Randy wished he had his phone so he could use the flashlight on it. There was something very weird about the alleyway they were in. The walls seemed to undulate with misshapen, multicolored globules. Like fungus growing—or acne on bad skin.
It wasn’t until he emerged from beneath the covered part of the alley into the open rain near the street that he got it: the brick walls of the passage were covered by hundreds of thousands of wads of used chewing gum. It repulsed him and he made sure he stayed in the middle of the alley away from either side, which were no doubt teeming with bacteria from the mouths of unclean strangers.
Disgusting.
So that’s why they called it the Gum Wall.
* * *
—
Randy disobeyed Axel the minute he emerged onto the empty street. Instead of standing there like a dutiful soldier getting soaked to the bone by the rain, he ducked into a dimly lit bodega whose windows and glass door were covered with iron bars. Printed in block letters on a piece of cardboard was:
NO PUBLIC TOILETS. DON’T EVEN ASK!!!!!
He pocketed the handheld and pushed his way inside. An electric buzzer signaled his entrance. It was hot and close inside and the aisles were so narrow he had to turn sidewise to get to the counter.
The cashier was an Asian man whose features were distorted by the thick plexiglass that separated him from his customers. Business was done through a small open slot cut from the bottom of the barrier.
“What you want?” the man asked. He sounded hostile, Randy thought.
“I was hoping I could buy a raincoat.”
“No raincoat! You antifa?”
“I’m just a brother trying to stay dry,” Randy said.
“Get out! No raincoat here. Soda, cigarettes, beer.”
Randy looked around. The shelves were packed with items on both sides. He smiled when he saw a box of thirty-five-gallon plastic garbage bags.
“I’ll take one of these,” Randy said. “I don’t need the whole box.”
“Whole box or nothing.”
“That’s robbery.”
“What? Get out if you don’t want to pay.”
Randy looked around for an alternative choice but couldn’t find one. He cursed and approached the counter.
“Twenty dollars,” the cashier said.
“Twenty dollars? For ten garbage bags? That’s ridiculous.”
“Twenty dollars or get out.”
He thought for a second about putting the box under his arm and exiting the store without paying. Better that than agreeing to be robbed by this man.
“Twenty dollars or put it back,” the man said. “Then get out, antifa.”
Randy tried to stare down the clerk, but he couldn’t see his eyes well enough through the thick plastic. What he could see was that the little man seemed very agitated.
He considered his options. If he left the plastic bags, he’d be forced to stand in the street and get soaked. If he walked out with them, the store owner might either pull a gun and shoot him in the back or call the police. If the Asian store owner called the cops, he’d be easy to find since he’d be standing at the mouth of the alley a block away.
Or he could pay the ransom.
Randy slid a twenty through the slot and exclaimed loudly that it was fucking highway robbery.
Before he pushed open the door, Randy paused and looked over his shoulder at the man. He was still there, wavering behind the uneven plastic like an apparition.
“You’ll get yours, you fucking . . . capitalist.”
He whispered the last word. He hoped the owner heard it and it stung.
“Get out and don’t come back. Store for neighborhood, not you.”
As Randy stood on the street punching a head hole and armholes through the plastic garbage bag before pulling it on, he looked back at the bodega and thought, Yours will be the first place we burn down, old man.
* * *
—
Still steaming from the encounter at the bodega, Randy returned to his position as sentinel and realized right away he’d missed nothing on the street. Hard rain came down in sheets and angry black water shot down the gutters into storm drains. There were no protesters out, nor cops. The only vehicles he saw were delivery vans sluicing through the running water.
Across the street was a small urban park. There were benches and some kind of sculpture and several small dome tents lit from the inside. Probably homeless, he thought. Aside from the tents, there were no live human beings milling around there. Wasn’t this the square designated as the staging area for the street action?
Had Axel got the date or time wrong? Or the location? That didn’t seem like Axel.