Three Goddamn People

1. Honest Ivan

Back in my cocaine days, I frequented a dealer named Ivan. He was a big Russian with a thick, formidable, Stalinesque mustache and a laugh like galloping horses. I once bought a gram from him and accidentally handed him too much money. Those were heady days and my math got scrambled. Ivan noticed the error and gave me the extra twenty back, saying “Honesty is best policy!” in his deep dark forest of an accent. 

I thanked him with sincere gratitude and returned home to find that the coke had been cut to within an inch of its life. 

2. The Human Carcinogen

He is a human carcinogen, emitting radionuclides like a shedding pet. A visiting palliative-care nurse attends to his scabrous needs and he drives her away with noxious flirtations. Trying to get her interested in his nonsensical television programs. He is an accident waiting to happen and get tested and evaluated. The nurse is Alice. “Like the Goon!” he says and laughs for reasons she doesn’t bother to investigate. She cannot relate to him as he itemizes his fears but she dutifully writes each one down and down and DOWN. His list is endless. He likes a TV show about inches. It’s about the measurement and that’s all it is. For hours. But it’s REALLY FUNNY, he tells her. It’s called “Inches!” She tries to give him a smile, standing there in her starched white uniform, holding a big clipboard pinned with an endless list of his rancid insecurities. “Excuse me Alice, INCHES is coming on. Could you hand me that remote control by the puke bucket?” 

And she does, despite the danger, the hopelessness, and the seasick tedium. It’s her job, after all. She still has to save for that nosejob she wants. 

3. Outside The Library

He stands in line with five or six or seven others, waiting for the sale in the rain. Nobody talks. It is too early in the season for mosquitoes but he feels one anyway, stinging his naked arm (left). He lets the insect fill up its gas tank and then he smacks it and is met with a miniature murder scene. The sight of his blood makes him feel faint and he  gives up his place in line to sit down on a wet bench. He brushes the splat of blood and mangled mosquito off his bicep. He carries a book about Hiroshima that has nothing to do with the atomic bomb that landed there. Not even a mention. He reads it there in the drizzle, letting the rain rape the pages. Each raindrop contains a secretive face. Yes, the very weather is staring at him in millions of ways. He folds the book and puts it back in his pocket and returns to the line. Crisis averted. 

The mosquito bite on his arm begins to itch and he worries about malaria.

4. Bonus Goddamn Person 

Jobless Bob bumped into an old friend named Tommy Jete at Subway and asked him about their mutual friend, Gary Plasse, whose sorry-ass he hadn’t seen in a while.

“Where’s he been lately?” Bob asks. “Homeless?”

“Didn’t you hear? He’s in the hospital, under quarantine.”

“Quarantine? Really? What for?”

“I dunno. Something he picked up in a tropical swamp, I think.”

“Is it serious?”

Tommy shrugs. “It must be. I mean, to be kept in isolation like that.”

Tommy’s wife Janice walks out of the bathroom holding their one-year-old son, Jeremy, whose shrill cries echo around the crowded restaurant. 

“Thomas!” Janice says. “Let’s go!” She marches toward the exit with the squealing baby.

Tommy puts his hand on the side of his mouth, leans toward Bob, and mutters, “Wish I could catch whatever Gary has. I could use a little isolation myself.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Bob says only because it’s expected of him.     

“Thomas! Now!” Janice shrieks.  

Bob wants to wish Tommy good luck but doesn’t want to get him into any more hot water with the missus.

_{^{no more people…}}