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Ever notice how some days all the crazies crawl out of the woodwork? I mean, there are always one or two about, but once in a while it seems like everyone in the goddamn city is loony tunes. Maybe the mayor designates the third Wednesday of the month Crazies’ Day, or something. Fucked if I know. I’m only glad it never rubs off on me.
It begins early this morning. I'm in the kitchen of this trendy brownstone – you know the kind: done up, but in a crap part of town. Anyhow the girl - can't remember her name, if I ever knew it - is still passed out upstairs and I'm nosing around the kitchen. I’m helping myself to whatever I can find: poppy seed bagel, coffee, her rent money, when some maniac tries to break in the back door. He's beating and kicking on it so hard the wood is splintering around the deadbolt and all the while he’s screaming about killing some loser called Ollie.
Me, I don't give a flying fuck; my name's Mursoe, and it's not my house. I take my half-eaten bagel and go out the front way.
The wrought iron gate clangs shut behind me and here I am back on the street – story of my life.
A few feet away a sorry-looking squirrel sits chattering at me, begging with its front paws up like it’s a goddamn dog or something. I toss it the last bite of my bagel. As it skitters away, I see that great clumps of fur are missing from its tail. If it loses any more it’ll be just another rat.
I stop for a minute to get my bearings. I hadn’t seen much of the area the night before, had my hands full dragging the girl out of the cab. Man, she’d drunk some shit. She could hardly tell the cab driver her address. You wonder why people do it, drink that much. Still, I can’t complain, it turned out fine for me. One of the benefits of clean living is that you get to remember the sex.
I rake my fingers through my hair, still damp from what’s-her-name’s shower. When I had a job, I used to blow dry and gel my hair every morning and back then I had to work hard to get laid - fucking hard. Fancy dinners, tickets to a show, flowers, you name it. Now I don’t give a shit about anything and women are all over me. You figure it out.
I’m standing there, wondering which way to go when two guys come staggering up the street carrying a box of empties between them. They’re a real mess: shirttails hanging out of stained pants, smelling of beer and piss. Any closer and I know I’ll lose my breakfast, so I cross the street. Just then I hear this god awful crash. One of them has dropped his end of the crate and smashed some of the empty bottles. By the time I turn around, they’re trying to fight. I say trying, because they are both so out of it that neither one has a hope of landing a solid punch. Glass crunches under their feet as they stagger around.
It’s pathetic, really it is.
I head off toward what looks like a main cross street, judging by the traffic. The two old guys have stopped cursing at each other. I reckon one of them has pulled a knife on the other. Either that or they’re friends again. I can’t be bothered to look back and find out.
On the corner, a neon Budweiser sign sputters red in the blacked-out window of a bar. Leaning against the greasy brick wall, the inevitable hooker. They're all over this city like flies on shit. When the traffic slows, she bends at the waist exposing a vast expanse of thigh and scans the cars for guys on their own. As I get closer I see that she can’t stop twitching, like there are ants crawling all over her. My God, who could face that before sitting down at his desk with the Wall Street Journal and a latte?
A mini-van with one of those dumb signs that say, BABY ON BOARD (an invitation for some maniac to rear end you, if ever there was one) turns into the side street and pulls up a few yards from me. The john won’t look at me but I can tell by the way he sheepishly lowers his window that he knows I’m staring at him. The hooker jiggles over to the van like a marionette in the hands of a puppeteer with Parkinson’s. The gray-suited businessman and the mini-skirted whore negotiate the upcoming merger. Oral contract (ha, ha) agreed upon, the van door opens. Before the hooker climbs in, the john reaches over to the passenger seat, picks up a toy - looks like a fluffy caterpillar or something – and tosses it into the back seat.
The bus pulls in just as I reach the stop. Impeccable timing as usual, Mursoe. I get on the bus and sit down next to a girl. She rests her left ankle on her right knee and I notice that she's not wearing any shoes. You could grow carrots between her toes. I'm not kidding. The floor of the bus is filthy let alone the sidewalks. And there's a gum wrapper stuck to her heel. How could anyone sane walk around with a gum wrapper stuck to the bottom of their foot? I mean, it would bug you to hell. It bugs me just seeing it there. I’m itching to pull it off. I say, "Hey, d'you know you've got a gum wrapper - Doublemint actually - stuck to your foot?"
"Yeah."
She knows and yet she leaves it there. Just looks out of the window as if it's normal for people to walk around the city with gum wrappers stuck to their bare feet.
At the next stop a whole shitload of people get on and it's standing room only. That's when the sour stink of sweat from the unwashed masses gets overpowering. I should've walked. An old woman with a head like a pickled walnut has trouble keeping her balance and every time the bus lurches forward or shudders to a stop, she bumps against my shoulder. It really pisses me off so I tell her. "It really pisses me off when you bump my shoulder, lady."
She looks at me as if I were talking in code or something. Then fuck me if she doesn't knock against me again.
A pneumatic woman in a wide-brimmed white hat gets on and starts shoving her way through to the back. It should be illegal to disturb the putrid air on a city bus. I glare at her. She is mumbling something about repentance and sinners to no one in particular. "What you lookin' at?” she says to me, “You think the sweet Lord Jesus gonna save yo' sorry ass?"
"No, ma'am," I say. "And I'll be damned, yes, I said damned, if I'm going to save His." You'd think that would shut her up, but she starts in on me, preaching and proselytizing. Everyone around me looks uncomfortable, but I just stare right through her.
"You right, boy, you is damned! You goin’ straight to Hell, just see if you ain't. " She jabs her finger at me repeatedly as she gets off, pointing me out so God will know which one I am.
Go to Hell, Mursoe. Go directly to Hell. Do not pass Go, Mursoe. Do not collect $200.
Her place is taken by a bag lady whose thick limbs are striated with rubber bands of all sizes that bite deep into her flesh. Told you they were all out today. She has rubber bands in her wire wool hair and the plastic grocery bags wedged under her arms are full to bursting with – you guessed it – rubber bands. Beats me where she got them all. Maybe she knocked over an Office Depot. All I know is I can never find a rubber band when I want one. Back when I had an apartment I remember ripping the place apart one day looking for a goddamn rubber band. But could I find one? I should have just got on the bus. On second thought, the rubber band lady has a you-just-try-to-take-my-rubber-bands-and-I'll-fucking-kill-you look about her. Maybe one day she'd been looking for a rubber band and couldn't find one and that's what sent her off the deep end.
You never know what does it; you never know exactly what it takes to make someone crazy.
The stink of humanity gets too much for me, so I get off the bus. As I jump down onto the sidewalk I nearly trip over a sandwich board that some moron has left propped against the bus stop. It says: REPENT NOW! THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH. I wonder where the doomsayer is. Gone for a piss probably. I imagine the Apocalypse happening right here, right now, the four horsemen swooping in between the high-rise office blocks. He hears the thunder of spectral hooves and, scared to death that he'll be whisked off to the final judgment with his dick hanging out, he fumbles to do up his zipper before he’s really finished. Pee dribbles down his leg but he has to get back to his sign. I laugh out loud. I can't help it; I crack myself up sometimes. A woman coming out of an Espresso bar looks at me as if I’m nuts. Hey, I'm not the one who's just paid four bucks for a lousy cup of coffee, lady. But there is no Apocalypse yet and the guy returns, eying me suspiciously as though I was going to steal his stupid sign or something.
It’s getting hot as I'm coming up to Sixty-sixth Street even though the entire sidewalk is in shade. These concrete canyons probably get about ten minutes of sunshine per day. I’m getting antsy waiting to cross the street, when this young guy charges into the middle of the traffic. He stands there waving his stick-skinny arms around like he's conducting the symphony or something. The “horn” section is sure playing well, anyhow. God, I'm funny. Maybe I should try standup. As I’m taking all this in, a black Monte Carlo with tinted windows, oversize chrome wheels, the lot, suddenly roars up on the outside, heavy metal music blaring. It cuts across in front of the column of cars, sending the conductor guy flying an impossibly long distance through the air. He lands on the hood of a cab before sliding limply to the pavement and ending up in a heap like one of those rag dolls.
Fuck, the things you see.
At least with the traffic held up I can get across the street. I'm three blocks away before I hear the sirens. I guess when it's a nutbar the paramedics don't knock themselves out, hoping he'll croak before they get there. He probably did.
By late morning, the heat and humidity are intense. No clouds, but I feel a storm building. I hate it when I sweat; it makes me feel like one of them, the scum, the rats.
Up ahead I see what the city euphemistically calls “a neighborhood park.” It’s a flaking scab of a place but at least I’ll be able to sit for a while. The paths are set out like spokes in a wheel all leading to a streaky rococo fountain in the center. Smack in the middle of one of the wedges of dun-colored grass a woman sits cross-legged with her arms outstretched. She’s wearing a white bed sheet and what looks like a circle of barbed wire on her head. Around her neck hangs a ragged chunk of corrugated cardboard from a frayed rope. The word "Goddess" is scrawled across it in magic marker.
You finally reach the point where nothing surprises you any more.
The benches are all taken by hobos and junkies. The seat I want, the one under a tree not far from the fountain, is occupied by an old geezer. He's lying huddled in a soiled black overcoat stuffed with newspapers even though it must be ninety degrees out by now. I can hear him wheezing ten feet away. Holding my breath I go up to him and yell in his ear. "Hey, Granddad, there's a free pancakes and sausage breakfast at the "Y" on Sixty-sixth Street. Better hurry before it's all gone."
I have to say it three times before it sinks into his booze-addled brain but I’m damned if I’m going to touch him. Eventually he leaves, shuffling as fast as he can out of the park, tugging sheets of newspaper out of the neck and sleeves of his overcoat like a demented magician.
I kick aside a pile of chicken bones and a used condom and sit down in the shade.
In the dry bowl of the fountain a little kid is hunkered down stuffing twigs and stones down a small drain hole. After each one he puts his ear to the grate and listens intently for it to plop into the water far below. When he hears the splash, a big old satisfied grin spreads across his face. He’s got quite a pile of sticks and he makes good progress until he picks up one that is much bigger than the rest. The narrowest end goes part way in and he struggles to force the rest of it through. His cheeks redden with the effort, but it's just too thick; in fact it's more like a fucking branch than a twig. He doesn't get frustrated, though, he just keeps shoving. Then he has an idea. I swear you can practically see the cogs turning in his head. He stands up, not too steadily, and stomps real hard on the end of the twig. With a crack it snaps off flush with the grate and now that the hole is blocked he doesn’t know what to do. He looks around and I do too, expecting to see a woman and a stroller, but there’s no one about other than the junkies and winos. Even the goddess has flown off to the Elysian Fields. He turns back to his grate. At first I think he’s going to have another go at pushing the stick through, but he just stands there staring at it looking kind of bemused. You can see his diaper drooping out of one leg of his shorts, as if whoever put it on hadn't done it right. He’s still just standing there and I’m getting bored watching him so I get up and start back towards the street.
At the edge of the park I glance back. The little kid’s face is all crumpled up like kids’ faces get when they cry.
Hell of a place to leave a kid.
City Hall is just ahead. Pillared and white it looks like a goddamned temple with that funky dome on top. The hot air rising from the baking street makes the white steps shimmer like a mirage. You'd think it led up to heaven or something. I laugh, thinking of the song, but now I can't get it out of my head. There's a lady who knows… It's playing over and over. I hate it when that happens. I’m just about blinded by the sun reflecting off the gold finial on top of the dome. All that glitters is gold… I hate it. A crowd has gathered at the bottom of the steps. Hoards of rats, nasty, skittery things. Cameras, reporters, people with signs protesting something. A straggly-haired guy shoves a placard at me. “Hey man, come join us. Protest cuts in funding for the homeless.”
“Fuck off.” I push past him, elbowing my way through the crowd. Just ahead, at the bottom of the steps, some stiff-assed lady in a suit the color of bubblegum is standing behind a lectern. The shiny brass buttons glitter when she moves even slightly. When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed…I hate it. She looks impatiently at her watch. With a word she can get what she came for… I'm shoulder to shoulder with a buff cameraman from Fox news and a big-haired blond holding a microphone. The clock begins to strike. Your head is humming and it won't go because you don't know, the piper's calling you to join him…
You just never know what drives people over the edge. And she’s buying a stairway to…
The last thing that goes through my mind before I open fire is: I wish he'd managed to get that twig through the grate. Heaven…
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