“I made you a pallet, right after you puked in the bushes outside.”
“Outside where?”
“My apartment. It was hell getting you upstairs.”
The man studied Harry.
“You know, if I sucked your dick, I got to apologize. I like women, but when I drink, who knows what I do. Maybe I thought it was a tit.”
“Nothing like that.”
The man blinked, adjusting his sight. He looked about some more. What he saw was one small room, a couch with a sheet and pillow on it, a chair, a table, a cheap bookcase stuffed with books, a lamp on top of it. On the table was a hot plate, some paper plates, cups, plastic utensils. There was no sink or kitchen. There was only a little mini refrigerator in one corner. It hummed like a tone-deaf moron.
All over the walls were flattened cardboard boxes and egg cartons. They had been taped to the walls from top to bottom. There was a pile of flattened cardboard boxes in the corner of the room.
“You slept on the couch?” the man said.
“Always do. That’s my bed.”
“This place sucks.”
“Thanks. Three-fifty a month, plus bills. You can’t imagine how proud I am.”
“You got a shitter?”
“There’s this room and the shitter. You might have to suck it in some to get in there, and the toilet wobbles. Try not to go all over the place. You did before, pissed on the wall. I had to clean it up. Don’t want to do it again. By the way, it smells like Lysol in there.”
The man started to get up, couldn’t quite make it. Harry helped him toward the bathroom.
“I don’t get it,” Harry said. “You were drunk as a skunk back at the bar, and you whipped three guys tried to roll you.”
“I did?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s why my face hurts?”
“One of them hit you.”
“That’s what did it. I got hit; instinct took over. I think sometimes it’s stronger than drink.”
The man pushed through the door into the bathroom. Harry returned to his chair. A few minutes later the man came out. He looked fresher. His face was moist from washing, and his thin hair had been dampened and was combed back. He was walking better. He leaned his ass against the wall and, with his legs slightly out in front of him, crossed his arms.
“You been lurking over me all night?” he asked.
“We’ve only been here about an hour or so.”
“Why’d you help me, kid?”
“I don’t know. It wasn’t just me. Friend of mine, Joey. He helped me get you to the car. I dropped him off; then it was just me and you, out there dancing on the curb, then you throwing up in the bushes.”
“You could have let them have me.”
“I didn’t do anything about that, keeping them off of you. I might have thought about it, but I never had the chance. You whipped their asses. It was funny to see it. It was like you were stumbling, but everything you did was right. I think you broke one of ’em’s knee.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. How’d you do it, drunk like that?”
“Lucky.”
“I don’t think so. Was it some kind of martial arts?”
“Something like that. You want to know something? I don’t remember doing it.”
“Do you remember taking their money?”
“Money?”
“You went through their wallets, took their money, stuck it in your front pocket.”
The man reached in his front pocket, pulled out a wad of bills. “I’ll be damned…. Hell, I made forty-two dollars.”
“And you don’t remember doing it?”
“Nope. Guess it was a sense of fair play. Tit for tat. You said they were going to take my money, didn’t you?”
“Looked that way.”
“Guess I wasn’t as drunk as I thought…. But I was drunk enough I don’t remember much.” The man moved away from the wall and stuck out his hand. “My name is Tad. Tad Peters. Thanks for not leaving me in the alley. Drunk luck only goes so far.”
They shook and Harry told him his name.
“Drunk as I was, you’re lucky I wasn’t one more beer ahead,” Harry said. “I might not have left the table. And you’d be lying out there in the alley, passed out. You did, you know? Pass out, I mean. Right after you took them down and took their money.”
“You drank and you drove?”
“Guess so.”
“You don’t look like a stupid kid. If you knew you were gonna drink, you don’t drive there. You get someone that isn’t going to drink to drive you. Or you walk. Sobers some folks up. That’s what I do. I walk home.”
“For someone who robbed three fellas, I don’t know if you should be giving advice.”
“I’m hell on advice, just not too good at following it. This Joey, this friend of yours, guess I owe him too.”
“Naw. Not really. I mean, he helped get you to the car. But he wanted to leave you. Figured it was your problem.”
“He’s not all wrong, kid. I’m a drunk, plain and simple.”
Tad lay down on the pallet, doubled the pillow over, stuck it under his head, crossed his hands over his chest. “I don’t go a night I’m not ripped.”
“That must be tough on your career.”
“I don’t have a career. I have what you might call a trust fund, or something like that. I don’t know. Stock market, never understood it. They send me a little check each month. I made some investments before I was a drunk. They’ve panned out, though it isn’t much. Pays the bills, keeps me in beer and whiskey.”
“What did you used to do?”
“I taught martial arts.”
“No shit?”
“No shit, kid, and I was a thing of beauty. Not like now.”
“What I saw was pretty amazing. Never seen anything like it. It wasn’t a bunch of jumping around and yelling. It was quick, to the point, and it looked like it hurt like hell.”
“Sure it did. Thing is, if I wasn’t a drunk, I wouldn’t have been in that position. So you see, it’s all my fault. Let me give you some of that advice I’m free about giving. Quit drinking. You might have some sort of chemical reaction makes you hooked, or DNA, or genetics. Whatever that shit is. Some people, they got the tendency, you see.”
“You?”
“Nope. I can quit anytime I want. I just don’t want to. It ain’t genetics with me, kid. Not at all. Me, I’m a self-made man.”
Harry didn’t have classes that day, and no work schedule at the store, so he slept in. When he awoke, sat up on the couch, and rubbed his face, Tad was at the hot plate, making coffee.
“Couldn’t find any coffee filters,” he said, “so I used one of your socks.”
“What?”
“Just fucking with you. I used some napkins. Coffee might be a bit strong for you. Wasn’t sure how you liked it. I ate one of your snack bars, which, by the way, taste like solidified chicken shit, and I left you one on the table there. No wonder you’re so skinny, eating that crap. I bet you don’t have a steady girlfriend either.”
Harry shook his head. “No. I don’t have time. I work part-time in the school bookstore, and go to school.”
“Tell me you’re out of high school.”
“Of course, I’m twenty. I go to the university.”
“Shit, I can’t tell age anymore. Unless you’re my age, you’re a kid. What I like seeing is people older than me. I practically live for it. You gettin’ any pussy?”
This question startled Harry. It was like an ambush.
“Now and again.”
“Naw you ain’t.”
“Just said I was.”
“Naw, you ain’t gettin’ any. Way you said it, I can tell, already told me you don’t have a girlfriend.”
“You can’t tell shit.”
“Let’s try it again, kid. Are you gettin’ any pussy?”
“No.”
“There you are. Guy your age, you ought to be out there bangi
ng hole like there’s no tomorrow. Later on you’ll wish you had.”
“Hole?”
“Pretty nasty, huh?”
“I’ll say.”
“Hell, boy, when you’re my age it isn’t nasty, it’s just colorful.”
“Well, what about you? You asked me, so now I’m asking you. You getting any?”
“No. I don’t think about it much anymore. Just when they have a swimsuit special on TV. Most of the time I think about other things.”
“What do you think about?”
“Actually, I wish a lot.”
“About what?”
“I wish my wife wasn’t dead, that’s what I wish. I wish my son wasn’t dead. That’s what I wish.”
Harry let that go, said, “I had a girlfriend, but she got religion. She was a lot more fun when she didn’t have it. Though, I guess the truth was, I didn’t really care all that much for her, and she wasn’t all that enraptured with me either.”
“Religion sure can fuck you up.”
“She let me feel her up good, but anything other than that, she wasn’t into. God didn’t mind titty rubbing, I guess. But the other stuff, that wasn’t on his okay list.”
“He’s quite the stickler. But it matters who it’s with and what it means. Before I married Dorothy, I had girlfriends, and I had one that got religion now and then. Mostly between fucks, but then she’d get the remorse, you know. Jesus this, Jesus that. But after a time, Jesus, he’d take a nap or somethin’, and I’d get a trip to the cavern.”
“You sound very romantic.”
“I can fool you, kid.”
“You’re not thinking you’re gonna move in or nothing, are you?”
“This shithole? You got to be yankin’ me. Might as well take up nesting in a buffalo’s butt…. How long has that roach in the corner been dead?”
“I think he’s just patient.”
“He’s dead. Been that way for a while. Ants have been at him. They’re at him now. You’ll be covered in them, you don’t get some spray or somethin’.”
Harry got up. He was wearing the clothes of the night before. Tad said, “You need to get you some pajamas, sleep in your underwear or something. Sweat on your clothes ain’t good for you. Makes you stink.”
“It’s not a habit. I even take showers.”
Harry took the snack bar off the table and dragged up the chair he had placed by the pallet. Tad sat down on the couch.
“About that pussy,” Tad said. “You got to be careful these days, you can get the disease. That’s what rubbers are for. They ought to pass those things out free.”
“Some places do.”
“Unless the place has got Jesus. Then it’s a crime to keep your dick from falling off. You ain’t supposed to do it, you’re some big high-muckety-muck Christian, but hey, people fuck. It’s what we do. Ever notice how Christians quote the Old Testament more than the New Testament? That’s so they can say mean things, talk bad about the queers and such. New Testament, that’s the Christian book. The stuff in red, that’s the Jesus talk. That’s what they’re supposed to live their life by, but, no, they like the God of the Old Testament, the mean, judgmental one, before he was on Zoloft. Noticed that?”
“You’re quite the intellectual.”
“You’re seeing my sober side. Look quick. I don’t stay this way long.”
14
Harry was surprised, because the neighborhood he drove Tad to was pretty nice.
Correction.
It was damn nice.
Fact was, the place was ritzy.
Harry thought Tad must have bought his place before it all got built up. Must have some little house tucked away amongst all the expensive stuff. A yard with a tree and a run-down house and a car on blocks. Maybe some beer cans tossed about. A dead cat under a bush.
Tad said, “Pull over to the curb.”
“You got to puke?”
“No. This is home.”
“Here?”
“Yeah.”
Home was large, adobe style, and around the house was a high brick fence. There was a gate drive. The gate was open, and oak and sweet gum trees grew high and shady around the house, which covered a lot of ground.
“You have an apartment in the back?”
“They let me sleep in the yard, under a tree.”
“What?”
“It’s mine. Even the fence.”
“Damn.”
“You haven’t seen my housekeeping yet. Hey, you want to come in, have a Coke, some more coffee, somethin’?”
“I guess.”
“Well, I won’t get out here then. Take a right, go up the drive.”
“There never were any murders in this house, were there?”
“What?”
“Murders? Any violence?”
Tad studied Harry. “You’re serious?”
“Yeah. Kind of am.”
“I don’t know of any. Wife’s family property, got the place when we were twenty-five. Her folks lived here before, but I never heard of such. They may have had some vicious games of Go Fish, however.”
Harry drove through the open gate onto the estate. Inside they had a Coke. They sat at a long table in a large room. On one end of the table was a pile of books; the other end held a collection of crumpled beer cans. There were beautiful carpets hanging on the wall, some pretty snazzy paintings that appeared to be of…well, they were of colors. If they were supposed to be of anything in particular, Harry couldn’t make them out.
One wall had a shelf of knickknacks, little ceramic animals: elephants, tigers, lions, bears. They ranged from pink to green to blue.
The place was dusty, and there were clothes thrown about the floor.
“You are a shitty housekeeper,” Harry said.
“My wife was great. She called in the maid. Me, I had to let her go. The maid, I mean. About ten years back. I take out the trash and toss out paper plates and such. Live kind of like you do. Mostly I stay in this room. It was the family room. There’s a television behind that wall. Sliding panel and all. I think it still works. Fact is, except for the toilet and a room or two, I’m not sure I remember what all the other rooms are like.”
“Except, you have a lot of rooms.”
“Twenty rooms, to be exact, not counting kitchens and bathrooms. And the dojo.”
“Dojo?”
“Japanese word. Gym. Workout room for martial arts. I used to teach it. An art called Shen Chuan.”
“What happened?”
“Life happened. About that murder business—why’d you ask?”
“You wouldn’t want to know, and if I told you, you’d think I was nuts.”
“Maybe I would, but what else you got to do? What do you care if some drunk you don’t even know thinks you’re nuts? And it would be entertaining to me. Nuts tell good stories.”
“You tell me about you, and I’ll tell you about me.”
“I didn’t want to play fair,” Tad said. “Just wanted to hear about you.”
“Then no deal.”
Tad nodded.
“All right, kid. I’m not sure why I’m telling you, but, okay. Maybe I owe you one…. Naw, bullshit. I need to talk about it. I talk to the fucking wall, no one’s here. And, except for you, no one has been here in years. Except an old parrot named Chester. Belonged to my wife. I was one happy motherfucker when that feathered bastard died. Was always cleaning out shitty newspapers from his cage and such. There’s lots of things I miss, but that parrot ain’t one of ’em.”
“Your life story is about taking care of a parrot?”
“Let me put it this way, kid. Back when I was a little older than you, I was a drunk.”
“You’re a drunk now.”
“True, but let me tell my story, all right? So I was a drunk. And then I met my wife. This woman, she was so beautiful she made my back teeth ache. Oh, there were probably more beautiful women, but for me, she was it. Before her I was just banging tail. Wasn’t lying to anyone to get
it. Just dating, doin’ the thing, you know. It was the seventies. There was so much free pussy it was like money from home. Then I met Dorothy. I loved that woman deeply, my friend. I don’t know how often that happens, that kind of love, but when it does, it’s an amazing thing.”
“My mom and dad. They were that way.”
“They’re lucky…. Were?”
“Dad died of a heart attack.”
“Well, me and your mom, we got similar tragedies. But me and Dorothy got married, I quit drinking, and we had a boy. A fine boy. Dorothy had an inheritance, and she worked as an interior decorator. She was good. She made big dough doing that. Me, I had a martial arts school, and though it wasn’t the sort of thing that would make you wealthy, it was a good living. Believe it or not, boy, I was once considered one of the best.”
“I believe it. I seen you do it, remember?”
“That was some drunk shit, but back then I was deep in the martial arts. Not just the ass-whipping part. I found my center.”
“Your center?”
“The center of my being. That sounds all metaphysical and shit, but it isn’t. It’s about finding the core of who you are, living with it, learning to accept it, and becoming calm. Like you’re the eye of the hurricane, and all around you the world is a-spin, but you’re focused. Nothing fazes you. That’s how I was. Nothing fazed me. I didn’t think anything or anyone could disrupt my center.”
“But something always can,” Harry said.
Tad nodded. “Way I worked is I had small classes, some private lessons. People who wanted to be here and were willing to pay me what I was worth. Then there was the accident. Day it happened, I had a private lesson, a beautiful young woman. There was nothing between us. No monkey business, outside of that feeling any man gets when he’s around a woman that amazing. I mean, it was just great to be with her. Nothing like my wife, that was a whole ’nother thing. But teaching that woman…well, one day her hour is up, her private lesson is over, and she’s got a few questions, and so I say to myself, ‘All right, I’ll stick.’
“Now, you see, I’m supposed to, right after that lesson, go and pick up my wife and son. He was ten then. It was a Saturday, and they went to the movies, some cartoon thing, and the deal was, soon as my lesson was over, I was supposed to go get them.