that’s why he didn’t smoke. Shit like that.
The night sky was jet black, looking starless over the glaring anti-crime lights on Martin Luther King, Jr. Way when Hobey got off the last bus.
He turned down Winston Street. There was action over to the parking lot of the 7-11, but Hobey didn’t care, he was too tired to fuck with trying to get in on it.
Some of those piped-up motherfuckers shoot you, Uzi your guts out soon as look at you. Don’t be fucking with it when you’re weary.
He stalked past a dirt lot where an old cracker-box house was almost demolished. Hobey used to work in demolition, before he got kicked out of the union, and this mess made him shake his head. The demolition had been subcontracted to some damn non-union crew! Just went after it with crowbars and a rented plow. It looked like a tornado had flattened the house at random, a scattered pile of plasterboard and timbers like a crazy snail shell for the slug of a rotten old mattress left in the house during demolition…
Hobey stopped and stared.
The mattress had moved. Had humped up, a little. By itself. Humping up so there was a dark little cave under it. Fringe of wet, mildewed mattress stuffing hanging down over the mattress cave. Like a gooey wig over the face that was coming into the light, showing, now, in the little cave. Something crawling out…
Just some homeless nigger , Hobey thought.
So why was he scared to look at it? Why did he feel, at the same time, scared to look away from it?
The fella was about forty feet away, coming out on his hands and knees. All raggedy. Looked beat up, like he’d been tossed in there and stuff dumped on him.
Maybe that mattress got dragged from somewhere else to cover him. The man ditched because they thought he was dead, most likely. Hobey had seen it before. Somebody ODs, the rockhouse doesn’t want the body around so they drag it to the nearest river or vacant lot, dump it, cover it up, let the bugs chew it up so nobody knows who it is…
Only they thought this guy was dead and he wasn’t.
Should stay out of this. But he was feeling kind of low about himself, felt like doing for somebody, give him a lift. This man was lower down than he was…must be getting old.
“ You need some help, man. You lookin’ poorly,” Hobey said, picking his way through the debris toward the man. Didn’t recognize him. Black man, maybe was a teenager, not much older. Not standing up straight yet, hunched over. Something hanging off his head, maybe mattress stuff. . .
Ten feet away. Hobey stopped. The man took a shaky step, bringing him into a streak of streetlight shine. Lifting his face toward Hobey.
He had eye sockets full of ants.
His eyes were gone. Ants, instead. Ants in the empty sockets, the ants moving all squiggling and searchingly the way ants do. Seeking and chewing, shiny and restless. No eyes. Ants.
“ My Lord, man…” Hobey breathed. “What they done to you...”
Then he saw the spike. Big rusty metal spike from some concrete support of the house. Bent and blunt. Right through the man’s chest.
Right through the motherfucker’s heart.
Saturday Night, 10:55 P.M.
White guy on a binge, that’s what he was. Didn’t smoke most days, but tonight he got mad at his wife or something, he go out on a binge , Dwayne thought. Not used to it, puts him farther out of his head. He’s righteous tweakin’.
Dwayne watched Jim White Guy crossing the street. Walking to the bank machine. A little island of light in the dim street: a little high tech sweetness in the concrete and fake marble.
Leaving the keys in the car. Leaving the keys with Dwayne. A complete stranger.
Got to be tweaked to do that.
Now Jim White Guy was standing at the machine, swaying, twitching a little, trying to figure out the buttons in that state. Probably end up leaving his card in the
The night sky was jet black, looking starless over the glaring anti-crime lights on Martin Luther King, Jr. Way when Hobey got off the last bus.
He turned down Winston Street. There was action over to the parking lot of the 7-11, but Hobey didn’t care, he was too tired to fuck with trying to get in on it.
Some of those piped-up motherfuckers shoot you, Uzi your guts out soon as look at you. Don’t be fucking with it when you’re weary.
He stalked past a dirt lot where an old cracker-box house was almost demolished. Hobey used to work in demolition, before he got kicked out of the union, and this mess made him shake his head. The demolition had been subcontracted to some damn non-union crew! Just went after it with crowbars and a rented plow. It looked like a tornado had flattened the house at random, a scattered pile of plasterboard and timbers like a crazy snail shell for the slug of a rotten old mattress left in the house during demolition…
Hobey stopped and stared.
The mattress had moved. Had humped up, a little. By itself. Humping up so there was a dark little cave under it. Fringe of wet, mildewed mattress stuffing hanging down over the mattress cave. Like a gooey wig over the face that was coming into the light, showing, now, in the little cave. Something crawling out…
Just some homeless nigger , Hobey thought.
So why was he scared to look at it? Why did he feel, at the same time, scared to look away from it?
The fella was about forty feet away, coming out on his hands and knees. All raggedy. Looked beat up, like he’d been tossed in there and stuff dumped on him.
Maybe that mattress got dragged from somewhere else to cover him. The man ditched because they thought he was dead, most likely. Hobey had seen it before. Somebody ODs, the rockhouse doesn’t want the body around so they drag it to the nearest river or vacant lot, dump it, cover it up, let the bugs chew it up so nobody knows who it is…
Only they thought this guy was dead and he wasn’t.
Should stay out of this. But he was feeling kind of low about himself, felt like doing for somebody, give him a lift. This man was lower down than he was…must be getting old.
“ You need some help, man. You lookin’ poorly,” Hobey said, picking his way through the debris toward the man. Didn’t recognize him. Black man, maybe was a teenager, not much older. Not standing up straight yet, hunched over. Something hanging off his head, maybe mattress stuff. . .
Ten feet away. Hobey stopped. The man took a shaky step, bringing him into a streak of streetlight shine. Lifting his face toward Hobey.
He had eye sockets full of ants.
His eyes were gone. Ants, instead. Ants in the empty sockets, the ants moving all squiggling and searchingly the way ants do. Seeking and chewing, shiny and restless. No eyes. Ants.
“ My Lord, man…” Hobey breathed. “What they done to you...”
Then he saw the spike. Big rusty metal spike from some concrete support of the house. Bent and blunt. Right through the man’s chest.
Right through the motherfucker’s heart.
Saturday Night, 10:55 P.M.
White guy on a binge, that’s what he was. Didn’t smoke most days, but tonight he got mad at his wife or something, he go out on a binge , Dwayne thought. Not used to it, puts him farther out of his head. He’s righteous tweakin’.
Dwayne watched Jim White Guy crossing the street. Walking to the bank machine. A little island of light in the dim street: a little high tech sweetness in the concrete and fake marble.
Leaving the keys in the car. Leaving the keys with Dwayne. A complete stranger.
Got to be tweaked to do that.
Now Jim White Guy was standing at the machine, swaying, twitching a little, trying to figure out the buttons in that state. Probably end up leaving his card in the
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