by Chris Stuck
* * *
I thought working at night would make me feel invincible. I thought I would own the night, but all I really owned was my loneliness. It was the same for Ernie. The way he latched on to me said I was probably the closest thing to a friend he’d had in way too long. He talked a lot about women and what pains in the ass they could be, especially if we broke out the liquor early and caught ourselves staring at Pam Grier.
Even though Ernie had been divorced for a while, he still referred to his ex as “the wife.” He’d say how, before she asked for the “big D,” which was what he called the divorce, the wife told him that he’d turned into a beast. “She actually used that word, man. Beast! Believe that? Like I got fangs or something and hair all over my body. I mean, goddamn, she didn’t even mean it in a good way, like in bed, you know?” Sometimes, he’d lower himself onto the black-tiled floor, his knees popping and cracking, and he’d start doing push-ups, or try to anyway. “She didn’t mind me being an animal when a burglar broke into our house. Oh, no, she didn’t mind that shit. I had him hog-tied before he knew what hit him.” He attempted a push-up, but his arms didn’t cooperate.
The one time Ernie asked me about Sylvie, I pretended everything was fine. I never let on that she’d bailed on me before I even took this job. I could tell it made him jealous. I had a woman to go home to, and he didn’t. It was one of the only times he ever got shy. He mumbled, “You two engaged?”
I said, “No, we’re just living in sin for right now.”
He wheezed a laugh that didn’t become much more. “No kids then, huh?”
I shook my head, no, but I didn’t actually say the word.
* * *
When Sylvie and I first moved, I tried to play up the suburbs as more civilized than the city. I practically bankrupted myself taking her to the best restaurants: all-you-can-eat crab joints, restaurants with cloth napkins, Italian places with real Italian waiters who grated big wedges of cheese over your pasta. Sometimes, I’d let the waiters keep grating and grating just to see how long they’d go. I pointed out forests and fields of grass whenever Sylvie and I passed them. “Like grass is some shit I’ve never seen,” she’d say. I’d reel off facts about the suburbs, like the median income or the price of an acre of land. I ran down crime statistics. I said how there were more potholes in cities, how cities were harder on cars and lowered their resale value, and how city people were usually myopic, “which means they can’t see far.” She said she knew what it meant, even though we both knew she didn’t. I barely knew what it meant, and I was the one with a few college courses under my belt. “More people in cities have to wear glasses than anywhere else,” I told her. “Because everything’s always up close.” Of course, she turned it around on me, talking about how she liked things up close, and obviously I didn’t.
I just couldn’t understand why she wanted to go back to our old block. It was an okay-looking neighborhood and everything. There were stately brick houses with clean yards, some good people. But none of that mattered when you could still buy weed, rock, and heroin any time of day, a gun, too, if you wanted. It was a place where it wasn’t strange to hear sirens or pops off in the distance a few times a week. One or two, and it was probably firecrackers or a car backfiring. More than that, and it meant somebody was getting clapped. At least one person in each of our families had been shot, some of them killed. Men, women, even children.
* * *
My third week on the job, Ernie started in about his brother’s bail bond business. “It’s booming, partner. There’s always gonna be criminals to bail out.” He was tuning a police scanner that he’d brought in from his van. “It doesn’t really get interesting until they don’t show on their court dates, though. That’s when the skiptracing starts. Ralph’s skiptraced all over the country. Geez, all over the world.” I’d had to bail out a few hood cousins so I already knew about bail bonding. Whenever Ernie started with the cop lingo, I knew not to take him seriously. “It’s really a racket when you get right down to it. Bail bondsmen cater to the criminal element. They can get away with things cops can’t.”
We listened to the police scanner, teasing out from the static a conversation between two cops about a movie one of them had seen over the weekend. They said something about a blond’s nice ass.
Ernie continued. “Ralph’s been to West Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas.” He bent his thick fingers back one by one, counting. “He had to fly down to Meh-hee-co one time to get some little chico wanted for a bunch of robberies.” Ernie rubbed the stubble on his cheeks. This was another questionable story, but I let it go. I’d learned to enjoy his altered sense of reality. It made me not feel so bad about being drunk.
Ernie and I swigged our beers and gazed out the large museum windows into the night. “I moonlight with him every now and then when I need the money.”
I smiled, remembering how he’d made a point of Ralph’s marriage to a Black lady.
“You think you’d ever want to help us out?”
I laughed. “I’m not a bounty hunter. I’m not trying to get shot either.”
“Believe me, you won’t get shot. The most I’ve ever had to do is tackle somebody and sit on them till Ralph threw on the cuffs. I get paid up to two grand just for doing that.”
“Really.” My funeral bills were so overdue that a deep-voiced collector was leaving messages on my phone once a week. I would’ve had to sell a kidney just to partially pay them off.
“I’m telling you,” Ernie said, “it’s easy. You look like you’re in great shape. You play ball in high school? What am I saying? All you guys play ball, don’t ya?”
“I did, but I don’t know about all of us. I bet you’re gonna ask if I like fried chicken next.”
“Man, you know I didn’t mean it like that. Besides, I love fried chicken.”
I draped my arm over his shoulder and pulled him to me. “Of course you do, Grand Wizard. Haven’t burned any crosses lately, have you?”
Ernie pushed me away. “I’m telling you. You got nothing to worry about.”
My block back in DC flashed through my mind.
“Nothing will happen to you. I’ll set it up.”
I didn’t have one reason to take him seriously.
* * *
During my fourth week, Ernie and I really started getting cockeyed on the job. A twelve-pack of beers one night, a fifth of Wild Irish Rose the next, Thunderbird and Rebel Yell after that. Ernie was shadowboxing with the mannequins by then. He stood in front of Clint Eastwood playing draw, and I stood drunk and antsy by the front desk. He ambled over to me, tossing the gun from hand to hand, around his waist, and under his leg.
“That thing’s not loaded, is it?”
He said, “What am I, an amateur?” and set it on the desktop. His hair was curled up more than usual and pasted to his slick forehead. “If Patty could see me now. She’d say I need to get my poop in a group.”
Stupidly, I asked why she left him.
You’d think I’d just insulted his mama. He whipped his head around. His eyes blazed, but then they died out. “I don’t know, man,” he said.
The alcohol made me serious all of a sudden. I put my hand on his back, but I didn’t leave it long.
“You know what it was? She started taking these fucking classes at the community college, psychology and whatnot. Then she started hanging out with one of her teachers. She’d come home wanting to analyze me and shit.” He said after she kicked him out, she actually let the teacher move in.
I messed up by asking if he thought the wife was hooked up with the teacher.
“Hell no. Patty ain’t gay.” He looked at me for a long time. “How you gonna ask me something like that?”
I told him I was sorry.
He spun away. He got down and did one enraged push-up. Then he lowered himself back to the floor. “I told you about the burglar, right? I had him hog-tied before he knew what hit him.”
“Yeah, you told me.”
“
Who’s gonna protect Patty now? That teacher?” He rose one creaky joint at a time and plopped down next to me at the front desk. He tipped his chair back against the wall and took a nip from the bottle. “Man, all the big Ern wants is a nice woman to be with. A good meal, some cable TV, maybe a glass of wine. And I don’t even drink that much.” He swallowed a long hit of Rebel Yell and took a wincing breath. “I’m a Christian. I wear a plastic watch, and I drive a minivan.”
I laughed to fill the dead air around us. Ernie chimed in halfheartedly. He handed me the bottle, and I partook of its pleasures. “You ever been shot?” I picked his gun up off the desk.
“Nope.”
“You ever seen anyone get shot?”
“Shit yeah. What about you?” He focused on me. His bloodshot eyes brightened. He hoped I had a ghetto story to tell.
I lied and said no, I hadn’t.
* * *
Sylvie had been gone for a month and a half, and I was spending a lot of time on the couch. My house still had a landline, an old beige touch-tone phone that I kept next to me, the mismatched black cord coiled up like a snake. When she first left, I took satisfaction in watching all the sports I wanted since she always griped when the channel rolled over to ESPN. Eventually, though, I started watching all her shows. Bundles of Joy. Babies Do the Darndest Things. Even Oprah. I’d sit there and dial her mother’s house, and I’d always hang up after the first ring. On rare occasions, after I’d hung up, I’d call her a bitch in my head and feel like a criminal. I was drinking like a fish, smoking like a chimney. Somehow, I even lost my cell phone and was too messed up to get a new one. I was back on my bullshit.
So, it was never a question of if I’d do something stupid but when. Conveniently, it happened on a Sunday, my night off. I was home, holding down the couch as usual, my fifth beer balanced on my chest. The phone was on my stomach. In the lockbox next to me, the metal plating of my gun reflected lamplight as clear as a mirror. When the phone rang, I thought it was just the bill collector, but then I thought it could’ve been Sylvie. I was so out of it that I almost expected to hear her voice when I picked up. But it was only Ernie on the other end, saying my name.
“Everything all right?” He’d never called me before. I didn’t even remember giving him my number.
“Yeah, all’s fine.” He inhaled deeply. A long silence passed.
“Well, what’s up?”
“Nothing. I’m just calling to see if you want to make some money tonight.”
“Tonight? We’re supposed to be off, aren’t we?”
“It’s my brother, Ralph,” he said. “He needs some help. I told him you were interested. He needs two guys this time.”
I sighed. “I never said I was interested.”
“It’s not anyone violent. Ralph’ll handle everything. He probably won’t even need us, and we’ll get paid just for showing up. He said we can split the bond collateral three ways. It’ll be a little over a grand apiece.”
I could hear that collector’s bottomless voice echoing in my ear.
“One thousand dollars,” Ernie said. “For doing nothing.” After a moment, he said, “You’d be doing me a favor, too. Seriously, I could use the money. The wife’s got the irons to my ass on the alimony.” His voice took on a low, pitiful tone I’d never heard before.
I stood and walked a wide circle in the living room as the long phone cord curled around my feet. I didn’t say anything for a time.
“Shel, you there?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe you can just watch this first time. See how it goes down.”
“I don’t know.” I looked at my beer. “I’ve been drinking. Well, actually, I’m drunk.”
Ernie said, “Shit, so am I.”
Surprisingly, that was all it took.
* * *
I drove over to the Waxsonian, where Ernie and his brother were already waiting next to a large truck. The fat-tired Ford was as red as a fire engine. All the spotlights and long antennas made it look like a humongous remote-controlled toy. Ralph appeared to be in his late thirties, shorter than Ernie, about my size, and stocky as a silverback. He wore a camouflage baseball hat with military insignias.
“Ralph Zabriski. Nice to meet ya.” He removed a hand from the pouch of his sweatshirt. We shook firmly. He had a large holstered revolver perched on his right hip; a flashlight and stun gun were on his left. “Now that we’re all here,” he said. “Tonight, we’re gonna be violating one Josephine Powell. She goes by Phiney.”
“Violating,” I said.
“It’s a law-and-order term. Don’t take it literally. Just means we’re taking her into custody.” Ralph popped a stick of gum into his mouth and continued. “Phiney’s staying over at a house somebody rented for her. I’m gonna knock on the door and ask her to step outside. If she’s cooperative, I’ll cuff her. You guys will be around back just in case.”
I asked what crimes she committed.
“Bad checks, in the tens of thousands.”
“See, told you, petty larceny. Easy money, buddy.” Ernie grinned at me, his eyes glassier than usual.
Ralph hopped up on one of his truck’s large rear tires and dug around in a toolbox in the truck bed. I thought again about his wife. I wondered if she was light skinned like Sylvie or dark skinned, if she was heavyset or thin, if she resembled Sylvie at all.
“Ernie, you ride with Shelton. You guys will follow me. Now, I gotta know. Are either of you armed?”
“Always.” Ernie removed his gun from his ankle holster and set it on the hood of the truck with a clank. I pulled mine out and set it gently next to his. It was bigger and shinier than his. His face twisted up ever so slightly.
Ralph picked up my gun and looked at it. “Since neither one of you is sober, I should confiscate these till we’re done.”
I prayed he would. I didn’t know why I’d brought it.
“But I’m not gonna,” Ralph said. “You might need them. I’m just telling you right now, if anything happens, you’re on your own.”
Ernie and I looked at each other and nodded.
“Okay. Here.” Ralph dumped six pairs of handcuffs onto the hood of the truck. “Take two each,” he said. “Phiney hasn’t exactly been eating at the salad bar.”
* * *
She was staying at a house in East Falls Church. We arrived there around ten thirty, the moon hanging low in the sky. We parked a few houses down from hers and walked up the street, ducking under tree limbs. She lived in a small shotgun bungalow. As we hid in the shadows, Ralph told us to go around back. He’d take the front. “I’m not losing my license because of you two,” he whispered. “So, don’t do anything stupid.” He tapped the revolver on his hip. “Don’t pull these out unless she’s got a weapon. Hear me?” He pointed to the stun gun hooked to his belt. “If she puts up a fight, I’ll just tase her.”
Ernie and I split up, and I crept around the right side of the house. It was one of those moments when you don’t feel like yourself. I didn’t know how I’d ended up there. I was sitting on the couch drinking beer and watching TV a half hour earlier. I sneaked into the backyard through an open gate and heard Ernie climbing noisily over the fence. Finally, he poked his head around the other corner of the house. That was when Ralph knocked on the door.
Someone began stomping around inside the house, a series of thumps that rattled the windows in their frames. I tiptoed up the porch steps and peeked through the back door. I could see straight down a hallway to the front. Without realizing it, I caught a glimpse of her. All the lights were off. Phiney’s big body moved slowly across the dark hallway. It was like looking through the observation window at the National Aquarium as a large fish glided into view. She moved in front of the door and turned on the hall light. She was a sister, light skinned like Sylvie. And she wasn’t just plump. She was built, muscular. The woman had been working out. She was a head or two taller than Ernie and broad as a barn. She wore a pink tank top and shorts. Her hair was, for some re
ason, tied up in crooked pigtails.
She opened the door, but as soon as she saw Ralph, she flung it closed. It snapped his head back, dropping him to his knees. Phiney spun around and charged down the hallway. I moved to the side of the door and ducked down by the porch steps. I had no idea what I was gonna do when she exploded through the door. I fumbled with the handcuffs in my back pockets and dropped them. I reached for my gun and dropped that shit, too. What the fuck was I doing there? Ernie shuffled around behind me as the door flew open and slapped the outside of the house. She stopped and stared down at us. My shoulders were level with her knees. The porch light eclipsed her head, a black sphere hovering where her face should’ve been.
I reached out and clutched one of her legs and prickly hairs brushed the palm of my hand an instant before she kicked me right upside the head. I fell to the ground and tasted dirt and beer, with a chaser of vomit. Her legs blurred by me as she ran to the back fence faster than I expected. She called for help. She screamed that we were killing her. It was so dark I couldn’t see her or Ernie anymore. I could only hear their feet swishing through the grass.
I followed the sound and made out Ernie in the darkness. He was pulling at her clothes, trying to get a hold of her. He kept saying, “C’mon. Come with me.” At one point, I swore he called her “sweetie.” The next thing I knew, Ernie tripped and hit the ground. All his air left him in a painful wheeze. He gasped my name, reaching an arm out. I helped him stand. I looked ahead and could barely make out Phiney swinging a leg over a chain-link fence and disappearing into a neighbor’s yard. Ernie threw his good arm over my shoulder, and we made our way back to the front. I almost wanted to go back and find my gun. But then I thought, fuck it, leave it. I didn’t want it. Ralph yelled, “I’m going after her,” and sped away in his truck, skidding around the corner, but we didn’t care. A few moments later, tires screeched. There was some kind of collision. Ralph’s horn blared. Then it stopped.