The voices were back at it, giving detailed instructions on how to electrocute himself. Pour water on the floor and pull the bulb from the light fixture. Fill the bath, an extension cord to bypass the safety outlet near the tub, and then lay back with the toaster for a cuddle. Morris could picture the lights flickering, blowing every fuse in the building as he flopped like a fish, nerves contracting, electricity pulsing through flesh. Ever since that night with the pigs at his door, the voices kept telling him to try.
Maybe when he got home, he would. Ludlow was mostly empty for a change as he turned the corner past Katz's deli. So the voices whispered, instead of having to scream over a crowd. That's when he spotted Moshe Axlerod, feigning slickness in a Hugo Boss suit, lounging on his antique shoeshine chair outside Bottle Store Bar. The last thing Morris needed was to talk to that fucker.
He shuffled past, trying to keep a low profile.
"Hey Hacking! You owe rent."
Morris took a deep breath. It didn't sound like the voices. As he crossed the street, he wondered what Axlerod would look like flopping like a toaster-fish in the bath.
"Listen, Moshe--"
Axlerod raised his palm, "Don't 'listen Moshe' me. This ain't my Pop’s lending shop no more."
"Look, I lost my job. I called Avi--"
"Don't you be calling my father. My father is a sick man."
"He told me he'd get me some work round the building again for a little while."
"Excuse me?" Axlerod dropped his Italian loafers to the pavement.
Morris wished he could fuse his head back together.
"He said maybe you had some maintenance type stuff. Part-time work. For rent. For my mom's bills."
"Tell me you didn't, Morris."
Morris was puzzled. He was unsure how to respond.
"Tell me you didn't go above my head, Morris. I'm the one who decides who drinks in my bars, eats in my restaurants, lives in my friggin' buildings. And you know why that is Morris?"
He was starting to perceive a faint red glow around Axlerod. And his landlord’s lips weren't in quite the right place.
"Why?"
"Because I own the whole fucking neighborhood!"
"I know that."
Axlerod leaned back in his chair, sizing Morris up.
"You been bothering the other tenants again, Morris?"
The red glow permeated outwards like a fog.
"No."
"Why not?"
Was this the real Axlerod talking, and if not what happened to the real Axlerod?
"Listen. You want work around the building? Anyone been there more than three, four years, you get unfriendly with them. Understood? Get right in their faces." He said with a wink. "But play nice with the new tenants. I'll call up Ndusen, see if he's got anything else for you, so you can make rent."
"OK."
"OK?"
Morris was confused.
"How about thank you?" Axlerod waved his benevolent palm "Get the fuck outta here."
Morris moved off, but kept a nervous eye on Axlerod. Would he have to have this same conversation tomorrow with another Axlerod?
Boy, he hoped not.
Across Ludlow, Rosarita's fluorescents gave the slick of curdled cheese-grease pooling around Dorian's disks of pepperoni a sickly sheen. Dorian couldn't help himself, he reached for the stack of paper napkins and patted down the slice. From the far side of the counter, Rube watched him closely with a look of disdain.
"Pizza's a little too greezy for you, huh?"
Dorian barely heard him as he sprinkled on the powdered garlic. Rosarita's slices weren't the best, but they were certainly the most proximate, and nine times out of ten with Dorian that won out over quality.
"I axe you a question Privilege."
"Sorry?" Dorian looked up from his first palate searing bite.
Even though he’d just ordered a slice from the kid, this was the first time he actually saw Rube. His white apron, Yankees cap, cherubic features, the golden tint of his skin. Dorian had an immediate wave of recognition.
The word "Weird" slipped out.
"What’s that?" The way that bitch was ogling Rube, like he was admiring some bikini model with everything slipping out.
"I know you--"
"And what?"
Course that motherfucker knew him. Bitch practically lived off his slices. "I work here. You eat the pizza."
"I'm an artist. A painter."
"That's nice, Privilege." He didn't give a fuck if the guy was an astronaut, the way he was staring. Was this bitch rolling, his brain rushing on pink stars? He hadn’t bought it from Rube. Either way, keep eyeballing, Holmes. Rube was about to grab little ho, smack him upside the head, knock the ecstasy right out with his prized mop.
"I painted you."
This fool was truly tripping, "Say what?"
"I painted this picture I found of you."
Was this some kind of a queer come on, or what?
"Do you want to see it?"
"What you mean you painted me?"
Homie did have paint caking every inch of his clothes. If what this locopuff said was true, maybe he should check it. If it was mad nice, maybe use that shit for his EP cover--or just rob the bitch blind.
"Where you live at?"
There was a loud thumping at Dorian's apartment door. He lifted himself from his stupor on the sofa to find Rube and Deuce standing in the hallway.
"Privilege." Rube nodded by way of introduction, "Deuce."
"Wassup." Deuce chimed in.
Dorian glanced at Deuce's navy hoodie, the words "NO BITCH ASS NESS" emblazoned in huge stacked letters.
He wasn't exactly sure what the appropriate greeting was so, he just grunted, "Yo."
They seemed to accept that.
"Dorian," he added.
He put out something between an awkward half wave and an anticipatory high-five. Deuce snickered as he and Rube pushed past.
Moving around the table, Rube was quickly sizing up the place, "Swish digs, player. How much you pay?"
In most other situations, Dorian would have spit sarcastic bile in response, but he was keenly aware of not wanting to make these guys feel unwelcome.
"Twelve-hundred."
Rube nodded, doing a little mental calculus, "That put you here, what, six years?"
"How'd you guess?" Dorian said, "You sell real estate when you're not slinging pies?" It was meant as a friendly quip, but Dorian worried he’d accidentally derided his guest.
"Mothafucker's clairvoyant, dog." Deuce replied for his friend.
Rube smiled coyly, continuing to look around. "What you got to drink up in this shit?" he said, finished with the pleasantries.
Rube and Deuce pulled chairs from the kitchen table, making themselves at home.
Dorian inventoried the meager contents of his fridge. "Beer. A coke?"
Rube shook his head.
"A coke? Break out the liquor man. You know gin, whiskey?"
Dorian reached through the glassless cabinet pane above his bathtub and pulled down a bourbon bottle. He kept an eye on Deuce, as his visitor began emptying tobacco from a blunt.
"Ice?"
"Nah."
Deuce didn't even look up.
Dorian poured. Deuce refilled the cigar with marijuana.
"Why you wanna go and paint my ass anyway, Privilege?" Rube asked.
Dorian wasn't exactly prepared for the question, "Why'd I paint you?"
"That’s what you said, right?"
"Ahh… because you're real. The original element of this neighborhood. The real New York. Before these fucking rich Wall-Street-bridge-n-tunnel-fuckers took over."
This cracked Deuce up.
"Hear that, Rube? You're the real New York."
Deuce pulled a baggy and sprinkled yellow powder into the blunt, sealing it with his lips. Dorian’s eyes grew wider.
"What's that?"
"Fairy dust, bitch." Deuce said, sparking the blunt with a huge smoke plume, then handing it off.
How cool was this? It couldn't have been easier. Dorian felt the rush of having actually followed through on a genuine inspiration. Taking the initiative to extend himself past his own comfort zone for the second time in two days and opening up to a potential subject--no, not just a subject, another human being--from such a distinctly different world than his own. And it was already paying off dividends. Getting high with his new homies in the mid-afternoon. If he could get their comfort level up, maybe the other one would even sit for him. At the very least they'd surely let him take some reference stills. Mime some real gangster shit right in his living room.
Check yourself before you wreck yourself, Dorian.
He accepted the blunt and took a huge hit.
"Thatta boy," Deuce said, clearly liking his style.
Was it weird that he almost felt like he was making a sexual conquest? Dorian exhaled a cloud of grey, a smile wrapping from ear to ear.
Out the window a satellite dish was the only thing still lit by the sun, the rest of the buildings were pastels of gray and tan. Soft rock played on the stereo. Dorian sat propped up by pillows on the couch, semi-conscious. Rube still sat at the table. Deuce browsed Dorian's CDs, lazy eyed.
"This music is terrible, man. What is this Coldplay?" Deuce said.
"Elton John. Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy..."
"Well it fucking sucks."
Rube didn't disagree, motioning to the stack of CDs in Deuce's hand, "Yeah, put on Honky Chateau... you got that one?" Rube garbled, "...It's a way better album..."
Deuce let out a cackle.
"Honky what?"
Dorian was surprised by Rube’s familiarity. He dug deep for a thought, but all that came were lyrics, "Every pose you strike, every frame they shoot, shows you dressed to kill in your monkey suit."
Deuce scratched his head as if a spider was burrowing in the braids. "That cracker just call us monkeys?"
Clearly there had to have been some miscommunication.
"No, no, it’s a newer track."
Rube stood up, he was starting to get restless.
"Aight. Let's see this fucking painting, Cracker-Dorian."
Dorian pointed across the room at his covered easel, "I wonder what's under that sheet, man?"
Deuce rolled his eyes.
"This bitch is retarded."
"...hey, yo, I can hear you..." Dorian said, "I'm sitting four feet from you..."
Rube peeled the sheet.
The fuck? Some kind of mirror image scam, he had to touch that shit to understand he was staring down a proper painting.
"Careful, the grease on your fingers..."
"Who dis?"
"Well, who do you think?"
"Nahh."
Recognition through the angel haze. It was that fucking bullshit Mioko had taped up. He hadn't appreciated finding her pic in the first place, much less the note accompanying. But splashed across a canvas. Vivid. A pretty dope likeness even.
"Motherfucker."
"It's just a study. I'm thinking much bigger."
Rube spun round and backhanded that little bitch, nice and hard.
"Hey! what the fuck?" Dorian said.
"What you show me this shit for, cocksucker? This ain't me! Got your ass confused. Hear me candy ass bitch?"
Rube ripped that little huele bicho up off the couch--hair clump in hand. Too bad he was chalkless. Should've had 16 in the clip and one in the hole.
"You do what you gotta do here." Deuce said, standing up. "I got your back, bro."
The room was electric. Rube could feel sheets of metallic rage ripping up his back. But what hadn't he touched up in this crib? A fistful of DNA ripping the man's scalp that very moment.
"Via con dios this bitch if you feel it," Deuce whispered in his ear.
"Shut the fuck up, ese."
This shit was all wrong. He had to turn the cards on this. The dirty could wait, till the work was clean. Besides, this deadbeat artist was undoubtedly on Axlerod’s list.
Rube leaned till their noses were almost touching.
"Who'd you paint that picture of, Privilege?"
The bitch's heart was clearly beating out of his ribcage.
"I don't know..."
"You don’t know? "
"Not you..."
"Uh-huh.”
"Someone else."
"Damn right," Rube said, "You wanted the real New York, motherfucker?"
Winding back, Rube plowed his fist into Dorian’s face.
His head snapped back as he crumpled.
"You got it."
CHAPTER 02
CHAPTER 03
CHAPTER 04
CHAPTER 05
CHAPTER 06
CHAPTER 07
CHAPTER 08
CHAPTER 09
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
UPDATE: LOOKING FORWARD - CHAPTER 17
BEHIND THE KEYBOARD
I almost got killed when I was in my early twenties. I was up to no good on my own one night in Toronto and I followed some guys down an alley to buy a smokable green treat. At first the conversation was casual, but then suddenly they were accusing me of being a narc. They snatched my ID out of my wallet and the energy got quickly out of control. A wind up and a clump of my hair in one of their hands. Somehow I managed to do a spin move, rip my ID out of the dude’s hand and tear off for the street losing little more than some hair and my pride. It was a low moment. And later a friend laid out his theory that they were getting so jacked up because they were about to end me. The adrenal hightening a prerequisite for murder. Living in New York, it saddens me so much that the divide between privileged glass-tower-dwellers like myself and kids who need to paint between the black market lines in order to survive are so thickz It feels like a deep failing of our current society.
Having volunteered in prison with 18 year old kids who are locked up in Rikers Island with murderers for simply jumping a turnstile, it’s all too clear to me that there is a systematized nature to the divide. It’s there un-purpose. And the current leadership of this country doesn’t even try to hide that fact. It’s time for humanity to start doing a better job of recognizing these divides and extricating them from the way we live. Giving underprivileged kids more chances to thrive and succeed, instead of tracking them into the prison system and in and out of relentless black market cycles.
Images from a relevant articleAxlerod would read closely about Rikers Island, per the NY Daily News
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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