by Seth Harwood
Getting out of his car, Jack catches a quick second glance from the parking attendant—the look Ralph described; people know Jack, recognize him still. As San Francisco goes, mostly sports stars and locals, not that many actors, Jack’s face is one of the few that people remember.
He gives the attendant a five and hits the revolving door without looking back, still holding the keys to his car. If it has to be moved, they can page him.
Inside the lobby, Jack looks around, trying to decide what he should do. The lobby is two stories high, with fancy chandeliers and leather couches all over. A big guy wearing a designer suit stands up from one of the couches on the left side of the lobby. Jack looks around for the bar, and the guy makes his way over, asks if Jack is “Mr. Palimas?”
“No.” Jack shakes his head, taking a good look at the guy: big nose, face like an anvil. He tries to dodge, more from habit than not, but the guy moves faster than Jack expects, cuts him off.
“You are Jack. I am told to wait.” He holds up a small version of Jack’s old headshot, probably clipped from a newspaper article covering his dark days. “Ralphie told me to meet you.”
“Oh, Ralphie,” Jack says. “In that case.” He shrugs, holds his hand out for the guy to lead the way.
“I am Michal. Please to come.” He starts toward the elevators.
“Where did you get that?” Jack points to the picture.
“Ralphie has changed our meeting from bar to our suite. It is big.” He turns and shows Jack an awkward toothy smile, as if he got an extra helping of teeth in the attributes line at birth and his mouth did its best to fit them all in. They run together at angles, jammed and overlapping. “Our suite is big so we can have party.”
A bellman holds the elevator doors open and they enter. As the doors slide closed, Jack sees his reflection and that of the smiling suit. He’s taller than Jack and wider; this guy can carry himself. Plus he’s been lifting more than just the rocks they’ve got where he’s from, and his suit is well cut, expensive.
Jack rubs his face. He leans toward the door and looks at his cheeks: pale and clean from this morning’s shave. A couple dots of dried blood have come out along his jaw since he left the house. His eyes still look tired. Though he’s put on five or ten pounds of muscle in the past two years, his eyes still look deep-set in his face—like he’s using—as if he needs a couple nights’ sleep, even though it feels like that’s all he’s done for the past two years. His skin is pale, freckled—has been since the sixth grade, when his mother moved him and his sister up from North Carolina to Boston to get away from his father and the sun. He takes a good look at his brown eyes and runs a hand over his hair, wondering how obvious it is that he has no place better to be.
He turns his neck to the side, leaning his ear to his shoulder, trying to loosen up, get a pop. In his movie, they gave him a big tattoo from his chest up onto his neck, out the top of his shirt. People liked that, were disappointed when they found out it wasn’t real. Even when Jack first met Victoria, she ran her fingers around his neck and pulled his collar down.
As the numbers light up above the doors, Jack rolls up his sleeves. He’s going all the way to the top.
The doors open onto a single large room, a two-story suite. White leather furniture fills the middle of the room beneath floor-to-ceiling windows. Jack is used to good views like the one he has up in Sausalito, seeing the Bay, but from here he can see into the hills, clear to Alcatraz, Treasure Island, El Cerrito, Berkeley, and down over Alameda and beyond. The other downtown skyscrapers surround them; it’s like seeing the skyline from the inside. Jack recognizes the Transamerica Pyramid but doesn’t know the others by name.
As he and Michal step out of the elevator, three men in suits stand to meet them, one of them wearing an awful green eyesore with wide lapels. Ralph is here, wearing another loud Hawaiian shirt.
Two guys come forward with hands extended, the one with the bad suit, and another, wearing a simple blue suit. Jack notices a fifth man standing against the wall behind him, almost blending in, wearing a suit that looks a lot like Michal’s. Michal steps back and takes a position beside the elevator doors, fading back as if he and the other guy have been posted there. They stand with their arms crossed, like sentries on either side of the elevator.
“Shake this man down,” the Czech with the green suit says, doing a funny dance in his legs, mostly, without any movement of his torso or arms.
The others laugh.
“Yes, man. You are the one from this movie.” Green Suit bends his knees and shakes his legs, brings them apart and together. “Shake this down.”
To stop this, Jack takes his arm in a two-handed shake and starts pumping, telling the guy he’s glad to meet him.
“I am Al,” Green Suit says. “It is a very pleasure to meet you.” His suit is soft, some kind of ultrasynthetic fabric, shiny and dull at the same time, with a gold shirt underneath and a dark, wine-colored tie.
“Nice suit,” Jack says, because it’s clear he’s looking.
“You like it.” Al turns to the others. “This is good guy. Style, see. Loud, like the American rock and roll.” He laughs, a full-on, head-tilted-back-and-mouth-wide-open laugh that you have to go along with. He moves his hands along his sides, displaying the green fabric.
The other two come around and start shaking Jack’s hands, the one guy in a blue suit and the other wearing a deep gray solid. Both of these guys come on reserved like their clothes. “I am David,” the guy in the blue suit says. He has a glass of scotch in one hand, raises it in salute as he says his name. His hair is cut short, in a buzz that’s grown out, or was cut recently by someone who wanted to make him look like a Chia Pet.
“I am Vlade,” the third guy says, taking Jack in a hug. “I have still the good name from our country that I do not change like them.” He looks at Al and makes a funny face, putting his lower lip up toward his mustache, as if he’s smelled something bad. “Al,” he says, with an intentionally flat accent, imitating how Americans must sound to him.
“Yes, sir, this is the man here: Jack Palms,” Ralph says, stepping forward. He has a thick cigar in one hand and a scotch in the other. He sways as he moves. Jack realizes this is why Ralph asked him along: because he’s planning on spending most of his time in the bag.
“Jack Palms,” Al says, “let us share with you some blow.” More laughs and then Jack watches Al, Ralph, and the others retreat to the couches. He can see a glass-top coffee table in the middle all ready to go, with the lines cut and set. Ralph sits down on one of the couches and starts rolling up a twenty.
Jack hesitates. Coke got him going in L.A., made him the rage at the right parties, introduced him to some of the right people, maybe even started his short movie career. But it also led him to H and his life falling apart.
Now he’s spent two years in a place where life seems dull: either because he’s taken too much out of it and he’s evening out, or because he’s got fewer dopamine receptors left to stimulate his pleasure cells—either the karmic or the biological explanation, Jack’s not sure which he prefers. He smells the remnants of the morning’s cigarette on his fingers. Even after the scrubbing, it’s still there, like a trail of where he’s been, a reminder of mistakes he’s made.
Ralph leans close to the table and snorts a line. Ralph, who’s never had anything bad happen as long as Jack’s known him, Ralph who just keeps going and going and partying. Fucking Ralph.
Jack clenches his teeth. If he can stand here, watch these guys, and play roving concierge, maybe he’ll be cured.
David cleans up a line with a freshly rolled bill.
“Mr. Jack?” Al says, pointing to the table.
“No thanks.” Jack stays where he is, hooks a thumb at the sentries. “Just think of me like one of these guys: here to work. To help you have the fun.”
The Czechs turn to him. David says, “You do not want to join?”
“You do not enjoy the blow?”
Jack shake
s his head. “I’m okay.”
Ralph holds up both hands and says, “Serious downer.” He leans toward the table, covers a nostril, and snorts a line. “Oh, yeah. Motherfucker!” He does another quick one, then lies back on the couch, powder on his upper lip. “Yeah!” he yells.
David’s still looking at Jack, so he shows him three fingers. “Three years now,” Jack says. David nods.
Vlade stands up and comes over to Jack. He claps his hands, rubs Jack’s shoulder when he gets there. “This is all right. Seriously. It means there is more for us.” He starts laughing. “There is the bar,” he says, pointing to a small brown-doored refrigerator under a mirrored wall of glass shelves and cocktail glasses. He gives Jack a slight push. “Help yourself.”
Jack starts to decline, then thinks better of it and goes over. He finds seltzer and ice, a lime, and makes himself a drink. As he turns, he sees David’s and Al’s heads bent to the table, Vlade still watching him.
“Cheers, bro.” Jack holds up his glass, just seltzer and ice, and squeezes in the lime.
An hour into drinking and snorting blow in the hotel room and the Czechs are ready to explore the San Francisco nightlife. They have a small and dwindling stash of blow that they’ll be done with by morning, that Ralph has assured them can be replenished—and then some—through his connection, a Colombian who is only in town for a short time. If Jack stays, this might actually work out; if he leaves Ralph to run this show drunk and coked up, his guess is it won’t get too far. The Czechs keep pushing Ralph about how much they can get from the Colombian; they say they want to stay in the United States and deal here, need a nest egg to start off with.
“You don’t know the community we can connect to,” Al keeps saying.
Every time he feels weak, Jack smells his fingers, the tinge of the cigarette smell, and thinks about his imperfection, the feel of the bottom rung that’s not so far behind him. It’s been so long since he worked a job that it actually feels good to be standing still, not partying, to Just Say No, like Nancy Reagan.
And then they start bouncing around the suite, hire a limo to take them around, and Jack has to share in a few laughs along with their bad jokes. But he can endure their coked-up ideas, like Al standing up through the limo’s sunroof. Going to strip clubs will be a lot easier on the eyes than looking at Ralph and his boys.
At Ralph’s suggestion, they head downtown to a place south of Market. “Shit is tight here, guys. I fucking know you’ll love this place.”
The bouncers recognize Jack as soon as he steps out of the limo. To his way of looking at it, the stretch draws their attention, so they’re looking closer at who gets out, getting ready to jar the part of their memory that might know Shake ’Em Down.
“Jack Palms,” one of the bouncers says, nodding, shaking Jack’s hand. The guy’s got a good grip, a tight black shirt on that matches the color of his short Afro, and a dark leather jacket. He wears nice shoes, shined, a tip that this place might actually be worth spending some time in. He leads the group to an alternate door and tells Jack, “VIP section, Mr. Palms. I hope you guys have a good night.” He claps Jack on the back as he shows them inside. “And I loved your movie, man.”
Jack follows the Czechs straight to the bar, thinking that this isn’t bad, that he might even be scoring himself some karmic points by staying away from the blow.
Here in the VIP section, a large room with as many dancers as men, Jack sits at the bar and watches a beautiful young blonde stand on a stage above Al and David, swaying in front of them, wearing only a small yellow thong.
Vlade sits down next to Jack, waves to a bartender with long brown hair and a pair of breasts that won’t quit. She works without a shirt on, her pasties standing at attention as she works the bar, moves toward Jack and Vlade to make their drinks.
“Hi,” Jack says.
She laughs. “That’s a new line. What can I get you?”
“Seltzer. With lime.”
She laughs again—“I got that”—and turns to face Vlade. Curly hair, long legs, big, delicate eyes. She can’t hide her surprise at Al’s green suit and gold shirt and she lets out another laugh, more of a short howl, then covers her mouth with her hand. Jack likes her already. She wears a tight black band around her neck. She looks back at Jack, looking maybe for an explanation about Al, one he doesn’t have. Her lips have a glimmer, her eyes squeezed into smiles at their corners.
Vlade orders a scotch and two more for Al and David.
“And I’m buying.” A short guy pulls back the stool next to Jack’s, holds out his hand. “Tony Vitelli,” he says, like his last name comes in two parts, the first rhyming with bite, the second with jelly. “It’s not often I have a local celebrity in my establishment.”
He speaks softly, with a slight lisp—Jack thinks of Joe Pesci—and wears a deep blue suit, a shirt with a high French collar underneath. His hair is slicked back and held behind his head in a tight ponytail. The guy’s got a diamond on his finger as big as a dime.
“I like your place,” Jack says. He shoots the bartender a look to let her know she’s included, but she’s busy squeezing a lime into his drink.
Tony Vitelli waves his hand at the idea, says, “Shake this baby down, motherfucker!”
Jack nods, acknowledging the line from his movie.
“I’ve seen that shit, like, six times. It’s no Scarface, but after Pulp Fiction, True Romance, and a few others, it’s on my shelf.”
Jack wonders where that puts it, decides to try the waters, just to talk to this guy. He hasn’t made conversation with someone in a bar or club for a long time. “So it’s top ten?”
“Of mine?” Tony Vitelli slips up onto the chair. “I’m not sure I’d go that far. Top twenty maybe.” He hits Jack on the back. “I’ll give you that, how about?”
The bartender comes close again, sets Jack’s drink down on a white beverage napkin. The more he looks at her, the more he likes what he sees. And this isn’t only because it’s the first pair of breasts he’s been this close to in a long time.
Or it could also be that.
She smiles an extra-wide one at Jack as she puts a glass of ice on the bar in front of Vlade, starts pouring Oban over it slowly.
She bites her lip, steals another look at Al, and brings her eyes right back to Jack’s.
Vlade thanks her. As she moves down the bar to tend to the Czechs and Ralph—David is leaning over the bar with a hundred-dollar bill extended from his hand—she gives Jack a look, all eyes and big red lips, that would stop a train.
“Yeah,” Tony says. “Top twenty.” He takes Jack’s hand again to shake it, already getting up off his chair. “We like your friends here, their kind of business,” he says, looking around Jack and sizing up the cut of David’s suit, the bill in his hand. Then he sees Al and he laughs, shakes his head. “That’s nice,” he says. “I got to get me one of those.”
“The suit?” Jack asks.
“No.” Tony smiles. “The monkey wearing that thing, he’s a fucking holler.”
Vlade holds up his drink in a toast.
Then Tony Vitelli leans in close to Jack, pats him on the shoulder, and says, “For tonight we won’t say anything about Mr. Anderino, your boy. But take it into consideration—” He holds up one finger on his left hand, the first finger, and Jack can see the diamond sitting at the other end of his fist. “Let it be known that he has been unwelcome here in the past.”
Jack looks at Ralph. He just got his drink, what looks like a gin and tonic in an extra-large tumbler, something more like a bowl than a glass. He stirs it with his finger, licks it off, and takes a long pull. He’s got different sunglasses on top of his head, aviators today instead of the Ray Charles specials, but most of his curly hair has come loose around his face.
“Ralph?” Jack says.
“So you’ve heard me?”
“What?”
“Nice meeting you, Mr. Palms.” He cocks his head, grabs Jack’s hand again, squinting his eyes j
ust slightly, maybe trying to tell Jack something. Before he moves away, he stops for a look at the bartender, tightens his ponytail, and smiles at her. “Sweet thing,” he says to Jack.
“Thanks,” Jack says stupidly: He means the drink, but it comes out like he’s talking about her. Tony laughs, an awkward sound, almost a bark, then turns and waves to one of his guys, points toward Jack’s party, and he’s gone. As he moves away, Jack looks up onto the stage behind the bar, where a tall blonde in knee-high white leather boots and a skin-tight leather leotard has just come out from a wing to Janet Jackson’s “Nasty.”
Later in the night, between the bartender—Maxine—slipping Jack her phone number and the Czechs working their way through a series of lap dances, Jack starts to really enjoy himself, actually have a good time without coke or booze. He’s thinking he should get out more often, when Ralph stumbles over and puts his arm around his shoulders. “We’re doing well so far, brother,” Ralph mumbles. Even leaning away, Jack can smell Ralph’s breath. He can imagine how this must have been for the young stripper whose breasts Ralph’s just been kissing—but that’s if she’s sober, which she probably isn’t.
“Real well, pal,” Ralph continues. “These boys having fun and that’s the point. We just keep them happy, get a few girls to go, and see what happens.”
Jack ducks away from Ralph’s arm to reach for his drink, and Ralph has to use both hands to steady himself against the bar, shuffle his feet to keep balanced.
“Sounds good.” Jack tucks the bartender’s number inside his jacket. “We keep them happy here. Then we introduce your Colombian friend and get this thing done.”
Ralph turns to Jack and winks at him, opening his mouth to do it. “Good for you, right?” He looks at where Jack’s just put Maxine’s number. “You just make sure you keep these boys entertained.”