This story is dedicated to D. Drayton. You may have passed on, but I knew you and I appreciated your warmth.
I stumble into the homeless shelter at seven AM. My only friend is the cheap coffee in my thermos. I sit down in an office chair that offers no back support. Everyone in the shelter suffers from addiction or some sort of mental illness–schizophrenia, psychosis, mania. Anthony believes a bodybuilder is trying to kill him. Darrius says the rabbit in his pocket told him about an explosion in Bankhead. Herman vomits on himself while he waits for breakfast and to die of cancer.
Would Anthony call the cops again and ask about the imaginary bodybuilder that was trying to kill him? Would Darrius Grant, in the throes of another psychotic break, talk to me about the rabbit in his pocket that told him about an explosion in Bankhead? Or would it be something more sane, but still unfortunate, like poor, cancer-riddled Herman vomiting on himself again as he waited for breakfast? The possibilities were abundant. I pondered them all, sipped my coffee and right as I felt it staining my teeth, there was a scream from the dorm. Right on cue.
“FUCK YOU TALKIN’ ‘BOUT? I’LL BEAT THE BREAKS OFF YOUR ASS RIGHT NOW, BITCH!”
“YOU AIN’T GONNA DO SHIT! YOU A HO! YOU A HO!”
I glanced at the clock. 7:03. That might be a record. Colby, the hulking security guard, and I wandered toward the dorm to check out the commotion. The stench of unwashed bodies, filthy linens and urine assaulted my nostrils as we stepped inside. No matter how many times I walked in there, I never got used to the smell. It was Malcolm Smith and David Tate yelling. Malcolm saw me walk in and he didn’t calm down, but he did march up to me, his brow furrowed, his dark hands shaking with anger.
“I’m just gonna tell you what happened,” he began, sweating, “‘cause I don’t want it misconstrued or lied about, you know what I’m sayin’? Okay, so D and I walked over to the store the other day and I let him hold two dollars and he said he’d get me back by Thursday, right? Well, it’s Thursday and he still hasn’t paid me my two dollars and–”
“YOU AIN’T SAID I HAD TO PAY YOU BACK,” David said, charging up to us, saliva spewing forth from his mouth and hitting Malcolm’s white t-shirt. “YOU AIN’T NEVER SAID I HAD TO PAY YOU BACK! IT’S TWO DOLLARS, WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU LYING TO HIM?”
“Do you see what I’m dealing with? Do you see how calm I’m remaining here?” Malcolm said, putting his hands up as if he was the shelter’s sainted pacifist. “But, I asked him for this two dollars and he started acting crazy and now he’s yelling and I’m not trying to get into all that, you know what I’m sayin’? ‘Cause I got my bed and I’m not trying to lose it for this and–”
“WHY ARE YOU CRYING TO HIM? WHY DON’T YOU MAN THE FUCK UP! I–
“Do you see me talking here, mother fucker?” Malcolm said as he turned to face David, the spit fresh and wet on his shirt. “Why don’t you shut the fuck up ‘cause the grown-ups are talking?”
The comment incensed David and he stepped toward Malcolm. They stood toe-to-toe like prizefighters.
“Yo, yo,” I said, trying to have a calm, but firm voice, “we’re not doing this. Take it outside and do it off the property.”
“How you call yourself a grown-up when you’re whining to him like a little bitch? Talk to me about it, old ass.”
“Step off, D, step the fuck off.”
“Fuck you gonna do about it?”
“Yo, enough,” I said, but my protest fell upon deaf ears as Malcolm shoved David.
“Nah, y’all,” the security guard said, stepping between them, “take it outside.”
They heeded his words and walked out of the dorm. Colby and I followed them, along with a hoard of the clients, as if this was a lunchtime scuffle in grade school.
“I’m gonna tap you on ya ass like you’re my bitch, D. ‘Cause you’re my bitch,” Malcolm said, the veins bulging out of his wide neck. He removed the cotton shirt from his head that acted as a makeshift du-rag and exposed his gray twists. David stalked beside him with his thick hands at his side, bunched into tight fists. They marched out across the street into the morning cold, their breath visible in the chill, flanked in the safe distance by me, Colby and everyone else who wanted to watch some morning violence. The only thing more bitter than Malcolm and David was the weather. It had a bite to it that morning that reminded me of the winters of my childhood in New York. You know what else had a bite to it? The sweeping right hook that Malcolm hit David with. Their fists raised, they pummeled the shit out of each other on the frigid, cracked pavement. The sun wasn’t up and their shadows loomed over the road under the watchful eye of a streetlight. A police cruiser drove by but they didn’t give a shit–this kind of stuff happened all the time at the shelter. Initially, David got a few licks in, but Malcolm soon got the better of him. He tackled David to the ground and bounced his head off the pavement.
“Goddamn,” one of the clients in the small crowd said, “O.G. can still fight.”
“Malcolm ain’t play, man. I don’t fuck with his crazy ass,” someone else piped in. And then real crazy–Darrius Grant–stepped out of the building and wandered over to the edge of the property to assess the situation from afar. Even though it was twenty degrees out at best, he wore swimming trunks and flip-flops.
“Hey, c’mon guys,” Darrius helplessly pleaded to them across the street, “stop that.”
“I hate that guy, he annoys the fuck outta me,” Roy Cameron said from the crowd, opting to go back inside instead of listen to poor Darrius’s pleas. Darrius’s pleas, like mine, were ignored. Not only were they ignored, but the brawlers did the opposite and kicked it up a notch. Malcolm got David to tap out on the ground, but the second he let him up, David sucker punched him. Bad move. Malcolm returned and punched him so hard in the right eye, it felt like my orbital bone was crushed. He hit him again, again, and again. Everytime it seemed like he would let up, he restarted his onslaught. He tossed David to the ground once more, but this time, he didn’t put him in a full nelson, he just kicked at his ribs with his black Timberlands. Malcolm was twenty years David’s senior, but had spent time in prison and was stabbed several times. It showed in the way he fought. There was a reckless abandon to his fighting that was so primal, so angry, that it could only have been formed in the streets or inside a penitentiary. I was cold and I wanted to go back inside, but I couldn’t stop watching. Neither could anyone in the crowd.
“These folks, bruh,” Colby said, turning to me, “how you gonna be doing this at seven in the morning?”
“You know what’s even crazier? They’re doing this over two dollars, man. Two fuckin’ dollars.”
“Yeah,” Bryant shrugged, “but two dollars is a lot of money to some people.”
***
It had been a long week at the shelter, but every week was a long week at the shelter. That was why I drank. I never drank to forget because I was a master of rumination, but I did drink to turn down the noise inside my head. So, when Friday rolled around, I hit up Mr. C’s, parked my ass on a barstool, and did my best to shut my brain off with a can of PBR and a shot of Tullamore Dew. But everytime I closed my eyes or tried to focus on the television, I thought about Malcolm and David. I thought about David’s ribs being cracked to bits. I thought about his internal bleeding and his bruised, puffed up face. How he limped about like a wounded dog. Malcolm walked around with a black eye but acted as if nothing had happened. These men, all the men in the shelter, really, had lived such wild, perilous and unfair lives. They all had stories. They had all been let down in some way and not afforded the chances that every human being deserved.
I had been in a fair amount of fights. Nothing major, but I knew what it felt like to punch someone in the face. Conversely, I also knew what it felt like to get hit in the jaw or have a rib cracked. Typically, I was drunk when these things happened, so it came with the territory, but it disturbed me that Malcolm and David brawled while they were stone sober. It wasn’t inebriated testosterone or fighting for the hand of a fair maiden. It was two pent-up, defeated, desperate men fighting over principle. Over bragging rights. Over manhood. Nothing at stake and everything at stake at the same time. I slugged my PBR and mulled it over. Scraps, brawls, violence, whatever you wanna call it, it was natural to me. I saw it growing up in the sticks and I’ve seen it in every city I’ve ever lived in since then.
“Where’s your sister at?” Don, the bartender asked me. I liked Don and he liked me, mostly because he was a fellow hoops aficionado. Aside from that, though, he was a real blue-collar type, a working man with a furrowed brow, an ex-wife, and a liver that screamed at him to give it a break. That endeared him to me.
“Working. I told her she needs to come down and see you and Denis.”
“Fuckin’ right she does,” he said, motioning with his hands to see if I needed another.
“The store’s killing her,” I said, nodding my head, “but you know how she is.”
He set a fresh tallboy in front of me. “How do you like the shelter?”
I sighed, took a long swig and looked at him. His bloodshot eyes told me that he was half in the bag himself, but he gave me a look of understanding. That’s why I liked Don, ‘cause like any good bartender, he just got it. He walked to the other end of the bar and left me to my thoughts. I glanced up at the television, eager to see what game was on tonight, but before I could figure it out, three piss drunk college kids came up beside me at the bar. They all had square jaws, Patagonia vests, khakis and impeccably clean sneakers. I wasn’t much older than them, but I knew that my life was radically different from theirs, similar to how my life was radically different from Malcolm’s and David’s. Inches apart at the bar, but worlds apart in life.
“Dude, you owe me money for my fucking vape, brah.”
“Yeah, but I’m not going to pay you back ‘cause you, like, owe me money, brah.”
“You’re such a tool. Pay me.”
All their voices blended together, as if it was one person speaking. It felt like one white dude with a comfortable, assured future had been plucked out of Buckhead and split into three, like some sort of Caucasian amoeba.
“Hey,” one of them barked at Don, “two High Noons.” The restrained anger on Don’s face was palpable. This piss ant was so stupid, so naive, talking to Don as if he was some sorority girl and not six-foot-four, with wrists like tree trunks.
“Don’t be a dick, dude, get me one.”
“No, fuck you, not ‘til you pay me, brah.”
“Hey, what’s the move tonight? Are we moving to campus or sliding over to Northside?”
“I dunno, let’s drink here and eat ‘cause I want to–”
“–dude, seriously, buy me a fucking drink!”
“I thought your money had motion? That’s what you said at the club, brah.”
“I lost so much money on that game on Sunday–fucking Jayden Daniels.”
Don set down two High Noons in front of them and walked away without so much as looking at them. I tried to ignore them, but their inane conversation needled into my head through my ears. I couldn’t focus on my beer, the game that had just started, or on the Pogues wailing over the speakers. All I wanted was to be left alone with my thoughts. It was always quiet here this early on a Friday and these pricks had to ruin it. Veins popped in my hand as I clenched the aluminum can harder than rosary beads.
“Dude, get me a fucking beer.”
“No.”
I shut my eyes and drank. Two of them shoved each other back and forth while the third one laughed.
“Dude, stop!”
But, it didn’t stop. It intensified until one of them crashed into me and spilled my beer. They argued back and forth and didn’t even notice what they’d done. The third one cackled and taped it with his phone, the flash a heinous light in the dark room. Don’s heavy footsteps echoed from the other side of the bar. I don’t know what possessed me, but I grabbed the one who spilled my beer, turned him around, and wrapped my hands around his throat as tightly as I could. My midsection tightened and my arms burned from clenching. I threw him into the wall, my hands still around his throat, and tried to extinguish the privileged arrogance out of his body. Muffled gurgles came out of his mouth as I dug my nails into his throat as deep as I could. Before I could do the damage that I wanted, Don yanked me off of him.
“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT, MAN? DID YOU SERIOUSLY JUST DO THAT?” one of the boys said. The one that taped the whole thing stood and laughed, while the one I choked stood there and coughed. Don dragged me by the neck and threw me out the back door onto the patio. My adrenaline had me ready to burst at the seams. The usual suspects were outside smoking cigarettes and none of them seemed to notice or care that I’d been flung onto the concrete like a ragdoll. Smoke hung in the air and lent itself to the various conversations being had–talk of bad work, bad relationships, bad lives. I propped myself up on one of the damp picnic tables and stared at the television encased in glass on the wall, unable to concentrate, my body shaking. Don came out onto the patio and walked up to me with my bill, his shoulders as broad as a mountain. Staring at me with hard eyes, he lit a cigarette.
“Fuck’s your problem?”
“I dunno, man.”
“You drunk? Is it a woman?”
“I dunno.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what I know,” Don said, exhaling his smoke, “when there’s a problem in my bar, let me handle it.”
I nodded my head and handed him some cash with a generous tip.
“Sleep it off, kid,” Don said as he took the money and turned around. I stood up from the picnic table and dusted myself off.
“Don?”
He turned around and raised his eyebrows, the cigarette dangling from his mouth.
“How much were they arguing over?”
“Huh?”
“The kids were arguing over money…you know how much?”
“You won’t believe it,” Don said, smirking, “but it was over two bucks. A couple of Tech students arguing over two fuckin’ dollars. You believe that?”
“Actually, I can. Two dollars is a lot of money to some people.”
