World Without End, Amen

by Jimmy Breslin

  The defense attorney got up. A thin guy, his hair half gone, he was dressed in one of these tight suits. The kind that have only half a jacket and big patch pockets. A foreign suit.

  He said, “Officer, did you have a warrant for this arrest?”

  “The defendants were holding the marijuana in their hands and I could see them bringing it to their mouths.”

  “You could see,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “And how far away were you that you could see this so well?”

  “I was approximately fifteen feet from one defendant and seventeen feet from the other.”

  “You’re certain of this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you always so conscious of distance? Do you look at people and say to yourself, Well, he is twelve feet away from me and the woman is fourteen feet away from me? Are you always conscious of this?”

  “When I am on duty I am trained to observe things in many ways,” Dermot said.

  “And at that distance you could recognize the defendants were smoking pot and not ordinary cigarettes?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what told you this? By the length of the cigarette? Or the thickness? Or was it by the color?”

  “I recognized it by the smell when I got out of the car.”

  “Oh, but you couldn’t tell this at first?”

  “I presumed it was marijuana.”

  “I see.”

  He turned and walked away. He went up the aisle. He stopped and held up a pack of cigarettes.

  “Tell me, officer, what brand is this?”

  “I don’t know, but light one of them and if it is pot I will know it.”

  “And you could tell it was pot they were smoking?” the lawyer said.

  “Certainly. I have been trained. I consider myself thoroughly familiar with this sort of thing.”

  “And you also could tell the presence of phencyclidine in the cigarette?”

  “No, I only could detect the marijuana smell.”

  “And when did you learn of the presence of phencyclidine.”

  “The report from the laboratory.”

  Dermot got off the stand and sat down. Johno whispered, “That’s it.” Like he had something to do with the testimony.

  “You done it to them good,” he said.

  Dermot put his mouth to Johno’s ear. “Where did you get the butts from?”

  He shook his head. “In Ridgewood. Who the fuck knew what was in them.”

  “Well, what if it’s trouble?”

  “Oh, fuck them. Look at them. Did you ever see such walkin’ shit in your life?”

  They set a new date for February 11. Johno and Dermot went through the door in the courtroom wall to the pens behind the courtroom. The place is a long hallway with tan tile walls, block glass windows, and great big detention pens with green bars. Sometimes as many as fifty guys can be fitted into one of the pens. Now it was so late in the afternoon that only a few guys were in them. Three women prisoners sat on a bench just outside the detention pens. A matron stood over them. Johno and Dermot had a cigarette.

  One of the women on the bench, a white woman, an older woman, her head gray, said, “Hey,” to Johno.

  “That’s it,” the matron said.

  “I’m talking to the bulls, nothin’ the matter with that. Hey, you.”

  “Yeah?” Johno said.

  “What’d you move us for? I spent all day gettin’ used to the bench at the other place.”

  “Lady, I got nothin’ to do with you.”

  “Ain’t you two fellas from the one twelve?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, I thought you was two of the bulls we seen at the one twelve.”

  “I can tell you one thing about the bench you’re sitting on,” Johno said.

  “What?”

  “After this they all get soft. Tonight’ll be the softest one of them all. A mattress in the Women’s House.” Johno laughed. “The Women’s House,” he said. He laughed some more.

  “Shit on that,” the woman said.

  “The Women’s House.” He kept laughing.

  “Shit on that.”

  A black woman, a tall black woman with lips that stuck out, leaned out so she could see past the matron. “Say officer …”

  “A courteesian from the Third World,” Johno said.

  “Come on, off’cer.”

  “Come on, what?” Dermot said.

  “Come on, give me a cigarette.”

  “Sure,” Dermot said and took the cigarette out of his mouth and handed it to her. Johno started to laugh.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Don’t mention it,” Dermot said.

  She ripped the filter off the cigarette and dropped it onto the floor.

  “What’d you do that for?” Dermot said.

  “Well, you had it in your mouth.”

  She closed her eyes and took a big drag on the cigarette.

  When they got on the street, it was five after four. They walked up Queens Boulevard to Moran’s. The glass door to the bar was locked. Moran’s is a night joint, an Irish kid joint, and it still was early for him to be open. They stood on the little brick stoop under the canopy and Dermot tapped a quarter against the glass door. The old porter came to the door. He put his hand over his eyes to see out. When he saw the shield, he let them in.

  Moran, the owner, looked out of an office at the end of the bar.

  “Be right with you fellas. Lou, give these gentlemen a drink, will you please, Lou?”

  The bartender was slicing oranges and lemons down at the far end. He put down the paring knife and came over. They ordered Scotch and water. Johno put a five-dollar bill on the bar. When Moran came out of the office and sat down with them, that meant the bartender wouldn’t be taking Johno’s money. Moran used to be on the job himself. He worked narcotics in Manhattan.

  “Luck, fellas,” Moran said.

  “Luck,” Johno said.

  “I don’t know what makes me mention luck,” Moran said. “What I really want to do, I really want to fuckin’ kill myself.”

  “Bad?” Dermot said.

  “I got murdered by Dallas.”

  “That was a tough game to lose, too.”

  “Yeah, well you see, you think you know and you really don’t know.”

  “What a shame,” Johno said. “I thought that Brewster got all the money for you when he made that run.”

  “So did I,” Moran said.

  “What a shame,” Johno said. On Sunday he had rooted like a bitch against Dallas. He hates Dallas because once he saw the coach, Landry, on the television at a Billy Graham revival meeting. Johno can’t root for anybody who isn’t a Catholic. But for a free whisky, Johno will say anything.

  “You know what hurt you Sunday?” Johno said.

  “Losing,” Moran said.

  “Uh huh. Yeah, that’s right. That hurts. But do you know what helped you lose? The nigger cornerbacks. Why do they use niggers as cornerbacks?”

  “What are you going to do?” Moran asked. “The sport is full of niggers.”

  “Yeah, but you see what they do. They jump in then they jump back, then they come all the way up again. Quarterback like Unitas, he called an automatic right at the line and caught the nigger Dallas was using. Caught him comin’ in and threw the bomb right over his fuckin’ head. That’s what really killed you.”

  “Yeah, well you see, sometimes you just do the best you can.”

  “I have to agree with you,” Johno said.

  They had another drink. Moran started talking about the races.

  “You seen how that Woodhouse’s kid rides fillies?” he said. “Geez, the old man was the best jock for a young filly in the world. Now the kid comes along and he’s just as good.”

  “I have to agree with you,” Johno said.

  “What the hell do they have?” Moran said. “They must have some way with young fillies. It’s in the touch, I guess.”

  “I tell
you,” Dermot said. “I think he wins with a lot of young fillies because he rides a lot of good young fillies that win. I think it’s as simple as that.”

  “Never,” Moran said. “He got to have a touch. Some little touch that fillies respond to.”

  “I have to agree with you,” Johno said.

  Dermot never argued with a guy buying drinks. He took another one and walked over to the doorway with the drink in his hand. The mother and the twins were standing in front of the place talking with the lawyer before he went down into the subway. The mother was doing the talking. The lawyer kept his hands in his overcoat pockets. The mother was too excited to notice the cold. She was talking with both hands. The breath came out of her like smoke. One of her kids started talking. He took his index fingers and used them to push the hair out of his eyes. He did it just like a girl. Pushing the hair and keeping on talking.

  Dermot swallowed the rest of his drink and went back to the bar and put his glass out for another.

  “I think you’re right,” he said to Johno.

  “Yeah?”

  “They’re outside talking with the lawyer. I got to tell you you’re right this time.”

  “Oh, listen, don’t worry,” Johno said. “Do you think I’d put anybody decent into a jackpot? Don’t worry. These two deserve anything they get.”

  “Junkies?” Moran said.

  “I’d say so,” Johno said. “Yeah, two junkies. Or about to be junkies. Who the hell cares anyway? Anything you do to a kid who uses narcotics is all right. Anything.”

  “They infect a whole neighborhood,” Moran said.

  “Fuck them kids,” Johno said. He put his glass down. The bartender gave him another.

  “What time is it?” Dermot asked.

  “Five o’clock,” the bartender said.

  “Who cares,” Johno said. “Drink.”

  Moran said he had to go back into the office and do some work. The bartender gave them a drink and didn’t take out for it. The bartender began to talk about himself. Johno listened like it was the President.

  “I’m working construction one time. We had these brass chits. You got one in the morning and you handed it in at quitting time. They kept track of the time you worked that way. All right. So I used to go home and give it to a guy. I’d go to sleep and at three o’clock the guy would go to the job for me. He’d hand in the brass chit for me and they’d mark it down. Give me credit for the time. So one day the whole cellar caves in. They’re goin’ crazy diggin’ guys out. Everybody had to hand in the brass chits. So they could see if anybody was missing. Well they don’t have mine. They start diggin’. Call the police emergency. Call the fire department. I’m home sleepin’. Out like a light. Wound up getting fired.”

  “That’s a pisser,” Johno said.

  “Wound up gettin’ fired,” Lou the bartender said. He took a drink. He held the glass, laughing to himself.

  “Wound up gettin’ fired,” the bartender said.

  Then he began to talk about how professional football players shouldn’t be asked to pay taxes. “What’s the difference to the rest of the country?” he said. “What’s as important as a good pro football game? Nothing, right? So why not encourage people to play it. Pay them big enormous salaries and don’t take no taxes out.”

  “I have to agree with you,” Johno said.

  “A thing important like that, we should make sure the caliber of play stays good,” Lou said.

  The waiters and the other bartenders started coming in for the night. The band, kid musicians with long hair and mustaches, began warming up on the bandstand. One of the loudspeakers made a foggy sound, then the foggy sound became a whine and the whine got louder and began wavering. There was a crash of noise and the band started playing. Moran was saying hello to customers.

  Dermot broke a five-dollar bill for drinks. Now that it was business time, Lou was taking the money out. When he leaned over to say something he had just thought about, Johno didn’t even come close to listening. Dermot put a second five down and that was gone too. He went to the men’s room. When he came back, Johno was standing between two girls who couldn’t have been much over eighteen. The girls hunched forward talking to each other, trying to make their backs a wall against Johno. Dermot put his hand out to tap one of them on the arm and by accident hit her drink and spilled it. He started to mop it up with his hand. One of the girls called the bartender. Lou walked over, making a face. Dermot touched the arm of the girl whose drink he’d spilled. She jumped. Lou grabbed Dermot’s hand. Moran came down, shouting at Johno. The music was very loud.

  Johno must have gotten his car because Dermot was standing out in the cold air under the bright-yellow light coming from the canopy and then he was in the back seat of the car. He had the window a little open and his head against the window. They were at the curb in front of a candy store down in Jamaica. The place stayed open all night selling the papers, the Morning Telegraph, mainly, and the News. When neither of them came out of the car for a newspaper, a black girl, a tall one, the hips swinging, came out of the candy store and over to them. She bent down with her head cocked on the side and this little smile, the kind when they have something on you.

  “Hel-lo,” she said. “Oh, I see two of you gentlemen.”

  “We got a basketball team, you want to play for us?” Johno said. The way he talked gave him away. He was used to coming here. In the summers the sidewalks are so full of black prosses they tackle you right on the street.

  “What position you put me at?” the black pross said.

  “You look like you could play the pivot,” Johno said.

  “That isn’t what I like to do,” the pross said.

  “Yeah, and what do you like to do?”

  “Suck cock.”

  “What do you want for making that kind of a shot?”

  “For you, daddy. Twenty dollar.”

  Johno held up the shield to her. “Do I get a discount?”

  “Po-leece is my personal friends,” the pross said. She looked at Johno’s shield and smiled and said ten dollars.

  A block down from the store Johno was driving with one arm around the black pross. “Say hello to my friend Dermot,” he said. The black pross turned around and said, “Hel-lo. My name is Dora.” The pross had on so much perfume that Dermot gagged. He put his head out the car window like he was a dog. Then he fell asleep. When he woke up they were in the municipal parking lot a couple of blocks from the candy store. Johno was sitting sideways in the front seat, looking down. Johno was mumbling to the pross and making little sounds. The smell of the perfume was too much. Dermot got out of the car and leaned against it. He was trying to focus on the streetlight at the entrance to the parking lot, but he couldn’t. He kept seeing two lights. The glare ran together, watery, and even when he squinted it did not clear up. When he shut one eye he could just see the one light.

  The pross was out of the car, crouched down in front of him and he looked at the streetlight and felt the warm mouth all over him. He looked down at the pile of black curly hair. He reached down for the front of her dress. The pross grabbed his hand and held it away. He tried to pull his hand free. The pross wouldn’t let go. He gave a yank and got his hand away. He stuck his hand inside the coat and down the front of the dress. The first thing he felt was the shaved hair on the press’s chest.

  Dermot started to push the guy away. The head came in on him more, the tongue lapping now. Somewhere, down at the bottom of the whisky, was this huge fear. He pushed the guy on the shoulder again. He was going to get both hands and shove. But now he was warm with pleasure. It made him tremble a little. He had his hand on the guy’s shoulder and the hand relaxed and he felt everything release. Right away, the fear exploded inside Dermot. He tried to shove the guy away. But the head was immovable and the tongue was lapping and Dermot pulled his arm back and swung at the guy. He punched down a second time. The black went down onto his side. Dermot kicked. He could feel his toe going full into the stomach. It
was the fullest kick he ever had given anybody. Dermot kicked again, this time at the head. The black hair rolled out of the way. Dermot was shouting something and Johno was out of the car now. He came at the black from the side and kicked hard. There was a popping sound as Johno’s foot went into the side of the black head.

  Dermot was leaning back against the car, trying to focus on the streetlight. Johno had the black guy against the chain-link fence. The fence rang as metal hit it.

  “I’ll kill this cocksucker!” Johno yelled.

  “Put the gun away,” Dermot said.

  “I said I’d kill the cocksucker,” Johno said.

  “Just put the fuckin’ gun away,” Dermot said.

  Dermot said it without looking. When he brought his head up, he saw Johno with both hands around the black’s neck. “Cigarette!” Johno said. “Give me a fuckin’ cigarette!” he shouted. Johno was coughing and heaving with effort. Dermot did not move.

  “Light me a fuckin’ cigarette!” Johno shouted.

  Dermot got out his cigarettes. He missed the cigarette the first time. He had the match too far from it. Then he measured it and got the end of the cigarette into the flame.

  Johno took one hand off the black’s throat and took the cigarette from Dermot. He held the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, the other three fingers spread out, and the tip of the cigarette became a little shower of sparks as Johno put the cigarette out on the transvestite’s eye. The black shrieked. A loud male voice. Dermot was leaning back against the car, trying to focus on the streetlight.

  When he drove out of the lot, Johno’s face was all twisted up. He was screaming that he should have shot the black. Johno had a handkerchief with blood on it wrapped around his hand. Dermot had his head against the window. He woke up looking at the hardware-store window two blocks from his house.