The Cart by Gene Bray

In the 90’s, I was a crackhead, pushing a United States Postal cart all over Midtown South Manhattan. Me and 100 or so other guys. We worked 120 hour weeks. We worked till we dropped. And we slept where we fell. 

My main hustle was scrap metal. I was a scrapper’.

You’ve probably seen these carts. About 3 feet high, 4 feet long, 2 feet wide. Heavy white canvas wrap.

They roll like a ferrari, and are as tough as a pickup truck.  Every scrapper, and every homeless person had one. The cops didn’t care.

 It was fun pushing your cart around. Like dancing with the perfect partner.

You can roll 3,000 pounds of cast iron in em’,  if you’re stupid enough to try. Which I did once on the hottest day of the summer. I weighed 130 pounds. [ the crackhead diet ] It was like pushing a Toyota Corolla in a cart.  It took 30 minutes to go from 7th ave to 8th ave.

Thirty minutes and 3 heat strokes. My fluttering heart had me staggering, then stabbing leg cramps laid me flat on the sidewalk.  I had 2 more avenues and 6 blocks to go for my payday;  6 fat dimes of crack. Thank God the third heat stroke’s seizures zapped some sense into me and I dumped out half the iron.  In 5 minutes I was off.

I cashed in and rushed back for the rest.

You’d be amazed what you can do when you’re thirsty for a hit. When the hormones in your brain are flashing ‘Danger Red Alert’,  and the sirens in your head are shrieking.

You could see an abandoned grand piano on the sidewalk; play a happy tune on it to sell it then somehow balance it in these carts, and deliver this super wide load anywhere.

When you are close to gettin’ a hit, you have superhuman strength. Especially when you’re stealing something. That’s a double blast of hormones. Whatever crazy scheme you had in mind, these carts were up to the task.

And they were everywhere. I used to sell them to businesses for $20. I could get 5 of them in a half hour

Our main hustle was Mongo’. Copper, brass, aluminum, telephone wire, stainless steel. The good stuff. Mongo’

There was demolition everywhere. So there was Mongo everywhere.  And there was an army of scrappers’ marching double time, 24/7

In the evenings, a guy arrived with a truck and bought scrap metal from crackheads. [ He would front’ you a hit of crack, to get ya thirsty’ ].

 And when we were thirsty, we blurred felonies and misdemeanors. And misdemeanors were always a risk worth taking. We were pushing our carts around in circles….to poison ourselves. Committin suicide in slow motion.

But we were as free as butterflies. Sniffing the wind and heading off for adventure. The big score was always around the next corner.

Living off the land by our wits, as our ancient ancestors did.  Living as all creatures have always lived. Living as our Creator intended.

Looking back….It was a happy time.

Gene Bray

Image Donald Trung, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons – a pile of rusting scrap metal in a junk yard.