by Joseph Flynn
Still, she asked, “Do you keep him in some sort of glass cage, or something?”
Lupe dismissed that notion with a wave of her hand.
“Oh, no. Chuey, he sleep with me.”
Robin tried hard not to cringe.
“Very good for security,” Lupe confided. “Nobody break in, nobody sneak into my bed, they know I got Chuey there.”
Robin didn’t doubt it for a minute.
“Tell you something else, too.” Lupe looked around, leaned forward and dropped her quiet voice to an even more intimate level. “You got boyfrien’? He come on all macho. Say, ‘Mira, Mami, look what I got for you,’ and whip out his thing. I show him Chuey, say, ‘Lookit what I got already.’ Boyfrien’, unless he hung twelve feet, know he have his work cut out for him.”
Lupe giggled and nodded at the undoubtedly fond memories running through her head. Then she added philosophically, “Ones who run away not real men anyway.”
She said she was going to take her severance pay and open a snake shop. She thought there’d be a big market among the women in town. She also said Chuey was getting lonely with her away all day and could use another snake for company.
Robin thanked Lupe for coming in and said she’d let her know what she’d decided in a few days.
Roger M’Beneka Kikume came into Mimi’s two minutes later. He looked like a smiling ebony god. Six-four and solid muscle, his face chiseled into planes that Rodin would have admired. He would have been an intimidating figure except for the smile, the sparkle in his eyes and the darling little boy he held in his arms.
He politely asked if he might have tea instead of the coffee that Robin offered. He also declined the offer of milk for his son, accepting instead a small glass of ginger ale.
“A lot of people, other than Northern Europeans, are lactose intolerant,” he explained sitting across a table from Robin.
He went on to explain that he’d earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of California.
“UCLA?” Robin asked.
Roger smiled indulgently. “Berkeley.”
“The place where that guy goes to school naked?”
“Yeah, that’s the place,” Roger smiled, gently tilting the glass of soda so his son could drink. “Home of the free speech movement, political correctness and some of the smartest people you’ll ever find anywhere.”
Roger showed Robin several snapshots.
“These are buildings I’ve bought since I returned to Chicago. I was born here, and I want to make my mark here.”
The pictures were of three buildings. Each was immaculately kept inside and out. Roger explained that he and his family did all the work on the properties and while he was self taught he knew everything there was to know about maintaining a building.
Robin was impressed, but the pictures Roger had shown her and the stories he’d related raised an obvious question in her mind.
“If you have all these nice places,” she asked, “and all that education, why would you want a little basement apartment?”
Roger looked her in the eye.
“Right here’s where I need to ask you a delicate question,” he said. “I need to know if you’re prejudiced.”
Robin bristled, and her body language was enough to make Roger raise a hand.
“I don’t mean about the color thing.”
“Then what?”
Roger held up his son. He said, “I never introduced you. This is Patrick Three-Two Kikume.”
Robin sighed. She knew when she was supposed to pick up on a cue.
“Okay, what’s the middle name mean?”
“Wife number three, child number two.”
“You’ve been married three times, and this is the way you keep track?”
“I have three wives, and I’m engaged to number four. That’s who I want the apartment for. I’ll do the work, but she’ll live there.”
“You have three wives ... and you’re about to make it four?” Robin repeated, making sure she had it right.
“Yeah, that’s why I need a fourth home. You keep them under one roof, they start to cycle together, and let me tell you that ain’t pretty. So, Miriam, my fiance, she’ll stay in your apartment until her second pregnancy and by then I should have another building of my own ready for her.”
“Sure,” Robin nodded, “makes perfect sense.”
Roger smiled, happy that she understood.
“Except polygamy’s illegal!” Robin hissed venomously.
She would have shouted it at the guy if he hadn’t had a little kid in his arms. As it was, Patrick Three-Two suddenly viewed her with alarm. Roger tried explaining he was already suing in federal court, claiming that laws mandating monogamy violated his Constitutional right to practice his ancestral religion. He was sure he would win. In fact, a landlord who denied him occupancy based on cultural bias might herself be subject to legal —
Roger bit his tongue because, at that moment, he looked into Robin’s eyes and recognized what his two-year-old boy had already perceived. This woman was dangerous. Furthermore, they were in her habitat. Best to leave while leave-taking was possible.
Roger M’Beneka Kikume got up, thanked Robin for the tea and ginger ale and quickly carried his second son by his third wife away to safety.
Robin shook her head and got ready for a day of work.
After that start to her morning, Robin was extra snappish with the breakfast crowd, and having heard a weather forecast on the radio that the cold might be back sooner than expected, she was feeling borderline vicious by lunchtime.
Matters weren’t helped when Tone Morello showed up that day with reinforcements. Of the ego variety.
Actually able to read several simple sentences aloud, Tone was a sportscaster for a local network affiliate. His specialty was punctuating his news scripts with appropriate grunts and groans. Whenever any jock in the highlights he narrated suffered a blunt trauma, Tone was on the money with just the right empathetic aaaargh or ooooh. Blows to the groin were his specialty. He made his viewers feel the pain. For this, Tone was handsomely paid, and, of course, enjoyed numerous fringe benefits. Such as all the cheerleaders — strictly over eighteen years of age, mind you — he could eat.
Of course, being a sports guy, Tone was also highly competitive. He couldn’t let Robin get away with her slander of him. Otherwise, word would get around fast that she’d called him a dinky-dick and he’d never be able to show his face in another locker room or to another camera.
So, today Tone showed up at Mimi’s with two cheerleaders from Chicago’s pro basketball team, a blonde and a redhead, each dressed in skimpy black spandex and featuring T&A from here to there. Given the brevity of their costumes and the relative chill in the air, they displayed endless goose bumps and other points of interest. They clung to Tone’s arms like they’d been sutured there.
Predictably, all the men in the deli enjoyed the spectacle while all the women did not. Feminist Judy Kuykendahl sneered openly. Everybody, however, expected a good show when Tone and friends stepped up to the counter in front of Robin.
Robin regarded the threesome bleakly.
“Look,” she said, “five boobs out for a stroll.”
Tone’s face flushed but he restrained himself.
“Five?” said the redhead, puzzled. “I don’t get it.”
Tone gave her a look, and the blonde shushed her. They were working from a script today, like the San Francisco 49er’s offense, and they couldn’t let themselves be distracted.
Tone asked, “What would you ladies like to eat ... anything at all.”
The cheerleaders went into their routine.
“I know what I’d like,” said the blonde with a nasty little grin.
“Me, too,” replied the redhead.
They both licked their lips with pointy pink tongues.
Hardly subtle, but it got all the male patrons giggling like sophomores.
“You think they got foot longs here
?” asked the blonde. “Those all-beef wieners.”
“If they don’t, I know where we can get one,” said the redhead.
All the female customers jeered and booed. Manny Tavares had to wrest the knife out of Judy Kuykendahl’s hand.
Robin said, “You here to revive Vaudeville or you want something to eat, Ant-knee?”
The girls had been prepared for this slur on Tone’s name.
“Ant-knee?” said the blonde to the redhead. “You know any Ant-knee?”
The redhead shook her tresses.
“No, you know who I know?”
Together they let go of Tone, whirled around to face the crowd of customers and launched into a cheer routine as if they were leading a pep rally.
“Tone, Tone, he’s our man! If you can’t say it, we sure can!”
They spun Tone around to face his public, each did a cartwheel, high-kicked, bounced up and down and set up such a show of jiggling flesh that the men in the deli were left drooling and the women were agog.
“Yaaaaaaay, Tone!”
The cheerleaders jumped high into the air, came down to do full splits in front of Tone and bounced right back up to their feet, their faces flushed, the smiles wide and their bosoms heaving.
Every man in the place broke into applause.
At the cash register, Mimi urgently scribbled down a new rule: No indecent exposure. She didn’t like the way her Stanley was smiling at these bimbos.
Tone and the girls turned back to face Robin.
She ignored him and looked at each of his accomplices.
“He’s pretty big, huh?”
They knew what she meant.
“The biggest,” said Red.
“Even bigger than that,” added Blondie.
“You know this from personal experience?”
The two girls giggled and nodded.
Tone beamed.
Until he saw Robin nod, too, as if she’d come to some serious conclusion. Tone didn’t know what she was up to but his smile vanished under a wave of anxiety.
Robin reached into the display case. She brought out a hot dog. It was a fair-sized wiener, long and plump, but on one side of it Robin placed an uncut hard salami and on the other a full roll of bologna. Each of which made the hot dog look Lilliputian.
“Now, ladies,” Robin said, “in the interest of informing the public, without being totally indelicate, point to the item you’d say best represents your good friend here.”
Tone started smiling again.
The redhead looked at Tone for a hint. Would he prefer the salami or the bologna?
“Now, now. No cheating,” Robin said.
“That’s right,” Tone added. “Just be honest. Whatever you say is okay with me.”
“Of course,” Robin informed the cheerleaders, “I should warn you ladies before you indicate your choices that you’ll not only be revealing intimate details about the dimensions of Ant-knee’s anatomy ... but also about your own.”
Snap!
Everyone in the place heard the trap spring shut.
Even Red got it. Sure, she and Blondie could say Tone was hung like a Clydesdale, but then they’d be telling the world they were loose women in more ways than one. The bigger they made Tone, the more cavernous they made themselves. The two cheerleaders looked at each other with sick expressions.
All the customers and staff grinned like hyenas. Judy gave Robin a thumb’s–up.
Tone looked like he was about to blow a blood vessel. He grabbed the Boobsey Twins’ arms and squeezed, silently demanding that they sacrifice their own egos for the sake of his. But they shook him off, came to the same swift decision and pointed to the hot dog. The teeny-weeny hot dog. They ran jiggling from the deli, hoots and howls of laughter chasing them.
Robin looked at Tone and asked, “Something I can get you? To go with your humble pie. Ant-knee.”
Robin’s victory over Tone was forgotten by the time she got home that day. She went down to the basement and looked for something that was obviously wrong with her furnace: a plug that had been knocked loose, a broken wire that she could tape together, something. No luck. Being as bold as she could, she removed the metal panel that concealed the inner-workings of the beast. It looked like so much blackened, curved metal tubing to her, a colander of industrial spaghetti. She had no more understanding of how this thing was supposed to heat her house than if someone had told her it all worked by magic.
She was so angry and frustrated she wanted to kick the damn thing, but she thought better of it when she remembered it was a gas furnace. Kicking it might cause a leak that would result in the house blowing up or her being asphyxiated. Having no alternative, Robin screamed.
Then she went up to her park to look at her plants, hoping, praying that they wouldn’t all be dead soon. She took small comfort in remembering that at least the aquarium was heated electrically. Her fish should survive. Later, Robin went up to her apartment and didn’t eat the dinner she fixed.
Lying in bed, under the covers, she watched the weather forecast, hoping for a reprieve, a change in conditions that would give her more time to work something out.
But with even more glee than usual, the weatherman said the cold was now due to return tomorrow night.
There might even be snow.
Robin clicked off the set and pulled the covers over her head.
Chapter 5
Robin’s interviews the following morning were less unusual but no more productive than the previous day. The woman was technically competent. She was also a lesbian. Don’t worry about that, she’d said, because Robin wasn’t at all her type. She would have to hurt Robin, however, if Robin ever made a play for any of her girlfriends. The man didn’t want to harm Robin, he wanted to save her. He was a part-time minister, and he wanted to know if he took the job, could he use Robin’s laundry room for baptisms? He’d be honored to wash her sins away first thing. Right there in her laundry sink.
Robin was so depressed she couldn’t muster the energy even to defend herself. People would take shots at her and all she could do was take their orders and serve them their food. Everybody figured that Robin was setting some sort of trap for them, sucking them in by allowing them to take their little digs before she tore their heads off. So nobody pushed it too hard with her.
Still, Robin was glad Tone had decided to stay away that day.
David Solomonovich, however, showed up after the lunch rush.
“Hey, mama,” he said, “you sure are lookin’ —”
Then David got a good look at her.
“ Awful,” he finished. “Just terrible.”
“How nice of you to notice,” Robin said dully.
The realization that maybe he’d actually hurt Robin stunned David, made him feel worse than any insult he’d ever received at Mimi’s.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his fourteen-year-old voice small and hollow.
“What do you want, David?”
“Pastrami.”
“On rye?”
“What else,” he said. “Wonder Bread?”
He hoped Robin would rise to the bait, but she didn’t. David watched her work. She plodded through the motions and didn’t say a word to him. He thought what he was seeing was terrible. Robin was too young and vital to abandon her gift for vitriol. The world was losing something important here. It would be like ... like Michael Jordan retiring at thirty.
Robin gave David his sandwich silently, accompanied by nothing more than a dull stare.
David took one deep breath, another and then a third.
“Are you hyperventillating?” Robin asked.
David was just building up steam for what he had to say.
“I just want you to know,” he said, “that whatever’s wrong, I’ll do anything I can to help you. And I may be just fourteen, but you’d be surprised what I can accomplish.”
David’s pledge of help, friendship and, implicitly, love reduced Robin to tears.
Not that she let
anybody see her cry. She couldn’t afford that. She turned, walked through the kitchen door and left work early. On the way home, she cried.
When Robin got home she found a man looking around her building. She’d first spotted him from up the block. He was bent over peering into the basement windows. He duck-walked from one to another. In that compressed posture, he made her think of an anvil, massive and dense, and his huge crew-cut head seemed a fitting platform on which to beat red-hot iron into horseshoes with a hammer and tongs.
As she came closer, the man stood up and Robin saw he was really huge, well over six feet tall and wide enough to cause an eclipse if he ever got airborne. The giant saw Robin approach, gave her a momentary stoic glance, then turned away and started walking toward the back of Robin’s house.
She figured him for a burglar.
It was a measure of her mental state that she decided to stop this guy by herself. She knew better than to call out. She’d need surprise on her side. She’d jump on the bastard from behind. He was big, but she wasn’t exactly Twiggy herself. Her weight would knock him down and she’d beat his head into the sidewalk with her bare hands.
Of course, it would have been better if he’d had some long hair to grab onto, but she’d manage somehow. Maybe grab his ears. Use them to get him kissing concrete.
Robin started to run on tiptoe, making the best time as quietly as she could. She got to within ten feet of the guy without him knowing it. She had to get to him before he got into the backyard where they’d be out of sight of the street. She had to take him down where one of the neighbors could see what was happening and call the cops. If she tackled him in the backyard, out of public view, and something went wrong ...
Robin picked up her speed. She was close now, only six feet to go, when her right ankle turned under. She shrieked in pain and stumbled forward out of control. The behemoth turned and saw her. She screamed again, raising both fists to pummel him before she fell flat on her face.
He caught her with no more difficulty than if he’d been playing oopsy-daisy with a toddler. His strength was beyond anything Robin had ever imagined. She must’ve been mad to attack this man. Why, he could drag her behind her house and do anything he wanted with her.