The Vigilante

There’s this boy-scout boy man, there. He sits under a tree that’s routed in the cement that stands by the steps coming down off the subway. He collects change in a black beret. I used to think he was collecting donations because he wears a teal Cub Scout shirt with black lapels, but he isn’t. It turns it he’s a vigilante.

He looks about fifteen and I used to think he was a woman. He wears silver glasses and is always sitting, sometimes yelling, under the tree, shaded. I see him under the tree each day since I work near by, but never talk to him. He seems quiet, complacent, but people recently have told me otherwise. His hair is black and he has a bowl cut.

It's today. The sun is dimming as the day comes to an end, the green trees are oil black. I sitting, reading, passing the time.

There was a woman sitting, impossily skinny, threadbare. When this story ends I'm asked by 911 to report her age, but she could be anything under all the dust.

The ladies in this area are always younger then they look. She was cleaning her soars, sitting on the sidewalk, the sun sat over her, casting shade over them. She weighed about ninety pounds and was probably somebody’s mother, was somebody’s daughter. She looked sad, sitting.

I’m going to break you’re fucking legs.
Nobody wants you here, leave.
Look at you, you’ve barely gone to school. I’m smarter then you.

It was the boy scout boy, the vigilante. He wanted to break the sad ladies legs. I didn’t know why he wanted to break the ladies legs. I don’t know how he was going to break her legs. I watched the situation, it was carnival in its set up, slapstick.

There is a retarded woman, also in a wheel chair, watching this as she eats potato chips. I watch this retarded woman eat the potato chips as she watches the crippled boy scout tell the drug addict who is cleaning her soars that he is going to break her legs. A man steps off the sky train. It looks like at some point he was missing the right side of his neck. It is purple and there is a scar that goes up like a crescent moon across his cheek. He is a good man, full of dignity, and he’s walking up to confront the boy scout who is sitting next to a gypsy who is also in a wheel chair. The gypsy is rolling a cigarette from a drum of tobacco.

The man with the scar leans over and says something to him but i can't hear. I can only hear the boy scout.

This is my turf.
This is my turf.
This is my turf.
He calls her a bitch.

Then the man with scars steps away and I call 911.
The gypsy sits, smoking his cigarette
The sun continues setting.

The vigilante talks to me after all is said and done. I am walking away and he follows after me. he asks me if I know whats going on because I look concerned.

For some reason I am slightly scared of this man in a wheel chair who looks like a fifteen year old girl guide.

She was doing drugs, there are kids around, he says.
I have to get back to work, I tell him, then leave him there under the setting sun, waiting for the police to come. I'm not sure if they did, but I haven't seen him since.