Homeboy

by Seth Morgan

  “Quicker you get to the pen,” he encouraged himself, “the quicker you’ll raise up and cop the Moon.”

  Flicking the Camel stub into the corridor, he noted with alarm that the puttyskinned whiteboy was braiding the torn pieces of blanket.

  Monkey say, I measures fortyfour cross de chest

  My dick scores nine, chicks say it’s dee best

  I fear no motherfucker twixt God and Death

  I wuz born in the Battle of the Butcher Knives

  “Nigger!” hissed Champagne. “Shet up yer signifyin!”

  Because now they all saw what the man on the upper G Tank bunk was up to. He’d tied a noose at one end of the braided blanket. Standing on the bunk, he knotted the other end through a ventilator grill. He settled the noose around his neck, then carefully removed his glasses and put them in his jumpsuit’s breast pocket, patting them to make sure they were safe. With a towel he tied his wrists and slipped his feet through the hoop of his bound arms so that his hands were effectively secured behind his back.

  Joe’s mind stalled. It was a jolt discovering faith’s intimation in himself by another threatening to repudiate it to the fullest measure. All he could think was how amazingly agile a desperate man became. It wasn’t until the G Tanker was kneeling on bunk’s edge, mouthing a silent prayer, that Joe squeezed his mouth between the bars and cried: “Dont do it!”

  But the G Tanker had already flung himself from the upper bunk. The braided blanket snapped, held. He gagged horribly. His shins remained propped on the bunk from which he depended at fortyfive degrees. His eyes bulged big as eggs, staring in blind bemusement. His tongue ballooned his cheeks, bulging purple, and bloated through his open mouth like the bladder through a tear in a basketball. An erection sprang through the flap of his coveralls. The stink of suddenly evacuated bowels washed up and down the tank.

  Only then did the calls begin—“MAN DOWN!”

  Joe turned and staggered to the tank’s rear. He banged his head against the wall until supernovas exploded in his skull. Through the roar in his ear he heard the deputies cursing as they cut down the fouled corpse; then the gurney’s rusty wheels, the tank gates crashing.

  Still leaning against the wall, Joe felt a hand on his shoulder and heard a voice like a rusty bucket being hoisted from a deep well: “Man’s gotta do what he’s gotta do. Once you aint feared of dying, it’s easy as steppin through an open cell gate. You couldnt stop him. No one can stop em once they decide to hang it up.”

  Joe turned. Somewhere in Whisper Moran’s black eyes moved a light; and about the lower lip a tremble of compassion.

  Much later, Joe looked over at the bunk where Whisper slept curled around himself. The jailhouse night was hot, and the top of his coveralls was undone and pulled down, tied at his lean waist. The faint corridor lights suffused his tattooed torso with a soft metallic gleam. He looked like a sleeping serpent.

  CANDY ROSES

  Things were different now. Kitty Litter came off the Blue Note stage wringing withdrawal’s toxic sweat. She made a beeline for the bar, for another shot of booze to take the edge off her sick.

  “Glenlivet straight up, Manager.”

  Maurice the Manager set down her neat scotch and grabbed the bar’s rear bumper. He locked his elbows, hunching up his shoulders like goal posts. Oh no, here he goes with the knowitall head oscillation signaling the managerial oracle about to speak. He sniffed one nostril, then its neighbor, more body language for Dutch uncle aplomb that served the secondary purpose of drilling any vagrant grains of cocaine into his crystallized brain tissue. Aiming fondly askance down the bridge of his nose, he treated Kitty to a doublebarreled view of bored and blown cartilage. Finally, from the infinite deeps of bustout backbar wisdom, he spoke: “Thinkin of the Barker, huh?”

  From the buildup Kitty had hoped for the Secret to Eternal Happiness and would have settled for a recipe for Spam casserole.

  “Yeah, that boy’s restless on muh mind. Howd you ever know?”

  “Women.” The Manager winked slowly. “I know women.”

  The jerk.

  Music like a fistful of fingernails across a blackboard filled the club.

  “Aw no.” Kitty threw down her head on the bar. “You aint lettin Desdemona do her infuckintwerpytive number again.”

  “One last chance, I told her,” sniffed Maurice.

  “As if a stiff dick hasnt enough on its mind without interpreting,” Kitty bemoaned. “She got a sexy caboose. Awta chug those cheeks like a coupla Volkswagens tryin to pass each other round a corner.”

  “So tell me about the Barker,” the Manager said as if he gave a fuck. Kitty could see him nervously watching Desdemona’s act from the corner of his eye. Every time he told the ditz to shuck a clam, as in pink, Desdemona babbled with gradschool earnestness that it was what they didn’t see that turned them on; tap her head and say, “Sex really happens between your ears …”

  “If it does, it’s an empty experience,” was the Manager’s professional judgment.

  Kitty gave him the lowdown on not being able to write or visit Joe because of she was listed as one of his crime partners. “I bet Joe dont even remember it, but we were busted together once shoplifting at Safeway. And I bet that dopefiend vet stole the money I sent for Joe’s books.” She took a slug, shuddered. “He goes to court tomorrow.”

  “And the penitentiary the next day,” Maurice said.

  Kitty nodded, staring wideeyed into her drink. “I just hope that boy’s got better sense than to think I quit him.”

  “Hey! Dont worry bout the Barker. Coupla years off dope’ll do im good.”

  “It’s me I worry about. Gettin left behind’s harder than goin, dont matter where. Joe’s gonna change. I dont know how, but he cant help changin … So I gotta change. And hope in most of the same ways or he’ll get out and I’ll be in love with a stranger.” There, she got it out.

  “Whaddya wanna change?” the Manager’s spread palms wanted to know. “You got yer friends, yer health, yer job. Like, Hey! Cinderella. It’s past midnight and you’re still at the ball, even if Prince Charming booked.”

  Some friends, Kitty reflected ordering another drink. There wasnt a girl in the joint who wouldn’t steal her last tampon. As for her health, Kitty hadn’t fixed for twelve days but still had the geewillies and was running to the bathroom every fifteen minutes with the Hershey squirts. As for shakin’ booty at the Blue Note …

  “Some job. With Joe, it was fun. A game, kinda. Now it aint even work.” She took a slug of Glenlivet. “It’s punishment.”

  “Punishment?” The Manager shook his permed curls at such illogic. “We all should be so punished, the money you make flashin keister.”

  “Payin’ customers!” bayed Bermuda Schwartze. She stood at the waitress station, resting the Continental Shelf on the bar. By some atmospheric quirk, one of the megamams was overinflated tonight, the other shrunk and flaccid. Staggering around the club in her stilettos, Bermuda listed sharply as though an invisible hand tugged her hair.

  “Why dontcha start pickin up ashtrays?” the Manager suggested to her, ringing up drinks for the latecoming Joe Colleges. It was only an hour until closing, and only diehard dingdongers still drank at the Blue Note.

  “I aint your nigger! Be a mensch! Ask Oblivia Neutron Bomb.”

  But Oblivia was busy skulling a patron in a back booth. Giving him his money’s worth, too, from the looks of it. His head over the top of the booth jiggled like someone driving over speed bumps. Naturally, Oblivia also had a hand patting him down for his wallet. A pro like her never popped a nut until she’d popped the swag.

  Kitty drilled her scotch and rapped the glass on the bar.

  “Hey Kitty baby,” Bermuda purred like a lawnmower working uphill. “If you dont like chocolate, I’ll take them preshush flowers.”

  One sickeyed sweetheart seeke
r had been in two nights running mooning over Kitty, telling her he wanted to treat her the way she deserved, whatever that meant. He was nicelooking, too. And rich. It was just too tragic. Like, how could Kitty Litter relate to a guy who said her eyes reminded him of moonlit pools after Joe telling her for so long they looked like the five ball off the eight, the hard way. Tonight he brought her a dozen chocolate roses with his business card—DANSIGNS LTD., Daniel Graves, Prop. Some overpriced accessory boutique for young urban morons. “No, I like em, Bermuda.”

  “Suit yerself, babykins.”

  “Where’s Dwan tonight?” The Manager still sought an ashtray gofer.

  “School,” Bermuda said airily.

  “Seminar, she means,” Kitty said. “Too many leather boys been showin up dead, so the Coroner’s holdin safe bondage seminars.”

  “Dwanny took an apple,” Bermuda added.

  “Take it off, take it off!” the latecoming collegiate mafia began razzing Desdemona. She was fluttering around the stage in what looked like a hospital gown; with the faraway look of a patient traipsing up and down a psych ward. She styled her “art” after Martha Graham. Maurice said learning to strip from a bimbo named Martha was like learning to drive an eighteen wheeler from a guy named Timmy—so skip the grahamcracker bit and git down. And she would for a couple of numbers, stoically betray her ideals flashing tush; then, before you knew it, be at it again: transcendental striptease. As if these Blue Note bozos came searching for anything deeper than six, maybe seven inches.

  And the music! Those raghead guitars like sick cats.

  “This joint’s goin downhill,” Kitty proclaimed on sound authority.

  “Bare nookie!” One of the Varsity Squad yelled their common wish; another waxed even more poetic: “Hair pie!”

  Each segment of Desdemona’s routine was introduced by her own deadpan voice overdubbed on the soundtrack. Now she was launched into something called “The Excruciating Tightness of Being,” which seemed to consist of her impersonating a twisted pipe cleaner. In the middle of a contorted pirouette, with the keening sitars reminding everyone of overdue dentist appointments, the largest of the frat boys, the King of the Kampus Kulture Klub, slung his drink at her. Her face blanched, then was quickly suffused with a martyr’s beaming beatitude as she writhed on like Joan of Fuckin’ Arc at her stake.

  “Dee, get on stage!” hissed the Manager down the bar. But nothing doing. Dee Brie had just come off before Kitty and was done for the night. The triple Cutty Sark in her fist attested to that.

  “Bermuda! Show those boys what we stand for here at the Blue Note,” Maurice tried summoning the old school spirit.

  “Ixnay, Maurice! My bwests is out of balance.”

  “Kitty …” Pleadingly.

  “Shitfire, Maurice! Why not Eartha Quake?”

  You didn’t have to ask that natural disaster twice. Eartha reached behind the bar and ejected the sandnigger music with an earsplitting screech as if someone had thrown scalding water on the sick cats. Desdemona was just beginning her “Life Sempiternal, Life Evanescent” blooming lilac shtick, all scrunched up in a weird ball meant to represent the sleeping flower. Up sprang her mousy head, eyes squinched in the colored lights.

  “Whom ceased my music?” she quailed. Maximum tragic.

  “Yo mama!” Eartha had her know from the top of the runway. “Now get off my ramp, tramp.”

  To a saxophone coiling like smoke around a fat bass pulse and panting snare, Eartha glided down the ramp cupping her long skinny tits and tweaking their rusty horned nipples. Around the stage she slashed those big long legs. She halted at a post and slowly hunched it while her slitted eyes clearly doubted any face behind the candycolored lights was man enuff for her bad stuff. Then she resumed her prowling march, clawing at her belly, sneering. Suddenly she stopped and yanked aside her G-string. She jammed a finger up her quim, wiggled it with a snarl, and, after passing the fouled digit beneath the college boys’ noses, sucked it clean. Class.

  “Now that’s what the boys eat up,” cried Maurice, all smiles.

  “Gross.” Kitty’s tongue was fuzzy with scotch. “For an encore she’ll smoke a cigaret up there.”

  “So gross is what they pay for.” The Manager was right: the Varsity Squad was reaching up, tucking sawskis in her garter belt.

  “She’s … dead, Maurice. Just aint no one told her to fall over,” Kitty surprised herself saying. But it wasn’t just the booze; she meant it. Something behind Eartha’s eyes was shut like steel shutters. Dead. “Gimme anudder Glenlivet, Manager.”

  He poured it, saying, “You should be so dead.”

  I will be, was Kitty Litter’s bustout epiphany.

  The big one, the Kulture King, refused to tip Eartha. She crouched at the edge of the stage, wringing her squashlike tits in his sodden face, and sneered something Kitty didn’t catch. His face reddened, he lurched to his feet and stumbled to the mensroom. Eartha stood hands on hips watching him with open disgust. Then she reached under her G-string and, wincing, yanked out a cunt hair. Reaching down and picking up his halfempty beer bottle, she pushed the fat black hair down its neck. Before returning it to the table, she held the bottle up to a light. Yrrgghh! You could see the hair floating in its very own miniature oil slick.

  “I dont believe it,” mumbled Kitty. “She makes me feel like Nancy Drew.”

  Eartha put her finger to her lips and winked, joining the other collegiates in the conspiracy. In a moment the big one returned. He took no notice of the others stifling their hilarity, doubled over, choking. He chugged the beer. They burst out screaming and laughing and shouting at him what he’d done. The Kulture King barfed beer froth across the stage apron.

  “That’s it, Maurice. I’m hangin up my G-string,” Kitty announced in a clear voice.

  “And all over the nice clean stage,” wailed Bermuda.

  “Clean, my ass,” cried Dee Brie. “I’ve been having yeast infections ever since I come to work here.”

  “Girl, you were born with terminal vaginitis.”

  Desdemona blithered about the excruciating nausea of being.

  “You guys take your friend home, he’s had enough,” cried the Manager. He turned to Kitty, his face screwed sideways. “What’re you talking about?”

  “I’m outta here,” she declared, heading for the stairs.

  “Dont come snivelin to me when you want your job back!” the Manager called up after her.

  In the dressingroom Kitty peeled out of her cheap peignoir and kicked off her stripper heels. Into her jeans she shimmied and laced on her sneakers. God! the smell up there of curling irons and weekold Aqua Net and something else that might be mistaken for a tunafish sandwich rotting somewhere.

  Her eye fell on the chocolate roses. Funny thing about heroin withdrawal, you developed a tragic sweet tooth, a real sugar yen. Probably all the lactose in the cut: you were shooting ten times more sugar than junk. She stuffed the silly things in her gym bag. The perfect souvenir of the bustout Life devoted to the cynical cheap synthesis of All Things Beautiful, the rustling of lonesome dreams.

  Danny boy’s card fluttered to the floor. She frowned down at it, deciding she’d probably need it. She shrugged, blowing a curl off her forehead, and scooped it up. She might have to let Mr. Dan Graves have his way and keep her. Tragic.

  She collected her few bottles of scent and tubes of mascara and tossed them in the gym bag. She was about to leave when Detox, a stray cat adopted by the Blue Note girls, hissed and spit. He crouched before the mirror baring his wicked little fangs.

  “What’s the matter, pussy … One bent chick flying the coop? There’s more where this one came from. Oceans more …” Detox screeched. She hurled a can of hair spray at him. He jumped clear. The mirror smashed into a hundred broken Kitty Litters.

  Downstairs, all hell had broken loose. Oblivia’s trick had tumbled to t
he rip and run: he was staggering in circles, pants around his ankles, screaming where the fuck was his wallet. Bermuda was bonging him over the head with her tray, hollering for Maurice to call the cops, they had a weenie waver on the premises … Bong! Bong! And the Ultimate Grossout: Eartha Quake sitting on the edge of the stage beside the big kid’s head lying passed out in the sudsy beer puddle, with another kid’s head clinched between her legs, eating out her raunchy box.

  While Gene Pitney’s adenoidal bleating over blown speakers put a philosophical spin on the scene by reminding one and all that it wasn’t very pretty what a town without pity cannn deeeewwww.

  Before Kitty could hit the door, the Manager took time out to scream: “Better not have any Blue Note G-strings in that bag!”

  Sure. So he could sell them to the next tragedy off the bus.

  The jerk.

  SILENT BEEFS

  “I remember your case,” the Public Defender said, reading from the topmost file on his arm. “A Grand Theft Auto. You were hospitalized and I pled you not guilty in absentia at your arraignment. The Assistant D.A. is unwilling to cut any sort of deal. I tried to budge him, but no soap. You’ve got an ugly silent beef …”

  “What kind of beef?” Joe cupped his hands to his mouth to be heard over the din in the Muni Court bullpen, a concrete box the size of a cheap motel room crammed with forty felons furiously smoking, breaking starchy jailhouse wind, and shouting all at once.

  “Silent beef. When the authorities believe a man guilty of a crime or crimes which they cant prove and must settle for a conviction on a lesser charge, they attach memoranda to the man’s record stipulating the uncharged offenses. These memoranda ensure he is punished to the fullest legal limit of the lesser offense.”

  “Damned American of them. What crime are they convicting me of without a trial?”

  The P.D. smiled wanly. “Murder during the commission of a felony.”