With Death Laughing

by Peter Plate

  Greta takes my photo with her cell phone. Inspired, I break off knee drops and full splits. I fall into the Swim. I execute the Funky Chicken. I throw the tambourine in the air again. I do a double-take: Sugar Child is leaning against a parking meter, puffing on a cigarette.

  Wherever Sugar Child has been in the last twenty-four hours, it wasn’t around here. But in some other dimension where there is no oxygen. She is thin, the weight loss centered in her face. A spotty, wan face drawn with the ineffable knowledge she’s leaving this world quicker than it’s trying to keep her.

  She models a pair of mismatched cardboard slippers, the kind you get in the Salvation Army detox unit. Her dingy sweatpants are held up with a bungee cord, over which hangs a blue work shirt. Robbed of the wig, her hair is nubby.

  I catch the tambourine on its downward flight. I raise my arms in an unspoken prayer. I’m not asking for money now. I am not asking for anything one human being can give to another. I’m asking for more than that. I want every power in this universe, every wind, every ray of light that comes to rest upon this desperate land, to have mercy on Sugar Child. To give back what’s been taken from her. I am asking for joy in a world beyond redemption. For whatever can be conjured from the ordinary, to renew this tired earth.

  When I’m done praying, I look at Sugar Child. As if I’ve been hallucinating, she’s gone. Greta stops taking my picture. “Pastor? You seem perturbed. Are you all right? Yes?”

  Her accent is thick, but less pronounced than Roland’s. I respond with pure organic silence: no, honey, I’m not all right. Far from it. I am in a wilderness.

  Roland and Greta bid me a rousing goodbye, promising to send a postcard from Germany. It’s a perfect time to get lunch, maybe at the soup kitchen in Pioneer Park. Even better, I can visit the public library restroom.

  I look at my newly adopted Christmas tree. A tree so brave and fucked up, I cannot help but love it. I brace myself against a trash can. I nod with my eyes half-closed, the sun on my face.

  I glance at my hands—they’re shaking uncontrollably.

  I’m jarred from my reverie by a homeless wino. He’s pushing a lopsided baby carriage piled high with a sleeping bag, a slew of decapitated Barbie dolls, and two shoeboxes bulging with plastic jewelry. A shorthaired cat sleeps on top of the pile.

  The wino himself is enrobed in a black long-sleeved collarless dress. On his head is a gaudy blue-and-red scarf held together with a yellow safety pin. His hair is long on one side, shaved to the scalp on the other side. He removes a pint of port from the purse hanging around his neck. Uncapping it, he takes a slug, then dries his lips with a sleeve.

  “Pastor, I want that Christmas tree. It ain’t yours, is it?

  I like it. I like it a lot.” He soaks me up with his one good eye; the other orb is so wall-eyed, it stares at the sky. “And no disrespect intended, Pastor. But your robe’s been massacred. You can’t go around looking that way.”

  “Pretty bad, huh?”

  “The worst. A disgrace to your office.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t have money to fix it.”

  “That’s no excuse.”

  I’ve neglected to sew my robe’s rents. I’m embarrassed by how disheveled I am. But the more the robe disintegrates, the freer I become. By the time it’s completely unwearable, I’ll be a free man. It’s a perverse thought. I don’t want to pursue it. I steer the conversation back to the tree.

  “You want the tree?”

  “Yeah, I do. Let’s negotiate. I’ll give you a Vicodin for it.”

  “I could use a good buzz. Is it fresh?”

  “Straight from the factory.” Digging in his purse, he extracts a once-white chalky tab that has seen better days. He proffers it to me. “It’ll fuck you up.”

  “You gonna give me a refund if it doesn’t get me high?”

  “Don’t sass me.”

  I look at the Vicodin. I look at the cat asleep in the baby carriage. I look at the pickup trucks chugging in the street. I mull over the wino’s offer.

  “Keep the tab, my child. The tree’s all yours.”

  The wino walks away with the Christmas tree. For once, I’m at peace with myself. I have been defrocked—a decisive blow to my self-esteem—yet I remain a servant of the people. The lambs in the street. I must avenge their hunger. I must slake their thirst. I must try, and try again.

  TWENTY-ONE

  I shouldn’t obsess about daddy. It’s just that every time I see him, I get sad. Him begging for money in those raggedy robes. I’ve never met a man who was stronger than a woman. Looking at him, I never will. That’s all there is to it.

  I cinch the bungee cord yoking my sweatpants, then I do the latest installment of the Prolixin shuffle up E Street, my cardboard slippers swishing on the pavement. I get a hundred yards before a rat jumps from a palm tree. My force field repulses it—the rat misses me and hits the sidewalk. I point a finger at the sky. I point a finger at the ground. I point a finger at myself. I keep shuffling.

  The Blessed World Church is on Arrowhead by the old courthouse—it’s in a rundown suite at the rear of a desert-style deco office building. I shuffle through the entrance into the reception area. Past tables stacked with dog-eared AARP magazines. Past rows of pastel orange cubicles, each one with a consumer and their social worker. I stop at the last one.

  “Rick? I’m here.”

  My caseworker slams shut his desk drawer—but not fast enough—I see the dime bag in it. I know he’s shooting dope because he wears a goose-down parka indoors when the room temperature is triple digits. I’d love to see his arms. Two to one, he’s got tracks from here to Canada.

  “Sugar Child. It’s wonderful to see you.”

  Rick ushers me into his cubicle like an old maid fussing over her dying cat. There are potted palms and wind chimes, a dwarfed white aluminum Christmas tree standing sentry in the corner. I settle onto a couch with no cushions. I haven’t bathed in four days. My hair is nubby. My eyes are screaming. Don the policeman chuckles: you’re damn ugly with no wig.

  “How you doing today, Sugar Child?”

  “Kind of weird.”

  “You look like shit.”

  “Great. I feel better already.”

  “Let me get you booked into a treatment program.”

  “No.”

  “Why not? You need to get off the street.”

  Rick drones on. All I hear is the drip-drip of his voice in my head as a curtain of Prolixin dullness washes over me.

  “This isn’t good.” Rick’s tone downshifts from convivial to clinical—the gears in a two-tone personality. “You sick? You got hep C?”

  “No.”

  “You sure? You don’t have to lie. Everyone has it. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’ve got it, if you want to know the truth. It’s no big deal. I’m on antiviral medication. I get acupuncture. I take Chinese herbs. I’m doing fabulous.”

  “I tested negative.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks. That means a lot coming from you.”

  “I’m here for you, Sugar Child. I am committed to your reentry into society. But you need to get into treatment. At Blessed World we have a saying. You know what it is?”

  “No.”

  “Treatment is liberation.”

  “Okay.”

  I squint at him. I’m not into elaborations—why wear a dress when you can go naked? I have no idea where he shoots up. He can’t do it in the bathrooms here because they have security cameras. And he doesn’t seem like the type to hit up in the street. Too prissy.

  “That’s it for now, Sugar Child. I have more appointments and stuff. You can see yourself out.”

  Instead of leaving the building I make a detour into an unlit hallway. There’s not much to look at. Conference rooms. Single-stall male and female restrooms. All the doors are locked except for one. Abracadabra: I slip into a storage closet overflowing with Christmas donations.

  Toys, dishes, tuxedos, rice cookers, lawn fur
niture. One box shelters a floor-length silver lamé ballroom gown with frayed spaghetti straps. A magnificent garment. Fragile, yet brazen. Audrey Hepburn. Stuffing it in my sweatpants, I hobble back into the hallway and ghost past the security guards at the front door to the street.

  Outside, dusk cloaks E Street—an enchanted fairyland where goodness grows on palm trees and the sidewalks are paved with food stamps. Don the policeman is outraged: you’re a jerk. What the fuck is with you? Why didn’t you get any SRO housing vouchers from Rick? I want air conditioning. I want it now.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I tune out Don the policeman as I wander to D Street and hang a right onto Wabash. There’s a party in a bungalow just past a curbside bamboo grove―unpenned chickens are running loose in the driveway. The first person I run into there is an overweight Mexican cat with a bandage around his throat. He’s white as a ghost, his eyes black and mad with terror. He flirts with me: “Don’t I know you from somewhere, chica? My name is Alonzo. I’m from Waterman Gardens.”

  My mom used to sell acid on Base Line. In her apartment—I was living with my grandparents—she had six refrigerators. Each stocked with different kinds of acid. Blue double-dome tabs weighing in at 275 micrograms apiece. White paper blotter at 230 micrograms. Her masterpiece was a gram of gray mini-barrels—four thousand hits—taking the cake at 307 micrograms per hit. The acid was clean, she never cut it with speed or strychnine. Of course, certain customers complained. One of them was this very same Alonzo. I heard he ate five tabs of the blue double-dome and skydived off a rooftop and broke his legs.

  Alonzo doesn’t recognize me—he’s too busy describing his tracheotomies. He offers to exhibit them. I decline the invitation. He changes subjects and talks about the June 1970 Jimi Hendrix concert at the Orange Show. A riot broke out. Cops fired off tear gas. Hendrix quit playing. Then it’s when Arthur Lee and Love played at a club on E Street:

  “Arthur Lee took the stage in his pajamas and bathrobe. He didn’t smile. Neither did we. His eyes electrified us. He had the ultimate knowledge—it was a fucked-up night. And tomorrow would bring even more crazy shit. He was our conscience.”

  Alonzo falls quiet; starlight bathes his pale face. A Harley panhead rumbles on E Street. Now a SWAT helicopter shaves the treetops, enveloping the bungalow in retina-damaging yellow light. A loudspeaker blares:

  this is an illegal gathering. you are subject to arrest. it is curfew. repeat. it is curfew. failure to disperse will result in jail time. repeat. it is curfew.

  Without saying goodbye to Alonzo, I vamoose. I skirt the chickens in the front yard. My cardboard slippers kiss the sun-warmed sidewalk as I float down the street to Pioneer Park with the day’s sadness flowing though me—I let it suckle at my breast. Hush my sorrow. Cry no more.

  I rest on a bench in Pioneer Park, watching the moon sink behind the heat-whitened mountains. I sense a pair of eyes and glance up—a rat in a palm tree is frowning at me. Don the policeman whinges: there’s too many mosquitos here. Let’s go to Seccombe Lake. It’s nicer there. I snap: shut up, will you?

  I wonder where daddy is tonight. We could’ve ridden off into the sunset together with me on the back of his saddle, my arms knotted around his waist while I inhaled his spicy smell. Don the policeman jeers: fuck you, girl. That man is a loser. And you’re a two-timing whore. I rail at him: I don’t need no cop telling me what I am. You old fart.

  □ □ □

  None of this would be happening if I had my wig. You can quarrel with your man. Even slit your wrists. Maybe go to hell. But don’t ever lose your wig. You’ll regret it. And no matter how divine the silver lamé gown is, it’ll never turn me into Audrey Hepburn. I’m on my own now. And I don’t know anybody who isn’t.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The day after I see Sugar Child, my bus is marooned at the Mill Street checkpoint. SWAT cops with F-19 rifles have eight men spread-eagled on the ground. The unprepossessing checkpoint has no razor wire, sandbags, or anti-truck barriers. No techs to process internal travel permits. It’s just a ramshackle glass-walled toll booth. But people have been shot here. I’m breaking out in hives—I would give anything to wash my hands. Finally, everyone is vetted. We get the go-ahead. Forward to the promised land.

  I find a cluster of clergymen and street people standing by an altar of candles and wilted flowers in Pioneer Park. They’re honoring a homeless woman who died the night before. Someone says it was near El Pueblo.

  The street people uncork bottles of wine and pour libations onto the pavement. To send the deceased into the afterworld with a taste of fortified port.

  A priest intones: “Oh, holy father, in thy august and sacred name, receive this child of yours, as she has left the Southland to be in your arms. Love her and cherish her, as this city did not. Take her into your flock.”

  While the priest finalizes his eulogy by saying, “Whether we are rich or poor, god in heaven will always console us,” gunshots erupt near the bus stop. Two shots from a large-caliber pistol. On its heels is the report of a smaller handgun. I look to my left. The bank robber that gave me the suitcase is highballing down E Street’s center lane. Without stopping, he lifts his .45 and fires a single shot—it wings a stoplight, killing it on yellow.

  Right behind him are Dalton and Cassidy.

  Dalton aims his service revolver at the robber’s back and squeezes off three rounds—the first slug clips a woman in the arm as she exits El Pueblo, the others gouge a palm tree’s trunk.

  The robber dashes onto the curb, crouching near a fire hydrant. Pivoting, he steadies the .45 in the crook of his elbow and shoots. Cassidy is blown off his feet, a fountain of blood geysering from his neck. Fighting gravity—his knees buckle inch by inch—he capsizes to the pavement.

  Dalton skids to a halt and levels his revolver. He fires: the bank robber’s head disappears in a nimbus of blood and bone fragments. The shot’s blast—riding high on the wind—echoes for a long second. Until Dalton’s triumphant falsetto cuts through it: “I killed the little asshole! Yes, I did!”

  The winos in the park had been cheering the robber, exhorting him to make his escape. They shut up when Dalton wheels on them; the narc’s beard is speckled with blood.

  “Fuck you, faggots! Fuck you! I’ll kill all of you!”

  Within minutes E Street teems with SWAT vehicles. The block is quickly cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tape. Cassidy’s body is bagged and hefted into a coroner’s van. The robber is left in the road—one cop after another kicks his still-warm corpse until it’s just a heap of skin and rags festering in the December sun. His spirit, a near-transparent whirlwind of dust and frond bits, takes flight, lifting over El Pueblo. I shade my eyes against the smog’s glare and watch it disappear from view.

  I learned to say the Pledge of Allegiance in kindergarten. I placed my right hand over my heart and repeated the sacred oath: one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. But when I see the bank robber’s brains pooling in the gutter, and when I hear the priest cursing at my side, I know god is indifferent to us. I know the devil rules E Street.

  Dalton strides back and forth in front of the coroner’s van. A uniformed officer throws an arm around the plainclothes man’s shoulders. Dalton nods, then wipes his eyes with the back of his hand.

  I have to go before the maniac sees me.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The dead man is baking in the street—green flies feast on his face. Dalton and the other SWAT cops are searching his pockets. Daddy is standing by his lonely self at the corner. How bald he is. How little hair he has left. Don the policeman chortles: that guy is a stone-cold sap. Piss on him.

  God help you, daddy. Don’t you understand anything? Your hair has to be correct, along with the rest of you. I say that with kindness. But I won’t wait forever for you to get it together.

  I want to cry—the Prolixin won’t let me.

  I double-check to make sure the silver lamé gown is safe in my sweatpants. Then I see a
n agitated and shirtless man storm past the police line. Next thing I know he’s cornering me in El Pueblo’s parking lot. It’s Rudy from Muscoy.

  “Sugar Child! You check those damn shootings? No? Myself? I can’t stand this shit no more. But I gotta calm down. I just gotta.”

  Death scares Rudy. I see that in his slightly crossed eyes, how shiny they are. But death doesn’t scare me. I’ve always been close to it. Rudy talks faster: “Anyhow, where you been lately?”

  “I was in lockdown.”

  “Yeah? I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I got through it, more or less.”

  “Where’s your wig? That platinum beauty queen thing.”

  “SWAT confiscated it.”

  “Wow. That’s vindictive. What dogs. You gonna sue them?”

  “Stop it.”

  “Fine. Fuck it. I’ll keep the sympathy I got for all living things, including your wig, to myself. All I gotta do is remain calm. Now look here. Alonzo talk to you?”

  “Who?”

  “Alonzo. My brother. The fat fuck.”

  “I don’t know the cat.”

  “He met you last night. At some weird-ass party.”

  “People talk shit.”

  “You saying Alonzo’s talking shit? You ain’t the only one.”

  “I’m not saying anything.”

  “Good for you. That’s wise.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “So let me ask you something else. See that douche bag across the street? The beggar with the bucket? He ain’t no priest. He ain’t nothing but Alonzo’s friend.”

  “I told you. I don’t know Alonzo.”

  “Fair enough. You win. Christ, it’s hot.”

  Don the policeman wheedles: I’m hot, too. Can we at least get in the shade? I retaliate: no, we can’t. I am not going to stand under a palm tree and wait for a rat to jump on my head. Don lashes out: you sorry piece of shit. Is that your only option? We could be indoors with air conditioning. You negative asshole.