Ozzie Fitch: Chapter 22
No one is at Binny’s place anymore.
I showed up there once or twice, and it was just me and him.
I don’t say anything to him, and he doesn’t say anything to me. What is there to say? Word gets around, so why talk when you’ve heard it all?
“Where’s Ribber?” I asked.
“Ribber,” a plume of smoke from Binny’s mouth, “is gone.”
“Gone?” I laugh. “Where did he go? He chanting with someone else?”
Binny takes a pull from his pipe, glowing the coals bright. His red eyes close for a moment before proclamation falls from on high. “He is currently on a bus,” Binny said, his voice slow as lava, “heading to Arlington.”
“Really?” I don’t believe it. What the hell is his problem? “Who told?”
“I hear,” Binny shrugged. “I hear from lots of people. Jersey Wellen seen him get on the bus.” That’s as good as newspaper for us. Jersey Wellen don’t lie. Don’t gossip. Don’t even whisper, Jersey Wellen. Got a name for themself.
“What the hell is in Arlington?”
Binny took a deep pull. “A girl.”
I laughed. Hundred truth, I laughed, because of course it was a girl. Chant for a girl, get beat up for a girl, leave town for a girl. That was Ribber all over. Didn’t believe it, really. Knew he’d be back soon with a condom full of nothing.
“Shit, really?” Binny doesn’t move. Doesn’t nod. Doesn’t have to. “What the hell is wrong with him,” I shake my head. Tired like. “Anything for a roll, that boy. Lands in the hospital over a girl, and then runs out of town?”
Who was he trying to fool? I could picture him, sitting there in a middle seat, eyes wide open with the possibilities of what might happen at the end of his ride. Bouncing up and down in his seat, dreaming of platinum hair and smooth skin under his palms. Warmth around his dick, that’s what he was dreaming of. Taste on the tongue. He had a circle, a family, the chant, and he gave it all up for a dream. Who was he trying to fool?
“Where’s Cindy?” I ask. Haven’t seen her around for a week.
“Sal’s,” Binny says.
“Sal’s?” What the hell was she thinking? “Sal is goddamn crazy,” I say.
Binny doesn’t say anything. He shrugs, and takes a deep pull of his pipe.
“What she going to chant for?” I ask, scratching behind my ear. “Everyone’s nuts to fall off?”
Binny shrugs. He doesn’t say anything. What’s he supposed to say, anyway? “I want to chant,” I say.
Binny shrugs. “So chant.”
That stops me. “You not going to chant with me?”
Binny, he shrugs again. “You want to chant, you chant. I’m not going to stop you. That’s your choice. You free here.”
I didn’t want to chant by myself. What was the point of that? Chanting, a circle, that was what I wanted. I wanted people who would chant with me when I wanted to chant. Now Binny didn’t want to chant? What the hell was wrong with him?
I don’t want to think about that, so I go to the window and look outside, like there was something out there worth looking at. But there isn’t. Hundred truth, I look as hard as I can for something, for the missing piece that would make everything make sense, but it’s not there.
“Darla’s gone,” I say.
“I see that,” Binny says.
“Not a chanter, her. Never really good at it. Good riddance,” I say.
Binny, he just shrugs.
“Hundred truth,” I say, like he needs to believe, “She posed. You see all the gilt she wore? Born glitty. Live in the subs now, I’m sure. Stole from stores and kept it all, like totems. Like a fetish, yeah? She fetishized.”
“You not going to chant?” Binny smokes.
“No one’s here,” I say. “Who I chant with?”
“The chant’s the important thing,” he breathes.
Like I don’t know that? That wasn’t what I wanted to hear, that wasn’t what I wanted him to say. “Chant gotta have chanters,” I say. “Only you and me left. We the real chanters, yeah?”
“JJ’s coming back,” Binny says, odd smile on his face.
“Truth?” I ask. “He talk to you?”
“He’s coming back.”
No, Binny playing wiz again. Like he knows everything, which he does, right? He says JJ coming back, he’s coming back.
Some circle. Me, Binny, and JJ. What the hell is that?
“We the real chanters,” I say. “We stick around. Real chant important, right? It’s the only thing.”
Binny muttering: “The chant is the chant. Chanters, we just fish in the stream. It keeps flowing whether we chant or not. What’s one fish here or there, when the sea awaits at the end of the journey?”
I don’t like to hear him say that. It’s not what I want to hear.
Then, Binny says this thing, this thing that hurts real bad, and I can’t say that, but he says it anyway, and it gets me mad.
“You care too much,” he says. “Bad magic.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean? He say the chant all that matters five times a day, and now he say too much? What the hell?"
“If you hurt,” he says like he’s some real wizard, “then you’re fighting the chant. Don’t fight it, and you’ll be fine.”
“I’m not hurt,” I said, but that was a lie. I was hurt, and hurt bad. I didn’t even know why I hurt so bad. But I couldn’t let him know. Hell, why did I need to tell anyone? What kind of world do we live in where I gotta scream and cry like a baby for people to see the pain? That’s bullshit. Grit grinds the gears and the whole thing falls apart. Not chant. Not gutter. Smooth means everyone cares for each other. We all each other’s keepers, right?
Binny was supposed to know, supposed to be a real sage. He was supposed to see through the curtain to the pain my pain. He was supposed to know about me and the chant and the flow and the gutter and the grid and what does he say, he say don’t care, like bitter the best shield for anything. Don’t care about anything. Me —
I can’t take this anymore.
“Fuck you!” I shout. “Fuck you and your circle. Go back to Kyle, me! He fuckin’ cared! He never say some feel-good shit about how it all works out. He knew about the wrong kind. he knew about posers and vacationers and skippers and fakers. He knew about…about…about fuckin’ economics.”
I storm out. No, not yet. First I go to his stash. Not my stash. Don’t have a stash here. Not smart. Not safe. No, I go to his stash. I figure he owes me for all I done for him. I rummage through the pills and the tabs and the sticks and the smokes. Grab a few. He owes me for listening to his shit. Could have been doing something better all that time. Could have been talking.
Storm out then. Find other people to listen. People who know about real pain. Shout some shit behind me. Damn bullshitting grit of a sage. What does Binny know? Binny doesn’t know shit.
I lick a Fox on my tongue. Acid. Burns. Spreads like fire. Down the throat and up the spine. I walk out the door then. Away from Binny bastard who thinks thinking too much, who doesn’t care about caring about caging about pain my pain. Down stairs to downstairs the street cold and gutter smooth I walk. People on the streets don’t care about them don’t care about me. Why care about who doesn’t care about?
Walk. Run. Get away and back to the gutter. The real gutter. Where the magic is.
Suck the Fox. Feel it in the spine I begin to glow.
I want to chant, I want to sizzle, I want to see behind the curtains that cover the eyes of everyone else. I want to find a new way of seeing things that puts it all in its proper place I want to sparkle above like diamond dogs on charm bracelet chains of silver flash quick and pop done all through holes in velvet LED light skies and waving seaweed tentacles of jellyfish squid float and sink down nadir depths exploding upwards wet and black raven haired and feather skin like fierce eyes mascara under the black lips gone too far to give up and in fur suits coats that killed the last one vest singing through POPPING yellow skin and bulging eyes like frogs three by three let it be rhyming nursery has creaking whorls of knotted pine and there THERE there I sit knees to chin crying cogs spinning fans and rock the cradle will rock boughs break and falling down to the nadir again always FALLING always falling falling free its the fall that kills then doesn’t return back up Binny speaking say words into balloons that explode out and up like black holes pulling me in loud and multicolored kaleidoscope amigo amiga all around the grid like garrote lines slicing cubes out of my flesh pressing through play-dough until green leaks everywhere dry and crusty skin flakes away when I scratch POP leaving bits of me bits of evidence bits of me not me leave behind the bits not man everywhere I walk everyone I see every mark on my soul made with dark eyes and black lips fuck-me lips rolling under the thunder on the ceiling cracks in the walls thunder storm coming I’m POP coming I explode outward and she’s smiling and that’s all we ever wanted in life was smiling just smiling like her like a girl I smile like I am a like they mean something because they mean something don’t they they mean something they always mean something or else they wouldn’t smile that was what she told me mom dad when they shouting at me I had a choice to live like this I chose to live like this it’s all my fault there isn’t anyone who knows who cares that knows exactly where the problems are not me not me someone else not me all I wanted to do was smile but it never came because it felt wrong I was promised a smile and it always felt wrong it wasn’t what I wanted I wanted a smile and I couldn’t she couldn’t no smile she walked away its not my fault she walked away they yelled I ran she walked they yelled I ran walk yell run walk yell run walk yell run and then…
And then.
Pop.
All open.
hsssssssss
I hate the bus stop.
It’s the worst place. Hundred truth.
When you’re at the bus stop, you know you want to go somewhere, but you aren’t going. You’re just waiting. You sit here, but you don’t want to sit because the seat is uncomfortable. You wait, but you don’t want to wait because you’re trying to get somewhere. You want to be on your own, but people are waiting with you. You want to be alone, but you’re not getting anywhere without the bus driver.
It’s like you don’t exist. You’re not here, you’re not there, you’re not going from here to there.
All you can do is sit and wait for the bus, driven by someone else, to take you away.
I don’t even know where I’m going.
My brain isn’t sizzling anymore. Maybe I’ll quit.
Look at the schedule, just a bunch of numbers and lines. An ordered system. You can’t get to where you’re going unless we say so. Facists make the trains run on time. It’s oppression. Back and forth on the gridded streets, all the movement without the life.
Where am I going? I don’t know. Hundred truth, I have no idea. Maybe I’ll head north, maybe south. Maybe I won’t look, and I’ll just take the first bus to the end of the line, and get on another, and then another. Maybe I’ll hitch a ride with someone else.
Maybe I’ll just keep walking.
Maybe I’ll wind up in another state entirely. Who cares. It’ll be the same thing. Same people with different names. Same problems with different faces. People trying to pretend like they’re hurting when the system is holding them up. People trying to smile while the system is holding them down. People who don’t know their own power, because they so wrapped up in their own pain.
People are selfish, really. The new kid was selfish, trying to take someone’s place instead of making their own. Leon made his own bed, tried to take power instead of finding it himself. Earning it.
Darla was never a real chanter. You can’t vacation in it, you can’t come and see the sights for a while. You have to live it, like I lived it. You have to breathe it. You have to embrace it, and not run from it. It needs to hurt. You have to suffer, because if you don’t suffer, you’re not real. Me, I’m real.
Binny, he was a rock. Thought he was steel. He was jello. He was wrapped in his smokey cloud and never smiled, never frowned, you couldn’t hurt him. It was a weakness, really. That’s why the circle broke. It never would have lasted. Being so stoic, so emotionless, so detached, how could he draw strength from his pain? How could he suffer?
I’m done with circles. I’ll never do it again.
It’s all fake and smoke and mirrors. No one really cares. It’s full of fakers and wannabes and posers. Even the people who care, who really care, don’t care enough. Everyone’s so concerned with themselves, that they never bother reaching out.
I would have taken anyone’s hand, if it had been offered, but no one ever did. Hundred truth, no one ever did.
I was right there, the whole time.
They drove me away. They drove me here, to the bus stop. I’ll sit here, not existing, until someone comes to take me somewhere else. Besides, if I took their hand, nothing would have happened.
I’ll be fine. I know the system. I know how it works. I know how to get what I want from the world. If I don’t get it, I didn’t want it. I know the chant. I’m powerful. I don’t need anyone.
What do I want? What do I chant for? Where am I going?
Maybe there’s a place where people aren’t so self-centered. Maybe there’s a place at the end of a line, somewhere, where everyone isn’t so wrapped up in themselves that they can see the pain of other people. Where they can see my pain. Where I can be as special as I want to be, and everyone else, who is just as special as me, will pause to look. Where I can belong, and don’t have to spend all my time taking care of everyone else. Where I can rest.
Maybe there’s a place where I can find a circle, or I’ll make my own, I’ll find people I can chant with, who will ask me what I want to chant for, and I’ll have an answer. For the first time, I’ll have an answer.
When they ask, I’ll know.