My Other Body is In the Shop

Not everyone is good at their body. I know mine’s fucked up. The joints are out of alignment and the energy deposits are unevenly distributed. Nothing fits right lately and people been staring at me when I walk around the hood, like yo is he gonna be all right? But you know, they’re just concerned, they’re not looking down at me or nothing. It’s cause my gait is all outta wack. You see other people like me around enough and you get used to it, though. You know, people understand. We all got our body issues out here. It’s not new—lots of us out here been had problems. Some folks you can see right away looking at them, and some you can’t. I know my girl Par, she looks all right, but when you talk to her at the end of the day she’s like, I can barely fuck right, baby, my hands are shot, this and that. Yeah, Par is one of those nerve pain types—her shit is always misfiring, not connecting right, that kind of thing. I’m surprised she still keeps in business, but you know, people always manage to work around their shit out here.

It’s decent, all right. Some people would be surprised. I know those cheese eatin motherfuckers behind the partitions don’t even think we have running water let alone resources to maintain bodies. But you know, fuck them. I heard they been going out trying to get the body docs to come over the wall with them and explain how they minister to prosthetic bodies. Ain’t that some shit? I never heard of no doc that went with ‘em, though, so that’s something good to hear. Fuck those pigs, anyway. All walled themselves in and still trying to come at us for our shit.

But yeah, I’m still trying to figure out what I should do about my situation. My girl Par says she goes to this clinic at the north side, does this labor trade for acupuncture? She says it helps her out. She told me I should check it out, but I don’t really have much to offer for payment. She said go ask anyway, so I’m like all right whatever you say, babygirl. I’m not gonna argue with Par. She’s fine as shit. Gets whatever she needs whenever she needs it, basically. Cause she does a lot of people good around here. Makes ‘em feel all right, you know? Ain’t nobody that’s got beef with Par around here. Or if they do, they know better than to say so.

What’s she do? Oh, you know, like comfort, I guess. No, not like no prostitute shit, come on with that. Knucklehead. No, what she does is like . . . kind of like therapy, I guess. She runs this place with a couple other cats like her. They call it The Convent. It ain’t in no old church though, so I’m not too sure what the name is about, but anyway, you go to The Convent and you leave feeling a lot less stressed out about the world. They can make you feel like things are gonna be okay, you know? Which is valuable—that’s a valuable service right there, in these times for sure!

How do I pay? Well they always want you to do labor trades, so if you can offer them some skill in return for theirs, they’re like all right, you’re good. So lately I’ve been fixing their clothes for them, making curtains, shit like that. Yeah, I used to be a tailor, way back when. That’s why Par makes me nervous, talking about she can’t use her hands right sometimes. Just makes me grateful, you know? But we all got our problems. It’s that day and age, son. We all got to deal with what we’re dealt nowadays. We can’t be like, yeah my other body is in the shop. It’s funny, you know? The world melts down and suddenly all bodies become valuable again.

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PHOTO CREDIT: screenshot from FKA x inc. music video