Life is Good (another attempt at fiction)

He walks down Boylston Street. It is early evening, the sidewalk is wet, though for the moment the cold rain has abated. Passing cars splash through puddles along the curb. Thursday night and the streets are busy with couples going to or coming from dinner, second-shift workers grabbing a cup during their first coffee break, the Asian noodle place is doing a brisk business. There is a cool breeze but no one seems to mind. At least it is not snow.

He smiles to himself as he walks. Life is good. He’s finally landed a job after so long, loading trucks at the Amazon warehouse, the distribution hub. For the moment the hours are here and there, with lots of weekend and second-and third-shift work, but a paycheck is finally coming in after so many months of looking for work and Amazon is not going anywhere. He’ll get himself into a driver’s position, something with better hours. Yes, life is good.

Behind him he hears a man yelling, ranting at the top of his lungs. As the yeller gets closer he can make out the words: “You a Ho! You a dirty crack ho! Nothing but a dirty fuckin’ crack ho!” It goes on.

A woman rushes by, bumps him as she passes, and in turning to say “excuse me” looks farther down the sidewalks to the yeller. She turns and is lost in the crowd hurrying down the street.

As the yeller approaches the man turns. He sees that others are giving the yeller a wide berth, stepping off the sidewalk, into doorways. Couples move closer. The yeller is taller, wider, thicker than he is.

As the yeller passes the man says “Yo, man, that’s not cool.”

The yeller stumbles a bit and stops, turning to the man. The yeller is drunk, drug-addled or both. His eyes are red and watery. He reeks of stale beer, bad food, the street.

“Watchu say?” the yeller asks, stepping toward the man.

“Hey man, I ain’t looking for trouble, I’m just saying that ain’t cool talking to a woman like that.”

“You gonna stop me little man? That bitch is my cousin. I gonna call her whatever I fuckin’ want”

He doesn’t see the roundhouse that hits him on the left side of his head or the flurry of punches the yeller rains down on him. He staggers off the curb and into the street. The punches keep coming, his back, his ribs. He falls, hits his head on the wet pavement, unconscious, unaware of the steel-toe boots kicking his back, his head. The yeller stalks off.

He wakes. The world is all a kilter, spinning wildly, wet pavement, pain, people around him and in the distance. He is in the street. “Call 9-1-1” he hears. He tries to stand but falls to his knees. He turns to the street. Cars pass slowly, passengers’ faces pressed to the glass stare at him. He stands again and turns to the sidewalk. A small crowd has formed. The world is spinning too fast. His knees buckle and he is about to fall when a hand grabs his jacket from behind and pulls him up. His head is pounding. He tastes blood. He tries to focus on something, anything, but everything is a dizzy mess.

Someone leads him to the curb and helps him sit. A woman sits next to him, her hand on his back. She asks questions, so many questions.

“Can I take your hand?”

“Do you know your name?”

“Do you know what day it is?”

She turns to a few who linger on the sidewalk “Did anyone call 9-1-1?”

“Yes” he hears someone say.

“I gotta go home” he says “gotta go to work tomorrow.”

“You’re not going anywhere my friend” she says “You’re gonna see a doctor. Oh, geez,” she says “there’s blood coming out of his ear.”

“No, I gotta be at work. I can sleep it off.”

The cops come. Blue lights flashing, reflecting off the wet street, the glass storefronts. More questions.

“Have you been drinking?”

He stares at the pavement and tries to focus. The cop’s black shoes shuffle in front of him.

“Did any one see what happened?” he hears a loud voice to the side.

He tries to stabilize the world but it refuses to settle.

“Do you have any ID sir?”

He hands the officer his wallet open to his driver’s license. The officer takes the wallet and steps away.

More from the lady with all the questions.

“Stay with me my friend” and then “Officer, he does not know what day it is. He’s bleeding from his ear.”

“Yes, ma’am, help is on the way.”

More blue lights come flashing into view. He looks up and sees two more officers, big men, approach him. Beyond them he sees the drunk bus, a windowless box on a pickup truck frame with Boston Police in big blue letters.

“Officer, the man is bleeding from his ear” he hears the woman say, her voice taking on a pleading tone, “He needs medical attention. He was beaten up. People saw it. A man jumped him.”

The cops confer. Several minutes later another siren and more flashing lights, this time red.

The next morning he wakes in a hospital bed. His head pounds. He remembers little of the night before. It was all a blur. But he can taste blood and one eye is swollen shut. At his bedside a plastic cup half full of water with a straw. He sees his phone and reaches for it. Five missed calls, two voice mail messages.

He plays back the voice mail.

Beep

It is his buddy from work “Hey, James, man, you’re late for work. Where the hell are you?”

Beep.

And then, beep.

It is from his boss: “James, this is Sean from Amazon. You’re late for work, unexcused and no courtesy call. Sorry man, you’re fired.”

By late morning the hospital releases him. The automatic doors hiss and swing open as he stuffs his discharge papers into his jacket pocket. He holds the amber plastic container with its six prescription-strength Tylenol in his fist. The pills’ rattle muffled by his hand. “Your head’s going to hurt for a few days” the nurse said “but take these only if it gets really bad. If these don’t work you come back, right away.”

He walks a few blocks toward home. He’ll call his boss, he thinks. If he shows him the hospital papers they’ve got to give him his job back.

Within a few minutes he’s at the corner of Mass. Ave. and Shawmut. A dozen or so pedestrians wait at the curb for the walk signal as cars, taxis, delivery trucks race by inches away from the sidewalk on which they stand. He hears a familiar voice as if from a bad dream. The Yeller.

“Look at you, bitch. You dressed so fine. You dressed like a rich business man. You gotta have some extra cash. C’mon. Give the man a ten spot for some lunch money, huh, baby?”

The Yeller stands at the edge of the curb, one foot in the street so he can face a smartly dressed woman who refuses to acknowledge the Yeller. She concentrates on the walk signal on the other side of the busy street, firmly gripping a brief case, the other hand flat at her side. There are few rings on her fingers. A gold bracelet hangs loosely. Others waiting at the light try to ignore the Yeller for fear of becoming his target. One person, a big man wearing a Union Proud jacket and carrying a hard hat moves a foot closer to the woman.

“Oh, I know you got a few few extra bucks, baby. C’mon, throw me a few.”

From the back of the group he looks away from the Yeller and up Massachusetts Avenue to see a delivery truck, its Amazon logo splashed across roof over the windshield, speeding along in the lane closest to him. It’s a sign, he thinks. He’ll call today. They’ll give him his job back. He looks up to see that the stoplight turn from green to yellow. The pedestrians notice and prepare to cross. The traffic notices. Some drivers slow to a stop while others race to beat the red. He sees the Amazon truck is trying to make the light.

Sensing he’s not going to get a handout the Yeller give a parting “Fuck you, Bitch” and steps onto the street where his path crosses that of the Amazon truck with the crunching sound of a shattering plastic grill, the distinct thump, thump of a body passing beneath tires and the screech of rubber as the van comes to a stop in the center of the intersection. The screams of horror follow. Then, after a while, come the sirens.

That night he lies awake in bed, wondering. Did he see the whole accident coming? Could he have said something? Screamed “Stop” to the Yeller? Was it karma? Some sort of urban justice? As he closes his eyes he sees the intersection in all it’s chaos with the flashing lights of the ambulance and police cars, the gawkers, and the Amazon tag line – ‘There’s more to Prime. A truckload more.’