DWELLING The Novel - Chapter TWENTY-NINE: In Front of the Children
Morris weaved through the crowded street. The scene on Ludlow was beginning to get tribal. Kids playing congas, dancing in the street. Fires in garbage cans.
Morris shoved past them, his frustration building.
"Get out of my way."
A teenager on psychedelics blocked Morris's path.
"Isn't this great, Man?"
His enthusiasm was far from contagious.
"You're gonna regret standing there," Morris shot back.
But the teenager didn't move, so Morris pushed through him with a defensive lineman shove. It felt pretty good too.
A wimpy sound escaped the euphoric teen.
Morris snarled, knowing full well he freaked out these lesser adolescents by his very existence. The kid’s expression melted. Morris was pleased with the idea his monster impression had succeeded in shifting the kid's euphoria into horrible trip territory as he continued to shove his way home.
Walking into the building foyer Morris found Stella, the young African who lived in the super’s apartment, crouched down lighting votive candles in the hallway. She looked up, but Morris moved past without acknowledging her. The last thing he needed was another blind idealist trying to brighten his mood.
Inside Ndusen's apartment, his family lit more candles, unfazed by the power outage.
Kondwani looked up as Stella entered their flickering home. She turned to her husband, "I am sure that she spilled wax all over the entrance hallway." she said in Chichewa.
"Be kind," he said, switching to English, hoping to shift her off her fluent nasty footing. "Please."
"She is useless, Ndusen," Kondwani continued in Chewa.
Ndusen exhaled slowly as the children watched Stella disappear into the bedroom.
Up on three, Mioko sat in almost total darkness, rolling a joint at the table.
She'd given up trying to find anything in the dark, and she'd had enough with fires for a lifetime, feeling more comfortable in the pitch-blackness than surrounded by candles. The thought had crossed her mind she could assemble some kind of a simple dinner, but all she'd succeeded in locating was a stale bag of corn chips and her tupperware of contraband.
She licked the joint closed, telling herself it was a special occasion, that perhaps she would allow herself a toke the next time Manhattan had a blackout too. With that, she lit up, taking a lengthy toke but making sure to ash directly into the safety of a mug. The aromatic terpenoid began to release into her system and immediately started altering her perception, providing an intense overall feeling of well-being.
But it was short lived--she was startled by a knock on the door.
"It's me," said a gravelly male voice.
"Fuck," Mioko said to herself, stubbing out the joint, then going to the window to dump the evidence. She waved the air to clear the smoke.
Mioko opened the door. A mixed metaphor of an aging punk rocker, with a yoga t-shirt covering his tatted chest--but not the rest of the homespun ink sketches spilling out his sleeves--stood outside with a flashlight.
"Trey. Hi."
Mioko welcomed Trey Spencer in with a hug.
"Jesus, you oughta light some candles," he said. "Darlene said you came by Machine City."
"The craziest thing happened. I got my own commercial client. I'm shooting for Lamerica."
"No shit?"
"It's on the back of the Voice."
"I'll keep my eyes peeled for that," he said, but Trey was all business. Placing his lantern and backpack on the table, he unpacked two large ziplocks of marijuana. "Figured you were looking
for a little refill."
"Yeah."
"Kids gotta get high. Especially in a blackout."
"Hey, have you eaten yet?"
Not that she had anything to offer. It just seemed like they hadn't seen each other forever.
"No," he said.
"I'm not even sure if restaurants are open or whatever, but--"
"It starts with dinner. It ends with the two of us skin popping and nodding out on the Bowery, babe."
Mioko bit her lip as it came boiling to the surface: their intimacy driven by mutual devotion to the needle. The ectopic pregnancy and subsequent abortion, the feelings of self-hatred as they worked their doses up to well past four hundred milligrams a day, until she ODed for the third time in five years and her parents finally cut them off.
"...I know."
Mioko took the flashlight and went to the bedroom. She pulled a wad of cash from a hollowed-out copy of Moby Dick, then returned and handed it to Trey.
"Trey--" She stopped herself.
"Yeah?"
Mioko shook her head, knowing better than to express any of it out loud. Sentiments better left unsaid. Besides, Trey understood.
He opened the door while the going was still good, but turned back, "Take care of yourself. It's getting a little scary out there."
Mioko stood alone at the table with her fresh bags of pot, a sad little smile on her face as he closed the door.
Ndusen lay asleep in the bedroom, his arm cupping Stella's midriff.
In the living room candles burned all around, Kondwani lay under a blanket, her eyes focused on her children sleeping nearby. Abruptly she sprang to her feet and marched towards the bedroom.
Throwing open the door, Kondwani ripped the covers off of Stella and Ndusen, revealing their nude bodies underneath.
"She is not your wife. I am your wife." Kondwani yelled in Chichewa "I am finished with her. No more sleeping in my bed. No more staying in this house!"
Ndusen jumped to his bare feet, the edges of his naked frame shimmering metallic in the candle flicker. "Have you gone mad, woman?" he shouted back in English.
"This little wife, we have no need for her here." Kondwani yelled as she stormed back towards the living room, followed closely by her nude husband.
"I want her out!"
"Be reasonable," Ndusen called after Kondwani.
The children sat up from their mattresses, watching in horror as Kondwani grabbed clothes from Stella's drawers in the communal chest and started tossing them at Stella's bed. They're naked father seemingly powerless to stop her. "This may work for you the way you want it to," she yelled in Chewa, "but it no longer works for me."
Stella walked to the bedroom doorway, wrapped in a sheet. Seeing her, Kondwani summoned her best English, enunciating every syllable, "You, out of this house!"
Chisulo began to cry.
"Stop this, Kondwani!" Ndusen roared as sternly as he could. "How can you act like this in front of our children?"
"I am the mother of these children," Kondwani said back to her husband in Chichewa, then turned towards Stella. "You have no place here. Get out."
"I will not leave this house, Kondwani," Stella said in Chewa, standing firm in the face of the much larger woman, "unless Ndusen says it is so." She had no hatred for Kondwani, but she would not bend to the elder woman's volatility.
"Kondwani, please," Ndusen said softly.
Turning back to her husband, Kondwani's whit-hot eyes pierced through the darkness, glistening incandescent.
"If you do not tell her to move off," Kondwani said in their native tongue, "then I will leave."
The children looked terrified.
"To go where?" Ndusen asked.
Kondwani began to tear up. After a moment she crumpled onto the floor. Ndusen sat down across from her, their bare feet touching, yet he had no idea how to reach her.
Crazed revelers with blazing flashlights brushed past Rube and Deuce. It took a hundred percent of his willpower not to cop each hot young ass Rube grinded past as they worked their way down Ludlow. Reaching the heeb's tenement, Deuce waited till the bulk of the carousers were clear, then smashed his cloth wrapped fist into the glass door of A&D Dress Co. Rube knew his involvement held a certain level of conflicting interest, bumping a shop owned by Axlerod without endorsement--commercial tenants and a half dozen fresh residents were off limits--but lawless was the name of the blackout game, and Rube couldn't help but capitalize.
Flipping on a torch, Deuce headed straight for the till. His plump digits fumbled to drain the register, flashlights bouncing outside. No planning. No getaway. Just a bright eyed tubby fuck peering fumbling in darkness. A classic halfwit robbing spree plotted by his recent three to five parolee cousin. But whatever, he was here, the least he could do was to make sure lardass didn't take all night--which of course he was.
"Hurry up, mothafucker."
Deuce ripped the register tray right out the drawer.
"Ain't shit here," Deuce hissed.
"Damn man, I told you they ain't gonna keep no float in the till."
In and out, wasting away in this shop was plain retarded.
"Oh shit, what was I thinking not trusting Mr. Service Industry himself?"
"Let's beat it the fuck outta here maricon."
But chubs didn't listen. He slammed the entire register off the counter, bringing about a crack so loud they could've heard that shit down at the precinct. Still nothing. Thwarted like the chump he was.
Deuce scurried for the door. Disgraceful. He was about to shadow fatty, but then sheer disgust overpowered him and Rube ripped his hands into the racks, grabbed up as many of the flowery designer dresses he could fit in his arms.
Rube wasn't leaving a B & E job--even a half-assed one dreamed up by a plus-sized ignoramus--with empty mits.
Yours In The Chain,
Doug Karr
SPECIAL THANKS to my wife @zenmommas for years of support during the writing process, @ericvancewalton for his trailblazing, inspired collaboration and incredible guidance, @andrarchy for his mind blowing insight and friendship, @bakerchristopher for being an inspiration as a human artist and bro, @complexring for his brilliance and enthusiasm, Masie Cochran, Taylor Rankin and @elenamoore for their skillful help in editing the manuscript, and to @opheliafu for the fantastic illustrations she created exclusively for the novel's launch on Steemit and to Elena Megalos for her wonderful character illustrations. I’d also like to thank Eddie Boyce, Jamie Proctor, Katie Mustard, Alan Cumming, Danai Gurira, Stephan Nowecki, Ron Simons, Dave Scott, Alden Karr, Missy Chimovitz, my dad Andy Karr and late mother Wendy, and everyone else who helped lead me to this moment.
I am a Brooklyn based writer, film & commercial director, and crypto-enthusiast, my projects include @HardFork-series an upcoming narrative crypto-noir and my novel Dwelling will soon be premiering exclusively on Steemit, and you can check out more of my work at dougkarr.com, piefacepictures.com, and www.imdb.com/name/nm1512347
Please comment thoughtfully, up-vote and resteem and I'll gladly upvote your comments!
Gritty storytelling as always, I guess a blackout would be quite an opportunity to, uh, rob dresses and sell them later in this kind of 'hood... the world seems so different even though it could very well be close to real stories in this world
And yeah having multiple wives seems, well, awkward to juggle... speaking of awkward, the kids must not be terribly thrilled to see the angry mother screaming at the naked father and a second wife (wow!)
Very weill written @dougkarr! And is that Opheliafu's artwork there. The novel is looking really great.
Thanks so much! @opheliafu is a wonder indeed!
Definitely you have the art to write, i have a question for you please say me how much time you need to write each chapter i think you spend at least 1 hours. Regards
Haha, it's taken me about 10 years to write them all and there are 49 chapters... so you know a little while on each ;-)
Wow we're talking about months each chapter, you are a person with high vision. Regards
NICE NICE
This chapter is exciting and thrilling, the storyline is more engaging and also filled with suspense. Hoping to read the next chapter to know how things unfold @dougkarr/
Wow such a amazing and beautiful story .
I really like your post , thank you .
Thanks for sharing @dougkarr
Upvote you ..
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@dougkarramazing play with words. A lot of mental images that the audience seems to view everything from the mind me the character 29 . You are good with what you do man, real good. Thanks for share.
@dougkarr Enjoying following this along; thank you for sharing this with the world. Very interesting romance. I like your art. We are waiting for the continuation.
i like your work, i mean post.