about Craigslist.
“Yeah, Craig’sList.” I say. “I put an add up on there for your rental property.”
“Yeah, I got this apartment for rent next door, c’mon I’ll show you.” He begins to get up from his chair. “Where’s the key.”
“I don’t have the key.” Mrs. S whines.
“The Key!”
“It’s okay.” I say. “I’ve seen it.”
They both smile and settle back in their seats.
“Your brother still lives there?” He says while pointing at my house.
My brother Ethan used to live there but he moved out several months ago. While he was there he used to work on his art in the garage behind the house. I would sometimes hang out back there and sometimes Mr. S would see us from his back yard and wander over in curiosity. On one occasion Ethan and I were working on bicycles when he came over to observe. We did not have the tools that we needed so we asked Sorentino if he did. He’d said he did and went to retrieve them.
“He loves to help.” Ethan had said. Ethan then reminisced about several times in the past when Sorentino had stopped by with funny results. He was in the middle of the story when he had to stop because Mr. S had returned with a set of socket wrenches. I mistook the wrong size wrench for the one I needed. Mr. Sorentino was disappointed by my lack of know-how and he called me a muffin.
“No, he moved out.” I tell him. He smiled to show his full rows of teeth. He also has a pretty full head of hair for a man his age. He lifts the binoculars back to his face and turns toward the tree. She closes her eyes and rocks with her smile in place. I look at a wooden cutout of a droopy-eyed dog by their front door; it’s painted eyes face my direction.
“I gotta go now, I’ll see you guys around.”
“Okay son, take care.” Mr. S says not knowing my name.

NY's minus

Last night Dave and I went to the Fillmore theatre to see a punk show. We didn’t have tickets but we felt certain that we’d be able to buy some off of someone there. First we asked people who were in line if they had extra tickets but no one did. Scalpers were hanging around at the ends of the block but they wanted double the price that we were willing to pay. I figured that as time went on the ticket scalpers would have no choice but to lower their prices. The line of attendees grew longer and the amount of illegal ticket sellers swelled in response. In total there were about 8 guys walking the block, all with different sales tactics. Some were like credit debt collectors in the way that they tried to shame you into paying their inflated price. One of the guys kept approaching me over and over, each time he acted like it was the first we’d seen each other.
“What you want to pay?”
“Thirty five.” I’d say
“Aww nah, seventy five a piece or you ain’t gonna see the show.”
“Oh well.”
“Shiiit, stay outside then.” He’d walk away only to return several minutes later. On the return trip he’d roll his eyes like he was thinking ‘aw damn, not you again’.
“What chu’ want?” He asked like he was reluctantly serving a withdrawing drug addict looking for a come down hit. I told him that he knew what I wanted and the cycle repeated. This guy along with his co-workers all acted like they were lone businessmen but their knowing glances at each other gave them away. If one of them were engaged in a transaction he would signal to another one in the direction of some young kids or tourists who might be easy targets.
Dave and I figured our best bet for a reasonable deal was to try to get a ticket off of someone who was actually going to see the show. Our logic paid off when we met a couple of aging rockers who had an extra pass they’d part with for face value. As we were making the trade one of the bullying scalpers ran upon us and tried to hi-jack the deal.
“What you got?” He demanded of our seller. “I’ll take that ticket.” He tried to force a twenty into the guy’s hand and take the admission. The older guy was then nervous and unsure about which direction his offering should go towards. I stepped in like jock defending his best girl.
“I got this.” I said. The scalper looked angry and he stared down at me hard. It was the first time that night that one of his kind made eye contact with me. During the sales pitches they usually look down or up the street like they’re missing something better. Now though, in the midst of a challenge we had a staring contest. After several seconds the scalper bully saw something on the ground or up the way that caught his interest and he left. With one ticket we were half way into the concert.
The bouncers guarding the door seemed to care little about the illegal resale of tickets that was going on, they were more concerned with frisking the entrants. One older scalper told me that there was a mutual understanding between the peacekeeping door people and the ticket sellers.
“I been hustling out at this place for 17 years.” He told me.
“Jesus, how old are you?”
“Forty two.” He looked younger but that might have been because of how he dressed. A black bandanna was tied around his neck like it was laying in wait to be hoisted up over the face.
“This is you’re only job?” I asked.
“No, I do other stuff, windows, st…” He was cut short by something he saw by the theatre entrance. I followed his gaze and saw the insulting scalper in the middle of taking money from a circle of young teens. I assumed that his method of calling into question someone’s manhood had worked on this group of boys.
“See that.” The older scalper resumed. “You can’t be selling shit right in front of the bouncers, they ain’t gonna have that,”
“Tough way to make a living huh?”
“Yeah.” He slinked away. I turned to look for Dave and saw him. Behind him the bully scalper and another one who looked to be 14, an apprentice most likely, were talking to a large guy who wore a camouflage hat and a yellow shirt. I asked a passing woman if she had an extra ticket, she did not. Then the bully scalper had the yellow shirted man in a chokehold against a van while the apprentice yelped and clawed at the brawling mass. In a second the bully had the yellow shirted man on the ground and was punching wildly at the area between the yellow collar and the camo hat. The crowded sidewalk glimpsed momentarily and then went about its business. The bouncers stood next to the fray but did nothing to intervene.
“Aw man, now would you look at that.” The old scalper had snuck back beside me and was now observing the ruckus as though it was an affluent couple who’d come to gentrify an ailing but loved part of town.
“The bouncers aren’t doing anything.” I said.
“Yeah.” I started towards the beating but before I got there the apprentice had pulled the bully off and the two skipped across the street. The man in the yellow shirt got up and dusted himself off. He seemed drunk and disoriented and dirt was caked on his back. He surveyed the sidewalk to see how many had witnessed him being pummeled.
“Are you okay?” I heard a girl ask. The man ignored the question and just started to mill around as though nothing had happened. The crowd welcomed him back with their complicit silence.
“Shit, that was fucked up!” I said to Dave.
“What was?” He asked.
“That guy just got punched into the dirt.”
“Really.” Dave turned around but the victim was gone. We continued our search for a second ticket, me standing on one corner and Dave on another. I started talking to a girl who was pursuing the same thing. She’d come to a lot of shows but she said she’d never seen the scalped ticket prices so inflated.
“My friend just bought a ticket of a guy in line for thirty bucks.” I told her.
“Uh uh, he lying, that’s why he’s outside the show.” I turned to see the insulting scalper interject. He was trying to protect his market in a way but it was still annoying.
“I’m not talking to you.” I said to him.
“Seventy five a piece. That’s what I got.”
I walked back to where Dave was to check if he’d been successful. The yellow shirted guy was wandering the sidewalk. I watched him drift from person to person. I couldn’t hear what he was saying but I guessed that he was re-shaping the story of what had just happened to him in hopes of making the alteration turn to truth. It was just a matter of time before he found us. I caught his eye as he walked towards Dave and I. He looked shamed, like a homeless guy approaching people who already knew what he wanted.
“Hey guys.” He shouldered up like we were old friends. At this distance I could see the red welt around his mouth that had been caused by the other guy’s fist. In the dusk it looked like a poor application of lipstick. “Some niggers just tried to rob me.” I felt better about having not helped him. He stared longingly and breathed heavily and lingered for a couple of moments before disappearing.
“That was the guy who got hit.” I told Dave.
“Where?”
“This is looking doubtful, getting another ticket.”
“Let’s split up again.” We went to opposite ends of the block. At my end the bully and his apprentice had resumed shop. Dave called me.
“Hey, there’s a guy down here with tickets for forty dollars.” He said. I headed in his direction and found him with the older scalper that I talked to earlier.
“Hey.” I was happy to see the old guy. “Forty right?” Yellow shirt found us again and he seemed to have gotten more to drink since our last encounter.
“Let me get a ticket.” He pleaded with the old scalper. “Some…I just got my money stolen. I just want to see a show.”
“Leave me alone.” Old scalper told him. I could tell that the old guy just wanted to sell his last ticket and go home.
“Here.” I shoved forty dollars into the old guy’s hand and took the ticket. The guy in yellow was sad then. Without a ticket he had no purpose there and he was just a stumbling drunk guy with a hard luck story. The old guy stared wide-eyed at me for a second and I didn’t know why. We’d already missed a good portion of the show so Dave and I darted inside. We made it passed the pat down at the guard station and into the ticket taker’s area.
“You bought this ticket outside?” The taker’s amusement gave away her meaning before she said that my ticket was a fake. The old scalper was long gone by the time I got to the street. I ran for several blocks cursing the man. I would never forget his face, acne scarred and droopy, depressed looking. I couldn’t even picture the face with a smile on it, not even after he ripped me off for forty dollars.
“Where’s your friend, the guy with the black bandanna?” I asked all the remaining scalpers.
“I ain’t got no friend.” Was the common answer.

Edwin

At the time the rapper Nelly had a song that was getting heavy rotation on the radio. The chorus sang something along the lines of “It’s getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes”. Edwin could never seem to get the words or the cadence just right but that didn’t stop him from singing the tune all summer long. It might not have actually been summer when that song was out but Orlando was always hot and humid.
“It’s getting hot up in here, so take up off your clothes.” He would belt out when the song came on. Sometimes he wouldn’t wait for the radio to correspond; other times he just went acapella.
Edwin had moved down to Florida from the Bronx and found a job at Travel.com where I was working. At first Jim and I mocked him because of his small size and huge clothes.
“Granger, thas your real name? Oh no way, yeah!” He smiled like it was the best news he had heard in a while. “I’m Eh-gwin.” His huge grin made his little eyes squint till they were almost closed. Aside from several stray chin hairs he looked like an infant who’d been shot by an enlarging ray. The brass at Travel.com had given Edwin a receptionist’s type of job. The title he got was flashier than the ‘sales agent’ I’d been given but his duties were menial.
I probably would not have spent much time around the new guy if I hadn’t wanted to screw his roommate Celina, who also worked with us.
“Celli, nah, I wish, but she don’t want nothing to do with me like that.” Edwin told me. After I gave him a ride home one day in my Cadillac Edwin saw me as a hustler and I knew I had an in.
“Dang, you doing real good at Travel.com, you got to show me how you do so good.” He would say.
“Yep.” I allowed him to believe in my inflated success.
Inside he and Celli’s apartment there was only a folding chair and a couch in the living room and a rice cooker was the only item in the kitchen. The rice cooker was always in use and aside from occasional chicken wings at lunch; rice was all Edwin would like to eat. Celli was barely ever at their place and if she was she was on her way out, but I continued to hang around.
“Why did you come down here?” I asked Edwin one day while we stood on the tiny breezeway that led from his front door to the parking lot.
“Shoot.” He said proudly. “This.” He spread his arms wide to hug the expanse outside the second floor railing. The apartment maintenance men mowed a drainage ditch below us, there were reeds, and a highway set against the sunset and neon glow of the theme parks in the distance.
After a series of inconsistent checks at Travel.com I decided that my burgeoning drug dealing career could carry me through until I finished at A.R.T.I. and I quit the time-share agency. Edwin was saddened by my departure, especially since he had to stay on but I knew that my absence at work would solidify his adoration of me. Before long he approached me with a business proposition. He came to my door with a serious look on his face and his hair done up in cornrows.
“What if you front me a couple pounds of weed and I sell them for you and we both make money?” He presented the plan with great enthusiasm. The truth was that I didn’t have the means to loan out that much stuff but I presented my denial in another light.
“You’re doing good at Travel.com, you shouldn’t get mixed up with this if you don’t have to.” He thanked me for looking out for his best interest. I asked him to show me some photographs that he had mentioned earlier and he smiled proudly as he displayed pictures of himself in the Puerto Rican Day Parade in Manhattan.
After a month or so I was able to get Celli to agree to go out with me. I made the mistake of taking her out during the daytime, which is a move that I now realize to be the harbinger of no sex. We’d ended up at my house, I sort of sensed that she would not welcome me groping at her but I took a chance anyway. She jerked away from my touch and said she had to use the bathroom. I told her where it was and then devised a plan while she faked usage of my toilet. I knew then that I had to act quickly to retain Edwin in my corner. When I dropped her off at the apartment I ushered him away from his rice dinner and into my car before they could talk. We went to a nightclub where I bought all of his drinks and agreed to front him some weed, less than he had originally suggested though.
As a seller of vacations, Edwin excelled beyond his ability to sell drugs and he soon lost hope in the latter. I assured him that not everyone was cut out for that lifestyle and then took him to the gun range and let him shoot my .45 pistol.
“It’s getting hot up in here.” He belted out when I asked what the words were to the song.
Six months later when I moved in with Laurel he would still sing the words to make her laugh. The two of them got along well and he would always swear to protect her in the event of me being gone. As it was though, with Laurel around, I saw Edwin less. He would still come by several times a week to pick up a dime bag and every now and then we’d invite him to stay for dinner.
“You guys are to nice to me.” He said once with his huge smile.
“No, we love you Edwin.” Laurel said.
“Oh no, uh-uh.” He still smiled.
“It’s true.” I said.
Laurel left town one weekend and I went to a little house party that Edwin was having. Celli was there and she presented herself to me anew as though our clumsy first date had not happened. I knew a sure fire way to keep myself faithful was to get so drunk that Celli would be appalled at my behavior. The plan worked and she wanted nothing to do with me, however several guys at the party wished to fight me after I offended them somehow. The next day Edwin provided details to me about how he had stepped in and cooled the situation and brought me home. He seemed reluctant and disheartened to tell the story. I had showed a weakness and failed him somehow, but I knew that I could make it right again.
When we traveled to Tampa for a concert on my twenty-third birthday I bought Edwin a ticket and brought him along. He was really excited because there was a young girl in Orlando that he liked and he wanted to get her a promotional t-shirt featuring the artist Ludacris, who was the opening act and a favorite of the girl’s. During the show Laurel excused herself to go to the bathroom, my eyes met Edwin’s as she walked away and he nodded to me and walked along her side for protection.
His ability to stay put at Travel.com paid off and Edwin was promoted. While we ate lunch one day at a café downtown he pointed to a travel agency.
“I been thinking about opening a Travel.com for myself, Pete said he could help pay to get it started.”
“Here or New York?” I asked. He said that he had no plans to return to the north. I told him that that was where I was heading.
“Oh no, why? You’re leaving Florida how come?” He asked.
“It’s getting hot up in here.” I sang. He looked sad, and then he smiled and then looked sad again.