Russell Banks - Lost Memory of Skin

The Kid would like to take a hard-ass attitude toward the Professor and his plan to organize the men living under the Causeway into some kind of gated community for homeless sex offenders. But he’s having trouble generating the necessary cynicism. He’s starting to trust the man’s intentions — a little, only a little so far. There doesn’t seem to be anything in it for the Professor except maybe bragging rights if it actually works out and nothing lost if it doesn’t except some wasted time spent down here with people who to a guy like the Professor must seem like aliens from another planet. People who to a professor of sociology (or at least that’s what he claims) ought to be worth studying and writing up in a book: a small tribe of men forced to live together in a cave in the middle of the city.

He runs a good tight meeting, the Professor. The Kid admires the ease with which the big man masters the names of the residents — Rabbit, Shyster, Paco, Plato the Greek, Ginger, Froot Loop, and P.C. — and applies them liberally so they feel special and singled out whenever he asks for their opinions which he does often: their opinions on how a security committee should operate, its rules and responsibilities and who should serve on it; their thoughts on the proper number of members of an executive committee (three) and its powers and restraints; the length of term of membership for the three-man sanitation committee (three months — no one is willing to serve longer than that). They agree that the security committee only needs two members. Paco is an obvious choice and is eager to serve but no one else wants the job so it’s left to the executive committee to appoint the second member as soon as they have agreed on the three for that committee and the three on the sanitation committee.

The Kid notices that the Professor is smoothly maneuvering the group into doing exactly what he wants without their realizing it. He defines and narrows their choices his way because they don’t really have any alternatives in mind. Having never imagined taking control of their environment down here under the Causeway, the residents regard the Professor’s options as the only available options. He proposes and they dispose. Or so they think.

How many members of the Executive Committee, Paco? Two or three? Of course we ought to have an odd number, in case of a tie, right, Shyster? And do we want the three to be equal or should we have a rotating chairman so we can have a single spokesman to represent all of us to the police and other authorities? Shall we nominate candidates for the Executive Committee then? One by one, please state your nominees, starting with you, Rabbit, going in reverse alphabetical order.

Predictably Rabbit shrugs and nominates the Kid, and Shyster interrupts the process to note that he should have made the first nomination because in reverse alphabetical order Shyster comes before Rabbit .

The Professor acknowledges his mistake and invites Shyster to nominate a candidate and Shyster adds the Greek to the list. Rabbit sticks with his candidate the Kid. Plato and Paco argue over who goes next and the Professor refers the question to Shyster who invokes reverse alphabetical order again and finds for Paco as they’re more inclined to call Plato “the Greek” instead of just Plato except when addressing him face-to-face. Paco declines to serve, says he’s happy taking care of security and doesn’t need or want no more responsibilities in life. He smiles and nominates the Shyster for membership in the Executive Committee. No sense giving the Greek more power and authority than he already possesses as the owner-operator of their power source, the diesel-fueled generator that the Greek has managed to drag out of the Bay and after a day of drying once again has it charging their cell phones and anklets. Then it’s the Greek’s turn to nominate a candidate and he says, The Rabbit would be good, since he’s been living down here longer than anyone else, and all seven men nod approvingly. The Professor calls for additional candidates but no one volunteers which makes it unanimous that the Executive Committee will be made up of the Kid, Shyster, and Rabbit. The Committee for Safety and Security is made up of Paco and Ginger with Paco officiating as chief of Safety and Security. Ginger is his deputy. They will each be issued a baseball bat to be purchased by the Professor at Rick’s Sporting Goods. The Sanitation Committee is Froot Loop and the Greek and P.C., which displeases Froot Loop and the Greek who take small comfort in the brevity of their term of office but pleases P.C. who had previously and unofficially functioned as a one-man sanitation committee taking it upon himself to provide trash barrels stolen from the park at Twenty-third and Herrington at the western end of the Causeway and regularly emptying the latrine bucket into the Bay, a practice the Professor says will no longer be tolerated.

So what’re we supposed to do with our shit? P.C. wants to know. Yeah, the Kid thinks. Answer that one, Haystack.

The Professor explains that he will arrange for a private contractor to install a portable toilet for their use and until he locates a private donor to pay for the regular removal of their wastes he himself will pay for the service. We have to show the public and their elected officials that we’re at least as capable of meeting local sanitation ordinances on our site as a construction company. The Kid notices his use of we and our and wonders where this is all leading. Or is it just another way for the Professor to get them to do what he wants them to do? For his own mysterious purposes.

The Kid is starting to feel vaguely like a laboratory rat.

AS CHAIRMAN OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE the Kid is essentially in charge of the settlement and that first night back his first executive action is to allow five sex offenders to return to the Causeway and reestablish their homes there. The next morning three more returnees arrive and are told by Paco, who is taking his policing responsibilities seriously, that they must petition the Kid for the right to settle under the Causeway. It’s become routine now. The homeless sex offender either gets the word on the street or simply drifts back to the Causeway because he’s got no other place in Calusa to sleep and is told by Paco on arrival that there is a whole new set of rules of governance operating now, a whole new structure. The applicant is quickly interviewed by the Kid whose main interest is to verify that the man is a genuine convicted sex offender whereupon he is assigned a spot under the Causeway where he is allowed to set up a tent or lean-to or stretch a tarp over a frame. He is instructed on the new sanitation and security rules — all trash and garbage that’s not recyclable has to be carried out by the individual resident and daily deposited off-island in a Dumpster; no urinating or defecating except in the rented Porta Potti that the Professor has arranged to be placed up alongside the Causeway on the shoulder of the highway several hundred feet beyond the bridge; no drugs bought, sold, or consumed anyplace within a thousand feet of the settlement; no drug paraphernalia or needles; no possession of stolen goods allowed; no acts of violence or pilferage permitted. Pets are allowed as long as the resident leashes or otherwise restrains them and cleans up after them. But no aggressive dogs. No cockfighting. No keeping live animals for food or religious sacrifices, not even chickens.

As long as we obey Calusa city and county rules and regulations and don’t commit no crimes down here the cops’ll leave us alone. The Kid has bought the Professor’s party line. To which in his wisdom he adds one further prohibition: No sex offending down here. No weenie-wagging. No knob-jobbing. He makes it clear in a way the Professor never could or would that in spite of the presence among them of predatory wolves and ex-prison punks, come-freaks and chubby-chasers, Charlies and chomos — all kind of sexual weirdos who’ve been arrested, tried, and convicted for their acts — none of them, no matter how much or what kind of therapy and rehab they’ve done, none of them is not a sexual weirdo. They are all sexually offensive. Some in fact may have been made even more obsessed with committing illegal and strange sexual acts by their conviction and time in prison than they were before being arrested. But not here beneath the Causeway. What they do with their dicks and hands and mouths and assholes anywhere else is their business. What they do here is his business, the Kid’s.