Love, or the Witches of Windward Circle

by Carlos Allende

  Truth be told, the Gas House Café broke every code of health and safety ordained by the city. It operated as a coffeehouse, but it served only black instant coffee, none of the Italian flummeries you would expect from that type of establishment, and that out of an old industrial coffee pot that had been rescued from the times when the building operated as a buffet fifty years earlier. The coffeehouse had no liquor license, but it served wine, and it had no restaurant permit either, but it served food. Granted the wine was poured on the sly, in exchange for a voluntary donation, and for special guests only, and the meals served were free of charge, and only for the members of the artists’ colony residing on the upper floor of the Grand Hotel, next door, sponsored by a tip jar that rarely had enough funds to buy anything other than vegetables and horse meat for dinner.

  “FASCIST!”

  Noise was, however, the most infuriating aspect of the business: the bongo drums that wouldn’t let anyone sleep before two o’clock in the morning; the Negro jazz that, in the opinion of people like Mr. Roberts, promoted crime and the rejection of the most basic rules of morality; and, over everything else, the words read aloud and disguised as poetry, full of antisocial, pathological, plain no-good, socialist, immoral content, the verses that promoted a nonchalant attitude towards sex, integration, and women’s emancipation.

  “BIGOT!”

  The Civic Union’s main goal was to close the dives that these good-for-nothing, long-bearded, smelly lowlifes known as beatniks frequented, starting with the Gas House Café, and help the community get rid of the perils that such a lifestyle represented to the public.

  “Enough!” snapped Mr. Roberts. “I’m calling the police.”

  “Call the police!” growled Big Daddy. If the music coming from inside the coffeehouse hadn’t been enough to wake the rest of the neighbors, now his shouting was. “Tell them what you and your charitable Christian values are all about. Tell them that you and your association are stealing babies from the arms of their mothers. Tell them what you and that vampire horse-lady that works for you did. MURDERER!”

  Mr. Roberts shut down his window and Big Daddy returned to the door.

  “Let’s go fetch John,” he said to Russell. “He’s in the back.”

  They found John sniffing acetone in the alley behind the coffeehouse, stretched over a couple of old movie theatre seats.

  “Shit, man, you sure killed my buzz,” was his reply to the little boy’s story.

  “We need to get a car,” Big Daddy said to Russell.

  “Ms. Wildfeuer,” the giant said, back inside, to Josie’s girlfriend. “A fellow brother needs your help. It is a matter of life or death.”

  “What for?” Heather asked alarmed.

  “No time for explanations,” Big Daddy replied. “We gotta ball the jack. Can you help us, yes or no?”

  “I guess,” Heather replied. “I gotta go,” she apologized to Eva. “Girl, grab your purse,” she called to Josie, still standing alone by the counter. “We have to go.”

  “Where to?” Josie asked, irritated.

  “I don’t know,” Heather responded. The group was already walking through the back door out of the coffeehouse.

  Josie gulped down the rest of her wine and followed them clacking.

  “What’s all this shooting about?” she asked. “Where are we going?”

  They got into Heather’s red Fairlane, and in less time that it takes to say shazam! the six of them, Heather, Big Daddy, and Kevin, in the front seat, Russell, John, and a baffled and still upset Josie in the back, were on their way to Oakwood.

  “Who is this kid?”

  The ride lasted barely enough time to make the introductions. By the time Heather parked her car across from the Hamm’s house, neither she nor Josie knew with certainty what they were doing.

  “After this, we should all go get a drink, okay?” Josie proposed once Heather turned the engine off.

  “After this,” Big Daddy stepped out of the car gritting his teeth with rage, “it will be the end of the Civic Union.”

  John and the little boy followed behind.

  Almost a dozen concerned neighbors, mostly women and small children, had joined Mrs. Hamm and her daughter in their tribulation.

  “I think we better wait here,” Heather said to her friends in the back.

  Josie nodded. She had nothing against colored people, but spending some time with a bunch of mammies weeping in their pajamas wasn’t her idea of a fun evening.

  Cora ran to meet John as soon as she saw him. Right after her came her mother.

  “What is you doin’ here, you stupid son of a bitch?” Mrs. Hamm yelled at John.

  “Ma’am, we came here to help,” Big Daddy tried to explain.

  “Who the hell is you?” Mrs. Hamm didn’t seem intimidated by the size of the giant. “Why you bring this lazy scuzzball to my house?”

  “These are my friends,” John tried to calm the woman down.

  “I don’t care who they is. Get outta my house.”

  “He’s the father of my son, Ma!” Cora complained.

  “Your son has no father. Your father and I is his father. This one a good-for-nuthin’ son of a bitch that wouldn’t—”

  “Mrs. Hamm,” John interrupted her, “We came to—”

  “Shut up!” Dorothy slapped his face twice. “Shut up and get away from my house.”

  Heather chortled, inside the car. “She sure knows how to snivel a swivel.”

  “Stop hitting him!” Cora jumped to her beau’s defense.

  “I’ll hit this ass as much as I want!” Mrs. Hamm struck her daughter. When Big Daddy tried to intervene he got a couple of slaps too.

  “Oh my goodness,” Heather said. “That woman is cra-azy. What are we doing here?”

  “Somebody stole their baby,” Russell responded.

  “We just brought him back,” Josie intervened.

  “Not that one.”

  “Why is she hitting your friend?” Heather asked again. “Did he steal him?”

  Suddenly, something else caught her attention. A blue Cadillac with three men dressed in zoot suits drove by.

  “That was Will’s car,” Heather said.

  “What’s he doing here?” Josie mumbled.

  “That’s what I’d like to know. He told me he had stopped selling that shit. What is he doing here? Why the fuck is he back in Venice? I’m going to follow him.” She started her car.

  “What about John and Big Daddy?” Russell asked.

  “They can walk back,” Heather responded. “I’m going to see what that stupid son of a bitch is doing in this fucking ghetto.”

  They followed the Cadillac a few streets down to the side entrance of a bar at the corner of Washington Boulevard and San Juan. Heather parked a few yards away, on the northern side of Electric.

  They saw the driver step out of the car and enter the bar. The other two men remained inside.

  “That was Will,” Heather said.

  “Who are the other two?” Josie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Heather responded.

  “Do you think he’s meeting someone inside?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But why aren’t his friends going in with him?”

  “I don’t know, Josephine!” Heather snapped. “I don’t know who they are and I don’t know what the fuck they are doing. I can see just as much as you can, which is nothing, so please shut up and stop asking me stupid questions.”

  “My name is Josie, not Josephine,” the girl responded.

  Russell, meanwhile, had found half a joint inside one of his pockets and was having a few puffs to lower his anxiety. He was worried about his friend and the little boy and couldn’t care less about Heather’s ex-boyfriend. He had heard enough about him to know that he didn’t like that no-goodni
k thug any more than a kick in the balls. He puffed in. The dampness in the air made him feel as if he was floating in water. He wondered what it would be like to be a fish.

  “I need some too,” Heather said, turning to him.

  Russell passed the roach. It was out.

  “You have a lighter?”

  Russell looked inside his pants pockets. He found only his keys. He tried to remember what he had done with the lighter, he had just used it, but then he forgot what he was looking for. With both his hands in his pants pockets, he wondered now what it would be like to have wings like a chicken. He pecked his head a few times, pretending to pluck at some invisible grain. He then remembered what his hands were doing inside his pockets, became conscious of how ridiculous he must have looked to his girlfriend, and started laughing.

  Josie had a scowl drawn on her face. She turned away from him.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Heather passed the roach back to Russell. She had finally lit it with the car lighter.

  “Nothing,” Russell responded. He grabbed the joint and sucked in. He offered it then to Josie, but the girl shook her head, still not looking at him, so Russell passed it back to Heather.

  “Finish it,” Heather turned him down with a hand gesture.

  So he finished it.

  “I need to go out,” Heather said after a few minutes of silence.

  But she did nothing.

  “You do?” Josie asked after another minute.

  As if the girl’s question had been a foreseen order, Heather sprung out of the car and walked to the bar.

  “Why is she doing that?” Russell asked.

  Josie remained silent.

  “She’s only embarrassing herself,” he continued. “Don’t you think? She should just dump that loser. He doesn’t love her.”

  “Loser?” Josie asked brusquely. “Did you see the car he was driving?”

  “It’s a gift from that old grandma he married.”

  “So? It’s a Cadillac. A Cadillac! Much better than to go on foot, huh?”

  “Yeah, but at what price? Based on what Heather says, that woman must be a hundred.”

  Josie looked at him with contempt. “Who cares? Who cares how old his wife is? He drives a Cadillac. He’s doing so much better than you ever will, Russell Simpson. You are the loser. Just look at yourself—when was the last time you shaved? Last month? You’ve been wearing the same shirt for the last three days. You are disgusting. You’re always either drunk or stoned or sniffing something. If I didn’t remind you to eat you would never do it. Who’s the loser here, pal?—You are!” She gave a last scornful glance at her boyfriend and then turned her head back to the window.

  Russell sunk in his seat, speechless. It wasn’t the first time that Josie had said mean things to him, but it always hurt a little.

  Five minutes later, Heather ran back into the car, crying hysterically. “He’s the most horrible person in the entire world!”

  “What happened?” Josie asked.

  “He told me to leave,” Heather sniveled. Her hair was disheveled, and her cheeks were now completely covered in black mascara. “I asked him what he was doing, and he said it was none of my business. I asked him if he still loved me and he laughed—he laughed! I said, ‘Look into my eyes, William, and tell me that you don’t love me,’ but he got mad.” She opened her purse and tried to light up a cigarette. Her hands were shaking. “He said I was embarrassing him in front of his friends. I said, ‘I don’t care, tell me you don’t love me and I’ll leave.’ He said, ‘I don’t love you.’ I told him I didn’t believe him, but then he grabbed my arm and told me to leave, so I pushed him, and then I yelled, ‘I hate you,’ but he laughed again, so I spat on him, but then he grabbed me by the shoulders, and for a moment I thought he was going to punch me, and then I thought he was going to kiss me, so I closed my eyes, but he didn’t do either. He started shaking me and told me that I was crazy, and that I was very stupid if I thought he was ever getting back together with me. I said, ‘What about my son? He loves you too.’ But he said he didn’t care for someone else’s child. He just left me there and went back to his friends, and when I tried to reach him again, he shook his fist at me—can you believe that? He threatened to hit me. I hate him. I hate him so much. He stepped on my heart. I wish he’d die! He’s a goddamn bastard, I wish he’d die!” She banged her head on the steering wheel.

  She took a couple of breaths in. “He doesn’t love me,” she raged like a wounded lioness. “It was all a damn lie.”

  Josie stared at her, wordless.

  “I wish I had the guts to go down and scratch his car,” Heather continued. Her face now looked like that of a vampire. “Those two stupid hoodlums are still there. He loves that car so much—that’s why he wouldn’t leave her, because that fucking abuela buys him whatever he wants. I wish I could take my keys and scratch that fucking car all over. Damn it! I would draw a big cock on his door.”

  Short silence. For a few moments, the only thing that could be heard was Heather’s sobbing.

  “He’s not worth it,” Josie replied. She couldn’t think of anything else to say to her friend.

  All of a sudden, Russell stepped out of the car. He wobbled his way across the street towards the Cadillac, took his keys out, and made a long scratch along the front right door. Will’s friends jumped out.

  “¡Hijo de tu reputísima madre!”

  Russell threatened the men with his keys. Both of them jumped on him. They pulled his head backwards and punched him repeatedly.

  “Leave him alone!” Josie yelled, sticking her head out of the window.

  Heather started the car.

  “What are you doing?” Josie asked.

  Heather didn’t respond. She grabbed the wheel and pressed on the accelerator.

  “They’re beating him!” Josie yelled. “You need to stop.”

  “We’re getting out of here.”

  “But we need to help him!”

  “Are you crazy? He just keyed Will’s car. Those guys are going to kill him.”

  “No, Heather,” begged Josie. “Stop. We need to help him!”

  “Not us, girl, I’m sorry. We need to burn rubber. You don’t know Will the way I do. You don’t know what that man is capable of doing.”

  “Please, Heather, stop the car! Let me go out. I need to go back for Russell.”

  “He’s half Mexican,” Heather cried.

  “I’m Mexican, too! For God’s sake, Heather, we need to save him. He’s my boyfriend—please! They’re going to kill him, and he is the love of my life…”

  They had almost reached the intersection with Rose Street when Heather consented to stop.

  “Get out,” she said, pulling over. “You’re on your own.”

  Josie lurched out of the car and slammed the door. Immediately, she turned back. She had forgotten her purse inside.

  “Wait—!” she yelled, reaching for the car handle, but Heather sped away.

  I’ll get it back, Josie thought. She started running.

  “Forgive me,” she muttered, brushing away a tear. “Please forgive me…”

  It wasn’t easy to run wearing high heels. After a few steps, she took off her shoes and her pantyhose—her last good pair—and wrapped them around her left arm. The loose pebbles from the broken pavement hurt her feet, but not as painfully as the memory of the words she had pronounced against her lover. Why had she said those horrible things to him? Didn’t she love him?

  Please, God, let him still be be alive.

  The fog had gotten so thick she couldn’t see further than a few feet away. And it was getting cooler, too. Josie shivered, holding her shoes tightly.

  At the corner of Brooks Court she crossed paths with an old acquaintance.

  “Miss!” Josie yelled, recognizing the red bike and the short rider w
alking it, because of the wobbling handlebars. “It’s Josie! Miss—I need your help…please, stop!”

  The miss recognized her too, but didn’t stop. The little woman mounted the bike and started pedaling.

  She hadn’t had an easy night either. After that pestering kid had chased our nameless friend down off Main Street, she ran into the group of men led by Antoine. In order to lose them, the little woman rode further away from the canals, onto the grounds of the Venice Grammar School and had spent the last twenty minutes hidden behind some bushes humming lullabies to the child so his cries wouldn’t betray her.

  “It’s me, Josie,” the girl repeated, running behind her. “Come back!”

  The little woman turned into the alley. Her bike slid in a puddle, making her lose control. She raised her feet from the pedals, ready to put both of them on the ground should she lose her balance; she didn’t, but when she tried to put her feet back onto the pedals, the left one hit her ankle, breaking the skin. The pain was too much and she had to stop. She turned around. The girl ran towards her, crying desperately. The little woman saw an open dumpster nearby. She yanked the child out of the basket, but the quilt got stuck in the wire. She unwrapped him fast and threw little Dorothy’s Angel inside the dumpster just before Josie was close enough to see.

  “I need your bike!” Josie grabbed the handlebars. “I’ll give it back. I promise. It’s an emergency.” Josie pulled the little woman’s hands off the handle.

  The little woman let go and Josie mounted the bike.

  “I’m in debt with you.” Josie threw her shoes and pantyhose into the basket and covered them with the blanket. Then she rode away.

  The little woman waited for a few seconds before making any move. She looked at the tall bin in front of her. The baby was crying. She put her hands on the rim and pulled herself up, trying to peep inside, but she couldn’t see anything. She gazed around for something that could help her climb up and inside. How on earth was she going to get him out? The men chasing her should be close. What would they do if they caught her? It had been too many emotions for one night. Would President Buer be too mad if she just called it quits and went back home empty-handed?