Chapter Text
He remembers that one fall morning when he woke up alone, and he found the scribble on the kitchen counter—on a crumpled sticky note, written with a dry ballpoint pen, the words;
be back soon
And he didn’t think much of it, other than the fact that it was pretty pointless to have left it—he very much knew that she would’ve. He crumpled the paper, tossed it in the trash, and left to go to school.
On the first day of her trip, it was normal. He walked back home late and went to bed early.
On the third day, he went to school again, and he’d find out he was failing liberal arts. The following Saturday was a homework day, because for he never liked to be behind in shit he knew he could do.
On the eighth day, he took the rusted trimmer from under the sink and gave himself a buzzcut.
On the tenth day, he started to wonder how long ‘soon’ would be.
She must’ve been caught up at… work, or wherever she went all the fucking time. And he realized that it wouldn’t have killed him to have just asked her at any point, any time, and moment in the past four years where she went because it would’ve been a decent thing to do, or at the very least responsible, or considerate, because then, he would know what to even ask himself. But he didn’t.
So he did what he was told and sat tight, and continued as he always had to, because there was not a damn thing he could do about it then.
He was alone, sitting in wait and found what he did as always because he knew what to do when he was alone—which wasn’t much. It was leaving, coming home, waiting, leaving, coming home—waiting.
Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
How fucking long could it take?
He remembers hanging his arm around the back of the sofa, cheek squished along the edge as he stared at the front door knob, just waiting. Sitting and waiting for the lock to jiggle or those three taps on the wood or just anything at all. He waited, and, and waited. Until he got tired of waiting, and stopped going to school around the time that he realized she wasn’t coming back.
He was alone, yeah, but he knew how to be. He wasn’t like that for long.
And he was twelve, just three months to his next birthday, so he didn’t know that the school was legally obligated to request a welfare check after they couldn’t get a hold of his parents. Go figure. They sent two women, then one guy, then a guy and the landlord (the landlord snitched, he told them that there was definitely a tween boy who biked in and out most days up until the prior month, and the TV was always too loud), until Schlatt finally opened the door, because he realized that he had run out of options.
And thankfully, the misdemeanor was dropped after they saw the utter state the house was in. You cant blame a kid who looks like he hasn’t slept or eaten or showered in days, either. Weeks maybe. It was pathetic, and he knew that. He didn’t really give a fuck. He was just really pissed off.
It’s not that he wasn’t expecting it—for her to do just as their parents did so many years before. He knew she was weak. He knew that it was a matter of time before he’d be on his own, left for the world to be his, left to be exactly like what he’d been told he’d be.
Someone else’s problem.
He was more pissed about the fact that he found a wrapped wad of cash tucked away underneath their bed only after the ordeal, when he had to pack up his valuables (but to a minimum, the lady said)— with his name scribbled on the plastic. A declaration of insurance, collateral, a tell-tale sign that she probably knew she wasn’t gonna come back, too.
But hey. At least she hit one mark that her parents didn’t.
At least she left a damn note.
————
The dim light of the street posts run along through the windows, flickering on, flickering off, casting shadows onto his hot, bubbling skin.
Schlatt lets his eyes wander as he runs his fingers along the torn leather beneath him. It’s ripped from use, torn away underneath where other hands would rest.
There’s music—quiet music. Jazz. There’s jazz music, really quiet coming from the radio, and the driver taps his fingers along the wheel to the rhythm. He’s done this a million times before, it’s obvious, he doesn’t read street names, or stutter at a weird turning lane. He has those weird black driving gloves that don’t do anything, so you know he’s got this city like the back of his hand—It’s like a law of the land.
You know what, he might as well ask.
“How long’ve you been in the city?” Schlatt mutters.
The guy doesn’t say anything immediately. He lets a breath come out slower than normal and clicks his tongue.
“Whole life.” He replies bleakly.
Schlatt hums. His eyes are heavy.
It’s not very common, but also, not very rare—for this ordeal. The taxi ride home from the bar four blocks away, every few Saturday nights, and always, always past midnight. The same clammy hands rubbing up and down his pant legs, the same slow drag on the overused street pavement.
The same deafening, boring silence he sits impatiently in, his slurred mind just itching to break it—itching to do it because when else would he find the forethought to do so?
But that would be awkward. And weird, and it could land him with a knife to the throat.
It would be very awkward to keep speaking. It would be incredibly awkward to ask another question.
It would be a very bad idea to egg on a conversatio—
“And how long you been doing this?” Schlatt says, and it feels like he might as well just throw his body off of a bridge, but enthusiastically.
The man pushes up his… hat. Newsboy cap? One of those weird fucking hats that the little gay boys wear in the one musical—a little higher on his head and turns the radio knob even quieter, like he has to have the silence for a moment to ask himself if he should even answer.
“Doing what?”
“…Taxi-ing.”
The driver exhales slowly again, long enough for Schlatt to notice a bug on his knee, and swat it away.
He follows it hazily through the car. It flys calmly—slowly, or maybe it’s just his drunken eyesight. It lands on his window, the seat in front of him, and then dives out the open window that the man rests an elbow upon, into the night air and on to his own. Schlatt wonders what the bug will do tonight, if it will find his little bug girlfriend, or yearn for more bugs to surround himself with, or if it is one to no content going home to an empty bug house. If the bug is content with what he does… doing as he is told to do, just be a bug.
He blinks hard as the man clears his throat.
“Too damn long.”
“Okay, we’ll my real question is, why is a guy that’s been doing this for—decades, doing it at this hour?”
“This hour?”
“Don’t you got something’ to get home to? A condo with a pit bull or somethin’.”
The man smacks his lips.
“‘M just saying, like, what if I were… Ah, do you just—why do you trust the people you pick up?”
“Why should I have to trust ‘m?”
“You’re letting ‘em in your car. Taking them home.”
“‘Cause somebody’s gotta do it.” He shrugs.
Schlatt hums in… disinterest. He thinks.
He never quite gets the prospect of feeling such a sense of obligation to do anything, but he assumes it’s a pretty normal thing to do—if the bug on the window didn’t feel a duty to be a bug, it’d be dead. If the president didn’t feel a duty to be the president, they’d all be dead. If he didn’t feel a duty to be himself, yeah, actually, he’d probably be the same. He doesn’t feel duty to do shit.
It’s actually a pretty stupid reason to do stuff.
He looks down at his shirt, a dumb crewneck with the face of the virgin mary printed small on the chest, staring up at him with her beady little virgin eyes. He’s not even that religious, he bought the shirt as a joke.
He probably wouldn’t have driven himself home if he was a taxi driver, to be honest.
“That’s kinda dumb.” He says without considering the consequences.
Schlatt is thrown harshly against his door, and he considers that the dude most definitely did that on purpose, before deciding that he doesn’t really care regardless.
“Do you just walk around like that everyday?” The driver scorns with almost a mocking tone.
“Like what?”
“Like it’s your first day out here.”
Schlatt pauses.
“I’ve been here my whole life.”
“That didn’t answer my question.”
“Yes it did.”
“So what? You’ve been here for how long?”
“How old do you think I am?”
“Old enough to look like that. Young enough to act like that.”
That didn’t really answer his question, but it kind of did at the same time. He doesn’t know whether to be offended or not.
“I’m twenty four.”
The man scoffs.
Schlatt turns back to the window.
They sit in silence for a bit, and Schlatt assesses his sobriety.
He asks himself three questions:
- Am I sober enough to continue this conversation?
- Am I sober enough to continue this conversation without getting shot?
- Am I sober enough to care if I get shot right now?
Yes. Yes. And… No. Okay. Passed.
“What’s your name?”
The driver very audibly, very tellingly groans.
“What’s it to ya, kid? You wanna know my life story? My address? My kid’s names? My social security number? What?”
Schlatt doubts this man has kids.
“Sir, I am just a friendly resident of this gorgeous city—a fellow yankee baby.”
“I prefer the mets.”
“Whatever,” Schlatt spiels, throwing his hands up. “Let me be friendly. Let me strike a conversation. I just want to turn my night around, and end it on a good foot—maybe even turn over a new leaf in my life, I wanna be personable. I wanna be one of those people who has inside jokes with a bodega owner.”
“Now what the hell ‘s that gotta do with me? Do I look like I own a bodega?”
“Do you really want me to answer that?”
He’s thrown forward during a hard stop, hard enough to leave him winded as he rams a cheek into the seat before him.
He rubs at his face, cusses, then leans between the gap with his elbows propped up against either chair.
“I’m gonna leave you a bad review.” He scowls.
“This ain’t uber, son.”
“Tell me your name. Let me have this.”
They come to the second to last intersection before the end of the ride. The light lasts long, red cast patiently across the mans face as he pulls a cigarette out of the box beneath them and a lighter from his shirt pocket. He hums, and lights the end.
After the first huff, the orange glow of the butt simmers down.
“Mel.”
How… Jersey of him. Very fitting.
“Do you wanna know mine?” Schlatt asks dumbly.
“No.” The man says quickly, and then they sit in contentment for a bit. Atleast—Schlatt is content.
The gate to his apartment complex comes near, the overgrown weeds and patches of gray dirt landmark either side of the shortest bars. It inches closer and he can see the large empty courtyard behind it, surrounded by numbered doors and faded concrete staircases. It’s old, like everything in the city, but not that old. You can find a real estate agent living next to a house keeper, a gracious mother across the South hall from an apartment of six college roommates, and so on. He doesn’t know ‘em, though.
He pulls his wallet out of his back pocket as the car comes to a slow stop.
“How much?” Schlatt asks, running his thumb along a row of loose bills.
The driver then turns to look at him for the first time. He has the everything and nothing on his face at the same time, like he is the city, and all of its stories. Like he could kill a man and jive about it and still face no consequences. Like he could have seven wives, or none, or know everything, or nothing. All at once.
Or maybe Schlatt is just wasted, deeply philosophical, but wasted nonetheless. Maybe there isn’t a difference.
“I’ll let you go for free if you promise to never get in my cab again.” He says.
Schlatt shuts his wallet with a snap, too triumphantly. He steps out of the car and leans down.
“Bye, Mel. Have a good life. Long and fulfilling, even. Maybe I’ll live vicariously through you.”
The man scowls wordlessly as Schlatt swings the door shut, and turns on his heel to the front gate—listening to the roll of the wheels, crushing the concrete as the taxi drifts away down the block.
“God bless you,” Schlatt yells to the air, but to no one.
He’s through the gate, and halfway through the courtyard—passing the modest table lain at the center, the wilted potted plants lined across the corners of the concrete paths, and it is all the same, albeit the silence.
There is a sweet melancholy on nights like these, when there is nothing but the dim lantern lights mounted on the sides of the buildings that fail to completely burn away the darkness of the hour. Where there is near honking, unhushed conversation through the doors with nothing in common but their alignment, and just him. His sluggish footsteps and his hennessy breath and he the cracking of his stagnant joints every few paces.
The deafening silence is broken in half when he feels a vibration in his pocket.
He barely feels it, it’s faint against his hot skin because of his senses seem to dull at times, and he pulls it out of his back pocket—despite really, really not wanting to.
1:26 AM, he reads atop the screen, then sees an unlisted number.
He answers the call, and holds it to his ear without doubt of the strange hour to be calling, because why the hell not. He’s clearly feeling talkative, and if it’s the accountant that needs to update his tax return then, even better.
“Hello?” He says, stopping at the base of the staircase below his apartment door.
“Ah, yes, hello. May I please speak with… Jason Shat?”
He makes a face.
“Mm, could it be… Jason… Schlatt?” He suggests.
The voice is old. Monotonous. Unfamiliar. And knows his name, regardless.
“Jason… Schlatt. Right. May I speak to him?”
“Speakin’.” Schlatt answers.