Street Raised

by Pearce Hansen

  He was gloriously aware of her presence as he walked deeper into her place. She was right behind him the whole way, gauging his reaction to her private area. Speedy liked that she was watchful, waiting, not feeling the need to react fully before she had to, before she’d taken him all the way in.

  As always when he entered an unfamiliar space he cataloged the exits, and the unseen spots where threat could be lurking. Behind him and to his left was a trio of windows, their curtains closed. Ahead of and to his right him he could see past the end of a half-wall into her kitchenette: a folding card table and two folding metal chairs, with a Tarot deck on the table spread out on a silk cloth next to a pack of smokes, an ashtray, and a Mister Coffee containing no more than dregs of the last pot-full. A telephone headset lay next to the Tarot cards. On the far side of the table, a short little hallway led back to what he figured would be the bed/bath.

  Speedy gestured at the Tarot deck. “You tell fortunes?”

  “Since I was a kid. I’m not half bad. Some even say I have a gift.”

  “Show me,” he said. He almost asked her why, if she was psychic, she hadn’t foreseen those bangers creeping up on her earlier – but he refrained.

  Carmel picked up the spread cards, put the deck back together and held it out to Speedy. “Pick any card. Don’t let me see.”

  Speedy took the deck and opened it. The card showing had a picture on it, of the Devil sitting on a throne. A naked man and woman stood in front of the Devil wearing chains around their necks, neither seeming unhappy at their shared human bondage.

  In a spooky voice Carmel said, “You’re holding the Devil.”

  Speedy closed the deck and put it back on the table. “How’d you pull that one off?” he asked, not wanting to sound like he bought into anything.

  Carmel smiled. “I saw the reflection in your eyes.”

  Speedy snorted. He caught Carmel giving him a searching stare, and then they both looked away from each other. The room was very warm.

  “You still have that thing you showed me today?” Carmel asked.

  Speedy pulled out the sawed-off, hefted it for a second and then handed it to her. “Careful. It’s loaded.”

  She smiled as she took it. “It wouldn’t be much use if it wasn’t, would it?”

  First thing Carmel noticed when she hefted the gun: it was heavy for something so small. It was slightly greasy with aromatic gun oil – he kept his weapon clean. The two twelve-gauge shells peeped slightly past the ends of the sawed-off barrels, resembling blind eyes bulging in idiot surprise.

  Carmel had been around the block a few times, she considered herself edgy enough. This wasn’t too hardcore, she told herself. She’d seen a million guns up in Humboldt, and this particular one didn’t mean a damn thing in and of itself.

  She handed it back. “I know a lot of hunters up north. That’d be way too short to put meat on the table.”

  Speedy tossed a shoulder. “It suits my purposes.”

  He suddenly realized that he’d just barged his way into her house even if she’d given unspoken invitation. That had always been Speedy way before, to waltz right in and own whatever space he entered. But the rules felt like they should be different with this girl, and Speedy felt uncomfortable just standing here dorkishly in the middle of her living room.

  Carmel seemed to sense his unease. “Come on to the table, take a load off.”

  Speedy was grateful for the offer and he took a seat as she reached down a couple of old Flintstones jelly glasses and a screw-top jug of Carlo Rossi Blush, the king of supermarket wine. Carmel wore a secret little smile as she filled the tiny glasses; she knew he was watching her every move and she didn’t seem to mind.

  The phone rang, but she just unplugged it from the wall jack with an irked expression on her face. She sat down and regarded him, this tall young hawk of a woman perched in her chair with her knees under her chin, folded up like she didn’t have a bone in her body. On the stereo, Howard Jones came on and commenced singing ‘What is Love?’

  “So where you from?” Carmel asked, looking at him over the edge of her glass as she took a pseudo-dainty sip. She had a Betty Rubble on her glass.

  Speedy looked at his own, saw he had Bam-Bam, smiled at the incestuous juxtaposition. “Oakland, mainly. But we moved around a lot when I was coming up. I’ve lived in pretty much every town in the East Bay, but yeah, I guess I’d have to claim Oakland as home. How bout you?”

  The wine was good. It went down smooth, raising the heat still another notch.

  “Redway, up in Humboldt County,” Carmel said. “You heard of it?”

  “Well, everybody’s been hearing about Humboldt since paraquat pot. But no, I don’t know Redway.”

  Carmel nodded, used to it. “Yeah, ever since they started spraying the fields in Mexico, seems like everyone on Earth knows about the Humboldt skunk, and makes sure to tell me when I say that’s where I’m from. I grew up there, people are right about most of us being growers in those parts now – the money’s too good, it’s changing everything. I’ll admit we’re still pretty backwoods up in Redway – no reason you should even know my town exists.”

  “So what brought you down here to the East Bay?” Speedy asked.

  “I wanted to see what a city was like.” Carmel didn’t bother mentioning how hard she’d run away from Mom’s grave; that would have been premature at this juncture.

  “And?”

  “You can keep it.” She gestured at him with the bottle, brows raised.

  To his surprise, Speedy realized both their glasses were empty and he nodded for a refill. While she was pouring he snaked out two of her Lucky Strikes, lit them both and handed her one.

  Carmel’s Tarot deck sat next to her, and Speedy’s sawed-off lay on his side. They sat there on opposite ends of the table, just looking at each other through the rising cigarette smoke, the wine continuing to inject its creeping exhilaration into their blood.

  “I saw your face yesterday when we met,” she said. “You felt something too, didn’t you?”

  Speedy started to crack wise, to make light of it, but found he didn’t want to. “Yeah, I guess I did or I wouldn’t be here so late and all.”

  “I’ve never had that kind of jolt, just meeting someone for the first time. You?”

  “Never,” Speedy admitted.

  “So where does that leave us?”

  “Here and now I guess. Just like always.”

  A rain started, pattering gently against the windows and on the roof. Speedy stood, and moved to Carmel’s window, parted the curtains and looked out onto Buena Vista. Carmel moved to join him and they looked out at the wet night street reflecting the streetlights.

  “You have to know from the start, and I ain’t gonna lie to you here,” Speedy said, looking at the glistening pavement outside the window rather than at her, “That sawed-off’s not a fluke. That’s who I am, what I’ve been my whole life. I also gotta tell you I’m an ex-con, I just raised.”

  “Why?” Carmel asked, standing close beside him and following his gaze out into the rainy night herself. Speedy having a record didn’t bother her as much as Speedy seemed to think it should – but then her own Dad had been an infamous jailbird up in Humboldt, on first name joke-cracking terms with all the cops up there. She wondered idly where he was now.

  “The prison time?” Speedy asked. “Bad luck, but let’s just say it was better than the alternative. As for mi vida loca . . . Who knows, bad potty training maybe. Well, I did grow up on the streets – pretty much self-raised. I’m not complaining or nothing. But I’m not going to apologize for how things panned out neither.”

  “Hell, some people say I have a gift too.” Speedy smiled, but Carmel wasn’t sure she liked the exact expression his lips curved into.

  “So why the name?” she asked. “Why ‘Speedy?’”

  A fly was crawling on the table, lapping at a little droplet of spilled red wine. Speedy strode back there in a single long step. One second
Carmel saw Speedy scratching his cheek with his left forefinger, then his hand blurred downward to the table, covering and enclosing the fly. He raised his closed hand to eye level, delicately opened it, and the fly flew away in a drunken wobble.

  “Have some more wine,” Carmel said, filling their glasses again. She was impressed despite herself, but she wanted to get the memory of Speedy’s previous smile out of her mind, get back to the other things she was seeing in him.

  “Have you ever wanted anything different?” Carmel asked. “Anything . . . more?”

  Speedy shook his head, not about to confess to this girl how much of a dinosaur he felt since his homecoming, how painfully fast Oakland seemed to have left him behind while he was inside. “I’ve never really had time to think about tomorrow.”

  For the first time Carmel appeared hesitant. “How would you like to come up to Humboldt with me?”

  Speedy gave her a startled glance, but was too tactful to point out how hastily she was moving here.

  Carmel saw the doubt on his face, but didn’t backpedal. “There’s land up there, miles and miles of it, dirt cheap. Like you said before, our pot is blowing Columbian Gold and Panama Red out of the water now – you could be a grower, we’ll show you how. The people there are so cool – holy hell, we have more artists, writers and musicians per capita than any other county in the state. There’s crab and salmon and oysters in season, and parties all the time.”

  “And there’s me,” Carmel said, leaning across the table yearning at him all of a sudden like a candle flame dancing over in a micro-breeze. “I’d be there. I can’t stay here anymore, I’ve got to go home but I can’t go all by myself. Come home with me to Redway, Speedy.”

  Speedy didn’t ask her why she couldn’t go home alone, instead filing that particular mystery away for future reference. “What if I do say yes?” he asked instead. “What happens next?”

  “Then we go together, ASAP. How long would it take you to pack?”

  “Not long at all,” Speedy said, picking up the sawed-off. “You’re looking at everything I own.”

  Carmel stared at him with an appraising expression on her face. “Wait here for a minute.”

  She disappeared into her bedroom and shut the door. Speedy cadged another of Carmel’s cigarettes and took his glass of wine to stand at the window again. Howard Jones’ ‘What is Love’ started playing on the radio.

  The rain had really picked up, sheeting down against the windows and roof in an unending hiss of white noise, drops bouncing out of the spreading puddles. Out there it was wet and miserable, and the gutters were already overflowing with runoff. But in here with Carmel it was warm and dry.

  Speedy took a proprietary look around the room, picturing Carmel and him playing house in a place like this, if they even had this kind of cribs in Humboldt. The room was smaller and dimmer without Carmel lighting it up – but he didn’t feel like a total outsider here, he felt semi-welcome. That wasn’t a sensation he was used to; he was going to mouth this hook before biting all the way down just yet.

  Even with Carmel in the other room Speedy couldn’t help thinking about Reseda, thinking back to the last time he’d seen her after the ‘breakup:’ Reseda had been on the stroll off 44th Avenue and East 14th Street next to Jesse’s Talk of the Town and Taqueria Morelia. She was getting into a van filled with what appeared to be college football players.

  Speedy had watched her leaving to catch that train and he’d called out her name, despising his weakness even as he uttered it. Reseda had paused; but she merely smiled without looking at him as she continued climbing into the van, the sliding side door clunked shut and the van quietly drove away.

  Lying awake at night in prison, Speedy had the chance to think about Reseda a lot when he was inside, considering might-have-beens that he knew would never come to fruition. Regrets were a motherfucker, but he’d found them to ultimately be a waste of time and so dodged them fervently.

  The door to Carmel’s room opened. She stood there leaning against the doorframe, her pink robe hanging open a little to show her underlying nakedness. What Speedy could see made his pulse throb in his throat, and he grinned in appreciation.

  “What do you want, big boy?” Carmel asked, rocking her hips and vamping it for laughs. “A written invitation?”

  Speedy stepped off so quick he stumbled over his own feet, tripped but recovered. Then they were together in her bedroom, in a space filled with burning candles and incense, drinking in the sight and the scent of each other, exploring each other’s bodies.

  Carmel was wiry and compact for her height, and she had a lot of ink on her – but her chassis was clean and sweet, and Speedy figured she had everything a woman should have. Carmel ran her hands across Speedy’s hard, athletic frame, her fingertips feeling the raised bumps of multiple scars she refused to examine in the heat of the moment.

  They forgot the world in that ancient two-backed dance. Speedy had dreamed of this, and dreaded it, for all the time he’d been inside, wondering if everything would go all right – classic anticipation anxiety.

  But he needn’t have worried even if the first time was over pretty quickly.

  The second time was better, though he could see in her eyes when he was done that her train hadn’t quite made the station yet.

  It all ended up cool, though: The third time, as they say, was the charm.

  Chapter 22

  The next morning they came together again before they’d even fully awakened. They grooved a little slower than the night before but sweeter and more intense, each of them now somewhat conscious of the other’s rhythms and needs and already working them. It lasted a surprisingly long time, ending in a shuddering simultaneous climax that left them both gasping, lying side by side looking at the ceiling after they were done.

  “I’m going to put on some coffee,” Carmel said, confiscating his tie-dyed tee shirt. “You want to hop in the shower, I’ve got a robe in the closet.”

  Speedy got up and searched for it. Funny girl: The only robe he saw hanging in there was that same short-sleeved pink terry cloth thing she’d been wearing last night. It was way too tight on his shoulders, and so short he was concerned for his modesty. He put it on anyway and went to take his shower.

  As Carmel was putting out a couple mugs for coffee, she heard a tentative knock on the door. When she opened it, the same buzz-saw-looking guy she’d seen with Speedy at the liquor store the day before was standing on the porch. The dude was giving her a look that appeared half sheepish, half defiant.

  “Is Speedy here?” he asked in a harsh gargling voice, a little truculently – but she figured that was maybe defensive shyness on his part, she wasn’t going to automatically cop an attitude off it.

  “That depends on who wants him,” she came back, neither giving way nor inviting him in til he showed he could budge a little. “My name’s Carmel.”

  “They call me Fat Bob,” he rasped with apparent pride.

  Carmel looked him over. She was impressed against her will by the sheer rolling mass of this guy’s hulking shoulders, the size of his veiny hands as they dangled empty at the ends of his thick wristed arms. He was maybe half a head shorter than her but his entire upper body was proportioned for a much larger man.

  “You don’t look fat to me,” Carmel said, not even intending it as a compliment, just stating the facts as she saw them.

  “Well, I was pretty pudge as a kid. I lost the weight, but the name stuck.” Bob fidgeted from foot to foot as he stared past her into the apartment’s interior, searching for his friend. “Am I coming in or what?”

  Carmel relented and fetched another mug for Bob to share some of the coffee. But she saw Fat Bob’s eye lingering wistfully on the half full jug of Carlo Rossi. She smiled as she got down a clean Flintstones glass – one with Dino on it – and poured it full of wine for him. Bob smiled back at her as he took it, cupping both big hands around the glass like the prospect of alcohol warmed him.

  “So
how long have you known Speedy?” Carmel asked.

  Fat Bob thought about it as he took a long swig off the red. “Oh, hell, I guess since we were thirteen or so – we both ran away from home about the same time. Me, him and his brother crewed up then, been crimies ever since.” Speedy was a subject Bob didn’t seem to mind talking about.

  “He has a brother?”

  “Yeah. Little Willy.”

  Carmel held the bottle hovering over Bob’s glass after he’d emptied it with his second gulp. “Speedy’s really interesting. His brother must be interesting too.”

  Fat Bob’s eyes glinted – Carmel wanted tit-for-tat, offering wine in exchange for answering her questions, and Bob was agreeable as long as she didn’t ask where the bodies were buried. “Little Willy’s the smartest dude I ever met, knows everything there is to know in books – but he’s got no common sense at all. But Speedy, now – Speedy’s a tricky son of a bitch, he could probably run through hell with a sack of ice, still have enough for a sno-cone on the other side.”

  “What about the rest of his family? Where’s his Mom, his Dad?”

  “My dad’s dead,” Speedy said, looming in the open bathroom door with shower steam billowing out behind him. He was still wearing the short-sleeved pink terry cloth robe, which only came down to mid-thigh. “My ears were burning.”

  “Nice outfit,” Fat Bob said, pasting an admiring expression on his obnoxious pug of a face.

  “Thanks,” Speedy replied. “Do I detect a note of sarcasm?”

  He picked up Bob’s glass and took a sip from it. “Breakfast of champions,” Speedy said, smacking his lips.

  “We need to talk,” Fat Bob said. For all the attention Bob paid her now that Speedy was in the room, Carmel might as well not have been there at all. “We need to go somewhere.”