23rd Street SmokeZone

by Rabbi Ben Newman, the Bronx, NY, USA

I woke up to the buzzing of a skillsaw on Wednesday afternoon. It cut through the soft flesh of my brain just as it cut through the brick that the Iranian workers outside my window were replacing. Shut Up! Another 30- 90 days - my doorman told me. By then my summer of freedom will be gone. I got most of my information from Ron, the doorman who worked between four o'clock and midnight. I made it a habit of trying to sleep during the racket, so I went to bed at sunrise, and usually awoke when Ron's shift began and my somatic impulse had faded enough to let in the skillsaws. I learned on Wednesday night that Ron was a vet of the Arab-American Wars. A news story was finally released about some of the senseless killing that went on there, and I brought it up in casual conversation.

"Did you hear the news about The A-A Wars?" I asked

"No, what news?" He said. Ron's grey hair and austere lifelong New Yorker attitude matched his uniform. We stood on the stone steps outside the building. He lit a Marlboro, I followed suit with a Natural American Spirit. Though smoking cigarettes was, for the most part, illegal, there were specially designated "smoker's areas" on every block. Luckily for Ron and I, the "smoker's area" on 23rd street was directly in front of my apartment building.

I held out my arm and showed him the wireless tattoo on my fore-arm.

He threw my forearm a squinty look and said, "Can't read a thing without my glasses, and they're inside... why don't you just tell me, Simon?"

"Ok," I said, "Some top government official who was in the Middle East had a press conference and said that his unit killed and raped a whole village of innocent Iraqi women and children." I took a drag off of my cigarette.

"Yeah?" He said, "Well, then thats not news to me. Shit like that happened all the time out there. In that hellish sandtrap, you could barely tell the difference between you and your fellow soldiers, let alone between you and the rag-heads."

"You were in Iraq?"

"I did a two year tour," he said. Ron started eyeing a middle aged well-to-do woman walking to the garbage can with a bag. Did he think she looked suspicious?

"Anyways," He continued, "I'd been studying at school non-Matriculated when the draft came, and I didn't have time to matriculate before they pulled my number." The woman Ron was eyeing stuffed the bag into the overflowing street trash can, Ron continued to eye her.
"You can't dump that here!" He yelled.

"What?!" The woman retorted. She marched over to us, bag in hand.

"I said you can't dump that here, lady, it's illegal. You people keep dumping your trash here, because your buildings are too cheap to pick up your trash. Well, you mess up the street, and its illegal anyway!" He spurted raspily. He inhaled on his cigarette, and furious smoke flew from his mouth.

"You wanna see whats in here!" she started to open the bag and shove it in Ron's face. Ron shrank back.

"No thanks, Lady, just find somewhere else to dump it."

She shoved the bag in his face,

"It's SHIT!" She screamed, "I just wanna throw away my goddamn dog shit!" She stormed off down the street, shoving her dog shit bag amid the empty Doritos bags and broken glass. I looked at Ron, my eyes dilated like saucers.

END FRAGMENT. COLLABORATIVE EFFORT. OTHER CREATORS CAN PICK UP HERE.