Cleveland, The Treatment. Chapter 2: Meeting Marianne

“cleveland – there are parts of me

you will not understand

for centuries.”

– e.i. levi, 1968

Chapter 2: Meeting Marianne

Song Selection: Dan Auerbach – Mean Monsoon (Keep It Hid)

 

Downtown Cleveland birthed creepy alleys. These alleys have their own corners, their own smells and their own secrets. Walking thru these alleys, even during daytime, evokes a sense of paranoia and mistrust: at any second, from any direction, a person, car or object could appear, startling you, making you look up from your Blackberry and notice that, suddenly, you’re no longer walking the streets of a civilized city, but rather, walking behind the buildings that, on surface, may look slick and modern, but, truly, are old, textured and decaying.

 

One summer afternoon, Marianne ended up in such an alley. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. But most of life isn’t supposed to happen the way it does, the way we never see it unfold, leading us to the less familiar.  That’s because life doesn’t happen according to some master plan. Instead, life happens in those gaps between events: while waiting at the grocery check-out counter, and meeting the love of your life; on the drive home from work and hearing on the radio that a royal princess has been shot;  during the one time, between all your work travels, you decide to surprise your wife and change of the sheets of the bed that you’ve shared for ten years and discover a used condom. This is when life happens. This is when everything changes.

 

That specific weekday, everything changed for Marianne. Aged 33, with red hair, a slim figure and wearing black pants, a white short-sleeved top and briskly walking down Euclid Avenue, full of fog from the ever-changing weather, Marianne was in a hurry and looked quickly at her inexpensive watch.

 

MARIANNE

Shit!

Marianne sped up her walk.  A homeless African American man, mid 40’s, dressed in old blue pants and worn out shirt, approached her.

 

HOMELESS MAN

Excuse me, ma’am?

Marianne reluctantly slowed down. She knew how he felt. She’s been in his shoes. Or lack of.

 

HOMELESS MAN (CONT’D)

M’am, I just got of prison. I got this piece of paper here, can you please read it?

Marianne stopped, took the the crumbled, hand-written notebook paper into her own hands, while her new friend pointed to it and looked closely back at her, with simultaneous desperation and hope. Marianne then read his wrinkled message. In a child’s print penmanship it said, “I just got of prison. I can’t read. I have no one, except my grandma, and she lives in Akron. I need $20 for a Grayhound ticket to see her. I want to rebuild my life. Thank you.”

Marianne looked at the note and looked at the homeless man, while he continued to point at the paper.

HOMELESS MAN (CONT’D)

 Can you please help me?

Our heroine hesitated, but she’s also a kind a heart. A lost soul who, like most insecure adults, wasn’t loved enough as a child. Or wasn’t loved in the way she wanted to be loved.  Regardless, she felt for the man. And despite being late for her waitress job, she did the right thing. She did what she felt was right.

 

MARIANNE

I know what it’s like to not have a family.

She then reached into purse, took out $10 and handed it to the homeless man.

MARIANNE (CONT’D)

Here you go. Rebuild your life. Good luck to you.

The homeless man, now smiling in gratitude, reached out to shake Marianne’s hand and, always being polite and never wanting to offend, she shook his.

HOMELESS MAN

God bless you.

Suddenly, Marianne heard police and fire sirens, at increasing levels. She turned around to see what was going and as quickly as she turned back, the homeless man was gone.

MARIANNE

(looking around)

You…too.

Smoke replaced the fog. Cop cars and fire trucks appeared everywhere. Marianne, now now dazed in the confusion of what just happened, looked at the nearly invisible street. She couldn’t see anything and looked back at her watch.

MARIANNE (CONT’D)

Fuck!

She then realized that she’d never make it to work on time or via her normal route, so she crossed the street, hoping for better visibility. She then cut into the alley sandwiched between the tall, old buildings. This one specific alley, located parallel to and just South of Euclid Ave. and North of  Huron and tee-ing off into East 9th Street connected busy pedestrian streets in a subversive path, with the mist-filled sewers, provided an atmosphere of utter dichotomy to the activity just outside one of the alley’s three exits.

 

 

Marianne hastily cut through this dark, narrow, old alley and passed a Bomb Shelter sign. The uneven cement, partly covering the original cobblestone and the overflowing  garbage dumpsters further frazzled the waitress. All she was so desperately trying to do was get to work. So she could pay her bills. And here she is, in the middle of an alley, deafened by the sirens just on the other side of what were once considered high-rises…

 

 

Suddenly, within the chaos, Marianne began to hear the echo of footsteps behind her.  She turned around and, seeing no one, slightly relieved yet still concerned, she turned back around and kept walking. The emergency vehicle sirens kept escalating. And she began to walk even faster.

 

 

In fact, she was so focused on her rapid walking, to punch in that work clock on time, that she began to block out the external noise. She learned this trick from living in bad neighborhoods, full of midnight noise and mayhem. As she tuned into herself, everything got very quiet. So quiet that when a rat in front of her, Marianne was genuinely startled.

 

As the rat ran to the other side of the alley, Marianne quickly realized that she wasn’t alone in this alley.

 

She stopped.

 

She turned around.

 

She saw the figure that was following her all this time. Before Marianne even had a chance to react, the trench coat- wearing predator pulled out a knife, stabbed Marianne in the left shoulder, whispered the following to the fresh victim…

 

You shouldn’t have ever turned around, bitch.  

 

…and then turned around and ran away.

 

Marianne, shocked, placed her right hand on her left shoulder blade. Her white waitress shirt now full of blood and face in disbelief, Marianne passed out and collapsed, falling on the dirty alley floor, sprawled next to one of the overflowing dumpsters.

 

Seconds later, out of a corner, the rat ran towards Marianne and stayed there, licking the blood off her new neighbor.

 

Cleveland, The Treatment. Chapter 1: Welcome to Cleveland