“I don’t have to take what is already mine,” Alex said, snatching it back. “It’s my iPod; you don’t get a turn. You don’t get a turn with anything that’s mine.”
“I hate you,” Raven said. “I really hate you.” The young girl’s green eyes were becoming brown and glazing over.
“Yeah, I know. Just leap, little tadpole, if you’re feeling froggish. I think what you need to do is hop your wide ass in that front seat, before I start to whooping on it. Don’t think for one second, because I’m not all bloated with fast-food chain hormones, that I can’t hurt you.”
“I don’t have to fight you to hurt you.”
“What are you talking about, you little demon?”
“You just be careful what you eat.”
“Hey! Stop it, you two!” Shawna screamed. “Put your seatbelts on, right this moment, so we can get out of here.”
Raven opened her door slowly.
“Close the door, baby; just put your seatbelt on,” Shawna said.
Raven stepped from the SUV, and then slammed the door.
In the few loaded moments from the time the door shut, the police officer who had been eyeing Shawna and her children stepped from the curb, headed directly toward the SUV.
Shawna welcomed the flood of nervous excitement as she watched the tall, handsome man stepping toward her in his Oakland Police Department uniform.
What is it about uniforms? she was thinking when Alex interrupted her naughty thoughts.
“You should pull off and leave her,” Alex suggested.
Shawna looked back at Alex angrily. “I don’t leave my children,” she said with her teeth clenched and her jaws tight.
Alex was taken aback momentarily as a thick, choking kind of silence filled the vehicle; she swallowed hard, looking for air. Then, rolling her window down, she said, “Wow, really? Bite my tongue out, why don’t you? I only meant for you to circle the airport, to teach her a lesson. She’s going to make you get a ticket on purpose.” Alex knew that Shawna’s mother had abandoned her as a child, but it wasn’t something they talked about. “I promise that’s all I meant. I wasn’t trying to say anything about your mother, or what happened to you, or anything like that; I swear.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Shawna said. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about. You need to shut up, now, okay? Just shut it up.” The mood of her eyes had suddenly turned from anger to sadness. She was avoiding eye contact with Alex, but Alex could see them in the rearview mirror.
“I’m sorry,” Alex said.
Shawna didn’t say anything; she searched for Raven in her rearview mirror and refreshed her lip gloss for the handsome cop headed her way.
RAVEN HAD WALKED SO SLOWLY AROUND THE SUV that the cop beat her to it. “Driver’s license and registration,” he was saying into Shawna’s window as Raven climbed into the passenger’s seat. He was already writing the ticket. He was fine. Just looking at him was making Shawna feel a whole lot better.
“Officer, I was just pulling off.” He kept writing. “Come on, have a heart for a struggling mother.” This time he looked at her, paused, and then kept writing. “My, you’re so big. Are you any relation to Paul?” she asked coyly into his monstrous chest, reading his badge. “Officer Robeson?” Her movements were slow and animated as she shifted her shoulders toward him and touched his arm.
“Don’t touch me, ma’am; I could take you in for assault.” He spoke so robotically, Shawna couldn’t tell if he was one of those anal retentive asshole cops, or a fag, but he was pissing her off. “I don’t know a Paul Robeson,” he said. Then the tall milk chocolate-colored police officer answered her flirtation with a slowly enunciated, “Driver’s license and registration, please.”
Alex watched from the back seat as Shawna regressed into erotic protest. Opening the single button that concealed her cleavage, she huffed and reached for the glove compartment.
Maybe marrying a musician was a bad idea for a woman with abandonment issues, Alex thought to herself as she watched Shawna self-medicate with attention. They weren’t close at all, but Alex was learning a lot from Shawna.
“Oh, please, Officer Robeson, you’re getting me all upset. You can see these girls are giving me a hard time. I know you were watching.” Shawna readjusted herself in her seat, pushing her breasts forward, and handed the cop her documents.
“Girls?” Officer Robeson inquired, not sure if the woman was referring to the voluptuous breasts bulging from a shirt that strained to hold them in place, or the two young girls in the car, who were now silent and pretending not to be paying attention to their mother.
“I know you’re not going to give me a ticket when I simply couldn’t pull away from the curb without having them in the seatbelts.”
“It’s all about discipline. It comes with the job,” he continued, pompously adding, “at least that is what I hear.”
“Oh, you mean to tell me a handsome man like you doesn’t have children?”
“Not unless you count whiny traffic violators.” Shawna laughed a little too long at his joke. “I’m a lawman,” he said to Shawna, ripping a ticket off the pad, and handing it to her. “I’m not cut out to be a…what do they call it these days?” He searched insincerely for the urban term, “baby daddy.” “There are rules that must be adhered to in every circumstance when it comes to that. I only have one rule, and it’s non-negotiable.”
“What rule is that?”
“Safety first.”
The officer poked his head into the SUV and looked at Raven and then at Alex. “Hey, ladies,” he said, “give your mom a break. You could make her wreck. You girls strap up and have a nice day.”
“Uh, thank you, officer, but…” Shawna stopped him in his tracks. “I need some advice. I mean, in cases like mine, for example; a traveling husband, ungrateful children, and this stress and tension in my shoulders. Perhaps I could not safely pull away from the curb? I have so many tickets. I’m not asking you to fix them or anything, but if I was to dispute this one, and you didn’t show up to court, it would go away, right? That’s what the last officer who gave me a ticket told me.”
“Oh, another officer told you that, huh? Did you get his name?”
Shawna opened her wallet and pulled out a card. “Officer J. Davis. Do you know him?”
“Very, very well,” Robeson said, smiling so brightly his face became new.
“I couldn’t afford for my husband to ban me from driving, because of all of these tickets. Maybe the three of us can talk about how to clear up all of them. I’m just a housewife, so the most I can offer is a little civil service.”
“I’ll mention it to him at our next ball game, and see what he says.”
“Really? Oh thank you,” Shawna gleamed. “Are you on the same team?”
“You can definitely say that.”
Who do they think they are fooling? Alex thought. Is that supposed to be code talk?
“I’m a full-time homemaker, like I said. I don’t have a business card, but here’s my calling card. Call me with your ideas.”
When Shawna pulled away from the curb, Raven watched the cop slip the number into his wallet. “Mommy, we have plenty of money to pay those tickets. Why do you need him to help you?”
“Baby, ever since nine-eleven, they’ve gotten carried away with security. It’s a plot to rob people. If they didn’t want you parking here, they simply wouldn’t allow you to. There would be a place to stop yards back, and a controlled shuttle service or a tram for travelers. I absolutely refuse to pay airport tickets. It’s a matter of principle.”
“Or not,” Alex muttered, sticking her earphone jack back into her iPod and returning to Kingston.
CHAPTER 10:
THE HOUSE OF CROWS
Hartford stood in baggage claim at the Burbank Airport, reading a text message from the woman who was supposed to be doing him a favor right now. She was forty-five minutes late.
I thought about what u want. No can do. Not into re
verse ass play. Let’s just stay friends. I have an idea for u though. I shoot at the Playboy Studio 2day. Come through. Don’t fake, I’m leaving your name at the gate.
Damn, Hartford thought. He had figured that since she was a porn star, Sweet P would be down for a rim job and a little finger action. He had told her what happened in the doctor’s office, and she seemed to know exactly what he was talking about. Over the phone, she had said she knew plenty of guys that liked getting their asses played with. But shoving her finger in his ass had obviously freaked her out. Damn, he said to himself as he flagged down an idle Town Car.
“3030 Andrita Street,” he told the driver.
It was a long ride in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Hartford stared out of the window at the smoggy Los Angeles sky, thinking about Shawna. She was going to have to make some changes quick, or he was going to divorce her; even if he didn’t find another woman first.
Hell, I can always hire a nanny, he told himself.
Playboy Studios was a den of adult amusement. A parade of half-naked women skipped down the hallway as he walked through, following the sexy receptionist who led him to the set, where the show would be filmed and broadcast live. Sweet P and five other women were doing a run-through as the director warned them that they were not to actually put their tongues on each other’s private parts, or they would be dismissed immediately. The bunnies looked like nuclear wives, fresh out of the 50’s, in their slippers, robes, and gigantic rollers as they rehearsed for the show. There were six bunnies on a platform and two naked hosts on the couch behind them, laughing and playing like giddy teenagers at a sleep-over.
Hartford was nibbling on cheese and crackers at the catering table when the sultry voice of Sweet P spilled over his shoulder. “What’s up, Hartford?”
She was six feet tall, standing two inches above him in her platform boots. Her face was an experimental canvas of blues, pinks, and reds. All that had not been sharply contoured away from her fleshy baby face was the famous pink pout that pedophiles jacked off to.
“It’s all good,” Hartford said, wanting to address the text message, but not wanting to dwell on it.
“I want you to know, I’m not judging you. It’s just not my thing.”
“Yeah, yeah. I can dig it.”
Sweet P sighed. “We tape for half an hour. You’re going to stay and watch, right?”
“That’s what I’m here for. Oh, and uh, were you able to set up a meeting for me with Playboy Radio?”
“Yes. Farrell has some time to meet with you after we shoot. You can talk while I get dressed, and then I have a surprise for you.”
“What kind of surprise?”
“A good one,” Sweet P said with a giggle. “I called a friend of mine. She’s a massage therapist. She has a slot open this evening. I can go there with you right after this is over.”
Hartford didn’t really know what she was driving at, but he didn’t have any appointments until the next day, so he had no objections.
“It’s all good,” he said again.
“It will be,” she said, dismissing herself to a group of Playboy Bunnies who had been transformed from nuclear wives to sex kittens, ready to paw and lick on command for horny callers who masturbated over televised phone calls.
Hartford relaxed into his front row seat and watched the beautiful bodies climbing all over one another, licking and nibbling, spanking and stroking. Men and women, young and old, called in with true confessions and fantasies. Some pleaded desperately with the hosts to lick each other’s titties; others wanted to be talked dirty to or ordered around. All of them gave detailed descriptions as they brought themselves to climax.
Hartford wondered how the cameramen managed to keep their dicks down; he was definitely hard. He adjusted himself.
“First time, huh?” a blue-eyed young man holding the boom microphone asked, and winked suggestively. “It’s easier if you look at it as art. Porn is art, you know?”
“Uh, yeah, I know. I can respect it,” Hartford said, not sure that he could.
His dick was beginning to leak and he wasn’t sure how much more he could take when, thankfully, the directly yelled, “Cut! That’s a wrap, ladies!”
There were six or seven men waiting patiently by the entrance door at the end of the hall. They were boyfriends or husbands of the playmates who quietly talked among themselves as, one by one, the little bunnies popped out to greet them. Hartford wondered how these men could be with women who made their living by fucking other men.
Just then, as before, the blue-eyed boom boy read his mind and answered, “It’s easy if you look at it as art. I have some incredible pieces in my office. Would you like to come inside?” Beyond the door the boom boy held open, he could see a blue light flooding the room and illuminating the mounted image of a man with a bullwhip shoved up his ass. “It’s Mapplethorpe,” he said. “It’s widely respected art, I promise,” young blue eyes said with a fading glimmer of hopefulness as his nemesis stepped into his scene.
“Are you after one of my men again?” Sweet P asked, wrapping her hands around Hartford’s waist from behind.
“Bitch!” the boom boy spat, disappearing to his room with a snap of his finger.
“Hey, let’s get you over to the radio station, before Farrell’s next program starts,” Sweet P said, grabbing her friend by the hand.
“Cool.”
“Hey, do you have some music in mind? He’s really serious about making a splash with Playboy Radio. You should hear the lonely truck drivers who call in.”
“I have some fresh new producers who may have some music that he’d like to throw in rotation. I’m meeting with them this weekend to check out their stuff. Maybe you’d like to come along. I need to make sure their heads are on straight.”
“Sure. You need me to fuck somebody?”
“No, not this time; I just need you to meet me there.”
“I HATE IT AT AUNT BLUE’S HOUSE,” Raven complained as she packed an overnight bag with two nights of clothing.
“It’s Dream Crow’s house. The whole place, even the animals, are hers. Aunt Blue just lives there,” Alex informed her.
“So what? It stinks.”
“That’s sage.”
“What’s sage?”
“The smell in her house.”
“You mean she makes it smell like that on purpose?”
“I guess. It’s supposed to be for cleaning.”
“She needs to get some bleach for that.”
“Not that kind of cleaning. It’s kind of like to get rid of evil spirits or something.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Maybe you’re an evil spirit,” Alex said, zipping her laptop into its case. “It doesn’t bother me.”
“Maybe you’re stupid,” Raven snapped back at her sister, grabbing her jacket. “I think she’s weird. I don’t like her, or the way her house smells.”
“She probably doesn’t like you either. Let’s go. Your mom is waiting for us.”
“I don’t need you to tell me what to do. Don’t you think I know that my mommy is waiting?”
Shawna honked the horn again. She couldn’t wait to get rid of the kids. She had some hot cop ass to get, and those fussy little wenches were moving too slow.
Raven and Alex came out of the house. Alex locked the door and Raven headed down the stairs. From the top of the stairs, the little girl could see her impatient mother in the running SUV, her knuckles white as she gripped the steering wheel and revved the engine.
Raven walked deliberately slowly down the stairs. “We’re coming, Mommy!” Alex pushed her to get her to move faster. “Stop before you make me fall down the stairs,” Raven whined.
“Walk faster. You see that she’s waiting.”
“Make me.”
“Why do you still call her ‘Mommy?’ You aren’t three years old anymore, you know.”
“You’re just mad because she’s not your mommy,” Raven said.
“That’s a laugh
,” Alex said.
“You’re just mad because your mother’s dead.”
“I hate you.”
When the little girl reached the bottom of the stairs, she turned around and looked at Alex with cold, old eyes. “You should hate yourself. You should hate yourself because you’re weak and stupid, just like your mother was!” Then she turned around and ran to the back door of the SUV, swung the door open, tossed her bag in, and jumped inside, slamming the door behind her. But before she could lock the door, Alex was on her, pulling her hair.
“Take it back! Take it back!” Alex screamed.
“Stop it, Alex!” Shawna said. “Get your hands off of her!”
Alex felt Shawna smacking her head. “Ouch, that hurt,” Alex said, releasing her grip on the younger child.
“Good,” she said, “now you see how it feels to have someone bigger than you hit you.”
“You don’t even know what happened.”
“I don’t need to. Just get in the damn truck. I don’t have time for all this nonsense today.”
“But you don’t know what she said.”
“And I don’t care. Get in the truck,” Shawna said.
Alex tightened her eyes, looking at Raven as if to warn her that there was a whole lot more where that came from. She picked her suitcase up off of the ground and threw it the back seat, hard, landing it smack into the side of Raven’s head.
Raven started to cry. “Mommy, she threw that bag at me.”
When Alex got into the front seat, Shawn back-handed her. “Didn’t I tell you not to touch my child? Don’t start that shit. Not today. Shut up! Both of you just shut the fuck up!” Shawna revved up the engine of her SUV, turned on the radio, and backed out of the driveway. She was speeding down the hill to the freeway. “I can’t wait to drop you little heifers off! I need a damn break.”
THE CROW SISTERS SAT ON THE BACK PORCH of the Bandarofski estate overlooking the farmland that spread as far as their eyes could see. Dream Crow seemed to have aged quickly after her husband died. Her beautiful light brown eyes had weakened over time and now she needed glasses to see two feet in front of her. She was still a beautiful woman, underneath her sadness, but the zesty excitement that had once made her the bell of every Bandarofski Ball had been buried with her husband. She moved slowly now. She spoke carefully now. She sipped sweet tea while Blue nursed an afternoon Bloody Mary.
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