Be Safe

by Doug Weaver

  Korn tells him that he wants two machaca burritos – and then he turns to me and says, “What do you want Bert?” And I think this is the first time I’ve heard Korn actually say my name. Bert. He actually knows the signifier for me. I know right away that I shouldn’t thank him for remembering my name. I think I can read minds sometimes. I think I know how I come off to people, especially people like Korn. I’ve never considered that Korn might actually think of me in any way that didn’t involve me paying him a wad of cash for a baggie of dope. I’m the guy with the arm that’s attached to the hand that pulls out a wallet that’s got money in it; the polite guy that thanks him for the drugs and leaves; one of the guys you say be safe to. I hate decisions, especially when it’s the kind of decision that will reveal my burrito preferences, or those idiotic questions your doctor asks you every couple of months: Do you want to continue on with the Atripla? You seem to be doing well on it. Any complaints? I mean, how the fuck should I know whether I should stay on this drug or not. I thought that was the job of the expert, you know, the doctor? Those are questions designed to absolve the questioner of any responsibility at all, like if the drug was making me grow gills or sprout horns or a tail, then the doctor, who fears the lawsuit more than anything else in creation, could say truthfully while shrugging his shoulders that I, his patient, reported that he was fine with the drug. I mean doctors and everybody else have taken this whole representative democracy thing as far as it ever should have gone – because leaving the choice of not only who should govern but how they should govern is foisted on those who are objectively less qualified to make these choices as is Korn’s Bandito or maybe my own little winged although probably dead John and Marsha. If doctors just grew a pair and just straight up told you that you’re going in the right direction, that would be better.

  I’ve always thought Korn was cute and sexy and I’m a little bit giddy about him offering to buy me a couple of burritos. What if he actually “likes” me? And no sooner than finding myself conjuring scenes of a courtship tinged by puppy love that begin to roll through my brain, I realize that I’m beginning to entertain the inevitable thoughts of infidelity. I can just see him cheating on me – tenderly cooing to another guy, his words slightly misshapen as they make their way around the syringe lodged lightly between his teeth – that’s right “may-me” because ‘b’s are hard to say when there’s some foreign object in the way – at the same time he gently slaps his nouveau partner’s arms trying to coax sleepy veins to life. But before this awful thought blooms into the looming expression of my displeasure at being cheated on, That motherfucker!, I slam down the brakes and try to stay in the Antonio’s moment. I don’t want to turn Korn off by what comes out of my mouth, like if I say that it’s okay, that I just want a Coke – or a Diet Coke, it would kill me if Korn’s eyes glazed over, like at my age I was still watching my figure – at what age do guys stop watching their figures, even gay guys? And if I say, “Just a couple of taquitos,” Korn might construe that as wasting a generous offer of sustenance on a dish that’s objectively only slightly less trashy than a flimsy white cardboard skiff-shaped container stuffed with nachos that are smothered in hot cheese whiz and those weird peppers; or is an overt attempt at humility, which is something that really turns me off when I come across it. It’s one of my big peeves – not even a pet one, but a real straight-up feral peeve: people who actually say they try to be humble in their daily lives. It makes me want to shake them by their shoulders: Don’t you know that humility is one of those things that just isn’t talked about; like as soon as you even utter the word “humility,” the whole concept of humility starts to disintegrate – and saying the word will probably start a dialogue about humility, and people in the conversation will start sharing their little anecdotes about how humble they’ve been in their lives. And this polite conversation will hurtle toward its ultimate ruin, on and on for a while until it turns into a straight-up bitch fest, the ethos of which is: I’m more humble than you are, motherfucker – and people will lean over and snidely whisper to their best friends sitting on either side of them: “Look who thinks he’s nothing…”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I tell Korn that I’ll have whatever he’s having, so he tells the guy behind the window that he wants two more machaca burritos for me, and two Cokes, and pays for them. The guy gives Korn some change along with our drinks in red-and-white cardboard cups and a couple of straws, that we each force through the indentations on the plastic cup lids. All very civilized. And after about maybe six minutes, the guy’s voice comes on the loud speakers, and you can hear him clear as daylight, “number forty-three,” which Korn right away knows is us because we’re the only people there. He gathers up the proffered two red baskets loosely woven with a surprisingly un-flimsy form of plastic spaghetti, and that are lined with kind of stiff waxy paper that hold our burritos, which are in turn rolled up in what has to be the most delicate aluminum foil in the universe and more of the wax paper.

  Until now I’ve been the model of demureness and etiquette. But I jump into action and lend Korn a hand, hoping that I don’t look like I’m trying to be chivalrous, even though I’m pretty aware that I have about zero ability to shape what Korn or anybody else for that matter thinks about me. So what if I look chivalrous? At least I’m not an overt asshole, right? I mean I could have just assumed that he was leaving all these decisions up to me, and I could have based all my choices on that little baseless notion, which actually has a greater asshole-ness quality than trying to be polite. And this moment of rumination creates a space that allows a moment of indecision to sprout and bloom: Dine In or Out? wordlessly signified with just Korn’s and my own very slight quizzical looks as our collective attention is drawn to the five or six blue and white metal tables all shoved to the back of a flimsy-looking lean-to kind of shelter, which may or may not qualify for being officially out of doors, which would designate either a smokeless or smoking permitted area in which to sit.

  The sidewalk running alongside Antonio’s and also Vermont Avenue is just now beginning to become populated with the east side masses, along with many of the fatigued, yet overly steeled night students at Los Angeles City College, who will sit cross-legged on the cold hard linoleum outside their classrooms for hours, all the while holding ad hoc study groups that most of these adult academic hopefuls, who all seem to be pushing forty, pray will shed some light on the dreaded run-and-rise equations that they’ll be examined on in their looming algebra class.

  “Here’s fine with me,” I say, outlining with my eyes the interior of Antonio’s dining area, hoping that this will be okay with Korn. But I have my reasons. First of all, I’m hungry. It’s been a while since I’ve actually eaten anything more substantial than Wheat Chex and Gatorade, and I know that dragging these burritos back to Korn’s house will probably mean offering to share them with others – “others” being a generous term that’s a pretty neutral descriptor for normal people who have normal lives and normal appetites, not the bevy of Kenmore Avenue hyenas who’ve endured multiple days of self-induced starvation, which would change the word “share” into a much more robust verb like “relinquish.”

  I sit and Korn follows suit, seating himself across the table from me.

  There’s this little instant of hesitation that seems to have sprung from some miraculous store of human evolution – a moment that separates human beings from coyotes or some other group of savannah-dwelling scavengers. Korn looks at me. Right in the eyes. “You hungry?” he asks. “Yeah,” I answer. “Pretty hungry.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  A note about Cri- Life:

  Cri- Life is a hulking battleship gray overly modern- looking building, meaning that its design incorporates a lot of stucco- covered angles, large reflective windows and glass blocks, although there’s an explicit nod to the Italian Renaissance within some faux parquet elements in the front. It was b
ought and paid for by the father of one of its original addict clients. So grateful was he that his son no longer injected substances into his veins that he wrote a check to Cri- Life, Inc. for $12 million. Having existed for close to thirty- five years, Cri- Life is one of Southern California’s two main recovery homes designed to address addiction, most notably that of the heroin variety – the other facility being Impact House in Pasadena, again a six- to- nine- month program – both necessarily catering to a mostly criminal class of addict – the kind steeped in both the shoot- em- up- stabbing- car- jacking- ATM- robbing- or- stealing- multiple- cartons- of- Marlboros- from- the- local- CVS- Pharmacy- then- fleeing- on- foot variety of crime and also the more dramatic suitable- for- a- major- motion- picture- starring- Bruce Willis- or- Brad Pitt- sawed- off- shotgun- wielding- major- narco- jacking- literally- barrels- of- cash- grabbing- then- buying- two- or- three- E- Class- Benzes- one- for- you- and- the- other- one- for- you- too- because- money kind of crime, both varieties of which render said principal addicts major criminals in the eyes of the Justice System, and when realized as components of a Venn Diagram exist in a hazily purplish shaded area of intersection, one side of which is a large blue partial circle labeled Recovery House with its focus on reintegration into society so therefore forward looking and very touchy/feely with a maximum of talking, listening, meditating and praying, pats on the back and weekend passes; and the other side a red partial circle labeled straight up Maximum Security Prison so- don’t- worry- we’ve- got- automatic- locks- on- every- door- and- no- motherfucking- criminal- scumbag- type- of- client- can- even- think- of- doing- something- stupid- because- we’ve- got- him/her- under- a- level- of- scrutiny- that- would- embarrass- even- the- best- built- most- well- thought- out- panopticon- described- in- any- critical- theory- text- you- can- find- in- any- humanities- program- on- earth.

  And this Recovery structure has been proven over and over to be more successful and more cost effective than simply locking someone up in prison, facts stressed with major repetition to most magistrates in most courtrooms not only in Southern California but more and more in all the other forty- nine states as well. (There is a third smaller circle of this Venn Diagram that intersects with the other two – one colored in a pale sky blue – just slightly more blue than white – which changes the shade where all three intersect only slightly because of its minor representation and is labeled simply “Other”: those members of society whose transgressions were more moral than legal and reside in the realm of toast- burning- because- she’s- twacked- housewife or pain- med- pilfering- nurse- on- a- burn- ward; “Other” also includes present- day victims of HIV/AIDS who’ve insisted on continuing to use drugs because they’re rebelling against medical progress because they’ve grown totally comfortable with the notion of impending death and whose stays at Cri- Life are often funded through the Ryan White Act, Ryan White being the prepubescent, adorable yet most likely heterosexual kid who unfortunately succumbed to AIDS, which he caught due to sloppy and objectively non- gay transfusion practices because any overt governmental funding named after Trixie Boots, the aging cross- dresser, or The Rogarth Act or the Gallagher Act – taking for granted that in order to have one’s name adorn any kind of governmental legislative maneuver they would usually need to stop being alive – in addition to the fact that each of said namesakes actually chose to suck dick so their names could never be considered even for a long list of candidates for whom to name a bill after because said names would need to be uttered in congressional budget hearings so do the math. So judges and DAs happily, at least for initial or even post initial but not overly recidivistic legal transgressions, with little regard to a crime’s intrinsic seriousness, happily allow most who request it to be allowed to enter the doors of Cri- Life instead of moving directly to a jail cell. The really interesting byproduct of this judicial/administrative willingness to circumvent incarceration has imbued this locked- down style of recovery house with the same status of House of Worship – at least how said houses were once regarded in the Middle Ages: Once inside, the criminal is now known officially as “resident” and is therefore entitled to all perks and privileges afforded by the official doctrine of “sanctuary.” Law enforcement officials, including Homicide Detectives, are denied access to all who’ve been assigned a pillow on which to lay their felonious heads once inside the legal king’s X known as Cri- Life.

  Week Two – Cri- Life, Inc.

  Step Study – main dining room – 8:30 a.m. – every day except Sunday.

  Mandatory attendance by all 130 residents in the facility.

  The dining room is converted into a venue that ideally becomes an NA revival meeting where one of the twelve steps to recovery is read aloud and discussed, but that often veers pretty quickly to the path of least resistance, which usually means sharing with varying degrees of flair one’s transgressions against society, which honestly is a lot more entertaining than trying to maintain interest in the landslide of stories focused on how abiding one’s faith in god is. Depending on which CDW oversees these get- togethers, the step study is either a regimented parochial classroom run in a manner that’s consistent with the tenets of the Dopamine Reduction Act of 1998 or kind of an after- breakfast- before- lunch dinner theater where the facilitator puts on a show that encourages attendees to discard their inhibitions and debilitating dope fiend pride that usually manifests itself as laser- focused awareness of even a morsel of perceived disrespect, which honestly must be some kind of relief because that kind of vigilance against something so common and so ridiculously subjective must be fucking exhausting, even though it’s totally understandable if that’s all you’ve got to be pissed off about, being disrespected, which is necessarily the case in most jail facilities.

  It’s these step studies where doubts about sobriety disappear, depending on who’s running them. It’s a time to stoke the fires of unbridled enthusiasm not only for a drug- free life that awaits after treatment ends, but also the two hours of obligatory daily cleaning of the facility that occurs directly after the obligatory prayer that marks the end of Step Study.

  ###

  Today’s focus, Step Five: Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

  Shoshanna B.: Length of stay at Cri- Life: Indefinite, but no less than one year.

  Shoshanna’s lengthy stay of time here is due to the fact that she enjoys robbing tanning salons in popular touristy parts of town. She is a drug addict. It’s widely believed by the powers that be that Shoshanna avoided state prison due to her criminal- drug- addict- with- a- heart- of- gold- appearance/demeanor: She’s an enormous white girl, about the size of a Volkswagen, with long, thick, unruly blonde hair framing an angelic yet seriously devious looking face with a pink, pinched mouth that’s capable of releasing such a flood of explicit and truly nasty sexual as well as astoundingly violent ideas that you’d like to peel back her epidermis just to see whether or not there’s actually a human being under there or some weird smorgasbord of electronics and animatronics that all work together to make up a vulgar robot girl that was designed to scare the kink right out of your Christian capillaries. Given the proper amount of distance and thoughtfulness about Shoshanna, though, it becomes probable that her potty mouth/potty brain, rather than being some ingrained predisposition, has been incubated as a result of her lack of male contact (Cri- Life has a policy called “Non- Com,” which prohibits any interaction at all between the sexes, which, it’s hoped will limit the number of Cri- Life fostered pregnancies to just under a “few” per year). The Non- Com umbrella is comprehensive and fluid and includes any and all direct communication between the sexes, but may, and usually does include a scenario when a female client on one side of the room overhears and laughs at a joke told by a male client to one of his buddies on the other side of the room. Even though Non- Com was designed to obviate sexual contact between male and femal
e clients at Cri- Life, the homos are necessarily exempt and can and must freely exchange ideas with the objects of their desires. This may seem like an unfair advantage, but the administrations got it covered in a policy labeled “over- association,” which amounts to staff members notating and sharing hierarchically their opinions/observations that Linda P. follows Lydia T. around most of the time, or David O. and Oscar P. are inseparable, which creates an enhanced level of scrutiny that it’s hoped will provide a barrier against same sex fellatio or cunnilingis or even some mild groping.

  During the particular heist that brought Shoshanna to Cri- Life’s front doors, after threatening the owners and employees of Melrose Beach with a gun, Shoshanna tied them up but then apologized profusely even offering to make phone calls to loved ones and then walking next door to Tammy Tang’s, an overpriced Thai restaurant, and purchasing a plate of shrimp pik pau and cashew chicken from the To- Go menu so that her victims would have something to eat after defeating their restraints, even though Shoshanna could have saved a bit of cash by planning ahead and buying said dish ahead of time from Wokano on Hollywood Boulevard because dishes on Thai menus are for all intents and purposes pretty much standardized, rendering the only difference between the pad Thai bought between restaurants across town from each other merely the difference between $8 and $18.