"San Francisco Noir" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maravelis Peter, Stansberry Domenic, Corbet David, Soracco Sin, Gifford Barry,...)DOUBLE ESPRESSO BY SIN SORACCOThere was a festival of tiny Virgin de Guadalupe statues casting nets into the water. They hopped along the edges of the flooded soccer field, whispering about uncles who used to fish there. Huge hairy homeless men huddled in the predawn drizzle: When will the sun come out again, Mothers? The men placed large eggs in front of the statues. Or not. Gina trudged through the little park, her mouth opened in a big yawn, her heavy eyes unfocussed, her hair flattened in wet curls from the sputtering rain. Soccer field was flooded again-they built the thing on top of one of the Mission district’s old springs. Whole place used to be one big marsh, birds and fish and everything. Maybe someone should put a couple ducks there or something. Remind folks. Except the birds would probably get eaten. Would that be a good thing or not? Gina wasn’t sure. She’d figure it out over coffee. She was trying to savor the last moments of night before a harsh winter’s sun gave everything edges- “Hey! Get outta my way!” An agitated man wearing burgundy plaid jogging shorts and blueberry running shoes continued pumping his legs as he glared at her. She stared at his legs. Did he actually shave them? What was in his mind when he did that? Like leg hair would slow him down? “Shhhh,” she said. “People sleepin here.” “Dickhead.” A deep voice Gina recognized rumbled from the depths of a sleeping bag. She saw Lucas’s head appear for a moment before he burrowed back beneath the gold-striped plastic tablecloth which covered the upper half of him. “Go home.” The jogger’s knees lifted higher, A couple more sleeping bags twitched, someone groaned. “Every fuckin mornin.” Lucas turtled out, muttering, “Dickhead gets up befo the sun jus to spoil our mornin.” He nodded to Gina. “Mornin, Gina.” “Sun’s not comin up today. Go back to sleep.” The enraged jogger hissed, “You people are crap.” Gina put her hands on her hips. “What people? Who people? Just who izzit you callin crap?” Her hands clenched as he ran across the lawn and down the steps to his SUV parked at the curb. She hollered at his retreating butt, “You rich fuckin bastaaaard!” She turned to the park’s no longer sleeping crew. “Oh. Sorry.” She headed toward the little mall at Sixteenth and Bryant. The people who opened Peet’s in the morning didn’t smile a lot-this was important to Gina: Just pour the damn espresso into the cup and give it to me. Double espresso. Spoonfulla steam milk. She poured the sugar over the top, circling the cup three times- “Got you a serious sugar jones, Gina?” Bleary-eyed, Gina glared at her coffee, “Mornin, Lucas. Don’t talk about jonesin before coffee.” She lifted her head and motioned at the Safeway parking lot outside the window. “Gonna be a crappy day, Lucas. Another crappy day.” She poured half her coffee into a paper cup, handed it to him. “Yup. Yup.” Lucas rubbed his stubbly chin, scratched his do-rag back over his graying curls, grinned his seven-tooth grin. “Up before the sun again. Haaaaah.” He waved at the chaotic lot, the oily drizzle. “Yunno, the world is how ya make it.” He shrugged deeper into his baseball jacket. “Got a extra cigarette you can spare?” Gina smiled at her grubby pal. “Pfft. They don come with extra. Only twenty to a pack.” Cocking her head toward the lot, she said, “Come on back out into the wilderness with me and we’ll bring up the sun, smokin.” She lit two cigarettes. Not gonna share one with Lucas no matter how little he annoyed her in the morning, that man’s mouth surely been some nasty places. She watched him cough on the exhale. “Sorry I woke yas this mornin.” Lucas blew the smoke into the sky over the lot. “Nahhh. Weren’t you. That guy got somethin wrong with him. Yunno.” He watched the crows and the cars bark and circle in the morning light. “Goin down Sixteenth this morning, Gina. Anythin you want?” Gina snorted, an unladylike noise. “I want it all, Lucas. I want it all.” “All Sixteenth Street?” His laugh was a sustained growl. “C’n you “Pffft. What about the DPW?” Lucas raised a grizzled eyebrow. “Yeah. What about em?” “Right. Let it rot.” “No. If it’s yers…” Solemn nod, years of living at the edges. “If you want it, you gotta care for it.” Grumpy, “Yeah. Sure. Okay.” A creek used to run all the way from where they stood, started over on Seventh, emptied into the bay. Sewer line now. “You’re right. I don’t want it.” Last drag. “What you want, Lucas? What you willin to take care of?” “Weeeeeee-ell. I cheer you, smokin the sun come up. That about good enough for my day.” “I’m not cheered up.” Gina smiled up at him. “Not me. Not cheerful. Not in the mornin. Nope.” She turned her head, her smile fading as she saw three cop cars slide into the parking lot, sharks circling closer to a shiny black car with three shiny brownskin teenagers inside it. The boys were oblivious, windows down, coffee cups raised to each other, their laughter shading from ghetto falsetto to royal belly roars: “Didja see that man looooooook at us? OOoooooooh yeeeeeeah. He be one jealous muthafucka nowwwww.” Six doors opened, six cops approached the car, three hung back, two at each side, one stepping forward. “Out. Out of the car. Now.” Gina saw the whole morning slide straight into the shitter, the tender motion of their wild night, their grand friendship-she watched their lives slip off their faces as the cops approached. One of the cops pawed at his gun, his shoulders twitched with anticipation. Wind it back. Way back. To the moment of celebration. Never moving forward. Stolen car, beautiful car pounding through the night, windows down, rockin sound, good friends. Nothing on their minds, nowhere to be. Just cruisin. Maybe drivin across the bridge to Oakland howlin at the moon, back again headin west as the sun came up behind them, racin chasin and pul-lin into Safeway’s big lot, grabbem some wake-up-the-day, no one even know the car be gonnnnne yet. Three coffees, lotsa cream, take the whole sugar jar. Oh lookit that fiiiine girl, just a fine young girl. Fine. Here’s to all the fine young girls! Here’s to a night under the moon at seventy eighty ninety a hunnert miles an hour! Here’s to friends and Here’s to Forever. Gina’s breath came slow and shallow, her eyes riveted on the three boys standing, leaning on the car, one foot behind the other, casual, doomed. The police talked then the kids talked, waving their hands in the air. Even though she stared and stared directly at them all, she couldn’t stop the forward motion from falling into the gray nothing forever of jail. She felt Lucas fade away to her left-a soft sound like a sucker punch-right at the edge of awareness. Her lips curled in a snarl, she flung her coffee cup at the closest police car. Failed to get a splash on the tires. Grand gesture. Didn’t save a single soul. Gina spun away, headed out Bryant Street, following some long buried waterway, work forgotten. The sound of her boots snapped the cement into grains of sand, the glare of her eyes destroyed every condom dropped in her path. She cut up to Seventh and Folsom, creek’s mouth, digging in her pocket for bills to catch a bus ride out. North. Out of the city. Like her granma used to do when things got tight in the kitchen. Far away for a day of friendly trees. There’d be lots of green shit on the hills. Big ol winter river. When she got to her seat she half-closed her eyes, peeking out from under her heavy lids as the city rolled by. She discovered a fondness for the city buried somewhere deep in her chest, most noticeable when she was leaving. Gina sat upright at the bridge, staring at the early-morning skyline: Dawnlight glowed on fairy tale city. “What crap.” Gina put her head back, went to sleep. She had intended to call Karen from Santa Rosa: Get out the bong, the booze, the shrooms. I’m headin fer the high grass. The tall trees. Comin to break the monotony of yer sheltered rural ex-is-tence. But the River Express bus was at the station when she arrived so she just kept moving, no breaks in the rhythm, not even to call work: Got stuck up the river, road’s washed out, won’t be in today. She kept moving toward the green, away from the city drizzle that hurt her eyes. Burned her heart. Gina hopped off in Guerneville, fog swirling from the trees at the top of the ridge, Latinos waiting on the corners for day-wage dirt jobs, no traffic on the street, slow dogs pissing on the shrubbery. Nice one-street city. Tattoo shop, couple weird art shops. Coffee shop. “Double espresso, please.” Gina took a deep breath, felt her ribs expand in the country air. First big rib-stretcher in a long time. “Ahhhh. Please, where’s the nearest phone?” Karen answered, melodic with country cheer, “Alhambra here.” “Al Hambra? What? Like some Saudi cousin of Al Qaeda?” “Giiina! How are you?” She laughed. “It’s a palace in Spain.” “You moved to Spain? Or named yourself after a building?” Gina scowled: You let em move outta the city, they completely lose their little freakin minds. “Hah. I just liked the sound of it. So, what’s up, little grouch?” “I’m in Guerneville. Filled with urban angst.” For the first time Gina wondered if this had been a good idea. She decided not to mention bongs or shrooms-when people changed a perfectly good two-syllable name like Karen to something mouth-filling or edificial, you never knew what other changes might have taken place. “Gotcha. I’ll be there inna few. Don’t go to the bridge.” “Okay.” What the hell is that supposed to mean? “Don’t do anything weird there. The local citizen-watch has the place bugged and videotaped.” “You shittin me? What’s up with that?” Gina turned around, slow, careful, looking left, looking right. The vigilantes were hunkered down somewhere out of sight. “The lower river’s tagged with being inna condition of urban blight. Garbage. And crime, Gina. Terrible crime. People smoke dope. Shoot the lights out. Make noise. The world will come to an end if the good citizens don’t document everything.” “What should I do?” Gina asked. “Oh hell, go to the bridge anyway. It’s the easiest landmark. Besides, the river’s huge, makes everything hum. Make ya feel alive. Meet you there.” “Eat my shorts.” The rain started pissing down again, it would never stop, the world was going to wash away or disappear in a poof of mold. Dozens of vultures lurked in the dripping trees by the bridge, shitting down their legs, watching Gina with lazy hungry eyes. She walked out to the middle of the span and stared down at the wide coffee river rumbling along only a foot or two below her, the bridge itself thrumming with the crazy power of so much muddy water bombing past. Gina goggled down into deep river space then pulled her sweater off over her head, spread her arms wide open to the “Hey! Get outta the way!” Gina turned to see a skinny guy walking a purple and green painted wheelchair. “Din’t yo mommy teach you ta watch yer back?” He stopped next to her, crowding her against the metal screen railing. He peered at the delicate vines tattooed around her left arm, at the datura blossoms inked by the same Mission district master artist on her right. “Wow.” Up and down, moving closer. “Nice ink, babe!” Gina glared at the gimp, she slid away from him. His T-shirt exposed beef-jerky muscles covered with blackwork tattoos. Thick lines where the ink had bled through the skin made the ugly skeletal forms worse. Both lower legs were similarly covered. Badly executed fake-tribal. The whites of his eyes were dead yellow, no pupil, his face didn’t move when he spoke. Not good. “Get the fuck away from me.” He grabbed her arm, turning it to examine it closely. “Looks like my work, here.” He leaned forward. “This here jus like my design.” He ran his tongue up her inner arm. Relax arm, bend knees, step to the side, and twist sharp. “You simple-minded fuckhead-” There was more she was going to say, but his fist slammed into her face, she felt her right eye crack like an egg, sudden yolk ran red down her neck. She took a deep breath, a low crooning subsonic kind of sound began in her belly, spun out of her mouth. Her toes curled back, she popped his dick with the ball of her foot, and while he crouched in the traditional male She grabbed the wheelchair and heaved it over the railing into the river. A classic finishing move. Gina took fragile steps along the bridge, back the way she had come, muttering to herself. She snapped her fingers at the spot where she figured the camera would be: As she stepped off the bridge she saw Karen’s lanky figure running toward her. Gina took her hand off her eye and waved, spattering drops of blood which disappeared in the drizzle before they hit the ground. Gina’s one-eye vision wobbled. Karen? Long sweater, long skirt, cowboy hat? Two long black braids swung out behind the woman as she ran. “What happened?” “Uhhh,” Gina said, waving at the staggering figure on the bridge. “Uhh. Tattoo pride. What can I say?” “Put your hand over your eye, press down. Wait. No. Don’t press on it, you might make it worse. Tilt your head back. Wait, no, don’t tilt it back, you won’t see where you’re going-here, lean on me.” Gina grinned up at her friend. “Calm down, Allllhambrah. Just point me to your car. This ain’t my first head wound, surely won’t be the last. C’mon. Let’s blow Guerneville.” Gina wrapped her sweater around her head before she got in the car so she wouldn’t bloody-up the upholstery. Tires squealed, there was no traffic so Karen took it from zero to sixty in, well, it was an old wreck of a car so it made it to sixty in a couple, three, maybe four blocks. Held steady around the curves. “Ahhh. That felt good. I mean, now it feels really bad-you do have dope at home, don’t you? But outside of this ex-cruciatin pain here, I been needin to do that for months.” Gina tipped her head into her hand. “I can see why they hava camera on that bridge. The Mission’s a snooze in comparison. Izzit this excitin generally?” Alhambra spoke through her teeth, “I have some Percocet, and no, it’s not usually like that. Generally people just hang out. Yunno. But that guy-well.” A dozen turns, over a couple more bridges, onto a gravel and dirt road, some more curves, the old car still hanging tough around the corners, then “Hardly a spot on your brocade.” Gina’s sweater was soaked through with great splotches of blood-head wounds always bled like some animal had been gutted-she dropped it on the porch. Alhambra picked it up. “No need to advertise to the neighbors that you’re a thug. I’ll wash this.” She looked at Gina’s bloody clothes. “Gah. Take them all off. They’ll get stiff and sticky if you don’t.” Gina stripped on the porch, head tilted back, palm cupped over her eye. “This could be so romantic. But instead, how about you gimme some dope, like right now? Like even before I enter your Spanish palace?” Alhambra wrapped Gina in a huge blanket, pushed her inside and onto the couch. “Here.” “Yum.” Bright light, hydrogen peroxide, cotton balls, scissors, tape, gauze-“Thread and needle? Get away!” “Shhh. That’s just part of the kit, darlin, you aren’t gettin the full treatment this time. Just gonna clean here and here.” “Ow. I would be stoic, but then you won’t give me any more drugs. Ooooh owwww.” “Shit. Stop howlin. I need ta see if your eyeball is squished.” Gina tried to sit up, “My eyeball ain’t just squished, I heard it crack like it was a egg!” She wondered how it would be to live one-eyed. “It looks like his ring cut your eyelid. But your eyeball isn’t scratched or cracked or anythin.” Alhambra stepped back, smiling. “Gonna hava shinerrr.” “Crap. Come to the country. Be bucolic. Frolic. Man, this sucks.” Alhambra fixed a gauze patch over Gina’s eye, handed her a package of frozen peas to put on her cheekbone, and set the kettle on the stove. Gina lay back with her eyes closed. Half-dreaming, she heard the sound of chopping, then wood hitting the slate floor with a “You needa learn to be gentle with yourself.” “Gentle? No.” Gina shifted, grunting. “Oh. Right. You can say that now cause you’re the medicine woman of the woods. Livin clean. Chop wood, carry water.” She took a gulp of tea. Gina thought she heard monsters roaring in the distance. “What the hell is that big noise?” Alhambra laughed. “It’s the river! Cool, huh?” “Not cool. Wheelchair perverts anda howlin river. And you. I mean, you gotta cowboy hat now. A full medical kit. A rifle?” “No rifle. Just an old Ruger with the numbers filed off. It was a gift, because it’s a classic, like me.” “What?” “That’s what the guy said. I wasn’t all that pleased with the man, but the gun is sweet.” Gina growled, “Convicts like us can’t have guns, Karen. Can’t have dope. Can’t do medical stuff. We aren’t allowed to protect ourselves. Not even if there’s wolves at the door. Monsters in the woods. Once a convict, always a criminal.” Alhambra laughed, “There’s no monsters in these woods.” “Ha. What you gotta gun for? What the hell you doin up here?” “Safe haven, Gina. That’s all. Sanctuary.” “Dayam. Sanctuary?” Alhambra put her hand on Gina’s shoulder. “If it makes you feel any better, that guy you clobbered isn’t a gimp. He uses the wheelchair as a prop so people give him money. Dude’s not even poor. His daddy’s in grapes and development. Gonna shut the river down-says there isn’t enough water to go around for the fish and all the people.” Gina listened to the growling of the river. “Seem to me there’s plenty of water.” “Not for these greedy bastards. They’re gonna make the river dry all up in the summer. Pretend it’s good for the fish, then sell the water for development.” Alhambra chewed on one of her braids. “Can’t stand to let people just live, gotta always make money.” Gina looked up, her one eye huge and sad. “Used to be rivers in the city. In the Mission. All kindsa fish, too. My granma told me. She told me how she’d watch her uncles go off for a day of fishin insteada goin to school. They come home drunk. But sometimes they’d catch little trouts, then everybody would come over and…Well, it’d be great. All gone now.” Alhambra shivered. “Rivers are an endangered species. That guy’s father maybe figures if the river dies, then his toad son come back home, become a wealthy lawyer.” “Same no matter where I go.” Gina took the package of not-really-frozen-anymore peas from her cheek, started to get up to put it back in the fridge. “Siddown, you. I’m in charge here. Gimme that, it’ll be pea soup innabout an hour.” A frying pan sizzled as pancetta hit it, rattle of peas into a pot. “Smells like hot dogs.” “Hah. Remember when we try to learn how to give a guy head?” “Oh yeahhhhh. Stuck hot dogs down our throats till we gagged, so we gave up and cooked em. I never yet have had occasion to use whatever it was we learned. You?” “Sure! I’m up for whatever comes along.” “Comes? Along? Oh yuck. Did you swallow?” “Condoms are your friend, dimwit.” “Not my friend. I don’t go that way.” Gina leaned forward, staring into the flames. “How long has it been since I hadda fire inna fireplace? Forever? Never? You do this a lot?” “Every night this time of year. Drops to freezin. Sometimes, if I don’t bank it right, I need to start it up again in the mornin. But that’s not hard cause the embers are still hot.” “You learn this up here or you knew it all already? Me…Well, I sort of figure if I don’t know it, I’ll fake it.” Gina shifted her hips, trying to get comfortable. “Like, I suppose I could make a fire…” Her voice faded. “Just never expected to need to know.” Gina watched Alhambra cook. “We always at the mercy of rich fuckers. They want everythin to be their way-mean and narrow. Oh crap! I gotta call work! I just sort of up and left the city.” There was a huge boom. And another. Another. Gina bolted upright. The light on the table blinked, blinked, blinkblinked, then fizzed. The house was dark except for the firelight. “But it’s already dark, as you can see. They know you’re not comin in, Gina. Besides, power’s out. No regular phone.” Alhambra placed the pot of soup on the wood stove. “Don’t worry, if the phone lines didn’t come down, you can still call out.” Alhambra left the room, hollering over her shoulder, “Let me see if the land line is workin.” “Land line?” Gina felt around for her pack. “Jeez. What’s a land line? A shortwave radio? I’m gonna call work on like a CB? Well, I gotta tellum I won’t be in tomorrow neither.” Her voice faded to tiny mutters, she peered out at the menacing tree shapes looming over the house. “Fuckin primitive out here. Hey, Karen? You realize I only have one workin eye and this is like purgatory? I can’t see shit now.” She didn’t mention that the trees were reaching mean spiky fingers out at her. Smaller voice, “Shit. Can’t find my cigarettes.” Gina sat back on the couch clutching her backpack on her lap. “And my eye is startin to hurt. And…” She began to snicker. “And I can’t get to work.” The snickers turned into laughter. “And I can’t call because they don’t hava shortwave radio. Hah. Haaaaaah.” Gina grabbed the blanket loosely in her hands. “And I’m up here in total blackout boonie land with my best friend. Oh yeahhhhh.” Alhambra came up the hallway carrying a small lantern. She said, “Phone lines are down.” Gina leaped up, flailing the blanket in the air like a huge bat. “We’ll get the boogie man! You and me, Alhambra! We’ll scare im right back into the hellhole he keep comin up out of! Every smartass self-righteous bastard that ever EVER tried to make us small. Every shitmouth rich bitch who plays the I’m-entitled card-we will smassssh her. We’ll tear the prison walls DOWN, muthafucka, DOWN!” Alhambra put the lantern on the floor, grabbing a corner of the blanket. She raced Gina out into the night, howling, “Down, muthafuckas! Get baaaaack! Mothafuckas!” It wasn’t until they got right to the edge of the swollen river that Gina noticed she had no clothes on. “Oh my god.” She curled forward. “Karen! You let me go outside stark-ers.” Alhambra leaned against the huge belly of a redwood, laughter making it impossible for her to stand on her own. Gina wrapped the blanket in tidy folds around herself. She lifted her head with a haughty twitch. “You bitch.” Too early in the morning, Alhambra put the kettle on a small butane gas ring, the The rain rattle-crashed on the windows, the evil trees slammed their devil branches on the roof of the little house, Gina pulled the covers over her head. “Oh ow oh ow oh ow.” “Shshshhh. You’ll annoy the demons. Be brave, oh blackheart babe, be brave.” “Hey, I’m dyin here. One eye, purple cheek, held captive in a wilderness hellhole.” “What time they expect you at your place of gainful?” “When I get there. I’m just the inventory monster trapped in the basement, any shipments get there before I do, they pile up. I suit up, show up, count em, log em, sort em, shelve em. Simple. I do it inna speed-stupor. Work one all-day-all-night shift and it’s done. Commerce recommences. And I get paid. Do it again after I’ve slept some.” “You wanta callem, or what?” “Yeah. I better. They aren’t likely to call my PO, but they might start callin hospitals. Or morgues.” Gina rolled off the futon onto the floor, crawled around for a while patting the slate. “Cigarette? Grrr. Cigarette? Ahhh.” Inhale. “They think that highly of me. Right. Let’s hava shot of coffee here-I’ll take another Percoset, thank you-then make a break for civilization.” She held out her coffee cup. Alhambra poured. “Not civilization. I’m not happy with civilization. Yunno? It don’t work for me.” Gina held her coffee cup in both hands, cigarette dangling from her lips, she couldn’t figure out how to sip since the cigarette was in the way and she wasn’t about to let go of the cup with either hand. Mornings were filled with dilemma. She growled, “Civilized is soothing drugs. You have soothing drugs. Ergo. Civilized.” She sucked the cigarette down to the filter, put the cup in one hand, pinched the cigarette out of her mouth, and tossed it into the embers of last night’s fire. She held her hand out for the pill. “Thank you.” Alhambra said, “Civilization treats pain with lectures. You know that.” “Right. I came all the way up here to get my face mashed in so I could get properly loaded. Got it.” Gina pulled her shirt on. “Beats whatever else I had in mind.” They rattled into town, avoiding the fallen branches, hydroplaning through the rivulets streaming across the road. Monte Rio. Vacation Wonderland. Two bridges, one street. No beach in the winter, the river ate it. There was a movie theater in a Quonset hut with an immense mural on its side, runny with water. The metal ridges of the hut blurred the painted trees into menacing shapes. Gina muttered, “And my granma tol me this place was friendly. Ha.” A large red amanita mushroom graced the sign for the Wonderland Diner. Alhambra said, “You’ll like it here, Gina.” Gina looked dubious, but as they entered she murmured, “Whoa. A real diner. Cool.” Knotty pine walls, sweet breakfast smells, a waitress with a sharp take-no-prisoners grin greeted them. “Good morning. Sit yourselves wherever you’re most comfortable. Coffee?” Not even a small blink at Gina’s broken face. Maybe smashed up faces were common. Maybe the waitress was just good. Alhambra grinned back. “Mornin. Two double espressos, please, to start.” “Comes double. You want double double?” “Yes, please.” Alhambra whispered to Gina, “Great coffee. They tested every kind they could get their hands on-” The waitress pulled the handles on the old espresso machine like an Italian barrista. Serious. No shortcuts like the machines at Peet’s. “Sounds like my kind of job.” “Pffft. You would be the worst waitress on the planet. It’s an art.” Grumbling, “I wanta be the taster, not the server.” Gina bit the lemon peel, sipped her double espresso. “Damn. Well. All right then.” “Country pleasures.” Gina didn’t respond, she got up, bringing her coffee with her, walked to the side of the diner, called her job. They hadn’t missed her, really, but they were aware that the work wasn’t done. Not to worry. She’d deal with it when the roads opened up. Sometime in May. Monte Rio had a certain appeal. “Okay, so tell me: What do people do up here?” Gina spoke through a mouthful of biscuit ten minutes from the oven with real Maple syrup poured over. She stabbed at her bacon and spun it around on her fork, pointing the whole arrangement at her friend. Alhambra chewed her BLT on rye, considering an answer. “Same as anywhere. Folks try to get by, grab the energy of the earth and put it to work.” “Energy of the earth? Crap.” Gina wasn’t going to be mollified by an outstanding breakfast. “Diddlin. That’s what happens when you don’t have the energy of the city. Ya go soft in the head and spend all your time diddlin.” “Define.” Gina’s mouth opened, closed. She scowled. “Eh. You know what I mean.” Alhambra looked up. Gina felt a large ominous shadow on her right. She craned her neck, wincing for effect, focused her one functioning eye on the steel worker who stood by their table. “I know you.” Gina’s lips parted, starting to snarl then wiggling into a limp smile. “Yeah?” The six-foot steel worker with the blond buzz cut spoke in a melodic soprano, she stood sort of shy, one foot on top of the other. “Uh-huh.” She shifted to another self-effacing position. Her eyebrows lifted, her head tipped to the side, one shoulder raised up-a sort of traditional body language for you-know-where-we’ve-been. “Jail?” As soon as Gina spoke she would have eaten her own head if only she could’ve fit it in her mouth. In for a nickel. “Which one?” In for a dime. “Bryant Street. You were on your way somewheres else, probably don’t remember me. Name’s Joey. They called me It would be impolite to admit she didn’t remember anyone quite so large, impossible to say she had no memory at all of someone who tried so hard to be small. And failed so utterly. “Ah.” Perhaps the woman was smaller then? Joey pointed, a small movement, at Gina’s arm. “That my design, that one there.” Gina took a long breath, blew it out. This person was too sizable to insult, but truth is truth. “No. It ain’t. It ain’t yers. It’s from the hand and mind and soul of a monster great master in the Mission. I watched it bein born in his psyche, I watched it get drawn here on my arm, and I watched him, in total tattoo trance, ink this sucker by hand with needles he tied together right there in front of me with secret knots, and with ink he ground up hisself from pine sap. So don’t give me no shit about it’s yours.” Her lower jaw stuck out: Nobody fucked with Mission history. Joey shrunk back, her lilting voice floating as if it was a whisper of wind. “Oh. I see.” “No. You don’t see.” Gina made a small grunt as Alhambra kicked her under the table. “Yesterday a complete toad haulin around a Day-Glo wheelchair told me the same thing.” She moved her chair back in order to speak directly up at Joey. “I apologize for bein harsh to you, but the skinny fucker popped me in the eye when I told him to go fuck himself.” “That asshole! He been stealing my designs, calling them his own.” The color rose in Joey-Big Rig’s face, her eyes went glinty gray, her arms swelled up like pumpkins as she clenched her fists. “That gnarly bastard couldn’t put a tattoo on a fucking grapefruit.” Gina thought better of pointing out that the design on her arm wasn’t Joey’s. Instead she nodded, glad to have support in her appraisal of the man. “Dead eyes? Mummy face? Crap ink?” Joey nodded, her color shading to something less volcanic. “He kills people. He uses the same needles on everyone. Steals other folks’ work and twists it into something ugly.” “Carryin bad tattoo art is death in itself.” Alhambra spoke, cool waters to soothe a restless soul. “You know what I’m talking about, then.” Joey became their comrade again. “You staying clean and sober? Yes?” “Yes. Well, no. I mean…” Joey laughed, a hearty trill-it would have been a trill except it came from a mountain, so it was, well, hearty. “Been seventeen months for me. Clean. And. Sober.” The laugh stopped and her eyes went flinty. “I ain’t never going back.” She paused, looked at each of them in turn, her huge hands opening and closing in spasm. “Never. Never going back.” The air had gone out of the diner with a psychic “Never. You got that?” Alhambra sighed, softly refilling the place with air. “We got it, Joey. Good for you.” “Good for you.” Gina’s voice clicked in her throat, stuck on something she hadn’t known was in there. The big woman’s face shifted into a smile, she leaned forward and knocked on the table, “Good talking with yas. Hope to see yas around, then.” She straightened up, “Don’t forget what I told yas. None of us ever going back. No way. None of us.” The door closed behind her with a small “We done here, I think?” “Dayam. We be done and done again.” Gina stared at her hands clenched tight as two poodles fucking. “Holy crap.” “Let’s walk down to the river and catch a breath of massive water power?” “Wash away all our sins?” “Take more than a river in full mud raging flood to do that.” They passed a sign: “You guys hava different definition of Alhambra, lost in her own thoughts, nodded They crossed the parking lot, started down a scrubby slope to the curve of the rumbling river. “Jeezuz! She’s goin in the water!” Joey-Big Rig, hip deep where the water curled against a set of rocks, was wrestling something out of the scrub. “Holy Christ, it’s that wheelchair I tossed.” Gina didn’t know whether to jump right in, in some goofy heroic attempt to help, or back away in shame at the calamity she had set in motion: Joey was going to be slushed away to drown. Alhambra’s hand touched Gina’s shoulder. “She’ll be fine long as she doesn’t go past the rocks. Water boils around in there but there’s no big current, that’s more to the center. See the logs out there?” “That’s not a log-” One of the logs flipped upright at Joey’s side, eye-blink fast he grabbed for the chair, hissing. “Crap. That’s the guy.” “Too right.” Alhambra’s full lips curled up. “This is gonna be good.” “Uh, Alhambra? Karen? Those two people can drown in there. What happened to Miss Sunshine No Sorrow?” Alhambra stepped to the edge of the icy water, a short leap away from the spectacle. “The snake and the elephant.” “Should we interfere? Or scream?” The wheelchair, flung by one of the combatants, skidded on the gravel to their left. Someone screamed. “Ah. Screaming is what we do.” But Gina didn’t scream. It wasn’t in her nature to scream. She shouted, “Tha’s right, Joey! Pound that slimy fucker! Tha’s right, Joey! Take im out!” The chant swelled, backed by the river’s grumble, “Take im out! Take im out! Take im out!” Joey had the fake gimp’s arms twisted up behind his back, held easy in one of her huge hands, with the other she had hold of his hair, dunking him face first into the river. The muscles of her arms pumped up and down, relentless pistons pushing him under the water, out again, snap back into the river. Her eyes had gone flat and gray, her mouth twisted. Alhambra said, matter-of-fact, “Let him get a breath now, Joey.” Joey shrugged, lifted his head, peered at the fake gimp’s face with scientific detachment. He gagged, green-brown river water puked from his mouth. He took a stuttering gulp of air, his eyes fluttering. Joey shook him, wrinkled her nose, straight-armed his head back under. Gina stepped toward the river. “That fucker isn’t never comin up.” Bubbles. “He ain’t worth it, Joey,” Alhambra said. Simple statement. Gina’s voice rose up over the river’s howl, “Hey! Never goin back? Joey-you ain’t never goin back. Remember?” Bubbles. An eternity of bubbles rising Joey looked up, took a breath. Nodded. She thrust the man from her, into the current, staggered up to the shore. “Thank you.” She popped her knuckles, tipped her head left and right to get the tension out of her neck. “Thank you.” They watched the limp form spin in the current, catch on the next curve, and lie there for a moment before the man began to pull himself up the gravel. Gina muttered, “Fuckers like that never die.” Joey sighed, “I’m keeping the wheelchair though. Damn.” She folded the thing up, hoisted it over one shoulder, waved to Alhambra and Gina. “Have yerselves a jolly day. Clean and sober. Oh yeahhhh.” The rain had let up, Gina and Alhambra were walking down the same path they’d rocketed down the night before. The only sound was the steady noise of hundreds of thousands of gallons of water rushing to the sea. Billions of gallons? “Tell me, Alhambra. What you find up here you never got in the city?” “Look up at the damn trees, Gina. Listen to the goddam river. Pay attention to what’s right here.” “I want answers to questions this here river and tree world doesn’t care about-lookin at trees ain’t gonna make the hurt stop.” “Sometimes it’s the only thing make the hurt stop. Come here and look over there across the river.” Gina saw a power pole on the far shore with a wooden box on top. Snaggly sticks poked out in all directions. “Young osprey built a nest up there. First year she was ready to mate, she built her nest on the only tall thing didn’t already have someone else’s nest on it. Her babies died when they hit the electric wires. One of the locals climbed up there, built her a platform.” Gina stared at the ungainly nest in a box. She whispered, “Maybe next year the babies will live?” She looked at Alhambra. “You think?” Alhambra lifted her shoulders, “There’s a chance. Yeah.” Gina tipped back on her heels, hands in her pockets. “So. What you’re sayin is-what you’re sayin is?” “Somethin like that. Yeah.” Gina got off the bus at Sixteenth and Bryant, stretched her back, lit a cigarette, looked at the city. Not too shabby. It was home. She understood it, knew pretty much when to shift aside, when to stand firm. She headed up the steps to the park. She had a whole pack of American Spirits for Lucas, they’d smoke her welcome home, talk about rivers underfoot that were, and one that still is. For another winter season at least. “Hey. You seen Lucas?” “Nah. He not been here, day, two days, mebbe.” “Hey. You seen Lucas?” “Family trouble. He gone.” Gina set off for the freeway underpass, right where another spring used to bubble. “Anybody seen Lucas?” “Nope.” The man in front of the tents glared at her, made her uncomfortable until she realized the glare was permanent, one eye blind. She touched her own bruised face, said, “Mine’s only a day or two. Gettin used to bein a pirate with one eye. How long yours?” She shook out a few cigarettes from Lucas’s pack. He smiled. “Hah. Ten years ago.” He allowed Gina to light his cigarette. “Funny you ask about Lucas. He was there. When it happen to me. Was his son’s eighth birthday. We got drunk and-” Still smiling, “Was a helluva lotta fun.” “Where his son now?” The man’s mouth curled down. “Where else? He in jail.” He wandered away shaking his head. “Least ways tha’s what Lucas said.” Three boys whoopin in the parking lot. Here’s to a night under the moon, a hunnert miles an hour. Here’s to the girls that smiled at us. Here’s to the father that loved us. “You see Lucas, you please tellim I gotta story fer him. Yunno? So tellim I’m goin for coffee in the morning at the other place, down the street t’other way. Ain’t goin back to that Peet’s. Okay? Tellim I got to start the day off with him. Otherwise the mornin ain’t right. Yunno?” The old man didn’t stop his slow amble away through the puddles, but Gina saw his hand raise up, as if to say, “Sure thing, girl. Sure thing.” Under the dim freeway buttresses, several statues of La Virgin de Guadalupe dipped their bowls into the clear headwaters of the creek and, chuckling like pigeons, poured it over their heads. |
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