I
A nudge and Rick turns and finds himself face to face with The Rat, a man who is always around, always scrounging. "How's it looking big guy, we getting work today?"
[https://bryanaiellocom.files.wordpress.com/2023/10/rat.jpg]He shakes his head unsure but hopeful. He doesn't know Rat's real name. Everybody just calls him that. Maybe because the man looks like one, Rick decides looking down at the smaller man. He has a tiny nose and pouty lips capped with a thin wispy mustache. He twitches all the time looking maybe for a missed treat or nearby danger. It unnerves Rick. Reminds him of the can.
Rick looks solid. Big broad shoulders. Bull necked. Barrel-chested with arms to match. Basically a slab of muscle. From a distance, he cuts quite the figure. Closer up, it’s more obvious his youth was long ago. White hair stained yellow from rollie cigarette smoke and a beard that still has a bit of red running through it. Face covered in crags and fissures. His face and head have the same length of growth on them because he goes to a shelter twice a month and does the whole thing when it’s his turn in the shower. He does it with a little pink leg razor the shelter offers the indigent population of the city. It takes some time. Nobody complains. Nobody who has heard the rumors anyway.
His main attribute has always been strength. And he has a bit of it left, but unlimited power and endless possibilities are long gone. Pain is his new daily friend. Pain and regret. The boy who lugged an M-60 through the jungle might have died there and never came home, and had a lifetime to lug cinder blocks and other things people needed things moved around. He tries not to complain, mainly because no one is going to listen anyway. And like everyone who has done time knows, everyone's guilty of something.
Another nudge and he turns to see The Rat offering him a bottle of Banana Red MD 20/20. Rick feels his mouth start sweating as a reminder what last night is still putting him through. But medicine is medicine and he takes a quick nip of the dog that bit him and passes it back with a look to see if anyone noticed.
It's morning in the South Bronx, morning being after midnight. It's 4 AM and he stands in a slow-moving line of men looking for day work. No one cares. Everyone here is probably still drunk also. Laborers. Outside is cold and wet.
Rick says, "I need to cash a check today, or else I gotta visit Mama's pantry."
"She still make you pray for a sack of food?"
"Haven't been in awhile because she did last time."
The line moves and they close up the distance.
"With this weather turning cold and wet, it's almost where I wouldn't mind finding myself freshly shaved again and off the streets for a night or two."
The Rat doesn't respond and Rick realizes he doesn't know how The Rat spends his own nights. Nobody knows anything about each other. Secrets are like currency. And Rick likes to keep his secrets close. Why wouldn't everyone else?
"It's only October too. Every copy of the Daily News says the same thing every day: record rain. It was a record heat all summer long and I'm sure I'll be digging myself out of the snow all winter long."
His bones start to hurt at just the thought of it. He'd leave the city and work his way south before the cold weather hits, but can't because what if he changes his mind? He needs to be close just in case his son needs him.
His huge hands clench into involuntary fists. He isn't even aware he's doing it. The muscles in his arms and back bulge with his typical frustration. Under his white eyebrows, his sea foam-colored eyes look haunted. His dark brown face, shadowed by unwanted memories, not only because life has been hard and sometimes unfair, but also because he is trying to do math in his head.
"What is a stiff back and sore feet worth?" he asks The Rat.
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"A six-pack of beer and a bucket of fried chicken, that’s what."
He sends the rest to his kid. Twenty bucks every time he gets a gig. He puts it in an envelope, sticks a stamp on the outside, and sends it to a mailbox on the Stony Brook University campus.
He hopes the little guy gets it. He will probably never find out. He isn’t allowed to contact him. Not after what he did. It has been so long since they last spoke, maybe a decade, maybe less. He stopped counting the years when he was in the pen.
The line moves forward and he follows with a step.
The sky is still dark. The hum of the city, of course, that never sleeps, but it's the quiet bit of the early morning hours. He likes the South Bronx because it is mostly auto body shops and salvage yards, places that close for the night, and don't mind a makeshift tent being erected in a vacant lot. There are many places to spend the night nearby, which makes getting to the Labor Ready easy, even if he is a bit hungover. He is a bit hungover this morning. Most mornings actually.
The babble of the men standing around waiting for pick-ups or a job is loud, and his head thumps. The steam-heated air is thick with the funk of unwashed bodies and dirty clothes, rotted teeth, and rusting metal. Another ill-fated job seeker arrives with a gust of wind blowing through the open door with him, offering a bit of relief and a reminder of the coming rain.
The line moves again.
"This is about what one can expect from dropping out of school at sixteen, to drink all day with friends. I had one buddy who got to live in his grandparents’ apartment after they died. Every day they would get drunk with him. Every day little teenage girls would show up and get wasted with them. That led to one little girl getting pregnant, which led to him being a father, but it was really the grandfather's kid. Fucked up world, huh?"
After Rick got released from his first stretch, he went back a few more times. Not because he missed it but because he didn't mind putting someone on their ass. He taught lessons. Always did. And now he is an old homeless man waiting for death to come and make everything he ever did worthless.
The line moves again.
And again.
And eventually it's his turn.
“Name?” the fat Puerto Rican lady asks from behind the thick glass. He can smell her cloud of perfume and it give him a headache. Her hair is a crust of gel piled onto the top of her head. His mouth is set in a scowl of disapproval, lips painted with bright red lipstick that looks dry and clay-like.
“Johnson, Rick.”
“Can you use a shovel today?”
“Yes.”
She types some info into her computer and the printer next to her spits out a receipt. “Give this to the property guy, he will get you some gear.
He waits. Usually they hand out metro cards to get to the job site.
"What," the woman snaps at him. A bit of spittle flying an landing on his check. He leaves it there. The woman glares at him, eyes bulging, as if he dared to waste even more of her time.
"Do I get a MetroCard?”
“You won't need it. Next.”
Rick steps away confused. The Rat shoves up to the window and says “Hey beautiful, why you still working here and not down on fashion row being a model and shit.”
Rick sees the obese woman smirk in a self-satisfied sort of way and, after a pause and some clicking around on her keyboard, asks “Can you handle a shovel?”
The Rat says, "You know it. And oh so much more.”
Rick tries to not let it bother him. He has been losing for decades and doesn't have a desire left anyway. But still, why does Rat get polite attention and he gets spit on?
"I'm not too good to do some shoveling anyways," The Rat says, giving Rick another elbow to the arm as they walk back towards the property room together. There is no line. The old black guy handing out gear takes their tickets, gives them a glance before disappearing into the hidden corners behind him. He returns with a gas mask, plastic work helmet, thick rubber gloves, and an orange safety vest. He hands them all over and points to a collection of shovels leaning in a pile against the wall, "Take that shovel and that wheelbarrow,” he says pointing to a beat-up ancient-looking thing with rust pockets almost eating through the metal.
Rick places the gear into the wheelbarrow and looks for the travel instructions on the sheet.
It reads: go to the 170th Street subway station. Stand in the farthest corner of the Southbound track. And wait.
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