Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go

by George Pelecanos

  “So, Tim,” a very serious Donny said to the factory rep. “You read about Maytag in the paper today?”

  “No,” Tim said, breathing through his mouth. “What about Maytag?”

  “Kelvinator!” Donny said. “Get it? Kelvin… he ate ’er!” Donny cackled, slapped his own knee.

  “Ha, ha, ha.” Tim’s laughter and the brittle smile that went with it failed to mask his contempt.

  “ ’Course,” Donny continued, “that ain’t nothin’, compared with what the general did.”

  “What general?” Tim said, and I saw it coming.

  “General Electric!” Donny said. “He was Tappan Amana, dig? Put his Hotpoint right on her Coldspot. Know what I’m sayin’?”

  Tim began to turn red. McGinnes walked up to the group, a brown paper bag in his hand. He looked at me and smiled.

  “You ready, Jim?” he said.

  “I’m ready.”

  “Hold on a second,” the manager said.

  “What?” McGinnes said.

  “I got a belch a few minutes ago,” the manager said. “That’s what. Customer called, said you stepped him off an advertised single-speed washer to what you claimed was a two speed—an LA three-five-nine-five.”

  “So?”

  “An LA three-five-nine-five is a single-speed washer, too, McGinnes. You told him it had two speeds!”

  “It does have two speeds,” McGinnes said. “On… and off.”

  “Off’s not a speed, McGinnes!” the manager yelled, but Johnny had already pulled me away, and the two of us were headed for the front door.

  McGinnes drew a malt liquor out of the bag and popped the top. He handed the open one to me, found one for himself.

  “Off is not a speed!…” The manager’s voice trailed off as we pushed through the store’s double glass doors.

  Out in the lot, McGinnes tensed up his face. “All these complaints. I’m gonna get a sick stomach.”

  “Had a lot lately?”

  McGinnes nodded. “This guy called this morning, all bent out of shape. Says when I sold him his refrigerator, I guaranteed him it was a nice box. And the thing’s had three service calls in the last month.”

  “So? Did you guarantee it?”

  “Hell no! I never said it was a nice box. I said it was an icebox! The guy just misunderstood me.”

  “I can’t imagine how that happened, Johnny.”

  “The guy was a putz,” McGinnes said. “You know it?”

  THIRTEEN

  MY FIRST DAY as a stock boy at Nutty Nathan’s on Connecticut Avenue, back in 1974, I checked out this pale, speeded-out looking Irishman named Johnny McGinnes and I thought, Who is this guy? It didn’t take too long to find out. Shortly after meeting him, I watched him volunteer to microwave the frozen dinner of a visiting district manager, and I pegged him as a brownnose. That notion was dispelled a few minutes later when I walked around the display rack and caught him hawking a wad of spit into the DM’s food, his chest heaving in suppressed laughter as he carefully mixed it in. By the end of the day, I had witnessed him hit his pipe repeatedly, knock down a steady succession of beers, and swallow two suspicious-looking pills, all the time maintaining his mastery of the floor. Then, at closing time, he laid “Willie the Pimp” on the store’s most expensive system, and eighty watts of Zappa were suddenly blowing through a pair of Bose 901s, and Johnny stood atop a vacuum cleaner display, playing air guitar, his bleeding red eyes closed as if in prayer. Even a sixteen-year-old stoner like me could see that Johnny McGinnes was one man who would never grow up.

  “You’re drinking too slow,” McGinnes said, as my Dodge pushed up 95.

  “You’re not,” I said. We were nearing Baltimore and the six of tall boys was almost done.

  McGinnes gave the radio some volume. “Hey,” he shouted, “how you like being a parent?”

  I turned the volume down a notch. “I’m not a parent. A kid’s parents are who raises them, and I’ve got nothing to do with that.”

  “Yeah, but”—McGinnes wiggled his eyebrows foolishly—“you gave her your seed, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, Johnny, I gave her my seed.”

  “So, what did Jackie name the boy?”

  “Kent,” I said, and waited for his comment.

  “She named him after a cigarette?”

  “It’s British or something.”

  “Her last name’s Kahn, isn’t it? I thought Kahn was a Jewish name—”

  “Shit, Johnny, I don’t know. She liked the name, that’s all.”

  I swigged my malt liquor. Some of it ran down my chin. I went to wipe it off and swerved a bit into another lane. Someone reprimanded me with a polite beep and I got the car back between the lines.

  McGinnes said, “I don’t like it.”

  “What?”

  “The name.”

  “Why not?”

  He raised a finger in the air, like he imagined an academic might do. “You know how kids are. I mean, the other boys, on the playground, they’re gonna give him shit about it, twist it all around.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  McGinnes sighed, exasperated. “You say his name’s Kent, right? Nick, the other kids—well, they’re gonna call him ‘Cunt’!”

  “Aw, come on, man…”

  “Hey, look!” McGinnes said, pointing through the window excitedly. “Baltimore!”

  We stopped in a bar near the stadium, split a pitcher, and watched the first two innings from there. We would have made it for the third, but we got waylaid by the kick-ass food at the concession stands inside the Yards. McGinnes and I both had half smokes smothered in kraut and mustard and two more beers before we got to our seats. By then it was the fourth and the Birds were down by two to the White Sox.

  Our seats were in section 330, to the right and way up from home plate. A deaf kid sat alone in front of us, and next to him sat a solid Korean man and his two sons. The Korean ate peanuts the entire game, a mountain of shells at his feet. Behind us a red-bearded, potbellied man loudly heckled the players, with most of his choice obscenities reserved for Sid Fernandez, who that night was truly getting rocked. Near him, a couple of D.C. attorneys in polo shirts talked about how “quaint” the Bromo-Seltzer Tower looked against the open B-A skyline and how D.C. had nothing “like that.” It was the kind of boneheaded conversation you heard from transient Washingtonians every time they went to Camden Yards, as if one old building set against a rather ordinary backdrop had any significance at all. Not that I had anything against this city—Baltimore was a fine town, with top-notch food and bars and good people. But Baltimore wasn’t mine.

  “Hey,” McGinnes said, pointing to a vendor. “Let’s get a pretzel, man.”

  “I’d love to,” I said. “The trouble is, you gotta put mustard on a pretzel, and I had too much mustard on my half smoke. I feel like it and I don’t feel like it, you know what I mean?”

  “A couple more beers, then.” McGinnes whistled at a guy coming up the steps with a tray of them.

  We drank those, and another round, and then it was the sixth. The Sox were taking off behind their suddenly hot bats and the awesome heat coming from Jack McDowell on the mound. McDowell’s goateed photograph was up on the telescreen, and McGinnes gestured to it with his head.

  “What’s with the goatee action?” McGinnes said, loud and a little drunk. “McDowell looks like a Chink! Like he ought to be servin’ us dinner and shit.”

  The Korean looked at McGinnes out of the corner of his eyes and cracked a peanut shell between two thick fingers.

  “Johnny, keep it down.”

  “What,” McGinnes said, nodding to the deaf kid, “am I bothering him or somethin’?”

  “Listen,” I said, changing the subject. “I’ve got something going on tomorrow, an acting job, for you and a buddy, if you’re interested.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s it about?”

  After I briefed him, I said, “How about your boy Donny? Think he can handle it?”

 
“That guy is an actor. Sure, it gets on my nerves, I got to listen to him run his cocksucker all day long. But he’s all right. Good salesman, too.”

  “Set it up, then,” I said.

  McGinnes nodded, then stared sadly at the hot-pretzel man, who was moving our way once again.

  “If you want one,” I said, “just get one.”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  McGinnes said, “I put too much mustard on my half smoke, too.”

  McDowell retired the side, three up, three down. We left in the eighth, when the stadium stopped selling booze.

  At a liquor store outside the Yards, we stopped for another six, then drank it on the drive back to D.C. McGinnes talked about his girlfriend, Carmelita, and about his “spot” of TB and how the doctors had treated it with INH, which he had taken every morning for a year. Then McGinnes told a very funny joke about an Indian named Two Dogs Fucking, and about that time we killed our last beer and crossed over into PG County. I dropped him at his car in Beltsville, then drove to my apartment, where I fed the cat and paced around listening to records, too drunk to have the sense to go to bed but not drunk enough to pass out. I called Lyla, but she wasn’t in, so I left a message on her machine. I thought of Joe Martinson, rang him up.

  “Hello.”

  “Hey, Joe—‘Where you goin’ with that gun in your hand?’ ”

  “Nick!”

  “Thought you might be up for some music.”

  “I might.”

  “Snake Pit?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Meet you in there in a half hour or so.”

  “Who’s playing?”

  “What difference does it make, right?”

  The Mekons were playing, and the place was jammed. The band had been around forever, but it had still managed to retain its indie status, so the crowd was a mixture of young introductees and veterans like Joe and I. I grabbed two Buds at the door bar and pushed my way back to the right corner of the stage, my usual spot. Joe found me in midset, guitars flailing against the saw of a fiddle, the band just pushing it all the way out, and that’s where we stayed until the end of the first show. The Snake Pit can be a drag with its put-on attitude, but on hot summer nights, when the acts are really cooking and the place is drowned in music and sweat, there’s still nothing better in D.C.

  Out on F, I stumbled into the alley a few doors down from the club to urinate, Martinson filing in behind me, laughing. A lighted office building rose out of the darkness ahead, cutting the symmetry of the brick walls running at my side. I looked into the alley, where rats moved about in the shadows of several green Dumpsters. The picture was odd but strangely beautiful. A smile of relief spread across my face as I stood there, peeing on the stones, and I thought, You know, I really do love this fucking town.

  JOE AND I GOT into my Dodge and headed west. Joe found some pot in my glove box and dropped a bud onto the hot end of the lighter from my dash. We took turns snorting the smoke. I pushed a Stereolab tape into the deck and boosted the bass, and we tripped on that as we made our way across town, drinking a couple of beers we had smuggled out of the club. I found a place to park on U at 16 th—had to piss again. Did it right on the street.

  “Hey, ladies,” Joe screamed at some women passing by. “This here is my friend, Nick Stefanos.”

  Black.

  I sat at the full bar at Rio Loco’s, Joe Martinson on the stool to my right. There was a bottle of beer in front of me, a shot of bourbon next to that, and a cigarette burning in the ashtray. I sampled all three. A floor waitress I knew, on the heavy side, real sweet, with missile tits and a plain-Elaine face, came by and smiled, and we exchanged a few smart sentences. She drifted, and Joe tapped his bottle against mine.

  “I thinks she digs you, man,” Joe said.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “I know she does. What’s her name?”

  “I think it’s Lynn,” I said. Or was it Linda?

  Joe swigged from his beer. “One thing about you, Stefanos. I wanna get fucked up, I can hook up with you anytime. I know you’re never gonna disappoint me, man. With you, it’s like it’s still 1980. One thing’s for sure, I couldn’t run with you all the time.”

  “Yep.”

  “Okay, so…” Martinson leaned in. “Best tracks, 1990s.”

  “Best tracks, huh?” I tried to concentrate against the bar noise and the zydeco jump coming from the juke.

  “I’ll start,” Martinson said. “ ‘Get Me’—Dinosaur Jr.”

  I hit my cigarette. “Dinosaur Jr.? Who does he think he is, Frank Marino or somethin’? You smoke too much weed, Joe.”

  “Listen to it some time—the kid Mascis can really fuckin’ play.”

  “Okay,” I said. “ ‘Summer Babe.’ Pavement.”

  Joe smiled. “ ‘Chapel Hill.’ Sonic Youth.”

  “ ‘Instrument,’ ” I said. “Fugazi.” On that one, Martinson slapped me five.

  “Desert island LP,” said Joe. “If you had to pick one, what would it be?”

  “ ‘Let It Be,’ ” I said without hesitation.

  “The Beatles?” he said, screwing up his face.

  “Fuck the Beatles!” I said. “I’m talkin’ ’bout the Replacements!”

  Joe laughed. I reached for my drink. A lot of time passed, or maybe it did not. I looked to my right, and Martinson was gone. A couple of white boys wearing baseball caps were sitting a few stools down. One of them was looking at me and laughing.

  Black.

  I sat at a deuce under the harsh lights of last call. Lynn or was it Linda? sat in the chair across the table. She raised her shot glass, tapped it against mine, and smiled. I closed my eyes and drank my goddamned whiskey.

  Black.

  The sound of an engine turning over, streetlights and laughter and double white lines.

  Black.

  I was standing in an unfamiliar apartment.

  “Where are we?” I said.

  “My place,” said Lynn or was it Linda? “Adams Morgan.”

  “What about my car?”

  “Out on Belmont,” she said with a laugh. “And by the way, you drove great.”

  I stood in a living room, where a long-haired girl and a long-haired guy were sitting on a couch, cleaning pot in the lid of a shoe box. A singer wailed over some very druggy guitar.

  “So what are we listenin’ to?” I said to the guy.

  “Smashin’ Pumpkins,” the guy said.

  “I want to listen to this kinda shit, I’ll dig out some old Sabbath albums. ‘Masters of Reality’ maybe.”

  “Yeah?” the guy said. “Well, you had your day, didn’t you? Anyhow, your girlfriend’s waitin’ for you, ace.” He and the longhaired girl laughed.

  I found my girlfriend in the bedroom, lying on a floor mattress, nude above the waist, her hands locked behind her head. The room was lit by candles, and a stick of incense burned by the bed. I climbed out of my shorts clumsily and pulled my T-shirt over my head.

  “I didn’t bring anything,” I said.

  “That’s not what I had in mind,” she said, pushing her huge breasts together until there was a tight tunnel formed between them. “Come here, Nick.”

  I straddled her chest and gave her the pearl necklace she was looking for. Our shadows slashed across the wall in the dancing light.

  Black.

  THE ROOM WAS DARK. Through the slots in the curtains, I could see that the sky had not yet begun to turn. I rose and sat naked on the edge of the bed, listened to the steady snore of the woman next to me, waited for my eyes to adjust to the absence of light. I made my way to the bathroom, put my mouth under the faucet, and drank water until I thought I would be sick. I took a shower, scrubbing my genitals and fingers until I was certain that her smell was gone, then dried off and found my clothes lying in a heap by the bed. I dressed in the light of the bathroom and left the room.

  Out on the stoop of her apartment building, I looked d
own the slope of Belmont, saw my car parked at the bottom of the street. My stomach flipped and I took a seat on a step. I leaned my head against a black iron railing and closed my eyes. A woman and a man argued violently in Spanish not very far away.

  Black.

  I woke up behind the wheel of my car. My keys were in my hand. The windows were rolled up and the heat was hideous, my hair and clothing wet with the smell of alcohol and nicotine. I turned the ignition and drove northeast into Shepherd Park.

  I entered my apartment and looked into my room. Lyla slept in my bed. I fed my cat, took another cold shower, and got under the covers, turning onto my side. Lyla moved herself against me and draped a forearm over my shoulder, brushing her fingers across my chest.

  “You okay?” she said drowsily.

  “I’m fine.”

  “I was worried about you.”

  “I’m here now, baby. Relax.”

  She drifted off, holding me. I fell to sleep knowing we were done.

  FOURTEEN

  I SLEPT UNTIL noon and woke with a head full of dust and a stomach full of rocks. Lyla had gone, left some chocolate kisses on top of a note in the kitchen. The note said that she’d call me later and that she loved me.

  I ate the chocolate out on my stoop, where I drank the day’s first cup of coffee and sat with the worn copy of D.C. This Week spread open between my feet. My cat rolled on the grass in the high sun. The phone rang inside my apartment. I went back into the living room and picked it up.

  “Nick!”

  “LaDuke.”

  “You sound like you just woke up.”

  “I’m just sitting here, going through the classifieds in the newspaper. One of the two we found at Calvin’s and Roland’s.”

  “Anything?”

  “Uh-uh. A few ads, escort services specializing in young black males, that kind of thing. They could be solicitations for prostitution, but, I don’t know, there’s more than a few of them, and to me they look too organized, too legit.”

  “Maybe you’re looking in the wrong place,” LaDuke said.

  “Say what?”

  “You’re assuming that Calvin and Roland were using the personals to sell themselves, maybe set up prospective johns for some sort of roll. Right?”