Red Baker

by Robert Ward

  “Get on upstairs,” I said. I didn’t want him to see me like that.

  “Okay, come on up soon, Dad. It’s late.”

  He headed on up to the dark kitchen, and I picked up my bottle and my cigarettes and the ashtray full of butts and threw them in the garbage.

  Then I had the weirdest thought of the night. That Vinnie was God, that these were Vinnie’s eyes looking at me through the wood, laughing at me, mocking me, knowing that in spite of that day at the carnival he was still hanging over me, laughing because he knew something I didn’t. Something about being good.

  Something about how it didn’t matter.

  That thought scared me more than any other, and I turned out the light and thought of my kid’s face as I went through the dark up to bed.

  • • •

  It was near the end of the second month when they cut off my benefits down at the unemployment. The first couple days the check didn’t come I figured it was just held up in the November mail—people sending Christmas packages and all. But by the fifth and sixth days I knew there was no mistake. I called the office at nine in the morning, but the phone was busy. It stayed busy for the next three hours, but I was damned if I was going to go down there when I didn’t have to.

  Finally, at two in the afternoon, I got ahold of Miss Motown, who gave me the good news in her high Bible school voice.

  “Mr. Baker, you had an appointment on November 11 at nine sharp for your audit.”

  “Audit? What audit? I sent in my cards every week so far, with signatures on them. In case you don’t have the picture straight, we’re in a recession. There isn’t any goddamned work.”

  “It’s no use in you cursing me, Mr. Baker. We didn’t receive your cards for the last week, and we sent you a letter to that effect. In this letter we advised you that we had to review your case and see if you were legitimately looking for work. Since we didn’t get any reply from you, we have been forced to cut off your unemployment benefits until you’re able to get three character witnesses to write letters for you, and we can schedule a hearing.”

  I heard this sitting on the edge of the couch. The words pushed me back, and I gripped the sofa arm so hard I could almost feel it melt.

  “I never got any letters, Miss … Miss …”

  “Torrance, Mr. Baker.”

  “Miss Torrance, I never got any letter. I’ve sent in the cards every week just like you asked. I swear it.”

  “Mr. Baker, I’m sorry, this matter isn’t in my hands any longer. We understand the importance of this check to your family and yourself, and we don’t wish to deny you your benefits, but there are laws.”

  “Laws, hell,” I said. “I played by the laws. I sent in the cards, and you cut me off. What about that? You lose the goddamned cards over there, and you make me and my family pay for it. Is that what you call the laws?”

  “Mr. Baker, I’m not going to get into a shouting contest with you. Why didn’t you respond to our letter?”

  “Because I never got any letter.”

  “Mr. Baker, I doubt that. Perhaps you misplaced it.”

  I took a deep breath and ground my teeth together.

  No money. No goddamned money coming in.

  “Look, Mr. Baker, just as soon as you get your three character letters we’ll have the hearing, and you can be reinstated. It could happen in, say, two weeks.”

  “Two weeks. What the hell do I do meantime?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Baker, but you should have thought of that before you failed to send in your cards.”

  Her voice was like a needle cutting through my head.

  “I’ll get the witnesses. Who should they be?”

  “Well, Mr. Baker, I would assume you would try to get the most upstanding people you know.”

  There was a real backspin in her tone when she said that. Miss Motown was enjoying this. She hadn’t forgotten the scene Dog and I made in the line, and this was her way of paying us back.

  I put down the phone and felt as though the room was swirling around in front of me. A carousel at a cheap bayside park.

  I picked the phone back up and called Wanda and told her the news. She was cool, God bless her.

  “Don’t worry, Red, I can get Rev. Davis to write a letter for us, and the manager of Weavers, Bruce. If we could get one more person—”

  “Wait, I know,” I said. “Tom Lusinki, the president of the union. I got to go over there this afternoon for a meeting anyway. I can get him to write the letter. Then I can take them down there personally and make them give us the hearing earlier.”

  “We’ll make it, Red. Now don’t do anything crazy. Promise me.”

  “I promise. Don’t worry.”

  “I love you.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  I hung up the phone and stared down at our worn, fake Persian carpet and felt something die inside of me. Something like a shadow falling away, down through the floorboards to the dark cellar below.

  I took a deep breath, threw on my sheepskin jacket, and headed out into the cold, dripping morning. Close to flat broke.

  • • •

  Tom Lusinki was a big guy with a huge red forehead with a big knot on it from where he ran into a forklift once. Lucky he didn’t break the prongs right off the mother.

  I stood over at the union hall in his office, which was a lot like my basement, all done up in knotty pine. On the wall behind his desk was a deer head. Tom was a big hunter, always talking about guns, canoeing, blowing the hell out of small animals.

  “Now listen, Red, there’s nothing to worry about. I’ll get the letter written this afternoon. You can come pick it up tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, Tom,” I said, sitting in the chair, twisting and turning as though chiggers had gotten under my skin. I stared at his old goose-necked lamp and at his big wide nose. And at the green-and-brown-spotted duck on his desk.

  “These damned unemployment people are giving our boys hell,” he said. “But we’re going to deal with them. Got a bill we’re working on in the meeting tonight, you hear about it?”

  “No, what’s that?”

  “Well, a lot of the guys are afraid if this goes on much longer, the repossession boys are going to be coming around taking their houses and cars away. We’re giving this bill a big push. Going to ram it through in Annapolis, Red. It’ll say that for the entire year no guy in our union has to pay his mortgage or his car payments in full, just the interest on them. You see? Bill 212.”

  “That’s good, makes sense,” I said. “But do you think we’re going to be out of work the whole year?”

  “Hard to say, Red. But we’re working on it. Meanwhile we got to get you taken care of. You stop by tomorrow, and I’ll have that letter for you. Oh, and Red, listen, I know of a job, nothing much, I wouldn’t even mention it, but it might tide you over. It’s at the L and S Parking Lot down there on Eastern Avenue. You know the place?”

  “Yeah, I know it.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not much, couple a hundred a week. But you might look into it.”

  “Parking cars,” I said.

  I looked at him behind the desk, fat, with one of those big white plastic penholders with seven different colored ballpoints.

  “Best I can do now. See me tomorrow. Have that letter for you. Oh yeah, there’s one more thing. Wait here a minute.”

  He got up and walked by his Kiwanis club plaques on the wall and looked outside the door.

  “Darlene,” he said, calling to his secretary. “They started on the line yet?”

  “Yes, Mr. Lusinki. Just starting now.”

  “Much of a crowd?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Okay, go get a box for me. Tell them I need it. Personally.”

  I sat still, holding my hands in front of me, telling myself that no matter what happened don’t go back to Dr. Raines’s, don’t pop any of the few pills I had left. I looked up at the plaques, Man of the Year. Highlandtown Softball League, a team I’d been on five ye
ars ago.

  Big Tom, Heart As Big As All Outdoors. He’d busted at least three guys’ asses I knew personally to make it as president of the union. Now he had his office, and his big chair, and his duck-hunting weekends down in Trappe, while I sweated it out with Miss Motown.

  The Meek Shall Inherit Miss Motown.

  He came back into the room now, a big cardboard box under his arm.

  “Here, Red, you don’t have to stand in line.”

  “What is this? A fucking CARE package?”

  “Hey, don’t take it like that, Red. You know I always liked you, son, but you got the bad attitude. This here is just something we’re doing to help out. Cut the costs. Got some good food in there. Chicken, tinned ham, powdered potatoes, that’s all good stuff, same as you’d buy in the store. Just to tide you over, ya know?”

  I looked down at the box, which now sat like a rock in my hands. I started to laugh then, shaking and laughing like I had been inhaling shit from the chem plant all day.

  “Fucking CARE package. Too fucking much.”

  Tom looked down at me now with his beet-red face.

  “Look, Red, I try and do you a favor … you sit there and laugh at me. You want the letter or not?”

  “Hey, take it easy, Tom. I’m sorry. I gotta go. I’ll get back tomorrow. Thanks for the job tip.”

  “You gotta watch the attitude, Red. You screw yourself with the wrong attitude.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  I got up with my box of food and walked out in the hallway, down to the other end; the men were lining up again. Some looked as they had in the dope line. Heads bowed down, hands deep in their pockets. One more piece of their hearts torn off and tossed down the sewer.

  I think it was on Broadway, about two blocks from Ruby’s Play Lounge, that I got my bright idea. The rain was coming down harder, and the alley was dark.

  I walked back slow, holding the box out in front of me, suddenly realizing he might not even be there anymore at all or, worse, that he might be waiting behind one of the trash containers, hidden under the old bedsprings and walls of refuse.

  I got to the end of the alley, and then I saw his place. He’d fixed it up some. There was a great new packing crate, and he’d punched a hole in the side of it for a window.

  I held my breath, holding on to the food, and then suddenly I saw him looking out at me from his window. His head was shaved now, and he kept what was left of his nose just below the sill so I couldn’t see it.

  He said nothing, but he stared at the box.

  He looked like he’d been plugged into a wall socket.

  I nodded and stood very still.

  “I want to leave this here,” I said. “For you?”

  He stuck his head up a little and looked at me. I could see what was almost his nose holes.

  He was shaking now, and I saw how thin his wrists were.

  I ripped open the box and took out the chicken and then the potatoes and the cheese and bread.

  “You’re an asshole for coming back here,” he said, but there wasn’t much anger in his voice. Tears ran down his noseless face, dripped off his lips.

  “Are you Him?” he said.

  I shook my head and backed away.

  He nodded to me very slowly, his eyes opening wide, his face suddenly looking like a child’s.

  And then, looking at him there, it occurred to me that I knew him. That he was somebody I knew from way back, but he was too young for that, some friend of Ace’s … but that wasn’t possible either.

  “Don’t come back again,” he said. “The next time I can’t tell you what it’ll be like.”

  I backed out of the alley. Overhead there was some thunder, and the rain kept moving faster. When I was on the street I saw him scamper out of his drenched hole, pick up the canned ham, and hold it in his arms like it was a tin child.

  Then he turned and ran back to the crate, out of my sight.

  I turned and headed on down the street, told myself that I’d have just one with Ruby, since she was leaving soon. Just one. Maybe give Crystal a call, and then I’d get home, change, and make it on down to the L and S Parking Lot and grab off that job.

  It must have been around four when I hit Ruby’s. In short order I downed maybe six Wild Turkeys. And half a Dr. Raines’s, just to get me over the hump of having to go down to the parking garage.

  I thought I was handling it all, but then there was that call to Crystal, just hearing her small voice and laughing with her about what an asshole Vinnie was. He’d hired a guy to be a knight down at Mona Lisa Pizza. Made the son of a bitch wear armor all night while he stood there near those pizza ovens, which were almost as hot as the steel mill.

  It wasn’t like I was cutting out on Wanda, or it didn’t seem that way. It was just that I had to hear Crystal’s voice to stay even with the flood that was pushing me down, sinking me to the bottom.

  I needed her laughter. Though I know that’s wrong. It was me, living with the likes of me, that killed all the laughter in Wanda, and now I was like a monster from one of Ace’s vampire movies, bleeding all the laughs out of another, younger woman.

  She sounded so young and up, and she talked about Florida to me again, the way the trees looked and the way the birds landed on the beach at night, their wings lit up by the moon.

  And then I called Dog, and we talked, and the pill and the booze was working; I hadn’t seen him for so goddamned long … Dog, Doggie, Yo Dog, we got to get out and kick a little ass tonight …

  • • •

  It seemed like some small mercy from God that I had beat Wanda home. I made it upstairs, wrote out a note that I had a lead on a bartending job and had to go scout it out. I wrote it fast, pretending it was some other person who was lying to his wife, even making Wanda herself up in my head as a different person than the one I knew her to be—Wanda the Witch, who wouldn’t let me alone, who killed me with her kindness and understanding, Wanda the Goody-goody, who didn’t understand that I had to raise hell, that I had to get away from it … Wanda the Dummy, who knew nothing about where I really lived … the booze and pills made it easy, so easy, until she came in, caught me on the way down the steps, the note in my hand.

  “Hi,” I said, feeling the shame wiping over me again, knowing that it was the drugs and the dope and Miss Motown pushing me out, wasting me away. That and my own blown-up pride.

  “I got the letters, Red. You can get down there tomorrow.”

  “That’s great,” I said. “I got mine too. But I also got two leads on jobs. One tomorrow. At the L and S Parking garage. It’s crummy, parking cars … that’s why I hope I get this one tonight. Bartending job down at this place called Cap’s, down on North Point Boulevard … Got Dog coming by to pick me up …”

  I may as well have saved my breath, but now that I’d played the card I had to keep on raising the bet.

  “Wrote you this note. Look, I gotta talk to the guy, might be a little late getting in.”

  “Red,” she said, dropping her knit handbag onto the couch and staring right through me. “If you go down the Paradise tonight to see one of those whores, I’m going to be gone when you get home.”

  She turned and walked through the dining room into the kitchen.

  I followed her in, furious and feeling like she had cut it out from under me, all the glory I’d worked up for the night.

  “Goddamn it, Wanda, I’m telling you it’s a job. This place called Cap’s. You want to call there and ask about it?”

  “No, Red, I don’t want to embarrass you. I know you feel rotten about us getting taken off unemployment.”

  “Hey, I don’t feel rotten, I feel goddamned angry. It wasn’t my fault.”

  “I told you three days ago, Red, that you had a letter from them. You said you’d take care of it.”

  She had opened the refrigerator and was already cutting carrots up into a bowl.

  “You didn’t tell me anything of the kind,” I said.

  “Yes, I did. Tw
ice. It’s upstairs on the night table next to your bed.”

  I sunk down in the kitchen chair and put my head in my hands.

  “Christ, I’m sorry. Look, I screwed up. But one of these jobs are going to come through. Besides, Dog—well you know how he’s been lately. So goddamned moody. You know? He needs to talk some stuff over with me.”

  “I know Dog’s been depressed, Red. Carol told me. But you’re not his doctor. What about Ace and me? I haven’t hardly talked to you all week. Look at me. I’m getting old. I smell like goddamned crabs. Men grab at my ass down there, and George the cook, he’s screaming at us all the time … “

  “I’ll break his head for him if he bothers you,” I said, touching her arm.

  “No, you won’t,” she said, starting to cry. She threw herself down at the table and gave a low moan, like that of a child, and I felt so torn and rotten, wanting to comfort her and wanting to bolt at the same time.

  She sobbed deeply now, and I reached over and touched her hair. It was still soft, and I was overcome with tenderness and love, which cut right through the booze and dope.

  “I just want you to try, Red. I just need to know that all I’m going through means something to you. I’ve got to know it’s worth it. Does it matter at all?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Of course it does. Christ sake.”

  I held her to me, patting her on the back.

  “It’s going to be all right,” I said. “You gotta trust me. I’m going to have a job by tomorrow. I swear it … No matter what.”

  I held her chin up with my hand.

  “It’s you and Ace that matter to me. I won’t let them push us around much more. I mean it.”

  “Will you stay home tonight? I’m so tired … “

  I wanted to say I would. I wanted to … but then I heard Dog’s horn honking outside, and I could feel the surge shoot through me. It was like a light going on inside my head.

  “Look, I won’t be late. I already made these plans. But I won’t be late. Okay?”

  “Sure, Red,” she said, and then she gave me the saddest, tiredest smile in the world.

  “I mean it, Wanda.”