Anthology Complex (23 page)

I am relieved of duty early because the two nephews are able to handle
the bed by themselves, and after about ten minutes I watch from my window as
they drive off in a moving truck with Joe's possessions. So little in so much
space. It almost makes you terrified of living a long but meaningless life.

The truck is no longer visible, but what does come into vision is a
person named Mary. She gets out of a car and begins to yell at the driver.
After a few seconds the driver drives off. "She needs to relax more,"
I think to myself. As she gets closer to the building I begin to see the added
weight Tao mentioned, and I wonder where it all came from. Maybe stress from
her job? Maybe from the men in her life? Maybe life itself.

After she has entered the building I go to the kitchen to get food, and
not more than five minutes have passed before I hear her yelling outside again.
When I go to the window I see the same car I saw before, but this time I see
the man who she is yelling at. The man doesn't have much to say, but Mary is
going on and on about how he is suppose to buy her things. I'm guessing he
forgot her birthday.

After some time the man says something that gets him a slap across the
face and causes Mary to walk away. While she is walking away he yells something
at her, and then gets into his car and drives away. The efforts that humans
make at romantic relationships are sometimes comical.

Chapter 39:

HEADS, TAILS, CALL IT IN THE AIR

"yo its derek how have you been? jus sendin this letter to let you
know whats up... and to say thanks for havin our back. i been thinkin about
them short stories you wrote, and i been tryin to write one myself but i cant
think of anything to write about. anyway ima keep tryin and maybe ill send you
something so you can tell me if its good or not. besides all that im guessin
you heard about what happened to jamal, but if you didnt hear he got shot over
some bullshit. it aint have nothin to do with the beef over that drug shit,
spider said he died because he never listened. anyway jamal and the main guy
here were tight so hes lookin after me i guess, he gave me a job but im smart
enough to know that i cant be around these people because they will influence
who i become. learned that from one of your stories. aight so ill probly send
you another message sometime... ill be sure to send the story to. peace. ps:
spider is the guy who came and got me forgot to mention that."

The line that continues to repeat itself in my head is "he got shot
over some bullshit." Derek's demeanor seems to represent a person who has
been around so long that death is just another part of life to them. Even if
it's the death of a close one.

There is no return address on the envelope, so I assume he didn't want
me to reply. Or maybe he didn't expect one. I also notice that the address on
the envelope only has a street number and a street name. I put the letter back
in the envelope and place the envelope next to a desk near my shelf of
composition notebooks, and then I go outside, walk through the alley behind my
apartment building, and turn the corner to see that Spider is still there.

I debate whether I should engage him or not, but seeing as my survival
rate will dramatically increase if I know the details of what's going on, I
decide to do so. I slowly walk up to his car and knock on the window of the
passenger seat. It turns out he was sleeping.

He wakes up with all types of paranoia, and when he realizes who I am,
he tells me to get in the car. After I get in he starts to drive away. He asks
me how I knew he was watching me, but I tell him that I didn't. I tell him I
was just walking home and happened to see him in the car. He makes a right
turn.

He tells me that I need to be more careful, that there may be people
watching me. I ask him who would be watching me, and he tells me that I don't
really have to worry about that anymore. He says he's been sitting on my house
for weeks waiting for the other crew to pop out, but they still haven't done
so, and because they haven't done so they probably never knew that Jamal and
Derek were hiding out here in the first place. He makes a left turn.

He takes a glance at the rear-view mirror and then says, "You still
gotta be careful though." He tells me about how a few days into the
sitting, two cops started to follow him. He makes another left turn, and
shortly after I see what he means when an unmarked but obvious police vehicle
makes the same left turn. Damn you Jamal.

Spider tells me that if the cops knew about Jamal, and if they were
following him, then they might know about me as well. If they didn't know about
me then, they certainly know about me now since I just got into the fucking car
of someone who is probably a suspect in something. I ask him about Derek.
"Derek? Derek's a strong kid. You don't gotta worry about him. We'll take
care of him." That's what he tells me. I ask him about Jamal. The driver
looks at the passenger, but the driver does not say anything.

I ask him if he's doing this for me because I helped out his friends,
and he says he's doing it "because the main motherfucker has this thing
about respect." I'm guessing he means something along the lines of if you
show him decency, he will show you decency, and because I showed Jamal and
Derek decency he is showing me that decency back. Then Spider tells me about
how he isn't doing this because he believes in the same thing, he's doing it
because he pissed off the main guy and the main guy is forcing him to do it. He
tells me about how when the main dude tells you to do something, you have to do
it, because if no one listens to the head, to the man who has the experience,
there will be no order. Not exactly in those words.

After a few more left and right turns, we are back in my neighborhood
and Spider decides to drop me off a few blocks from my apartment building.
Before we depart, he tells me that if those cops decide to drop by, not to tell
them shit. I tell him that I don't really know shit, and that I would like to
keep it that way.

For the next three days, Spider continues to sit on my location and then
on the fourth day he disappears, but that doesn't matter because by now I'm
already in the system. Now I find myself turning on my television and putting
it on my favorite channel. It's been almost a week and there is still coverage
on the school shooting. One teacher killed, one student killed, one security
guard injured and a jogger who seems to have had nothing to do with anything
injured.

Now my phone is ringing, and when I pick it up I hear Kathleen's voice.
Looks like she's back into my life. She talks about how they are going to do a
massive prayer at church tomorrow for her son, and if I would like to come. I
guess it's nice to know that the fact that he is her son comes before the fact
that he is a homosexual. The next morning I find myself wearing clothes I
haven't worn for so long around the type of people I haven't talked to in so
long in a place I haven't been to in so long.

Chapter 40:

THE LOST CARPENTER

Last night, I had a strange dream. I'm standing in front of the
apartment building with a blueprint in my hand. The thing is the apartment
building doesn't look like the apartment building that I know. It looks
unfinished; it looks like there is still work needed to be done on it.

Before I know it I have a hammer in one hand and a nail in the other,
and I'm forcing a nail into the wall. After I see that the building is good and
finished, I rest for a little while. Then I go back into the building and walk
through each of the three floors to make sure the names on the doors match the
names on the blueprint.

They are all correct, however there are a few that are replaced with
question marks. You can't know everyone in your life. While I'm on the second
floor, I get to Lynne's apartment but I realize that the name Lynnette Parker
is not on the blueprint. The name that is on the blueprint in the place of
Lynne is George Johnson, which was the person who lived here before she moved in.
Because dreams don't have timestamps I often have to figure out when a dream
had taken place by considering the people I knew, the places I'd been and the
things I'd done.

I go into Johnson's apartment, and I feel that the apartment is not
completely done well enough. I fix a few things in an effort to stop Lynne from
losing her foot, and then I go on to the next apartment who has the tenant name
of Joseph White. The last apartment I check is under the name Boris, with a
last name that I can't read properly, and then I go back outside for another
break after debating whether or not I should check the basement of the
building.

When I get outside I see Jesus and Moses sitting on a bench. I sit next
to them, and Jesus says to me, "So you're going to build an entire
city?" I don't answer him. He tells me that carpentry and engineering is
hard work, then Moses cuts in and says "but it will not save you."
Moses then gets up and he hands me two nails. They are much bigger than the
ones I used on the building. Moses tells me that separate paths are what will
save me.

Composition 1, Part 5

Chapter 41:

CALM THE DEVIL'S GRIN

She tells you that second-person narration is when you use words like
"you" and "your." At first you want to disagree with her,
you want to see her reaction, but you know that she was the one who took all
those courses on writing in college. So then the nameless narrator asks Julia
what exactly third-person narration is defined as, and she tells the nameless
narrator that third-person is when a narrator uses words like "he,"
"she," "they," "them" and "it" to refer
to the other characters. She says words like "I," "us," and
"we" are never used. She looks at the nameless narrator and watches
as the narrator thinks about what she just said, and she says "Please
don't tell me you are going to ask me what first-person is." I look back
at her and laugh, and I tell her that I'm pretty sure I know what a
first-person narrative is. The truth is I already knew the definition of all
three perspectives. I guess back then I just wanted to hear her speak
sometimes.

The night has fallen as it has done so many times before and I ponder
how many people didn't live long enough today to see it fall.

Tao wants to prank call his cousin, but I tell him not to because I
don't want my phone number on someone's caller identification. I don't want
them calling back. He tells me not to worry, that he will do star sixty-seven
so that the caller's information is blocked. How many times I'd like to star
sixty-seven my life. He makes the call and for the duration I feel like I am a
child again.

Going on to the next subject, Tao asks me if I've ever seen that effect
light has on the Sun when it's just above the horizon, how it looks like a
square. I tell him that I don't care about the Sun or about his stupid
illusions. Fuck you then. No fuck you, get out of my apartment. It's cool just
give me the remote. No you really have to go I have to pray. Pray? You're not
even religious. Did you find Jesus or something?

I didn't find Jesus but I did find myself pushing him out of my
apartment. At the very end, with only half of his body inside the apartment, he
finally gives up and goes to his own home. Farewell motherfucker, don't come
back. A social fragment.

Lynne's door opens, she asks me where all the noise is coming from.
She's not wearing the yellow dress, but she is wearing a yellow dress. She has
make-up on, and perfume. In the words of whoever said it first because I'm sure
I'm not the first person to ever say this about a woman, "she was a
beautiful sight."

I tell her that Tao fell down the stairs, and Tao who is standing at the
top of the stairs about to go home gives me that stupid look and then opens his
mouth to speak.

Lynne told me that a green rose, while it is rare, is a beautiful thing
to see. That it represents mostly life and nature. All I can think about when I
go back into my apartment is how pretty she looked, how nice she smelled. Then
I hear two booms.

I quickly realize that it's Tao hitting his ceiling, which is my floor,
with a broom. Probably still sour about me kicking him out. I think about how
one thing to me is the complete opposite to him. The thoughts bring me back to
a dream I had where I am in Las Vegas, The Sin City. How I overheard two
entities who looked to be that of children talking about a point which could be
perceived as either perception A or perception B, but the truth of the matter
was that they were both one in the same.