by Jeri Estes
I thought about the many recent “love-ins” at Golden Gate Park, where the half-clothed, love-making hippies burned the flag. Images from San Francisco flashed across the United States on the news showing weed-smoking, acid-dropping, long-hair freaks burning their draft cards.
After reflecting on this, I said to Jackson, “You got a point there.”
I pulled a bill out of my money clip. Jackson snatched the Benny out of my hand quicker than he could spit on the tip of my shoes.
“Young man,” I said, “your company has lifted my spirits. I have been floating on a raft of psychic turds in a sewer of humanity. At least I was captain of my own ship.”
Jackson grinned, “Jesse you’re sounding like a poetic beatnik. I don’t know what psychic sewer you’re talking about but I know that I appreciate the hundred and it’s good to see you. You’d better catch a cab quick and watch your back.”
I jumped off the stand, turned around, and did a little dance. “Sugar pie, honey bunch…you know that I love you.”
Jackson just laughed as I split down the street. “Catch ya later, man,” I yelled back over my shoulder.
Within moments, I was at Harriet’s building, excited to see Fritzy and cheer her up. Poor Fritzy had been staying with her sister ever since her husband, Ed died. I skipped up the steps to the front door and rang the buzzer which read, “Harriet Stinner, Bookkeeper.” Being a mellow hippie, Harriet liked working from home. I stood waiting to hear the door buzz so I could go in, but instead there was dead silence.
I started to feel exposed standing outside on her step. Some runner might spot me and alert Prince’s people. Each second I stood there, I felt more like a rabbit running across open ground with a hawk circling above me. I was anxious to get into the shelter of Harriet’s apartment.
Trying to get their attention, I rang Harriet’s doorbell again for at least a minute. With my luck, those two hippie sisters had dropped a tab of acid and were in full flight from reality on the cosmic strings of Jimi Hendrix’s guitar.
I started thinking I would have to walk down to the liquor store to call them. As I was about to leave, I noticed a big fat guy through the glass door. I watched the dude dressed in blue overalls climb up a stepladder in the foyer. He placed a toolbox by the bottom of the stairs and took out a large pair of orange pliers. The man began to remove a light fixture from the ceiling. I took the opportunity to pound on the door to get the workman’s attention so he would let me in.
The glass shook under my aching knuckles as I rapped on the door and yelled, “Hey man, let me in!” The huge dude ignored my pounding and stayed up on his stepladder, determined to finish his task. I started to feel the stir of my rageful cobra that had been pleasantly resting through the charming, morning walk.
Again, I pounded on the glass, completely irritated by the fat bastard who wouldn’t open the door. I pounded the door with my fist and kicked it with my newly shined shoes. Finally I got the asshole’s attention. He lumbered down the steel steps of the ladder and angrily walked to the front door with sweat dripping down his brow.
“It’s about time,” I thought. I put my hand on the door, ready to open it. His fleshy jowls anchored his face with the expression of a bulldog, giving him the look of Winston Churchill in workman’s clothes. He huffed and puffed in an exasperated manner, emphasizing his annoyance at being interrupted. With a fleshy paw he pulled back the door. As soon as it cracked open, I was hit by a fierce breath of booze and tobacco.
He gruffly barked, “Don’t ring the buzzer, you fucking whore,” slamming the door shut in my face before I could stick the point of my wingtip in it. As I heard the violent bang and rattle of the glass door, I thought, “It’s a good thing my foot wasn’t in it.”
As he turned around and walked toward the ladder, I yelled to his back, “Let me in, dude, my bookkeeper works here!” The burly dude turned around, charging the door like a bull. Opening the door, he yelled, “Fuck you, whore!” Spitting in my face, he slammed the door shut again.
I felt his hot saliva on my cheek and exploded. “Fuck you, motherfucker!” Fueled with rage, my fists pounded the glass like a hammer and I kicked the door. “Fuck you! I’m not a whore, asshole!” I wiped the oozy spit that felt like thin rice pudding off my cheek, rubbed my hand clean on my trousers and reached for my piece. I was determined to blow his fuckin’ head off.
My verbal tirade of “fuck you’s” was halted with the sudden awareness that I had left my gun with Junior. I quickly attempted to compose myself and try a new strategy.
In a firm, calm voice I said, “Listen man, I’ll give you a twenty to let me in. Just open the door dude and I’ll give you twenty bucks!”
The offer got the gentleman’s attention. He looked directly at me through the glass and studied me for a second. I saw in his eyes a hint of recognition as he said to me, “Oh, you’re Jesse the pimp.” I felt myself relax and I took a deep breath, relieved that he would now let me in. The dude looked familiar. He was probably one of my girls’ johns.
The man pulled the door open widely and I heard him greet me, “Hey, Jesse the pimp.” I stepped through the archway and heard a loud crunch. I felt a powerful blow on top of my head. The dude had cracked my skull with his orange pliers.
Blinded by a gush of warm blood that trickled down my face, I fell on one knee and raised my arm above my head in defense. I saw the pliers fly down and felt another crack. A large fist hit my jaw as I fell to the side. Dazed and dizzy, I looked up at the bastard. I saw my older brother’s face flash in front of me. When we were kids, he had knocked me down more than once.
I focused on this fat guy’s crotch. Cocking my fist, I flew up off the carpet, giving him a direct blow to his balls with every ounce of my being. The hit stunned him for a second as he continued to whale on me with his pliers. I danced and weaved with the speed that I had fought with as a child. I jumped up and threw him a blow to his plump face: two hard fast jabs to his nose, drawing his blood for the first time.
I raised my left arm to block his arm and punched him with everything I had in the middle of his solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him. He clipped my nose with the end of his pliers and I heard it crack. I tasted the blood as it gushed over my lips into my mouth.
Knowing my fists were no match for his strength, I took a quick two-step back. I grabbed the cold steel handle of my buck knife and pulled the razor-sharp blade open. It felt like slow-motion as I plunged the blade into his huge belly. The sharp knife pierced his overalls and body like a warm knife cutting through soft butter. Repeatedly, the blade easily sliced through the layers of his flesh. I felt my fist pressing against his blood-soaked belly as he continued to whale on me. I shifted gears and changed the position of the knife. Like a flying swing my closed hand flew upward, time after time, trying to jab his balls with my blade.
I protected my head as he kept trying to split my skull with the pliers, while he backed up from the deep cuts I was inflicting on him. The dude finally stopped to look down at his stomach. It was oozing blood like crazy, soaking through the denim. I grabbed his arm and slashed it open with my knife. He finally dropped his orange pliers. The startled look on his face when he stared at his gaping arm and the pliers at his feet gave me a second to change my grip on the blade.
Holding the bloody knife in my closed fist like a hammer, I thrust at his chest over and over again. I didn’t stop until he dropped to his knees. After the last jab, I pulled my blade out of his flesh and felt it retract like a knife from a melon. My left hand grabbed the hair on the back of his head, and I yanked his skull back, feeling his greasy hair through my fingers.
I held my knife up to his jugular, putting pressure on the blade. I stared directly into his eyes, two inches from his face. I looked down at his bloody face as his pale blue, milky eyes started to roll back in his head. I whispered to him, in a pleading tone, “Please don’t make me kill you.”
A flicker of understanding crossed his eyes as he gave up an
d collapsed. He lay at my feet like a beached whale with his blood seeping all over the cheap gray carpet.
Standing over him, I dropped my arm, letting my knife rest at my side. I wiped dripping blood from my eyes and pressed my palm over the open gashes on the top of my head, trying to stop the bleeding. I looked down at the huge man at my feet. I saw a trickle of blood drip out of the side of his mouth, like a small red stream running down his shiny, fat chin. Panic overtook me as I watched his labored breathing.
A loud buzzing erupted in my ears and I felt my heart bursting in my chest. I swallowed back vomit and started to gag. I swung the glass door open and ran out to the sidewalk, throwing my knife underneath a parked car.
The fresh air startled me. I heard someone yelling behind me. I looked back up the steps and saw Harriet and Fritzy flying down the steps shouting, “Oh, my God, Jesse, are you all right, what’s happened?”
Seeing Harriet’s terror-stricken eyes startled me into calmness.
I heard my voice, like a stranger’s, say in a matter-of-fact tone, “The dude wouldn’t let me in.”
Suddenly I got a moment of clarity and reached underneath the car, retrieving my knife. I wiped the blade off on my pants, closed the handle, and clasped it affectionately, enjoying the weight in my palm. I thought to myself with gratitude how fortunate that my younger brother had always given me just the right gift.
I said to them with confidence, “Let’s call the heat. This is pure self-defense. I’m going upstairs to clean up and review my books.”
I put the buck knife in my trouser pocket next to my cold hard Zippo lighter. My friends stood dazed on the steps in front of me, like children watching a scene out of a horror film.
Harriet cautiously approached me, took me by the arm gently, like a nurse leading a patient and said softly, “Let’s get you upstairs and put some ice on those cuts. We will go over your books after we call an ambulance, I promise.”
Harriet led the way up the stairs to my delayed appointment. As we crossed the foyer, we carefully stepped around the workman’s splayed body.
Chapter 29
THE BLACK MARIAH
I sat at Harriet’s kitchen table, leaning over a large, red leather-bound ledger, pressing an ice pack to the top of my head. I saw the black numbers, written in my bookkeeper’s hand, blur as I fought to stay conscious. I called to Harriet, who was in the living room talking to Junior on the telephone, “Make sure she calls Norman right away. My luck the pigs will bring me in!”
Harriet was talking to Junior like a nurse reporting to the doctor on the condition of her incorrigible patient. “Jesse won’t listen to us. We’ve called an ambulance and we wanted to take her to the emergency room right away. She said she came here to review her books and that’s what she’s going to do. Junior, she wants you to call her attorney and will you please bring her a clean shirt—the one she’s wearing is covered in blood.”
Their hysteria interrupted my thoughts as I tried to review my accounts. Finally I got up and took the phone out of Harriet’s hand. “Let me talk to Junior.”
Before I could tell Junior what I wanted her to do, she asked, “Should I call Carmen? How bad is it? Joe’s back. We’re coming over there right now!”
“Hold on,” I replied. “I’m fine, man. It’s a fucking little cut on my head. A few cuts, I guess. Some fat bastard wanted to pick up Prince’s chump change. Call Norman, the heat’s on the way over here. They’ll probably bring me in.”
“Okay, boss.”
As I hung up the phone, Harriet was staring at me like I had just lost my mind. “What made you and Fritzy finally come downstairs? I was ringing your bell forever!”
My hippie number-crunching friend—who looked as dazed as I felt—replied, “Fritzy and I were going to get some Ripple wine from the liquor store. We were up on the roof meditating, trying to make contact with Ed’s spirit, but the brownies we ate made us thirsty.”
I just knew those damn hippies had been up on the roof tripping. My head was killing me and my blood-soaked shirt was stuck to my body. I wanted to change into something clean, but I couldn’t borrow anything to wear from my stoned accountant and her sister. The two straight hippie chicks only wore the latest flower-child garb.
I folded my arms on the table and rested my head. Closing my eyes, I saw the face of the fat assailant. In the heat of battle, I hadn’t had time to think about where I knew the guy from. Picturing his large, well-stocked toolbox, I finally recalled where I had seen the dude before. He had installed some extra door locks for Marie over at the bordello. I wondered if his being here was coincidental or if someone had tipped him off.
There was a pounding on the door. “Open up! It’s the police!”
I got up and flashed Harriet a cocky grin. “Let’s hope they’re on our payroll.”
“If not, they are the only cops in the Tenderloin that aren’t,” Harriet sighed. “I wanted to talk to you about that, Jesse. The cops’ payoffs were higher this month than our referral fees.”
The cops yelled again. “Open up, police!”
Harriet, not fazed by the posse at the door and determined to discuss business with me, said, “Our payroll cops might help us get rid of the Prince problem. Jesse, they certainly don’t want to see you suffer a cash-flow crisis.”
As she took her sweet time getting to the door, I replied, “Yeah, Bunny and I were thinking the same thing. This contract on my ass is costing everybody a lot of money.”
Harriet announced just before she opened the door, “I hear you officers! I’ll be right there in just a minute!”
Harriet unbolted the four locks on the door, letting the two officers enter the room. One cop was young and baby-faced, smartly dressed in his pressed, dark blue, shiny-buttoned uniform. The badge on his breast stated, “Officer Shawn O’Reilly,” a befitting name for a beat cop. His older partner smelled of booze and looked like he had spent the night sleeping in the backseat of a car in his disheveled, wrinkled uniform. The black leather belt, hung low around his waist, acted like a girdle holding up his pillowed stomach. On his wide chest, a silver crooked badge read, “Officer James O’Malley,” a fine name for a veteran cop.
O’Malley’s holstered gun and billy club jiggled at his sides with his rolls of flesh as he walked. His puffy red face lost its mask of indifference when he saw me sitting at the table. His jaw dropped in surprise as he blurted out, “Holy shit, Jesse! That dude was twice your size!”
Officer O’Reilly looked befuddled as he rubbed his clean-shaven chin. “Did you take that dude down? It’s not like you to be violent. Jesse, what the fuck happened?”
Taking a clean white, wet towel out of Harriet’s attentive hand, I wiped my forehead as I explained myself. “That asshole charged me like a bull, hitting me on the head with a pair of orange pliers. He thought I was a fucking coconut and was trying to crack my fucking head open. I had no choice but to drop the dude.”
Officer O’Reilly, the handsome young cop, asked with genuine sincerity, “What did you use on him, Jesse? He looks like a sponge he has so many holes in him.”
The older cop said, “I saw the paramedics downstairs wrapping him up in bandages. He looks like a big mummy. The ambulance driver says it’s a good thing he’s so fat or he’d be dead for sure.” He chuckled in admiration.
I had bought O’Malley a few drinks, more than once, as we sat and admired Little Rosie’s titty-tassel pasties swirl down at the Grapevine.
“Why don’t you just write this up as self-defense and let it slide?” I nicely asked him.
His face screwed up in concern. “Jesse, I’d like to be able to do that. I would, if I had it my way. I’m sorry I can’t. If the guy dies, we could catch a lot of heat. We’ll have to call our captain and see how he would like us to handle this.”
I knew what that meant, and sure enough, when they called in, I could hear Clancy’s exuberant voice boom from the receiver. The cop had to hold it far away from his ear.
“
Thank God! Bring that pretty little smart-ass in! Book her for attempted murder!”
Officer O’Reilly timidly answered, “Yes sir,” and hung up the phone.
With the sound of the click I said, “Oh shit! I need a drink before I take this ride.” Harriet poured a glass full of Jack and handed it to me. I shot down the whiskey and told her, “Give the officers a drink.”
O’Reilly politely passed. Thirsty O’Malley stood closely behind Harriet in the kitchen, like an impatient patron in a cafeteria line.
I told the young officer, taking handcuffs from his belt, “Your captain and I are old friends.”
He answered, “Perhaps, but it sure seems like he doesn’t care much for you right now. What’s up with that?”
Officer O’Malley looked up from his drink and joked, “Damn! Jesse, you didn’t fuck his wife, did you?”
Chuckling, I shook my hurting head and took a deep drag of my cigarette. Officer O’Malley gently took my arm and walked me out the door.
The young cop put a firm grip under my elbow when we reached the stairway and assisted me as we descended towards the lobby. I glanced over the rail and saw in the foyer, two hefty paramedics lifting my attacker onto a stretcher. Layers of thick gauze had been wrapped around his stomach and chest. His eyes were closed and he was unconscious. We reached the bottom of the stairs and followed the stretcher out to the street. I heard the paramedics groan under the strain of their new passenger as they gave a, “Heave-ho!” and pushed him into the back of the ambulance.
The bright noon sunshine no longer felt invigorating as it did merely an hour ago. My joyous basking in freedom while I visited with Feather and Jackson seemed a lifetime away now. The doors of the Black Mariah opened. I walked up the rear steps like a guest at the guillotine and entered the darkness of the cage on wheels.