Lives Laid Away

by Stephen Mack Jones

  Seven

  Elena, quiet and distant, sat in the living room at the center of their sofa. Her body was rigid save for her slow, rhythmic breathing. She stared blankly at an opposite wall where a small framed painting of a haloed Jesus hung. It had been painted by my mother. Tomás intermittently interrupted her view of Christ, pacing in front of her, the black purse in one hand, the gun in the other. I stood leaning against the archway between the living room and dining room, wondering how this was going to play out.

  “You’ve never—never!—carried a gun, Elena. Who’s making you do this?”

  Elena said nothing. She simply stared at the painting of Jesus. It was hard to tell if she was quietly petitioning Him for answers and strength, or silently admonishing him for not providing either.

  I wanted to ask if her recent forays into publicly challenging immigration policies and ICE raids and demanding accountability of ICE detention facilities had elicited threats. Considering her decades of activism, threats were nothing new for Elena.

  But she’d never carried a gun. She hated guns and only tolerated Tomás’s knowledge of, affinity for and talent with weaponry because she knew the good and generous heart of her husband. She knew the hard life he’d lived, the challenges he’d met with sheer force of will and keen instinct.

  I wanted to ask Elena questions. But this wasn’t my home. Perhaps a small part of me enjoyed seeing the emerging tension between them; it was like a reenactment of my parents’ arguing. Knowing they were at loggerheads in an effort to better understand, respect, love and protect each other.

  Of course, a good guest always knows his limits even if his hosts are careening off the rails.

  Tomás stopped pacing, standing directly in front of Elena and blocking her view of Our Lord and Savior. “Elena,” Tomás said calmly. “Baby, I’m not mad at you. I love you. You know that. But I need to know what’s going on. Is someone threatening you? Please. Talk to me.”

  Without a word, Elena rose from the sofa and walked to the small study off to the side of the dining room. She returned holding a green file folder, which she offered to Tomás. After putting the purse and the gun down on the coffee table, he took the folder and opened it. His eyes widened as he flipped through the file’s contents. I held out my hand.

  Tomás glared at me for a moment before handing me the file.

  Threats of rape, torture and death.

  Your spic ass is going to be white-cocked and tossed over the wall back into Mexican mud where all of you belong . . .

  Shut your mouth, you spic cunt, or I’ll shut it for you . . .

  Nice house, bitch . . .

  There were crude drawings of her and an old black-and-white newspaper photo of her with a red-ink swastika drawn over her face. “America First!” the sender had hastily written beneath the photo.

  “How long?” Tomás said.

  Elena slowly drew in a breath. “Six, maybe eight months.”

  “And you didn’t tell me about this because?”

  Elena finally met Tomás’s eyes. “Because I know you, Tomás. You would have raged against anybody who so much as looked at me sideways—”

  “You’re goddamn right! I’m your husband, woman!”

  “I don’t like your rage, Tomás,” Elena said. “Not because I fear it for myself, but because I fear what it does to you. It eats you up. Consumes you. Takes you away from me. I don’t like it when you’re away from me.”

  Tomás sat next to his wife and brought her into him.

  I drew in a deep breath, then said to Elena, “You mind if I take the file?”

  “Why? What are you going to do with it?”

  “Maybe I can have somebody at DPD look into the threats. Shake something loose.”

  “You still got friends there?” Tomás said.

  “Not friends. Markers.” I looked back at Elena, now wiping her eyes and looking painfully lost. I gestured for Tomás to follow me to the front door. He did. Elena went back to staring at my mother’s painting of Jesus. “Elena know how to shoot?”

  “I taught her a long time ago,” Tomás said. “Good eye. Rock steady. Licensed. Hates it on ‘philosophical’ grounds.”

  “Philosophy and religion get a lot of good people killed,” I said. “If she’s gonna carry, make sure she’s still rock steady with a good eye. If somebody pulls on her, she gotta be ready.”

  Twenty minutes later, I was sipping vending machine iced-tea and sitting in the pleasantly air-conditioned 14th Precinct office of Detective Captain Leo Cowling.

  The precinct was still located in a late-1800s fieldstone mansion on what’s known as the Woodward Spine. But unlike the leaky, moldy and mildewed rattrap I’d cut my cop teeth on, it had been impressively renovated.

  “Wow,” I said, looking around. The office was spacious and modern, looking rather more like a corporate vice president’s office than the well-worn workplace of an officer of the Detroit Police Department. “This isn’t the 14th Precinct I knew and loathed. Where are the water stains? The cracked walls? Jesus! Where’s Waldo?!”

  “Who the fuck’s Waldo?”

  “A rat,” I said. “About six inches long. White-tipped ears. Got into the old vending machine one night and gnawed at an old egg salad sandwich. Left a trail of diarrhea from here to lockup.”

  “And this is what you remember from your embarrassingly short career?”

  “Pretty much. That and knocking the shit out of you at a PAL charity boxing tournament.”

  “Only thing you knocked the shit out of is the truth about that match.”

  Cowling casually swiveled back and forth in his expensive, ergonomically-designed chair.

  “Believe it or not, I got shit to do,” Cowling said. “Whatchu want, Tex-Mex?”

  I flopped Elena’s green file folder onto Cowling’s desk. “Death threats issued against a very good friend of mine, a prominent local activist. Elena Gutierrez. I thought you might be able to run ’em by the forensics guys. Maybe pull somebody up on AFIS.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  “Because you’re all aces?”

  After a few tough guy seconds, he spun the file to face him and carefully thumbed through the contents. “This is some fucked up shit,” he said.

  “It is indeed.”

  “Who besides you and me has handled this?”

  “Elena Gutierrez and her husband, Tomás. You should have Tomás’s fingerprints in the system from maybe twenty-five years ago. Mine, too. That leaves Elena and whoever else. Just need to know who the ‘whoever else’ is.”

  “I ain’t yo giddy-up-’n-go niggah, Snow,” Cowling said. “I find something, it’s DPD until I say it ain’t DPD. You feel me?”

  “I feel you,” I said. “And doing this might go a long way for you in Mexicantown if you find something actionable. And speaking of ‘going a long way,’ what’s shakin’ between you and Lieutenant Martinez? You kids shopping for silverware and china?”

  “Get the fuck outta my office.”

  “Yessir,” I said with a crisp salute.

  On my way out of the 14th I passed by a large framed photo of a man I once knew: Captain Ray Danbury, looking proud and formidable in his dress blues, his jacket resplendent with decorations and medals. He’d been killed in the line of duty and I couldn’t help but feel I’d created the disastrous circumstances that brought about his murder. Danbury wasn’t exactly dirty, but he wasn’t unerringly clean. For Danbury—like a lot of cops and maybe even me—there were a lot of course corrections along the way, large and small, while making the everyday Herculean effort to stay on a true-north path.

  Before leaving, I saluted his photo then made the Sign of the Cross.

  Eight

  A couple blocks before turning off Vernor Highway onto Markham Street, I called Tomás.

  “She feels gui
lty,” Tomás said. “Like she’s backing down. Giving up on the ’hood. Which is bullshit. She ain’t never given up on nothin’. Including me—especially me!—even when I gave her good reason. You think your cop buddy can pull some prints from that file?”

  I spared Tomás the short-yet-intricate history of why Captain Leo Cowling and I would likely never be buddies and said, “He’s gonna look into it. I wouldn’t hold my breath, though.”

  Turning onto Markham Street, I saw the last two houses I’d purchased in an effort to complete the picture postcard of my youth. The house nearest Vernor Highway—a red brick duplex built in 1923—was being professionally cleaned. It had belonged to Rolf and Germaine Macek and their five kids Ralphie Jr., Ronda, Rebecca, Robbie and Little Pat. The last Germans in an expanding Mexican neighborhood. A family that fed me schnitzel and rouladen and laughed when I turned green at my first taste of sauerbraten.

  The brown brick single-family house next to the duplex—once the home of Tina Morales, my fifth-grade crush, and Mamá Victoria—was just about complete. I could almost hear Tina’s bright, lilting fifth-grade laugh again.

  I was about to wave to my next-door neighbors Sylvia and Carmela when it became apparent Carmela was crying. Seated on a step leading up to their porch, Carmela—small, Mexican-brown and wearing an oversized “Cristo Rey High School Wolves” T-shirt—was being comforted by her friend and roommate, Sylvia. Sylvia—taller, with wild silver hair and untannable Polish white skin. Jimmy Radmon sat a step above Carmela and was gently patting her shoulder.

  I parked in my narrow driveway and walked over.

  “What’s going on?” I said, standing in front of the triptych of neighbors and friends.

  Carmela wiped her nose with a tissue and, embarrassed, turned away from me. After a moment, she turned back and tried to smile. The smile was unstable and refused to set.

  “F-ing bastards,” Sylvia gruffly answered as she glared up at me.

  “What f-ing bastards?”

  “Goddamn ICE!” Sylvia growled. “That’s what f-ing bastards, Mr. Snow!”

  I looked at Jimmy.

  “It wasn’t good, Mr. Snow,” Jimmy said. “They didn’t have to be like that.”

  I knelt in front of Carmela. Put my hands on hers. “What’s going on?”

  Sylvia rubbed Carmela’s back while Carmela purposefully regulated her breathing. Finally, she said, “Sylvia and I were working out front. The flowers along the walkway.”

  “Chrysanthemums,” Sylvia said.

  “Oh, we love chrysanthemums!”

  “Goodness yes—”

  “So colorful—”

  “And what happened?” I said, attempting to keep things on track.

  “So anyway, this big black car—”

  “Chevy Suburban,” Jimmy added. “Last year’s model. Blacked out windows. Fed plate.”

  “It parks right there—” Carmela jabbed a forefinger at the curb in front of their house. “And—this man—”

  “He comes up to us, flashes some sort of ID—wouldn’t even let me hold it!” Sylvia said. “Asks if we know who lives in Carlos’s house. Asks about any women or kids in the house.”

  “And I say we know who lives there,” Carmela joined, “but I don’t tell him who—”

  “Because we know what goddamn Nazis look like,” Sylvia said.

  “So, I don’t tell him who lives in the house, but I say they’re nice people and they’ve been here for a while and they’re really lovely neighbors. Then—he just—stares at me.”

  I told Jimmy to go in their house and bring out a glass of ice water for Carmela. Sylvia countermanded my order, telling Jimmy there was an opened bottle of rosé and to bring a glass for Carmela and herself. Two minutes later he returned with two goblets of rosé, carefully handing them to the ladies.

  “You’re such a sweet boy,” Carmela said to Jimmy just before she pounded back three full gulps of the chilled wine. “You know how much we love you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Sylvia filled me in on the rest: The ICE agent—taking Carmela’s brown skin and slight accent as a cue to interrogate—set upon her with what began as a softball probe into her immigration status. It quickly escalated, becoming more intrusive, more demanding and uncomfortably personal.

  “Do you know how long it’s been since anyone’s asked me for proof of citizenship, Mr. Snow?” Carmela said, her voice quivering. “Fifty years! I was born here! December thirty-first, 1945, three a.m. at St. Mary’s Hospital to Mr. and Mrs.—”

  “This jerk-off insists Carmela go in the house and produce proof of citizenship,” Sylvia said, herself close to tears. Then her voice became a low growl. “I told him to go ‘F’ himself.”

  “That’s when I got here,” Jimmy said.

  Sylvia reached across her friend, gripped and jostled Jimmy’s hand. “Oh, my God, you are our knight in shining armor, Jimmy!”

  “So, I axe him I says ‘S’up, man?’ and he says none of my dang business. And I says, ‘It kinda is my business on account I live here. Right upstairs.’ And he tells me I should back off and I says, ‘Hey, man, I ain’t crowdin’ you. Whatchu frontin’ on me for?’”

  “And I said everything was all right,” Carmela said, her voice quavering. “That I’d go get proof of who I was and everybody should just calm down.”

  “She even offers this a-hole lemonade!” Sylvia said. “Lemonade! The only thing you offer a Nazi is—”

  She pretended to spit and jerked a middle finger in the air.

  “Well,” Carmela said, “just because some people don’t have manners doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be decent.” She took in a deep, ragged breath. “So I go in the house. I get my social security card, my driver’s license, passport and Target charge card—”

  “And I’m sayin’ she don’t have to show this fool nothin’ on account he don’t have no warrant or probable cause,” Jimmy said. “I mean, they was planting flowers, Mr. Snow! So, I go to stand between Carmela, she’s holdin’ all her ID up and this dude he’s already reachin’ to take her ID and hits me in the eye.”

  I took a closer look at Jimmy. There was a bloody scratch and a little swelling around his left eye.

  By this time Carmela was nearly inconsolable. Sylvia tried to make her take a sip of her wine, but Carmela just waved it off.

  To Sylvia in a low, firm voice I said, “Get her out of this heat. Take her inside.”

  I stood and gestured for Jimmy to follow me to the sidewalk.

  “You get the name of this dumb sonuvabitch?”

  “Hensall,” Jimmy said. “No! Henshaw! Tha’s it. It was on his uniform. Henshaw. H-E-”

  “I know how to spell ‘Henshaw,’ Jimmy,” I said. I nodded toward the duplex down the street that he and Carlos were working on. “You done for the day?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Where’s Carlos?”

  “Him, the missus and Manny, they out to dinner. I think Dave and Busters, so Manny’d have some fun.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I might be busy for a couple days, so you’re the man on the block. My block. Got me?”

  “Yeah, fo real.”

  “Call Carlos and tell him he’s to go straight to St. Al’s downtown,” I said. “They should ask for Father Grabowski. Tell him ICE was asking about Catalina and Manny. Father Grabowski will know what to do.”

  “Yessir.”

  “I’m gonna look into this,” I said. “In the meantime, don’t let the girls drink too much. Make sure they eat. Maybe get ’em some sweets from La Gloria.”

  I offered Jimmy a couple twenties, but he waved off the bills. “I got this, Mr. Snow.” He said he’d watch Jeopardy with them. Maybe listen to some of their old “hippie” albums. “They like that Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez stuff.”

  “Go for Joni Mitchell,” I said. “
Joan Baez’ll have Sylvia making placards and organizing a goddamn sit-in.”

  “What if they go for them ‘glaucoma brownies’?” Jimmy said.

  “You serve ’em. One each,” I said. “And use gloves when you dole ’em out.” Then, after assessing the swollen scratch under Jimmy’s eye again, I said, “Do you know how to defend yourself, Jimmy?”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said, sniffing and thumbing his nose thug-style. “I can handle a ruckus.”

  “Sure,” I said, unconvinced. “I know a guy. Ex-cop. Owns a gym on the riverfront. ’Bout time I introduced you. In the meantime, take care of the girls. You’ve put your stamp on this street, Jimmy. These are your people now. And you take care of your people, right?”

  “One hundred, no doubt.”

  “Don’t forget to call Carlos,” I said. “You forget and his wife and son are on a cheap government-paid flight back to where they’ve got no life.” I dug into my pocket and extracted a set of house keys. “Here.” I tossed the keys to Jimmy and he caught them.

  “1482 Markham,” Jimmy said, staring at the keys. “Something wrong with it, Mr. Snow?”

  “It’s yours,” I said. “’Bout time you had a real stake in the ’hood.”

  Jimmy gave me a slack-jawed look and started to say something.

  “Call Carlos,” I said. “Now.”

  Jimmy stuffed the house keys in a pocket of his Carhartt work shorts then quickly pulled his phone from his tool belt.

  The last words I heard Jimmy say before I got to my porch were, “You need to listen up fo’ real, ma brotha . . .”

  I went in my house.

  I had calls to make, too.

  The kind of calls that required a nicely chilled Negra Modelo beer and a healthy disrespect for federal government surveillance.

  Nine

  Upstairs in a dark corner of my bedroom closet there’s a shoebox with five “burner” phones in it.

  Gifts from a young hacker friend who I—squeezed between a heavy rock and a blood-soaked hard place—sold out to the FBI.

  When I was on the job I had occasionally employed a young black hacker nicknamed “Skittles.” Normally, Skittles worked out of an artist cooperative on Detroit’s crumbling industrial southwest side called Rocking Horse Studios—a reclaimed building occupied by painters, printmakers, graphic artists, musicians and performance artists. I’d always left him the same payment for his hacking assistance: a Costco-sized box of Skittles candy and maybe a few bucks. As much as a young DPD detective could afford.