by Les Edgerton
“Way it turned out, I get behind this house and into this woods and through it and I’m in this big-ass field with another woods in front of me and that’s what I’m heading for and I hear this heavy breathing and footsteps behind me and it’s Rat.
“‘Where’s DuWayne?’ I ask and Rat doesn’t know, he just took off after me and has just now caught me. His house where he lived with his mother is about three miles straight ahead in the direction we’d been running. We decided to head for there. DuWayne and I were staying at the Out of Towner Motel just a couple of blocks away.
“We kind of ran, then walked, then ran some more and along the way we came up with a plan. We’d get our butts to Rat’s house, get out of our clothes which were soaked and pick up his car—this was winter and there was about a foot of snow on the ground—then head over to the Out of Towner, see if DuWayne had made it there and then we figured we’d head to New York. We figured there was so many criminals in New York they wouldn’t even bother looking for three small-time burglars from Indiana.
“We got to Rat’s house okay and his mom never even woke up. She’s a stone alkie so I guess she was in her usual coma. We got our wet clothes off and grabbed some of Rat’s and put them on and went out and climbed in his car.
“Drive by the motel first,” I told Rat. I didn’t think there was any way the cops would know where we were staying but there was no sense in taking chances. We pulled into the all-night gas station next to it and filled up and then just pulled across the drive into the motel’s parking lot.
“There was a guy downstairs at the desk looked like he’d fallen asleep reading a magazine. He woke up for a second when we came in and then just nodded and started pretending to read his magazine again like he hadn’t been asleep on duty.
“We walked upstairs to where our room was and I dug in my pocket looking for my key. Rat kind of pushed on the door and it opened a little bit. I looked at him and pushed the door wider. I couldn’t see a thing as it was dark inside. DuWayne? I said, taking a step inside. See, I was thinking somehow DuWayne had beat us back and was sitting inside, probably shaking in his boots and wondering what in the hell he was going to do next.
“Then, BOOM! All hell bust loose. There were guys all over Rat and me like stink on shit and I was down on the floor on my knees when somebody smacked me in the back of the head and then somebody else was kicking me and there was this fucking German Shepherd chawing at my arm. It was the cops, only it took a couple of minutes before I realized what had happened. I found out later that stupid-ass DuWayne had never even tried to make a run for it. Just sat in the car and waited for the cops. They found the motel key in his pocket and had it all staked out long before we even got there.
“Well—now this is the part I’m getting to, about why I don’t like dogs, Bud—they get us cuffed up after they smacked us around a little—you ever been busted when they didn’t hit you? I never have. They always have to whale on you. Makes ‘em feel tough I guess, to beat up on somebody’s got handcuffs on. Major macho cop shit.
“They’ve got me cuffed behind my back and on my knees and bent over this couch is out in the hallway. And the German Shepherd is biting my back. I’ve got a jacket on, a sweater, a flannel shirt and an undershirt and this fucking dog goes through that like it’s the wrapper on a Hershey bar. I’m getting nailed by this dog—fuck, I can feel the blood running down my sides and these asshole cops are laughing. Finally, when they get enough jollies watching me get eaten alive by this mutt they jerk me up and start downstairs.
“They’re taking us downstairs to the squad car and I’ve got my hands cuffed behind me and this dog is trying to eat my cojones. The cop that’s dragging me is laughing and lets me in on the fact that these dogs are trained to go for the nuts or the throat. I’m walking like I’m spastic, trying to keep Rover from munching on the crown jewels and they think it’s a riot.
“Finally we get to the car and they put the dog in the back seat with me. Two of the cops climb in the front all the time this dog’s growling and taking nips out of my leg. ‘This is Joe,’ the one cop says, meaning the dog—he’s talking to me—and he just graduated from obedience school. At the bottom of his class. He’s hard to control, that dog is.’ They both hoot it up at that.
“Anyway, I’m in the St. Joe County Lockup and I got to lay on my stomach for two days before they send me to the hospital and get stitches. My back’s infected and this doctor doesn’t believe in wasting Novocain on degenerates like me when he’s sewing them up, so what I’m telling you, Bud, is—I-HATE-FUCKING-DOGS—especially German fucking shepherd dogs which is what that one over there is and this one looks exactly like that dog Joe that did this to me.”
I showed him my back, the scars, but he didn’t seem very sympathetic. He did try and keep Spot away from me the rest of the night. I don’t think it was my welfare he was concerned with though. I think Bud was more worried about his mongrel mutt and what I might do to him.
***
“I been thinking,” he said the next night, finally bringing up what was bothering him. I kind of had an idea what was coming, things he’d been saying. “This sucks, this place.”
“It’ll get better,” I said. We were lying back on the beds watching the tube, sucking on beers. The mutt was behaving for once, lying down on the floor beside Bud’s bed. A great movie, “The Hustler”, one of my all-time favorites was on. Paul Newman was doing some shots I wanted to try myself. Both on the table and back at his apartment with the broad he was shacked up with. Little crippled broad when she was walking around, an Olympic athlete when she laid down. “We get ahead some, things’ll look rosy again. Hang in there, pard.”
“No,” he said, swinging his legs around and standing up. “No, it won’t. I can’t stand this place, Jake. Everybody talks like a hillbilly, can’t understand them.”
“They are hillbillies,” I said, snorting. “I think they sound kinda cute. You’re just pissed ‘cause you can’t nail one, bein’s you got a tragic disease.” I wasn’t doing too hot in the romance department either. Seems none of the gals I met at work wanted much to do with a swamper. Mostly, they treated me like I was retarded or something.
“I’m going back, Jake. I’m gonna go call Kimmie, see if she’ll let me move back in.”
There was no talking him out of it. His mind was made up. I seen, after arguing for just a little bit, trying to talk him out of it that this was something he’d been thinking on for a while. I gave up, said fuck it.
“Hey, you gotta go, you gotta go.”
One thing you learn quick in the hustle game is not to get attached to anyone. We all move around, scuffle here and there. There’s no marriages nor partnerships made in heaven the way we live. Bud was a good pard and we’d hook up again someday I figured. That was another thing. Partners come and they go and when you meet up again it’s like you just seen them the day before even if it’s been maybe ten years since you’ve run into ‘em. That’s the nice thing about being in our corner of society—your friends are friends for life whether you see them every day or not. Same way with your enemies. Guys are all the time grudge-fucking somebody.
All I could do was wish Bud luck, which I did.
Once he made up his mind it didn’t take long to put his plan into motion. All he had to do was throw his stuff in his suitcase and I was driving him down to the Greyhound station, next morning. Guys like us didn’t stand on ceremony and sit around and suck our thumbs. We decided something we did it. Just like that.
“Kimmie gave me a ration,” he said when he came back from calling her, “but she come around. I told her how much I missed her sweet lovin’ and she like to make me come over the phone. You get back to the Fort, give me a call. I’ll be at the old pop stand.”
I give him twenty bucks and he bought a bottle of Jim Beam, a fifth, and a oyster po-boy at the shop across from the station and he was set in style for his ride back to Indiana.
“What you gonna do about your dog?
” I wanted to know. We’d left him back at the motel with a water dish full of beer.
“Shit. I don’t know. I forgot about him. Tell you what, you take care of him. Just for a day or so. I get back to Fort Wayne I’ll send some money, you put him on a plane or something. Just be a few days.”
Sure, you bet, I thought but didn’t say anything, just nodded. He couldn’t hold me to any promise I hadn’t actually made.
“I’ll think about you when the snow’s ten feet deep up there,” I said and we shook hands and he swung up the steps and that’s the last I seen him, they had those smoked windows on the bus where you can’t make any of the passengers out.
I felt kind of sad but that’s the way it goes. You don’t stand in anybody’s way any more than you’d want them to stop you from what you wanted to do. That’s what makes a pard better than a wife any day.
Soon as I got back to the motel room, I collared the dog and drug him out to the car. The best place I found was that swamp we slept by the first night in town.
“Go on,” I said, giving him a little kick. The mutt trotted forward a few feet and sat down on his haunches and looked at me. “Bye-bye, Spot,” I yelled out the window. “Go find yourself a big alligator to play with.”
That night I got lucky, got a girl, one of the waitresses to come back to the motel with me, and then I felt better about things.
This girl, her name was Nancy but everybody just called her Sugar, was one sweet cookie in bed and we had us a good time and all...but I couldn’t help thinking about Donna the whole time. It musta been because Bud had left for Indiana made me think about the folks back there, her especially.
Sugar left, said she had to get back before her husband came rolling in from his nightly drunk and as soon as she left, I picked up my notebook and a pen and began writing.
“Dear Donna,” I began and damned if I wasn’t stuck for something to say.
Finally I put down, “I have tried to get you out of my mind but that is the IMPOSSIBLE DREAM. How about you? Do you think of YOURS TRULY ever?” Once I got going the writing came easy. I ended up with about six pages of mostly mush which is a lot for me. I tried not to talk about her stabbing Patsy and all that stuff, just tell her how I felt about her. After, I sealed it shut I put the stamp on upside down, wondering if she’d catch that.
About the only stupid thing I didn’t do was put S.W.A.K. on the dumb envelope.
Then I ran down to the mailbox on the corner and mailed it before I came to my senses.
I guess I got it bad.
Then, to make it worse, I hear something at the front door, sounds like scratching. Four a.m. in the morning it was. It was that cocksucking dog, Spot. A regular Lassie-come-home. I went back in and tried to ignore him but he kept on scratching and then whining and then just regular barking. I let him back in, gave him some beer and some of the fries from McDonald’s me and Sugar hadn’t eaten and he scarfed it down and jumped up on Bud’s bed.
“Tomorrow,” I said. Like I was talking to a regular person. “Tomorrow we’re gonna take a long ride. A real long ride.”
God! That dog sure smelled! Like somebody’s old socks, only worse.
CHAPTER 10
I got rid of Spot the next night.
How? Simple. I pulled a burglary, took him with me. Left him there.
I was tired of being broke.
It was just some gin joint I’d seen, the other side of town. Piece of cake getting in. Taped this little window on the back door, smashed it with a brick, reached in and unlocked the door. Found the money in about twenty seconds in the dirty towel hamper. I took the money, exactly two hundred bucks, must have been the change money for the next day. Bartenders all over the country hide their money in the same places. If it ain’t in the dirty laundry look in the trash can. There was a case of Jack Daniels in the back room I grabbed and toted out to the car. Spot was in the back seat, whimpering like he thought I’d left him for good again. He came right with me, didn’t even have to whistle or anything. Followed me right back into the bar and once we were inside, I took a dirty bar rag, waved it under his nose and then threw it across the room. “Fetch, numb-nuts,” I said and he went after it. I was still laughing ten minutes later when I unlocked my motel room and went in.
I kept laughing at the thought that he was an accessory and the way cops were they might even send him to trial. I started imagining some wacky scenes.
Spot would stand trial and then they’d send him to some boot camp joint out in the parish where they had Vietnamese prisoners. There was Vietnamese all over Lake Charles. There was a guy taught out at the college, McNeese State, wrote some book about them, won that big writing award, the Pulitzer Prize. He come in the Angus and one of the waitresses pointed him out, told me all about him. Bud’s dog, though, I pictured in my mind, some gook, working in the kitchen, would see this mutt and his eyes would glaze all over and before you knew it Spot would be in the sweet ‘n sour pork.
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving mutt, I thought, snickering aloud to myself in the motel room.
The next day I phoned Bud at Kimmie’s. He was there, answered the phone himself.
“Hey,” he said, first thing. “I ran into your parole officer. There’s a guy would like to have your address.”
He hadn’t told him anything, of course.
We talked about nothing for a while and he brought up my parole officer again. Delbert Brooks. He was an okay guy for a P.O., got on your case a lot less than most of the others. There was one, James Finn, who liked to brace his parolees each time they came in, shake them down. Fucking queer, we all decided, just liked to cop a feel off his guys. I was glad I had Brooks and not Finn. I don’t know what I’d do if I had Finn and he shook me down, felt my ass like I’ve seen him doing. Bust him, probably, smack him. Maybe not. It wouldn’t be worth it, have him violate you, send you back. Wait for him in some alley would be better. Stick him when he wasn’t looking.
“Brooks says I see you, let you know if you were to come back in the next week or so he wouldn’t violate you.”
“I’d have to go to a halfway house,” Bud said, but Brooks wouldn’t send me back to Pendleton.
“You believe him?” I asked.
“Yeah. I do, Jake. Brooks is all right. Straight-up guy.”
Bud was right. I’d never heard anything but that Brooks was all right. If he said he wouldn’t violate me he wouldn’t violate me. But did I want to go back to Indiana? Part of me wanted to because of Donna and part of me didn’t want to. Because of Donna.
“I’ll think about it,” is what I told him.
“Should I tell Brooks you said that?”
“I thought you told him you didn’t know where I was,” I said. We talked some more and then he reminded me I had called collect and Kimmie would have a fit when she saw the bill.
“Keep in touch, bro.”
“Sure,” I said. “Don’t tell Brooks you know where I am.”
***
That night after work I asked Sugar if she wanted to come over for a while but she said no, her husband was on one of his righteous kicks where he was laying off the sauce. She said he’d be home watching TV and if she didn’t show up on time he’d come looking for her. You don’t want him to find us, she said. He’s a cop and if he found me with some guy he’d kill us both and it’d be legal. This was the first I knew her husband was a cop and I wasn’t crazy about hearing that. He’ll kill you for sure, she said, going on and you could tell she enjoyed saying this kind of stuff, liked to watch my reaction...and he’ll come up with a story that you were trying to rape me. I guess you’d go along with the story, I said. I guess, she said, smiling this smile you could tell was patronizing, like I was too dumb to believe. Your sidewalk don’t go all the way to the curb, does it? she said. That a Yankee thing? and somebody, another waitress walking by heard her and laughed. Suzie was the other waitress. Everybody called her Susie Q but that wasn’t her middle initial or the first letter of her la
st name. I seen her time card and it said Susan P. Brovard. Susie Q was just her nickname.
She came back out of the dining room and into the kitchen where Sugar and I were still standing there talking.
“Hey, Jake, y’all got nothing else to do you can come with me,” she said. I was surprised. Susie Q had hardly looked at me, all the days I’d been working there. I knew she was friendly with a guy I think was named Bruce something, came in every night and sat at the bar and just stared at her. Every once in a while during her rounds to tables, she’d pass by and they’d talk for a minute, give each other the tongue when the boss wasn’t around. He always waited until she was done and then she left with him t’suck the corn off his cob, I figured.
“What about Bruce?” I asked.
“History,” she said. “Ancient history. Besides, I just asked you to come along. I didn’t say I was gonna fuck you, did I?”
Not in so many words I almost started to say but held my tongue. Where we went after cleanup was done was this black after-hours place called the Green Onion. She had to wait for me while I prepped the bar for the next day but she didn’t seem to mind. Sat at the bar eating cherries as fast as I could replace them.
We went in her car, one of those death-trap Pintos, down to the south end of town.
“This used to be called Niggertown,” she said. “Before integration.”
“What do they call it now?” I asked.
“Niggertown.”
We were the only white people there when we walked in but she said I’d be all right since I was with her. Some guy, about the blackest dude I ever saw and he was dressed all in black too, even down to the Big Apple hat he was wearing over his fro, made him look like a Gumby licorice stick, came over to where we were at the bar and she introduced him as Slick. Slick wasn’t too crazy about white guys, you could tell but he stuck out his hand and I shook it. Then he promptly ignored me, didn’t say another word to me the whole time until him and Susie walked out to the dance floor. That was fine with me. As soon as he and Susie got up to dance, doing some kind of slow strip tease on the dance floor together this girl came up and sat on Susie’s stool.
