Bill parades around the living room in a pair of frayed and tattered white Jockey briefs with holes in them. “Jesus, Bill,” I say. “That’s disgusting. I hope you’re not actually planning on wearing those tonight.”
“This is my one and only pair of lucky underwear. They’re like some kind of chick magnet. I swear, every time I wear them, I get lucky,” Bill says.
“Well, my Mother used to say that no matter what else I’m wearing, I should always wear clean underwear, in case something happens and I have to go the hospital,” I say.
“What the Hell kind of logic is that? If you go to the hospital the first thing they do is stick you in one of those gay, assless gowns,” he says. “ You might as well be wearing assless chaps.”
“Hate to burst your bubble. But why even say ‘assless’ chaps? Aren’t all chaps assless?” I ask.
“Whatever,” Bill says, pulling on a pair of new jeans. “All I’m sayin’ is these are my lucky drawers. Then it’s straight back to my room and my water bed and rubber sheets with ‘Get Down’ written on them. You coming out with us tonight?”
“I don’t think so. I’m totally fried. I ended last night and started this morning at Magnolia’s Thunder Pussy,” I say.
“Now there’s a place to eat if you want to clog every artery,” Bill says “and what a freak show! Last time I was in there it was right after bar time and some tweaker was having a conversation with the coffee creamer on the counter. He was all Senor Wences talking with Pedro, opening and closing the creamer lid – ‘S’awright? S’awright!”
“Well what do you expect at that time of the night?” I say “Anyway, they got the best home fries and huevos rancheros with green hot chilis in the universe. It’s the ultimate hangover cure. I hope you’re not planning on staying out all night. We’re playing the Denver Barbarians tomorrow. We need you in the scrum.”
“Don’t worry about me” Bill says, “ I can drink all night, play rugby the next morning and then go out and do it all again.” Bill finishes snapping up the pearl buttons on a paisley print rodeo shirt and starts pulling on a pair of cowboy boots.
“Yeah, like the way you were upchucking your scrambled eggs on the sideline 2 minutes into the game last week. I see you’re steppin’ out in the shit kickers,” I say.
“Hey bro – these are Tony Lama snakeskin boots. Even sexier than my lucky drawers,” Bill replies. “Well, I’m off. I’m meetin’ Spike at The Broken Drum.”
“The Broken Drum? You mean The Drunken Bum. That’s the kind of dive where Bukowski would have gotten shit faced. You’re not going to get lucky there,” I say.
“We’re only starting there. Cheapest place to get shooters of Cuervo. Jump start the evening, then it’s onto greener pastures,” Bill says as he steps into the doorway.
At the Bar
“What should I tell Kim if she comes looking for you?” I ask.
“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Bill says “I know what you’re thinking and you better not. You can look, but you better not touch. Adios amigo.” Bill gives a little salute, then he’s out the door.
Is That a Gun in Your Pocket, or Are You Just happy to See Me?
The Last of the Hard Boiled Dicks
A Mugsy Phlegmming Caper
A Cheap and Tawdry Detective Noir Mystery
in Serial Form and Three Part Harmony
~ Installment Three ~
III: The Man in the Lime Green Mohair Leisure Suit
Ms. Pennyraker had vanished like a puff of smoke in a magic show, leaving the door open behind her. I closed the door and went back over to the window to see what had happened down on the sidewalk. I opened the window and leaned out to have a look. A small crowd had gathered around what was left of a wooden upright piano that apparently had fallen from the roof.
Once again, I heard the floorboards squeak on the landing outside of my office. Someone was out there. “I’ve really got to get that fixed,” I thought vacuously. I quietly reached into the desk drawer where I kept the starter pistol, a sock full of nickels and a half empty bottle of Jack. I still had a trick or two up my sleeve. I grabbed the half empty bottle of Jack and took a slug. Then I crept over to the door and jerked it open. There was a strange man in a lime green mohair leisure suit, just like the dame had said.
“Please excuse my disheveled appearance,” he said. “I hope I did not startle you. I must confess, I am a bit shaken. I was nearly crushed by a piano that appears to have fallen from your roof. It believe there may be more to this than meets the eye.”
That certainly explained the sound of the piano crashing to the sidewalk. I tried to wrap my mind around it. I didn’t like the look of this at all, especially whatever sartorial statement he was trying to make. I was at a loss for words and made a lame attempt at small talk to try to buy some time. “Is that real mohair?” I asked. I was distracted by other thoughts, like how a piano could fall from the rooftop and why anyone in their right mind might still actually wear such a ghastly relic of men’s fashion. I guess there’s no accounting for taste.
“Yes it is,” he replied. “Thank you for asking. I can give you the name of my tailor, if you so desire, but I have more pressing business at the moment. May I come in?”
Thrift Shop Fedora
I asked him to come in and we both sat down. He was a strange looking character. Not exactly little, like Ms. Pennyraker had described. But, then again, she was a tall drink of water herself. His complexion had kind of ghoulish cast and his hair was not so much red as it was orange. He seemed edgy to the point of being manic. He reminded me of Cesar Romero as The Joker in Batman. It had been one of my favorite TV shows as a kid, but this guy gave me the heebie jeebies in all kinds of ways.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” he said. He spoke with a trace of a foreign accent. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but he sounded vaguely like Boris Badenov from Rocky and Bullwinkle. He even made Ms. Pennyraker seem a little bit like Natasha Fatale, but I was letting my imagination run wild. “You may call me Mr. Fontaine.”
“Where you from Fontaine?” I asked.
“Moscow,” he replied, “Moscow, Idaho.”
It was a stretch, but I wondered if this joker was related to the infamous black marketeer, Count Fontanovitch who had been linked to a number of high profile scams that included gun running, art theft and industrial espionage. He had dropped off the face of the planet after supposedly peddling priceless artifacts that vanished from the national museum in Bagdad.
“So Fontaine, what brings you here today?” I asked.
“I am here on behalf of someone who would like to be your patron and benefactor. It seems you are in possession of a package for which I am prepared to make you a rather handsome offer,” he said.
“Not so fast Fontaine. I’m not that kind of boy and I don’t come cheap. How do I know you are who you say you are and who says I even have this package you say I have?” It was then I realized the fragrant, hot pink envelope Ms. Pennyraker had given me was still right out in the open on the desk, between us. I saw Fontaine glance at it, and I pretended not to notice.
The Package
“Drink?” I asked, trying to act nonchalant. “Occasionally,” he said “but not before dark and never on Sunday.” “Then I hope you don’t mind if I do,” I said.
I reached for the desk drawer. I’d feel a whole lot better if I could just wrap my fingers around the cold blue steel of the starter pistol. “Here, Mr. Phlegmming, the bottle is right here on the desk where you left it.”
“I’m just getting a glass,” I said “My Mother always told me it’s bad manners to drink right out of the bottle in front of company.” He reached into his leisure suit as I reached into the desk drawer. I was relieved to see him pull out a business card. I left the gun in the drawer and pulled out the glass.
Bottle and Glass
“Allow me to present my credentials,” Fontaine said. He extended a business card towards me. I reached for the card, but he let go of it before I had it in my grasp, and it fluttered to the floor. Without thinking, I bent down to pick it up. I picked up the card and looked up. He had the package in one hand and a pistol in the other. What a sucker I am, I thought. One of the oldest tricks in the book. I guess I was entitled to a rookie mistake, but this looked bad.
“It would be a good idea, Mr. Phlegmming, if you neglected to mention any of this to the authorities,” he said. “They might not take such a benevolent view of you practicing your business without a license. Neither would your patron.”
“That doesn’t look like much more than a pea shooter Fontaine, and besides, I don’t think you have the cojones to actually pull the trigger on an unarmed man,” I said. I was bluffing, but trying to buy some time anyway I could.
He leveled the pistol at my chest.“ I assure you Mr. Phlegmming, this is quite real, my ‘cojones’, as you call them, are in perfect working order, as is my trigger finger. Now, if you will excuse me…” He rose from the chair.
There was an earsplitting shriek and a flapping of wings. “Drop the gun punk!” Gladys squawked as she flew from her perch on the hat rack. She swooped down and landed on Fontaine’s shoulder, digging her talons right through his mohair suit and into his flesh. Fontaine never saw it coming. He yowled in surprise and pain and the gun fell to the floor. Gladys snatched the envelope in her beak and flew away, landing on the window sill.
Gladys
Fontaine came around the desk and moved towards the open window where Gladys was perched. Gladys started flapping her wings, Fontaine lunged and dove for the bird, just as she flew away. Fontaine kept on going right on through the window. He actually looked like a graceful diver as he sailed through the air, before landing with a sickening thud on the wreckage of the piano that still lay on the sidewalk below.
I leaned out the window and saw Fontaine’s crumpled body on top of the piano. “Guess the piano didn’t do much to break your fall Fontaine. Bet that’s gonna leave a mark,” I said sarcastically. It felt disrespectful to the recently deceased, but I figured that’s what any real hard boiled dick would say in a situation like this.
I was there to meet my first client. Floorboards squeaked as someone ascended the stairs and stopped outside my office. I jumped at the sounds of a car backfiring out on Bridge Street and three sharp raps on the frosted glass of the door. “Come on in, it’s unlocked” I said. The door creaked as it swung open. That’s when I got my first look at her.
Door
She stood in the doorway, illuminated by a shaft of light streaming in from the hall; looking like a warrior goddess from Forbidden Planet. Jet black hair fell in cascading rivulets down the front of her glistening, wet raincoat. Her tootsies were tucked into a pair of cherry red stiletto heels; and she had a pair of gams that went all the way up to her knees. She was the kind of broad who could make a man steal Girl Scout Cookies, if that’s what mama wanted.
The Woman in the Wet Raincoat
She was a swarthy lass, but a robust and coy beauty, nonetheless; and looked like the kind of chick who could take care of herself in a tight spot and probably K.O. any chump who double crossed her. Although she wasn’t exactly the kind of woman I would have met at a PTA meeting, she did look vaguely familiar. Perhaps it was just that she reminded me of a field hockey player named Mona I’d had a dalliance with back in Kansas City. Mona had thighs like a boa constrictor and nearly squeezed the life out of me during our moonlight romps on the center line of the hockey field. My imagination was on fire with a thousand questions as I wondered about this doll and what she might be up to.
Before I could invite her in, a huge parrot swooshed overhead and flew into the room. This dame was too cool to even bat an eyelash. “Friend of yours?” she asked.
The big bird roosted next to the fedora on top of the hat rack. “Allow me to introduce Gladys,” I said, “the African parrot who lives with a freelance ornithologist across the hall.”
“Drop the gun punk!” Gladys squawked. “She doesn’t mean you,” I said. “I think that’s all she knows how to say. I just hope she learned it from watching movies.”
Gladys
The lady arched an eyebrow. “Freelance ornithologist?” she asked. “At first I thought the sign said “orthodontist” I said. It’s kind of a sketchy place for a freelance ornithologist to hang a shingle. I don’t think he’s playing it straight, but it’s that kind of neighborhood.”
“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me Mr. Phlegmming,” she whispered in a husky tone, “I really didn’t know who else to turn to. May I come in?”
I asked her to come in and sit down, so she could tell her story. I said “Mr. Phlegmming’s my father. My friends and associates call me Mugsy.”
“Thank you, but until we get to know each other a bit more intimately, it would be more appropriate to call you Mr. Phlegmming,” she replied. I felt my cheeks flush with heat.
“I feel it only fair to tell you that I Googled you, Mr. Phlegmming,” she said. “I already know a great many things about you. For instance, I know that you do not actually hold a professional license as a private investigator, but I think you are someone whom I can trust.”
“But I do hold a professional license.” I replied.
“Yes you do,” she said. “You hold a license to teach, but not a license to kill. The truth is, I don’t want a legally licensed investigator to handle this, because that would involve the authorities, and I simply can’t risk having them involved in any of this. In a situation like this it seems the only ones who can be trusted are outlaws.”
This babe was playing hardball from the get-go and the price of poker just went up. I leaned back in my chair and tried to size her up. She didn’t look like a working girl, but she wasn’t exactly what you’d call a straight arrow soccer mom either.
She’d already Googled me and the best I could do was ogle her. I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage,” I said “It seems that you know a lot more about me than I know about you.”
“I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself. My name is Imma – Imma Pennyraker. But you can call me Ms. Pennyraker.”
She gave me a name, but what was her game? I looked for a wedding ring to see if she might really be “Mrs.” Pennyraker, although I didn’t believe for a minute that ”Imma Pennyraker” was actually her real name.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you Ms. Pennyraker. May I offer you a light refreshment?” I asked. “I have some cocktail weenies and finger sandwiches with the crusts cut off.” I had pocketed a stash of appetizers from a Chamber of Commerce Welcome Wagon Reception I crashed the night before, but, of course, I didn’t tell her that. I wanted to project an air of genteel sophistication.
“I’m afraid I don’t have an appetite for little weenies or the time for hors-d’oeuvres,” she replied. “To come straight to the point, I need to leave this with you,” She plunged her hand deep inside the cleavage of her raincoat. Before I could respond, she pulled out a hot pink envelope and thrust it in my direction.
I held the package in my hands. “Before I agree to take you on as a client, I need to know more – like who you are and what’s in this package.”
“Mr. Phlegmming, I can only tell you what you need to know at this moment. Any more information will only put you in grave danger. We haven’t much time. A strange little man in a lime green mohair leisure suit will come for the package. I think he followed me here. Under no circumstances should he be allowed to have it. You must do whatever it takes to throw him off the trail and await further instructions.”
“But how will I contact you?” I asked. “I will contact you with this cell phone only,” she said as she handed me a phone. It was a burner.
Just the thought of anyone wearing a lime green mohair leisure suit offended my sensibilities and set my mind reeling with shock and horror. Only a dangerous sociopath would make such an egregious and tragic fashion decision and expect to get away with it. I laid the package down on the desk between us. Just knowing where the lady had stashed it makes a guy like me all hot and bothered. The envelope smelled like an exotic, intoxicating perfume, but it also smelled like trouble.
I needed to think. I leaned back even farther in my chair, but I went too far. The chair flew out from under me and there was the sound of a tremendous crash as I fell flat on my back. I saw the shadow of a large object sail past the window, followed immediately by the sound of an even more tremendous crash on the street below. I struggled to my feet to see what the commotion was all about, but by the time I got up off the floor she was gone.
I was a laid off teacher with a pocketful of dreams and a closet full of Masters degrees. After my teaching career short circuited, I hit the bricks looking to reinvent myself and pick up the pieces of my life. I tried my hand at a couple of dead end rackets that ended up being one way tickets to nowhere. I worked as a delivery “specialist” for Singing Panty-Grams, a Singing Sandwich Artist at a sub shop and did a brief stint as a Singing Barista at a local coffee joint. For different reasons, they all ended in disaster. Maybe professional singing wasn’t really my thing. Or maybe that kind of work wasn’t meant to be paired with singing. Who knew for sure, and who cared?
What I really needed was a line of work that would allow my true talents to emerge. I’d always been an inquisitive busy-body with a nose for news and other peoples’ business. I thought this just might be the perfect opportunity to try my hand as a private dick. But what did I really know about the private detective game? Not much, but jumping in up to my eyeballs in danger and into other peoples’ intrigues seemed like a good way to find out.
I rented an office above a tattoo parlor on Bridge Street. For 12 hours a day music boomed from the topless bar down the street. Teen age slackers hung out at the Skate Spot next door and local tweakers came and went from the All Night Laundromat and Pizzeria across the street. There was a pawn shop, a Gypsy palm reader and Rent-To-Own store towards the end of the block. The corner boys did their thing in the alleyway. The neighborhood was full of rough trade but the rent was cheap. The real selling point was the liquor store two doors down from my office.
"The Mare" Gentleman's Club
The detective agency was a bare bones operation and a one man show. I found an old fedora at a vintage clothing store. Since most of the players in this game were bound to be packing heat, I needed a piece of my own, preferably a 38 caliber snub nosed revolver with a pearl handle. But hot pistols were hard to come by in this sleepy little burg and I’d have to settle for any kind of Saturday Night Special I could get my hands on. I ended up with a starter pistol I’d lifted from the track coach’s desk drawer at school. It wasn’t ideal, but shooting blanks in the dark was better than nothing. Anyway I could do just as much damage at close range with a sock full of nickels.
Happiness is a Warm Gun
II: The Woman in the Wet Raincoat
I was there to meet my first client. I heard the floorboards squeak as someone ascended the stairs and stopped outside my office. The door creaked as it swung open. That’s when I got my first real look at her…..
The tiny diner in middle of town is a cramped and steamy place that smells like bacon and coffee. A few tightly placed tables, a lunch counter decked out in chrome and formica and stools with seats covered in red naugahyde are wedged into the narrow space. Bacon and eggs, sausage and pancakes cover the griddle. It’s a shrine to comfort food and the place to go for a lumberjack’s breakfast, meatloaf, or pie. It’s also a spot to nurse a cup of coffee, read the paper, tell stories and exchange gossip.
The sun shines bright on this early spring morning and cars out on Elm Street drive up and down the road in both directions. Men come in and sit at the counter, around the corner, out of sight.
“I heard Gottchalk passed away last weekend,” one says.
“No, he’s already been dead for years.” another one says.
“You’re thinking of Gotsill, he’s the one passed away last weekend. He was a classmate of mine. Lived in the house just up from the telephone company.”
I pour hot sauce and ketchup on a steaming mountain of home fries. It’s quiet except for the sound of bacon sizzling on the griddle and the buzz of the exhaust fan.
“How ‘bout that body they found floating in the canal?” one of the guys says, “Some woman, floating face down. I don’t think they even identified her yet.” One of the other guys says, “They think she’s from around here, anyway.”
Someone scrapes a fork across a plate and the cook pours eggs on the hot griddle.
“I see where that pilot died.” “He was flying a twin engine Cessna and died at the controls. His passenger had to land the plane. They talked him in from the tower.”
Someone else says, “I read he had some flying experience. Logged about 100 hours, but never flew anything big.”
American cheese sticks to the roof of my mouth and I try to wash it down with hot coffee.
“Ever watch them crop dusters work? I used to watch ‘em work out near the airport,” one of the guys says.
“Heard about a time, when I was a kid, one of ‘em didn’t pull up soon enough and flew the duster into a tree. Hung that plane right up in the branches. Weird…you’d think it would’ve mowed that tree right down. Slammed his head on the dashboard and died. They said he woulda survived if he had his helmet on.”
“Those friggin’ guys actually wear helmets?” another one says.
The dishwasher comes out to take a break. She has hearing aids in both ears and her hairstyle looks like a helmet.
A man comes in with a newspaper and sits down at the counter.
He says, “Hear about that body they found floating in the canal? Found her floating face down in the water. Wonder who she was?”
“Can I get you something to eat Al?” the waitress asks.
“You got any donuts? I could go for a single donut.” Al says. “Anyone know when Gotchalk’s funeral is?”
One of the other guys says, “You mean Gotsill. Gotchalk’s been dead for years.”
The exhaust fan hums and cars drive past on Elm Street, going in both directions. A couple passes by on the sidewalk, oblivious to the conversation at the lunch counter.
(Published in the December edition of “Orion headless)
Sometimes you can’t swim at the beach. Tens of thousands of them have died, their bodies bobbing and floating on the surface of the water. Alewives, little fish in the herring family, all washed up on the sandy beach and rocks along the shore, piled up at the high water line. Great heaping mounds of them form iridescent dunes. Their stinking, desiccated bodies covered with flies, brittle, crackly, and rotting in the sun. The only place to swim is the lagoon where Shivering Sands Creek flows into Lake Michigan. The placid water feels warm as a bath. The smooth, sandy bottom feels soothing underfoot. But there are random patches of quicksand, and if you step into that stuff you’ll plunge straight up to your waist in sticky silt that is crawling with leeches. When that happens, you claw your way out as fast as you can move, scrambling out of the creek, squirming from the thought of it, crying for Mom to help pull the slimy bloodsuckers off your legs. Then you go right back into the water. It seems worth the risk just to be able to go swimming.
I stand frozen on the wall, with 40 pounds of tarpaulin slung over my shoulder. A late winter chinook wind howls off the front range. Stevie says we’ve been assigned to move a stack of tarps to another spot. This involves navigating a traverse of about 50 feet across a narrow wall, with spikes of steel rebar sticking up like corn stalks every couple of feet. The wall is plastered with rime and dusted with powdery snow. It is icy and treacherous. If you fall there is a thirty-foot vertical drop on either side ending with a hard landing onto piles of concrete blocks and steel rebar. I am scared shitless. All I can envision is falling. I try straddling the wall and inching across on my crotch. I see there’s no way this will work and retreat backwards. My shoulder is already starting to cramp up from the strain. I throw the tarpaulin down.
“What are you doing?” Stevie asks. “I told you we gotta move these tarps across to the other side.”
“I know,” I say, “I’m trying to figure out how to do it. This is really dangerous. All it takes is one slip and you’re done. It’s slippery as hell and the wind is enough to blow my ass right off this wall.” I think this asshole is gonna get somebody killed.
Stevie’s been working here longer than most of the other laborers, and he’s trying to assert himself in the pecking order. He’s few years older than I am, but he’s just a regular laborer like the rest of us and doesn’t have any real authority. He’s stalled on writing his doctoral dissertation and works this gig to make some money. Stevie is physically smaller than almost everyone else on the job site and is cultivating one hell of a Napoleon complex. He can be an arrogant little bully and a real pain in the ass.
This is the same guy who sent me all over the site looking for the bull prick my first day on the job. Apparently sending the new guy on a fool’s errand to find some nonexistent esoteric tool is standard hazing procedure and a rite of passage. It took me a while to realize there’s not an actual tool called a bull prick, but it didn’t dawn on me until I’d been all over the site on a wild goose chase. Stevie sent me down to the electricians who sent me up to the top of a tower of scaffolding to ask the carpenters who were setting forms. The carpenters sent me to over to the crane operator and the oil mechanic, who in turn, sent me back up to the ironworkers. I was starting to understand that these guys were just messing with me, and I didn’t relish asking the ironworkers if they had a bull prick. The ironworkers are scary, although they are definitely the most interesting characters on site. They’re hardcore, wild-ass, bikers and iconoclasts. They ride chopped Harleys to work and they’re wired on speed, which is the main drug of choice on site. They deal Black Mollies from their lunch boxes during breaks. A lot of the guys on site are tweaked. Everyone says that even Pete, the carpenters’ foreman, is a tweaker. I find this hard to believe because he seems like such a straight edge, flag waving redneck. The iron crew has a huge ghetto blaster that pounds out heavy metal and hip hop with such force it that even overpowers the roar of the jackhammers. They sing along at the top of their lungs as they work. Anyway, I’d been sent over to the ironworkers to ask them for the elusive bull prick. They think this is hilarious and send me to my boss, Carl, the laborers’ foreman. I think they knew he would ream my ass, which is exactly what happened. Carl’s face turns red and he explodes, “You’re goin’ right back down the road if you don’t get your ass back on the job and stop wasting everyone’s time with this bullshit!”
The sound of Stevie’s voice yelling over the wind snaps me back to the present. “Where’s Dave?” I lie, “Dave went to the bathroom.” Actually Dave vanished like a ghost after taking one look at the situation.
“Isn’t there another way to get these across?” I ask Stevie.
“Nah- this is the only way to get ‘em across. So let’s get it done! Stevie’s voice is rising in pitch and volume.
I snap, “Go fuck yourself Stevie! You do it. You’re not anybody’s boss.” He yells back, “It’s Stephen. My name is Stephen.”
I shoot back, “Yeah…sure…whatever … Stevie!”
“What’s going on here? You guys sound like a couple of old women,” someone says in a deep, still voice. We turn to see Billy. There’s a moment of embarrassed silence. William Redbird is a full-blooded Arapaho who goes by the name of “Billy.” He served four deployments in Iraq dismantling IEDs, and is one very serious dude to contend with. Nobody messes with him and everybody, including the ironworkers, crane operators, and all the other cowboys on site treat him with respect, deference and a kind of quiet awe. He never talks about Iraq and everybody understands, you do not ask. That is, everybody except Stevie. Like an idiot, Stevie tried to start that conversation, but Billy’s only response was a stone cold stare. There are some things you just don’t ask about.
“Carl told me these tarps gotta be moved to the other side.” Stevie says. His voice is squeaky and wavering. I’m not sure which way this is going to go. “Looks pretty Goddamn slippery to me, Stevie,” Billy says. “I’m not sure any of us should be up here in these conditions. Is this Carl’s idea or yours?” Stevie vainly tries to hold his ground. “Carl gave the order to move these across the wall,” he insists. Billy’s only reply is a baleful gaze. There’s an awkward silence broken only by whistling wind. “Carl gave no such order to you, him or anyone else. He already asked me if I’d mind doing it. This is a bunch of crap and you know it Stevie! It ain’t worth anybody getting hurt. If this dude doesn’t want to do it, he doesn’t have to. What the Hell you doin’ here anyway? You guys need to go make yourselves useful somewhere else. I’ve got this.” Billy hoists a tarp over his shoulder and begins to pick his way across the wall with slow, sure-footed steps. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Bless you Billy,” I think, “I really owe you one.”
“I gotta use the can,” I tell Stevie. I head toward the outhouse, uphill from there. I need to put as much distance between the two of us as possible, before I lose it completely and really go off on him. I’m also about to have a problem of an altogether different sort if I don’t get up there in a hurry. I slog uphill, slipping and sliding through the mud, looking forward to a brief refuge in one of the portable outhouses. I latch the door, take off my tool belt, drop my jeans and sit down on the ice-cold toilet seat. It’s so cold it feels like my ass is freezing right to the seat. I hear the sound of footsteps wading through the mud as someone trudges toward the outhouse I am using. “Damn it,” I think, “Someone’s coming right for this one.” Ten minutes ago I was scared shitless, and now I can’t get off the can to save my own life.
The footsteps stop right outside the door. Before I can even say a word, somebody grabs the door handle and yanks on it. With one mighty heave, he wrenches it right off its hinges. I sit there with my pants down, face to face with Pete, the carpenters’ foreman. Pete is a burly, ruddy-cheeked roughneck. He looks shocked to be holding the door in his hand, confronted by a bare-assed laborer looking back at him in surprise. We both stare at each other for a moment. “Whoa! Sorry amigo,” Pete says, I didn’t know you were in there.” He gently leans the door against the side of the structure, and walks away. I sit there on the toilet with the door completely ripped off its hinges, trying to ignore the curious glances of other workers passing by. I finish up as quickly as I can and head back down the hill. So far, it’s not been a very good morning.
Carl is coming out of the engineering trailer and beckons me towards him. He’s a gruff and wiry career laborer. Carl may be the oldest guy on site, but he is a tough and competent job foreman and stands up there on the high walls every day with his arms wrapped around the concrete hose, guiding wet slurry in between the wall forms. He’s been around. He’s done it all and seen it all.
“Good, it’s you”, Carl says, “I was just about to go looking for you and Dave. Did Billy get those tarpaulins moved?”
“Yeah, Billy’s on it. He sent us back,” I reply.
“Good. I’m glad that nimrod Stevie didn’t get involved” Carl says, “Billy’s really the only one with the balls to handle that job. Anyone else would end up gettin’ hurt.”
Carl points at a bulldozer pushing red dirt against a foundation wall. “I need you and Dave over there on that back fill. I want you on that tamper. Don’t let Dave near that thing. He’s an idiot and he’ll hurt himself. He’s your shovel man.” I look around and see Dave magically appear out of nowhere. He’s an acquaintance of mine from Boulder, and we’ve been riding together in his car down to the job site. He’s a nice enough guy, but he’s a chatterbox who can talk your ear off. Dave’s studying to be a filmmaker, but he’s out of money and works construction to get by. I can’t see him lasting long on this job though. He’s already on Carl’s shit list for moving too slowly, standing around jabbering about his film, and just plain disappearing. I try to distance myself from Dave as soon as we’re on the job.
I pull the starting cord on the tamper. The thing shudders to life like some ancient mythical beast and starts vibrating the ground. Dave’s job is to shovel loose dirt in front of the tamper. My job is to guide this vibrating, jaw-chattering monstrosity over the loose earth and tamp it down. The ironworkers are off to the left, wiring a steel rebar latticework together. Their ghetto blaster booms away over the din. I think about the way Pete ripped that door right off its hinges, and realize he must be one of their lunch pail customers after all.
Dave falls into to his usual pattern of leaning on his shovel as he expounds on the film he is making. I see Carl eyeing us from a distance and I keep my eyes on the ground in front of the tamper. Dave drifts along, occasionally shoveling loose dirt, but mainly leans on his shovel handle for support as he prattles on about the film. Carl is making the rounds with paychecks. I see him hand Dave a piece of pink paper with his check. Carl has a short, stern talk with him, and Dave looks dumbfounded. Dave’s just been canned.
“Oh shit,” I think, “We’re both finished.” Carl hands me my paycheck. He pulls me aside, tells me he just sent Dave down the road, but I’m doing a good job, and moves on. I am relieved, but I know I’m not really in this for the long haul anyway. Dave is my ride, and he has just been fired. I was hoping to make it at least another month, maybe until spring, when I thought I’d make up some respectable excuse for leaving. I don’t fit in at all with this whole scene. As I look around the site, I realize we’re all really just a bunch of misfits. I am also a card-carrying coward when it comes to heights. Looking towards the future, the walls and towers on this job are only getting further and further off the ground.
“There’s gotta be a better way to make a living,” I think. The tamper vibrates and rumbles over crumbly red soil. Concrete trucks and jackhammers clamor in pandemonium, the ironworkers sing, “One toke over the line sweet Jesus,” as they climb the latticework, and Dave holds the pink slip in his hand, staring at it in disbelief.
I step over a big black dog that’s sprawled, fast asleep, across the doorway. “Best to let sleeping dogs lie,” I think, but the snoring dog doesn’t budge. Clouds of tobacco smoke hang in the air and mix with the glow from neon bar signs, illuminating the room in blue, fluorescent haze. There’s a pool table at the other end and a player is taking aim with his cue. There’s the familiar crack of pool balls and I head for an empty seat at the bar next to an old man. Sitting directly in front of two enormous glass jars full of pickled eggs and sausages, it’s hard not to notice the surreal and disturbing resemblance to body parts floating in formaldehyde. “I’ll take whatever you got on tap.” The beer is ice cold and foam slithers down the side of the glass, which is slick with moisture. I gulp half of it down and lick foam off my lips.
The old guy next to me tosses back a shot, and follows it down with a beer chaser. He’s smoking a chewed up stogie that smells something like old buffalo chips. He gets up, puts a stack of quarters in the jukebox and comes back to the bar. The first song up is a familiar old country tune with a weeping, mournful steel guitar. “ That’s Ralph Mooney you hear playin’ right there. He played steel with Buck Owens, Merle Haggard and the rest of that Bakersfield crew. Used to play some pedal steel myself back in the day. Cut a couple records with the Woodhull Boys back in ’52. You was probably still poopin’ green in your diapers back then.” “Yeah, I guess so.” I say. “What do you do now?” “Been a dairy farmer here for 50 years,” the old man says, “but times ain’t now like they used to be.”
Extending my hand, I introduce myself. “My name’s Max. Can I buy you a beer?” The old man shakes my hand and replies: “Never turn down a free beer. I’m Roy and that’s my dog over there. Name’s Ol’ Bob. He likes to sleep in the doorway. Looks plenty scary, but he wouldn’t harm a fly,” he says. “Reminds me of that old joke though. Guy walks into a bar – has to step over a huge German shepherd blocking the doorway. Dog’s grooming himself to beat the band. Guy sits down next to another man at the bar. “That your dog?” he asks. “Yup” the man replies. Guy says: “ Jeez- look at him lick his balls! I’d love to do that.” Man replies: “Uh – I don’t think that’s such a great idea. That dog is downright mean and he don’t like surprises. At least you better give him some warning to let him know before you start!”
We both laugh, clink our glasses together and down our beers. “C’mon I’ll buy you another one. You gotta try one of these sausages.” Roy orders another beer and a pickled sausage for each of us. The smell almost knocks me off my barstool. I wonder how this guy can be so spry at his age on a diet of booze, cigars and pickled sausage. That kind of regimen would be enough to kill most normal people. But then again it may just be the secret to his longevity.
A chunk of sausage slips off my toothpick and I juggle it around, trying to catch it, but it plops onto the floor. Ol’ Bob’s eyes pop open and fix on the sausage. The big dog suddenly springs to life and starts creeping across the floor like an alligator in the weeds. Roy is off his stool in a flash, and deftly skewers the hunk of meat before the dog can get there. “Jesus Jimbles that was close!” Roy says, “He’s got a delicate system. Food like that – why – it just ain’t healthy. That’d kill Ol’ Bob!” The big dog heads back to his spot in the doorway and heaves a sigh, as Roy pops the rest of the sausage in his mouth and I order us both another round.
Brady’s mouth is dry and his heart is in his throat. The fear is palpable and he feels like he’s jumping right out of his own skin. Then he remembers to breathe. Breathing is the only way he’s found to handle the fear before it becomes an insurmountable force. Brady has learned to center himself and breathe the fear into his belly. It works.
There’s a short delay as the rodeo clowns shoo Torquemada out of the arena and through the exit chute. He is a chute fighter and his rider bailed after just three seconds. Torquemada started to chase him down and the downed rider was lucky to make the corner exit before the bull freight trained him. Torquemada has a reputation as a headhunter and it’s takin’ some doing for the rodeo clowns to get him to move out of the arena.
This is Brady’s first go round since he was stomped in Medicine Hat last season. He rode for near the full round on a honker named Rolling Thunder before he got tossed. Rolling Thunder was a double kicker and he gave Brady the ride of his life. Brady was jerked forward violently and almost kissed the bull before Rolling Thunder reversed and bucked backwards. Brady held on as long as he could before he got thrown out the back door. He landed on his back and almost rolled away before that bad boy stepped on him and busted him up pretty good. Even with his protective vest, he came away with broken ribs, a lacerated liver and bruised kidneys and spleen.
Brady drew tonight’s ride on a big blue roan named Chicken on a Wire. He’s a magnificent animal, weighing in at almost 1500 pounds, with an 80% buck off average. Brady feels almost mystically connected to the bull, as if they share a sacred pact. The arena is clear now. He hears someone say: “It’s go time.” Brady tightens his gloved hand around the bull rope, takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. He settles into his center and feels nothing but dead calm. Brady watches the seconds count down on the digital clock, the horn sounds and the chute slides open. Chicken on a Wire explodes out of the gate.
Your Own Back Yard - Michael Gillan Maxwell 