by Sean Lynch
Potter had risen to his hands and knees and was finishing what appeared to be a lengthy puking session. He lolled his head from side to side, repeating the words “fucking bitch”, and occasionally punctuated his declarations with spit. Most of the onlookers had left; the odor and image of Potter’s ejected fast-food meal was more than enough incentive to drive them away. Charlie walked around the widening pool of gastric fluids and retrieved Paige’s dropped briefcase.
“I see we had chili dogs for lunch,” the bailiff chuckled.
“Go to hell,” Potter retorted.
“I warned you to leave her alone,” Charlie said, “but you were too stupid to listen. Well, now you learned.”
“Fuck you, White,” Potter groaned, rising unsteadily to his feet. “I’m pressing charges. You can tell her that.”
“What the hell happened?”
White and Potter looked up to see Sergeant Wendt enter through the main doors. “Christ, Charlie,” Wendt asked. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do it,” White said, “but I wish I did.” He gave Potter a contemptuous stare. “If I’d done it, the sorry bastard would be in the hospital instead of choking up his chowder.”
“Deputy District Attorney Paige Callen assaulted me,” Potter announced. “I want her arrested for battery. It was a totally unprovoked attack.”
“You’re kidding? Paige Callen did that?” He pointed to Potter’s bashed and bloodied nose.
“Absolutely,” Potter insisted. “I just told you I want her arrested. Under California law, as a sworn police officer, you cannot refuse to accept my citizen’s arrest. I want her arrested. Now.”
“I know how to do my job,” Wendt said. “I don’t need the likes of a barf-covered Perry Mason to tell me how. Until I talk to Ms Callen, nobody gets arrested.”
“She’s in her office,” White spoke up.
“C’mon, Charlie,” Wendt said. “Let’s go see her.” They headed for the deputy district attorney’s office.
“Wait a minute,” Potter said. “Don’t you want to get my side of the story first? I’m the victim.”
“I already know your side of the story,” Wendt answered him over his shoulder. “I’m a detective, remember? You got the shit beat out of you by a pretty young blonde. Case closed.” White guffawed.
Once in the DA’s office, the police sergeant and the bailiff found a more-composed Paige Callen at the water dispenser, gulping down aspirin. She gave them a weak smile when she saw them.
“Hi, Randy,” she greeted. “How’s your day going? Mine’s going swell.”
“Hi back,” he said. “Funny thing happened on the way to your office. I was coming to check on your well-being and update you on the progress of the investigation. When I arrived, I found a short fat dude who looks a lot like your co-worker on all fours in the lobby, hurling his guts out. Looks like he went one very short round with Mike Tyson. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“Cut the baloney,” Paige said. “He jumped out at me from behind; some kind of joke, I guess. Startled the hell out of me. I don’t know what came over me. As soon as I saw him laughing, I saw red. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me,” Wendt said. “I’m not the one who got thumped.”
“Actually,” she said, “I’m not sorry at all. It felt good.”
“It may not feel good for long,” Wendt told her. “Deputy District Attorney Potter wants me to arrest you.” Charlie White nodded in affirmation.
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish I was. Potter’s insisting. And he knows I can’t refuse his citizen’s arrest.”
Paige plopped heavily into her chair. White set her briefcase gently on her desk. “That’s just great,” she said. “This has been the worst week of my life.” She rubbed her brow. “And it’s only Wednesday.”
Potter entered the office, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief and glaring at Paige.
“Happy with yourself, Miss Smartass?” he asked.
Charlie White started toward him. Wendt quickly got between the bailiff and attorney.
“Watch your mouth, shithead,” White growled. “One more word like that out of you and there ain’t gonna be enough cops on this planet to save your sorry ass.”
“You heard that, Sergeant; he threatened me.”
“Shut up,” Wendt said to Potter, struggling to keep the much-larger bailiff at bay.
“You can’t tell me to shut up in my own office. I have a right to–”
“Shut your mouth!” Wendt said again. “Another word out of you and I’m going to let Charlie loose.”
Potter remained silent, fuming. Wendt stepped back from Charlie, satisfied for the moment that no more violence was imminent. He looked from one deputy DA to the other.
“I don’t know what happened here today, but I think we should all forget it.”
“I’m not forgetting anything,” Potter said. “I want her arrested.”
“It sounds to me like you brought the incident upon yourself,” Wendt said. “Ms Callen said you jumped out at her with the specific intent to scare her.”
“Maybe so,” Potter conceded. “But I didn’t assault her. I didn’t even touch her.”
“No, you merely jumped out to put a fright into a woman who has been the victim of potentially lethal assaults twice within the past two days.” He stared at Potter in disdain. “Apparently, you thought tormenting her would be good for a laugh. It’s not only immature, it’s cruel. But it backfired, and the laugh was on you. And now you want me to arrest Ms Callen for reflexively responding to the panic that you created.” Wendt shook his head. “I don’t think that’s grounds for a battery arrest.”
“I don’t give damn what you think,” Potter said. “I want her arrested. By law, you can’t refuse. If you do, Sergeant, you are guilty of a crime. And believe me, I will prosecute you for it. Arrest her.”
Wendt was about to reply to Potter when Paige silenced him with a wave of her hand. “He’s right, Randy,” she said. “You have to arrest me if he insists. Let’s get it over with so I can go home. I don’t feel so well.”
“I think there may be grounds for an arrest of Mr Potter here for attempted battery on you, Paige. If you thought you were about to be assaulted–”
“Save your breath,” she interrupted him. She stood up from behind her desk. “I’m not going to sink to his level. Let him file his charges if he wants. Let him sue if he wants. Maybe it’ll make him feel like a man.”
“Arrest her,” Potter insisted.
Wendt glowered at Potter, who smiled smugly in return. “Whatever you say, Counselor,” he said. “But for the record, you’re a piece of shit.”
“I’ll be reporting your comments to your chief of police.”
“You do that,” Wendt said. He directed his next comments to Paige. “Come on, Ms Callen. I’ll drive you to the station and book you myself. Since battery is only a misdemeanor, I’ll have you out within the hour on a citation.”
“Wait a minute,” Potter said. He removed his stained jacket. “I’m not going to be made out to be the bad guy in this.”
“The shoe fits,” Wendt said.
“I’m the victim here. And even though I’ve been brutalized by Paige–”
“Ms Callen,” she corrected him,”
“I’m not entirely without mercy,” Potter said.
“What’s your point?” Wendt asked.
“I’m just saying,” Potter went on, taking a seat behind his own desk, “maybe this whole unfortunate arrest could be avoided?”
“Quit posturing,” Wendt said. “If you’ve got something to say, say it. Otherwise, I’ve got to get Ms Callen to the station and get her booked per your citizen’s arrest.”
“I am not without consideration for Ms Callen’s plight,” he said.
“Is that why you tried to scare the daylights out of her?” Charlie White asked.
“I’ll ignore that remark,” Potter said loftily. “All I’
m saying is that perhaps I could be persuaded to drop the charges if an appropriate apology were presented.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Wendt asked.
“It means,” Potter answered, “that an apology from Ms Callen would go a long way to persuading me to drop the charges.”
“You’re saying that if I apologize to you, you’ll drop the charges?” Paige asked.
“I didn’t say that.”
Wendt’s patience was evaporating. “Quit playing your grammar-school games and spit it out, you insufferable little prick. What do you want?”
“I believe,” Potter said slowly, turning his gaze from the sergeant to Paige, “that an apology might be an appropriate start of compensation for the injuries I suffered today.”
“What kind of compensation do you want?” Paige asked, no effort to disguise the disgust she felt.
“As you can plainly see, my medical expenses will be significant. And this suit you ruined cost over a thousand dollars. Your father is loaded; you can afford it.”
“I’m not giving you a dime.”
“Then the charges stand.” He turned to Wendt. “Sergeant, do your duty.”
“When I first met you,” Wendt said to Potter, “I gave you the benefit of the doubt. I didn’t want to judge you on your appearance. I figured you couldn’t be as slimy as you looked. I was wrong.”
“I don’t give a damn what you think of me, Sergeant.”
“You’re filth,” Bailiff Charlie White said. His fists were clenched. “Fucking filth.”
“That goes double for you, Bailiff,” Potter retorted.
Paige grabbed her purse. “Let’s get going, Randy,” she said. “I want to be home as soon as possible after I get booked.”
“You’d rather get arrested and go to jail, which will probably result in your termination with the district attorney’s office, than swallow your pride, apologize, and pay me an appropriate compensation for my pain and suffering?” Potter asked, gloating.
“No,” Paige corrected him. “That’s not it. If I was sorry, I’d apologize. But I’m not sorry. I enjoyed seeing you wallowing on the floor in a puddle of your own puke. It was an image I’ll always treasure. I should have taken a picture.”
Potter’s face drooped; anger flashed over his features.
“And as far as paying you is concerned, I won’t give you a penny. I’d rather write a check to the criminal who’s stalking me. You’re an insect, Chaz,” she said. “You can go to straight to hell.”
“You’ll be sorry,” he said.
“You already are. I’ll see you in court.”
CHAPTER 23
The sounds of the Mamas and the Papas drifted across the room to where Ray Cowell sat working at his drafting table. He was carefully painting the undercarriage of a partially assembled Corsair fighter/bomber. Radio station KOIT, San Francisco’s “Lite Rock, Less Talk” station, was his go-to music for modeling work because it played fewer commercials and more of the softer tunes he preferred when modeling.
It was early afternoon, but Ray was still wearing his pajamas. He’d phoned his boss at the shipyard and told him not only was he not coming in today, he would be taking the next two weeks off on vacation. His supervisor was livid but could do nothing. Ray had been working for Maersk for well over ten years, had never used a sick day, and had accrued many weeks of unused vacation leave. He was a diligent, valued, and loyal employee, and knew his use of personal time could not be refused.
Ray felt calm. He always felt at peace when in his room and assembling his models, but felt especially tranquil today. The pain in his testicles and ribs had improved significantly overnight, and he felt relaxed and confident, almost elated.
Whenever he worked on his model aircraft, his mind drifted back to when he was a child. To the time when his mom was pretty and his dad would tousle his hair and give him pretend haymakers to the chin. In those days, during good weather, he would be outside playing catch with his dad or teaching Skipper tricks. But during the rainy season, he and his dad would build airplane models in the basement.
In those days, the basement was not his room. The basement was a damp, musty storage area, and Ray’s mom would make them go down there to build models because of the glue and paint fumes. Ray and his dad cleaned up the basement and put in a table. When the family bought new furniture upstairs, the basement inherited the old sofa and some worn chairs. Ray’s dad installed lighting and better ventilation, and soon the basement was like a special clubhouse where only he and his dad were members. It got to where Ray enjoyed the rainy days as much as the sunny ones. And although Ray’s mom always said she hated “the dungeon”, she would come down when Ray and his dad were building models and bring sandwiches or cookies. His father even painted a sign on the outside of the basement door, in dripping-blood letters like The Munsters, which read “The Dungeon”.
Sometimes they would build model cars or boats, but Ray’s favorites were the military aircraft. While building these, Ray’s father would tell him spellbinding stories of his days fighting the hated communists in Korea. Ray would listen in rapt attention as his father told hair-raising tales of midnight patrols, desperate ambushes, and bloody bayonet charges.
Those days were precious and short. During the winter rainy season, Ray would excitedly count the days until the weekend. He and his father were regulars at the hobby shop on Park Street, and Ray couldn’t wait until Saturday arrived to begin building the newest military aircraft from the pages of the Revell catalogue.
Ray’s father was skillful with his hands and taught Ray to pay strict attention to detail when constructing his models. He showed Ray how to use a brush and how to blacken the plastic around the engines with a cigarette lighter and Styrofoam. He reminded his son that in wartime, attention to detail was extremely important and could be the difference between life and death.
He told Ray about the time a fellow soldier forgot to take the loose coins out of his pocket while on a patrol, which resulted in his death in a withering hail of gunfire when the enemy heard the jangling sound.
“Attention to detail,” his father would always tell him. “It’s the difference between how a boy does a job and how a man does a job.” Ray would nod in agreement.
“Do you know how you get attention to detail, Ray?” he would ask.
“Planning,” Ray would answer on cue. “By planning.”
“Right,” his dad would affirm as Ray proudly beamed. “Planning is the key. What a good soldier you would have been. Those commies wouldn’t have fooled you, Ray.”
Ray sighed, set down the uncompleted Corsair, and lit a cigarette. Sometimes his longing for those times was so powerful it hurt. Sometimes he fantasized about building a time machine and going back to the Alameda of his youth. Back to when his pretty mother tucked him into his bed upstairs in the house and kissed him goodnight. When the television was black-and-white, and shows like The Outer Limits and The Addams Family filled his evenings.
He exhaled smoke and grunted, casting his momentary lapse into nostalgia aside. He could never go back and he knew it. His idyllic childhood had been ripped from him, not gradually through the natural progression of growing up, but in the swift passing of one terrible summer.
All that Ray had endured since that fateful summer was a painful blur. The remainder of his youth was spent watching his life disintegrate, piece by piece. At school he was a bullied loner and outcast, with only his books for friends. At home he stood mute witness to his mother’s transformation from the angel of his childhood to a pathetic drunk, dependent on the debasing consolation of strangers and the solace of the bottle. Soon, Ray began to spend all his time in the basement, even the nights when his mother wasn’t upstairs entertaining an endless string of faceless men. Her intoxicated laughter and the animal sounds emanating from his mother’s bedroom permeated the basement refuge where Ray spent sleepless nights with only his tears for comfort.
As always, the tranquility Ray experien
ced building models in the solitude of his basement room wasn’t to last. His mind inevitably began to give way to reminiscence of the losses he had suffered. A lifetime of losses.
His failed military career, the only glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak future. A chance to pursue his love of both electronics and aviation. Gone.
His brief engagement. To Ray, this loss mattered the least, but it was nonetheless a loss. He’d met Maritay, a Filipina co-worker, several years after beginning work as a shipping clerk. Like him, she was a lonely, quiet recluse. She was neither attractive nor pleasant, and looking back, Ray wondered if he’d initiated the relationship merely to discover if he was capable of one. After several weeks of awkward dating and clumsy sexual encounters, he asked her to move in with him, upstairs in his mother’s house.
It was a mistake. As the weeks went by, Maritay spent increasing time hanging out with his mother upstairs while he continued to retreat to the comfort of his beloved dungeon each evening. The basement was the only unchanged remnant of Ray’s childhood, and he was reluctant to abandon it. It was his fortress of solitude, like in the Superman comics he read as a youth.
Arguments ensued. Frustrated at what she perceived as Ray’s neglect, Maritay would call him a “mama’s boy” and try to follow him when he retreated to the basement. Ray would ignore her.
One day, a month after Maritay had moved into the house, Ray came home from work to find the lock on the dungeon forced open. He dashed inside to find Maritay and his mother, drunk as usual, digging through his closet. His military periodicals and pornographic magazines were scattered on the floor, his drafting table was upset, and an under-construction scale model of Doolittle’s B-25 had toppled to the ground.
“So, this is what you do down here,” Maritay sneered in her thick accent. “Play with toys and jerk off?” Maritay’s fleshy face and the slackened face of his mother leered at him in contempt and triumph.
“You had no right to come down here,” he said, his own face contorting with barely suppressed rage. “This is not your place.”
“What are you afraid of?” Maritay taunted, holding up a copy of Hustler. “That we’ll find something we’re not supposed to?”