Hard Luck

by Pascal Scott

  Epilepsy. Certainly, Mickie hadn’t revealed her illness to Brink’s or even to the DMV. Mickie had probably lied about her condition for years. And why not if it served her purposes? Elizabeth could understand that. There was something else she understood, that without a driver’s license, Mickie would be unemployed and, given the kind of work she had chosen, essentially, she would be unemployable. She would lose her driver’s license, her job, and her livelihood.

  Elizabeth hadn’t expected Mickie to say yes right away. She had worked for Brink’s for ten years, and judging by her shock at Elizabeth’s suggestion that they steal a delivery of bad money together and split the take—“Are you fuckin’ kidding me?”—Mickie had never considered breaking the law. Other than smoking a little pot and speeding around the Bay Area on her Super Glide, Mickie was a law-abiding citizen. Elizabeth knew she’d have to wear her down.

  Elizabeth had her work cut out for her, but at least now she had a modicum of freedom. Omega required residents to log their departure and return times with the perpetually smiling receptionist in the front lobby. After hours, Omegans were trusted to sign the unattended logbook, while showing their picture ID to the guard who stood armed at the locked front door. Elizabeth signed in and out Tuesday through Saturday to work at the Omega Café. From today forward, Monday would be her WAP day, from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.

  And then on the last Friday of May, if all went well, Elizabeth would walk away from Omega and be released from the prison system forever. If everything went according to the plan she was formulating in her head, by June, she and Mickie would be millionaires, sitting on a beach somewhere sipping piña coladas. This time, Elizabeth would think through her crime. There would be no acting on impulse the way she had in the past, no going off half-cocked. All she had to do was persuade Mickie to steal a little money that was just going up in flames anyway. Mickie’s Achilles heel was her epilepsy. Elizabeth would use that weakness to wear her down. It would be a challenge, and it wouldn’t be easy, but Elizabeth was sure she could do it.

  And then she met Denise.

  Chapter Five

  There was a routine to living at the Point. Over The Wire at 5:00 a.m. each day, residents were awakened by the clanging of a cowbell. Everyone got up, whether they were ready to get up or not. By 5:15 a.m., faces had been washed, teeth brushed, hair combed, and bodies dressed. Beds had been made with hospital corners for the morning inspection. Omegans stood silently at attention in front of their single beds, backs straight, chins up as the Commitment Keepers moved from room to room. Residents who failed to meet inspection were denied privileges like meals or punished by placement in isolation.

  Breakfast was served cafeteria-style at 5:30 a.m. Scrambled eggs, oatmeal, granola, yogurt, fresh fruit, muffins, bagels, and whole-wheat bread were always available, as much as anyone wanted to eat. There was coffee or tea, orange juice, or bottled water. Produce was trucked in twice a week from The Farm, a second residence on a six hundred forty-acre parcel of land in Petaluma. One hundred Omegans lived on The Farm, raising vegetables and chickens and cows.

  After breakfast, at 6:00 a.m., all residents were required to attend the daily morning assembly in the Point’s three hundred-seat auditorium on the first floor. Billy opened each meeting by reiterating the Omegan philosophy—“Life is what you make it”—before moving on to policy changes and other internal news. He ended each gathering by reminding Omegans of their obligations to the program before reciting the slogan once more. Then he pounded a gavel on the lectern, saying, “This meeting is hereby concluded. Go forth and be wise.”

  By 6:30 a.m., the workday began. In addition to Omega Point, the residence on Geary Boulevard, Omega operated three tax-exempt businesses. In the city, there was the café on California Street, an auto repair shop on Fulton Street, and The Farm forty miles north of San Francisco. Residents were assigned to work areas by Billy, who reviewed each file personally. Workers with evening hours were required to schedule an hour of aerobics during the day; day workers, in the evening.

  At noon, for those still at the Point on Geary Boulevard, lunch consisted of sandwiches on fresh-baked bread, soup, salad, and fruit. At 5:00 p.m., dinner was provided, following Billy’s strict guidelines for healthy eating. Billy believed in clean living—no drugs, alcohol, or processed food—and had quit his last vice when his wife died of lung cancer a year before Elizabeth came into the program. Old-timers still talked about the early days, when a Camel cigarette seemed to be an extension of Billy’s hand and a Benson & Hedges was an almost permanent fixture between Dorothy’s slender fingers. Always at his side in those early times, Dorothy was remembered as the calming influence who had been able to moderate some of Billy’s harsher impulses. Since her death, there had been no one to stop him.

  The second-in-charge was a middle-aged ex-con from Southern California named Thomas Chambers. Once a minor league drug dealer in Logan Heights, the San Diego State University business major had turned his life around after serving three years in prison for selling cocaine on campus. He came out of Donovan Correctional a changed young man, finished his undergraduate studies, and went on to get an advanced degree in rehabilitation counseling.

  But education was one thing; employment was another. San Diego in the late 1970s was a city dominated by Republican politics, a corrupt police department, and a sordid alliance between local economic interests and Mexican cartels. When the city’s chief of police was forced to retire in 1975 after lying to the city council, he was offered a job as head of security for an upscale hotel that served as the city’s main house of prostitution. The bordello was protected by both the San Diego police force and Tijuana drug traffickers who were figuratively if not literally in bed with each other.

  No, nobody in San Diego was willing to hire a former inmate with black skin who was honestly trying to stay clean. And so when Thomas had been offered a position in San Francisco with the Omega Foundation, he had grabbed it.

  Unlike Billy, Thomas was actually qualified to run a nonprofit. After fourteen years of working alongside the eccentric director, Thomas had concluded that Billy was a walking narcissistic personality disorder whose saving grace was that he could give glib interviews to the press, glad-hand politicos, and motivate his true believers. In stark contrast to Billy’s good-old-boy demeanor, Thomas was polished and pressed in his business suits and ties. To the board of directors, the California Bureau of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Thomas was the professional face of the Omega Foundation.

  Without Thomas’s management, Omega would have long ago fallen out of compliance with the laws governing nonprofits in California, a fact Billy chose not to acknowledge or appreciate. As Billy’s right-hand man, Thomas had mastered the art of projecting outward aplomb over inward dissatisfaction. The rumor around Omega was that Thomas was just biding his time, waiting for Billy to retire so he could take his place as director of the multimillion-dollar charity. The latest cause of Thomas’s unhappiness had been Billy’s sudden impulsive firing of the organization’s accountant.

  It seemed like just another Monday morning when the sixty residents of the Point assembled in the auditorium for the 6:00 a.m. business meeting. As always, Thomas took his seat in a folding chair next to Billy’s lectern. Above the stage, a gigantic screen displayed Billy’s image as he stood on the podium in his bib overalls.

  “I have an important announcement to make,” he began. “Today is April 15, Tax Day, and I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

  Elizabeth glanced at Miss Edie, sitting beside her on a red velvet chair. Miss Edie caught her eye and arched her eyebrows.

  “The IRS is coming after us.”

  Billy paused for dramatic effect.

  “They say we’re not a legitimate nonprofit foundation. They say we owe them money in back taxes. They say they are gonna revoke our exemption. And do you know what I say to the IRS?”

  He let a beat pass.

  “I say, ‘Fuc
k you, IRS! Fuck you!”

  From the tiered row behind Elizabeth and Miss Edie, two Omegans kicked the back of their chairs as the crowd erupted in spontaneous applause, hoots, and whistles. Seated beside Billy, Thomas’s face remained placid, revealing nothing of what he thought about Billy’s diatribe.

  “Fuck you, IRS!” Billy wailed. “And fuck you, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation because I know you’ll be coming after us next. Oh, yeah! They’ll be gettin’ on our asses for noncompliance, and there will be no more contracts with the CDCR. And you know what I say to the CDCR?”

  “Fuck you” came the response in unison.

  “That’s right! Fuck the IRS. Fuck the CDCR. Fuck ’em both!”

  Billy was raising the middle fingers of both hands as the crowd cheered.

  “Because I am here to tell you Omegans that from this day forward Omega will no longer be a tax-exempt, F-E-D/CDCR-sucking nonprofit foundation. From this day forward, Omega will be a church. Yes, my brothers and sisters, we are being reborn today as the Church of the Omega!”

  A wave of applause rolled through the room along with a collective “Yeah!” Elizabeth looked quizzically at Miss Edie, who was shaking her wigged head.

  “What?” Elizabeth mouthed.

  Billy had taken a step back from the lectern and was nodding appreciatively in response to the enthusiasm of his followers. He looked over the assembled collective before stepping forward again. In a lower, more intimate voice, he spoke into the microphone.

  “And I guess you know what that makes me.”

  “Pastor Billy?” Elizabeth said to no one in particular.

  “God!” he bellowed. “That makes me your god.”

  “Is he kidding?” Elizabeth asked Miss Edie.

  “No, baby, I think he’s serious. I always knew that dude was crazy.”

  “And as your god, I am handing down a new commandment, a new rule, and this is it. God says that you will be clean and green and—bald!”

  “What?” Miss Edie said.

  “That’s right! For you to be clean, you must be as hairless as a skinned rabbit. It was revealed to me last night in a dream that hair is a weakness. There is power in a bald head. Hear me now! It has been scientifically proven that if you shave your head, you will experience a rebirth of energy. Last night, I was told that we are like a tree in need of pruning. Have you ever noticed how when you cut a branch from a tree, the trunk sends its energy to the pruned limb? And suddenly, that pruned branch has been reborn and is full of green leaves.

  “The same thing happens to the human body. And here’s another fancy word for you to learn. Tonsure. Tonsure is the religious practice of shaving your head. Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, and Christians—all the great religions of the world—have recognized the power that comes with shaving the head of their disciples. And so, from this day forward, I am requiring all Omegans to be clean and green and bald. Yes, bald! I want to see a room full of skinheads. We’re going to give new meaning to the word haircut.”

  Unconsciously, Elizabeth touched the short strands of her hair. Once sun-bleached blond, it had darkened in prison and turned the color of caramel.

  “Now you may be saying to yourself, but look at you, Billy, with your fine locks.”

  He ran the fingers of one hand through his white crew cut and grinned.

  “You, William Dewey Brandt, are a hypocrite. So, to prove to you that I am not a hypocrite, I will be the first to shave. Who wants to volunteer to shave ole Billy’s head?”

  Hands rose across the aisles. Billy shielded his eyes against the spotlights as he searched the crowd.

  “You!” He was pointing in Elizabeth’s direction, although Elizabeth hadn’t raised her hand.

  “Lizzie Bundy! I want you to join me here on this stage.”

  “Oh, shit,” Elizabeth mumbled.

  Miss Edie squeezed her hand as Elizabeth stood. After navigating her way down the line of knees, Elizabeth moved forward to the stairs of the stage. Behind her, she felt the energy of the throng supporting her. Billy reached down to assist her in climbing the three steps. At the same time, a female Omega Angel in a white robe appeared from stage right with a can of shaving cream, a bucket of water, a white towel, a barber’s bib, and an old-fashioned straight razor. Simultaneously, another white-robed female Angel pushed a wheeled desk chair toward Billy. Both Angels were young and white and pretty, the way Billy liked his chosen few.

  The second Angel locked the wheels and put the chair in a slightly bent-back position. Billy sat, perpendicular to the audience. He motioned with a finger for Elizabeth to bend closer so he could whisper something to her privately. She did, feeling his breath hot and heavy in her ear.

  “I’ll bet you’ve only ever shaved pussy,” he said.

  When she pulled back, she saw the smirk on his twisted face.

  Fuck you, she thought but forced her expression to remain impassive. The first Angel laid the bib over his chest, then prepared his head with shaving gel. The other Angel opened the wood-handled straight razor and gave it to Elizabeth along with the towel. Elizabeth draped the towel over the crook of her left arm.

  She had never shaved a man, never shaved anything other than her own legs and underarms and pubic hair. But she shaved his head easily, methodically, row by row, starting at the top and sliding the blade forward and down, cutting with the grain of his short white hair. After each row, she lifted the blade and wiped it on the towel, then set it back lightly on the next wave of gel, starting from the top and gliding forward, finishing with the sides. She wiped the blade and repeated the act until Billy had been shaved clean and was smooth and pink and shiny under the hot overhead lights.

  Touching his head, Billy swiveled in his chair to face the audience.

  “Do you see this, Omegans? I’m bald!”

  The crowd broke into a bird-like whoop.

  “Now my beard.”

  The first Angel moved in from where she had been standing on the sidelines, lathering his face with a soapy white foam. Elizabeth shaved his mustache first, then his facial hair. The last to go was the stubble under his jaw. Her left hand lifted his chin while her right set the blade against his throat. She looked into his crazy blue eyes. Those eyes seemed to read her thoughts. They were daring her to do it. Go ahead, they seemed to say. Kill me.

  The old Elizabeth would have taken that dare and sliced open his carotid arteries, right then, right there, in front of everyone. Fuck the consequences. But Elizabeth wasn’t that person anymore. Prison had changed her. Life inside had taught her to restrain her impulses, to control her emotions when they threatened to control her.

  Now she shaved Billy’s whiskers and wiped his face clean. His thick hands came up from beneath the barber bib to stroke his cheeks. He nodded at her in approval.

  Glancing at the chair next to Billy, Elizabeth noticed that it was empty. Thomas had already left the stage.

  It felt strange to be bald, but it was not entirely unpleasant. In a certain way, Elizabeth liked her new look. It did feel clean, although Billy’s analogy to the pruned tree and green leaves was ridiculous. At the end of the meeting that morning, Billy had ordered everyone in attendance to visit the in-house barbershop before the end of the day. Elizabeth and Miss Edie went together to wait for an available shaver. There were a half-dozen barbers tasked with getting the sixty residents shaved before 11:00 p.m. “Big hair don’t care,” Miss Edie said after her hair had been buzzed clean. “As long as I got my wigs, baby, I’m good.”

  Newly depilated and dressed for the street, Elizabeth had left her room on the second floor and used the central staircase to walk the one flight down to the front exit. At the receptionist’s desk in the lobby, she had given her picture ID to a pretty young white woman in a peasant blouse and floral skirt whose head was shining from the morning’s shave. The receptionist glanced at the ID and then at Elizabeth and back at the ID, while Elizabeth signed the logbook.

  “Everybody look
s so different now,” the young woman said.

  She was right. The photo showed Elizabeth with short light brown hair. Elizabeth slipped the laminated ID into the back pocket of her jeans.

  “Go forth and be wise,” the receptionist said.

  “Right,” Elizabeth mumbled under her breath.

  At the front door, a glabrous black guard stood stiffly in black military boots, black slacks, and a black polo shirt. He eyed Elizabeth suspiciously as she left the building to begin her second day of WAP.

  Chapter Six

  “Your head is the perfect shape for that,” Denise said.

  “You think so?” Elizabeth touched a tender earlobe.

  “Yeah. And I like your earrings.”

  On her way to Mickie’s house, Elizabeth had stopped at Southern Cross, a piercing and tattoo shop on Haight Street. The symmetrical holes she had pierced in her earlobes as a teenager—with a sewing needle and an ice cube—had healed shut while she was in prison, where inmates were forbidden from wearing jewelry. Today, she had used part of her WAP money to have the holes repierced and faux diamond studs put in.

  “Thanks. Bald looks better with earrings.”

  They were hanging out, drinking Coors, waiting for Mickie to come home from work. Denise was lying at one end of Mickie’s sagging couch, upholstered in a dated, autumn-leaf pattern. Elizabeth was at the other. On the oat-colored carpet, a spot across the room had been stained black with oil from Mickie’s motorcycle.

  “Mickie keeps her Harley in the living room?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Yeah. She’s afraid somebody’ll boost her ride if she leaves it on the street.”

  Closer to the couch, a table made of steel and tempered glass showed skid marks on the spot where Mickie made a habit of resting her big boots.