Billy tabbs, p.8
Billy Tabbs, page 8
On his third night there, Billy found himself seated alone with Jacob below the wall of tenets.
“Things are different here,” said Jacob. “The tenets have changed our thinking. They insulate us from the way most people live their lives. Now if we can just change the thinking of the world, the consciousness of the world, then the rest will fall into place.”
“The world is a big place,” said Billy, swallowing a bite of cheese.
“Sure it is. But you don’t lie down to die just because the scope of a problem appears insurmountable. No evil is insurmountable, social or otherwise. You just have to start with yourself. Then one individual. Then one family. Then one block. Then one borough. Then one city.”
“Then one world?” asked Billy.
“Then one world,” answered Jacob, confidently. “But let’s start with the city first.”
Billy nodded, and he adored the sentiment, even if it did sound hopelessly naïve. “And we accomplish this how, exactly?”
“By doing what we’ve been doing. Reminding them that we’re here.”
“And once they’ve been reminded?”
Jacob looked out across the platform floor to the three railcars, his concentration seeming to stray. “They’ll know what to do,” he said hopefully, “I’m confident that by the end of this they will recognize us as equals to them in every way.”
Billy cast a doubtful look.
“Have faith,” said Jacob. “As our numbers grow. As our ‘reminders’ increase in frequency and force. Eventually they will change. Eventually they will understand what must be done to help. That the strong must always look for ways to help the weak.”
All of this resonated with Billy. Like most of the others, he’d lived through some very lean times. Yet even in his darkest days, he’d protested internally but suffered in silence. What could a solitary vagrant do to change things? The world was so utterly entrenched in the way that it was, and there was nothing that he or anybody else could do to change that. And so he lived, socially maligned and withering on the vine. Not equally valued, not equally respected.
Not equal.
But why not? And what was to be done about it?
Nothing.
Anything.
Everything!
But what would it take? Of his long line of thoughts, this one forced itself to the front of the line. It was only his third night with the group, but it had been on his mind from the beginning.
“How far will we go?”
“What do you mean?” asked Jacob.
“I mean, how far will we go, with these…reminders?”
“As far as we have to,” answered Marlon, who happened to be walking by.
“As far as we have to,” agreed Jacob, before adding the modifier…“within reason.”
What followed next was hardly a surprise. Billy knew something of their personalities by then. Knew that Marlon was a misanthrope, Jacob an idealist. One brash and mercurial, the other cautious and considerate, their very essences standing in direct opposition to one another.
A terse debate spilled out between the two, each trying to convince the other, as much as Billy, of the rightness of their positions. All the while they hardly looked at one another. Marlon’s animosity toward Jacob was palpable, even worse than Billy had imagined; and as he parted from them at the first available opportunity, so too parted Billy’s short-lived illusion of a unified shakeup.
But what a shakeup it was.
Several months ago, there had been an epidemic of jammed mailboxes. Turns out that it was them.
The three weeks of nightly urination on the side of the police station? Them.
The dirt smeared on the front windows of some of the fanciest stores? Them.
The nudging of a loose cinder block off a five-story condominium, the block landing tragically below on Ms. Worthington’s prize-winning beagle? Them.
The vandals who slipped in the back door of the Ritz and “tampered” with the ratatouille? Them yet again.
They’d been openly and defiantly punching society in the nose; it was a revolutionary mismatch sight unseen since Snowball and Napoleon put Mr. Jones to his heels. Anywhere a large concentration of Bigwigs or authority figures congregated was a preferred target.
These incidents and disturbances had aroused much discussion on the street amongst their kind. Even before he’d met Ash, Billy had heard of a few of the incidents. At the time, he hadn’t paid them all that much attention, dismissing the chatter as urban legend. But now he knew the truth, and he was a part of it. He had arrived.
And he belonged.
Doctor Lambert defers to Detective Meyers, and soon enough, they’ve both crept beneath the stretch of yellow police tape and stepped onto the uneven terrain. The young officer remains dutifully posted behind them at the tunnel entrance, Meyers having ordered that the scene not be disturbed, at least not until Lambert has the opportunity to examine it. From the difficulty in reaching it, Lambert feels there is little chance of that happening, but if they can spare a pair of long underwear and a peach-fuzzed cadet, he knows it isn’t his place to argue.
The death count on either side is yet to be finalized, and from what Lambert can tell, it will likely never be known with any degree of certainty, a fact that had been glossed over in the Mayor’s speech. He’d listened to it on the flight over, heard the panic in his voice, the platitudes to remain calm as his constituents fled the city or shuttered themselves inside their homes. He assured them that things were now under control, that they had the backing of the nation; that “The event” had passed, and their best people were working it. It had occurred to Lambert in that moment that he was the “best people” the Mayor was counting on, and he felt the stifling pressure of expectation. They were counting on Lambert to explain how it could have happened and, perhaps just as important, how to ensure that it never happened again.
At least not if they could help it.
The two men advance slowly into the darkened tunnel, Lambert traveling directly alongside Detective Meyers, his nerves having equalized since stepping off the narrow ledge. Notwithstanding the assurances of his immediate safety, Lambert had felt more than a little queasy walking so close to an active subway line. He is the kind of person who would never stand too close to the edge when he is waiting for a train or a bus, always keeping a safe buffer until the mode of transportation has arrived and come to a complete stop. Needless to say, the travel arrangements have thus far tested his resolve.
“Watch your head,” says Meyers, motioning to some low-hanging rock.
The two men plod slowly forward, Lambert feeling the rough chunks of rock and stone peppered beneath his Rockports. With the faint glow of orange light now behind them, they would be subsumed in total darkness if not for their flashlights. It wouldn’t be so bad, except for the fact that Lambert’s has already flickered dark on more than one occasion.
Standard police issue?
The walk is a short one, and before long Lambert can see an opening fifty feet in front of him.
“It’s just on the other side,” says Meyers.
As they draw nearer, Lambert feels a slight breeze from the circular gap ahead of them. The soft current of air brings with it the hint of a fragrance, and a foul one at that.
Jeezus…That smell.
I know that smell all too well.
Lambert crinkles his nose in a lame attempt to deflect it.
“You better get used to that,” says Meyers, “it only gets worse. Just wait until we get inside!”
Great, Lambert thinks. I can’t wait!
The dreams returned that night.
Though not of his mother or of the fireman. Not of the falling or the screaming. He dreamt instead of Jacob, and Marlon, and of the irreconcilability of their positions. In slumber mere hours, Billy lived weeks of heated squabbles, months of fierce looks and cutting barbs. He dreamt of the two generals tugging at Darrow from both sides, their heels dug as firmly as their ideologies, pulling Darrow apart around millions of spiders. It shook Billy, not just the macabre imagery or the discord, but the vague manifestations of their future that flitted across his dreamscape.
The visions were fresh in his mind when he woke the next morning, stepping groggily down from the lead railcar, his fourth day among them. It was barely dawn. Weak light spilled in through the overhead steel grates high above. The “tink tink” of pitter-pattering feet was virtually nonexistent at such an early morning hour.
Chuck was the only member in sight, munching some ham in front of Darrow’s office, the large window just overhead, acrylic white blinds pulled to the top behind dusty glass. Billy drew in beside him and offered a nondescript morning greeting. Chuck nodded back, his mouth too full for a more substantial response.
“You’re up early,” said Billy.
“Yep,” said Chuck, after several more chews, and only then managing his response through a wad of pork. “Always get up early. No point sleeping half the day away.” Bits of ham and spittle launched to the ground as he spoke.
Chuck was a bundle of energy. His jaw moved nonstop. Even while eating he could hardly sit still. Overtop of the smacking, Billy heard the murmur of voices from the open office door just a short stretch down the hallway beside them. Billy could only make out intermittent words, and while no sound seeped through the large glass window directly above them, he could see the occasional bob of a head from someone sitting on the office desk.
“Darrow?” asked Billy.
“Ya,” said Chuck, “an’ Jacob and Marlon, too.” His words were more fully enunciated, his having just swallowed the hunk of meat. Billy peeked down the hallway; then, his curiosity conquered by fear of discovery, he pulled back and returned to Chuck’s side.
“What are they talking about?”
“Probably today’s work assignments. Every morning it’s the same thing.” Chuck had already turned his attention back to the floor-laden buffet. “I hope I get something good today. Something exciting.”
“You don’t worry about getting caught?”
“Nah.” He smiled, quickly adding, “My name is Chuck, and I don’t give a…”
He capped it as might be expected and then started to laugh. Billy had heard him say the same thing once or twice before. It was his shtick.
Down the hallway, the murmurs grew in vitriol.
“A little early for that?” said Billy.
Chuck nodded. “Marlon gets a plan in his head, Jacob argues it down, Marlon gets angry. Goes like that a lot.”
“Jacob doesn’t want to see people get hurt. Or us,” said Billy.
“None of us is going to get hurt,” said Chuck. “And as for the people that might get hurt, serves ’em right. Fact is they’ve had this coming for a long time!”
Billy shrugged, equivocally.
“Hey, don’t just take my word for it,” Chuck continued. “Most everyone here feels the same way. Ask Scarface. Ask Ears. Even Fat Henry. Most of us wanna ratchet things up more serious. Well, most everyone else, except maybe Tommy. But then he’s just Jacob’s lapdog.”
This was a fairly sizeable insult, at least from Billy’s perspective, and from what he’d seen, not entirely deserved. Up to that point, Billy had spoken to Tommy only a few times, and, as Chuck had intimated, Tommy was particularly tight with Jacob. Still, he didn’t seem like anyone’s lapdog. Billy’s early impression of Tommy was that he was introverted and rarely spoke, opening his mouth only when he had something meaningful to say, which would differentiate him from most of the people in this city. Yet from even their limited conversations and interactions, it seemed that Tommy was, like Jacob, merely a well-meaning pacifist.
Chuck resumed his early-morning meal while Billy continued to strain his ears at the muffled conversations, glimpsing the discord. He’d only managed to corral small bits and pieces before Jacob and Marlon exited Darrow’s office and emerged from the short stretch of hallway onto the main compound floor. Marlon stopped beside Billy and Chuck, his jet-black hair seeming more ruffled than usual.
“You’re both on food recon today,” he said sharply, then walked across the compound floor and up the rocky slope before disappearing into the gravelly tunnel.
With the announcement of their assignments, Billy could practically see Chuck’s chest deflate, but in that very exhale he also detected a hint of relief. Billy, on the other hand, was entirely content with his low-risk assignment. His initiation atop the Jaguar had been exhilarating; yet once the fanfare and the adrenaline had faded, and he’d had more time to reflect, the reality of that maneuver had festered retrospective anxiety.
“It’s early,” said Jacob. “You two rest until the others get up.” He seemed deflated from whatever disagreement had just taken place in the office. He set off slowly across the compound floor, Billy following closely behind. He’d been waiting for precisely this opportunity, to explore the reasons behind Jacob’s nonviolent ideology. He caught up to him in front of the caboose.
“You certainly aren’t the first to ask. Unfortunately, most in our group favor a broad escalation of our methods. We all want reform. We all want to be valued equally in society, but many seek bloodshed as the means.”
“I’ve had those same feelings myself,” admitted Billy.
“But anger isn’t constructive. Hate isn’t constructive. And there are some very good people out there, and shelters governed by kind men and women. The problem is that the kind people are few and far between; and the shelters are just temporary solutions, in any event. They don’t address the problems that find so many of us out here in the first place. Neglect. Abuse. Abandonment. People must change their way of thinking. They must relinquish their superiority.” Jacob paused, then repeated, as if for emphasis, “They must remember that we’re part of this community, too; and they must relinquish their superiority.”
Jacob painted a bleak picture of humanity, so thoroughly deconstructing the average person’s capacity for compassion that it seemed he was making Marlon’s case that much stronger.
“But keep in mind,” he continued, as if reading Billy’s mind, “that for the most part, they’re ignorant, not evil. Selfish, not malicious. Most just can’t accept that our lives are as important as theirs. Maybe they would act differently if they did, but it’s what they’ve learned, and it’s what people are accustomed to. It’s the only reasonable explanation for their unequal valuation of life. Just watch their interactions with their own children, and it’s obvious—it’s taught. There’s a hierarchy among the living that I will never appreciate or understand. See us sick on the street? Keep walking. See us beg for food? Turn the other way. Most people have been raised to believe that they don’t have to go out of their way to help us, or to curb what puts us here in the first place. They’ve been indoctrinated that our lives are less valuable than theirs. And if that’s true, we’d be hurting them for something that they don’t truly understand. It would be like hurting a child for misbehaving.”
“But these aren’t children,” countered Billy.
“Aren’t they?” Jacob submitted, wryly. “Let’s just say they are short-sighted. I don’t think they really see us for who and what we are. People must change their thinking.”
“And what we’re doing here…you think it will be enough?”
“I do,” said Jacob. “From what I’ve seen, I think most people want to do the right thing…they just need a tremendous amount of encouragement before they actually do it. Silence hasn’t worked. Pacifism hasn’t worked. The mischief, I think, is the best approach. It reminds them of our suffering and increases awareness. It tells them that we will no longer lurk silently in the shadows. In time, our disobedience will register. As our numbers grow, as our efforts increase, our reminders will be enough. I’m sure of it.”
“Marlon seems sure the other way. He says that people will have to get hurt to change. Says the mischief won’t be enough.” There was a hint of agreement in Billy’s voice, but also uncertainty.
“He’s angry,” said Jacob.
“Seems to be.”
“He has the right…” Jacob took a heavy breath before he continued. “His sister was killed. Lived out on the street with him. Died at his side on a slab of dirty pavement.”
“What happened to her?”
“Killed,” said Jacob, “by some kid with a knife.”
“How?”
“By a knife,” repeated Jacob, and Billy immediately felt ridiculous.
“That’s awful.”
“Yes,” said Jacob.
Neither spoke for a moment.
“He loved her, I think. As much as he loved anyone.”
“Awful,” said Billy.
“Awful,” repeated Jacob.
“Why’d the kid do it?”
“Why would anyone?” said Jacob.
“But murder?”
“Some people think nothing of it.”
It’s true, thought Billy. He thought back to last summer when he’d found a local rounder lying still in an alley. At first he’d just appeared to be sleeping against a brick wall—only then Billy had noticed the hand marks, the gaping mouth, the dried spittle marking his chin, and the bulging eyes.
He’d been strangled.
“What did Marlon do?” asked Billy, trying to refocus.
“Went to his sister. Died alongside her, I suspect. At least the best parts of him.”
