The Schwa Was Here

The Schwa, insisting he has something to show Antsy, convinces Antsy to take a bus to a deserted area of Brooklyn. The sketchy neighborhood is filled with abandoned warehouses and bisected by the Gowanus Expressway, an elevated highway. Beneath the highway, the traffic is unusually heavy. Antsy nervously follows the Schwa to the seventh floor of a smelly, condemned warehouse. They look through the broken windows at the Manhattan skyline and the expressway. Antsy worries that the Schwa is contemplating suicide by jumping out of a window, but when the streetlights come on, Antsy understands the Schwa’s big plan for being seen. The Schwa’s face and the words “CALVIN SCHWA WAS HERE” fill a lighted billboard facing the expressway. The Schwa used his college fund to rent the billboard and rapturously believes that everyone passing by will see him. Antsy is impressed until he notices that there are no cars on the expressway: It is closed for construction. He does not want to shatter the Schwa’s happiness, but the Schwa slowly realizes the truth. The Schwa despairingly laments that it is his fate simply to vanish.

Antsy is irritated at the Schwa’s attitude because Antsy sees the Schwa and is there for him.