The Shovel
The numbers 3, 8 and 22 can lick my asshole clean.
I
Three is the number of sisters I have. All of them older. They
dressed me up as a girl until I was five years old. Danae was closest to me in
age, only a year older, but she still treated me like a kid. I’m 38!
As she drove me to
get smokes she confessed, “I’m addicted to yoga.”
Her kid Rory, was about to enter kindergarten and couldn’t
pronounce his own name.
“Lol-lee, my name is Lol-lee.” It was painful to watch him
try to form an R in his twisted mouth. “Roar- Ree,” I said slowly. “Roar-Ree.”
“Lol-lee” he repeated. Kid spent his days staring at the cat
while his mom scooted off to yoga class to downward dog her way to spiritual
enlightenment.
“I feel more connected with my goddess when I do my practice
daily,” she continued.
“Danae, your goddess wants you to get your kid a speech
therapist before he starts kindergarten or he’ll be a lamb to slaughter in public
school.” She looked at me over her sunglasses hinting at a smile. Even though
it was mid-January it was hot as hell.
“Michael believes Rory chose his impediment and will be
stronger by overcoming it on his own,” Michael is her doughy husband. His has
an atoll of long hair just above his ears, which he pulls back in a pump handle
ponytail. He smokes a ton of weed, writes a conspiracy blog with half a million
followers, and wears sweat pants and superhero T-shirts every day.
“That makes no sense whatsoever.” I said, staring out the
window at the generic strip malls of sprawling Phoenix. Block after block of uninspired
entrepreneurial spirit store fronts. Nail salons, liquor stores, check cashing
places. Only the occasional taqueria with its hand-painted windows showed any
sign of soul. “Does Michael still think he has a chip in his head?” Danae
focused on the road, ignoring my question.
As I tamped and unwrapped the smokes, I handed her one as
she said, “I’m worried about you. Are you still gambling?”
“Christ Danae, remember when you did so much blow your heart
stopped and I had to jump up and down on your chest to get it to start again?”
“You’re projecting Tom,” she said. “Are you still gambling?”
“Well fuck yes I am,” I reclined the seat to get my eyes out
of the sun. “And not very well, hence me sleeping on your floor. Did you know I
spent the holidays at the Waldorf Estoria in New York City? I was up big, Danae.
Private jet from Barcelona big.” I paused to light a cigarette. “Shit, did I
tell you about Barcelona?”
“When were you in Barcelona?” She asked.
“Like two months ago. I had to swim ashore from a casino
boat, buck ass naked. I lost my good suit in a hand of blackjack.” This was why
the number 22 could lick my ass. “These
two Saudi dudes stripped me and threw me overboard. I swam to shore, fashioned
a loin cloth kind of thing from a plastic grocery bag and headed to La Rambla.”
“What do mean ‘fashioned a loin cloth from a grocery bag?’ Like
a diaper?” She asked.
“Yeah, like a diaper, I stuck my legs through the bottom and
synched up the waist. Then I went to La Rambla.”
“In a plastic diaper?”
“Yes,” I said. “Well, that and a tattered blue tarp that I
found next to a construction site. I tied it around my neck, cape-style.”
She was looking at me again over her sunglasses with a full
smile. I knew she loved these stories.
“Go on,” she said, ashing her cigarette in a lidless sippy
cup with apple juice molding in the bottom.
“So yeah, I start walking up La Rambla and it’s packed with
people, shoulder to shoulder. There are some buskers hustling money. I spy this
skinny fag named Rory, oh weird, I mean ‘Lol-lee.’” Danae laughed up and
punched me in the shoulder. “He and I were at a few parties together. He was
hanging around this old coke dealer dude…”
“Like Dwayne?” She asked referring to this gross old dude
that would give Danae eight-balls of coke if she’d go to parties with him.
“Yeah, like Dwayne. Rory sucked his cock though.”
“I never touched Dwayne,” she said. “Gross.”
“Whatever. Anyway Rory had obviously fell from grace because
he was on the street beat boxing into a loudspeaker.”
“Was he good?”
“Yeah, really good. He could make some crazy beats.”
“So you started dancing. Right?” Danae guessed, knowing the
trajectory of the majority of my stories.
“Exactly,” I said, sitting up in my seat. “I started doing
my pop and lock routine.” I demonstrated arm moves.
“In a plastic diaper?” She asked.
“And a tattered blue cape.” I reminded her. “Yeah, we killed.
We split 50 euros after only an hour of our routine.”
“Oh, the poor deprived citizens of Barcelona only got an
hour of your dance routine.” Danae rolled her eyes and laughed.
“Rory took his earnings and scored blow. I took mine to a
hardware store and bought a spray bottle, which I filled up in their bathroom
with tap water, and a little pilfered glass cleaner. I also bought a 3 euro
squeegee. I took my tools down to the corner of a busy intersection just off of
La Rambla and started washing car windows.”
“In your Sanford and Son superhero get up?”
“Yep, it’s like dad said, ‘Never let an opportunity pass you
by.’ Made 600 euros before the sunset. Bought a cheap suit got back on the
casino boat and won over 10,000 euros from those Saudi bastards.”
“That’s like $15,000 US dollars?” Danae wondered.
“Something like that. I turned that in to $175,000 US over
the next month. I chartered a jet, flew to New York and spent a month at the
Waldorf Estoria and ordered room service every day. Best Cobb salad I’ve ever
had.” Danae turned left at the light and started heading toward downtown. “Where
are we going?” I ask.
“I’m taking you to the bus station.”
“What about my bags?” I asked.
“You didn’t bring any.”
“Oh yeah.”
We rode in silence. “Michael is weird and so is your kid,” I
said stepping out of Danae’s car in front of the bus station. “I love you
though.”
“I know they are. I love you too, Tom,” she said, reaching
out for another smoke.
II
The number 8 can suck my ASS!
If someone lifted the rock off of America they’d find
Greyhound busses filled with a conglomeration of repeatedly wronged single moms
ignoring their sugar-amped kids rotting their brains with eyes glued to
screens. Seats filled with veterans telling war stories to heal the wounds that
nobody wants to acknowledge, and broke widows whose farm has long been
repossessed knitting sweaters for ungrateful mid-western grandkids on meth. And
me, a hot and cold gambler who was currently cold. Dammit! I forgot to ask Danae for Xanax, I thought as I made a
donut out of my jacket to sit on. A twenty-three hour bus ride from Phoenix to
Denver without pharmaceutical aid and flaming hemorrhoids was made only
slightly more bearable by way of a dirty hippy kid named Slug who was packing some
incredibly powerful weed. We smoked at every stop.
“What peyote dancing, shoeless voodoo wizard named you
Slug?” I asked as we duck behind a dumpster to smoke a bowl outside of Tuba
City.
“I earned my name at the Burn,” Slug said choking on smoke. “Have
you ever been to Burning Man?”
“Fuck no. I have no interest spending a week watching
oppressed professionals dangle their gentiles while hula-hooping in a sand
storm.”
“You wouldn’t watch, you’d participate. It’s one of the ten
principles of Burning Man.”
“No I wouldn’t. I’d sit there, judge the hell out everyone,
and be miserable.”
Slug looked at me for a while. “Yeah, maybe you shouldn’t
go. It’s not for everyone.”
When we got back on the bus, sitting in seat number 8 was my
ex-girlfriend Alex.
She looked at me standing in the aisle next to Slug. Both of
us reeking of pot, eyes as red as taillights. “Hi Tom. Who’s your buddy?” She
asked, giving me the same half smile Danae gave me.
“I’m David Cohen,” Slug said. I looked at him and shrug my
shoulders.
“Are you going to Denver?” I asked her.
“No, Albuquerque.”
“Good,” I said walking past. I was too stoned to chat. I
felt so stupid. I sat in my seat next to the bus driver who just got off shift.
He was eating a can of sardines in mustard sauce and slugging back Old Grand-dad.
He had to weigh over 300 pounds. The seat next to Alex was open. I stayed put.
III
The bus arrives just after midnight depositing Slug and I on
to the quiet, snowy streets of downtown Denver. There is at least 6” of fresh
snow covering the streets and sidewalks. My nylon jacket, thin socks, and penny
loafers provided zero insulation from the biting cold. After two steps my
loafers fill with powdery snow. “Well this sucks,” I say looking to Slug. “Let’s formulate a survival plan.”
Slug is walking down the sidewalk toward a black Cadillac
Escalade. “It’s my dad,” he says. As he walks away, he transforms from a slimy
invertebrate into David Cohen. Opening the back door, he disappears into the
warm interior. He may have waved
goodbye, I’m not sure. The windows are tinted.
When you are broke and alone in the bitter darkness of a
strange city there is only one thing to do. Walk. If you are walking you aren’t
loitering. If you have your eyes open, and your standards are low enough, you
can always find what you need to survive on the streets and in the alleys of
any city in the US.
By the time I get to the corner, I find a nappy wool
balaclava under the eaves of the bus station. No cootie can survive this
freezing cold so I didn’t worry as I pull on the facemask.
Tower cranes are the true bellwether for the economic growth
of a city. From my downtown vantage point I count seven jutting out of the Denver
skyline. The boom before the bust, I
thought. Mid-western cities never quite grasp their own disposable nature. When
times are good they build as though the nation depends on them and can’t
believe when everyone returns to the coasts when times are lean. Denver, upon
first impression, seems like it was getting all dressed up in knock off designs
for a dance that will surely get cancelled.
I walk in the direction of the state capital. Its huge
golden dome radiates a halo of rainbow splinters in the cold air — the opulence
of the gold in stark contrast to the emptiness of my wallet.
The snow falls in flakes as fat as the white washcloths in
the Waldorf Estoria washrooms, soft terrycloth washcloths being thrown from
rooftops by a demigoddess in an herbal mask. Only two blocks from the bus
station and my head and shoulders are blanketed. Passing a construction site I
spy another tattered blue tarp, which I tie around me more like a shawl than a
cape. I line my loafers with two grocery
bags to keep the snow out.
Another inch of snow falls by the time I pass the Capital and
cross on to 13th Avenue. The scent of fresh baked treats holds me fast in front
of a bakery window made opaque from the steam and warmth. Inside are
silhouettes of worker bee bodies pulling trays of baked goods from hot ovens. In
the windows reflection I see myself in the nappy facemask and blue tarp and
reluctantly move on.
IV
From underneath the cloud cover a
band of silver blue appears on the low eastern horizon illuminating the
underbelly of the clouds pregnant with snow. The dawn brings winds that sweep
the snowstorm across the high plains, turning the soft flakes to needles, which
ricochet off the western wall of the Rockies, sending them back into a frenzied
spiral through the deserted streets of Denver. Each flake an assault on my
exposed flesh. My toes and fingers are in distress, my teeth begin to chatter.
I need shelter quick.
Pushed against the wall of an
alley, a mere twenty yards from the bakery, is a quarter round awning about six
feet long and three feet high and wide. I remove the snow that is piling up
against it. Painted on the front and sides is a wide-eyed, smiling, cartoon
chicken holding a drumstick. Chester Fried Chicken. Pulling the awning away
from the wall I shimmy my body and some cardboard boxes I procured to make a
pallet on the asphalt underneath the awning. As I reclose the gap between the
wall and the awning, I am enveloped by darkness. The wind whips and drifts snow
outside as I remove my wet clothes, light a cigarette and wrap myself in the
blue tarp. Moments after my last drag, I lie down and sleep the sleep of death.
So total is the darkness that there’s
no difference between eyes open or shut when I awake, maybe hours or days
later. It is silent. Absolute quiet, absolute darkness, absolutely alone. I
stay perfectly still and enjoy deeply the situation I find myself in. Goddamit, I have to take a piss — a
reality that would not be denied much longer. I’ll be damned if I’m going to
lie in my own filth even for continued solitude. My escape from underneath the
awning is thwarted by the immense weight of the snow that accumulated since my
arrival. Try as I might, the awning
would not budge. I panic. Premature
burial has always been my greatest fear. My screams are absorbed by the
insulation of snow. With my feet against the wall I shove against the awning to
no avail. I pound in vain on the canvas fabric of the awning. My breath becomes
shallow as I imagine the recirculation of my own toxic gas and no fresh oxygen
to replace it.
Pulling out my pocketknife, I make
a thin slit in the awning fabric between the ribs of the structure. Crouching
beneath the opening I begin to claw my way through the drifted snow. My hands
turn new baby pink as I scoop away over three feet of snow. Packing the
tailings into the corners of the shelter, I am quickly running out of room. Finally
I breach through. A shaft of light, refracting off the tunnel of crystalline
snow, shines upon me. On my knees, hands uplifted I bask in that shaft of
light, deeply inhaling the crisp air from outside.
More digging as I wrestle my head and shoulders through the
small slit opening and up through the canal of snow. My forehead bleeds
profusely from a cut receive from the rough edge of the metal frame. By the
time my head pokes through, the surrounding snow is stained red. “Yarrrrghhhh!”
I yell as I tumble out of my frigid womb into a landscape so white I can see no
deminsion. Mounds of fresh snow soften every angle. Cars look like ski moguls
and tree branches droop and crack under the heavy blanket of snow.
A pole sticking out of a dumpster catches my eye. In my penny loafers, lined with thin socks and
grocery bags, I make my over to the dumpster and shake the snow off the pole. It’s
a snow shovel. Its only dysfunction is the D-handle had broken off. Like Arthur
the page-boy I pull the shovel from the dumpster and hold it forth like Arthur
the King. This shovel is to be my salvation.
I begin to shovel the walk in front of the bakery and
receive two cinnamon rolls and cup of coffee for my efforts. The ladies in the
bakery suggest I continue shoveling the walk in front of the restaurant for
which I received $15. Within an hour I had cleared the walk in front of all the
shops on the block, earning over $150, and I begin to make my way to the
residences near-by.
As I shovel a walk in front of a simple brick home, my mind
and body at peace with the labor, I hear the sounds of children laughing. I
clear a step and sit to smoke a cigarette and watch. A young family is setting
about to build a snowman. The father clad in a wool pants and sweater begins
the foundational ball as the mother, rosey cheeked, exhaling great plumes of
breath fiddles with the children’s mittens and hats. The youngest child sucks
on an icicle while the elder helps her father roll the giant ball. The scene is joyous and pure.
I watch them play as I take slow drags of my cigarette. I
remember my wife. She hates me now. I remember my wife and remember why I hate
the number 2. 2 will break your heart.
