The dented steel door was situated at the base of a stairwell in an alley between two old tenements. The steady hum of passing cars was heard from 59th Street, and three stories above, pigeons foraged among the eaves and gutters. People came in measured spurts, careful not to travel more than one or two at a time, lest they spoil one of Chicago’s best-kept secrets, a “secret” known to a few hundred neighbors as well as half the local precinct.
A man stood in front of the door, his hands buried in the pockets of his gray overcoat, a black bowler with a matching bow resting on his closely-shaven head. His collar was turned up, obscuring his ear lobes and lower jaw. He was forty, 5’ 10”, gaunt, with a sharp nose, hazy blue eyes and dark stubble that peeked out from his muffled visage. Without once averting his inscrutable gaze from the battered portal before him, he lit a cigarette, smoked it, and tossing the butt aside, knocked sharply three times, his gloved hand softening the noise to a dull thud. A small sliding window opened and a pair of suspicious eyes surveyed him.
“What’s your favorite color?” a woman asked.
“Mahogany.”
“You ever been here before?” came the next question, the voice ringing with mistrust.
“Sure, Jane,” he lied. “Lots of times.”
“Hold on.”
The window shut, and enough time passed to smoke another cigarette, but the man did not. If he was impatient at waiting in the cold alley he made no sign of it. At last came the sound of a large iron bolt being drawn aside, and with a creak, the door opened. Argus Buckley stepped inside to catch a tall, sultry blonde with a tray of cigarettes sauntering away from him, her hips swinging arrogantly. A small grin cracked his ashen face, like a lightning flash across a gray September sky.
“Nice talkin’ to you, too,” he muttered.
The joint was dark, fetid and reeked of stale cigar smoke and whiskey. Three cheap chandeliers lined the fifty-foot ceiling. A few people played cards and drank at the dozen small tables scattered across the room. Others milled about with drinks in their hands, some engaging in conversation, some staring into space, lost in saturated reverie. Buckley climbed onto an empty stool at one end of the bar. He glanced at the people seated to the left of him. Two men in dark blue three-piece suits, each poring over a glass of whiskey, one of them stirring his drink lackadaisically with a toothpick. An older couple, probably man and wife, the former inhaling shots. Two flappers, talking animatedly. Not very lively tonight, which suited him fine. Buckley turned forwards and noticed the bartender staring at him.
“Gimme a ginger ale,” he said.
The bartender raised his eyebrows. “That’s all?”
“Okay,” Buckley said. “Half ginger ale, half Seagram’s.”
“How about Bob’s instead?” he suggested.
Buckley looked puzzled. “What’s that?”
“Tastes just like Seagram’s, only the label’s different.”
Buckley gave an obligatory laugh. “Sure.”
The bartender nodded, his expressionless face matching his dry wit. Within ten seconds he set the drink in front of Buckley.
“Two bits.”
Buckley tossed two quarters onto the counter, waving the bartender away when he tried to return the extra one.
“Thanks.”
Buckley grunted in reply and downed half of his drink with one gulp. He drummed his fingers on the counter. Glancing across the room, he noticed an unkempt young man sitting alone at one of the card tables. The fellow glared at him defiantly. Buckley shook his head slowly and deliberately, a menacing gesture of quiet confidence. The man looked away.
Buckley pulled a watch out of his left trouser pocket. 10:31. The place was emptying. Digging into his right pocket, he fumbled among keys and coins and felt for a small, rectangular bottle. He paused while trying to remember something, then without looking he fished the amber-colored vial out, unscrewed the cap and shook out two pills. Staring at his reflection in the bar mirror, he tossed the pills into his mouth, and washed them down with the rest of his drink. He flagged down the bartender.
“Salty Face here?” Buckley asked after two more drinks.
The bartender stroked his bushy mustache with a thumb three or four times, a prelude to a dramatic pause. “Mr. Peterson is here tonight. Who’s askin?”
“I’m a friend of Gino Riccardelli’s,” Buckley answered, partially telling the truth.
“Gino?” the bartender asked. “Hold on.” With that he stepped out the side entrance of the bar and walked to one of the two doors in the back of the room. With the small crowd nearly dispersed by now, Buckley heard the knocking and the brusque response.
“Who is it?” a gruff voice shouted.
“Frank.”
Buckley watched “Frank” open the door and step inside, closing it softly behind him. A minute later he came out, giving Buckley the thumbs up sign. Buckley nodded and sliding his stool out with a loud squeak, stood up and headed towards Salty Face’s office. The door was ajar, so he dispensed with knocking.
Salty Face was a pale, balding, obese man of 45, with thick pink lips and abnormally large eyes. He sat behind an oaken desk on which were stacked three or four piles of papers- each secured with its own paperweight. Also scattered across the surface were a stapler, a stack of quarters, and a two-day old copy of the Chicago Tribune. In the center of the organized mess, placed askew on top of the desk blotter, was a plate with the remains of a cold anchovy pizza. Salty Face was stuffing another soggy piece into his mouth when Buckley caught him. Salty Face froze, his feeding hand, adorned with a gaudy gold pinky ring, dangling in mid-air.
Chewing his last bite quickly, he wolfed it down and motioned for Buckley to sit in the chair in front of his desk. “Hey, there.”
“Hey, there, yourself, ” Buckley replied. “Sorry to interrupt your dinner.”
“That’s okay. You want a piece?”
Buckley wasn’t sure whether to be more disgusted by watching someone eat the gooey, congealed mess or by the fact that Salty Face had offered it to him. He kept his well-worn poker face, though.
“No, thanks.”
Salty Face shrugged. “What can I do for you?”
Buckley leaned back in his chair and stretched his long arms behind his head. “I’d like to make a little wager.”
Salty Face waved his hand in a cavalier gesture of dismissal.
“Talk to Frank.”
“This one’s too big for Frank,” Buckley said.
“Oh, yeah?” Salty Face asked. “What number you like? I don’t take more than fifty bucks on a single number.”
“How about five hundred?” Buckley asked, tossing a neatly wrapped stack of twenties on the table. “On the 1-2-4 exacta in a box, third race tomorrow at Hawthorne.”
Salty Face glanced at the pile of bills in front of him with mild curiosity. Looking back up at Buckley he said, “I don’t give odds on horses, Mr. . .?”
Buckley ignored the question. “Do you know a colored fellow by the name of Malthus Duncan? Retired machinist.”
“No,” Salty Face answered.
“Well, he knows you,” Buckley said. “Says he’s bet the horses with you a few times and you always paid him when he won.” Buckley tilted his hat. “Course, he doesn’t win much.”
“Well, he’s a liar,” Salty Face said, taking another bite of pizza.
Buckley leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. “Is that so? How about Jack Green? And Joan Cohen? And Ricky DiSalvo? Are they liars?”
“What the hell are you talkin’ about?” Salty Face demanded.
“I’m talkin’ about ten percent of everything,” Buckley finished, gritting his teeth. “Ten percent of the money from the booze, ten percent of the numbers, ten percent of those horse bets.” Buckley leaned back and folded his arms. “Gino sent those people, with money he gave them, to see if you’d take their horse bets. An investigative expense.”
Both men were silent, waiting for the other to speak. Buckley did. “We caught you red-handed,” he said. “You got one choice: get lost. That’s right from Gino’s mouth,” he explained, almost apologetically. “I’m just a messenger. But you better be gone by tomorrow night. Gino's gonna send somebody to take over."
Salty Face’s jaw dropped, and an anchovy fell onto the desk.
“You gotta be kiddin.' So I took a little action on the ponies. Gino wants ten percent? I’ll give it to him.”
Buckley shook his head. “You don’t get it. Gino says get out. By tomorrow, Salty Face.”
Salty Face grew livid. “Nobody gets rid of me that easily,” he hissed, and reached to open a drawer.
Buckley knew the move too well. Instantly his hand disappeared inside his coat and there was a glint of black metal, followed by two pops of a silencer on the end of a .45. Salty Face jerked back violently, his arms waving wildly. “You son of a bitch,” he gasped. He slumped forwards and caught the edge of the desk with both hands, then collapsed.
Buckley returned his Colt to its shoulder holster. A sharp, searing pain ignited in his stomach and raced up his chest. Shouldn’t have mixed those pills with booze. Now he had a bad case of heartburn. He took one unemotional farewell glance at Salty Face, half-lying in his unfinished meal, the bundle of cash sitting by his head. “Buy yourself some flowers.” Standing beside the door, he opened it a crack and before exiting, remarked for the benefit of any would-be listeners, “I’ll check back with you next week.” Pushing in the button that locked the office door, he slid through the narrow opening and closed it behind him. As he passed Frank, who was wiping the counter, he waved goodbye and was let out by the tall blonde, who was as unsociable as ever.
The night was cold and dark as Buckley pulled up to his house at 2224 Lakeside Place on the North Side. The car door made a loud sound as he shut it, though he had not intended to slam it. Inside the foyer, his boots echoed hollowly on the hardwood floor. He hung his coat and hat on the rack, and was hit by a wave of vertigo as he walked into the parlor. He stumbled, grabbing hold of his recliner. He felt his way around to the front of the chair, his vision blurry, and sat. His stomach rumbled, and he had an image of dying coals in a fire. Pensively he rocked back and forth a few times. Hands shaking, he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out his pack of Camels, lighting another. The first drag eased his symptoms a little, the second a little more. A faint humming started in his ears, and began to sound like the distant whisperings of a hundred malicious voices. “Stop,” he ordered, and they did.
Buckley stared at the window on the opposite side of the room. The shade was pulled, and the foreboding, bland, white barrier taunted him silently, daring him to look beyond. He dismissed the thought at first, but the urge obsessed him, so with effort he hauled himself to a stand, crossed the room and lifting the edge of the shade, peeked outside.
Underneath the lamp post on the opposite corner was a person cloaked in a raincoat and hat, leaning against the solitary street beacon as if waiting for a bus. A light rain was falling. Buckley jumped as the figure turned towards him. A casual hand lifted the hat from the obscured face. As the wicked glint of a smile appeared, Buckley recognized the ghastly face that stared back at him from across the chasm of eternity.
A jolt coursed through Buckley. Then he saw only a few stray raindrops shimmering lightly in the glow cast from the street lamp. No one there. He let the shade fall back into place.
Buckley headed into the kitchen and mixed a teaspoon of baking soda with a glass of tap water, grimacing as he drank the unsavory concoction. Maybe this was ruining his nerves. Maybe he should go legitimate and move to Miami. He thought of Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, and laughed.
Shuffling back into the parlor, he turned on the radio and sat down. Buckley liked listening to the radio. He preferred it to the company of people. Whenever you got tired of it, you could just turn it off. He wished that he could have done that with his ex-wife. Leaning back, he closed his eyes, and listened to a stream of Baroque.
Buckley fidgeted in his chair, trying to relax as a chiaroscuro of images rushed through his mind, swirling forms and faces, some assuming enough clarity to be disturbing. He saw the face of his late father, a remote lighthouse in a maelstrom of dark images. He heard the familiar admonishment: You gotta come clean, Argie. Then his senses shifted back to the announcer’s voice.
“. . . listening to Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Thank you for tuning into WDDJ, Chicago’s choice for fine music. In the news today, Mayor Deever told reporters that . . .”
As Buckley listened, the voice began to change, and the monotonous drone grew deeper, harsher, and more guttural, assuming a terrifying familiarity.
“. . . as some of us think that we’re safe and secure from the wave of crime that has gripped the city. You think you’re safe, but you’re not,” he seemed to be addressing Buckley. “Nobody gets rid of me that easily!”
Buckley’s whole frame spasmed, like a condemned man in the electric chair receiving the first surge. He shot out of the recliner, and grabbing the radio, lifted it off the bookshelf to hurl it across the room. He stopped his tantrum-in-progress and listened to the voice of Joan Crawford extolling the virtues of Pepsi-cola. Joan Crawford. He set the radio back on the shelf and turned the knob until he heard the click.
Buckley laughed nervously. He could feel the sweat on his brow. “Go back to hell where you belong,” he announced defiantly.
He decided to go to bed, not because he was tired, but because it was one in the morning and he couldn’t think of anything else to do. He chided himself for letting his imagination run amok. He draped his gun and shoulder holster across the wooden night stand. Taking off his boots, he lay down on the bed fully dressed and folded his hands across his chest. Thinking that made him look too much like a stiff in a coffin, he shifted them behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. Ten minutes later he realized that he had forgotten to turn off the light. With a groan he climbed out of bed and flicked the switch, then lay back down. Becoming bored and no longer tired, he began singing.
“I’ll be loving you, always . . .With a love that’s true,
always . . .When the things you’ve planned need a helping hand-”
“I will understand, always, always . . .”
Buckley listened to the silence, straining to hear what he hoped he would not. Reluctantly he continued.
“Days may not be fair, always. That’s when I’ll be there,
always . . . Not just for an hour, not just for a day-’’
“. . . Not just for a year, but always . . .”
Buckley sat up, trying to determine if he had heard the refrain from inside his own head or from somewhere nearby. Swinging his legs onto the floor, he climbed out of bed and withdrew his .45 from where it hung on the nightstand. He dashed into the parlor, and looked around. He stood in the middle of the floor, in between the window and the recliner. He turned towards the window and catching hold of the shade with his thumb and forefingers, peeled it back only enough to see outside. The empty, rain-slicked street stared back at him. As he withdrew his hand he heard a shuffling behind him, and turned around to a sight that struck him like a pail of ice water.
The hulking figure of Salty Face was plopped in the chair like a sack of manure, two oozing wounds dotting his chest. The blood running down his grotesque mouth was exactly as Buckley remembered, but this time, the putrid lips were twisted into a smirk. One hand perched lazily on the arm of the recliner, while the other, in horrid mockery, was holding out a slice of anchovy pizza.
“Want a piece?”
A scream came from every fiber of Buckley’s being, from the depths of his sordid soul, lashing out in terror at every nightmare, which sat embodied before him. Buckley’s hands went into firing position, his trigger finger pumping the .45 a dozen times after the remaining three bullets were fired. The apparition had been there but a second or two, like a fleeting shadow glimpsed out of the corner of one’s eye, but this shadow had been full in his field of vision. He threw the spent pistol at the perforated chair, then gripping the recliner on both sides, toppled it. Buckley seized the telephone on the folding table and feverishly dialed. His entire body was shaking, his fingers barely steady enough to make the call.
A distant ringing on the other end. A click. A human voice, groggy and confused.
“Doctor Blackwell, what was that stuff you gave me for me nerves? My God, what the hell was it?”
The voice assumed feminine coherence. “This is his wife. Hold on.” Muffled conversation in the background.
The doctor’s voice came on the line, straining to sound professional.
“This is Jim Blackwell.”
“Doc,” Buckley said, hyperventilating. “It’s Argie Buckley.” He spoke short, choppy sentences, gasping at interims. “You gave me some stuff. To calm me down. Some anxiety pills. They ain’t workin’ too good.”
“Mr. Buckley?” replied Blackwell, more alert. “I remember. Phenobarbital was what I gave you. Are you having unpleasant side effects?”
“Unpleasant?” Buckley repeated. “Unpleasant doesn’t begin to describe it. I took a couple pills. Washed them down with . . . with a few drinks,” he confessed. “I’m goin’ buggy,” he explained. “Seeing things that ain’t there.”
“You’re hallucinating?” Blackwell asked.
“Yeah, that’s it. Hallucinating. Does that sound possible?”
“I would say so, if you took twice the dosage and washed it down with alcohol,” Blackwell explained, a slightly rebuking tone to his voice. “Mr. Buckley, do you have the medicine with you?”
“Right here in my pocket,” Buckley told him, reaching into his trousers and feeling for the shape of the rectangular bottle. It says on the label-’’
Three simple words screamed obscenely at him like a bloodstain on a new white shirt. Saint Mary’s Aspirin.
“Mr. Buckley, are you still there? Hello?”
There was no response. From the other end the receiver, dropped suddenly, swung silently back and forth, dangling like a body at the end of a hangman’s rope.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Frostbite
Code Blue was in effect that night. Philadelphia Police had orders to round up any homeless who didn't seek shelter. The shelters were stuffed with hordes of humanity, who found breathing in cramped quarters difficult. But it was better than freezing.
Icarus Williams stumbled down Spring Garden Street, and entered a restaurant at the corner with 22nd. He approached a table where a man and a woman were seated. The woman had a Russian accent.
"Spare some change?"
The wife reached into a small purse and handed Icarus two dollars. Icarus clasped the bills in his fist and feeling suddenly self-conscious, headed towards the exit. He heard the couple arguing.
" . . . into a restaurant without some vagrant . . ."
"Calm down, daragoy."
The frigid wind ambushed Icarus as he stepped outside. A trench coat and a wool cap were all the protection he had. Spiderman had stolen his gloves.
Turning the corner, Icarus spied two cops. One, a husky black man, shouted, "Hey, buddy!"
Then his eyes became red-hot coals, and smoke spewed from his nostrils. Icarus bolted across Spring Garden.
Icarus stopped at 22nd and the Parkway. Sweat froze on his skin. He shuffled zombie-like down 22nd, turning right onto Ludlow. He sat on the frozen sidewalk.
Footsteps approached. A figure towered over him.
"Come in from the cold."
"Don't want to go to no shelter," Icarus replied. "Brother ain't safe."
"This shelter's different."
Glancing up, Icarus half-expected to see Jesus. What he saw was a middle-aged man with a thick brown beard, and wearing a long black robe. A wooden cross hung from a string around his neck.
Dazed, Icarus followed him.
"Where we goin'?"
"Not far."
Code Blue was in effect that night. Philadelphia Police had orders to round up any homeless who didn't seek shelter. Mary Styles huddled in an alley. She was tired, starving, and freezing.
A silhouette seemed to materialize several feet away. The shadow came closer, becoming flesh and blood. A man about 45. Dressed in a thick overcoat, hat, and leather gloves. He walked with a gait.
"What do you want?" Mary asked.
"You to come in from the cold."
Reluctantly, Mary stood up and followed him to a nearby van. Six faces peered out at her from the vehicle. The driver smiled. This was no dream.
"Where we going?"
"A house of God," Deacon Williams replied.
© Allan M. Heller
Friday, October 24, 2014
During the Heat Wave
You won't find no newspaper articles about the heatwave in Clover Corners, Pennsylvania -a small town outside of Pittsburgh- in 1971. Them deaths were officially listed as "mundane" causes -heatstroke, heart attack, a domestic fire, but eyewitnesses knew this wasn't true. Mable McCarthy started sweatin' buckets while she was in line at the post office, then collapsed. Jasper Clevington was walkin' along Brewster Boulevard when he started smokin' - and I don't mean no cigarette. Never screamed -just started shakin' while them white tufts was risin' off him. Then he went down. Pat Horton -the county coroner and a friend of my Pop, said Jasper had third degree burns. Cuddy Masters had it worst of all; he was in his kitchen fryin' an egg when he got his: wife Athena said he melted -right in front of her eyes!
Everybody who saw them "accidents" said the same: the victims' bodies got blurry, the way things look in summertime when heat rises off of 'em. But this was October.
Now I know what you're thinkin': some freaky, Halloweeny stuff. But it was the 23rd, 24th and 25th of October. Whatever it was moved like a invisible stalker, and there wasn't no common thread between victims. One was a 69 year-old widow. Jasper was a World War I veteran. Cuddy Masters was a middle-aged machinist; a drunk who slapped Athena a little, but he didn't deserve that.
I heard about "spontaneous combustion," where folks just burst into flames. But there wasn't no fire in this heatwave. People sweated, smoked and melted, but didn't catch fire.
I think it was a government conspiracy. In June of '69, some big defense contractor wanted to open a plant here. But folks didn't want it; picketed, protested, packed in monthly supervisors' meetin's. So this weapons maker packed up and left.
But I have a theory. At a supervisors' meetin', where them defense contractors announced they was changin' their minds, some bigwig corporate lawyer said somethin' like, "We was just tryin' to create jobs and give you'se opportunities. We didn't expect this much heat." Interestin' enough, nothin' ever happened to none of them three supervisors, includin' Pop, who was chairman, and died of natural causes in 1999.
True, nothing happened to the rest of the population 'til two years later, but you know that sayin': revenge is a dish best served cold. Or in this case, hot.
© August 4, 2012 by Allan M. Heller
Everybody who saw them "accidents" said the same: the victims' bodies got blurry, the way things look in summertime when heat rises off of 'em. But this was October.
Now I know what you're thinkin': some freaky, Halloweeny stuff. But it was the 23rd, 24th and 25th of October. Whatever it was moved like a invisible stalker, and there wasn't no common thread between victims. One was a 69 year-old widow. Jasper was a World War I veteran. Cuddy Masters was a middle-aged machinist; a drunk who slapped Athena a little, but he didn't deserve that.
I heard about "spontaneous combustion," where folks just burst into flames. But there wasn't no fire in this heatwave. People sweated, smoked and melted, but didn't catch fire.
I think it was a government conspiracy. In June of '69, some big defense contractor wanted to open a plant here. But folks didn't want it; picketed, protested, packed in monthly supervisors' meetin's. So this weapons maker packed up and left.
But I have a theory. At a supervisors' meetin', where them defense contractors announced they was changin' their minds, some bigwig corporate lawyer said somethin' like, "We was just tryin' to create jobs and give you'se opportunities. We didn't expect this much heat." Interestin' enough, nothin' ever happened to none of them three supervisors, includin' Pop, who was chairman, and died of natural causes in 1999.
True, nothing happened to the rest of the population 'til two years later, but you know that sayin': revenge is a dish best served cold. Or in this case, hot.
© August 4, 2012 by Allan M. Heller
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Disturbing Trends
Scott Burton took another deep drag on his cigarette, his eyes gazing blankly at the flickering television screen six feet from where he sat. If someone had suddenly turned off the set, he probably would have protested, but if the same person had asked him what he had been watching the past half hour, he probably wouldn’t have been able to provide a satisfactory answer.
The sight of a bright red sports car racing madly across a desert landscape yanked Scott out of his semi-stupor. “The New Kamikaze, from Cyclone Motors. You’re just one step away from flying.”
Scott would have given anything for a new set of wheels like that. At the moment, however, he didn’t have anything to give. Six years at Valu-Fresh Markets had dissipated with the advent of a new price scanner that totaled an entire cart of groceries in fifteen seconds. A $54,000 car was at the bottom of his list of necessities. Still, he was allowed to dream.
He took another puff on his crude, home-made cigarette, holding the smoke in his lungs as long as possible before exhaling. He couldn’t really afford to smoke either, but he had to do something to alleviate the boredom of a horridly dull existence.
An initial glance at Scott wouldn’t have distinguished him from millions of other typical Americans, employed or otherwise. He was dressed in faded, tattered blue jeans, and a black t-shirt emblazoned with the explicit logo of Caramel, his favorite heavy metal group. His dirty, white canvas sneakers were untied but loosely laced. A backwards Phillies cap was shoved tightly on his head. He was seldom without a cap, except when he slept or showered. His hair hung to his shoulders in dark blond locks, and two-day scruff sprouted from his face.
The television droned on. “. . .Stillwater Falls runs red with blood, as a determined serial killer strives for 10 victims. Will Reggie and Sheila be able to stop him before he makes his deadly quota? Find out on Streets of Fire, tonight at ten.
“But now stay tuned for Roll Over, as Bruce is caught masturbating on the office surveillance system.”
“I feel like such a jerk! . . .Don’t say it!”
Scott laughed loudly and pounded the arm of his chair. “Oh, man,” he said. His burst of joviality was interrupted by a pounding on the front door. Instinctively he dropped the cigarette to the floor and hastily stomped it out. Scuttling the barely smoking butt under the chair with the heel of his sneaker, he jumped to his feet. Probably that cranky old Mrs. Okra down the hall.
The pounding continued unabated. “Open up!” came a shout from the hallway. “Police.”
As Scott grabbed the handle and started to turn, the door swung open with such speed and force that it nearly knocked him down. Two officers burst into the apartment, a short, stocky woman with mean blue eyes and a crew cut, and her partner, a tall, gaunt man in his late forties with a mustache and a dark goatee. Side by side, they looked almost comical. But Scott wasn't about to tell them that.
“What’s the problem?” he asked, looking as naive as he could.
The butch broad answered him. “We have a search warrant,” she informed him, shoving a piece of paper in his face.
“A search warrant?” Scott said, doing his best to sound shocked. “I don’t understand.”
Her partner took three or four long strides over to where Scott had been sitting, and picked up a clear plastic bag containing the three remaining cigarettes. “Maybe this will clear things up,” he replied. In his haste to extinguish and dispose of the butt he’d been smoking, Scott had forgotten the obvious.
The short, stocky woman grabbed him by the shoulders, spun him around, and shoved him against the wall. In a second, her hands were all over his arms, shoulders, back, buttocks and thighs. She methodically grabbed one wrist, then the other, and cuffed his hands behind his back.
“Take it easy, honey!” Scott said.
“What did you call me?” she demanded.
This time Scott didn’t have to feign surprise. “What do you mean what did I call you?”
Her voice was a snarl. “You called me honey! Jim, you hear him call me honey?”
Jim nodded. “Sure did, Sue.”
“Mister,” she told Scott. “you’re lookin’ at possession of tobacco and second degree sexual misconduct charges.”
“What?” Scott shouted. “This is unbelievable!” He repeated this statement as the policewoman shoved him towards the door.
“You have the right to remain silent,” her partner began. “If you give up this right, anything you say can and will be used against you. You also have the right to have an attorney present during-"
“Oh, he knows his rights!” the woman snapped, sending Scott out into the hallway with a sharp kick in the pants. Scott grimaced and then grew livid, but didn’t dare vocalize what he was thinking this time.
The ride in the back of the patrol car was interminable. The locked doors on either side of him and the wire partition in front of him made Scott feel like he was already in prison. He heard the casual conversation between his two captors, and they sounded more like they were discussing the weather over a cup of coffee and a bag of doughnuts rather than apprehending a “dangerous felon” like himself.
The squad car pulled neatly into a space between two other police vehicles in front of the gray stone precinct building. Scott was hustled through a pair of glass doors, brushing past cluttered desks and bodies in blue uniforms. He heard talking and shouting and laughing and cursing. The stench of rancid coffee nearly made him gag. He was efficiently booked, photographed and fingerprinted, then shoved into the back of a police van with seven men who looked like they were capable of mugging their grandmothers. Nobody said a word or looked at anyone else during the bumpy, 15-minute ride to the courthouse.
The group missed night court by minutes, so it was Scott’s misfortune to spend the night in a cell. He stood with his hands on the bars after the cell door was locked behind him and stared vacantly ahead like the consummate prisoner. He finally turned around and nearly yelled in shock upon seeing another person sitting in the corner, two or three feet from the toilet. The guy was staring at him, not in a hostile fashion, just looking at him like somebody might look at a new building or a smashed vehicle on the side of a road. He was about Scott’s age, tall, wiry, with beady eyes and slicked black hair that stood up in spikes. Five earrings that resembled tiny links of chain hung from his right earlobe, and a large, white plastic loop from his left. A silver bead was stuck underneath his lower lip. His pants were so large on him that it looked like he had a throw covering his legs. He wore a sleeveless red shirt inside out and backwards. On his feet were black leather pumps. Looking at him, Scott thought that the feature that stood out most was that silver bead above his chin.
“What’s your favorite arcade game, dude?” he asked Scott abruptly.
Scott leaned an arm against one of the cots protruding from the wall, and replied with calculated calmness, “Phatal Phight.”
The young man nodded, slowly absorbing Scott’s reply. “Yeah, that one’s pretty cool. I like to take Absolute Zero. Either him or Acid Tongue. But the graphics on Disemboweler are way better.”
Scott’s perplexed look didn’t fade. “Oh, yeah?” he said.
“Totally, man,” his perforated cell mate replied. “When you get to the third screen, all the people you killed come back at the same time. They pop up out of the ground, under rocks, out of the trees. They rip your arms and legs off if they catch you.”
Scott still didn’t know what to say. He blinked again and shook his head, hoping that this was a bad dream and that he could simply shake himself awake. Nothing changed.
“What’s wrong?” the guy asked him.
“What’s wrong?” Scott repeated incredulously.
“Yeah, that’s what I said, ‘what’s wrong?’”
The expression on Scott’s face plainly told the guy that Scott thought he was an idiot. “I’m in jail, man,” he said.
Silver Bead shrugged. “So am I. Not the first time, either.” With that he folded his fingers on his knees and began twiddling his thumbs, like he was switching mental gears from a failed attempt at conversation to idle finger play. Then he came back. “So what did you do to land yourself here?”
Scott gave him a suspicious look. “Why?”
“Just asking.” He laughed. “Look, I’m not a police decoy, if that’s what you’re thinking, dude.”
“Got busted with three cigarettes,” Scott said resignedly. “And this lady cop says I called her ‘honey,’ so they wanna charge me with some sexual misconduct bull.”
“Pretty serious stuff,” Silver Bead replied, not at all seriously.
“Whatcha gonna do?”
Scott shifted position slightly. “I don’t know.”
“My old supervisor at the factory I used to work at slapped this girl on the ass, playfully, you know,” he started telling Scott, tactlessly, Scott thought. “He spent four months in jail and the company had to pay her $250,000. Last I heard, he was still outta work.”
Scott looked at him in misery. “Thanks,” he muttered.
Scott’s garrulous friend acted like he hadn’t even heard. “’Course, they had all kinds of problems at that place. This one dude got fired ‘cause he came to work drunk three times, so he sued for racial discrimination. Awarded him $50,000. Can you believe that?”
“I can’t believe I’m here,” Scott moaned.
“It doesn’t take much,” the guy commiserated. “First time?”
“First time.”
“What’s your name, man?”
Scott sighed. “I’m Scott.”
“Wade. Nice to meet you.”
“Yeah, likewise.”
“You know, Scott,” Wade went on. “my old man got busted three times for cheating on his taxes. Said that he was just tryin’ to keep the government from stealing what was his. They been taxin’ the hell outta him for years, Internet tax, e-mail tax, tax on all six properties he owns, county tax, occupancy privilege tax. So he just had enough. He was real defiant about it, too. He did six months.”
Scott resigned himself to the fact that Wade was just going to keep on talking whether anyone paid him any attention or not, so he decided he may as well have a conversation with him. He didn’t feel like sleeping.
“So where is your Dad now?” Scott asked apathetically.
“I don’t know,” Wade said. “He’s not coming to bail me out, if that’s what you mean.”
Scott didn’t know how to answer. Wade truly sounded dejected.
“I stole a car,” Wade continued. “Sorry,” he added. “I allegedly stole a car. “I’ve been allegedly stealing stuff since I was ten.”
“What’ll happen to you this time?” Scott asked.
Wade began twiddling his thumbs again. “Probably get a year or two,” he said. “But like I said, I’ve been in all kinds of trouble all my life. Never killed anyone, though,” he added, as if to reassure Scott.
The two were silent for a long time after that. Finally Scott asked, “So did you at least steal a nice car?”
“Oh, yeah, man,” Wade told him. “A brand new Cyclone Kamikaze, tomato red!”
Scott’s jaw dropped. “No way, man!” he shouted. “A Kamikaze? That is one sweet car.”
“You’re tellin’ me,” Wade shot back. “Leather interior, six-speed stick shift, stereo system, built-in speaker phone. . .” his voice trailed off dreamily. He added ruefully, “I really hated to break the window to get in.”
“Were you going to sell it?” Scott asked, feeling some camaraderie, or maybe just pity, for his fellow miscreant.
“Actually, it was just a theft of convenience,” Wade explained. “I needed to get somewhere in a hurry, and that was the first vehicle I saw. My brother taught me how to hot-wire cars,” he explained. He grinned. “Taught me a lot of bad stuff.”
“Where did you have to go in such a hurry?” Scott had to know.
Wade blushed. “To see my probation officer,” he said. “I was running late.”
Scott looked at Wade for several seconds in astonishment, then the two of them broke out in gales of laughter that shook their whole bodies and left them coughing and gasping.
“To see your probation officer,” Scott wheezed.
A loud pinging rang off the cell bars as the officer on guard rapped them with his nightstick. He was a fat, graying, middle-aged man with a red, bulbous nose. A tiny diamond stud sparkled in his left earlobe. “All right, settle down, you two,” he bellowed.
“Didn’t know laughing was a felony, officer,” Wade challenged him.
The fat cop glared at him for ten or fifteen seconds, then walked away without comment. Wade made a faint snorting noise.
“So,” Scott began tentatively. “You think maybe your brother could bail you out?”
Wade shook his head. “He’s dead.”
“I’m sorry, man.”
“Yeah,” Wade said, almost philosophically. “Flipped his car over three times.”
“Was he drunk?” Scott asked.
“No.”
“I wonder if they’ll feed us,” Scott began awkwardly.
Wade’s response came out of nowhere. “I did something about two years ago that also got me into a lot of trouble.”
Scott looked at Wade curiously, waiting for him to continue.
“This was when I worked at United Medical Supplies, same place where that manager I mentioned got canned for sexual assault and the shipping clerk sued for discrimination.” He took a deep breath, as if beginning to tell a long and tragic tale. “They say stuff happens in threes. Well, I was number three.
“I was on my lunch break. Just about everybody else had gone out for Chinese, ‘cept I was broke and nobody was feeling too generous.” He gave a short laugh. “Nobody was in the warehouse, so I started playing around with the computer on the shipping manager’s desk, surfing the Net.” He grinned. “Looking at those adult sites. I come across this link for,” he whispered. “Stephanie Sizzle.”
Scott’s eyebrows raised at the name. Stephanie Sizzle was a porn star whose career spanned just three years, but some 75 films. Her stint in adult cinema came to an end when somebody found out that the comely, curvaceous blonde was 15 when she started making movies. Nearly all of the films were officially considered contraband.
“So I checked it out for a few minutes,” Wade finally blurted out.
Scott grimaced. “You got off looking at a 15 year-old?”
“I’m telling you, she had the body of a twenty-five year old,” Wade insisted, becoming defensive. “I’ll bet you wouldn’t have known the difference, either. Anyway, the feds came into the place the next day wanting to know who was looking at ‘child pornography’ on the Internet. And like an idiot, I told them.”
Scott looked like he was hearing a murder confession. “So, did they like, arrest you?”
“Hell, yeah,” Wade said. “Arrested, fingerprinted, booked. Fired from my job, needless to say,” he added. “All for looking at a picture that somebody more or less flashed in front of my face.”
“It wasn’t exactly ‘flashed in front of your face,’” Scott countered.
“Oh, no?” Wade argued. “It’s out there for everybody to see. If some pervert pastes a picture of a couple of naked ten year-olds on a billboard right over I-95, according to the law, everybody who drives by and looks is a criminal!”
Scott rolled his eyes. “That’s not the same thing. Besides, who’d want to look at a picture of two naked ten year-olds? Not me.”
“Not me either, man!” Wade shouted, pounding his fist into his palm. “I’m not like that. I swear. But this was different, man.”
Scott wanted to know more. “Well, how did they know somebody was looking at it?” he asked Wade. “You turned it off before everyone got back, didn’t you?
“Yeah, yeah”, Wade said. “But they got ways of finding that out now. Do you know what cookies are? I mean, like, computer cookies?”
Scott shook his head.
“Well, they’re like these little programs that latch onto your computer, like a bug, like tapping somebody’s phone, like they do to mobsters. They know everything, man. They find out.”
Scott still didn’t understand. “So why don’t they nail everybody that looks at that stuff?”
“I don’t know, man,” Wade said. “Totally random, I guess.”
“I don’t even own a computer,” Scott told him.
“Me neither,” Wade replied. “I don’t even own a car anymore since I totaled my last one. Of course, that’s another story. If it weren’t for that computer at work, that whole mess never would’ve happened. But I’d have found somehow to screw up. Story of my life.”
Scott didn’t recall being tired or even climbing into bed, but figured he must have, since that was where he woke up. Since his watch as well as all of his other personal belongings had been confiscated, he didn’t know what time it was. Wade was still sitting in the corner, like he hadn’t moved all night. He was awake, and looked neither tired nor alert.
“Hello,” he said, as Scott swung his legs over the bed and sat up.
“Hey,” Scott replied.
Heavy footsteps thudded down the hallway. The guard was back. He stood purposefully before the cell door, squared his shoulders and then pressed his right thumb against a tiny gray screen set in between the bars and the door jamb.
“Unauthorized personnel,” a monotone female voice said.
Cursing, the guard again pressed his thumb on the screen, harder this time. The response from the computerized square was the same.
“Hey, Jansen,” he shouted to a policewoman walking past.
“What’s the matter with this thing?”
She stopped and turned towards him. She was about 25, a beautiful woman with a dark, unblemished complexion and sleek black hair tied into a topknot. “What’s the matter, Frick?” she asked.
“I can’t open this damn cell!”
“Use your left thumb,” she suggested.
He tried this. Again he heard the same infuriating message.
She laughed playfully, and lightly touched her own left thumb against the screen. “Jansen, Laurie F. Access allowed.” There was a loud click, and she effortlessly slid open the cell door as her colleague looked on dumbfounded.
“Must be all that pizza grease on your thumbs, Frick,” she quipped. Scott watched her longingly as she strolled off.
The fat cop looked at Scott. “Come talk to your lawyer,” he grunted tersely.
The two walked down the corridor past a dozen other cells. “Hold it right there,” Frick announced, and Scott froze. Then he opened a door to Scott’s left, ordered him to have a seat at a small table in the center, and closed the door behind him. A minute later the door opened again and a woman entered, her heels clacking delicately on the floor as she made her way to the table and sat down opposite Scott. She was about 35, with black hair tied in a bun and thick, plastic-rimmed glasses resting on her large nose. She had the kind of face that could never be made to look pretty, only passable. She had a very shapely figure, though, accented by her tight black skirt and white cotton blouse.
Scott unconsciously smoothed his tangled blond hair.
“Hello, Scott,” she addressed him. “My name is Judith Plumb. I’m with the Philadelphia Public Defender’s office.”
“Hello,” Scott replied, with as much dignity as he could muster.
“Scott, since you said that you couldn’t afford a lawyer, I’m here to help you,” she explained in a patronizing tone. “And I think that I have good news for you.” She paused, waiting for some response from Scott, which did not come. She continued, “I spoke with DA Harris, and because this is your first offense, he’s willing to drop the sexual misconduct charges if you plead guilty to possession of tobacco. This way, you’ll get six months probation, no jail time, and in a year, it’ll be expunged from your record,” she finished succinctly. “How does that sound?”
Scott cracked a smile. “Hang-em-high Harris said that?”
Judith Plumb was clearly flustered at Scott’s levity. “DA Harris does not find that sobriquet amusing,” she cautioned him.
“Got him re-elected, didn’t it?”
She sighed. “Scott, as your attorney, I would strongly advise that you-’’
“Now hold on, Judy,” he interrupted. “Give me a second to think.”
She frowned at him. “Judith. My name is ‘Judith.’”
“Judith,” he repeated. “I’m sorry.”
“Now tell me, Scott, is this deal acceptable to you?”
Scott considered the offer. “No,” he finally replied.
Judith Plumb looked as if Scott had spat in her face. “What did you say?”
“I said ‘no’,” Scott calmly repeated.
“Scott,” she argued. “Perhaps you don’t understand the seriousness of these charges. You were in possession of three cigarettes-’’
“Four,” he cut in. “I slid one under the chair when the cops knocked on the door.”
Her hands flew to her ears. “I did not hear that,” she declared. “I did not hear any of that, do not repeat it!”
“What’s the big deal, Judy?” he asked.
“Judith!” she snapped.
“Judith!” he shot back.
“The big deal, mister, is that you are charged with possession of tobacco and second degree sexual misconduct,” she said. “You could be facing up to 18 months in prison. Now I am giving you an easy choice to make. If you want to play hardball, you’re going to get slammed.”
Scott started twiddling his thumbs, just like he had seen Wade do. “I wanna fight this,” he said triumphantly. “I wanna fight this on the grounds that the law is unjust. I’ll bring in the ALCU if I have to.”
“The ACLU,” she corrected him.
“Yeah, them,” Scott said. “I wanna fight it all the way. Can I do that?”
Judith shook her head. “Okay,” she sighed. “Okay, do what you want. But I have a little advice for you.”
“What?”
“Be prepared to lose.”
Scott was returned to his cell and took his place across from Wade. The two began talking again for another hour about various subjects, none of them having to do with prisons or courts or police stations. Wade didn’t ask Scott what had transpired and Scott didn’t offer any explanation.
The two were so absorbed in trivial conversation that neither even noticed that the beautiful policewoman had returned. They looked up upon hearing the droning “access allowed” message. Frick stood a few feet in the background, looking and probably feeling useless.
“Let’s go, Burton,” the woman told him. “Time for your arraignment.” Scott obediently walked out of the cell and heard the door slam shut behind him. He started to walk down the hall to the courtroom, the two officers flanking him, and then stopped, turned around and said to Wade, “If you press the “Fire” button twice really fast, and then hold down the “jump” key on Disemboweler, you can create a firewall to protect you from all those zombies. It’ll give you a little extra time before they close in on you.”
Wade smiled. “An extra thirty seconds is all I need.”
“It may be all you get,” Scott replied cryptically. He gave Wade the thumbs-up sign, and Wade did likewise. Then Scott turned back around and headed towards the court room, not sure what his own game plan was.
Copyright Allan M. Heller
The sight of a bright red sports car racing madly across a desert landscape yanked Scott out of his semi-stupor. “The New Kamikaze, from Cyclone Motors. You’re just one step away from flying.”
Scott would have given anything for a new set of wheels like that. At the moment, however, he didn’t have anything to give. Six years at Valu-Fresh Markets had dissipated with the advent of a new price scanner that totaled an entire cart of groceries in fifteen seconds. A $54,000 car was at the bottom of his list of necessities. Still, he was allowed to dream.
He took another puff on his crude, home-made cigarette, holding the smoke in his lungs as long as possible before exhaling. He couldn’t really afford to smoke either, but he had to do something to alleviate the boredom of a horridly dull existence.
An initial glance at Scott wouldn’t have distinguished him from millions of other typical Americans, employed or otherwise. He was dressed in faded, tattered blue jeans, and a black t-shirt emblazoned with the explicit logo of Caramel, his favorite heavy metal group. His dirty, white canvas sneakers were untied but loosely laced. A backwards Phillies cap was shoved tightly on his head. He was seldom without a cap, except when he slept or showered. His hair hung to his shoulders in dark blond locks, and two-day scruff sprouted from his face.
The television droned on. “. . .Stillwater Falls runs red with blood, as a determined serial killer strives for 10 victims. Will Reggie and Sheila be able to stop him before he makes his deadly quota? Find out on Streets of Fire, tonight at ten.
“But now stay tuned for Roll Over, as Bruce is caught masturbating on the office surveillance system.”
“I feel like such a jerk! . . .Don’t say it!”
Scott laughed loudly and pounded the arm of his chair. “Oh, man,” he said. His burst of joviality was interrupted by a pounding on the front door. Instinctively he dropped the cigarette to the floor and hastily stomped it out. Scuttling the barely smoking butt under the chair with the heel of his sneaker, he jumped to his feet. Probably that cranky old Mrs. Okra down the hall.
The pounding continued unabated. “Open up!” came a shout from the hallway. “Police.”
As Scott grabbed the handle and started to turn, the door swung open with such speed and force that it nearly knocked him down. Two officers burst into the apartment, a short, stocky woman with mean blue eyes and a crew cut, and her partner, a tall, gaunt man in his late forties with a mustache and a dark goatee. Side by side, they looked almost comical. But Scott wasn't about to tell them that.
“What’s the problem?” he asked, looking as naive as he could.
The butch broad answered him. “We have a search warrant,” she informed him, shoving a piece of paper in his face.
“A search warrant?” Scott said, doing his best to sound shocked. “I don’t understand.”
Her partner took three or four long strides over to where Scott had been sitting, and picked up a clear plastic bag containing the three remaining cigarettes. “Maybe this will clear things up,” he replied. In his haste to extinguish and dispose of the butt he’d been smoking, Scott had forgotten the obvious.
The short, stocky woman grabbed him by the shoulders, spun him around, and shoved him against the wall. In a second, her hands were all over his arms, shoulders, back, buttocks and thighs. She methodically grabbed one wrist, then the other, and cuffed his hands behind his back.
“Take it easy, honey!” Scott said.
“What did you call me?” she demanded.
This time Scott didn’t have to feign surprise. “What do you mean what did I call you?”
Her voice was a snarl. “You called me honey! Jim, you hear him call me honey?”
Jim nodded. “Sure did, Sue.”
“Mister,” she told Scott. “you’re lookin’ at possession of tobacco and second degree sexual misconduct charges.”
“What?” Scott shouted. “This is unbelievable!” He repeated this statement as the policewoman shoved him towards the door.
“You have the right to remain silent,” her partner began. “If you give up this right, anything you say can and will be used against you. You also have the right to have an attorney present during-"
“Oh, he knows his rights!” the woman snapped, sending Scott out into the hallway with a sharp kick in the pants. Scott grimaced and then grew livid, but didn’t dare vocalize what he was thinking this time.
The ride in the back of the patrol car was interminable. The locked doors on either side of him and the wire partition in front of him made Scott feel like he was already in prison. He heard the casual conversation between his two captors, and they sounded more like they were discussing the weather over a cup of coffee and a bag of doughnuts rather than apprehending a “dangerous felon” like himself.
The squad car pulled neatly into a space between two other police vehicles in front of the gray stone precinct building. Scott was hustled through a pair of glass doors, brushing past cluttered desks and bodies in blue uniforms. He heard talking and shouting and laughing and cursing. The stench of rancid coffee nearly made him gag. He was efficiently booked, photographed and fingerprinted, then shoved into the back of a police van with seven men who looked like they were capable of mugging their grandmothers. Nobody said a word or looked at anyone else during the bumpy, 15-minute ride to the courthouse.
The group missed night court by minutes, so it was Scott’s misfortune to spend the night in a cell. He stood with his hands on the bars after the cell door was locked behind him and stared vacantly ahead like the consummate prisoner. He finally turned around and nearly yelled in shock upon seeing another person sitting in the corner, two or three feet from the toilet. The guy was staring at him, not in a hostile fashion, just looking at him like somebody might look at a new building or a smashed vehicle on the side of a road. He was about Scott’s age, tall, wiry, with beady eyes and slicked black hair that stood up in spikes. Five earrings that resembled tiny links of chain hung from his right earlobe, and a large, white plastic loop from his left. A silver bead was stuck underneath his lower lip. His pants were so large on him that it looked like he had a throw covering his legs. He wore a sleeveless red shirt inside out and backwards. On his feet were black leather pumps. Looking at him, Scott thought that the feature that stood out most was that silver bead above his chin.
“What’s your favorite arcade game, dude?” he asked Scott abruptly.
Scott leaned an arm against one of the cots protruding from the wall, and replied with calculated calmness, “Phatal Phight.”
The young man nodded, slowly absorbing Scott’s reply. “Yeah, that one’s pretty cool. I like to take Absolute Zero. Either him or Acid Tongue. But the graphics on Disemboweler are way better.”
Scott’s perplexed look didn’t fade. “Oh, yeah?” he said.
“Totally, man,” his perforated cell mate replied. “When you get to the third screen, all the people you killed come back at the same time. They pop up out of the ground, under rocks, out of the trees. They rip your arms and legs off if they catch you.”
Scott still didn’t know what to say. He blinked again and shook his head, hoping that this was a bad dream and that he could simply shake himself awake. Nothing changed.
“What’s wrong?” the guy asked him.
“What’s wrong?” Scott repeated incredulously.
“Yeah, that’s what I said, ‘what’s wrong?’”
The expression on Scott’s face plainly told the guy that Scott thought he was an idiot. “I’m in jail, man,” he said.
Silver Bead shrugged. “So am I. Not the first time, either.” With that he folded his fingers on his knees and began twiddling his thumbs, like he was switching mental gears from a failed attempt at conversation to idle finger play. Then he came back. “So what did you do to land yourself here?”
Scott gave him a suspicious look. “Why?”
“Just asking.” He laughed. “Look, I’m not a police decoy, if that’s what you’re thinking, dude.”
“Got busted with three cigarettes,” Scott said resignedly. “And this lady cop says I called her ‘honey,’ so they wanna charge me with some sexual misconduct bull.”
“Pretty serious stuff,” Silver Bead replied, not at all seriously.
“Whatcha gonna do?”
Scott shifted position slightly. “I don’t know.”
“My old supervisor at the factory I used to work at slapped this girl on the ass, playfully, you know,” he started telling Scott, tactlessly, Scott thought. “He spent four months in jail and the company had to pay her $250,000. Last I heard, he was still outta work.”
Scott looked at him in misery. “Thanks,” he muttered.
Scott’s garrulous friend acted like he hadn’t even heard. “’Course, they had all kinds of problems at that place. This one dude got fired ‘cause he came to work drunk three times, so he sued for racial discrimination. Awarded him $50,000. Can you believe that?”
“I can’t believe I’m here,” Scott moaned.
“It doesn’t take much,” the guy commiserated. “First time?”
“First time.”
“What’s your name, man?”
Scott sighed. “I’m Scott.”
“Wade. Nice to meet you.”
“Yeah, likewise.”
“You know, Scott,” Wade went on. “my old man got busted three times for cheating on his taxes. Said that he was just tryin’ to keep the government from stealing what was his. They been taxin’ the hell outta him for years, Internet tax, e-mail tax, tax on all six properties he owns, county tax, occupancy privilege tax. So he just had enough. He was real defiant about it, too. He did six months.”
Scott resigned himself to the fact that Wade was just going to keep on talking whether anyone paid him any attention or not, so he decided he may as well have a conversation with him. He didn’t feel like sleeping.
“So where is your Dad now?” Scott asked apathetically.
“I don’t know,” Wade said. “He’s not coming to bail me out, if that’s what you mean.”
Scott didn’t know how to answer. Wade truly sounded dejected.
“I stole a car,” Wade continued. “Sorry,” he added. “I allegedly stole a car. “I’ve been allegedly stealing stuff since I was ten.”
“What’ll happen to you this time?” Scott asked.
Wade began twiddling his thumbs again. “Probably get a year or two,” he said. “But like I said, I’ve been in all kinds of trouble all my life. Never killed anyone, though,” he added, as if to reassure Scott.
The two were silent for a long time after that. Finally Scott asked, “So did you at least steal a nice car?”
“Oh, yeah, man,” Wade told him. “A brand new Cyclone Kamikaze, tomato red!”
Scott’s jaw dropped. “No way, man!” he shouted. “A Kamikaze? That is one sweet car.”
“You’re tellin’ me,” Wade shot back. “Leather interior, six-speed stick shift, stereo system, built-in speaker phone. . .” his voice trailed off dreamily. He added ruefully, “I really hated to break the window to get in.”
“Were you going to sell it?” Scott asked, feeling some camaraderie, or maybe just pity, for his fellow miscreant.
“Actually, it was just a theft of convenience,” Wade explained. “I needed to get somewhere in a hurry, and that was the first vehicle I saw. My brother taught me how to hot-wire cars,” he explained. He grinned. “Taught me a lot of bad stuff.”
“Where did you have to go in such a hurry?” Scott had to know.
Wade blushed. “To see my probation officer,” he said. “I was running late.”
Scott looked at Wade for several seconds in astonishment, then the two of them broke out in gales of laughter that shook their whole bodies and left them coughing and gasping.
“To see your probation officer,” Scott wheezed.
A loud pinging rang off the cell bars as the officer on guard rapped them with his nightstick. He was a fat, graying, middle-aged man with a red, bulbous nose. A tiny diamond stud sparkled in his left earlobe. “All right, settle down, you two,” he bellowed.
“Didn’t know laughing was a felony, officer,” Wade challenged him.
The fat cop glared at him for ten or fifteen seconds, then walked away without comment. Wade made a faint snorting noise.
“So,” Scott began tentatively. “You think maybe your brother could bail you out?”
Wade shook his head. “He’s dead.”
“I’m sorry, man.”
“Yeah,” Wade said, almost philosophically. “Flipped his car over three times.”
“Was he drunk?” Scott asked.
“No.”
“I wonder if they’ll feed us,” Scott began awkwardly.
Wade’s response came out of nowhere. “I did something about two years ago that also got me into a lot of trouble.”
Scott looked at Wade curiously, waiting for him to continue.
“This was when I worked at United Medical Supplies, same place where that manager I mentioned got canned for sexual assault and the shipping clerk sued for discrimination.” He took a deep breath, as if beginning to tell a long and tragic tale. “They say stuff happens in threes. Well, I was number three.
“I was on my lunch break. Just about everybody else had gone out for Chinese, ‘cept I was broke and nobody was feeling too generous.” He gave a short laugh. “Nobody was in the warehouse, so I started playing around with the computer on the shipping manager’s desk, surfing the Net.” He grinned. “Looking at those adult sites. I come across this link for,” he whispered. “Stephanie Sizzle.”
Scott’s eyebrows raised at the name. Stephanie Sizzle was a porn star whose career spanned just three years, but some 75 films. Her stint in adult cinema came to an end when somebody found out that the comely, curvaceous blonde was 15 when she started making movies. Nearly all of the films were officially considered contraband.
“So I checked it out for a few minutes,” Wade finally blurted out.
Scott grimaced. “You got off looking at a 15 year-old?”
“I’m telling you, she had the body of a twenty-five year old,” Wade insisted, becoming defensive. “I’ll bet you wouldn’t have known the difference, either. Anyway, the feds came into the place the next day wanting to know who was looking at ‘child pornography’ on the Internet. And like an idiot, I told them.”
Scott looked like he was hearing a murder confession. “So, did they like, arrest you?”
“Hell, yeah,” Wade said. “Arrested, fingerprinted, booked. Fired from my job, needless to say,” he added. “All for looking at a picture that somebody more or less flashed in front of my face.”
“It wasn’t exactly ‘flashed in front of your face,’” Scott countered.
“Oh, no?” Wade argued. “It’s out there for everybody to see. If some pervert pastes a picture of a couple of naked ten year-olds on a billboard right over I-95, according to the law, everybody who drives by and looks is a criminal!”
Scott rolled his eyes. “That’s not the same thing. Besides, who’d want to look at a picture of two naked ten year-olds? Not me.”
“Not me either, man!” Wade shouted, pounding his fist into his palm. “I’m not like that. I swear. But this was different, man.”
Scott wanted to know more. “Well, how did they know somebody was looking at it?” he asked Wade. “You turned it off before everyone got back, didn’t you?
“Yeah, yeah”, Wade said. “But they got ways of finding that out now. Do you know what cookies are? I mean, like, computer cookies?”
Scott shook his head.
“Well, they’re like these little programs that latch onto your computer, like a bug, like tapping somebody’s phone, like they do to mobsters. They know everything, man. They find out.”
Scott still didn’t understand. “So why don’t they nail everybody that looks at that stuff?”
“I don’t know, man,” Wade said. “Totally random, I guess.”
“I don’t even own a computer,” Scott told him.
“Me neither,” Wade replied. “I don’t even own a car anymore since I totaled my last one. Of course, that’s another story. If it weren’t for that computer at work, that whole mess never would’ve happened. But I’d have found somehow to screw up. Story of my life.”
Scott didn’t recall being tired or even climbing into bed, but figured he must have, since that was where he woke up. Since his watch as well as all of his other personal belongings had been confiscated, he didn’t know what time it was. Wade was still sitting in the corner, like he hadn’t moved all night. He was awake, and looked neither tired nor alert.
“Hello,” he said, as Scott swung his legs over the bed and sat up.
“Hey,” Scott replied.
Heavy footsteps thudded down the hallway. The guard was back. He stood purposefully before the cell door, squared his shoulders and then pressed his right thumb against a tiny gray screen set in between the bars and the door jamb.
“Unauthorized personnel,” a monotone female voice said.
Cursing, the guard again pressed his thumb on the screen, harder this time. The response from the computerized square was the same.
“Hey, Jansen,” he shouted to a policewoman walking past.
“What’s the matter with this thing?”
She stopped and turned towards him. She was about 25, a beautiful woman with a dark, unblemished complexion and sleek black hair tied into a topknot. “What’s the matter, Frick?” she asked.
“I can’t open this damn cell!”
“Use your left thumb,” she suggested.
He tried this. Again he heard the same infuriating message.
She laughed playfully, and lightly touched her own left thumb against the screen. “Jansen, Laurie F. Access allowed.” There was a loud click, and she effortlessly slid open the cell door as her colleague looked on dumbfounded.
“Must be all that pizza grease on your thumbs, Frick,” she quipped. Scott watched her longingly as she strolled off.
The fat cop looked at Scott. “Come talk to your lawyer,” he grunted tersely.
The two walked down the corridor past a dozen other cells. “Hold it right there,” Frick announced, and Scott froze. Then he opened a door to Scott’s left, ordered him to have a seat at a small table in the center, and closed the door behind him. A minute later the door opened again and a woman entered, her heels clacking delicately on the floor as she made her way to the table and sat down opposite Scott. She was about 35, with black hair tied in a bun and thick, plastic-rimmed glasses resting on her large nose. She had the kind of face that could never be made to look pretty, only passable. She had a very shapely figure, though, accented by her tight black skirt and white cotton blouse.
Scott unconsciously smoothed his tangled blond hair.
“Hello, Scott,” she addressed him. “My name is Judith Plumb. I’m with the Philadelphia Public Defender’s office.”
“Hello,” Scott replied, with as much dignity as he could muster.
“Scott, since you said that you couldn’t afford a lawyer, I’m here to help you,” she explained in a patronizing tone. “And I think that I have good news for you.” She paused, waiting for some response from Scott, which did not come. She continued, “I spoke with DA Harris, and because this is your first offense, he’s willing to drop the sexual misconduct charges if you plead guilty to possession of tobacco. This way, you’ll get six months probation, no jail time, and in a year, it’ll be expunged from your record,” she finished succinctly. “How does that sound?”
Scott cracked a smile. “Hang-em-high Harris said that?”
Judith Plumb was clearly flustered at Scott’s levity. “DA Harris does not find that sobriquet amusing,” she cautioned him.
“Got him re-elected, didn’t it?”
She sighed. “Scott, as your attorney, I would strongly advise that you-’’
“Now hold on, Judy,” he interrupted. “Give me a second to think.”
She frowned at him. “Judith. My name is ‘Judith.’”
“Judith,” he repeated. “I’m sorry.”
“Now tell me, Scott, is this deal acceptable to you?”
Scott considered the offer. “No,” he finally replied.
Judith Plumb looked as if Scott had spat in her face. “What did you say?”
“I said ‘no’,” Scott calmly repeated.
“Scott,” she argued. “Perhaps you don’t understand the seriousness of these charges. You were in possession of three cigarettes-’’
“Four,” he cut in. “I slid one under the chair when the cops knocked on the door.”
Her hands flew to her ears. “I did not hear that,” she declared. “I did not hear any of that, do not repeat it!”
“What’s the big deal, Judy?” he asked.
“Judith!” she snapped.
“Judith!” he shot back.
“The big deal, mister, is that you are charged with possession of tobacco and second degree sexual misconduct,” she said. “You could be facing up to 18 months in prison. Now I am giving you an easy choice to make. If you want to play hardball, you’re going to get slammed.”
Scott started twiddling his thumbs, just like he had seen Wade do. “I wanna fight this,” he said triumphantly. “I wanna fight this on the grounds that the law is unjust. I’ll bring in the ALCU if I have to.”
“The ACLU,” she corrected him.
“Yeah, them,” Scott said. “I wanna fight it all the way. Can I do that?”
Judith shook her head. “Okay,” she sighed. “Okay, do what you want. But I have a little advice for you.”
“What?”
“Be prepared to lose.”
Scott was returned to his cell and took his place across from Wade. The two began talking again for another hour about various subjects, none of them having to do with prisons or courts or police stations. Wade didn’t ask Scott what had transpired and Scott didn’t offer any explanation.
The two were so absorbed in trivial conversation that neither even noticed that the beautiful policewoman had returned. They looked up upon hearing the droning “access allowed” message. Frick stood a few feet in the background, looking and probably feeling useless.
“Let’s go, Burton,” the woman told him. “Time for your arraignment.” Scott obediently walked out of the cell and heard the door slam shut behind him. He started to walk down the hall to the courtroom, the two officers flanking him, and then stopped, turned around and said to Wade, “If you press the “Fire” button twice really fast, and then hold down the “jump” key on Disemboweler, you can create a firewall to protect you from all those zombies. It’ll give you a little extra time before they close in on you.”
Wade smiled. “An extra thirty seconds is all I need.”
“It may be all you get,” Scott replied cryptically. He gave Wade the thumbs-up sign, and Wade did likewise. Then Scott turned back around and headed towards the court room, not sure what his own game plan was.
Copyright Allan M. Heller
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Coming of Age
Sam knew how his son felt about him. He sensed the hidden, impotent rage, like a beaten dog cowering in the bushes. But it wasn't Blake's hatred of him, but his fear that infuriated Sam.
"I'm gonna make a man outta you if it's the only thing I do right in my life!" he would scream at his son. The boy positively resisted him, though. He didn't like sports, never cussed- he was even afraid to fight. Things got so bad a couple of years ago when that Danny Bolster was beating up on him that Sam had stepped in himself. He'd marched down to the school yard and shook Danny by the collar, yelling, "You ever touch my boy again, I'll kill you!" And that was the end of it. Sam had acted not so much out of affection but his own strange sense of patrimonial duty. For months afterwards Sam harangued his son for not standing up to Danny.
A late Saturday afternoon found Blake and his brother Willy sitting side by side at the dining room table, hands resting on their laps. The dinner setting was neatly arrayed before them glasses and utensils placed in perfect symmetry atop a lace tablecloth. A large, wooden bowl of salad and a platter of baked catfish sat heavily in the center, along with a pitcher of lemonade.
The lock on the front door clicked loudly. As if of its own accord, the portal swung open with a rush of air. Sam Wallace entered, wearing the old army jacket issued him sixteen years earlier at Fort Polk induction center.
He was of medium build, with sharp, well defined shoulders and weathered features hewn into a face of granite. Thirty eight years of mistrust and resentment smoldered behind his ash gray eyes. He stood in the foyer a moment, and shot a furtive glance to either side. Then stuffing his keys back into his pocket, he pushed the door shut and tossed his jacket onto a shelf in the hall closet.
"Hi, honey," his wife called from the kitchen. "I'll be right out!"
Sam grunted in reply. He pulled out a chair across from Blake and plopped down in it lazily, folding his callused hands on his stomach. From behind half-closed lids, he surveyed the two boys with quiet hostility.
"Here I come!" Sam's wife called. She entered the dining room briskly, her long, blue cotton dress clinging to her legs. In her slender arms she carried a large tureen of steaming soup, which she set carefully on a trivet next to the salad. She was a thin, slight woman of 35, but not unattractive. With a spatula she carefully meted out portions of the catfish to her husband, her two sons, and finally herself. She sat down next to Sam and nervously brushed a stray lock of dirty blonde hair away from her forehead.
Scooping out a ladle of chicken gumbo, she said to her younger son, "Willy, gimme your bowl, honey."
"I don't want no soup," whined the five year old.
"Give your mama the damn bowl!" Sam snapped.
With a great, pouting frown Willy surrendered the bowl to his mother.
Five minutes of glum silence prevailed. It was Sam who broke the spell. Wiping his lips with the back of his hand, he announced with a mouthful of fish, "Back's been killin' me again. We still couldn't get done by four."
"Maybe you shouldn't go in Saturdays, Sam," his wife suggested timidly. "It don't do your back any good."
Sam swallowed his food. "We don't 'xactly got money comin' outta our ears. Seems like people who do the least work have the most money. Do you know what kinda car my foreman’s drivin’ now, Brenda?”
“What kind of car, Sam?”
Sam pounded his fist on the table. “A brand new, 1959 Cadillac El Dorado! In 11 years I never seen him do anything but sit on his can and boss the rest of us around. He glanced reproachfully at Blake. "A job wouldn’t do him no harm."
Blake stared uncomfortably down at his plate.
“Honey, he’s barely fourteen,” Brenda protested weakly.
"Excuses, excuses," said Sam with a wave of his hand. “He coulda taken that job in Tommy's store in Plaquemine "
"But, Daddy, Uncle Tommy wanted someone to work twenty hours a week and that's too much for me " Blake said.
Sam seldom had to say much to make himself understood. "Boy, I don't believe you were spoken to," he replied menacingly.
"He's still in school, Sam," Brenda said.
"School, schmool!" Sam said. "He's got more time than he knows what to do with!" He asked Blake, "What do you do with all your time?"
"Study," Blake mumbled.
"Study!" his father jeered. "Then you should be a straight A student, which you ain't." Sam gulped down his beer. "Brenda," he said, setting his empty mug on the table. "do we have more beer in the icebox?"
Brenda looked confused. “Yes, Sam,” she replied. “There’s more.”
Sam raised his eyebrows. “Well it ain’t gonna come in here by itself, is it?” he snapped.
Without a word, Brenda stood up and scurried into the kitchen. She returned seconds later with another Schlitz, which she opened and cautiously poured into his glass. Sam automatically lifted the mug to his lips and drained about half of it. “What’re you doin’ tomorrow?” he asked Blake.
“I don't know," Blake confessed.
"Well, I know," Sam said. "We're goin' huntin’. Just you and me. I figure we get up at 6:30. Be outta here by quarter of or so. Take us an hour to get there." He nonchalantly took a sip of beer.
Blake's eyes widened as if someone had informed him that he was to be shot at dawn.
“Huntin?” he repeated. "Huntin' what?"
"Oh, I don't know," Sam replied. "Squirrels, nutrias, birds, coons- whatever we see that don't see us first," he added with a sharp guffaw.
“Is it deer season already?” Brenda asked.
Instead of responding, Sam shoveled another large forkful of catfish into his mouth. His cheeks bulged rudely as he churned the food for several moments before swallowing it with a loud smacking of his lips. Finally he replied, "It’s always deer season. I know a place right by Bayou Maringouin. Three thousand acres of beautiful, unspoiled land and nobody ever goes there."
"I thought that was Thaddeus Beauchesne’s property," Brenda said.
"Oh, get off it, Brenda," Sam said. "He said I could come down and do some shootin' sometime. Them cajuns ain't so bad once you get to know 'em. No worse than the niggers. Besides, his family owns a refinery in Baton Rouge. It ain't like he gives a damn about the place."
"Sam, please don’t cuss like that in front of Willy,” Brenda said, with as much courage as she could muster.
"Willy!" Sam nearly shouted. "Hey, Willy!"
Bewildered, Willy looked up at his father.
"You ain't gonna be a foul mouthed son of a bitch like your old man when you grow up, are you?"
The little boy shook his head.
"See, Brenda?" Sam replied in mock reassurance. "You got nothin' to worry about. 'Cept maybe him," he added, looking scornfully at Blake. "I can see him wearin' a tutu, dancin' on stage in one o' them clubs on Bourbon Street."
"Sam, please," she pleaded.
"Quit your damn whinin’, Brenda!" Sam barked. "It's about time he grew up. Tomorrow he's goin' shootin' with me."
"I-I don't know, Daddy," Blake stammered. "It ain't a good idea. They got them steel traps and them alligators crawlin' around. Only an idiot would go down there."
Sam shot him a red-hot glance. "What?" he said.
“We-we might get caught I mean,” Blake sputtered to explain. “I just don’t want nothin’ bad to happen, that’s all.”
Sam gave a snort. “Ain’t nothin’ bad gonna happen,” he drawled. “Just like you,” he added, shaking his head.
Brenda began again gently. "Sam, can't you wait two weeks and take him someplace legal? I don't want you gettin' shot for trespassin'."
Sam grinned coyly. "We ain't gonna get shot, Brenda. I told you. I know Thaddeus Beauchesne." Sam stood up, picked up his empty beer mug and headed into the living room. There was a click as a cabinet door was opened, then the sound of a bottle cap being twisted off, followed by the soft gurgle of flowing liquid. He walked back into the dining room with a glass full of whiskey. "I'll be in the bedroom," he told his wife. To Blake he said, "I'll see you tomorrow mornin'." With that, he turned and headed up the stairs.
"C'mon, get up. Did you think I'd forget?"
Startled, Blake raised himself up on his forearms and turned two bleary, crusty eyes towards the gruff voice in the bedroom doorway. The fuzzy silhouette of his father faded into view, standing akimbo ten feet from Blake's bed. The boy sensed rather than smelled the stale odor of whiskey emanating from Sam Wallace. As the older man took a few steps closer, Blake realized that he was not mistaken.
"C'mon, get up," Sam repeated, shaking him roughly by the shoulder. "I wanna be outta here by 6:45."
Blake sat up. He blinked rapidly several times and shook his head briskly in an effort to throw off the last vestiges of sleep. A wave of dizziness swept through him and he nearly fell back down but for his father's forbidding presence.
"Get dressed. I'll be in the kitchen."
Then he was gone. Blake didn't even remember his leaving and for a moment he wasn't sure whether his father had even been there. But Blake wasn't taking any chances. He kicked the covers off and with great effort swung his feet over the side of the bed. Hastily throwing on some clothes and a vest, he joined his father in the kitchen a minute later.
"That was quick," Sam remarked. "Let's go."
The two stepped out the back door and walked across the driveway to where Sam had parked the '52 Ford. The crisp morning air hit Blake in the face, and he winced at the prospect of what lay ahead. Sam marched in front with the rifle slung across his chest, his face chiseled into an expression of fierce stolidity. As they approached the truck, Sam turned around suddenly and tossed the Winchester to Blake. Blake caught the rifle clumsily, fumbling with it for several seconds before getting a hold.
Taking the keys out of his vest pocket, Sam climbed into the driver's seat, then reached over and pushed open the door for Blake. Then turning the vehicle around, he proceeded down the driveway. Several minutes later Blake found himself staring listlessly out the window at the hazy landscape as the truck sped noisily down the empty highway. In the distance he could faintly discern the tiny silhouettes of pine trees against the pink and orange panorama of sunrise. They passed a sign which read "Now Entering Iberville Parish."
The last leg of their journey brought them down a long dirt road. Slowing the truck down, Sam parked it several feet off the roadside by a sign proclaiming NO TRESPASSING. He climbed out of the truck and stood by the edge of the woods, giving the place a cursory surveyal.
Blake stepped out of the truck carefully, holding the Winchester upright. Sam thought for a moment. "There's a knapsack in the back seat with my huntin' knife, some ammunition and stuff. Get it," he instructed. Blake did.
"You hold onto that knapsack for now," Sam ordered. "Gimme the gun." Blake tossed the rifle to his father, who caught it neatly. Sam's dexterity seemed unaffected by all the alcohol he drank, Blake noted.
"You see this, boy?" Sam asked Blake, holding the rifle out with one hand.
Blake nodded.
"You know what it is?"
"Yes, sir," the boy answered.
"Well, what is it then?" Sam yelled.
"It's a gun, Daddy."
"Hmm!" Sam replied. "That's real good. You're a smart boy. Lemme tell you a little bit about this gun ... son. This here's a Winchester 30 30, model 94. Made in 1950. Your standard huntin' rifle." He tossed it lightly in his hands. "Holds eight shots," he continued. "One in the chamber, seven in the magazine. See this here metal part in the middle?"
"Yes, sir."
"In here's the chamber. This here bottom tube's the magazine," he explained, running his finger along the steel. "The one on top's the barrel. If you wanna shoot this thing, you put your bullets in the receiver- that's this little slot on the side cock the lever," he said, demonstrating as he spoke. "and pull the hammer all the way back."
"Lift the gun up, like so. You see where my hands are? I got my left hand up front on the forestock, and my right hand back here. I'm gonna put the butt up to my shoulder, tilt my head a little, and close my left eye. You followin' me, Blake?"
"Yeah, Daddy, I'm listenin'”.
"I'm gonna put the butt up to my shoulder," Sam repeated. "Next, I'm gonna sight my target. You see that little knob on the front o' the barrel?"
"Yes, Daddy."
"That's the front sight. The one 'bout twelve inches from my nose, with the notch in the middle's the rear sight. Make sure the front sight's right in the middle of that notch, then make sure it's right on your target. Then squeeze don't pull-squeeze the trigger."
Blake jumped at the click of the hammer as Sam demonstrated this last step. "Oh, for Christ"s sake!" Sam snapped, turning angrily on him. "It ain't even loaded, and even if it was, it ain't pointed at you!" He gave Blake a smart cuff on the back of the head. "Now take this gun," he ordered, shoving the Winchester into the boy's hands. "and lemme see you do it."
Blake repeated the procedure as best he could.
"That'll do," Sam muttered. "Now gimme some bullets."
Blake reached into the knapsack and counting out eight bullets, placed them in his father's palm. Sam adroitly slid the bullets into the aperture, one right after the other. With his thumb, Sam clicked the hammer halfway back. "Half cocked," he explained. "acts like a safety. You can pull the trigger hard as you please," he said, turning the barrel suddenly towards Blake's chest. "but ain't nothin' gonna come out." He squeezed the trigger spasmodically. Blake let out a yelp. Sam laughed this time, a long, hard laugh, probably harder than he’d ever laughed in his life. Blake was too stunned to speak. "Come on," Sam said.
Sam turned around as if nothing had happened and proceeded step by step into the woods, slowly but confidently striding forward past the moss covered oaks and the dusty shafts of morning sunlight. He stared sharply ahead, hands locked on his weapon, his face once again cruel and set with determination. The time for frivolity had come and gone. After about twenty paces he stopped, and turned around to see Blake still standing by the side of the road.
"What are you doin'?” Sam called. "You ain't gonna stand there the whole day! Now come on!"
Blake remained frozen to the spot. He looked at his father in frightened
silence.
"God damn it, Blake!" Sam snarled. "You get your ass over here!"
“I can't, Daddy," Blake said in a trembling voice. "It ain’t legal. We might get shot or or step in a trap. I mean do you really know this guy?"
Sam struggled to control his temper. "Blake," he began in a calm and coldly rational tone. "If you make me blow my top, you're gonna wish you'd been shot. Now get over here."
Casting his eyes submissively towards the ground, Blake reluctantly trailed after his father. Sam watched the boy for a few seconds, then satisfied, proceeded forwards in the same grim fashion. Blake stayed several feet behind Sam, as if afraid of getting too close. But Sam didn't notice he was soon lost in his own world again- entranced by the deathlike stillness of the woods and the early morning mist that floated around them.
They continued on for some minutes minutes which seemed like hours to Blake. The only sounds were the soft squishing of leather soles treading
through the moist clumps of wiregrass, and the occasional chirping of a bird high in the cypress trees. Blake stared warily at the stagnant marsh pools, expecting a starving alligator or a rabid muskrat to emerge from one of them. Suddenly Sam halted.
"Aha!" he announced triumphantly.
Blake stopped as well and looked curiously at his father. Sam stood rigid for several seconds, his line of sight fixed intently on some hidden quarry. Slowly raising his arm, he pointed towards a large oak tree fifty feet from where they stood. "Look at that," he whispered hoarsely.
Blake's eyes followed the direction of Sam's finger. Perched remotely on one of the lower branches was a dove, scarcely visible in the shadows cast by the thick, green curtains of Spanish moss which draped the oak's limbs. The dove sat like a stuffed bird on a shelf, peacefully oblivious to all outside stimuli, it seemed.
Without a word, Sam handed the rifle to his son, never taking his eyes off the intended target. Blake accepted the Winchester as if it were a lit stick of dynamite. With the back of his fingers, Sam gave him an impatient slap.
"Go on," he urged the boy. "He's all yours, Blake!"
Blake blinked nervously. "Do you want me to shoot him?" he asked.
"No, you idiot!" Sam growled. I want you to paint his picture! Go on!"
Hands trembling, Blake raised the rifle into position like his father had shown him. He winced as the wooden butt pressed into his shoulder. Lining his sights on the dove, he wrapped his finger around the cold, steel trigger. The temperature that November morning was 53 degrees, but Blake felt the sweat running down his temples. The dove sat motionless on its limb, waiting patiently for Blake's bullet to tear through its breast. Stupid bird! Why didn't it move? Why didn't it fly away? Why didn't the ground open up and swallow Sam? Still shaking, Blake steadied the rifle as best he could and shutting his eyes tightly, pulled the trigger.
Blake heard the sharp crack of the rifle, followed by the low whine of a bullet glancing off a branch. There was a loud shriek, and a frantic fluttering of wings. "Damn it!" his father yelled. He shoved Blake to the ground and snatched the rifle. With amazing alacrity, he cocked and fired the gun three times after the fleeing tangle of white feathers. Sam scowled furiously as the dove, unscathed, disappeared among the treetops.
He turned to Blake, who was just getting to his feet. "You did that on purpose!" he shouted.
"No, Daddy, I didn't I swear I didn't!" Blake cried imploringly. I just missed, that's all!"
Sam's eyes became slits. "You did, huh?" He took a deep breath. "You don't close your eyes when you're gonna shoot somethin'," he grumbled disgustedly. "Gimme the bottle."
"What?" Blake replied.
"The bottle!" Sam repeated angrily.
Blake took the knapsack off his back and reaching inside, handed his father a fifth of whisky, which was already one third empty. Tilting his head back, Sam took a long pull, then coughing harshly, handed the bottle back to his son. Blake gagged as the rancid smell of Old Crow crept up his nostrils.
Sam looked at him reproachfully. "I'd like to see you go through fifteen years of marriage without no help," he said.
Blake merely lowered his eyes without saying a word. And his father was in a patient mood today.
Sam glared at him for another second or two, and then turned and marched swiftly forwards again, his arms swinging determinedly as he grasped the rifle firmly in one hand. Blake hurried after his father, nearly running to keep up. Sam continued his rapid stride for almost ten minutes without speaking or slackening his pace. Blake tagged along as best he could, wondering where in hell Sam was going. Without warning, Sam stopped abruptly beneath a Beech tree and raised his hand in the air.
"Right here," he announced.
Blake came to a stumbling halt beside his father, tripping over a tree root as he did so and landing face first into a large mud puddle.
"Make yourself comfortable," Sam remarked with typical irony. "We're just gonna sit right here 'neath this little ole tree, real still and quiet, until we see somethin’. Don't move a muscle, don't say nothin', 'til I give the signal. You think you can handle that?"
"Yes," Blake muttered, crawling out of his puddle. Kneeling down beneath the beech, Sam sat back on his heels and laid the Winchester across his lap. Blake sat next to him, legs crossed, staring wretchedly down at the boggy earth. What time was it? he wondered. 8:00? 8:15 maybe? Mama and Willy were up by now, probably eating breakfast. For the first time it occurred to him that he was hungry. He glanced awry at his father, a stone gargoyle with a rifle. Whiskey for breakfast! Damn him! Sam's idea of the four food groups was malt, yeast, grain and rye. How would Mama and Willy get to church? Mama's friend Mrs. Charpentier would probably give them a ride. Blake would have given anything to be headed for church to listen to one of Reverend Hopper's hour and a half sermons.
A muskrat squealed somewhere off in the bayou, too far to rouse any interest in Sam. Blake looked up with a kind of half curiosity, not really expecting to see anything. Feeling somewhat more relaxed, he studied his surroundings. He and Sam were seated before a small clearing, beyond which continued the rows and rows of trees that obscured the horizon. The trees stood there in majestic solitude, like countless columns of infantry, unyielding save for an occasional rustling of their leaves when a breeze wafted through them.
The gargoyle next to Blake came to life. The rifle was raised into position with mechanical steadiness. The hammer clicked as it was pushed back. “Look at ‘im, Blake,” a harsh, croaking voice whispered. “He’s a beauty!”
A large, gray hare had wandered into the clearing, thirty feet from where Blake was sitting. The animal’s nose twitched curiously as it sniffed a magnolia shrub.
"Goodbye, Peter Cottontail."
It happened quickly. There was a short explosion, and the hare was
lifted off the ground. The animal landed several feet from the magnolia shrub, half its body blown away by the 30 30 slug. Using the Winchester for leverage, Sam hauled himself to his feet. He stood with the rifle out in front of him, at present arms position, proudly surveying the bloody rag. A grin of perverse satisfaction overspread his face.
"Not bad, eh, boy?" Sam remarked. "Gimme that there bottle again."
Blake felt ill.
"Hey, boy!" Sam snapped, giving him a shove. "What’re you, senile or
somethin'? Gimme the bottle!"
Blake quickly handed the bottle to his father, who took another long swallow. "But that was such an easy shot," Sam remarked thoughtfully. He looked at his son. "Go pick 'im up," he said.
"Pick 'im up?" Blake repeated.
"That's what I said," Sam replied. "Go over there and pick 'im up by the ears."
With the enthusiasm of a man walking the plank, Blake approached the dead rodent. He grimaced as he stared at the tangled mass of gray fur. He knelt down by the hare and reached for its ears, carefully turning his head away as he wrapped his fingers around them. He stood up, holding the animal at arm's length and doing his best not to make a face.
'That's it," Sam shouted encouragingly. "He ain't gonna bite. Now turn ‘im sideways. Sideways! That's better." Sam cocked and aimed the Winchester. "Now," he said ominously. "I'm gonna show you a really neat trick."
Blake stood rooted to the spot. He saw Sam locked into position, saw him
more clearly than he'd ever seen anything in his life. The barely visible gleam of his cold, gray eyes, focused on the target; his hard, weathered features; the sharp lines of his shoulders protruding from beneath his army jacket; his faded khaki pants; his dull, black, muddy boots. And the barrel of the Winchester, deep, dark and unfathomable, from which sudden violence might erupt at any second. He saw Sam and he remembered the man whose drunken rages allowed no peace in the family. The man from whom he had sustained countless welts and bruises. The man who despised people almost as much as he despised himself. The man who, at this very moment, was pointing a gun at him. The tip of the rifle glinted wickedly for an instant, struck by a stray beam of sunlight. Blake squinted.
Sam's finger tensed on the trigger. Blake’s fist opened instinctively and the hare plopped to the ground. The bullet whizzed past Blake's hand. Sam cursed, furious, and squaring his shoulders, marched straight for Blake. His anger mounted with each step. Blake looked on helplessly. Finally, Sam stood face to face with him.
"I've had enough of your sissy nonsense!" he shouted. "What the hell is it with you? "
Before Blake could respond, Sam's fist plowed into his chest, knocking him to the earth. Blake lay on the ground, clutching his chest. He felt the toe of Sam's boot graze his temple, and a thin stream of liquid trickled into his eye.
"Get up!" Sam shouted.
Blake remained supine and squirming, Sam standing over him and shouting like a parent trying to rouse a lazy child out of bed. Sam kicked him in the shoulder.
"Get up!" he repeated. "You ain't no dead rabbit!"
Blake wasn't sure what was going to happen to him, but Sam had made it clear that lying down was worse than standing up, so Blake painfully hoisted himself to a sitting position and staggered to his feet. He reeled for a second, then regained his balance. He stood staring into his father's stony gray eyes. But what Blake experienced was not so much fear, but bitterness, disgust, burgeoning rage-
"Why the hell did you have to spoil my shot? I told you to hold
onto him!"
“Because I didn’t want to get killed," Blake answered defiantly.
The back of Sam's fist flew at him so quickly that it wasn't until he was lying on the ground again that Blake realized he'd been hit. His whole head rang like a church bell. The salty taste of blood teased his tongue. He stared vacantly at the treetops above him blurring in and out of focus. He was a ship on the waters of oblivion, rolling and pitching slowly as the earth undulated gently beneath him. He began spinning astern, drifting towards unconsciousness. Finally Sam’s shoutings became coherent.
“ even hear a word I'm sayin'? Get up, Blake!"
Blake sat up lethargically and hauled himself to his feet. Sam gave him a long, hard stare. And Blake stared right back.
Sam surveyed Blake with an amused, sardonic air. "Just look at you," he began. I swear you're just like your mother. Maybe you shoulda been a girl. I shouldn't insult your mama, though. She's been good to me. She was good to lots o' men when she was younger. I guess it's just blind luck that I turned out to be your father. Could just as well been any one o' my buddies."
Blake spat in his face.
Sam's features registered no emotion as wiped his face with his fingertips "Here," he said, handing Blake the gun. "It's your turn. And don't - up this time."
Blake glared at his father fiercely, his eyes burning with unadulterated hate. He quivered as a savage thought passed over him.
"Don't think about it, boy," Sam warned him. "You ain't got it in you."
Blake’s eyes flashed, then his anger died down like a blown circuit.
"Now move it," Sam ordered, grabbing Blake's shoulder and turning him about face. Blake began marching forwards, not fearfully, but with the patient obedience of a prisoner of war plotting his escape. But Blake had the gun now. His step was slow and deliberate, his gaze cool and unperturbed as he stared calmly ahead at the boggy landscape. He was up to his ankles in swamp now, not that it mattered. He paid no attention to a stray thornbush that bit into his leg and tore his trousers as it stubbornly released him. His hair, disheveled and caked with mud, stuck up from his head like a lump of crabgrass. The soaked, soiled linens that were his clothes clung to his body like fungus. The blood flowed freely from his split lip. Yet Blake looked neither miserable nor frightened. Beneath the sweat, the grime, the cuts and bruises, was perseverance. This had to end sometime, and it couldn't get much worse.
Blake didn't know what time it was. He had lost track of that long ago. The air felt slightly warmer, and the sky looked a shade or two brighter than when they'd first arrived. These were subtle changes, not enough to stir him from the hypnotic effect of endless rows of trees, bushes and ferns. Every spot in the woods looked the same as every other spot. The effect was a strangely peaceful one, and if Blake didn't think too much, he could almost forget where he was and what he was doing. Then the cool, brown, lazy waters of Bayou Maringouin rose into view, flowing motionlessly in the distance. And, as so often happens when coming out of a deep sleep or trance, a sound intruded upon Blake's senses, a sound which he realized had been there all along- sloshing footsteps behind him.
"Hold it right there," Sam’s voice announced. A hand came into view on Blake's right, its index finger pointing towards the bayou. "There's your chance."
But Blake had already seen it. By the water's edge stood a brown pelican, its thin yellow legs protruding from the mud like reeds. The pelican stared dumbly ahead at nothing in particular. Blake hesitated, still holding the gun in front of him but unsure what to do with it. He sighed. What dumb, ugly birds pelicans were.
"Shoot it, you fool!" Sam urged.
Blake impassively raised the rifle into firing position, with the detachment of an executioner doing his job, and took aim. There was a perfect line which ran from the center of Blake's pupil along the top of the barrel straight to the pelican. The dumb, ugly pelican, still standing in the mud like a weed, staring at Blake with its black button eye. He could sever its ugly little head with one shot. Blake exhaled slowly, growling softly as he let the breath out, as if under a great strain.
"Go ahead," Sam rasped. "He ain't goin' nowhere."
Blake lowered the rifle and shook his head. "Can't do it," he told Sam. "State bird."
Sam looked as if he'd been slapped in the face. "What? Why you god damn little !" He snatched the Winchester from Blake's hands and gave him a quick jab in the midriff with the butt of the rifle. Blake fell down, winded but not seriously hurt. Holding his stomach with one hand he looked up at Sam, more in anger than pain.
"I'm gonna shoot this bird," Sam told him matter of factly. "And then I'm gonna deal with you. State bird!" he snorted. The Winchester was pointed once more at the hapless pelican.
Blake could just sit there and let him shoot the pelican. He didn't care about the stupid bird. But it wouldn't end there. Sam would shoot other things. He'd hit Blake again. He'd hit Willie when Willie got older. He'd drive Mama crazy with his drinking and his swearing and his violent fits. There were times in life to just sit there and do nothing. This wasn't one of them.
With a shout like a war cry, Blake threw his entire weight against Sam’s legs, tackling him. The Winchester discharged harmlessly as it and Sam fell to the earth. Sam recovered quickly, and with a wounded animal's snarl lunged at his son. But Blake was just a little quicker. Grabbing the weapon, he met Sam's advance with a fierce swing. Sam raised his arm to protect himself from the blow and Blake heard the cracking of bone as the butt made contact with Sam's little finger.
"Aaahh! Son of a bitch!"
Sam doubled over in agony, clutching his hand and staring at his wounded pinky in disbelief. Then drunkenness and rage overcame pain and shock, and he struck back at Blake. His hand swung back and forth, cracking Blake across the face three times.
Blake was on the ground again, dazed but still functioning. He had to get up and run or fight. He two Sams. Both coming towards him. Blake scuttled backwards madly and reached into the knapsack with his right hand. He staggered to his feet and poised himself defensively, holding the bottle of whiskey behind his head as if it were a grenade.
The two Sams halted and merged back into one. A crazed grin overspread his face. "Come on, boy," he goaded Blake." You wanna be tough?" He shot forward and grabbed Blake's vest with a vise grip. Blake gasped and nearly fell down again. He panicked for only a split second. Then the bottle crashed down on Sam's head. The hand on Blake's vest loosened. Sam slumped to his knees, and looked as if he would faint. But Sam was too stubborn, and as he hauled himself to a stand Blake gave one final, desperate lunge, ramming the jagged bottle neck as hard as he could into Sam's stomach. Sam gave a short grunt of pain and fell back a step. He ran a hand across his stomach and studied the blood smeared on his palm. He wasn't seriously injured. His jacket and underlying flannel shirt had absorbed most of the impact. It wasn't a bad shot, to give the boy some credit. But it wasn't good enough.
Blake stared agape at his father, horrified at what he'd done. Sam said, "You know what your grandpa always told me, Blake? If you gonna strike at the king, make damn sure you kill 'im." He unsheathed the Bowie knife at his belt.
Blake took a step back. The old look of fear registered on his face. Sam had snapped. Blake tore off the knapsack and took a desperate swing at Sam's head, but Sam blocked it with his arm, knocking the knapsack out of Blake's grip. Almost simultaneously, the knife came down across Blake’s chest, leaving a tear from the shoulder to the opposite hip. Then Blake's chest stung, and he realized that he was cut.
Sam's face lit up with blood lust. He moved forwards as his son moved backwards. With one sweeping motion, Blake leaned down on one leg, snatched the rifle, and stood back up. He shakily regained his balance and pointed the barrel at his father.
Sam smiled, a wicked, twisted smile. "That a boy," he drawled. "Pull the trigger, Blake." Blake kept on stepping backwards, trembling all over. But Sam kept on advancing maddeningly, relentlessly.
“Thirty seconds, Blake," Sam warned him. "and one of us is gonna be dead. You decide who."
"Don't make me do it," Blake pleaded, tears streaming down his face. "Please, Daddy, don't make me do it!"
But Sam was beyond comprehending human speech. As Blake gazed into his father's eyes, he saw that reason was useless. Sam lunged. The Winchester cracked once. Sam stopped suddenly. An expression of mild shock registered on his face. For an infinite second, his glazed eyes stared at Blake. His head started craning down towards his stomach, then stopped. There was a soft plop as Sam fell into the mud.
Blake stood over the body of his father, looking dully at the prostrate figure. The expression on Blake's face was that of a curious child, not knowing what to make of the situation. A muskrat squealed somewhere off in the bayou. Blake's lips trembled slightly, and a stifled sob shook him. He sniffed a few times and wiped a tear from one eye. That was that. There was nothing to be said, nothing to be done.
He thought of how he would get home. If he could find the truck, he could get to the highway easily enough, and from there he could find his way back to Addis. He'd never driven before, but he'd watched Sam and it didn't seem too hard. The keys were in Sam's pocket. Blake mustered all his willpower, but couldn't bring himself to search the body. With a sigh he turned away from the ugly scene and began shuffling away, not knowing where he was going.
After two hours Blake was nearly out of his mind with pain and exhaustion. He was about to give up, sit down and wait to die when he heard a truck zooming down a highway, a truck so big it seemed to shake the leaves of all the nearby trees. Blake's heart leapt. He ran towards the direction of the noise. He bounded through a small copse of hickories and nearly collided with the guardrail marking the edge of Interstate 12. This was much farther up than he and Sam had gone, but it didn't matter. All he had to do now was find someone to give him a ride. That shouldn't be a problem, he thought, as another vehicle sped by. Remembering to catch his breath, he sat down on the steel barrier and rested a spell. At the sound of an approaching car, Blake got to his feet, held out his arm and offered his upturned thumb. No response. He tried again, several times. Someone was bound to stop eventually. An hour passed. Blake tried once more, this time on a beat up old Chevrolet Bel Air. As the car drove by him he sat down again wearily. The thought of sleeping by the side of the road didn't exactly appeal to him, but at this point it didn't particularly bother him either. But then the old Chevy slowed down and came to a stop a hundred yards away. Unenthusiastically, Blake started walking towards it. Then he began moving faster, as fast as his tired feet would allow. Panting lightly, he opened the black and white door and climbed into the passenger's seat.
The driver was a grizzled, unkempt man of fifty or so. His ratty clothes hung loosely on his body. A beard that might have been made of steel wool stuck out of his face and chin. He smiled at Blake congenially, and Blake noticed that several of his teeth were missing.
"Hi, there," he said cheerfully. "Where might you be headin', son?"
"Home," Blake mumbled. "I wanna go home."
The man laughed heartily. "And where might that be?"
"Addis," Blake replied, too tired to comprehend. "Can you take me to Addis?"
"Can I take you to Addis?" the stranger repeated. "Why it just so happens I'm goin' to Addis myself." Once they were on the road, the fellow reached into his pocket and offered Blake a pouch of chewing tobacco. "Want some?" he asked.
"No thank you, sir," Blake replied politely. He hated the stuff. Sam had made him try it once when he was nine.
"You got a name, boy?"
"Yes sir. It's Blake. Blake Wallace."
"Floyd Baxter." He looked quickly at Blake. "You don't look so good, son. Your clothes is a mess. You all right?"
"Yeah," Blake said. "I'm all right. I'm just tired, that's all. I was fishin' and I didn't catch nothin’.”
"You ain't got no fishin' rod," the man observed.
“I lost it," Blake lied.
Floyd Baxter didn't reply. Whatever it was none of his business. He drove on in silence for some time, then decided to try another attempt at conversation.
"You go to school?" he asked Blake,
"Yeah," Blake answered absent mindedly. "I go to school." He was staring out the window at the distant pine trees and the huge, orange sun sinking slowly in the sky. He would have to tell them Mama, the police, Willy... He wasn't worried, though. He would never worry about anything again. A stream of thoughts flowed through his head, none of them disturbing.
Puzzled at the complete silence, Baxter looked over at the boy. He chuckled softly. Sleepin' like a baby, he was. No point wakin' him 'til they got to Addis. Besides, he sure looked like he needed a rest.
Copyright Allan M. Heller
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