Rope Burns - [SSC]

by F. X. Toole

  “Air Jordan,” said Puddin.

  “You think?” asked Señora Cabrera.

  “Devil shit where he want.”

  The señora’s phone bill for just April 29-31 would be nearly a thousand dollars, an endless list of calls having gone from the Acapulco to places like Mexico City, Lima, New Orleans, New York, Guadalajara, Boston, Houston, Caracas, Panama City, and Chicago.

  The señora was ready to throw in the towel. After eighteen years serving the very people who had destroyed her business, she was ready to torch the place herself. But Mac and Puddin showed up on the fifth of May, Cinco de Mayo, to help her and cheer her. Willa gave Puddin permission to take off from school. He would run in the morning, then Mac would meet him at the Acapulco and work cleaning up until the afternoon. Then Puddin and Mac would head for Not Long, where Mac would work with his pros as well as Puddin. He was so tired sometimes that he could barely hold his head up. So Cannonball would fill in for him, and suddenly Cannonball was like a pup, his movements young and springy as he made moves and called shots.

  “Man, I be shiny like the bulldog on a new Mack truck.”

  Puddin sparred with Malik sometimes, sometimes with someone else, sometimes he just worked the mitts and bags. But he loved working with the old-timer, was like a sponge as he added Cannon-ball’s tricks and slicks to Mac’s. The days of spring were getting longer, so Mac, Puddin, and Cannonball would return to work at the Señora’s until dark, often longer. Afterward, Mac would treat them to Italian, Chinese, or Dutch Indonesian food. Cannonball was crazy for sate sapi, skewered pork with spicy peanut sauce, and side vegetables cooked with coconut milk.

  “Man, this the way to greeze.”

  In four days the Acapulco was clean again, the broken windows replaced, and the Señora was almost ready to reopen. Much of L.A.’s infrastructure had been destroyed in the riots, including mom-and-pop markets and cafés. Hungry people continually stuck their heads in to ask when they could get fish again.

  “When I put in my iron bars,” Señora Cabrera would answer, sometimes to the same people she knew had vandalized her.

  Her doors and windows were standard, and the supplier had her sizes in stock. Once the iron bars were delivered, Mac and Puddin began to bolt them in. That took another two days.

  “Now I’m the one in jail for obey the law,” said Señora Cabrera, shaking her head.

  The Acapulco filled up the first hour it reopened. Señora Cabrera’s daughters took off from the hospital to help her the first two days. Except for the usual afternoon lull, the place stayed busy from eleven-thirty in the morning to nine at night. Puddin would return to help her close, then walk on home again.

  ~ * ~

  Air Jordan loved the riots. He set seven fires and looted stores in South Central, Koreatown, and Hollywood. Using a stolen little stainless steel Walther .380, he shot a fireman in the face. But no matter how much fun he had destroying people and things, what still nagged at him was that old white man clowning him in that Spic café. So the real fun now would be the git-back on the old man, because no racist white man muhfuh born of a woman would dis him and skate.

  Air Jordan spent much of his time plotting revenge. He had already staked out the Acapulco and knew Mac’s car and when Mac and Puddin would be there. Getting even was important, but getting away with it was more important. Standing over some sucker and laughing down on him as his life flickered, he liked that. Then to get so close the chump can see your eyes, and knowing that the chump will take your face with him to the satin, Air Jordan liked that, too. But how to hurt the old white man to his heart was the game now—how to hurt him so bad he wanted to be dead but had to go on living with what you did to him, that was the kind of git-back that made your dick get hard, the kind that was better than getting your nut.

  Blind the old fuck? Cripple him? Maybe just set him on fire and watch him dance? Air Jordan enjoyed watching Mac and Puddin sweating their asses off putting the taco joint back in business. He knew they knew who smeared the shit on the fighters’ photos. As far as Air Jordan was concerned, he knew all he needed to know about Mac and Puddin.

  Air Jordan and his homeys hung out in front of a liquor store at Hooper and Slauson. “Check it out,” he said. “You know a punk routine, you know the punk, see what I’m sayin? Once you know the punk, he yours, understand what I mean?, he be like you bitch and that what you want, right? The little fighter now, he eat in taco town every night startin around six-thirty, seven o’clock. He come on the bus from Not Long, or he come wit the old white man in the car, and then they bof eat. Every night except Saturday and Sunday. Now the boy check in the café around three-thirty when he get his little bus a Not Long every day except Saturday. That when he get a bus at ten-thirty, come home from the gym one-thirty, two o’clock. Sunday no bus and the café close and the boy stay wit his mama.”

  Air Jordan had never seen Cannonball.

  “Now that beaner lady, she live on Forty-fifth off Compton wit her two girls that are nurses somewhere. They help the old lady sometime, and the old lady got a wetback dishwasher come in at noon and leave at eight-thirty, quarter a nine. That old lady, now, she come in at nine in the morning and go out ten o’clock at night, maybe later. After nine at night is when we go in do our business wit the old bitch.”

  “How you know all this?” grinned Fridge, the sixteen-year-old. “You sumpin else.”

  “It my business to know it, what you think? An’ the way I see it, the best wey to play the old man is to play him by he chickenshit Olympic, ain’t that right?”

  “Wait, man, Olympic a brothuh,” said Shareef, one of the two-hundred-pounders.

  “Fuck a brothuh. We go kill the old man, we in shit because he white. No good. So we go through the Olympic brothuh to get to the old man, hear what I’m sayin?, because to the po-lice, Olympic just one more dead nigga in a ice box wit a paper tag tied on a toe.”

  “Air Jordan cold,” said Fridge.

  “Cold how you stay alive,” said Air Jordan. “That why we make our move in two ways, not just one. We ruin that Olympic, see?, but we only lean on the old lady, know what I’m sayin? We want her alive because she the money machine, like check it out, I see a hundred a day from her to start, then I up it from there.”

  “Air Jordan be trippin,” said Emil, the other two-hundred-pounder.

  Air Jordan said, “All we need is five mom-and-pops. That five hundred a day. Time six, that three thousand a week, and fuck Nike.”

  Air Jordan’s homeboys looked at him like he’d led them to the Promised Land.

  “Air Jordan be trippin!”

  “When we goin back for tacos?” said Fridge.

  “Saturday morning at eleven be a good time, Olympic already long gone. The old lady’ll have money from Friday night and even more from Saturday night comin out her pussy because she got no way to get to the bank, can you dig it? Talk to her in the morning, make her shit her drawers, then go back at night collect what ours.”

  “What if she call the po-lice?”

  “So what? No witness. After I talk wit her, she give us her money because she love us.”

  “When we go after that uppity-ass Puddin Mr. Olympic?” asked Fridge, his eyes already dead at sixteen.

  “We get the boy when the time right. First we get the money. Puddin hear about that, chump’ll come to us.”

  Air Jordan staked out the Acapulco for two more days. He also took some photos of the Señora’s daughters with a Polaroid camera he grabbed from a Hollywood camera shop during the riots. The pictures came out just fine.

  ~ * ~

  “I just got the call from Vegas about my featherweight, Enrique,” said Mac. “Eight rounds preliminary at the Mirage.”

  Puddin was toweling off after his workout on Wednesday afternoon. His weight had dropped to 182, and Mac didn’t want him down to 178 until a few days before his first fight in Barcelona, so he had him just work the mitts and the bags and do sit-ups.

  “Cannonball a
nd Enrique and I’ll be driving up tomorrow morning.”

  “When you be back?”

  “Saturday afternoon. No big thing. Not Long’ll be closed, so I want you to go to Sewing Machine gym tomorrow, Friday, and Saturday. You gotta go in early, remember, because Saturday they close around one-thirty, two.”

  “They know I’m comin?”

  “I just called over there. But just a light workout, okay? Run easy in the mornings like always, then shadowbox, do the rope and sit-ups. You’re weight’s good, so we don’t have to sweat that, and so’s your wind.”

  “When you say you be back?”

  “Enrique fights Friday night, so we’ll start back about nine Saturday morning.”

  “How long it take?”

  “Six hours, give or take. Maybe a little longer because first we got to drop Enrique off in Carson.”

  “I see you Saturday night?”

  “Yeah. I been promising Cannonball a steak dinner at the Pantry.”

  “Yeah!”

  ~ * ~

  Air Jordan and his homeys had been up all night partying. At nine o’clock Saturday morning, they pistol-whipped a woman and hijacked her van in a market parking lot near Hawthorne Boulevard and Sepulveda in the South Bay. It was a part of town, going west toward the beach, that was upscale and 95 percent white, an area where new vehicles were plentiful. They struck at nine because morning traffic would be light and because Saturday cops would still be having coffee at their favorite donut shop. Once they were back in South Central, L.A. cops wouldn’t be looking for a South Bay van. They switched license plates on the spot and drove leisurely away. Air Jordan put on a blond ponytail wig. Fridge slouched down on a backseat. It had taken less than two minutes.

  Shareef and Emil drove Jordan’s car, a dark, nondescript ‘86 Ford, taking the four guns with them in case Air Jordan and Fridge got popped. Even so, Air Jordan wouldn’t give up his cane. The two vehicles would travel by different routes and meet at a chop shop in Maywood, where they would receive five hundred dollars for their work. From there, the plan was to head to the Acapulco. But on the way, Air Jordan got hungry for breakfast—for some more crack cocaine, each little rock in its own small plastic bag. Because it was still early, it took them longer to score than they expected, but once they had lit up, they shared a small, tar-crusted glass pipe. Inhaling deeply, Air Jordan began to feel his invincible self again. So instead of driving directly to the chop shop, he decided to first go by the Acapulco, where he’d terrorize the Señora, impress Fridge, and have some fun.

  Fridge jingled like a set of keys. “Bitch give us shit, I make her piss in a glass and drink it.”

  “My man.”

  Air Jordan pulled off his wig at 11:05 A.M. He parked the stolen van near the dog-leg turn on Compton Avenue, which was only a short block north of the Acapulco. He parked there to be out of the Señora’s line of sight, and so he and Fridge could approach the Acapulco from the rear.

  ~ * ~

  At six o’clock that same morning, Puddin hit the street running. He’d stretched and warmed up and did his run at an easy pace, going the three miles in just under thirty minutes. Returning home, he showered, drank some grapefruit juice, and went back to bed. He woke again at nine. Air Jordan was beating a woman senseless at the time. Puddin did some homework while Willa fixed him a breakfast of hot cereal, toast with honey, and nonfat milk. He took his time, since he would be working out at Sewing Machine instead of Not Long, and finished with a crisp apple at ten-thirty. Willa was staring out the kitchen window. Her other two sons were playing catch in the driveway, but she didn’t notice them.

  “Anything wrong, Mama?”

  “What? Well, yes, there always somethin wrong. But they always somethin right, too, like us. I was thinkin about all the folks got hurt by the riots. But we so lucky havin each other we blessed by God. I was thinkin about you daddy, too, thinkin how he up there helpin us, thinkin about how proud he must be of us all, specially a you.”

  “He a good daddy, my daddy.”

  Willa turned away so her son couldn’t see the tears.

  ~ * ~

  Air Jordan and Fridge quietly moved along a side wall of the Acapulco, then swiftly toward the door. Air Jordan slowly turned the knob., but the door didn’t open. He tried again, then yanked at the door, but it was locked tight. He saw Señora Cabrera inside as she ran to the phone. He broke the door glass with the brass duck-head handle of his cane, reached in, and unlocked the door. He and Fridge stormed through, knocking the Señora down as she tried to dial 911. Air Jordan ripped the phone from the wall. His wrist was bleeding from breaking the glass.

  “Bitch!, why you make me cut mysef?” he yelled into the Señora’s face, causing her to wince. “Why you make me do you like this?”

  He yanked her to her feet by her braid and slapped her hard. He was whispering calmly to her as Puddin got his old bike from the garage.

  Air Jordan said, “Bitch, this what it is. We been too nice a you, protectin you Mex ass and not chargin you our regular price, understand what I’m sayin?, not stoppin in for what we earn?, but that shit all over wit now. Now you gonna pay what you owe.”

  “I no espeak Ingli.”

  “Don’t be jivin me, ho!” Air Jordan shouted. “I put a broom handle up you pussy and pull it out you mouf!”

  “I got no monies.”

  “See, you talk good as me. But you got plenty a money, so don’t try a bullshit.”

  “No monies.”

  “No? No monies? You sure?” asked Air Jordan, his words pumped with crack cocaine. “Because you don’t come up wit a hundred dollar a day, we go see you pretty little nursey daughters, know what I’m sayin? Cora and Dora whatever the fuck they name.”

  “I no espeak.”

  Air Jordan yanked the braid. “You speaky all right, bitch. So we be back tonight after you make all you money, understand what I’m sayin?, and since you lie a me about talkin Merican, we goin pick up all the money you owe us for every day this whole week. That six hundred dollar, mama, case you don’t know. Maybe we have you fry up some shrimp, too, and put out a plate a fries, drink some a you Mexicano beer.”

  “Yeah!” said Fridge. “Drink up a whole mess a Mexicano beer!”

  “Please go, for the name of God.”

  “Not so fast, mama. Startin this Monday, we be comin in every day for our hundred dollar, so git use to it.”

  “I got no money,” said Señora Cabrera, but she was thinking of how she’d poison these hijos de la chingada madre sons of the fucked mother when they came in to eat. She had the pistola under her apron, but Air Jordan was so close that she knew he’d lake it from her before she could fire.

  ~ * ~

  Puddin left his house thinking to first go by the Acapulco and then head for Sewing Machine. He wore high-top white boxing shoes and dark blue sweats. On his back, in big, red block letters trimmed in white, was USA. He carried his gym bag on his handlebars.

  ~ * ~

  Air Jordan showed the Señora the color Polaroids he’d taken of her daughters. They were wearing their white nurse’s uniforms as they were leaving the Señora’s white house. The Señora leaned against a table, her knees ready to fold.

  “Got no money, huh? Then you better git you some, hyuh?, because you don’t, I give Cora and Dora some babies what look like me. You want them have some babies look like me?, understand what I’m tellin you? Or maybe me and my homeboys we run a train on Cora-Dora, choo-choo!, understand what I’m sayin?”

  The señora understood, the faces of her beloved Maria and Magdalena clear in her mind, but her mouth went so dry from fear that she couldn’t answer. She hoped Air Jordan wanted to eat. She’d feed him rat poison right now. She knew she had the will to do it, she knew that, but she was so terrified for her daughters that she couldn’t translate from Spanish to English and continued to stand there dumbly.

  Air Jordan turned the handle of his duck-head cane and pulled. The shiny blade of a grooved sword slid f
ree of the cane. He let her see twenty inches of steel, then shoved it back into the cane. He carefully placed the bill of the brass duck against her left nipple.

  “Check it out, maybe I won’t give Cora-Dora a baby,” he said. “But you don’t come up wit our money tonight and every night, maybe I just cut Cora-Dora titties off instead, hear what I’m sayin’?, have you fry up some nipple tacos.”

  “I gib you money now.”

  “See there?” Air Jordan said to Fridge. “Money talk and bullshit walk, like the man say.” He looked the Señora in the eyes from up close. “Somethin else, and you better understand this most a all: you call the po-lice, huh?, you shoot off you Taco Bell mouf a them, understand?, we come back and set you and Cora-Dora on fire in you little house. You be roastin inside because we fix the iron bars on the doors so you can’t get out, hear what I’m sayin?”