Chapter 9: Death to the Pagan God of Optimism
“Quincy, you okay? Can you hear me Quincy?”
Shaquana tugged Quincy on the arm hoping his eyes would pop open. Then her body locked up. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a police officer coming towards her. She was not sure how to explain to the police why she was sitting next to a unconscious boy. Then she realized if he questioned her, they might search her backpack. She was not sure what to do with it, as it was loaded with a cornucopia of drugs. Her first thought was to put it on Quincy, but then a feeling of guilt came over her. It had been a long time since she had felt guilt, and was a bit startled by the sensation. But the police officer seemed to be looking for something. He would definitely notice Quincy. Brushing the guilt aside, she slipped off her back pack and managed to maneuver it onto Quincy without making it too noticeable. Moments later the officer approached her.
“Excuse me, I was wondering if either of you had…” but he cut off as he noticed that Quincy was unresponsive. “Is that boy alright?”
Not sure what to say, Shaquana fumbled her words and was sure she had just cost herself a backpack full of goodies. “Um… we’re not together, but I’m sure he’s okay.”
The officer squinted his eyes disbelievingly, and tapped Quincy on the shoulder. “Ma’am, I’m sorry but I’m going to have to detain you until we can make sure that he…”
Just then, like Christ on the third day, Quincy rose again. His eyes slowly fought off the darkness and his eyelids separated steadily. Partially aware of the last few moments, Quincy’s instincts fought their way to the forefront and he pushed out the words, “What a great nap.”
The officer forced a quick smile onto his face. “Sorry ma’am, I was just doing my job.”
Feeling a bit embarrassed the officer decided he’d inquire elsewhere and walked off. Shaquana took a deep breath and steadied her leg, which had begun to shake a little due to the adrenaline pumping through her veins. Quincy asked what the officer had wanted, but then was quickly lost within his own thoughts. Shaquana’s voice echoed in his ears, but his brain failed to process what he heard. Instead, he found himself replaying the conversation that had led him to the recent realization. Maybe it was not such a wonderful world. His thoughts bounced back and forth replaying pieces of memories of his mother talking about how great a place the world was. Then these memories collided with thoughts of a young drug dealing girl being chased and shot at. His brain, like a computer, ran through every possible combination that would allow the two memories to coexist without forcing him to change his view of the world. Possibly this was one of very few flaws Philadelphia had. He had discovered the one thing wrong with the whole city, and had simply overreacted. Yet, while he considered that possibility, he found other memories of the city creeping forward, and hints of evil seemed to be bubbling out from under his optimistic view of the world around him.
Slowly coming back to his senses, Quincy felt Shaquana tugging at his coat. “You still in there?”
“Yeah, I’m just having a hard time adjusting to the fact that you are a drug dealer. How old are you?”
“Please don’t be judging me. You don’t know me, you don’t know how it is.”
Quincy was not exactly sure what she was saying, but he assumed she was trying to say that he could not understand her situation. Still, his whole view on life had just been shattered, so he felt compelled to pry into her mind. “Can you at least try and explain your situation to me. I really don’t mean to be rude, I just assumed that drug dealers lived in horrible places filled with poverty and crime.”
“And where do you think we are? This ain’t some small town in New England. This is Philadelphia. More crimes happen here in a day then some small states have in a year. Don’t you ever watch the news or read the newspaper?”
Quincy remembered seeing parts of the TV news once or twice, but the channels that he saw the news on were usually locked when his mother was not around. And he had not even thought to check his father’s TV, to see if he could watch the news. In fact, he had never felt any desire to watch the news. Though now he was aching to find the nearest TV and confirm the horrible accusations being spouted by Shaquana. But Quincy figured he would use his resource to find out some more about Philadelphia. “What other kinds of things are wrong with Philadelphia?”
“Your eyes just aren’t open, are they?” Shaquana was about to continue, but a perplexed look came over Quincy’s face. “Whaz wrong?”
“Some old man said almost those exact words to me earlier today… but anyway, what were you going to say?”
Shaquana continued, “I’ze juz be going ta say, you need to takes a look around you and almost every where you turn there are problems to be seen. But there ain’t nothing nobody can do abouts it. It’s just the way it is. And when I hear people on TV talking about how America is the greatest country in the world, I just looked around me and laugh. I’d hate to think this is the best of all possible worlds.”
“But don’t you realize that you are part of the problem, dealing drugs is a horrible thing to do!” Quincy realized he had let the wrong words slip from his mouth the moment they had escaped, but this fear was solidified when the anger exploded in Shaquana’s eyes. Her nostrils flared up and pumped out gusts of air. Not knowing how to retreat from the war he had begun Quincy spit out an apology. But a mouse’s tear drop would have had a better chance of putting out a Colorado forest fire. Shaquana was ready to pounce, and Quincy could do nothing but brace himself.
“Oh no you di’ent! You think you know me, you think you know what it’s like to be me? You don’t know nothing. Your sheltered little existence couldn’t have given you the faintest hint as to what it's like to be me. Besides, there ain’t nothing wrong with what I do. I ain’t forcing people to buy drugs. I ain’t knocking on their door and holdin them at gunpoint and putting the drugs in their mouths. I ain’t no different from a soda machine, people put in the money and I put out the drugs. Simple as dat.”
And of course Quincy did what any gentle kind hearted boy would do in this situation, he fought back. Before he was sure what he was going to say he felt a new sensation come over him. He was pissed, and he was ready for war. “Spare me your lame tirade. You can’t justify your criminal actions by saying you’re just a means of achieving drugs. Last time I checked, soda is still legal to buy, and drugs aren’t. People are basically coming up to you saying, ‘hi I’d like to destroy my life, my body, and my mind, possibly ending in my own death’ and you provide them with a means of achieving that goal. AND YOU THINK you’re no different from a soda machine. My mother always told me that if I didn’t have something nice to say, I shouldn’t say anything at all, but she lied about the kind of world I live in, so maybe she was wrong about that as well. Cause I think you need to know that you disgust me! What if some ignorant boy, hey, like me, came along and thought, sure I’ll try what this girls offering. My life could have been destroyed and you think your role in that is insignificant. I guess you would say the Devil is a good guy, other than that part about tempting people into burning in a fiery hell for eternity. He’s just like the soda machine of damnation.”
Quincy was tempted to go on, but through the stone cold look on Shaquana’s face he sensed a tear forming. Sure it was not visible, but he still sensed that a mental tear had formed in her mind. He had struck a cord and was unsure if he should proceed with his Charles Sumner-esque denunciation of what he saw as the modern crime against humanity. While the Thirteenth Amendment may have outlawed slavery in a literal sense, millions of people in the world, in the world closer to Quincy than he had ever dreamed, millions of people were just as much slaves to various drugs as any slaves of the past. These people may have initially had a choice in whether they took that first step towards becoming a slave, but once chained, the bonds of drugs become just as real as the bonds of slavery. The slave driver with his whip had been replaced by an internal slave driver who twisted the mind of the user. He made the user feel as though he wanted, needed and could not live without his drugs. Though many were tempted to run from their slavery, breaking away and escaping the cravings for drugs was as hard as running from Alabama to Maine. The addict feared life without drugs, since they had long forgot the feeling of thinking and living without the crutch that drugs provided. Reality, real life, was a scary place, and a hard place to return to when chemicals had allowed you to hide from it for any period of time.
Fighting back the desire to continue his condemnation of Shaquana, Quincy deferred to silence and turned away from what he believed to be the cancer destroying the soul of mankind: the drug dealer. He looked out the window of the subway train and starred at the spray paint that coated the walls of the underground. Maybe the paint wasn’t some primitive cave writing that had been discovered when digging out the subway. Maybe some ignorant people devoid of respect for their fellow man had attempted to destroy the walls simply because they lacked the skill and mental capacity to do anything better with their time. Rather than fix their lives, they tried to destroy the lives and world of those around them. Wouldn’t it be awful if such were true, he thought to himself?
Shaquana sat for a long time not saying a word. From time to time she would let the anger slip from her face, but upon realization she would republish it for the world to see. Inside she was torn, she wanted to attack Quincy on the one hand, but couldn’t help but acknowledge that he had simply pointed out the truth that she had long buried inside her underneath the shield of ‘it ain’t my problem’. She had begun to believe her justifications for her actions and he had torn them to sheds with little effort. For the first time in her life, she felt evil. She confronted the possibility that she was a part of the reason the world was messed up.
At the next stop, without a word to Shaquana, Quincy got up and off the subway car. She quickly followed after him. She had no desire to continue being slammed, but the boy had her backpack and she would have hell to pay if the contents were lost to her. Despite what one might assume, drug suppliers do not like it when their dealers are unable to pay for drugs because they lost the stash.
“Quincy, wait up!”
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