Joseph McElroy - Women and Men

The address was Twenty-fourth Street and he could see the block right away and must have known before even laying hands on the order where he was going, he knew that much even if he didn’t know what was in the envelope or the box he carried from one place to another. He had a long walk but above ground and if his mother talked him out of the job he was going to get another because in the city they always needed messengers.

It said a theater. He knew what he was doing. He was building, and he was going to advance himself and have a bicycle. Some messengers were not retarded but were very old and had leather bags.

d. Don’t tell anyone; they won’t like you. They think you know something they don’t know. Feel their jaws near your own very big one. So big the kids laugh, so you hear them say what they say; but you know your job and you are working on this thing outside while you still have to ride the subways. But don’t tell anyone what you know: which is,

First: that in some cars only one of the two doors opens;

Second: that when you know which one opens, you don’t stand in front of the other one;

Third, that it’s lanes the city runs on, and if a vehicle or person is coming up behind you in parallel lane and you got a roadblock ahead of you they won’t let you change lanes unless you plan ahead the way you plan for a back-up job if your mother makes this one fall through or buy some pears on your way home to keep on her good side, which is the outside as long as she doesn’t tell the social worker you can’t work when you got work and you’re getting places;

Fourth, told another messenger on subway who had a smaller jaw but eyes so far apart they left his forehead giant all by itself and he had dark soft fuzz all over his face and was a messenger anyone could tell — that this was how things ran, no matter who your mother or father was, no matter at street level where a messenger may find himself limping if no bike, or below the street where he will find himself sitting or standing: keep the track open and look out for places ahead in your track or lane already occupied; and allow for the possibility of the left-side door suddenly opening at the next stop when it was the right-side door that opened at this one;

Fifth, and more to come, to build on — including telling others what you know because you are safer if they know what you know and can help themselves, even to the point of telling about lanes and subway doors to Grace, who the next time she needed a messenger made a special request for Jimmy Banks and when Turnstein tried to give her Goodie because the messenger she requested was out on a job, she said she would wait — which is client loyalty even to those who cannot speak a lot of the time, or not well. Because you build on what you know. One door at a time.

Told this to messenger on subway; told him we should organize; asked if he looked in envelopes at what messages he was carrying. He had good speech powers but all he said was "Never."

Tried to tell him we should all meet, build an organization, a union; didn’t get it out. He said, "Whatcha mean ‘w-w-w-w-we’?" but he was making fun. Started to ask him if he knew the almost blind cabdriver who go back and forth just along Cathedral Parkway, no one know why he never had an accident except sometimes he has his little girl in front seat with him; he’s got to build on what he learns. White messenger with smaller jaw said he didn’t want to hear about it. But he had speech power he wasn’t using.

Tried to say Mountain has to come to Mahomet if Mahomet don’t come to Mountain, but couldn’t; but when he turned his giant envelope over so it showed where it was going to, the white messenger got up and said that very thing himself. Train pulled into station and he’s a very big messenger in a big coat and big heavy shoes and he don’t know but he is standing in front of the door that don’t open because it’s the left-side door that opens, and when it does a few black women come barging through that left-side door and the white messenger can’t get out and he tries to get into the space but they push him back and in comes a Puerto Rican woman wheeling a baby in a little push car with shopping bags on top of the baby and a man with a saxophone behind her getting ready to play and by the time she gets in the door starts closing on the saxophone but the man gets in and the door closes and the white messenger gets his hand in the door but he’s weak and a black guy in a white robe and white round flat cap at the other end of the car is giving a speech about education and the messenger lost his seat.

Pointed to him and his envelope that was hoping to get to the same place—"Foundation" — where the girl Amy sent the big envelope to the woman Jean with the picture of the Indian watching blast-off and tried to say, We got to organize, you see? but didn’t get it all out, and white messenger said, "Whatcha mean ‘w-w-w-w-we’?" and said he didn’t want to hear. Looked in window and saw a donkey’s jaw. It can be built on.

e. He felt sometimes their jaws near his own very large one, their heads and hands unknowing near the subway door that he knew he knew. Which was two doors, not so hard to open as three cards shifting back and forth on the box on street where always pick the card it couldn’t be but still it’s not building on definites, like knowing from experience which door would open and standing in front of that one seeing insane people on the platform lining up in front of the other side door except there’s two kinds, this kind and the other, the long-haired earring guy who looked at him one day he was getting off at Twenty-third Street to take message of art work from the big boomer and his young boyfriend who live in the same building as Miss Kimball, and this guy on the other side on the platform waiting for the train looked him right in the eyes knowing he knew which door would open and was on a lane-track although granted it was jogged thirty blocks north where it continued when he got off and jogged one right or one left when an obstacle stopped or slow-moving appeared in lane ahead and he one day built on other definites to see that double parking wasn’t only law breaking like leaving your laundry in the laundromat top-loader beyond-cycle which was a problem for his mother who waited ten minutes by her watch before unloading the machine or machines — double parking was also occupying space till someone said get off it. Which he explained to Grace Kimball who asked especially for him, Jimmy Banks, and understood what he meant, it was a law that was in the abstract she said and she believed all motor vehicles should be compacter’d and evacuated from the city because most of the trucks carried either furniture, sugar-derivative and/or dairy products, sex-negative clothing, or machinery that didn’t satisfy your needs and sometimes did not work, and she said Jimmy, you know things we don’t know, and her friend Cliff standing naked beside the stereo inquired what the opera singer Mr. North was doing with a little theater on Twenty-fourth Street which it would have been violating the rule about not cross-involving clients with each other to explain to Grace Kimball that the opera singer in her building had seen him in the elevator coming from Kimball and had employed him, not knowing that the man who knew him at the Twenty-third Street station as someone who had figured out the doors and the lane-basics of the city knew Grace through a mutual friend and was interested in employing Jimmy, who himself didn’t know the further connection with this man but it made sense when he ran into him the second time. But then he saw that, like building another level on what he already had, if clients were in contact with each other through one messenger, messenger might build his own business even including people who just happened to be present like the man in the long hair and fringe jacket first seen in subway, later at door of theater signing for envelope from Mr. North’s boyfriend and asking if Madame Somebody the South American singer had not sent something along in the same envelope (which the messenger, cool and professional, had no comment on — the answer to question being No, but also by coincidence messenger in question did know lady in question) upon which the fringe-jacketed (no doubt) actor originally encountered on Twenty-third Street platform asked if he’d do a special job for him if needed — name, Ray Santee — Ray Santee would contact him if he would give Ray Santee his card (a new building block for independent business operation and messenger said N-n-no cards yet and Ray said, Well, whenever) and when Jimmy Banks tried to get out that Mr. S. should call, and failed, Mr. S. picked up the idea and said he should go on his own now and break away from the outfit he was with. Wrote down home number, tried to get out that Mr. Santee not deal with his mother but him only, because she was against him working let alone riding a bike, but he nodded fast, Santee, very fast, and really did understand without the words, when he took out Turnstein’s Messenger Service/Psychic Consultation ballpoint and wrote "Hope to get a Bicycle, Open my own Business" — and when Ray Santee said he would help ol’ Jim Banks, ol’ Jim got out the name Grace Kimball, but not the information that she was going to procure a second-hand bike to expedite transport of messages and building of self-confidence and clientele. And couldn’t get out, either, the info re: having hassle with Turnstein due to receipt not signed — when Ray Santee said, "Always want to get those receipts signed — you know, like from the opera singer lady." But shook head: Opera singer man. Had to write it down, but no time: doors opening, left side, right side alternating, mind over matter, supposed to be cutting down on power but this is doubling usage probably.