by Peter Plate
“Yes, he does.”
“Who says? I don’t hear him saying shit. Never have. He doesn’t even know who I am.”
“I’m his messenger.”
“You his what?”
Richard conjured up a likeness of the unsmiling Islamic brothers in suits and bow ties and fedoras who sold bean pies and peddled newspapers next to the BART entrance at Seventh and Market. Most of those dudes were ex-cons harder than nails. Richard was confused. People owed him money, beginning with that little white boy Stiv. The cops were on his tail. He was sick, maybe with a bug, maybe that hepatitis C, and this woman wanted to discuss religion? Bring up God? He couldn’t cope. It was too deep for him. He said to Mama, “You ain’t a Muslim, are you?”
Mama Celeste fit the lid back on the shoebox. The world was such a strange place. Everything was upside down. This man and her—she didn’t even know his name—might never see each other again. At least one of them should profit from their meeting. “No, I’m not,” she said. “I’m just doing what God instructed me to do.”
“He told you to do this, to give me a bunch of hundreds? What did he do, call you up on the phone? Send you a fax?”
“No.”
“But he wanted you to give me these here Franklins?”
God was in everything. He was in the office buildings, the trolley cars and in city hall. He was in the trees, in the flowers, in the clouds overhead. He was in newly minted cash. He was in the hearts of criminals too. Mama said, “He did. This money is his gospel.”
“Why is he doing this?”
“Because you need it.”
“How’d you know that?”
“Do you know anyone nowadays who doesn’t need a thousand bucks?”
It dawned on Richard that he could take the shoebox from her. It would be a lark; the money was just sitting there. But he held himself back—it was torture to do that. Real bad. Impulse control had never been one of his virtues. “Where did you get this cash anyway? You a magician?”
“God gave it to me.”
That shut his mouth. He couldn’t argue with her about jack. Richard ogled the Franklins in his hand. Fingering the bills, he had no idea what he’d done to deserve them. Not a damn thing. He blinked steadily at Mama Celeste and said, “Well, hey, yeah, uh, thanks, sister.”
“You’re welcome.”
Richard Rood had a peek at Market Street. The cars in the road were thinning. No cops were in the vicinity. He had to press on. He put the cash in his wallet and without uttering another word to Mama Celeste, resumed his safari to the Allen Hotel.
NINE
MARKET STREET HOSTED the Saint Patrick’s Day parade and the Gay Pride celebrations in the Civic Center. Hundreds of thousands of tourists came from all over the world to witness these events. The visitors purchased postcards to send back home. They bought souvenir T-shirts from street side vendors. They squandered wheelbarrows of money in restaurants. None of them ever stayed at the Allen Hotel.
It was how Jeeter Roche wanted it—no unwanted intruders were welcome in his castle. Squatting on the chipped marble staircase in the hotel’s portico, he cleaned the wax from his ears with a wooden matchstick. Jeeter’s leisure suit jacket sleeves were tied frat-boy style over his brawny shoulders. His feet were squeezed into a pair of spanking new Tony Lama cowboy boots. A purple cyst reigned over his brow like an all-knowing third eye.
Sitting at his side with a small hill of bills by her feet was Chiclet. Her imitation Dior dress was hiked up above her tanned thighs. The silver bracelets on her wiry arms jangled as she counted the week’s tally. The money was from the tenants on all five floors, a grand total of $13,600. Eight hundred of it was earmarked for Jeeter.
The flies on the walls stirred at the sound of Jeeter’s tinny voice. He quarreled, “Eight hundred dollars? That’s all I get? That is fucking chump change. It’s preposterous. How am I supposed to deal with that shit? It simply isn’t enough. Speaking of the devil, did Stiv Wilkins pay his rent yet?”
Chiclet chewed on a pencil. Insulated within the Valium’s labyrinthine depths, Jeeter and the rest of the city seemed far off. Her head was as weightless as a feather. She was in an orbit of spatial distortion. Her brain was ten miles from her feet. She said, “No, he hasn’t.”
“He’s late? Again?” Jeeter was confounded. “That bum. He’s gone too far with it. We’re in a codependent relationship with him.”
“Yeah, he’s blowing it. Stiv don’t have much money.”
“Too bad for us. Did he even pay up from last week? He said he was going to.”
Chiclet leafed through the pages of her receipt book. “No.”
“Fucking empty promises. It’s unbelievable. That’s the fifth time this year, damn him.”
Jeeter’s mouth soured into a moon of discontent. Difficult tenants were plain evil and Stiv Wilkins was no exception to the rule. Maybe he’d set Stiv’s room on fire, a time-honored tradition at the Allen for dealing with fractious renters. Burn the fucker right out of the hotel. Jeeter had read Tolstoy, and had entertained pacifism. In his business, it wasn’t practical. He said, “We’ll call my lawyer over there on Montgomery Street and get a process server out here to hit Stiv with a three day notice for failure to pay, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I want that clod out of my hair. He’s robbing us. We need to evict the two-bit asshole. Then we can say sayonara to Stiv Wilkins, thank God.”
“If that’s what you want.”
Jeeter was prickly. “What, you got any objections?”
Careful with her reply, Chiclet said, “Stiv’s not that bad.”
“The fuck he ain’t. You’re losing money on him, too, you know.”
Safely concealed behind the staircase, Stiv heard everything Jeeter Roche said. The threat of eviction didn’t come as a shock, and he wasn’t daunted by it. The landlord had disliked him from the day they’d met. In kind, Stiv had never trusted him. The ex-con dressed horribly. How could you trust someone who wore polyester flares belted above the waistline? The answer was simple. You didn’t. It would be a cold day in hell before the dork ever saw a nickel from him. Stiv sneaked away without being seen and hastened upstairs to call his social worker.
In compliance with the terms of his probation—the collateral damage from the six months spent in jail—Stiv was supposed to telephone Norbert Deflass every day. This was a cinch and it was easier than reporting in person. He didn’t have to deal with the cops. There were no pee tests. He didn’t have to shave or dress up if he didn’t want to. Shoving two quarters into the pay phone on the fourth floor, he dialed the Shotwell Street mental health clinic.
Norbert answered the telephone on the tenth ring. A boom box was howling in the background. “Extension twenty. Deflass here. Who’s this?”
“Uh, it’s me, Stiv Wilkins.”
The social worker radiated joie de vivre. “Stiv, babe. What’s up? Has it been twenty-four hours already?”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m calling.”
“So, what’s cooking?” Stiv was discreet. “Nothing.”
“Nothing? Are you sure? Something’s got to be going down. Talk to me, baby.”
Deflass was a professional—he’d suck your biography out of you like a vacuum cleaner—but Stiv wasn’t going to talk about his hallucinations. Deflass would demand that he turn himself into the psych unit at General Hospital on Potrero Street. The doctors would hold him for seventy-two hours and dose him with Prolixin, a stronger cousin of Haldol. He’d spend his waking hours in the day room drawing with crayons on paper. The nights would be spent listening to the other patients in the ward talk in their sleep.
Stiv said, “Everything’s cool, really. No problems.”
“How are your wife and son?”
Stiv didn’t know where they were. Maybe they were at the food stamp office. He said, “They’re cool.”
“The boy getting big?”
The kid had been born fat. Stiv said, “Yeah.”
&n
bsp; “Have you named him yet?”
“No.”
“Your wife, you getting along with her?”
Alone in the hallway, Stiv lit a cigarette before answering the question. A finger of smoke circled his quiff. He said, “Yeah.”
“What about you then?”
The social worker was talking about Stiv’s least favorite subject. He waffled. “Who, me?”
“Yeah, you.”
“I’m fine.”
Honing in, Deflass said, “Are you doing the Haldol like I told you to?”
Talking about the medication you were on wasn’t fun. You might as well admit you were a chicken hawk in a kindergarten classroom or a peeping tom at the neighbor’s window. Stiv was ashamed and secretive about taking Haldol. He said, “No, I ain’t. I stopped.”
Trumpeting his displeasure, Deflass cut in. “The prescription ran out?”
“No.”
“What?”
“I was getting sick of it. The stuff is nauseating, dude.”
“So?”
“The shit is vicious. I don’t like it. It gives me dry mouth. I have trouble walking. I shuffle.”
Deflass paid no heed to Stiv’s complaints. “Call up the pharmacy and order more. Do it now, Stiv. You like hallucinating? You like seeing ghosts?”
“Nah, it’s a drag.”
“If you don’t take the Haldol, they’ll get worse.”
“Uh huh.”
“How old are you?”
Stiv loathed his age. “I’m twenty-five, older than the fucking hills.”
There was an acute silence at the other end of the line. Then, “You’re a parent now, Stiv. You have to stop thinking about yourself all the time. There are other people you’re responsible for.”
“Don’t bug me with that, Deflass. I’m living with them, you ain’t.”
“You need to clean up your act. Do you want to remain mentally ill for the rest of your life?”
“I ain’t ill. You’re the one saying that, not me. If I was sick, don’t you think I’d be the first to know it, hah?”
“Then what are you gonna do?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re a musician, aren’t you? You sing, yeah?”
The cops had shut down his band’s first gig in the city, the same night they came in from Portland. Stiv had sung one number before he was unplugged. The police confiscated the sound system. Stiv got into a fight in the bathroom with two jocks and walked away from it with a black eye. He said, “Not these days.”
Deflass grunted. “So let’s get smart. You need to take the pills as prescribed. Seriously, I’ve got to insist on the Haldol. You have to get back on it. We can lower the dosage and see if that works better for you.”
Stiv was stubborn. “I don’t want to. It makes me feel real fucking bad. Like I’m gonna cut my throat or something.”
“Tough shit. You get some today because if you’re not on medication, that gives me cause to say you’re violating probation. You don’t want that to happen, do you?” A hideous wall of electronic dissonance smothered Deflass’s voice. He faded and then came back. “Stiv? I’ve got another call coming in. Get to me later about this.”
“When?”
“I just told you. Later. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Ciao.”
What an asshole, Stiv thought.
Stiv floated on a cloud of tobacco smoke down the hall to his room. He opened the door and was displeased to find the place dark and stuffy. He hoisted the venetian blinds and a bar of pissy sunlight crept in. There was a note for him in Sharona’s handwriting on the sink counter. He picked it up and read her discursive scrawl—she and the baby were down at the laundromat. They’d be back in a couple of hours.
He sat at the table with the note in his hand. No curtains hung from the window. No pictures decorated the walls. There was no rug on the linoleum floor. The hotel room had the flavor of a minimum-security penal institution. He tuned the portable radio in to the NPR news. A female reporter with a horsey voice was chattering about the Brinks fiasco, announcing that millions of unmarked dollars had been stolen.
Finished with his cigarette, he extinguished it in the palm of his hand. The news reporter had moved on to international events and was talking about American troops fighting guerrillas in the Philippines. Stiv lowered the volume to an unintelligible garble when she started to recite the day’s body count. A second later there was a knock on the door. He jumped up and walked over to the peephole. He looked in it and saw a female in the hall. He said, “Who the hell is it? I’m busy.”
“Stiv? Are you there?”
“Who is this?”
“It’s me, Chiclet.”
He shut his eyes and pursed his lips. This was not good. Her, he didn’t need. Not now or next year. The facts were the facts: an unannounced visit from Chiclet Dupont was an invitation into quicksand. She probably wanted the rent money. It was hell. Stiv glanced at Sharona’s note, felt a surge of guilt, and shouted through the door, “What do you want? I’m in the middle of something very important in here.”
“We need to speak. It’s urgent.”
“About what?”
“Let me in and I’ll explain.”
His first impulse was, no thank you. Chiclet was a passel of hassles. On the other hand, as she was the landlord’s wife, he had to stay on her good side and make sure that he didn’t offend her. It was a chess game and he had to think fast. “The door’s open,” he said. “Come on in.”
In preened Chiclet. She brushed past him in a puff of cheap perfume. Her unfettered cleavage was outlined against the phony Dior. Her toenails were painted scarlet red. Her ivory feet were encased in open-toed sandals and she wore a twenty-four-carat gold chain around her right ankle. Her seasick brown eyes were unreadable.
She seated herself in the room’s sole chair, a rocker that Stiv had rescued from a garbage Dumpster. Sucking on a Marlboro Light, Chiclet tapped the cigarette. A four-inch ash landed on Stiv’s unpolished engineer boots. Projecting disdain, she said, “You’re fucking up again.”
His heart stopped beating for a pulse. “How so?”
“A quandary is coming at you.”
A neighbor’s laughter seeped through the paper-thin walls. Stiv didn’t know what a quandary was. It sounded like a late model sports car. Maybe it was a nuclear missile. Possibly it was a new detergent, or a lethal germ. He said, as if his ignorance were somebody else’s fault, “What about it?”
Needing to occupy her hands, Chiclet picked up a kapok pillow and held it to her nose. It stank of Walgreens drugstore brand shampoo. She said, “Jeeter don’t like you.”
Stiv made as if he didn’t know what she was referring to. “He doesn’t?”
“Nope.”
“How come?”
“You owe him rent.”
Stiv grinned, a corner of his mouth turning brittle. “Too damn bad.”
Chiclet put the pillow in her lap and drilled him with a hot glance. “But I like you.” She raised one manicured eyebrow. Valium made her horny, a little unhinged, and slightly off-course. Jeeter was in the drug room and wouldn’t care if she were gone for a few minutes. All he was concerned about was money and his books. Time flew when you were married to Jeeter Roche. One day turned into a week and suddenly, two months was yesterday. Having sex with Jeeter went even quicker. He rarely lasted more than a New York minute. His quickness had forced Chiclet to ask herself, where had all the good times gone?
“Stiv?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“You’re sweet,” she chimed. “Give me a kiss.” He clasped her hand and leaned into her face. Chiclet’s skin was chalky with Johnson’s baby powder. He swept her mouth with his puckered lips, tasting the Valium’s tang as her sandpapery tongue telescoped between his teeth. A sudden heat rushed into his groin, and he sprang an erection that was palpable through his worn out black Dickies. Hoping to hide it, he turned sideways.
The tension betw
een the two of them was a frozen rope that stretched from his mouth to her mouth. Looking at Chiclet, Stiv didn’t know what he was feeling. Excitement. Dread. It was a cocktail of lust and repulsion. Her sweet and sour breath was wet on his neck. She had his hand trapped between her knees. Feeling his cock against her leg, she guided Stiv’s fingers under her dress.
“I want you to kneel, Stiv.”
He didn’t like the sound of it. “What for?” he balked. “You know I don’t do that sort of thing.”
“C’mon.”
Stiv was reluctant. “You ain’t messing with me, are you?”
“No, no, I’m not.”
Ever the pragmatist, he demanded, “What’s in it for me?”
Chiclet giggled. “You’ll see.”
He submitted. “If you say so.”
Sliding onto his knees, he crouched between her legs. Her thighs were shapely and covered with whitened down. To his astonishment, she wasn’t wearing any underwear. Not even a bikini thong. Her auburn pubic hair had been shaved into a neat triangle and smelled fruity.
Chiclet issued a throaty laugh. “Lick me.”
Stiv figured, why not? Taking a gulp of air, he tongued her slit.
She was pleased by his initiative. “Yeah, that’s it.”
He gagged on his spit. His lungs had no oxygen, and breathing was impossible. Suffocation was imminent. There were worse ways to die, but not so many that he could think of. He saw the headlines in tomorrow’s newspaper—man expires mysteriously in woman’s bush—autopsy shows nothing. Stiv urged himself to remain calm. Getting Chiclet off would be easy, a piece of cake. His tongue was singing inside her as if it were a violin. But something went awry. A salty glob adhered itself to his lips; his tongue and mouth were on fire from the discharge. He lifted his head and said, “What the fuck is that shit?”
Chiclet’s remorse was captured in a stoned out contralto. “Oh, that?” There was no point in hiding the truth. There was no way to spare Stiv’s dignity. She said, “Yeah, well, Jeeter and me? We fucked earlier this morning and I haven’t had a chance to shower off yet. Bummer, huh?”
Stiv’s face was instantly drained of color. Shellacked with Jeeter’s seed, his lips burned. Chiclet had stabbed him in the back and it put Stiv in touch with all the other times he’d been double-crossed. Like when he’d failed kindergarten because the teacher said he didn’t understand the difference between good and bad. Or how he’d taken a felony assault charge on a cop for a friend who let him take the blame. But this was worse than all that. This was a disaster. Clumsily getting to his feet, he cursed, “Fuck, you could’ve warned me or something.”