“Now you know I can’t do that,” the lanky gentleman wiggled his jaw from side to side. “Your mother’s my girlfriend, We’re,” he cupped his mouth with one hand and like a Vaudeville comedian whispered, “lovers.”
That very designation, of course, brought a complete revulsion at the monster Marcus saw before him. He didn’t see the well-dressed gentleman that stood there but the jump suited carpenter coming in all grubby from work, calling him, taking him to task, for nothing, smoking a little grass; then beating him up.
The first thing he did was to take a swing at that Neanderthal jaw way up there in the sky as Hartwig’d taught him. He led correctly with his left too; not his right. That chin, naturally, recoiled like the head of a snake by mere reflex if nothing else. The tall man’d not only been trained but he’d fought numerous rounds in the ring.
“What? What was that?” Barney’d replied in hesitation. “Someone teach you how to fight? You really don’t want to do that kid. Now why don’t you take your friend there and go home like two good little boys. We, you and I, really have no quarrel.”
“Son of a bitch.” Just then the two of them went for the spindly figure. Benji grabbed a leg and sunk his teeth into it as Marcus threw another punch, this one also missing.
“Ow, my God damned leg. Let go you little monster.”
The kid wouldn’t, of course, and he really didn’t know how to fight but he held on like a pit bull, attempting to knock the man off his feet while the string bean attempted to keep his balance and stay upright. Marcus again came forward and this time Barney hit him square in the face. Something scrunched and blood squirted from the kid’s nose.
At the sight of that the sober mother, who’d always been drunk before when her boyfriend’d attacked her son, threw her bunch of flowers into the sky forming a momentary umbrella, flew off the porch and grabbed her boyfriend from behind. She wanted to throttle him herself. Now, mind you the bully had three on him.
“Three?” Said Hammond. “You mean two kids and a derelict woman. So how’d they fare?” He wisecracked.
“Honey, go back.”
Barney turned and shoved her away and as she fell to the ground, guess who came forward. Marcus, none else, for one of the things Hartwig had taught him if not how to fight a snake with a huge reach advantage plus experience, was to never turn his back on his opponent no matter how badly hurt and Marcus hadn’t. Barney’d been distracted just long enough so when he turned again to his opponent … remember his legs were tied up … Marcus caught him square in the face with his fist. Didn’t hurt him that much. Didn’t break anything, I believe, for Marcus didn’t have that sort of power, but it made the ex con boxer think for a second at least and know someone really did hate him and if that person’d had a real punch it likely would’ve damaged him severely.
“So,” said Hammond very interested now. “Did the two take him?”
“You’d like to think so wouldn’t you,” I confessed, but no that didn’t happen.”
Marcus’s was the last punch thrown before the sheriffs were there to stop the whole thing. Seems they responded quicker daytime than they did at night. At least in this case anyhow. As soon as she’d seen the giant cold cock her son, Sarah had run from the area. Like mothers who can’t stand to watch their son’s compete from the bleachers for fear they’ll get hurt, she couldn’t wait around to see her son get beat up, which didn’t happen anyhow, at least no more than what she’d seen. One good thing the fight’d produced, once she’d seen him so brutally attack her son, she’d sworn off her boyfriend right then and there; never wanted to see him again no matter what. And with her estranged from her son, Barney’d been all she had.
“So’d Marcus go back to her after? Did they arrest the kids who started it as they should have?”
“Are you kidding?” I said.
Even though the kids weren’t exactly sober the sheriffs took one look at the ex-con … who hadn’t changed in their eyes … cuffed him and tried to stuff him into the squad car. When he arched his body to resist being taken away they pulled out their nightsticks and went to work on him as he yelled and howled ‘injustice’ or bloody murder in the uncowardly and doughty way that was typical of him. And the sloths, his supporters, where were they? Not one of them’d been around to see their ex leader taken away. Then hadn’t he basically renounced them? Could have had something to do with it.
They cuffed his ankles and by the time they got him over the hill he had to be taken to a hospital before he could land in a jail cell. They, in other words, beat him silly, a thing the sheriffs out there’d been waiting to do for a long time. And he wasn’t such a bad guy really. He’d just been born on the wrong side of the tracks.
“Oh, come on,” said Hammond. “You said it correctly. He was a monster. Monsters in our society should be put in jail. That’s where they belong. Nowhere else. That’s why they’re (jails) there.”
When the sheriffs asked the postmaster who started it, of course, he said ‘the boys’ but that Barney’d gone out to them.
“Then he started it,” the sheriff barked and wrote in his little book or notepad, for that was enough of a reason to assume blame for them.
The mother’d fled the scene all by herself. She’d probably’d gone up to the Sand Piper for sympathy. Benji, the tiger who hadn’t been hurt but had gotten a mouthful of flesh, accompanied Marcus to the firehouse where he could acquire first aid and have a splint put on his nose, and, of course, Benji was subjected to a blood test though the carpenter obviously didn’t have the disease (HIV) for he’d been tested the last time he’d been arrested before Sarah’d sprung him out on bail. And he hadn’t had time to acquire it in there.
It was a real mess but that’s sometimes how those things go. And just when you thought everyone’d given up on the convict, who wouldn’t see daylight for some time or have his dad’s farm to look forward to, you realized there was someone after all. His jailers, who else? What’re they really there for anyhow except to look after the completely abandoned, who no one else looks after. Priests hardly, prison doctors maybe. No, it’s a tough life in there. Obviously no one wants it; there are some who have it. Those’re the simple facts of life. All we can do is feel sorry for them if you want to like you feel sorry for the homeless or the starving but don’t put anything out to prevent it. Sympathy can be a real crutch and if not it’s water under the bridge. No, Barney got a bad break that afternoon, one his nature obviously couldn’t handle and whether the instigator or not, he was the one who had to pay. There was no other way to look at it.
The kids were certainly happy. Marcus went around proudly displaying his new splint before he removed it to be like his hero Hartwig, who more or less let the thing set on its own. And whether he wanted to go back to his mother or not (he didn’t) he knew at least the giant’d never return to her again. And as a son he’d accomplished that for her. A good thing if she could overcome her grief, perhaps not so good if she couldn’t for now she was all alone once more. This time without anyone to turn to. Benji was given the epithet of cannibal among his newly made biker friends though the kid could also scrap as he subsequently proved, for he had an aggressive, fearless nature.
And in the end there was a peculiar justice that surfaced from the whole affair though that wasn’t revealed until a week later and so to speak didn’t have anything to do with anything at least as far as what happened at the post office.
“Really?” said Hammond. “And what was that now?”
Well, a week or so later as the sot (Sarah’d gone back heavily on drink) had been cleaning out her garage where Barney kept his tools and work clothes, and while rummaging through the pockets of one of his jumpsuits she found an airplane ticket to Hawaii along with some cash which, naturally, she readily spent. In shock, not quite knowing what to make out of it, but being very happy with the money, she took the ticket down to the Sand Piper and showed it to Mort the freckle-faced script writer who commuted to Hollywood and she sometimes drank with.
“What… ? What’s this?” He said to her. “Girl you don’t know how lucky you were. You just came in under the wire. Your son saved you. This rascal (her moniker for Barney) was about to take off and jump bail. You’d’ve lost your house just like that. Now you’ve got several hundred dollars in your pocket. You can cash the ticket in instead.”
“I can?” She smiled. Mort was always trying to put the make on her. That wasn’t unusual as I said. Everyone was. But the acknowledgments, which she didn’t completely believe, made it a little easier for her to distance herself from the man she’d counted on. What more can one say. The direction she was headed, of course, would that be enough. It almost wasn’t, but that came later.
As to whether Johansson’s behavior after he moved back home and managed to give a wide birth to Emee, indicated a turn for the better or worse, who could say? He stepped back a peg from his former disruptive and dissipative demean only to assume an air somewhat like a preacher or doctor of you know what, now becoming the moralist, a part or role he’d, quite frankly, never dreamed of. This, of course, meant returning to Gloria, his first and real love though with an entirely different approach, for it’s usually the one you love the most you expect to extract sympathy and understanding from. In other words he’d gone bananas.
“You’re kidding?” said Hammond.
I said, “I’m not, certainly not. Though she still had a restraining order on him he decided once again to go after her but in a flip flop from the threat of violence to one of concern on her sacred behalf and well-being, as he now claimed to’ve come to see her as some sort of goddess if you can believe that.”
“I can,” said Hammond, “just from what you’ve said of her if nothing else, but do go on, if all of a sudden it sounds pathetic.”
“It was too.”
Although he didn’t exactly follow her around anymore, he managed to miraculously show up at some of the places she visited to address her and that was true whether she was with someone else or not. It was sort of like pass by commentary, a veritable monologue for she never answered him. She not only didn’t know how to but she was afraid to. For instance if she were sitting in the café he’d approach her table, doff his horrendous baseball cap and begin jabbering.
“I hear you’re going to law school. You’ll certainly do well at it. You’ve a brilliant mind, I wouldn’t be surprised if you ended up as a judge somewhere.”
She, of course’d, look askance. If at a friend, she’d blush. But in an instant he’d be gone. He’d said his piece and been satisfied by it. Nothing appeared to embarrass him or tell him this behavior might just be a little bit abnormal. He’d lost it. We declared him a nut case but definitely a pleasant one for whenever he saw us it was the same thing.
“How’re you guys anyhow, the real high rollers in town.” He said it with a subservient countenance but he was too serious to be kidding. We ignored him as soon as we saw him come in the door. He’d turned into an embarrassment for us. We turned away hoping he hadn’t noticed us but he had. We were like the very items he’d come there to find. He’d hold his hat, peer into the glass case of goodies as though they were the most delectable pastries in the world; then just as abruptly approach our table pretending they hadn’t held his attention one bit.
You can see how uncomfortable these antics could make a person. While Gloria and her girlfriend, Tricia, who worked in the café, were waiting in line at the movie theater on New Caledonia Street he approached them.
“Going to the show?” He’d asked them; then to Gloria. “That’s odd. Going in to see yourself?” And he’d scratch his head before he wandered off. Indicating, of course, she was the star of the movie she’d be going to see or something very nearly like it. She, naturally, felt sorry for him and though he was legally violating his restraining order for he wasn’t to come within twenty yards of her, she didn’t feel his presence serious enough to report him. And that did make her uneasy for when you’re exposed to an unbalanced individual, who’s formerly threatened you, there’s always the possibility they might suddenly snap and turn on you. It lurks in your mind. Then she had another problem.
“You’re kidding,” said Hammond. “That poor beautiful girl seems to have them all.”
“No I’m not.” Barth, the ex-newspaperman she’d taken up with to ‘tell things to’ and arouse Hartwig’s envy had finally become so bad with his violent coughing fits that Gloria, who’d been staying there, had called an ambulance and seen him off to the veteran’s hospital in the city where he could receive further treatment for his cancer. He was simply losing too much blood and she was tired of its disposal, which she’d undertaken herself since he wouldn’t touch it but would’ve had the entire flat decorated with Styrofoam cups full of the stuff. A sacred monument perhaps to himself no matter how stoically resolved he was to his condition. A personal sort of icon or cross. You just didn’t dare tell him that.
The radiologists had refused further dosage for he’d already received the standard and the chemotherapists would only treat him as long as he remained at the hospital. You know it makes you so sick anyhow you want to die and your hair falls out. Most of his had recently.
“And why would they only treat him in the hospital?” Said Hammond.
“Because there they could keep an eye on him and prevent his drinking. Like antibiotics, chemotherapy and booze don’t mix. And, quite frankly, that was the last sort of treatment available for him. The hormones hadn’t worked. They’d only exacerbated the cancer.”
“Really then,” said Hammond. “If the man felt so bad why didn’t he just end it himself? The doctors knew he was terminal didn’t they. Didn’t they tell him?”
“I imagine they did but doctors don’t want their patients to stop treatment for then they’ll be out of work,” I said. “And even so most people want to cling to that last breath of life though the man’d obviously threatened the act in front of the girl several times already. This old soldier, evidently, wasn’t one of the timid sorts when it came to eschatological issues.”
“You’re kidding?”
“No, in several drunken rages he’d pulled out his old nine millimeter Walther he’d had in the service, stepped before the bay window and pointed the thing at his head.”
“Do I want this?” He’d shake the barrel at his temple melodramatically, “or do I want this?” He’d lower the pistol and wave at the view.
“You know you want that,” Gloria’d say, pointing her shaking fingers at the tantalizing horizon, and then gently relieve him of the ice-cold pistol and restore it to the cabinet. Then he’d say,
“Let’s go down to Sam’s for one.” And the two of them’d walk along the lagoon through the foggy night to the cozy neighborhood bar on the bay, which always had a fire going. She’d spew her grief about Hartwig and he’d encourage her to.
“Just forget the prick. You can easily find someone else. Why if I were younger.”
Now all that’d ended. They were keeping him in the hospital. She had no more real reason to stay in the neighborhood. Her scene with Hartwig (if by then it was anything whatsoever) was in limbo though hopes of meeting someone else perhaps were still in the offing, for Sausalito was a romantic little city in case you’ve forgotten. But then her exasperation with Johansson who confronted her almost daily compounded and she obviously got to the point she felt uncomfortable living in the general area. She decided to move. She took advantage of Sylvia’s offer and relocated to the city. Perhaps she felt that would solidify her hold on Hartwig and bring him back to her. If she couldn’t have him she’d be next to his kin, the next best thing. Who knows what goes on in the mind of an obsessed young woman? They’re difficult to read when they’re normal.
She quit her job, the mover came for her things and guess who was there to see her off?”
“The maniac?” Said Hammond.
“No, in fact, someone else, someone she dearly loved. Perhaps more than Hartwig,” I added in a moment of exultation. “At least at times it might’ve appeared that way. This was Stanley, his dog.”
“You’re kidding?”
“No.”
He’d just been roaming the area as usual, had become curious at the moving of the furniture … after all how many nights had he spent at the foot of her bed when … But why go into that. The dog sat on his haunches like a loyal Samaritan until the van was full, checking and sniffing each of her things as they were loaded and when Gloria hopped in and it began to roll down the road the dog followed alongside barking. As if to say ‘stop, unpack those things and come back. You’re making a big mistake.
It
, it seemed didn’t want to let her go. Fearing it might get run over, Gloria had the mover stop and holding its collar she walked it stooped over back to the factory where she had one of the workers hold it until they were out of sight. Of course, she nearly broke down right there as she walked back to the van, for just hearing the dog howl and whine like that, but she hopped back into the truck and she and the driver were off presumably to bigger and better things, a new life and a new world. Most of us’ve had those moments in our lives. For some of us they’ve worked.
When Hartwig heard of this move he was upset. I don’t know why but he was although he seemed nonetheless determined to carry out his scheme with the heiress if anything even more so. Like a man possessed I might say. There he was before us in the café announcing his trip.
“Tomorrow we go to the city to get my passport and new clothes (that she was going to buy him) and in several weeks we’ll be on a plane to Lisbon. I’ll send you our itinerary from there.” He elicited a jovial laugh, which was answered typically by our gadfly photographer.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” but a tint of frustration had begun to creep into his face for I believe by that time he felt it inevitable he was going to lose the wager.
“I’m glad you won’t be there to see it,” was all Hartwig said. And we drank to that.
The rest of the time he spent getting ready. His keeper took him to Brooks Brothers in the city where she invested in no end of expensive clothes for him so that, of course, he might fit the role of the trophy she’d finally caught. At least by then I’m certain she felt she had. A new look, a motherly look had come upon her face when she was in Hartwig’s presence. We all noticed it and believed she had something definite in mind for her (their) future. The two of them had gone back to her mother (they certainly couldn’t go to Hartwig’s) and received a sincere sympathy from her regarding their future although Sandy hadn’t informed her of the trip and Hartwig certainly hadn’t volunteered to. She, I imagine, was waiting until they got back when she’d have something more significant to announce.
“And just what might that be?” Said Hammond.
“What else but marriage?” I said. “She you know by this time was madly in love with our hero but there was more to it than that…”
“And?”
She’d begun to feel the man’s weakness, which, of course, was money … I might say the weakness of us all … and didn’t mind it. She was willing to offer that, she felt if she could just have him. She wanted him to love her (had he really ever loved anyone except perhaps his dog?) and felt in his own way he did. If not in the romantic sense like Romeo or ‘Gone with the Wind’, so what. Who got that in real life? He was good enough for her and, a mistake of all women I might add with men like that, was she felt she could manipulate him. And you know I bet she could. If she just played her cards right he would marry her at this point and she could rule him by pulling the purse strings. As to how long such a merger might last is anyone’s guess. But how long does any marriage last nowadays where divorces are commoner than children. They’re like the meal one gets at a fast food chain. For people’ve finally found out, like most of our experiences, love doesn’t last forever and despite the family our culture says it’s all right to split up.
Hartwig’d lived and been with her awhile. Why couldn’t their association become a habit of longer duration? He could join the ‘boys’ club’ (Bohemian), spend her money in a demonstrative fashion. In every other way except perhaps her dinginess she was good enough. And if the thing came to an end in five or ten years he’d file for a settlement. Sandy knew she couldn’t have him on a prenupt. If they agreed on anything that was the tacit understanding between them. She’d even stopped seeing her other lover for the nonce, Brochowitz, or at least stopped reiterating to Hartwig her visits to the psycho, so he was out of the picture. The slate was clean or at least appeared to be. Their last big event was to be ‘poetry night’ here; then they were off.
“Poetry night?” Said Hammond. “What the hell’s that now?”
“Here, I’ll tell you.”
The third Thursday of every month was devoted to poetry at the café. Neighbors or even people from as far away as the peninsula or the east bay, who’d jotted down their thoughts or expressed their opinions of our society at large, would come there to read them on what was called an open mike. Some wrote poems; some prose, others mere musings but all were welcome. Singers and instrumentalists could also put in their ten minutes. Such events, certainly more genuine than
our
talent shows, were a godsend for Hartwig who because of his proficiency and the appeal of his instrument had become the cause celebre at them. The organizer always put him last and extended his time to twenty minutes instead of the usual ten. This was so the audience, many of whom were participants themselves, would stay through the entire event, even though to do so they’d have to sit through
those
who they didn’t want to hear. The crowds were large, the donation bowl passed about, and if you did manage to acquire a seat or standing space you didn’t want to leave it or it’d surely be taken. Due to that quirk Hartwig had a captive audience. The night lasted three or four hours so you had anywhere from fifteen or twenty persons performing at a session.
Sandy was keen on attending. Hartwig hadn’t taken her before and it was special to her for she’d now be seen on his arm before the Bohemian crowd, not merely the opera goers and that would cast a signal to those
doubters
that he was simply with her and no one else. One might compare it to being seen on the arm of a celebrity in one of the famous Hollywood haunts but, whether they were good or bad, poetry nights weren’t that superficial. Women’d cry, men’d shout imprecations at some wrong they’d recently suffered (and there were many even in a society supposedly as well off as ours) and the little ones, for many people brought their children, would look and listen in wonderment as before a puppet show.