“Bummer,” the drunk said conclusively, then resumed his previous conversation with a big-haired brunette whose dress sported shoulder pads wide enough to make her resemble a transvestite linebacker.
Benny gazed at the back of the drunk’s tropically colorful shirt with a light in his eyes that could have been mistaken for benevolent.
Thin Lizzy came on the jukebox, ‘The Boys are Back in Town.’ A great song, one of Speedy’s favorites from oh-so-long ago – about friends reunited, about lost wild boys returning home and reclaiming their glory days to universal adulation and acclaim.
Tonight, the embarrassing irony of comparing his own current situation with that of the song’s heroes prompted Speedy’s cheeks to commence a slow burn. He studied his beer intently as he listened close to the song’s lyrics, the whole way through.
Chapter 7
After helping close up the On Broadway, Fat Bob stopped for a grease binder of a bacon cheeseburger at Clown Alley, between Chinatown and the massed towering skyscrapers of SF’s Financial District (‘the Wall Street of the West’ as some called it). He knew there wasn’t going to be anything on the table or in the oven when he got home, and Miranda hadn’t stocked the fridge last time he’d checked either.
Bob took his burger outside, away from the garish circus colors of the restaurant’s interior décor. He masticated stolidly, standing on the sidewalk in the open air under Clown Alley’s psychedelic pink & blue striped sign.
To his left on the Montgomery Block spread the base of the Transamerica Pyramid. His eyes traveled up its seemingly endless 48 stories to the pointed tip, which stabbed toward heaven. As he gnawed on his patty of ground cow flesh, Bob mused on how much the Pyramid looked like an extended middle finger, like SF was flipping the world the bird. It looked unreal, somehow.
Almost against his will, he thought of Little Willy’s eternal fascination with the Pyramid. Willy once told him it looked like some kind of cyclopean occult device built by business executives to invoke the Demon of Money and sell their non-existent souls to it.
“Get out of my head, Willy,” Bob muttered. He crumpled his burger wrapper, tossed it toward the gutter and got back in his car.
He hit the Interstate and headed across the lower tier of the Bay Bridge toward Oakland. He had the car radio tuned to KSJO 92.3 – Nicki Stevens was deejaying, and put on ‘Institutionalized’ by Suicidal Tendencies, a song he really dug. Fat Bob declaimed the entire rant right along with lead singer Mike Muir.
Bob rolled through Yerba Buena Island mid-span and headed down-slope onto the last leg of the Bridge, past the Port of Oakland. As he was eastbound there was no toll. But that was the way of it: you had to pay to enter San Francisco, but Oakland was always free to get into.
The lined up warehouses of the Naval Supply Center sprawled to his right, next to Middle Harbor. The Port itself looked like some post-apocalyptic robot world with all the jumbo-sized sodium floodlights, bustling cranes, docked ships and busy railroad switching yard, and all the rows and stacks of modular truck/trailer containers.
Like Speedy shortly before him, Fat Bob hit the MacArthur Maze, hooked onto the Cypress through the lumber yards and the Lower Bottoms, past the West Oakland Acorn Projects’ high-rises, and onto the Nimitz south.
Bob took the 23rd Street exit onto Kennedy past the Cemex plant, and past the colony of RVs and vans camped semi-permanently around Redy Mix Concrete on East 7th.
When Bob reached the Park Street Bridge, auto traffic and pedestrians alike had to stop and wait ten minutes or so as a tug pushed a barge under the raised green drawbridge. On the radio Nicki put on ‘Time After Time’ by Cyndi Lauper, and Bob took a rare moment to soak up the esthetics of his home town surroundings:
Nestled on the southern side of the Oakland end of the Bridge was the Pier 29 Restaurant & Cocktail Bar, built on pilings so the restaurant actually hung out over the Estuary. Some pleasure boaters had just finished mooring their cabin cruiser at the Pier 29’s private marina, and were ambling up the ramp to nibble on dinner and drinks.
The ConAgra silos towered behind Bob and on his right towards the Embarcadero. There was fog ahead of him on the Estuary that blurred the boatyards and brick warehouses lining the far eastern waterfront; that made soft the outlines of the ramshackle old houses built Riviera-like on the Estuary’s edge amongst the microscopic private marinas and snaggle-toothed broken rotting piers.
Fat Bob felt at peace; somehow content for a few precious seconds. Then the Bridge lowered, the magic moment ended, and Bob felt the Bridge vibrate beneath him, heard the distinctive hum of tires as the Valiant crossed the steel deck to the Island that folks called Dirtymeda.
His sister’s apartment was on Central & Broadway. When he got ‘home’ and let himself in, Miranda was sitting at the kitchenette counter in front of her fancy lighted makeup mirror, performing her beauty regimen.
Her little black & white portable TV was tuned to Soul Beat on KTZO Channel 20. She was naked from the waist up, dressed only in a skintight lycra miniskirt. She dusted her breasts with some kind of rouge using a horsehair brush.
Fat Bob refused to watch her, instead eying the portable. Night Dog was on – the brother looked as sketchy as always and, again as always, was getting insultingly heckled and roasted on by a phone caller.
“About time,” Miranda said, not turning away from admiring her own magnified reflection in the mirror. “I need the car, and I need you to watch Miya while I’m gone. April just left, she has an early class.”
The light from the mirror shone on Miranda, as if she were performing a sacred ritual in front of an altar – its sycophantic glow was just dim enough to conceal the cheapness and decrepitude of everything else in the kitchen. But then, Fat Bob figured Miranda’s mirror was probably the most expensive thing in the room.
Fat Bob took the wad of bills from his pocket and tossed it on the linoleum counter top next to Miranda. His sister pounced on the money in mid-makeup stroke and counted it with squirrel quickness before making it disappear.
“It’s short,” she said, eying Bob like he was an indelible stain.
Fat Bob paused. He’d planned on taking Miya to Children’s Fairyland at Lake Merritt Oakland tomorrow; maybe buy her some pink popcorn.
They’d have to watch out for the lakeside geese of course. There were hundreds of those Canadian honkers infesting the lakeshore lawn these days – so many that their crap literally carpeted the ground everywhere around the Lake in abundant white splashes. It was like a scene out of ‘The Birds’ walking past those feathered mobs at the best of times; you couldn’t avoid that ominous Hitchcock feeling.
And were they aggressive? Not half way. One time Miya slipped in all the white goose shit and hadn’t been able to stand back up, she’d been crying and rolling in it and getting all filthy and Fat Bob had come running to help her out.
One of the honkers had apparently disapproved and gotten froggy, flapping its wings and sidling toward Miya while croaking like an angry drunk. It had been a big bird, taller and heavier even than seven-year-old Miya – it’d been surprisingly agile and hard to kick, too. Fat Bob had been equally surprised at how short a distance it’d actually sailed, when he finally managed to punt it full force with his Doc Martins.
But if Miya wanted Children’s Fairyland pink popcorn Bob would’ve finagled their way around those obnoxious Canadian geese one more time. Uncle and niece would’ve followed it all up with burgers at Kwik Way, or maybe banana splits at Fenton’s up in Piedmont.
It would have been a nice day. Wasn’t going to happen now, though.
Resigned, Bob handed Miranda the leavings of his paltry wad. He’d just take Miya to Washington Park at the other end of the Island. Miya called it Train Park, she liked climbing on the huge old steam locomotives they had parked there – and at least it was free.
Miranda returned her gaze to the mirror and brought her shoulders forward, emphasizing the cleavage between her tits, experimenting with a
simpering pout as she admired her own reflection.
“My big, badass brother,” Miranda said. “Surfing on my couch like a bum.”
Fat Bob wearily eyed the sofa like a Sisyphic goal he knew he’d never reach. Miya was supposedly asleep in the next room, but he assumed that, as always, Miya was lying there in bed silently listening while her Uncle Robert and her Mom had one more late night ‘conversation.’
He’d hoped to get in a cat nap’s worth of shuteye before Miya needed his undivided attention, but he knew that was unlikely. In a few hours he’d be waking up at his niece’s insistence to watch Romper Room and Friends.
Miya’s favorite part of Romper Room was the end, when the girl looked out at the audience through her Magic Mirror. Every day Miya waited for her to say “I see Miya. Hi Miya!” But the girl never did.
As Bob didn’t want to down Miya, he always did his best to mirror her surprised disappointment – Bob knew Miya’s sense of innocently expectant anticipation would evaporate soon enough, and he didn’t want to hasten that inevitable disillusionment.
Bob sat on the sprung center cushion of the sofa, and started unlacing his Doc Martin boots.
“Guess who I saw down at the Pandemonium?” Miranda said, applying electric blue eyeliner with the skill of a heart surgeon while studying her reflection. “Your buddy Speedy just raised, he’s back in town and looking for you.”
Miranda glanced over at her brother to gauge his reaction, a tiny smile on her painted lips. Fat Bob’s jaw dropped and his eyes opened wide, all thought of sleep gone.
“When?” he demanded, cramming his feet back into his Docs.
Miranda lifted one razor-sharp penciled brow. “Maybe half an hour ago.”
“Who’s going to watch Miya?” his sister screamed after him as he headed out quick as humanly possible.
Bob stopped in the hall, turned and glowered at her under brows beetled so hard they hurt. ‘At least I know who my Dad was, bitch,’ he wanted to snarl – but he had to assume Miya was listening from the depths of the apartment.
“You better be here when I come home,” was all Fat Bob said, doing his best to keep his rasp calm.
The sneer was still pasted on Miranda’s mug as she stood there in the open apartment door – but Fat Bob could see her eyes flickering back and forth above the mask. Bob let her sweat for a moment before he headed down to her car and drove across the Fruitvale Bridge onto the mainland.
Fat Bob slammed the Pandemonium’s street door open to smash inward against the wall, hard enough to rattle the gilt framed mirrors hanging nearest the entrance and make some of the hanging ferns dance around on the wires suspending them. The mating dance came to a screeching halt as all the drinking couples shut up and stared. Bob stood in the doorway like a Neanderthal Nemesis, with dried blood still on his cheek and the rags of his torn tee shirt dangling down out the front of his unzipped Derby jacket.
“My brother,” Fat Bob roared in his cement mixer of a voice.
He strode toward Speedy, who was still bellied up to the bar drinking to WHAM’s ‘Careless Whisper’ on the jukebox. There was a relieved, overjoyed expression on Bob’s round face as he approached, as if all was right with the world now that Speedy was back in town. Bob tried to engulf his skinnier, taller friend in a bear hug, but Speedy felt the kitten shift around inside his field jacket.
“Watch it,” he admonished Bob, and scooped her out to hold up with one hand for inspection and display.
“The fuck?” Bob asked, squinting in puzzlement at the little white rat-sized feline in confusion.
“Something I acquired along the way, tell you later,” Speedy said, tucking her back into his coat so only her head stuck out, safe as a furry little papoose.
“Miya will love it,” Bob acknowledged. But he snuck a quizzically appraising look at Speedy before reaching out to scratch the kitten behind the ear with one stubby fingertip.
Speedy didn’t change expression; but there was an odd feeling inside of him akin to pride at Bob’s surprise, as if having the kitten safe in his care was some kind of accomplishment.
Benny poured three shots of Jameson’s, ignoring several impatient patrons – one of them Speedy’s buddy, the drunk in the Hawaiian shirt.
“Here’s how,” Benny said, lifting his glass in a toast to the bad old days when only meat eaters had hung here.
“Skoal,” Speedy said.
The three men all downed their shots with practiced flicks of the wrist. Bob smiled as his eyes scanned the beautiful array of multicolored bottles behind the bar, the worshipper adoring his altar.
The drunken Tom Selleck lookalike wobbled cluelessly toward them. “I was waiting before this bum. Who do I have to blow to get some service in this dump?”
“Keep your pants on, boss,” Benny said.
The drunk caught sight of the kitten. “What’s that?” he asked. “Your girlfriend?”
Fat Bob strolled past Speedy peering around like he was looking for someone further in the depths of the bar. As he came abreast the drunk, Bob whirled cat-like and dipped his shoulder to smash a reverse overhand hook to the side of the drunk’s head. The drunk slammed back into the bar, folded in half at the waist and sagged to lie in an untidy heap on the floor by the brass rail, staring cross-eyed into space as a somnambulist’s moan came out his mouth.
Bob hovered over him, bouncing on his toes. “See what happens when you badmouth my friend?” There was glee in Bob’s eyes, but as always it had been over too quickly.
The drunk’s erstwhile girlie, the brunette, seemed to have developed a burning need to powder her nose. She charged toward the ladies room, but her padded shoulders were so wide that she kept hanging up on the people in her way, forcing her to do broken field running to get past them. Watching her try to claw past the people in her way, Speedy wondered why she didn’t just bend down and blast through the line of scrimmage like the football player she so resembled.
Although most of the clientele were treating the brunette’s panic and the unconscious drunk’s predicament as an entertaining piece of street theater, not all of them seemed overly amused. A couple of people were discretely heading toward the pay phone in back to call person or persons unknown.
“Let’s blow,” Speedy said, poking Bob in the shoulder.
Fat Bob took a sliding step away from the wretch on the floor, and gave the bar patrons a mocking bow before he and Speedy headed for the street.
“Don’t come back now, hear?” Benny said in a friendly tone of voice as the door shut behind them. “At least not til tomorrow.”
“C’mon,” Fat Bob rasped. “I borrowed my sister’s car. It’s down the block.”
As they exited the bar, however, an Oakland Police Department cruiser was parked at the curb. They both stopped, assuming automatically that the roller was responding to Bob’s little altercation inside.
The solo officer inside was staring at them from the driver’s seat. Speedy saw a gold tooth glint as the burly black cop grinned at him through the windshield. The cruiser door opened and the driver climbed out, grunting with effort.
“Hello white boy,” the cop said to Speedy as he rounded the car and joined them on the sidewalk.
The cop’s collar was buttoned, but the old burn scars were still plainly visible: crawling up his neck, and up the side of his face to the bald shiny patches on the side of his head where hair would never grow again.
Speedy studied the police officer, seeing the further ravages of time, seeing the big belly sticking out and almost hiding the pair of sap gloves tucked into the belt – the belly at least hadn’t been there the last time they’d met.
“Hello Officer Louis,” Speedy said, reflecting that the years and the job had not been overly kind. It seemed like only yesterday, their first meeting:
Speedy remembers floating down the street as if in a dream, the blood pulsing from his wounded face to drench the front of his shirt. The cars pouring past without slowing, most of them driven by
white johns prowling for black hookers – none of the cars slowed, as if none of the drivers noticed boy Speedy dripping blood on the sidewalk as he stumbled along. Drifting past the pimp rides parked outside Big White’s Pool Hall; past all the fur-coated floppy-hat-wearing black hustlers lurking inside – all those hard dark faces surveying coldly this skinny, bloody white child as he bobbles past their front window.
Finally, Speedy comes to rest in a black barbershop, the shop obviously a popular gathering place: three barber chairs, all full, and each with its old white haired barber in attendance. The boy Speedy is glad everyone’s too polite to mention the blood pooling between his feet on their immaculate linoleum floor.
Even through his shock and lightheadedness, Speedy remembers the barbers wrangling about the Bible in an argument that had probably been going on for many years: One barber carefully dragging a hot comb through his current customer’s nappy roots, the ash scattering from the end of his Tiparillo, quoting Leviticus and Exodus in support of whatever his position might have been; another barber interrupting the first, stopping the landscaping of his customer’s bulbous afro long enough to gesture contradiction with his scissors; the third barber glancing owl-like up from his own customer’s razor cut, either happy merely to listen, or awaiting an opportune moment to pounce and attempt domination of the debate.
And then out of nowhere Louis, this big-ass young black cop sitting next to kid Speedy and asking his name . . .
“Assume the position,” No-longer-young Louis instructed Speedy in the here-and-now. The cop smiled almost paternally at Fat Bob. “You too sweetie.”
Speedy and Bob both turned to face the exterior wall of the bar, long time veterans going through the repertoire of required poses.
Fat Bob placed both his hands against the wall above head level with his arms straight, feet spread and angled back so that he was leaning toward the wall and would be automatically off balance if he were inclined to make a move on Louis.
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