by LEE OLDS
Did that mean he had to be chased down just when he’d made a declaration of peace with the world no matter how temporary it might be? Evidently it did, for people’s checks and balances don’t take those sorts of things into consideration and here you had two kids, not bad kids, who were out to sow some wild oats and wreak some long overdue justice in the meantime. Could it be they too saw the inevitable coming and had decided to take matters into their own hands?
So Benji in his leather jacket and pants along with his heavy motorcycle boots that clunked like a storm trooper’s and Marcus in white T-shirt, bell bottomed jeans and desert boots both began looking through the town like a couple of gunmen out of a wild west show searching for the bad guy.
“Yah seen Barney?” They’d asked the two artists at their gallery. They’d asked the same question at the motel, the restaurant, surf shop and grocery store and received similar replies.
“Nope, haven’t seen him today.”
Of course, I said, the first place you’d’ve thought of looking for two unemployed people at that time of day in such a small town you’d think would be their home but for some reason they either didn’t want to go there or it hadn’t entered their minds.
“Of course,” said Hammond. “They were kids. All they wanted to do was make a show of what they were going to do. And if they’d’ve found the couple at their home, who would’ve seen the action or believed it for that matter? Like some suicides who want an audience (scenic spot) without which their motivation shrinks to nothing.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not. They would’ve gone there as a last resort if they hadn’t discovered the two in town. The couple had been walking on the beach and had just entered the post office where they’d gone to check their mail. The boys spied them from several blocks away.”
“Do you see what I see?” Said Marcus. “I believe our quarry has just stepped into the post office.”
“I believe you’re right,” said his companion, “let’s go.” And the two marched towards the little box, which was the federal building like they were on the warpath. They had no plan, of course, except to attack. They had no weapons and didn’t want them. It was by their own hands or nothing that’d do the damage just like in the old days when we were growing up. Now, unfortunately, in those sorts of encounters you don’t know what to expect. You might face a gun, a knife, a lightning rod, who knows.
“Yes,” Hammond agreed nostalgically, “those were the old days. Nowadays you don’t know what to expect. It could be a face full of tainted blood.” He winced drastically.
After waiting what the two thought to be a very long time, really several minutes, and the couple hadn’t reappeared, Marcus said,
“I’ll go in and tell him to come out. You wait here and be ready.” His heart was already in his throat just upon having seen his mother.
Backed by the blocking effect of drink he marched up the steps and opened the door. And he was steady on his feet. Both kids were, though their speech was slurred a bit and everyone they’d encountered had noticed it but figured they were just two more kids high on something out there.
At the sight of the pretty mother in her powder blue summer dress, holding a bunch of wildflowers she’d just picked on their walk, Marcus sobered up magically at the perception of the gangly giant beside her.
“Hi mom,” he said hesitating, but then. “Come outside,” he ordered the tall man. “We want to talk to you.” The kid for him was actually menacing, a joke really to one who’d seen it before.
Barney, of course, glanced from the kid to the mother and back. He was even more surprised than she was but he noticed what the problem was immediately.
“He’s drunk. The kid’s drunk,” he turned to his girlfriend. “I can’t believe it but it’s certainly better than that other stuff he’s been on. Hi kid!” He used the intonation one would while addressing a child or an inferior. Marcus caught it right away. He’d have none of it.
“Did you hear?” He said. “We want to talk to you outside.”
Barney glanced towards the closed door, saw no one and he was puzzled, but the postmaster, a little chubby blue-eyed man with a crew cut had seen it all. He stood behind the counter. From the voices he sensed trouble though he couldn’t comprehend what the youngster he saw before him might have to do with the reprobate as he’d always seen him and still did. He knew about the mother and him. Everyone in town knew that. But the kid had left, and was on his way to bigger and better things.
“Better take it outside,” he addressed the adult, for he had no idea of the plan. He hadn’t been forewarned.
“OK, if that’s the way you want it,” Barney looked down at Marcus.
“That’s the way I want it.”
As soon as her son made a move towards the door, of course, Sarah grabbed the giant’s arm.
“No,” she said. “Don’t you. There’s sure to be trouble.”
“Oh,” said the string bean in his nicely pressed slacks and sports shirt. “Don’t you worry. If they want to talk, I’ll just talk.” But he broke away with a sudden frustration and anger of reversion to a primitive type. “Just to talk,” he repeated to his girlfriend as the boy lunged through the door.
“If you do I’ll never speak to you again,” followed, but I doubt the ex con even heard it. He, naturally, was surprised to see Benji. He hadn’t known who the other half of the ‘we’ was but had been thinking it just might’ve been one of the gigantic firemen Marcus knew and he’d been careful to avoid out there. Then he might not’ve been so quick to come out. Even he’d admit that. The sight of another boy relieved him obviously. And there stood the kid biker without his gang or chain in his hand, a look of grim determination and hatred on his face, but still the look of a kid, a teenager.
Once again Barney descended the steps to a parking lot to settle a conflict he felt’d been imposed on him. And who’s to say it hadn’t been. Like Hartwig’d shoved him and sent him flying the night of the dance, hadn’t an impudent brat called him out just now? This lot, of course, was paved and marked off whereas the other arena had been a mere plot of hard packed sand. Oddly enough there were only two cars parked there, the postmaster’s and his assistant’s who was out delivering mail.
“So,” Barney stepped up to confront the two kids, who stood side by side, “what’d’you two fellows want?” He glanced at Marcus. “You said you had something to say to me?”
His hands were at his sides, matter of fact, one in either pocket he had so much confidence two kids like that’d never dare attack him. Besides in his new role he felt more like a preacher than one who’s prepared to settle a disagreement by force, and had, in fact, stepped outside to ‘talk things out’.
“Really,” said Hammond. “Is that really true or just the way you interpret it? They say those instincts are never lost no matter how much they’re glossed over. They’re in the genes and until we learn to alter those… Like the pit bull and the ladies who claim theirs are the gentlest dogs in the world, attempting, of course, to rationalize the breed, until one goes suddenly berserk and eats her grandchild. What’s she say then?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” I said. “This giant, this man, this ex-convict I actually believe for once in his life was trying to do good.”
“I want you to leave my God damned mom alone,” Marcus ranted. “Go back where you came from.”
The boy made fun of the giant’s origin. He knew he was from Arkansas or Tennessee, a veritable okie. Sarah like the postmaster, who couldn’t tolerate the suspense, had both stepped outside onto the porch of the small building with its native (U.S.) flag fluttering and cracking above them in the breeze, but not before the postmaster had notified his assistant who’d just returned to call the sheriffs.
“Now you know I can’t do that,” the lanky gentleman wiggled his jaw from side to side. “Your mother’s my girlfriend, We’re,” he cupped his mouth with one hand and like a Vaudeville comedian whispered, “lovers.”
&nbs
p; That very designation, of course, brought a complete revulsion at the monster Marcus saw before him. He didn’t see the well-dressed gentleman that stood there but the jump suited carpenter coming in all grubby from work, calling him, taking him to task, for nothing, smoking a little grass; then beating him up.
The first thing he did was to take a swing at that Neanderthal jaw way up there in the sky as Hartwig’d taught him. He led correctly with his left too; not his right. That chin, naturally, recoiled like the head of a snake by mere reflex if nothing else. The tall man’d not only been trained but he’d fought numerous rounds in the ring.
“What? What was that?” Barney’d replied in hesitation. “Someone teach you how to fight? You really don’t want to do that kid. Now why don’t you take your friend there and go home like two good little boys. We, you and I, really have no quarrel.”
“Son of a bitch.” Just then the two of them went for the spindly figure. Benji grabbed a leg and sunk his teeth into it as Marcus threw another punch, this one also missing.
“Ow, my God damned leg. Let go you little monster.”
The kid wouldn’t, of course, and he really didn’t know how to fight but he held on like a pit bull, attempting to knock the man off his feet while the string bean attempted to keep his balance and stay upright. Marcus again came forward and this time Barney hit him square in the face. Something scrunched and blood squirted from the kid’s nose.
At the sight of that the sober mother, who’d always been drunk before when her boyfriend’d attacked her son, threw her bunch of flowers into the sky forming a momentary umbrella, flew off the porch and grabbed her boyfriend from behind. She wanted to throttle him herself. Now, mind you the bully had three on him.
“Three?” Said Hammond. “You mean two kids and a derelict woman. So how’d they fare?” He wisecracked.
“Honey, go back.”
Barney turned and shoved her away and as she fell to the ground, guess who came forward. Marcus, none else, for one of the things Hartwig had taught him if not how to fight a snake with a huge reach advantage plus experience, was to never turn his back on his opponent no matter how badly hurt and Marcus hadn’t. Barney’d been distracted just long enough so when he turned again to his opponent … remember his legs were tied up … Marcus caught him square in the face with his fist. Didn’t hurt him that much. Didn’t break anything, I believe, for Marcus didn’t have that sort of power, but it made the ex con boxer think for a second at least and know someone really did hate him and if that person’d had a real punch it likely would’ve damaged him severely.
“So,” said Hammond very interested now. “Did the two take him?”
“You’d like to think so wouldn’t you,” I confessed, but no that didn’t happen.”
Marcus’s was the last punch thrown before the sheriffs were there to stop the whole thing. Seems they responded quicker daytime than they did at night. At least in this case anyhow. As soon as she’d seen the giant cold cock her son, Sarah had run from the area. Like mothers who can’t stand to watch their son’s compete from the bleachers for fear they’ll get hurt, she couldn’t wait around to see her son get beat up, which didn’t happen anyhow, at least no more than what she’d seen. One good thing the fight’d produced, once she’d seen him so brutally attack her son, she’d sworn off her boyfriend right then and there; never wanted to see him again no matter what. And with her estranged from her son, Barney’d been all she had.
“So’d Marcus go back to her after? Did they arrest the kids who started it as they should have?”
“Are you kidding?” I said.
Even though the kids weren’t exactly sober the sheriffs took one look at the ex-con … who hadn’t changed in their eyes … cuffed him and tried to stuff him into the squad car. When he arched his body to resist being taken away they pulled out their nightsticks and went to work on him as he yelled and howled ‘injustice’ or bloody murder in the uncowardly and doughty way that was typical of him. And the sloths, his supporters, where were they? Not one of them’d been around to see their ex leader taken away. Then hadn’t he basically renounced them? Could have had something to do with it.
They cuffed his ankles and by the time they got him over the hill he had to be taken to a hospital before he could land in a jail cell. They, in other words, beat him silly, a thing the sheriffs out there’d been waiting to do for a long time. And he wasn’t such a bad guy really. He’d just been born on the wrong side of the tracks.
“Oh, come on,” said Hammond. “You said it correctly. He was a monster. Monsters in our society should be put in jail. That’s where they belong. Nowhere else. That’s why they’re (jails) there.”
When the sheriffs asked the postmaster who started it, of course, he said ‘the boys’ but that Barney’d gone out to them.
“Then he started it,” the sheriff barked and wrote in his little book or notepad, for that was enough of a reason to assume blame for them.
The mother’d fled the scene all by herself. She’d probably’d gone up to the Sand Piper for sympathy. Benji, the tiger who hadn’t been hurt but had gotten a mouthful of flesh, accompanied Marcus to the firehouse where he could acquire first aid and have a splint put on his nose, and, of course, Benji was subjected to a blood test though the carpenter obviously didn’t have the disease (HIV) for he’d been tested the last time he’d been arrested before Sarah’d sprung him out on bail. And he hadn’t had time to acquire it in there.
It was a real mess but that’s sometimes how those things go. And just when you thought everyone’d given up on the convict, who wouldn’t see daylight for some time or have his dad’s farm to look forward to, you realized there was someone after all. His jailers, who else? What’re they really there for anyhow except to look after the completely abandoned, who no one else looks after. Priests hardly, prison doctors maybe. No, it’s a tough life in there. Obviously no one wants it; there are some who have it. Those’re the simple facts of life. All we can do is feel sorry for them if you want to like you feel sorry for the homeless or the starving but don’t put anything out to prevent it. Sympathy can be a real crutch and if not it’s water under the bridge. No, Barney got a bad break that afternoon, one his nature obviously couldn’t handle and whether the instigator or not, he was the one who had to pay. There was no other way to look at it.
The kids were certainly happy. Marcus went around proudly displaying his new splint before he removed it to be like his hero Hartwig, who more or less let the thing set on its own. And whether he wanted to go back to his mother or not (he didn’t) he knew at least the giant’d never return to her again. And as a son he’d accomplished that for her. A good thing if she could overcome her grief, perhaps not so good if she couldn’t for now she was all alone once more. This time without anyone to turn to. Benji was given the epithet of cannibal among his newly made biker friends though the kid could also scrap as he subsequently proved, for he had an aggressive, fearless nature.
And in the end there was a peculiar justice that surfaced from the whole affair though that wasn’t revealed until a week later and so to speak didn’t have anything to do with anything at least as far as what happened at the post office.
“Really?” said Hammond. “And what was that now?”
Well, a week or so later as the sot (Sarah’d gone back heavily on drink) had been cleaning out her garage where Barney kept his tools and work clothes, and while rummaging through the pockets of one of his jumpsuits she found an airplane ticket to Hawaii along with some cash which, naturally, she readily spent. In shock, not quite knowing what to make out of it, but being very happy with the money, she took the ticket down to the Sand Piper and showed it to Mort the freckle-faced script writer who commuted to Hollywood and she sometimes drank with.
“What… ? What’s this?” He said to her. “Girl you don’t know how lucky you were. You just came in under the wire. Your son saved you. This rascal (her moniker for Barney) was about to take off and jump bail. You’d’
ve lost your house just like that. Now you’ve got several hundred dollars in your pocket. You can cash the ticket in instead.”
“I can?” She smiled. Mort was always trying to put the make on her. That wasn’t unusual as I said. Everyone was. But the acknowledgments, which she didn’t completely believe, made it a little easier for her to distance herself from the man she’d counted on. What more can one say. The direction she was headed, of course, would that be enough. It almost wasn’t, but that came later.
Chapter Sixteen
As to whether Johansson’s behavior after he moved back home and managed to give a wide birth to Emee, indicated a turn for the better or worse, who could say? He stepped back a peg from his former disruptive and dissipative demean only to assume an air somewhat like a preacher or doctor of you know what, now becoming the moralist, a part or role he’d, quite frankly, never dreamed of. This, of course, meant returning to Gloria, his first and real love though with an entirely different approach, for it’s usually the one you love the most you expect to extract sympathy and understanding from. In other words he’d gone bananas.
“You’re kidding?” said Hammond.
I said, “I’m not, certainly not. Though she still had a restraining order on him he decided once again to go after her but in a flip flop from the threat of violence to one of concern on her sacred behalf and well-being, as he now claimed to’ve come to see her as some sort of goddess if you can believe that.”
“I can,” said Hammond, “just from what you’ve said of her if nothing else, but do go on, if all of a sudden it sounds pathetic.”
“It was too.”
