Shadows

“That’s the thing about this city…”

A mix of ketchup, mayonnaise and mustard is dripping from the shawarma so I stuff it all into my mouth as a last resort. I quickly wipe the sauce from my hands on my trousers to stop the spread. I flip my wrist to see if I had caught it in time. The damage was minimal. I wipe it again for safe measure. I hate the sensation of sticky goo on my hands, I shudder at the idea of not being able to clean them properly. It never gets easier.

“What is?” I ask.

“Huh?”

“What’s the thing about this city?”

“Aaaaah! That’s the thing about this city!”

I hate it when he goes like this. Chest all puffed up, head held high, like he’s some sort of intellectual. He hasn’t even eaten his half of the shawarma and I can see all the goo dripping from his hands and onto the ground. How can he stand it? Doesn’t it make him sick? Brrrrr!

“No! What’s the thing about this city? You said, that’s the thing about this city. What is?”

“Aaaaah! That you can be whatever and whomever you wish!”

What?!

The sauce continues to drip as he stares at nothing.

“Are you going to eat that?”

“Huh? Yeah!”

And he stuffs it whole into his mouth and proceeds to wipe his hands briefly on his jacket and then rubs them together. That’s not how you do it.

“What do you mean by that? We ain’t nothing no more.”

“Aaaaah! This is where you’re wrong, George. Maybe, you’re nothing but I can be whatever I want to be in this city. All I need is imagination!”

“Whatever you say, Professor. Can we not be hungry? Half of leftover shawarma ain’t really stimulating material in that regard.”

“Hmmmm!”

And off he goes again into the unknown nestling behind his eyes. Right hand cupped beneath his chin, fingers pulling absently at his beard. He’ll be like this for awhile so no use in trying to talk to him anymore.

This place is disgusting, and to think we’re deep in the heart of the city. Most people don’t even know this park exists. If you can still call it a park that is. Around one hundred square meters in total, to the left an old basketball court with a high wire fence, to the right three broken down benches. Everything else: dirt, a couple tufts of loose grass and syringes. Lots and lots of syringes. All the homeless junkies come here to get their fix.

But, if you can stomach the depraved reality you’ve got a pretty high chance of ending up with a full belly. There are pubs, bars and fast food joints all around so the dumpsters in the alley leading to the park are usually brimming with treasure. Today, not so much!

There’s a puddle behind one of the benches, it rained two nights ago, it can’t be filthier than what I have on my hands.

The Professor’s expression has changed, he looks less constipated, maybe his imagination has yielded some fruit. Hopefully it’s the tangible kind.

“So? Have you decided what someone fed looks like in this city?”

“Very funny, George. If I thought you knew what cynical meant I would call you to be one. Why do you insist on scuffing me so? Have I not always kept us fed?”

“I ain’t sure what you’re trying to say there, Professor. But if I’m not mistaken it was I who found food today, and yesterday for that matter. Was it not?”

“Indeed it was, George. But what good did it do us since we’re hungry again five minutes later? What we need is a plan! Something to give us pause for a couple of days, so we can relax a bit.”

“Relax from what? It’s not like we’ve got anything going on for us anyway!”

“We don’t! But have you ever asked yourself why is that?”

“No! What good would it do, it’s not like I can change anything about it.”

“Aaaaah! But that’s where you’re wrong my dear George. Just as I said before, we can be whatever and whomever we want to be. We just need to dare imagine it.”

“Oh, come on, Professor! Don’t start with that again! I just want to be fed and if I can score something on the side to help me sleep better, I’m golden.”

“Tsk, tsk, George! Tsk, tsk!”

“Don’t ‘tsk, tsk’ me! For everything that fancy degree of yours is worth, at the end of the day we’re looking inside the same dumpster.”

“Come now, George! No need to get riled up about it. All I’m trying to say is that we need to improve our lives a bit. We could start, as you heatedly suggested, with our stomachs.”

“And how do you propose we do that, Professor?”

“The outstretched hand that does not tell a story, does not receive alms.”

“Enough with the fortune cookie crap! Just say what you mean!”

“I mean to say that we’ve been too small minded, we’ve been looking at the egg when we should’ve been looking at the chicken.”

“That’s it! It’s clear that rats must of been eating at your half of the shawarma because you’ve completely lost it. What’s worse is that you’re really starting to piss me off.”

“Oh, relax already! Have you ever heard the saying: give a man a fish and he will be fed for a day…”

“Teach a man how to fish and he will never go hungry again. I know of it! I also know that the dude who said it wasn’t a fisher.”

“Why do you say that, George?”

“Because he never heard of droughts, storms or any hundreds of other things fishermen have to deal with on a daily basis.”

“Hmmm, now that you mention it. In any case, what I mean to say is, we’re always going to be hungry, right?”

“Not if you got food you ain’t!”

“I mean to say that we will always need food, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Ok, than we should start thinking about ways to make sure that we always have enough!”

I look at him and I see the excitement in his eyes. He’s positively brimming with it. I would like nothing more than to punch it right out of him.

“And how do you propose we do that?”

“People haven’t been rather charitable lately, correct?”

“Not with all the reduced foot traffic because of the damn pandemic or whatever it’s called. Thank God they decided to reopen the pubs and bars. Took them long enough, rotten assholes.”

“Right! But even before that we didn’t have much luck.”

“And?”

“Maybe we should invent some background stories for ourselves. Something to make people want to help us, not because we need help but because they need to help us? Do you understand, George?”

“Ok!”

“And by that I mean that we can be whatever and whomever we want to be. Do you understand now?”

“Aha! Like an astronaut!”

“I guess that could work, but maybe we should drop it down a notch, what do you say?”

“I’m just messing with you, Professor. Sure, let’s do it, as long as it gets me fed I don’t see why not. Hmmm! Heads up, we got a tweaker.”

The benches where we ate are about ten meters away from the alley but that doesn’t stop the smell from rushing at me as soon as he steps into the opening.

Disgusting!

“Let’s go, George.”

“Right behind you.”

He’s wearing a pair of moldy trousers and a ripped up sleeveless undershirt that is more yellow than white and he’s huffing nervously from a black plastic bag. I can hear him mumbling to himself and then out loud:

“Do you have a light?”

“No, man.” I reply.

“How ‘bout something to eat?”

“Neah! We just fished something from that dumpster over there. Slim pickings today unfortunately.”

“No, no? Ok!” he twitches nervously and huffs again. “Do you want to get a fix with me?” And he pulls a syringe out of his pocket and shows it to us. “I can share.”

“Neah, man. We’re fine. You enjoy that.” I reply.

The Professor’s looking rather angsty and I can see that he’ unconsciously scratching at his left arm, right beneath the elbow. What’s up with that?

“You guys have a phone? Can you call 911 if anything happens to me?” The drive’s so great that he starts lining up his shot while talking to us.

“We don’t, but maybe you should be careful with that, huh?” I tell him.

“Come on, George. Let’s go!”

“He have to go, buddy. You take care now.”

“Yeah, yeah” he mumbles incoherently and carries on with his appointment.

We turn right at the end of the alley and go straight for the river. We decide that if we’re to start with our little experiment we should do it in a proper park. People are more gullible when they’re relaxed. Also, there’s a proper water fountain there.

Once the Professor finds his tongue again we start throwing ideas back and forth of who we should be. There aren’t many people on the streets, and the ones that we come across give us wide birth. Can’t really blame them, I’d avoid myself if I could. Yeah, if this is ever going to work it can only work there.

The park is surrounded by many historical buildings so there’s a lot of comings and goings from tourists and the occasional stroller. We put on our most miserable faces and go for it.

“Sir, excuse me, Sir!” the Professor approaches an elderly man walking his dog.

“Piss off!” he replies. No surprise there.

“Ma’am! Excuse me!” as he approaches a middle aged woman talking on her phone. “Can I bother you for a second?”

She passes him without sparing a second look.

“Excuse me, Sir! Hello!” to a young man around twenty-five.

He lifts his gaze from his phone and stops when he meets the Professor’s. Once they stop, they’re half in the bag. Sensing this, the Professor goes all out.

“Hi, Sir! Do you have a moment? I’m sorry to bother you, but could you please help me out? We’re from the county and my wife got sick due to the pandemic. I told her not to go to the market but she wouldn’t listen. She got transferred to the hospital here and I followed her but our money ran out. I’ve been trying to phone my friends to send me some money but it’s been very hard. Do you think you could maybe help me out? Please!” his eyes go as big as saucers at this point.

“I can give you a sandwich if you want.” as he starts rummaging through his bag. “Ooh, and a mask.” the man replies.

“Thank you, thank you! Could you maybe spare two masks?” the Professor asks.

“Sure” the man answers.

Half a sandwich later the Professor is all teeth as he announces triumphantly. “I told you this would work.”

“I don’t really see how half a sandwich is going to keep me fed for a week to be honest.”

“We’re just warming up. You’ll see. By the end of the day I’ll make a believer out of you.”

“Yeah! Sure.”

He didn’t. We went at it for a couple of hours, doing turns and trying different angles but at the end of the day we’re only up a couple of bucks, a bag of pretzels and another sandwich.

“So!”

“Maybe we should’ve gone with your astronaut story.”

“Yeah, maybe!”

It felt like kicking a puppy. But even puppies sometimes deserve it.

“Next time maybe we should focus less on who we could be and be more of whom we are.”

“Wow. Now, that’s a real tongue twister, George.”

“Yeah, I’ve been practicing it all day. Come on, I have an idea.” and we start walking towards the edge of the park. “Do you see that building over there?”

“Yes.”

“Workers have been going in and out all day, they’ve been changing the plumbing. Do you know what that means?”

“No.”

“It means that we get to be plumbers tonight.”

“What?”

“What’s wrong, Professor? Wasn’t this the thing about this city, that we can be whatever we want? For five dollars a kilo we’ll get to be plumbers and delivery men tonight. Come on, you’ll love it.”

“Aaaaah, ok.”

“We’ll need to find something to carry it with. Go to that supermarket over there and get me one of those shopping carts.”

If you pay attention to the world around you, you’ll see that there are plenty of opportunities to make an easy buck. Especially now, when people have gone feral. Everyone’s looking after their own health, their own future and comfort. They no longer care so much about what happens around them, even if they’re technically paid to do just that.

Let’s take for example the sixty something year old security guard sleeping in his one by one plastic shed. As long as the building’s going to be there tomorrow morning, nobody’s going to bother him and he won’t be bothered tonight since nobody can vanish a whole building without him waking up. I call that a win win situation.

We’re able to get the copper tubbing out pretty cleanly and hauling it to a seller is even simpler.

Just like an apple, a city gets rotten at the core and if you have the eyes to see it, you’ll notice that the city is more rot than apple. A slinger there, a lady of the night here and hustlers everywhere. That’s the only thing you should focus on not being, blind.

“So, Professor! I guess you were right, we had no imagination. We should be covered for the next few days. That should give us enough time to expand our repertoire and be whomever we wanna be.” and I hand him his share of the cut. “You look twitchy, are you all right?”

“Hm? Yeah, yeah! Don’t worry about me. I was just thinking about something.”

“Is it about the tweaker we met in the park?”

There’s this spark that lights up in the eyes of a cornered animal. It fades away pretty quickly but for a heartbeat it’s there, suspended between fight or flight, a moment of choice. A moment when anything is possible, when even rabbits can turn into fiends.

“No! No! Why would I be thinking about him?” the Professor says scratching at his arm.

“I don’t know, you seemed pretty shook up when we met him.”

“You know what? Maybe we should go and check on him to see if he’s ok. What do you say?”

“Yeah, maybe we should.” It’s still early. “Hey, Professor!”

“Yes?”

My uncle was a boxer. He taught me that if you hit someone squarely on either side of the jaw, you have a pretty big chance of knocking them down. No broken wrist, no broken teeth, no chance of scrapping the skin off your knuckles.

The Professor sinks like a rag doll. I check to make sure he didn’t hit his head and take his half of money from the copper haul.

The most important thing about rot is, it spreads.