Good Kings Bad Kings

by Susan Nussbaum

  Mia’s been living here since she was eleven. She has CP, which stands for cerebral palsy. She’s got a pretty big Spanish accent. I didn’t get every word at first, but now I understand everything the first time she says it. She needs a electric wheelchair but she only has a crappy manual one. For a while she didn’t even have the manual chair and they made her lie in her bed all day. Then finally they got her this chair she’s in now. One of the footrests is broken and the seat’s too big and too wide. She fell out once. And ever since that time, they strap her into it, and she thinks it makes her look like a baby. I don’t think it makes her look like a baby. I don’t even notice it. But that’s women. They worry about how they look.

  And she can’t see too good. She can’t barely see the board and she has to hold a paper up practically to her face.

  I don’t care about any of that. She’s my hot Mexican mama and I love her and she loves me.

  My dad got my electric chair from his insurance. My dad is cool. He comes to see me here. When I was born I had a tumor in my back. The doctor took it out but I can’t walk now or move my arms all the way ’cause of the tumor. It’s a good thing they took my tumor out ’cause I might’ve died.

  Nobody comes to see Mia, so when my dad comes to see me he brings her stuff. One time he brought her a sweater and one time he brought her a blanket. Mia got took away from her family. She talks about them like how she misses them and they miss her but they never came here once since she was eleven years old. She says they can’t visit ’cause something I forget what. She has scars on her arms from before. I knew this guy once, Eric Morales, he was my friend in seventh grade and he had scars the same as Mia’s scars and his scars was from cigarettes. Like cigarettes getting put out on him. I called him the Human Ashtray one time in front of my dad and my dad got real mad at me. I didn’t know it was a mean thing to say. I asked Mia about her arm scars once. We wasn’t even boyfriend and girlfriend yet. She said she didn’t remember but I’m pretty sure it was cigarettes.

  They told my dad I’m retarded. They told him first at regular school and then when I moved in here. My dad said that’s just a word they use that means I got a different way of learning stuff. That’s the way I think of it because I sure don’t feel retarded. My friend Ryan’s retarded and I asked him if he feels retarded and he said no. So I guess I am but I don’t notice it. And I look normal except for not walking and my arms not working perfect. From the tumor.

  Most people here don’t get too many visitors. Some of them got took away from their parents like Mia. Some of them got moms. Bernard has a mom and brothers and sisters who come to pick him up and take him home the whole weekend sometimes. His dad’s in jail. I ain’t seen my mom but one time in the seven whole years I been here. I don’t give a shit. I wouldn’t’ve met Mia if I never came here.

  Ricky Hernandez

  There’s one of those heavy rains going on, typical nutsoid Chicago weather. But the rain is coming off the buildings in sheets and it looks like midnight out there even though it’s only, uh, six o’clock. I’m done for the day but I think about that new secretary in a wheelchair and how she’s gonna get home in all this. Because I’ve seen her out at that bus stop sometimes. So I knock on her door and I ask her does she need a ride. She’s in the middle of putting her coat on anyway. I want to ask her does she need help with that, but who knows, you know, maybe she could take that the wrong way. She’s doing pretty good putting it on for herself. Takes her a while but gives me a chance to look. I’ve seen her around but more from at a distance. She’s good looking. She’s got long bangs that she hasta keep sticking behind her ears, and skin without a mark on it. Real smooth. But anyway, she’s like, “You sure it wouldn’t be an inconvenience?” and I say I wouldn’t ask you if it was. She says, “I was so worried about getting soaked. My chair would squeak for a week.” Then we go outside and I tell her to wait under the awning till I pull the bus around. Which I do, and I’m locking her chair down inside the bus and I look up at her because I’m down on my knees with the tie-downs and she gives me a big smile. Nice. Then off we go.

  She lives north, up by Ashland and Wellington. I say, “How are you liking it here at the center?” She says she’s real happy to have a job. She says how long have I been working there and I tell her a year. She says, “Oh,” and do I like it. I say, “Yeah, this is the best job I ever had. I like helping people. I like being a part of the solution.” She doesn’t say anything, so I go, “I used to drive a cab. What a racket that is. Those owners got you in a stranglehold. You want to make a dime, you better be able to work round that clock, ’cause they got you by the balls till you pay them the rent for the car plus you pay the gas, or something goes wrong with the car, that’s coming outta your pocket. You know, you think, ‘Oh, here’s a good way to pick up some cash,’ right? You know? I’ll be a cabbie, right?” What a load a crap that is. Who do these guys think they are? Sorry for the language.”

  She says, “No problem. I’m comfortable with profanity.” That struck me as hilarious the way she says that: “I’m comfortable with profanity.”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” I say. “I didn’t hate the job. I’m a people person. I enjoyed hearing the fare’s opinions, except for the real idiots.”

  She says, “How can you tell a real idiot?” So I say, “I give up. How?” She says, “No, I mean, I’m asking. What did a person act like when they were being—”

  “Oh yeah, yeah, no, no, I got you. Well, besides me,” I say, “let’s see. You know, the people who get into the cab and they’re coming all over themselves because why? Because they got a cabbie who ain’t Arab or whatever. This is what gets me. They go on their little ‘towel head’ or whatever rant, and all the time they’re talking to a Puerto Rican. It’s the only time I ever knew being a Rican made me so lucky. But okay, I did pick up a lotta nice folks too. All kinds. I had lawyers, doctors, actors, like once I picked up Regis Philbin. Real nice guy. I picked up deaf people who were speaking sign language to each other. People in chairs. I just couldn’t make a living at it.” When I’m nervous I talk too much.

  She says, “Yeah, it’s one of those jobs where you have a weird intimacy with a total stranger until you drop them off and never see them again.”

  “Yeah, that’s it. It’s like Taxicab Confessions. You hit it on the head. You ever see that show?”

  She’s gotta be, I don’t know, late thirties? Kinda baggy clothes, like she’s embarrassed of her body. A lotta women think that baggy fashion looks good on them. Most men, if you’re like me, you want to see the outline, and you don’t get that with baggy clothes.

  I like to see the body. I like to see the curves. I don’t care what it is, you know? Big ass? I like that. Women are so embarrassed about their asses. Especially white women. They don’t want you to see the meat. I knew this girl, she’d be backing away from the bed just so I didn’t think she had a fat ass. I told her, “Come on! I wanna see.”

  I’ve been attracted to many different women, like, there’s no pattern to it that I can tell. My ex, for example, did not have big tits, but the rest of her body was unbelievable. Slim waist and big ass. She was hot.

  I say, “It’s good for the kids to have you around. They all want your wheelchair.”

  “I know. So few of them have power chairs. What’s up with that?”

  “Yeah, I don’t know, I never really thought about it. But you’re right.”

  “Maybe they’re afraid that if all the kids had power wheelchairs and could move on their own, ILLC would turn into a giant crip demolition derby.”

  “Oh, man. That would be so cool.” We laughed at that, which was a little icebreaker.

  She says, “No, I’m serious though. The reason Mrs. Phoebe won’t give out power chairs is because power chairs would give the kids more autonomy. Keeping them immobile makes it easier on the staff.”

  “Yeah. I can see that. I just never heard it put like that.”

  She doesn’t wear heavy mak
eup or perfume. I agree with her there. Hold all that makeup because it just looks fake anyway. I had a girlfriend once and I’d say to her, “Hey, you don’t need all that. You look good.” She was addicted to the stuff, I mean, she couldn’t pass a lipstick in a window on the street but she had to stop and check it out. Every time I walked into her bathroom she had more crap in there. That was the only girl I ever really fought with. I mean physically fought with. Not over the makeup but other issues. She was jealous. And I wasn’t even doing anything, but she’d get mad—really like screaming, calling names, if my cell rang and it was a female name and she didn’t know who it was. One day she hauled off and hit me, and I hit her back. Hey, I was seeing stars offa that smack, so I gave it back to her. Not hard, you know, I know I’m stronger. It was more reflex, you know? And I picked up my jacket and walked out her door. And I remember this—I’m walking out the door, and I’m thinking, “That’s it. I will never see this person again.”

  A big lightning strikes just then over the lake and the rain really comes down.

  She says, “Wow, the water looks like it’s boiling,” and I say, “Yeah, the rain hitting it kinda makes it look like that.”

  She says, “I never would’ve made it home in all this. My chair would be drowned, you know? I’d be a wreck. It’s not too much out of your way, I hope.”

  “No, it’s fine. I like driving.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Me?” I say. “I live southwest. Not too far from the center.”

  “Oh no. You’ll have to turn around and double back. This is cra—”

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s no big deal.”

  “You’re really saving me.”

  “It’s my pleasure. I don’t mind.”

  By the time we pull up to her place, things have slacked off. Pouring down buckets one minute, a little sprinkle the next. I go to take the tie-downs off her chair. I’m hoping she’ll give me one of those smiles again. I ask her, “You like the neighborhood here?”

  “Yeah. I like the trees and it’s quiet for a neighborhood in the middle of the city. There are some nice restaurants. A lot of ethnic—variety . . .”

  “Like what do they have?”

  “Thai, Peruvian, Ethiopian.”

  “All in the same neighborhood? My neighborhood has one thing and that’s the Krispy Kreme. But I’ll have to try that Ethiopian. What is that—like what? I’ll walk you to your door,” I say.

  “No, you don’t have to.”

  “I have an umbrella I keep in here. Come on.”

  “Well, okay,” she says. “It’s spicy. And hot. Ethiopian food. Sort of in the neighborhood of Indian tastewise. India’s not too far from Africa, so . . . well, actually it is kind of far. Across this big sea, so I guess that was . . . not a good theory about the food.”

  We’re standing at the entrance to the building and I’m like shaking her hand—not really shaking ’cause her hand doesn’t have much of a grip. But she stuck it out there for me to shake, so hey. She’s fine with it, so I’m fine with it. I look at her little hand in my big paw and then I look back at her face and she’s staring at me. I get a little rush, you know?

  She says, “So they let you drive home in the company car. Not too shabby.”

  “Yeah, well, not exactly. I’m gonna drop it off back there at ILLC. I’m the guy with the black Neon in the parking lot. I’m the peon with the Neon.”

  “You have to stop back there too? Oh no, the least I could do is keep you company on your drive back.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Come on, hop back in.” Then we had another little chuckle. “Nah, I’m fine. I got a Metallica jam in the bus. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow. Nice.

  Jimmie Kendrick

  You couldn’t tell by looking at me I was homeless. I mean, I was clean, okay? And I carried my stuff in my duffel bag, slung over my shoulder. It’s not like I was dragging a loaded shopping cart. Linda let me come in every few mornings to shower and wash out my clothes, and then I was out in the streets again. She had to be out of there early to get to work. Linda’s a girl I met back when I first got to New York. There wasn’t anything between us. Nothing romantic. She was just a good person. Sometimes I’d get a meal there too. An egg or a piece of toast. I didn’t wanna ask her, but if she offered, hey. I mean, Linda had her own problems. She had two kids back in North Carolina and she was trying to work her way back to them and she was basically on a shoestring her own self. Her place was—you wouldn’t believe how small a place people would pay money for there. Her place was like two closets put together. I wouldn’t even ask her could I leave my duffel bag there because I felt guilty taking up even that little space. The shower in her place was like—you didn’t want to bring the soap into the shower with you. You couldn’t barely bend an arm up to wash your hair.

  Linda gave me a dollar once or twice, but I would never ask her. If she wanted to give it I wouldn’t turn it down, but I would never ask. Usually I bought a bag of Doritos. You can make a bag of Doritos last—whew, I mean, I could make that little bag last me through the day. Another thing I’d do is you can buy those little bags of cookies two for a dollar. A small pack of Louis Rich turkey hot dogs—also a dollar.

  I wouldn’t panhandle. You know what I’d do? I’d find money. You can actually find a quarter here or there, even a dollar. Keep your glance downward. I also found subway passes on the ground. They’d drop out of folk’s pockets and I’d pick them up, see if they had any money left on them. But like I say, to look at me, you wouldn’t know. But I was. Dead, freaking homeless.

  I stayed on the train most nights. It was crazy. It was just . . . bad. I mean, I’m a big woman. I’m big, I’ve always been big, and by big I mean I’m tall, I got a lot of muscle on me, I got weight—or I had weight—but I know how to handle myself. I know how to carry myself and I know how to defend myself. But I don’t ever have to defend myself because nobody wants to start anything up with me.

  So I don’t fear for my safety. But I do sometimes fear for other people’s safety. Like I’m not afraid of getting shot, just other people getting shot. My mom used to say, “Oh yeah, you think nothing is going to happen to you because ‘I’m Jimmie Kendrick.’ ” But I don’t know. I just feel that way.

  I protected a young tranny once when she was about to get a beat-down. Just stepped in and took the blow, gave the guy a couple headbangs and that was that. I don’t think I was more than fourteen at the time. It’s just instinct, you know? I see a man beating a woman, I just feel prepared to deal with whatever might happen. Bar fights—I broke up so many of them, you just don’t know. I broke up a fight in the middle of a conversation I was having once. Two men. Reached over and poom poom! Went right back to the conversation. That’s been me for as long as I can remember.

  But the things you see when you’re on the streets. I mean, I was in this little fast-food kind of place, not one of the big chains, but a mom-and-pop dealie. We’re deep in the hood now. Like you can get a dog and some fries for sixty-nine cents. Okay. Guy comes in, goes over to the guy at the counter. There’s this Plexiglas partition, right? Like you see at the movie theater where you slide your money under the cutout and they slide you back your ticket. Anyway, this guy, he goes up to the counter, he says, “He didn’t get his salad.”

  I’m thinking, “Hmm, they don’t have any salad.” This is not the kind of place you go if you want a salad. So the guy behind the counter goes away, comes back in a hot second, slides—I kid you not—a brown paper bag under the cutout, and the other guy leaves.

  And these are not black people! Just for the record. They’re Puerto Rican.

  But it’s not over. A few minutes later, the same guy comes back in, goes to the counter guy, says, “He said you forgot his sauce.” I’m like, “What the hell?” So another brown bag comes sliding through the cutout—this one must have that special sauce in it. Guy takes the bag and slides a fifty back to the counter guy. Who pockets the cash. />
  That’s just the free-enterprising spirit in the hood. Salad sauce. I’m pretty sure Paul Newman doesn’t have a line of that.

  So how did I get to that point, you might be asking yourself. I know because I asked myself that same question. Well, okay. Here’s the deal. I always could sing. I don’t know. I just—I mean, I can sing, you know? I got a set of pipes on me. I don’t mean to brag or sound full of myself, but—it’s just something I can do. What can I tell you? It’s just a gift. I believe the gift is from God, but you can believe what you want. And that’s what took me there to New York City.

  I had met a woman after a gig one night, here in Chicago. I sing with a band here. All-lesbian band. Anyway, this woman’s name was Daphne. She said she was a record producer, she wanted to rep me, she believed she could really, like, introduce me to some important people. She said I could live with her as long as I needed. She had a place in Brooklyn. She was a stud herself, so I knew it wasn’t a sexual thing, and I asked around and she checked out.

  So I packed my things and I moved out to New York. I found my way to Brooklyn and moved in with Daphne. The deal was, she was going to finish up her current project, soon as that was done she’d book the studio time and we’d make a CD. Meantime, I would do some clubs, get introduced around, that kind of thing.

  Daphne put me up but she didn’t feed me. Problem was, when I had pulled up stakes in Chicago, I had, like, nothing. I had been working pretty much to pay the rent and the bills at that time. It wasn’t like I had money piled up in the bank. I had enough for my plane ticket and, like, maybe a week? Two weeks? I figured, Daphne’s hooked up, she’s going to get me enough gigs in clubs or whatever to get me through. Yeah, right. The gigs I did get were, like, every couple months. I got no work singing backup for other artists, which she said she was going to set up. All I had in my pocket after the first month was my keys and my ID. And a dead cell phone. So the lack-of-food issue started up way before the homeless issue.