A Little Too Much

by John Shannon

  ‘Quite a name.’

  ‘Oh, let it go.’ They were passing a sculpture of long slowly wind-bobbing lances that she liked. ‘What’s your favorite sculpture here?’ she asked, trying to find neutral in his gearshift and calm him down.

  ‘I never thought much about it. Maybe that one way over there. There’s something tough about it.’

  ‘My dad liked that one, too,’ Maeve said. ‘I remember it’s called “A bird goddess”. He used to bring me here for picnics. To be honest, I like that Deborah Butterfield horse best. I love horses and I love her horses.’

  ‘The one made of sticks?’

  ‘It only looks like sticks. It’s all bronze.’

  ‘Cool. So what’s the rest of your college life gonna be like if you drop anthro?’

  ‘Are you staying in?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s boring as hell, but I can get a gentleman’s C. For organic chem I don’t need any better.’ He scratched the top of his head, almost like Stan Laurel.

  ‘You know, Maeve, that was a fine mess you got us into. You talk kindness to a stone crazy kid, then you piss on the cops.’

  ‘You’ve gotta try to help, especially the clueless.’

  They sat down on a grassy hillock beneath a wonderfully curved abstract torso.

  ‘I risk my life just being near you. I think that deserves a real date. Want some hummus and pita?’ He took a paper bag out of his book satchel, and pried open a Tupperware.

  ‘A real date? I’ve seen you pretty close with a redhead.’

  He made a face. ‘She isn’t really into me. And I’m not very crazy about her music or her taste in books. Man, oh, man. She wanted me to read some vampire book, for Chrissake. What’s all this attraction girls have with vampires? Isn’t life nasty enough without imaginary bloodsuckers?’

  Maeve smiled. ‘Why do boys spend hours playing video games about shooting everything in sight?’ She gave a mock shudder.

  ‘I never did, but I hear you.’

  ‘I don’t read vampire books. But I think I can guess what it touches in young girls. Vampires combine something like sex with a shudder of fear. They come through your bedroom window late at night. Girls may not want to be overpowered for real, but we all have fantasies.’ She dipped up some garlicky hummus with a triangle of pita. He had good taste in snacks.

  Chad touched her wrist gently, as if accidentally, when she went for more pita.

  ‘Vampires,’ she said, trying to ignore the touch. ‘They’re our generation’s beatniks. They subvert all the normality our parents worship – science and religion, or at least decency, and getting home by eleven. No, wait.’ She chuckled at her own sudden thought. ‘They’re all Heathcliffs, undead Heathcliffs. Promising girls a wild ride.’

  ‘Clever deconstruction,’ he offered.

  ‘They’re tormented alpha males. Are you an alpha male?’

  ‘Doubtful, sorry. Not if it means I played football. Or went out in the woods and shot deer. You don’t really want me slipping in your window at night to bite your neck, do you?’

  ‘You do and I’ll bonk you with a baseball bat.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he promised. ‘If we get together, it’s not going to be like that. They made us take this really serious pledge in high school, signed and all: the word no from a girl means no.’

  I can tell we’re both getting a little woozy with this wonderful rum of his, decanted none too gently into fizzing Coke cans in my motel room. ‘Man, friend, that’s really good rum.’ I’m so relaxed one of the Skinnies is doing jumping jacks with his back to us.

  ‘Cha, now, why youself be interferin’ at Costco this morning, ma’an? Dat a very bad place, you no seeit? I almos’ have to save you ass.’

  A chill takes me hard, and instantly a whole bunch of Skinnies start peeking around doors and chests. Before this moment, Winston has given me no hint that he was there at that mess, though he said he’s been babysitting me. Did the production company send him, or is he just another star-stalker, after all? ‘Get out of here, guy, before I call the cops.’ I hand him back his rum as several Skinnies clap with appreciation.

  ‘Fool. I de only pro-tect you got. Dere a waar out dere. Like Af-gan. I-an-I no fook around naow. You got to know you do de very wrong t’ing dis morning. De drug heads wan’ me to smoke you ass right now or bring you in for de big questions, ma’an. No worries, I ain’ go there. But why you stick you head up?’

  It’s hard for me to a get a read on this guy. I wonder if he can be my friend after all. Most of the Skinnies in the room get frightened and retreat to the bathroom. ‘Tell me more, Mr Winston.’ He wants me to call him Ratchet, but I refuse. I don’t know why.

  ‘You tell me why you be like likkle dog an’ run after dis big drug man.’

  ‘You mean Marcus Stone?’

  His eyes opened a bit as if I’d spoke a name that would call down the gods of vengeance. ‘Hol’ it down. Sight!’

  What the hell do I have to lose? I think. ‘Look, Winston. I think Marcus Stone is my father, and I want to meet him.’

  ‘Sufferation! Wa mek dis idea?’

  I can see Winston is pretty drunk, too. We’re both a bit hazy. This is no way to be negotiating my future.

  ‘Dis all fuck-up.’

  ‘If you’re going to kill me, Winston, kill me now.’ I open my arms to make myself as vulnerable as possible.

  Weirdly, the man goes down on his knees in front of me with open palms. ‘No, no, no, ma’an, I beg. I-an-I good man. Check it out as deep as you wan’. You can call Jack Liffey and ask him.’

  ‘I don’t know this Jack guy and I don’t care. I need to meet Marcus Stone. Can you take me to him?’

  He sighs. ‘Cha, I got to talk to him firs’. An’ his Minister of Defense, he call Harper. Got to prepare de way for Jesus to enter Jerusalem on his ass.’

  ‘Don’t be sacrilegious, Winston. Be my friend. I can use a friend.’

  Li’l Joker’s stomach began to cramp up after they’d let him out of the rust-red Buick with all the gunshot holes and the big fresh dent on the driver’s side. He’d like to get his hands on the driver of that Porsche who’d hit them this morning before they could get to Stoney. Everything had gone so wrong that it was giving him bad indigestion, the way his body had always objected to things like math tests and asking girls to dance.

  Most of the day they’d hung out at Marietta’s watching old movies, Scarface and Terminator 2, waiting to word-up, but then Stoney called and said everybody go home. They dropped Li’l Joker two blocks from his home on 73rd, as he insisted. He left his Uzi and his old Browning .38 in a sports bag under the seat so they could take them back to the clubhouse. He was twenty-three, but his mom still browbeat him mercilessly about ‘bad companions’ whenever she saw them. To her, he was still little Deon Le-Vaughan Wilkins, smart boy in school, ahead of his class in reading, and he had been all that to himself, too, until his rebirth as Li’l Joker after they’d jumped him into the Rollin’ Seventies.

  He’d walked a block and was just about to pass a strange looking dark chocolate guy in a really expensive coat when a .357 Magnum was poked hard into his stomach. Then the chocolate brother opened his mouth, and Li’l Joker could immediately hear the Spanish in his voice.

  ‘Get in el coche or die now, nigga.’

  Another black Latino with a scowl held open the back door of a battered Ford Taurus – not the huge Maybach that he’d seen this second guy hanging out of that very morning with a gun.

  A shove had him in the seat and another one had him moving to the middle. His stomach cramped hard again and he tried to blame it on the all-and-all pizza from Dac’s. He’d tried to pick them off, but vegetables always tore up his stomach.

  ‘No hard feelings, gentlemen. Why you Jews so interested in me?’ He smiled for calling all these weird brothers Jews, but none of them smiled back.

  The car smelled bad, as if they bathed only once a month. The pistol was held hard against his ribcage and he tried t
o ignore it.

  The white guy in front turned in the seat to look at him. ‘Forget the Jew shit, pendejo. I can’t see how you rate no real gang. You just Bobo the clown.’

  L’il Joker estimated one second to grab the pistol away from the guy, and then another two or three seconds to kill them all.

  ‘¡Golpéelo! Hit him!’

  The guy on his left whacked Li’l Joker’s cheek hard with a big square .45 auto. ‘No te doy color. I hit you more if you move a milli,’ this voice said. It was so weird, hearing black guys talking normal Mex.

  ‘I think you got the wrong guy,’ L’il Joker said. ‘Chris Rock is over in Hollywood.’

  ‘Shut the mouth.’

  ‘I’m feeling a little sick to my stomach now. Why don’t you guys come back some time and talk to me when I’m feeling better.’ He really did feel like throwing up in the car.

  ‘Get your grips,’ the white guy said. ‘We got to show your chiefman to do us right. Is he getting greedy?’

  ‘I hear it was you dudes changed the deal. Nobody can’t work with that shit.’

  ‘Life is all change, pendejo. Some smart guy deals the cards over again and we all make adjust. You tell Señor Stoney, for me, that respect is not no painted-on mustache.’

  Li’l Joker didn’t know what he meant. ‘I’m not in that track, man. I’m really sick now.’

  ‘Ignacio, drive to that church we seen.’

  The car set off eastward, and the fact that they’d mentioned going to a church helped Li’l Joker a little with his worries.

  Just as dark was coming, Ratchet found Stoney home alone, sipping a single-malt Scotch and writing in a book with black pebbled covers. Ty had desperately wanted to come along, but Ratchet had insisted he had to stay away until the ground was plowed.

  ‘Where the fuck you been, Haile Selassie?’ Stoney seemed to have no intention of getting out of the doorway.

  ‘Ease up, ma’an. No be rude wid dat name. I no Rasta man, but I got respek. I come in naow.’

  Stoney stepped away and let him in. ‘Next time, you go to Harper first.’

  ‘I-an-I got news jus’ for you: dis ma’an dat been close to yo’ business – him say him want to meet you bad. Him say prepare because him your real an’ true son. Him say, you got to remember way back – and he make me say dis – Donna Wisecki, Donna Freedom, Donna Seagull, Melanie Bird.’

  Stoney sat back down in front of his big black book without giving any indication he’d been affected by any of the names. ‘So, I got to care about some peckerwood bitch from the seventies?’

  Ratchet almost smiled at him. ‘Ma’an, who dat say to you “peckerwood bitch?” Who dat say to you “seventies”?’

  ‘Didn’t Harper tell you to eliminate this person out of our lives? We got trouble enough.’

  ‘Cha, I tell you, sir, wit’ respect, dis man some really big movie star, you no seeit? Dis a Arnold Schwarzy or Will Smith. You no wanna’ be in dat place, hurt dis guy. His name Tyrone Bird. He jus’ make Good Cop, Frat Cop wid Bruce Willis an’ Sarah Jessie Parker. Man, dis movie so big all over de known an’ unknown world. Anyway, I say Tyrone a good man and a vex man, and he need to meet his pops.’

  ‘You been hanging out with him?’

  ‘Yes, I see him, Mr Stoney. I vouch. I protect you every minute for sure. You no wan’ see you son? Dis be roots. You be knowing de truth in you heart when you see him. I feel it.’

  ‘Why didn’t you bring him here right now? Don’t you trust me not to shoot him?’

  It took Ratchet a moment to figure out an answer to that question that worked. No, trust wasn’t very big in the picture. ‘Him say him desperate fi a fadder. An’ you already sucking yo’ teeth like mad. I got to run ahead like John de Baptiss. Make sure all is prepare.’

  Stoney started to laugh, but it was one of those laughs Winston had heard from late night drunks that sometimes just stopped dead with a punch or a knife. Finally, Stoney ran down and jotted a note in his book.

  ‘OK, you’re John the Baptist. Which makes the kid Jesus Christ, and makes me … what? Who can algebra that? Let’s get it over with. How soon can you get Jesus here?’

  ‘He scare. I scare, ma’an. Morning good for you?’

  ‘Mrs Wilkins, can you jus’ have Deon Le-Vaughan call Harper when he come in?’ He thought for a moment. ‘I got some money for him, for fix up my car.’

  ‘You ain’t part of that bad rollin’-rollin’ gang, boy?’

  ‘No way, ma’am. Deon and I go back to Manual Arts High. Please, I need to pay him before I spend the money.’

  Harper hung up quickly. He hadn’t been able to reach any of the crew he’d brought to patrol the drug exchange. It was as if they’d scattered to the seventy winds.

  Harper put his cell away. For the first time in a long time he felt at a real loss. He wished he had the kind of confidence in his decisions that Stoney had. It was so good to watch, but he didn’t feel he was learning much about how to do it.

  Something had gone bad, and he just wanted a big do-over for the day. He found a roach in the lint in his pocket. Short as it was, he lit it off a paper match, holding it with a scorched alligator clip, but one good hit wasn’t even going to dent the badness of that day.

  ‘So how’s Jack and Maeve?’

  ‘They’re dead, Sonny. It was that commuter train wreck out in the Valley.’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘I wasn’t sure you were listening. Or cared.’

  Sonny took her seriously about staying focused on innocent activities. They’d used up a lot of the day picnicking in a lonely place along the river edge with what they could buy at a mini-mart, including a bottle of bad red wine, dusty and Greek with a turpentine flavor, and smooching just a little now and then. Then they’d wandered most of the sad little zoo for wounded and abandoned creatures until it started to close up in the dusk, with somebody in authority shouting out for the stragglers to make their way to the exits. But he was tugging at an inch of her shirt, keeping her from leaving.

  ‘Woman, I never don’t listen to you, not even when you’re sulling.’

  ‘Am I sulling now?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re gone inside, I can see it.’

  ‘Of course I’m worried. I been with Jack more than six years, and I love both of you. I’ve enjoyed about as much of this freedom as I can stand. Something tells me that you always tend to fool yourself when you have an affair – you think you’re getting away from all the old problems, and you pretend the new person doesn’t got his own problems. But you do, don’t you, Sonny?’

  ‘Gloria, meeting you was like being hit in the face with a bag of nickels. I can’t help what I feel. Don’t make fun of me, please. I think you feel the power of this thing, too.’

  ‘Come on, show me this amazing beast you been promising, and let’s get out of here. I don’t want to get locked in.’

  He took her hand and led her to a tall wire enclosure about the size of a two-car garage. Oddly, nothing was visible in the murk within except a fat dead forked tree right in the middle.

  ‘A big dead tree. Hey, amazing.’

  ‘Don’t be some dumb cop. This is a class act, even if the cage isn’t. The enclosure is too small, I know that, but let’s let the obvious go to hell for right now.’

  ‘You’re the boss.’ She glanced up where he pointed, into the wire roof two stories up, and thought she made out something dark in the shadows, stirring.

  Sonny whistled, and all at once a huge presence fell like a big car out of the wire roof, flubbed audibly once in the air, and swung in a tight arc so it landed hard on the limb of the dead tree. For a few moments the giant wings stayed open after the landing, nearly the length of a police cruiser.

  ‘Jesus H. Christ,’ she said. ‘You see its picture but you never know!’

  Then the head swiveled around, feathered white on top as the whitest rice, with a golden beak hooked over like something caught hard in her psyche. And of course it was only one p
ossible creature – an American bald eagle. You were probably never prepared for seeing one up close, even in a crappy too-small cage, she thought. There was some quality to that mighty presence of the predator that ran down deep in her. She wished she knew its name in Paiute. And then from out of her distant past, inexplicably: toha tsopege ggwe’na’a.

  ‘Toha tsopege ggwe’na’a,’ she said aloud, addressing that presence. ‘Welcome among us. I wish I could let you soar.’

  The bird said nothing, did nothing, but one of its stern white eyes rested on her, head in perfect profile.

  Sonny’s hand was on the back of her neck, squeezing, and she left it there, animating the intensity of it all deep in her sex.

  ‘That bird can kill with a look,’ she said. ‘Look at that eye. Angry, Angry, and Angry.’ And in that moment, she knew she would not leave Bakersfield without releasing this incredible creature from its revolting prison.

  ‘So magnificent,’ Sonny said. ‘Like the day of creation.’

  Maeve and Chad were both parked a couple of curves above her rental house as the very last of the sunlight went off the eastern crests of the canyon. Both cars were parked off the pavement, though she’d swapped over to his more spacious Ford F-150 with its bench seat to talk and share some cold beer they’d bought from the liquor store at the bottom of the hill. He had a fake ID. Neither of them wanted to confront the girls in the house just then.

  ‘Man, this looks just like Italy,’ he said, looking out across her at the steep hills, almost mountains, all pricked out now by the scattered lights of habitation coming on one-by-one in the dusk.

  ‘I’ve never been to Europe,’ she said, thinking of the one time her dad had promised to take her, but had ended up stuck in hospital with a collapsed lung. Another of his jobs gone wrong. ‘Have you?’

  ‘Sure. You’re special, Maeve. I know you won’t die before you see Venice.’

  ‘That’s one city I can imagine pretty clearly.’

  Chad had a big chug of beer. ‘I went with my best friend one summer. There’s nothing else like it.’

  ‘You said your dad was blacklisted.’