Ozzie Fitch: Chapter 21
Day later. Week later. Don’t know. Sitting on the steps outside Binny’s. Darla comes by. Dressed to the nines.
“Hi,” I say. “Haven’t seen you around.”
“I’m not staying,” she says.
I nod, suck on my stick. “Yeah?”
“Gotta go.”
I nod. Suck again. “Where?”
“Don’t know.”
What did she want from me? Did she really not give a care? Try as I might, I had no idea what caused her to change her mind. Must have been something miserable I had done, but I had no idea what.
Done wrong. Heh. Always rules, what you have to do to fit in. Want green? Get a job. Want a girl? Play the game. Want a family? Go to college. All these things I was supposed to do, and never once they get me what they promised.
That was how it went, right? All the promises. All the curtains hanging in your way. Roll up and see the great things that make you miserable. We make problems for you, and sell you solutions. Then everything’s all better, right?
Garbage.
“You hear about Jersey?” She ask all of a sudden.
“Who?” Don’t know, me. Heard nothing.
“Jersey Wellen,” she says. “You heard she’s back in the hospital?”
“You know Wellen?” How she know Wellen? Haven’t thought of Wellen in ages. Never told Darla about Wellen. Did I?
“Of course I know Wellen,” she says. “Got it bad two nights ago. Three of them.”
“Okay.” What she want me to say? Can’t just tell me what I’m supposed to feel about someone else getting seen. Going to do a chant, probably. Get all the help. Everyone look at them.
“Okay?” She looks at me like I said it wrong.
“Can’t you just ask me?” I demand it. I been wanting to ask for so long, and now I say it, and it’s done. Darla, she looks at me, and she shakes her head, like she doesn’t even know what I mean. But she knows. She’s been waiting for me to say it, but I don’t know what she wants me to say. A game with rules, but no instructions.
She’s playing with me, and I’m losing.
She looks at me. Sad like. Or angry. She breathes deep. Me, I suck on my stick, because I’m not scared.
“What do you chant for?”
She looks at me, and I see she really wants to know. God damn it all, she really wants to know. “What do you mean,” I ask, though I know already. “I chant.”
She keeps looking at me. She licks her lips — pink — and starts shifting back and forth, like ground uneven where she stands. Know that move. Wants to talk, but doesn’t want to talk. Suits me. I like not talking.
Takes a deep breath, and says: “Oz, you ever get what you want, you be the unhappiest boy in Upper West.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask before sucking hard. Makes me want to vomit.
“You like it,” she shakes her head. “No, you need it. Hundred truth, Oz? You got a fetish for being miserable.”
What the hell is she talking about? Who wants to be sad? I sure as hell don’t. I almost shouted at her. Threw down my stick and walked off. What does she mean by fetish? I mean, what the hell did she mean by fetish?
Where did she get off thinking she knew me? Like anything she said meant anything to me? She slid into the gutter and thought that meant she knew the world? I showed her the world, I gave it to her, and she learned all the wrong lessons. Took gilt from the stores, lifted it all, and put it on like she wanted it. She didn’t hate the system, she just hated the rules.
Darla looks up. “And you always gotta share.”
And Darla walked away.
Good.
I was glad. Saved me the trouble.
Watched as her sway led her down the street. Saw as she walked all the glit and glitter. She wasn’t part of the gutter. Maybe never had been. Could have stepped out any old day. Could have strolled. Flash and smile and slid on the grid like butter. Smooth.
All curtains. Hung them up herself, to hide the shine. Another lie. Thought the gutter was real? Then why turn your back? No, she never thought. She’s a hypocrite; fetish for poverty. Made things real, she thought.
Was she ever really a chanter? Oh, she knew the chant, she sang and spoke smooth and sweet, but she never chanted like Binny, or like Leon, or like me. She sizzled her brain like the rest of us, drinking and smoking and living the life of the chanter. But then what?
No, we were nothing alike.
Couldn’t sleep at Darla’s anymore. That’s fine. Got couches for days.
No couches that night. Didn’t want to. Couldn’t deal with people looking or asking questions. Not really. Find another place to sleep.
When I first came to Upper West, I stayed at a flop.
I slept in the corner. It was dry, there, and warm. What I remember most was the brick in the wall. There was a spot behind it where I hid my gear. You have to do that. Things get stolen from a flop. Even at night. You gotta hide your valuable.
So I did. Pulled that brick out and stuck it right back, hiding.
Went right back to that flop. Wasn’t going to stay at Binny’s, no sir. Could have pulled up some green, found an apartment cheap, but didn’t. Could find another couch, start the surf up again. Didn’t want to. Not yet. Had things to think about.
Remembered all the smells as I walked in. Dark, even in daytime. Mumbles from nearby, and someone trying to sleep. Piss on the walls. Mud and someone coughing. Hard tabs and pills to take you elsewhere. All the same. Walked right back to the corner, stepping over loose cans and piled plastic. Smell got worse. More familiar. Could feel the dust in the air.
Might have been the same mattress. Didn’t think so. Been a few years, it was so old already. Springs long dead, barely anything keeping you off the ground. Mice take all the soft stuffing with their sharp teeth. This one was old too, but not deader after two years. Still stained. Still old. Just enough.
Sat on the mattress. All the character still there. Chips in the wall, a few I recognized. Some were new. Divots in the ground, where something had been drilled down. Factory like. Everything felt the same.
Whose fault was it?
Everything had been so perfect. No, not perfect, truth, but close. Real close. It was a real circle, right? We were like a family. We knew each other and we talked to each other and we did things together, like sizzling and dancing and drinking and ordering out for Chinese.
We laughed a lot and never cried because that would have ruined everything. We danced and popped around to different places and people and rolled all the time. We knew we were the gutter, and no one liked us or wanted us, so we made ourselves a community. We were a part of something greater.
And that gave us power. We could do things that no one else could. We knew we were better than all those dusted who looked down their noses at us. We knew their promises were bullshit and we took what was ours.
We weren’t cruel, we were kind. We had found something greater than their stupid grid of lines and rules. We fought the power. We were the power. What they had wasn’t power, it was lies and greed. We had each other.
Free from the stifling chains and rigid ties that kept us from becoming real.
Reached out, then. Brushed the brick with my fingers. Still there. Still loose. Who had put things there now? Who had the space been there for?
Pulled out the brick. Saw a small spoon and a shriveled up tealight. Pulled out the spoon. Felt the end, the small chip in the side, the curled bit. Saw the tarnish. Worse than before. Recognized it. It was my old spoon.
How long had it been sitting there, doing fuck all? Had anyone ever used it? The tealight, was it mine too? I had been gone for years, and here it was, just waiting for me. Back where I put it. Patient like.
Days. Weeks. Months. Years. All the same, holding onto what I had made for myself, and here I was, right back with my old gear. Same chants. Same same same.
I’d changed. I know I had. Different people have different ways. No sense in trying to guess them. But here it was.
Had I changed at all? I thought I had it all. I thought I knew the truth. Not just truth, the Hundred Truth. Capital and everything. I seen it, I felt it, I lived it, and now, what was the point?
They called me Old Oz, a real wiz.
I knew who I was. They knew who I was. But not the whole me. The pain inside, I kept that for me. That was my power. That was my special. I was great and mighty and I had answers. I could help people. I could make them better. Make them feel. Show them behind the curtains, not just the grid and the cogs and the system, but the real curtains. That hid them from themselves.
What did I have to do for them? I gave so much, and they never gave me anything back. Selfish, all of them.
The tealight, it was still here. My gear. It had been waiting for me. Like a faithful dog.