Dead Low Winter. T.K. O'Neill

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СКАЧАТЬ dead brown weed stocks and piles of snow-flecked coal lying next to rusty railroad cars and the ghostly hulls of semi-trailers. A phalanx of railroad tracks spider-webbed around a metal hangar and led out of town toward better places.

      I turned left on Tower and headed uptown. The streets were pretty empty, as it was still early. Away from the waterfront the bars went upscale. In Bay City this meant they were cleaned once in a while and had bouncers. At least a few of them did. I drove by the Cave Cabaret, featuring The Zenith City Gloom Band, and past a “Girls, Girls, Girls” sign at the Castaway. Then in a blur of neon and exhaust came the Casablanca, the Brass Rail, Zanuzowski’s, Yellow Submarine, Tommy Byrne’s, the Poodle Lounge, Dugout Bar, the Capri, the Lamplighter, the Androy Hotel, the Elbow Room, D.T.’s, the Anchor, the Douglas, Betty Boop’s, the Kro Bar, the Trio, the Classy Lumberjack and the Red Lace Massage Parlor.

      Just past Bob’s Chop Suey House, I turned left and went to John Avenue—appropriately famous for its three whorehouses—turned right, drove down one block and parked in the glow of the Port Town Hotel sign hanging from the wall of a dark brick flophouse. Across the street was a Laundromat and a closed café—DINAH’S KITCHEN, on a faded sign.

      I was five minutes early for the pick-up so I pulled out a Kool from my pack above the visor and fired up with some matches from Jasmine’s Lounge, Where You Always Have A Good Time. I flipped the button on the transistor radio lying on the seat. Jagger came on wailing about love in vain. About that I thought I knew. Then something crossed through the glare from the naked bulb in the pea-green hotel entryway and I turned to see two good-looking girls strutting toward my cab. I remember thinking it was my lucky night.

      I feasted my eyes on a tall, dark-haired, clean-faced beauty in a long brushed leather coat. Dark tortoise shell glasses, hair stuffed up inside a floppy brown felt hat and a black silk scarf tied loosely around her neck. The other girl was a short blond with long straight hair—cute in a baby doll sort of way. She wriggled inside a bird’s egg blue high school letter jacket with a white W on the front. The girls got in the cab, followed closely by a rush of cold air and the scent of sweet perfume, alcohol and chewing gum.

      I was putty in ten seconds flat.

      I drove them over to the Castaway and the only thing I could think of to say was, “You girls from around here?” The blond answered yes and the brunette said no. Then they laughed and stared out the windows. I did the same, still trying to think up something clever to say, to no avail. The town looked gray and dirty and the few people on the streets, ugly. I parked in front of the club and the chicks shuffled through their purses for the fare. I figured they must be exotic dancers. Why else would a chick go to a strip bar? Unless maybe they were lesbians. And that would be all right, too. They sure were pretty.

      I was just about to ask their names and maybe their phone numbers—at least the tall one, anyway—when I saw this scrawny punk of a guy come scrambling out the side door of the Castaway and start running across the parking lot like the devil himself was chasing. The dude’s shirt was torn up and there was blood and spit all over his face. And I knew the guy. Harvey Dornan was his name. A small-time dealer/hustler who anybody with any brains steered clear of. He’d been missing from the scene for a few years but recently I’d seen him back on the streets and in the bars.

      Shortly after Harvey went rocketing by, two big guys in oxblood leather jackets and creased trousers came busting out after him. They were pointing and yelling and running when a third guy—sandy haired pompadour, short leather jacket, blue jeans and a sadistic look—jumped out the door of a brown Lincoln and dished out a forearm shiver to the throat of the running hippie.

      I jumped out of the cab and yelled Hey. But they didn’t pay me any mind. I started running to where Harvey was down but one of the husky dudes pulled a huge black gun from under his jacket and pointed it in my direction. I needed only that one hint. Harvey was fucked up anyway.

      I ran back to the cab and jumped in and looked back to see if they were coming my way. Much to my relief they threw the kid in the back of the Continental and drove off. Then I realized the girls were gone. Three dollars for the fare lay on the front seat along with a dollar tip. I lifted up the bills and put them to my nose to see if the ladies’ scent was still on them. It was. I made a mental note to go to the Castaway for a show real soon and got the hell out of there.

      I laid low in Bay City and waited for my regular Monday-through-Friday fare, taking a guy from the Androy Hotel to the grain terminal for the overnight shift. But after that I was still a little shaky so I drove back over to Zenith City and sat outside the Norshor Theatre for a few minutes to calm my nerves. Close Encounters of the Third Kind, it said on the flashing marquee. My nerves didn’t calm down at all. And even though I could have used a few more bucks I drove to the Blue and White office and checked out for the night. I didn’t tell Al the vein-nosed phlegm factory of a dispatcher anything about the incident, just said I was a little ill.

      I got in my Olds and wasted no time getting back over the bridge.

      Going by the Castaway I couldn’t stop thinking about that girl—the dark eyed one—but I kept on driving. I was a little short on cash. I drove to the gray-shingled barn-like duplex where I’d lived for the last three months and parked in a circle of amber light under a sodium lamp in the alley. I walked up the faded back stairs to the faded entryway, stepped around the empty cases of Leinenkugel’s and the old paint cans and put the key in the lock of the ugly Aqua-Velva-blue door.

      My roommate Mick was passed out on the couch in the living room kicking out jackhammer snores, a beer bottle balanced on his slightly rounded stomach, the thumb and forefinger of his right hand holding it upright in a nocturnal death grip. I settled back into the weakened springs of the easy chair and watched the dust motes drift up into the yellow glow of the table lamp. A black and white movie droned on the old tube; Daniel Webster was being seduced by the devil. People and shapes and disembodied voices were trying to pull Daniel over to the dark side.

      Shit was eerie. Webster must have had a hard time making his dictionary with those bastards on his ass.

      I got up and turned the dial, found a Kojak rerun on channel thirteen. Kojak made me feel secure. If Kojak was your daddy and you ever got in trouble, you can bet he’d get you out of it. But I never liked the dude who played the sidekick so I shut off the TV and went to bed.

      * * *

      The next day a biting Alberta Clipper roared into town, dropping three inches of dry snow followed by a blast of arctic air. I was in no shape to wrestle with the beast of winter. It was shut down dead stop, grinding to a halt cold. The kind of cold where the car exhaust lays down low to the ground and the wind is all the time trying to get inside your face and rip your eyes out. The sun has no warmth and cars don’t start. Furnaces break down and water pipes burst. You can feel the cold pinching in through the windows and underneath the doors. You need some kind of routine to get you through, something solid in your life to hang onto. Me, I had myself a motto: Do what you have to do and stay drunk the rest of the time.

      Fate seemed to have it in for me and I didn’t have a lot to be thankful for except that liquor was cheap in Bay City—real cheap. That helped, being I was off the coke. In my own way, I was going through rehab. I provided the castigation.

      Slowly my obsession with cocaine was beginning to lift. The drug makes you selfish and greedy and all you care about is drugs and money and sex. After being off the shit for a while, I started thinking about others again, like my wife and son.

      Poor Loraine was getting fat and so was little Mike and I blamed her. If only I could’ve seen the kid more often I could’ve straightened him out. But Loraine told him I was a no good character and that made it hard, if you know what I mean. Then she moved back in with her Jesus-freak СКАЧАТЬ