Anthology Complex by M.B. Julien (new reading .txt) 📕

drives off. "She needs to relax more," I think to myself. As she gets closer to the building I begin to see the added weight Tao mentioned, and I wonder where it all came from. Maybe stress from her job? Maybe from the men in her life? Maybe life itself.

 

After she has entered the building I go to the kitchen to get food, and not more than five minutes have passed before I hear her yelling outside again. When I go to the window I see the same car I saw before, but this time I see the man who she is yelling at. The man doesn't have much to say, but Mary is going on and on about how he is suppose to buy her things. I'm guessing he forgot her birthday.

 

After some time the man says something that gets him a slap across the face and causes Mary to walk away. While she is walking away he yells something at her, and then gets into his car and drives away. The efforts that humans make at romantic relationships are sometimes comical.

 

Chapter 39:

HEADS, TAILS, CALL IT IN THE AIR

 

"yo its derek how have you been? jus sendin this letter to let you know whats up... and to say thanks for havin our back. i been thinkin about them short stories you wrote, and i been tryin to write one myself but i cant think of anything to write about. anyway ima keep tryin and maybe ill send you something so you can tell me if its good or not. besides all that im guessin you heard about what happened to jamal, but if you didnt hear he got shot over some bullshit. it aint have nothin to do with the beef over that drug shit, spider said he died because he never listened. anyway jamal and the main guy here were tight so hes lookin after me i guess, he gave me a job but im smart enough to know that i cant be around these people because they will influence who i become. learned that from one of your stories. aight so ill probly send you another message sometime... ill be sure to send the story to. peace. ps: spider is the guy who came and got me forgot to mention that."

 

The line that continues to repeat itself in my head is "he got shot over some bullshit." Derek's demeanor seems to represent a person who has been around so long that death is just another part of life to them. Even if it's the death of a close one.

 

There is no return address on the envelope, so I assume he didn't want me to reply. Or maybe he didn't expect one. I also notice that the address on the envelope only has a street number and a street name. I put the letter back in the envelope and place the envelope next to a desk near my shelf of composition notebooks, and then I go outside, walk through the alley behind my apartment building, and turn the corner to see that Spider is still there.

 

I debate whether I should engage him or not, but seeing as my survival rate will dramatically increase if I know the details of what's going on, I decide to do so. I slowly walk up to his car and knock on the window of the passenger seat. It turns out he was sleeping.

 

He wakes up with all types of paranoia, and when he realizes who I am, he tells me to get in the car. After I get in he starts to drive away. He asks me how I knew he was watching me, but I tell him that I didn't. I tell him I was just walking home and happened to see him in the car. He makes a right turn.

 

He tells me that I need to be more careful, that there may be people watching me. I ask him who would be watching me, and he tells me that I don't really have to worry about that anymore. He says he's been sitting on my house for weeks waiting for the other crew to pop out, but they still haven't done so, and because they haven't done so they probably never knew that Jamal and Derek were hiding out here in the first place. He makes a left turn.

 

He takes a glance at the rear-view mirror and then says, "You still gotta be careful though." He tells me about how a few days into the sitting, two cops started to follow him. He makes another left turn, and shortly after I see what he means when an unmarked but obvious police vehicle makes the same left turn. Damn you Jamal.

 

Spider tells me that if the cops knew about Jamal, and if they were following him, then they might know about me as well. If they didn't know about me then, they certainly know about me now since I just got into the fucking car of someone who is probably a suspect in something. I ask him about Derek. "Derek? Derek's a strong kid. You don't gotta worry about him. We'll take care of him." That's what he tells me. I ask him about Jamal. The driver looks at the passenger, but the driver does not say anything.

 

I ask him if he's doing this for me because I helped out his friends, and he says he's doing it "because the main motherfucker has this thing about respect." I'm guessing he means something along the lines of if you show him decency, he will show you decency, and because I showed Jamal and Derek decency he is showing me that decency back. Then Spider tells me about how he isn't doing this because he believes in the same thing, he's doing it because he pissed off the main guy and the main guy is forcing him to do it. He tells me about how when the main dude tells you to do something, you have to do it, because if no one listens to the head, to the man who has the experience, there will be no order. Not exactly in those words.

 

After a few more left and right turns, we are back in my neighborhood and Spider decides to drop me off a few blocks from my apartment building. Before we depart, he tells me that if those cops decide to drop by, not to tell them shit. I tell him that I don't really know shit, and that I would like to keep it that way.

 

For the next three days, Spider continues to sit on my location and then on the fourth day he disappears, but that doesn't matter because by now I'm already in the system. Now I find myself turning on my television and putting it on my favorite channel. It's been almost a week and there is still coverage on the school shooting. One teacher killed, one student killed, one security guard injured and a jogger who seems to have had nothing to do with anything injured.

 

Now my phone is ringing, and when I pick it up I hear Kathleen's voice. Looks like she's back into my life. She talks about how they are going to do a massive prayer at church tomorrow for her son, and if I would like to come. I guess it's nice to know that the fact that he is her son comes before the fact that he is a homosexual. The next morning I find myself wearing clothes I haven't worn for so long around the type of people I haven't talked to in so long in a place I haven't been to in so long.

 

Chapter 40:

THE LOST CARPENTER

 

Last night, I had a strange dream. I'm standing in front of the apartment building with a blueprint in my hand. The thing is the apartment building doesn't look like the apartment building that I know. It looks unfinished; it looks like there is still work needed to be done on it.

 

Before I know it I have a hammer in one hand and a nail in the other, and I'm forcing a nail into the wall. After I see that the building is good and finished, I rest for a little while. Then I go back into the building and walk through each of the three floors to make sure the names on the doors match the names on the blueprint.

 

They are all correct, however there are a few that are replaced with question marks. You can't know everyone in your life. While I'm on the second floor, I get to Lynne's apartment but I realize that the name Lynnette Parker is not on the blueprint. The name that is on the blueprint in the place of Lynne is George Johnson, which was the person who lived here before she moved in. Because dreams don't have timestamps I often have to figure out when a dream had taken place by considering the people I knew, the places I'd been and the things I'd done.

 

I go into Johnson's apartment, and I feel that the apartment is not completely done well enough. I fix a few things in an effort to stop Lynne from losing her foot, and then I go on to the next apartment who has the tenant name of Joseph White. The last apartment I check is under the name Boris, with a last name that I can't read properly, and then I go back outside for another break after debating whether or not I should check the basement of the building.

 

When I get outside I see Jesus and Moses sitting on a bench. I sit next to them, and Jesus says to me, "So you're going to build an entire city?" I don't answer him. He tells me that carpentry and engineering is hard work, then Moses cuts in and says "but it will not save you." Moses then gets up and he hands me two nails. They are much bigger than the ones I used on the building. Moses tells me that separate paths are what will save me.

 

Composition 1, Part 5

 

Chapter 41:

CALM THE DEVIL'S GRIN

 

She tells you that second-person narration is when you use words like "you" and "your." At first you want to disagree with her, you want to see her reaction, but you know that she was the one who took all those courses on writing in college. So then the nameless narrator asks Julia what exactly third-person narration is defined as, and she tells the nameless narrator that third-person is when a narrator uses words like "he," "she," "they," "them" and "it" to refer to the other characters. She says words like "I," "us," and "we" are never used. She looks at the nameless narrator and watches as the narrator thinks about what she just said, and she says "Please don't tell me you are going to ask me what first-person is." I look back at her and laugh, and I tell her that I'm pretty sure I know what a first-person narrative is. The truth is I already knew the definition of all three perspectives. I guess back then I just wanted to hear her speak sometimes.

 

The night has fallen as it has done so many times before and I ponder how many people didn't live long enough today to see it fall.

 

Tao wants to prank call his cousin, but I tell him not to because I don't want my phone number on someone's caller identification. I don't want them calling back. He tells me not to worry, that he will do star sixty-seven so that the caller's information is blocked. How many times I'd like to star sixty-seven my life. He makes the call and for the duration I feel like I am a child again.

 

Going on to the next subject, Tao asks me if I've ever seen that effect light has on the Sun when it's just above the horizon, how it looks