wastrels

Part 1

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     I was committed to a relationship with a girl named Jane, though she didn't know it. She worked 6 or 7 days a week at a cafe by the park, which we frequented on Frankie's dime. She had straight, black hair and a prominent nose. She wore an apron over her skirt. She had that dead look in her eyes of a woman who believes nothing can harm her anymore.
    "Jane, another coffee please."
    Her frown would deepen. "You got it." She had to wear her first name on her chest, so she couldn't really stop me from acting familiar with her. I could tell it bothered her.
    I couldn't stop watching her. The only thing that drew my eyes away was the pack of pigeons shitting on the outside of the window sill. The coffee was terrible, but I'd never really cared about that. Everything tasted of ashes.
    In the summer we sat near the open door so Frankie wouldn't stink up the place. "Don't embarrass me, Frankie," I'd say.
    "You embarrass yourself."

---

    I got a job at the same Walmart I used to steal from, which was convenient. But God the people there. I worked the freak shift, the witching hour. Which was great, because those customers never wanted to talk to anyone. They were deformed, sad proto-humans; blobs in electric wheelchairs; women with sickening face injuries. There was a manager on duty, but she never left her office at night. I mostly just wandered the aisles with a mop, drifting in the fog from my own nostrils. Sometimes Frankie came to visit me in the stock room, to haul away any damaged merchandise in his shopping cart.
    One time we got robbed. I was in the back, though. I walked up to the cashier later and she said, "Someone took all my money." She opened the drawer to show me. It was empty.
    "Did he have a gun or something?"
    "Nah, he just reached over and took it."
    "Did you tell security? That guy with the big neck, right?"
    She didn't seem to hear me.
Anyways, the liquor store was in the same parking lot, so it was easy to just hit it up with my paycheck. Check to cash places are everywhere. I always got RC Cola as a mixer cause my initials were on it.
    I shared the results with Frankie, and then he'd say, "I found a bag of grass under the bridge man." Then we'd just sort of float off down the highway. The lights were bright like a football stadium, glowing billboards everywhere.
    We couldn't see the stars from anywhere near the city but just the same I could look up and wonder. Obviously, there were other planets up there with other (ever freakier looking) people on them, but I wondered if there was another me, someone I could really relate to, even more than I could to Frankie. A total loser. A wastrel.

---

    The weekly tradition was for the boss to call me upstairs when I came in for my shift, before he left for his daywalker life. His tie and skin were both glossy. "Siddown Robert."
    "Thanks."
    "You know what your problem is, Robert?"
    "What, sir?"
    "You don't want to participate."
    "Sir?"
    He would turn to the window that looked down on the clothing department and cast his voice into the distance. "People like me have built this glorious civilization..."
    "Yessir."
    "And people like you just want to tear it down because there's no place for you in it."
    "Yessir."
    "Fortunately!" He'd turn back to me then and remove his sunglasses with a flourish. "You're too weak and choleric to do any real damage."
    "Yessir."
    "So people like me will continue to provide your kind with food and shelter for whatever modest labor you can provide with that husk of yours."
    "Thank you, sir."
    He liked my attitude. "I like your attitude, Robert. Good talk! You may leave me now."
    "Enjoy your evening, sir." I'd shuffle down to my mop, most weeks too blazed to remember what he'd said to me up there.

---

    "Frankie, we're getting out of here."
    "Howzzat?"
    We were by the highway again, lying on the pavement. I think it was morning already because I could see the clouds. "Stick up your thumb. We'll hitch a ride." We stuck our thumbs up to the sky.
    Sometimes we did hitch a ride, but it was just to downtown. Everything was too expensive, but we could ride the subway around for a while or stand on the street corner. One intersection was great because the  people there were always shouting at each other. Horrible, hateful comments. "Do you think they know each other, Frankie?"
    "I can't tell." He'd found a ratty armchair and a bag of popcorn somewhere. "Doesn't sound like it."
    I always thought I'd see violence there, but instead they'd curse each other breathless and then sort of stumble away. "Let's go see Jane."
    "Okay." Frankie never made a decision. He would just wait for someone else to make him stand up and go. "I could sit here forever, though."
    "I know you could."