The Relentless

On the coldest day of the year I advanced up Broadway towards Wall Street. The city had only begun to ease itself into the general commotion of another workday. Even at 7am, the darkness of the night before remained as the sun languidly sat below the horizon. The streetlights cast a hypnotic glow, blurring the distinction between morning and night. Tucked into the corner of Broadway and Morris Street, sat a modest coffee shop with a few two person tables looking out the window. Without stopping, I accepted a copy of the morning paper from a small Hispanic man guarding a stack of papers outside Bowling Green Station and started for the café.

The inside of the shop buzzed with the sound of refrigerators and boilers from the kitchen. A clerk had been dozing off at a table until I entered and as if possessed, leapt to his feet and produced a rag before spraying down a table and wiping away at breadcrumbs.

"What can I do ya for?" said a voice from behind the sandwich display.
"Earl Grey," I said to the disembodied voice, "And a blueberry muffin."

I gave exact change at the register and within seconds my order was placed before me. Several men in the kitchen stood quietly, awaiting the morning traffic. They wore tight fitting aprons with a collage of age-old stains across the belly. Their eyes swelled with dark pouches that were so pronounced they appeared to hold their eyeballs in place. It was obvious that they hadn't gotten much sleep and from their blank expressions it was even more obvious that they were accustomed to it.

The cashier nodded politely as I walked off with my order. A frigid gust of wind swept the streets, lifting discarded newspaper and plastic bags and simply displacing them with more trash. The ground rumbled as a train entered the subway. In the distance, only a street ahead, a torrent of commuters filled the streets, bringing their busy chatter and hurriedness to the morning. A beggar in a hooded jacket approached several of the commuters who seemed far too busy to stop for chatter or to even make eye contact.

As I approached the rush of pedestrians, I thought to cross the street. Somehow even in a crowd of people I'd always managed to get singled out by the destitute. It may have been that I lacked the brisk gait of resident New Yorkers or simply that I made eye contact too often, but this time I stood determined to make it down the street unbothered. I glanced onto the unrelenting stream of traffic and hesitated. When the beggar appeared to become involved with the contents of a woman’s purse, I advanced up the street as inconspicuously as I could.

"Hey brother, could you spare a dollar? Anything. Please."

I nearly jumped at the proximity of his voice but in my determination kept walking, hoping he’d chance upon a less distracted passerby.

"Come on, man." He whined. Then a touch of anger entered his voice, "So you've become one of them, huh? You've forgotten your own people." He laughed bitterly, "Go on, live your life."

As I walked away I felt the beam of his gaze burn holes into the back of my head. 'Why me?' I thought. 'Why call me out for doing what people did dozens of times a day?' I turned around to meet his gaze. The two of us stood a few feet apart, frozen by confrontation.

"Hey man, that's uncalled for."
"Oh really! Huh, keep moving. Go on about your business."
"Don’t attack me, man. I work for my money."
"Ha. Look at this brother, all defensive and shit."

I looked around in embarrassment, hoping that we hadn't drawn an audience. The city continued at its feverish pace without us.

"Hey look, I resent that. I’m just trying to get to work so don’t assail me.

"Hey brother, go on about your business," he waved his hand in my face dismissively.

"You’ve got some nerve," I barked, surprised at the rising anger in my voice.

"Most heartless people I’ve ever seen." he said to himself as he rubbed his hands and walked back toward his post.

"Don't walk away from me," I yelled.

"A simple, common courtesy!"

His fist clenched tightly at his side. I compulsively searched the street for the nearest police officer, expecting him to draw a knife at any moment.

"A simple, common courtesy!" he repeated.

I shook my head, "What are you talking about?"

"I didn't assail you or get in your way. All I asked for was a lil’ assistance. But you walked right passed me like you didn't see me."

"I had things on my mind."

"Yeah, like a second ago when you nearly walked into oncoming traffic to avoid me. Look around you, brother. It ain't all gravy everywhere man. It's cold, I'm out here all day." he shook his head bitterly. "Man, go on about your business. Don't let me slow you down."

He walked back to his post, breathing into his hands. I stood my ground. After a moment he looked back at me with unbelievingly eyes.

"Are you crazy! Go on about your business," he yelled, pointing in the direction that I had been heading before he stopped me. I extended my cup of hot tea to him. He looked down at the cup and for a moment his eyes examined the label and unbroken seal on the lid.

He sighed before taking the tea and drinking from the container heavily. My anger slowly began to diffuse.

"Shit man, it gets rough out here."

"Tell me about it?” I asked.

“Look I appreciate the gesture and all but don't pretend to know my struggle."

"It wasn't a rhetorical question."

He gazed into my eyes as to judge my sincerity.

"Yeah, well, the pigs around here ain't so friendly. They follow you around town, watching everything you do, making sure you ain't robbing the fruit stands or heckling the white folks."

I shuddered at the crudeness of his language.

"Hey man, why don't you find yourself a shelter or something, it's only going to get colder."

He chuckled as if such a thing existed in the real world. His eyes darted down to my left hand, holding a muffin in a paper bag. I lifted the bag before him as if repulsed by the sight of it.

"Aw great," he broke the muffin down into four pieces and devoured each one. "Shelters are packed." Bits of muffin shot from his mouth.

"Why not just find some work, anything? You can't live hand to mouth forever."

He ignored this last remark, washing down the last bit of muffin with the remaining tea. He shook the container, drank the last drop and tossed it aside into the street.

"You got a dollar I can hold?"

"Maybe I do and maybe don't but you still haven't answered my question."

"Damn, your persistent. I'll give you that." he sighed in resignation. "I used to live in Queens with my mom and my sister. My mother had severe liver disease so I had to drop out of school to take care of her. For a while we had to live on food stamps being that I had to stay home to take care of her and only my older sister had a job. After a year my mother died in her sleep while I was out on a grocery run. My sister got pregnant and moved out to live with her boyfriend. I looked for work for months. Anything I could do I did even for some change. When my sister stopped paying the bills I got evicted. And here I am."

"What kind of jobs did you apply for?"

"Carpenting, waste removal, anything you can get without diploma."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"I don't need your pity, but if you have a dollar I can hold it'd be greatly appreciated."

I reached into my pocket to draw a loose bill, stopping abruptly.

"What if I said I can help you get off the street but that it'd require you to do something you might not expect."

He looked at me with a disturbed expression, "I'm not down for any of that."

"No, it’s nothing crazy. I have an address to a GED program that is taught by a friend of mine. If I give you the address and his name he'll help you, free of charge, but it isn't easy and it's not what you’re used to." I scribbled a name and an address onto the back of a soiled business card I’d received at a cocktail party. "What’s your name?"

"Marcus Brown."

"I’ll let him know to expect you."
Marcus studied the business card with suspicion.

“Ignore the info on the front.” I removed a twenty-dollar bill from my pocket and pressed it into his hand. “For my people.”

A slight grin began to form at the side of his mouth. "Thank you, my brother." Then after a moment of thought he added, "I won't disappoint you."

I took off in my usual direction feeling a strong sense of service and fulfillment. 'I’d helped someone get back on their feet'. The thought of it filled me with cheer for the entire day. Perhaps Marcus' new beginning marked the start of an even brighter future for myself included and if someone passing by witnessed my generosity who knew what it could inspire.

----

The workday sprinted to a finish. As night fell, a tranquil hum rang throughout the city. Office lights went out along the faces of buildings like shifting squares on a chessboard. A Salvation Army scout jangled a small bell next to a red box marked for donations. In the blue light of the street lamps, I thought of Marcus and the fortunate conversation we had earlier that morning. Perhaps after dinner I'd give the director of the GED program a call to see if he had heard anything from Marcus.

A middle-aged woman dressed in a heavy fur coat stopped me to ask for directions.

"Do you know where the nearest 2 train is from here?" she said with a bit of distress in her voice.

"Sure, just take the 2 train right at this corner." I gestured in the direction she approached me from.

She shook her head dismissively. "Its under police tape."

"Well, then you should take a 4 train at Bowling Green Station and transfer to the 2 somewhere uptown."

She took off hysterically, complaining to herself about a city gone mad.

As I rounded the corner I saw a small crowd of pedestrians gathering around the taped up entrance to the 2 train on Wall Street. The heavily armed officers that usually stood in front of the New York Stock Exchange were now stationed before the entrance while ambulance trucks cast beams of red and yellow lights against the buildings of the financial district.

I approached one officer with a short and stout frame who seemed more entranced by the spectacle of the scene then driven by a sense of duty.

"What happened here officer?"
"Some lunatic threw a bottle of acid in a woman’s face. They’re trying to resuscitate her but I don't know...looks like she’s down for the count." Just then a voice came in over the officers radio. He talked into his shoulder for a minute and laughed.
"God, it's got to make you wonder what kind of psychopaths you're sitting next to on the train."
"Did they catch the guy?"
"Shot him 4 times."
"So he's dead."
"Nope."
"He had a vest or something under that jacket. Anyway, I got to take this is in for evidence." He lifted a plastic bag with a small paper square inside.

A sudden sense of dread overtook me. I felt a sharp burning sensation in my chest and an unsteadiness develop in my knees.

"Excuse me, officer, but what's in that bag?"
He paused for a moment. "What’s it to ya?"
I hesitated. "I don't know."
He began to take off again.
"Is it a business card?" I shouted.
He turned around, "Yeah, good work Sherlock. Take the day off. I’m outta here."
"Please don't let it have a written address on the back of it," I whispered to myself quietly but not softly enough because just then the officer stopped abruptly and examined the card through the plastic.

"Say, you know something about this?" he said squinting his eyes in suspicion.

I felt my jaw lock up. A plume of steam rose from my mouth, clouding my vision so that I couldn't distinguish the faces in the distance: the officers who stood like soldiers at the station entrance; the men and women returning from work, desperate to avoid the madness of the scene; the ambulance workers fighting desperately to resuscitate the disfigured women; the café vendors who in their soiled aprons watched vigilantly with tired, swollen eyes; the newspaper vendors who in their frenetic desire to get rid of their papers knew that in several hours they'd hand out tomorrow's paper with today’s tragedy. In that moment, I felt a strange connectedness to the city. In my stillness, the constant movement of urban life grabbed hold of me so that it pulled me away from the crime scene with a cold expression upon my face and an even more rigid, relentless rhythm to my gait.

In this city, if you stopped for anything or anyone you'd lose your way.