The Brick

I had seen the boy many times before. Where? I tried to rack my brain. Scan through a laundry list of a few dozen faces of street children that I had begun to recognize. Ah, yes, now I remembered. I had first encountered the boy about a week ago. I was sitting on the steps near a street vendor cart, eating sme chapatis with a friend. We were contently observing the late night street scene of Thamel. Hoards of young adults and adolescents coming in and out of "Bar With Dance" aka the Nepali version of strip clubs. Young prostitutes roamed the street, some obviously no older than 15. A grimace of determination on their young faces as they tried to bring in some money that night. White dented and chipped taxis lined the dark streets. Inside the drivers slept, a few hours of peace until the sun would rise yet again. Their taxis which were their place of work in the day time morphed into their home and place of rest in the shadowed hours of the night. Rickshaw drivers too curled up uncomfortably in the tiny, cramped seats where during the day they cart around passengers. My friend and I were pondering the strange but real existence it would be to work, live, sleep, and eat in the same dingy, cramed vehicle all day and all night. We thought it would be depressing, but for them it is a means of a good income so they are likely very happy to drive the crazy streets of Kathmandu during the day and sleep in their rickety vehicles at night. Just then two young street boys came up to us. It is no longer alarming to us, their raggedy and dirt covered state. We've seen them many times before. No shoes, ripped pants that are either way too big or way too small, a shirt that at one time long ago was maybe white, but is now a deep brown and crusted with miscellaneous chunks of rotten food and vomit. If they are lucky a jacket, but probably not. Their faces hollow, hair coming off in chunks. And of course, the crumpled plastic bag permanently attached to their tiny hands. These kids are always boys, always young, and always have this plastic bag which becomes like another appendage permanently on their body. The bag is worn out, pretty small in size, held tightly around the top with grimy fingers, and filled with fumes of a sufficient amount of super glue. These boys put their bag up to their mouths and heavily breath in and out for a few seconds, the bag expanding and contracting like a lung that has just finished a marathon. They then pull the bag away from their mouths, their eyes glaze over, and they stumble around the dark streets. No longer able to walk straight they enjoy a few minutes of the "high", their escape from life on the streets.

While sitting on the side of the street, sitting under the glum lights of late night restaurants and bars two boys came up to my friend and me. I watchen them approach, bare feet, they quickly stuffed their crumpled plastic bags down the back of their pants hoping we wouldn't notice. The two boys came up to us and asked us for 20 rupees (abut 30 cents), pointing at the street vendor cart. We refused. But couldn't they please just have a few rupees? They were hungry! No, we said, we know that you will use it to buy superglue. They adamently say they don't huff glue. Thats bad. But we saw you, we say. We saw you stuff your plastic bag down your pants. They continue to deny these claims as an absurdity on our part. I ask them how old they are. I guess between 7 and 9 judging by their small stature. They are 13 and 15, they say! Surprised, I think to myself that their incredibly small size is likely a consequence of malnourishment and huffing glue from a very early age. These kids have probably been living on the street for a good portion of their life. After asking us a few more times for money they deem it a lost cause and walk away. They are just 10 feet away from us before they extort their plastic bags and take a few long pulls from them, forgetting our existence all together.

I again saw one of these young boys, the one who claimed to be 15 years old but with the boy of an 8 year old. I was walking to work in the morning and he was laying on a piece of cardboard tucked away between two stores. He layed on the cardboard with another young boy. The other boy was curled up in a ball, sleeping. At first I thought the boy I knew was sleeping too unitl I looked a little closer. He was laying on his back staring up into the sky. His eyes halfway open, glazed over and glassy. A look of pure desperation on his face. A look of anger at the world, a look of submittance to his fate, at the same to so uncaring and hardened. I walked by his glassy eyed stare.

Later that day I was walking home from work. It was late afternoon and the streets were hustling and bustling. Kids walking home from school in their crisp school uniforms, business people coming home from work. Street vendors yelling, advertising their wares. I was walking by one of the busy traffic intersections of the city. One that is paved and with fully functioning traffic lights that a select few abide by. The sidewalks full of the flowing crowd. The streets teeming with homeward bound cars and taxis. On the corner of the street intersection I spotted this young boy I knew and had seen earlier that day. He was wailing, tears streaming down his face. He held a brick in his hand up by his head like he was about to throw it at someone. I shrunk away a little bit hoping I would not end up in the path of a flying brick. But he did not throw it. He just held it up, in the position ready to be thrown, crying, bawling. I looked around to see if there was someone he might be aiming the brick at. There was not. Who or what was he aiming this solid red chunk at? A dog, a young street thief, his life, his addiction? He didnt move, just stood there, tears streaming down his stunted face. They forged clean rivers down his dirty cheeks. Brick in hand, ready to be thrown and bawling, no one noticed him. Businessmen walked by clutching their brief cases. Women giggled with each other and strolled hand in hand through the newly approaching evening. Dogs padded by licking their mangy fur. The boy with the brick stood in place, continued with his tantrum, watching the people go home, to their families, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, dogs, beds, showers, and dinners. He has none of this. Just a brick and a few raggedy clothes. And as the sun disappears and night spreads over the city he will find solace in his crumpled plastic bag, and then none of it will matter anymore.