Gloves Off

by Gareth Spark

  By Tom Pitts

  It was billed as a house party. It wasn’t in a house, not even close. It was in the basement of an empty auto-body shop, a cement tomb with no windows and one exit. They’d spent the day setting up, pointing colored spotlights toward the walls and hanging up some white sheets to catch their glow. They helped the DJ haul in his towers of speakers and mounted them with strobe-lights. It all looked cheap and amateurish under the florescent lights, but by the time the room was filled with sweaty bodies, it wouldn’t matter. They wouldn’t care.

  Robert was excited; he’d never worked one of these parties before. He’d been to plenty, but this time he’d be an insider, an authority figure. He liked the feeling. It made him feel a part of something. He dutifully lugged case after case of cheap beer down the narrow stairwell and put up folding tables for the bar. While he worked, he pondered the guest list. His own spots on the list would be filled with ten of his closest friends, all of them begging him to let their own friends in with them. He visualized giving the ‘okay’ or the ‘sorry, can’t do it,’ while they looked at him helplessly. Twenty bucks at the door put a cramp in a young person’s drinking budget.

  His job was going to be security; general security. The door would be covered by guys twice his weight; the street entrance upstairs would be guarded by someone who looked more intimidating. Robert’s job would be to float around the party and look for potential trouble makers, guys getting too sloppy, hitting on girls that didn’t want to be hit on, and, of course, the pukers. (Vomit meant immediate expulsion from the party.) It was the best job, it would give Robert the chance to mingle and party while at the same time maintaining his status as an insider, someone meant to be there.

  By ten o’clock the room was beginning to fill up. Robert stood by the bar and watched the two girls working it hand over can after can of cheap beer. At this rate they’d run out long before the night was done. The no smoking signs were ignored as the oxygen was steadily being replaced by smoke; both cigarette and the sickly, sweet stink of green bud.

  Carlos came over and yelled into his ear, “How’s it look?”

  “It looks great,” said Robert, smiling out at the anxious horde pressing up to the bar.

  “No. I mean the crowd. Have you done a walk through, yet?”

  “Yeah, I just did. It’s mellow, like it supposed to be.”

  Carlos gave him a blank look. Robert took that to mean, Get back to work.

  Robert moved slowly through the crowd. Most were dancing on the dance floor; some were dancing wherever they felt like it. There were now too many people to walk freely among them. He was bumped and jostled by a cross section of the city’s youth; shirtless tweakers spinning glow sticks, well dressed Latinos fawning over their high-maintenance dates and college kids sweating out the stress from finals. All of them looked like they were having a good time despite the noise, the heat, and the high price of shitty beer. The stairway up to the street level was more crowded than the dance-floor and they kept on coming. He worked his way to the back wall where they’d placed a couple of ratty couches and saw that every inch was occupied.

  At the end of one couch was a large, older guy. Too old for this crowd. He watched the dancers like he was in a trance. He wasn’t nodding his head to the music, he wasn’t smiling. He was leering. He also had a beer in his hand - a bottled beer. Robert thought about mentioning it to him, there was no glass allowed in the party. No outside liquor. But Robert decided to just keep an eye on him, instead. There was something about the man that gave Robert the creeps.

  When Robert saw Carlos again near the bar, he shouted into his ear, “Hey, what do I do if somebody’s drinking beer that they snuck in?”

  Carlos shrugged. Robert wasn’t sure that he’d heard him. He cupped his hand near Carlos’s ear, “If somebody’s drinking from glass bottles, what d’ya want me to do?”

  “I dunno,” said Carlos. “It’s not really that big a deal unless they’re causing shit. Are they being assholes?”

  “I guess not. He just looks like an asshole.”

  “Do what you like. Take the bottle from him. If he gives you any shit, throw him out.”

  Robert looked back in the direction of the couches where he had seen the older man. He wanted to point the guy out but he couldn’t see five feet in front of him. He started to describe him to Carlos, in case he needed help, he told himself, but really, he would have just preferred for someone else to deal with it for him. It didn’t matter, Carlos wasn’t listening anyway.

  It was a half an hour before Robert noticed him again, this time leaning up against a wall with a fresh long neck in his hands. The guy was still staring at the dance-floor, but now wore a sneer across his face. Asshole, thought Robert as he watched him. The guy just didn’t belong. The man upended his beer and threw the bottle hard at the floor. Robert didn’t hear the breaking glass, but could tell the other partygoers close by knew a bottle had smashed around their feet. Nobody challenged him though. Nobody said a word.

  The big man grabbed a stool from against the wall and placed it near a cement pole supporting the iron beams that ran along the width of the ceiling. And when he sat his fat ass on the stool, Robert saw it; a gun sticking out of the man’s back pocket. Wearing it casual, like it was nothing more than a wallet stuck in there. Robert got closer to see. It was a gun alright, the black handle grip sticking out to the right for quick and easy access, for everyone to see.

  Robert moved back toward the door where a huge Samoan named Pino was checking stamps on the wrists of everyone that came down the stairs. A greasy black ponytail trailed down the sweat stain on the back of Pino’s shirt.

  “Pino,” Robert waved at him to get his attention. Pino didn’t even look up. “Hey, Pino,” shouted Robert.

  Pino finally looked up and grinned, “Hey, Bobby, how you doing? We having fun tonight, or what?”

  “I think I saw a guy with a gun.”

  Pino smiled and nodded. He didn’t hear a word Robert said; neither did any of the people rushing past them with their wrists turned up in supplication. Robert made the sign of a gun with his thumb and forefinger. “I saw a guy with a fucking gun, man.”

  Pino smiled and made the gun sign right back and winked and said, “Go get a beer man. You look thirsty.”

  Some security. Robert pushed past him to find Carlos at the bar surveying the crowd, nodding his head to the thick, monotonous beat, looking like he knew what he was doing.

  “Carlos. I need to talk to you.”

  Carlos looked at him and shook his head a little. “I’m okay.”

  “No, c’mere. I need to talk with you.” Robert reached over and tugged his sleeve.

  “No. I’m good,” said Carlos.

  Robert realized then, Carlos thought he wanted him to come join him for a couple lines. “Trouble,” said Robert as loudly and as clearly as he could. A blonde girl with bad body odor sandwiched between them, vying for beer, turned and gave Robert an irritated look.

  “C’mere.” He pulled Carlos by the shirt into a small closet space they were using for storage behind the makeshift bar. It was the only spot in the whole party where they could be shielded from the music.

  “Dude, we got like, a situation.”

  Carlos smirked. Nothing could be that serious. He was older. More experienced. Robert was just a kid, his first time working a party like this. “What kinda situation?”

  “I saw a guy with a gun.”

  More disbelief clouded Carlos’s face. “Where?”

  “What d’ya mean, where? Here. Across the dance floor.”

  “What was he doing with it?”

  “How should I know? It was just stickin’ out of his back pocket.”

  “You sure it was actually a gun?”

  “I’m sure, dude. I’ve seen a fucking gun before.”

  Carlos looked like he was weighing all this out, deciding whether or not Robert had actually ever seen a gun before. “What
do you wanna do?”

  “What do I wanna do? Shit, that’s why I’m telling you.”

  “A lotta guys carry guns. Are you even sure that it was a gun?”

  “This guy looks like an asshole. My gut, man, my gut tells me that he’s gonna be trouble.”

  Carlos pursed his lips and said, “Okay, show me who he is.”

  The two weaved through the crowd toward the pillar where the man had been sitting. He was gone. “He was right here, I swear.”

  “If you see him again, point him out to me or Pino. We’ll talk to him.”

  “Okay,” said Robert as he watched Carlos head back to the bar. He felt helpless. He leaned up against the pole and watched the crowd.

  Then, there he was, of course, by the speaker. The man was bent over, pulling something from his boot. Robert figured it had to be a weapon, so he stepped closer. It was a bottle, a half pint of Jim Beam. The man put it to his lips and took a slug. His face tightened from the liquor and he turned to face Robert, looking at him now, square in the eye.

  “You can’t have that in here.”

  The man’s expression didn’t change. He took one more pull from the bottle and bent down to put it back in his boot.

  “No outside liquor,” shouted Robert over the noise.

  The man heard him that time for sure. He said, “Fuck off, kid.”

  Robert was close enough to hear the growl in the man’s voice, to smell the whiskey on his breath. He could see the stubble on his bloated cheeks, could smell his cheap cologne, deodorant, or whatever the hell it was, mixing with his sweat. The man glared at him, reached in this breast pocket and pulled a pack of Marlboro Reds. He took a moment to light one and blew the smoke into Robert’s face.

  Robert didn’t know what to say, or how to react. He wanted to tell him that he was going to throw him out, but knew that he wouldn’t, couldn’t throw him out—not by himself. He wanted to tell him, No more glass, no smoking, no goddamn weapons, but what would be the point, this guy wouldn’t listen. He thought about that gun in the man’s back-pocket and just stood there frozen. He felt weak, small, every bit the kid that his brothers beat up, each day after school. Robert turned and walked away.

  He found Carlos and pulled him back to the spot near the speakers. Like a child, a tattle tale, he pointed the man out. Carlos didn’t hesitate; he walked right up to the guy and said something in his ear. Robert couldn’t tell what he was saying, but the big guy glared over Carlos’s shoulder at him. The two walked past Robert, the big guy first, and then Carlos, motioning for Robert to follow them.

  When they reached the bar, Carlos tapped Pino on the shoulder, “C’mon.” Pino followed them into the closet turned storage room behind the bar.

  “What seems to be the problem?” said the man, sounding angry, still smirking.

  “Our security witnessed you drinking outside liquor inside the party,” said Carlos.

  Pino stood behind Carlos with his massive arms crossed.

  The older man said, “So what? Half these little shits in here are fucked up on shit they brought in. Big deal.”

  “No glass, sir,” said Carlos, trying to be diplomatic now. “We can’t have glass in here. It’s dangerous. Those are the rules, and if you can’t follow them, you're going to have to leave.”

  “Really?” said the man. Then he smiled and said, “Fuck you.”

  Pino hadn’t moved.

  Carlos continued, “My security also said you may have a weapon. No weapons of any kind.”

  “Your security? You mean this skinny little shit, beside you? You gotta be kidding.”

  Pino unfolded his arms.

  Carlos said, “If you don’t leave of your own accord, we may have to call the police.”

  The man started laughing. Actually laughing.

  “Call ‘em, you can use my phone,” he said. “Call the fucking fire marshal while you’re at it. You dumb shits don’t even know that the cops are already here.”

  “What about the gun?” said Robert.

  “What, this ol’ thing?” The man pulled a .38 revolver from his back-pocket, pointing it toward the floor, saying, “It’s not even loaded.” Then, without warning, he pulled the trigger. Twice. Two quick shots into a case of two liter sodas on the floor. The soda fizzed and sprayed all over the room. The other three froze, the man kept on grinning. No one outside in the party seemed to have heard the shots. The party kept on going.

  The man reached for a chain around his neck and pulled. Out came a bronze star. The three stared at it. S.F.P.D. The guy was a fucking cop.

  “Yeah, dickhead,” he said directly to Robert, “I’m your fucking security. What are you securing, you little chicken shit?”

  Carlos cut in, “Sir, I don’t know what you think is goin’ on here, but we didn’t ask for any outside help.”

  “Going on? I’ll tell what you got going on. You got an illegal party here, you got underage drinking, selling alcohol to minors, kids on drugs, dealing drugs, you got no permit for this place ‘cause you’d never get one. It’s beyond capacity and beyond your capability to control. You got a problem is what you got.” The gun was still in his hand. Pino hadn’t moved. He was like a statue.

  The man stepped toward the doorway, pointing into the crowd with his gun, “You think the City of San Francisco would permit this shit? Fucking degenerates high on who knows what, getting all fucked up in this fire hazard?” The guy was looking into the faces of the partygoers, searching. “You think that’s what the city wants?”

  “What do you want?” said Carlos. Pino had folded his arms back up again. Robert was too nervous to say anything.

  “What do I want?” said the man. He poked Carlos in the chest with the barrel of the .38. “I want you to get the fuck out of my way.”

  With Pino in the backroom, the stairwell was wide open now, no one checking for stamps, people streamed in. More people were pushing up to the bar, milling around, dancing, all of them oblivious to the drama in the storeroom. The big man shoved Carlos with his free hand and stepped by him. Carlos lost balance and fell back into a tower of beer cases.

  He was in the crowd now, gun still in hand. He reached out toward a young girl. She was in a low-cut black dress, tight with glitter sewn in. She had a glow-in-the-dark necklace on. She looked high and oblivious to the meaty paw reaching out for her. He grabbed the girl by her blonde hair and bellowed, “You, you’re coming with me.”

  The girl looked terrified, panic-stricken. She looked up at her abductor, recognition washed over her face. One word escaped her lips, “Dad.”

  He dragged her up the stairs. Those who noticed watched them go, clumsy, backward, up the stairs. No one stopped them. No one even tried. When he was gone, they all turned back to the party. The endless beat pulsed on.

  Tom received his education firsthand on the streets of San Francisco. His work has appeared in Shotgun Honey, A Twist of Noir, Darkest Before the Dawn, Punk Globe, and others. He’s also a popular contributor at SF’s reading series Lip Service West. Contact him at tom-pitts.blogspot.com.

  By Allen Miles

  It had been nearly a year since Malcolm’s daughter had died. When the Vauxhall Astra, driven by the blameless old man in his flat cap driving home from the supermarket with his wife. hit her. She was five years, five months and twenty days old. He had blamed himself since the day it happened. He’d taken his eyes off her for a split second while he was loading his cricket gear into the back of his car. She was playing with a brightly coloured rubber ball, the kind they sell from string baskets in large petrol stations. It bounced out onto the dual carriageway. She ran after it and in doing so gave Harold McCourt, 68, retired, a memory he would struggle with for his remaining days. He had only been going about thirty when he hit her, but because of the angle of the impact she flew across the road striking the kerb with the back of her skull..

  She had been born on Christmas Day and every present he’d bought for his wife had been something for the baby.
Moses basket, changing mat, mobiles, they had all been lovingly wrapped in shiny paper, dotted with dummies and teddy bears. It had taken them an incredibly long time to conceive; they had been trying since they got married ten years ago, and had suffered four miscarriages. The happiness that Malcolm found when he held the baby in his arms for the first time, he felt sure had never been felt by anyone in the history of the world. They named her Lucy, after no-one in particular. Tears coursed down his face as he cradled that tiny head in his right hand and he had looked at his wife laying exhausted in the hospital bed with utter devotion. It all seemed such a long time ago now. In fact, Malcolm reasoned as he walked to the train station on his commute to work, it seemed like a different life.

  They separated soon after Lucy’s death. Malcolm had tried so hard to give his wife strength and support, particularly at the funeral when they clung to each other so desperately as the tiny coffin was surrendered to the earth. But Malcolm’s guilt and his wife’s subconscious resentment meant that the slightest disagreement would result in blame and hateful attacks, and after a while he simply couldn’t take them anymore. He left her, and he let her have everything; the house, the car, the small amount of money they’d saved, they didn’t interest him.

  He moved into a small attic room in a large Victorian house that had been split into six flats. Every day his routine had been the same. He would wake, dress, drag his raincoat onto his bony shoulders and walk to the station. He would take a seat on the train, smile and nod at the commuters he saw every day. When he arrived at the insurance company where he worked, his colleagues even now would ask after his health. Their heads cocked to one side, giving him the “sad smile” that so many people seemed to have as part of their emotional arsenal these days. He had been taken off customer service when he initially returned to work, merely two weeks after his daughter’s death. He told his boss he was alright and that if he just got on with work as normal it would help him recover. His boss told him that he would go along with his wishes, but he felt it was inappropriate for him to be dealing with the general public while he was so vulnerable. They “liaised” with human resources and found him a spirit-crushingly dull job in Archives and Filing. It was a position that normally would have paid much less than his job in underwriting, but they didn’t adjust his salary. It was isolated, monotonous and lonely, and he liked it.