by Mark Gimenez
They fist-punched through the open window.
"Keep the faith, bro."
Andy paid, grabbed the coffee and muffins, and walked over to the tree-shaded patio. Max slinked by the Great Dane as inconspicuously as possible. Andy sat at a table and placed Max's blueberry muffin and the coffee lid on a napkin on the ground; he poured coffee into the lid. Max tasted the coffee and barked.
"It is good."
Andy leaned back, took a long sip, and felt his body come alive when the caffeine hit his system; Jo's brew was double-strong. He bit into the muffin and glanced around at the other regulars.
"Keep Austin Weird" was the official slogan of the City of Austin. North of the river in downtown, it was just a marketing tool; but south of the river in SoCo it was a daily reality-and weird you would find at Jo's. Young men and "womyn"-you spell it "women" in SoCo and they'll castrate you like a stray dog-were savoring a morning java at Jo's: Ray, tapping on his laptop, a Ph. D. in anthropology who was writing the Great American Novel when he wasn't driving a cab… Darla, Masters in psychology, with her tattoos and wild rainbow hair and Pippi Longstocking leggings and red high-topped retro sneakers; she dished out ice cream at Amy's across the street… Oscar, B.A. in art, grabbing a large Jo's before he started his shift at Guero's two blocks away… George, strumming his guitar and enjoying a latte before commencing his twelve-hour work day playing for tips on the curb… Dwight, blogging his life on his laptop, recording every thought that crossed his mind for all the world to enjoy; he averaged two hits per day… and an assortment of other tattooed-and-pierced oddballs.
SoCo was like a can of mixed nuts. Fortunately, the cashew of the neighborhood, Queen Leslie, wasn't present that morning. The sight of a middle-aged man wearing a black bra and a pink thong first thing in the morning always made Andy nauseous. The Queen was a harmless homeless transvestite and a SoCo fixture. He was also a serial mayoral candidate; he had once gotten three thousand votes despite campaigning in women's lingerie. His mere presence assured that SoCo would retain its perfect ten rating on the Weird-Shit-O-Meter-of-Life.
But weird was normal in the thirteen-block stretch of South Congress that constituted SoCo. The people, the shops, the music, the tattoos. Especially the tattoos. Getting a tattoo inked into your skin was a tribal ritual in SoCo, like Mayan Indians who had scarred their bodies to declare their tribal identity. No tattoo and you were marked as an outlander in SoCo, a tourist, a pale-skinned spectator in this multicolored extravaganza called life. Andy Prescott was a member of the tribe. The tattoo on his upper arm was a steel-gray horse head, the American IronHorse motorcycle emblem. He had gotten stupid drunk one night and let Ramon ink it in.
And most of all, SoCo was about slacking off. Austin had always been a city of slackers; difference was, SoCo's slackers were credentialed, boasting B.A.'s and M.A.'s and J.D.'s and Ph. D.'s from the University of Texas. But UT graduated ten thousand such students every year, and none of them wanted to leave Austin. Consequently, the Austin job market was tighter than Queen Leslie's thong. So they drove cabs and waited tables and served coffee and wrote novels that would never be published.
And they all hung out at Jo's.
Andy stood, grabbed the Chronicle, and walked over to the pickup window. He paid again, and Guillermo handed him a small paper bag.
"Later, dude."
He saddled up, folded the Chronicle lengthwise and tucked it inside his back waistband, put the helmet on, and whistled to Max. He steered and held the bag with his left hand and the coffee with his right hand. He rode up a gentle slope for two blocks past the San Jose with the tall agave plants lining the sidewalk and Guero's where Ronda was sweeping the front porch. He crossed over Elizabeth Street and pedaled down the sidewalk past Lucy in Disguise with Diamonds with its facade of faces from Jesus to the Beatles and Uncommon Objects with a metal sculpture of a cowboy riding a jackrabbit above the marquee.
Andy braked to a stop in front of a storefront at 1514 South Congress with BODY ART BY RAMON in neon script across the plate-glass window. The door was locked; Ramon didn't open until noon. Intoxication was a prerequisite to obtaining a tattoo; consequently, most of his clientele stumbled in between the hours of 10:00 P.M. and 2:00 A.M., closing time. Hence, Ramon Cabrera did not work mornings, except by appointment. Floyd T. was manning the stoop and writing in his Big Chief notebook.
"Morning, Floyd T."
Andy got off the bike and removed the Chronicle from his waistband.
"Hello, Andy. How's the world treating you today?"
"A few too many Coronas last night."
"I feel your pain."
"You doing okay?"
Floyd T. shrugged. "For a homeless person."
Floyd T. was the 1500 block's resident homeless person. The business owners had adopted him. They watched out for him, they paid for his heart medicine, and once a week someone drove him over to the downtown homeless shelter for a shower. Andy hoped today would be that day because the August heat had ripened Floyd T. His hair was wild, his beard thick, and his eyes blue. He looked up at Andy over the red reading glasses he had recovered from a dumpster.
"You need a haircut, soldier."
"You need a bath."
Floyd T. frowned then sniffed himself.
"Has it been a week already?"
Andy handed him the paper bag. Floyd T. shut his notebook and tossed it into his grocery cart stationed next to him. He opened the bag and removed the coffee and muffin.
"Banana nut. My favorite. Thanks, Andy."
Floyd T.-no one knew what the T stood for-was one of five thousand people who called the streets of Austin home. He was sixty-two years old and a Vietnam vet, like Andy's father. But while his father had come home intact, Floyd T. had come home without his left leg below the knee and addicted to heroin. He had been clean and sober for several years now, but his world did not extend beyond those few blocks of South Congress Avenue. He still wore his green Army jacket, ratty after forty years, and his Army boots.
Through a mouthful of muffin, Floyd T. said, "You crashed again?"
"Yep."
"See a medic?"
"Just flesh wounds."
Floyd T. pointed the muffin at the Chronicle in Andy's hand.
"Still looking for your one true love in the personals?"
"Or one night's love."
"I had many of those nights, Andy, over in Nam. But I never had a woman lay with me for love. A man needs that. Love." Floyd T. paused as if pondering his own words then said, "I gotta pee. If Ramon doesn't get here soon, I'll have to walk around back. Hand me my leg, will you?"
Andy reached into the grocery cart and grabbed Floyd T.'s artificial leg and foot encased in an old Army boot. He handed it to Floyd T., who secured it to his left knee.
"A whole man again."
Andy put a $5 bill inside the cigar box in Floyd T.'s grocery cart, where he kept his Purple Heart and a photo of his parents.
"Have a good day, Floyd T."
Floyd T. gave him a little salute.
"You too, Andy."
The next door over had a small window that was marked 1514? South Congress. Painted in black script at the top of the window was 1514?-A VIOLIN STUDIO and painted in red script at the bottom was 1514?-B TRAFFIC TICKETS. Andy removed the helmet, unlocked the door, and entered. He did not teach the violin.
He was a lawyer.
Andy Prescott did not practice in state trial or appellate courts and certainly not in federal court. He did not represent major corporations making deals or rich people getting divorced or even personal injury plaintiffs suing over automobile accidents. He practiced in the municipal court of Austin, Texas. He represented irate drivers fighting traffic tickets issued by the Austin Police Department.
He oversaw his legal empire from a tiny office above the tattoo parlor. He sublet half of the upstairs from Ramon; the other half was sublet by the violin teacher. Fortunately, most of her students were advanced.
He l
eaned the bike against the wall just inside the door. Max bounded up the stairs. Andy followed and entered his office, which measured only ten feet by ten feet but had a nice view overlooking Congress Avenue. And he had a good landlord: Ramon charged him only $200 a month including utilities and allowed him use of the tattoo parlor's restroom and computer.
He propped open the window; the place had no air conditioning, but Andy enjoyed the sounds of SoCo. He sat in a swivel chair behind the folding card table that served as his desk. He had graduated four years before from UT law school with straight Cs, the same grades he had earned in college at UT. He had been admitted to the law school only because he was a faculty kid. But faculty kid status could not guarantee a job. Upon graduation, his classmates had gotten six-figure jobs with big law firms in Houston and Dallas or five-figure jobs with the state and federal government in Austin.
He had gotten a diploma.
Which was hanging on his wall. The University of Texas School of Law. Andrew Paul Prescott. Juris Doctor. Lawyer. He had somehow passed the bar on his third try; as his father always said, "Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then."
So far this year, Andy had earned just over $13,000. George the guitar man was in a higher tax bracket than Andy. His clients paid him in cash, but Andy reported every penny of his income and paid his taxes, which was only the 15.9 percent social security tax. But this was a major bite out of his disposable income, especially since he didn't expect to live long enough to collect social security-not with his trail biking practices.
He drank his coffee then opened the Chronicle and turned to the personals. Women seeking men. Men seeking women. Women seeking women. Men seeking men. A million people in Austin, all hoping to love and to be loved; one half-million looking for the other half-million. Young people, old people, lonely people. People without someone to wake up to, go home to, or belong to.
Like Andy.
Sure, he had had a few dates along the way, but nothing that would qualify as a relationship under any definition of the word. Floyd T. was right: men needed love. But Natalie was also right: women wanted men with ambition. Someone who could give them the life they dreamed of. Andy could not. He couldn't even give Max the life he dreamed of. But he had good buddies and a good dog. He had both his parents, at least for now. He had his trail biking, if not a trail bike. And he had his work.
Such as it was.
But traffic court supported his passion-trail biking-and his dream-a Slammer. He glanced at the American IronHorse motorcycle poster tacked to the wall. He could feel the massive engine beneath him and the wind on his face as he took that monster ride out west on 290 and opened the throttle and let the big dog run, leaning into the lazy curves as he climbed the escarpment, the machine just eating up the highway. Now that would be the mother of all adrenaline rushes, that would be the life…
"An-dy, you're gonna be late."
Floyd T.'s voice from outside. Andy checked his watch: 8:56. Traffic court convened at nine sharp. Damn, daydreaming again. He jumped up, stuffed that day's tickets into his backpack, then grabbed the old blue sports coat hanging on a nail and put it on. He strapped on the helmet, inserted the sunglasses, and exited the office. He hurried down the stairs, grabbed the bike, and went outside. Max followed.
"Judge won't like you being late," Floyd T. said.
Max ran alongside Andy as he rode back down the sidewalk. When they approached Guero's, Max bolted ahead and bounded up onto the front porch where Oscar was smoking a cigarette.
"Oh, what? You'd rather eat a burrito than come to court with me?"
Max barked back.
"Some loyalty. What about 'man's best friend'?"
"I'll watch him," Oscar said. He pointed his cigarette at the Huffy. "You steal a kid's bike?"
"Long story. When you get tired of Max, send him down to Ramon. And no bean burritos-they give him gas."
Andy pedaled fast toward downtown.
FOUR
Andy was late for traffic court. So he pedaled like a maniac north on Congress Avenue, raced through a red light at the Riverside intersection, and stood on the pedals to power up the incline leading to the bridge across the Colorado River.
Sailboats and kayaks and the UT women's rowing team on shells glided across the surface of the green water that flowed west to east through Austin. In town, the river was called Lady Bird Lake; it had been renamed in honor of Lady Bird Johnson after she died, an honor bestowed by the same people who had protested the Vietnam War back in the sixties when they were students at UT and taunted her husband, President Lyndon Baines Johnson, with chants of "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" whenever he had dared show his face in Austin. Andy's mother had been one of the protestors.
Today, the river divided Austin as distinctly as the war had America back then. North of the river was a miniature version of Dallas. South of the river was Austin the way Austin used to be. But for how long? How long could SoCo stand against the inexorable force of money flowing south across the river? The money was insatiable; it wanted all of Austin: the greenbelt, the river, the springs, the heart, the soul. SoCo was the soul of Austin, and the money wanted SoCo. And one day, it would own SoCo. The money always won.
Andy crossed Cesar Chavez Street that ran along the northern boundary of the river and entered the darkness that was downtown Austin: not a figurative darkness of rich developers and shady politicians and their crafty lawyers making backroom deals that lined their pockets and screwed the citizens-well, it was all that, too-but downtown was literally a dark place. The skyscrapers, hotels, and condo towers that lined Congress Avenue created a canyon at street level and blocked out the sun as effectively as a solar eclipse; except for the one hour each day when the sun was directly overhead, downtown Austin was plunged into shadows. Only the pink granite state capitol that stood on a low rise ten blocks due north where Congress dead-ended at Eleventh Street was free of shadows; basking in the morning sun, the capitol dome looked like the light at the end of a tunnel.
For some reason, that sight always gave Andy hope.
A construction site had traffic backed up at Second Street, so Andy bunny-hopped the curb and rode on the sidewalk. He weaved around office workers wearing suits and dresses, poor people waiting for buses, vagrants packing their possessions on their backs, and drunks sleeping it off on benches. He dodged a pedicab and an eastbound bus and ran the red light.
Once across Second, he bounced back down to the street to avoid a group of slow-moving tourists on the sidewalk. He stood on the pedals again and swerved in and out of northbound traffic. Angry drivers honked their horns; they were inching forward in their luxury automobiles while he blew past them on the little red bike. The exhaust fumes were so thick he could taste the global warming. A siren wailed somewhere. He came upon another traffic jam at Fourth Street. He again hopped the curb and hammered the sidewalk-"Coming through! Coming through!" — past the Frost Bank Tower that looked like something out of Spielberg's Minority Report. He carved the corner at the Mexic-Arte Museum and turned east on Fifth.
He checked his watch: 9:12.
His left knee burned with pain, but he stood on the pedals again and blew through the intersections at Brazos, San Jacinto, and Trinity-the north-south streets on either side of Congress were named after Texas rivers-then veered north on Neches past Lovejoys on the left and Coyote Ugly on the corner of Sixth. He swung east on Seventh and rode through a gauntlet of homeless people sitting on the curb near the shelter waiting for breakfast and around a green Dillo bus depositing passengers. He crossed Red River and Sabine then cut across the street and skidded to a stop at the entrance to the Municipal Court Building sitting in the shadow of the elevated southbound lanes of the interstate.
Interstate 35 separated the races in Austin, Texas: white people lived west of I-35; black and brown people lived east. West was rich and crime-free; east was poor and crime-ridden. West was downtown, lofts, lounges, restaurants, and political power;
east was massage parlors, strip clubs, pawn shops, gravel pits, and the city dump. Austin was hip and cool, but it was no less unjust than any other American city.
Andy locked the Huffy to a bike stand; he didn't want to return only to find some homeless dude joyriding around downtown on Tres' bike. It would be a long walk back. He hurried inside, digging around in the backpack until he found the red tie; he clipped it onto his shirt collar. He stuffed the helmet into the backpack then ran his fingers through his long hair.
He was ready for court.
Judge Judith "Don't Call Me Judge Judy" Jackson gave Andy a stern look over her reading glasses as soon as he stepped inside Municipal Courtroom 3.
He was sweating. He had run into the building, emptied his pockets for Arturo at the security checkpoint-"Judge ain't gonna be happy, Andy"-evaded the violators in the lobby waiting to pay their fines-"Now serving number two-fifty-four"-and jumped into an open elevator. He had gotten off on the third floor and checked that day's docket posted on the wall outside the courtroom only to learn that two of his cases had been set for nine.
Andy slid into a pew.
A few cops in blue uniforms and two dozen citizens dressed like they were at a pro wrestling match occupied the spectator section. The courtroom was a small space, not like the district courtrooms in which felonies were tried over at the Travis County Courthouse. Here there were no grand staircases with polished wood rails, no fancy wainscoting lining the corridors, no portraits of revered old judges on the walls. There was only a clock that read 9:24. This was cheap, no-frills justice dispensed in a courtroom built by the lowest bidder.
This was Muny Court.
It was a few minutes before his breathing returned to normal, and Andy noticed the bare legs next to him; tanned and muscular, they emerged from a denim miniskirt hiked up high. Andy snuck a peek at their owner; she was young, blonde, and beautiful. He knew he was staring, so he broke away, but he couldn't resist going back for a second look. This time he ran his eyes up her legs and over the miniskirt, which ended below her navel, exposing a good six inches of tight torso before a black tank top took over. It was skin-tight and low cut, revealing a significant amount of soft cleavage.