by John Shannon
He could imagine driving on past just such a person himself. What a sad case, he would think. Probably drunk as a skunk. Don’t want to get caught up in that, for sure. Everyone knew that the chances of saving a booze-martyr were almost negligible.
Within a short walking distance southwest of The Nickel – about seven minutes on foot nearer the ocean from where Jack Liffey crawled – near the fancy new sports arena known as Staples Center, $1.5 billion has been committed for an elaborate development that included a $400 million luxury hotel financed, in critical part, by city funds. Far more than the city has ever spent on the homeless.
2 See The Concrete River, 1996.
3 See Palos Verdes Blue, 2009.
NINE
Armor Geddon
Two black boys squatted beside him, then rolled him over. ‘You ridin’ on candy, old man? Juiced? Maybe you take some dust.’
‘Ack!’
‘Don’t be talkin’ no chop suey now.’ One young man, maybe sixteen years old, patted down Jack Liffey’s jacket pockets. At the same time, he felt an exploring hand testing his pants. He knew the wallet was already gone. What was left? A Chapstick maybe. A pocket knife. Loose change.
A drawling caution came into the boy’s voice. ‘Waal, you don’ move now, old man.’ A hand dug and found something, a Chapstick that the boy studied for an instant and contemptuously flung away. Then he found the penknife, an expensive Swiss Army model. ‘Hey, a uptick in life. Old woman promise some Freddy got a gift for me. Not much of a gift, but I guess you can’t never want stuff too bad or the stuff end up lightweight.’
‘Ack.’
‘Don’t blow no gaskets. I be get to like this new lingo you got – the ack-ack talk.’ The boy stood up. ‘Ack to you, dad. Ack-ack-ack.’
‘This guy my favorite flavor. Bye, sucker.’
The boys walked away laughing, tossing his penknife back and forth between them, the one shouting ‘Ack-ack!’ every time he caught it, and ‘Ack, my niggah!’ when he tossed it back.
Jack Liffey was so addled that he addressed a kind of secular prayer to the fates who might or might not be watching over him. Protect me with a plastic bubble, please. And protect Maeve, too.
This was probably the worst spot in the city to find yourself lying defenseless and immobile in the street, even if there was a tickle in his legs now. Maybe they’d strip you even faster in Beverly Hills, he thought. No, that was sentimental nonsense. In Beverly Hills a man lying in the gutter would be ignored, as long as possible, but nobody would ever fish in a derelict’s filthy pocket. Over there, the stealing was all done with a pen and a bogus smile.
He glanced around, looking for further danger. The human need was so desperate that almost anything had value – even a beat-up wheelchair. He was surprised they’d discarded the Chapstick.
He heard a truck engine approaching up the road, saw its headlights flood the pavement, then heard the engine gun hard as if trying to get up the speed to run him over. He closed his eyes tight but the roaring missed him by several feet. The drizzle had diminished to a slow sprinkling, a mist. He rolled and lay face up, the front of his clothing soaked through, and he felt the fresh prickling on his cheeks.
How ridiculously frail I am now, he thought. A few angry tots, still in their Pampers, could finish him off with their rattles, hammering away in some maddened infant frenzy. Imagining just that, he lay there laughing for a few moments, wondering if he was descending into a hysteria.
Were the gods of neurology laughing with him or at him? He rolled back to his stomach and tried to drag himself toward the curb with his arms. He made some progress but ran out of steam after three determined crawl-strokes. There were hints, just hints, of feeling in his legs. But something had drained all his energy. When he opened his eyes, an emaciated gray cat was stalking toward him to investigate.
‘Ack!’
The hungry-looking wet cat halted and tried to fluff up to appear larger than life, but then a car approached, flooding light past him and sending the cat fleeing along the gutter, tail low.
Sorry, kitty, but I’m probably not edible, not without some chopping.
The car diverted by a wide margin, audibly squishing through gunk in the far gutter. He wondered who but cops would be driving down here now in this menacing dark. Maybe a Korean importer on his way home from the toy district. Maybe a lost tourist trying to find his way back to the Biltmore. A carload of high school thrillseekers.
‘Hombre, you need a big hit of tequila.’ A powerful-looking teenager, holding a long brown cigarette, knelt to stare at Jack Liffey’s face, grasping his chin and twisting to get a better view. ‘You my own Idaho. Not so bad. If we in jail, I make you my bitch.’ He massaged Jack Liffey’s ass. ‘Bienvenidos, cherry, eh, sweetie? I guess you lucky. Too cold tonight, way too wet, too swami.’
Swami? Jack Liffey thought.
‘Good shoes. They worth something.’
He felt the comfy Rockports wrenched off his feet and was surprised he felt it at all. Maybe some sensation was returning.
‘What the big nobs say? Walk a mile in my shoe, uh-huh. Maybe I will. But El Chibo always give full value. Aqui, esse.’
Jack Liffey tried to turn his head away from the cigarette – he hadn’t smoked in over ten years – but the kid wrenched his jaw back.
‘Don’ be no pendejo. You suck on my Sherm or you suck some-thin’ else, eh? This a real gift – me to you.’
Jack Liffey inhaled and knew immediately the cigarette was laced with something. The skinny Shermans were notorious as conduits for angel dust. Shit! Just what he needed.
‘Yeah, take a big one, man. I gotta give fair for you Rockafella shoes. They hardly use at all.’
Fingers pressed Jack Liffey’s lips closed over the cigarette.
‘Go, hombre. You a real man.’
He drew in a mouthful, trying not to inhale.
‘No, no.’
The boy pounded on his back and Jack Liffey was jolted into inhaling, watching this all happen from far away. He began to feel the high, whatever it was, needle points dancing on his cheeks.
‘Ack!’ He exhaled and closed his teeth tight.
‘Wan’ more, hombre? Jus’ so I be you tycoon tonight.’
He gave in and inhaled. He held it, like his last memory of working on a joint, maybe fifteen years back, his world starting to spin now. Why the hell not?
‘Love you, man. You got pretty eyes. Bye-bye.’
He heard the footsteps recede as the spinning carried on and on. Christ – but maybe this was just what he needed to get through the night. Relax and accept it. You’re just a piece of useless meat anyway. A siren sounded not far away, and he heard fire engines speeding out of a station, one tire squealing in a turn, but nothing came his way, not even a hint of their light.
Alone now, he thought. Lying on my stomach and going dopey. OK, I am a fortress. Of all that I have done and known. It’s all got to protect me now. His spine tingled as the sounds of something small and living scrabbled along the gutter nearby. He turned his head. Rats. A running parade of big fat rats hustled past only a foot or two from his face. They leapt small piles of wet garbage, one after another, like children at follow-the-leader. Then they were gone, and he realized his jaw was clenched so hard it hurt.
Something like sheet lightning flashed above him, revealing his entire universe for an instant. Oddly, there was no sound to the lightning, only the urban rumbles and grumbles far away. He was dizzy and euphoric. For a moment he felt he could float upward, if he only willed it hard enough, let himself detach from the earth. Stay focused, he thought. This was the damn Sherm acting on him. Fight for control. The sleep of reason produces … what was it? Giant flying bats?
‘Hey, Lonnie’s it!’ The voice of a child cut through his thoughts, and he wondered if he was hallucinating. Maybe the sheet lightning, too. Even the rats. But his shoes were truly gone.
‘Ollie-ollie-oxen-free!’
A small hand pressed
his shoulder and released. He screwed his neck around and saw four pairs of dirty sneakers, attached to four children, maybe eight or nine years old.
‘Ack.’
‘This guy’s home base. Guess what?’
‘No “guess what,” fucker.’
‘I say we playin’. I’ll go to a hunnert by fives. Step off, fools!’
‘I’m there!’ Foot-sounds scattered.
‘Five, ten, fifteen, twenty-five …’
Jack Liffey gave up and resigned himself to being home base for a while. And why not? His immobile lump of a body would serve a useful purpose, and it pleased the kids. The cruelty of the irony was almost perfect.
‘Here I come, ready or not!’
How little things change, he thought. The same words he had cried out in hide-and-seek so many years ago, and now, in an irresistibly circular logic, he had become the big forked tree at the south end of the bridge in Averill Park, San Pedro. At least he could look forward to human touch in the near future – touch with no ulterior motive. Lord, make me useful. I’m all raw perception now. I’m the done-to, the object, the sheer modesty of a person so without deceit he’s only thing. At least he was out in the open, not trapped in a dark hole that would stir up his gravest fears like the panic of claustrophobia.
Two sets of footsteps churned toward him, and almost simultaneously hands slapped his shoulder.
‘Home free!’
‘Jammie’s it – ah, fuck it. Least y’all didn’t have no time to oxen-free.’
‘Brah, De-shayla hidin’ behind the pottie. Bet you can go injun up and kiss her.’
‘You the best, my shizzle.’
The soft plop of tennis shoes receded, and one of the small black boys sat down cross-legged to study Jack Liffey’s face, like a Zen monk contemplating a candle flame. Jack Liffey wanted desperately to speak to the boy, ask about his life down here on The Nickel, where his mother was, if he was able to go to school. Anything.
‘Ack.’
‘You funny, man. Why you lay there?’
‘Ack.’
‘Ain’ no answer. You a boozehound? But I ain’ smell no booze.’
Jack Liffey shook his head as best he could, if only to try to put the boy’s mind at rest.
The boy edged closer and patted his pockets, but finding nothing at all gave up. ‘You be clowned on, ain’t you? Not even no shoes. Hope I never be a sucka like dat.’
The streetlights, none too close anyway, went out for a few seconds, and it was as if everything in the city was holding its breath. It gave him the creeps – but the lights came back on and, weirdly, traffic sound seemed to resume at the same moment. More hallucination? A pause as he drifted downward into an even more malign universe?
‘How you gone take a whizz, man? You in a bad way. You need all yo’ shit together to do things right down here.’
A car approached and the boy jumped to his feet to wave the car away to guard his new charge.
Thank you, my friend, Jack Liffey thought.
‘Fucker got to be careful.’ He turned back to Jack Liffey. ‘I born Cuba, man. Moms come on the boat a long time, when I little baby. She say she from some place call Sen-fway-gos, but the Cubans here all rich white mothahfuckas – they don’ like they own niggahs. She say Fidel her man.’
Jack Liffey nodded.
‘You like him, too?’ The boy appeared surprised. ‘I don’t got much Cuba-talk, but I know who I is. My name Oswado.’
‘Ack!’ The frustration was reaching breaking point – he wanted badly to reach out to this boy.
‘OK, you be Mister Ak. I be Oswald. That what they say here, but Moms say Oswado.’
Small running feet were on their way back, and, amazingly, Jack Liffey looked forward to the human touches.
Several tiny hands hit his shoulders, and he warmed up with a rush of sympathy for them all.
‘Ollie-ollie-oxen-free-free-free!’
‘Ah, fuck you, ho’. Cause I don’ be kissing you ass an’ be nice, you bus’ my balls.’
‘Hey, you kids! Leave that old man alone!’ It was a deep woman’s voice from somewhere toward the sidewalk. The children cursed her and stomped and objected but eventually scattered when she yelled several more times. In a few moments, a very large black woman peered at his face and then tugged him forcefully toward the curb in fits and starts.
‘Dear heart, I see you in some trouble. Gonna get ran down out there. I save your butt.’
‘Ack.’
She grabbed him by the jacket and pulled, and as he moved, he could see the mounds of wet filth approaching. He closed his eyes as he squished over them. Ah, Christ, what was it he was doing penance for? He knew this woman wasn’t a hallucination. Powerful black women were always real.
‘You some fall-down wino, Freddy?’ She laughed a little. ‘Sorry I laughin’. I know you ain’ laughin’ cuz you ain’ laughin’. It all strike me funny, tho. Your hair gettin’ thin on top, I can see you scabby head.’
Woman, male pattern baldness is the least of my problems, he thought.
‘You got boojie-lookin’ clotheses. You been take off and lef’ here. Kin you nod, Freddy?’
He nodded, as she sucked in a big breath and yanked his face and chest over the curbing and up on to the sidewalk. She sat down with a sigh, duty done, and put his head on her ample lap.
‘You can call me Precious, Fred. Problems jus’ keep comin’, ain’ it the truff. I jus’ hope you ain’ no crack-head. I hates swiffers.’
He had no idea where she’d got the name. He’d never heard whites called Freds or Freddies.
‘How you soul doin’?’ she said, as she patted his head the way you’d pet a dog.
‘Ack.’
‘Myself I’m poetical in my soul,’ she said. ‘I have a story for you. I surely love a man who gots to listen.’
All the lights downtown went out again. He just happened to have a view of the skyscrapers a mile away, and it was a shock – like a nuclear attack. After a few seconds, there was a chorus of groans and cries in every direction.
‘Whooo-wee,’ his rescuer said. ‘End of de worl’.’
Then the lights flickered back on, area by area, one of those unexplained power interruptions that happened about half the time that it rained anywhere in the city.
Then she told him a long, long tale about marrying a Pentecostal from her hometown in Arkansas, a childhood sweetheart, who’d joined the army and called himself, improbably, Armor Gedden. He’d been posted to Germany with the Second Armored ‘Hell on Wheels’ Division, but when she wouldn’t join his church and bark out gibberish with him to attract the End Times, he eventually went AWOL and abandoned her in their military billet in Heidelberg.
She got herself to Frankfurt but fell through the Army’s cracks and spent days and days knocking on doors in the immense Creighten Abrams Complex there, the center of all things American on Hansa Alee, always being sent on to some other building.
His attention was drifting a little, worrying about Maeve and fascinated by a new tingle in his leg. Jack Liffey did his best to keep his spirits up, but the tale went on and on, full of men acting like dogs and demanding her favors, with technicolor descriptions, and every chance to get home evaporating at the last minute. She told him she was finally forced to offer her fanciest favors to a colonel who got her home on compassionate something.
A police siren stiffened them both and the black-and-white car roared past, but headed for something that was well away.
Two old men shuffled past them on Sixth Street and she fell silent, caressing his forehead absent-mindedly. Next, next, he thought. That was the essence of story. Tell me.
Abruptly there were more footsteps. She set his head down on the curb, a bit too hard, and got up to run toward them.
‘Man, all I know is the spread,’ a man said.
‘Shawn! Is that you, lover? I be your true one, it Precious.’ She was almost bellowing, but there was a desperation in her voice that Jack Liffey hat
ed to hear. He had a feeling he’d never see her again, and never hear the bitter end of her tale. He waited, but only silence and faraway city noise answered.
He realized he’d never even got a proper name. What a shame, he thought. Don’t we all want to come back some day and shower our affection on those who helped us when we were in need?
‘Shawn!’ he heard her desperate voice in the distance. ‘My Titan missile!’
After careful consideration, he started to crawl generally westward with terrible effort, maybe toward civilization. The sidewalk was cracked and heaved up here and there, impeding him. After little more than a block, and one perilous street crossing, the attempt had just about drained him dry, when he heard a man’s voice.
‘Man, s’up wit’ you? Look like you went an’ felled pretty hard.’
‘Ack-ack.’ The voice was friendly and sympathetic, but he was tired of saviors who ripped him off or absconded. Jack Liffey rolled on to his shoulder, to where he could see the middle-aged black man squatting a few feet away. He wore a sweatshirt, ragged camo pants and an L.A. baseball cap. Dodger blue.
‘You hurt?’
What to answer to that, even if he could?
The man got up and patted his pockets. ‘You got some niceside clothes. Like you be dipped in butter sauce. But you got nothin’ in here. You been robbed bad, ain’t it? Cain’t you talk, man?’
He shook his head hard.
‘Cain’t talk, cain’t walk. You a sad case. Don’t you worry now – Chopper ain’t gonna leave no one to rot in no street, not now and not never. And not some genna’man be turnin’ up at dinnertime.’
The man got his hand in Jack Liffey’s armpit and, surprisingly strong, he dragged him away from the curb, toward two refrigerator boxes, abutting and attached, tented over with blue plastic. Beside the doorway, an old food can was steaming on a grille set on bricks over a can of Sterno. He realized how much he hurt all over from the beating. And then he squeezed his eyes shut, mortified, because he could do nothing at all for Maeve.