I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive

by Steve Earle

  “I knew,” the older priest assured him, “that you and I would be able to sort this out, one Irishman to another.”

  “No doubt,” the younger affirmed, and then turned and walked out. He had reached his car and opened the door when Father Monaghan called after him. “What now,” he muttered, but he turned and met him on the steps.

  “I’m sorry to keep you,” Monaghan apologized. “But I nearly forgot! I made a note at some point during our little talk. Perhaps I heard wrong, but I believe that you mentioned something about”—he lowered his voice to the faintest of whispers and leaned close to Killen’s ear—“an abortionist?”

  Congratulating himself on his ability to remain so calm in the face of such ignorance, Father Killen nodded solemnly and replied, “Yes, Father. In the Yellow Rose boarding house. On South Presa Street. They call him Doc.”

  The priest didn’t go straight home. He needed to think. To pray. He drove downtown to San Fernando Cathedral, parked across the street, and went inside. He had been there once before, when he was newly arrived from Ireland and taking in the local historical landmarks, including, of course, the Alamo. His guide had been dear old Father Cantu, who had pointed out the marble vault just inside the cathedral’s front door in which all that remained of the defenders were interred, Crockett’s, Bowie’s, and Travis’s ashes commingled with those of the forgotten. But today he walked past the shrine without a glance and made straight for an alcove in a dark corner of the nave.

  The figure of Our Lady of Guadalupe that dominated the tiny shrine was resplendent in its contrast to the limestone wall covered in candle-smoke soot and handwritten prayers for intercession on tiny slips of yellowing paper. The priest took a candle and kindled it from one of the dozens of others, knelt, and began to utter the first words of an unfamiliar prayer, unsure whether he had heard it somewhere before or if he was just making it up as he went along.

  “Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mystical Rose, make intercession for the Holy Church, and help all those who invoke thee in their necessities. You are the Woman clothed with the sun who labors to give birth to Christ, while Satan, the Red Dragon, waits to voraciously devour your child. So too did Herod seek to destroy your Son, Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and massacred many innocent children in the process. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary, hear our pleas and accept this cry from our hearts. Our Lady of Guadalupe, Protectress of the Unborn, pray for us! Amen.”

  Father Paddy Killen strode out of San Fernando Cathedral and crossed West Commerce Street with the confident gait of a man who knew exactly what he had to do.

  XVII

  “You must tell him!” the cat spirit spits.

  Graciela flinches but gives no ground. “I tell him every day! For weeks now, but he doesn’t listen! You know that. You’ve been begging him for years.”

  “Ha! He’s had years to practice the art of ignoring me. But you had his ear from the day that you walked through the door.”

  Graciela pads down the stairs, and the cat orbits her in tight semicircular arcs as she moves through the house, sweeping and dusting and tending her altars. Practice and the knowledge that the spirit has no substance in the material world allows her to complete her daily rounds without tripping over her cat-shaped shadow. “Well, he’s not listening now,” she mutters as she sweeps the last puffs of dust off the porch and props the broom prominently next to the door. Her grandfather taught her that a broom by the door acted as a talisman, a warning to all that the home was clean, purged of any unwholesome medium that might offer comfort and aid to threats from without, spiritual or material. The daily exorcism complete, the sorceress and the great black cat pace the porch like sentries. They begin at opposite ends and cross in the middle, watching, listening, breathing in the air and tasting it. Sifting through for any tang of ill will. The vigil is observed for the hour before sunset and the hour that follows and then repeated around dawn. This was her grandfather’s teaching again, that all Powers enter and leave the world through the gap between darkness and light. Nothing can be done to impede their traffic, and only the very arrogant ever try. “It is enough,” Grandfather said, “to mark their comings and goings and that they mark ours.”

  Besides, flesh and bone are what frightens Graciela. She’s not afraid of ghosts.

  “It’s quiet,” observes the passing cat.

  “It always is,” Graciela whispers. “Before it’s not.”

  The screen door creaks … Graciela glances back, and Doc is standing there, frozen halfway through the door, as if deciding whether to proceed.

  “You two make me nervous!” Doc grumbles. “Looks like the waiting room in a maternity ward out here. Why don’t you light somewhere!”

  Graciela shrugs. “It will be dark soon.”

  It’s a man-shaped thing that Doc sees, pacing up and down the porch with Graciela, back and forth, back and forth. “What about you, Hank? You a man or a cat?”

  “Fuck you, Doc!” the ghost of Hank Williams snaps. “We’re just watchin’ out for you so maybe you got time to climb out the back window when they kick the door down.”

  Graciela leans over the rail around the porch to scrutinize the western sky for any remaining blush of color before ducking under Doc’s arm and disappearing inside. Doc’s still grumbling at Hank.

  “When who kicks the door down, Hank? He was a priest, for fuck sake. Not a cop. And it’s been damn near a month now and nothing’s happened and nothing’s going to happen.” The ghost rockets across the porch and alights in the rocking chair just as Doc sits down, and the physician very nearly levitates, shivering from the chilling effects of an ectoplasm enema. “Goddamn it, Hank!”

  Hank crosses his legs, making himself comfortable in Doc’s rocking chair and exposing the intricately tooled top of one cowboy boot. Doc is left to slouch against the opposite rail. “I ain’t studyin’ on that priest one way or the other, Doc. I’m just sayin’ that there ain’t no way a feller can keep doin’ what you been doin’ in one place for as long as you been doin’ it without you attract the attention of the law. It was one thing when it was a couple or three girls a month, Doc, but now you’re seein’ that many in a week. And it ain’t just the workin’ girls off of the strip anymore, Doc. They’re comin’ from all over now. Some of ‘em bound to have families.”

  Doc shrugs. “Everybody’s got family, Hank.”

  “I mean family as in good family. Somebody that gives a damn! What if somethin’ was to go wrong? One of ‘em up and dies on you, like that poor gal Donna.”

  Doc leans over to wag his finger in the phantom’s face. “She was allergic to penicillin, Hank. She had a reaction. Besides, that was before Graciela came along.”

  “Yeah, that’s right, Doc. Before Graciela, who changed everybody and everything around here with a touch of her hand. Without that little gal, there ain’t no tellin’ where you’d be right now, Doc, and even she says that it’s time to go. Time for her and time for you!”

  “Excuse, me, Hank, if I’m somewhat suspicious of your sudden conversion to the cult of Graciela! And just exactly where do you suggest we go, if you know so goddamn much?”

  “Somewheres else. It don’t matter. You’ve got plenty of cash stashed away in that bag of yours.”

  “How did you …

  “You could go anywheres, Doc. Mexico. Or South America. Rio, maybe.”

  “You need a passport for South America. And what about Marge? She left Graciela and me in charge. She and Dallas won’t be back from Padre Island for another week.”

  Hank shakes his head solemnly. “You ain’t got a week, Doc. Can’t you feel it?”

  “I can’t feel anything but a pain in my ass and—”

  A car door slammed in the driveway, and the entire porch shook as someone jogged up the steps. Graciela flew through the door primed for battle, but when she got there she found that it was only Manny.

  “I just made a pitcher of tea,” she offered, and the big man nodded and took his usual
seat on the swing.

  “You’re going to break that thing if you don’t lose some weight, Manny,” Doc grumbled. “And if you’re here to climb up my ass about getting out of town, get in line.”

  “Damn, Doc. I just got here,” Manny complained.

  Unseen by Manny, Hank smirks as he surrenders the rocker to Doc and takes his place on the rail.

  Doc sat down and flipped the butt of a Camel out into the yard. “Well, I’m just tellin’ you before you start. Hell, once Graciela gets going, you’d swear she was a flock of parrots squawking about the same damn thing, over and over. ‘Time to go, Doc! Time to go!’ Yeah, well, I’ve already told her and I’m telling you. I’m not going any-fucking-where!”

  Graciela appeared with Manny’s tea and an unsolicited glass for Doc. Manny winked his thanks as she set it on a table. “But I am, Doc. I just stopped by to say goodbye.”

  Graciela was instantly in tears. She knew the answer, but she asked anyway. “When?”

  “Right now. I’m all loaded up and ready to go.”

  Manny stood up to catch Graciela as she rushed across the porch. Her cry was muffled as she buried her face in the big man’s waist. She couldn’t reach her arms around him but she did the best she could. Manny gathered the tiny figure up in the crook of a gigantic brown arm and patted her gently on the top of her head. “No llores, mija. ¡Por favor, no llores! Todo va bien.”

  Hank’s still perched on the rail, seething now. “What the hell’s the matter with you, Doc? Can’t you see the signs? Somethin’s comin’. Somethin’ bad. Everybody’s figured it out but you!”

  Doc did his best to ignore the voice and cleared his throat to get Graciela’s attention. “You know, you can go if you want to, Graciela. I can get by fine on my own.”

  Graciela reacted viscerally to the insult. She wrested herself free from Manny and whirled to face Doc, planting her bare feet wide apart and glaring at him, daring him to look her in the eye.

  “I’m just sayin’,” Doc mumbled, avoiding any further eye-fucking by engaging Manny. “So where you off to, big guy?”

  “California, eventually. But first I reckon maybe I’ll head south. Mexico. Hell, I’m a Mexican, Doc, and I ain’t never been. I got cousins in Saltillo. Reckon I’ll look ‘em up and get ‘em to show me around. See where my people’s people come from. Then I’ll work my way up through Carlsbad and out to the Grand Canyon. All those places. You know what I heard? I heard they got ‘em a motel out there somewhere where you can spend the night in a teepee, Doc! A real teepee like a wild Injun! I got a shoebox full of money out there in the trunk of my Ford, enough that I could bum around for a year or two, if I wanted. All kinds of sights to see up and down the West Coast, Doc. Then, when my money’s gone, I’ll find me a job drivin’ somewhere. You know, Doc, just like we talked about. I hear California’s nice this time of year. Hell, California’s always nice. At least that’s what they say! You sure you don’t wanna go?”

  The ghost alights noiselessly on the weathered floorboards between Doc and Manny and looks from one man’s face to the other as if there is anything left to decide and then…

  “No, Manny, like I told you, I’m stayin’ right here.”

  … twists sideways and spits angrily, any trace of moisture evaporating in thin air along with any vestige of patience or pretense of vigilance. So incensed is the phantom that he doesn’t even hear the second vehicle arrive…

  Graciela spotted the headlights half a mile up the road. She held her breath until the plain white Dodge passed beneath the streetlight at the corner. “Hugo!” She exhaled. The corpulent vice cop presented no threat, she sensed. Manny wasn’t taking any chances. He dropped his .38 behind an oleander bush just as Hugo squeezed out of his unmarked car.

  “You’re all right, Manny.” He panted. “I’m still off the clock.” He acknowledged Graciela—“Ma’am”—a hint of awe in his tone. “It’s Doc I came to see. You got to get out of here, Doc. They’re comin’.”

  “What’d I tell you, goddamn it!” Hank frets, wringing his hands and pacing back and forth behind Doc in a claustrophobic arc.

  Doc shook his head in disbelief. “Aw, not you too, Hugo? What is this, some kind of plot y’all cooked up? Who’s coming?”

  The cop was still bent over pawing at the stitch in his side. “Feds!” he huffed, and then he puffed. “Bureau of narcotics. Big Mike Novak himself!”

  Manny whistled. “Time to go, Doc! Graciela!”

  The girl was way ahead of him, up the stairs, pattering from room to room, gathering up the meager accumulation of her life with Doc on South Presa Street. Not much. A couple of cotton dresses, a half a dozen pairs of panties, and a brassiere. Even after she’d emptied Doc’s chest of drawers into it, the dust-covered suitcase she’d found in the top of Helen-Anne’s closet was only a little over half full. Finally, she scooped up Doc’s instruments and dropped them in his black bag with a clatter and a snap, and before five minutes had elapsed she was back downstairs handing off the luggage to Manny. Doc had yet to get out of his chair.

  “Big Mike who?”

  “Michael B. Novak, Doc. The head prosecutor for the western district of Texas.”

  “But I’ve been clean for damn near a year now, and Manny—”

  Hugo shook his head. “It ain’t dope they’re after!”

  “But you said—”

  “I said they got a warrant to search for dope, and search for dope they will, and they’ll find some too, by God, if they have to plant it themselves.”

  “What the hell, Hugo?”

  “Look, it’s like this, Doc. Yesterday afternoon, just before the end of my shift, I get a call. It’s some college-boy junior G-man from the western district. Can I come drop by for a minute on my way home? I try to put him off until tomorrow but he drops Big Mike’s name. Says that the prosecutor would consider it a personal favor if I was to show up. What am I supposed to do? I walk across the square and they hustle me up to an office on the fourth floor and, sure enough, Big Mike Novak himself is in there and he sits me down in a cushy chair, a walnut desk the size of a fuckin’ aircraft carrier between us. Might as well have been handcuffed to a straight-back chair over in the SAPD. Anyway, Big Mike wants to know did I know anything about a junkie name of Doc. Middle-aged. Well spoken. Some kind of a quack that drifted over from Louisiana way.”

  Doc was worried now. “And what did you tell him?”

  “I lied. Like a rug! To a federal prosecutor! Problem is, I wasn’t the only narc that Big Mike talked to and somebody told him plenty. By the time I get to work this morning it’s a done deal. Everybody on the squad is invited to a big federal door-bustin’-down party except me. None of this shit makes any kind of sense as far as I can tell, so I call my boy in Judge Fisher’s office and he allows how Big Mike’s already made the rounds to every judge on the square, state and federal, and been turned down flat by every one of ‘em. No probable cause for search and seizure. That is, until he comes across a county judge, county, mind you, name of Aguilar, who may or may not have any jurisdiction in a felony case, but Big Mike gets him to sign off on a raid on thirty-four hundred South Presa anyway. Put it together! Big Mike Novak is a bohunk! Catholic! The county judge, Aguilar, is a Meskin! Catholic! Probably Knights of Columbus, the pair of ‘em. Somebody’s done told them what it is that you do down here, and the self-righteous sons of bitches believe that they’ve got God on their sides and they’re comin’. Maybe tonight, maybe in the morning after it’s light, but they’re comin’, Doc, I guarantee, and you don’t want to be here when they do … and neither do I!” He excused himself and tipped his hat to Graciela before waddling to his car and backing out of the driveway.

  That was Graciela’s cue. She stepped forward and took Doc’s hand, and the physician snapped out of his torpor. “¡Vamos!” she commanded. Doc blinked, well aware that he had lost the battle, but he fired a final volley anyway. “The next girl in trouble who knocks on that door,” he offered weakly, “wher
e’s she going to go?”

  Graciela tugged firmly and Doc knew, despite the slightness of the outstretched arm, that she possessed the strength to guide him to Manny’s car if she wanted. “There are girls in trouble everywhere,” she said. “You can’t help them all.”

  “I need my hat,” Doc grumbled just as Manny appeared behind her, back from loading the Ford. Graciela held on tight.

  “Manny, get Doc’s hat for him, please. It’s hanging on the rack in the kitchen.”

  When Manny returned, Doc took a last look back through the front door of the Yellow Rose before resolutely accepting his battered Panama from his friend and pulling it down low over his eyes. Just then, yet another car door slammed.

  Hank spots him first—a solitary figure unfolding from an unnoticed station wagon parked across School Street. “Priest!” the ghost hisses.

  ***

  Graciela turned to face this new threat, instinctively imposing herself between Doc and the interloper. “Don’t let him come near!” she implored Manny, and the big man closed half the distance between himself and the oncoming priest in a couple of loping strides. Then, suddenly, both antagonists stopped, only yards apart.

  “H-he’s a priest!” Manny stammered, glancing uncertainly over his shoulder at Graciela. “I ain’t never hit no priest!”

  The devil in Father Killen sensed an opening. “Of course you haven’t! Why would you? And what would your mother think if you did?”

  “Don’t listen to him!” Graciela warned, but the priest already had Manny’s attention.

  “That’s what I thought!” Killen said condescendingly. “You weren’t raised to be a miscreant, were you … Manny, isn’t it?”