by Toby Barlow
than pointless.”
“You’ll get paid,” the man says. “That’s the point.”
Jorge and Frio are soaked through with sweat
by the time they finally kick off.
“Hey,” says the man. “You guys are all right,
lemme buy you a beer.”
They lead the boys on a fast drive
through a maze of warehouses
and dry cinder block. Left and right, right, right fast.
Rust metal and piles of circuit boards
abandoned to rust, loading flats, smashed lumber.
Left and right, left and left fast
Left then left. Jorge’s about to hurl.
The girl is grinning, she likes this ride.
They pull to a stop at another blank warehouse.
One door, no windows,
inside, though, it’s cozier, some couches
with the stuffing and springs loose,
an old bar lined with Patron and Tuaca.
Postcards of naked girls on a ranch
litter the dusty mirror
tequila tequila tequila yeah.
The girl doesn’t drink but talks
she’s a runner she says
she takes care of her body.
The boys size her up again
it all feels good again for a while but
her laugh is a little cockeyed
her eyes dart sideways
and she keeps looking at the guy, her friend,
with something in her eye Jorge can’t follow.
He’s flooded by booze by then
trying to think, then he’s trying
remembering to try
to think.
Space starts wavering and melting even
spinning a bit
Jorge doesn’t like it here at all.
He tries to stand but feels woozy.
“I didn’t catch your names,” says Jorge.
“I’m Ray, that’s Sasha.”
“Is she your girl?” asks Frio.
Ray doesn’t answer, changes the subject.
“I lost three men last week from my crew.”
“So I hear,” says Jorge, “tough times.”
Ray snaps his fingers, “One left, then the next,
then the last. It’s got to stop.”
“Our crew,” she says, looking intently at Ray.
“What?” Ray stops and squints at her,
trying to fathom where she’s pushing him, but already pissed.
“You said ‘my crew.’ It’s not your crew. It’s our crew.”
“Just shut up, you fucking bitch,” he says.
“Fuck you. You tiny-cocked motherfucker.”
“So, it’s like that is it?” he snaps,
quickly pulling out a knife,
the sight of which stirs the boys out of their stupor.
Ray’s been drinking as much as any of them and
he comes at her with the blade, swerving.
“I’ll take your eye bitch.”
She spits at him, then kicks the knife out of his hands.
Ray hold his wrist, “Ow, you cu—”
She punches him in the jaw.
Shit bro, thinks Jorge, these are some dark creatures.
He starts slipping toward the door.
Sleepy-eyed Frio follows behind him.
They’ve seen enough to know
it’s time to leave.
Inching to the exit, eyes glued
as Sasha and Ray
hit and kick and fight each other
with a drunk and exhausting mix of
physical passion and drunken bitterness.
She’s giving as good as she’s getting,
blow by blow, till one slap spins her vicious face
toward the boys and—like that—she switches, shouting,
“Fuck Ray, they’re getting away!”
Ray looks up too and then moves
faster than Jorge can.
Ray’s arm is against Jorge’s throat,
pressing his head hard against the wall,
so that Jorge can feel the grit of the concrete
grinding against his skull.
Sasha’s on Frio, knee on his back, fist full of his hair
pinning him down on the ground.
“What the fuck bro—”
Ray’s fist coils back
then black.
Jorge wakes up tied to a board.
His nose is killing him and
there’s a bandage on his arm.
He hears Frio weeping over in the shadows.
She comes. Stands over Jorge. Says nothing. Walks away.
So that’s what an angel of mercy looks like.
Jorge lies there thinking of school.
How the light comes in through the windows
over the biology class’s little plants
and the masking tape with everybody’s name on it.
He had a teacher once. Miss Peña.
When he was young and innocent
he wanted her.
That is what he’s thinking about
tied to a two-by-four,
trapped in a warehouse
on a Wednesday afternoon.
Boy, he thinks,
I’m going to hell.
III
Peabody’s desk phone rings.
Picking it up he thinks
there’s a point in your life
when the youthful promise of
every phone call
devolves to a point where
each phone ringing
only inspires an “uh-oh”
or “oh shit” or “what now.”
Could be a minor irritation
or it could be something worse,
but odds are that ringing phone
is up to no good.
“Hello?”
“Well, what have you learned?”
Uh-oh.
It’s that freaky velvet voice.
“Um, sir, before we go any further,
I have to tell you
there is information you have
that I need
so please identify yourself.”
There is a pause, what is that sound?
Coquettish laughter?
“You must watch them, Peabody,
there is something there.”
“To be honest, sir, I’m not watching anything.
I’m just not that interested,” Peabody quips.
“Why is that? No intrigue? No mystery?”
“I need a reason. I’ve got other cases.”
“I’m sure you’ve been there.”
Peabody’s a little miffed. “How are you so sure?”
“Friends in high places. Just go back
and watch them, Peabody. I swear,
you will discover amazing things.”
He looks at the clock, sighs. “Honestly,
I’m more interested in you than in them, sir.”
“Well, watch them, and once you have learned
what you need to know
then we can talk.”
“In person?” Peabody asks, skeptical.
“Oh, I will gladly buy you dinner.”
Then, a gentle click.
Peabody makes his rounds the next day.
He wasn’t lying to the man, the work is piling up,
Files waiting to be filled, depositions,
old cases to be finished,
and new situations are evolving. Life is like that
it doesn’t wait, flows on, buries the living with the dead
unless you somehow stay ahead of it.
He’s on the phone questioning an old lady who has a story
about her neighbor.
The neighbor was being beaten regularly
then she finally struck back, but in the worst way
taking a curling iron to her boy’s flesh.
Hurting the son to injure the father.
/> A city ser vice person is sent over. It’s all true.
The mother is put in lockup. More paperwork.
That’s all he sees.
He sits at his desk, his stomach a stewing mix of coffee
and frustration. He calls home, the kid is asleep.
He listens to his wife talk. There’s something automatic
about the steps they take together. He teases her a little,
enough to keep it human, not so much as to be romantic.
Because love isn’t going to get him home any earlier.
And they can’t afford another kid.
Kiss, kiss, I’ll be in after you’re asleep.
There’s something I’ve got to do first.
He signs out for the night,
he’s not telling the station about his next patrol,
after all, the lisp has people watching.
Okay, well, watch this, he thinks,
disappearing into the darkness.
Pulling back into the stakeout block, Peabody parks
farther down than he was before.
Figures he’ll sit here for an hour
see if anything “amazing” turns up.
He’s unsure how he’s going to handle this.
Maybe he’ll check in once a week.
Maybe every day.
Maybe it’s just a chance to get away from it all,
to quietly pull in somewhere and watch the world go quiet.
He waits. He’s got the radio on low
there’s a game being played somewhere in the world.
Scanning the stations, there’s a man on the radio whose hate
is almost bewildering. The man is complaining about Mexicans.
Mexicans? Why? Really,
in this in-between world, what is a Mexican?
Knock.
Fuck, he didn’t see her coming.
Knock knock.
He rolls down the window.
“Hi.” Annie smiles. “Are you still looking for Ruiz?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I was just coming by to ask.”
“But you’ve been parked here for an hour.”
Sometimes, caught in a lie, all you can do is smile.
She smiles back.
“He’s not here. He’s off in Mexico looking for dogs.”
“I thought you said he was in San Diego,” Peabody pushes.
“I guess he kept driving. He’s unpredictable like that.”
Again the big smile. “Why don’t you give me your card
and I’ll call you when he comes home.”
Peabody doesn’t really know what to do,
so he sticks to a rule of thumb:
when in doubt, go forward.
He hands her his card as he plays his hand.
“Here you go, ma’am, but to tell you the truth,
I get the feeling he’s not coming home.”
The smile is still there. Now it is irritating,
the young smile of a girl
who knows the truth
but keeps it tucked in her back pocket.
“Now, why would you think that?” she says,
already stepping away from the car
as Peabody answers, “I dunno, ma’am,
like I said, it’s just a feeling.
But, all the same,
I’m going to keep watching you,
and your friends,
for a little while at least.”
Stepping into the night she says,
“That’s funny, because it seems like
you’re the one who’s being watched.”
Peabody peers into the night
that she has slipped back into.
Looks around at the brightly lit houses
grimaces to himself
and fires up his engine.
This girl
is irritating.
III
Bonnie is beginning to think she’s nuts.
It’s not a good feeling. Her therapist
is trying to help but
it’s the little things, you know,
that can send you around the bend
and you’re never sure why.
It’s just, well,
something seems off-kilter.
As if someone has moved pictures around
or rearranged the furniture
and everyone is acting like it was always the same.
Good thing she has a dog.
She named him Buddy and that’s what he is,
sitting obediently when she comes home.
He never chews things, never barks, and
brings her the leash when he has to go out.
If it wasn’t for him, she really would be nuts.
Her therapist prescribes an antianxiety drug,
which doesn’t seem to help, in fact,
she feels even more disoriented.
Now, where did that notebook go?
She thought there was a pencil in that drawer.
She talks to herself going through the house.
Or, to reassure herself that she’s not going too batty,
she talks to the dog.
“Oh, Buddy, are we out of yogurt already?”
“A half tank? I just filled it up yesterday.”
“Oh Buddy, I thought we had some more ice cream.”
Sometimes she thinks reality is only imaginary
and these little lapses are the moments when we see
behind the curtain.
Her therapist changes the prescription and adds
a sleeping aid.
She fills it.
“Oh Buddy.” She sighs. “If I only had a boyfriend,
he could tell me I wasn’t crazy.
Then again,
I’d probably misplace him too.”
She works out, her schedule is fierce,
running in the hills with Buddy on weekends
and early mornings.
Getting rid of that extra tension
hoping to feel grounded again.
But it doesn’t work. She wondered if it was Buddy,
though her allergist says not to worry.
Finally, when the disorientation becomes too much—
when she starts hearing echoes of a man’s voice
murmuring through the house,
voices her spiritualist says are an old ship captain’s
and her Chinese herbalist says are demons of chi—
she finally gives up and
checks herself into a healing ranch
down near Palm Springs.
It’s run by raw food enthusiasts who say that
it should only take
two weeks
and five thousand dollars
to put the pieces back together.
She drops Buddy off at her sister’s.
Her sister’s boys love Buddy.
Ethan, the soccer star, young and
bright as tomorrow
is petting Buddy’s coat
as Bonnie pulls out of the driveway.
Wiping a tear out of her eye
she heads off down the road
to something that feels safer.
IV
1 a.m.
a cloud enshrouds
a good idea as
Ethan blows a bong hit
into Lark’s face.
“Stupid dog.”
Ethan’s friend Andrew
uses his fat fingers to fill the bong again,
lights up and sucks in.
“It’s two hundred bucks for that bud,” says Ethan.
“Deal me in,” answers Andrew
looking, as he exhales,
like some strange reptile.
Lark tries to focus
Who am I?
Lark.
Where am I?
I am in Bonnie’s nephew’s room.
Why am I here?
His thoughts wander.
He knows what the problem is.
/>
He knows it’s his own fault.
Shouldn’t have finished the yogurt.
Should have put the pencil back.
But there are a million details to manage
and all things considered,
Dragon’s shepherd broken shoe gum
Wait, Who am I?
Lark.
Where am I?
I am in Bonnie’s nephew’s room.
Dr. Dre is playing.
Bonnie will be back in two weeks.
So much work to do,
can’t stay here, where
two teenagers rumble in and out
and Dad works late
coming home with the scent
of whiskey and another woman on him.
Lark is the only one who notices.
Then again, the Mrs. cries when she’s alone,
listening to Christian radio and
making the mess complete in this
broken empire.
It’s not like it was at Bonnie’s.
Her sleeping pills gave Lark
the whole night to himself.
And while she was at work
he worked too.
Only sleeping after she came home
lying at her feet
snoring deeply just as we expect
a good dog to do.
Here comes another cloud.
Buzzrot worms candy pillows sea whiskey.
Who Am I?
Lark.
Where am I?
Yellow button rooster traitor
“Stupid dog,”
they chortle.
2 a.m. and Lark is up
still foggy as he slips out the door
wearing Ethan’s clothes
and Ethan’s cash.
He waits, waits, waits for the bus.
LA public transportation tries the patience.
He winds up sitting with three sleepies
and a black woman who looks angry as hell,
riding the bus at this hour, no doubt she has her reasons.
Lark gets off downtown, rounds some dark blocks
stops at a warehouse building and buzzes.
“Shit man, who is it?”
“Lark, open up.”
“Hmmmn.” The voice is heavy as a dead man,
but the door is buzzed and Lark rolls in, taking the elevator up
then opening up the doors and turning on lights
in a loft littered with yards of cloth and half-done stitching.
A man comes out of a dark corner room,
squinting at him, “What are you doing here at this hour, bro?”
The guy is heavy, in boxers, no shirt.
The gold chain around his neck says “Tati.”
A scar follows a crooked path
from his navel to his left shoulder.
But the way he carries himself,