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BLACK HELICOPTERS EPISODE 12 THURSDAY the SIXTH - 8:12 AM The Jefferson Street sanctuary
occupied the rear end of a single-floored derelict plumbing supply warehouse on
one of the shabbiest blocks of the shabby East End of the indisputably shabby
city. Though the hour was late, by charitable standards... the City shelter
and those maintained by religious institutions tending to kick their
clientele out by dawn... half a dozen widely scattered human forms, still
huddled under filthy sleeping bags or blankets, lay snoring on mattresses of
cardboard or, for the fortunate, thin, ragged foam, even a few stained,
reeking mattresses - oblivious to a weak sun streaming through the sole
window, to the brigades of running, screaming, small, ragged children, to the
disembodied voice of Geraldo interrogating a bedazzled celebrity about her
new tell-all tome on the new old shelter television with the blown picture
tube and spliced, pirated cable. |
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The furthest portion of the long room
was blocked off by a partition and countertop of scrap wood, behind which more
misaligned boards were divided into makeshift cubicles in which grimy bundles,
some in black trashbags, reposed in numbered slots; a
few skinny, wary cats perching atop the more comfortable of these, waiting for
the Rapture… or a rat. A sorrowful-looking black man, well past retirement-age,
waited at the counter while Andy unloaded half of a black plastic garbage bag
of stale dumpster pastries into a plastic tub – free for the taking according
to the sign scrawled on a battered cardboard placard.
"Thanks for handling my shift,
Eddie," he said.
"S'alright,"
the man said softly. "Wasn't planning on goin'
anywhere, nohow. TV picture's out again; think I know
where I can get a replacement. Gotta slip out for
ten, maybe fifteen minutes later, but I'll be back by noon."
"Just empty out the place and
lock up. Tree forgot, last week, and we lost some guy's pack, and they also
made off with one of Bertha's shopping bags."
"So what?" Eddie scoffed. "Nothing in them
but tin cans… maybe a dollar’s worth… ten year old Urinals, crud, old torn up raggy clothes. Even the cats
won't go near her slot."
"I ain't
no detective," Andy replied, shrugging, "I ain't
no TV Judge Rudy either. Everything else OK?"
Eddie put a bony fist to his chin,
remembering. "Tyresha... says
she'll be back for the kids by ten. And uh... Lee says this strange guy come in
with Paulie before he died. Both hyped up on some bad crank, crazy talkin', outa jail or the
bughouse, somethin', talking about all the women
they're gonna rape, all these guys from back in the day that he was gonna take
down. Finally drank himself to sleep, both of ‘em left early. Militia dude...
looked like one of them fellows with that gang in Washington, or at the
Convention - Killer-man side, dig? All
dressed up Army but old, tattered, probably real. Not Iraq One, too young for
Costa Rica… maybe been to Iraq Two or one of them other sandy places, talked
like he'd been dusted or had his brains scrambled by some roadside bomb. Closin' all them crazyhouses way
the government does, people just waitin' for someone
to get wasted so they can get to keep their date with Mister Lethal Injection.
Wouldn't let anybody check his backpack... Lee thinks he must’ve been packin'..."
"Who's on tonight's shift?
"Reg
and Karin."
"Shit! Leave 'em a note an' I'll
drop by or try to call. Last thing we need, you know, is someone shootin' up the place.
Again... he shook his head..."
"Phone's off," Eddie added.
"Goddam, when did this
happen?"
"Sometime or
other yesterday. Off when I come in... Lee didn't know nothin'..."
"Fuck!" Andy said, kicking
at the bag of remaining stale pastries. As he did, an elderly woman wheeled up
in a chair that might have belonged to an asylum in the '30s; a Depression-era
conveyance of wood, wicker and metal with a questing cockroach hauling itself
up to explore an armrest.
"Andy! Andy Morf'son!"
she called out.
At least two of the sleepers grunted
and tossed, almost coming awake.
"That's me. Morning, Miz Webster... hey, I thought the City found you a hotel
room. Some Bollywood Hilton..."
"My teef
hurt," she declared, then stopped, shook her head and re-entered the
Sanctuary's time zone. "I run away from that place, Mister.
Andy. Run!...
ha ha, ha ha! Was full of mouses! I's afraid even to lie down, they run all
over my body, those mouses. When you gonna take me to
some nice dentist?"
"Not until the Conks leave,"
he replied quickly. "Too many strangers in town."
"They no good!"
Miz Webster declared. "They sit up all night an'
talk that Commonism – there… in that hotel… six to a
room, the ones with a little pop o’money, them with
all them mouses! Should go
get jobs somewhere else, and let poor ol' women get their teef
fixed. S’not fair!"
"No ma'am," Andy assured
her, "it's not. But they'll all be gone next week!"
"That's good. Cause otherwise,
you run a clean establishment. No mouses here in
Mister Andy's place. That Mayor Pinhead spend so much on his corruption, can't
even buy no cats for those Hindu hotels. Lord, he don't even have to pay
for them, that APTA gives cats away or else hoosh!... off to the gas chamber. Like your brudder,
Eddie!" she cackled, grabbing her own throat and pretending to strangle
herself, letting her tongue hang and a decaying gust escape from her mouth.
"OK, don't want to burden you wif an old woman's
troubles. Probably won't be round much longer, nohow..."
she sniffled.
"That's not true," Andy
replied. "Just hold out one more week until those Conks get gone. Oh...
and Eddie, put a sign on the door about the phone when you go out. People
expecting messages, from the day labor, probation... they got to make other
arrangements."
"Phone bill ain't
gonna be paid?"
"Not while those Conk protesters
are in town. We’ll try to wrangle donations out of a few, but they’re cheap,
cheap bastards in designer sneakers! An'
if any TV you bring back's been liberated from somewhere, make sure it's not
from anywhere round here, or anything the cops’ll
recognize."
"Now why would I go about doin' a thing like that?" Eddie waved him off.
"Cause you a t’eef!"
Miz Webster called out from her chair, clamping her
bony wrists around the dark gray purse she carried in her lap. "I know you
fifty-seven years, I knowed your mother, your brudders, I knowed your father...
he die up in Jaminoe too, takin' de gas..."
And the old lady grabbed her throat again and shook like a saint in the midst of ecstacies and revelations; one of the bums on the floor coughed, then resumed snoring, and some kids pushed an empty bottle rolling across the floor, following Andy on his way out of the Sanctuary and into the morning.
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