In Nine Kinds of Pain

by Leonard Fritz

  This is what Baby doesn’t want to become/won’t become.

  “Well, I’m gonna take myself on the other side, closer to Woodward. No sense standing next to you, looking all good and shit. You making all us rest look like skank, Baby-child,” Mysteek laughs/eyes squint, “you making us all look skank.” Ain’t that the truth, Baby thinks. She watches as Mysteek turns the corner of Parsons Street and toward the boulevard.

  P O L I C E L I N E—D O N O T C R O S S

  Headlights again and she’s bound not to let this one get away. She’s been here too long to go home empty (in her pocket, in her heart, between her legs). It’s Taurus again, cruising by her again slowly again. She decides to break rank and arch her back a bit, show her stuff; she’s tired of standing.

  The window comes down on Taurus’ driver’s side. “You working tonight, baby?” Baby.

  “What you mean by that?” She moves toward the car window. She leans in and allows her breasts to catch the edge of the just-about-rolled-down glass. Actually, the people behind her probably have a better view of what she has to offer than the driver does—she knows that her Daisys can’t hold all that ass.

  “I mean, you want a date tonight?” he asks. She sizes him up quickly, as she’s learned to do—older, strong beautiful black brother, gray framing with a gray mustache, nice teeth, white Polo shirt, Rolex wrapped around a thick wrist with an impatient hand attached to the steering wheel, pleasant smile. He’s no cop, she thinks. A cop always looks like he’s trying not to be a cop, but this brother don’t care that he possibly looks like a cop.

  “What you want on that date?” she asks.

  “What you got?”

  “What you like?” she asks. She knows this game—back and forth until one cracks and reveals their true identity.

  “I’d like to kiss the donut,” he says, his smirk grows.

  “Can’t do that, honey,” she replies. “I do the business. You know what I’m saying?”

  “You asked,” he says.

  “I’ll ask a lot more before the night’s through, honey.”

  He lifts his left arm out the window, the arm he’d been hiding up until now, and strokes his hand slowly along the back of her thigh. She likes the way his big hand feels on the back of her thigh, so she allows him to touch her.

  “How about we talk more about this in here?” he suggests, gesturing to the green-and-red digital displays inside the car, motioning like a big black Vanna. Vanna Black. Look at all the glamorous prizes just waiting for you inside! Mouth-watering delights, Blingity-Bling.

  “I’ll play,” she replies, as she walks around to the passenger side (slowly, work it, Baby, work it, let him feel you now in the headlights, let him soak you in, Baby) and jumps in.

  She snuggles into the seat, the car smells good, like licorice, and glances to him as he breaks port and sets sail. “There’s somethin’ very familiar about you,” she notices. “I know I haven’t seen you before, but I know I done seen you before sometime. You be around here often?”

  “No,” he mutters. He frowns.

  “Well, of course you haven’t, honey, because if you had, you woulda done picked me up, right? Oh yeah, honey.” A quick-witted save. She sees the silhouette of his mustache lift and his cheeks swell again, and knows he must be smiling. He’s recovered.

  “So, you live around here?” he asks.

  “I live on Venus, honey,” she replies.

  “Yeah, I can dig that,” he says. “Anyone ever tell you you look like Halle Berry? The actress?”

  Everyone tells her that. “I heard that at times,” she replies.

  He keeps down West Avenue until he’s on the far end of the college campus of Detroit City University, she notices. She doesn’t like to be this far down. She likes to keep close to the Corridor, where it’s probably safer and a lot less cop-infested. Down here too there’s the campus police to contend with, and they look for any excuse to pull someone over or do something that looks like they’re really cops and not just pretending to be cops. “Why we down this way?” she finally asks.

  “I don’t know,” he responds. “I thought we had to get away from that area—you know, in case the police are watching out. Isn’t that true? Don’t they watch out down there?”

  “Not really. How’s about going back?”

  “How about if we just stop here?” He motions straight-armed to the alley behind the college coffee shop/copy center/deli. A bad suggestion. This guy is new to this whole/hole scene, obviously.

  He’s done nothing but trip since his hand slid up her thigh on the street back there.

  He bounces the Taurus through the uneven alley and slams the car into park.

  “I want to kiss the donut, baby,” he says.

  “We talked all about this,” she says. “I do you, you be happy. That’s it.” What’s with this guy, for Christ’s sake? He plays it cool, charming, she’s almost there, she can almost taste him and enjoy it, she can see him and want to make him happy, want him to get his money’s worth, but then he gets crazy like this. She doesn’t feel in control of the situation anymore. She hates this feeling; it gets her mind crazy. She feels like her needle’s about to skip (“I second that em . . .I second that em . . .I second that em . . .I second that em . . .”).

  “C’mon, baby,” he whispers. He leans into her as if to kiss her neck, his big left hand finding the top of her thigh and slipping downward under her Daisys.

  “What you doing?” she says. “I don’t kiss nobody! Hold IT ho-ho! Wait! Let’s get this straight!”

  Things begin to accelerate—she feels his finger then pushes him away only to have the finger back more determined now and she pushes it away again only to feel the first hard slap WhAp! and see instantaneous fireworks and her teeth aching and another slap wHaP! this time she sees stars and not fireworks and a black streak and the sound of rushing like blood she knows in her ears but like a train slamming its brakes in front of her and a deeper blue streak and his face between her legs and her one-last-give-it-all-she-has attempt to stop him and a hit of some sort WHAP! rushing again and then blackness.

  When she wakes she’s in the alley. Her face is on fire, and there must be blood because her white shirt (pushed up to her chin) has a dark stain on it. In this yellow light it’s hard to tell. Her Daisys have made their way around her ankles, so she pulls them up after climbing from the boxes (her mattress for the last x amount of hours) and trying to stand. This was a first for her—she’s broken her cherry on the inevitable Nut Case Psycho Horndog that all the other girls tell stories about (“That ain’t gonna happen to me, let me tell you!”). She hears loud laughter from the coffee shop/copy center/deli, so it can’t be too late. She wonders if anyone coming out of there saw her lying in the alley, all bloody and out. She knows that somebody probably did, probably. And she wonders if that person bothered to call anyone, like a cop or something. Probably not. A person down here at this time knows the way, and the way is to stay away. You see trouble, go the other way. A woman lying in an alley beaten must be a whore.

  She remembers that he was wearing a big ring, like one of those college rings. She can still feel the plunging of the ring in-and-out, exploding her raw, his tongue the chaser (“I want to kiss the donut, baby.”), Blingity-Bling.

  She tries twice to flag a cab, but neither stop. They don’t stop near here this late. She doesn’t know where she wants to go anyway. She can’t go to Mama’s, or to her boyfriend Dante’s crib, and she knows she’s not going to work anymore tonight, that’s for sure, and she wants to go back to her apartment but doesn’t want to spend the night alone. She walks until she gets to the cardboard refrigerator box and, with the sky breaking open and washing a drizzle over the Corridor, lays awake until morning.

  Monday

  Here is Wisdom

  You know that early morning on the streets of Detroit is no free pass. You might figure that all the trouble is still asleep, and has not awakened from its nightly slumber, thus givin
g you freedom. But you’re wrong. By believing that, you’ve already proven that you aren’t from around here. You’ve already proven that this isn’t your battleground, that your head doesn’t rest (or attempt to rest) over the same dirty oppression that all Detroiters feel when they close one eye and keep the other one open, all night.

  You know that early morning on the streets of Detroit means the appearance of the crack zombies. Picture it, if you’re not from around here: remember that scene from “Dawn of the Dead,” where those actors that were painted blue (I guess they were the stars of the film, since they were the “dead”) dragged themselves over the hills toward the shopping mall, stiff-armed, one leg struggling to forge ahead, one leg dragging behind? mouths half-agape, half-closed? drooling? eyes rolled back in their heads? shitty clothes on? That’s what a crack zombie looks like. Man or woman. They’ve had strokes from doing too much crack. So they walk like zombies. The crack zombies usually get out early in the morning, when the streets are mostly empty, to get a head start on their day, and so that they can get down the street without too much interference from people who decided not to waste their lives smoking crack and having strokes and destroying themselves.

  Rise and shine, O Creatures of the Fallen Pipe! Time to stretch that/those leg(s) and try to cross a miles-long expanse known as a sidestreet in order to hobble down the still-empty sidewalk, praying a stray dog doesn’t come along and gnaw on your gimp (dead) leg without you knowing it as it drags behind you. The reason for this mad dash? The reason the crack zombie has to get out early in the morning and race down the street in what would appear to them to be a frantic pace but to normal folk is just a crawl? The reason is because they need to buy some more crack, that’s why. Their decimated body still craves it. So they’re going to smoke more of it. Decimated. Pathetic.

  Here it is—the really pathetic thing that you know, the really really pathetic thing that you know about this whole situation, is that every penny that the crack zombie hustled the day before is only going to go to buy some more crack the next day. Not even a crack stroke can stop them from wanting to suck that glass dick just one more time, then just one more time, then just one more time, then just one more time.

  Then just one more time.

  Not even a crack stroke.

  Not even becoming a crack zombie.

  Nothing.

  Father Anthony Costa

  When he wakes up he’s on the floor of his office, just inside the door near the rectory’s side entryway, and everything is in ssssssslowwwwwww motion. ESS. ELL. OH. Slow. He gets to his feet and begins the ritual: keys . . . check; wallet . . . check; watch . . . check; cellphone . . . check; mother’s crucifix . . . check. Everything is a check. Then he heads for the bathroom. It’s important for him to give himself the once-over in the bathroom mirror to make sure that any scars, nicks, or scrapes that could have occurred while he was involved in one of his lost nights aren’t too bad. There were times when he required a few stitches, though, and he would tell the parishioners or anyone else he felt like lying to that he slipped down the rectory steps again and landed on his . . . maybe his chin this time. And the parishioners or other people that he lied to would believe him. They have to believe him. Why would anyone doubt him? He’s not just the epitome of a walking cliché, an alcoholic priest (refer to statistics), but a time-tested, cry-in-his-drink, fall-down alcoholic priest. Above and beyond the call of duty.

  Since he can’t find any noticeable lacerations, step numero dos of the ritual involves cleaning up any messes or accidents that he could have possibly made during his lost night, whether they involved a vomiting session in the kitchen sink or bending a rail while staggering up the stairs. All traces of the lost night must be covered; the last thing he needs is to be deemed unworthy in the eyes of whoever might be watching or whoever might care just because he forgot to clean up after himself. He didn’t need to be judged like that. He is his own judge. It’s easy to point fingers and come up with an over-the-counter solution to his lost nights, but he doesn’t want a solution right now, and doesn’t want to be cured right now. He’s an alchy, simple as that, accept it. He’s accepted it, so everyone else should too. There, I said it! Are you happy now? Hi, my name is Father Anthony Costa, and I’m an alcoholic. Please, hold your applause until after I’m finished with my admission of guilt and the purging of my sins, okay? Confession’s supposed to be good for the soul, remember? So what’s with the firing squad?

  His ritual used to contain going outside and checking out the car for dents or damage of any kind, but that’s no longer necessary since he <“Drum roll, please.”> gave up driving. He finds it easier to give up the whole driving thing altogether rather than waking up on the rectory floor wondering if someone’s dead because of him, or dead because of his car, or whatever. He agreed with himself a few weeks ago that drinking and driving did not mix, and although he’d never been pulled over by the cops, he feels that taking himself out of the game now is probably his best move, before he damages anyone. His driving record is100%-spotless-clean-as-a-whistle-you-could-eat-off-the-thing-it’s-so-clean clean. No, he decided that the drinking was his thing, his world, and if he would have hurt someone while he was drunk, which is All News All the Time, that would have drawn someone else into his world, and that’s attention he didn’t want.

  Drinking’s only fun when it’s done by one.

  Step three of the ritual is the game of trying to find out if there were any witnesses. This one usually takes a while because you never know when someone’s going to pop up with another “I saw Father Costa at the Red Red Robin again pounding down a few cold ones” story. There have been a few of those. That’s his main problem, now that he has given up his Mustang. He has to walk to get a drinky-drink, liquid manna from heaven, and he doesn’t know how many parishioners he’s going to stumble across, or stumble into, when he’s on his way back to the rectory after a night of solo socializing. The Red Red Robin’s only about a block and a half from the rectory, but it’s right there on West Avenue for everyone to see, and West Avenue at midnight or one o’clock in the morning has as much activity on it as it does during the daytime. Punks everywhere. It would be a sin, maybe (don’t you think?), to roll a priest. Maybe God does watch out for him. Maybe God’s the one telling him to use the round key instead of the square key to get into the back door so as not to wake Father Bologna, or to use the garbage disposal to puke in rather than the sink to avoid clogs. Maybe God was the one steering him clear of oncoming cars when he drove back to the rectory from whatever hidden dive he was drinking at outside the parish limits. Maybe God did watch out for him. Or maybe God was saving everyone else from him. Whatever.

  The third part of the ritual is important, too, because he doesn’t want any of the witnesses to say he did something against his vows while he was drinking. The drinking part’s not bad, he can handle that reputation, but he doesn’t want someone coming to the pancake breakfast saying, “Guess what? I saw Father Costa in the Red Red Robin and he had his hand up some chick’s skirt! And he had his tongue down her throat, too!” He doesn’t want to hear that. That would be very, very bad. And that would really hurt him. It wouldn’t surprise him, but it would really hurt him. There were many times when he sat down to try to remember what had happened the night before only to remember that he couldn’t remember. He wouldn’t be shocked by anything that was said about him when it was said about his lost nights. Not that he thought he had it in him to break his vows, you see. Outside of the drinking, he was a faithful servant of the Church, loyal to the Cloth. It’s just that sometimes he couldn’t recall anything that happened the night before, and in those cases he was defenseless.

  The final stage of his ritual is getting something to drink. It is an important step because that first drink the next day, the one that’s right after he wakes up and performs the three other ritual steps, always gets rid of his shakes and calms him down a bit. That drink’
s vital to getting him through the morning, or at least through the first hour or so of the morning. He likes to drink that first drink in his office, because when he drinks it in his office he isn’t subjected to the ridicule that he’s sure to get from one of the hotshot bartenders who scolds him for drinking so early in the morning. They’re hypocrites anyway, those bartenders. Really, if they didn’t want him to drink at seven o’clock in the morning then why were they open at seven o’clock in the morning? Serving coffee? Tea? Please. If someone wants coffee or tea they can go over to Buck’s Eat Shop. If someone wants something to drink, they go to a bar. Period. It’s that simple. But he doesn’t have to worry about that anymore, because the bar is always open at the St. Judas rectory—what’s that, sir? A martini? Why certainly! You may have any drink you want here at the St. Judas’ Rectory Bar and Social Club. We make the finest martinis of any church in town. And on Sundays, after you get done drinking the Blood of Christ, be sure to drop by here for an after-mass chaser. We have a wide selection of post-Blood whiskeys and ales that I’m sure you’ll enjoy, and we’re always happy to serve.