The child had a small head that looked bent down the middle, bowing outward. He yelled “Eh…eh,” pointing at the street with his free hand.
“Downs Syndrome,” Spider-Man said, looking from the kid to me, nodding. “He got Downs Syndrome.”
The kid with Downs Syndrome stood by the street, yelling, “Eh, eh”—pointing at cars.
Spider-Man watched.
“He got Downs Syndrome,” he said. “That’s ok though. Nothin wrong with that. That’s how he talks to the cars, right? He sayin, ‘Hey, let me cross.’ That’s how he talks to them.”
“Yeah,” I said.
I smelled s’mores.
SUNBEAM SWORD
I saw Spider-Man at his old spot beneath the train tracks tonight.
It was warm out and raining very hard, the night before Halloween.
Spider-Man was in his vest and pajama pants and black plush tophat — suitcases by his side and a 40 resting on the hood of a rental car.
He raised his arms and came up and hugged me, pressing his forehead into my forehead.
We were both soaked.
“I thought that’s you,” he said, patting my shoulder. “Oh man.”
His eyes were puffy and there were green plugs of mucus in the corners, paste around his mouth.
Told me he’d been kicked out of the library and couldn’t go back until it closed.
“Where’s Janet?” I said.
He didn’t know.
He shrugged and pinched his nose to clear some rain.
“Should we go find her?” I said.
“Nah,” he said. “She’a find me.” He shook his head. “I can’t ever find her ass, but she always find me. I go to fuckin Italy, fuckin Venice, hide under the docks, she come up knockin, doof doof doof, ‘Hell-ooooooo?’”
The rain was slowing.
I asked if he wanted beer or cigarettes or food.
“Yeah I need a fuckin square, man,” he said. He raised both fists to the train tracks and sky above, dripping water on him. “Need a square now motherfucker, what!?”
We went to the 7/11.
On the walk there, Spider-Man told me about these two kids who fucked with him last night out front of the library and how he chased them.
“Man, I will fuck you up,” he said — to the kids from last night — raising his chin up as we crossed the street. “I will break your motherfuckin ass. Make you my sandwich. No mayo, no nothing. White bread, rye bread, whatever. Just you in my motherfuckin sandwich.”
We entered the 7/11 and wiped our feet off on the rug — both of us soaked and smelling like dogs.
We went to the back of the store.
Spider-Man was still threatening the kids from last night, turning them into sandwiches.
“Nahhn,” he said, doing a biting motion with his teeth, pulling his head back. “Fuckin eat that shit up.”
I opened the glass door in front of him as he continued to mime a chewing motion.
I grabbed two 40s, feeling peace as the bottles behind them clinked forward.
Yes, hello.
I bought the 40s and a pack of cigarettes.
Spider-Man had a small electronic keycard thing on his necklace chain and he swiped it on a small display in front of the register.
He got points with purchases.
He checked his points on the screen, scrolling through what he could get for 70 points.
At 100, he got a travel coffee container.
He expressed interest in the travel container, but — as he showed me with more scrolling — for 15,000 points, he got 2 hours for him and 20 friends to ride around in the company van drinking Slushees.
It was called ‘The Brain Freeze Package.’
“Me, you — fuckin anybody,” he said. “We drive around drinking as many Slushees as we can handle man, shiiiit, you in?”
“You’re never going to get 15,000 points,” I said, paying the cashier. “Never.”
He laughed. “Fuckin A. Fuckin bananas.”
He grabbed the cigarettes and started packing them.
We walked back to the alley and leaned on the hoods of rental cars, drinking our 40s.
There was a gang tag on a train track column.
Spider-Man tapped it with his 40 and talked about how gangbangers were pussies now.
“Straight bullshit, man, fuckatta here. Stealin and killin in your own neighborhood? What!? Are you high? Should be protecting your neighborhood — protecting your city.”
He talked about how he gangbanged for the Insane Deuces when he was younger and how a rival in the Simon City Royals shot and killed three of his friends.
“Little scrawny ass motherfucker with a gun, man,” he said. “We didn’t play that gun shit back in the day, man. Hayo nah.” He got off the car and paced around, waving his hand and shaking his head. He stopped and pointed at me, “That shit was pussy shit, man. You used your hands, or a bottle, or chain, bat, knife. No guns.” He grabbed his bent-up nose and said, “Where you think I got this? Or this”—lifting up his shirt and showing me some stab wounds.
So he and two guys from different gangs — the Latin Kings and the Maniac Latin Disciples — got together and killed the guy who shot his friends.
They found out where he lived and attacked him on his back porch.
Spider-Man made punching and kicking motions.
His tophat wobbled and swayed.
A train was coming.
He seemed to remember something.
“Oh man,” he said, and touched his face, grimacing, “That shit….”
He walked over to the concrete foundation of a train track column.
As a train went by overhead — cancelling all sound — he made a motion as if pounding the guy’s face into the concrete over and over, yelling something.
He bent down at the knees a little and motioned with both his hands.
The train was gone.
“Then I grabbed that motherfucker by the throat,” he said, teeth clenched. “I choked the shit out him. He was blue, totally blue, couldn’t fucking make a sound. You kiddin me? And I said, ‘You remember Buddy? Psycho? Cowboy? Huh?’ He kept tryna to breathe, but the blood was all over. And I said, ‘Fuck you.’”
He made a motion like he was dropping the guy, kicking his head one last time.
They left him dead on his back porch, strangled, his head smashed in.
“Me and the other du’s, we hooked em up,” Spider-Man said, gesturing like him and two other people were making a triangle with their arms, “We made the triangle, bing bing, and everybody left.” He walked a few steps one way, pointing—“One guy went this way.” Then he walked a different direction, pointing. “Another guy went this way.” He pointed a different way, “I went this way. Never saw either of them again. And I don’t regret it, man. Hayo nah I don’t.”
Janet rolled up right as her battery died.
“Shit, dayum. Fock dat. Heh.”
“Ey, there she is,” Spider-Man said.
She was soaked, wearing a candy necklace.
Said she’d been at Troy’s, and that Troy had given her the candy necklace.
Spider-Man grabbed the necklace and kept trying to bite it but she slapped at his hand.
“Shut up, beb,” she said. “Um, can I’ve a cigarette, peez?”
Spider-Man put a cigarette in her mouth and lit it for her.
I watched Janet smoke her cigarette, her head wobbling — saying, “Shit, damn, fock dat” on repeat as Spider-Man bit off pieces of her necklace and made suggestions about what he’d do to Troy if Troy stole her from him.
Things with scissors.
Things with bricks.
Look out, Troy!
Janet kept saying, “Ok, ok. Shut up, beb.”
She went to flick her cigarette and it fell into her lap, burning her sweatpants.
Spider-Man told her to drop her cigarettes off to the side and not try any ‘fancy flickin things.’