Then I deleted “folks.”
Then I typed it again and left it.
Seemed like I was yelling “fuck you” in my head the whole time — maybe my whole life.
Sitting in the Uptown Public Library.
The person next to me at the table had a nectarine out.
I had the urge to say, “Want someone to be my FRIEND here!”—slamming my balled fist down on the nectarine as I yelled “FRIEND.”
*
On the way home, I stopped at a corner store and bought an 18 pack of soap.
In line at the store I looked at the 18 pack and felt relief.
That’s 18 bars — I thought.
That will last a long time.
Shit, each bar will last a long time.
Think about 18 of them.
When it’s all over, I’ll be a different person.
A completely different person — unrecognizable as any past version.
It was calming to me to know that many things would happen before I needed to buy more soap.
Who knows if I even will have to buy more soap.
Maybe something will happen.
Maybe someone will give me soap.
Maybe I’ll die.
Maybe soap won’t even be used anymore.
Maybe a meteor will destroy earth.
Maybe I won’t even care about soap anymore.
I looked at the 18 pack.
Relief.
I walked home with it in my arms, confident and happy.
Relieved.
At home I stacked the bars in the bathroom cabinet.
It is time to begin using the 18 pack — I thought.
Now is the time to begin.
I smiled.
I was already different.
Sent my brother a phone message: “Hey there’s 18 bars of soap here now if you want some.”
Eventually he sent back: “Who gives a shit.”
I sent back: “Just leave me a few bars you know.”
*
That night when I left for my girlfriend’s, the Wilson Street Red Line stop was barricaded on all sides.
I walked up to the barricade.
Police cars.
Ambulances.
Firetrucks.
ATF units.
Riot shields.
Weapons.
People standing around watching.
Uncle Sam came up to me, in the middle of saying something about the hotdog he was eating,
Uncle Sam was a homeless guy in the area.
I called him Uncle Sam because he wore this American flag top hat.
He also wore sandals with sweatpants and a suit jacket over that.
Our relationship began after I met him out front of a grocery store where he was asking for change and he asked me to buy him a chicken dinner from the store and I bought the chicken dinner for him and we became — I think — friends.
The only time I asked him his name he told me it was “Bob-Fred.”
Two first names hyphenated.
That’s how he said it.
Tonight he approached in a strange walk that involved lifting his knees up abnormally high, his face doing odd twitches as he put condiments on a hotdog, everything backlit by police and emergency lights.
It was beautiful to watch Uncle Sam walk through the light.
He was beautiful.
“Luh me a hotdog,” he said, twitching.
I said, “Yeah”—squinting at the light.
Uncle Sam told me it was a hostage situation and then explained to me the way he likes to eat a hotdog, applying condiments to the one in his hand.
He said, “Dude like me, I’m pu’n spirals on a hamburger, and fo a hotdog, I wind em back and forth.”
“Double-helix style,” I said, suddenly wanting to ask him so many questions.
He looked at me.
He pointed at me with the fingers holding the mustard packet, and said, “S’a double hee-liss style, yuh.”
He rubbed his twitching face against the shoulder of his suit coat and made a weird motion with his lips, like he’d just put on a new face over his skull and was aligning the lips with the teeth.
Behind us, someone who’d been evacuated from the train explained what happened, on her cellphone.
A prisoner — in transport to another jail — killed two police officers and escaped the bus and got on the Red Line and got off at the Wilson stop, then killed someone and took someone else hostage to the rooftop of a nearby apartment building.
Police and civilian death.
Uncle Sam continued putting condiments on his hotdog.
He said, “Jesus luh you no matter what you do. Yuh yuh. But you can’t get into heaven with nunna them acka-hol and cigrets, oh no.”
Then he took many small bites of the hotdog without chewing each bite, leaving only 1/3 of the hotdog.
He squeezed mustard from the shriveled packet onto the end of the hotdog, like he was painting.
Full-mouthed, he said, “Yuh. Dude like me want mustard on eyrbite. Bah-zam! Blam a lam. Dude like me want mustard each and eyr bite, yuh. And you caint get inta heaven wit nunna them acka-hol and cigrets doe.”
“Good shit,” I said. “So the train’s not running.”
He swallowed and laughed, stamping his feet.
He said, “Muh fucka keewd a cop, now they keew him, watch.”
Uncle Sam pointed at the rooftop with his mustard packet. “Man, send me in thuh. I fuck s’ass up. Cuh Jesus luh you no matter what.”
“Me and you,” I said. “We both go in, we both come out.”
I held out my hand.
“Yuh,” he said, moving the hotdog towards my extended hand as a sign he’d shake my hand if his hand was free.
I said, “All right, I’m going to the liquor store to get a phone card for my shitty ass phone.”
“Yuh,” he said.
“Or maybe not, should I just throw this phone against the ground,”
I said. “How about that.”
“Yuh,” he said, laughing. “Jesus luh you no matter what.”
He was smiling, face twitching.
I took out my phone and threw it — with authority — against the ground.
The phone broke apart.
Uncle Sam laughed and put his face to the inside of his elbow and repeatedly made a motion with the hand holding the hotdog, as if he were throwing the hotdog like a paper airplane.
There were news channels everywhere.
Helicopters.
“He gon surrender,” said Uncle Sam. “Muh-fuckiss always surrender.”
And he seemed so disappointed, like he’d seen this before.
Like maybe just once it’d be nice to see no surrender.
I said, “Only pussies surrender, man.”
Uncle Sam laughed.
He coughed harshly, bending at the knees a little.
Tophat waving just a little with each cough.
No, don’t die.
He pointed at me with the last bite of hotdog.
He said, “You cold.”
I said, “Fucking right.”
“Co-dest,” he said, laughing.
And for some reason I imagined our severed heads connected by a glowing double helix — floating up to the apartment rooftop where our vibrating power stopped the violence — and everyone cheered us, the two headed double helix, as we went to other planets to help likewise, yuh, travelling the world helping people.
No/who cares.
Behind us, a drunk woman walked up and started making sounds at the hostage situation.
She had on a dirty NFL winter coat.
Uncle Sam’s woman.
She stood there toothless, making noises at the situation.
Like, not words, just noises.
Then she came up behind Uncle Sam and slapped his head hard and said, “That’s not only your cigarette, gammee it.”
Uncle Sam ate the last of the hotdog and held up his empty hands and said, “S’a fucking ha-dawg, bitch.”