by Jim Nisbet
“I was in Vietnam, too,” said the black man.
“You’ll get a nice stretch, cutting down a man for giving a bum a dollar,” Pauley said. He noticed a gold band on the wedding finger of the dark hand on the steering wheel, stared into the sunglasses and added, “Think the wife will miss you?”
Teeth showed beneath the shades. “I’m a lawyer,” the teeth said, “and I think I’ll be home by sunset. Just in time to tell her a nice story over my reheated supper about why I was late.”
The two little voices mulled this. A lawyer. The gun will be licensed. Law on his side. A man’s car is his castle. Eminent domain. Barrister threatened by ex-convict in traffic dispute. Hard case. Forced to shoot. Radical hair. Knows a joint tattoo when he sees one. Blew him away. Had to. Gave him no choice. Virtually self-defense. Cowardice begins with ratiocination. It’s not cowardice. It certainly isn’t rational. It’s just two assholes in traffic.
“Now, why don’t we just go back to commuting?” suggested the teeth. The gun barrel wagged toward the Chevy, exactly twice, as if it were brushing a speck of lint off the weather-stripping.
A horn sounded two or three cars behind them. Out of the corner of his eye Pauley could see Horseknocker coming around the tailgate of the truck. Don’t let Horseknocker get into this, said a voice, things are stupid enough as they are. Driving the old truck up the ramp the better part of valor.
Hard to do with holes in you, sang the other voice. And no insurance, remember?
How could he forget? teased the first voice. The knowledge tortures him.
“Cocksucker,” Pauley said aloud. Abruptly he turned his back on the teeth and the gun and headed for the cab of the Chevy. His back felt like it was a mile wide. “Let’s go, Horse.”
“Okay.”
They got back into the truck.
“That was fun,” Pauley said, turning the key. His hand was a little shaky. Strike a blow for self-respect? The starter revolved the motor once, twice, then died. He tried again. A horn sounded, long and impatient. So this is what it’s like, said the first voice, to be on the edge of civilization. Lookit that sunset, said the second. Nice, said the first. The motor caught.
Pauley sighed loudly, too loudly, and punched the Madonna into first. “What did the vet have to allow?”
Horseknocker slammed his door. “He agreed about the incoming.”
“He only knew the half of it. That guy in the Olds showed me heat.”
Horseknocker half turned. “What?”
“Heat. A pistol.”
“What the fuck for?”
“For guys like us, so we won’t intimidate him, I guess.”
“Was he a cop?”
“Lawyer.”
“A criminal lawyer–right? Kinda guy likes to back you up against an eight-story drop and make you give him head before he accepts his fee? And he ain’t even queer? He just wants to prove he can do it?”
“I wouldn’t know, Horse.”
Horseknocker looked out the back window. “I ain’t never met a criminal lawyer didn’t have a damn good reason to carry a gun.”
“Really?” Pauley said mildly.
“Scumbag.”
“I suppose.”
“You hear the one about faggots and lawyers?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Close. How come all the faggots are in San Francisco and all the lawyers are in L.A.?”
“I gave up in 1956.”
“San Francisco had first choice.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. See? You were close.”
A moment passed in silence.
“You shoulda called him on it.”
“Yeah.”
“You shoulda made him shoot you.”
“That would have fixed him.”
“It would have ruined his career.”
“Yeah. It would have ruined his career.”
“Not to mention yours.”
“Yeah. Not to mention mine.”
Horseknocker worried at it. “Whyn’t you take it off him and stick it up his ass?”
“Skip it.”
“Fucking guys with guns. You just take ’em out of their hand and stick ’em up–”
“Skip it!” Pauley brought the side of his fist down on the dash with a crash. As he did so his back emitted a quantum of pain that took his breath away. Horseknocker looked at him a moment, then sat back in his seat and stared straight ahead.
The traffic in front of them advanced twenty feet in five-foot increments. No horn sounded behind them.
Horseknocker shrugged uneasily and looked out his side window. “So excitable. Guy pulls a gun on you in traffic and you get all upset.” He shrugged again.
By now a space of about thirty yards had opened in front of them, and behind the truck someone lightly tapped their horn, a suggestion. Pauley accelerated up the ramp, closing the gap. On the way, the two little voices fugued on a theme.
The truck wouldn’t start. Pauley smiled. Some days, no matter how much people tried to influence other people’s destinies in traffic, things went awry.
“Hm. Only one way to start it, right?” Pauley jerked a thumb towards the Olds.
“It’s a fact,” Horseknocker agreed.
Pauley put the truck in reverse.
Horseknocker peered over his shoulder, through the rear window of the cab. Motionless cars spiraled past the beginning of the ramp and north on South Van Ness, out of sight.
Pauley depressed the clutch, released the brake, and let the big pickup roll backwards, toward the Oldsmobile, watching it in his side mirror.
“Get ready to jump.”
Was the pistol back in his glove compartment? Was it on the guy’s lap with the safety off? In a little holster on his thigh, where he could feel it with his penis? Was it taking aim at the side of Pauley’s head? Maybe the guy was calling the little woman on his car phone? Perhaps he was dictating this charming incident into a little hand-held tape machine, for verisimilitude in his procedural novel?
The truck crept backwards, picked up speed, closed the distance between itself and the Olds.
At the last possible moment, just as Pauley popped the clutch, he heard a distant bang. He clenched his teeth, more than half expecting to see the cab glass nova, like a small star, just before his head filled with light. The V-8 caught. The truck jumped two feet further back, the chains banged against the tailgate. The ammunition box erupted backwards, regurgitating transmission parts all over the truck bed. Pauley barely got the machine stopped before it creamed the Oldsmobile. The air above the Olds hood filled with blue smoke from locked brakes and the revving Chevy engine.
Horseknocker was not laughing. “You hear that bang?”
Pauley stirred the gears into first and accelerated forward, the way they had come, second gear, third, quickly covering the hundred yards between the Chevy and the next car up the ramp.
“Eight to five the lawyer shot himself in the balls.”
“Lawyer?” said Horseknocker.
“Lawyer.”
“We’re lucky to be alive.”
Pauley thought that might be true.
He stopped the truck behind a minivan and looked back. The Oldsmobile was still sitting where they’d left it, blocking the ramp, enveloped in a chorus of car horns. Wisps of blue smoke from the Chevy engine still lingered about it. The Vietnam vet with the sign and the dog stood just as before.…
…The Vietnam vet with the sign and the dog stood just as before.
The Oldsmobile was not stalled at the base of the ramp.
Nor was its driver slumped over the wheel with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. They and the Chevy were nearing the top of the ramp and the Olds was directly behind them, right where it should be. With the detente peculiar to people who have survived a minor altercation while stuck in traffic, only to resume their respective routes still stuck in traffic, Pauley continued to edge forward, simmering; while the lawyer, directly behind them, continued to edge forw
ard, too, perhaps smugly. Probably listening to Mozart. Nice fantasy. Let the imagination provide what the fist cannot. Yeah, said a little voice. Tell it to nose-cone footage.
Forty-five minutes had elapsed since they’d left the bar. That meant that Pauley owed Horseknocker about $9, prorating his customary rate of $12 per hour.
The ramp spiraled through 270 degrees to the purpose of winding its customers up two stories, there to merge them onto the skyway directly above the intersection of 13th Street and South Van Ness, less than a quarter of a mile from the V-shaped split in the vector wherein the Toyota was parked.
A billboard loomed above the opposite lanes of the skyway, its base not twenty feet beyond the guardrail. A huge young man gazed forlornly out of it. Below his face the giant palm of his hand extended toward the motorist pills the size of oil drums, a flood-plain mirror spilling an alpine ridge of bluish powder, a syringe like a bullet train. The graffiti-modified copy read
Don’t Do Drugs ALONE
Call A Friend
24 Hours a Day
The spray-can script of the single word ‘ALONE’ set it apart from the display type of the advertisement copy, emphasizing its isolation. There must be a word for that. Typopoeiac?
Horseknocker sighed and cleared his throat. “People stay up nights to climb those things. In order to express themselves.”
“Just themselves?” Pauley asked, glancing at him.
“Who else?” Horseknocker said evasively.
“You can’t seriously believe people stay up all night just to express themselves despite the status quo. A government agent was paid good money to spray that up there.”
“Probably sent him to some kinda special school in Langley, Virginia,” agreed Horseknocker, warming instantly to the subject. “There’s this dirigible hangar, see, left over from World War One. Not far from CIA headquarters. I been there, I seen it, nobody’s debriefed me until now. It’s big enough to contain Presidential aspirations, a cavernous motherfucker. But lately they’ve erected dozens of erasable billboards and combed the ranks for agents that can operate a can of spray paint without shooting themselves in the face. ‘Okay, son,’ says the Sarge, ‘the Old Man’s got a lot riding on this drug campaign, the more illegal the dope the higher the street price, simple economics, but we can’t let the nation forget the basic premise, which is that we want them to consume these consarned drugs no matter what the cost, a strong campaign’s built on cash flow, as soon as we’ve won we’ll drive prices down, but for now we’ve got to pull together. How do you spell friend, it’s the first syllable of friendlies, aye before eee, sound of the trainwreck of communism, fate of the nation in your hands, no pun intended, the Old Man’s kept awake nights by the brilliance of our future like a neon sign from God riding on you you you and perfectly safe, son, billboards always have these little metal ladders going up the back, college boy like yourself, all four feet free for climbing, spray can between your teeth, open wide, that’s it, no biting, Federal practice makes Federal perfect fuck the ozone we got us here a democracy to protect.…’”
Pauley, watching his left side for an expensive car, an easy merge, added, “Try not to puncture it with your canines.…”
“ ‘Yeah, that’s it, try not to puncture it with your canines, nasty surprise, otherwise have to get them extracted, for the Company you know, Old Man’s got his glass eye on you, Federal practice makes Federal perfect.…’ ”
Pauley jerked the wheel to fake a swerve to the left. A brand new Jaguar sedan slammed on its anti-skid brakes and skidded, opening a space directly in front of it, beside the Chevy. Pauley merged left. The Jaguar complained with its horn.
“ ‘The Old Man got new canines Himself, once he was in office. Photo opportunities you know.…’ ”
“Amazing how fast the public forgets–the Boss speaks English English, watch them singles and hundreds.…”
“Singulars and plurals.”
“Watch the singulars, the hundreds will take care of themselves, recall the Old Man out in New Zealand, just before the Rainbow Warrior deal, couldn’t believe the French operatives still had their canines.…”
“Said in the paper, they just gave one of those guys a medal.”
“For blowing up a Greenpeace boat and killing a photographer?”
“Said in the paper.”
“Why sure, the Old Man musta been there, protecting his own.”
“Medal makes it easier to spot ’em.”
“Spot ’em a mile away.…”
“Makes it easier to hit ’em with a pension.”
“In the dead of night, might as well have glowed in the–hey, Pauley.”
“Hey, Horseknocker.” A lady in a station wagon was sending mysterious hand signals over the roof of her car, apparently encouraging Pauley to move over, even though she was directly beside the truck.
“I see the Toyota.”
“That’s good,” said Pauley, wary of taking his eyes off the station wagon. “They haven’t towed it yet. God damn it, what’s this woman up to?”
“Tell me again what I’m doing on this trip?”
A horn honked behind them. “You’re the closest thing I could get to an ape on short notice. Come on, lady.…”
“There’s a bunch of stuff to move, right?”
“Right.”
“Where?”
Pauley took his eyes off the station wagon and looked ahead. The Toyota was parked no more than a hundred yards away, and it looked as only a vehicle abandoned next to a freeway can look: pathetic, derelict, and empty.…
Its tailgate was down.
The bed of the Toyota was empty.
The load of torture racks was gone.
Chapter Ten
ONE TIME HE AND MARCIE HAD A COUPLE OF GRASSHOPPERS and went to her place to watch some MTV and all of a sudden she was straddling his lap as he slouched on the couch, hey that’s catchy, slouched on the couch, could be a catchy MTV-type tune there, with closely timed tie-ins to a big time sofa-bed manufacturer you could base the video around a leather-girl wrapping herself around the pansexual lead singer it’s the same leather wrapped around the sofa and he’s singing about his hair and ignoring her until of course the room begins to take off through space that is to say there’s clever mat-ins going past the digital windows, sun moon and stars kind of stuff, little rings around them every once in a while so the kids get planet planet hint hint, maybe five points on the stars, too, good idea, don’t take anything for granted, ignoring the babe the whole time torqueing leatherette while he sings only for you and its you and its only for you, 15 million and climbing any given time of the day or night. Of course with enjambed spondees or whatever slouched on the couch represents to the technically minded the tune would have to be rap or at least house or maybe they could get by with world-house-rap so as to maximize market exposure don’t want to water down the impact too much otherwise the music will have no identity and the sex will overwhelm the message which is … well, what is the message? As in who would be fooled well Martin was fooled when Marcie straddled him, interjecting her thin torso and too wide hips between him and the flickering for all intents and purposes and after maybe a whole tune of not moving though it was hard to tell because they all sound alike plus Martin’s senses were becoming alert to the situation or rather the potential of the situation and he became extremely erect as in who wouldn’t after two and one-half years of total fear of AIDS gives Martin Seam the time of day let alone the chance to dance on the ranch or slouch on the couch except Marcie who herself is a study best left to what they call a dance on the ranch down there in Cow Hollow three floors of therapists where the odd forced laugh penetrates the slatted blinds behind the slightly open window, talking about Martin who is by now in the dark beneath this backlit by television woman moving her groin area against his groin area hetero I am I am I am–well, we’ve got ignition if that’s hetero though his penis is pointed the wrong way into his pants leg and causing him extreme groin torsion bu
t he’s afraid to modify tamper interject or postulate as Marcie puts her hands on his shoulders and just as her hair brushes his face and he’s spontaneously in his mind gripping her hips and you know in his mind while slouched on the couch is like getting somewhere maybe it’s time to add some backslashes to indicate that we’re dealing with the poetry of popular concupiscence here, help the critics out with some advance vocabulary says, right after a strange little whimper he’d never, add that in, strange little whimper she’d never before whimpered/gripping her hips/slouched on the couch/hair in my face/heart begun to race/she says, you know Martin, it’s really great being near you like this without you know falling over the edge with an extra grind of her pelvis before she stands up. What did that mean? But what a great name for the tune! Did she have an orgasm without him? Another great tune! Which is slight compensation to the lack of a name for the great feeling this remark gave him. You can’t Martin’s can’t call the tune I’m hetero I’m hetero you know because the market’s too small but Falling over the Edge how original! Which is what Martin’s thinking as he’s leaning over the counter in cosmetics imagining a cigarette in a crystal display ashtray as if it were beneath where nobody can see and dreaming the battery-powered ionizer aimed straight at it might work they’re not allowed to smoke out there on the floor but it’s one of the many ways in which Martin breaks the rules he’s got to do something along with this pop song foolishness to help sublimate the awareness that Marcie has spent quite a long time making a fool out of him and herself too like this damp daydream he’s currently recalling without being really sure that it happened just like he remembers it or not, but he does remember that he finally had to pull her shoulders toward him if only to get her weight off his manhood and maybe crush his face into her hair and he daren’t but think to draw the side of his hand between her cheeks Yubi-Waza of amour when she rolled off him and stood up and had the lights on and patronizing at his swollen $175 pants with the baggy thighs and the cuffs caught at the ankle and the slit pockets that your change and MUNI pass always fall out of when you sit down on the bus and the obvious going on down there and giggle at it–and this woman’s twenty-five years old!