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Tour of Duty: Ward 13
Sep. 22nd, 2010 12:24 amDown here in Ward 13, still doing my time with the psychic train-wrecks, the murder children and the walking comas. Cracker Zulu on the boot prowl. Trudging through a 90° start to Autumn through the Hood Perilous. A mile march to the Kroger’s, where I’m to pick up a sack of Purina for Vee’s Little Miss Firecracker. Chin up. Slowly diminishing gut sucked in, marginally expanding chest puffed out. Eyes open. Thoughts deep, fishing for the elusive Word that will liberate me from my Tour of Duty.
Two days ago I was walking the same route on a cigarette run. Across the street, at the bus shelter in front of the Baptist church, I watched two guys go at it in broad daylight. Fists were firing rapid and with wide arcing swings. A mutual cascade of blows delivered with the fever of a heated dance. What was odd to me, however was that both combatants had just moments before been confined to their red motorized wheelchairs. Both these cats were grown ass men at least in their late forties. Both were extremely overweight. When the Law pulled up in a siren howl they both scurried back to their chairs and began cursing at each other.
It was the kinda thing I really wish I had been stoned for, actually, because some quality Kind would have surely softened the impact of that particular spectacle upon my senses.
A few blocks later and my pilgrimage would find me being circled by a flock of little children, each wearing a pair of those sneakers that have built in roller-blades in the souls. Their motions were more akin to someone who had just learned how to ice-skate rather than say roller-boogie, and they screeched with laughter as I dodged around them. At one point, one of the kids hit a crack in the pavement and was about to go down. Caught him under the arm before I could think about it and steadied him slowly back up.
“Thanks” and with that he, along with the others, dispersed and headed back to the backyard barbecue from which they descended. Their shrieks of laughter drowning under the traffic roar.
(Occasionally I have to pause to swat massive mosquitoes from the surface of my screen. I prefer to do my work in the dark and the sole light of my monitor attracts them. I like to call them my ‘fans’ and pretend that it is the nectar of my prose that actually lures them to their death. A quick, sudden jab of the thumb. Wiping dry blood off the virtual page between these clumsy seductions.)
My route includes the before mentioned Baptist church, two mosques, a recently opened head shop, a handful of gas stations, an (in)convenience store (which doesn’t sell Camel’s for some reason), a fenced off lot that houses AT&T vans exclusive, a liquor store, ‘Paradise’, ‘Club Chocolate’ and a plethora of shops specializing in the lucrative art of hair braiding.
Out here no one really fucks with me. At least not too much, not like it would’ve been back in the day. I like to think that’s because I’m one bad-ass mother fucker who looks as if he can deliver a beat-down while taking two. The truth, though, is that anyone out here on foot must be too broke for the MARTA and therefore probably not worth the trouble. That and, to be honest, I don’t think most of the locals here care one way or the other.
But then last week, while riding the 83 to the station, right before he hops off the bus, this young blood mockingly hollers - “White Power!” - and fires a Sieg Heil salute at me. Next thing I know I got every eye on the bus drilled on my shaved head and cheap army-navy jungle boots. Young lady sitting next to me gets up and moves down a few rows. Other than that no one really reacts except to openly stare at me, not so much with revulsion or anger, but rather this sort of subtle-head-shaking pity.
With those words – ‘White Power’ – I went from being some guy just reading his book on the bus to becoming the equivalent of a human fart.
Needless to say it was one of the longest bus rides of my live. And, yeah, I know, I should’ve said something. Anything. But what could I say? My consciousness was somewhere on the map between mortified and shocked stupid.
Last one off the bus and instead of bee-lining it straight for the station, I stepped out off the MARTA property for a much needed smoke.
Recollect when I first met Don. Don T’Challa to be precise. Fake name obviously, self-christened because he loved both Thor and the Black Panther. We working the clean-up crew at Masquerade. It was his first day and he was sweeping up Hell while I had just finished my rounds in Purgatory. I arrived to give him a hand and when I walked in, he twirled the push-broom in his hand with the grace of a Shao-Lin warrior before aiming the tip of the handle at me.
“Uh… yeah, came in to see if you needed a hand.”
“Who’re you!” Don said and I noticed he had his legs spaced in the alignment of a basic fighting stance. A few classes maybe.
“Jack.” I raised my hands in factious surrender. “I work here with Berda and Mike Allen. You must be the new guy.”
Don twirls the push-broom and snaps it back to the ground. He begrudgingly introduced himself and we went to work getting Hell in working order. An hour later, when we were finishing up, I approached Don and told him:
“Alright, man. We’re about done, so I guess you should follow me now.”
“Come again?”
“Yeah, Boss wanted me to make sure you made it to the drug test.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“Wouldn’t shit a shitter, c’mon…”
Don rolled his eyes and gave an exasperated sigh that told me all I needed to know. We made our way to the loading dock through Hell. He seemed kinda shocked that we weren’t hitting the offices upstairs adjacent to Heaven. Told him they had a place out here where the collect the samples. Led around the back to the Music Park. Ducked into a crevice by the stage. Don was getting suspicious now. He had his fists balled up and eyes narrowed in on me. Before things got ugly though I quickly fished out a joint from my pack and lit it up.
Don just stood there and blinked at me baffled.
“Drug Test!” I coughed and passed him the joint. Oldest one in the book. Remember when my Uncle got me with that one during my disastrous stint as a tile-man’s assistant.
Don took nicked it off my pinch, gave the ember a good sniff, nodded approvingly and sucked in some calm.
Later, when we were both comfortably numbed to our next round of shit-work, the daily hosing of the plastic trash cans out back, Don confessed to me how he made me for some ‘Nazi’ when I strolled into Hell and that he was going to have to throw down.
“’Nazi’, pfft.” I snorted, “Wha'd'am I, the ghost of 1986 over here? You know what this shaved head means? That I’m going bold and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna be walkin’ around looking like my name is George Constanza.”
Neither of us said a word for a few moments. The hiss-roar of twin water streams slicing the alcohol film off the trash bins and a lackadaiscal insect drone.
“Shit, I’m sorry…” Don coughed self-consciously.
“S’cool, man… but how ‘bout next time you ask me before you decide to go all Jet Lee on my ass.”
We hit it off and after our shift headed back to Violet and I’s place down at the end of North Avenue. Eventually he became one of Tom’s Lieutenants. Don was able to open up a new market base for Tom and the two of them got along infamously for awhile. Of course that was before the inevitable bad drama that would go down that sent Don fleeing back to Philly and Tom out a few grand.
Wild times those. Violet, my first and only ‘Goth Girl’, who loved me more than I deserved back then with both open heart as and set of divine thighs. My ‘brother from another mother’ John Lawless was still in town. Tom was alive and under his protection few were the doors closed to me. Jeremiah and I were still talking and there wasn’t a guest list in town that didn’t have me marked down with a plus one. Around me was a crew of characters that seemed like extras in ‘The Road Warrior’ if the ‘Road Warrior’ had been directed by Fellini.
Twelve years later, twelve years slower and hoofing it on boot through the heat and the drive-by hate. Nothing but an unreadable book and these memories wrapped in stories to my fake name. Still, I’m not doing to bad for a fuck-up artist. I’m still here even if here doesn’t want me. Still writing even if to whom I cannot really say. Still standing where my friends have fallen, advanced, drifted and shifted. New friends now and if there any enemies waiting it is in an ambush beyond my reckoning.
In an hour I’ll walk through the door. The house filled with smoke because one of the roomies decided to try their hand at cooking a goose for the first time. Over my shoulder I got a big sack of Purina like I was the Santa Claus of Cats. In my other hand I got shampoo, a pack of Winston’s, a 2 liter of Diet Dr. Pepper and other Vee essentials. Vee leaps up off the couch and delivers upon my cheek a big kiss like I came home from the hunt with a stag straddled over the shoulders.
And it's enough as another day closes here in Ward 13.
Two days ago I was walking the same route on a cigarette run. Across the street, at the bus shelter in front of the Baptist church, I watched two guys go at it in broad daylight. Fists were firing rapid and with wide arcing swings. A mutual cascade of blows delivered with the fever of a heated dance. What was odd to me, however was that both combatants had just moments before been confined to their red motorized wheelchairs. Both these cats were grown ass men at least in their late forties. Both were extremely overweight. When the Law pulled up in a siren howl they both scurried back to their chairs and began cursing at each other.
It was the kinda thing I really wish I had been stoned for, actually, because some quality Kind would have surely softened the impact of that particular spectacle upon my senses.
A few blocks later and my pilgrimage would find me being circled by a flock of little children, each wearing a pair of those sneakers that have built in roller-blades in the souls. Their motions were more akin to someone who had just learned how to ice-skate rather than say roller-boogie, and they screeched with laughter as I dodged around them. At one point, one of the kids hit a crack in the pavement and was about to go down. Caught him under the arm before I could think about it and steadied him slowly back up.
“Thanks” and with that he, along with the others, dispersed and headed back to the backyard barbecue from which they descended. Their shrieks of laughter drowning under the traffic roar.
(Occasionally I have to pause to swat massive mosquitoes from the surface of my screen. I prefer to do my work in the dark and the sole light of my monitor attracts them. I like to call them my ‘fans’ and pretend that it is the nectar of my prose that actually lures them to their death. A quick, sudden jab of the thumb. Wiping dry blood off the virtual page between these clumsy seductions.)
My route includes the before mentioned Baptist church, two mosques, a recently opened head shop, a handful of gas stations, an (in)convenience store (which doesn’t sell Camel’s for some reason), a fenced off lot that houses AT&T vans exclusive, a liquor store, ‘Paradise’, ‘Club Chocolate’ and a plethora of shops specializing in the lucrative art of hair braiding.
Out here no one really fucks with me. At least not too much, not like it would’ve been back in the day. I like to think that’s because I’m one bad-ass mother fucker who looks as if he can deliver a beat-down while taking two. The truth, though, is that anyone out here on foot must be too broke for the MARTA and therefore probably not worth the trouble. That and, to be honest, I don’t think most of the locals here care one way or the other.
But then last week, while riding the 83 to the station, right before he hops off the bus, this young blood mockingly hollers - “White Power!” - and fires a Sieg Heil salute at me. Next thing I know I got every eye on the bus drilled on my shaved head and cheap army-navy jungle boots. Young lady sitting next to me gets up and moves down a few rows. Other than that no one really reacts except to openly stare at me, not so much with revulsion or anger, but rather this sort of subtle-head-shaking pity.
With those words – ‘White Power’ – I went from being some guy just reading his book on the bus to becoming the equivalent of a human fart.
Needless to say it was one of the longest bus rides of my live. And, yeah, I know, I should’ve said something. Anything. But what could I say? My consciousness was somewhere on the map between mortified and shocked stupid.
Last one off the bus and instead of bee-lining it straight for the station, I stepped out off the MARTA property for a much needed smoke.
Recollect when I first met Don. Don T’Challa to be precise. Fake name obviously, self-christened because he loved both Thor and the Black Panther. We working the clean-up crew at Masquerade. It was his first day and he was sweeping up Hell while I had just finished my rounds in Purgatory. I arrived to give him a hand and when I walked in, he twirled the push-broom in his hand with the grace of a Shao-Lin warrior before aiming the tip of the handle at me.
“Uh… yeah, came in to see if you needed a hand.”
“Who’re you!” Don said and I noticed he had his legs spaced in the alignment of a basic fighting stance. A few classes maybe.
“Jack.” I raised my hands in factious surrender. “I work here with Berda and Mike Allen. You must be the new guy.”
Don twirls the push-broom and snaps it back to the ground. He begrudgingly introduced himself and we went to work getting Hell in working order. An hour later, when we were finishing up, I approached Don and told him:
“Alright, man. We’re about done, so I guess you should follow me now.”
“Come again?”
“Yeah, Boss wanted me to make sure you made it to the drug test.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“Wouldn’t shit a shitter, c’mon…”
Don rolled his eyes and gave an exasperated sigh that told me all I needed to know. We made our way to the loading dock through Hell. He seemed kinda shocked that we weren’t hitting the offices upstairs adjacent to Heaven. Told him they had a place out here where the collect the samples. Led around the back to the Music Park. Ducked into a crevice by the stage. Don was getting suspicious now. He had his fists balled up and eyes narrowed in on me. Before things got ugly though I quickly fished out a joint from my pack and lit it up.
Don just stood there and blinked at me baffled.
“Drug Test!” I coughed and passed him the joint. Oldest one in the book. Remember when my Uncle got me with that one during my disastrous stint as a tile-man’s assistant.
Don took nicked it off my pinch, gave the ember a good sniff, nodded approvingly and sucked in some calm.
Later, when we were both comfortably numbed to our next round of shit-work, the daily hosing of the plastic trash cans out back, Don confessed to me how he made me for some ‘Nazi’ when I strolled into Hell and that he was going to have to throw down.
“’Nazi’, pfft.” I snorted, “Wha'd'am I, the ghost of 1986 over here? You know what this shaved head means? That I’m going bold and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna be walkin’ around looking like my name is George Constanza.”
Neither of us said a word for a few moments. The hiss-roar of twin water streams slicing the alcohol film off the trash bins and a lackadaiscal insect drone.
“Shit, I’m sorry…” Don coughed self-consciously.
“S’cool, man… but how ‘bout next time you ask me before you decide to go all Jet Lee on my ass.”
We hit it off and after our shift headed back to Violet and I’s place down at the end of North Avenue. Eventually he became one of Tom’s Lieutenants. Don was able to open up a new market base for Tom and the two of them got along infamously for awhile. Of course that was before the inevitable bad drama that would go down that sent Don fleeing back to Philly and Tom out a few grand.
Wild times those. Violet, my first and only ‘Goth Girl’, who loved me more than I deserved back then with both open heart as and set of divine thighs. My ‘brother from another mother’ John Lawless was still in town. Tom was alive and under his protection few were the doors closed to me. Jeremiah and I were still talking and there wasn’t a guest list in town that didn’t have me marked down with a plus one. Around me was a crew of characters that seemed like extras in ‘The Road Warrior’ if the ‘Road Warrior’ had been directed by Fellini.
Twelve years later, twelve years slower and hoofing it on boot through the heat and the drive-by hate. Nothing but an unreadable book and these memories wrapped in stories to my fake name. Still, I’m not doing to bad for a fuck-up artist. I’m still here even if here doesn’t want me. Still writing even if to whom I cannot really say. Still standing where my friends have fallen, advanced, drifted and shifted. New friends now and if there any enemies waiting it is in an ambush beyond my reckoning.
In an hour I’ll walk through the door. The house filled with smoke because one of the roomies decided to try their hand at cooking a goose for the first time. Over my shoulder I got a big sack of Purina like I was the Santa Claus of Cats. In my other hand I got shampoo, a pack of Winston’s, a 2 liter of Diet Dr. Pepper and other Vee essentials. Vee leaps up off the couch and delivers upon my cheek a big kiss like I came home from the hunt with a stag straddled over the shoulders.
And it's enough as another day closes here in Ward 13.
