DDm [OFFICIAL VIDEO] - All About The Benjmins {freestyle}

The following is a Video i recently directed. enjoy and there is more to come...

NEW SHORT STORY BY FUNZITO
THE TAO OF LONESOME

The Tao of Lonesome

The light from the summer sun shines in through my bedroom window. My sun, my natural alarm clock. It fills the only bedroom of my unassuming apartment; caresses my computer desk, flirts with the darkness of the closet, hidden as it is by a door that refuses to shut entirely. The dust particles dance with this shaft of light to a silent symphony of melancholy. Crowding the desk with warm resolve, the dancers find repose on the half eaten chicken salad sandwich and her lover, the final sip of ginger tea. Holding something I haven’t, they shine as a beacon of my incessant loneliness.
An aged laptop resides on my desk teasingly, for its youthful days of functional operation are past tense. The nightstand exists in solitude next to the doorway, facing the desk. It’s only contents being a full ashtray accompanied by a swarm of ashes that variably miss their mark. My bedroom door lies open with the ominous glare of the front door peering through, beckoning me to open it and break free from this self fabricated prison. It stares at me from the opposite side of the room mocking the lonely air that fills this place. Across from the bedroom door is my small library; flanked as it is on either side by discarded garments of recent days passed, garments of days to come, garments of now and this day.
I rise up slightly from the mattress and look around to the other side of the bed as if awaiting a most pleasant revelation. Maybe I got drunker than usual last night and bedded a beautiful stranger. The prospect of finding another body beneath the mass of cloth and blanket tickles my imagination; maybe my life can be described as more than just “sad.” I can even smell her hair again. The memories of the kiss, that addendum to our corporeal entanglement on the barroom dance floor, creep into belated vision. Almost too afraid of what reality is all too eager to reveal, I slowly pull away the bulky crowd of down comforter from the side of the bed unoccupied by myself. To my expected horror I discover the spot to my left as it always is, vacant.
With a deep sigh, I get out of bed and grab my towel from it’s draped position over the spouse of my computer desk, his chair, and make my way to the bathroom to have a shower; the hotter the better. When I was a child I found that burning hot showers can often soothe emotional ailments. This one was no exception. After brushing my teeth I decide on a short breakfast of coffee and cigarettes. Sometimes you have to be in the mood for a meal and after this morning’s fiasco of self-defeating delusion I was in no such mood.
On my way to the elevator the old woman down the hall stops me. “Say, can you get me some cigarettes?” she asks, leaning halfway out of her front door.
“I won’t be back for some hours Ms. Swinton. If you like you can have what’s left of my pack.”
“Oh no baby, I couldn’t do that.”
“It’s really not a problem. Here, I can get another while I’m out.”
“You sure you gonna be alright baby?”
No! “Sure I’ll be fine, here, take them.”
“You are just too sweet.” She says, and hands me a five dollar bill in return. It’d be more trouble to refuse it, so I take the money without protest.
I get to the elevator and call to go down when I hear her door open again. “Hey, you know, my daughter is coming to visit me later this evening, and you are such a nice boy, you should come over tonight and have dinner.”
God No! “Sure I think that’s a wonderful idea, what time should I call?”
“Seven, no nine! Just come on over here at nine.”
“Nine it is Ms. Swinton. I gotta catch this elevator, you take care now ok?”
She says something as I enter the elevator but my nonchalance is deafening. I have eaten at Ms. Swinton’s place before. She is a nice old woman in her late 60’s, short like most women her age and somehow still quite beautiful, in a classic sense. One could tell from looking at her that she was in high demand when she was younger. Quite the commodity, needless to say she is an excellent cook.
Quite honestly I wouldn’t miss her meals for anything, except for the prospect of meeting her daughter. As lonely as I am, I still find the match-making rituals that parents engage their progeny in rather repugnant, especially at this age. Maybe her daughter is as lonely as I am. If that is the case, then reasons as to why best remain a mystery. The last thing I want to find out is that Ms. Swinton gave birth to a Lucasfilm trademark, and now she wants me to procreate with it; that we should get married and populate the planet with little Ewoks. Maybe I wouldn’t have to be a part of Mrs. Swinton’s social experiment if I could just find that girl from the bar last night.
As the elevator doors shut in front of me, the word “suck” slides gently from the right into the word “it!” I push the lobby button and wonder how an elevator can last for so many years without degrading into a pile of rust and dust. The fluorescent lights bounce off the somewhat reflective surface of aluminum lining the elevator walls. The grunge of age has taken over most of the wall-space, where luster may have once resided. The floor is carpeted an ugly pea soup green. The reason for not tearing it up from the floor and setting it ablaze is beyond me.

The giant bloodstain from last year’s murder victim still remained. Her name was Rhea and I knew her quite well as it were. She would come over periodically and have ginger tea and smoke reefer with me. She was Asian. Japanese in all preciseness, petite with her hair cut asymmetrically. Parted on the right it, swung over her forehead and hung lower on the left side of her face, hiding her right eye. Very cute in that way many young Japanese girls are. She majored in botany, though most of our conversations were comprised of philosophical banter. We shared a kiss once but it never went any further than that. I miss her, I liked her. Like most everyone else in my life she disappeared the moment I developed an affinity toward her. Loneliness is a plague that enwraps a man in the emotional darkness that is his consciousness. It follows him incessantly with an appetite for sorrow that’d be best described as insatiable. I digress.
At any rate, she was attending school at AU and was on her way home from a campus party that grisly, fateful night. Some poor soul followed her in and, as the police told it, raped and murdered her before she reached the 17th floor. Every morning I see that stain I can hear the corpulent detective. “Did Rhea ever spend more than a few minutes in your apartment?” The long answer was “yes” so like any self-respecting American over the age of 5, I told them no. They never did catch the guy.

The filthy mottled carpet told tales of the last time I waited to get in the elevator car before vomiting. It was written amidst countless other stories ending with, “so I spit my gum out.” The dead girl’s earring was still cowering in the far left corner next to a crowd of discarded crunch n’ munch. How disgusting, from all of our tax money that’s paid to the Metro PD, they can’t even solve a murder that took place in an elevator, with a closed circuit camera in it. Smart money says that earring is the final clue. As for the crunch n’ munch, it was anyone’s estimate. “The police can suck it,” I thought, as I watched these two choice words part ways to grant me access into the lobby of equal filth.
Someone clearly disliked Crunch n’ Munch because a trail of it ran from the elevator all the way to the lobby entrance; strewn about with much disregard as if lining the baseboards with it were a far better idea than ingesting it. With its graceful companion the newspaper, the lobby floor looked more like the aftermath of a tickertape parade, the morning after a high school house party, results from the festival of delinquents. I turn the corner and walk past the tacky mosaic spread across the tiled wall to my left. It reads, “Capital Suites” with an “A,” as if there could ever be anything “capital” about this barely inhabitable cesspool.
The begrimed, unused lobby furniture to my right was here before I moved in some 5 years ago. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that it is bolted to the floor. That’d be the best excuse for leaving it here for everyone’s viewing displeasure.
The double, glass, entry doors blast the early throws of daylight into this neglected space. Warm and pleasantly blinding, my sun gives a short respite from this violent mess, as it pierces through silhouettes of the two faux palm trees on either side of the entrance. Somehow they made it feel like Miami. The only part of my day that ever reminds me of my jovial time in South Beach quickly becomes transformed once I step into open air. Every single day, without fail, walking porch-wise means an inescapable exposition of the psychosomatic exploits of Pat and Mike.
Pat and Mike are in their usual spot out front. Facing the world from the large apartment porch and somehow being content with not exploring it. The world that is, I’m sure they are more than familiar with the far corners of our front porch. Pat and Mike were two of the very few veterans that received enough compensation from the government to truly retire. Mike’s workman’s comp checks notwithstanding, these two old farts receive quite a bit of fiscal reimbursement for their time in the service. I suppose when you have traveled the world in conquest there isn’t much left to the imagination. At any rate they are a daily obstacle to be carefully evaluated.
Both of them aged at fifty six years, Pat is a rather wide man, whereas Mike is tall and as gangly as they come. His prominent forehead made his brow shadow his eyes a bit. Paired with his strong clean shaven chin, god decided Mike would be handsome if nothing else. If such were possible, he could be the black variety of Humphrey Bogart. On the contrary, Pat was a bowl of a man. A bit shorter than Mike, he was much more on the portly side; a wide back, man-boobs and fingers like vienna sausage. His face was bunched around the bridge of his nose making his bottom lip prod out a little more than I thought necessary. It made him look half-man, half-pug, as if his mother made a habit of screwing bulldogs.
“There he is!” Mike says as I exit the glass doors, and try to swiftly walk in the opposite direction. “You runnin' a lil’ late aint cha?”
“I drive a cab of my own now, how’s it going Pat?”
“Nigga you betta get you some pussy, quit worryin’ bout how I’m doin’?” They both burst into laughter at Pat’s timely anecdote.
“One day.” I reply.
“One day? One day what? You got to carpe the muthafuckin’ deim. You got-ta go get that shit boy!” However my day was going Mike and Pat found the most delightful ways to make it worst, and I hadn’t even quite started this one yet. “This what you do my nigga,” says Mike, “you go da bar, find you the ugliest, most drunkenest bitch up in the joint and tell her how beautiful she is. Do that wit enough sincerity, you got you some pussy, least for da night anyways.” My mind immediately went back to last night.
“Were you guys out here when I got home last night?” I ask
“Nigga what you think?” Mike replies.
“Was I alone?”
“Boy, if you drinkin to the point of memory loss you needa quit that shit,” says Pat. I cannot imagine how, but Pat’s wit often matches his ignorance. “Well, was I?” I hate repeating myself.
“Yea, man! The day you bring some cutty up in this mother I’ma take me a motherfuckin pitcha’ boy!” They roll off into self satisfying laughter. I politely chuckle to keep from crying and search desperately for an exit. “Lemme get outta here. I will see you guys later.” I decide to just walk hastily as if time had suddenly turned against me. Pat and Mike seemed not to notice my newfound hurry, but without it conversation tends to linger in their presence. Conversation I am in the last mood for.
I get to my cab parked at the opposite end of the block. It’s a 1998 Crown Victoria painted all black with “Metro Cabs” emblazoned on both rear doors. I drove for the city’s largest hack company once upon a time but, with all the politico attached to it, I decided I may as well drive for myself. It affords me the avoidance of countless headaches, the primary one being I no longer have to log my passengers beyond the requisites for tax season.
My sun brightens the city streets. The buildings carry a softer air around their geometric edges. The scum and filth contained by the city remain hidden by the warm summer air and my sun’s golden blanket of light. It lets one forget about the drugs, pimps, and wayward children that lie beneath the surface of this city’s dirty fingernails. I pass the churches on 16th street, arguably the busiest street in the city at any hour, as the morning sun drapes the buildings’ crowns in transparent gold and bronze. The morning rush hour drowns me in a sea of cars as I make my way to the airport that lies on the city’s outskirts. The red light at 16th and New York Avenue gives me a chance to escape this motor powered ambush. Not exactly bumper to bumper traffic, but the sooner I can get off of 16th the better.
I look to my left and see a young woman driving a dated ford escort, plucking away at her cell phone. I look to my right and inside of a dusty Miata is a small bald guy with telescopes for glasses. He is peering intently at the traffic ahead. I look in the same direction he is; a PSA billboard towers above the controlled bedlam of drones off to gather monetary provisions for the weeks to come. The billboard reads, “NO ONE DRIVES THROUGH YOUR CONVERSATIONS…DON’T TEXT IN TRAFFIC.” I take another look at the young girl to my left. She doesn’t see the ad. It’s a wonder how she can see anything past her phone, her head still buried in it, as it is. Some people are more talented than others.
The tour buses line the edges of the downtown streets as I get closer to the freeway. Tour groups distribute themselves amongst the museums and monuments in unscrupulous fashion. The crowded sidewalk parallel to my cab spills into the section of black asphalt designated for crossing when the signal changes to green. A small child runs into the street against his red signal and I came quite close to decorating my front end with his innards. I screech to a halt just in due time. A woman I can only assume is his mother is not far behind. She scoops him up post haste and glares at me with the intent refrain not to jump in the car and slice my throat open. “Watch where the fuck you’re going!” She snaps. I stare blankly. Her response prompted my mind to yearn for the boy’s mistake to prove injurious. Not that I was inattentive, but my mind had indeed been elsewhere.
It drifted to the droves of tourist and local worker-bees crossing in front me, bubbling to and fro as they do in turbulent search of the day’s accomplishments. These hundreds of thousands of people, so content with their social eminence, as they frolic about in societal interaction, they take it for granted. Oh, to be loved. To be wanted and needed in such sing-song, Hollywood fashion.
Couples hold hands and marvel at the delights of downtown together. Groups of friends crowd themselves as they decide where to have breakfast. My inclusion impossible, my cab becomes the only conduit for my social integration. Wistful thoughts of that girl from the bar bring about an aspiration for adventure. Suddenly my daily drive to the airport becomes nullified by the prospect of spontaneous occurrence. I will find her! I light a cigarette and deviate from my normal routine. I decide the best place to start is where I remember ending, the bar.
As I turn onto New York Avenue, a rather lofty Caucasian woman flags me down. Her red hair gleams godlike in the bath of my morning sun. Her sun dress is adorned with green and yellow orchids, printed randomly over the entire garment. Her purse matched her dress quite literally. Her impeccable eyebrows jumped sharply from behind her large green circular sunshades. With puffy lips and the world’s prettiest button for a nose, her beauty is contemporary and without protest; a sight ill-fitted for the faint of heart.
I hadn’t even finished my last cigarette yet and I picked up a fare right here in downtown, who knew! Not that it’s rare but usually at this hour, most people without cars travel by public transit. I chuckle to myself in light of my newfound sense of adventure as I pull up next to her.
I must surely have lost the last bit of mind left to call my own. This search should surely prove futile. “Well it’s better than doing nothing…I mean…what, are you just gonna do nothing?” The woman’s voice brings me back to earth. I turn in time enough to see her enter the back seat and slam the door. She is talking on her cell phone and tells the anonymous party on the other end to hold. “Do you know where the Best Buy is?” she asks.
“In Tenleytown?” I say. She smiles with an air of slight embarrassment. “Oh, I have no idea…sorry.”
“It’s ok. There’s only one Best Buy in the city and that’s where it is.”
“Well I’m supposed to be meeting someone there so…” Of course you are; how could I be so ignorant? Everyone is meeting up with someone; except for me, except for the lonesome. She inadvertently reminded me that I am indeed the only human being with no one to meet up with...ever. “Do you want to call them and make sure?”
“Well, I mean, what street is it on, do you know?” Her thumbs flap away in controlled frenzy on her Blackberry.
“Wisconsin Avenue.”
“Yeah that’s the one.” She never raises her head to address me. This is the type of behavior that makes me wonder how anyone gets to meet anyone. A man of quite disheveled appearance is standing on the median as I coast down Pennsylvania Avenue. He has a sign that reads “will fuck for food.” Amusing I must admit. It’s in this instant that I become aware of his loneliness as well. I stare further as my passenger and I pass him on the left. A less disheveled but equally grimy woman walks briskly up to him. I can see their familiar embrace as the two of them fade in the distance, then out of sight as I turn the corner of 14th Street. Even the destitute aren’t without companionship. That sign must be hers. I hope they both get arrested.
The bustle of the city comes to a floating calm in Tenleytown. Cars fly fast on this part of the avenue, the shops and outdoor eateries are occupied by the fortunate who’ve found a way around the rat race. High school students play hook in front of the metro. AU students pass time between classes. Well-to-do would be an understatement when describing its inhabitants. Even the public schools in this area are better. I pull up in front of the Best Buy. My sun begins to move toward its zenith. The street emits a wave of heat. The bus passes by and people turn backside as it passes. “Here we are. That’ll be $16.50.” I look at her in the rear-view mirror. Thoughts of being a part of her life quickly inundate my mind, and at once they disintegrate into despondency. “Here, you can keep it, thanks so much.” I look into my hand to find a fifty dollar bill. “Hey thanks a lot, say, w-what’s your name?”
“What?” she stops short with her green heels on the concrete and her backside in the cab. “Your ah name, what's-what's your name?” I hate repeating myself. And her face still never lifts up to meet mine. “Heh-HA! You have yourself a nice day, ok? What’s my name...” I can hear her repeat my solemn words of self humiliation as she walks toward the entrance to Best Buy. The Best Buy is directly next to a metro station so I decide to go to the liquor store across the street for a fresh pack of nicotine, maybe someone fresh from the train can become a fare.
I can see Natti leaning on the front side of my cab when I exit the store. He’s lighting a cigarette when he sees me begin to make my way across Wisconsin Ave. He smiles that great big Ethiopian smile baring his smoke-stained teeth. Like most Ethiopians I knew, Natti was a chain smoker and a cab driver. The two go hand-in-hand I think. “What is hapning man?” He says with a deep exhale of smoke. “You not goin’ de airport today, what happen?”
Natti is a little taller than I am. His face is hard and angular, yet youthful and bordered by a profuse amount of thick, soft, jet-black hair that he generally kept tied in a bushy ponytail. The blackness of his lips and around his yellow tinted eyes spelled the word “smoker” in big neon letters. Natti was thin but not skinny or bony, just slim; his skin a coffee brown. He stands comfortably with his chest out, in a manner of quiet arrogance. Something about the way Ethiopians carried themselves, like there is no place or situation that could possibly make them out of their depth. One almost forgets they’re even African, and not from some remote part of New York City that nobody knows about yet. His English is terrible, but if I had a single person in this great big silly world I can call “friend” Natti would be the very same.
“Nothing happened, Natti, I just decided to drive the city for today. I wasn’t really in the mood for the morning traffic, y’know.”
“But it’s only lotta people coming in de city dis way, on da morning. Not too much on da way out. You should go I gotta good fare dis time.”
“Yeah? How much?”
“Like a fifty, somewhere like dat.”
“Not bad.” I didn’t want to boast about how I got the same amount for a quarter of the drive so I shift gears. “What are you doing for lunch?” Natti looks at me, raises his thick eyebrows and nods toward the opposite side of the street. I turn in enough time to see the girl in green flowers I gave a ride to earlier. She is talking on her phone, passing so many others doing the same. They bop between each other blurring colors together before the red mosaic of the shop’s brick façade. A short bristly man exits the glass door and joins the parade of compulsive conversationists, when he answers his cellular and proceeds left. It looked choreographed.
A bunch of kids nearly run the Flower Girl over when they come charging out of the Jamba Juice to her left. Their presence a mere prop to her, she reacts not in the slightest. How self absorbed and vain does one have to be to walk the earth totally oblivious to the happenings around them? Maybe her disposition has been jaded by the character of the big city. The city doesn’t let you care, if it did it would exhaust you; destroy you.
“So what are you doing for lunch?” I hate repeating myself.
“I dunno yet. I think Taco Bell, or Dukem.” He lifts his chin and lets his face bask in the brilliance that is my sun. I want to ask him about last night but something about his potential answer is frightening. I didn’t want to escape the fantasy of it all. If he tells me that there was no girl at the bar, no kiss on the mouth of my current obsession, that it’s all a dream and I just imagined the whole thing, , then I will most likely give up on life altogether; consumed and absorbed by that darkness that is loneliness. I digress.
“Call me when you figure it out. I’m going to head over to Asylum.”
“Asylum? You gonna have drink, lemme go witchu?”
“Where’s your hack?”
“My cab is on de corner dem. I gonna drive too, just go wit you. I want some fucking beer right now. Hey, maybe we see you friend.” My friend? “She seem-- you guys seem to like her. I mean, you both like de other” Could he be talking about…?
“Who are you talking about?” I am aquiver with anticipation.
“Da girl you was kissing at Asylum last night. You was downstairs, you don’t know? She look good man.” A savage wave of relief washes over me. It is not all some flight of the imagination after all. I could kiss Natti for this. He walks toward his cab at the corner opposite mine. My sun streaks his silky mass of hair with silvery blue. Cars zing before and after him as he glides smugly to his driver side door. A summer breeze dances with the end of his bushy ponytail. The same breeze teases my shirt collar and gives life to a plastic bag settled on the sidewalk.
The prospect of seeing her again makes the top, back of my head shiver. An adventure borne from deviance, how exciting! I decide to drive through the park. It isn’t necessarily a shorter distance but it usually takes less time, being that it’s mostly frequented by commuters from the other side of the river. The trees hang high as I glide through the parkway. The road winds with a creek babbling adjacent. My sun sparkles it, and stabs through the fresh summer leaves above me. The bodily conscious jog past each other in both directions, the jogging path is the only barrier between my cab and the grass that banks the creek. The smell of the water begets dreams of spring time, eating on a blanket in the grass with a figure of my desire, a figment of my imagination. Hopefully she’ll prove to be more than that. My luck has a way of turning against me at the most unforeseen moments.
I arrive at the bar, “Asylum,” in Adams Morgan the same moment my sun decides to take reprieve behind a gang of bright gray and white clouds. The light coats this hub of late night debauchery in a steel tinted blanket of saffron. It’s relatively dead here during the daylight hours. When the night unfolds, this place becomes infested with society’s repugnant stew of lushes and thrill seekers. For now, the only inhabitants are shop keepers just opening and hungry patrons hustling a decent brunch.
As I turn onto 18th street two youngsters armed with Mcdonald’s bags flag me down. Why now? At the climax of my day of deviation, this couple of anti-authority, fast food misers decide they will hail my cab, of all the dozens of cabs meandering their way through the 18th street corridor. I have never been able to afford to refuse a fare and now was certainly no exception.
Both kids were clad in skinny jeans and “Element” t-shirts. With skateboards in hand, only one had a backpack on. The black kid wore short cut hair, faded in the back, and his hairline was sharper than the tongue of a Chicago pimp; impeccable. The white kid’s wiry black hair was tucked fashionably under his “anti-hero” baseball cap. I had my own guess as to where they needed to go, and it was far enough from the bar to be a nuisance. I get to the end of the block and realize they hadn’t given me a destination yet. “Where are you guys going?”
“DuPont dude, I’m sorry.” Ok, so I was wrong. The white kid sparks a light and soon the sweet aroma of blueberry Kush fills the cab. I could care less, apparently they thought different. “Dude, what the fuck are you doing?” Said the black kid, “you can’t just fuckin’ smoke in here.”
“Do you mind if we smoke in here?” Silence. “Say, cabbie, is it cool if we blow this in here?”
“Sure go ahead, but we’re really close to your destination.” He doesn’t seem to care. “Aw man I don’t care.” He hands the joint to the black kid. “Hey cabbie, you Smoke?” he asks.
“Uhh yeah, but not usually when im driving. I like to stay aware, alert y’know.”
“Yeah I guess, this is some pretty good stuff though, you might wanna have a taste.”
“Your generosity won’t pay your fare.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that. Just want you to taste it, here, take a sip.” The black kid hands the joint to me over the front seat. He’s right, it tastes amazing! “That IS pretty good,” I tell him.
“I know it bro, homegrown, very organic.” I pull up to Dupont Circle metro station and the kids get out. The black kid comes to the passenger window, hands me a ten dollar bill, a business card and the rest of their spliff. “That’s yours man, call this number if you wanna get some more.” The business card reads “Smiley Johnson W.D. 240-676-8782.” I start to ask him for some now, but I know if I smoke now I will never make it to the bar in time to meet Natti. Oh what the hell, today is my most haphazard day. What harm can further deviation do? “Hey! Hold on!” I yell at the kid from the driver seat. He stops and turns to come back. When he gets to passenger window I tell him to…”Get in.”
“For what dude.”
“I want some right now.”
“Already! Hey look, it’s at my buddies place. I don’t carry it with me it’s just not a good look y’know.”
“Where’s your friend’s place?”
“It’s up here on 19th we’re going there now.”
“OK, hold on, let me park real quick and I’ll walk with you guys.”
“Sure man we’ll be right here dude.”
I follow these skateboarders with a bit of reluctance. This fresh deviation from the familiar has led me into an alleyway with a couple of rice-rocketeers on a quest to procure herbal provisions of the psychotropic persuasion. And how! We walk into a narrow alleyway that is carved into the side of S street just before it crosses 19th. My sun falls faint back here. The aged brick and concrete are tinted in a bright gray. Only the tops of the buildings shine with the radiance of my sun’s complete glow. The walls of brick and mortar are dotted with small and midsized windows. They rest furtively inside the cage of fire escapes on my right; that drip onto the pavement below. A loud crash booms from behind a blue dumpster on the opposite side of the stairs of rusty black iron. Startled, I must admit, my pensive state is restored when I see a tall Indian man emerge from the other side of the dumpster and light a cigarette. We walk into the same door I can only assume he came out of.
Down the concrete stairs and into a wide steel door that is propped open. Through a restaurant kitchen we wind. An Indian restaurant, where Samosa, bryani, naan bread, and tandoori chicken are all being cooked rapidly. Curry and tumeric pervades the air. The greatest hits from the 80’s 90’s and today resound from the radio, with a tall fat Punjab yelling Hindu at the small pool of line cooks. He walks around the kitchen perusing the line cook’s creations, tasting, pointing, cursing, and scowling. Of all the commotion, we are the only things ignored. Once at the front end, at the kitchen’s two-way steel doors, the kids each give a pound to a well-dressed, clean-shaven Hindu with caterpillar for eyebrows and a smile brighter and wider than the East River in springtime. “Where’s V at man?” Say’s the white kid. The smiley Indian is perplexed. “B?” he responds.
“Yeah, V…Fuckin’, Vashti dude.”
“Ah! Boshtee,” his head waddles from side to side, “come dis way.” The white kid leans to his friend’s ear and whispers something as we’re led through the two-way kitchen doors. Now the restaurant floor is in view. The lunch buffet is out and the floor is teeming with lunchtime regulars. Servers in black slacks and white oxfords buzz around the floor catering to their respective customers. Their red sashes flailing from the waist with much compliment.
Before the kitchen tile meets the scarlet dining carpet, we make a sharp right and walk into a literal hole in the wall, between the pantry and the deep freezer. We walk into the narrow passage and turn left into a cut that’s invisible from in front the freezer. The secret corridor is damp and dimly lit, with caged bulbs lining the wall on our left. The brick is dirty and dark gray, as if no one was meant to ever walk this passage, ever. Visions from “Silence of the Lambs” pass through my psyche. I couldn’t help but wonder, why all this trouble to get some reefer?
We follow our Hindu friend up a short flight of wooden stairs at the end of the hallway. The stairs are shoved into the side of the wall most discreetly, at the top of which stands a heavy, steel, blue door. I can’t see the camera set directly above the door, but the blinking, red light whispers at me from the shadows. Our Hindu accomplice presses something to the right of the large door. The sound of a ringing phone blares from the invisible speaker.
“You OK bro?” The white kid asks me. I nod my head sincerely, betraying what I know to be true. How could I possibly be ok? I am following a couple of teenage dirt-bags on what has become a journey, nay, an expedition in search of the world’s finest weed. My deviation from the mundane has got me in a dark hallway, in the moldy recesses of a downtown Indian eatery. Why didn’t I just go to the bar?
The silky sound of a female’s voice comes from the speaker. I cannot make out what she’s saying, it sounds Hindu, or Pakistani maybe. Our friend answers back with a sing-song tone to his voice. A loud buzz follows as the big steel door loudly unlocks and swings open. All I can think is, it puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.
A blast of natural light blinds us as we walk into a room devoid of any fluorescent or artificial light as well as practical furniture. Everything in this room is purely decorative. Persian rugs cover the floor in red, white and gold. Gold, purple and jade elephants are randomly placed among the bronze Krishnas and Vishnus. Various Tapestries from the Far East line the walls and there is positively nowhere to sit. No couch, chairs, stools, no ottoman, no nothing. A fat, golden rope hangs in solitude in the corner next to the room’s only window; the kind of rope that’ll open a trap door into some dungeon if you pull it. Put the fuckin lotion in the basket!
The room’s only door was adjacent to the window. When it opens, a small, naturally blonde girl dressed in dark denim skinny jeans and a pink baby-tee with “pink” on it emerges. She says something to the Hindu, in Hindu. He bows reverently and closes the large door as he Exits. She then turns to us. “Hey you guys, come on in.” Her accent is American, like she was born on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Her presence alone was puzzling enough. Her alias southern accent only raises further questions.
We walk into the room’s only door and sit on a plush leather couch in what is probably the biggest living room in downtown Metro. It was simply massive! The ceiling was so tall a full grown banana plant next to the windows still didn’t touch it. A 56” flat screen is posted above a mantle of oak and brick that climbs up to the ceiling. All of the seats match in brown Corinthian leather. The polished wood floors are decorated with rugs identical with those from the previous room. Vast wardrobes and arnoirs line the walls on either side. They are of every different kind one could imagine; European art-deco, antique Egyptian, oriental and byzantine, East Indian and a few others I can’t accurately identify. Everything about this room screams “old wealth.” From looking at the room we came in from, it was hard to believe the two were even connected.
The girl ushers us to the couches and begs that we be seated. We all sit in front of the TV and she leaves. “Hey, what the hell is going on?” I ask the white kid. “Don’t worry, just chill out man.”
“I would chill out just fine if you just tell me what’s going on.” It’s starting to get hot in here. I’m starting to get hot! “I need to know why we are in the city’s underbelly. I really shouldn’t even be here and you guys got me walking through a fucking MacGyver episode. I am not---…”
“Dude!” The black kid barks, “fuckin chill out man. Don’t fucking, antagonize the situation!”
“What situa—?” The girl comes back with a tray of what looks to be bourbon. The last thing I need right now is to be inebriated. I take a shot any way. I could feel myself panicking so a shot of sour mash may be just what I need to calm down. Besides, the way the two skaters pick up their glasses it may be somewhat of an insult for me to refuse.
After placing the tray on the coffee table before us, the girl stands in the doorway patiently. Moments later, hard footsteps with 6 inch heels under them, resonates through the rooms. They come down the hallway and when they come to a stop, a beautiful Asian girl is standing in the doorway. She doesn’t look Hindu and she is far from Chinese. Her black hair is lustrous and tied in a single braid. The braid is so long, the tip of it flirts with the back of her knees. Quite tall, her long legs are fully exposed beneath her black and silver Mandarin style dress. Had it been cut lower it could pass for a ceremonial ball gown, but the short hem stopped at the beginning of her thighs, much more casual I’m sure. She turns the TV off and sits on the coffee table. “Well hello boys, your kinda, kinda late…who is your new friend?”
“New? No, he isn’t new at all. He is a really good friend actually, its just he’s always busy.” Aw gee thanks guys.
“Well Deep has never seen him with you before and when he called me he sounded worried. Should I be worried Max?” The white kid shakes his head with confidence. “What do you say Smurf is he…dangerous?” Her accent is sultry and suggestive. It makes my loins tingle.
“Naw he aint dangerous, but he’s a little nervous, V. you wanna…?”
“Sure, SANJAY!” The boom of her voice was more than a little unexpected. Before she breathed the last syllable, a short Punjab comes hopping into the room carrying a footstool. He walks behind me, sets it down on the floor and commences to massage my shoulders vigorously. Smurf turns to me. “The best massage you will ever get this side of the Atlantic.” He whispers as he gives me an earnest thumbs-up.
My mind starts to go blank. I am still fully conscious but this little Punjabi man has magic spells in his palms; relaxation is mandatory. V’s fingers snap. “Max! Hey! Over here boy!” I cannot place it but clearly I missed something in the few seconds tiny Sanjay has had me in his grip. “What? Vash I told you…”
Ooooh GOD, his massage is AWEsome! “…then you will get your money!” Money? My mind grabs the last thing Max says and holds on for dear life. What is it about the midget’s fingers that make’s focusing on the most trivial issues impossible. “Money?” I say, as I try to get up. I raise up long enough to see what looks to be about a pound or so of weed sitting on the coffee table next to Vashti. She gives me a look that could silence an inner city riot. I open my mouth to speak but only a moan from the pleasurable massage is emitted and back to a recline I return. The only thing I could think to do was lay back and listen as hard as I could, and from what I hear Vashti is NOT happy.
“You tink I don’t fucking know?”
“No V, you fuckin’ don’t dude, not if you think WE owe you scratch. I don’t owe you shit dude! And YOU said because of the cut we took on the last one you would front us one.”
“I did already. I front you dat lemon haze. You kids, you fucking boys! Do you take me for a joke? I am not…I have lotta experience with you ‘Merican snakes.” I get all the way up on my feet this time. “WOAH! Wait just a goddamn minute here. Ms uhh Vashti?”
“Can call me V.”
“V, look, I don’t know these guys. I just wanted to get a little something to smoke for myself, and now…I mean, I’m just a cab dri-AH! FUCK!” Something stings the back of my neck. I turn around and little Sanjay is gone. When I look at what I pull from my neck the sight of an acupuncture needle astounds me. This is getting more and more bizarre as the minutes tick by. In an effort to deviate from the commonplace, I have taken myself into the Metro’s seedy underground and now I am trapped with a couple of kids and an Asian gangster in what shouldn’t be a large room with no foreseeable exit.
Needless to say the needle temporarily paralyzes me. I lay in quiet protest while Max, Smurf and Vashti parley. “OK I tell you what I do. I give for this time, and you guys come back, you give me 70 percent.”
“That’s fuckin’ robbery!”
“Normally I kill people who steal from me. You boys are young, and make me lotta money so I keep you. Be glad I don’t kill you.” It gets quiet. I try to speak but it only comes out as a hard mumble. I wanted to tell her to let me go, that I don’t know these kids and I need to get back to the bar to find my true love! I fade into a doze with a view of Max and Vashti still arguing. The weight of my eyelids prevails over my will to be alert and assess my current position. Why does my shirt feel wet? What is that smell? And wha--?
Smurf threw the rest of his bourbon on my face and like magic fairy dust, it brings all life back to me…slowly. My feet, hands and fingers move. My eyes aren’t so heavy anymore. I can feel my face again. I start to get up when I notice Vashti and Max are absent. “C’mon lets go…quick, c’mon, c’mon.” Smurf is lifting me and smacking my face in an attempt to liven me up. He puts his shoulder under my right arm and walks me to the steel door in the back of Vashti’s mini-textile museum. “Aw shit!” he drops me like burning luggage and runs back to the other room.
A thud and a crash commence. A hard thump goes against the wall. A bunch of glass breaks and what sounds like the serving tray comes hard against God knows what. It’s quiet for a bit, then I can hear Smurf softly. “No you don’t, c’mere muhfucka, AARGH! You little sonofa--BITCH!” He gives a loud grunt as if he was lifting or moving something and with that, little Sanjay is flying through the doorway that connects the small room I am in to the large one they’re apparently fighting in. The light from the only window is briefly disturbed when Sanjay’s horizontal body cast’s a moving shadow across it. I look in the direction he flew from and Smurf appears with a couple of scratches on his face a stretched shirt collar and two backpacks. He tosses both satchels in my direction, and one hits me square as I try to sit up. Smurf disappears into the great room again while Sanjay shakes himself off for round two.
Unbeknown to Sanjay, round two starts within the seconds it takes Smurf to reappear with a rather large, blue gym bag with yellow handles on it. It is stuffed to capacity. With Smurfs attention on me and the task at hand, Sanjay finds the opportunity to rush headlong into Smurf’s family jewels. Smurf eyes bug out as he drops the gym bag. His knees close in on each other and he grabs his crotch with a mouthful of disbelief. Sanjay tries to pick up the gym bag up and all I could think about was how quickly Smurf and I will be dead when Vashti and her goons return to find us in this act of blatant thievery.
Sanjay’s efforts prove futile. His size doesn’t permit him to cover the gravity of the gym bag. It makes him top heavy, like a toddler carrying a twin size futon. He leans back ever so gently, stumbles something fierce when his feet scramble to remain standing. He leans forward gently, then back. Then back some more when he finally collapses under the bag’s weight. “Did you hear that?” I ask Smurf. He is still on the floor writhing in pain and I am still regaining my motor faculties. We both are in serious danger. “Hear what?” he says with hoarse tone.
“That…crunch, it was like a, like how it sounds when you crack your knuckles or something.”
“Naw man, hell na, just... Just…get the, whooohh fuck me…get the shit. Can you move at all?” I nod enthusiastically and get on my feet as fast as I could, which wasn’t that swift. “Yeah, ok good…get the bag, get—argh, that little fucker! Get the bag. We gotta get the fuck.”
When I get up I notice little Sanjay is under the blue and yellow gym bag and still hasn’t moved a muscle. Then when I look closer at his motionless body I can see a pool of crimson gently leaking from beneath the bag. By no power of my own, my hands immediately smack against my mouth holding it closed. Smurf is almost back to a hundred percent, his hands on his knees and breathing deeply, when I point to Sanjay with eyes bigger than Mantan Moreland’s.
His heaving breath comes to an abrupt stop. We are both standing over Sanjay. I quickly snatch the bag from overtop of his body to view Sanjay’s blue-gray face. His eyes and mouth are wide open, the life in them absent. The back of his skull must be cracked because a mass of blood grows ever larger behind his turban wrapped head. The groin of his yellow pants is soiled and the smell of excrement begins to fill the room.
Hard footsteps with six-inch heels under them crash the hardwood floors and are getting progressively closer to our murder scene. I can hear Vashti cursing in English, the rest of her rant is foreign. Smurf vomits all over little Sanjay’s carcass and I pull him by the back of his shirt, closer to the big steel door. He coughs and gags a little as we scramble to get out in time. An arduous task at best for we both are in questionable condition. Smurf cannot even straighten his back completely and my vision alters from blurry to 20/20 and back again on a whim.
Smurf puts a backpack on, and runs to the side of the doorway leading to the living room. His right hand snaps open a blackjack and he holds it in anticipation. When he looks at me I’m frozen. “The fuck, is you doin’? Get the shit let’s go!” His head peeks into the living room, then back at my self. “Look man, your in it now. You’re in it, you are fucking in, this, shit…can’t get no deeper dawg. Take comfort in knowing that you didn’t have a choice, shit, blame me if you like but you can’t—WE can’t stand here like this…fucking MOOVE DUUDE!” His words are electricity, catalyzing my frantic movement toward an exit.
Hurriedly, I put the second backpack on, lift the gym bag and search for a way to open the steel door. Standing before this massive door I see the gravity of the entire situation. We have committed both theft and murder in the residence of a gangster. A female gangster no less; don’t these kids read? Haven’t they heard the gruesome tales of what happens when you gaffle a gangster, especially a female one? Max is probably filling her bathtub with his blood at this very moment! Vashti is storming down the corridor and this formidable door is our only route of escape. Goddamn these kids got balls! I remember the giant door swinging out toward us when we were in the seedy hallway, so two things are true: the hinges are on the other side of the door, on my left side, meaning the knob is on my…
“Where’s the knob?”
“Knob?” No, Chair.
“Yeah, the knob. I can’t open the door without a knob or a handle or—.”
“SANJAY!!” Vashti’s voice is so loud and close in proximity, it puts a knot in my stomach. Her feet stomp around the vast living room incoherently as if she was searching for something. “KIM!” Smurf attaches his back to the wall next to the doorway. He briefly closes his eyes then looks at me.
“Did you get it?”
“The door? No. It’s fucking Ft. Knox”
“Pull the lever.” Is this kid out of his mind?
“Lever? What lever?” He peeks into the room again. I can hear Vashti’s loud stilettos boom their way back out of the living room. A bit of calm returns and now I can think again. Smurf takes his tone down to a whisper.
“It should be a lever by the door, that’s what Yuri said.” Who said..?
“What?”
“He said ‘go out the way you always go in, pull the lever to open the door and instead of going left to get back to the kitchen go right…’” He hadn’t finished reciting his instructions when Vashti’s hard footsteps return with even more fervor than before. She gets into the great living room when I hear the sound of a gun cocking. I stare at Smurf for answers. His gaze alternates between the door way and me. He braces himself, I search for this lever. The room isn’t big by a midget’s standards, so where the hell would you hide a lever?
Vashti comes in the room, shotgun barrel first. Smurf’s blackjack comes down atop the barrel, pointing it to the floor. She lets a shot off, blowing a hole in the Persian rug and a crater in the concrete underneath; startling all shit and piss out of me! I jump back and slide-roll into the wall further from them and bump my head on a soft knot against the wall. Smurf open hand slaps her face and swings his blackjack for her head. Vashti ducks just in time to keep her head on, for now. She tries to lift the shotgun when Smurf’s relentless attack comes down on her right wrist. I can hear the bone crack just before she yells and drops the gun. I look up to see what I bumped my head on and it was the knot on the end of the fat golden rope. My mind went straight to lotion and the trap door…A lever!
When I pull the golden rope, Vashti is standing over Smurf with her left heel dug in his sternum. Smurf is coughing terribly as she struggles to fire the shotgun in his face with one hand. I see Smurf’s blackjack is inches from his left palm. Vashti’s pretty face now scarred with a bleeding lip, she jerks the shotgun violently by the pump handle with her left hand. The giant door swings open with a ruckus that could rival a steel factory. I kick the blackjack into Smurf’s open palm on my way out the door. I hear another shot go off, but my whole attention is focused on getting out of this mess and back into my cab.
I heard Smurfs panting voice, “…instead of going left to get back to the kitchen go right…” So a right is what I make and not before I turn that fateful right do I hear footsteps matching my frantic pace, just behind me! The dim lights bolted to the dirty brick wall flash past as I desperately coerce my legs to carry me to my salvation. The footsteps grow louder, more desperate, they gain distance. The weight from the backpack blisters my shoulders. The gym bag entices my arm to give in, and resign it to the whims of gravity. I refuse. The light at the end of the tunnel appears. My sun beams a shaft of light into this urban cave of narcotic intrigue. It calls to me, fueling my determination. My feet are cinderblocks. Every breath inhaled is accompanied by a dagger tearing into the bottom of my lungs, my acquiescence is imminent.
I collapse in surrender to my physical limits. Smurfs yells something I can’t quite make out, as he hops over my flailing figure. Noticing my current handicap, Smurf power-slides and drops his skateboard as he turns around to grab me off the floor. He picks up the gym bag and pulls me up by the strap of the backpack I’m wearing. “Come on, we almost there baby. Don’t fall apart now.” He says as he yanks me back into action. We get outside and dash down the alleyway back to the cab.
I hop in the cab and unlock the door to let Smurf in when I notice a chunk of his left shoulder is ripped away. His sleeve is soaked in blood. A piece of white bone peeks from below the shallow surface of the tiny pool of blood collected at the the tip of his collarbone. The first part of me wants to tell him not to bleed all over the passenger seat. The second part just starts the car and drives out of the alley. “Wooo! Woah! Fuck me man, I mean…SHIT!” Smurf seems excited, why is a question I’m afraid to ask. “Man that was aMAzing! You, my friend, are fucking amazing. You know you saved my life right? You know this right?” I have a vague idea.
“What happened to Max?” I ask him as he starts reviewing his newly acquired loot. He looks at the intersection ahead of us as we pull to the red light on Connecticut Avenue; his face pensive, his chest heaving with an excited lack of breath. Then Black Sabbath’s Paranoid rings from h is cell phone. “Right here.” He says as he pulls it from his fifth pocket. “Yes! Right here! Max is right fuckin…Hello? YO! Where you at dude! Yeah, yeah you fuckin right I got out man. We was kinda worried…huh? Oh, Cabbie’s here wit me bro. Well I’m in…Ok, Ok excellent C&O it is. Ok we gonna meet him at the C&O Canal, by the aqueduct.”
“Where at? By Thomas Jefferson?”
“The very same my nigg.”
Smurf cannot wipe an excessively wide grin from his face as we walk the jogging trail to meet Max. “You don’t wanna go to the hospital?” I ask him.
“Nah man I been shot before, it’s a flesh wound. I’m gonna need to wrap it soon though.”
“Would if it gets infected?”
“Fuckin chop it off.” I cant tell if he’s serious or not.
The jogging path is littered with the only people who can afford to exercise on a Monday afternoon. I’ve always found it puzzling that the only people I ever see exercising are already fit to be in a Bowflex commercial. I never see the 300 pound 12 year old jogging with his equally fat parents.
Small clouds of dust tease the gnats and mosquitoes as they drift lazily over the canal’s stale water of brown and green. We walk underneath a bridge leading to Rosslyn. Joggers pass us without incident. A few passersby look at Smurf in disbelief as his shoulder bleeds carelessly all over his green t-shirt. A petite red-headed girl stops jogging long enough to ask Smurf if he needs help. “Call the ambulance and I’ll fuck your life up,” Says Smurf. “But your bleeding all over the trail…Are you sure you don’t—“
“—FUCK OFF!” he barks. And so she does, post-haste.
My sun is leaning low during the early throws of evening, the late afternoon. Exiting the underpass with the C&O canal on our right, a large, ancient, stone aqueduct stands to our left overlooking the Potomac River. Tourists and local lovers pass on the trail beneath us. Max is standing on the edge looking out toward the river. As we walk closer, the height of the aqueduct becomes evident. The roof of a local boathouse is our parralell. From where I am standing, I could jump onto it with little effort. Looking down from the stony edge, the water’s surface is a quarter mile below us. Smurf and Max embrace each other with a warmth that I am simply not familiar with. “I don’t know how you do it but I am so glad you made it man.” Says Smurf. “And our friend here, mmmman! You shoulda fuckin SEEN this guy. I mean my shoulders all fucked up but if it wont for him it’d been my fuckin face bro, seriously!”
“I don’t do much.” I reply in embarrassment. “You did enough apparently.” Says Max, as he inspects his friend’s shoulder. “You know they filmed Enemy of the State here.”
“Really?” I really was kind of shocked.
“Yep. But later for the history lesson, where’s the reward of our most awesome risk?” Smurf and I discard our luggage. And the three of us sit on the edge of the stone structure.
All American, old-fashion, authenticated, reconstruction-era Greenbacks peer at me from the blue and yellow gym bag. I knew it was cash in there but not this kind! Max looks into my backpack and then reaches into Smurf’s. He pulls out a handful of orange and pruple weed and begins to prep it for smoking. “Do you guys know what this is?” I ask them. “Yeah its fuckin cash.” Says Smurf.
“Its not just cash, its greenbacks.”
“Yeah dude, cash money.” Max says smugly. I could slap him, really. “pick it up and look at it you half-wit.” I say when I throw a stack of bills in his lap. His face immediately digresses into perplexity. “The FUCK IS THIS!”
“Its money!” Says Smurf with a defensive tone. This could get out of hand, I better help these idiots. Then my mind wanders to the bar. Natti could still be waiting for me. And what about my soul mate from the previous night? My deviation has dragged me to the edge of nowhere. “Its better than cash you guys. Don’t kill each other yet.”
“How do you figure this…shit, is better than cash,” says Max, “you can’t spend it. It’s like some retarded form of American counterfeit.”
“And it smells,” Says Smurf.
“You damned kids and your music. Greenbacks are American currency used before the formulation of the Federal Reserve. They haven’t printed one of these in centuries. You are holding some of the rarest monetary notes in America. They are worth more than US treasury bonds, more than war bonds. You take these notes to the pawn shop, or the currency exchange or better yet, the bureau of engraving; you will be filthy fucking rich...And now, if you don’t mind, I would like to take what you owe me so I can carry on with this aberrant day.” Their silence is deafening. “So what do you want?” Max asks after what felt like an hour.
“I think Smurf should be the judge of that.” Smurf nods in honest agreement.
“You know what. According to me, you are the only reason this wasn’t our final job. I say take whatever you want, just be reasonable.” $40,000 in greenbacks and as much weed that I could carry in two hands. Maybe this isn’t how one typically makes friends, but I feel like I made a couple today. And though I still don’t know anything about them, it feels pretty good just knowing them; knowing that they know me, that they like me. “HEY! CABBIE!” Max yells as I’m walking back toward the jogging path. “I hope you know, this doesn’t mean we’re friends.”
“Of course not, that’s the last thing I need.” What am I, desperate?
I get back in the cab and drive away from my sun, back to Asylum where Natti is probably drunk to capacity by now. My sun is leaning towards the western sky. I missed its very zenith during my brief episode with Metro’s seedy, Eastern underbelly. On my way back to 18th street a rather tall black man waves me down. He is wearing checkered pants, a white double-breasted blazer and a small white cap. In conjunction with the Gators on his feet, his outfit spells “line cook.” “18th and Kalorama my man, Grand Central Station. You know where that’s at?” I nodded my head but words escape me for now. All of me is beyond relieved that this guy is going to Adams Morgan. The last thing I needed was another distraction, another deviation from an already atypical day.
Once back in Adams Morgan, I catch Natti standing in front of Asylum smoking a cigarette. My sun prances from cloud to cloud as the wind pushes the sky due south. It peeks out sporadically, beaming shafts of warmth upon the city. The heat has yet to wane. The street’s occupants walk there and near; some soaked and others lightly coated, but all are covered in perspiration.
The cook I dropped off earlier makes a second appearance when he exits Grand Central’s wooden front double doors and lights a Camel. I feel sort of lucky about the fare I had to pick up on the way back. Convenience is a commodity that has become all too scarce these days. To double my fortune, I find a parking spot directly in front of the bar. If this is an omen of what’s to come, then my lady-friend is inside waiting for me right now!
Natti’s brow is gently beaded with sweat. He must’ve started drinking already. A man in tattered slacks sleeps on the stairs that walk into the former boutique next door to Asylum. His shirt is missing along with the toes and under-heel of his damaged Asics. I stare blankly at him trying to figure at what point in his life he realized he would never be anything more than indigent. At what point was that acceptable to him? I light a cigarette and join Natti in a nicotine indulgence. On the Corner of 18th Street and Columbia Road my day’s glimpse of the lunchtime rush is set in motion. They spawn from the brick and concrete in an arbitrary manner, gradually flooding the city’s restaurant district. As the traffic increases on Columbia Road the noxious fumes from their exhaust perfumes the air in rancid fashion. The heat from the backside of a metro-bus cooks the air. The waves pierce the already burning atmosphere. I can almost taste the engine. Some passengers exit and a group of young women get off amongst them. They match each other dressed in khaki pants and white polo shirts, school-kids. “Where you went man? I been in here wait for like half---half an hour.” Natti asks after a moment of surveying his surroundings.
“I picked up a fare the moment I turned the corner.”
“You really don’t care huh?” I raise my eyebrows begging him for an explanation. “You will pick up anybody, no matter what right. You get fare you take it, you don’t miss one for nothin else, right?”
“Well, yeah. What’s the point in driving a cab if no one is ever in the back seat?” Natti turns from the street and faces the bar. “If I skip one fare I may skip two or four, it’s just a bad habit to get into.”
“Would if it was like, impordant, you gonna take da fare?”
“I don’t have a life Natti, what could be more important than a fare?”
“Dat girl, you missed her. She not impordant to you?” I missed her? NO!! When? Was it when I dropped the kids off? Or was it when I helped murder the midget? “When was—when did you see her, just now?”
“Little while ago. She come in and play some pool.”
“Did she ask about me?”
“No man. She was wit dis guy. She look impordant to you. You shoulda miss de fare for her.” He was right! I got tangled in routine, or the lack thereof, without even considering that a ride to DuPont Circle could prove so costly. The only answer to the multiple choice question of what my life has become has been erased with a nine minute cab ride, coupled with a journey into the city’s criminal underground. Those damned kids!
The desperation of my situation has now grown to epic proportions. I should just get back in the cab and ride to the airport; start my day over again, the right way, the rational way. Natti can sense my uneasiness. “Come on yo, you needa drink.” He pats me on the back. “Come on yo, it be ok. Fuck dat cab for now. We get a little sauce, you calm down little bit yo.”
“Yeah…yeah, you’re right.” As usual Natti’s Ethiopian charisma commands my acquiescence.
We walk into Asylum and head straight for the bar. Asylum was one of those places you can easily describe as “metal;” In a musical sense anyway. The catch was that during the day it was quiet and almost empty upstairs. Downstairs someone was always shooting pool. And a party here could mean anything from 80’s dance to an up-and-coming rapper tearing up the small stage placed in the front window.
When the red door opens, the odor of rancid beer and aged wood strikes me in the face. Tables with missing patrons are parked directly across from the entrance, with the diminutive stage on the immediate right, adjacent to the tables. The back of which being a floor to ceiling window that faces 18th street.
The bar is on the far end of the room with no shortage of open stools. The three booths directly across from the bar are raised up from the floor two steps, their plush red seats are cracked from age. Along with the bar they form a narrow walkway leading to the kitchen and bathrooms in the back area. We take our seats and order Guinness from the tap. The barkeep is a short, white girl with silky black hair and a Roman nose. She smiles at me with shocking familiarity. “Well, well, look who came back…I take it you had the most awesome time last night…” She doesn’t finish her thought, Natti’s head is shaking back and forth. An inquiry is in order. “Why would you say such?” I ask her.
“Well, you were really drunk, and people as drunk as you were generally have such an awesome time they can barely remember it.”
“I can’t. What happened?” Natti gets up and points toward the stairs leading to the billiards area in the basement. “Where are you going..? Why is he leaving?” Her face tightens with constrained laughter. “He told me about your quest for true love.” He did what? “My what for what? Why would he tell you...?”
“Oh, it’s alright. Don’t be like that.”
“But I don’t have any quest for true love.” She just smiled as she turned to a newly arrived patron sitting on my right. A middle-aged head-banger covered in tattoos. His leather top hat sits askew atop his head of black and red hair. Looking at his profile reminds me of nefarious beings that stalk the streets of 19th century London, the villain from the movie about the orphans. “Its cute, romantic.” She says after serving a Guinness to Fagin here on my right. “What exactly did he tell you?”
“Natti said you were in love. That you found this girl in here last night and you guys talked for hours and hours and then I saw you guys making out for like…ever.”
“I remember that part.” How could I forget? “But what happened after all of that? Did we leave or...”
“Yeah!” She beams, “you guys left together which isn’t exactly rare, but it seemed a little, I dunno, awkward.”
“Awkward, why?”
“Because she kept saying her mother was gonna see the two of you together. And she didn’t want her mom to like, y’know, I guess like, catch the two you…I dunno if that makes any sense.” Makes sense, it adds confusion actually. I don’t even know this girl beyond appearance, how could her mother’s opinion remotely be of any interest? “So you mean she was concerned that we would be caught by her mother.”
“Right, kinda weird huh?”
“Was she alone? I mean, did she come with anyone or was she..?”
“Well see, that’s the other weird part. I mean, like, I’m thinking that her mother would’ve been like the least of her problems because she came in with this other guy, y’know.”
“Really?” That must have been the guy from earlier.
“Yeah, I know right! She came with this guy and he was already kinda drunk, but after the two of you left, he came upstairs sputtering and spitting fire because apparently she took his car keys with him.”
“Really?” My memory fails miserably.
“Yeah! And he’s all like ‘where is that fuckin’ bitch at wit my car keys?’” She swells her chest up and scrunches her face mockingly, deepening her voice to paint a better picture of the typical machismo that drunken men carry with them everywhere. “I told him the bar was closing and that he couldn’t stay. When he left he got into a fight right outside, but that’s the last I saw of him.”
“Did you actually see me leave with her?”
“No I didn’t, sorry…I saw you guys when I ran downstairs for ice and that was it. I hadn’t actually seen you after that though. Soo, like, I dunno…You know what though, Darren was bartending downstairs yesterday.”
“Darren, huh? Is he here?”
“He doesn’t work tonight but he should be down there shooting pool. I saw him earlier so…”
“Ok, cool. I’m going to see-…”
“Yeah, go on down there. And good luck, I hope you find her. You deserve it.”
“Thanks.” That was awful sweet of her. I never thought of myself as deserving of anything, much less the woman I love. If Darren is in the basement then maybe I can get some closure. If not I’m returning to my cab to salvage some hint of my day’s normality. The intrigue of all this is exhausting.
Going into Asylum’s billiards room means descending a creaky wooden stairwell, the entrance of which stands adjacent to the booths across from the bar. Dim track lights line the slanted ceiling, illuminating old rock posters and playbills from the golden era of punk. The music is always louder down here and I can hear its volume climb higher in progression as every creaking step brings me closer to my beautiful fate.
When I turn left at the bottom of the stairwell a pool table is 20 feet in front of me. With ample room in-between, six other pool tables fill the remainder of the room’s floor space. Aside from the backlight of the bar on my left, the lights above the green felt are this room’s only deliverance from total darkness. To my right is the basement door that leads to the street. Adjacent to the door are small windows that look into the street from the basement’s ceiling. The corners are damp with spilled beer. The floor itself is concrete, adding to the drafty nature of the place. Out of seven, two pool tables are occupied with players. Natti is one of them.
At the far corner of the room, directly across from the bar, and surrounded by a bunch of skinny white guys in faded black punk garb, Natti stalks around the pool table glowering at its globular tenants from all angles. He mumbles something as he taps the skinny end of his stick on the side pocket furthest from where he’s standing. The crack of the cue ball is followed by a boisterous “OH!” citing the mixture if elation and dismay that comes over his miniature audience. The smile that stretches across his face implies his triumph. When he walks toward me, his gait spells a self assurance worn exclusively by Ethiopians. Awkwardness is something he only reads about. “Do you know who Darren is?” I ask him. “Yah yo, he over dere. I just beat him ass in pool yo.”
“Introduce me. The girl upstairs-…”
“Kelly?”
“The barkeep?”
“Yah dat’s Kelly.” His yellow eyes dart from one corner of the room to the other, then back again.
“Right, whatever Natti focus. She said Darren was bartending down here last night.”
“Yah he was….Hol’ on yo, wait…stop, yo leave da girl yo. Come play pool, get loose. You mind is trapped by dis girl man. Come have couple shots yo.”
“Natti I don’t want to drink, I just…”
“SHOOOOOTS!!” Darren’s voice booms across the floor. The amount of people in the area is minimal, and by the way they interact they obviously have known each other for a while. Natti looks at me with a mischievous grin. “See? Time a drink yo.” I yield. Natti has a way of making me feel like I am constantly overreacting because he speaks with such confidence, anything makes sense. I am more than sure that drinking right now will distract me from having a much needed conversation with Darren the Barkeep. My destiny has come and went, gone forever unless I can piece last night back together. I digress.
Lemon drops, Jaegermeister, Johnny Walker Red Label and an incomprehensible amount of shouting. New faces blur past my field of vision with Pearl Jam’s “evenflow” crashing through the invisible speakers. We play pool for shots, we play “face your fear” for shots atop the pool table. Drinking with friends is something I had only seen from afar, an experience viewed on television. Now I am a part of the scene I once only witnessed. It felt like the party at the college I never went to. My face is numb as well as my tongue and I am in dire need of a cigarette. I step outside to my own surprise and dismay I find the entire day has escaped me!
My sun crept away from me during the drunken hours I spent in Asylum’s basement. Darren comes outside shortly after I do. He isn’t much taller than me. His hair is dyed blonde with black streaks throughout. It lays to one side of his face in the front, spiked out in the back. His skinny jeans are raggedy with holes forming on the knees. His Chuck Taylors are so old and worn that it’s difficult to make out the star on his inner ankle. His eyes are bright gray, almost transparent and very distracting. They make him look like one of the children of the corn, like he can stare into your mind and make it implode on itself. As drunk as I am, it becomes increasingly difficult to look at him during conversation. So I look at the siddewalk. “Hey, um Darren right?”
“You been drinking my sauce all night and you don’t know my name? I know your name.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, I do. Natti introduced us last night remember?”
“That’s just it. I don’t remember much of anything from last night.”
“I bet you remember that sweet bit of ass you took home last night.”
“So you saw me leave with her?”
“Wooooow, you really don’t remember! Dude you guys got out of here like someone was chasing you. I dunno what you said to her but she was ready to go after you said it.”
“And we left.”
“Yes you did man.”
“Together.”
“yeah dude together. The fuck was you drinking that you don’t remember this broad. She was fucking gorgeous dude.”
“Well I remember her face but that’s it, that’s all I remember. I don’t remember what we talked about. I don’t remember anything else except her face.”
“So you don’t even know if you took her home or not.”
“Nope. Natti told me that he saw her in here earlier today when I was, well, out…”
“yeah she was playing pool with that jack ass from last night. This fuckin guy, do you know he comes out side, right here, and starts shit with me?”
“You?”
“Yeah he’s all ‘the fuck are you lookin at did you take my fuckin keys?’ and Im like dude I will fucking kill you.”
“I guess he didn’t take that too well.”
“No, no he didn’t.” Darren flicks his cigarette “I kicked his ass at any rate. But umm yeah, I don’t know what to tell you.” You’ve told me enough. I follow darren back inside go upstair where Kelly is still serving and order a Stella Artois with a platter of chicken tenders and fries. “Did you find her?” She asks when she comes back. “No, I didn’t.”
“You didn’t give up did you, the night is young.” Is that so?
“What time is it?”
“A quarter to eight.” The nagging feeling that I was neglecting something creeps into my sphere of awareness. I take another sip of Stella and pick up a fry…Dinner! I told Mrs. Swinton I would come for dinner at seven and its already 7:45. “Oh god I gotta go.”
“You rememberd!” squeaks Kelly. “Well no, not really. I just remembered that I told my neighbor I would have dinner with her and here I am all drunk and inappropriate.”
“What time--?”
“Seven I told her I’d be there at seven. It’s nearly eight!” I hate to be late for anything.
“Hope you find her!” I hear Kelly say as I rush through the red door.
I climb in my cab and pull off. My sun in full retreat now, the streets are much colder. As I make my way back up to 14th street I can see all of the stalkers of the night bathe in the splashes of yellow streetlights. They’ve come out for their taste of nightly intrigue while the day crawlers are taking their interests back into their homes until morning. Packs of young men crowd the corners before the Chinese carry-outs. Their red and white signs paint the sidewalk. Traffic lights glow in the distance, with the night sky draped behind them, the asphalt twinkles with lights from the city beneath them. Girls are traveling in cliques now, clothed as scantily as possible. They are out to party, to sieze the night and make it theirs, to escape lonliness by drowning in a sea of people who are just as lonely. The prostitutes clock in for the night. Loitering at bus stops alone, perambulating the avenues and side streets in search of the next benefactor. The softness my sun brought to this place has been replaced by the sharp bite of night and the city.
I turn right onto 14th from Peabody street. Two men that can be aptly described as crack-heads argue on the corner next to my apartment building. Pat and Mike are missing from the porch. I find it a little odd but not completely irregular for they often leave to get food. Evidence states that’s the only thing they ever leave for. My apartment’s lonesome disposition convinces me to clean it. I give it a try but my drunkenness won’t allow me to get past the kitchen. Fatigue befalls me and the light from the open refridgerator blurs as I fade into slumber.
On the kitchen floor, I am awoken by the ignition of the fridge’s motor. Its biggest door is wide open displaying the lack of food I stock it with. The clock on the microwave reads 8:36. Now I’m really late, super late, uber late ! I go to take a shower and change into something a little more appropriate. During the steaming hot shower it crosses my mind that maybe I should just skip dinner at Ms. Swinton’s. I am already more than an hour late and my mood alone is enough reason not be near anyone. Today was more than disappointing and my melancholy is beginning to eat away at my present frame of mind.
Pleated chinos, brown loafers and a lapus blue Lacoste polo. Should I tuck the shirt in? I grab a bottle of wine from my mini-cooler and exit the front door. The musty hallway is appropriately lit by incandescent bulbs covered by blue miniature lamp shades. They poke out from the walls on either side of the hallway. The rather dirty carpet covers the floor in faded teal. Coffee spills and other random stains from days long passed speckle the terrazzo. The first whiff of Ms. Swinton’s dinner fills the air, gaining potency as I get closer. I can hear the soft sound of Ludwig Von Beethoven’s 9th symphony pirce the door labeled 412. A polite rap is what I give the door.
Ms. Swinton answers the door in a green dress with short yellow sleeves. Her apron ties around her waist with a red rooster stitched on it. Her silver hair is tied in the neatest bun with two obsidian chopsticks crossed into it. “You made it! And not a moment to soon! I was just pullin’ the bird out the oven. Come on in suga, make ya’self comfortable.”
“It smells delightful Ms. Swinton.” She takes the bottle of wine from my left hand and replaces it with her right hand to lead me into her abode. Directly in front of me is the coat closet residing in the far end of a diminuitive foyer. She take my coat and tosses it in there. The dining and living room is in first sight when I turn right. The wide space that connects her kitchen to the living room houses a dining table that sits on a thoroughly polished wooden floor. A lace tablecloth is draped over it with a crystal candelabra in the center and fine china paired with lustrous silverware on its borders. A table set for three.
The living room to the table’s immediate right is carpeted in lush turquoise. The carpet ends where the polished wood begins. Bookshelves are on either side of her 48 inch flat-screen vizio; the windows sit perpendicular giving a view of the parking lot out back. Family pictures grace the walls of the living room amongst duplicates of Claude Monet’s Vermeer’s and Lautrec’s. It was a beautiful setup complete with a couch two chairs and no shortage of houseplants. “Well thank you suga, and you brought Pinot. That is Sherry’s absolute favorite.” I forgot about her daughter. The woman the myth the mystery, and she will be joining us for dinner. “Is she here already?”
“No not yet she just called me and said she on the way so, she be here soon. Come have a glass of wine wit me baby.” It doesn’t sound like a bad way to kill some time until the guest of honor arrives. My anxiety builds with every second, for her daughter is one of two things. A nightmare waiting for my eyes to shut, or a dream come true. Ms. Swinton goes to the kitchen to open the pinot and returns with two full glasses of wine and a photo album.
“Here I wanna show you this.” She plops onto the couch next to me and turns the music down a bit. When she opens the album, aged pictures of a most beautiful young woman are in every pocket. “Is that you?” I ask and she nods her head with a grin. “Honey, I was smokin’ y’hear me? Wont no man out there was willin’ to refuse me, oh, and this is Bugg he was the love of my life.” She points at a picture on the next page of herself standing next to a handsome young man a few inches taller than herself. They are in front of a sports car that has been spray-painted on a drop-cloth. “That’s when I used to go to da go-go, we used to go see Chuck Brown each and every Thursday. And this here is my Sherry when she was two. Aint she cute?” I nod my head with a smile. “You wanna see a more recent picture?”
“Sure.” She didn’t look like a muppet baby…So far so good.
“Here it is in the back, there. I aint put none of her college stuff in the…here it is. This is when she graduated from Ithaca.” All of the oxygen fell from my lungs. Every bit of blood in my body rushed to my cranium. That tingly feeling one gets when they eat too much wasabi infects the top, back section of my skull. I stare at the picture in disbelief. It couldn’t possibly be. “I think I know her.”
“Sherry? Really, how?”
“I think, I mean, does she frequent bars? I mean does she drink a lot?” I just know it’s her. The similarities are uncanny. Her hazel eyes, that unmistakable smile, her naturally orange hair. It was all too perfect and now I’m getting dizzy with excitement.
“Baby, I wouldn’t know what that girl does half the time. She never came home in a drunken stupor until last night.” That is confirmation enough. Sherry IS the girl from last night. My neighbor’s beautiful daughter is the cause and solution to all of my problems. Then it hits me like metro bus operated by a blind acid junky. Would if she doesn’t remember me? The only thing I remember from the previous night is her face.
I sit here with her mother and come to the startling realization that I don’t know what her body looks like; I don’t remember what she was wearing, how we got back, if we came back together. In fact, the only reason I remembered her at all was that smile that permeated my lonesome disposition and provided me with enough courage to seize my day. A somewhat violent knock comes from the front door. “Mama! Open da door I can’t find my keys.”
Carpe Diem isn’t nullified because my sun has gone away.

THE END.