splat chapter five

It was ten-thirty when Suzie got to her car. She sat there for a few moments and peeled off her shoes, feeling her feet swollen and throbbing in the night air. She pulled out of the darkness of the parking deck into the yellow-gray night.

Driving through the streets of Atlanta is a pleasure at night. It's a city of highways and thoroughfares, a city made for transportation, a spider web city. You can get to anywhere from anywhere in this town, which is good because traffic sucks a lot of the time and you need to know your options. From the Morningside edge of Ansley Park to Suzie's home on the edge of Little Five Points, there are a good dozen ways to get the five miles due southwest. Mapquest would send you south down Monroe to Ponce de Leon, east to Moreland, and south down Moreland to Seaboard Avenue just under the railroad tracks. Thirteen minutes. This time of night, going the direct way was a breeze. During the day, you had to get creative. Suzie had a map on the seat beside her most of the time.

She turned east down Ponce, barely avoiding Krispy Kreme because she managed to convince herself that she was really tired and not at all hungry. If she'd smelled doughnuts she would have circled back, but the wind was from the wrong direction.

Stopped at the light on Boulevard, Suzie checked out the gas stations on the corners. She spotted a couple of dealers - guys in t-shirts and basebal caps standing just inside the parking lot near the phones, staring all the drivers in the face. There was the usual couple of hookers), underfed young-looking women who flounced around in attention-getting skimpy clothes. The place had all the ingredients for a party, with the convenience store right there at the corner selling beer, and all the customers you could wish for pulling into the parking lot pretending to want to use the public phone or pump some gas.

She drove down Moreland thru a silent Little Five Points, the bohemian section, then under the train tracks. There, what used to forever be abandoned factories had just been turned into a modern intown shopping mall. The brand new Edgewood Retail Center - Lowe's, Target, Kroger, Office Depot, Best Buy; all the modern conveniences a shopping center had to offer. From the moment the first store opened, it created its own micro traffic jams. Suzie hated traffic jams.

There used to be no earthly reason to slow your zip down Moreland after you crossed under the railroad tracks. Now there were two new sets of lights, two sets of left turn only signals, two tails of traffic that would build up at the slightest provocation. If they put in smart lights, the lights were retarded, because they were always red when she came up to them.

Suzie wasn't used to having to stop; she would always just peel right around the corner onto Seaboard when she got out from under the bridge. Now she had to sit behind someone who was going straight, and wait, and look at the new construction, at where they were digging up the treet to put down ornamental paving brick. She sat there and steamed. Even tonight, with an empty Atlanta, she was still stuck at a light behind someone going straight.

She turned down Seaboard when the light changed and traffic moved on. She was now in Reynoldstown, a squirrelly little section of town, nestled along the south side of the tracks west of Moreland Avenue. 150 years ago it was the bloody ground beneath the Battle of Atlanta and soon afterwards it became some of the very first homes of the freed slaves, and now it was mostly half a square mile of old industrial land, and old working-class houses in pretty bad shape, and a strip of tall grass and weeds along the railroad tracks that was filled with movable junk and abandoned cars.

Seaboard Avenue went down the edge of the tracks and ended at the Inman Park subway station, so there were always buses whistling down the street. Suzie's home was an apartment building from the '50s, Station Square. A garden apartment kind of setup, which meant it had some trees out the back and grass along the sidewalks out front. Driveways down the side of each unit led to shady and boggy parking in the back, with a dark narrow walk back up to the front doors lining the driveways. It was dark red brick, with rusted fire escapes, windows that wouldn't open, and doorjambs that showed signs of past forcible entry.

The tenants were very mixed. There were single black mothers with several children. There were Latinos three families to a two-bedroom unit. There were Little Five Points punks (her roommates), there were students at GSU willing to commute for cheap housing in a cool area. There were active alcoholics and prescription drug addicts on long term disability. There were very young couples who wanted to live their own life and not have to bow to their parents' dictates. And there were a bunch of happy-go-lucky twenty-something kids in search of endless skateboarding fun and walls to spray-paint (her roommates).

Suzie preferred to park on the street, especially at night. The light was better and people were less likely to fuck with her car. Right next to the Marta station there was a lot of foot traffic, but also plenty of lights and often a patrolling Marta or freight train cop to keep a watch on things. The back yards, however, were a different game. The neighborhood was ideally suited for a bunch of homeless people who spent their working hours in Little Five Points panhandling, and thought of the back parking lot as a shady bower nearby where they could repair to take the waters and rejuvenate themselves.

Begging is very hard work, as anyone will tell you. Panhandling involves subjecting yourself to the scorn, insults and curses of the strangers who pay you, for much less money and much more abuse than you'd stand for in an office job. You have to leave your self respect under a bridge with your gear, and you end up internalizing the anger and hate projected by those with money. You get to feeling really discouraged and sorry for yourself, hopeless and useless, like a failure in life. And you know, projecting a certain air of pitiable failure is what it takes to get a stranger to give you their spare pocket change. You feel guilty for doing it, too, because you know that a simple twist of fate is all that keeps you and them on different paths. There but for the grace of God go I, you think, as the guy in a suit hands you a buck and trudges off to work. Whereas you, with a dollar in your hand, have almost met your minimum daily cash requirements.

There was a gaggle of homeless guys in the back parking lot as Suzie walked to her apartment halfway down the line of two-story brick buildings. She could hear them having a good time, but they weren't about to get off the wall and hit her up for money, because nobody in those apartments was likely to have any, even on payday.

The complex looked like a Kitkat) bar broken up into six pieces. Suzie's apartment was a ground floor two bedroom, entered through a hall that had four doors in it, the two middle doors opening onto stairs. The hall was as big as a closet, and not a walk in closet, either. The walls were painted hospital green and lit by a bare swinging bulb, and had a white-painted shelf for the mail and a kitchen trash can full of discarded junk mail beneath it. She tried the left-hand door. It was unlocked, so she pushed it open.

The guys were watching TV. They were sprawled all over three couches, every one a dumpster dream, covered with blankets to protect the duct tape covering the worn and torn places. The beige rug was all grimy tracks; the beige walls were smeared in random drunken collisions, there was an oily, browning smoke ring near the ceiling. The back wall that ran behind the couches was their practice wall, and was covered with spray-painted graffiti. It made the place distinctive.

Nobody cooked, so they had no kitchen equipment except for an old bent frying pan and sauce pot they pulled out of the trash when somebody moved out. However, the microwave saw heavy use. There was a coffee maker, and a kitchen knife with a broken tip. There was plastic cutlery in the drawer and plastic plates and plastic bowls and plastic cups in the cabinets, and under the sink was a giant thirty-pack of paper towels from Sam's Club). A bottle opener was tied to the handle of the fridge and stuck to the door with a magnet.

In the cabinets were a few packets, but mainly the empty cardboard cases of microwave popcorn, instant hot chocolate, ramen noodles. There was also a pack of filters and some cheap mexican coffee stored in an ex peanut butter jar. In the fridge was a mostly-gone gallon of milk, a mostly drunk case of Bud Light, a mostly empty bottle of ketchup, a thing of eggs nobody had touched for several months and might have been empty. Or maybe not. Nobody wanted to know. The bottom shelf was filled with probably empty pizza boxes, and someone once bought something and stuck it in the vegetable keeper, but there was no way anybody was going to open that drawer until after they moved out.

There were two bedrooms, big enough for a mattress on the floor and a couple of milk crates to hold stuff. Clothes were strewn all over the place in both bedrooms. A towel covered the window in her roommate's bedroom, for that cave feeling; skateboards were piled in a corner with shoes and stolen signs and half empty cans of spray paint.

A baby spider plant was on the window in her room, with pillow-case curtains open onto the view into the alley, making the most of the dogwood trunk opposite. On the floor were borrowed milk crates holding books and folded clothes, a banker's lamp trouved out of the trash, a jam jar half full of water, a paperback flopped over at the page she was reading. Her mattress was next to the window. It was a futon, with a down quilt graciously donated by someone anonymous who put a rip in it and somehow just couldn't live with down flying everywhere. Suzie had pulled it out of the trash, washed it, and mended the rip with safety pins she scavenged from a punk t-shirt she'd made awhile back.

She changed out of her work clothes, kicking them into the corner and looking around for something comfortable, a big t-shirt and some men's boxers for shorts, and went back out barefoot to grab a beer from the fridge and make Alex push over on the couch.

Alex was her roommate, but he had friends, and his friends hung around all the time, so it was as if five or six of them lived there. Most nights at least one slept on the couch. They were all Little Five taggers and skateboarders with starter jobs. Jason was a bike courier, tall and skinny with pumped up calves and thighs. Demetrius was skinny and tall and black and worked in the kitchen at Mangrove, one of many here-and-gone restaurants in L5P. Philip was tall and skinny and wore his hair greasy and in his eyes, shaking it off with a flip whenever he had something to say so it wouldn't get in his mouth. He worked in a call center in Doraville that took two hours to get to riding Marta. Alex was tall and skinny and wore glasses, and his hair was thinning at twenty-two, and he always wore shorts, even in the dead of winter. He worked at the new Target just across Moreland in the Edgewood Center, having somehow passed the piss-test, and was fresh from work and still had on his red Target shirt. They all had beers in their hands, and they were all smoking cigarettes. It was like a baby crying in a nursery; when one smoked, they all lit up, and the upper half of the room would turn blue and strobe faintly.

They were watching Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network. Family Guy. They all loved Baby Stewie and Brian the dog, and thought the other characters were pathetic, always nagging and whining and being stupid. But the baby was evil, and the dog was gay and hadn't figured it out yet. They were watching the show where Death breaks his ankle and lays on their couch for awhile, and they figure out that nobody's dying while Death's taking a holiday in their living room, and go out and wreak all sorts of havoc. Suzie came home in the middle of it, but she'd seen it before.

The ads came on and everybody stirred. Demetrius went off to the bathroom, Jason went to the fridge for another beer, Alex looked under the cushions for a lost pack of cigs. Philip scratched himself and settled into a different position. Suzie reached for the remote and bopped around the channels. The late news was on. The guys didn't bitch because they wanted to catch a glimpse of a hot Latina who did on-the-scene reports, and they lusted after her in the worst way.

The graphic is a quick color sketch of a burning building, and reads Suspicious House Fire in smoking black letters. The guys made fun of the letters, being connoiseurs of typography. Suzie rather liked them.

The headline fades out over the head of a black woman in her early 40s, with short hair cut close to her head like a cap. She's in an international safety orange suit that clashes with the reds of the graphic.

'Another house fire in Atlanta last night,' Whatshername announces, as the picture changes to a shot of roof-shaped flames in the night. 'Fire crews are seen here at the scene of a house fire in East Atlanta. Firefighters arrived at a house on Trilby Street just after 12:30 a.m. and found a sixty-year-old woman who suffered from smoke inhalation. The woman was treated at the scene and then transported to Grady Hospital.'

The scene shifts to an interview in front of the house. A spokeswoman for the Atlanta Fire Department appears, saying, 'It's an unfortunate incident. Early investigations indicate that they did not have smoke alarms in the home.'

Then the scene switches back to the studios while the anchorwoman looks severe. 'According to police, this is the twenty-third house fire this year.'

Then the graphic changes to a scales of justice symbol, with one pan holding a lease and the other a pair of handcuffs. Big black letters read: Project Ending Homelessness. The anchor wears a brighter expression on her face. 'It is now against the law to be homeless in Atlanta. New legislation takes effect today that makes homelessness illegal inside the city limits.' The graphic changes to a scroll with the Homeland Security emblem in the middle of a map of Georgia. 'It's the first of several state-led enhancements of the Patriot Act to take effect.'

The scene switches to an interview with a gray-suited politician. 'This new law will be one we will all benefit from,' he says. 'Our great state is one of the first to enact their own Homeland Security laws, part of Georgia's effort to stop terrorism at the borders. This law will make it easier to find and root out terrorists before they strike.'

Alex looked up. 'Huh?' He shook his head, then got up and went to the kitchen for a beer.

The shot switches back to the studio, where the anchor is now smiling broadly. 'Atlanta is a tourist mecca, receiving over eighteen million visitors a year. The new anti-homeless law will make tourists happy and keep the streets safer. Local residents have been pressing for this new legislation for some time.'

The scene cuts to a town meeting with local white businessmen in suits wearing red buttons that say Stop Homelessness - Save Jobs. They stand in front of microphones with angry expressions.

'It's something the people should not have to put up with,' a lawyer-type says, while others nod agreement. 'We work here, and some of us live here, and we don't think we should have to share the streets with people who don't do anything to help themselves. They're a drain on the city's resources. You can't go outside without having to run a gamut of beggars, and we want it stopped.'

The camera cuts to the other corner of the City Hall meeting room, where obviously poor people in dirty t-shirts are passing out leaflets urging legislators to resist the business community's ongoing Negro Removal Program).

The voiceover continues. 'The anti-homeless law is also expected to generate revenue for the City, as those convicted will be fined one thousand dollars, with stiffer penalties for repeat offenders. Critics of the new law accuse the City of taking draconian measures, but backers say it will help identify addicts and others who need help.'

A concerned-looking lawyer comes on camera. 'This anti-homelessness law was designed to steer the needy toward help. Then, only con artists who pretend to be homeless or disabled will remain on the streets, and the police will be ready to deal with them.'

The anchor comes back on, looking concerned. 'For more information, call the Homeless Hotline, 1-800-X-Homeless. Now this.'

An ad came on, and Suzie turned to Alex. 'But there's a million homeless people out there, what are they supposed to do for food? How could they ever pay a fine like that?'

'They couldn't,' said Alex, and shrugged. 'They'll end up serving more time for not being able to pay. I just think it's funny how this is supposed to stop terrorism.'

'Yeah, like the homeless guys are terrorists,' said Philip. 'Like they'd have the money to build a bomb.'

'People must be either scared or gullible to think that this is anti-terrorist,' Demetrius said. 'It's just another way to exploit poor people.'

Suzie could see each of them heating up to the subject. It was close to their hearts, since three out of five of them lived from couch to couch and paid no rent. But the news came back on before a discussion about classism in America got started.

The graphic shows police holding banners and signs, facing other police with cameras and microphones. 'It was police versus police in the courts today. A group of off-duty policemen who were demonstrating in front of City Hall in favor of new contract concessions were filmed and photographed by police assigned to surveil the demonstration.' The film shows the expressionless faces of uniformed police staring at the film crew and pointing digital cameras at them and everybody else.

'The off-duty police captured on film are complaining that the police department violated their First Amendment rights by harassing them. They say they are worried about the threat of retaliation by the police department. Police officials deny that they treated the off-duty officers any differently than other demonstrations of dissent.' She looks at the camera, doubt appearing in the lines of her brow. 'We will be covering this story extensively as it develops.'

The graphic is a cute little panda bear eating bamboo leaves, and the anchor is talking about development plans for a long-needed renovation of Zoo Atlanta, in Grant Park. It was a mile from where they lived, but they could never afford the almost twenty bucks to get in, so none of them ever went there. They'd rather talk about breaking in and liberating the animals, and this discussion was more interesting than the rest of the news, so they missed hearing that there were plans to use a portion of the park for a mixed-use development, and that the City was backing the idea.

They also didn't care to know about other issues even closer to them. In the mail, or rather in the trash underneath the mail, was a notice about plans to evict the residents of Seaboard Avenue and the surrounding area for another development. The notice was from the City and looked like an official document, so they tossed it without looking at it. Also in the trash was the electric bill.

Nobody had any money for the bills, so they figured they'd just wait and pay later. So far they always came up with something once they got the shut-off notice. For months they'd managed to get free cable that they shared with three other apartments. And they didn't have a house phone because everyone knew someone who had a cellphone. Alex actually had one, but it was mostly out of pre-paid minutes.

Suzie staggered off to bed as the topic changed to tagging, and their plans to put up a graffiti piece in the Krog Street tunnel. They were busy organizing who was going to do what when, who would be lookout at the ends of the tunnels, and which part of the piece was whose to paint. They were arguing about whether the cops and the traffic were lighter at 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday or Thursday, and Suzie knew this discussion would go on all night.

That night she had a dream. She's at Nelson's shop. The boys aren't around; instead there's a woman, sitting at a table that wasn't actually there in waking life. The woman has a knife-like object made of inlaid wood and polished to a high gloss. It's about eighteen inches long and ten inches wide, and looks like a big, flattened pencil tip, made out of different types of wood in different shades of blond, beige and brown. It's very decorative, but very sharp and pointy.

The woman picks it up and hefts it, then throws it up into the ceiling, the way the boys threw pencils. It sticks up there. The viewpoint of the dream shifts. Suzie's looking down from near the ceiling, about eight feet up, trailing the knife upwards and watching several people talking to the woman. Then the viewpoint shifts again, and she's fifteen feet in the air, still waiting for someone to figure out how to get the knife down. And then the viewpoint shifts a third time, and Suzie's looking down at the desk from fifty feet up. The knife is stuck in the ceiling above her, but she never turns around to look at them, and she's beginning to get confused about how high the ceiling really is.

And then Suzie's back at ground level, going over to sit down at the desk and grasp the edges, sort of rattling the table back and forth. She clasps her hands in front of her; like the shape of the knife, like hands in prayer. She closes her eyes and concentrates. And she hears, rather than sees, the knife work itself loose from the ceiling, and drop down right in front of her with a resounding thwack as it sticks firmly into the desk top.

It's her turn. Knowing that the ceiling's at least fifty feet up, she feels sure she won't be able to throw the knife with enough force to make it stick. But the woman is no bigger than Suzie, and she did it. And she seems confident that Suzie can do it. So she pries the knife out of the table, feels its weight in her hands, and prepares to throw it as hard as she can.

And then she woke up. The part of the dream that came before faded into the mist as she got out of bed, but she remembered the knife and its beauty and its heft, and the woman, who was familiar, even though Suzie didn't know anyone like her. Whenever Suzie dreamed about a mysterious woman, she always wondered if it was her mom appearing to her in her sleep.

Suzie never knew her mom. Her dad had raised her, he and his trucker buddies, especially Uncle Daddy, who wasn't really her uncle. And Auntie Mae, Uncle Daddy's wife, all through high school when her dad thought she'd be better off with some sort of formal schooling, in case she decided she wanted to go to college.

Suzie wrapped a nearly-clean towel around herself and headed for the bathroom. Alex had his door closed and was undoubtedly asleep. It was only just after nine in the morning, and none of the guys would be awake for hours because they'd been up most of the night. She never knew who she'd find on the couch. Nobody had to work early except for Philip, who had a very long bus ride every day and usually left to go to his parents' house and get some sleep by three.

This morning it was Demetrius on the couch. Empty beer cans were everywhere, and butts overflowed the ashtrays. The TV was still on; some morning program. Suzie headed for the shower. Careful to stand in the middle so she wouldn't come into contact with the slippery gunge at the sides of the tub, she washed her short hair with Suave, the cheapest shampoo in the store. She avoided using the bath sponge that hung off the hot water tap by a string, because it always left the unfortunate user reeking of mildew. Nobody was willing to throw it away because it might come in handy, and one of these days they might get around to throwing it into the washing machine with someone's clothes. None of them had absorbed any kind of housekeeping when they were living at home. Maybe someday they'd draw straws, and the loser would have to clean up mountains of trash.

She dried off with the cleaner end of the towel, and left her hair to drip dry. Back in her room, she fished a pair of crumpled jeans out of the pile near her bed and an actually clean t-shirt folded up inside a milk crate. There being nothing at all to eat in the fridge, and nothing to do but watch TV and listen to Demetrius snore, she decided she could best spend her morning at the hideout, and headed out.

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