Fantasy
[K]nowledge of the other subject is theoretically impossible.
——Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
At the heart of the Christian understanding of the human person lies the great biblical affirmation that men and women are created in the image and likeness of the Triune God. Created for relationship, every human person is planned and willed by God to enter into communion with him, with others and with creation. Human dignity does not depend on a person’s vabilities, wealth or position in life, nor on the right or wrong choices made; instead, it is a gift that precedes and transcends each person, endowed by God as an expression of his unfailing love.
——Pope Leo XIV
They’re everywhere. In this small college town—around 30 minutes away from corresponding east and west metropoles——there is one street, about 2 miles in length, of which they are the masters. You will think you have found a hiding spot, and it will be violated.
I lived in a 200 sq foot studio on this street. Across the street from my building, there was a facsimile of a park in the front and center of a small municipal parking lot. Its extent was a normal bench and a metal swinging bench. When I worked, I used to come home around 3 in the morning, and I would sit on the swinging bench, have a joint and a beer, and gaze out over my empty dominion. One day, after work, there were five or six of them there—hooting, hollering, hueing——thence they never left.
I used to give out money and cigarettes abundantly. When encountered as a novelty the heart leapt. Out back behind my old job, there was a brick parking deck, the top of which was a kind of mismanaged midcentury courtyard with concrete planters filled with dirt. They used to run a racket in the public restrooms there. They’d go in there to prostitute, shoot up, or both. They would wait for me out back, and I’d cashapp them. The bathrooms have been indefinitely closed for two years for maintenance.
If they saw me in the day, I’d go to the ATM to help their two-year-old who was in the car with the grandma a few blocks away who just wanted some McDonald’s, or to contribute to the purchase of some hearing aids. I grew less generous with time.
Once, there was a man on the ground outside of my apartment building. He begged me for water——which I gave from my own glass——and to call an ambulance. He said he was having a diabetic attack. The ambulance arrived with no lights on. I threw out the glass.
Once, there was a man in the lobby of my building. The second and third floors were residential. I did not access my apartment from the lobby; it was a kind of staircase one could ascend without going through a door. A pro-bono law firm rented the office space on the first floor. I was outside smoking on a low wall facing the street, when I turned and saw a terrifying shade peering out from the glass door some maintenance worker had likely left propped open. Once he knew I had seen him, he brought his index finger to his lips, looked at me with eyes nearly starting out of his head, and shushed without making a sound. I asked if he was good, and his eyes prayed me to be silent. He began to walk out of the door, slowly checking his surroundings. I asked again if he was good. He started approaching me. I ran away and called the police, who then called an ambulance, who took him to the hospital. They told me to inform my landlord there was a serious clean-up needed in the restroom.
Once, I saw a hand-to-hand exchange behind the dumpster of my building.
Once, I saw one following a young blonde woman, who was cutting through shortcuts and alleyways; he kept about twenty paces behind.
Once, I was out behind a bar with some friends, in an alley, when one found us. He said he was a homeless veteran, the youngest black man ever to make noncommissioned officer in St. Louis, then dishonorably discharged. He said he had a tongue infection; he stuck his disgusting fingers into the corner of his mouth and stuck out his tongue, which looked quite normal. He had some sort of metal bracketing on his teeth, though not braces or grills. He took his hands from out his mouth and shook ours. He commenced a rant about how people would go out and get a few drinks at the bar and claim they hadn’t enough money to buy him cigarettes. They said sorry but they weren’t sorry; they were racist. I offered him a cigarette, which he didn’t want——he already had two in his pocket, which he could make last a week. Still, he wanted a pack. He refused the rest of my beer as well. One of my associates broke and offered to buy him a whole pack. Off they went. Apparently, once in the smoke store, he ordered the cashier to grab two packs of Newports and a gram of fake North Carolina weed. Only his desire for fake shrooms was able to be dissuaded. My other associate had gone inside to wash his hands. When they returned, the $40 exchange had raised the man’s spirits. He shook all our hands again. He offered us some underwear, a t-shirt, his chain, and some pizza with which he would return——white people like pepperoni. He kept turning around every ten steps to say something again, before he got into an altercation with a drunk professional who said he didn’t want to give him anything. He told us that was what he was talking about; we all grimaced and nodded.
Once, I had to pass an older man with a walker who reeked of piss standing in the middle of the sidewalk. A couple had passed him, coming towards me, who were receiving his verbal ichor. As I went to pass he spat upon me——I received his actual ichor.
Once I saw a man stop by a couple who were outside a restaurant, dining on the sidewalk. He grew irritated, took their plates, and threw them on the ground.
Once, I was waiting for the bus. I deigned to sit next to this woman who never moved except to go back and forth across the street seeking shade, from the post office/police station to the low walls of the university with her cart of things. Somehow, she slept on a mattress. At the stop, she was a half a block away from her usual spot. Indeed, one could always smell her a half a block away: the stench of rancid and dried piss moldering in the sun. At the instant I sat, she raised herself and began to urinate. She removed no clothes——a heavy flow came forth from the midst of her leggings to splash onto the concrete. She looked right at me as she did it. Droplets fell onto my shoes. I walked home.
Once, one threw a pebble at me but missed.
Once, when out for a stroll along the train tracks, I passed two or three encampments in the woods. Veritable communities, they had banners and carts. I heard laughter and sensed some sort of chemical vapor. A ways down, a dog ran out of the woods and looked at me before taking himself down the tracks.
Once, while I was buying cigarettes, a heavy-set man whose face was rubbed with dirt and whose light brown hair was nearly matted accosted me. He called me a faggot and said he would kill me. He said he had a knife in his bag, that he would get me in the back. He followed me outside, never holding his breath, and seemed to threaten to step in front of my car as I tried to get away. Weeks later, he found me again outside my building while I was smoking on the wall. I recognized him but not him me. I obliged him one of my last acts of generosity——a measly cigarette. He told me he saw an alien body in the back of a local venue that revealed to him how the pyramids were created. He proceeded to receive a premonition it would rain shortly and counted down from five. When the rain did not begin, he went on with no sign of dejection. It drizzled an hour later.
Once, this one woman told me how she had written a book on criminology.
Once, this same woman felt shame and fussed when another asked if she knew where to find crack in my presence.
Once, I had an encounter with a man with whom I had a minute level of rapport. Every week or so, he’d stop me and tell several jokes. What do a woman and an airplane have in common? They both have a cockpit. What does the starship enterprise have to do with toilet paper? They both go around your anus. What do caviar and Michael Jackson have in common? I don’t remember this punchline——something about a little white hole. After the routine he’d ask for payment. I never gave him a dime. I saw him for the last time on a warm, clear night. My associate and I were sitting on the patio of a different bar. He approached; he could’ve been mistaken for a different race such was the extent of grime and filth on his face. Our ears were blessed with his set. I gave him a cigarette, his first payment. He held it anxiously in his hands and looked inside the bar. He told us not to worry or to go anywhere. He assured us he’d be right back. We scampered off to a different location.
Some of them had bikes. Some of them had scooters. Some of them had iPads with headphones.
Then, there was this man, whom I christened My Enemy. He was quite young and showed up relatively late to the fetes in the park across from my building. I mean to say that he appeared after they were there nightly for a year. He wore a knit cap and camo pants. He had a round, circular face, and bright, dark, shining youthful skin. He might’ve been afro-latino: Brazilian, maybe. The first night I saw him, I was there smoking on the wall. He asked me could he get a cigarette, a bright smile on his face, and I gave. The next night he came again, and I refused. He walked away agitated. The third night, I saw him approaching from across the way. I put out my little light and ran back inside. Since then, I no longer smoked on the wall, but rather went around the backside of my building, which, though still facing their promenades, offered a much taller wall, a little alcove, right by the stairwell, behind which I would hide and spew my noxious fumes unintentionally into the open windows of my neighbors.
I would see him pacing up and down the length of the block by my building, stopping passersby. I never saw him succeed. Once, when my associate and I were dining on the sidewalk outside a pizza shop, he rode up on an assumedly procured bike. He asked a mother and adolescent son if he could have something to eat. The well-off mother sent her son inside with My Enemy to buy him a slice. A few minutes later he returned empty-handed with the son and asked her, in a slightly grating tone, the kind that builds intensity towards the end of a phrase without relying on emphasis, the sort of whining timbre that can also be threatening, could he please get a box. A box of pizza, a whole pizza, is what he meant. She denied, offered him some chips, but he rode away, scowling.
It was a pleasant late spring evening. I was on the phone with a friend, outside, as is my wont. It was still a bit chilly to sit in the shade, so I had found a patch of sun on the side of a breakfast establishment into which I maneuvered one of their broken metal chairs, the kinds they didn’t lock up, to bask in a bit of warmth. I was smoking, as is my wont, and I saw him coming down the block. He stopped a few yards from me and agitatedly stood adjusting his clothes, as is their wont. He then approached me, held out his hand, and asked me could he get a cigarette. I stood up, waved him off, shook my head, pointed to my phone, and walked past him. He turned to face me and said, increasing the volume of his voice, hey man, let me get a cigarette. I told him no. He stepped up to me, drew his arms back, and, with a snarl on his lips, yelled give me a cigarette. I told him to calm down and gave him one. My friend on the phone carried on the conversation after the altercation ended as if nothing had happened.
Disturbed and frustrated, I found myself at the pawn shop the next day. I walked out with an old S&W model 19, slightly rusted, with a handful of .38 special, for $300. I didn’t bother to take it to a gunsmith, the broker assured me it worked. I loaded the cylinder full and stuck it in the cupboard, by the front door. I began to experience visions of My Enemy coming to knock on my door, telling me, exasperated, could he please get some food. Until then, though, I had been scrupulous: he hadn’t seen which apartment was mine. Still, I would sometimes hear my doorknob jiggle in the night.
One night, he caught me as I was exiting my car. He hailed me, but I ignored him. He grew frustrated and followed me up the stairs and into my corridor. He continued to yell at me as I entered my home and bolt-locked the door behind me. Quickly, I heard a pounding. Hey man, he was hungry, and I wrong for ignoring him like that. What, I thought I better than him? Hey man, open up the door right now and give him something to eat. I went into the cupboard as the doorknob was violated. I crept up to the door. Through the peephole, I could see his contorted face. His hot breath and dribbles of saliva obscured my vision. He began to kick at the door; my whiteboy faggot bitchass better let him in. The door hinge was on my right. He was intelligently kicking on the left, to try and break through the bolt. Amid the violent thuds, I placed myself at a 65-degree angle or so. I told him fuck him, to go get a job, to stop harassing people. His foot came through the door. I cocked the hammer and fired. There was screaming. Two more shots, and I heard a dim thump as he fell to the floor. The screaming continued. I calmly opened the door, as calmly as I could while shoving a body out of the way. His foot was still stuck, I kind of crushed him up against the wall.
I’d gotten him good. Once through the shoulder, and once through the upper chest that exited through the neck. He lay there in a growing puddle of dark blood, the fury slowly leaving his eyes. I smiled a great big, wicked smile in his dimming gaze. I was smiling when I realized I still heard screaming. It was from the apartment across from me, left diagonally. In a haste, I stepped over his body toward the door. There were few holes in the wall. I tried to open it, but it was locked. I yelled for them to come to the door, that I couldn’t get it open, but they continued screaming. They’ve been shot, they’ve been shot. I half-assed breaking it down while their vigor faded. By the time they stopped I was there staring at the white paint, gun at my side. I took my time going downstairs, sitting on the wall, and lighting a cigarette. My gun was on my lap.