Down
zeke moves through the suits like water. none of ‘em look up, none of ‘em see zeke is his torn jeans and his shirt that don’t fit. he don’t look down to see what they don’t stare at, he don’t need to see the stains and the ragged tears to know they there. why he need to look down? make ‘em think they in his head? make ‘em think he gotta check himself for them? fuck that. fuck them. they all too busy for zeke, too busy flockin like sheep only sidewalks ‘stead of farms.
zeke feels the ache in his bones, knows he ain’t right. ain’t been right for a long time now little voice whispers in his head.
why she takin so long? he thinks. he sent carol out goin on two hours now. ain’t never take her this long to finish a man.
what she thinkin? leavin him out here to feel this ache while she livin it up getting stuck all damn day? makin him stand out here on this corner, watch these suits go by like they all blind, like none of ‘em ever looked up from they wireless to see where they at?
zeke thinks about what it would mean to be like them. they all runnin home now, home to husbands and wives and boys and girls and beds and food on tables.
zeke feels the growl in his stomach. when’s the last time he ate?
ain’t got time for that now.
zeke thinks back on suits instead. were his parents like them? zeke never knew nothin ‘bout ‘em, other than they ain’t here now. where they go? why they ain’t take him with ‘em? zeke don’t know, no one ever tells zeke nothing. they just two more people ate up by this city, swallowed up in one bite like a million others and zeke don’t know none of they names neither.
zeke thinks back on suits again. can’t think straight today. why it gotta ring so bad in his ears? why that metal gotta be so thick on his tongue? and his bones… zeke feels himself lean just a bit, shoulders hunchin while he thinks on the ache seems like in every bone in his body.
what that mean? that midas?
zeke’s mad now. he hears that fuckin word one more time he thinks he gon lose his damn mind.
“midas.”
zeke says it out loud, spits when he says it too, makes a few suits glance up tryna see who he talkin to. they see ain’t no one around but zeke and they think he’s crazy and they keep walkin. zeke tries to think on what it is to be like them, to be warm and dry all damn day, but he can’t think past his ache now. like it some kinda sack on his head, can’t see past it just stuck inside feelin it.
zeke straightens up again even though inside he feels like he about torn in two. he looks down, thinkin he gon see his guts spillin out ‘cause ain’t no way he feels this bad and ain’t dead, but all he sees is his own ratty shirt and his ribs poking through underneath.
they always stick out so far? when’s the last time he really seen himself? but then starin down makes him dizzier than he ever been and he gotta look up but lookin up like draggin feet through water and all he tastes is gold in his mouth and thinks he gon throw up but –
“zeke!” carol’s voice cryin out like she a angel of god zeke thinks. he sees her movin through suits bumpin’ and shovin’ tryna get to him. they don’t see her and she don’t see them, she only got eyes for zeke. he sees the handprints on her throat and he knows her guy got rough and he knows he oughta go kick his ass puttin’ his hands on zeke’s woman like that but zeke only got eyes on carol’s coat, inside where he knows there’s a special pocket all zipped up and inside zeke knows is –
“i got it!” carol tells him. zeke don’t know how she got so close when she was clear down the street a second ago. he losin time again?
ain’t got time for that now.
“shh!” zeke tells her. she’s always cryin out too loud, makin suits look up and notice and when suits notice you it ain’t never cause they like the way you look. he grabs her arm and pulls her toward home. “come on.”
zeke don’t listen while she tell him what her guy did to her. not ‘cause he don’t want to hear, just ringin too loud and ache too strong. why her voice sound so far away? why it sound like her words ain’t matchin how her mouth’s movin?
goddamn zeke loves that mouth. don’t matter how scabbed or how torn her lips get or how bad her gums get to bleedin when she smokes too much. outta all zeke’s girls, ain’t none of ‘em even close to carol.
zeke reaches out and grabs her hand while they walk. she stops talkin, just walkin and lookin down at zeke’s hand in hers and he thinks she cryin? she ain’t breathin heavy or snottin like she does when she cries, but her eyes look wet. she squeezes his hand like it’s all she got left.
when’s the last time he was sweet to her?
zeke thinks about what he thought when he heard her cryin his name while he waited. like a angel of god. zeke thinks back on the orphanage, how the ladies had been kind to him at first and told him stories about they god and his angels. they’d showed him pictures from their godbook and he saw what a angel was. pretty ladies look just like everybody else, skin and hair all different colors just like everyone zeke ever knew. but these ladies had big ol’ birdwings jumpin out they backs and they could fly to they god and back to earth and spread god’s words.
zeke looks over at carol, her eyes still wet but her mouth a little smile, and he thinks maybe she ain’t a angel. she ain’t got the wings, and she ain’t never talked to no god.
zeke don’t let go of her hand.
she ain’t gotta be a angel for him.
they back in sunny pastures now, everybody cryin out “there’s zeke!” and zeke wavin and laughin. zeke was never popular before he came to sunny pastures, and he ain’t leavin now he here.
zeke and carol go back behind his house, settle down like little kids all excited. zeke thinks of the orphanage again, how excited they all got on founder’s day ‘cause the ladies got ‘em all presents.
zeke thinks about the present carol reachin into her coat for now and he feels like his whole body ‘bout to jump out his skin and he thinks kids don’t know what it is to be excited.
she pulls it out real slow, makin zeke wait not to be mean just to make it last, make ‘em feel excited all the way down. zeke feels like he gon start droolin if she takes much longer. then her hands all the way out and zeke sees the bag and she unwraps it and –
what?
the?
fuck?
what the fuck is this? zeke roars in his head, ache still strong but like fuel now like someone went and threw xenyl on him got him burnin right up. and he knows carol sees ‘cause why else she look so scared?
“that’s all he had,” she says like zeke gon believe that. fuckin’ lyin cunt think he just got born yesterday?
zeke ain’t even speak ain’t even think his hand flyin right across her face. how the fuck she gon play him like this? and the bag flyin and gold glitterin and it lands near him so he snatches it up.
two! fuckin! sticks!
“the fuck i’m s’posed to do with this?” zeke’s screamin now, shoutin so hard he feels his throat bleed but it ain’t enough to stop him.
“it’s all he gave me!” carol’s cryin hard now, ain’t sweet tears neither.
all she got for him is tears now?
zeke’s hand flyin now but it ain’t a slap he knows halfway through. punch lands hard, catches her right in her eye. she’s screamin, zeke’s tell her to shut up but she keeps screamin so zeke keeps swingin like he ain’t never swung before.
two! fuckin! sticks!
then carol scramblin away, tellin zeke he ain’t shit while her nose bleedin and her eye already swellin. she standin up over him now and he sees her mouth all smashed up and he thinks who did that? but she’s runnin now and he’s chasin after.
“carol!” he’s screamin after her but she keeps runnin, clear out of sunny pastures and into the stacks. zeke keeps runnin too but then his legs ain’t workin and he’s fallin down.
zeke feels they hands on him but he ain’t look up to see they faces. why can’t he look up?
zeke feels ‘em pull him back to his feet.
“they work now.” he says to whoever they is. they grunt and nod and zeke sees now it’s tam and her man fra haulin him back toward his house.
they tell him get some sleep and don’t worry about carol ‘cause she gets that way sometimes but she’ll be back. they tell him like zeke ain’t know, like zeke ain’t know carol better than anybody.
where she at?
but then zeke sees the bag still layin where it fell and he knows he fucked up and went too far, but what was she thinkin? lettin that guy stick her two hours straight and comin home with two sticks? two sticks ain’t even enough to get way up high, sky high where no one can touch you and you see everything like it was s’posed to be seen.
zeke’s hands shakin so bad now he can barely get the plastic off, but he manages. he just starts to break up the first stick over his bowl when he hear the ruckus. sirens like he ain’t never heard, lights flashin all around but he sees they ain’t comin to sunny pastures. he’s curious, though, and thinks about gettin up to ask tam or benny or shanly what’s up but then his eyes catch on the glitter in his bowl and he knows he ain’t goin nowhere tonight.
zeke gets the stick ground up good and fine ‘til it ain’t nothing but dust and then he hears someone comin close.
no one comes back here unless zeke asks ‘em or they tryna steal his gold, so he gets his hand wrapped tight around the bat he keeps close behind the house. but the noise ain’t comin from around the house, it’s comin toward zeke out the stacks. he starts to turn his head toward it, but then –
the man’s in front of him like he’s been there his whole life, standin tall and breathin hard.
zeke can’t speak, don’t even know if this guy’s real. why his face look like that? zeke look down but sees all his gold still powder in his bowl. why he already seein shit?
then the man kneels down and sets somethin in front of zeke and zeke thinks it’s a dog but his eyes ain’t seein so good no more. it’s breathin heavy and zeke think he hears a whine.
“i need a healer,” the man says and zeke realizes he’s talkin to him.
he looks back at the man but he ain’t bendin down no more, now he’s sittin right in front of zeke like there’s nowhere else in the world he oughta be and he’s lookin at zeke like zeke’s the only thing he’s ever seen. zeke tries to take him in, really see him, but it’s like those eyes is all he is, just a pair of eyes like zeke ain’t never seen.
a what? zeke thinks he asks but his mouth don’t move. why the man lookin at him like that? why his eyes look like that? and then drums in zeke’s ears, so close zeke thinks they must be right by him (who the fuck plays drums in sunny pastures?). then they ain’t by him but they in him – poundin through all zeke’s got he thinks – and zeke wanna look away from those eyes but he keeps starin and he thinks he ain’t seen eyes that black before, like two holes in the ground starin back at him and then then zeke thinks maybe those eyes are all there ever was, maybe zeke’s always been in those eyes and never knew and then –
where he at?
zeke ain’t look around him but he knows he’s in the nurse’s office in the orphanage and he’s still a boy and he thinks it was all a dream and the life he lived ain’t his and he gets to do it all again but different but then everything’s movin and he ain’t there no more, now he’s somewhere else – his leg on fire and he looks down and see it wrapped up tight in a cast and he knows this almost fifteen years back when he broke his ankle tryna shimmy up a fire escape and the doctor’s talkin to him and then zeke somewhere else again – he’s at the clinic gettin tested, then again and again each time he ever been in there ‘cause he got some kinda rash or it burns when he piss.
somehow zeke’s feelin things that ain’t his to feel then. he’s so tired. he can’t find what he’s looking for and he doesn’t understand why.
it ain’t s’posed to be like this.
zeke thinks how it s’posed to be? and zeke thinks what the fuck you lookin’ for? but then he don’t remember who he’s askin or why.
zeke’s somewhere else now, back at the orphanage a little older. lil sara’s cat sick and they all lookin at zeke like he did somethin to it, like he put poison in its food or some shit. like that’s who zeke is. lady tellin sara don’t worry, the vet’ll figure out what happened and then we can make sure it never happens again and she’s lookin right at zeke when she says it like he ain’t –
but he’s somewhere else before he can think about how unfairly they’d treated him.
vet
the word flies through zeke’s head and it’s poundin through with every beat of the drums but he don’t know what it means (but i do know what it means, he thinks and feels more confused than ever) and then he’s runnin through the city streets, down everywhere he ever been and the whole time he (that ain’t me! he wanna cry) askin this a vet? this a vet? and zeke thinks he’s gon die if they keep goin like this and zeke knows he knows and he’s sorry for it but he won’t leave zeke be.
and then the sign: babylon animal care clinic and it don’t mean nothin first ‘cause zeke can’t read (yes i can!) and then he puts it all together and someone’s askin this where you take animals who sick? and zeke’s thinkin he ain’t never had a animal to take nowhere but zeke knows he found what he wants and then it’s like takin off a glove only zeke’s the glove like somethin pullin outta him and turnin him out and twistin him up and then he’s back in sunny pastures and for a second he’s flat and clear as a piece of glass and then the drums are gone like they was never even there. and it all comes crashin on him and through him and he smells the stacks and he tastes the metal and feels the ache and he’s himself and that’s all he’s ever been.
zeke sees the man’s still there. too tired to run from him, too tired to wonder what he is ‘cause zeke knows he ain’t no man. and then it’s like zeke’s seein the man for the first time: he’s tall, yeah, sittin like a mountain in front of him, but he’s smaller now. zeke sees the way he shakes. zeke can smell the blood comin from his feet, ain’t gotta look down to see the man’s legs all black and blue and bloody. zeke knows the man’s gonna die soon and the man knows it too and he knows zeke knows and zeke feels himself get caught up in a circle of they both knowing things neither of ‘em should know.
“i thank you, say true.” the man says and he’s scoopin up his dog (zeke knows it’s a dog now, prob’ly even knows its name if he thought on it) and haulin it up like it ain’t weigh a thing and he’s lookin at zeke like he wanna say something and zeke’s lookin right back. and neither of ‘em say nothin for a second and then he’s runnin and zeke knows he’s runnin the same route they ran together in his head, goin street by street ‘til they found what he wanted.
zeke looks around him and he knows he’s alone.
was he always alone?
where’s carol?
then he feels the weight of the bowl in his lap and looks down and sees the shiny powder and feels the ache burnin in his bones.
zeke dips his finger into the gold dust and runs it along his bloody gums and he gets his blunt ready, wrappin the gold up real nice in the green.
the dust hits and zeke wonders why he was ever feelin so down in the first place.