by Eric Mattys
The man with the sign keeps his gaze at the passing cars and says, “I’ve already heard your speech. Blah blah blah. You’re a pimple on the face of society, a walking pocket of filth or whatever. Clean up your act. Get a job. I’ve heard it all before, alright.”
Doobie blinks and stares at the man.
The man with the sign sighs still not looking at Doobie. “I got a job for you; it starts with ‘b’ and ends with ‘low me.’ Get me a beer or get the hell outta here. You’re blocking my angle.”
This thirsty man must be in conversation with some other unseen person. Doobie says, “I don’t have a beer, and I don’t know what a ‘below me’ is.”
The man holding the sign finally looks at Doobie and says slowly, “Eh. Nobody expects real answers from me anymore. What’s with the hospital get up?”
Doobie scratches his side. “That’s why I was asking about the sign. Any ideas where I might acquire some clothes or shoes or at least some cardboard and a pen so I might communicate with the driving folks in their cars, as you are doing?”
“Hell.” The man holding the sign sighs. “I got an old pair a pants and a dirty undershirt at the bottom of my cart there. Don’t smell too good, but they’ll keep you from getting pinched. Better than all that hospital crap at least. I spent some time in a hospital, and I hated that place just as much as prison. I’d probably never get around to washing that stuff anyway. Just take it.” The man with the sign resumes his glare at the passing traffic. “But keep movin’. Nobody gives to bums workin’ together.”
Doobie reaches under a blanket covering a grocery basket with a sleeping bag and towels and toilet paper and Planter’s nuts. He reaches past the sleeping bag and finds a damp pair of jeans and a shirt. “Thanks.”
“Homeless shelter is about twenty blocks up. Might have luck with shoes there. Don’t let’em catch you, old-timer.”
Doobie puts on the shirt first; it smells like mustard and vomit. Doobie chooses not to bring the jeans anywhere near his face. They’re stiff from layers of dust and grease, but they fit.
14
Mumbai Mack
The scent of Terese’s freshly baked brownies veils the musty, inherited-furniture smell of the basement apartment. Terese places the last set of brownies in her tupperware container, about ready to make a call to the cab service. Mew reads while Max stomps out a few of the ants he missed under the desk. Max stands up proudly, believing he’s filled his ant-killing quota for the day, and thumps his head on the low ceiling.
Terese calls the taxi company. In this city of car-huggers and suburban homes with tiny backyards emulating wide open spaces, the taxis stick to the main drags.
After ringing several times a voice with an Indian accent says, “Hey, thank you for calling Hira’s Taxi Service. Please hold. Oprah is on the other line.”
“Wait. Neal. It’s me, Ter—” Terese sighs as some jazzy-fresh Kenny G hold music hums over the line. Some people never change. He’s done this ever since Terese met him in college. Usually people outgrow pointless fibbing at a certain point. Neal is not usual people.
The music stops and Neal drops the Indian accent. “Terese?”
Without cracking a smile, Terese asks. “How’s Oprah.”
Neal chuckles. “It wasn’t actually Oprah.”
Terese rolls her eyes. “I know it wasn’t actually Oprah.”
“It was Oprah’s people, though. She’s going to be in town this week. Did you know that?”
“Whatever you say, Neal.”
“Seriously. She’s doing shows here all next week. I’m helping her staff coordinate transportation.”
“No offense, Neal. Normally, I would acknowledge and play along with all your little fantasies, but I’m kind of in a hurry. Can you come over here and we can talk about Oprah on the way?”
“Fine. I’ll be right over.”
“Thanks.”
Neal and Terese went to OU together. Neal studied business; Terese never knew what that meant. He grew up around the world, but when asked, he claimed India as his homeland. His real first name was Nahil, but he thrived on his Americanization. He loved America’s cars, women, economy, and, most of all, business.
Terese remembered the first time Neal showed her his dorm room. His boombox consumed most of the space on his desk. He frequently left the volume all the way up, even when he left his room to remind the dorm residents of his presence or lack thereof. His first question to her in highly Americanized English was “Do you like rap?”
She looked up in thought and said, “Sometimes.”
He said, “You have to check this out.” He put on a song without any immediate lyrics, with synthetic drums, a sampled sitar, and lush female vocals cooing in a language Terese didn’t know. The only personal pieces of furniture in Neal’s dorm were a leather executive chair and a diffused light lamp with a dimmer, which he claimed provided ambiance. He sat with his elbows resting on the armrests, fingertips pressed pretentiously together as he rapped.
“It’s the Mumbai Mack warmin’ up the wax
Tellin’ you otha sucka’s ‘bout the skillz ya lack.
I got the girlies and the gold and my money for free
Cuz when you run I don’t run from the powers that be
And when you sleep I just rock most intelligently
So sitya’self down and take a lesson from me.”
The Indian woman’s voice rang out again over the boombox and Neal spun around in his chair during his rapping interlude. Terese just laughed. She hoped the rap was over, but as soon as the Indian woman’s voice stopped, Neal began rapping once more.
“Woke up from a night of not knowin’ a thing
Look left and in my bed is a girl with a ring.
She’s sleepin’ still so I got some time
To ax myself is she yours or mine?
She slept with me so it’s plain to see
Your lady friend was a sexin’ me
Now you ax yourself how it came to be.
Neal is the greatest most definitely.”
Terese shook her head, walked over to the boombox and turned it off
“Night started off all slow and legit
Then homie came with some chronic shit.
Hey. Hey, I’m rapping here.”
Terese shook her head. “No. You’re just embarrassing yourself.”
“I don’t need a beat.” Neal pressed on undeterred. “And when I took a hit my mind went skip… skip… Don’t skip the… dammit.” Neal threw his arms up in the air. “I do need a beat for that part because it sounds like the record skips. It’s the best part. Why did you do that?”
Terese nodded emphatically. “Because I feel sorry for you.”
“What are you talking about? I sound just like the rappers. It’s fun.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I feel sorry for them, too.”
“Why?”
“Because most of it isn’t real.”
Neal shook his head. “It’s as real as I make it. It was real for Biggie and Tupac.”
“You’re not Biggie nor Tupac.”
Neal pleaded with an upward facing palm. “C’mon. It’s fun. Everybody else likes my rapping. You’re the first person to ever cut off the music.”
“Just because everybody likes it doesn’t mean it’s real, or good for that matter.”
“Yeah it does. The point is to entertain; I’m entertaining.”
“That kind of thinking lowers the quality of all creative acts.”
“What?”
“Because entertainment has no direction, no final destination. It’s easy and saccharine. It requires no thought, and any creative, artistic endeavor should aim to provoke thought.”
“So are you the sole member of the thought police then? Judge and jury? Are you going to round up all the ent
ertainers who don’t provoke thought in their audiences? What I love about the USA is that anybody’s opinion counts.”
“Neal, there has to be some kind of standard. Some way that we can agree on the importance or validity of a creative work.”
“No. There doesn’t. You have your standard, and I have mine.”
“Neal, you’re smart. I know you are because you brag about your scholarship every chance you get. And even with all your brains, what is it you decide to rap about? The exact same thing that everyone else raps about: money and girls. Does that really qualify as good?”
“If I get rich off of it, it does.”
Terese sighed. “Why don’t you try harder?”
“Why would I try harder if I’m rewarded the same way, or more even, for less effort?”
“Why do you require a reward?”
“Why would I work for free? Not even an animal does that.”
“What if your work was your reward?”
“All I asked was if you liked rap music, Terese. You could’ve just said you didn’t.”
“I like art. Your mimicry is not art.”
Neal asked her out the next day and Terese entertained the idea until she overheard him talking to his roommate about how many freshmen he could hook up with in the first semester; he claimed eleven freshmen girls, and that was before Thanksgiving break. So gross. She overlooked his self-aggrandizement and enjoyed many more debates in which he failed to convince her of the quality of his rhymes, and she failed to alter his opinion about art’s role in society.
Neal arrives in his taxi a few minutes later in the alley behind their basement apartment. They share a desolate backyard with the upstairs tenants with whom they never mingle due to the sectioned design of the house. Mounds of gray, dusty dirt create drifting clouds as they traverse the backyard. Shade from eighty-year-old trees make the climate in the backyard acceptable in the summer, but with the leaves gone, the sun breaks through to provide some warmth. The lack of well-kept yards in their neighborhood comforts the three friends because it is one less detail to fritter over, one less competitive proving ground of success, one less waste of time, energy, and resources. In their neighborhood, homeowners’ aesthetics take no priority because no one owns their home.
With the taxi still running, Neal holds the door open for Terese. As soon as she enters, he runs around to the driver’s side saying over his shoulder, “I trust you can close the door yourself this time. Right, Max?”
Max shakes his head at the joke referencing a night at the bars they all shared together a few weeks ago.
15
A Night on the Town
After a second beer, Mew asked, “Where do rich people come from?” The wind blew through the breezeway of Lo-Do Bar and Grill’s open rooftop. A variety of hairsprays, perfumes, and aftershaves wafted with the breeze. Terese, Mew, Max, and Neal came for the view of Denver and the distant mountains as the sun set on the end of summer.
Mew hated this bar. No one knew the bartenders. Drinks were over-priced and intended for the recent sorority and fraternity grads convincing themselves the party would never end. Everyone looked corporate, wearing those trendy button-up shirts with vertical lines, wrinkle-free and stuffed with personally-trained muscles. The women flitted in short dresses showing the smoothness of shaved, carmelized legs—no telling if their tint came from the sun, a tanning bed, or a can. They looked bad when they danced. The kind of bad that made you rethink your own go-to dance moves. He came for his friends.
Terese sighed and rested her head on her hand with her elbow on the table and replied, “Well Mew, when a rich man loves a rich woman…”
Mew widened his eyes and said, “Just look, Terese. We’re surrounded. We’ll be outbred in a generation. Imagine a majority of only-children so self-centered and lacking grit that there are more Wall Street bankers, psychiatrists, and drug dealers than there are construction workers, farmers, and engineers. And there’s no place for these two groups of people to interact.”
Terese shrugged and sipped her beer.
Mew continued, “Bars and booze are supposed to be the midpoint of the rich and poor. The great equalizer…”
Terese closed one eye and scrunched up the same side of her face. “That’s education, actually, but I get what you mean. Drunk rich people and drunk poor people can relate to each other better than sober rich people and sober poor people.”
“But no one here looks different. No one here looks working class.”
Neal shook his head and frowned. “Why would anyone want to look working class? The lower class dresses up and the upper class dresses down. What’s wrong with that? No one minds the good-looking midsection of middle America.”
Mew guffawed. “I mind. The mid-section of middle America makes me think of all those people who get their stomachs stapled or those who can’t afford to get their stomachs stapled. No one here knows themselves; they just know they like to drink. They’re just dressed up the way they’re supposed to be. No one here can identify themselves as unique because everyone has bought and sold themselves so many times over to some statistically calculated prime market. They’re all working off the same data and it results in this complete lack of identity. It’s so automatic they don’t even know it.”
Terese sucked her teeth. “You’re just intimidated because you don’t look like everyone else here.”
Mew raised his eyebrows. “You’re right. I refrain from plastic surgery. Tanning salons waste electricity. Gyms are for narcissists. I live in a single pair of jeans at a time, and I never buy new.” He pointed to his Jimi Hendrix t-shirt. “I’ve had this shirt since the tenth grade. This is my freak flag, my non-verbal communication that says, ‘I’m not a part of this.’” Mew took a breath and sipped his beer looking out at the crowd for a second before looking back to Terese. “Not like you fit in either.”
Terese wore a long skirt made up of uniquely-sized patches all with earth tone colors: navy, burgundy, tan, and blue denim. None of the patches shared the same print; some prints were flowers while others were from old army uniforms or the unworn part of an old pair of jeans. She made the skirt herself. “Right, but I’m not the one complaining.”
“I’m not complaining about the way that I look. I’m complaining—”
Neal interjected, “You’re complaining because everyone else doesn’t have a moral dilemma every time they go out.”
Mew shook his head. “That’s not—”
Max pointed a finger at Mew. “You love this place because it reaffirms how unique you are.”
“No.” Mew looked at the city skyline. “It’s just boring and… sad.”
Neal rolled his eyes. “Only boring people get bored. Go get another drink, Mew, and get one for me, too.”
Mew shook his head, got up, and walked to the bar. While waiting in line, he watched a slick group of guys talking to a group of girls. He could not resist doing a little interpretive dialogue of the situation in his head.
Guys (in a strange baritone-on-steroids coagulation of slurred words): A hey hey. Nice shoes. Are you tired? Are your pants shiny? Did it hurt? Do you come here often? What’s your astrological sign?
Girls (in a high-pitched and dissonant robotic chorus): A hee hee hee. We have boobs. A hee hee. Her dress is pink while my dress is blue. A hee.
Guys (in a “how was your day?” intonation but still with the semi-intoxicated hypermasculine vibrato): We should fuck. You’ve been running through my head all day. Because I can see myself in those pants. Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?
Girls (pouting lips occasionally): A hee hee hee. You should buy us drinks. A hee hee. Chicks before dicks. A hee. We’re so feminist.
Guys: Boinkin’. Assuagin’ the sausage. Testin’ the tubes. Drillin’ for pleasure in the holey wildlife preserve. Puttin’ your flag on the moon, sexy style. Shakin’ hands na
ked. Scorin’. Sayin’ nice to meet ya without any words. You buyin’ and me sellin’. Sendin’ the soldier down the foxhole. Bumpin’ uglies. Puttin’ my ramalama ding dong in your shimshimila shooha repeatedly until satiated. When do we start?
Girls: A hee hee hee. You’re cute. A hee hee. Thanks for the drink. A hee. How many babies can you feed? A hee hee. Sex and the City. A hee hee. Pretty things. A hee. I’m like Samantha and she’s like Miranda. A hee hee. I want men to pay attention to me the way that my daddy didn’t. Why don’t men take me seriously?
Guys: I’ll seriously give you a deep dickin’.
The part that irritated Mew the most was that stupidity worked. Like a bee going to flower after flower, like a lab rat trying every button until it gets its reward, like a salesman making call after call feigning friendship for their own ends, their repeated, cheesy pick-up lines eventually yielded a connection. But what good is a connection if it feels that empty? Anybody could say a cheesy pick-up line or hormone-driven compliment, and if it worked once, would it work again for the next dude with a cute smile?
A divine or mystical connection that defied explanation and traditional mating rituals would be ideal. Maybe not divine or mystical; those look dumb from the outside. To fall into conversation and then love, and not so much succumb to sexual desire, but instead find the one who might match it. But how to find this person when the pursuit seemed so pedestrian, so cheap?
The bartender handed Mew a gin-and-tonic and a rum-and-coke. If it’s a bad idea to buy useless items, is it bad to buy alcoholic drinks? He looked at the rum-and-coke after a sip. It’s useful to feel good, to forget discontentment, to enjoy the company of people with whom you might normally disagree, to restore faith that the world might still surprise you. Because the drink might make you carefree enough to fall into the right conversation. Mew walked back to the table and set the gin-and-tonic in front of Neal.