Paper Bags and Angels
At one thirty in the morning, with cold, fat rain beating against your head, a paper bag is a piece of heaven. It’s just as much a piece of heaven as any angel. ‘Cause angels don’t come down anymore. They can’t be expected to stop by and hold their wings over your head just as the hardest part of the storm hits and people in their Mercedes drive by and pretend they don’t see you, sopping wet and shivering. But my paper bag, that’s my angel.
Paper bags move with you. They fold. They rip and stretch. They fit into your back pocket. They become a pocket. In the summer, they’re fans to keep you cool and shoo the flies away from the food you just dug out of the dumpster. If there’s a new taskmaster at the shelter you like going too, then the paper bag is the perfect place to scribble down his name. Forget his name and you might not get a cot. Forget his name and you might not get a meal. Forget his name and you might have to walk fifteen blocks to the next shelter. To the one run by the guy you don’t know at all. The guy who doesn’t really give a damn if you get a meal.
Paper bag, pocket organizer, PDA…same difference.
You see, what you do is you hang at the grocery stores, around the big, industrial trash dumpsters. Make friends with the third shift stocker. He’s the one who can get you the most paper bags. He’ll be the kind of guy that doesn’t mind going against company policy. That’s why he works third shift. So he can listen to his headphones as he cleans up the Florida orange juice spill on aisle seven. Or as he cleans up the busted pickle jar on aisle three that makes the whole place smell like vinegar so everyone who comes in suddenly wants to buy salads. Or as he’s cleaning up the pile of kid shit on aisle twelve that leaked out of someone’s pull-ups. If he’s lucky, the kid shit is firm little milk duds. If he ain’t lucky, it’s melted Hershey’s. Yeah, the third shift guy deals with shit a lot, in one form or another, and will give you a steady supply of crisp, sharp, freshly folded paper bags; just as his way of saying, fuck the man that picked the oranges spilled on aisle seven, fuck everyone who wants salads, and especially fuck the little tike dropping crap care packages all across the store.
When you first get a fresh batch of bags, and they still smell like oak, take one and tuck it under your shirt, against your skin, in the warm layer between your stomach and your undershirt. As for the rest, toss ‘em into the first dumpster you come across. Smear ‘em with rotted bananas and a splash of skunked beer. Rub ‘em against the concrete a few times and beat the creases out of ‘em. Otherwise, the “Lucys,” with their shopping carts and layers of knee high stockings, will snatch them right out from under you while you sleep. There’s a reason they call ‘em bag ladies.
A paper bag is really good for a long time. When you can, use it to carry stuff. When it rips, use it to wrap stuff. When it’s shredded, use it to insulate the soles of our shoes or wipe your ass. When your shoes are full and your ass is clean, use whatever you have left over to make notes. When your notes begin to go on top of other notes and nothing makes sense anymore, give the scraps to the guy that lives under the 71st street bridge, the Squirrel Man. He’ll thank you and, if you’re lucky, offer some of whatever he’s eating. Just don’t be too picky about where dinner came from.
After all of this, when your brown paper bag has been ripped and shredded and marked on or given to the squirrel man or just isn’t worth a damn anymore. When you’re shivering and those cold, fat drops of rain are knocking the last pieces of sanity from your brain. When it’s oozing from your ears and you start to think that maybe, if you jumped from a high enough bridge, just maybe you could fly away from all the shit your life has become. This is when you dig into your shirt. Down past the wet layers. Past the grime and grease and bad memories of the way life used to be, that memory that crawls over you like a shiny, black centipede at 2 am, tapping out “Nevermore” with it’s bazillion sharp, little, needle feet. Dig past that, dig down to the skin.
Pull out that one crisp paper bag, that one you tucked away as soon as you got it. The one with the sharp creases and the fresh, woodsy smell. The one that still crackles when your fingers find it, like some freckled, golden leaf fresh off the tree. Use it to carry around your brains until the rain stops. Use it to keep you away from bridges and dreams of flight. If you want, you can call it your angel.
Paper bag, pocket organizer, PDA…same difference.
You see, what you do is you hang at the grocery stores, around the big, industrial trash dumpsters. Make friends with the third shift stocker. He’s the one who can get you the most paper bags. He’ll be the kind of guy that doesn’t mind going against company policy. That’s why he works third shift. So he can listen to his headphones as he cleans up the Florida orange juice spill on aisle seven. Or as he cleans up the busted pickle jar on aisle three that makes the whole place smell like vinegar so everyone who comes in suddenly wants to buy salads. Or as he’s cleaning up the pile of kid shit on aisle twelve that leaked out of someone’s pull-ups. If he’s lucky, the kid shit is firm little milk duds. If he ain’t lucky, it’s melted Hershey’s. Yeah, the third shift guy deals with shit a lot, in one form or another, and will give you a steady supply of crisp, sharp, freshly folded paper bags; just as his way of saying, fuck the man that picked the oranges spilled on aisle seven, fuck everyone who wants salads, and especially fuck the little tike dropping crap care packages all across the store.
When you first get a fresh batch of bags, and they still smell like oak, take one and tuck it under your shirt, against your skin, in the warm layer between your stomach and your undershirt. As for the rest, toss ‘em into the first dumpster you come across. Smear ‘em with rotted bananas and a splash of skunked beer. Rub ‘em against the concrete a few times and beat the creases out of ‘em. Otherwise, the “Lucys,” with their shopping carts and layers of knee high stockings, will snatch them right out from under you while you sleep. There’s a reason they call ‘em bag ladies.
A paper bag is really good for a long time. When you can, use it to carry stuff. When it rips, use it to wrap stuff. When it’s shredded, use it to insulate the soles of our shoes or wipe your ass. When your shoes are full and your ass is clean, use whatever you have left over to make notes. When your notes begin to go on top of other notes and nothing makes sense anymore, give the scraps to the guy that lives under the 71st street bridge, the Squirrel Man. He’ll thank you and, if you’re lucky, offer some of whatever he’s eating. Just don’t be too picky about where dinner came from.
After all of this, when your brown paper bag has been ripped and shredded and marked on or given to the squirrel man or just isn’t worth a damn anymore. When you’re shivering and those cold, fat drops of rain are knocking the last pieces of sanity from your brain. When it’s oozing from your ears and you start to think that maybe, if you jumped from a high enough bridge, just maybe you could fly away from all the shit your life has become. This is when you dig into your shirt. Down past the wet layers. Past the grime and grease and bad memories of the way life used to be, that memory that crawls over you like a shiny, black centipede at 2 am, tapping out “Nevermore” with it’s bazillion sharp, little, needle feet. Dig past that, dig down to the skin.
Pull out that one crisp paper bag, that one you tucked away as soon as you got it. The one with the sharp creases and the fresh, woodsy smell. The one that still crackles when your fingers find it, like some freckled, golden leaf fresh off the tree. Use it to carry around your brains until the rain stops. Use it to keep you away from bridges and dreams of flight. If you want, you can call it your angel.
Appears in “The Spartan”
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