Gypsy Blood

by Vernon, Steve

  “Hey, isn’t he supposed to be polishing glasses?” he asked Chollo. “Where’s his rag? All bartenders are supposed to carry rags.”

  Chollo snorted a blast of rye fumes in Carnival’s direction.

  “And all gypsies play the violin,” Chollo noted. “Trouble with you is you watch too much television.”

  Blasphemy! You can never watch too much television.

  “I’ve been hearing that a lot lately. Maybe I need to get out in the sun a little more often.”

  “You do look a little pale. You need a little more of this.”

  Chollo took a big noisy swig, swallowing it like he was drowning.

  “You got a problem?” Carnival asked.

  “No problem,” Chollo said, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. “Just thirsty.”

  For a moment Carnival saw Maya, gulping at Olaf’s throat. He looked away, hoping Chollo didn’t take his revulsion the wrong way. Chollo was a drunk but a friend, so Carnival did his best to keep his opinions on Chollo’s blind side.

  The best diplomats learn to lie like guilty women.

  Breakfast came quickly. It didn’t look too bad for tavern cooking. Scrambled eggs, Canadian bacon, hash browns and three slices of heavily buttered whole wheat toast. Only the eggs were scrambled dry, the hash browns looked like they’d been deep fried in Morocco and shipped over in a rusty oil tanker and the toast had speckles in it that Carnival prayed were raisins.

  You are what you eat boy, and what you drink.

  Carnival ignored Poppa’s comment. He ketchuped the eggs and salted the hash browns. Vinegar would’ve been nice, but the waitress seemed too busy to bother.

  “It balances nicely on all sides of the plate,” Chollo noted.

  Carnival pointed at the bottle. Chollo scowled.

  “Eat your eggs before they hatch,” he said.

  Carnival forked his breakfast in.

  “I ought to eat healthier, but I can’t see why. I like this kind of breakfast.”

  “Who wants to live forever?”

  “Not me,” Carnival assured. “It’s my plan to slide into my grave with a beer in one hand, a steak in the other and a mouthful of greasy home fries, with a sign around my neck that says – What a ride!”

  Do you think that death changes thing, boy? It’s just another kind of running away. No matter where you go, there you are.

  Carnival knew that Poppa was right. Nothing ever left you alone for long. He raised his coffee cup.

  “It’s funny how the things we love can be so damn bad for us.

  “To cholesterol and cirrhosis,” Chollo observed, tipping back his glassful of rye for another shot at drowning.

  “Come up for air every minute or so, okay? What gives, anyway? I’ve never seen you drink like this so early before.”

  “I’ve got a friend in jail.”

  “So what? Half of your friends are ex-cons the other half are doing time. I’m not being rude. Your home team’s got a blue light timeshare going on in solitary.”

  “Har har,” Chollo said. “It isn’t that. It’s the way he’s doing time. He’s a little guy, name of Enrico. The word I hear he’s bunking with somebody who ain’t so little.”

  Carnival shook his head, trying to look concerned. He wasn’t being judgmental. Maybe he didn’t run with that sort of crowd, but he wasn’t that far behind them either.

  “He getting beat on a lot?” Carnival asked.

  “Beat on and hit on,” Chollo explained. “Let’s just say there’s a lot of bars of soap being dropped in that jail cell.”

  You see! I told you it would be a tale of bad love.

  “Damn,” Carnival commiserated. “That’s hard.”

  “That’s why they call it hard time, hombre.”

  “Nothing you can do about it?”

  “I tried reaching out, but the guy’s too well protected. You know Fat Arnie?”

  “Some big shot?”

  “The biggest. The guy with the hard on is Arnie’s nephew. I couldn’t touch him with a nuclear bomb.”

  “Let me see what I can do,” Carnival said.

  “A favor?”

  “Barter. I think I’m going to need some help on something I’m working at.”

  “You got my number.”

  Chollo eyed Carnival warily.

  “You’re getting set to work some of that hoodoo, aren’t you?”

  Chollo didn’t like Carnival’s magic. He’d seen a few of the things Carnival had messed with in the past but Carnival wouldn’t lie to him. You don’t get too far in life, lying to your friends.

  “Yes,” Carnival said. “It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

  “You got my number,” Chollo repeated.

  He finished his glass, retrieved his eye and got up and left, just that quickly.

  Carnival finished his breakfast. Momma taught him to always empty his plate.

  Finish what you start, every time.

  The waitress was conscientious enough about delivering the bill.

  Carnival looked at her, nearly square in the eyes, catching her glance like a deer in a pickup truck’s headlights. He took a deep breath. In and out.

  “The bill’s been paid,” He said.

  “Huh?”

  He tried again, thinking Jedi thoughts.

  “The bill’s been paid.”

  “Jimmy Joe? We got a welcher, here.”

  Ha. My son, Obi Wan Can-owe-me.

  Jimmy Joe came over, standing as patiently as Everest.

  “Shouldn’t you be polishing a glass?” Carnival asked.

  He just stood there and stared until Carnival opened his wallet and handed the big man one of Olaf’s twenties. Jimmy Joe smiled, looking like a happy Lurch Adams.

  “Repeat after me,” Jimmy Joe said. “You can keep the change.”

  “Huh?”

  “You can keep the change,” Jimmy Joe coaxed.

  He loomed a little closer. He was really good at looming.

  “You can keep the change,” Carnival recited.

  The force is strong in this one.

  Carnival patted his wallet and shook his head.

  As usual, Poppa was right.

  Chapter 15

  Hard Time

  Guys like Warren Bassie were the reason the government called their jails a penal system. Warren was fuck happy. He’d stick his meat into anything that wouldn’t move too fast, kick too hard, or grow teeth. It had been his penis that had got him in here in the first place. He’d stopped to rape a forty eight year old teller, while in the midst of robbing a Savings and Loan.

  He hadn’t been able to help himself. She fell on the ground when he pushed her and then her dress had slid up nearly past her knees and what was a man supposed to do? He’d been practical and hadn’t taken the foolish risk of removing his trousers. He’d just unzipped and put it into her. He thought she’d liked it. She certainly screamed loud enough. So loudly that he hadn’t heard the alarm going off.

  When the ESU arrived in their truck, they’d found him just standing up, his pistol in his pocket, and his gun hanging out in midair. He’d always liked to air dry afterwards. So they’d thrown him into the penal system, and Warren and his penis had felt right at home.

  Right now he was feeling at home with the new piece of meat the nice men in the blue shirts had delivered. A cute little Puerto Rican named Enrico. When Warren looked at Enrico’s cute puffed out lips, he just wanted to jam something in between them.

  Of course he wasn’t so foolish. That was a good way to find yourself with your lower bloodpipe chewed off. No sir, Warren was practical when it came to matters such as this. He’d use the back door and try and not make too much noise or too much mess.

  He was just finished banging the shit out of the little P.R., wiping himself clean on the man’s pant leg and sitting back in his bunk to air dry.

  He didn’t feel guilty. Not one little bit. It was just survival, was all. He was bigger than Enrico so he took whatever he wanted
. Survival, you know. Like evolution. You got a hunger, you feed it. Warren fed at night, when the guards didn’t look all that closely. Which was good because Warren didn’t need any trouble with the guards. Their night sticks made them bigger than he was.

  Just barely.

  Warren looked down at Enrico lying there with his butt still up in the air. The fetal position. Ha. It looked more like fecal to Warren.

  “How’d you like a little more, Rico? How’d you like one more fuck?”

  Enrico just curled up a little tighter, trying to hide himself within himself like he was some kind of giant hedgehog.

  Chapter 16

  Buying Pot from the Borsch King

  Three blocks north of Desmond and Elliot was a small flower cart. Carnival sometimes bought cheap mixed bouquets if he expected a steady client to drop by. It was always a nice touch, he thought. Truth in beauty.

  “Hey Mario.”

  Mario turned and looked. He was a stocky little fellow with arms like corded rope from twenty years of hauling fresh slaughtered beef.

  I don’t like this place. All the souls of those long dead cattle. I see them, all around the flower cart.

  Mario had hoisted one too many sides of beef and ruined his back and retired to the flower business. It smelled prettier than meat, he always said.

  What if they’re mad cows?

  Mario smiled. It was a good smile. Mario was honestly happy to see Carnival, not just as a customer but as a face he liked to see.

  “Hey Gypsy. You tell my numbers today? Give me some luck at the races?”

  Carnival smiled. It was the same old horseshit he heard from a lot of people but he didn’t mind it from old Mario.

  “If I knew that,” he said. “Don’t you think I’d pick the numbers for myself?”

  “It’s magic. It only works on the way out, like a one way valve. You can’t turn it in.”

  Listen to the flower-man. He talks sense for someone who lives with dead cows.

  “How’d you learn so much about magic?” Carnival asked. “Have you been studying?”

  Mario smiled. It creased the corners of his eyes like overgrown flower roots.

  “The flower-man knows things,” He said. “I stand outside all day and the birds tell me secrets.”

  “Right Mario. You and the pigeons, counting the mysteries of the universe.”

  Mario shrugged with a big happy grin. “You never know.”

  Carnival laughed again.

  “You don’t need any more luck, Mario. Are you still chasing the women?”

  The flower vendor smiled like an old satyr.

  “If you work it right the women chase you.”

  “Tell me your secret Mario. I’ll sell it on E-Bay and we’ll both get rich.”

  Mario let a giggle slip out, long and catchy and almost musical, like water running free.

  “My secret is my borscht. I learned the recipe from on old Ukrainian. He taught me how to make it thick and creamy. The women are mad about the borscht. If you want to get laid, you need to make borscht.”

  Fegh. Borscht makes you fart. Women don’t like farts, no matter how much we men pretend that they do.

  “No, not for me Mario. Borscht makes your breath bad. Besides, I would not want to become competition.”

  Mario looked at him seriously.

  “Gypsy, you can steal my secret. You need a woman. Someone to keep you young. That’s how I do it. My wife, my kids. I got family.” He rearranged a bouquet of bright red roses, for what was probably the fifty-third time this morning. “Responsibility. It keeps a man young and strong.”

  Carnival shook his head.

  “Responsibility gives you lines on your face,” He said. “Responsibility makes you cry.”

  “Ah,” Mario said. “But tears are the waters of the soul. If a man has a family to feed it gives him a reason to live. You need that. A man can’t drift forever, not even if he is a Gypsy.”

  What does he know? He sells flowers and dead cows.

  “I don’t drift. I’ve got a shop.”

  “Ha.” Mario grinned. “I got a shop too. It’s got wheels, so I can take it with me. I’m talking more than shop. A man needs a family. A man needs flesh and blood.”

  “That’s beautiful, Mario. You ought to write country music.”

  Mario snorted derisively.

  “You want a bouquet? I got some nice lilies, just fresh today.”

  “No cut flowers today. Today I need a potted plant.”

  “I got some ferns.”

  “No. I need a flower. For a friend.”

  More love, more lies. You’re going to talk to a woman, aren’t you boy?

  “How about this geranium?” he asked.

  He showed Carnival the flower. A soft pastel red, the color of faded blood.

  “Beautiful,” Carnival said. “You got one of those little shovels?”

  He had one.

  “Are you starting a garden?” Mario asked.

  Carnival could smell Borscht on Mario’s breath. Borscht and peppermint schnapps. It must be a bad year for extracurricular alcoholism. He looked at Mario’s cheeks, thickened with gristle, his nose a hawkish study in capillary and cartilage. He looked a little like a smiling Poppa.

  Carnival smiled back. The geranium was pretty. Bright and cheerful.

  “Just something for an old friend,” Carnival repeated.

  “What did you do to your neck?” Mario asked.

  Carnival touched it. For a moment he’d nearly forgotten the itch.

  “I cut myself shaving,” he said.

  Open your eyes, boy.

  Carnival turned away. He walked down the street, carefully holding the potted geranium.

  It was time to talk to the dead.

  Chapter 17

  Barking Up the Family Tree

  Talking to the dead isn’t tough. Getting them to listen is a whole other kettle of hotchkotchi. That’s gypsy for hedgehog. A little animal that rolls into a ball and sticks its nose up its asshole at the first sign of trouble.

  Which is what you should have done when this whole thing started.

  Poppa was right. Instead, he was out here, walking into a city graveyard, aluminum trowel in one hand, potted geranium in the other.

  He had to talk to his Momma.

  Why talk your Momma? It is better you should listen to your Poppa.

  “It would be easier if you would tell me where you buried her.”

  Who says I buried her, Val my boy?

  That’s all Poppa would ever tell Carnival. He kept his secrets well.

  We Rom love our secrets, poshrat. I know what you would be up to, if you knew where she really slept.

  Carnival didn’t have an answer to that. Maybe Poppa was right. Or maybe he was just scared. At least the weather was nice. Sunny enough to make Carnival forget about what’s waiting at home tonight. Maya, and another feeding.

  You have a family now, boy. And a man must feed his family.

  Shit. Nearly sunny enough.

  Carnival kept on walking. There were five graveyards in this city. He picked the third oldest. The middle child, a cemetery old enough to be mostly full, yet not old enough to attract any tourists. He wasn’t the only one out here. He could see a cradle winch, straddling an open grave like a children’s swing set. There must be a burial or maybe an exhumation. It didn’t matter. There doesn’t seem to be anyone around for now.

  He was safe.

  Safe? In a graveyard? You were better off back among the mad cows.

  Carnival was looking for a grave. It could be any grave but he liked to find an interesting epitaph, something that showed imagination, something that showed a little spirit.

  Spirit was very important when dealing with the dead. Like “Here lies an atheist. All dressed up with no place to go.” or “Here lies Mary, enroute to roots.” Sometimes it’s the name he went for. It was like buying a car. It’s no guarantee you’ll get a good one, but it’s still smarter to buy a Ford i
nstead of a Lada. You want a name like Teller. Or Spreck. Serendipity was as important to magic as faith.

  Listen to the expert. The shuvano. Such a wizard. I am entranced. You could give Merlin lessons.

  The date of death was important too. It had to be old enough to guarantee no mourners would arrive in mid-ceremony. A necromancer learns to watch for anniversaries. But today Carnival was in a hurry so he played the percentages. Thirteen gravestones in, and thirteen over and to the left.

  There’s nothing like leftovers, eh boy?

  The name on the stone said Eva Miller. It sounded harmless enough. It sounded like the kind of name that made Carnival think of a dumpy little old lady, hot when she was younger. Germanic roots, only a little crazy. The epitaph was classy. “As you pass by and cast an eye, as you are now so once was I, as I am now you soon shall be, prepare yourself to follow me.”

  Right on, Eva. Omar Khayam would’ve been proud of a line like that. Carnival knelt. A little respect never hurt anyone, especially when you’re raising the dead. Besides, it was easier on the back. He tipped the geranium out of its pot. He shook the pot a little to get the flower to come out cleanly. It popped out, spraying dirt.

  It reminds me of hedgehogs. We wrapped them in clay and buried them beneath the embers of a slow burning fire. When the clay cracked, you peeled it away cleanly. The spines came off like a drunken virgin’s dress.

  Carnival dug a little hole and laid the unpotted geranium beside it like he was getting set to do a little gardening. Then he drew a magic circle with the graveyard dirt he removed. It had to be perfect. Magic’s fussy that way, especially the summoning kind. When you opened a door, there was no telling what’ll step through.

  He kept his movements nice and simple. If anyone saw they’d figure Carnival was just paying his respects and doing a little gardening. That’s the secret behind illusion. Show them just what they want to see.

  You’d make a good liar, boy. You should try your hand at fortune telling.

  “Very funny Poppa.”

  He lit three small candles – one, two, three. He beat time on the bottom of the flowerpot with the trowel. A drum would be nice but drums draw attention in most well kept graveyards. If anyone asked, he was tapping the last of the dirt from out of the pot.