The Optimist: Part 1

Narrated by Mike McCrae

Wyatt considered himself, above all things, an optimist.

This was unusual because life had given the boy every opportunity to be otherwise. Still, he remained hopeful. Kind to strangers. Patient with the elderly. And even generous when generosity made no logical or fiscal sense on his part.

He also happened to be profoundly retarded which made faith in humanity a far easier burden to carry than most men could appreciate.

At twenty-eight years old he lived in Hell’s Kitchen with his two roommates named Carter and Break. Break’s real name was Jaramy Breaker. A name almost as stupid as Wyatt himself and for as long Break could remember, people called him Break. Carter Allen existed in a quieter fashion. To be honest, Wyatt could not confidently describe the sound of Carter’s voice. The man spoke so infrequently that Wyatt sometimes wondered if Carter was ashamed of his voice or if he could even speak at all. But the trio remained amicable and never argued and even did each others dishes from time to time without resentment or expectation.

Wyatt woke up that morning with eighty-seven dollars in his checking account; nearly twice the amount he normally possessed at this stage of the month. His grandmother had given him a scratch-off lottery ticket for Christmas and within the machinery of God’s plan for us all, he was blessed sixty additional dollars. This meant beer tonight. And if fortune continued smiling upon him, perhaps something hot and greasy from Fitzgerald’s down the block.

Wyatt lived by a simple financial principle: it cost thirty dollars a day to leave the house. Every time Wyatt stepped outside, thirty dollars vanished. Maybe it became a beer. Maybe it became a sandwich. Maybe it became a purchase so stupid he would refuse to discuss it later. The details may change but the outcome never did.

As a result, Wyatt had spent the last five days doing nothing besides commuting to work and returning home. Payday was three days away. Eighty-seven dollars divided by three came out to roughly thirty dollars a day, which meant Wyatt could safely participate in society again.

Then payday would arrive. Then the bills would arrive. Then the money would disappear. Then another payday would arrive. This was the rhythm of Wyatt’s life. The tide came in. The tide went out. His checking account briefly flourished before returning to its natural state.

The subject of money came up once between Wyatt and Carter, which made it one of the longest conversations they had ever shared. Carter responded by quoting a French philosopher who had supposedly said, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” Wyatt had no idea who Sisyphus was. But he suspected the son of a bitch made considerably more money than he did.

Wyatt worked at a printing store in midtown where he printed things for people who could not print them for themselves. He packed their boxes, taped them, and shipped them off. The boy worked five days a week, Monday through Friday. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, he was supervised by the owner of the store, Houng, an elderly Vietnamese man whom Wyatt cared for and generally got along with. Houng was patient. He spoke softly. And most importantly he rarely asked Wyatt to do anything. Every Tuesday and Thursday he was supervised by Grace, Houng’s daughter. A woman ten years younger than Wyatt who seemed to take genuine pleasure in making him uncomfortable with habitual sexual advances.

Why a printing store needed two managers is about as much of a mystery as what would possess a mother to name her child Jaramy, but not everything in life is worth questioning. However, the pair alternated managerial duties throughout the week which Wyatt appreciated because it gave him one extra day with Houng and one less day with Grace.

Today, however, was Saturday. And with $87 in his back account, and Tuesday’s payday sat just over the horizon, this left the boy hopeful and unburdened by his usual financial and mental restraints. Three blocks later he found himself heading west toward Fitzgerald’s dressed in a pair of jorts, New Balances, and a white t-shirt beneath a yellowing button-up he refused to throw away. A woman had once told him he looked handsome in it. Wyatt understood that women occasionally lied, but there was no harm in giving the shirt another opportunity to tell the truth.

With his headphones on and sunglasses covering his eyes, New York became almost pleasant. Not pleasant enough to live in, of course. No city containing this many immigrants attempting to coexist in harmony could ever be described as pleasant, Wyatt reasoned. But pleasant enough to walk through. The noise softened. The crowds blurred together. The endless sense of urgency that seemed to afflict everyone south of Yonkers finally stopped afflicting Wyatt. The city still thrashed and barked around him, but from a distance, like a dog chained in somebody else's yard. And for perhaps the first time all year, Wyatt felt a sense of peace.

This was a rare sensation for him. Most days his mind existed somewhere between mild panic and basic arithmetic. How much money did he have? When was rent due? Had he responded to that text message? Was his grandmother still upset with him Had he remembered to move the laundry?

Today, however, there was only sunshine. An attractive woman smiled at him while passing in the opposite direction. A pigeon landed near his feet and stared at him. By the time he reached the front door of Fitzgerald’s, Wyatt had begun to suspect life might actually be worth participating in.

Then he was grabbed by the back of his neck by two men and subsequently thrown into the back of a nearby van.

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It took the boy several seconds for his eyes to adjust to the light after the bag was ripped from his head. As he sat, bound to a chair, blinking his kidnappers into focus, he could not help but to wonder how he had allowed himself to be abducted with such ease. The efficiency of the operation was honestly remarkable. By the time Wyatt fully understood he was being abducted, his mouth had been gagged, his wrists restrained, and a blindfold secured around his head. The entire affair unfolded with such precision that both his sunglasses and headphones remained perfectly in place despite being tossed into the back of a moving vehicle, giving him a soundtrack to his own kidnapping

“Wyatt McFarris.” came a familiar voice. “You’re a difficult man to find.”

Wyatt was not a difficult man to find. He had worked at the same print shop for thirteen consecutive months. He lived in the same apartment. He ate at the same restaurants. Most weeks his financial situation prevented him from traveling farther than several city blocks in any direction. If anything, Wyatt was among the easiest men in North America to locate.

“Charlie,” he croaked. “Was all this really necessary?”

“Yes. Yes, it was.” Charlie stepped forward into the light. “You owe us money, Wyatt. A lot of money.”

“$400 isn’t that much mon—”

The slap struck Wyatt across the face faster than he had been kidnapped. The pain woke the boy instantly, removing whatever grogginess half an hour bound and gagged in the back of a moving van had left him with.

“Listen here, you little shit,” came another voice. “We fronted you the dope. You were supposed to sell the dope.”

“I got robbed. By your associates, remember?”

Charlie’s second slap arrived with the same lightning quickness as the first. At least he had the courtesy to strike the opposite cheek, balancing out the tenderness.

Wyatt screamed. “AHHHG! Stop hitting me!”

“Then stop interrupting,” Charlie replied in a voice that was deeply calm for being the catalyst of an active hostage situation.

After two ferocious slaps to the face and several minutes to adjust to his new surroundings, Wyatt knew exactly where he was and, regrettably, who he was with.

His three captors stood around him, each displaying a different variety of unhappiness.

To Wyatt’s right stood a hulking brute of a man known only as Pharaoh. Wyatt had never learned his real name, nor did he possess the courage necessary to ask for it. The man stood somewhere between six foot six and seven feet tall depending on Wyatt’s emotional state. His shoulders were so broad they seemed to enter a room several seconds before the rest of him. Thick forearms disappeared into wrists the size of Wyatt’s calves, and the sleeves of his black t-shirt clung stubbornly to arms that looked carved rather than grown. His head was shaved smooth enough to catch the light, his face strangely handsome despite possessing all the warmth of poured concrete. Pharaoh could have been twenty-four or forty-four. Who was to say? What Wyatt did know for certain was that Pharaoh was a man who was not to be tested.

To Wyatt’s left stood Harry Strickland, who had clearly lost a long and bitter war with gluttony. Harry was every bit as tall as Pharaoh, but where Pharaoh’s size suggested discipline, Harry’s suggested surrender. His stomach strained against a sweat-soaked polo shirt, his neck folded into itself whenever he looked down, and his cheeks possessed the soft, overripe fullness of fruit left too long in the sun. A miserable collection of pale yellow whiskers clung to his blotchy face like weeds growing through cracked pavement, while boils crowded around his nose as though competing for territory. The man breathed loudly enough to be mistaken for machinery. Every inhale sounded expensive.

How Wyatt had allowed himself to be abducted by these two behemoths brought him no small amount of shame. However, there would be plenty of time to feel ashamed later.

And standing between the two giants was Charlie.

Charles Preston was one of the smallest men Wyatt had ever seen. He stood no more than five foot three, perhaps five foot four on an optimistic day. He possessed a beautiful head of reddish-brown hair, kept in a nearly perfect bob, and a slight frame that resembled that of a woman.

Wyatt had known this day would come. He did not however believe it would come on a Saturday, especially the day he mustered enough courage to leave his apartment. He owed the Parishioners a great deal of money. More money than he possessed. More money than he had ever possessed. For months he had quietly rehearsed this moment in his head. Sometimes they beat him. Sometimes they shot him. Occasionally they tied cinder blocks to his feet and introduced him to the Hudson River. On particularly optimistic evenings, they merely broke a few fingers before allowing him to return to work on Monday where he would be yelled at by Huong for being unable to physically pack boxes, then being sexually harassed by Grace the following day who would undoubtedly find a way to turn his broken fingers into some perverse scenario.

A man living paycheck to paycheck has an astonishing amount of time to negotiate with his own mortality. So Wyatt had made peace with it but now the waiting was over.

He sat bound to a chair, wrists aching beneath the zip ties, surrounded by three men whose names inspired equal parts fear and whispered conversation in the corners of New York most decent people had the good sense to avoid.

“I was moving your dope without issue before your idiot nephew stole everything I had. I told you that.”

“You called us on a non-secure phone to admit to a criminal conspiracy.” Harry Strickland shook his head in genuine disbelief. “You are every bit as dumb as the nigger you live with. I told Charlie we never should’ve gotten you involved.”

“Jaramy’s not a nigger. He’s a good per—”

For a man the size of Harry Strickland, he moved with considerable quickness. Before he could finish talking, Wyatt learned exactly how he was abducted by a man the size of a small vehicle. Harry’s fist buried itself in Wyatt’s stomach with enough force to empty his lungs and erase the rest of the sentence from his mind.

Wyatt doubled over in the chair, gasping soundlessly, his body desperately searching for air that no longer seemed interested in him.

“Thank you, Harry,” Charlie said pleasantly.

He crouched in front of Wyatt until their faces were nearly level.

“There, there.” Charlie smiled as though comforting a frightened child. “Looks like you’re finally beginning to appreciate the value of shutting the fuck up while I’m talking. I hate when people cannot shut the fuck up while I am talking.”

Charlie stood up, and placed his hands on the back of Wyatt’s head in a cupping motion. “Do you feel that? Your heart rate, your sweat, you’re scared. I don’t need you scared, Wyatt. I need you focused. Harry, is there anything we can do to help the boy focus?”

Wyatt heard a quiet chuckle, followed by the unmistakable sound of a belt slipping free from its buckle. He raised his head, unsure what fresh indignity awaited him. Whatever he imagined, it was not what was now standing in front of him.

Harry Strickland stood before him with his pants around his ankles, grinning like a man who had just accomplished the impossible. Even his manhood was ugly. His fully erect penis pointed at Wyatt in an ominous and accusatory fashion. Its red, bulbous tip sitting on top of a purplish shaft covered in so many veins, Wyatt wondered how something could look so erect while looking so devoid of blood circulation. Beneath his member was a forest of reddish pubic hair matted in a fashion that seemed to be combed and styled for just this moment to produce the maximum levels of uncomfortableness for the viewer.

Wyatt, being that viewer in particular, was perturbed. Harry, however, seemed inordinately proud of the thing. He rocked lazily from heel to toe, allowing it to sway with him like a pendulum, wearing the sort of smile usually reserved for fathers watching their sons hit a first home run. Wyatt had never seen anyone derive so much confidence from being so profoundly unfortunate.

“Wyatt.” Charlie began. “Have you ever had your ass taken?”

Wyatt opened his mouth, decided against it, then simply shook his head.

“Hmm, I figured not. Most men haven’t. Brutal business, having your ass taken.”

“Brutal business.” Harry chimed in.

“Fucking brutal.” Pharaoh parroted.

“I remember the first time my ass was taken. It was, of course, in prison. His name was Papa, or that is at least what he had me call him.”

Charlie sauntered around the room, speaking upwards as if he had prepared this monologue for a much larger audience than the present, all while Harry Strickland remained naked from the waist down, and Pharaoh stood there, picking at his finger nails. Wyatt looked down only to see the shadow of Harry and his disturbingly large cock swaying back and forth.

“Papa asked me that very same question. ‘Charles,’ he said, ‘have you had your ass taken?’ Strange thing to ask another grown man. Stranger still what came after.

“You know what I did once it was all over?”

Charlie paused.

“I thanked him…. He taught me something every man eventually has to learn. We spend our whole lives trying to protect this imaginary thing called dignity. We clutch it to our chest. We polish it. We build our identities around it. Then one unfortunate Tuesday, life reaches down, takes it from you, and carries on as though nothing happened…. And what do you discover?”

Charlie’s voice grew louder.

“That you’re still here. The sun still rises. Your coffee still gets cold. The rent is still due on the first. The world has no interest whatsoever in your personal tragedy. It simply keeps spinning. That is freedom, Wyatt. There is no freedom in avoiding humiliation, but there is in surviving it. The moment you realize the worst thing you can imagine has already happened, the rest of life loses its ability to negotiate with you.”

Spit had begun collecting in the corners of Charlie’s mouth. Wyatt had absolutely no idea where the little man was going with this speech, and if he was being honest, he wasn’t sure Charlie did either. What’s more upsetting was how Harry remained grinning and erect during this entire monologue.

“That's the cruel thing about enlightenment, Wyatt. You only receive it after the event that made you need it in the first place. A man cannot know how freeing it is to have his ass taken until his ass has already been took. However, and fortunately for me, there is no greater motivator than the fear of becoming enlightened. Which brings us neatly back to the money you owe me.”

Wyatt swallowed.

“Wyatt, you owe us five thousand American dollars.” Charlie smiled warmly. “However, after careful consideration, Harry, Pharaoh, and I have unanimously agreed to extend to you what I would describe as an act of extraordinary Christian mercy.”

Wyatt nodded.

“You strike me as a God-fearing, decent white man. Those are becoming difficult to find is this filthy town. I mean every where you look it’s Ching Chong this, or some jungle music playing from one of those nogs blasting their big ass speakers on the subway. So, instead of five thousand, you will pay me four thousand dollars.”

Charlie held up a finger.

“Cash.”

Another finger.

“Tuesday.”

A third.

“By 11:59 p.m.”

He smiled again.

“I have very strong feelings about punctuality, Wyatt. Now, if you cannot meet this deadline, I’m sure you understand what will happen to you at the gentle and loving hands of Mister Harry Ulysses Strickland.”

Wyatt nodded again, this time more pronounced than the last.

Charlie clapped his hands once.

“Good! I knew we’d find common ground. Now, I do understand my nephew may have complicated things for you. But there is truly no excuse in our line of work to lose so much product, Wyatt.”

“How in the hell do you let a blind kid rob you, dipshit?” Pharaoh interrupted.

“Pharoah!” Harry yelled, “Josiah is blind but he was still able to see the bitch in Wyatt. Hahaha!”

The three men laughed together while Wyatt kept his head lowered. The weight of the situation had quietly relieved him of his sense of humor.

“Wyatt, do you know what became of Papa Charlie smiled to himself. “Curious thing, really. For the remainder of my sentence he had his way with me. Whenever he pleased. I obliged, naturally. A man can survive many things. Being stabbed simply isn’t one of the preferable methods.”

He folded his hands behind his back and began pacing again. “Then, through what I can only describe as divine comedy, his sentence ended the very same morning my conviction was overturned. We walked out of prison together. Can you imagine? The two of us, free men at last.”

He chuckled. “We spent the entire day celebrating. I met his mother. His sisters. His cousins. His son.” Charlie nodded toward Pharaoh. “Wonderful people. Hospitable. Fed me. Treated me like family.”

He grew quiet. “Then, after everyone had gone home…”Another pause. “I took his ass.” Charlie smiled.

“As a matter of principle, of course. You cannot take things without expecting them to be repaid. This is the lesson I am trying to teach you, my boy.”

Silence.

“Then I beat him to death with a golf club.”

Charlie shrugged.

“Pharaoh found me shortly afterward and helped me dispose of his father’s body. Mr. Papa, it turns out, had developed quite an appetite for taking asses that did not belong to him. Still, I believe we left this world as even men.” He smiled to himself. “A lovely ending, really. He taught me an awful lot.”

“Fuck him,” Pharaoh muttered before spitting onto the floor with the kind of finality that suggested the matter required no further discussion.

Charlie clapped his hands together once. “Well. He looked directly at Wyatt. “This Tuesday. Not Wednesday. Not Tuesday night-ish. Tuesday. Eleven fifty-nine. Cash.” He straightened Wyatt’s collar with surprising tenderness.

“I’ve enjoyed seeing you again today, but I am certain you will not enjoy seeing me on Wednesday if I am not $4000 richer.” Then he stepped aside.

“Boys… bag him up.”

“What? No!” Wyatt screamed, but it was already too late. Moments later he was back in the van, blindfolded, bouncing down the road, this time without so much as a pair of headphones to distract him from his circumstances.

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