The child had been dumped into this steel dumpster in Ridgewood, Queens, by a boy named Juan. He was 16 years old & the baby was his son. But it had died a few minutes after being born to a girl named Daisy. Daisy was a prostitute who worked in the house owned by Victor Imperiale. Juan had met her about a year earlier when his father, determined to make a man out of the effeminate boy, had taken him to Victor’s cathouse- just off of Cypress Avenue & Centre Street- to get him laid. Just by accident, the girl chosen to deliver Juan from his failings was Daisy- a pretty 14 year old who had runaway from home a couple years earlier. She had been shown the ropes by some of the older girls like Debby, Anastasia, Carol, Lydia, & Marsha, & had become the top earner of all of Imperiale’s girls. Daisy was the 1st Puerto Rican girl that Victor had accepted into his stable because he had always had the reputation of having the finest ass in Ridgewood- & that meant no colored nor Puerto Ricans! But, Daisy was pretty & fair-skinned. Her name sounded like she was a Southern belle- so Victor took her in. This was where she was when she met Juan. After their 1st night together Juan was smitten. Every dollar he made from the odd jobs he did he would spend on being with Daisy. & she had grown to love Juan, as well. Unlike her other johns he always treated her with respect. When she got pregnant she had insisted on keeping the baby- even though Victor told her she would have to have an abortion (they were legal now anyway!)- & even agreed to pay Victor for his lost income during the months of her pregnancy. Juan also agreed that he would help her pay off her debt to Victor- & then marry her. But the young couple needed to make more money than Juan could make with his odd jobs.
This is where Daisy decided she would turn to some of her friends from the street. Debby had told her of this little blond kid that solicited for the streetwalkers who worked for Victor’s rivals. His name was Ziggy & he also had connections with the cops who controlled vice in the area. Recently, Debby told her, Ziggy had somehow been involved in the busting up of Shelton Mackey’s drug ring, & now Ridgewood & Bushwick were ripe with opportunities for smart kids to exploit. So she & Juan went to talk with Ziggy. They were shocked to learn that he was younger than them- a mere urchin of 11 or 12- at best! Yet he was as tall as Juan, & far more knowledgeable of the streets. He had 2 even younger kids with him- as helpers. 1 was a fat kid who just munched on a Hershey’s bar, & the other a 4-eyed little kid who looked up at Daisy’s loveliness as if she were the Virgin Mary, or something.
Ziggy told them that the best way to buy their freedom from Victor Imperiale was to go to work for some of the cops who had taken over some of Shelton’s territory & worked out an agreement with a new dealer from East New York- a man known as ‘Uncle’ Gabe. Uncle Gabe was a man who had fled to New York & tried his best to hide his past. But, he was far more dangerous than a small-timer like Shelton ever was, because Gabe had connections in South America that supplied him with more drugs & weapons than any 1 in Ridgewood had ever known. In later years Uncle Gabe would destroy lives with ease, but in these days he was just learning that craft. Still, Ziggy advised Juan & Daisy, stick with the cops- they were dirty, but predictable.
So, Juan was soon enlisted by some of the 2-bit hoods in the area, who owed their freedom- & thus allegiance- to a handful of slimy cops from the 104th Precinct. By just his 2nd day of dealing he had made more money than he did in a month of odd jobs. Why would any 1 work at a McDonald’s or Woolworth’s when they could do this? There was even the extra perk of being able to try for himself some of the drugs that he sold. Juan learned to enjoy getting high. In a few weeks he had made enough money to rent a small apartment across the street from Victor Imperiale’s house. Even though he still ‘officially’ lived in his parents’ apartment a few blocks away, this apartment was where his life with Daisy was. This was his life. By the time Daisy’s 1st trimester was done Juan had paid off her debt to Victor & Daisy had moved into the apartment all by herself. Unfortunately, Daisy had started doing some of the drugs that Juan had left around the apartment- pop, heroin, coke, methadone shots from the clinic, angel dust, & even some dots of acid. It was during her 7th month of pregnancy that 1 particular dot proved too much for Daisy’s system. In her delirium she went into labor. At 1st Juan did not know what to do. He tried to deliver the baby himself, until he found it was beyond his means. He ran downstairs & saw Ziggy & his little friend with glasses- a kid he had found out was named Danny. Danny had told Juan all about such things as dinosaurs & how heavy metal airplanes could fly. They had become friendly in things that their world was not a part of. As the trio rushed upstairs Daisy was pushing out the baby. But it was coming out by the toes. An odd silence was in the room as the zonked out Daisy barely seemed to notice her child’s birth. Danny told Ziggy he should go across the street & get Debby or 1 of the other girls. When they returned Debby had some towels & Ziggy said that maybe they should take Daisy to Wyckoff Heights Hospital, but both Debby & Juan strongly disagreed. Juan thought that an official record of the out-of-wedlock child would bring his father & mother shame, & Debby did not trust that hospital, after a good friend of hers had died there last year.
Besides, with Debby there everything would be ok. Indeed, the baby was delivered smoothly within 10 minutes- mostly because it was so small. But Debby wanted to know why Daisy was so relaxed & barely made a sound? What medicine was she on? Seeing a piece of acid paper near the bed Debby went into a tirade at Juan. She had seen too many of the kids that worked the streets or Glory Rows succumb to drugs. Meanwhile, the baby- seemed far smaller & fragiler than most. Even after wiping it off, getting rid of the afterbirth, & tying off the umbilical cord, there seemed to be no room in this world for Juan & Daisy’s son. On its birthday it died. Juan refused to name it. On my birthday today, February 2nd- Groundhog Day or Candlemas, to some- as I turn 39, I think back to Juan’s refusal. Did he think that a lack of name would negate the death? Debby held the infant as it took its last breath. It had lived, perhaps, 3 minutes. She decided that since Daisy would be out of things for the rest of the day that they should just tell her she had miscarried- not tell her that the baby had actually lived in this world. I did not understand it but then these were all Catholics- & they’re kind of wacky. Ziggy wasn’t a Catholic either, so he agreed with me. But, it wasn’t our kid.
Juan needed to get rid of the baby, though, & asked us where to go & what to do with it. He put the baby in a Gimble’s shopping bag & followed us to some of the alleys behind some of the local factories & sweatshops. Ziggy wanted to dump it in the 1st dumpster & get it off our hands as soon as possible, but I told him that since today was a Tuesday that 1st dumpster would not be picked up till Friday. Its stench would be sure to draw attention to the dumpster. We went a little further & found a dumpster that I knew had a Tuesday afternoon pickup. This would mean that the body would be gone before it stunk everything up & some 1 came to look in it. I had known some of the other hookers who had had dead babies did the same thing. But some of their kids had been found because some unsuspecting baglady or bum rummaged through the wrong dumpster, found the child, & called the cops. Other times a dog or a rat might sniff through the garbage, pull out the corpse, & start chewing away on it. Then it would be out in public view for some tv reporter to get a good story out of.
But I knew better about dumpsters & pickup times & their importance than the others did. A few years earlier I had met a man named Joe, who lived across Stephen Street from my family, & had a retarded daughter who was all grown up. They lived a few doors down from the Attoir family, & sometimes Joe, a retired mailman, would wheel his daughter out in a wheelchair, to sit on his front stoop on a hot summer evening. All the kids would either avoid her or make fun of her. But I liked her. I forget her name, but her fucked up eyes would always roll weirdly toward me, following me wherever I went. I noticed that she wore diapers, like I did when I was a baby. I asked Joe why & he said that she could not go to the bathroom by herself. She pissed & shat in her pants? This was weird. So, what did he do with the diapers? It seems he used to wrap them in plastic bags & dump them in local dumpsters. At 1st, he said, the owners objected when he had been caught. Especially if it was a day or 2 till the garbage would be picked up. The stink would get unholy. Then he figured out that different dumpster companies picked up their bins on different days. When he worked out their schedules he would know which day- or night, for he learned mid-night shit-dumps worked best, without any employees lingering around- a pickup was due & which dumpster to use that night. It was Joe’s knowledge I used on that Tuesday when Juan (whose last name never made my ears), Ziggy (whose last name I do not recall), & I found the dumpster where Juan’s son (lacking 1st or last name) was tossed. When we lifted the lid I knew that Joe the mailman had been there in the night, & that Juan’s son had begun a long journey along with Joe the mailman’s daughter’s shit. As Juan & Ziggy recoiled at the odor, I mused on that journey, even as years later I mused on Joe’s daughter & how much I did not want to be like her:
THE VEGETABLE
*for Joe the mailman’s daughter
When a child sees a woman shit,
in her pants, it sticks long with him,
or her?, and causes a bit
of disillusion to settle in,
for grown-ups have always been wise,
to his knowledge. To begin
with were his mom and dad, and their tries
to teach him, and grandma’s yearning
as well- but then came her eyes’
sheer tunnel, not live, only living
under a sun which does not ease
her discomfort, and seeing
someone bad, like that, can only please
the boy with the distance of it:
the land between their bodies.
& that land was nothing. Nothingness itself. & nothing is a thing which is not any thing. It is like absence, darkness, or death. All of these things are present only in their lack of presence. These are the things that we all succor from time to time. To John Brown, it was the lack of discernment which led to a monomania that would engulf a nation, & the last human being that his mortal sight beheld- a man whose own absence of self led to a playing of parts which became his only presence- a presence which was easily filled with rationalizations- savior, avenger, righter, vigilante, hero. It was the lack of humanity which moved Victor Imperiale- a fat, balding, old dago- to deny Daisy the call girl her freedom. Instead he wanted more money from his top girl, even though he had more than enough to never need to work a day in his life again. That which is not also took hold of Daisy- whose life was so without joy that she needed to escape in to another possibility- 1 which led to her baby’s slow death in her own poisoned body; even if she never knew it. & Juan also was without- for him it was the approval of his parents- especially his father’s. This lack drove him to a secret life in which he never once mentioned to them the name of the girl he loved to them, the girl his father had introduced him to in his shame over his son’s failures, & the grandson that had for a few minutes been theirs. He feared his father like that long dead slave boy that fed John Brown did his cruel Master. As we left the dumpster Juan went off in another direction from us. I do not remember ever seeing him again. But, for us there were always things to do & Ziggy & I had to do them. Ridgewood was a wonderful space we would fill with what we could.
But, things cannot help but to change. Ziggy, again, parted ways with me & went off to a secret life I only had hints of. I later met up with Georgey G. & we decided to make some money with the remaining bit of the afternoon that was left. We met up with a free hooker named Theresa. She never worked for any 1 but herself. About 40% of the hookers were independents like Theresa- they had no pimps, & they were the easiest to get money from. Theresa was especially generous, & had taught me & Georgey almost as much of the business as Ziggy had. For example, when the johns would cruise by in their cars & look at the girls in the doorways we learned which johns were on the level & which were psychos- just by the looks in their eyes. Theresa taught us that this was the most important thing we needed to do. If we saw that 1 of the johns was a psycho, no matter which girl he picked to come closer, we’d tell her that her ass was black- meaning that some other john had just paid for her & was coming back in a few minutes. A black ass meant bought & paid for- no ifs, &s, or buts! A white ass was an ass that was free for business. I have always suspected this term evolved over the centuries from the slave markets, but I am not sure. Sometimes, however, a john would get pissed if you told him the girls were black-assed. They might curse at us, or threaten us. Despite all of our streetsmarts, the truth was that we were just kids, & even more vulnerable than the hookers. This is where we learned the value of names. Even if the girl was not an employee of Victor Imperiale just the mention of his name, as their employer, in those parts would be enough to dissuade most of the johns from any further bullshit. The few that were still angry usually let go of their rage if it was implied that a particular nearby junky was really an undercover vice cop, & a kid like me was doing him a favor by warning him of a sting.
