And in the midst of all this, marines took homegrown southern girls back to cheap motels; hopes of scoring some pussy and selling love in a bottle for three ninety-nine.
I found it in myself to giggle. Absurd sounds on either side of the green door, a climax just seconds away.
Who needed destiny when there was so much luck in this corner of the world?
The Ballad of Fast Jack.
And I’m warned by all sorts. From activists to pool hall bruisers, to those suspicious few who have found the time to do both:
“The future’s got a special place for people like you…”
And I tell them…
“I’ve got a special story for people like you…”
Two hours before the end of the world, Fast Jack left his ten-by-four flophouse, and went wandering for a drink. Led down busted, undesirable streets by a bulbous nose. Inexcusably long hair hanging before blue eyes, both tinted a hungover, cardiac red. Shuffled through the double doors of an artificial saloon. Buttons of midday sunlight led to a bartender with an undiagnosed twitch in his right arm. Only one tooth to boot, but nobody ever noticed that. One of those details what turned out to be just a little too typical, every ignorant soul a little too distracted by a bar that was never wiped down, paralyzed ceiling fans, and the exhausted creak of barstools, warped from years of thankless servitude.
Fast Jack – or Cole, as he was known to nobody other than himself – sat down and gave mention to the bartender. With this reminder clutched firmly in fist, Bartender served up a scotch. But it was better n’ the usual. Top Shelf. An unhealthy dose of Johnnie Red, which was good as it got between those rotting walls.
Fast Jack asked why, and Bartender said, “Two-Time Crenshaw is still alive.”
“So?”
“Two-Time was set to be killed by Lennox.”
“Why’s that?” The scotch went elsewhere, and seconds later, refilled.
“Two-Time fucked Lennox’s girl.”
“Pink Lady?”
“Pink Lady, that’s the one. Lennox blew this place last night on the war path. Pissed n’ blitzed, telling us all he was going to stab Two-Time in the mouth.”
“And Two-Time’s still alive?”
“Told Lennox it was you.”
Well, Fast Jack knew right then that it was over for him. Unless he fingered someone else. Let the Furies play hopscotch until someone faltered in the art of fiction. On and on. Could take years for any kind of imaginary vengeance to finally rest its sorry feet.
Same thing every last one of them was doing.
So Fast Jack downed his drink, and ran along the inside track of impending doom. Got himself another one. Turned his life into a quick, impersonal laundry list. Dead mother. Father fond of raping his sister. Hands fond of a glass and the occasional woman who might take payment in return for ignoring that face of his, half-deformed by a hash-house grease fire on the fringes of Baton Rouge. Brain on a slow boil, twelve steps shy of complete annihilation. Senses dulled from a juke box gone off the record. Rained on and dried out by a sun that shone in shifts.
In the midst of such memoires, a midget with a cowboy hat stormed in and had a drink. Cackled along with his bourbon and left within the same miraculous minute.
“It’s been some kind of a time,” Fast Jack mused. Only a moment or so to drape his arm around this thought, before Lennox cried out from the streets:
“Fast Jack!”
Fast Jack lit a cigarette, one eye closed against the smoke.
“I’m calling you out, Bitch!”
Fast Jack turned to Bartender: “One more?”
“Don’t go out there.”
“I’m no idiot.”
Bartender poured another one. That overworked, singular eye measuring an oversized hit.
Jack took it down. Caught his half-face in the mirror. Paid without tipping.
“I hope he kills you,” Bartender spat.
Jack laughed, and emptied the contents of his wallet onto the bar.
“Come back, Fast Jack!” Bartender cried, and Fast Jack kept grinning every last step of the way, because life was like that. Life was a second midget in one day, this one by the name of Lennox. Life was getting floored, hunting knife to the throat, a three foot human being screaming drunk accusations while the block contented themselves with watching. Life was all about blood, one quick gush of arterial spray, spilling into the gutter, only to reunite with the city’s drinking water someday.
But life was more than that.
It was the laughter that came half an hour before the end of the world.
Half an hour before the end of the world, and Jack, Fast Jack, never saw that meteor coming...
And when people tell me: “That never happened.”
I say: “What makes you so sure?”
And they say: “The world hasn’t ended.”
“Wait,” I tell them, and go wandering for a drink.
Sidewalk pumping against my sneaks, because, I know, it’s the pavement that does all the walking.
Fresh Coat Of Paint.
The classifieds had someone looking for help repainting their downtown loft. So I dialed the number. Got a woman on the other end, inquiring as to my qualifications, experience. Padded a three-day stint with St. Augustine’s chapter of Habitat into a six-month construction project along the Florida Panhandle, got the green light, and set my alarm for six-thirty am.
***
Downtown sunlight was on the move, draping orange curtains over the retired factories down SoHo way.
I stepped over a few squashed cabbage leafs towards my destination. Double checked the address I had scribbled on the back of a tattered bar tab. Shared a cigarette with an unassuming nobody ‘round my age, before discovering he was there for the same cattle drive. Buzzed blond unable to hide a disappointingly premature widow’s peak. Light stubble along his face, lower neck. Plump, camel lips. Cautious smile offering a fake tooth stained with nicotine memories. Crystalline eyes, sharp darts awaiting further instructions.
“What did you tell her?” he asked.
“Six months with Habitat in the sunshine state,” I told him. “You?”
“Know the children’s wing of St. Cedars hospital? In Jersey, the one with the gigantic mural painted along the west wall?”
“No.”
“Neither does anyone else. But she doesn’t know that she couldn’t know.”
I very much liked that.
He pressed the buzzer, and we took the elevator up three floors.
***
Our employer was a Boomer in her mid-fifties, draped in a lightweight pastel dress. Yellow flowers from head to toe. Chestnut hair pulled back, shocks of grey like landing strips. Passive frown lines mapped along a seasonally inappropriate tan. She had chosen not to trust us with her furniture. The mismatched antiques were already grouped in the center of her twelve hundred square foot apartment. She said a few polite things, quickly bridging the gap from hostess to overseer.
We set about taping the corners, spreading newspaper out along the hardwood floor. Popping the paint cans, stirring, prepping the trays and virgin rollers. She directed us with the mild disapproval of a tourist, always punctuating her orders with an indignant, half implied question mark.
I tried to make nice.
My comrade kept quiet, mostly. Something on his mind. Reserved, diligent. Ignoring the gathering stains on his blue shirt and black jeans. At one point, he tapped me on the shoulder, motioned to one of the newspapers on the floor.
Gore Grabs Torch From Clinton, Hoping to Avoid Burns.
I nodded.
***
We broke for lunch.
My comrade and I made for a corner bodega.
We stared at the chalkboard above the deli counter. Calculating our pay against the cost of a corned beef sandwich. I ordered a bagel with butter. Same for my brother in arms.
We took our catch back to the loft, crawled through the window onto the fire escape. The w
oman popped her head out and asked if that was all we were going to eat. An exclamation point this time, in place of a question mark.
We both made something up.
Watched the pedestrian traffic for a while, then went back to work.
***
We made our way along the walls. Rollers peeling like wet bandages ripped from fresh lacerations. Open windows venting the fumes, inviting heat and the raw blast of tailpipe, the occasional complaint of a car alarm. The woman asked us if we wanted to listen to music. If we liked The Mamas & the Papas.
We made something up.
Kept at it throughout the afternoon. Sunlight dipping into our thoughts. Stepladders giving us fair warning about that top step, as oatmeal white dripped onto yesterday’s news.
California dreamin’.
***
Five o’ clock had me and my comrade back on the streets.
He gave me a cigarette.
I gave him a light.
“What’s your name, anyways?” I asked.
“Philip. What’s yours?”
“Lucky.”
“Hm.” He rubbed his abdomen, absently. Pressed two fingers against his liver. “She never told us her name.”
“The lady?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah. She never did.”
We shrugged and angled for different subway lines.
Uptown.
Downtown.
All around town.
***
I stopped by Bolo to visit Helena.
Waved at her through the window.
She stepped out. Indigo blouse and fitted black slacks. Blue hair spiked to full attention. Lips painted the color of uncultivated clay. Green eyes unaccountably making fun.
“What?” I asked.
“The waiters are laughing at you,” she said.
I squinted through the windows.
Couldn’t see past my own paint-splattered reflection.
Black ties and white collars hovering from somewhere inside.
***
Day two, Philip and I focused on the frames and crown moulding. Slow going. Paint brushes easing their way from floor to ceiling.
We skipped lunch.
Pretended to eat at the deli and went halves on a pack of smokes instead.
Took a break on the fire escape.
The lady stood by the window and watched us.
“You know, smoking is really, really bad for you.”
We nodded.
She crossed her arms and leaned against the frame. “Back in the Sixties, all we did was pot, pot, pot. And, you know, we were changing things. We changed a lot. And we waited for the next generation to do the same, and they never did. What generation are you two, anyway? Gen X? Gen Y?”
“Cusp,” I said.
Philipp nodded.
“We did a lot for the world,” she said. It wasn’t wistful, the way she framed her evergreen history. Hers was an authoritative tone. “We did. But from what you two have told me, you’re doing your best.”
We made something up and went back to work.
***
I decided not to visit Helena at work that day.
***
Our third and final shift, and the lady dipped her hands into the paint, pressed them against my back. Left two sturdy palm prints on my shirt.
“That’s a work of art,” she said. “You should save this shirt. I’m going to tell all my friends about you. They’re looking to have their places painted. I’ll tell them you’re both good, hard workers.”
I glanced at Philip.
He smiled, and sent his roller spinning.
***
We finished ahead of schedule, and I managed to make the bank.
Three hundred dollars for three day’s work.
Not bad, if I do say so myself, and it would turn out there was plenty less where that came from.
***
The lady wasn’t lying.
I got a call three days later.
Husband and wife, looking for a fresh coat of paint.
They would have to knock one dollar off the hourly rate, but would we mind?
I told them I didn’t actually know Philip and they would have to call him.
And no, I didn’t have his number.
And yes, I could be down on Spring Street at eight am this Saturday.
***
Philip met me outside the building.
The very sight of him had me checking the skies for a calendar date. One week, and Philip was looking ten years past our prime. Pale. Bordering on grey. His blue shirt hanging a little more loose, an extra notch added to his belt.
I asked him if he was alright.
He made something up, so I let it go.
I rang the buzzer, and it was two floors up this time.
***
He was an American History professor at NYU. Tenured.
She was dressed in jeans and a white blouse.
Rings on all her fingers.
They left the labor to us. She directed us towards the center of our new world and sent the furniture where it needed to go, and he told us about whatever piece we happened to be moving.
Butler’s specialty vintage oak writing desk. A pair of French Louis XIV-style carved walnut bergere fireside lounge armchairs. North Star Sewing machine from 1872.
The sewing machine stuck with me, for some reason.
I don’t think even one of their words made it to either of Philip’s ears. He strained, sweating through every step; his veins were inkwell blue, and I watched the blood struggle along the expressway to his heart.
So, yes, they were no help, but our prior gig had taught us the basics, and we pulled that first day off without a hitch. The couple just sat on, around, or at their various pieces.
The professor played classic rock on the stereo. Songs From The Vietnam Era, he called them. Each one came with a story. Each one ended with Woodstock, because that’s where he and his wife had first met.
“We met at Woodstock,” he would say.
“We met at Woodstock,” she would echo.
“That second day, it rained.”
I saw Philip wobble from atop his perch, barely straighten in time to save himself from a bad fall.
I asked if we could grab an early lunch.
Our employers talked about it for a bit. Got side tracked with stories from the holiday faculty party. He cut her off once CCR started to play. Fortunate Son, and he insisted on telling us about the day his friend met Ken Kesey, and what did we think about the electric Kool-Aid test?
I made something up for the both of us, and our early lunch came about right on schedule.
***
Day two, I asked Philip what was wrong. Really asked, refused to let him pivot.
“It started with a pain in my abdomen,” he said. Lit a cigarette. “Now I can’t really eat.”
“What the hell, Philip?”
“Don’t know. Don’t have insurance.”
From down on the streets, a semi backed its way onto the flat surface of a loading dock, heart monitor beeping.
“Does it still hurt?” I asked.
“A lot.”
The husband popped his head through the window. Asked if that was all we were going to eat.
He didn’t wait for an answer.
We shared another cigarette instead, and our tenured professor was back in a flash to tell us what he thought of that.
***
By day two, efficiency had us worrying about our paycheck.
It looked as though the job might get done as early as third go-around, midmorning.
We broke for lunch, ate nothing, then returned with a renewed pledge to listen to every last anecdote, memory and nostalgic scolding the boomers had to offer.
Their egos allowed us to coast through the afternoon, rollers at our sides as we leaned against ladders, nodded in tandem, and asked if we could hear that Bob Dylan CD just one more time.
Masking my pain was eas
ier than it was for Philip.
Managed to stretch things down to the wire, day three.
Philip and I stood outside, painted walls drying within. The cumulative effect of one dollar less scrawled across Citibank checks. Memo in the bottom left reading, For A Job Well Done, capped with an off-center peace sign.
I lit a cigarette. “So, where to, Philip?”
He smiled. It turned into a grimace, then another reluctant cover up. “Think I’ll hit the bank tomorrow.”
“Want to grab a beer with me? Got a bartender uptown owes me a few drinks on a lucky bet.”
Philip sighed. “I just want to go home.”
“Thanks for not making something up.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Go to a doctor, will you?”
“I can’t.”
I gave him a cigarette for the walk, and said goodbye.
***
Sat by myself at The Bishop for a couple of cocktails.
Finley and Shane stood behind the bar, topping me off. Laughing at some joke they thought I had cracked.
Had another job already lined up, and with that kind of luck, I had to believe Philip could pull through.
My comps took me through closing time.
I tipped the standard amount, plus parts and labor.
***
Our final gig was minus yet another dollar at the hands of a mid-fifties mess, carbon copy of our previous employers. Only difference was, she didn’t bother with ambiguities. Her orders were sharp, barked from snarling, soured lips. Nothing left to satisfy her, no turning back. Her memories weren’t melancholy retrospectives of what was. She had packed them all into a resentful little suitcase, carried them over into this modern world where nothing made sense, unpacking them at random to remind us that every last thing we did was wrong. And all that was wrong was our responsibility.
“I said, three feet to the left,” she would sigh, exasperated. “I don’t see what’s so hard about this. You…” A tendril was sent in Philip’s direction. “Don’t act like this is the heaviest load you’ve ever had to lift. You wouldn’t believe the weight we had to carry when we were your age.”
Philip and I would do as we were told.
And Philip was doing everything he could. Doing fine by any other set of standards. But whatever had taken hold of him was nesting, metastasized to every last part of his body. Silent sweat and melted wax. Eyes bloodshot, fingernails turning yellow. Powering through every motion of his roller, quietly humming classic rock as he inched his way along the walls of that priceless downtown loft.