The Life and Times of Innis E. Coxman

by R. P. Lester

  “Well, I understand that, Mr. Sweetbuck, but that’s what you do. You protect people, catch the bad guys, and seek justice for those who need it. You’re an everyday hero! Forgive me for saying, but I think a lot of women would be proud to have a man who spends his days keeping the rest of us safe.” She brushed the sweaty locks from her face, marveling at the weight of her own bullshit.

  John could smell the pile from the dining room. The scent enchanted him. “Thank you, Miss St. Jaxum. I appreciate the compliment. I just wish more women felt that way. If I could find the right person, maybe I’d have somebody to share all this with.”

  She smiled sweetly. “Please, as long as I’ve been here, I don’t think it would be unprofessional for you to call me Labi, Mr. Sweetbuck.”

  “Only if ya call me John.”

  Hook, line and sinker.

  ***

  John and Labi were married four months later. Within a few weeks it was revealed why there were no women sniffing around: the smallest disagreements brought smacks across her pretty face.

  It was a relatively small town. When the abuse began, Labi asked around about him, something she didn’t think to do before the wedding because there’d been no reason to. If she had, she would’ve uncovered that he was a woman-beating bastard who’d avoided arrest due to his job. His past loves said he’d threatened to ruin their lives, or worse, if they opened their mouths.

  In the first year, he sent her to two different hospitals on five separate occasions with broken ribs and fractured orbital sockets. Her stories about uncooperative stairs and doors that swung by themselves were becoming old hat to emergency room staff. Every time she arrived, there were scars from injuries she hadn’t reported.

  She formulated a plan to leave Sweetbuck. Her only concern was John locating her through the maid service. In between split lips and caved cheek bones, she’d found time to take a computer course twice a week in the evenings. John’s possessive nature was such that she had to lie concerning her whereabouts. One of the few friends he let her have was in college at the time, providing Labi a perfect alibi; acting as her “study” partner, she used those nights to cover her time spent in class. She completed the course and left him one day while he was at work.

  Within a month, she was hired at my father’s firm. After she and Sweetbuck divorced, she began seeing Pops during my parents’ separation. She never told him about John, the abuse, none of it. One night, John tried to terrorize my father the same way he’d done with women for years. Thing is, though, if you try to fuck my pops, he’s the kind to fuck back.

  Let me weave you a tale of three clowns who tried to take out Tommy Two-Guns, as my father signs his tax returns because Hardwang Fuckemall Coxman takes too long to write.....

  ***

  My pops was living in an apartment across town from the house that was no longer his my mother’s place while they fought over extremely important community property. And me, when time allowed. It was summer and I’d gone to spend a few weeks with him. He and Labi were living together, and the three of us had gone to see John Candy’s hilarious badge of honor The Great Outdoors. It was 9 PM when we arrived back at his complex. All I wanted to do was sit on my pudgy ass and watch TV, my usual form of amusement after leaving a movie theater. Little did I know the night’s entertainment had yet to begin.

  Swooping into the lot, we saw a white Crown Victoria with tinted windows in my father’s assigned spot. It gleamed from the lamp post in the parking island. The darkened rear glass had a bumper sticker reading “Don’t Be a Litterbug” on the bottom of the passenger side. I could see Pops’ ears growing red-hot from my position in the back seat. We sat at an angle as he voiced reasonable opposition toward the unauthorized vehicle.

  “What in the fuck is that cocksucker doing in my space? I pay a lotta money for this place and I’ll be damned if some asshole is going to come and park in my space!”

  “Oh, H. F., just park somewhere else. They’re probably visiting somebody in another apartment and didn’t know about the assigned spots. It’ll be gone tonight or in the morning.”

  “I don’t give a shit, Labi. The signs with ‘Tenant Parking’ written on ‘em should’ve been reason enough for this idiot to not park in an assigned space.” My father squinted and looked hard at the vehicle. “Kinda looks like a detective’s car.”

  I asked if I could slash their tires with the lock-blade I’d gotten for my birthday. The way I saw it, how better to show an impolite toolbag that you disagree with his actions? The worst outcome would be the owner seeing me destroy his property and I’d get to practice my thrust and parry before Pops handed him his balls. I didn’t see a downside.

  I bandied about the backseat like I did when I’d seen my first skin flick, thrilled with the possibility of finally getting to inaugurate my new knife. My dreams of juvenile mischief were foiled when Pops gave an emphatic “No” and shot me the evil eye.

  Labianna neglected to mention the initials “U” and “P” she’d seen on the license plate. (I don’t know about other cities, but where I’m from, “U. P.” on the plates mean “Undercover Police.” Kind of negates the whole point of driving an unmarked fucking police car, if you ask me.)

  My father parked in another space and we began walking to his building. We were almost to the front lobby when three visibly drunk men stumbled out. They made a beeline straight for us. All three were wearing jeans and those stupid Lacoste shirts with the alligator on the left breast.

  “John! What are you doing here?!" It was Sweetbuck and two other detectives smelling of trouble and cheap liquor. Labi was caught off guard by her ex-husband and went pale.

  John was as jubilant as a mayor in a crackhouse. “Heeeey, Labi! Comin’ home from an evenin’ on the town, eh? We didn’t want anythang important. Just came by to say hi!” He winked at my father, pointing at Labianna’s crotch. “Careful with those lips, Hardwang. They can get as ripe as a wet gym sock!”

  Pops glared at her. “Labi, who the fuck is this?”

  She looked at the ground like a whipped dog. “H. F., this is my ex-husband, John Sweetbuck. He’s a detective for the city. That’s his car parked in your space.” My father’s paws tightened at the deception. If he’d known Labi had a psychotic ex who doubled as a police officer, he would’ve never gotten involved.

  “Yeah! I heard you were datin’ somebody, Labi. Thought I’d come check out the new man.” John turned to my father. “How ya doin’, Hardwang? Good to finally meet ya! Hope ya don’t mind, but I ran your name and got your address. I wanted to come over and congratulate ya on such a fine catch. Ya shouldn’t put your name on your space, though. Makes it easy for anyone to find out which one’s yours!”

  Without missing a beat, “Well, if I’d known it was gonna be you parking there, John, I’da rolled out the red asscheeks for ya to kiss.” He turned to me. “Innis, go sit in the car.” I didn't argue with him. He had a weird sparkle in his eye and the vein in the middle of his forehead was thumping. I went to the Lincoln and rolled down the window. The only thing I could do was watch from the back seat as John continued to taunt the both of them. His friends laughed from the sidelines.

  Out of nowhere, John threw a sluggish haymaker that still makes me embarrassed for him to this day. The Thunderbird had made him as nimble as a paraplegic in a sex swing. My father ducked, letting his drunken bodyweight fall him to the ground like a bag of failure. One of John’s cop buddies heffalumped his fat ass over to the melee and tried to avenge his friend’s dignity. Grabbing a heavy tree limb off the ground, he took a swing at my pops and missed. He swung again, and this time Pops caught the limb and ripped it out of his hands. He beat Jabba until his sputtering pleas for mercy were silent. As the man was on his right side, I watched him lift his arm in protest, right before I heard the crack of a newly fractured skull. Pops turned his attention to the third guy who stood with an open mouth and heavy underwear. He invited him to the party with a motion of his hands, but the third cop
wisely tucked his nuts between his cheeks and sprinted into the night.

  It was as if Bruce Lee had fought two invalids.

  By this time, John was back on his feet and hurling anti-Semitic slurs at Pops and Labi with all the wit you’d expect from a lush. “What ya got there, hose nose? Where’s your Star of David? ‘The Star of David.’ Ha! More like the Star of Dick! You money grubbin’ bastards! How did it feel when your people nailed Joseph to the cross, motherfucker?!”

  Aside from being a poor theologian, John’s insults had little effect on either one of them; Pops is a Baptist and Labi was a Godless tramp.

  No matter. John was about to end them both with his off-duty pistol. He bent to retrieve a revolver from his boot.

  Glee flashed across my father’s face as he instinctively reached for his waistband.

  ***

  John saw a bright FLASH! out of the corner of his eye. He was whisked back to the Awffle Spouse parking lot, reliving the incident in vivid detail. This time, it was different—the dealer had pulled a gun first. John felt he was in a floating state, caught somewhere between the living world and the land of the dead. He saw Esteban appearing before him, coming to collect his soul on the Devil’s behalf.

  In the middle of his reverie, there was another bright FLASH! exploding in his face. This time, John was certain it was his karma, reliving the murder of a man for a fistful of tainted money. The long-dead Puerto Rican had returned in the black cloth of the damned to drag Sweetbuck to his personal flames. He knew what horrors awaited him for all the evil he’d done—the killing of an unarmed man, accepting graft from drug dealers to squash their rivals, playing Judas to the oaths he’d sworn to live by. Deeds that bought an eternity of being ripped apart by winged devils.

  ***

  No, it wasn’t any of that shit. It was only Pops firing two rounds from his .357 snub. John’s thoughts of a cosmic payback were just that—delusions from a lead-induced blackout.

  I watched with wide eyes as John got to his feet, fighting through the pain of two unforeseen holes in the gut. He vomited the rotgut alcohol down the front of his designer shirt. The bile splashed over his chest and the bullet wounds in his stomach. His gator probably drowned. As he righted himself and craned his nose upward, he caught the scent of barbecue. Maybe burgers. Maybe t-bone steaks roasting over glowing embers of freshly scattered maple chips from a hibachi on a tenant’s back patio.

  But again, no. It was his own flesh sizzling from the double-tap of a well-aimed Smith & Wesson.

  As John stood drenched in blood and partially-digested Thunderbird, my father gently talked some sense into him. “Goddammit, you crooked sonofabitch! Stay down! You’re hurt! You’re hurt bad! I don’t wanna kill your stupid ass, but I’ll fill you full of holes, motherfucker!”

  John staggered toward Pops with a little bit of fight left in him, teetering like an extra from an underfunded zombie movie. When he was a few feet away, he leaped!

  My father fired a shot to the belly that knocked him to the grass with a sickening thud.

  Seeing that it was over, Pops stuck his weapon in the right hip of his waistband. He asked Labianna for her compact. She was stiff from the action that had taken place in front of her and didn’t move.

  “Labi! Gimme your fuckin’ mirror!” My father’s booming voice snapped her out of it and she complied. Once he had it, he walked over to John and held the mirror under his nose. It turned foggy with the air of bad judgment. He reached down to John’s ankle holster and took out his .38, jamming it in his pants next to his .357.

  Tommy Two-Guns had reigned victorious.

  Pops stood up with flair in his six-four frame. He was The Duke. He was Jack Palance. He was Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and Billy the Kid all rolled into one modern day badass. He reached into his front shirt pocket. Grabbed a pack of Winston Lights and pulled one out with his teeth. He struck a match, lit it, and took a drag. With the exhaling breath, he looked down at John to sum up the entire fiasco:

  “Yep, life’s rough! For stupid people it’s even rougher!”

  ***

  Some meddling fucking neighbor A good Samaritan had called nine-one-one after the first shot. Emergency officials arrived to find a holey John and a bloody hunk of shit unconscious on the ground. Unable to fathom why John kept screaming about an Awffle Spouse parking lot, the paramedics shrugged and tossed them both in the ambulance. They later testified in court that he’d admitted to murdering some drug dealer through his ravings in the back of their rig.

  After a few questions as to what happened, the police caught up with the third gentleman a few blocks away at a strip club called The Sticky Stick. They found him in the men’s room washing out his boxer shorts. When he was Mirandized, he confessed to their half-baked plan of overtaking my pops at his apartment.

  Sweetbuck and Goodyear survived their injuries and the trio were charged with aggravated assault, conspiracy, and stalking. Pops had a friend on the department who told him that Internal Affairs had been on to John for over a year. They’d been building a case against him that included wiretaps, video recordings, and surveillance photos. This incident was the final nail in his coffin. The three detectives were stripped of their badges as well as their reputations. John’s two cohorts received sentences for their role in the ambush. John shouldered those allegations plus the malfeasance charges and the murder indictment for slaying the Puerto Rican six years earlier.

  In one of the most freakishly appropriate twists of fate to ever fall in someone’s lap, John was sent to the same state penitentiary as Esteban’s brother. The last anyone heard of Sweetbuck, he was lovingly known as “Sweet Butt” in the cell blocks.

  My father was cleared of any wrongdoing the night of the attack. In an off-the-record conversation with the district attorney, he was admonished for not just killing all three when he had the chance.

  Pops tried to put the situation behind him and go on with life at the apartments. It proved to be a challenge. His reputation for bloodlust circulated the complex like crabs on a porn shoot. Some offers for murder contracts from unhappy wives played on his need for violence and he was forced to move out, lest he succumb to temptation.

  But to this day, you can hear the legend of Hardwang Fuckemall Coxman echo through the breezeways like late-night gunfire.

  ***

  After my parents divorced and the media circus died down, Pops and Labi were married, despite the trickery over her past. Against all odds, they lived happily together, until the day came when she developed an affliction known to husbands the world over as cheating-bitchitis.

  It’s a disease that advances slowly in the female, usually visible to everyone around her male except him. It begins with subtle hints to the men she sees on a daily basis, letting them know her libido is hot and ready for action. In Labi’s case, the progression was no different.

  The first to notice any symptoms was the mailman.

  To Fall From Grace

  The worst beating I ever got from my father was the one I made him work for. It involved a few laps around the house with a chase through the neighborhood. What I had done was deplorable and if he wanted to give me that ass whipping, he was going to earn it, by God. Hurdling fences, skirting a double-dutch mob, and punting a Schnauzer from my path were key to avoiding capture. But it wasn’t a question of if I was getting pinched, just when. I held my own for many blocks but eventually fell victim to his tenacity.

  Now to be fair, I deserved stripes on my ass for what I did; my hatred of another boy at school had been festering for ages and a day of reckoning was finally upon him. And while we can hypothesize for eons about who was really to blame—me or the other guy—it doesn’t matter anymore. We’re mature adults who've grown beyond petty tripe. It’s now just an amusing anecdote from my junior year of high school that I can whimsically reflect upon when I’ve had too much to drink.

  But the more I write about this, the more I can safely say that it was all Dougla
s Kuntinflapp’s fault.

  ***

  Douglas Kuntinflapp was class president, star pitcher, captain of the football team, and all-around cockhole to anyone sans uterus. If he couldn’t give you a finger-bang you were beaten and bullied, hence the girls adored him while the boys prayed for a meteor spearing his heart. A blonde, blue-eyed sadist who never wore the same shirt twice, the girls succumbed to his charm and fawned over his Aryan good looks. The faculty followed suit; he was given quarter for failed exams and missing homework on a daily basis. The administration saw it as a small price for multiple state championships.

  Coming from a privileged background, Douglas was used to preferential treatment. His father was a successful criminal attorney who specialized in high-profile cases, traversing the country and defending CEOs and drug lords alike. Mother was a member of The Junior League whose prescription overdoses were handled by an on-call physician.

  Douglas’ athletic prowess and economic status bought him impunity for every boy he pummeled in gym class. His cackle could be heard all the way to the locker room. He was a slug of many talents, the most adorable of which was finding your deepest vulnerability and taunting you with it. In my case, it was my parents’ divorce. Douglas had been vexing me ever since he’d found out about it my freshmen year. (You would think the hilarity of my broken home would’ve waned over the intermittent two years. You’d think HAHAHA! wrong.)

  He’d go around chanting witty insults like a third grader: “Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah! Your parents are divorced! Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah…..(?)…..they’re not to-ge-ther!” Eventually his atrocious rhyming pissed me off more than anything.

  It was decided amongst a ring of math nerds that I would quarterback Douglas’ demise. I spent weeks plotting his undoing and whittled it down to a few possibilities: