Change of Heart, Change of Being

            by Nick Perovich

 

            The alarm blasts 60’s and 70’s oldies at 6:32 a.m., out of the shower at 6:45, he gets dressed, eats a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats by 7:20, and out of the house by 7:30 to board the 7:42 train into the city to be at work by 8:30. Everyday. For the past 5 years it has been the same. It’s hard to say that James Gibson has lived a fast life. He went through grade school and passed without any bumps in the road. In high school he was on the badminton team, but that doesn’t always guarantee playing time. He tried chess but kept losing. High School came and went as Gibson moved on to Northwestern University. After failing to qualify as being a frat boy, he went through college watching movies like Earnest Goes to Camp and Back to the Future, and playing his Atari. He waited until 21 to have his first drink and he never gambles, doesn’t even play the lottery. He couldn’t  conceive giving his money to tobacco companies and the government as entertainment.

            So here he is now, all of 5’9”, 175 pounds with brown shaggy hair, brown eyes, fatigued complexion, and wiry body getting off the train in downtown Chicago in his Monday suit. He slowly ambles into his office building with his brown briefcase and flashes an acknowledging nod to the security guard in the lobby. He gets into the elevator with roughly the same people and gets off at the 25^th floor: Iverson and sons. As soon as the elevator doors open he is exposed to the sounds of phones ringing, people chattering, and keys being typed. He slides past Susan Colbert, John Stevens and Lacy Munoz among others unnoticed and over to his cubicle and sits in his chair. His cubicle is practically colorless, other than a picture of his parents on his desk a calendar, and a couple of pink post-its on his computer monitor. His stapler is on the left hand corner of his desk, pens and pencils in his cup next to the monitor, and his black telephone. Pulls his briefcase onto his desk to start working. At this moment he remembers that his report is due in about 20 minutes to Mr. Iverson. He dives into his papers anxiously trying to find his valuable report as someone comes up to his cubicle. Gibson freezes.

 “James…. what’s happening? Listen, I need you to go ahead and redo that report that I gave you because it doesn’t have that cover sheet that I asked for. Didn’t you get the memo?”

            “No, Mr. Iverson, I didn’t get that memo. I promise that I will get that to you as soon as possible.”

            “Thanks. I will see you at the 9:00 meeting.” Iverson strolls off leisurely as any man with a six-figure job would.

            Gibson stares blankly at his stapler and then realizes that he has a report to find. He throws papers left and right, feverishly searching for his report. He then stops for a minute and sits up straight. “Why should I have to obey by Iverson’s rules?” he says in a whisper. “Why not just leave?” So no longer after that concise comment to himself, he picks up his briefcase and shoves his stapler, picture and his unused post-its into his bag, shuts off his computer and briskly heads to the exit. He vigilantly regards his surroundings as he passes the water cooler, then Lacy Munoz’s desk. He starts to break a sweat when he approached John Stevens’ desk because he always gave him slack when he passed by. Always a “how was the movie marathon this weekend Gibson?” or a “What’s happening on the new light bulb that’s coming out?” Gibson quickly straightened up. “So Gibson, how you getting to th-“

            “Shut up John.” As he passed right by without a glance. He could see it now. The Promised Land. He was about to make it to the door when something peculiar happened. He froze for a minute, gave the floor carpet a confused look. “What was going on?” he said stricken by a sensation. “Oh golly. I got to go tinkle.” So Gibson takes a sharp left in front of the front door.

He makes his way out of the building and gets on his train, heading for his house. He sits on the train and feels a need to do something with his life. He hasn’t done anything exciting with his life except for the one time when he gunned down those squirrels when his was 11 years old with his slingshot. He decides to get off the train 6 stops early. He gets off the train and exits the train station to find papers gliding in the midwestern wind. He finds empty cigarette packets on the ground. Abandoned warehouses and buildings that looked like they haven’t been occupied for 15 years. He walks a little further until he hears a unique sound. “Hey honey! You want some of this?! Come on, fifty bucks a pop!” He glances quickly and then looks down as fast as he looked up. He picks up his pace. He then turns a corner and runs into a brick wall.     

 He sees unicorns and his crush Susan Colbert running in a field of carnations. He runs towards them as he passes buildings of chocolate shakes and calamari. “Ey… you can get up now. Yo, you there? Lets go I don’t got all day.” He then gets sucked out of his world and into a land of darkness for a quick second. He slowly opens his eyes and finds this little man with a green suit and a furry hat hovering over his head. He is very short, probably about 5 feet 5 inches tall..   “Yo, you cool?.” He said angrily.

“Uh, I dunno. What happened.”

“Yo punk ass ran into my fly self, that’s what happened.” As he dusts himself off and fixes his tie. “Yo ass was twitchin’ and shit, made me want to do a bad thing and call the po-lece. Well, Im glad to see that you ok. I gonna be on my way.”

“Wait! Uh, where am I?

“Where are you? You in the hood office man! Ain’t no cubicles around here. Look, you want me to direct you to the train station befo’ you get you Forbes 500 ass jacked?” Leprechaun man said while chuckling.

“Uh…sure.” startled by the kind offer he was made. Leprechaun man helps James to his feet and the two start walking on the run-down streets of Chicago. James looks around and notices that the only source of green in his sight is what his short new found buddy is wearing. The rest was gray from the buildings, sidewalks, and newspapers. Not even a patch of grass. “Man, what a suit! Bet Iverson would have a fit if I wore that to the office!” After his epiphany of what he would wear to his next job and two blocks, he gets nervous and thinks of ways to start a conversation “Hi, I make $80,000 a year, what’s your name? No. Hi, I like rabbits and frosted mini-wheats. How do you do?. No!

“So, where you from Forbes?” Leprechaun man breaks in.

I’m from the Northside. And my name is James. He said with his voice shaking.

“James! That was my Daddy’s name. Coo, strong name. My name is government name is Bernard. I think my ma was on some crack when she name my fly ass, but the hoes call me Suga Buns. Yeah boy! Suga boy is my name and pimpin’ is my game, Mista James! That was a cool little rhyme, huh?”

“ Yeah. Ok, Su-Su-Sug-”

“I said my HOES call me that! My HOES! My friends call me Lucky. Ya kno, like the damn leprechaun that stole my damn flava!” Lucky looked like he was about to jump through a wall. James was taken aback and didn’t know what to do except put his briefcase in front of his face and hide behind the broken parking meter.

“C’mon, James I won’t take it out on you.” He embarrassingly stated and waved James out from his hiding. The two started walking again and talking about anything that came to mind, sports, cars, and burgers.

“Yo, Suga B! Was up wit tha suga you promised me!” Another one of those voices that James heard before. He looks up and it’s a woman dressed in a hot pink top that only “covers” her breasts and a short black skirt with some leather boots.

“Hold on babe!” Lucky screams across the street before James can ask if that is one of his Hoes.

“Aight, James. The train station is on Halsted. Just go two blocks down and one block over and you’ll see it. Coo? Nice talkin’ to you, man.” Lucky gives him a pat on the back and starts strutting across the street. A million things race through James’ head. What should I do now? I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to watch cartoons and Back to the Future again. This is the most unusual person that I have ever met and I’m not gonna let this opportunity pass me by!” “Wait! Lucky!” James exclaims while he frollicks over to Lucky on the other side of the street. “Can I come with you?”

“James, I am a p-i-m-p and a dealer. You can follow me around but don’t expect that you gonna be ok. I get shot at on an everyday basis and I shoot at on an everyday basis. If you got $200 to give fo escortin’ you through tha hood, den you can roll.”

“I’m cool with that Lucky.” James hands Lucky two fresh hundred dollar bills and after that, the woman lead Lucky and James into a house that looked like there was nothing but rats and terds in it. They went through the front door and there were people passed out on the floor, others were smoking cigarettes on the broken wooden staircase. Trash was everywhere and it smelled awful. As James was caught in a daze, Lucky came out of the adjacent room, grabbed James by the arm and took him outside. They started walking again and James finally got enough courage to ask what that was all about?

“Whose house was that’s?”

“Man that wasn’t nobody’s house. That was a crack house. Yo, neva heard of a crack house befo? Man! What they be teachin’ you! It’s a place where people buy and do drugs to keep it short and sweet.”

The two have been walking around the neighborhood for a while now and they come to a corner with some people loitering. As they approach the corner, the people turn and start yelling “Lucky! Big C!” They get to the corner and Lucky gives the special handshake to the four or so people on the corner. After the greetings, they all look up and stare awkwardly at James. James looks down and checks his watch about every 15 seconds out of nervousness. “Yo, Luck” one of them says in a stern tone. “Who is this foo?”

This is James, he ‘bout to help us wit our little mission today. Mission! What mission? Lucky didn’t tell me about no mission. All the men bust out in laughter and James is caught in shock. Lucky walks over to James and starts explaining the scenario. “James, you see that liquor sto’ down the street over there? We ‘bout to rob that shit. Now, we ‘bout to go in there, put shit in our pockets, hold dude up, and walk out wit some chips, dip and some cold cash! All you need to do is stand over at that street light across the street and if anybody comes in, or if the police are comin’, you need to yell….pancakes. Got it?”

“So if anybody tries to come in, yell… pancakes?”

“Exactly! Hold my hat.”

Lucky and his entourage enter the store and James stands quietly, yet vigilantly across the street. One minute passes. Two minutes pass. Three minutes pass. No sign of green. Sirens in the distance. Oh no! That couldn’t be for this! This is a big city! The sirens start to get louder and louder. Then he sees about three cars approaching the store about 3 blocks away.  “Pancakes! Pancakes!” He cries. And everybody runs out of the store. Bags of chips, candy bars, beer packs all in hand while lucky escapes with a garbage bag. James joins the pack with his briefcase and they all fleet down the street. The police turn onto the street and are right behind them. James is losing ground and is running out of breath. “Wait! You guys!” Two cops get out of their car and chase James on foot. They quickly catch up and tackle him to the ground. “Ey, Pal! Late for work I see! You’re going downtown!” They pick James up while James is screaming and yelling and throw him into the back seat. They get to the police station and stick him into an interrogation room.

He sits in a room with a table and two chairs. A cop comes in who looks like he can qualify for sumo wrestling.

“Gibson. James Gibson. What were you doing there? Do you have any idea who those guys are? You have no priors, no warrants, not even a parking ticket and you decide to take part in a robbery. Change of heart? Who was the leader’s name?”

“His name was Lucky. Short for Lucky Charms and he was a cool guy. I liked him. I just wanted to know how it felt to be bad.” He said as if he had thought about it the hour that he was in the room for.

“Lucky Charms? Are you kidding me? That’s your gangster name to get your “buddy” out of this? Please!”

“It’s true that’s his name. That’s what he went by.”

“I’m gonna ask you one more time, Gibson. What was the leader’s name?” The cop said angrily.

“LUCKY CHARMS!”

The cop jumps up and throws the chair across the room. He approaches James as James has his hands over his head looking up at the offensive lineman of a cop. “Please don’t hit me! Please don’t hit me.”

“What was his name!?”

“Lucky Charms.” He says sobbing. The cop rears back and begins to throw a punch. James screams and he closes his eyes. He opens his eyes and finds himself in bed. He then looks at his watch and finds that the day hasn’t even started yet. He lets out a big sigh of relief. “I love my job.” He says aloud.  He turns over to fall back asleep and is staring at a brick wall. “What the jeepers!!” He quickly gets up and sees a window right above his bed with bars and more bars across the room. “I’m in prison!?” He says in a yelp.

“Yeah, an’ I’m almost got away too, if I didn’t trip on lil’ fizzle. You need to work out some, James! You are sooooo slow!” Lucky’s voice was under James’ bed, because James had the top bunk. “Looks like they’re gonna get us with a whole bunch of shit. Oh well.”