Some Bullshit or... Why We Live In Brooklyn

girls stumble slip forward out of franklin ave doors into franklin ave steppin forward steppin out while joel staggered home heavy and full, street home and heavy. The Prospect. the one named building in his hood not proper named. not carved in stone. all clean lines and glass. no home for a cop for a good police two aspirin washed down, chased with a brooklyn. Rachel, the Raquel, with hipster jeans and andy warhol tits had kicked him out and hard so a night spent on the street at the two for one bar filled with catholic restroom aesthetic or pagan or what's the fuckin difference. memories of a brick. though a window.

- raquel
- rachel
- that's not a good jewish name
- well i'm not exactly a good jew
- the tattoos gave that away
- fuck you
- among other things
- you gonna buy a drink or does andre have to kick you out again?
- i'll buy anything that comes with those tits
- are you off duty?
- yeah, of course
- fuck. that means i can't sue the city. andre get this piece of shit outta my bar

at 6:45 in the morning he stepped from the platform at 7th ave onto a manhattan bound q train, screamed, "fuck all you vodka slurping russian motherfuckers," vomited down the front of his shirt, and collapsed. when he woke up he felt like he had been beaten in the head so badly with a metal pipe that his brain was leaking from his face. for all he knew he had been. it would take him almost twenty four hours to even realize that his payot, those side curls that, more than any other single physical characteristic marked him an ultra-orthodox jew, had been ripped out at the roots. he was just lucky to have woken up at all.

- what you want, boss? usual?
- coffee cream and sugar three old fashion plain
- cops and their donuts enh?
- hey, diego, why don't you shut the fuck up and get me my breakfast
- you keep talkin that shit and i'm gonna file a brutality complaint
- you pull that shit, diego, and i'm gonna give you some brutality to complain about
- how bout you get the fuck outta my bakery
- how bout you go fuck yourself
- three eighty
- here's a five keep the change
- tomorrow, boss?
- see you tomorrow, diego

those that stayed were committed, refused to give in to white flight, one driver fucked up and all hell broke loose. it shook his faith. tore it up. august 1991 and joel looked out the window of his family's third floor apartment on kingston. angry black kids, some his age, throwing rocks, bricks, bottles, anything with weight into any home with a mezuzah in the door frame.
- joel, get away from that window
just as a brick comes toward him, slow motion, slow enough that he has time to wonder whether it came from a house or was found in the street. slow enough that he has time to wonder why a brick would be in the street instead of holding together someone's home. slow enough that he has time to wonder how anyone would be able to remove a brick without the whole house falling down. slow enough that he has time to wonder why he didn't move before it hit him in the side of the head.

- so some kid comes winds up at downstate in the e.r., blood pourin from both sides of his face, screamin about russians, bloomberg, and the prophet isaiah all at once, fightin so hard they have to stick him just to get him under control, three guys and they can't get this piece a shit in a bed let alone do a goddamn thing for him and on top of it all this asshole show up with no shoes, lookin like he's just walked a couple miles barefoot, feet nearly as bloody as his face
- this says he was checked into kings county
- kings county, downstate, same fuckin thing. they'll walk across the street with a spike in their arm just to shave ten minutes off the wait time. anyway, i thought you might be interested because he's one of yours
- one of mine?
- yeah. one of yours. jew. black suit, fedora, curly sideburns, well, not anymore
- what are you talkin about?
- maybe you oughta see the kid