“I can’t, but I do the work when someone asks and shoot ’em to Clyde Brooks. He gives me a kickback. I’ll pick up a hundred or so on this one—for a couple of phone calls.”
Rock and roll music coming from the interior suddenly stopped. When we reached the main room I saw the four-man band consulting over sheet music on a tiny stage cantilevered from one wall. Angie was climbing a short ladder to join them. The room was murky, chairs turned on tables. It was larger than it looked from outside. Two bars served the place. Tiny tables were raised on a dais at the front. Most of the floor had tables so close they almost touched each other. A miniscule dance floor was at the rear. The stage was ten feet high. The arrangement cunningly packed the maximum number of customers into the least space.
The young man joined us again. His name was Manny. He was manager and chief bartender.
“Have a drink while I make those calls,” Abe said to me, gesturing to Manny to fix it. Abe went back into the short corridor to his office.
“Abe must love you,” Manny said, placing a triple shot of gin and ice on the bar. “He’d rather give teeth than free drinks.”
“I’ve known him for a long time,” I said.
With unabashed curiosity Manny studied my outmoded clothes, the short haircut of another era. He wanted to ask questions, but years of conditioning in prison made me withdraw from his curiosity. Suddenly the band’s twanging throb erupted and ended the necessity of conversation. Pulsing sound drowned out thought, much less talk. Angie was a dancer, prancing and gyrating in steps I later learned were frug, watusi, swim, and boogaloo. Whatever they were called, they were erotic. The gin was loosening me.
Abe returned and led me into the office, a cubbyhole holding a scarred desk, a chair and an ancient box safe that could be peeled open in thirty minutes, the kind that had made legends of safe-crackers four decades before.
Abe’s girth seemed to spill over the desk as he flopped behind it. His fingers spasmodically squeezed a pencil and he perspired. He always perspired.
“They kept you a long time,” he said. “What happened?”
“No juice with the parole board.”
Abe’s mouth worked in sympathy, but his eyes were calculating. “Got anything going for you yet?”
“I’m getting used to crossing streets again without getting run over.”
“I’ll bet it’s a bitch adjusting.” He paused, gathered himself. “You said you know Bulldog. What about Stan Bergman?”
“He’s a friend of mine. What about him?”
“He’s in jail waiting for trial on a robbery. I want you to go with me to visit him.”
“Just visit him?”
“Well, there’s more to it than that. Let me tell you the whole story. It’s got to do with Stan, Bulldog, and Bulldog’s kid brother.” After vehemently denying that he’d finked on Lionel and Bulldog (but he could understand why they made the mistake), he told of how he’d been the middle man in peddling some hot diamonds—but he’d been unable to get the right price after they’d been delivered. Newspaper publicity was heating up the score and everybody was tense. Tempers got short. Bulldog wanted the diamonds back, but Abe had given them to a diamond wholesaler who was in New York. The two thieves had given him an “or else” deadline of twenty-four hours. That evening they were arrested with half the loot. They claimed Abe had sent the police through fear. He kept the diamonds he still possessed. According to Abe the value wasn’t much, though I recalled Lionel mentioning twenty thousand dollars.
I interrupted: “That’s a year ago. What’s the trouble now?”
Bulldog’s nineteen-year-old brother was the problem. Fresh from reform school, he was threatening Abe—he wanted ten thousand dollars for Bulldog’s appeal. Stan Bergman was married to Bulldog’s sister, making him the brother-in-law of the youngster. Stan could influence his wife, who could influence the youth. My role was to influence Stan. Abe had other blandishments, too, including a lawyer. If that failed—“Maybe you can help me with the kid.”
“Why don’t you come up with the ten grand? You were in on the play with those guys and made some change out of it.”
“After all they said about me? Anyway, if I give in to some punk kid every two-bit hoodlum in town will try to muscle me.”
The story disgusted me to a degree that only another thief can understand. He’d virtually admitted treachery about the diamonds—but that was insignificant to the possibility that he was a stool pigeon. If that was true he deserved to die. Yet his side of the story might be true. Stan Bergman could use help if he had a robbery charge. Abe wasn’t going to cough up ten grand; that was certain.
Most important, I needed help, and going to talk to Stan was easy enough. If that was unsuccessful Abe would be on his own (I might even warn the youngster), but Abe didn’t have to know that right now.
“I can talk to Stan. When do you want to visit him?”
“Soon as I arrange for a shyster to take us into the attorney room. The visiting room is probably bugged.” Abe was looser now, savoring my acceptance and calculating what it would cost. He’d try to pay as little as possible. “I know you just got out. What can I do to help you get on your feet?”
“I need a job.”
“A job! You?”
I explained the conditions of parole, that I had to work or go back, as if that was why I wanted a job. He’d been so incredulous that I couldn’t tell him the truth—and the truth would have weakened my position with him anyway. “I’d like to get laid, too.”
“You haven’t got your ashes hauled yet. How long?”
“Eight semesters.”
“Shit, there’s plenty of swingers who’d take you home just for the cherry.”
“Cut me into one.”
“Come around here at night. The joint gets loaded with foxes. I’ll fix you up.”
“What about the job? That’s the important thing.”
“Are you serious?”
“Dead serious.”
“Can you tend bar?”
“I can’t do nothing but steal, talk shit and pull some slack.”
“What about working as a doorman—just for a front. Check I.D. and pick up the cover tabs and keep the peace.”
“That’s cool.”
“You’ve gotta show up. Twenty bucks a night. For you I throw in what you can drink. It’ll give you a front until you get something going. You might catch a hooker, too. Enough of ’em come in here.”
The job as bouncer would be ideal on a temporary basis. It would be an income and keep my days free to look for other things. I’d hold down the temporary office job, too. And I’d enjoy the nightclub atmosphere.
Abe pushed away from the desk and apologized that he had pressing business. He told me to stick around if I wanted, slapped me on the shoulder, and reached for the telephone.
I sat in the club’s dimness for the rest of the afternoon. It was too hot outdoors and I had nowhere to go. Manny got me drunk, Abe had told him that I was hired as doorman, so he was nominally my boss, but Abe had added that he wasn’t to bother me. Manny sensed that I was something special. I wondered when the job started, wanted more details about Bulldog’s kid brother so I could gauge the danger line of involvement. But Abe was too busy on the telephone to stop for conversation, and I was drunk enough to sit contentedly resting my feet.
Abe left to eat supper and change clothes for the evening’s business. I lied about having business elsewhere and departed. I was feeling good. Temptation would be around this atmosphere, but it was comfortable for me, and I would make the decisions concerning temptations. Rosenthal would never appreciate the irony of the situation: I was getting a job solely on the basis of criminal reputation.
I got on the bus feeling satisfied.
After taking a bath and shaving, I walked from the room to a hamburger stand around the corner. The dusk crowd was a hurrying jumble. The hamburger stand had a patio beside it with an aluminum awning overhead. I sat watching the rush of
pedestrians.
I was almost finished eating when a figure went by that I recognized. Augie Morales, reform school graduate, ex-convict, and childhood friend, was hurrying along the curb, passing pedestrians as if he was on the fast lane of the freeway. His clothes were rumpled, indicating his condition. Without thinking—and thought wouldn’t have made any difference—I hurried after him. I caught up when he stepped into the gutter, bent over, and vomited. Some pedestrians glanced over. None stopped or said anything. The vomiting, I knew immediately, came either from too much heroin or withdrawal from lack of it. On arrival, I saw it was withdrawal. Sweat dripped from his cheeks, his shirt had damp circles around the armpits, and his eyes were wide, the pupils filling the complete iris.
I touched his arm and said his name. He jerked tense, like a cat at a loud sound. He nodded recognition without surprise or warmth. It was understandable considering the supreme agony of his condition.
“You don’t look good, brother,” I said. “Got a runny nose.”
“I’m one sick dog.” He looked around at the traffic. “Got a car?”
“No.”
“Let’s keep moving. This neighborhood is full of narks.”
“Where you headed?”
“The nearest fuckin’ gas station to fix.”
“You got some ghow?”
“Two grams in my mouth.”
“What about a ’fit?”
“In my ass.”
“My room’s around the corner. You can fix there.”
I led the way, limping. Augie wanted to go faster. He was having stomach spasms every twenty feet. His habit was obviously big.
I experienced a prickling of misgivings about my impulsive generosity. Offering my room was a fool’s move. We might be stopped and arrested, and I’d go back to prison simply for being with him, especially if he had fresh marks on his arms. I should have turned back when I saw him vomit. Yet I’d known him for twenty years—we’d met in juvenile hall. He was there for stealing bicycles. Once in reform school, when I’d been fighting a Mexican, he’d kept others from ganging me. We were friends in prison, too, not intimate, but enough so we nodded and spoke whenever we passed. It might have been a fool’s move to call him, but it would have been shameful to let a friend go by without speaking, or let him risk taking a fix in a gas station toilet.
All Augie said during the walk was “hurry up”. A sick dope fiend has no thought beyond replacing misery with peace—or oblivion. Perhaps they are the same thing.
I locked the door and pulled the dresser in front of it. Augie spat out two red balloons, each the size of a tiny marble, each tied in a knot with the end snipped. Without embarrassment, he went to a corner and unfastened his pants. Crouching down, he poked a finger up his ass and prodded out a small, feces-speckled package. He rinsed it in the sink, unwrapped it and spread the contents on the dresser: the dish of a measuring spoon with a tiny wad of cotton stuck to its bottom, a shortened eyedropper with its tip wound in thread, glass fogged by previous use (men have been convicted of heroin possession by the scrapings from eyedroppers). The short needle was beneath the eyedropper’s bulb, inserted in such a manner that the glass was a protective cover.
Though his body shook, his hands moved dextrously. “Get me a glass of water,” he said.
As I drew it, a queasiness was in my stomach. Though microscopic when compared to what Augie felt, I had the same desire. Even after all the years my nervous system still craved the ecstasy that eradicates all pain—physical and psychological—and what it doesn’t eradicate it makes unimportant. The difficulty in resisting the craving is something only the initiated can appreciate.
Augie’s hands were deft and practiced. First he shot water through the needle to make sure it was clean, then broke a balloon and tapped the beige powder into the spoon. He added several drops of water and lighted three matches together, moving the spoon over the heat. The mixed odor of sulphur and heroin being cooked squeezed my entrails.
The powder became a semiclear liquid. Augie sucked it into the eyedropper through the dab of cotton. The needle fitted snugly over the threaded end. Holding the outfit delicately poised in one hand, he used the other to pull off his belt. Deftly, he wrapped his wrist and pumped his hand until the veins on the back became hard ridges. The veins were outlined by blackish-blue scar tissue from countless earlier needles. He tapped the needle’s point into fresh scabs. A streamer of blood backed into the eyedropper, indicating he’d entered the vein. He squeezed the potion into his system.
Ten seconds—and Augie sighed blissfully. Torment was gone, so was worry. His swollen pupils contracted into tiny black points. The labored breathing slowed. His heartbeat had gone down, too.
Nothing had been said while he was fixing. There’d been no room for conversation. Now he gestured to the remaining balloon. It contained enough for five fixes for someone not hooked. “Take a taste,” he said. “It’s pretty good smack.” His voice was slurred.
I’d been tempted, but finally decided. I shook my head. Augie’s brow wrinkled in disbelief. “You use stuff.”
“I quit.”
“You’re jiving. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“I’ll clean this mess up.” He repackaged the outfit, slipped it in his pocket. He washed the spoon and rinsed his face in the sink, examining a stubble of a beard. “I need a shave.”
“Shave here.”
While he shaved he talked. Paroled a year ago, he’d worked as a punch press operator, happy to be free. Then the dreary treadmill had chafed him. He began taking a fix on payday—a few hours of well-being as great as anyone’s. Then he added a second fix right after the weekly nalline test. His wife (he was married and had three children) began riding him about what he was spending for drugs. Each balloon cost ten dollars, the smallest buy he could make. Twice a week came to eighty a month, a substantial expense for a working stiff. Instead of stopping him, his wife’s nagging drove him to peddle a few ten-dollar bags in the evening—just to pay for what he was shooting. With more heroin available, he used more. He began waking up needing a fix to go to work; he was hooked. He could no longer pass the nalline test, which meant he’d go to jail. So he disappeared into the city’s swarm, a fugitive from parole. Fugitives cannot hold jobs, nor would any job pay enough to keep up his habit. He began peddling more ten-dollar bags. Every morning he’d spend fifty on a quarter of an ounce, package it into a dozen balloons, and go downtown, walking or sitting in coffee shops and bars. The addicts would find him. He’d sell enough to pay his rent and buy food and he’d shoot the rest. He carried two balloons in his mouth. The rest he stashed. A week ago he’d gone to visit his wife. Two detectives had been there—not for the parole violation but with a warrant charging him with sales of narcotics. He’d sold to an undercover agent.
“Wasn’t your last beef for stuff?”
“All my beefs are stuff.”
“Damn, brother, you’re facing fifteen mandatory years. What the fuck are you doing wandering the streets?”
He shrugged; in heroin euphoria he was unable to experience fear or harsh reality. “What am I gonna do?”
“Blow this motherfucker! Get out of the country. Mexico. They’d never bring you back.”
“I don’t know anybody over there. I wouldn’t know what to do.”
His tacit surrender was horrifying. “Man, you’re hooked like a mountain trout. They’re gonna pick you up sooner or later. Get a biscuit and rip something off—a bank, anything! Get enough money to run for it. If you’re gonna get busted, hold fuckin’ court right on the street. You’ve got nothing to lose.”
“Fuck it. If they bust me, I’m busted.”
“For fifteen years.”
“I’ve been locked up all my life anyway. The food’s okay in the pen and I can play handball. I’ve got more fuckin’ troubles when I’m out than when I’m in.”
It was said in irony, but was too truthful to snicker about. His future was frighteningly
clear. He’d stay as drugged as he could for as long as he could, continuing to make small heroin sales to exist. It would be a minor miracle if he lasted three months, especially when he existed in police-infested neighborhoods. They’d apprehend him and he’d spend fifteen years in the tomb of walking dead.
He patted shaving lotion on his haggard cheeks, combed his hair, and straightened his clothes. He sat down to rest a few minutes before plunging back into the maelstrom of the streets. He looked around the cheap room. “Not too bad. Most of these flops don’t even have a carpet.”
“A flop is a flop.” I was angry because he allowed himself to be destroyed without anger. Whatever he was (and I didn’t think it was bad, but tragic), and whatever society’s right to protect itself, his survival right said he should struggle to the last gasp.
“When did you raise?” he asked. Before I could answer, his head drooped forward so his chin neared his chest. He jerked it erect. “Goddam! I’m nodding. What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
He grunted and nodded again. I’d known him since he was a shiny-faced youth. Now the face had lines deeply etched. His shoulders, once thick and powerful, were bony—and his hair was riddled with gray. He jerked from the stupor again. “Hey, Max. I know you just got out, but can you let me have a few pesos?”
I’d planned to give him five dollars of my meager resources. Instead I gave him ten. “It isn’t much. I’m on my ass too.”
“It’ll help. I’ve got that other balloon for tonight. I’ll be sick in the morning but the connection is going to give me some stuff on consignment.” He stood up and put on his shirt. “I gotta split. Are you gonna be staying here awhile?”
“A couple weeks.”
“I might drop by.”
I watched him depart down the hallway, moving with nonchalant swagger, one arm swinging exaggeratedly, shoulders rolling in a hipster’s stroll. Affected in youth to show toughness, it had become habitual. Such a stride—like blue, hand-made tattoos—were a give-away that a man had spent some of his youth in institutions.
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