Nobody's Angel

by Jack Clark

  "But then I moved up north with everybody else. Lincoln Park. The Gold Coast. All those beautiful people. All them cabs, like rats in a maze. Yeah the money was better. Safer. But then I found myself passing up my own people, telling 'em I don't go south, I don't go west. My own people, man. Yeah, thought I was white there for a while but then I got wise to myself and I came back out here. And then I'd pick up anybody. I mean anybody. But it got to be too much. Got so I couldn't stand the blood."

  "Blood?"

  "What do you do if someone sticks a gun in your head?"

  I shrugged. It had only happened once. But I'd given them the money. What else could you do?

  "You gotta remember, a car's a weapon," Ron had the answer. "Work them pedals. Brake as hard as you can and when they come flying, boom. Then hit the gas and do it again. Bam. Get yourself a little old club. That's what I had. Wop. This one kid, every time he comes flying I smacked him. Bam. He keeps saying something but I can't figure out what. Wap. Finally, he's down on the floor. I'm over the seat bopping him on the head. Little bitty gun comes flying up. 'Toy.' I finally hear what he's been saying. 'It's a toy.' Little toy gun. 'I was only fooling.' "

  "No way for you to know it was a toy."

  "Big kid, but I'll bet he wasn't fifteen. Yeah, he was just fooling. Uh huh. I beat him right out of the cab, Fifth Avenue and Kostner. 'I can't see. I can't see,' he's crying. He's covered with blood, begging me to take him to the hospital. I left him there on his knees, middle of the night. Freezing fuckin' cold out." He took a sip of his beer. "Spent a couple hours cleaning up the cab and that was my last night. Stupid fucking kid."

  "Hey, you did what "

  Ron held up his hand, then gestured down the bar.

  "She was just a little slip of a thing," Floyd was telling Mitchell. "Red hair and tiny little freckles. She had this walk, I swear to god, I'd know it was her a mile away."

  "Wish I could help you out," Mitchell said. "But I don't remember any Brenda. Hell, I was only in this place twice before I owned it. Day I saw the For Sale sign, and the day me and old man Mitchell signed the papers. I never missed a payment."

  "Knew it had to be a woman," Ron whispered.

  At 4 a.m. Mitchell shut the party down. "Sorry, boys, I hate to do it, but I've got to open in a couple of hours."

  Everybody else staggered out, then Mitchell walked us to the door. "You ever back in town," he told Floyd, "stop by."

  "I'll bring the family." Floyd went along with the gag.

  "That'd be something," Mitchell said, and he followed us outside. "I used to talk about having a reunion for all the old timers." He gestured at the wasteland around us. "I guess it's just as well."

  "If you ever hear from Brenda," Floyd said.

  Mitchell shook his head and smiled. "I gotta give you credit for trying." He waved and walked back inside.

  A moment later there was a loud clatter as a metal door began to descend. Within seconds, the entire storefront disappeared behind it.

  We staggered out to the cab.

  "You want me to drive?" Floyd offered.

  "I'm fine," I said. Finer than Floyd by a mile.

  The meter was at $47.60. "I'll be a son of a bitch," Floyd whispered. "You left the meter running."

  "Wasn't my idea to go inside," I explained as I cranked the starter.

  "Eddie, my boy," he mumbled, "I do believe I've been taken for a ride." And he fell fast asleep.

  I drove through the ruins for a few blocks, then took the highway back towards the Loop. This was the best way to see the West Side, out in the left lane at 65 mph.

  You could see St. Lucy's coming a long way before you actually got there. The place was spread over several city blocks, a group of tall, jazzy buildings surrounding the original hospital, a small red brick structure.

  Even in the middle of the night there were plenty of lights burning. As I got closer, I tried to guess Relita's window. Was that Intensive Care up there, that block of lights on the top corner of one of the new buildings? Or was that Relita's room over there, that single lit window, surrounded by the darkness of the old building? Had they moved her there to die?

  I searched for some sign but nothing came. Floyd snored softly.

  A horn blared and a Tribune truck shot past. I looked down. Christ, I was doing 35 in the fast lane. I stepped on the gas and drifted right.

  Floyd slept all the way to the hotel and woke up muttering about being taken for a ride. The meter was a few bucks shy of $60.00 and I got three crisp twenty dollar bills.

  "Worth every penny, Eddie. You're a hell of a man," he said as he worked his way out of the cab. "Hell of a man."

  No Chauffeur shall operate his Public Passenger Vehicle under the influence of alcohol or illegal substances or drugs, nor shall he consume any of these while operating his Public Passenger Vehicle.

  City of Chicago, Department of Consumer Services, Public Vehicle Operations Division

  I found myself on North Avenue cruising the strip Relita had worked. The big hooker from last night was nowhere around. I drove past her spot and then over the river. As a consolation prize, a woman standing in front of the deserted Procter & Gamble plant lifted her short skirt and gave me a free show. Behind her a sign read, AVAILABLE 15 ACRES, WILL DIVIDE. In the parking lot, weeds had started to grow through cracks in the pavement.

  I don't know what I was looking for but I turned around in the mouth of Noble Street, made another pass and found more of the same.

  As I slowed for the light at Clybourn Avenue, almost two blocks past the end of the strip, a young girl got off a bench. She was dressed in jeans and a powder blue jacket. Her hair was in pigtails with tiny blue ribbons dangling from the ends. She looked past me up the street, waiting for the bus, I thought, a straight kid on her way to work, with her hands pushed deep in her jacket pockets to guard against the cold. And just being normal she was ten times better looking than any of the trash I'd just seen.

  The girl did a little step and spun all the way around, and if she didn't have my attention before she had it now. She shrugged slightly, with her hands still in her pockets and her jacket opened just a touch.

  Her breasts were small and rounded. They seemed lighter than the surrounding skin, almost yellow, I thought, but maybe that was the glow of the street lights. Her

  nipples were hidden just beyond the edge of the jacket and I was almost ready to pay to see them. It was that nice a tease.

  She closed the jacket and I looked up, and she smiled and blew me a kiss.

  She was just another whore out on the street at five in the morning, waiting to fuck or suck whoever came along with a few dollars for her time. But she was still subtle enough, or fresh enough, that she was also just a kid in jeans and sneakers. And if she had nothing under her jacket, that only made me want her a little more; like I might want any good looking woman after catching a glimmer of forbidden skin.

  It was just a passing fancy, a pleasant little red-light dream. I doubt I would have ever followed through.

  A horn sounded and I looked up to find the light green. I took my foot off the brake, waved goodbye and drove away smiling.

  I pulled into the left-turn lane at Halsted and looked back in the mirror. A van had pulled to the curb and the girl was leaning in the passenger window, casting a lean profile in my mirror.

  I waited for a car to clear, then made the turn and headed north.

  Maybe if I hadn't been drinking it wouldn't have taken so long to register. As it was, I was almost a mile away before it hit me. I made a U-turn and sped back, but the van and the girl were both gone.

  At home, I poured bourbon on ice and carried the phone to the window.

  Hagarty and Casper were on the street, a sergeant told me. He took my name and number and a few minutes later the phone rang. "Eddie, don't you ever sleep?" Hagarty asked.

  "Pretty soon," I said. "Look, I was down on North Avenue a while ago and there was this van down there, you know, talking to one of t
he girls."

  "You get the plate number?"

  "See, that's the thing," I explained, "I didn't get anything. I didn't really realize what I saw till a few blocks later, and then when I went back they were gone."

  "You're sure it was the same van?"

  "Not really," I had to admit.

  "What'd the driver look like?"

  "I never saw him."

  "Eddie, you been drinking?"

  "What's that got to do with anything?"

  "Have a couple more and call me tomorrow."

  I sat there sipping my drink, looking out the window. It was a grey, misty morning. The day people were waiting down at the bus stop, a line of ghosts trying to escape on the CTA.

  Betty knocked on her way out, but I just sat at the window and watched as she joined the crowd.

  I sat there for hours, sipping whiskey. Long after Betty's bus had come and gone it began to rain. Lenny's funeral was at ten, but the hour came and went and I was still watching traffic pass.

  Sometime later I picked up the phone and dialed. My ex would be at work, my daughter still at school. I was expecting a recorded message but not the one I got.

  "The number you are calling has been disconnected," a mechanical voice said, and repeated the number I'd been dialing for years. "No further information is available about " The voice repeated the number again.

  In my dreams I worked without a cab, carrying passengers on my shoulders. My daughter flagged me. She was still a little girl. She had many suitcases and I kept trying to

  rearrange them so I could carry them all. Then it wasn't my daughter. It was Relita. No. It was the girl who had done the dance on North Avenue. She smiled as I unzipped her jacket. Her breasts were small and chocolate brown, the nipples a bright, strawberry red.

  I lifted her up, breast to my mouth. "I give good head," she whispered in my ear.

  "This is all I want," I said, and I tried to hold on but she pulled away and her mouth began to move down my chest.

  No vehicle licensed by the City of Chicago shall be operated to solicit or accept passengers unless it is in a clean condition. Minimum standards of cleanliness include, but are not limited to:

  i. The interior of the vehicle (including the trunk) shall be kept free from all waste paper, cans, garbage, or any other item not intrinsic to the vehicle or to the conduct of operating a public passenger vehicle;

  ii. The interior of the vehicle (including the trunk) shall be kept free from all dirt, grease, oil, adhesive resin, or any other item which can be transferred onto the person, clothing or possessions of a passenger by incidental contact;

  iii. The interior of the vehicle shall be kept free of any material which a reasonable person would find noxious or unpleasant.

  City of Chicago, Department of Consumer Services, Public Vehicle Operations Division

  I was downstairs waiting when my dayman Irv pulled up about ten minutes after six. He was almost seventy years old. His face had lost most of its color and his eyes seemed to recede more each day, but his hair was still a thick, wavy brown, and he still managed to drive six days a week. He took every Sunday off and I kept the cab straight through from Saturday night until Monday morning.

  "Sorry I'm late," he said as I slid into the back seat.

  "No problem," I said. The rain was still falling, the sky grey. "How's business?"

  "Nothing but money," he said, "but Jesus, traffic's a bitch." He turned right on Montrose into a sea of red brake-lights.

  "I think I'll go hide," I said.

  "Eddie, you've got to get it while it's hot."

  "I hate driving in the rain," I said.

  "You hear about the blockade?" he asked.

  "What blockade?"

  "Bunch of dot-heads blocked LaSalle in front of City Hall. Fucked up the whole Loop."

  "You're kidding."

  He shook his head. "They had to pick a Friday."

  "What was it this time?"

  "Bulletproof shields. What else?"

  I didn't say anything for a while, then I blurted it out. "I wonder what Lenny would say."

  He put his arm up on the back of the seat. "Look, Eddie, I know the Polack was your friend but that doesn't change a fucking thing. A shield's only gonna protect you from somebody you shouldn't have picked up in the first place."

  "I guess you're right," I said.

  "Hell, I know I am," Irv said. "Remember I drove with one for five years. Worst years I ever had and I got robbed twice."

  I grunted. I'd heard the stories before.

  "It just changes the game around. They try to con you out of the cab. You never saw so many people lugging those cheap cardboard suitcases around."

  "I've been having a bad week," I confessed.

  "Yeah, I noticed," Irv agreed as he turned down his own block. "You forgot the ashtrays this morning."

  "Sorry," I said.

  He double-parked and grabbed his bag. "Don't let 'em get you down," he said, and sprinted for home.

  I got behind the wheel, slid my chauffeur's license into the holder, the mace into the ashtray.

  I made a left at Irving Park and joined the traffic waiting for the light at Ashland.

  There was a van about ten cars up with a chrome ladder on the back door. I fashioned a third lane a couple inches off the parked cars and crept forward.

  The van was too dark, I saw as I got closer. There was a bumper sticker on the back but it was on the wrong door and backed in white. IF THIS VAN'S A ROCKIN', it read, DON'T COME A KNOCKIN'.

  Even in the grey rain, St. Lucy's looked like some city of the future. Gleaming glass-and-steel walkways linked the various buildings a few stories above street level.

  I parked at the back of an empty cab stand, walked up a ramp and pushed through a revolving door.

  ALL VISITORS MUST CHECK IN, a sign read. I leaned on a counter and waited until an older woman with frosted blue hair got off the phone. A name tag identified her as a volunteer. "May I help you?" she asked.

  "I want to visit Relita Brown."

  "Do you know the room number?"

  "She's supposed to be in Intensive Care."

  The woman flipped through a file. "Well, here's some good news," she said. "It looks like your friend's gotten better. She's been transferred to a regular floor." She started through another file, handed me a cardboard Visitor Pass, and pointed the way to the elevators.

  Upstairs, I walked past the nurse's station, then stuck my head in the second door on the right. There was a woman sitting in a chair reading a book. She looked to be about thirty, slim and very black. She was wearing a pink robe and matching slippers. After a moment she looked up.

  "I must have the wrong room," I said. She was the only one around.

  "Who are you looking for?"

  "Relita Brown."

  The woman raised a finger into the air. "Leta," she called.

  Now I saw that there was a second bed beyond a long white curtain. I could see the foot of the bed just where the curtain stopped.

  The woman walked to the curtain. "Leta," she said again. I didn't hear any answer but after a moment she waved me over. "It's okay," she said.

  I walked past her to the foot of the bed. Relita was lying on her side, facing a window that looked out on the city. She was wearing a thin white hospital gown and was curled up on top of tangled sheets. She looked even smaller than she had in the alley.

  The top of the gown opened down the back and I could see thick white bandages against dark brown skin. Everything in the room was white except her skin and a small yellow radio lying next to her on the bed. A set of headphones dangled from it and I could hear music; a pounding beat, muted and far away.

  "Hi," I said. But she didn't answer or turn my way.

  I walked around the bed to the window side. She didn't look up. The side of her face was bruised and swollen. Her head lay on a pillow. Both hands were tucked up under her chin, her wrists crossed.

  She didn't look anything like t
he girl I'd seen on North Avenue last night, the girl with the pigtails, the girl of my dreams. There wasn't an ounce of sexiness about Relita and it was hard to imagine that anyone had ever paid for her company. She was just an injured animal waiting to die. A small, dark animal that someone had dressed as a gag.

  "Hi," I said. "It's Eddie Miles. Remember me?"

  "Eddie," she said softly. She tilted her head my way but her eyes didn't quite make the trip. They were off somewhere, hidden behind bleak clouds.

  A hand reached out, balled into a tiny fist. I took it, closed my hands around it and the fist disappeared inside.

  I looked up and the roommate was standing just beyond the curtain. She didn't have any problem making eye contact. She nodded her head, as if I'd just confirmed her darkest thoughts, turned and walked away.

  "How're you doing?" I asked after a moment.

  "Okay." Her voice was so far away, so tired, that I could never imagine her lifting her head off the pillow.

  "I was in the neighborhood," I said, "so I thought, what the heck."

  "Relita's angel," she whispered.

  "The police told me you were here," I said.

  "Don't be talking 'bout no police," she said with some force.

  Nobody said anything for a while. Her eyes shifted around but never settled. They were off to one side or the other, up or down, but never dead ahead. "Maybe we mets a different way," she said after several minutes had gone by.

  "Sure," I said, willing to play along. "How?"

  "Slide the chair," she said.

  There was a chair near the foot of the bed. I released her hand and then moved the chair alongside and sat down.

  Both hands came out now and I took them and closed them up in my own. "You be my angel," she whispered.

  "Sure," I said.

  We sat like that for several minutes. Neither one of us said a word. Her eyes continued to shift but they never seemed to focus. They might as well have belonged to some blind man begging on a street corner. They might as well have been closed.

  She was just a kid. It was hard to believe she was seventeen. She wasn't any bigger than my daughter had been the last time I'd seen her, and my daughter had only been eight years old. At the most, Relita weighed eighty pounds.