Superior Ave. III (deadbeats parasites)

OOO







There are those many characters I've known to become semi-permanent fixtures on several of my couches.  Deadbeats.  Animals who develop a dependence on scraps from the master, or from the hands of anyone willing to take a chunk out of their own cut to fix them.  Whether it be out of guilt, out of repayment, or pity, there sometimes sticks to my furniture, a person who has no real or logical purpose being there.  Someone who really never contributes in procuring the stuff but somehow gets a repeated cut of the take.  Years and years from now, on a completely different coast of the country, I'd become acquaintances with some fool named Benny.  Benny from Phoenix, they'd call him.  Benny will sling hash at a shit house restaurant where I'll be washing dishes, trying to escape the last sweats before finally coming off junk, as I am presently.  This is, like I said, years and years from where I am now on Cain Crowley's Cleveland couch, sleeping on that thick formless feather blanket on his warehouse floor.

Not to sail off into some random and unrelated story about Benny from Phoenix but soon after I meet the kid, he will lead everyone to believe that he's been sitting on huge tracts of desert land in Arizona which would be otherwise useless ... but since a freeway exit was recently constructed near his supposed land the commercial value skyrocketed and according to Benny, a large hardware store chain was contacting him regarding the sale of said land.  Soon after coming out with that news, Benny would skip town for Phoenix, or so he will say.  And everybody back home will talk like they do.  So the last thing anybody heard, Benny was a millionaire, living in Phoenix and that's how he shall be remembered.  Why he will tell everyone he's about to receive 3.2 million dollars is not important. 

My point is located more where Benny, a man made of lies, a man with no anchor in the verifiable earth of truth, would end up down on his luck months later, shooting me a collect call from a Flagstaff payphone with a story on how his family kicked him out of the house, temporarily tangling up his millions.  I'll tell Benny since I'm off junk, I'm not  interested in his money and that I don't care what he's got or what he's not got... he's still the same broke down Benny from Phoenix to me, which is true.  Benny is a broke down fool, with a dirty hat on blond hair in the bed that he made from his liar's chair.  He will inform me he's been sleeping behind a Flagstaff grocery store for a week, so I'd send him a greyhound ticket and offer him a temporary open couch situation, leaving my back door unlocked at night.  If he needed a roof until he could procure his own, he could pull up my couch for a sleep.  Benny will have similar understandings with several other local couches, only using mine three nights out of the week.

So this is, like I said, over 10 years after this addicted slavery in a Cleveland Flats warehouse, somewhere on the West coast, when I'll be keeping off of heroin on the marijuana maintenance program, two years at that point.  I will offer Benny that couch ride from a genuinely human place inside, a place I probably knew nothing about until I got off junk.  My concern will be only that Benny is safe with his head under a roof.  I will tell him again, I care nothing about his supposed millions.  Of course, like the recovering addict he is himself, Benny from Phoenix will take advantage of my kind gesture and freshly clean demeanor.  Which of course will teach me a valuable lesson on the nature of human beings that I probably should have learned long before Mr. Douche Bag Benny Boy came around.  My point being that Benny from Phoenix, the broke-ass millionaire, will lurk around on those nights he crashes on my couch and will sit in my presence, annoying me purposely until I offer to smoke a bowl with him.  Like a mole, a hungry rat or a weasel, sniffing out scraps of leftovers.  Only after I spark up some of my pot with him will Benny finally disappear in the other room, leaving me alone to do whatever I was doing when he walked in my back door to squat on my couch.

Perry Ferrel said “If you want a friend, feed any animal.”  He was right.  Once fed, Benny would remain around for scraps.  Like a dog that was too lazy to beg, just sitting there with expectations on the generous heart.

Benny from Phoenix incidentally will sleep on my couch until I finally get fed up with his bullshit and lock my back door.  He will simply stop coming around, never saying a word.  Not even a thank you.  A stray cat whose lost his free bowl of milk.  From there It'll be months 'till I'd see the kid again.  Which will be fine with me.  That load of crap is a completely different  story though. 

I had another friend that lived in the apartment next door to me.  The walls were paper thin dividers so the kid would end up knocking on my door within 15 seconds after coughing on my first bong hit of the night, guaranteed.  Always asking for a couple hits or a bud to take home and smoke himself, never matching a bowl with me, just smoking mine when he was out.  His was a constant nose all over my free shit.  Free for him, at least.  I've known those to sit and mooch off the tit of whatever generosity is offered.  Some return the favor, most don't.  Shit, who am I kidding, I've done it.  I've been kicked off many good men's couches.  Still though, back when I had money to blow, before this addictive drain was on my wallet chain, I would basically support a handful of my buddies, letting them live on my furniture and floor for nothing.  Opening my door and my fridge to them.  Just simply enjoying the constant company of close friends, LSD and marijuana.  Back in the day shit, getting high on good times.  Although I propagated their stay in my house, welcoming it, still the fact remains... you create dependents, they become dependent on you, putting as little as possible towards the cause while soaking in all they can.  Another culprit of milking a situation of everything it could give was the slinky looking stretch of stocking hat, long hair and tube socks walking into Mr. Crowley's 3rd floor loft apartment right now.

Robby Taylor.  His tall thin stack of bones and skin usually made its way to Crowley's apartment just in time to squander the fruits of a long day's work he had nothing to do with.  Robby's long straight hair, like dirty brown follicle-falls cascaded past his shoulders from under his ever present stocking cap; his oily hair swinging side to side in step as he walked across the floor with a hand up greeting me as I sat on the couch this morning.  From what I could tell, Robby was basically homeless.  Cain got him high one day and he'd followed us back to the warehouse.  He's popped in and out ever since.  I figured Robby jumped from couch to couch, constantly chasing a free hit.  Much like Benny from Phoenix, only lending a hand in the day's work on a few occasions.  Putting forth the bare minimum he could do to make him useful enough to keep around.

It was fortunate for Robby he had spent the last of his cash on keeping us well for a few days while we were down on luck and out of money.  We felt obligated to return the favor.  So when his doe-ray-me tapped out, Robby attached his mouth on the nipple of good gestures, only piping up when he need fixed.  The kid never talked.  He was the type of person that made himself a background fixture in whatever was going on.  As silent as a drug laced mind will allow, speaking  only to necessitate the delivery of junk to his horribly undernourished stack of bones and tube socks.  I figured most took pity on Robby, kicking him an occasional hit out of sympathetic knowledge of the sickening result of failing to produce for the habit.

His 28 years of life was disguised by the embalming effects of the opiate.  Robby didn't look a day over 21.  I've see heroin addicts go one of two ways on the lottery of side effects.  I've seen them shrivel and wither with rotting teeth and long facial hairs, leather skin and dead empty lifeless, eyes.  Eyes that sink in to the soul itself.  Skin that takes on the dirty hue of bathing with a shovel.  I've also seen the type of junky that seems to stay right around the age of when they first dove into the habit.  Like an opiate Twinkee, preserved by the junk needle.  Looking years younger than their age.  Robby had this type of heroin make-over.  So did I. 

So there I am, sprawled with a knee up on the upholstery, kicked back on an antique couch.  There's Robby Taylor, giving me a 3 egg fried omelet for a face as he walked into Cain's Crowley's apartment.

“Cain's in the shower, he'll be out in a second.  We're leaving in a quick.”  I gestured to a chair across from me, which was the most effort I was putting into making Robby feel comfortable.

“Oh, Cain's still in the shower?  You mind if I take one?”  He asked me with a couple missing teeth in front.

“Go head.  Sure.  You gotta hurry up though.  There's a clean towel in that laundry basket and a bar of soap on that utility sink over there.”  I threw a finger point to the corner of the space.  Robby's glance followed, then so did he.  “... Go up a flight of stairs to the 4th floor.  There's a community bathroom in the same place as this floor.  Hurry up though, Robby.  I want to get moving.”  I said.

Perfect.  That worked out perfectly.  I was actually going to suggest that Robby take a shower before we left this morning if he looked like he needed it, which he did.  The prior night, I had convinced Cain that regular baths were and fresh clothes were a necessity in the guise of not coming off as gutter-folk.  I understood the junk caused his skin to repel from the sensation of water but after several days, he took on a powerful stink.  And here we were trying to put off a certain impression of trust and authority, construction workers returning supplies the company didn't need; hauling a couple ton excuse behind us as we walk through the hardware store doors. 

Cain agreed with me about his need to shower more, which sent him into a long drug induced confession how he'd simply given up, letting himself go completely.  Mr. Crowley, at one time had his proverbial shit together.  He told tall tales always of Hollywood streets he may or may not been a part of.  Movies he may or may not had a hand in.  Who knows.  Now he was two steps away from a homeless man.  As was I.  Although I didn't have it in me to care about anyone else but myself, I chalked his behavior up to the habit, telling him that every junky gets there sooner or later but the point is to get back out.  So this morning he hit the bathroom and cleaned himself proper.  Robby looked to have slept outside last night.  There were small brown pieces of leaves in his long oily hair and stocking cap.

The hat could have been surgically attached for all I know.  He could have been bald with incredibly long hair on the sides and back of his head, I wouldn't be able to tell  I never saw him without that dark blue beanie pulled down over his ears, even when the summer days were hotter than the devil's asshole.  I was glad to see Robby close the door behind him, slinking off to a community hallway bathroom.  Nothing but plywood walls, a dirty paint-splattered shower stall, an old ceramic toilet and an ornate mirror nailed to the wall.  I figured it was the first Robby had seen the inside of one of those in about four days.

I stretched out on the couch and waited for them to scrub it all from themselves, staring vacantly at an old film camera waiting on a table in the corner of the room.  The one we had planned to shoot independent films with.  That camera was Cain Crowley's shoehorn to wedge me out of Youngstown and up into the Flats of Cleveland, Ohio.  Not that it took much persuasion, merely the suggestion.  Something like:

“Yeah, no shit?  You've got three months clean, huh?  I'm glad to hear that Thomas, I've been keeping straight too.  Got about 30 days under my belt... yeah I feel great (a lie)... Yeah man, so you should hop a Greyhound to Cleveland, I picked up this Auroflex film camera.  Maaan, this things in  perfect condition.  All I need are a few reels to shoot with.  No... yeah bro, you should come out here.  We can shoot that movie we started working on back in the day.  I'm serious Thomas, I've got all kinds of room in this place, my sister just moved to Tennessee so I could use some help with the rent.  (the real reason Mr. Crowley called me.)  She paid it 'till the end of the month, so... we've got nothing to worry about.  You should do it.”


That's about all that was needed.  Doesn't take much to talk a man out of hell, unless he wants to be there.  But it's hell, so he should be ready to leave at any given time.  That's how I felt living as a junk addicted slob in Youngstown, Ohio.  Trapped and alone.  Without future.  Without light.  Without hope.  All I needed was a way out.

My leg was kicked up on the upholstery of that uncomfortable imitation antique Victorian couch, My gaze was fixed on the  Auroflex 'in perfect condition', gathering a perfect layer of dust over the lens and handle, thinking how Mr. Crowley always had such big big plans with even bigger talk on what he was going to do with whatever warehouse space he found but nothing ever got accomplished.  My eyes scanned the green paint on the brick warehouse walls to the dusty sill under an old blown glass window, the thin layer of dirty dust covering the long wood floor boards.  Nothing ever came to fruition out of all of Cain's cocaine jabber-jaw conversations, none of his bright ideas got accomplished.  All we did was shoot more dope, sitting around high on furniture, gathering dust.  Just like the Auroflex and our plans to do something constructive.  Never filmed or wrote that movie, never got that band together, never started that project, didn't develop that business plan.  It was all put off 'till tomorrow.  Problem is, we're always sick tomorrow, so the only thing that gets done is more heroin.  And once we're well... well, now we have to get high.  And so on and so forth.  All that big talk was just that... talk. 

Crowley was too busy nine to fiving it with the dope man.  As was I.  I had no room to crucify.  I was doing the same denial dance.  Always tomorrow, tomorrow... but it's a well known fact that tomorrow never comes.  It's always on the other side of a long night of leaking from the mouth, plans to kick the habit or what we're going to do when we hit that one big score and we don't have to scramble for dope for at least two weeks.  The elusive tomorrow.  Always a day away.

I waited patiently for Robby and Cain, sitting on the couch with my feet up, gathering dust.

My stare with the camera was broken when I remembered how our morning started out yesterday.  “God dammit...”  I said out loud in the empty apartment.  “We're going to have to scam our way onto the train again like we did yesterday.”  I pushed back into the couch and hyperventilated, not sick but not completely well either.  Barely on the mediocre side of the wake up shot. 

Yesterday was a dead cat of a day from the very beginning. 

The three of us had set sick foot onto Riverbed St. first thing, hands in wait with palms out to shamelessly comb the west side of Cleveland for spare change.  It wasn't six steps passed Center St. drawbridge that Mr. Crowley uncovered the obvious truth I was surprised nobody had thought of earlier.  None of us had money to board the train.  In fact, none of us had any money, period.  I know, pathetic.  Laughable, man.  Three grown adults and none of them can even afford the two bucks for a train ride into Tower City.  What is this life coming to?  An empty luck bucket with a hole for the bottom.  An empty pocket and a tracted up arm for proof.

We got to the tracks yesterday morning as the train was pulling into the depot.  “I've got this...”  Cain turned to us.  “I'll do the talking, don't say peep.”  He said it to Robby with a finger to his lips.  It was meant to be a joke, since Robby never said anything anyway.  The two of us trailed behind Mr. Crowley like lost kids at a carnival.  Cain stuck his angry bee hive for a face into the train, unleashing his jedi mind shit on the conductor.

“I'm sorry sir, we're not from the area.  I think we got off on the wrong stop, we're lost.  We were supposed to get off at... what's that... Tower Place, Tower Center...”

“Tower city?”  The conductor wore a wet fish for a grimace.

“Yeah, yeah that's it.  Tower City.  Do you know where that is?”

“Yeah it's back there one stop.”

“Oohh, we missed it!  Oh... no... ahhh, no...”  Cain turned to us.  “Guys, we missed it.”  He said.

I threw my head back and my eyes up like it were the end of the world. 

“Aahh, my gad.  See, oh man, see... oh, no... see, we're in town from New York, that was our last money till we get back to the hotel.  We needed to get to Tower Center to catch a train out towards Cleveland Heights.  We were going to --”

“Get on.”  The conductor cut Cain off mid sentence, rolling his eyes like weighted dice.

And that was that.  As we three slugs leave a slime trail to the back of the moving train, let me just mention how many  times we pulled that trick, getting onto the train that hot, sticky summer.  And if I say that, I should probably point out how the odds of hitting the same conductor twice, especially after repeatedly using that same excuse on the same rail-lines as many times as we did, would be seriously stacked against us.

Yesterday started as did so many mornings after, trying to scam our way onto some kind of public transportation, lugging a two ton excuse with holes in it for a habit shackle.  I sat up on the antique couch and threw my legs off the cushions, my feet hitting the dusty wood floor. 

“What if we hit the same conductor?”  I thought.  “That's his line, he probably works at least 5 days a week operating it.  Gad, we've got to think about this kind of thing in advance.  Save money for the train at least.  Something to get us there.  Fuck this.  If we have to walk to 65th and Madison I'm eating a ham sandwich for a bullet.  Sick?  Foo-get aboudid.  We need new connections, closer connections.  Or in a new area at least.  You can't panhandle in the same neighborhood every morning with a bright red gas can and an empty tank story and not blow your cover after three days.  Plus, we're bound to run into the same person twice.  Just like we're bound to run into the same train conductor twice.  This shit isn't going to fucking work forever.  I need to figure something out.” 

With dirty fingers I pushed through the ashtray, on the search for a cheefable butt.  I found one partially smoked Newport and lit it up, tainting the air with someone else's lung buster.  Robby and Crowley were in separate bathrooms making themselves presentable, when those two are showered and all visible degenerate stink has gone down the bathroom drain, when they came out dressed and ready to walk out onto Riverbed Street what will we do today? 

What will we do? 

On rusty tracks we will penetrate the East side for possibilities.  Two hours from now, after coming up with no return, connecting routs will bring us to a conglomerate of small privately owned shops where Mr. Crowley will somehow emerge from an antique store with a dull gold watch in his pocket.  At first glance I will notice how all the shimmer is lost from the timepiece, probably having drained out onto counter as the previous owner pawned it for rent money last year.  I will figure the watch to be worthless and will not give it much attention.  Then Cain will talk about it as we walk under hot summer sun, 20 blocks east to Little Italy where Mr. Crowley will sell the watch to another antique dealer for a hundred dollars even.  It will be the third antique shop we will have tried at that point, trudging tired legs to every one.

  Oddly enough, the dealer that will purchase the watch will be located in the same 3-story Little Italy flat I lived in with Shoestring Johnny and Giles McFadden when they threw rent dollars on an apartment spanning the entire top floor of the building.  That was years and years back, when Giles and Johnny first allowed themselves a taste of heroin, so many moons ago. 

And look at them now...

From where we will be standing outside the antique store, with Cain Crowley gripping a fist full of $20's the nearest train station will be another solid walk.  It will instead be a bus we shall take, paying customers thank you very much.  It will be a stop at a gas station for cold sodas, breaking bills for singles and it will be a hot sweaty way to the dopehouse but the three of us will be up for the challenge.  Backs baking and shirts sticking on those long sleeve arms who have such marks of tract.  On the way there, we will pause at a local hardware store, with many local locations.  The store, I'd later learn is a genuflection for nearby smokers, junkies, boosters and thieves.  We will steal from the store and return the goods for cash.  I'll be surprised when I realize how many people are pulling the same scams and getting away with it.  It will amaze me when I think about it.

“What in the Sam hell is taking them so long?”  I shot my eyes up to the antique clock on the wall.  The old thing was encased in a wood framing that was obviously painted to look like gold.  Most of the paint was chipped off by now, leaving the clock worthless to anyone other than those looking to tell time.

“Godamnn, How long does it take to take a shower?”  The smoke from the short ashtray cigarette flipped killer wales through the air.  I pulled out my ID and gave it a once over.  Jefferson the other night, needing to complete the score on a healthy white rock, had asked me for $10 he would not pay back.  In return he would chisel off my 4 and make it a one, a $350 move in my book.

I squashed out the smoldering butt in the ashtray, giving my ID a slant in the light, as if I were looking at a holographic pattern in the Ohio driver's license.  I could not tell the forgery.  Jefferson was a genius.  A true professional.  He had a talent for using his and other people's talent to procure for the pipe. Two nights ago, with that dancing jawbone, in a thankful gesture for $10 of my take, with his exacto-knife and a fine black sharpie marker he made it happen.  Jefferson was not a generous man but he was good at what he did.  Yet all he did was smoke crack and borrow money from his parents, holding the reigns of a powerful guilt trip every time he talked to them on the phone.  Had Jefferson wanted to be a doctor, a lawyer, a stock broker, anything other than another Cleveland crack head he easily could have.  He was not a generous man but he gave me new numbers, which was equivalent to 5 returns at the hardware stores.  Which at $70 a pop was worth $350 cash.  For giving him the $10 he was short on pulling his desired weight the other night, it was a good deal for me. 

I was saving my new numbers for when Robby wasn't around so as not to have to feed his gaping and needy holes.  I didn't harbor Mr. Crowley's soft spot for Robby.  I felt bad for any sick junky but if they don't pull the same weight as I pull, then they don't get the same pull of the weight as I do... that just goes without saying.  Especially if it's my face and new numbers at the return desk heeding the dope money.

I slid the driver's license into the black safety of my wallet, flipping it shut.  And speaking of Robby, here he comes, dripping wet hair and clean skin; looking a thousand times better than when he'd left 15 minutes prior.

“Cain's still in the shower?” He said, rubbernecking toward Mr. Crowley's sleeping quarters, divided by hanging fabrics.  Towel drying his hair with a cocked head.

“Yeah, he's still in there.”

“Well what the fuck's he doing?”

“Pullen the pud.”

“Probably.”

And that was it.  The room was silent again.  Over a curtain rod, was draped a thin silk paisley sheet to shield the sunrise from waking eyes.  The wind blew softly, the hot summer air in to tango-Jackson through the tall open windows.  Robby walked over to a chair in the same small gathering of furniture in which I had posted myself.  He sat down without a word.  Then after that, nobody said anything.  Robby really didn't have much to say.  I guess I didn't either.  I was perfectly fine with silence.

“I don't understand what's taking him so lo--”

The apartment door swung opened and Cain walked through, stopping Robby mid sentence.  His voice trailed off west in a covered wagon as he stood up with a look of relief wrapping his kisser.  Robby was just happy to not have to sit in silence with another person in the room, feeling the whole time he should be saying something but not having anything to say.  Before Cain walked in the door, he had just been sitting there thinking: “I should just say something.  I should think of something to say.  Man... it's really obvious now.  I never talk.  When it's three people in the room, the pressure's off and I can relax but when it's just me and someone else like this... wheww... yeah, this is awkward.”

Of course that whole time, I was thinking:

“Man, this is alright... Robby never talks.  He never says shit.  This is nice... I don't feel I've got to sit and entertain him or anything.  He's used to just sitting there not saying anything... the pressure's off.  Wheww... yeah, this is nice.”


Mr. Crowley's arms were full of the dirty clothes he'd worn for a week straight.  Tossing them in a laundry basket on the other side of his fabric wall, he turned and walked toward us.  The man looked refreshed, rejuvenated, clean as dish soap.  Cain had shaved, dressed in different clothes and ... was that mouse in his hair?  The fresh scent of Irish spring soap swallowed the air as Crowley sat down in a chair to the left of me.  Without even acknowledging Robby with anything more than a glance, being the first they'd seen each other this morning, Cain spoke in the snooty air of snobbery.

“Aaahh shit, I forgot my shaving kit in the bathroom.  Robby go get it and bring it to me.”  He was all orders.

I figured Robby would tell Cain to go fuck himself, instead he jumped a kangaroo to the door with a quickness and right there I realized why Cain fed the boy like he did.  Robby was Mr. Crowley's indentured servant.  A slave to a slave.  Ole' Long hair and tube socks was definitely caught in the shit rolls downhill aspect of the habit.  The hierarchy of superiority.  Needing something so badly you'd scrap your pride, your dignity, self worth and/or positive self image to get it.  You'd jump when a dirt-bag like Cain Crowley tells you to jump.  Or you'd find it pleasurable and enticing to string a man along, barely supporting his sickness so as to have a human mule, a gofer boy and a constant scapegoat at your beckoned call. 

It had to be the worst job in the city, Robby Taylor's... assistant smack-head.

Stretching back into the couch again, I gave another look at Mr. Crowley.  Wait... did he pluck his eyebrows?  Huh... Cain went all out after our discussion last night, how it would be beneficial to our disguise at the return desk if we were all freshly showered.  He had agreed last night and now look at him.  With Robby out of the room, Cain turned to me and said:

“I don't give a shit, that kid is pulling his weight or he's not getting any weight out of today's pull.”

“I was just thinking the same thing.”  I said, staring at the ceiling.

“Oh!”  Cain jumped with a secretive tone in his swagger.  He disappeared behind his fabric wall and emerged with two long white cigarettes.  “I stole these from Robby's pack of cigarettes last night.  I wanted to give it to you before he came back.  Smoke it now or save it, I don't care.”

“Robby has a pack of cigarettes?”  I frowned, thinking of the shorted out lung-fuckers I'd been pulling from public ashtrays.

“That kids a leech.”  Cain slid his unlit smoke behind his ear for later.  I did the same.

“I'm kind of glad to hear you say that.” 

“No, you know..”  He started.  “I feel bad for the kid.  He doesn't have a family, no home, no money... nobody.  Nobody at all.”

“Well neither do I.”

“Yeah... well... I'm done supporting that kid's habit.  He kept us well for a couple of days, yes... alright fine, that was a week ago.  Now look... it's just about the time when we're heading out and he shows up again.  So if he's coming with, he's pitching in his share, or he's going sick.  Capiche?”

“Hey, you're preaching to the choir, bud.”  My voice was dry, un-buttered toast.

While this conversation was going on in the 3rd floor loft apartment with late rent already, Robby was tweeking through Mr. Crowley's old leather shaving bag, flipping flaps in hopes to find a bag he could scrape and shoot.  Robby was not sick yet but given enough time he would be.  Something would be needed to keep back the claws.  Of course, he would find nothing.  Cain Crowley, seasoned and junk tenured would never send an addict to retrieve something valuable he could easily get himself.  Cain would have looked in the bag so he figured Robby would too.

“I don't know, man.”  Crowley swallowed his words as they fell off his tongue.  “He's on his last leg here... kind of a shame too, I like Robby.  He becomes useful at times when I have unfinished light work I don't feel like taking care of.”

And there it was right there.  Unfinished light work.  Given a loose enough tongue, all mouths will divulge their primary motivations.  All you've got to do is listen.

Anyhow, that's the way today began, so listen to the sad way it will end... as Robby Taylor walks a camel across our straw backs.  As Cain Crowley bolts from storeroom doors with police in close pursuit.  As all us animals need fed.  With Thomas Frye an inch from homeless, with nothing underneath for a safety net, if you've got no one to watch your back but two people you don't trust, what have you got then?

Well... You've got what we have right here, Cain Crowley standing on a  hot sidewalk on the east bank of the Flats, about an hour from where I sat now on Crowley's antique couch, waiting for these fools to get out of the shower.  You've got a one Mister Cain Crowley holding someone else's ID he'll find on the ground.  One that he'll insist looks just like him.  One that I'll tell him will get him caught if he tries to use it.  One that Robby will want nothing to do with, which won't surprise either of us since Robby didn't want any part of anything that could end in a jail cell.  Who does?  But if you want a cut of the dope, sadly that's a chance you've got to be willing to take. 

After Cain steals an antique watch I will claim is worthless, then sells it across town for a cool hunny even, Mr. Crowley will purchase a hand shake of heroin baggies.  I will get mine off the top, with the understanding that it will keep me well until I can work something up myself, then I'll return the favor.  Since Robby will have distracted the store owner's attention, dragging him to the back of the shop to plug in several old lamps on display, Robby would get his wake up shot.  We will then all retire to my office, sitting crouched on gray milk crates to partake behind a W. 52nd St. dumpster

  When we end up in the same neighborhood as the guy that sells girl, Mr. Crowley will insist on shots of cocaine to the arm-vein.  I will have no arguments and Robby will probably just sit there and agree with whatever.  The plan will be to steal from one store, then hop a bus across town to return the stuff at their west side location.  We enter the store carrying the stolen merchandise in one of their own shopping bags, which we now tote with us always in our supply backpack... the one that Robby is made to lug around, of course. 

This was before security systems were what they are today.  It wasn't very hard to walk out of a place with $70 worth of merchandise under a hoodie.  Not that difficult indeed but instead of being smart about things, Crowley will pull a split decision crack-head move based sheer convenience, on pure impatience.  In doing so, Cain will squash, in one quick escape through a crowded parking lot, any future returns at the Detroit Ave. location.  When Mr. Crowley enters the store with intent to steal, I will be waiting curbside across a large shopping center parking lot, taking sips from a soda bottle.  The plan to meet me at the curb with my soda will get bent to the tune of a loud piercing siren that will tighten my neck like twelve tense Dobermans. 

Cain will sprint an uncoordinated junk stumble of muscles that haven't been put to the test in many long heroin nights.  He will look like a drunken schoolboy, running from a bully.  It will be that blasted ID he found on the sidewalk that would get him into trouble at the return counter.  The one I told Cain looks nothing like him.  Of course he will not listen and will instead jam a plastic shopping bag with the store's logo in his pocket on the way in, then fill the bag right in the isle, walking straight to the return counter.  All because Cain will not want to bus across town and back, with the cocaine connection so close to where he now stood.  Sheer and honest stupidity. 

The overweight store manager will only Chase Crowley for about 35 feet through the parking lot before falling out of breath, yelling irate words and obscenities at Cain as he bolts from the scene of the crime.  The cuss words  will cause Crowley to think he's in hot pursuit and Cain will not round over his shoulder once as he bolts down the street and up into a tree on the edge of an inner city park where he'll hide until he sees Robby or myself walk by.

I will exhale a frustrated sigh and short my cigarette, leaving the curb to find where Cain ran off to.  Robby will follow behind me like a lost puppy dog looking for scraps of food.  Before I even have a chance to make it out of the parking lot, two Cleveland city police cruisers will come with a quickness, wailing in with sirens and lights flashing.  The officers will be in a close proximity when the call comes over the radio and will respond in no time at all.  (As I said though, it amazes me how many people were hitting this and similar places with their dope money scams.  In the upcoming weeks we were forced to find new outlets for our under-handed plans, since the police began sitting out front of the local hardware locations as a deterrent to people like me.  Which means they'd been called to those stores A Lot.)

Cain Crowley now falls victim to an irrational paranoia and while arguing with him on whether or not it's safe to climb down from the tree, Robby will make an off-hand remark about Mr. Crowley's awkward running style.  With Cain in this compromised position, hugging a tree branch, hidden in the deep green summer foliage due to his attempts to get us all coke money, fearing the manager recognized him from a previous attempt last year, one in which the return girl ended up keeping  Cain's real ID when he ran out the doors; that remark Robby will make will be the back breaking straw.

“Yo, fly cock and tube socks, quit fucking laughing it's not fucking funny.”  Cain will fire down from the tree, pulling rank from the branches as he climbs down to the ground. 

“You dirty piece of junky shit.  I'm tired of carrying your ass.  Let's see how funny you look running over there to get those breakers I stashed behind that red Ford across the street.” 

Of course Robby, having no real choice in the matter, will do exactly as he is told. 

For this very reason, Robby Taylor never talks, not wanting to say anything that will sour our opinion of him and his steady handouts of free hits from mine and Crowley's generous spoon.  He never put himself in the line of a jail cell, never boosted from stores and never took a risk that wasn't forced upon him.  Robby did nothing to add to the motivation of procuring.  He is not one to jump on the junk money wagon, Robby simply rides along side on the running boards, looking for an empty seat to appear; doing only enough to be able to argue his end of the cut.  And nothing more.

“That's it.  I'm done with that cat.  He's finished on the gravy train.  We've got three bags left and suck my dick if you think I'm giving one to him.  I'm telling him we're busy tonight, he's not coming back to the loft with us.  We're splitting his bag too.  I don't give a shit if he goes to bed sick or not.”  Cain will say as Robby runs across the street toward the red Ford, looking way more obvious than need be.

Shit rolls down hill.  Shit rolls down hill.  Unless its runny than it slides.  Either way it all adds up at the bottom of the downward slope.  The bottom, where Cain Crowley and I sit making plans on Robby's bag of dope.  Where Robby is miles beneath us on the ladder of superiority.  On the hierarchy of junk.  The bottom, where all of us fight to remain well, where the grass is always greener somewhere else.  Where Mr. Crowley sees himself above a man like Robby, then turns around and begs for change with a pathetic hand out.  Where we all see ourselves how we want to be, not necessarily how we are.  On the bottom, where Cain and I, after ditching Robby in route to another hardware store will return the breakers Cain  ripped off; getting ripped off ourselves when our coke dealer won't be on and we'll trust someone else to run into an apartment building with our money while we wait out on the front stoop.  Where that man will run up the stairs, down the hall and the back stairs and directly out the rear door with our money, straight to the crack house then directly home where he'll sit on his own personal bottom in the midst of a burnt glass pipe and a blond strawberry whose only with him for the drugs. 

Our day will reach its hideous climax today when we return home, freshly ripped off with just enough dope to last us through the night, without wake up, without food or smokes, to the loft on Riverbed street; where a bright pink page of paper hangs on our apartment door, Notice To Vacate Property.  Oh yez, Oh yez.  By the time today is over Thomas Frye will officially be homeless on the bottom, where eviction notices pile up like unopened mail.

         All that bad ju ju hanging in the air unbeknown to us sitting around Mr. Crowley's lazy furniture in the midst of the morning.  All that calamity about to happen, eviction notices and Robby's last nerve dance, found ID's and stolen breakers, crack head moves with cocaine on Cain's brain, filling bags in isles for Christ's sake.  What is wrong with people these days?  All after having to scam our way back onto the train, which we're going to be forced to do, here in about 15 minutes.  With Robby and Crowley freshly scrubbed clean of their sins, I sat watching Jackson Tube-socks bollix into the room, handing Mr. Crowley his shaving bag to be met with Cain's waving hand, motioning for Robby to drop it on his hammock.  He didn't even give Robby the decency of an audible command, just a nod, a wave and a wrinkled face.  Do as I say, you piece of shit.

“C'mon, what the fuck are we waiting around for?  Is everybody ready, let's go....”  I said, rising up from the ashes of my shorted cigarette on Cain Crowley's antique couch, pulling the stolen smoke Cain took from Robby's pack out from behind my ear.  I lit it, drew back and exhaled.

“...We gotta long day of begging change for dime bags ahead of us .. gad I love my life.”  I said sarcastically, trying to get Mr. Crowley and Ole' Tube Socks motivated.  Robby stood up without a word.  Cain sat still in his new showered glisten, relaxing in the heroin haze and the summer sun that beat our backs in those days.

The smoke from my cigarette trailed behind me like a cloud of lost souls. 

“Can I hit that?”  Robby motioned towards my Marlboro, previously his Marlboro.

“Naw man,”  I said without looking at him.  “It's my last one.. C'mon Cain get up.”  I said in my 'done fucking around' voice.  “I'm done fucking around.  I want to get high.”

Figuring the mention of dope would be all it would take, I spun around on my heel and started walking toward the door. Robby followed behind me.  The day was under way.  Cain sat for another second in the black, overstuffed chair so as to not look like I was giving orders and he was taking them.  So as to not come off as the Robby of the group.  Like it was his idea to stand up and he'd stand up when he felt like it... not when Thomas Frye said to stand, goddammit.

Finally, when I was just at the door with my wrist twisting the knob, he figured he'd waited long enough.

“Alright, lets go.”  Cain said, rising to his feet and we climbed in the dark stairwell down old wooden steps, creaking squeaks with each board; descending to our own separate bottoms where we'll push the door open and wince from the violent engulfment of sunlight as we set foot out onto the hot pavement of Riverbed Street.







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