Gravity

Somewhere between Hemlock Road and Rathbone Street, it smelled like porridge. Ed pedaled his borrowed 14 year old bicycle slowly, steadily, scanning the trees that lined the road and trying to see through the desolation that permeated every beat up car, and smoke-belching bus and run-down house in his view.

He noticed the pot-hole in the street just in time, a spew of scratched stones and pebbles lay around it. He missed it by inches and the little stones jumped up from his back tire and fell to the ground behind him. Ed was wearing gloves with no tips, an old woolen blue cap on his head, his long corduroy jacket (the one his hilarious sister says is ‘puke green,’) and his dead buddy Richard’s old faithful brown boots keeping him warm in the wind and cold of this late February gray.

He turned up the steep hill that was River St. recalling when he was a child, and how his friend Danny’s dad would drive down the same steep street and look over his shoulder at the kids in the backseat, take his hands up and off the wheel and say, “You guys! The brakes don’t work…they don’t work!” He’d stomp on the floor over and over, staring back with frightened eyes, his hands gripping the wheel… “No brakes, No brakes!” he’d yell as they careened down the hill with the kids screaming as the street below and the big brick factory building came up closer and closer. Ed was breathing hard when he got to the top of the hill and looked back remembering the days of innocent bliss.

He cruised past a dilapidated city park with its rusted and peeling 20 year old playground. The jungle gym, old metal slide, dry grass and weeds with bare limbed trees; an 8 foot section of chain link fence bent and broken from some drunken escapade.

He turned in at a house that was like all the others, a tenement, with 3 floors, or stories, and most likely many, many tales to tell. It had aluminum siding and a narrow driveway with a strip of dried grass and gravel in between the strips of cracked concrete. This neighborhood was a home for immigrants. It once was Irish, Italian and Polish, and now it was mostly Mexican, Laotian, Dominican and Haitian.

In the back of the house there was an old rusted out Buick up on blocks with no doors or tires. Ed leaned the bike out of sight against a tall wooden fence on the other side of the house. The back door, as always, was open, the lock busted. He took the stairs two at a time up to the third floor. He knocked on the door twice. He knocked again a little harder, this time with three quick wraps. On the third one the door opened and a short, unshaven and weary looking dude wearing a white tank top, boxers and red and blue argyle socks looked up at him.

“Don’t you know how to use a fuckin phone?’ he said.

Ed smiled. “C’mon Tommy. Why call you when I know you never leave this fuckin place.”

Ed walked past him as he closed the door. Tommy slid two locks into place and turned a deadbolt.

“It was open, anyway.” Tommy said, “that bitch Marnie forgot to lock it.”

 “Yeah, well, I don’t want to walk in here all nonchalant and have you freak out and take a shot at me.”

Tommy went to the sink and poured a glass of water.

“What time is it?” he said.

“Around 4, I think. Sun’s going down. Not that there was much sun today. You get out?”

“Nah. I had a late one with Marnie. A late one that became a fuckin early one as in the bitch didn’t leave until noon. Which I guess makes it a late one. Whatever. She’s taking years off my life.” Ed knew it was more than a woman taking years off this guy’s life.

He walked into a big double living room with clothes and crap all over on the chairs, the couch, the coffee table, the love seat, and the floor. A big fish tank full of water but with no fish gurgled by a window. There was a tall Fichus tree in a corner with a bunch of sad looking spider plants on little tables and below the window sills. A guitar with only three strings leaned against a wall.

“Well,” Ed said, “you shoulda had Marnie cleanup a bit in between ripping your head off.”

“What?” Tommy said, from the other room.

“Nothin.” Ed said, and threw a dirty button down dress shirt and some socks off the love seat and sat down.

Tommy came in scratching his balls.

“What’d you say?”

“Nothing, man, forget it. You got it?”

“Yeah, yeah…give me a second to orient myself. I think I was sleeping when you knocked. And by the way, you kinda freaked me with that quick loud fuckin knockin, dude. Sounded like a cop.”

“A little paranoid, bro?” Ed said.  “Next time I will just walk in. Make sure you got the safety on that piece of yours. If you even know where it is.”

Tommy looked at him, smirking.

“Man…c’mon.” He reached underneath the fish tank and pulled out a Gloc .45 caliber pistol, black and mean looking. He ran a hand through his greasy hair and held it out in front of Ed.

“See? The safety’s on. And it is loaded. I know what I’m doin, bro. If you been doin what I been doin for this long, then you’d understand. But you’re too busy writing poems and shit.”

“It’s honest man, can’t call it work, but it keeps me from becoming an old ball scratching Al Bundy like yourself.”

Tommy put the gun back under the tank and looked at Ed with a yellow tooth grin on his unshaven face.

“I like you, Ed. You’re fucking funny even without tryin.’

“You’re easy material to work with brother.”

Tommy laughed and went into the bedroom and after a few minutes came out.

“This what you looking for?” he said, and threw a little baggie at Ed, who caught it with his left hand.

“This looks like my cousin. My dear old faithful fuckin cousin. You know what his name is?”

Tommy sat on the clothes on the couch across from Ed.

“What?”

 “Charlie. Charlie Blow. Not related to Kurtis but even more entertaining.”

“Did you make that up, or what?” Tommy said. He leaned over and grabbed a pack of cigarettes from the floor.

“What you got to cut this up on?”

“How about my big white ass.” Tommy said, and got up with a sigh and walked into the bedroom. He came out holding a small mirror with a razor blade flat on the scratched surface and a quarter piece of a red and white straw. Ed took it.

“Thank you, my good man, you are good for something.”

Tommy lit a red and looked out the window.

“Man, the day is gone, like that. Not that I had anything to do.” The sun appeared beneath the grey overhanging clouds like a golden egg yoke dripping over the tenements across the park.

Ed untied the little piece of plastic wrap and gently shook it so two little white rocks came out on the mirror. He tied it back up and put the baggie in his jacket pocket. He pressed the flat wide side of the razor on the little blocks that crumbled easily.

“How is this?” he said, not looking up, slowly using the sharp edge of the razor to break up the remaining clumps.

“Sweetest shit you’ll find in Providence, bro.”

“Good. Cause in this town a man needs something to keep him from slitting his wrists.”

“Why you got this beef with providence, man, you’re from here.”

“That’s exactly why.” Ed said.

“So why the fuck are you here?’ Tommy said, blowing a big blast of smoke.

Ed looked at him, three neat lines like white scars on the mirror.

“Why am I here?” he said, and leaned over and pulled a line up through the straw into his nose. The cocaine did what it does and saturated his brain with that artificial, euphoric sensation that you know is way too good to be true and obviously can’t be good for you.

“I'm only here until I can figure a way to get the fuck out of here. That’s how it always is for me.”

“Did you think about what we talked about a few days ago? About taking that trip to Vermont?”

“Yeah…I’m still thinking about it.”

“Its easy money, bro. A couple-a-thou for a couple hours work.”

“I know, I know. I gotta try and borrow a car…I’m still thinking about it.”

Ed was not too sure about it. Transporting dope to people he didn’t know was not really his thing. He rarely did anything but smoke herb and drink anyway. He had met Tommy a year ago at a catering gig, and off and on he would pick up something from Tommy or hang with him after work, shooting stick and getting ripped. 

“Here you go bro,” Ed said, handing the mirror to Tommy with great care.

He bent down and did a line, then held it up. Ed got up and took it.

“Well you got until tomorrow to decide,” Tommy said. “Marnie might do it.”

Ed snorted another line feeling that perversely wonderful wild rush.

“You’re right man,” he said, wiping his nose, “this is pretty good shit.”

“I told you. I don’t know a lot about a lot, but I do know a lot about a little, man.”

“You’re a fuckin philosopher.”

“I know. My wisdom, and that shit,” he said, jutting out his chin, “sure as hell ain’t free. It’s 50, and that’s friend prices.”

“Is ones OK?” he said.

“Fuck off, asshole.”

Ed cut up another few lines and blew one, then handed the mirror back to Tommy.

He pulled a crumpled bill from his pocket and tossed it on the coffee table. Ed stared at the table cluttered with two full ashtrays, an herb pipe, newspapers and receipts and an open bag of potato chips. It looked like a painting.

Ten minutes later Ed coasted down the street past the beat up playground, where no children played, to River St. As gravity gripped him and the old bike he took his hands off the handle bars and went careening down the hill, memories rushing to greet him, in the back seat again, hurtling towards oblivion.