by Jeff Johnson
“iPod has no limits, my brother,” the driver reported. A moment later “Listen to the Music” hit the speakers and I closed my eyes.
“The first live recording of—”
“No music trivia,” I said, cutting him off.
Three songs later we pulled up at my place. It didn’t look haunted anymore. It looked monitored instead, and I’d weathered that before. I paid and went up the stairs, then paused and looked over the street. Somewhere within visual distance was a two-man team of incredibly pissed-off feds who had repeatedly mistaken me for a criminal genius, even though Lucky was the first word in my business, and a peeping tom with size-twelve boots was about to learn that the meanest, brightest, most relentless fed in creation looked like he moonlighted in a Christian boy band. Agent Dessel might let my stalker go if he had no warrants, to see if he led back to that prize bottom feeder I’d gone on about, but he’d be sure to rub my face in it and drop a detail or two when he did, just to fuck with me. I was thinking about what to call the entire maneuver when my phone rang. Delia.
“You’ll never guess what I just did,” I began. With my free hand I unlocked the door and went inside. The cats looked at me once, went back to sleep.
“Don’t tell me. You found Dessel and Pressman and fucked with them. Fed them some borderline crazy shit to recklessly reinstate your round-the-clock surveillance.”
“Whaa?” I was hurt that she guessed so easily.
“The patrol circuit just changed outside the shop. Slow roll-bys, ten-minute intervals, same as last time. And the time before that.”
“I was thinking of a clever name for this play,” I said. I continued into the kitchen and took a can of green chilies out of the cabinet. The cats would come to life when I opened it, so I took down a can of their food, too.
“Maybe something with Judo in the title,” she suggested. “Or an old Kung Fu movie, straight up rip off one of the good ones, like the flick with the lady who shot snakes out of her robe.”
“Flying, ah, shit. Total blank.”
“Whatever you do, don’t tell Suzanne you invited your friends back around.” Any chance to get in a jab. Suzanne thought Delia was cute. Delia knew Suzanne’s coffin size and had a burial site in a swamp all picked out.
“Right.” I chinned the phone and popped the top on the cat food, dumped it on a plate, set it down. They were getting a little leisurely about eating and took their time, yawning and stretching as they made their way to the kitchen. “I guess maybe don’t tell Hank your almost former boss just put us all under the microscope. Panic does weird shit to his acne.”
“Hmm. I guess fuck you.” Her heart wasn’t in it.
“You didn’t call to tell me about the new police problem because you already knew I did it. What’s up?” I got to work opening the green chilies.
“Oh! Right!” Too, too bright. “Our charming neighbor Gomez just popped in.”
“Shit. The back sink?” Gomez owned the bar next to the Lucky, so naturally he and Delia were close. Gomez kept to the time-honored code of fix it yourself for the most part, but for me, because we were old pals and occasional co-conspirators, and because I had become his landlord when I bought the entire block, he made an exception when it came to his back sink.
“No, not the sink, sweetheart. He didn’t say what he wanted. But I do know they have a giant dead dog in their freezer.”
A big pot. Heat it up and toss in a pat of butter, then some diced pork. Day-old roast is fine, but Tasso is best, that spicy stuff you get at the same overpriced deli where you find exotic pears and house-made duck confit. Paprika, pepper, cumin, salt, green chilies, diced onion. Sear the fuck out of it, then splash in a shot of whiskey and stand back. A satisfying bloom of hell consumes the pot. Smile, then, as the red and gold fills your eyes. In the fire, lit with sparks and curls of aromatic smoke. you can briefly see your troubles, even project them into it, be it phantoms or frozen dogs. Add two cups of water and a bouillon cube. Last, take a bag of tortilla chips, not the fucked-up disgusting kind with nacho toxins, but the real deal. Stab a hole in it and bash the unholy shit out of it. Beat the bag savagely, like you feel the weight of the world on your back. Dump the perfectly mortised contents into the pot, lower the heat, cover.
Green chili stew on the way. And an open bottle of booze to keep you company while you wait. Serve hot, with tortillas and dreams of a better life.
Six a.m. is early for the tattoo universe, but I snapped out of a dead sleep feeling better than I had in weeks. I’d made it all the way to the bed for one thing, for the first time since Suzanne left, and even though I’d slept in my clothes I considered it a cautious victory.
Once the coffee was going, I stripped off my dirty T-shirt and did push-ups. Not many people understood why I did this morning routine, but they invariably came up with their own theories. Delia hypothesized that it had something to do with hangovers, though anymore her conjectures involved penis chakras and self-esteem, and would no doubt include my unwillingness to buy new clothes should my waistline change. I powered through the first ten at speed, but it had been a month and I could feel it.
Suzanne thought my morning ritual was a sign of paranoia. She was nine inches taller than me at a towering six feet six, and she had a swimmer’s body because she swam every day. She was also passionate about rock climbing, which I secretly thought was dangerous and possibly stupid because of it, and while we had similar physiques, she steadfastly maintained that my body mass index was a product of violence and a continuous proximity to poison.
As I passed through seventy reps something popped in my elbow, so I stopped and stood. Brief vertigo. Hot now, I rolled my head around and twisted my back from side to side. More loud pops, some grinding sounds. Suzanne thought the sound of my waking skeleton was disgusting, and I enjoyed that she did. It was small of me.
I thought about the frozen dog carcass while I took a shower. The damnedest things can brighten a day. For a year, I’d been delegating things like this. Santiago, Delia, Chase, whoever. Even shoving things off on Gomez and Flaco. Having a responsible, respectable, professional woman in my life had me impersonating someone else around the clock. And I’d gotten good at it.
Jeans, boots, T-shirt. Chops and Buttons watched politely as I got their breakfast ready. While they ate I drank coffee and watched.
“I got business with a frozen dog today,” I told them.
At seven a.m., the surveillance outside would change shifts. Sometimes they left the car in place and switched teams and rides if they had a good spot, and sometimes they left a tad early for a high-speed donut and coffee run. They had bottles of pee to empty by then, and a toilet to visit for a big number two, I imagined. I was watching the street through the edge of my blinds when my phone rang. Suzanne.
“Hey baby,” I answered, hitting her with cheer.
“You’re awake.” Pause as she consulted her dive watch. “Seven a.m. Did you sleep, or did you . . .”
“Yeah, I ah . . .” I couldn’t tell her any of it. Ritualistic skeleton yoga, Mexicans with frozen dog cadavers, the feds dealing with my ghost, nothing. “I made coffee. Fed the cats. They miss you.”
“I miss them too,” she said warmly. “No rain for us today”—sound of fingers on keyboard—“or you. Sunny in the entire Northwest. Then we both have rain tonight. Got plans?”
“I was gonna think about your legs later, but it sounds depressing now that I say it out loud.” I lit my first cigarette of the day. “Delia mentioned that she wanted me to take Hank to the tuxedo place at some point, sort of manage the crisis as it evolved. Might be a good day for it.”
Suzanne laughed but said nothing. I love that sound.
“I super don’t want to, as you might imagine, but she’ll want me to do it sooner rather than never, so I’m putting it in the maybe category.”
“Be of good cheer, fierce little man. Hank weighs ninety pounds. If push comes to shove you can always out-drink him.” Let the fishing trip
begin.
“I’m on an upward spiral, baby,” I said, maybe a tiny bit too fast. She also didn’t care for being called “baby.” “Not drinking anyone under the table today. Not on the menu. Nope.”
“Well.” She let it sink in. Is it a good thing when the guy you left for your career reaches the end of his separation bender, or does it mean he’s getting over you too fast? What could it mean when even he doesn’t know? I heard all of that in her pause.
“Confusing,” I said, just to make the confusion stick.
“So, ah, when’s the wedding again? Still Halloween?”
“They haven’t moved it since the last time they moved it,” I reported, drifting with the awkward segue. “Hank’s mom is still in jail, or so he claims. The real holdouts are on Delia’s side. They won’t budge.”
“Still?”
“Still. She’s pretty tight-lipped about it, but it sounds like she’s related to a pack of assholes and bitches, so I don’t know why she even cares.”
Orphan talk, I heard her thinking. The poor man has no idea what he’s talking about. The importance of family is above his head.
“Well, if you can’t be understanding, nurturing will have to do.”
“Right.” I dumped the remains of my coffee in the sink. Long pause.
“I miss you, Darby.”
“Miss you too, Suze. As much as I can, anyway. You know, if you squeezed my entire emotional spectrum dry it would fill a Dixie cup. But your pancakes, that’s a different story. And that place where your ass meets your legs is—”
“Darby.”
“I can hear you blushing. Don’t tell me it isn’t possible.”
“Yes, well. Hm.”
“The guy at the desk next to yours? Clive? Calvin?”
“Todd.”
“That’s the fuckin’ guy. You tell him I said—”
“Darby.”
I heard her smiling. I listened to the background sound of her office environment. She listened to my empty house.
“Two weeks,” she said finally.
“It’s a date.”
“Bye.” She made a kissing sound.
I let the cats out since the sun was shining and hit the street with them, jacket over my shoulder. Suzanne’s weather forecast was accurate. A few high clouds drifted through the clean blue, and the air was crisp with a bit of cool that marked it as one of the last nice days before the real rain, which would last for months. There was no sign of my new escort, but I’d learned the hard way that it only meant they’d gotten clever. Still, seven a.m. was the best time to confuse them if I was going to try. The only safe way out of my house now was over the fences and through several backyards to the café strip, and I suspected that would only work a few more times. Plus, it was painful.
My car started, which always surprised me. Parking around the Lucky was bad and getting worse as assholes like me upgraded the neighborhood. I actually owned a pay parking lot next to the shop, but Santiago frowned on me using it, especially since I’d given Delia my space and was taking a pay slot for free. I only drove when I had to, which was almost never. But there was a dog on this fine day, a frozen one, and cabs frown on shit like that.
Inner robot online, I drove without thinking about the sunny day and thought about Dessel instead, about the long night he had beside Agent Pressman, sitting in their Prius and watching my house. I was sure they had personally sat on my place. They didn’t seem to sleep, but they also had trouble reaching out to their department for backup. They could call in the cavalry for a massive bust, including SWAT and helicopters, as they had on the night they busted Nigel and his two idiot biker connections, but for grunt work they were pretty much on their own much of the time. The two of them authentically hated me, and in the bright light of day it occurred to me for the first time that busting my stalker after I was successfully murdered might work well for them. A sobering thought.
There was one free spot about a half a block down from the tattoo shop, almost right across from my parking lot. Delia was in way early, very likely because she didn’t want to miss any of the dog situation. I could just picture her, lurking inside the dark shop, rubbing her hands together, watching for me to approach. It made me feel much better about everything. I had no plan to speak of and Delia most certainly did.
Gomez’s bar, the Rooster Rocket, had changed as much as the rest of Old Town in the last year, but in a surprising and novel way in this singular instance: It had gotten scuzzier. The entrepreneurial Gomez had set out to corner the entire local market on “dive,” and the place had taken on a spastic glitter as a result. The bands were louder and worse. He’d put in strings of Christmas lights, which came off as lurid rather than festive. There were no artisan beers on tap. It was straight-up old man beer water from Milwaukee. Local businesspeople did their day drinking in the Rocket’s dark, high-backed booths, exchanged furtive moisture with their coworkers in the grubby bathroom stalls and under the sticky tables, and conspired with their fellow cubicle inmates. By night, the twenty-one-plus crowd malfunctioned in the Rocket with great abandon. All this was good for the Lucky, of course, and Gomez was making money hand over fist.
We locked eyes the instant the dim interior swallowed me and I could intuit in a heartbeat much of the situation. It was three hours before they opened, but it smelled like pine scented mop water. Gomez had pulled an all-nighter. The door had been unlocked, so Delia had told him about my early arrival. Gomez himself was powerfully irritated, the narrowing of his bloodshot eyes said. He took a breath, but then sighed with it, as if he expected nothing more than random bad news from my direction. Resigned then that I might be of no help after all, that his situation was beyond my ability to fix and that he’d just realized it, he shook his head and produced two shot glasses. Grimly, he poured two short vodkas, the miniatures we had come to call Christian thimbles. Glasses in hand, he flicked his eyes at the nearest booth, indicating that I should join him.
We settled across from each other and drank in silence. Finally, he leaned halfway across the table and beckoned me to do the same. He had a secret to share, and even though we were alone in the bar, he wanted to whisper it. Not good.
“My nephew Santos,” Gomez rumbled. “His dog has died.”
“Bummer,” I whispered back.
“Yes.” It came out as a boozy hiss. This was not his first thimble of the morning. He glanced both ways, just with his eyes. “He is a troubled boy. Got out of juvie maybe nine months ago and we got him a dog. Bella.” He grunted. “She died and Flaco and I froze her. Mi familia, we have a few acres outside of Woodburn. For picnics, weddings, that kind of thing. It’s also where we bury the cats and dogs.”
“Ah.” I began to see.
“No biggie, right?” It came out a little bitter and sarcastic. “Except now, we have police watching the street. Thanks to you, Darby.” Gomez leveled the full force of prosperous Mexican gangster-turned-bar-owner at me. “You. Delia says you have a stalker, so you activated your federal monitors. That’s your problem. Now my problem is your problem because of it. So now you have two problems. See?”
“Shit.” I looked away. “How the fuck was I supposed to know you had a frozen dog in here? Delia says it’s big, too. What the hell kind of nine-month-old dog is big?”
“Bella is the size of a pony, Darby. Rottweiler-mastiff mix. Wrapped in an army blanket, she looks like a fat man with his legs cut off.”
“Shit,” I said again.
“Yes. But I have a plan.”
I sat back. Gomez sat back, too. Then he grinned.
“You’re not working tomorrow, are you.” It didn’t come out as a question. “You never work anymore.”
“Out with it.” In spite of myself, an unfocused thrill was building.
“Have you ever heard of the Big Brother program?”
“Assume I haven’t.”
“Mm. Bueno.” Gomez smiled. “Take a boy who has no father. No brothers. This boy, maybe he acts out. Why? Bec
ause he needs a role model. Someone to look up to. Teach him the ways of a man.”
I almost laughed, but his face hardened in anticipation of my reaction. He leaned in again, but this time he wasn’t whispering.
“I have twenty-seven nieces and nephews, Darby, but two of them?” He ground his teeth. “Two of them. Those two little—” He stopped and calmed himself. “Santos and his brother Miguel, they did not have good lives. When they were young, their stepfather, he was not a good man. Violent. Drunk. The speed and the cocaine. Santos and Miguel spent too much time outside because of it, and the wildness grew in them. I moved them here from LA when I found out what was happening, and at first, at first it was okay. Then it went bad. They robbed a gas station and Miguel died by the gun. Santos spent three years in juvie.” Gomez looked into his empty glass. “Now the boy is wrong in many ways. He does not fit in with anything. Which brings me back to the Big Brother program.” He fixed me with his stare again.
“Darby. You are a massive fuck-up. You know it’s true. I know it’s true. We all know.” Gomez considered me. “But you always land on your feet. And you have your murky principles. I know you to be a certain kind of man, and I am in no way flattering you, so wipe that fool look off your face. Now, I ask for one day. One. It is your fault I have a dog in my freezer. It would be gone by now if you had not made it difficult. Every second we sit here I risk everything. Do you know what a health inspector would say if they found even a small dog in my freezer? Flaco would be deported to Guantanamo. I would be driven from the Republic wearing tar and feathers. This is the wrong political climate for a Mexican establishment that serves food to be caught with such a thing. So one day. One. Out of your miserable life, this one day is nothing. It will be good for you. If you and Santos hit it off and become friends, then good. Very good. Maybe he will see a path with some kind of honor. The misfit’s way, we will call it. If he sees in you what he might become and changes his ways to avoid becoming like you, then also good. Also very good. But I do not want Santos to become institutionalized. He must learn that there is always a different way, and no matter how you two interact, I have every certainty he will learn this from you. There is a way to misbehave and stay out of the system. Young Santos is in danger of becoming a permanent member of the prison life. A number instead of a name. A slave. He needs to meet men like you. He needs to see the joy in life, and that joy is free.”
