In Nine Kinds of Pain

by Leonard Fritz

  “I said I don’t think so,” she replies.

  “I think so,” Dallas says. He leans over, and picks up a roll of duct tape off the coffee table.

  Thursday

  Here is Wisdom

  You know that if you ask a child who grew up in the city of Detroit what they want to be when they grow up, there would be very few who would want to be cops. To be a cop in the city of Detroit is to hate yourself, to really have a dismal complexion about yourself, because it’s an ungrateful, unsatisfying job. And everyone in the city knows it.

  Detroit cops traditionally make less than every other police department in the state and are barely a blip on the radar screen when it comes to the rest of the country in getting paid. And when it’s time for contract talks between the city and the police unions, the cops have to be satisfied with a 0% raise the first year, followed by a 0% raise the next year, and a 0% raise the year after that. Otherwise, the city threatens to start laying them off.

  The city has even bounced checks when paying off their honored heroes, their Thin Blue Line. No shit. It takes a Federal Monitor to come in and oversee the payroll just so the city doesn’t screw the whole department, and even then the checks they write aren’t good. And then they get fined by the Feds for bouncing their checks, which costs them more money that they claim they don’t have. And then they resent the police department even more.

  They do this to the men and women who wear a badge and try to prevent crime in the Murder Capital of the World.

  And because the pay is so bad, no one wants to be a part of it. You’d have to be a sucker to risk your life in Detroit, because you can barely get by on what you make working 12-hour swing shifts and chasing perps through dark alleys while getting shot at and having pitbulls on your heels, with no one on the street willing to help you catch the guy who just robbed them ten minutes ago because they know that guy will be back on the street in a half-hour and, when that crook gets back on the street, he’ll try to kill them.

  Thankless.

  And because the pay is so bad, and because no one wants to be a part of it, you have to lower your standards just to fill out the rosters in the precincts. You have to overlook people who’ve had a past, maybe a criminal past, maybe a past that included drugs, all to make sure you have enough uniformed officers walking the streets that could care less if they lived or died.

  Unappreciated.

  And because the pay is so bad, and because no one wants to be a part of it, and because you have to lower your standards just to fill out the rosters in the precincts, you get cops who put on a uniform as sheep’s clothing, although the wolf still wants to play. You can take the drug dealer out of the boy, but you can’t take . . . how does that saying go again? A few years back, the Detroit Police Department had to do its own internal sting, to catch its own officers who were selling dope. We’re talking dope that was confiscated from crackhouses, dope that was pinched in busts, dope that was strong-armed from a guy on the streets who knew somebody. And then these cops, these dirty cops, would hustle the big bulldogs into buying their stash, or else they’d arrest them and bust the whole operation. These cops had nothing to lose, they thought. Hell, their pay sucked! And they were putting their life on the line, for what? The city didn’t appreciate them, the citizens didn’t appreciate them, and when they looked in the mirror . . .

  Very few kids in the city of Detroit want to grow up to be cops.

  “Fuck being a pig,” the kids will say.

  Father Costa and Liz

  Father Costa is dizzy with grief, dizzy from the heat, dizzy from the absence of the two things his world needs right now: booze, and love, sweet love. (One could be both, he once knew, but that wasn’t the case right now.) Through the swirls of the many cosmic chases, the life of the universe in the balance, Costa knows what he has to do—he has to find Dallas, so he can find his love.

  He doesn’t knock on Liz’s door because it’s half open. He sees her lying semi-conscious on her bed, her hairy crotch making its presence known from beneath her damp slip, sickening him, her brace making her leg stick straight out, cigarette ashes mocking him from her dirty sheets.

  “Liz,” he says. “Liz, wake up now. I need to talk to you.” He considers slapping her awake, but knows that it must be Satan who wishes him to do such a thing.

  Liz looks at him slowly. She’s still drunk.

  Costa smells the second-hand alcohol fumes coming from her. All true drunks have that second-hand alcohol smell, even when they’re not drinking. And they have a rotten smell, like something inside of them has given up, curled itself into a ball, and died. Liz has the honor of another smell as well, the ashy stench one can really only obtain by living in an ashtray. But he tries to ignore it. He needs to know where Dallas lives. He saw his love, last night, after he followed her, after she left the convent and went to the diner, get into Dallas’ car and drive off with him. And she didn’t return to the convent, not last night, not yet.

  “What the fuck do you want?” Liz says, slurring.

  “I need to ask you something,” he says. “Where does Dallas live?”

  She rolls on her side, saying to him, “Yeah, I’m really going to talk to you about Dallas! I don’t give a fuck about Dallas!”

  He opens his eyes and lifts his head.

  “What did you say?”

  “Carpenter, son of Mary and Joseph,” she says.

  The six women. Angelic white silken gowns, bare thighs and ample breasts, glistening, teeth as pearls, hair as black chiffon, skin as olive-brown, almond eyes, lashes that dance as butterflies, ruby lips that call to him. Only the first of the six women speaks to him. The rest remain silent, observing.

  Costa walks to them through the thick darkness, their path drawing him closer. The First holds out her delicate hand. He grabs it hastily and guides it to his mouth, his lips, his cheek. Her scent, he is immured by her. She makes the hair on his neck bristle and dance. Her face meets his, and she captures his lower lip between her lips, and rolls it, and her tongue caresses it, and she changes it abruptly with his top lip, caresses it with her peppery tongue as well. Night cypress and apple blossom freeze about them. Her hands comb his thick auburn hair, part to ears, down his neck to his shoulders where it ends. She is shorter than he. Her body soaks into his, molded and soft, velvety, feminine.

  She withdraws from him enough to capture his glare, she a libidinous shroud.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” he says. He looks behind him, to the encampment. They all sleep.

  “I am too, my love,” she says. Her words sound like the wind.

  The other five beautiful sirens stand behind her, they too a libidinous shroud, waiting for their chance to hold him. The First steps back, and the Second approaches. She, too, touches his open lips, until the Third approaches, to touch his lips, followed by the Fourth, and the Fifth, and the Sixth, to touch his lips. They encircle him, join their hands and enclose him, guide him into the woods, away from the others.

  A bed. They usher him to the edge. He turns and sits down. They remove his burgundy headdress from his shoulders. The Third takes it and wraps it around her narrow waist. She grins eerily, a wide-mouthed grin, at him. Second cradles his left foot while Fifth cradles his right. Second peels his dusty sandal from his foot and flings it into the darkness of the woods haphazardly. He stiffens, hand raises, but he doesn’t remark. Fifth repeats the gesture. In unison they stroke the edges of his feet. Second undulates, retching, her mouth wide to his foot, as a snake’s, as if her jaws unhinge and she is a canyon. She regurgitates a waterfall on his foot, warm fluid like virgin olive oil on him, the smell sweet like apricots. Fifth copies her gift, both his feet drown in warm-sweet apricot. Fourth kneels on the bed behind him and crawls to his back, her fingers stiff as palisades. She reaches around him and unfurls the cloak tied at his chest, off his shoulders and down his arms, her hands around his sinewy waist to the rope that holds it on, it pried loose and removed. Sixth knee
ls between his thighs. She looks into his face. She places her palms evenly on his chest and fondles it, tracing small circles immodestly. She brings her fingers together as a kiss near his breastbone then slides them near the apple of his neck along to the tops of his shoulders, all the time burrowing under his dark-burgundy tunic, allowing it to drop down his arms to the bed.

  Unexpectedly, he is sitting naked.

  Second buries his left foot deep between her thighs to the warmth that waits there. Fifth repeats the gesture, hers with moisture. Fourth draws him shoulder-to-pillows onto the bed, laying him back. He doesn’t resist. Fourth curls around his left arm as a serpent, her loins capture his forearm, his hand visible beneath her exposed arched hind end. Sixth appears on the bed’s opposite side, and coils around his right arm. Again, he doesn’t resist. Third slithers to become his pillow, her soft lap accepting his tired head with indulgence. First rises up between his knees; curled as a hunched cat, then tenderly slides onto him, straddling herself onto his stomach. “Are you enjoying yourself so far?” the beautiful siren asks.

  He is quiet and closes his eyes.

  First undulates, retching, her ruby-lipped mouth a canyon, regurgitating the warm sweet-apricot liquid onto his chest. It is thick, slow to bead, and rolls down the channels that his rib cage provides. First smacks her hands into the warm pool on his chest and waxes the syrupy fluid over his entire torso, down past his navel to his virgin crop, back up his torso to his virgin beard. “Are you enjoying yourself still?” she asks.

  Again, he is quiet.

  He watches as the heavens open up to him, the stars part, and the light splinters through, escaping its eternal boundaries set by the lunar tides and the luminous spinning bodies, making itself known to him. He orbits the splinter of light, hummingbird-like, then pierces its blossom, violating its sap with his beak, then flutters away into the distant cluster of stars and beyond into infinity.

  “Do you believe now your ministry to be that of the Son of Man?” First asks.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Are you the Son of Man?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Will you spread the Word of God to the Twelve Tribes of Israel, and beyond?” First asks.

  “Yes, of course,” he replies.

  “Will you take the Whore of Magdala as your wife?”

  “Yes, I will,” he says. The words don’t sound right to him.

  “And will you die for the sins of Man?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t,” he says.

  She kisses him again. As their faces meet, he can see himself reflected in her now-reddish eyes. He is the lamb, he sees, being lead through the jugular street Via Dolorosa in time for Passover. He pulls back. They sit on the blue-rug grass of the mount, legs folded, facing each other. He is now clothed. The other sirens are gone.

  “Has God made himself known to you yet?”

  “In what way?” he asks.

  “Has he made his words clear to you yet?”

  He eyes her. “Not really,” he says. “I don’t really know. If you want to know whether or not he has contacted me such as the way you’ve contacted me, then the answer would be no. He has not taken me to the woods, sat down with me face-to-face, and discussed with me what will happen to me next. He hasn’t done that.”

  “I see,” she says. Even when she is being condescending to him, he notices, he still wants to take her and breathe her in. There is very much Mary in her. “Well, don’t you think, as your father, he should at least make known to you what he wants, what his desires call for? I mean, I don’t think I’m overstepping my bounds when I tell you that I contacted you before and told you what fate had in store for you, and still, you have never heard from God himself once about what his plans are for you. Don’t you find that strange, peculiar?”

  He grins. “Yes, I guess he’s not being nice, is he?”

  “Well?”

  “Well, nothing,” he replies. “I desire Mary. I need to find her. I want to have children with her, our fruit alive to confirm our love for each other. I wanted to remain a simple carpenter, but instead of being a carpenter I became a minister and have no children. And I’ve accepted that I am probably the Son of God. There’s no other explanation for some of the miracles I’ve performed in the last several years. Before, I thought the amazing things I did were coincidences. Now I know the truth, that they were gifts, small gifts and large gifts, from God himself. God did bring me to the world to perform his miracles, and I accept that. And I will do my best for him. I will make him proud of me. But I won’t be recompense. He created Man a sinner, not me.”

  She sighs. “But you say nothing of your death.”

  There is stillness, a swollen cold between them.

  “What about your death?”

  “What about it?”

  “You’ve prayed about it to your father, who never answers you. You said you will do your best for him and make him proud. Well, but, don’t you remember that he wants you dead?”

  “Of course I remember.”

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  Her perfect eyebrows arch, and she shrugs. “Well, are you going to go through with it or not?”

  He feels a cold string crawl up his back, to the nape of his neck. “Listen, I can’t give you that answer, because I don’t know the answer yet. I expect God to reach out to me soon enough. I’ve asked him to talk to me about my death . . .”

  “Execution.”

  “. . . and I expect that he will, eventually. If he doesn’t, then he’ll be the one without, because I told him through prayer that I won’t go through with it.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. I told him in prayer that I’ll still spread his word, the Word of God, but as a prophet, and as a minister, not as the Messiah.”

  “That’s what I’ve been saying all along,” she says. “Spread his word, go ahead. But you don’t have to die to do it. Think about it . . . how silly does that sound? You will die to get his word out across the masses. Ridiculous! How many of the prophets that were hanged on a tree at Calvary got their word across by dying? How many? I couldn’t name one. They just died, and then the next one came along. Same with you and John the Baptizer—really, if not for you continuing his preaching, who would remember him this day? Not many. He said his will, then was executed like the rest. The same thing will happen to you. A few hours after your death, after the crows have eaten your eyes and the dogs have chewed off your feet, who will remember you? Some family, a few friends? They will deny the day they met you.”

  “I . . . sort of feel that.”

  “You mean you know it. Like Peter, that little coward. How many times do you think he will deny knowing of you after you’re death? At least a handful of times before your body grows cold! Am I right?”

  “You’re right,” he says. “I know that of him.”

  “And the rest will scatter like sheep in a thunderstorm! None will admit to you. None.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right,” she says.

  “But you know what?” he says.

  “What?”

  “I’m willing to do my God’s will. I am. I really think I can do it, if he asks me.”

  She laughs. “Do what? What has God himself asked of you? Tell me his exact words.”

  “I’ve never heard his exact words.”

  “Precisely! Precisely! So how can you do his will? What will you be ready to do? Even you don’t know yet.”

  “I have to go,” he says. He takes to his feet and walks past her.

  “Wait. Wait,” she says.

  He turns. She is before him, arms spread, white silk swirling as her own breeze flurries from inside her. He goes into her arms and holds her; again she lights a subtle fire in him.

  “You know, you will always have me. Right? You know that, right? You will always ha
ve me.”

  “I know,” he replies, “I think that’s what frightens me the most.”

  “Then you are ready,” she says. “You are ready to die. I will tell you where she is, so you can go find her. She is in need of help. She is in danger. I will tell you where she is. And you will die.”

  Liz shoves him off of her, and lights another cigarette.

  The Pimp Rules

  There are things that Ronald Frady knows.

  Ronald Frady knows that he has seen Man Number Two, the Canadian, before but doesn’t know if Man Number Two remembers him. He hopes that Man Number Two doesn’t recognize him. It would give their cover away, and they would be angry over that, Frady believes. It was about a year ago, one of the first times that he let himself be known to a regular crew who knew him as a cop. That was when the sky first began to fall. Frady remembers being just a slight bit nervous about walking in to a scene where he, at one time or another, busted everyone at the party. But the regulars in the neighborhood needed to know that he flipped, for his own protection. Frady was brought to what he discovered later was a crackhouse. It was dark. They walked through an alley which was no longer an alley—it had been blocked off from regular traffic by steel guard rails, put in by the city, so now it was an overgrown-with-vegetation-and-zombies tunnel. Even on a bright summer day, the alley was dark enough for someone to hide in plain sight. When they got to the house, which looked as though it should have been torn down along with the rest of the block, they had to wedge themselves through the bent iron gate (most of the houses in the neighborhood have iron gates on the doors and windows, for the protection of whomever lives there—these bars usually become a death trap if the house catches on fire and have prevented many a firefighter from being able to stop a house from becoming completely engulfed in flame) and crawl in through the kick panel of the old back door. There was graffiti on the outside: “Now entering hell” with an arrow pointing to the door. They were met by two pitbulls on leashes. Frady thought that, if the pitbulls wanted to, they could bite right through those weak chains. He hoped the thought wouldn’t occur to them. Frady’s friends (well, not actually friends; more like business partners, guys who knew the streets from the other end of the law) told them they were going to have a talk with someone and for him to take a seat. The room was lit only by lava lamps. The chair Frady sat in was missing its cushion (the spring up his ass told him) and smelled, but the person who usually sat in that chair wouldn’t notice, because he was probably high. The windows were boarded with plywood painted black. There were three white guys in the corner smoking a bong. They were the typical neighborhood white boys—skull caps over shaved heads, hooded sweatshirts, gold chains, obvious tattoos, black leather name-brand jackets. Probably paying the house a visit from the suburbs. Three white boys trying to be down with it. Trying to be somebodies. Call themselves “wiggers” with pride. One of the few black guys, the host, who Frady had busted before, kept serving them, and they kept paying. But this place was more than just a crackhouse. It had its bend. There were three women on leashes, one black and two white, wearing dog collars, stripped naked. Man Number Two was enjoying himself with these hoes, Frady remembers. He had a young fat woman, not many teeth in her head, very rashy, on the end of his leash, and he was making her bark like a dog to get more Oxy. It was the first time Frady had seen anyone snorting Oxy. Man Number Two looked Frady’s way and smiled at him, and Frady nodded back. Usually in a place like this, guys don’t acknowledge each other unless they come in together or are about to leave together. Acknowledging another man is dangerous in a place like this—an acknowledgment could be looked at as a high sign, a signal that you’re down for whatever, that you might want to carry some guy’s luggage in your overhead compartment, and encounters like that never turn out well. It usually ends with one guy killing the other. So Frady knew that this man, who would later be introduced to him as Man Number Two, was new to this whole scene. Man Number Two then took one of the girls <“She looks to be about ten or eleven.”>