My
eyes felt like etched glass. My skin felt as if it was being over run by
insects, I could imagine them foraging through the hair on my body and
digesting the not yet dead flesh.I had decided to spend some time playing video
games in between the live coverage of the our newly christened war to defend
christendom on CNN, the rockets red glare was pale and green under night vision
goggles.
Benny
tumbled out of his bedroom. He had determined it was imperative we get out of
the house, something about evil emanations forming on the ceiling and a
conspiracy forming between the cats and said emanations. According to the
dialogue between his thumbs and his cell we had friends who were at the mall,
as well as friends who would be having dinner at the newly refurbished Ruby
Tuesday’s at said mall.A plan was quickly formed; we could have dinner with
these friends, gorging ourselves on the establishments perverse salad bar. It
was a great plan and the idea of having somewhere to go had me strangrly excited.
Benny
readied himself and I decided the occasion deserved a clean freshness; I
rummaged through the laundry pile for a cleaner pair of jeans and a shirt.
Gathering up my things I found a beaten candy tin, it had six Adderall pills. I
took two of them and saved the rest for later.
Coming
out of the bathroom, steam cleaned and shaven I found Benny talking to his
shoes. He was in a direct dialogue with his left sneaker and, after observing
for a few seconds, it appeared the left sneaker was in a dialogue with the
right. He broke out into a roaring yell when he noticed me watching and rushed
his full body weight, pinning me between the wall and him. He went off chanting
a tune while I slid down the wall; deflated. As I crawled myself up I could
hear Benny banging the rhythm of the song on the roof of my car; it appeared
that I would be driving.
It
was surprisingly comfortable outside, with the windows down and a minimal
amount of traffic the whole moment verged on the borders of being pleasant. The
sun glasses kept my etched ridden eyes from burning in the exposure, the car
was riding its own wave on the melting pavement, and I felt as if I could fly
along at forty five miles an hour. It was one of those times when you could
make a change in your life for the true positive path. Find a cause for living
and decide to buy a new mini-van for your non-existent family. We had arrived
at the commercial of our lives; cue soundtrack.
The respite from the usual
bombardment of oppressive heat and choking humidity had brought all the locals
to the street. Latino Couples sitting on terraced landings watching their kids
play in the parking lot, old black men sitting at their front door, young black
boys free-styling on their bikes with their pants around their knees, while
ladies named Latisha, Teykia, Lexus and Toshiba watch the young men as they
walked on by. Children of all such race and color ran around in desperate grabs
for attention from those around them and themselves.
Fancy
decked cars on high-rise wheels with chrome-plated rims that glow crept
through, windows tinted, chassis’ polished, trembling the air. An ancient white
woman all dressed in white and a decaying black man all dressed in black held
hands while they pushed a shopping cart filled with their history. A Latino
woman walked in the opposite direction pushing a shopping cart with bags of
groceries and two kids inside it, another daughter followed behind with her own
Hasbro plastic shopping cart; practicing.
A
gentleman talking to himself, another paced back and forth at the bus stop also
in a deep conversation, which only he hears. Boxes, bags, old furniture and
other household confections littered the street on the oncoming side; some of
the neighborhood scavengers rummaged through the refuse in search of treasure.
A
whole row of two apartment efficiency cottages followed the path of the
discarded artifacts; each building had been slashed with a spray painted
fluorescent orange “X”.
“You
think the plague has returned?” I asked, slowing the car to get a better look.
“Worse.
Eviction. Look at those postings on the windows.” Benny pointed out that each
building had a poster-sized piece of paper adhered to a window stating eviction
by eminent domain.
“Not
all of them have the mark of Cain on them. There are still some people living
in those last two.” One had some people standing in the doorway, keeping watch.
The other showed no signs of life but it was evident that it had once had a
posting that had been ripped down.
“The
ones with the ‘X’ are the ones that have been vacated. All that stuff on the
curb is what got cleared out.” Benny sounded familiar with what was happening.
“They
just threw the people out? Tossed out their stuff and sealed up the house?”
Benny
pointed out a man sleeping by the front door to one of the cottages marked with
an “X” to answer my question. A few feet in front of him some kids were going
through a pile of boxes that might have been his.
“Them’s
the breaks. Make way for the new world vision and pack up your things, the
righteous are taking over. The places are probably unsuitable to live. City
officials using the justification of a dangerous living condition to feel
better about themselves.” Benny’s remark made my stomach feel sour.
We
watched as some teenage boys and a large woman crossed the street with some
boxes and a couch; one of the boxes being carried fell and a collection of
dishes and cups went crashing to the ground.
“This is too much
reality for right now.” I turned off the street and fled the scene like some
escaping criminal. Racing down the side streets, I rolled the windows up and
turned on the A.C. The air had lost its friendly demeanor and the commercial
had ended. “I need sustenance and escape from this rot and decay. I need to
purchase a big ticket item and celebrate the freedom were told to so carelessly
spend and shop for.” The words came out of my mouth as if I were preaching from
the pulpit.
“Feeling
a little too close to home? Nothing like the harshness of witnessing a crime,
that unending helpless feeling, that possible thought of maybe wanting to do
something about it all, that realization that you’ll forget about it once those
houses are down and the new corporate edifice is erected.” Benny was throwing
his words at me like daggers, my suburbanite-sheltered belly was exposed for
the first time in years, and I hit the gas and drove the car right into a scene
from a foreign movie.
“Shut
up you wicked, wicked monkey.”
He
laughed, maybe at my remark, maybe at his knowledge of being right, maybe at
the fact that I had nearly took out a yard gnome on the wrong
side of the road.
