Нед Виззини - It's Kind of a Funny Story

I nod. “I never heard that one before.”

“No? You like it?”

“Yeah.”

“What about: I don’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.”

“Nope.”

“What about: I got Jack and shit and Jack left town.”

“Heh. No! Where do you get them all?”

“From the old neighborhood. Gimme a ringy-ding. Catch ya on the flipside. It’s the best way to talk.”

“A ringy-ding, what’s that—a call?”

“Don’t ask yuppie questions.”

Humble scans the room for people to talk about. He enjoys talking about other people—he just enjoys talking, I’ve discovered, but he especially enjoys talking about other people—and when he does so, he puts on a peculiar sort of voice that’s not quite a whisper, but is pitched at such a low monotone that no one notices it. He also seems able to throw it so it feels like he’s speaking into my left ear.

“So I suppose you’ve become familiar with our lovely clientele here on the floor. President Armelio is the president.” He nods over at Armelio, who has finished his food first and is getting up to return the tray. “You see how fast he eats? If you could harness a quarter of his energy, you could power the island of Manhattan. I’m not joking. He should really work in a place with people like us. He has such a good heart and he’s never down.”

“So why is he in here?”

“He’s psychotic, of course. You shoulda seen him when they brought him in. He was screaming his head off about his mom. He’s Greek.”

“Huh.”

“Now there’s Ebony, She of the Ass. That is def initely the biggest ass I’ve ever seen. I’m not even into asses, but if you were—man, you could lose yourself in there. It’s like its own municipality. I think that’s why she needs the cane. She’s also the only woman I’ve ever known who wears velvet pants; I think you have to have a butt like that to wear velvet pants. They only make them in extra extra extra large.”

“I didn’t even notice them.”

“Well, give it a while. After a few days you start to notice people’s clothes, seeing as how they all wear the same stuff every day.”

“Things don’t get dirty?”

“They do laundry on Tuesdays and Fridays. Who gave you your tour when you came in?”

“Bobby.”

“He should’ve told you that.” Humble swivels his head, then turns back. “Now Bobby and Johnny”—they’re at a table together, as they were at lunch—“those two were some of the biggest meth-amphetamine addicts in New York City, period, in the nineties. They were called Fiend One and Fiend Two. The party didn’t really start until they showed up.”

That must’ve been such a feeling, even through all the drugs, I think. To come into a house and have people well up and greet you: “All right, man!” “You’re here!” “What’s up?” That was probably as addictive as the amphetamines. People sort of do that to Aaron.

“What happened to them?” I ask.

“What happens to anybody? They got burned out, lost all their money, ended up here. Got no families, got no women—well, I think Bobby has one.”

“He talks on the phone with her.”

“You can’t tell from that. People pretend to be on the phone all the time. Like her”—he pitches his head at the bug-eyed woman who was standing behind me when I was talking with my family—“The Professor. I’ve caught her on the phone talking to Dr. Dial Tone. She’s a university professor. She ended up here because she thinks someone tried to spray her apartment with insecticide. She has newspaper clippings about it and everything.”

Humble turns: “The black kid with the glasses: he looks pretty normal, but he has it bad. You notice he doesn’t come out of his room a lot. That’s because he’s scared that gravity is going to reverse and he’s going to fall up into the ceiling. When he goes outside, he has to be near trees so, in case the gravity stops, he’ll have something to hold on to. I think he’s about seventeen. Have you talked to him?”

“No.”

“He doesn’t really talk. I don’t know how much they can do for him.”

The guy looks up at the ceiling fan above the dining room, shudders, and forks food into his mouth.

“Then there’s Jimmy. Jimmy’s been here a lot. I’ve been here twenty-four days, and I’ve seen him come and go twice. You seem to like him.”

“We came in together.”

“He’s a cool guy. And he has good teeth.”

“Yeah, I noticed that.”

“Pearly whites. Not a lot of people in here have that. I myself wonder what happened to Ebony’s teeth.”

“What’s wrong with them?” I turn.

“Don’t look. She has none, you didn’t notice? She’s on a liquid diet. Just gums. I wonder if she sold ‘em, tooth by tooth. . . .”

I bite my tongue. I can’t help it. I shouldn’t be laughing at any of these people, and neither should Humble, but maybe it’s okay, somewhere, somehow, because we’re enjoying life? I’m not sure. Jimmy, two tables away, notices my stifled laughter, smiles at me, and laughs himself.

“I toldja: it come to ya!”

“There we go. What is going on in his mind?” Humble asks.

I can’t help it. It’s too much. I crack up. Juice and chicken tender bits spray my plate.

“Oh, I got you now,” Humble continues. “And here comes the guest of honor: Solomon.”

The Hasidic Jewish guy comes in holding up his pants. He still has food in his beard. He grabs his tray and opens a microwaved packet of spaghetti and starts shoveling it into his mouth, making slurping, gulping groans.

“This guy eats once a day but it’s like his last day on earth,” Humble says. “I think he’s the most far gone of everybody. He’s got like a direct audience with God.”

Solomon looks up, twists his head from side to side, and resumes eating.

Humble drops to a true whisper. “He did a few hundred tabs of acid and blew his pupils out. His eyeballs are permanently dilated.”

“No way.”

“Absolutely. It’s a certain cult of the Hasidics: the Jewish Acid-Heads. There’s like a part of their holy writings that tells them it’s the way to talk to God. But he took it too far.”

Solomon gets up, leaves his tray disgustedly at the table, and moves out of the room with alarming speed.

“He’s like the Mole Man, back to his hole,” Humble says. “The real Mole People are the anorexics; you don’t even see them.”

“How many people are in here?” I ask.

“They say twenty-five,” Humble says. “But that’s not counting the stowaways.”

I look around. Charles/Jennifer isn’t in the room.

“Did the, uh, you know, Charles? Did he leave?”

“Yeah, the tranny’s gone. Left this afternoon. Tranny hit on you?”

“Yeah.”

“Smitty lets him do that. Gets a kick out of it.”

“I can’t believe he’s just gone. They don’t, like, throw a party for you when you leave?”

“No way. People here don’t want to get out. Getting out means going back to the streets or to jail or to try and fish their things out of an impounded car, like me. Your kind of situation, with the parents and a house: that’s rare. And also, with so many people coming and going, we’d be nuts to try and have a party every time. We’d end up like Fiend One and Fiend Two.”

My tray is a mess from the food spraying out. “You crack me up, Humble,” I tell him.

“I know. I’m a great time for everybody. Too bad I’m in here instead of onstage getting paid for it.”

“Why don’t you try going onstage?”

“I’m old.”

“I have to get some napkins.” I rise and go out to Smitty, who hands me a stack. I return, wipe off my tray, and start in on the pear.