NOT AN AMERICAN

by Stanley W Rogouski

  “Get out of here."

  “Muffley walked down one flight of stairs, put the keys in his pocket, and walked out of the building. When Cathy Chegoffgan heard the door slam, she pushed Avellanos into her apartment and closed the door behind him. He tried to hug her but she pushed him back.

  "I need to tell you something. I need to make a confession to you."

  "Let's get a restraining order. I don't like the police any more than you do. But if that guy scares you so much it's the lesser of two evils."

  "That guy is a cop."

  "Your ex-boyfriend's a cop?"

  "He's not my ex-boyfriend."

  "Who is he then?"

  She threw her head back, took a deep breath, and looked into Avellanos' eyes.

  "Do you think Dan Sedgwick was really guilty of having all those illegal drugs?"

  "Oh I don't know. I suppose it's possible."

  "I planted the drugs on him. He trusted me. So I put the bag of pills in his tent and stuck that bottle in his jacket. I knew the cops were coming to search his tent."

  For a brief moment, Avellanos looked shocked, angry, but then he seemed to understand.

  "You did it to protect me, didn't you?" he said. "Dan hated me. He was onto me. He was going to turn me in."

  "I didn't do it to protect you. I did it to protect myself. You know I've done time in jail, right?"

  "You were railroaded like half the other kids in this town."

  "I was an actual criminal."

  "Join the club," he said, extending his hand.

  "This is serious," she said, slapping his hand away. "They've got their hooks in me. I don't know how to escape. Quinn's someone who'd rape me and kill me then throw me in the river and laugh about it."

  "If that guy touches you. I'll kill him."

  "That's not Quinn."

  "Then I'll kill Quinn if he touches you."

  "Don't you understand? They can hunt me down and drag me back to jail any time they want. But it's much worse than that. I've been spying on the United Coalition Against Xenophobia for the police since the day it was set up. I won David Sherrod's trust. I won everybody's trust and I enjoyed it. I actually wanted to find someone on someone. I was disappointed when I couldn't. Jeff Dawson's right. I'm a cold little lizard bitch from hell."

  Avellanos continued looking at her. He tried to put his hand on her arm, but she slapped it off. He tried to reach forward and put his hands on her shoulders but she violently shoved him away.

  "I can talk to my cousin about this," he said. "She'll think of something."

  He looked astonished that what he said just seemed to make her angry.

  "God you're thick. Nothing bothers you. The idea that I've done the most completely evil thing anybody can possible do, stabbed her friend in the back to save her own skin, means nothing to you. Why don't you fucking hate me?"

  "Why the hell would I hate you? You were put in an impossible position and you did what you had to do. And who cares? They set up a donation site on the Internet. Dan Sedgwick is famous. Because of you his daughter is going to get tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars from people on the Internet, and all because of you. That little girl's going to go to Harvard. She's going to be rich. She'll be able to do whatever she wants, and it's all because of you."

  "It's not all going to work out in the end. You may not realize it because you don't like him but Dan was the reason that place ran itself so well. David's clueless. Look how he trusted you. Now the whole place is going to go to shit. Do you know why Dan tolerated Jeff Dawson? He kept him around as a bad example. Now a hundred Jeff Dawsons are going to move in, and it's all because of me. So please, I need to hate myself in private. Please go."

  "OK," Avellanos said without making any move to leave. "I'll go."

  Cathy Chegoffgan turned around, quickly walked into the bathroom, and locked the door behind her. Avellanos waited, but not seeing her emerge from the bathroom, he seemed to decide it was useless to try to press the issue, opened the door, and stepped out into the hallway. On the door, hung up on the sharp edge of the peephole, rocking back and forth as if the person who put them there had just left, were the keys Muffley had kept trying to give Cathy Chegoffgan. Avellanos grabbed the keys, and walked back into the apartment.

  "Hey," he shouted. "That guy really wants you to have those keys, doesn't he?"

  "I'm not coming out until you leave," he heard a voice shout from the bathroom. "Get out."

  "OK I'm leaving," Avellanos shouted back. "I'll just leave them on the futon."

  "Get out," the voice repeated. "I mean it."

  Avellanos threw the keys down on the futon.

  "OK," he shouted. "I'm leaving.

  Avellanos walked down the stairs out onto the street. He paused to look at the big metal harp, then walked in the direction of Scahentoarrhonon Station, intending to go straight home to East Poison Springs. When he reached the Number 18 bus stop on Reagan Plaza North, however, he kept going. He made a loop around Reagan Plaza and The Barrio, and walked back towards Scahentoarrhonon Station. He walked up the staircase, and past the newsstands in front of the Amtrak terminal. He continued on through the food court, and out through the rear doors near the Greyhound station. He slowed down. A wary look came over his face, almost as if he believed someone was following him, but he pushed on, still not wanting to go home, walking back into Little Mexico towards Route 1081 in the distance. Finally, on what seemed to be the most deserted street in River Gardens, he turned to go back to Reagan Plaza. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned suddenly and violently around. It was Jeff Dawson.

  "Jesus Christ. You almost gave me a heart attack. What are you doing here? I've never seen you outside The Barrio."

  "I'm back here all the time," Dawson said. "It's the only place you can come to get away from the pigs."

  Avellanos noticed that Dawson was carrying a backpack.

  "Are you leaving town?"

  "I'm thinking about it."

  "Are you taking the train? Or hitchhiking?"

  Avellanos examined the young man who was about his own age, or maybe even a few years older, but who at times looked almost like a teenage boy.

  "They took Dan," he said, a look of despair in his wild blue eyes. "They took Dan and they locked him up in a cage."

  "He'll make bail," Avellanos said.

  He noticed a tear gather in Dawson's eye, then roll down his cheek.

  "It's all over. He was the heart and soul of that place. Now he's gone."

  "I'm sorry Jeff. I know he was like a father to you, but his daughter needs him more than you do."

  "I didn't even know he had a daughter."

  Dawson put his knapsack down on the ground. Avellanos sat down on the curb next to the knapsack.

  "He's got a 6 year old daughter," Avellanos said.

  Dawson sat down on the curb, bent over, and put his face in his hands. He looked back up. Avellanos noticed his face was twitching in addition to being stained with tears. A dark look came over his pale blue eyes.

  "Are we going to let them get away with it? Don't we owe it to Dan to at least try something?"

  "We owe it to Dan to let David raise his bail money, then let the lawyers negotiate a payment schedule for the child support. I'm sure he'll only get probation or community service for that bullshit with the pills anyway."

  "You know who planted those pills on him, don't you?"

  "I doubt anybody planted the pills on him," Avellanos said, the uneasiness in his voice indicating that he was uncomfortable lying. "I guess he needed them. I guess the stress got to him."

  "He didn't need shit. Dan was never into drugs. I saw who did it."

  "Who did it? The cops?"

  "Close enough. It was lizard girl."

  "Lizard girl?" Avellanos said, sounding obviously ingenuous. "Who is that?"

  "That thing you put your dick inside," Dawson said, his voice taking on its old hostile tone.

  “You mean my hand?"
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  Dawson laughed contemptuously.

  "You know who lizard girl is. But I bet you don't know she's a cop."

  "A cop? You have a vivid imagination."

  "She's a cop. You don't think she'll set you up but she will. She was nice to Dan to his face too, probably even fucked him to get her way with him, but she was plotting against him all along. She'll do it to you."

  "Fuck me? I wish."

  "You've already fucked her. Don't lie."

  "Usually people accuse you of lying about not fucking someone."

  "Anybody can get lizard pussy. So people who settle for it lie about it."

  Avellanos laughed.

  "That's actually pretty funny."

  “Look," Dawson said. "Look."

  His expression was serious, even conspiratorial. He opened up his bag, and took out what appeared to be the timer for a bomb.

  "I'm going to kill lizard girl for you. I got this timer from a guy I know who works in fracking country. It's incredible. You can even set it off with a cell phone. All I need is a few sticks of dynamite. Then I toss this through her window and boom. Lizard girl is splattered all over the wall."

  Avellanos stood up. He grabbed the timer from Dawson's hands.

  "I'm confiscating your timer," he said. "You touch her, I'll kill you."

  Dawson flew at Avellanos, but Avellanos was so much larger and stronger he just put out his hand and held him at arm's length.

  "Give me that back," Dawson said, struggling.

  Avellanos let him go.

  "I don't know how you got this, but I'm taking it with me, and I'm serious about what I said. If you touch Cathy, you die. Do you understand that? You die slowly and very, very painfully."

  "Give it back or I'll just find her and cut her heart out. I don't even need a bomb. I'll do it with a butcher knife. I'll kill her and cut that cold lizard heart out of her body."

  "I'm going to leave," Avellanos said. "I'm going to turn around. Do not follow me or you will regret it."

  He turned around and walked rapidly down the block.

  "You'd better give it back," Dawson shouted after him. "You'd better give it back."

  "Call the cops," Avellanos shouted back.

  John Avellanos walked back in the direction of Scahentoarrhonon Station. When he was confident that Jeff Dawson had not followed him, he turned down a side street. He stopped, and looked up at an abandoned factory building three stories tall, held the timer in his hand, measured the weight, and threw it with all his might. It landed on the roof with a bounce. He walked back out to Jackson Street and continued on to Scahentoarrhonon Station. Along the way bumped into a big, well-built man of about 40 with flaming red hair and pale, almost translucently white skin.

  "You'd better watch where you're going," the man said, putting his face right next to Avellanos and staring into his eyes. "You'd better fucking watch where you're going."

  "Excuse me," Avellanos said. "I'm sorry."

  Avellanos turned to leave. The red headed man waved his hand.

  "Now," he said, "now."

  Two uniformed Poison Springs Metro Police officers came around the corner and stood on either side of Avellanos. When he tried to walk away, they grabbed him.

  "Who the hell are you?"

  Poison Springs Metro Police," the red headed man said, flashing a badge. "Spread your fucking legs before I spread them permanently."

  The uniformed officers did not wait for Avellanos to comply. They frog marched him 20 feet down the sidewalk and shoved him into the side of a building, spread his legs and frisked him.

  "Nothing," the first uniformed cop said.

  "Are you sure?" The red headed man said, apparently surprised. "Nothing?"

  "Nothing at all," both officers said in unison.

  The red headed man appeared flustered, taken aback. He looked back up at Avellanos.

  "I would like to apologize to you. You matched the description of a man wanted for armed robbery. Obviously we have the wrong man."

  Avellanos took a deep breath and tried to stop his hands from shaking.

  "Can I go? Am I under arrest?"

  "You are free to go," the red headed man said, "and with the apologies of the Poison Springs Metro Police."

  "Just be more careful next time." Avellanos said.

  Avellanos looked over at the two uniformed officers, the expression on both their faces saying "you'd better leave now before our boss changes his mind." He turned around and walked rapidly through River Gardens and Little Mexico, past Scahentoarrhonon Station, and continued onto Reagan Plaza East, then Reagan Plaza North. This time, he couldn't wait to get home. He got on the Number 18 bus, and road back to East Poison Springs, looking at the tall spire of the First Presbyterian Church overhead as he got off at the last stop. He bounded up onto the porch of the old Felton Mansion, and went inside. He went into the kitchen, poured himself a glass of orange juice, and walked upstairs to check if his cousin was in her office. She was not home, so he went back down to his bedroom. He looked at the clock. It was almost 10PM. He put his laptop on his desk, and booted it up. After browsing the Internet for a few minutes, he went to his e-mail. There he noticed over a dozen messages from Cathy Chegoffgan. They were a debate of some sort. The last one came to a conclusion.

  "Let's leave town this weekend," it said. "Come over tomorrow night. Listen to me his time."

  Avellanos replied.

  "Pack your stuff," he wrote. "We'll disappear without a trace."

  He got a reply almost as soon as he hit send.

  "I love you," it said.

  "I love you," he wrote back.

  Chapter 30 - Bum Wrangling

  Deputy Inspector Steven Quinn stood in front of 20 police cadets on the eastern side of Reagan Plaza almost directly below the French Renaissance bulk of Scahentoarrhonon Station. The cadets, all of whom looked to be somewhere between 18 and 22, were standing at attention in 4 rows of five. Quinn walked up and down each row, inspecting his recruits as the bells struck 10 o'clock. When they stopped, one of the recruits raised his hand.

  "Sir. Do you really think we have enough men to raid The Barrio?"

  "What makes you think we're raiding The Barrio?"

  "That's what the rumors say."

  "Let that be a lesson to you all," Quinn said, moving to the head of the formation, putting his hands behind his back, and puffing out his chest. "Never believe rumors."

  "So what are we going to do tonight?" another cadet said.

  "Bum wrangling." Quinn said.

  He stood in place looking up and down the 5 columns catching the glance of each cadet and enjoying his nervous anticipation until he finally decided to proceed.

  "As you may or may not have heard, the Poison Springs Renaissance Association has been involved in the ongoing redevelopment of The River Gardens area for the past four years."

  "River Gardens," another cadet said. "What's that?"

  "River Gardens refers to the area between Scahentoarrhonon Station and River Street."

  "Oh," the cadet said, "Little Mexico."

  "That term," Quinn said, "is a thing of the past."

  The cadets nodded their heads in seeming agreement.

  "Now can anybody tell me why the redevelopment of River Gardens has not met up with the expectations of the Poison Springs Renaissance Association?"

  One of the young officers raised her hand. She was a large, chunky looking redhead in her 20s, wearing the patch of a full Poison Springs Metro Police Officer, not the patch of a Police Cadet.

  "Officer O'Neal. Go ahead."

  "I believe the problem involves a combination of a surplus of housing in the city as a whole combined with the ongoing recession that began in 2008. Add to that the CCIA and the mass exodus of the city's Mexican American population. The housing is substandard, but getting a permit for a tear down is surprisingly convoluted. Then of course there's the failure to negotiate an extension of NJ Transit into Poison Springs. All of those things togethe
r make it fairly unlikely that the area you refer to as River Gardens is going to be attractive to developers any time in the near future."

  Quinn came up to O'Neal and stared at her.

  "Are you mocking me?"

  "No sir. I meant that quite sincerely."

  Quinn put his hands behind his back and continued pacing.

  "Madame Poindexter has done what all stupid people trying to make themselves look intelligent do," he said. "She's made an easy problem more complicated than it really is. Does anybody know the real reason?"

  He waited for 20 seconds while all of the cadets either looked at the ground or shook their heads.

  "Bums," he said, "bums. The problem is lazy, dirty, rotten, good for nothing, filthy bums. The River Gardens area of Poison Springs has traditionally been under-policed. Tonight all that changes. We are going to begin to enforce the vagrancy laws. Any thoughts on that Officer Poindexter?"

  "We've all studied the vagrancy laws in the academy," she said. "The number of shelters has gone from 5 to 1 over the past decade. There are only about 200 beds in the whole county. I thought the lax enforcement was a roundabout way to save money."

  "Wrong. The lax enforcement is the result of laziness."

  "So are we jailing them?"

  "We are wrangling bums, not caging them."

  "Where are we sending them? Little Mexico has traditionally been the area where we've tolerated the presence of the homeless because it's one of the less visible areas of the city. I've always assumed that it's better to have them there than have them around Reagan Plaza or downtown."

  "It's not my problem where they go," Quinn said, "nor is it yours. But as a point of information, there's one spot in the city that's not currently under the effective control of Mayor Catalinelli."

  The cadets began to nod their heads.

  "Am I to understand?" O'Neal said, "that we're going to hassle the homeless until they destroy the United Coalition Against Xenophobia?"

  "We are going to enforce the law," Quinn said. "Where these bums go is not my business."

  Teresa O'Neal took off her jacket and tossed it to the ground. She unstrapped the holster of her gun and threw it on top of the jacket. She took her Poison Springs Metro Police ID out of her wallet and threw it at Quinn's feet.