The Opiate, Fall Vol. 15
The Call Darius Jamal VanSluytman
T
he garbage juice pooled at the bottom of the open dumpsters lining the Navy Yard Canteen, baked in the morning sun. Noxious plumes floated upwards, taunting heaven and throne. It was eight a.m. and already eighty-two degrees. Zip walked through the tangle of food trucks parked semi-legally outside the sad building sitting near the foot of Clinton Hill, where Clinton Avenue meets Flushing. He had sworn off street food after he first encountered The Canteen. A vestige of old Brooklyn, it was little more than a filthy garage where a couple of guys lazily and barely hosed down food trucks. They tossed the rubbish in dumpsters and oil drums, corralled inside a corroding steel fence sitting in front of the building. When the place was closed, it was a carnival for rats feasting on stale hot dog buns frosted with coffee grounds and spicy mayo. He imagined the rats doing unsavory things in the trucks at night. Now, every time he passed a donut
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cart, or taco truck, his stomach churned and he cast a disdainful look upon the vendors and the innocent folks lined up to stuff their faces. It was a typical city neurosis. Nothing that warranted a shrink anyway. Last week, he walked this same route and passed the carcasses of three chickens separated from their heads. They lay in a neat pile on the sidewalk off Waverly. The refuse of some arcane ritual, deep in the techno-sprawl of gentrified smart houses sporting expensive paint on cheap plasterboard walls, amused and unsettled him. He steeled himself in the event the hoodoo chicken murderers struck again. When he reached Waverly, he spied no chickens, and was relieved. His relief was brief, and he worked himself into a tizzy at the sight of the walls of the industrial buildings lining the block. There was new corporate street art up, commercials for hip shows streaming online. They were a marker that you had reached the fringes of civilized society. It disgusted Zip to no end. They went over a classic piece done years ago
