GOOD THINGS DON'T LAST
By Royal Young
The Neighborhood changes down that way. The air grows stagnant and thick. Things rot down that way; garbage cans spill over the spots of soil where weeds grow, enriched by excrement. You breathe the sweet smell of decay, the bitter smell of sweat and cheap, green soap. Everything is covered in time and disappointment, in fruitlessly spilled semen, grease, malt liquor. Memories run short down that way. A 14–year–old boy was hit by a car and killed. Candles burn on the corner where his shrine stands, flowers losing petals as the weeks pass. The cheap pasteboard signs that say “we will miss you“ fade into multicolored stains when it storms. Love’s labors are losses. The young do not grow old–they do not even grow up. If they don’t die, they leave; and if they don’t leave, they pass overnight into palsy and ruin. There is no middle age–just young or old, crippling or crippled. I’ve heard the Neighborhood talked about notoriously on the news, but nothing describes it more than the stories friends have told me. Those somewhat pathetic, pale faces speaking of lives and deaths, rapes and murders. The faces have one thing in common–an amazing distance from the events which are recounted. This distance is there whenever one deals with atrocity or greatness. Just the other night, an old friend came over. I had been waiting for her too long, so when she arrived I was tipsy. When I opened the door, we almost hugged, but didn’t. She looked old, ugly, and dirty. She had been crying for days. We sat in my barely– furnished room. “A month before it all, he was jumped. I was with him in the ambulance,“ she was saying. I didn’t see her anymore then; my mind raced to those streets. Two a.m., the night muggy from tepid August drizzle. Drops cling to the train tracks running above his head. Dull yellow liquor store signs against the heated darkness. He stumbles alone, not caring, just dull drunk in that dull drunk way men get when they don’t care much. Not even a talkative drunk–just a quiet, steady, unintelligible drunk. He is dressed in baggy clothes, his eyes bloodshot because he’s blazing. He’s Polish. He sees them from a block off, but he keeps on walking. He can’t walk back, because if he turns around they’ll follow him for sure. He can only walk quickly forward with his head down, hoping for the best. He is outnumbered, alone in enemy territory. They move slowly, their faces indistinguishable from the black night. They move slowly, like clowns, with their arms waving in cartwheels around their heads. As he walks closer, he can see more, muscle rippling smooth and worked–up under the skin. The train goes by overhead sounding like his heartbeat. The headlights are pale orange.
“Yo, whiteboy–whatchoo lookin for?“
One of them comes dancing up in front of him.
There are four, sniffing the air.
“Yo, nigga, let’s take this bitch to the park.“
The young man lifts his head, his eyes rolling.
“Let me through.“
Another of them dances up in front of him.
“Why you in a rush, bitch? You ain’t wanna fuck wit a nigga tonight?“
As he says it, he punches the young man in his jaw. Blood flies from his lips as his teeth cut into them. All dance around him now, kicking his ribs through his skin. The only thing they preserve is his face.
“I was with him in the ambulance. It was awful, they fucked him up real bad. Oh God, it was awful–he could barely talk, he just kept whispering my name. Then a month later I walked in on him fucking her.“
“So he got better?“ I asked.
“Yeah, he got better,“ she said.
***
Then there was my coworker, the petite girl from Long Island who ate the same canned tomato soup everyday, who worked out regularly, who blushed when she admitted to me that she wanted to be engaged to her boyfriend by December. “I guess it happens a lot around there,“ she said. “Just last week this girl was walking home from college and some guy followed her into her building. He forced her onto her couch, tied her up, cut off her eyelids, and raped her. Then he set the whole thing on fire. Somehow, she burned through just her ropes and got out.“
I nodded.
“I guess it’s the whole college–girl thing,“ she explained.
“So how was your weekend?“
“It was okay,“ I said. “You?“
“Oh, all right, all right,“ she said. “I’m not really
into the whole bar scene anymore.“
“Neither am I,“ I said. “I prefer to drink at home.“
***
Four years ago I knew a boy named A. A was tall and had a purposefully starved body, all concave with taut, pockmarked skin. I think he hated himself very much. He had a yellow snaggletooth.
I remember it happened after a Christmas party. A very pointless, naïve college Christmas party with lots of posing, preening, unnecessary belligerence, and dirty hook–ups. It was in one of those small apartments students often get in Neighborhoods like the one in question. I had left early, feeling harassed and bored, only to end up at another party, worse than the first. A fat Spanish woman danced in a pink room wearing a lopsided blonde wig. Next day, I got a phone call not from A, but from the hostess of the first party.
“Did you hear what happened?“
“No.“
“To A?“
“No, what happened?“ I asked, starting to wake from my drunken slumber.
“He was pissed on.“ She said it almost gleefully.
“What?“
“He was pissed on,“ she repeated.
A abandons the party shortly after myself and, undaunted by the Neighborhood, maintaining his studied bourgeois composure, saunters into a bank to withdraw money for a car home. He does not see the lanky shadow slipping through the door behind him until it runs up on him, shoving him against the wall, one unwashed–tasting hand clamped over his mouth.
“Take out all your money, faggot,“ a voice grunts into his ear.
The pair shuffle over to the cash machine. A puts in his card with shaking fingers. It won’t work. The grip tightens and he inhales stale tobacco and body odor. He’s pressed harder from behind so that he can feel every detail.
“I said gimme your fuckin money, faggot.“ He tries again. Still nothing. The machine bleeps stupidly at him. His tearing eyes swim up to the security camera. It’s broken. The homeless man slams himdown on the floor. The homeless man’s eyes are red, his hair stuck up in clumps; he’s malnourished and dirty but still young and strong. A closes his eyes, lifting one frail hand in front of his face. He cries silently.
“It won’t work,“ he squeaks.
The homeless man’s eyebrows twist in animal rage, his foot comes up to stamp, then goes down. A takes his hand away and opens his eyes.
“Please,“ he says, a little louder this time, “it won’t work.“
“It won’t work,“ repeats the homeless man as he spits on A. “I got something that work just for you.“
Then he hefts out his ashy gray dick and lets a stream of thick beer–piss onto A’s face and body. Then he zips up and walks out.
“What the fuck?“ I said.
“I know,“ she said. “So then he comes back here crying, asking to spend the night. He just had his parents pick him up this morning.“
“That’s crazy.“
“But do you really think he was pissed on?“ she asked.
“What do you mean?“
“Well, what if he just got mugged, pissed himself because he was scared, and then lied to save face?“
“You’re right,“ I said. “Well, I guess we’ll never know.“
***
Yes, the Neighborhood changes down that way, and so suddenly, too. From street to street it changes: One minute I walk in sun, the next in shade. And though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I shall fear no evil. Good things don’t last.
