Self Inflicted | Chapter 4
"The trio held their breath. They craned their heads towards the screen and saw that the hawk’s yellow talons were still just barely in frame."
There are people you come to meet in a city like New York who think so vastly differently than you do, that you all at once realize that the path you’ve chosen was not the only path possible. Their off hand questions slap you with the reality that they themselves have rich and full lives and, most notably, a series of life experiences that you have not had. They care about different things. They fit the world into different boxes. And they are willing to work towards something you would never even think to want to work towards. For Alexi, Tanooj, who already pushed him towards this boundary of bohemian life throughout their childhood, stood no candle to their third roommate Hector Elizondo.
Hector was a shotgun. If he got excited about something, he would get as many people around him involved as possible. When he found out about wide toe box shoes, he instantly bought a pair for his two roommates, the head server at the two Michelin starred restaurant where he worked, and his brother back home. He went further, hiding all the other shoes in their two story Bushwick abode, so that everyone had to wear the fashion killing clogs for a week straight. He kept his shoes on even in people’s homes, covering the bottom with plastic shoe covers, so that they could be talked about at every opportunity. He kept them on even in the pool for God's sake.
After one month, Tanooj had had enough. He and Alexi hosted an intervention which started with several of their friends sitting Hector down and revealing fake stories about how his toe-health obsession has wreaked havoc in their lives.
“I haven’t been willing to take my socks off ever since you commented on my toe-smashing-shoes. I’ve got a complex now.”
“Hector, your mom is worried about you. She asked me to make sure you haven't bought more than six pairs.”
“We’re worried you’ll never fall in love again, what if he is perfect but wears Jordan's. You would throw the whole relationship away.”
Hector died laughing with each story. “That’s it!” He shouted, grabbing the room's attention, “my addiction to foot health has caused you all immeasurable harm. The first step to recovery is to remove access to the addictive substance!”
He walked over to the lopsided shoe rack to the right of the front door and grabbed his beaten to death shoes. He opened the front door and ceremoniously chucked them out onto the street.
He turned back around and lifted his arms in triumph, “Huzzah!!”
“Woo!” Everyone cheered in response.
The shoes stayed there in the middle of the sidewalk for eighteen days. Even the down on their luck didn't consider them worth taking. Hector drew a big circle around the shoes in chalk and wrote the words “Free, please take them!” in big bubble letters with arrows pointing towards the shoes. The shoes remained for another six days. Finally, Hector decided to incentivize their adoption and strapped a five dollar bill to one of the shoe’s tongues under the central column of laces. Someone just took the money.
“This is crazy guys, no one wants the shoes! How bad did they look when I had them on?”
“Really bad.”
“I’m still wearing mine from time to time. I got a compliment the other day, but to be fair that girl had on even worse shoes. Her toes were all split apart,” Tanooj chimed in.
“They looked really really bad.”
“When did everyone get so fashionable, it doesn’t look that different from a normal shoe.”
“They looked really really really bad,” Alexi repeated for the third time.
“Bro, actually the most insane thing is that no one will even move them. They haven't been kicked over, thrown away, nothing. It's like they are invisible.”
“I wonder what kinds of things people would pick up.”
“THAT'S GENIUS!” Hector shouted.
“What?” his two roommates inquired at the same time.
“I’ll put out progressively more desirable stuff on the sidewalk and a camera and record how long it takes for people to take them. And who takes them.”
“Why would you do that though,” Alexi poked, “They will pick up money and won’t pick up leftovers. There’s literally nothing to learn, and not enough time for you to waste on it.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure, what if my leftover dinner was really good. If the smell of it wafted through the air and there was a sign that said, “’food put out five minutes ago, no double dipping, I just got too full.’”
“I still wouldn’t trust it,” Alexi remarked.
“Hahaha you just aren't hungry enough, I bet someone, and not even a hobo, will take it.” Tanooj supported.
“Bro, you shouldn't call people hobos. 5$ says no one takes it, 10$ if whoever takes it is not obviously unhoused.”
“You’re on my silly little sheltered Alexi. You don’t know how hungry you can get out in the streets.”
“And you know the streets?” Alexi Laughed, “We grew up like 3 blocks apart.”
“You don’t know the difference those three blocks made,” Tanooj held his heart somberly in a gesture of pain.
“Woah Woah, guys, you’re betting on my art right now. I’ll call it, “’Bending Over for Tat’.”
“Once you make the art, the consumers get to care about it however they want,” Tanooj responded, “And I intend to profit off of your performance piece.”
“You are the expert in re-use law huh Mr copyright infringement.”
Tanooj smiled back at Hector.
“Well, let me borrow your video camera. I’ll set it up from my window upstairs so no one mistakes that as free.”
Hector curated a list of ten items that would undergo this experimental giveaway: A NY Times best seller, a Spanish to English dictionary, a closed Cup Ramen, freshly cooked Cup Ramen with chopsticks, a half used candle that purports to smell of “Beers at the Chalet”, a pair of crisp white tube socks, a pair of Hector’s underpants, an enormous length of climbing rope, a full Michael Meyers Halloween costume, and finally, leftover spaghetti with a sign that says “Leave the plate. Take or eat the spaghetti”.
Things went as you might expect. The books were swooped up in minutes. The closed cup of ramen was also taken fairly quickly. The tube socks took a day. The underpants, candle, rope, and Halloween costume were never taken. The interesting ones were the cooked ramen and the spaghetti. Hector put out the ramen at noon, hoping to catch a hungry pedestrian's eye during their lunchtime sojourn. He felt the steam from the top of the cup would attract attention so he brought it back inside to microwave it again every ten minutes. After about an hour he got tired of the back and forth and just let it sit. He went to work at 4pm and came home at midnight to a shock: the cold ramen had been taken!
“Guys! The ramen is gone!”
“No way, It was here when I got home,” Alexi remarked.
“To the caMEHraaaaaa!” Hector commanded in a Matt Berry-esque theatrical British voice. They crowded around Tanooj’s work laptop, the only one in the house that still had an SD-card reader built in. They watched in heated anticipation as VLC Media Player attempted to open P1010034_0324.AVI. The latest video file was over 7 hours long. Tanooj moved the video cursor to the end where they saw an empty sidewalk. He went back a few minutes and caught the tail end of Hector returning home from work, running into the house in excitement.
“Binary search it man what are you doing.” Alexi commented.
Tanooj moved back another ten minutes to again an empty street.
“Give it here,” Alexi demanded and took hold of the laptop. Tanooj acquiesced.
Alexi moved the cursor to the middle of the video and they all saw that the cup ramen sat motionless. He then moved the cursor to 3/4ths of the way to the end of the video. The ramen was still there. He moved the cursor another 1/8ths of the way forward and miraculously discovered in the seven hours of video the exact moment the ramen was “picked up.”
The cup sat motionless. No one walked by. Suddenly a pair of birds, no taller than the cup itself flew into frame. They landed on the gate demarcating their abode from the sidewalk. The birds sat there and looked at the ramen and then each other. They then fluttered down to investigate the bright orange Styrofoam container. The first pecked at its side and then searched the ground to its left. The second seemed to sniff at the air.
“No way...”
“Is that bird smelling the ramen? Alexa, can birds smell?” Tanooj asked to the room.
“Yes, birds can smell, but their sense of smell is generall—”
“Alexa, shut up.”
The sniffing bird flapped its wings pushing the ramen cup over a few inches to the first bird’s surprise. It flapped once more and shot out of the frame. The first bird stayed intrigued. Alexi moved the cursor another 25 minutes forward to the 6 hours and 30 minutes mark.
“What are you doing!”
“What? There’s no way it was the bird dude.”
“But look! It's gone now and you barely skipped forward! Go back.”
Alexi re-winded to the 6 hour mark and they saw the Cup Ramen sitting motionless. A man walked by.
“Bro where was that spot?”
“Shh, it's here somewhere.” Alexi moved forward another few minutes. Finally, they saw the pair of birds sitting on the iron gate. He forwarded another few seconds and the trio picked up where they had left off, with a single raptor investigating the ramen.
It was an elegant looking bird, with speckled brown and white feathers and a cute rounded head tipped with a short sharp beak. Its intelligent inquisition seemed heightened as it looked at the wrapping, as if reading the label on the ramen. Maybe it was allergic to shellfish and wanted to double check. The bird jumped a few feet away onto a short stone pillar marking the beginning of the neighbor’s property. The trio held their breath. They craned their heads towards the screen and saw that the hawk’s yellow talons were still just barely in frame. For four long seconds Alexi, Tanooj, and Hector stifled their exhales. A brown blur flashed across the screen. The ramen was gone.
“WHOA!” They all shouted in various ways.
Alexi immediately re-winded and tried pausing at the exact moment the ramen disappeared. The bird was on screen for literally 2 frames. The first frame it hovered above the ramen, the second it was halfway across the screen holding an orange ovoid beneath it.
“What the fuck!”
“Dude this is insane. I gotta show this to Ben. Replay it, let me film it.”
“Let me clip it and send it to you guys,” Hector announced, grabbing hold of the laptop.
Alexi reclined and let out a relieved sigh, “For a second there I thought the world had ended. No person would dare be so unhinged as to eat street ramen. I’ll take my 5$ now.”
“Why would you get 5$?” Tanooj responded.
“Because the food was not taken by a human.”
“Firstly, you said “no one” not no human, and secondly you are literally trolling. Free food is free food, this is some wacko privileged take.”
“Dude are you seriously gonna legalese your way out of this?”
“Don’t worry!” Hector interjected, “There is still the pasta. My final experiment! MUAHAHAH,” Hector added his trademark evil laugh. It was a damn good evil laugh, deep and resonant, full of calculating malice.
“Fine, this one can be nullified but for the pasta, I’m saying HUMAN. A HUMAN must take it.”
“You’re on.”
“I’ve been on. Ah damn it's already 12:45, I gotta go to bed.”
Alexi got up and headed for the shower.
Alexi woke up at 5am every day to check if he got any emails from their clients in Asia or if his director gave him any work to do in the middle of the night that needed to be addressed before their morning meeting. He got chewed out a few weeks ago for not responding to an email his boss sent at 2:00am until 9:00am, and was now on high alert. It usually wasn’t too difficult, but it had to be done as fast as possible. He’d open his laptop while still under the covers in his darkened room and re-run some excel spreadsheet with a new set of numbers or work on some new model until he felt confident that he’d made enough headway that the pile of work he’d have left to do by the time he got into the office would be manageable. Some days this meant he arrived at work at 7:30am and others days at 9:45am.
A soft knock at his door interrupted his morning flow. Hector peeked his head into the room.
“Glad I could catch you before you headed to work.”
Alexi looked at him impatiently from beneath the hood he had made out of his comforter.
“You look comfy on the bed,” Hector started but saw that Alexi was in business mode. “My boyfriend needs a place to stay for the next week or so. I wanted to make sure it was cool with you since we share a bathroom.”
“Boyfriend?” Alexi felt an initial repulsion at this idea. His mind automatically imagined the future, “He’s gonna stay up even later than normal, my sleep will be disturbed, ugh, what if he wakes up in the morning and is showering when I need to rush out the door,” his mind lept next to general annoyances with Hector, “he used my fucking plate for the spaghetti experiment and someone took it, so inconsidera–”
“Haha yeah I guess it is a little early to call Pierre my boyfriend, he certainly hasn’t asked me to be, BUT, I think this one is the big one man. I love him already!”
“Y’all have only met like four times,” Alexi responded, focusing on the wrong issue, as though that was what he had a problem with.
“His apartment got flooded. He just moved out here from France, he hasn’t got many other connections yet. Please! Please, please, please,” Hector jumped onto the bed with Alexi and kowtowed to accentuate his pleading.
“Oh man,” Alexi felt bad for the guy.
“OK but only for a week.”
“You’re the best!” Hector exclaimed and rushed out of the room before Alexi could change his mind. Alexi let out a big sigh and leaned back into his headboard. He sat like that with his eyes closed for a while thinking fragments of thoughts. “September 9th… last week Isla visited… my jaw still hurts… now Hector’s Frenchman… they started running on the weekends… ugh Patrick still hasn’t sent me the updated files.”
His heart raced.
“Shit what time is it? Shit.”
Alexi closed his laptop, put on a dress shirt, coat, and pants and ran out without brushing his teeth.
Currently: 88/100