Madman on a Drum

by David Housewright

It was specifically because of Lehane’s that the St. Paul City Council adopted what it labeled “a nuisance ordinance.” The statute allowed them to shutter any business they wanted if they could prove “by a preponderance of evidence that the property owners operated in a manner that maintained and permitted conditions that unreasonably annoyed a substantial number of people and endangered the safety, health, morals, comfort, or repose of considerable numbers of the public.” Yet, while the ordinance had been used to threaten and shut down several other less notorious bars over the years, including a pretty decent African American–owned blues joint, Lehane’s remained in business. Go figure.

  I opened the door and was slapped in the face by the smell of cigarettes and beer and the sour odor of industrial disinfectant. I tried not to react to it. The bartender glanced at me when I stepped inside. His eyes worked me over, wondering if I was trouble, how much, and whether or not he could handle it. From the way he smirked and turned his head, I doubt I impressed him much.

  There were six other men in Lehane’s. At first glance you would have pegged them as working class, except I doubted any of them actually had a job or filed a tax return. More likely, they all made their living in the so-called underground economy. I would have bet my Audi that each of them had a criminal record.

  The men were divided into pairs. One pair sat at the bar near the door, and another sat at the opposite end, as far away from the first pair as possible. The two other men sat at a table in the corner, their heads close together, speaking intently—at least until I somehow interrupted their conversation by moving to the center of the bar. When they spotted me, they both leaned away from each other and frowned. The others looked at me with an expression of casual indifference before returning their attention to the TV above the bar—I could live or die or go to Iowa for all they cared. Maybe it was my clothes. I was overdressed because I was wearing a clean shirt and jeans. Maybe if I went outside and rolled around in the gutter.

  Instead of a legitimate sport, they had ultimate fighting on—think professional wrestling with real malice, real violence, and real injuries. The customers didn’t seem to be rooting for anyone in par tic u lar, just watching the mayhem, maybe taking mental notes on how to hurt and disable. “Wooooo,” one of them hummed when a fighter head-butted his opponent, hurled him down on the mat, and proceeded to pound his face with a forefist. “I bet that hurts.”

  “He’s a pussy,” his companion said without indicating which fighter he meant.

  The bartender seemed annoyed that I distracted him from the program. He needed a shave and a haircut, his eyes were unsteady, and his belly strained the buttons of his shirt. I set a ten on the bar in front of him and said, “Shot of rye and a bottle of beer. And quarters for the pool table.”

  “No bottles,” he said. “Only cans.” A good policy, I decided. Having been attacked with both over the years, I could testify that aluminum cans were definitely less lethal than broken glass.

  While the bartender’s back was turned, I fished a pack of Marlboros and a brand-new Bic lighter from my pocket. I had bought both at a SuperAmerica store down the street. When Karen asked why, I said, “Props. An actor needs his props.”

  I was lighting the cigarette when the bartender set the shot glass and beer in front of me. “Law says you can’t smoke in here,” he said.

  “What the fuck do I care?”

  The bartender gave me a small squat glass to use as an ashtray. “I don’t want to see no butts on the floor,” he said, even though the black rubber tiles were already littered with cigarette butts as well as crushed pretzels, peanut shells, and kernels of buttered popcorn. There weren’t any baskets on the bar, so I figured the debris must have been what remained of Lehane’s happy hour spread.

  The bartender took the ten and returned a moment later with my change, including seven quarters. I used four of them to buy a round of pool at the table in the back. I racked the balls and carefully selected a cue from the half-dozen sticks collected in a busted wooden frame screwed to the wall. I found only one that was reasonably straight and still had the tip attached. I was chalking the cue when she walked in.

  The men had merely glanced at me, found me uninteresting, and looked away. Karen they studied with the intensity of an astronomer encountering a new celestial body. An unescorted woman in Lehane’s? I doubted they could believe their luck. “Hey,” said the guys nearest the door as she passed. One of them patted his pocket, no doubt mentally counting his money, wondering if he had enough to pay her fee.

  Karen spoke first to the bartender. The volume on the TV was up, and I couldn’t hear the conversation. They spoke for a long time. Or maybe it was just me counting the seconds. More and more I began to feel that visiting Lehane’s wasn’t the best notion I ever had. If it hadn’t been for Victoria, for my dismal failure at learning anything more about where she was and who took her, I would never have done it. Desperation makes fools of us all.

  Karen made the rounds after she finished with the bartender, speaking first with the pair of jokers at the door, then the pair at the opposite end of the bar, and finally the men at the small table in the corner. I watched her the way a parent watches a small child at a crowded park while pretending not to, giving the kid her freedom, yet ready to pounce at the slightest provocation.

  None of the men blew her off—I wouldn’t have, either. They all smiled when she approached, all sat up straighter when she asked her questions, and none of them seemed remotely hostile. Yet all of them looked her up and down and licked their lips as if she were an ice cream cone and it was a hot day. The men nearest the door in particular—they stared at her breasts when she spoke to them, not her eyes, and when she left they tilted their heads so they could get a good look at her ass as she walked away. Instead of smiling, they leered. They called to her when she settled in with the bartender a second time.

  “Hey. Hey, honey.”

  Karen glanced over.

  “What you doin’ lookin’ for this Mr. T asshole when you could have a real man?”

  Karen averted her eyes.

  “Seriously, me and Marky can help you out if you’re lookin’ for a good time.”

  “I’ll go first,” Marky said. He nudged his pal in the shoulder. “Joey here, he likes sloppy seconds.”

  “Fuck you, man,” said Joey.

  The bartender chuckled loud enough to be heard over the TV. He said something and laughed some more. Karen smiled weakly. The boys at the end of the bar kept at it. The one called Marky told a joke about the difference between a good girl and a nice girl that cracked up his pal and the bartender. Karen draped the strap of her purse over her shoulder as if she were about to leave.

  “No, no, don’t go,” said Joey. “How ’bout you let me buy you a drink?”

  At the same time, Marky slid off his stool and casually moved to the door.

  The bartender backed away from Karen, as if giving his customers plenty of room.

  “No, thank you,” Karen said. Her voice was steady and clear.

  “What? I ain’t good enough for you to drink with?”

  “No, thank you,” Karen repeated. She slid her hand inside her bag.

  “You fuckin’ look at me when I’m talkin’ to you.”

  Karen didn’t look. If she had, she would have seen Marky sliding the bolts at the top and bottom of the door into place.

  “Who do you think you’re dealin’ with, bitch, treatin’ me like that? Like I ain’t even worth lookin’ at?” Joey said. He came off his stool and approached Karen from the edge of the bar. “You ain’t friendly at all.”

  Marky swung wide so that he could come up on her from behind. The other four men watched from their seats. None of them were looking to get involved in the action, yet I knew that none of them would turn it down when their turn came. As for the bartender, he seemed bored, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes half closed, as if this sort of thing happened all the time.

  Marky was about three steps
behind Karen, who kept looking straight ahead. Joey was an equal distance to her left. They were closing in.

  “You know what you need?” Marky said. “You need a good fuck.”

  “Hey, pal,” I said.

  Marky turned. I was behind him. He had forgotten about me. Everyone had.

  He said, “Wha—”

  That’s all he said.

  The pool cue was in my hands. I had rotated it so I was gripping the thin end. When Marky turned I swung it like a baseball bat. It made a loud whoosh as it cut through the still barroom air and then a cracking sound as it exploded against his face, catching him across the upper lip. I felt the contact rippling through my hands and arms and deep into my shoulders as I followed through. Marky’s head snapped back and his legs came out from under him and he splashed against the dirty rubber floor, bounced once, and settled among the cigarette butts, pretzels, and popcorn.

  I glanced at Joey. He didn’t seem to understand what was happening until I moved toward him, gripping the stick like a batter walking to the plate. He drifted backward until his spine was hard against the bar. His arms were spread wide in a pose of surrender, and his eyes were locked on mine as if I were a bad traffic accident and he couldn’t make himself look away. I halted, rested the pool cue on my shoulder, and smiled. Joey just stared, his mouth open, like a man whose brain synapses were too far apart. I walked slowly past him to the door. I opened the bolt at the bottom, then the top, and moved back into the bar. None of the men spoke a word to me, so I didn’t speak to them. I carefully stepped over Marky’s body. He was moaning softly now; blood dribbled from his nose and from both corners of his mouth. I still had three balls on the pool table, and I sank them one at a time without a miss. Afterward, I returned the pool stick to the rack.

  “I’m ready to leave. How ’bout you?” I said.

  Karen nodded and slipped off her stool. “Gentlemen,” she said and walked briskly to the door. I followed. Nobody would meet my eyes; no one spoke until I moved past Joey. He said, “Asshole,” so I stomped on his kneecap with the outer edge of my shoe. I don’t know if I smashed it, but Joey went down screaming just the same. I caught his hair as he fell and held him up while I punched his face until my knuckles became sore.

  I was breathing hard when I left the bar; sweat had pooled under my arms and at the small of my back.

  “Are you happy now?” Karen asked. I had unlocked the Audi with my key-chain remote, and we were talking to each other over the roof of the car. “You’ve been wanting to hit somebody all night. Now you’ve had your chance. Does it make you feel better?”

  “Am I missing something?” I said. “Did you not know what was going on back there? Did you not see Marky locking the door?”

  “I saw.”

  “What the hell do you think that was about?”

  “I know what it was about.”

  “They were going to rape you, Karen. They were going to hold you down on the bar and spread your legs and rape you. Every man in that place—”

  “I know.”

  “They were going to rape you and abuse you and degrade you simply because you were there and they’re all pissed off at the world and why should you be happy if they’re not—and do you know what would have happened afterward? Nothing. I doubt that they would have celebrated. I doubt that they would have even given each other a high-five.”

  “McKenzie, that wasn’t going to happen.”

  “That’s because I was there. I can’t believe you’re giving me attitude over this. I was helping you.”

  “I didn’t need help. I had it under control.”

  “What were you going to do, Karen, when they put their hands on you? Kill ’em with kindness?”

  Karen’s hand was in her bag. When it came out, she was holding a .380 Colt Mustang pocket gun. She slapped the semiautomatic on the roof of my Audi, and my first thought was Hey, lady, that’s a fifty-thousand-dollar car. My second thought I spoke aloud. “You had a gun?” That’s why she had draped her purse over her shoulder and why her hand was inside it. “What are you doing with a gun? You said no guns.”

  “I said no guns for you. Lucky I did, from what I saw in there. You would have shot those men.”

  “Hell, yes,” I said.

  “So instead you beat on them. That should make you happy.”

  “Karen—”

  “Tell me, McKenzie. Do you think either of them will be any less of a jerk tomorrow because you beat on them?”

  “Karen, I was concerned for your safety.”

  “No. You were upset that you haven’t been able to do anything for Victoria Dunston, and you took it out on them.”

  “Get in the car.”

  Once we were both inside the Audi and she had put her gun away, I said, “Karen, I have a lot to apologize for.” She turned in her seat and looked at me as if she suddenly thought I was interesting. “For the way I’ve treated you, the way I spoke to your friends.”

  “I’ve already forgiven you for that,” Karen said.

  “I know. I just wanted you to know that I was sorry. I have no reason to get down on you and your pals. You’re true believers. You’re honestly concerned about helping people.”

  “We sure don’t do it for the money,” she said.

  “Only I am not going to apologize for what I did in Lehane’s. I didn’t know you had a gun, and even if I had, I still would have stepped in.”

  “I wish you hadn’t.”

  “Tell me, Karen. If those men had laid hands on you, would you have used the gun?”

  “I would have pulled it.”

  “Yes, but if they weren’t afraid, if they didn’t back off, would you have squeezed the trigger?”

  She didn’t answer. I don’t think she had an answer. She turned in her seat and gazed out of the passenger window looking for it. After a few moments, she said, “You think I’m naive, don’t you?”

  “A little bit.”

  “I’m not. Truly, I’m not. I know these people. I know what they’re capable of. I had one offender, he wanted to show his girl a good time, so he ordered a pizza and then shot the delivery boy in the back of the head for the money he had in his pockets. Another offender, a woman, she was angry that her boyfriend discarded her for someone else, so she burned down the boyfriend’s apartment building, killed seven people. The boyfriend wasn’t even home.”

  Another offender kidnapped a twelve-year-old girl and terrorized and traumatized her and the people who loved her for a little bit of money, and maybe some payback for an imagined offense that occurred over two decades ago, my inner voice added. What madness is that?

  “None of it makes sense to me,” Karen said. “I understand why they do the things they do. I understand their motives. Yet the motives so often pale in comparison with the enormity of their crimes.” She shook her head sadly. “I don’t forgive them, McKenzie. Who am I to forgive them for the terrible things they do? Except this is the difference between you and me—I want to help them. I want to change them. I want to make sure they don’t do terrible things again. I mean, what’s the alternative if we don’t help these people, if we don’t try to change them? What else would you do with these people?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Karen, what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this, anyway?”

  “You mean sitting in an expensive car outside a sleazy bar after being nearly assaulted by a half-dozen degenerates?”

  “Exactly.”

  “After I earned my criminal justice degree, I worked at Lino Lakes as a jailer. I had taken a lot of psychology courses, and my plan was to work as a juvenile probation officer. I wanted to get a sense of what prison for kids was all about first, so I went to work for the juvenile detention center in Lino Lakes.” Karen stared out the window of the Audi some more. “Prison is a terrible, terrible place,” she said. “A bad place.”

  It’s supposed to be, my inner voice said.

 
“It chews people up in a way that’s… that’s hard to explain unless you’ve seen it firsthand. I saw kids, I don’t care what they did to get there, they were kids, but after a few months—what is it the philosophers say? ‘If you live where they live and are taught what they are taught, you’ll believe what they believe.’ For these kids, prison became their teacher. Most of what they knew about life they learned behind bars. I suspect that’s what happened to your friend Scottie. Anyway, I decided I would work to keep people out of prison. I know it’s not a popular goal. Yet”—she turned and looked hard at me—“when my head hits the pillow and I look back on the day, no matter how crummy the day is, I can always say ‘The world’s a little bit better place because of what I did.’ ”

  “Where have I heard that before?” I asked.

  I started the car, and we drove off. After a few blocks I said, “Did you learn anything? Back at Lehane’s, did anyone say anything interesting?”

  “The bartender didn’t recognize any names, but he said he remembered serving two men who fit the descriptions of Scottie and the T-Man. He said they reminded him of one of those ads for a health club, the kind with a before and after photo, Scottie looking wimpy and the other looking muscular.”

  “Did he remember anything else?”

  “No.”

  We managed to negotiate Spaghetti Junction, the confluence of Interstates 94 and 35E and Highway 52, without getting wrecked and were heading west when Karen’s cell phone rang. I could hear only her end of the conversation.

  “Yes… When…? What did he say…? You’re kidding… No, tell him nothing. I’m on my way.”

  Karen folded her cell and slipped it back into her bag.

  “What?” I said.

  “Take me back to the halfway house.”

  “Why?”

  “Scottie Thomforde just rolled in.”

  9

  Special Agent Damian Honsa worked hard to keep his reassuring smile in place. He paced the length of Shelby’s dining room and back again, his hands clasped behind him, while we all watched from chairs around the table. “What do we know?” he said.