The black curtain behind the stage ruffled and split. Out came James, naked, save a codpiece and Ellen’s teal shoes. Pigeon-toed, ankles collapsing from the effort, he strutted up to the mike.
“Hello, everybody. Thank you so much for coming out tonight. You could’ve been anywhere, but you’re here with me, and I thank you. We have a great show for you tonight. Frank Chu is here. Thank you so much. I am Mr. Brownstone, your host for the festivities, and I’d like to get you warmed up with a little of what I call … po-eh-tree!”
From speakers hanging over the stage, a trio of voices sang out an unmistakable gospel harmony: “Well Mary, Mary don’t you weep … Tell Martha not to moan … Martha don’t you moan. Pharaoh’s army … Pharaoh’s army … know they’ve been drowned in the Red Sea … Singing, Mary … oh Mary don’t you weep … Tell Martha not to moan … Moh-whoawhoawhoa-an …”
The familiarity of the hymn, the gospel chords unmistakable from Mahalia Jackson YouTube searches, Ray, and all those civil rights videos watched to kill time in elementary school Februaries, sent a charge through the crowd. Cell phones and flipcams were glowing.
I’m proud to say, I knew better. Because when the gospel trio got to the second “Martha don’t you moan,” the alto collapsed down into a flat, souring the harmony into something else, a chord I had heard hundreds of times before in Seth’s orange Volvo.
James, thank God, complied.
“Bonebonebonebone … bone … bone, bone, bone. Bonebonebonebonebone … bone … bone, bone, bone, bone! Now tell me what ya gonna do, where there ain’t nowhere to run.… When judgment comes for you, when judgment comes for you! What you gonna do, when there ain’t nowhere to hide, when judgment comes for you, ’cause it’s gonna come.…”
I heard Ellen gasp, and sweet relief washed over me again. She knew. Swelling in a pause, James threw up his hands in a maestro’s pose and waited as the crowd took in a deep breath, ready to sing along.
“Ehhhson, liggimowahlay, easyseemichar-LAY, lilboogodogogotay, and I’m gonna miss everybody, ImaohnahrohwiBomagawhatheyloay … wheplaywidestinadee fometosay … duhdoomackasaylillazykaymay, todlmayseewellBury MemyGan-Ganandhwenyoucaaaayn.…”
DURING ONE OF those mornings in the orange Volvo, when we were feeling wild enough to skip precalculus, Seth and I tried to transcribe every word in E. 1999 Eternal. How could we have known, back then, how much damage we were doing to our future selves? Because every time “Tha Crossroads” comes on, everyone, well, everyone I know, at least, starts singing along incoherently, but smiling, and I, who know the actual words, feel cheated, at least a bit, because there are only so many songs a bunch of kids who grew up together can sing together without feeling territorial, nasty, or horny, and when these moments come unforced, it’s nice to be thinking the same things as everyone else.
I understand. I am being insufferable. It has occurred to me several times over the years to just go ahead and fake it. Mumble along with the crowd and hit the only distinguishable parts that everyone knows—“can anyone anybody tell me why? We die, we die, we die …”—and the unmistakable, feet-splitting “And I miss my uncle George.”
And yet, Ellen’s radiant face, a swimming pool at night, the kids stomping around, incoherently babbling along to this song, which could have been about anything, really (how would anyone know?), but, by dint of the music video, which featured some overly lit, dry-ice-choked stage on which the five Bone Thugs, solemn angels, clasped their hands, and pleaded for the Angel of Death to not take away their friends, that we all knew was about death, and not our deaths, but a scattershot brand whose quickness we would never quite comprehend, and, of course, the understanding that my days on earth might end tonight, all of it, dare I say, the synthesis of these melancholy, conditional thoughts, opened up a battered vault of nostalgia.
I staggered a bit. I thought of Ronizm, Bone Thugs, quesadillas in plastic bags. For some reason, I felt very sad about my sister. Once all this was over, I was going to give her a call.
JAMES HOBBLED OFFSTAGE to riotous applause. A woman sidled up next to me at the bar. Her breasts were bundled up in a T-shirt that read ZENGATRONIC.
This Zengatronic smiled. She said, “James told me to tell you that he apologizes for stealing your girlfriend’s shoes, and if you come backstage, he will both return the shoes and reimburse the cost. Please follow me.”
I reached into my pocket and hit the button of my pager. I saw Ellen do the same. Then, up near the stage, at the end of the front row of folding chairs, a head, hair grease shining in the floodlight, popped to attention.
The heavy bolted upright, reached beneath the lapel of his leather overcoat. Steeling himself for the sight of a gun, Finch held his breath, clenched his pecs, anticipating whatever takedown he would have to employ. But the heavy only pulled out a pager, clicked it a couple of times, grunted, and settled back into his seat.
Mr. Brownstone’s performance had sprayed a viscous satisfaction over the crowd. Everyone was smiling wanly at one another, faces glistening, happy to share in the melancholy connection found only when we sing childhood songs with strangers. Especially sad, silly songs. Finch, thirty-nine in August, had never heard “Tha Crossroads” before, but even he, forever cynic, now hardened to a seemingly impending death, could feel the joy knocking around his chest reach its tendrils out and join hands with these sappy children.
The heavy, he noticed, had craned his neck to look back at the bar, where Lionface was talking to some Asian kid in a power tie and a sturdy-looking girl whose vintage dress and hat could not quite cover up the fact that she belonged somewhere in the Marina. But before he could speculate on the identity, or, perhaps, utility of the two costumed kids, the lights dimmed.
Followed by a lone spotlight, Frank Chu trudged up the steps to the stage. Someone had put him in a beige suit, but it wore badly, loose in the ass and shoulders, dragging at the cuffs. Sweat glistened off his brow, and even from his seat, Finch could smell the unmistakable pungency of ginseng root or ginkgo leaf or one of those mediciney smells that, along with rotting fish and edible frogs swimming in kiddie pools, turn every Chinatown into a summertime horror show. At least for most of us.
His tortoiseshell sunglasses hung low on his nose, but even their opulence, squared off and clearly of the right brand, could not cover the deep lines that creased his cheeks, the gristly fat that hung down from his chin. Tightly gripped in his right hand, dented and sweating, was a can of Budweiser. Without his sign, which stood propped up against the bar, he could have been any half-cocked Chinese grandfather in any of the karaoke bars on Geary or down on Jackson, ready to sing a ballad to God knows what, probably a cherry blossom, in the preferred Chinese guttural baritone.
Good Lord, Finch thought to himself, Frank Chu looks old.
Maybe it was the oppression of the spotlight, but as Frank Chu stood at the mike, soaking in the whoops from the crowd, blinking against the flashes of the digital cameras, he cowered a bit. After the hoots and catcalls died down, he adjusted the mike stand down, and began his raspy, rhythmic speech.
“I am glad, ah, you are all here to support, ah, my fight against the 12 Galaxies, ah, and their treasons and perversions against humanity, this is a kind place where they have given me many things like checks for one hundred dollars for advertising, ah, their bar on the back of my sign and many free complimentary Budweisers. For many years, the 12 Galaxies, ah, controlling their hurricane devices, ah, have committed war crimes against humanity, ah, like turning on their wind machines, ah, to drown the population of New Orleans because of their ancestries. The 12 Galaxies have continually withheld payment from me and my family, led by President Bill Clinton, he and the 12 Galaxies have withheld payment as they, ah, turned us into movie stars, ah, and we have support of many movie stars, ah, and they agree the 12 Galaxies must pay.”
A cheer rattled through the crowd. Even the heavy managed a slow clap.
“It is the su
m of three point five billion dollars, and for many years, I have notified the authorities of this injustice done to me and my family. In 1998, the San Francisco Chronicle wrote a cover piece on my protests, bringing to light the injustice done to me and my family by the 12 Galaxies, who have withheld payment for many years. I thank them for their help. In 2001, the San Francisco Examiner named me the city’s best protester, and I thank them for helping me expose the battle between the eighteen thousand galaxies and the 12 Galaxies. But tonight is about the 12 Galaxies nightclub, which, for many years, has supported me with checks for a hundred dollars and many free complimentary Budweisers. In 2002, the club opened to help me expose the 12 Galaxies and reclaim the three point five billion dollars owed to me by President Bill Clinton.”
Someone yelled, “Impeach Clinton!” Frank Chu grimaced.
Finch had no real opinion on that. He looked back at the bar, but Lionface and the kids were gone.
Instead, he opened up his cell phone and stared in again at the image of Sarah’s hairy bush. The heavy grunted, tried to slap away the phone. In one quick motion, Finch lifted up his shirt and pulled down the waist of his pants, exposing an inch of pubes and the remains of what had once been a ripping six-pack. He snapped a photo. Smoky, dark, and badly pixelated, the photo made his pubes looked like mold creepers, but the shadowy effect had restored his six-pack to some of its prior glory. Finch typed, “LET’S COMPARE???”
The heavy jammed something into Finch’s ribs. It was probably a gun.
Finch hit SEND.
SORRY, WRONG CLOSET
Zengatronic led us through the crowd, past the stage, up to a blacked-out door. Again, I pressed the pager. Again, the thick-necked Guido type in the front row started upright. Sitting next to him was some older guy who reeked of half-formed, if not fetal, authority. Were these our saviors? I tried to make eye contact, but then thought better of it. Zengatronic knocked on the door and then turned to us. Her mouth stretched out into a receptionist’s tight smile. Ellen, hyperventilating, opened up her handbag. For a second, I thought she might puke right in there, but then I remembered.
The gun.
The door swung open.
Before committing myself, or us, rather, to whatever was beyond that door, I looked back at the crowd for Tovah Bernstein’s bleach-blond hair. There it was, just one row back, incandescent in the dimming overhead lights. Not indelicately, she leaned her head out into the aisle, looked me straight in the eye, and nodded.
Okay.
THE BACKSTAGE AREA at the 12 Galaxies was just a well-stocked utility closet with a few beat-up couches pushed up against the wall, and a coffee table, dorm-issue, stacked up high with alternative weeklies and pizza boxes. James was plopped down on one of the couches. He motioned for us to do the same. Zengatronic closed the door and leaned up against a rusty cylindrical boiler.
Through the wall, we could hear the crowd cheer, and then a raspy, muted voice on the PA. James, for his part, looked confused.
What a horrible place to die, I thought.
I heard a bang, a thud, the clang of metal.
I looked over.
There, by the boiler, alone, my unstoppable girlfriend lay with her hands clutched over her stomach. She looked confused as blood spurted between her fingers and onto the cement.
Zengatronic pointed the gun at my chest. She said, “It’s your turn now, Mr. Brownstone.”
Who was she talking to?
On cue, James stood up, reached under the couch, pulled out two Uzis, and ran through the door.
Frank Chu trudged back down the steps, where he was greeted by a crowd of autograph seekers who had printed out facsimiles of his signs. Finch felt the nudge of the heavy’s gun against his ribs. Leaning over, he hissed in Finch’s violated ear, “Stay cool. Stay real cool. What’s about to happen is part of a show, got it?”
The spotlight, Finch saw, had come to rest on the velvety black curtain behind the stage. As the music kicked back up, the curtain ruffled and then split. Mr. Brownstone ran out onto the stage with an Uzi in each hand, screaming something in Chinese or some Asian language.
Then, guns pointed straight in the air, Mr. Brownstone began to fire away.
EVERYTHING MOVED IN such slow motion that Finch even had the time to think, Wow, the reports are right, things do move in slow motion. The chunks of plaster shot out of the ceiling looked as if they were falling through water, the screams of the crowd registered in a palm-dragged baritone. When the heavy grabbed Finch by the collar of his shirt, he could feel each muscle in the heavy’s fingers, could sense the tightening of his forearm, the surge of power gathering in his haunches. The crowd did what crowds are supposed to do in these scenes—they ran.
Finch knew, albeit abstractly, that he was also screaming and cowering, but he could also feel, at least somewhere in his body, an unctuous disbelief over what was going on. As the heavy dragged him by his collar toward an unmarked door behind the stage, he could still assess the lack of any real danger. Sure, there was an insane man on stage firing off two Uzis, but Mr. Brownstone kept the barrels raised high, and although the chaos made it impossible to be sure, after the first few rounds, which had brought down the ceiling, Finch was sure, 51 percent sure, that Mr. Brownstone had switched over to blanks.
But before he could confirm any of this, the heavy dragged him up to a metal door and started knocking.
THE COMPUTER WORE PUKA SHELLS
Do you remember when Chris Rock was talking about Columbine and asked, “Whatever happened to crazy?” He was right, of course. The attempts to psychologically or sociologically or spiritually explain the massacre arose—with a grim, zombie hunger—out of the graves of our Protestant work ethic. Because we knew we were somehow to blame, we felt the need to work toward some absolution, to find the cure. (The use of the collective pronoun here could be read however you’d like, but I’d prefer you be generous.) When the usual viruses were rounded up, the public (again, be generous) let loose an exhausted sigh. Chris Rock’s question was our panacea, the mantra we could all chant to convince ourselves of what was true—sometimes people, even kids, go crazy and kill a bunch of other people, even kids.
I mention it because I am thinking again about Cho Seung-Hui and why I have never been able to cast him off with a nice, measured “Whatever happened to crazy?” The reasons are obvious, but just as we can no longer think about Columbine without routing it through Chris Rock’s question, I, specifically, can no longer process anger without routing it through Cho Seung-Hui.
Hyung-Jae said something about it once. We were back in that soggy bar around Columbia, and we were making jokes about Cho Seung-Hui again. It was late. The Yankees were playing in Seattle. We watched a few innings, made more bad jokes. At some point, Ichiro Suzuki came up to the plate and slapped his eight billionth single of the year. Hyung Jae said, “If that Jap has inspired gooky kids in America to think, ‘Hey, I can drag this tiny dick onto a baseball field and slap singles around the infield,’ then Cho is like Super Ichiro because he allowed every angry Asian kid in this country whose dad sucks or who is taking shit at school or who is getting no pussy to just go ahead and think, ‘Hey, I actually can shoot all these motherfuckers.’ ”
We both laughed because it was true. Then he asked, “Isn’t some part of you a little bit proud over Cho?”
IF I TOLD you my answer, would you believe that as I stood over Ellen’s quaking body, gun in hands, I, hipster dinosaur, was ready to shoot Zengatronic down?
There was a knocking at the door. Zengatronic reached down for the doorknob.
The door flew open. I shut my eyes and fired. Six or seven times.
The first bullet hit Finch in the left shoulder. The second split his clavicle ridge and exited a half inch from his spine. The third hit him in the right thigh, shattering his femur. The fourth missed. The fifth missed. The sixth hit the heel of his left loafer. The seventh missed. The eighth missed.
Of course, Finch thought, of course.
But other than the bullets, he couldn’t quite figure out what was so goddamn obvious.
DIG YOUR OWN GRAVE AND SAVE
Who knew that shooting blindly was so easy?
Until it happens, every cop spends an unhealthy amount of time wondering what it feels like to get shot. Cynic Finch had always assumed that it wouldn’t hurt as much as it should, at least not at first. Nothing was numb, nothing was in shock. Instead, he could feel the bullet lodged in his shoulder, the one now floating in the back of his shattered thigh. If he had been able to close his eyes, he was sure he would have been able to see the slugs, the rifling on their sides, their heads, split open like mouths, calling out, feebly, their caliber.
He drifted off. As his brain drained itself of thought, the fish wriggled free and swam off. Had he had his faculties intact, Finch would have noticed, with pride, hopefully, that the only words remaining—the raised Atlantis, dead, perhaps, but still urn burial—came from one Sullivan Ballou, a Union Army major who had died at Bull Run. On the night before the battle, Ballou had written a letter to his wife about his duty to serve his country and how it might conflict with, truncate his love for his wife and family. Finch, like everyone else, had come across the letter in Ken Burns’s Civil War documentary.
Eyelids flitting, vision narrowed, Finch could hear the unmistakable, lilting fiddle refrain that had accompanied the reading of Ballou’s letter. For the first time in years, he recalled standing with Sarah on the edge of the cliffs at Montara State Beach. He had just accepted his position within the homicide division. Sarah was wary of the long hours, the stress it might put on their young marriage. By way of rebuttal, Finch had memorized the entirety of Ballou’s letter. At Montara, backed by ten thousand yellow wildflowers, the unruly Pacific crashing below, he had recited the letter to her.
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