Man of Action

Fiction by Jeff Harrell

“I was bottle-fed!” I yell, as if that explains everything.

The cops don’t seem all that sympathetic.

I don’t care. I just keep yelling, trying to keep them off-guard long enough for me to hop the fence and disappear into the night. “My mother never hugged me! I never got enough love!”

Just one more step. Just one more step and I’ll be close enough to the fence. It’ll be two hands full of chain-link and then I’m up and over before they can get to me. And then I’m home free.

“Besides, did you see that guy?” I say, putting my weight back on my heels in what I think is a pretty street-savvy kind of way. “Can you blame me?”

The lead cop just shrugs. I don’t think he blames me one bit. I don’t think he really cares much, either.

And that’s what I need. That split-second of inattention. I’m gone like one of those exotic cats you see on the nature shows, all lose and relaxed one second and the exploding toward a gazelle or whatever the hell it is the next. I’m gone, man. I’m just gone.

I’m two steps closer to the fence when the taser hits me. Two hard bites like wasp stings, angry motherfucking wasps, wasps that hate me and want me to suffer.

One of ‘em goes right into my ass.

I don’t remember anything after that.

I wake up the next morning in the warm, familiar embrace of the 77th Street Regional Jail, my home away from home. Carlos gets me a cup of coffee while they’re processing me out. Spoonful of powdered creamer and two sugars, just like I like it. The fact that the Sunday morning duty officer knows how I take my coffee should probably inspire me to head down to the Redondo Pier and buy a dog on a stick and spend some time reevaluating the direction of my life. But it doesn’t. I don’t have time for that kind of crap. I’ve got business to do, product to move. I lost a whole night’s business thanks to that fucking asshole. I’ve gotta make it up, man. Gotta get back in the game.

The kid behind the desk takes his paperwork very seriously. He hands me my effects one at a time: six hundred and change in tens and twenties, a handful of keys and a Rolex that looks real enough in bad light as long as you don’t get too close. He gives me this little speech about watching my step. I can tell he’s been practicing it in front of the mirror while he shaves, if he’s even old enough to shave. Carlos just rolls his eyes behind the kid’s back.

I fill my pockets, and I am outta there.

Shit, the sun’s bright this early in the morning.

You ever try to catch a cab in South Central at seven o’clock on a Sunday morning? Forget it, man. Any cab driver stupid enough to find himself more than three miles east of LAX turns off his light, picks a random direction and blows through every red light until he hits a freeway.

It’s gonna be a long fucking walk back up to Wilshire.

But after twenty blocks I get lucky. There’s a hack idling at the red at the corner of Figueroa and Slauson, God knows why. I practically dive into the back seat, shout the closest cross-street I can remember and sink into the sticky, duct-taped seat to doze.

I should have stayed awake. Asshole must have taken laps around the Colliseum. No way that was a sixty-dollar fare.

Fuck it. I toss twenties at him through the window until he puts his ride in gear and takes a thousand miles off his Goodyears getting the hell out of there.

I have no idea where I am.

It all looks different in the daylight. I wander around for half an hour before I find the lot where I parked the night before. My lock’s been popped, obviously. But the stereo’s long gone, the glove box is empty, and everything worth paying attention to is taped up nice and neat inside the right front wheel well. I know it’s still there; I don’t even bother checking. I just get in, turn the engine over and head west until I smell sand and salt water.

I gotta sleep this off.

When I wake up, my watch says it’s a quarter after six, and the way the light’s coming in through the kitchen window is enough to make me wonder whether it’s morning or evening. The world comes back to me in pieces. Fucking taser hangover, man. Worst come-down in the world.

I kill a few hours on the couch watching local-access porn. A fat chick in a leather corset and assless chaps is giving an enthusiastic lecture in fluent Vietnamese. The improbable syllables rattle around in my head. It’s like listening to the ocean. It lulls me into a state that’s somewhere between conscious and unconscious. Which is a pretty fucking good place to be. Consciousness has been nothing but trouble for me lately, and unconsciousness has usually been the result of some low-grade violence directed at my cranium. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll just linger here for a while, emulating a plant.

I guess I fell asleep, because when I notice again the Vietnamese chick is gone and it’s just a test pattern. I check my watch by the light of the color bars. Eleven-thirty. Time to get to work.

I’m not relaxed, man. I can’t find my groove. I know why. It’s because everywhere I go, I’m looking over my shoulder. Looking for the asshole, the one I swear to God I would have killed with my bare hands last night if that bouncer hadn’t gotten to me first. Good reflexes, that bouncer. He had me on the ground with his knee on my neck before I got anywhere near my intended victim. I guess he saw it in my eyes or something.

He’s not here tonight, though. The asshole I mean, not the bouncer. Not that I’m looking forward to meeting the bouncer again, but at least that’s a relationship I can understand. At least that’s a professional encounter, you know? Gentlemen can reach an understanding. You don’t want me doing business in your place? Fine, no problem. Plenty of other clubs where the staff looks the other way, sees my services as a sort of unofficial perk for their loyal clientele. No need to wrinkle the merchandise, you know?

But him? The asshole? That’s not a professional situation at all. That’s personal. And I’m stuck somewhere halfway between wanting to stay as far away from him as possible and hoping I see him around the next corner.

It’s ridiculous. There are twenty million people in this city, or something like that. Teeming over the lip of the LA basin like bacteria in a petri dish left too long in the incubator. There’s no chance I’ll see him again. No chance at all.

Which, of course, means I see him again almost immediately.

He doesn’t see me. I don’t think he saw me last night, either. Hell, if I’m going to be perfectly honest, I have to say that I’m not sure he’d recognize me if did. We met once, one of the more awkward moments of my life. It wasn’t a polite encounter. He was being rushed out the back door while I was fumbling with my keys at the front. We didn’t exchange a lot of small talk. It started with “Who the hell are you?” and quickly transitioned to “Who the hell is he?” and then my new acquaintance was no longer an active participant in the interaction.

But I recognize him. Oh, I’d recognize him anywhere. What a fucking guido. Hair slicked back with something sticky and shiny. Gym muscles bulging out all over the place. He’s got his shirt open too far, and there’s a fucking gold necklace under it, for chrissakes. No hair, though. Fucker waxes his pecks, I’d bet my bankroll on it. Wouldn’t be surprised if he puffs on the occasional man-trumpet in the locker room, either. Fucking asshole.

He’s about halfway down the block, headed the other way. He’s stumbling a little. It’s early. He’s obviously looking for one thing tonight. And he’s found it. Her name’s Cassidy. Working girl. I know her. No, not like that. Okay, maybe I connected her once, but I didn’t take anything in return. I was just doing a favor for a kid who needed a little something to get her going. I never took advantage of the situation. Not that I hadn’t thought about it. But she had those eyes, you know? Those sad eyes. Even after she came back from the ladies room, all juiced and ready to party, I couldn’t forget those sad eyes.

So I’d buy her drinks once in a while when I saw her out. Give her a little honest conversation from a guy who wasn’t looking for a fifty-dollar blow job. Treat her like a person, you know?

But he’s not treating her like a person. No, the asshole’s walking her to his Escalade with his hand on her ass, practically pushing her down the street.

I don’t know why I watch them. I don’t intend to. I just sort of stand there outside the club, outside my next stop on my regular circuit. I watch him put her in the car, then go around to the other side and get in. I see their faces silhouetted in the street lights. For a second, it seems like it might be okay. For a second, I think maybe he’s just giving her a lift, or maybe he thinks he’s on an honest-to-God date. But then her silhouette disappears and I know the score. I’m not surprised. To be surprised would mean that I’d expected something else, something better. But I didn’t. Not from him.

I try to put it out of my head. I duck into the club, slipping the guy working the door a twenty on my way in. He knows me, gives me the nod. He knows why I’m here. But it’s early. The place is nearly empty. My crowd’s not here yet. I made a long, slow orbit from one end of the bar to the other, but nobody makes eye contact. Nobody’s buying yet. I move on.

One block up and one block west and I’m headed for my next stop, but then I spot one of the last remaining pay phones in LA and I’m stuffing quarters into it and dialing before I even know what I’m doing.

She answers. There’s background noise. She’s out. Why shouldn’t she be? It’s a Sunday night. Everybody’s out.

“Mags, it’s me,” I shout into the phone. It smells like stale cigarettes and cheap vodka.

“Me who?” she says over the music.

“It’s me,” I say, feeling like an idiot already. “It’s Marko.”

“What the fuck do you want?” she asks. Look, at least she didn’t just hang up. This is progress.

“Look, I know you don’t want to talk to me,” I start out.

“You got that right,” she says. The music’s duller now, more distant. She went outside for a smoke or something. Point is, she’s still not hanging up.

“Okay, okay, I know,” I say. “But that guy, that guido. The one you left me for.”

“I left you a long time before him,” she says.

“All right, fine. Anyway, that guy. Brad.”

“Chad.”

“Whatever. I just saw him.”

“So?” It’s echoey now. Not outside. The bathroom.

“I saw him with somebody.”

“So?” No hesitation at all.

Fuck. I hadn’t thought this far ahead. Now I’ve actually got to say it. Out loud. I squeeze the receiver so hard it cracks. “I saw him with a professional, Mags. You know?”

She’s laughing now. It sounds like she’s at the bottom of a well. “So?” she says again. I think that’s the only syllable she has left for me.

I shrug, as if she can see me. “So I just thought you should know,” I say, and I know how ridiculous it is even as the words are spilling out of my mouth.

“God, Marko,” she says, still laughing. “Why weren’t you half as sweet as this when we were together?”

“What?”

“You couldn’t be bothered to give two shits about me for the better part of a year, and now you’re all lookin’ out for me. You’re turning into a softie in your old age, babe.”

“Are you drunk?” I ask.

“Not nearly as drunk as I’d have to be to have a conversation with you, Marko,” she says. “I’m hanging up now.”

“Mags, come on,” I say lamely. “I’m just trying to give you a heads-up here. He’s stepping out on you. With a hooker, for chrissakes.”

She kinda pauses for a second. There’s the sound of a door opening and closing. Somebody came into or went out of the ladies’ room. Went out of, I think, because when she speaks again it’s a lot louder, like she’d been keeping her voice down. “Not that it’s any of your business,” she says, “but Chad and I haven’t been together in six weeks. I couldn’t care less where he gets his pussy now,” she says, a little hysterically I think. Or maybe I’m just imagining it.

“Mags,” I say, but that’s where she stops me.

“I’m hanging up now, Marko,” she says. “There’s a guy out there who keeps buying me drinks, and I intend to let him until he makes a move or I get bored, whichever comes first.” There’s a long pause. I think she’s waiting for me to interrupt, but I don’t know what to say. She sighs, and I don’t know why. “Take care of yourself, Marko,” she says.

“Yeah, you too,” I say into a dead line.

I’m on autopilot as I backtrack. A block east and a block south, and I’m back in front of the same club, looking for the asshole’s Escalade. It’s gone. I couldn’t have been on the phone for more than five minutes. Ten at most, if you count the walk. But it’s all over. He’s gone.

Cheap heels clap on the sidewalk. Cassidy congeals out of the shadows. She heads my way, then she sees my face. She doesn’t stop, exactly, but her walk changes. She’s not working now. She smiles at me.

“Hey, Marko,” she says.

“Hey,” I say. I don’t want to get too close to her. I don’t want to think about what happened while I was on the phone.

She takes a step into me anyway. “You holdin’, Marko?” she asks in that little-girl voice, her money-making voice. “I could use a little pop.”

That fucking asshole. Brad. Chad. Whatever the fuck his name is. Everywhere he goes, everyone he touches. He’s damage. Somebody needs to put the business end of a tire iron through the back of his skull, and soon.

But it’s not going to be me. I’m not the man who acts. At least not tonight. At least not like this.

“Come on,” I say, putting my hand on the small of Cassidy’s back. “Let me buy you a drink.”

I lead her back into the warm safety of the club.

Copyright © 2007 by Jeff Harrell. All rights reserved.