NOT AN AMERICAN

by Stanley W Rogouski

  "Do you have a recent photo?"

  “No. Not really. She hates to get her picture taken."

  "Why?"

  "Oh. It's complex."

  "I bet," Avellanos said, laughing. "This is going to sound sexist but I bet she has a nice personality, right?"

  "Oh no. She's not ugly at all. She's not traditionally beautiful like your mother, but she's cute. I think I have a current picture of her at home. I'll bring it on Monday."

  "You know what?" Avellanos said. "I have all I can handle in that area right now so don't worry about it."

  “So you don't want a job and you don't want a girlfriend."

  "All I want is world peace."

  Kozlowski reached into his wallet, and took out a business card.

  "I can't give you world peace," he said, "but I owe you, and I owe you big. Anything you want, anytime, call me. You're lost on a highway 100 miles away and you need a ride, call me. You need a loan, call me. You need someone to bail you out of jail, call me. You want my firstborn, call me."

  Avellanos put the envelope and the Corsican vendetta knife back in his messenger bag. He zipped it up and threw it over his shoulder. He opened the door and stepped down onto the floorboard.

  "Let's go out on Monday and have a drink," he said. "You can pay. How's that?"

  "That's perfect," Kozlowski said.

  Avellanos took the business card.

  "Just don't flash your gold on the loading dock."

  Kozlowski extended his hand.

  "I'll see you on Monday," he said.

  Chapter 12 - The Harp factory

  Contrary to what her probation officer had told her, Cathy Chegoffgan wound up having to go in front of a judge after all. It was close to midnight before she left City Hall. When she passed the property room on the way out, and was reminded that it had closed at 3PM, and wouldn't be open again until Monday morning, she kicked the door and came close to shattering the window.

  "Fucking pigs," she said, throwing her arms in the air as she walked out of the front entrance and down the staircase to Reagan Plaza West. "Jesus Christ I hate cops."

  Cathy Chegoffgan walked over to her car, a 15-year-old Ford Taurus with a ratty looking paint job and a parking decal on the front window that said "Northeast Youth Protection Services Winterborn II Division, on Reagan Plaza South. She reached into her pocket, thankful that she had her keys and wallet, but getting angry all over again when she realized she wouldn't have her cell phone again until Monday. She kicked the door. It made her feel so good that she kicked it again, and again. Finally, after she had calmed down, she got inside, and started it up. She pulled out onto Reagan Plaza South, and continued past Scahentoarrhonon Station.

  Abandoned storefronts, shuttered houses, dead factories and warehouses went by in the window as she drove towards Route 1081 in the distance. The rain had let up, but the off again, on again drizzle continued to drape a thin layer of water over the car's windshield, reminding Cathy Chegoffgan that she needed a new set of wiper blades. She made a right turn onto McClellan Avenue after passed a Rite Aid, a state liquor store, an auto body shop, and a Dunkin Donuts.

  "Fucking cops," she said, laughing to herself when she noticed a pair of Poison Springs Metro Police cars in the parking lot of the Dunkin Donuts. "Eat your fucking jelly donuts, pigs."

  When she saw a large, aluminum harp, a Brobdingnagian facsimile of the musical instrument bolted to the face of the Aeolian Harp Building, Cathy Chegoffgan turned onto Gibbon Street and parked her car up against the curb. She got out, slammed the door, and took a package of cigarettes out of her pocket. She looked at the rain water glistening on the old cobblestone street, and felt the drizzle against her cheeks. The full moon drifted in and out of the clouds.

  "You have an extra one of those cigarettes?" a middle-aged African American man said, coming around the car as she lit the cigarette with a disposable lighter.

  Cathy Chegoffgan dropped the cigarettes on the ground.

  "Oh fuck you Charles. You scared the hell out of me."

  She leaned over, and picked up the cigarettes.

  I need a cigarette bad," Charles said.

  She handed Charles one of her cigarettes, and 10 dollars. He put a paper bag with a pint of beer on the hood. She reached up and lit his cigarette with the disposable lighter. She lit her own cigarette and leaned back against the side of the car.

  So Charles, do you by any chance have an Obamaphone I can borrow?"

  "A phone? Me? I was going to ask if I could borrow yours."

  "Yeah, I didn't think so," she said. "I'll have to go to the Dunkin Donuts."

  "Those Indians don't let you use the phone."

  "Ah, they'll let me use it."

  "Hey Charlie, who are you talking to?" a man said, coming around the car

  Charles was a familiar figure on Gibbon Street, a homeless man everybody seemed to know and like. He and Cathy Chegoffgan had an arrangement. Being only 20, she could not purchase her own beer, but she would give him 5 dollars, and he would buy two, once for her, and one for himself. He also watched over her car. The other man was a stranger. He had blue eyes, brown and gray hair, a thin face, and a scraggly beard. He had one arm up bundled up into an old t-shirt. A look of horror and pity came over Cathy Chegoffgan's face when the man's arm slipped out of the homemade sling. Twisted and mangled, it looked as if it had been broken and had healed without being set.

  "Oh my God. What happened to your arm?"

  "A cop broke it."

  "Welcome to Poison Springs," she said. "So what brings you to this hellhole?"

  "I dunno. I just kind of drifted in."

  "I'm looking forward to drifting out."

  "You still going to Los Angeles?" Charles said.

  "I'm thinking about it."

  "It's not all it's cracked up to be," he said.

  "I need to go to a warm climate," she said. "I'm an old lady now. I can't take the cold anymore. I'm not looking forward to this winter."

  "Tell me about it," Charles said.

  Cathy Chegoffgan picked the 40 ounce bottle of beer up off the hood, and walked in the direction of the metal harp at the end of Gibbon Street, the two men following along. When she reached River Street, she looked over at a clock further down the block through the fog. It was after midnight. A police car sped by, then a flatbed truck. The Aeolian Building was completely dark, but the metal harp glistened with light and rainwater. She turned to Charles's companion, reached over, and touched his arm, trying to conceal her expression of horror as she ran her fingers across his mangled limb.

  "You should get that looked at."

  "I'll be alright."

  "You need to get it broken again and set."

  "That takes money."

  "Get it somehow."

  She stepped down onto River Street. She made a motion to throw the cigarette down into the gutter. Charles grabbed her hand.

  "That's waste," he said.

  "It's only a butt."

  "Only a butt?" Charles said, laughing. "You see Andy," he added to the man with the mangled arm. "That's white privilege in action. She can afford a whole pack of cigarettes, so she only smokes each one half way through."

  "White privilege," Andy said. "I haven't had a whole package of cigarettes in 20 years."

  "You can have these."

  Cathy Chegoffgan tossed Andy the package of cigarettes, flicking her wrist under her leg. They hung in the air for a second, then hit the sidewalk after he couldn't reach out with his bad arm. A look of stricken remorse came over her face.

  "Oh God I'm sorry," she said, picking up the cigarettes and handing them to Andy. "I wasn't thinking."

  She dug into her wallet and came up with a 5 dollar bill.

  "Here. This won't get your arm fixed, but it will get you a six pack, or another package of cigarettes or anything. I'm sorry."

  "Thank you."

  "That's really nice of you," Charles said. "Andy, say thank you."

  "I alre
ady did."

  Charles gave him a stern look.

  "Say it again."

  "Thank you."

  Cathy Chegoffgan stepped down off the sidewalk and crossed the street.

  "Just don't let anybody key my car," she shouted back from the opposite sidewalk.”

  She got out her keys, opened the front door of the Aeolian Building, and went inside. Andy stared at the big aluminum harp bolted onto the facade of the renovated factory building. He seemed transfixed.

  "You stare at that building every night," Charles said.

  "You don't think there something evil about it?"

  "Like what?"

  "Like something happened there a long time ago. Like someone might get murdered there."

  "It's a harp factory. Nothing evil's going to happen in a harp factory."

  "That's not a harp factory. It's an apartment building for rich people."

  "That girls not rich," Charles said. "She's an artist. She wants to take my photo, or paint me or something. That's why she's nice to me."

  "She dresses like a man," Andy said.

  "She's OK. If she were better looking she'd be a bitch."

  “She'd be good looking enough if she brushed her hair and put some makeup on."

  "She's OK," Charles said.

  "They always put the artists in first. Then they put in the rich people."

  "In this town?" Charles said. "Ain't no rich people ever going to move to this town. They never should have kicked out the Mexicans."

  "I'm glad they kicked the Mexicans out," Andy said. "America for Americans."

  Cathy Chegoffgan walked up one flight of stairs to the second floor, unlocked the door, and stepped into her apartment. She picked up an envelope from "River Gardens Renaissance Property Management" that had been slipped under the door and put it, down on a table next to the door, along with the pint of beer. She walked over to the window, opened the drapes, and looked outside. The big metal harp, which had so transfixed Andy, had hung out over River Street for close to 100 years. In 2008, a real estate company from New York, gambling on the extension of a commuter railroad out to Scahentoarrhonon Station, had converted the old Aeolian Harp Building into loft apartments. When the planned railway extension never materialized, and the company went bankrupt, the city took possession of the property. Cathy Chegoffgan, who liked the metal harp almost as much as the cheap rent and the mostly vacant building, had moved in the previous year.

  "I fucking stink" she said, unbuttoning her flannel shirt and sniffing her arm pits.

  Cathy Chegoffgan pulled off her clothes, threw them on the floor, and walked into the bathroom, coming out 20 minutes later in a pair of clogs with a large towel, scrubbing more than drying herself off as she paced around her apartment. In front, under the windows, overlooking River Street, was a pair of aluminum desks, an old Dell workstation, a printer, and a pair of flat screen monitors. In back there was a makeshift darkroom, a filing cabinet, a futon, and a small television set. She put on a pair of sweats, booted up the computer, went into the kitchen, pulled a bag with two everything bagels off the top of the refrigerator, and grabbed the pint of beer off the table. She sat down, drinking the beer and eating the two bagels. When everything came up, she, navigated to a folder labeled "scans," and printed off the photo of the clean cut John Avellanos she had taken in the food court of Scahentoarrhonon Station with her smart phone.

  On the wall near the windows, was a makeshift gallery of photographs, mostly 8 x 10, black and white portraits of men. She walked over to an empty spot in the wall near the window, and tacked the photo of the short haired John Avellanos next to the portrait of the long haired John Avellanos, and two photos of Dan Sedgwick. The first photo of Sedgwick was a close up of his face, his tan skin, blue eyes, and large, bushy mustache. The second was a larger print, taken inside the pump house. He was leaning up against an American flag without his shirt, displaying his lean, sinewy body and collection of tattoos, his face, so clearly in early middle age, a contrast to the youthful John Avellanos. She walked over, booted down the computer, picked up the pint of beer and went to the back of the apartment. She turned on the TV, and lay down, drinking the beer, and switching from channel to channel until she settled on a local news show.

  "Fireworks erupted last night between Republican Mayor Michael Catalinelli and his Democratic Party challenger Elizabeth Felton," the teaser said, "as Mayor Catalinelli claimed Ms. Felton's half-brother was actually a Catalinelli supporter."

  Cathy Chegoffgan put down the beer, and leaned forward into the TV. It was a low key setting, with three chairs, the moderator in the middle, and Catalinelli and Elizabeth Felton on either side, but the teaser had been accurate. Fireworks had erupted.

  "Miss Elizabeth Felton can sit there with that superior smirk on her face," Catalinelli bellowed. "But if she ever succeeds in running anything but her mouth she might find out that it's a lot more difficult to govern Poison Springs than it is to talk about governing Poison Springs."

  "Mayor Catalinelli," the moderator said. "Maybe we can take a timeout and break for a commercial?"

  "Ms. Felton tells me that I haven't come to terms with the changing demographics of the United States," he continued, filibustering. "What is that but a passive aggressive way of calling me a racist? I wonder if Ms. Felton's great grandparents said the same thing to my great grandparents back when her family owned the mines, and my ancestors worked them, back when they counted money with their clean, soft hands, and my Italian immigrant great grandparents worked 16 hour days down in those stinking hell holes."

  "Mayor Catalinelli," the moderator said.

  "That's OK," Felton said, pushing her wire frame eyeglasses further back, a gesture that Catalinelli would often mock in private. "I'll yield the majority of my time to my good friend Michael Catalinelli."

  "Elite liberals like Miss Elizabeth Felton want to spread our wealth," the mayor continued, "but when it comes to their own families, they're not quite so generous. Don't smile at me Ms. Felton. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You grew up in comfort. You went to private schools. You went to a good university. You never had to serve in the military. And what happened to your brother?"

  "Mayor Catalinelli," the moderator said. "This is no time for personal attacks."

  Cathy Chegoffgan found herself giggling at the way Catalinelli kept pointing at Elizabeth Felton who just smiled contemptuously.

  "Maybe Miss Felton can tell us who Martin Ruiz is?" Catalinelli said.

  "Why don't you do it for me?" she said.

  "I will," he said. "30 years ago in Cincinnati, Ohio, a certain liberal United States Senator from Poison Springs met a naive Cuban immigrant named Maria Ruiz, who was working as a maid at the fancy hotel where he was staying on our tax dollars. She was charmed with the tall, dark, handsome politician, so elegant, so educated, and so smooth, so, shall we say, American. Smooth he was. American he wasn't."

  "My father was a ladies man," Felton said. "That's common knowledge. I'm not sure it disqualifies him as an American. And he wasn't a Senator 30 year ago, so he wasn't staying anywhere on anyone's tax dollars."

  "He never acknowledged his son, your brother," Catalinelli said, "but you're still defending him, doing your best to keep your father's lack of personal responsibility a secret from the voters of Poison Springs."

  "OK," the moderator said. "I'm going to stop this right here."

  "Cut me off," Catalinelli said. "I'm already done."

  "I've never made a secret of the fact that my younger brother is living with us in East Poison Springs," Felton said, "just the opposite. My brother came to Poison Springs last November, 10 months ago. I'm sure my opponent remembers November 21. It was the day he failed to get the streets plowed. I'm sure he remembers how he privatized the city's emergency services in order to give the contract to his rich friends. I'm sure he remembers the video clips of cars slipping and sliding about on our streets. I'm sure he remembers how one of them went viral on YouTube
and got over three million views, and how the City of Poison Springs became ever so briefly an international laughing stock. I'm sure he remembers November 21."

  "Miss Felton," the moderator said.

  "My opponent, and everybody in the local media received my press release a month later and made no comment," she continued, talking over the moderator. "I can forward you all another copy if you like. But why are you bringing this up now, Mayor Catalinelli? Because you're behind in the polls? Because you're losing? Because the people of this town finally see through your act? And so you're picking on my little brother, a proud, hard-working, unpretentious young man. Why not respect his desire for privacy. At long last Mayor Catalinelli, have you no decency?"

  Catalinelli laughed.

  "At long last, have you no decency," he said. "Does every liberal spend his whole life waiting around for a chance to use that tired old line?" he continued. "It was old 50 years ago. But there we have it. My opponent's brother chooses to work at a low paying menial job instead of admitting any public connection to his sister. Ms. Felton accuses me of being a racist and a xenophobe, but her own brother, who's half Hispanic, and a veteran of the US military, maintains strict neutrality between the two of us. Martin James Ruiz, like every other solid, unpretentious, unsophisticated American is far more conservative than a pampered, Ivy League trust fund brat like Elizabeth Felton. Maybe he'll even vote for me."

  "His name is John," Cathy Chegoffgan said to herself, laughing, and turning off the TV. "He doesn't answer to Martin."

  She grabbed the pint of beer, sprung up, and booted her computer back up. She opened up Google, and typed in variations of "Felton" and "Ruiz." There were hundreds of entries for Elizabeth Felton and twice that many for Nicholas Felton. There were hundreds of results for "Ruiz." But neither Martin J. Ruiz nor Martin James Ruiz even had a Facebook or a Twitter account. Only a few entries came up, a newspaper article about a marijuana possession bust when he was in high school, all the way back in 2001, another one announcing his service in Iraq, and a profile on an "Iraq Veterans Against the War" website. He had one comment.