by Alan Ryker
Carla says, "Start at the beginning."
I click the first file.
Of all the tunnel people, Marcus was most fascinated by Leroy. Again, Leroy's face fills most of the screen.
From off-camera, Marcus asks, "How did you end up down here?"
"I'd been homeless for some time. The streets is hard. Eventually I met a guy who told me about a place where you don't have to worry about the cops, where you won't freeze in the winter or cook in the summer. Down here you don't have to worry about some fucking kids setting you on fire or stomping you while you're asleep. Sounded like heaven to me. So he brought me down here and let me stay with him until I found enough wood to build my own place."
Marcus asks, "And you've lived here since?"
"Down here in the tunnel, yes, but this is my fourth house. The one I built then was destroyed in '91 when Amtrak moved in and reopened the tunnel. Before that it was abandoned, and nobody messed with us."
"What happened to your other houses?"
"One was burned down by a vindictive woman. I was in it at the time, barely got out. The third was demolished when Amtrak tried to move us out again. It happens occasionally."
Marcus asks, "So why do you stay here, if you have to keep rebuilding?"
Leroy raises an eyebrow and smirks. His teeth are long and covered in plaque, but he has all of them. "You wouldn't ask that if you'd ever lived on the street. This is almost like not being homeless. They can't shut off the power hookups down here. I've got a mini-fridge and a space heater. I got a bed—an actual bed, not a piece of cardboard. You're sitting on a couch. Why do I stay here? Shit."
Leroy looks away and then looks back. "You know what, though? Maybe I'm too comfortable."
I fast forward. Leroy stands outside his house. I can see now that it's a good-sized shed. Two dogs jump up and down, ecstatic with his attention. They're both mutts: one small and terrier-ish, and one big. Leroy pats the big one. "This is Bozo. I got him after somebody stole my TV. Nobody steals from me anymore. You can hear his bark a mile away."
Marcus asks, "And who's the little guy?"
"Little guy? This killing machine is Monster. Mon-Mon. He keeps the rats away. He's killed thousands of them. Hell, I barely have to feed him. The rats down here, about half of them are big enough to kill a cat. But they don't fuck with Monster." He grabs the little dog by the scruff of the neck and shakes him. Mon-Mon snarls, baring teeth that look entirely too big to fit in his head. "Keeps away other pests, too. Most of the graffiti punks stay away from here, but he caught one spraying up my wall and took a bite out of his ankle. I heard a scream, and when I got out here the kid was running down the tunnel, and Monster had a bloody piece of denim hanging out of his mouth."
Carla elbows me. We were those graffiti punks once. I can understand the hostility. People like us go down into Freedom Tunnel as tourists. We could escape the scrutiny of the police. Of our parents. Society. People like Leroy are there out of necessity. But the art… Beneath Riverside Park, where sunlight shines down through the grating, creating natural spotlights, the best writers in the city have put up the most amazing pieces you can imagine. Artists can take their time, making originals and recreating famous paintings. With beams shining down from the street and filtering through the dust like stained glass, it feels holy. It was our Sistine Chapel, before we grew up and got responsibilities.
But Marcus and Leroy aren't in that part of the tunnel. Marcus zooms out, putting the scene in full perspective. The shack stands about eight feet tall, but is dwarfed by the concrete cavern that contains it. The puny camera-mounted light barely grays the darkness. I can just make out ghostly, enormous I-beams holding up slabs of concrete.
I open another file. Leroy walks through the darkness, shot from the side. Marcus is unseen, but the image rolls with his gait. Leroy says, "You know, I didn't tell you the whole truth about how I got down here."
"No?"
Leroy shakes his head. He strolls past other shacks. Men and women stand out front, staring at the pair as they walk by, staring into the camera. They float in the darkness like astronauts on the brink of nothing. "It was drugs that got me down here. Only drugs'll gets you this low. Most the people down here are or were crackheads. I used it for years. My wife kicked me out of our house at the end of a gun, with our baby screaming in the other room. She was right to do it. I'd sold almost everything we owned. I'd brought bad people into our home.
"I landed in prison. Spent three years in prison. Got out and didn't even know where my wife had gone. Started with crack again. I don't smoke it anymore, but I want to."
Marcus asks, "How do you keep from falling into drugs again?"
Leroy stops walking and looks into the camera, "I try to stay away from users, and I tell myself that it never made me feel good, only feel less, which seemed good at the time. I can see the brink, though. It's always one step away."
I pause the video. Carla says, "This could have been so good. This could have really helped people."
I say, "I know."
"But Marcus can't just grow up and do something to help those less fortunate. He's always got to be controversial. Always got to be the center of attention. He disappears, and you mysteriously get his footage to watch and tell everyone about. When he shows up again—cut documentary in hand—he imagines it'll be to fanfare, a ticker-tape parade, and a huge art house opening. He imagines he'll be the talk of New York."
"Come on, Carla. He could be dead."
"He's using you, David. Marcus is a user."
Leroy stands in a huge dumpster, one big enough to walk around in. Marcus shoots from above, standing on the edge.
Leroy says, "Time to make money."
"What makes you the most money?"
"Albums, books, nudie magazines. You wouldn't believe what I find: microwaves, TVs, video players, computers… I keep what I want and sell the rest. Got my mini-fridge outside a dorm. It's a brawl in the dumpsters outside the dorms come May."
"How much do you make in a week?"
Leroy talks as he sifts through the trash, moving piles of it from one side of the giant dumpster to the other. "A couple hundred for a few days work. Fridays I look for bottles and cans. You know the right places to hit and you can make a hundred just from that. Look at this, a whole box of LPs. I'll take this to my man down on 82nd. Collectors eat this shit up."
I fast-forward. They're back underground, in Leroy's shack. He paces between his mini-fridge and his bed. Marcus silently records him for several minutes. I wonder who'll crack first. Eventually, Leroy stops and glares into the camera, into Marcus's eyes and our living room. "Are we friends? You've been coming down here for a couple weeks, so are we friends?"
I almost say yes.
Marcus says, "Of course."
Leroy slaps the plywood wall and a milk-crate shelf falls off. "Don't bullshit me, kid. I'm not your friend. I'm your subject."
Carla says, "Leroy knows more about your boy than you do."
Leroy moves in close, his knotted brow filling the screen. I tense and sit back into the couch. "How can I be your friend, you a rich kid with a fancy camera, and me a bum, a tunnel rat? You come down here and listen and we talk because we're all desperate for an ear, but you're not just an ear, you're an eye; you watch and watch and what will you do when you're done watching? You'll go. You'll make a movie and live your rich life and never worry about shit. Hell, you'll probably make a million or two off of this." He waves at the camera.
Marcus says, "I don't think you understand the current market for document—"
Leroy cuts him off. "But I'm going to talk anyways, because what else can I do?"
Carla says, "This is where it starts, the shark business."
I say, "I remember."
Leroy says, "There's more to this world than meets the eye, even your all-seeing, all-knowing eye. There's more going on here than a rich kid can understand. You think you've got it all over on us, 'cause you've got an education and a nic
e place to live, but you don't know shit. The whole world is going to hell and you don't even know."
"What do you mean?"
Leroy backs away from the camera and sits at his table. Even after watching this far, I'm still amazed at the amenities his shack has. Leroy puts an elbow on the table and his head in his hand. He looks into the camera for awhile, then, "I'm going to give you an education kid. Something they won't teach you in school. I'm going to tell you about the shark-men."
Marcus zooms in as Leroy pauses for dramatic effect. It's chilling.
Carla says, "Goddamn it."
Marcus told us he was shooting a documentary that would finally tell the story of one of the city's most interesting—but most unheard—groups of people. Carla, who'd spent years fighting for homeless rights, was thrilled. She'd never expected such depth from Marcus. Then, a month or so into the project, something happened, something that pulled him in completely, and we stopped seeing him, and then he disappeared.
Leroy's forehead goes smooth. He says, "The government has created a race of shark-men. My guess is that they're a type of super soldier, but who knows. They move in, kill and eat anyone not sleeping behind a locked door, and move on leaving nothing, not even bones. Maybe they were made to silently dispose of the homeless population. But I don't think that's it. I don't think we're that important. We're nobodies. When we disappear, no one notices. So my guess is that the government is testing the shark-men on us. They released a few into the city to see what will happen if they drop them into enemy territory. They want to adjust the sights of their new weapon and we're convenient targets. It's nothing personal. But right now, they're programmed to attack the homeless, as a test."
Marcus says, "So what do the shark-men look like?"
"They look like us, but strange. Cold. They walk the streets like they're swimming. After noticing them milling around, I got to talking to people, and they'd noticed them too. I started to do some research at the library." Leroy gets up from the table and grabs a backpack, pulls out a notebook. He flips until he finds his page, and then looks back into the camera, marking a spot with his finger. "I read about all the weird experiments they do on sharks. Sharks would be perfect for something like this. They've got simple DNA. Did you know that they're some of the oldest animals on earth? And their cartilage skeletons are flexible, easy to mold and manipulate."
Marcus says, "But isn't that a problem? A shark couldn't walk without bone."
"You've got no imagination. That's why you watch and listen but don't do. Let those of us with the brains think and do. The solution is right there inside the shark's mouth. Their jaws are cartilage too, but are covered in super-strong crystal blocks of calcium salt. They're light, but can withstand the pressure of a shark's bite. All the scientists had to do was alter the genes to spread this coating over the rest of the skeleton, and suddenly sharks can walk on land."
There's a tone in Marcus's voice, a tone that says he's playing along, that I think I can hear only because I've known him for so long. He's good at making fun of people without them knowing they're being made fun of. "But why not use science to enhance human soldiers?"
"There are huge advantages to using animals. Humans have rights. These aren't human at all, they only look human. They contain no human DNA. These things have fewer rights than Bozo and Monster." Leroy leans forward. "They get dropped permanently into another country, a suicide mission, but they've got no family to ask questions. And they're natural killers. All a shark does is swim and kill. Yeah, they have new instincts programmed in, instincts that tell them to wear clothes. Instincts that tell them to smile at certain tones, nod at certain cues. But these responses mean nothing. They're just reflex.
"These creatures, these shark-men, feel no fear. They have no pity, no morality, no self-reflection whatsoever. Even if sharks feel some kinship with other sharks, we're not sharks. We're prey."
I find that I'm holding my breath and release it. On some level, I have to admit to myself that the scenario Leroy is describing scares me. But it scares me like a horror movie would. The really scary thing is that Leroy believes it.
Marcus told us about this incident. He showed us some of the footage one night. He said, "At that moment, it became clear to me how this man became homeless."
Carla said, "This is exactly why it's so inconceivable that they're still shutting down mental facilities across the country. Multi-trillion dollar war? No problem. But taking care of our own sick? No funding. He was probably released from a closing facility."
Marcus said, "That's what I was thinking. Actually, that's one of the reasons I wanted to show you this. You know about this sort of stuff. I was hoping you could point me towards where I can look for this poor guy's history, see if he was ever in the system, other than prison."
"I can get you some numbers. I don't know if you'll be able to find anything out about him specifically, but if you tell some of these social workers that you're making a documentary, you might be able to get some interviews."
Marcus nodded. His eyes unfocused as he lost himself in the possibilities. "Wow, that would be great."
"You just have to promise me that you won't go back down there. You're not trained to deal with these situations."
"I have to go back one more time. I have to get one more interview."
Carla said, "You're too old to be taking chances like this," but she fired up her computer to get him contacts.
If the number of remaining video files is an indication, he lied about only going down one more time.
When I open the next file, they're walking down city streets again. Marcus follows Leroy, who leads him to an alley entrance where several homeless people sit against the iron gate blocking the alley off.
Leroy says, "This is where it's the worst. But what can we do?"
Marcus pans his camera around. People walk quickly by, ignoring the camera, ignoring Leroy, not wanting to be involved.
Leroy says, "We're being hunted in plain sight, but there are so many people out here that we can't do anything about it. If these assholes would just open their eyes, look around, notice what's happening to their fellow man, they'd see. They'd see and they'd shit themselves, so they keep their eyes locked forward."
And they do. Even as he insults them loudly, none of them look at him. Marcus follows Leroy as he approaches the group in the alley entrance.
Leroy says, "This is the kid I was telling you about." They all nod at the camera. Leroy says, "Are there any hanging around today?"
One of them points to another homeless man across the street. The man across the street is dressed in rags, not the usual dirty-but-intact clothing homeless can find in plenty in a rich city, but rags. He paces up and down the block, walking slowly back and forth across the street. He avoids traffic, but at his own pace. He stares at the camera.
Marcus asks, "That's one of the shark-men?" He turns the camera down towards the men sitting on the sidewalk. They look up at him with eyes searching for insincerity, but desperate to share.
One says, "Yes. Definitely. You see the way he moves? See how he looks at us kind of sideways? We didn't know what was wrong with these freaks until Leroy told us about what he read at the library."
Marcus asks, "Is he dangerous?"
Another man says, "Fuck yes he's dangerous. What do you think? He's a shark!"
Marcus asks, "So what are you going to do? Will he attack?"
Leroy says, "He'll wait until dark. He'll fade away before the light does. Then he'll try to catch them sleeping."
"But we take turns keeping watch. It's like a damn war."
Marcus asks the man who just spoke, "Have you ever been attacked?"
"Yeah, but I never sleep alone, so we fought the dude off. At first I thought he was just trying to steal my shit, but he wouldn't get off me. I yelled and we finally managed to scare him away. But I've heard stories. Down in the park, one guy heard noises off in the trees and wandered over and found one of these freaks eating
a guy, pinning him down and literally tearing at him with its teeth. By the time he got the cops, there was nothing left. The cops actually held him for drunk and disorderly, just to be assholes."
Marcus pans the group. They're all nodding. He turns the camera to the man across the street. He's blond. Young. Still pacing. And staring straight into the camera. Then Marcus crosses the street.
Leroy says, "Are you crazy?" But Marcus doesn't pause.
Carla says, "What is he doing?"
I say, "What's it matter? This guy isn't a shark-man."
Carla smacks my arm. "I know that, but that doesn't mean he's not dangerous. Look at him. He obviously resents Marcus filming him."
As Marcus crosses the street a car honks. Marcus turns and looks, and an angry cabby flips him off. He turns back to the shark-man, who's stopped pacing. He waits, relaxed. As Marcus nears, the man's face comes into view. It contains absolute calm, but not serenity. More like the calm of a manikin, something that doesn't know how to look any other way. Marcus comes within a few feet, stopping just outside the man's personal space, although I would consider that man's personal space to extend several blocks.
Marcus asks, "Excuse me, sir. Would you mind if I ask you a few questions?"
The man doesn't speak. His skin is smooth. He has a sharp nose with a bridge that runs straight into an unworried forehead with no brow ridge. He could be a model.
I say, "Pretty good-looking for a homeless guy, huh?"
Carla isn't quite speechless, but she's distracted. "If Marcus ever makes this film, that man will have a modeling contract in a heartbeat."
Marcus says, "I'm making a documentary about the plight of the homeless in the city. Do you have anything to say about the subject?"
The man smiles. I'm struck by how white and straight his teeth are. He nods, but says nothing.
Carla says, "The poor man."
Marcus moves a step closer, and the man smacks the camera out of his hands. It hits the ground and the video scrambles, but the audio continues.
