Using his brown takeout bag as a plate, Morris messily sucked up a pulled pork sandwich, perched at his two-seat table in a pair of tighty-whities. It wasn't the best meal he'd ever had, but after another horrendous day on the midtown site, it was the closest Morris could get to some kind of satisfaction. And then his jaw made a minor miscalculation driving his lateral incisor clean through the flesh of his lower lip.
“SON OF A GODDAMN WHORE!”
He touched the soft wet inside his mouth, his own plasma coalescing with the tangy barbecue. His last savored bites nauseatingly contaminated by his own metallic undertones.
Yet again, the world conspired against him.
Much to his displeasure, Morris was back on 6th Avenue site the next morning, balancing precariously with a welding torch near the top of the steel skeleton. Sparks flew off the I-beams of the mammoth structure towering over the delis and bars below.
"That's lunch!" the foreman's assistant yelled up from the staging floor.
Morris turned off his torch and climbed down from the I-beam.
In line at the gut wagon, Morris watched his fellow crew members chum it up. Being this close to the other guys made his shoulders tighten. He wore the same steel-toed boots, the yellow mesh breakaway vest, the white hardhat, but he felt like an impostor.
The Greek husband and wife team inside the belly of the catering truck sizzled egg sandwiches and gyros. Each crewmember got his order and stepped aside. To Morris it was like a grade school square dance. Step up. Order. Cook. Money. Change. Food. Step off. Repeat.
The line got shorter as the beam workers--always the last to get fed--shuffled their way to the window. Jackson, that sack of shit, was next.
Step up.
"Yes?" The Greek wife asked.
Order.
"Two beef empanadas."
Cook.
The Greek husband turned to toss the empanadas in the toaster oven.
Money.
Jackson pulled a twenty from his wallet.
Morris saw his chance. If he was fast enough clear of Jackson's periphery, he could fetch his prize before the Greek wife looked up from her change making. Jackson extended the twenty into her waiting hand. Morris gingerly reached out and snagged a Snickers. Pocketing it, he did a one-eighty and walked off.
Success.
Fuck them all.
He had his lunch in his pocket and he hadn't paid a thing. Cost of living was beyond a bitch. And besides he lived for this. He hoped the couple would count their inventory at the end of the day and notice the discrepancy. Fuck em. Every tool he owned: the integrated chuck and gearbox driver, the portable tile saw, shock mount radio, lithium-ion LED work light, even his orbital reciprocating saw, he had swiped them all, right out from under the noses of the cretins who ran these nightmare jobs. It was small payback for the years of maltreatment, but it was a start.
"Hey!" the Greek wife yelled after him, "Hey! That guy!"
Morris kept walking, he knew better than to look back.
"Thief. That guy! Thief!" the Greek wife wailed.
"I saw that Hacking, you fuck." Jackson said.
He hadn't seen shit. Morris knew this for fact. Unless Jackson was a freak with superhuman peripheral vision. Morris had done his own extensive visual testing. He’d spent hours mapping the fields of his eyes. He'd even pressed his optometrist about the limits of human periphery--especially at distinguishing color and shape. Jackson was a fucking liar.
"MORRIS. Stop right there." The foreman commanded.
Morris halted. You didn't mess with the foreman.
"Turn around."
Morris slowly complied.
"D' you steal off the gut wagon?"
Morris tried to explain, "Look. It wasn't worth seventy-five cents..."
"That's it, Morris, you're off the job."
Over a measly Snickers bar?
"You gotta be kidding me. You can't fire me for that." He could really feel the tingle in his shoulders now. "You look the other way when Alvarez brings a canteen of whiskey. When Benedicto and Hooks start a fist fight up on the beams."
"Stealing can't be tolerated. Sorry. Goodbye. Off my site."
Morris slammed his hardhat against the ground. "THIS IS BULLSHIT!"
The foreman shook his head, with a micro smile.
Morris grabbed up the hat and stormed towards the gate. He'd be damned if he was going to let them keep their hardhat.
That night Morris sat in his easy chair stewing.
The German Expressionist "Nosferatu" flickered on the television. Soon the young hero would find Count Orlok deep inside his castle crypt, asleep inside his coffin. Morris had seen it a hundred times.
But his eyes weren't on the television. They were locked on the Snickers bar sitting on his kitchen table. He hadn't touched it. Hadn't even peeled back the wrapper for a smell. Instead he vacuumed a bag of microwave popcorn into his mouth, washing it down with pale lager. He dropped the bottle next to the growing row of empties.
Packed with roasted peanuts, nougat, caramel and enrobed in milk chocolate, Morris knew deep down it was the only thing that would really satisfy. But under no circumstances was he going to give in.
The bitter refrain of human voices emanated from the other side of his door.
Morris leapt to his bathroom in time to catch a glimpse through his peephole. He half expected to see the men in black suits again, the ones he knew were watching the building, making sure he didn’t deviate from his regular activities. But instead he found Dorian and some floozy climbing the stairs.
"...I'm telling you. Death and profit, babe. Modern-day capitalism adds a whole new dimension to the finality of death. You gotta look at it as a business opportunity. Cut right through the sentimental tear-jerk crap. It's all about scarcity value. You just gotta force the supply of new works to come to an end. Trust me, the last thing a smart artist should ever do is overstay his welcome."
"That's super creepy." Althea said.
"What's creepy is dying of old age, penniless, in nameless obscurity."
Morris squinted through the miniature glass lens. This was just what he needed. Another sleepless night.
Dorian looked up at the tiny closed-circuit camera above his shut-in neighbor, Ivan's door, a red light blinking next to the lens. The lens tracked them with a mechanical whine, as he and Althea walked the hall.
Dorian unlocked his door, eyeing his neighbor's invasive hardware.
"Can you check first?" Althea asked.
"Baby, I don't think Frank's coming back."
She shuddered at the name she herself had given.
Dorian took a cursory look as he stepped inside the dark apartment. He peered at the sink and under the bathtub in his kitchen.
"I put down glue traps and doused everything in folic acid." Dorian said.
Althea took a cautious step inside as Dorian flipped on the lights.
She jumped backwards petrified, "FRANK! Frank! There he is! FRANK!"
Dorian spotted the cause of her hissy fit; a humongous cockroach climbed the wall above the tub.
"Oh fuck!"
He'd been hoping to be done with the unsavory little houseguest by now.
Althea couldn't stop squealing, "Kill him!"
Grabbing a bowl, Dorian stalked his prey, ready to pounce.
"Come here, Frankie boy, I isn’t gonna hoit ya."
Down below, in #19, the Snickers bar still sat untouched. Morris had moved on to a more egregious distraction. Two pairs of shoes pounded the floor above.
Morris stood poised with his mop, staring up at the ceiling. A fresh set of thumping was followed by hollering. Morris could hear a girl's voice yell the words "KILL HIM DORIAN!" at the top of her register. Morris’s mind filled with the blackest thoughts. A crusade of justice moved his broom handle into the ceiling. Plaster and dust rained down.
He waited a moment.
Two loud thumps came in reply, along with Dorian's muffled voice: "FUCK OFF!"
Morris threw down the broom and bolted for the door.
"He's just gonna crawl back up into the building."
Hanging out his open window, Dorian shushed Althea. He slowly lifted one of his old art show postcards off the bowl’s lip, letting Frank the cockroach fall six long flights to the garbage dump below. Despite Frank plaguing him for weeks, Dorian was almost sad to see the little bastard go.
Slamming at the door startled the couple.
"Dorian, I don’t give a rat’s ass who you’re killing in there, you've got to shut the hell up!" Morris yelled from the hallway, continuing to assail the door with his fist.
Althea was petrified. Dorian glanced at the kitchen knives above the sink.
"You better go back downstairs, Morris, or I'm calling the cops."
Morris hated pigs and he knew from past experience Dorian wasn't bluffing. He'd called 911 on him on three separate occasions, and Morris couldn't afford another. "Just open the door, and talk to me like a man," he said, trying to reason with the little fruitcake.
Althea vehemently shook her head, "Don't."
Ignoring her, Dorian opened the door.
"I'M TRYING TO WATCH MY GODDAMN TV!"
"AND WHAT?" Dorian said.
"You're making excessive fucking noise! I can't even hear my show."
"I'm calling the police."
"Dorian, you pussy! Just shut the fuck up. Just be quiet."
Dorian pulled his phone and started dialing. This was good. He knew Axlerod loved nothing more than to flip an apartment, and if Dorian could get the cops out again, he could use it against Morris. Maybe even get him evicted. Maybe even push for a finder’s fee.
While he listened to the dial tone, he leaned out the doorway, "This is harassment, Morris. You are harassing me!"
The sight of his massive neighbor in retreat pleased Dorian. You couldn’t be a hundred percent sure, but though Morris cut a daunting figure, Dorian had an inkling that deep down, The Ogre was a pussy.
“That’s right you curmudgeonly bastard--yes hello, I’d like to report a verbal assault.”
Althea dropped to the couch, trying to block the whole distasteful affair. Another ill-advised night at Dorian’s place.
Dorian shot a habitual glance down the hall at Mioko’s apartment as he climbed past the third floor, hoping to repeat the exceptional sighting three years back of her peering out in a silken robe. But unsurprisingly the door was shut as Dorian led the baddest of badass female police officers up the tenement stairwell. Officer Cochran was a big round ball of a black woman in uniform, her pudgy Asian partner in tow.
"You try wearing a Kevlar vest and thirty pound belt, walking up five flights in this heat."
"I bet that's really uncomfortable." Dorian said.
"Damn right it is."
They turned the banister, arriving at the fifth floor.
Dorian pointed to the tiny glass peephole at the top of the stairs.
"First of all, I'd like to bring your attention to the peephole, right here, that he installed in his bathroom." Dorian said. "Placed in just such a way that he can spy on the rest of us as we come up and down the stairwell."
The officer nodded, unfazed.
Dorian then pointed to the actual doorway of #19, ten feet down the hall. "That's him."
A torn Bollywood movie poster, featuring a buxom Hindi starlet, hung above the bulging trash bags and construction supplies that lined the narrow corridor. The hall light was all but blacked out by a mounted shoebox covered in black electrical tape.
"Not a fan of light, huh?" Officer Cochran said, making sure she had the right door, "This one?"
Dorian nodded his head. Officer Cochran moved in first. At the back of the line Dorian noticed her Asian partner pop a can of pepper spray with a thumb flip. He desperately hoped the volatile little can of solvent would find it's way into Morris's unsuspecting face. Dorian tried to think of something he'd wanted more in the last year. A solo show at Gropius Gallery came to mind, but even that paled in comparison to the image of Morris laying on the floor, crying in a ball of his own snot and tears. One broomstick slam too many. The Ogre deserved everything he had coming.
"What's his name?" Officer Cochran asked.
"Morris." Dorian said, downplaying his contempt.
Officer Cochran knocked on the door forcefully. After a decent interval, Morris answered.
Dorian almost puked at Morris's attempt to present a softer, gentler side, but he wasn't opening the door all the way. Dorian knew his neighbor didn't want the black and whites seeing in.
"I'll tell you what, Officer, Dorian is way off base here--"
"Why don't you tell us what's going on then?" Officer Cochran interrupted him.
"I'm trying to watch television. He's making excessive noise up there."
"I was in my apartment all of two minutes." Dorian chimed in from his perch on the stairs.
Cochran showed Dorian her open palm, without looking back. "Don't say anything, Dorian. We're not going back and forth here." She addressed Morris again, "If you've got a complaint, Norris, you call management. You go to Landlord-Tenant court."
"You kidding me? They don’t answer my calls." Morris whined.
"Keep tryin'."
"All Axlerod cares about is top dollar tenants.”
“Who’s Axlerod?”
“He's making excessive damn noise. We keep different hours--"
"What, walking around the apartment?" She interrupted him again. "That's not excessive."
Morris was getting flustered. He didn't like her tone. The condescending way she craned her neck sideways at him when she talked. "No it is. He's just too damn loud. And when he's making a racket, I tap lightly on the ceiling."
Morris watched the nosy cop's eyes wandering up above his head. She pushed the door forward a few inches. Morris felt the pressure of the door on his chest. He wanted to slam it in her face.
Officer Cochran looked into the apartment past Morris's shower stall. She saw the pock-marked ceiling, the fallen plaster.
"What is that? Did you do that? That's not light tapping."
"That's him, upstairs. The plaster falling down."
"No it ain't! That's anger. You're slamming the ceiling with anger. I see the evidence. That's evidence right there Norris."
She'd said it again. The bitch. His name was Morris. Not Norris. Norris was a barber who'd cut his hair lopsided while making eyes at his mother.
"Morris." He corrected her, all attempts at courtesy drained.
"I see the evidence, Morris."
"You've already chosen sides. You're not here to listen to me. You people come up here. You accuse. You blame. He's up there with seven different women a week!"
Upstairs, Althea tightened her eyelids in Dorian's open doorway. This wasn't news, but to hear it from The Ogre's lips. The intricate compartmentalization she'd so successfully built around each element in her makeup started to hemorrhage. The little box she kept her friend, and not so occasional lover, Dorian inside began to bleed into all the other little boxes he wasn’t in. She felt desperate and empty. She knew the antidote, but drinking it somehow seemed as painful as passively letting the poison continue to slide down her throat.
"Look you crazy bastard," Dorian yelled.
Her patience evaporated, Officer Cochran held out her arm.
"He's making noise at all hours. I can't watch my television. He's up there with two, three people sometimes. Fucking and sucking and who knows what--" Morris interjected.
"Three people?" Cochran threw up her arms, "25-30 people, that's excessive. Dancing. Dancing, like this."
Cochran demonstrated a loud foot clomp, her knees jamming into the rolls above her holster, the soles of her standard issues pounding the floor.
Dorian couldn't believe his eyes. This was awesome.
Behind them, Althea moved so quickly down the stairs, Dorian nearly missed her whisking past.
"That. That's excessive." Cochran continued "Four, five people that's not excessive. You gotta get yourself some sound proofing. That's it."
“Where are you going?” Dorian asked, abandoning his police action to trail Althea.
“Hey we’re not done here.” Morris called.
“Yes we are,” Cochran said, turning to leave.
"Oh yeah? Well, by the way…" Morris pointed to a commemorative sticker on his door. "9-11. I used to respect you guys."
Morris slammed his door. The cops shook their heads as they continued down the stairs.
Dorian jammed the downstairs door open to find Althea already climbing into a cab.
“What the hell? He had that coming. I thought we were gonna Netflix and--“
The cab door slammed shut. Cochran and her partner smiled knowingly as they waddled past, climbed into their cruiser and slammed theirs too.
Dorian continued to breath fast, realizing one of his bare feet was firmly planted in some kid trader’s puke.
CHAPTER 02
CHAPTER 03
CHAPTER 04
CHAPTER 05
CHAPTER 06
CHAPTER 07
CHAPTER 08
CHAPTER 09
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
UPDATE: LOOKING FORWARD - CHAPTER 12
BEHIND THE KEYBOARD
Scarcity value. Something we all have come to intimately understand through blockchain tech. Reading this through again before posting makes me think of all the digital asset possibilities for artists that now exist with many more on the way. @opheliafu’s fantastic work with DADA.nyc is a great example:
@opheliafu/spring-weather-my-dada-drawing
@opheliafu/umbrellas-my-dada-drawing
Maybe Dorian wouldn't have been quite so depressed if he started to look into some of these modern possibilities.
Yours In The Chain,
Doug Karr
SPECIAL THANKS to my wife @zenmommas for years of support during the writing process, @ericvancewalton for his trailblazing, inspired collaboration and incredible guidance, @andrarchy for his mind blowing insight and friendship, @bakerchristopher for being an inspiration as a human artist and bro, @complexring for his brilliance and enthusiasm, Masie Cochran, Taylor Rankin and @elenamoore for their skillful help in editing the manuscript, and to @opheliafu for the fantastic illustrations she created exclusively for the novel's launch on Steemit and to Elena Megalos for her wonderful character illustrations. I’d also like to thank Eddie Boyce, Jamie Proctor, Katie Mustard, Alan Cumming, Danai Gurira, Stephan Nowecki, Ron Simons, Dave Scott, Alden Karr, Missy Chimovitz, my dad Andy Karr and late mother Wendy, and everyone else who helped lead me to this moment.
I am a Brooklyn based writer, film & commercial director, and crypto-enthusiast, my projects include @HardFork-series an upcoming narrative crypto-noir and my novel Dwelling will soon be premiering exclusively on Steemit, and you can check out more of my work at dougkarr.com, piefacepictures.com, and www.imdb.com/name/nm1512347
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