Ozzie Fitch: Chapter 12
Week later? Two weeks? Don’t remember. New Kid walked into my room like tentative. Cagey. Nerves all tingling. “Hi.”
Cindy gave him the up-and-down and pointed at Binny. Sage was sitting there, eyes closed, smoke to the top. Leon wasn’t watching, the nut. Should have been, but didn’t. I brought the kid, least he could do would be to pay attention.
Kid walked up to Binny, held out a hand. Binny kept his eyes shut. Took a slow breath, like wise old frog. “You new in town?”
“Ain’t seen you before,” Ribber giggles. “You hiding from us?”
“Didn’t know you,” New Kid says. Doesn’t sound embarrassed. Why not? Everyone knows Binny. Everyone knows Old Oz.
“That’s alright,” Binny waves a hand. “You chant?”
“Course he chants,” Darla touched my neck, where it meets the shoulder. Squeeze like. “Wouldn’t be here if he didn’t chant.”
Binny opened his eyes then, gave the New Kid a good up-and-down. Remember when he gave me that look. Then he put his pipe in his mouth and gave a good puff. Kid coughs at that. I laugh. Look at Leon to share the smile. He’s just looking, not smiling.
“What are you running from?” Binny asks then.
“Pass me a stick,” I say.
“Hush,” Cindy doesn’t move.
“I’m not running,” New Kid shifts in puffy jacket and ripped pants. Looks real uncomfortable. Like interrogated. What’s the problem? Think we’re going to critique? Be judges? Make me feel like I should look closer, look for hiding something.
“Why you here?” Binny asks before passing pipe from one hand to the other. “You born in Upper West?”
“No.”
“We can tell,” I said. Shoot a glance to the room. Ribber rolling his head around. Leon staring at the ceiling. Darla playing with my hair and Cindy listening to the Kid. What was the problem? “You want a beer?” I ask.
“Sure.”
I get to the kitchen and pick up one of our beers. It’s cool on my palms, like soothing. I come back and toss it to the kid. They look at it, don’t open it.
Binny cocks his head, gives a sage smile. “Where are your scars?” Kid that young, I knew didn’t have any. What scars could they have deeper than a real chanter? Fresh face and puffy jacket. Walked in like we were going to have it out. Didn’t know the gutter like we did.
Kid swallowed, jacket squeaked as kid scratched the back of the neck. Nerves again. We going to judge or something? Ashamed like? “Dad,” Kid finally says. “Don’t know where mom is, dad died. Nowhere to go.”
Bullshit. Heard it before. That’s not a chanter’s pain. Kid wants to stay with family? That’s a rope. All tied up. A real family got to be looked for. Wished for. New Kid didn’t jump or stumble. Got pushed. Still holding the beer. Not opening it.
“You chant?” Cindy asks.
“A little,” New Kid nods, pulls out folded paper. Other hand. Still holding beer. Still ashamed. See, shame means status. New Kid thinks we’re better. New Kid sees a ladder, looking up on the bottom rung. New Kid wants to climb. You want to climb, you eventually try to climb out of the gutter.
“You gonna drink that?” I ask. Beer is still in the kid’s hand. Shouldn’t talk. I brought the Kid, I shouldn’t talk, but I got them the beer, right? Seems to me like you shouldn’t take a beer if you’re not going to drink it. Like what else is beer for? Ribber giggles.
“Sure,” Kid smiles, hopeful like. Shoots a look at Ribber, like uncertain. What do they know? Ribber knows more chant than a simple folding. Know it then, Kid doesn’t want to feel ashamed. Wants to climb.
“How’d your dad die?” Darla asks. Why does she care?
“Car accident.”
“You wire the brakes?” I poke the kid. Not mean, just keep the ego down. Dangerous time for folk, being new to the gutter. Think they’re special, think they know more than they do. That’s dangerous. Kid’s not special. Not a hero. Keep them humble, keep them grounded. Not mean.
No one laughs. Makes me feel bad. How they respect the kid already? Don’t know anything about chanting, not yet. Where do they get off letting them think they’re better than they are? That’s bullshit. That’s dusty bullshit. Still not drinking the beer.
“You bring anything?” That was Binny. Like a test, but I’d given the kid the answer already. Regretted it now. Too easy. Should have let the kid succeed on their own merits, not borrowed from me. Bring something, like a gift. Sharing, not buying, but it gets you in the door.
Not even drinking the beer? Brought it for them, and they not drinking? Why say sure if not gonna drink? Beer warming up. Waste. Just a fuckin’ waste. Not a nice thing to do, like spitting in our faces.
Kid cleared their throat and said: “Cheap Bic pens. The tops. Pointy at the bottom, right? Got a curve in the plastic that keeps them strong. Scrape along chicken bones, and shavings are more…clean.”
Knew that already. Think we didn’t know that already? Shitty thing to share, so simple. Bic pen tops. What the hell? Didn’t have anything better? “Gonna drink?”
Binny gives a nod. like the pens is enough. Fine. Binny’s circle, after all. “Where you staying?”
“Found a flop,” kid points to the east. “Some nights. Other nights in lock-up. Like I got anything better to do.”
Binny smiles at that. What the hell? Kid makes me feel bad, and they all leap up like they’re gift from god. Where were their scars? Won’t even drink a beer.
“Been to the dances?” Cindy’s looking at the kid like spicy. Don’t get it. Something the matter? Glint in her eye like diamond.
“Yeah,” Kid smiles. “I like dancing. Good time at the Square. See the party last night?”
Me, I didn’t go. Wasn’t feeling a dance last night. But everyone loves the Square. Even the posers. The beer still dangles from the kid’s hand. Like they take something and not even use it. Take it just to have. Someone like that, they take and they not thank you. Just take, because they need to have. Worse than cog.
It bothers me, so I leave the room. Go to the kitchen, crawl out the window. Fire escape. Grab a stick on the way, but forget the lighter, so now I got nothing but a stick in my mouth, getting wet.
Couldn’t stick around. If the kid was going to chant with the circle, I wouldn’t be there. I couldn’t bear it, to see the wide eyes and awkward smile. They’ll be nice, Binny and the rest, but if the kid comes back to chant, I won’t be with them. Someone who takes like that won’t give. Just take. Good as a vote. Don’t even need to say nothing. I brought the kid, and I’m not there? That sends a message. Old Oz votes nay.
I’ve heard it all. Lost love. Lost green. Lost home. Lost family. Voices in the head. Abusive father, or mother, or uncle. Cruel stepmother. Heard it all. Sometimes stories. Sometimes truth. Doesn’t matter. Your pain is your pain. You get it, you got it.
I looked up at the stars, me, and sucked on the stick, unlit. Needed a tab. Wanted to break free for a moment. Remember the hundred truth: There is no ladder. We all on the same river, floating free.
Went back in the kitchen. Found a tab of Flaming Tire, a lighter, climbed back out onto the escape. Topped it up on my tongue. Big lick. Fingered the lighter. Fingered the wet stick. Looked up at the stars. Waited for static.
Old Ozzie was a wiz.
That’s what they said. Darla said. She said about me, with her red lips popping open to show me a smile.
The Chant was easy. Wasn’t hard. Took time, took belief, took effort, but not much. If it took much, then Ozzie wouldn’t do it. Instead, it took time. I had time. We had time. Nothing but Time. Paul, the Nut, had a job. Binny went somewhere, maybe a job. Never talked about it. Paula worked part time, said she didn’t do much. Ribber worked part time. Darla, darling Darla, had no job. Didn’t need one. Sold her jewels. Browsed for the rest. She called it browsing.
Had a job for a while. Worked at the Mart on forty-seventh. Bag the groceries and hand them back. They want me to smile, but I only smile when I feel like it. Oz doesn’t smile like no robot, no sir. Oz doesn’t tie himself down with ties and suits and briefcases.
No one cares about baggers, but they’re people. They have homes and bank accounts and mothers and fathers who call on the weekends to find out where they are. Bagging’s not hard. Anyone can be a bagger, but no one wants to be a bagger. Staying a bagger, that’s hard. Being’s harder.
The world, it moves. The system screams at you, whispers in your ear. You have to keep moving, it says. You can’t sit still, you can’t stand in one spot. Got meetings, boy. Got phone calls. Talking real money, and success, and suits, and ties, and limos down sixth. What are you doing just standing there? This isn’t enough for you. You gotta want more. Want it. Eat it. Chew it up and dream of it at night, when you’re so tired all you can do is consume.
It’s hard to be a bagger. You got to have nothing better to be. It’s hard, so no one cares about baggers.
Outside the mart, was what I call the Pack. Six kids. Teens. Standing around and hiding a cigarette they’re passing around in a circle, tying themselves together with smoke in the lungs. Think they’re being rebels, with Philip Morris in their mouths, Gap on their arms and legs. Fish can’t see water, and they don’t want to swim. They stand there, talking about musicians and actors and brands. Should be talking about the music. It’s not their fault.
I felt bad for the kids. Not adults yet, not babies anymore. What are they? They don’t know, and old Ozzie can’t tell them. They need to find out. Can’t find out on their own, got parents and adults and The System telling them off. Fit in a place, they say. Line up in the grid. You’ll grow into it. Should just let them grow.
It’s hard to be a kid. No one wants you to be one. It’s hard, so no one cares about kids.
Take my break in the alley. Not much to do in the alley except smoke. Share a smoke with Wires, the man what lives there. Wires, because his hair is thick and springy. Don’t know his real name. Talks all the time about things no one believes. One of the gutter, but no chanter.
Wires could be a bagger. Anyone can do it. No one wants to. Even Wires. Likes the alley, he says. Warm there. Sometimes old food gets thrown out, but it’s not spoiled. “They’re afraid,” he told me. “Got a date right on it, gotta throw it out. Even if its good. Else someone gets ’em in trouble. Part of the plan.” I nod. The Plan involves chips and aliens from space. I offer him a snap from my bag. He shakes his head. “Corn syrup,” he says.
Everyone cares about the poor. Say you want to save the poor, get buckets of green. Kitchens. Shelters. Tax rebates. Staying poor is easy.
Almost had a cog job once, before Darla. Before Upper West. Didn’t like looking. Had to wear a costume, make it look shiny. Dress to the nines for dusting. Walked into the building and shook hands. Handed a piece of paper to the secretary. He smiled nice, said sit down. Looked around and saw three others.
Dust. Nothing but Dust.
Turned back, thanked the man, and left. Didn’t look back. A few days after I met Darla I quit the mart. No job, don’t need one. The Chant gets me by. Got unemployment. Got lucky. Didn’t buy much. Didn’t need much. So nice. Darla wanted me to try again once. Get a cog job. Get more than what I had. Couldn’t. She shrugged, and didn’t say anything. Just shrugged. I kissed her for that. For not saying anything.
“You chant for money?” She asked once.
“Chant for lots of things,” I said. I put a chip in my mouth, and felt the salt slowly dissolve on my tongue, tickling my taste buds. the chip started turning to mush as everything crisp and juciy about it slowly faded away and became a part of me.
“Chant for Sex?” she giggled.
Never chanted for sex. Never needed to. Cindy called me a five. I knew I was a seven, at least. No nine, and definitely no ten, but maybe a seven. Least a six. Got plenty of rolls from women in bars. Then met Darla. We go to bars together now.
There are all types in the gutter.
Chanters, natch, we rule the gutter the way fish rule the sea. We live it, we breathe it, we don’t control it.
For the rest, there’s two types. Don’t listen to them what says there’s gays and homeless and sick and poor and all that. There’s only two types. There’s the Gutter, and the Posers.
See, that’s how you look at it. The Gutter is the people. What’s a Gutter without people but a ditch for rainwater, for drops to slough into the sewer? When there’s people, then it’s the real Gutter. Then it’s a place. A home. A culture all its own. Who ends up in the Gutter? Everyone does. Anyone who doesn’t fit in.
See, that’s the power of the chant. We chanters, we see there ain’t no difference between us in the Gutter. The machine kicked us all out, because we didn’t fit in their little boxes. We’re not white, not straight, not christian, not capitalists, not white picket not keeping up not cogs not dusted creaking along like robots. We live.
System want to put us in boxes. They want to say we all different, some get more, some get less, like deserve it. Way it is. Judgment, deciding who is right and who is wrong, who deserves to live. They don’t see what we see; we’re all the same. Cindy said once, said women had it tough. Silly. Like she wasn’t part of the circle. We all laughed. Whatever. She was in the Gutter with the rest of us. All same.
But some is different. Some in the gutter, others skip along the surface. Them that skip, some skip right out again. Hop in, hop out. They see the surface and think they know. Posers, vacationers, they don’t see the truth of it, they just see the power. They see the curtains and want to look behind, but they don’t hate the cogs like we do. They don’t see the truth.
They sit in their coffee shops with fingerless gloves and type on computers and shout into the void. Not the real void, what holds the stars above us, the void the chanters drink in every day, but the fake void of silicon chips and radio waves. They clutter the silence with noise and still the static with words like they mean anything.
They call themselves real because they see us making real, and think it’s the gutter what does it.
Posers, truth, hundred truth, are worse than cogs. They poison the gutter, trying to climb a ladder we laid on its side. They got no direction but they never jump. They think knowing is as good as being. They think they’re as good as those who got nowhere else to go. Stuck in the gutter because the Machine pushes them out. Layabouts; those who could have stared at the curtains, and dusted, like a nice cog.
But those of us who jump, who could be cogs and chose not to, we are the enlightened ones. Them that didn’t have a choice, they have the real power. We who jumped, we have the truth of it. The hundred truth.
See, I wanted to belong. See all the sob stories, kicked out, beaten by cops, drugs, sick, weak, helpless, and people want to help. They pity you, see? Get your story and call you strong. Say you’re not a victim, you a survivor. Me, I’m no victim. Not a victor. Just get by, me. Things is hard, but no pity for me. No one to help or look at me with admiration. Nope. Not old Oz.