it up, yeah, you’re damn right it is. For as long as anyone can remember this whole life is unjust.”
First week on this job together we broke for lunch at a deli on Lexington. At the counter, I ordered a turkey wedge, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise and Brian said, “You from Westchester?”
Soon as I heard that word I felt like a porcupine folded inside out. I said, “What?” to stall for time. And he said, “That’s what they call heroes up there. I got cousins in Yonkers. In the City we call em heroes, up there they say wedge.”
It was all kinds of wrong. Yonkers was never a word he was supposed to say, let alone know someone from. I breathed into a closing throat, knowing I needed to work out an alternate past immediately. Before Brian mentioned Yonkers he had been helping me wipe away my grease spot of an adolescence. Our system was that we saw each other Monday through Friday and didn’t have to know anything more than what was on the daily schedule. “No, I’m from Staten Island. I told you that.”
“No you didn’t.”
“Why wouldn’t I have?”
“Fuck should I know? Then why’d you call it a wedge?”
“That’s not allowed?”
“Hey, I mean no personal disparagement about how you choose to order your lunch, but you sound like you’re from Westchester. That’s all, Wedgie boy.”
The guy behind the counter said, “Six seventy-five,” so I reached into my pocket with my dirty hand and the semantics argument was over.
But the nickname stuck.
We go back down eight stairs, into the brownstone. “Not to break your stones too hard, Wedgie, but discovering life is unjust is not an original find.”
“It’s senseless too. I mean, we’ve spent the last month hauling bags of rocks down the stairs, up the stairs, and out the back of this woman’s house, so we can build her a deck. She’s in a wheelchair, she can’t even walk on it. And by the time we finish it she’ll probably be dead. So why even build the damn thing?”
“To get a paycheck, friend.” Up eight stairs, onto the street, pick up more sacks. “Think of it like this, even if she dies before we finish—and I’m not saying she won’t, the sweet rich old bag—the broad left you part of her fortune. If you wanna know why, go ahead, figure it out. Whether you get your answer or not you’re still gonna be hungry the next day. Better question is what you’re gonna do while you’re being fed.”
Down eight stairs, into the brownstone. Up eight stairs, into the backyard, drop the bags. “You get where I’m coming from?” Brian wants to know. Down eight stairs, into the brownstone.
“Maybe,” I tell him, trying to shrug off the subject. Up eight stairs, onto the sidewalk.
A woman hot enough to make men nosedive in the street walks by us. Brian says, “Hello ma’am.” And she smiles at him. “If you’re feeling as pretty as you look the world must seem right today.” She keeps walking and smiling.
“Dude, where do you get this stuff?”
We lean against the pile of rocks. “Same place we all do. It starts here,” he points to his crotch, “and if you’ve got half a brain it goes to here,” he points to his mouth. “When you been rejected as much as I have you start to use it more freely. It’s counter-intuitive, I know, but I’m living proof.” We pick up our next round of bags. “Ninety-eight out of a hundred women on the street think I’m repulsive. The other two are willing to look through the repulsion right to the charm. Respect the odds, play the odds.”
Down eight stairs into the brownstone. “When I first got this job,” Brian says, “my father told me, ‘At least you’re not in a mine where you can get black lung, or a factory in Mexico where someone will cut your throat for forty-five cents.’ You can argue with the guy, or you can get comfortable on your side of the scale.” Up eight stairs into the backyard. “Me? I got no problem taking this rich broad’s money. It’s clean. Better than wearin a tie for some real estate company.” He motions to an empty section that has no bags. “Let’s fill that gap.” We drop the bags.
“How’s it better?”
“Cause real estate is inherently an ass-fuck business. Everyone knows it. And I’d rather not fuck people in the ass for a living.” He stands still, pulls his gloves off and wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. “My family’s owned two houses in Jackson Heights for seventy years. My grandfather and his brother built them. We don’t pay rent to no one. That’s justice.”
“You all live there together?”
“Yeah.”
“How is that possible?”
“We have four bedrooms.”
“That’s not what I mean, but go ahead.”
“We’d rather not be landlords. Landlords are legally allowed to turn tricks for money. I’d rather steal someone’s money on the street at gunpoint than draw blood from their neck with a pen. It’s more out in the open that way.” He slaps me in the shoulder with his gloves. “See now you got me on tangents. I hate tangents.” He puts his gloves on. “You spend way too much time in your head and you got me going there. The bottom line is you build this thing, you get to eat. That’s the justice you get, Wedgie.”
“I wish you’d stop calling me that.”
“I know. Let’s keep moving.”
Down eight stairs, into the brownstone. Brian lowers his voice. “Listen, do I think it’s fucked that there’s a fifty-thousand-dollar vase sitting in some highfalutin jerk off’s living room when it can feed some people I know for ten years? Yes. Is it mind boggling and unjust? Yes. Can I do anything about it? No.”
“Why not?”
“Cause even if I go home tonight and figure out a way to tip the scales, I’d still have to come here tomorrow and carry rocks. It don’t change nothin. What’s the expression? ‘Fair is fair and foul is foul’?”
“Something like that.” Up eight stairs, onto the sidewalk.
“Point is … I don’t know what that means. Look, I don’t know why you’re so bent to figure out what’s just—not my business—but put it this way: on a softball field you got a white line that separates fair from foul, and out here there’s no lines. None. We don’t have line one. And if we did we’d all be moving it for our own good. Now stop asking me about this shit, you’re making my day longer. What can I tell you? Life’s disappointing. Get a hooker.” We pick up more rocks.
Me and Brian high-five each other after making it through the eight hours.
“Why you work half days on Friday again?” he asks me.
“Because I’m special?”
He laughs. “Mr Mystery. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I walk through Central Park on my way home, which makes me feel like I’m missing out on owning a dog, having a picnic, a girl, a pair of shorts and a bike. I like poets’ row though. All these statues
