Every Man a Menace

by Patrick Hoffman

  “Did I walk here?”

  “Do you work here?” she said again. She had a foreign accent. She looked over his shoulder as she talked.

  “In this building?” Raymond asked.

  The floor below his feet seemed to be moving in small circles. The woman he was speaking with looked, suddenly, elderly. Her makeup was thick, Raymond realized; she was much older than he’d thought. At some point he understood that they were standing in the middle of a group of people. He stepped back from the older woman; there were chairs set around them, people sitting and talking. To his right, a woman with long blond hair held a dog in her lap like a baby. It looked cute until he noticed she was breast-feeding it. She saw Raymond watching and stopped; she pulled up her shirt to cover her breast and gave him a nasty look.

  The place had become crowded. He was still holding the beer, he realized, and he drank it. He started trying to move a little, in time to the music, but he felt strange, like a bear dressed in clothes, and then he kicked over a glass and red wine spilled out. The glass had broken. People were clapping at him. A short man with makeup all over his face pushed toward him and began to chant, “Enemy, enemy, enemy.” Raymond stumbled back to the bartender to ask for a rag. A beautiful woman with dark hair stepped out of his way. Raymond, for a moment, became transfixed. But someone grabbed him before he could talk to her.

  It was Moss. “Don’t worry, friend!” he said. His long eyelashes looked fake. He pulled Raymond in and hugged him tight. His body was soft, Raymond thought, like he was wearing some kind of padded suit. But he was wet, sweaty.

  “Where’s Shadrack?” Raymond asked.

  “Come on!” said Moss. “He’s been looking for you.” Other people were dropping their drinks now. Raymond heard glass shattering. Someone had smeared shit or mud all over one of the walls. Everyone seemed to be talking at once. The white dog the woman had been nursing followed behind Raymond’s feet. Its mouth was stained red and looked bloody. They passed a homeless man in the hallway. He had long dreadlocks, and piercings covered his face. “Sorry, inmate,” the man said.

  “Come on!” Moss said again. His face, now, resembled a loose-jawed puppet. “He’s in there,” said Moss, pointing at a door at the end of the hallway. A red glow the color of fire leaked out from beneath the door. Moss put his hand on Raymond’s lower back and pushed him forward.

  They found Shadrack sitting on a chair that looked like a throne. Two women sat on a bed to Shadrack’s right, regarding Raymond with peaceful expressions. They seemed friendly. Graceful.

  “Found him,” said Moss, who had now taken on the appearance of an angel, wise and gentle. Shadrack’s hair flowed down over his shoulders, his posture straight. He seemed philosophical. Impossible, thought Raymond. This wasn’t the same man he’d met earlier.

  “Where you been, old friend?” asked Shadrack.

  “I spilled wine,” Raymond said.

  “Well, you know what they say,” he said, gesturing for Raymond to sit down next to the two women. Moss sat on a bench across from them.

  “Don’t cry over spilled wine,” one of the women said, moving over to make room. She had a mirror in her hands, and after sniffing some powder off of it, she offered it to Raymond. She looked Japanese.

  “Exactly,” said Shadrack.

  “I can’t,” Raymond said. “I’m on parole.”

  “Parole?” said the woman, leaning forward to look at him. The other woman leaned forward, too.

  “He’s a good old boy,” said Shadrack. “Don’t worry. He just stole some boats.”

  Raymond hadn’t told Shadrack anything about his old case. He looked to him for an explanation, but Shadrack just stared, a smile blooming across his face. Then he closed his eyes and put his fingers near his temple. Raymond closed his eyes, too, and in his mind, as clear as day, he heard the sound of Arthur, his boss, stuck in prison, singing: Every man gonna help each other, help your sister, help your brother.

  “Help your brother,” said Shadrack.

  Raymond opened his eyes. The man was smiling. The woman next to Raymond took his hand in her own and squeezed it.

  “Ladies, let Mr. Gaspar lie down on the bed,” said Shadrack.

  The women stood up.

  “Take his shoes off,” said Shadrack.

  The women untied his boots and pulled them off. Raymond felt embarrassed in his socks; he felt naked. He watched from the bed as Shadrack opened his doctor’s bag and pulled out what looked like a large green emerald. It was the size of a small plum. He pulled out other stones, too; they were all different sizes. Purple, yellow, orange, brown.

  “I need you to take your shirt off again,” said Shadrack.

  Raymond pulled it off, and lay down flat on the bed. There was a thrumming in his head. Every man gonna help each other. The women took his hand again and started massaging it. Shadrack sat down next to him, and the bed sank a little.

  “Bless this child, in peace and heaven; he’s been delivered out,” Shadrack said. He put a stone on Raymond’s forehead, and Raymond closed his eyes.

  “Bless this child in function and form; he’s a Seventh Son.”

  He placed a stone in the hollow of Raymond’s neck.

  “Bless this child of truth, this child of danger, this child of courage.”

  Raymond felt three stones fall across his chest.

  “Bless this child of nourishment. Bless him with rest,” Shadrack said, setting one final stone on Raymond’s belly.

  In his mind’s eye, Raymond saw emeralds cut into shapes that couldn’t be described in human language. He saw the universe and all its workings. He saw the cosmos as veins in a body. He saw the insides of stars like rooms in a house. He saw all things combined into one being. And then he disappeared.

  The next day, Raymond woke to the sound of knocking on his door. He didn’t know where he was; he looked around his room and tried to make sense of it. The knocking continued. His body, as he lifted himself from the bed, felt wrecked. As he moved from dreamless sleep to wakefulness he realized he was still high.

  “Who is it?” he called out.

  “Gloria,” said a voice from outside. He pulled on his shirt, his pants, flattened his hair.

  “It’s two p.m.,” she said, when he’d opened the door. Her face showed concern.

  “I was resting,” he said, stepping back. “Just resting.” He watched the way she entered the room, the way she walked, and concluded that she was afraid. He could see it in her posture. Shadrack’s voice played in his mind: You’re filled with fear. He couldn’t remember if he’d actually said this.

  “You met him?” Gloria asked.

  Only one day had passed since he’d last seen her, but it felt longer than that. Raymond nodded his head, tried to act casual. We met. He felt his cheeks and collarbones get hot. He wanted to be outside.

  “He welcomed you?” she asked.

  Raymond nodded. “Took me to a party,” he said. He felt tongue-tied and dumb, dry mouthed, disorganized, dirty. Gloria had left the door open and he moved to close it, sticking his head out into the hall first. He saw the young Asian man who had driven Gloria’s van standing about ten feet away. He had been text messaging, and now he looked up and stared. Raymond closed the door.

  “Who is that?” he asked.

  “He’s my driver,” she said.

  Raymond shook his head. “He made me do acid.”

  Gloria smiled, looked at the ceiling. “Of course he did.”

  “I think I’m still high.”

  “I see,” she said, as though everything had fallen into place. “When I leave, go to the store. Get a gallon of milk. Drink it. Sober up.”

  He nodded.

  “I need you to go back to his house today,” she said. “This is what you tell him. Tell him: ‘The boat has shipped.’ No—tell him: ‘The ship has sailed.’ That’s it. The ship has sailed. You know, it’s good news. Deliver it like good news and he’ll be happy. Let’s keep him happy, okay?”

&
nbsp; She gave Raymond another three hundred dollars and left him standing there in his room.

  When he was a teenager in Santa Rosa, Raymond’s mother had lost her job at a restaurant. The manager accused her of stealing forty dollars from the till. She didn’t do it—she’d never stolen a cent in her life—but a few things happened after she lost that job. She fell behind on rent, which made her cut back on other spending. It was just Raymond and his mother living alone, then. His father had died of a heart attack when Raymond was two.

  The summer she lost that job, right before his sophomore year, Raymond had a little growth spurt. When school started he felt embarrassed in his too-small clothes, but in the first week he became friends with an acne-faced boy named Couchi Ortiz. Couchi was a stoner, an outcast, but he liked Raymond. It was Couchi who got Raymond into stealing cars. They would go to Marin County and find Toyotas they could unlock with a shaved-down key. Couchi knew a man in Vallejo who would buy the cars for five hundred dollars apiece. It was good money. Raymond started buying his own clothes after that: brand-new 49ers Starter jackets, Girbaud jeans, Nikes, everything.

  One day after school a rich kid named Vance Mueller walked up to Raymond and punched him square in the nose. Then he jumped on top of him and kept punching. He was a nasty kid, sick in his head, and he beat up Raymond’s face real nice.

  Two months after that beating, Raymond, Couchi, and another one of Couchi’s friends were riding in a car they’d stolen earlier that week, listening to Mac Dre and teasing each other in the way that teenagers do. They were in the hills between Novato and Vallejo, on Highway 37, when a highway patrolman saw them. He pulled them over with no cause, claiming they were speeding, and ran the plate.

  That was Raymond’s first arrest. But sitting there in that dirty hotel room in San Francisco, Raymond wondered whether things would have worked out the same way if his mom hadn’t been accused of stealing that money. He might have had some better school clothes. He might’ve never fallen in with Couchi. Wouldn’t have done any of it.

  Raymond returned to Shadrack’s house later that day. The same nervous feeling spread out in his chest and belly. Shadrack, fully dressed this time, came down the stairs with a look on his face that expressed a combination of suspicion and humor. It felt confrontational. Raymond’s heart beat hard in his chest.

  “Gaspar the guilty,” said Shadrack. “King of all the spies.”

  “What the fuck happened to you last night?” Raymond asked, trying to sound friendly.

  “That was a good old party,” Shadrack said, stepping to the gate and surveying the street the same way as before. “You were acting crazy, man. Shit.”

  Raymond smelled marijuana before he got to the top of the stairs. Inside, he saw a black man sitting on Shadrack’s couch. The man was dressed fancy, in a button-up shirt, slacks, nice shoes. Forty years old, maybe. He was a little overweight, with a thin mustache and goatee. He barely nodded at Raymond before turning back to the blunt in his hand.

  “Ray, John, John, Ray,” said Shadrack, introducing them. John nodded again, then started to get up, like he was going to leave.

  “No, no, stay there, John,” said Shadrack.

  Raymond scanned the room. It seemed even dingier than he remembered; the clutter made it feel dangerous. He wasn’t sure if this was the drugs, still, making him paranoid.

  “Get ‘em up,” said Shadrack, motioning for him to raise his hands. When Shadrack went into his pockets he found the three hundred dollars.

  “What kind of money is this?” he asked.

  “Just money.”

  “John, see that gun?” said Shadrack. “Hold it on him.”

  John leaned forward, putting the blunt down, and picked up the sawed-off shotgun. He shifted in his seat and pointed it at Raymond. The room swung. Shadrack walked over to a lamp near the wall and held the bills up to the light.

  “Who gave this to you?” he asked.

  “A friend of mine,” said Raymond. He was so scared he couldn’t think straight.

  “Was this friend of yours a Filipino woman, about yea tall?”

  Raymond nodded his head.

  “I see,” said Shadrack. He walked back over toward Raymond, got right in his face. “I don’t like her,” he whispered.

  “She’s different than us,” Raymond said. “Less interested in having fun.”

  Shadrack smiled. “Put the gun down,” he said. Then he pushed the three hundred dollars back into Raymond’s front pocket.

  “We good?” Raymond asked.

  “Oh, we good—me and you—we good,” said Shadrack. “I read you last night, clear as day. You are worthy, Raymond. You a worthy bastard, but—and I told you this last night—you are filled with fear, more fear than anyone I’ve ever read. It’s gonna kill you.”

  “Nothing I can do about that,” said Raymond.

  “Well, there is,” said Shadrack. “For one thing, you can stop being a slave. Stop acting like this man, this King Arthur, is your God Jesus. You know: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes sir, Arthur, sir.” He paused, shook his head. “You could run away, right now, never see the man again. Let me ask you something straight up, no bullshit. How much is he paying you?”

  “He’s not paying me anything,” Raymond said. “You know, down the road, another job, that kind of shit.”

  “You believe him, John?” asked Shadrack.

  “Don’t know, don’t know the man. Don’t know Arthur either, hard to say,” John said.

  “Well, I do know Arthur,” said Shadrack. “I been knowing him. He ain’t the type to send a man to do a job and not pay him. How much is he paying you?”

  “Twenty,” said Raymond. “If it all goes through.”

  “He tell you they planning on ripping me off?”

  “That ain’t Arthur’s way,” Raymond said. Everything was moving too fast. “Respectfully,” he added, “I don’t know this man.” He pointed at John. “I don’t talk business in front of someone I don’t know.”

  “Again, boy, you missing the damn point,” said Shadrack. “John here, he belongs. You don’t. You can say anything in front of him. He’s my partner. Now listen: if Arthur is paying you twenty—and that sounds about right—but if he is, I can pay you a lot more than that.”

  “For what?”

  “For letting us know how he’s gonna do it.”

  “You’re paranoid,” said Raymond. “We gotta stay on track, man. The ship’s sailed.”

  “Gloria already told us that,” said Shadrack, dropping his head like he was disappointed.

  Raymond felt outmatched. The air smelled stale.

  “Listen,” Raymond said. “I’ve been doing this kinda shit for a while. I know how things go. I’m gonna ask you one time: Can we work together? Get this job done? Make sure it goes smoothly? I’m not here to play games. Let’s stop all that. Nobody’s gonna rip nobody off. You gonna get your shit, like always. That’s it. Can we just slow down? You keep doing you, but just be a little more normal? I’ll get paid my little chunk of change. You’ll get paid. Arthur’s happy, everybody’s happy?”

  “I told you he was wise,” said Shadrack.

  “You sure did,” said John.

  “That’s your word? Nobody ripping nobody off?” said Shadrack.

  “That’s my word,” Raymond said.

  “So, when you do hear that they’re gonna rip me off, you’ll at least listen to my offer?” asked Shadrack. The smile was gone. His face was deadly serious.

  Raymond looked at John: he was staring at the floor, holding his eyebrows up, looking like he was contemplating an answer of his own. A clock ticked somewhere in the room.

  “If that happens, I’ll hear you out,” Raymond said.

  Shadrack snapped and pointed his finger at John like a gun. “He sings in seven tones, and feels as much as you,” he said. “Feels it right in his chest. He’s filled up with feelings. He’s filled up like a poet in a love story.”

  They took Raymond along with them that day. The
y rode in John’s car, a black SUV. John drove, and Shadrack sat in front, with Raymond in back. They took Silver Avenue over to Palou, crossed Third Street, and headed up the hill to Hunters Point.

  When they got to Harbor Road, they told Raymond to wait. He watched them walk to an old, flat, two-story housing project with a group of teenagers standing in front. John talked to them briefly before the door opened. The streets were quiet. Laundry hanging on a line between two buildings flapped in the wind. Trash blew here and there.

  When they came back, Shadrack said, “Goddamn, she got him on a tight line, though.”

  “It is what it is,” said John.

  They went to Oakland next. John drove the speed limit, stopping at every stop sign. He held the wheel with both hands and kept his eye on the rearview mirror. He was a professional. In Chinatown, an Asian man stood waiting on the corner of Seventh and Harrison. He jumped in the back, looked at Raymond, and asked, “Who the fuck is he?”

  “He’s with us,” said Shadrack. John pulled back out into traffic.

  “He looks like a fucking cop,” said the man.

  “No, no, you don’t want to say that,” said Shadrack. “Huang, meet Ray. Ray, this is Huang.” Huang looked to be about thirty-five years old; he was losing his hair. He dressed like a rapper, in a tracksuit, a gold chain, and a gold watch. He shook Raymond’s hand disdainfully.

  “Why you say my fucking name?” said Huang.

  “He’s with us, boy,” said Shadrack. “Calm down.”

  “Bullshit,” said Huang. He sat blinking for a moment, then unzipped his jacket and pulled out a baby blue envelope from his inside pocket. When he handed it forward, Shadrack looked out the window, confirming nobody was observing them, and then opened the envelope. He fingered his way through a stack of bills, his lips moving as he counted. It took a long time. Huang’s knee tapped up and down while he waited. Raymond noticed that he had long fingernails, like a woman.

  “Y’all good?” said Huang.

  “Perfect,” said Shadrack. “We’ll see you in a few days.”