Exit Nothing

by KUBOA

Philadelphia is like Kafka. Philadelphia is like Burroughs. I was in love with her once but I couldn’t figure her out. I was inside her but I couldn’t make her come. Philadelphia is a frigid city.

  You’re walking down the sidewalk, hand in pocket, passing another hoagie shop or pizza joint. Someone passes you. No eye contact. You look up at the sky, down at your shoes; you look at your fingers and chew your fingernails. And the car horns honk in stereo. Someone sticks his head out of his car window so that he can better shout at the car in front of him. Walk, man, just walk. Ignore the strange sounds. It’s cold outside but the sidewalk seems to radiate heat. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t get too close. You’re getting too close.

  Philadelphia. A city for the alienated, a city gone insane. She was my city, my lover.

  I was only able to live inside her for six months. After I left Kaye, I had planned on staying there permanently. But things changed. I spent my first month there doing nothing, not really looking hard for work. I arrived in the city with about five hundred dollars and ended up spending it all, plus maxing out my credit cards, in the first month. Then it was time to look seriously for a job.

  When I did find work, it was in a little newsstand in South Philly, next to Tony Luke’s cheesesteak diner. It was a kind of dream job. For most of the day, I didn’t do any work at all, just read novels and wrote in my notebooks. Only occasionally would I have to punch some lottery numbers or sell some cigarettes or a porno magazine.

  I worked for an Indian guy named Rass. He was almost thirty, just a few years older than me. Besides owning the newsstand, Rass sold cheap electronics through eBay. He needed someone to look after the newsstand while he worked on his internet business. I was happy to help.

  Ol’ boss man Rass was paranoid. It was amusing to work with him. Nearly every day, after I arrived at about noon or so, Rass would accuse me of stealing something during my last shift.

  “You don’t have to steal porno videos. You borrow them if you want.”

  “I didn’t steal anything, Rass.”

  I was pretty sloppy when I counted inventory at the end of the day. The next morning, Rass would always recount the stuff anyway, so I was never sure why I had to do inventory at all. When I arrived for my shift, I would often see Rass bent over the computer desk, erasing numbers wildly and penciling new ones in. He was obsessive about his inventory, but he could never get it right.

  “You took five packs of cigarettes yesterday! Five packs. What you do with five packs of cigarettes? Re-sell them? I tell you all the time man you can have cigarettes at wholesale cost. And still you steal from me!”

  “No I didn’t.”

  “Then where did they go? Eh? Five packs of cigarettes missing. I count three time! You count yourself if you think I’m lying. I’d better take this out your pay. You’re no good, man. You’re lazy and you steal from me. I should fire you. It’s not worth it, all this stuff I lose with you.”

  “Do I need to start looking for another job?”

  “No, no. Don’t do that. You’re the best help I’ve had ever. But you steal from me and the customers complain you’re unfriendly. Did you open an hour late on Wednesday?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “The subway was closed and I had to take the bus. I got on the wrong one and got lost. Sorry, man.”

  “Oh. OK, fine. You come in an hour early tomorrow. I want to work on eBay.”

  Despite having to deal with Rass’s moods, the job was great. I was only paid seven dollars an hour but Rass paid me in cash, so the government never got their cut. Which suited me just fine. Plus the newsstand was closed on weekends, so I had plenty of time to go to music shows or plays or poetry readings. Or to just walk around the city, which I liked very much.

  One hot afternoon in late July, an old man and woman approached the newsstand. I put my copy of Tropic of Cancer down and got up from the computer desk. I opened up the little sliding-glass window, prepared to punch some lottery numbers. But they weren’t there for the lottery.

  “Hi,” I said. “What can I get for you?”

  “Is Rass here?” the woman asked. She was smiling.

  “No, not right now,” I said. “You want me to leave a message for him?”

  “No, that’s all right,” she said. “We’ll stop by tomorrow. Will he be in tomorrow?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Around eight or so.”

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  I told her. Then she told me her name. “We’re buying the newsstand.”

  Rass had never told me anything about this. Probably to keep me from looking for another job. Fucking bastard, I thought. I was so pissed I could barely talk to the woman any longer. And the old man, bald with a little red sunburn on top of his head, just stood there, smiling like a retard.

  When the couple left, I sat back down in the computer chair. I didn’t pick up my book. I was in no mood to read. I felt like I was being sold. Fuck. If I was going to stay in Philadelphia, I needed to find new work fast. I hardly had any money and the Mad Poet’s rent was coming due. I need four hundred dollars for my half. I didn’t have anywhere near that.

  The day afterward was a Saturday and I was off work. But I couldn’t wait until Monday to talk to Rass. So I called him on my cell phone.

  “Listen,” I said, “some people came by yesterday. They said they were selling the newsstand. Is that true?”

  “No,” Rass said. “It’s not final yet. I don’t even know they’re serious.”

  “Well, when will you know for sure?” I said.

  “We’re signing papers in two week.”

  “Shit,” I said. “So you are selling the newsstand.”

  “Yes.”

  “Damn, man. What about me? What am I supposed to do for work?”

  “Just hold on a while, OK? I have some friends own a 7-11. I can get you a job there no problem.”

  I didn’t really believe him, but I didn’t have much of a choice. I was sure that the job would involve weekends and night work, but it was better than nothing. So on Monday I was back at the newsstand, waiting on word from Rass about when I could start work at his friend’s 7-11. At week’s end, Rass claimed that he hadn’t heard from his friend yet. But not to worry, they would get back to him soon.

  But I did worry. I searched frantically for work. But all of the shit jobs that I was qualified for were already taken by college students. The sandwich shop in the subway station didn’t even have an opening.

  Philadelphia. I was losing time. I didn’t want to be anywhere else but I was being pushed out.

  Philadelphia. Did you realize I was once in love with you? That I still am?

  Philadelphia. West Philadelphia. Baltimore Street. The artists’ houses. The Ethiopian restaurant with a bluegrass bar upstairs.

  Everything Philadelphia.

  Once, the Mad Poet took me to an anarchist coffeeshop on Baltimore Street for an open poetry reading. It was a small space, about the size of a studio apartment and fifteen or so people stuffed themselves inside. The Mad Poet read a poem about hurricane Katrina. Others read political rants. One guy, either incredibly nervous or drug-shaky, stood up and gave us a dry, boring lecture on the evils of Wal-Mart. Said they made people work off the clock, said they locked Mexican cleaning crews in the building overnight. After he was finished, the Mad Poet said, “I gotta shop there sometimes. Sometimes it’s the only place I can afford. I buy my workboots and workshirts there. Anyone else ever shopped at Wal-Mart?”

  I was the only person who raised my hand. But I didn’t quite believe those people who didn’t raise theirs. Nobody? Ever?

  After all the poetry and political rants were over, the organizer of the event, a hefty woman, stood up and made some announcements.

  “There will be an excellent featured poet here next month. He’s just been released from prison and—“

  “This guy,
” the Mad Poet said, “did he actually, you know, do anything to get put in jail?”

  She was somewhat taken aback and it took her a second to respond. “Well,” she said, “I’m not going to pretend that everyone in prison is innocent of any crimes. Still, our criminal justice system is completely racist, classist and sexist. There are better alternatives than sending people to prison.”

  “Yeah but….“

  And so the Mad Poet started to debate with her, proper protocol be damned. I stood up and went outside for a cigarette. I’m a little skittish about this kind of conflict. A girl who was maybe in her early twenties followed me out. She had short red hair and her breath smelled like she had been chewing on an asshole.

  “Can I have a cigarette?” she asked.

  I gave her one.

  “Your friend was a good poet. Well, I couldn’t really understand everything he was saying. I guess it was about Hurricane Katrina? Anyway, he was very enthusiastic.”

  “He’s the last of the great Surrealists,” I said.

  I was halfway through my cigarette when the Mad Poet came out. The girl split as soon as she saw him. I waved at her as she half-walked, half-ran away.

  “Well,” he said, “I’ve been kicked out of there again. Those people take themselves too goddamn seriously, man. Fucking neo-liberal fascists. Ain’t no tricksters allowed in their group. Fuck it, man, let’s get a drink.”

  And so that’s what we did.

  And that was what it was like for that entire summer. There was fun to be had everywhere. Serious fun.

  But the hammer was coming down. I started to feel desperate. I couldn’t live on the Mad Poet’s generosity, though he wouldn’t have minded helping me out for a while. He had helped me out since I had arrived in early March, giving me a room to stay in, food to eat and going easy on me when he asked for rent. No, I was definitely going to have to leave Philadelphia, at least for a while.

  The plan was to go down to Maryland for a while. My dad lived in a small town between D.C. and Baltimore. I would live there and I would get a job and save enough money to get back up to Philadelphia, better prepared to establish myself there. I would be able to look for a decent job. I would have time for it. Because it’s always about Time.

  I dated a sideshow performer named Lenore for a few weeks in late July. One night, we were walking home from a movie and I told her my plan.

  She pushed my arm off her shoulder.

  “Fuck you, man. Why are you giving up?”

  “I’m not giving up. I just can’t find a job. The rent’s coming due. It’s just for a few more months. I’m planning on coming back. I can take the train up here whenever I get the chance. And we can talk on the phone.”

  “No,” she said. “Fuck that. I can’t do it. I’ve tried the long distance thing before. It doesn’t work.”

  “Maryland isn’t that far,” I said.

  “It’s far enough. Look, it’s not that hard. You find a job. Any job. Any shitty job. That’s what you do. You don’t just give up.”

  We walked to the subway station in silence.

  She was right, though. She had been living the Henry Miller life for years, getting by on freelance hair cutting gigs and performing in sideshows every now and then. She lived in a tiny room that was barely big enough for her bed, a bookcase and a small dresser. She knew how she wanted to live and she didn’t worry about Time. There was no future. Fuck the future. For Lenore, life was a series of infinite presents. Her Philadelphia was like Henry Miller’s Paris in Tropic of Cancer. A city of dreamless dreamers. Hadn’t I left Kaye for that exact reason? Wasn’t a life without a future my dream? Of course it was. And yet, it seemed as though I didn’t have the raw mettle for it. I pined for the kind of life Lenore lived. But in the end I was too weak.

  Henry Miller, where art thou?

  But it’s best not to think like that. There is always the abyss to consider.

  I loved Philadelphia, that loud, frigid city. I walked her streets with a backpack full of novels and notebooks. I passed through the bookstores, coffeehouses, the rows of three- or four-story houses where artists, musicians and writers lived communally. I hung out with filmmakers and poets and sideshow folk.

  I loved Philadelphia, West Philadelphia especially.

  I loved Clark Park, about a mile from the Mad Poet’s apartment. Not nearly as crammed with people as Rittenhouse Square in Center City, it was much more cozy. Nobody bothered the homeless people who crashed on benches. There were drum circles underneath the statue of Dickens reading to Little Nell. Always something new for curious eyes to fix themselves onto. I used to sit alone on a bench underneath the shade of a tree, writing in my notebooks or reading Borges or Burroughs. Lovers lay on blankets on the grass, jugglers juggled, someone else played their guitar. On Sunday nights, as soon as it got dark, the fire dancers would come out and give everyone a free show, throwing their flaming batons in the air and dancing in tribal gyrations.

  I miss you, Philadelphia. I miss your whiskey tears. I carried your around with me in my backpack, with my notebooks and pens. You were always a city waiting to be written.

  Philadelphia. Visiting your bars and your arthouse theaters. Listening to bluegrass in that tiny bar above the Ethiopian restaurant.

  I met Walt Whitman in Philadelphia, outside a Kmart shopping center. His bronze head sat atop a pedestal. There was a plaque on the pedestal. Had his birth and death date on it. Did anyone even read the plaque anymore? Did anyone even notice Walt Whitman as he sat there, staring out into traffic? It seemed unlikely to me.

  I was no Walt Whitman. I was no Henry Miller. I was abandoning my dream. I was a failure. I told myself that I would go back. But at the same time I knew I wouldn’t. Philadelphia would always be something I pined for. Perhaps it’s best that she’s pined for.

  I didn’t figure on staying in Maryland. I didn’t figure on meeting Anne. But I did. And Philadelphia slowly disappeared from my view.

  And now, after two years of living in my father’s basement, Anne and I live in a small apartment in the Mount Vernon neighborhood in Baltimore.

  Baltimore is a fun city. Plenty of bookstores and bars. Plenty of stuff for a visionary to get himself into. Baltimore is a playful city. I feel at home here. I feel comfortable. Living in Baltimore isn’t a crisis, as Philadelphia was. But maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m winding down my adventuring for now. I am enjoying breathing normally and slowly taking in all the visions and nightmares. Yes, but I do fall in love with cities. And I am in love with Baltimore. But it’s more subtle than my love for Philadelphia.

  She wasn’t my first love.

  Alien at Home