Karima called Ray a faggot, told him to go fuck himself, then got out of the car and slammed the door behind her. Ray drove away, hut he had to pull over when tears came to his eyes, tears he tried to push back into his head by squeezing the bridge of his nose.
The next morning. Ray woke up when he sensed someone standing over his bed. He opened his eyes and saw George — bloodshot, puffy, bearded George — brandishing a brand-new pair of industrial-strength bolt cutters.
“Wake up,” George hissed. “Come on, wake up! I need your help.”
The city had finally pulled George’s business license and closed him down for good. There was an order posted on the restaurant’s front door, right above the thick chains that were wrapped and locked around the handles.
“I can’t do this,” Ray said, holding the bolt cutters George had shoved in his hands. “Read that. I’ll get put in jail if I monkey with the lock.”
“Hell!” George said. “Nobody’s looking. And if anyone asks, I’ll say I did it!”
Ray looked over both shoulders before he fastened the cutters around the thick lock. He closed his eyes and squeezed the handles until he felt the metallic burst of the lock as it snapped in two. George pushed Ray out of the way, pulled the chains off the door, then unlocked it and hurried inside.
Ray didn’t want to follow George, but he watched him from the open doorway and thought he should try to at least talk him back outside. He watched George scurry around the empty restaurant, muttering to himself as he counted the empty tables and chains. And though Ray knew there was little he could do, he quietly stepped inside and said, “George, please come back out. It’s over. This has gone too far.”
“We are still open, goddammit,” George said.
“Please,” Ray told him. “We’ll wait until things simmer down. Let’s just go home.”
George dismissed the idea with a quick, backhanded wave as he continued pacing the floor, taking this unnecessary inventory of what he still believed was his. Ray, unable to feel pity for George, left the bolt cutters by the door and turned to leave George by himself.
“Ray,” George said, and Ray stopped. “You will be here tonight. You will be here to work.”
And Ray, knowing he had no other choice, said, “Sure, George. I’ll be here.”
That night, Ray Dwyer put on a crisp white shirt and charcoal slacks, and carefully groomed his hair with two fingertips of Royal Crown pomade. And though he’d just polished his black leather shoes the day before, he decided to polish them again. He stood before the bathroom mirror and admired how handsome he still looked after all these years. Sure, his hair was gray and his green eyes, though still clear and strong, had bags under them, but for a fifty-year-old man. Ray knew he could do a lot worse Ray Dwyer also knew he didn’t have much, and that he was probably only hours away from having less than that, which is why he didn’t fed too proud or full of himself for enjoying the few simple things that still belonged to him: his fancy clothes, his muscles, and his good looks.
The many regulars who showed up to see the dancers that night didn’t know they were trespassing, and, actually, neither did the dancers. Still, the patrons were a little rowdier than usual when Karima danced: occasionally, one of the men pinched her, and lots of the men whistled and cheered like a hunch of bachelor party drunks. Ray, on his toes as usual, wagged his finger to calm them down.
George seemed to be encouraging this disorder by whistling at Karima as well. At one point he even pinched her hip, then held out a bill she took in her teeth. Before that. George had marched around the restaurant, shaking the patrons’ hands and bellowing, “Welcome to my place! You can come here to see these beautiful dancers every goddamn night of the week, and you’ll always be welcome!”
Ray could see that even the patrons found George’s behavior more than strange; many gave one another sidelong glances once George left their tables, yet they still ordered their drinks and cheered when Karima sauntered onto the floor.
Everyone, however, seemed to settle once Rita was well into her number, as everyone usually did while she was on. The audience didn’t cheer, whistle, or grab at her, but only stared with a marked and sluggish attention common to those under the influence of narcotics. Her watery movement even relaxed Ray, who leaned against the wall by the men’s room and closed his eyes, slightly happy and thankful he’d at least had a chance to work in such a special place, even if it had only been for a handful of months. And then something happened.
First a bunch of men said, “Hey!” and “What the hell?” and when Ray opened his eyes, he saw nothing but darkness, and realized Rita’s music had stopped; the power had been shut off. He heard George call his name, but couldn’t move from the spot where he leaned. Before Ray knew it, the lights were back on, the music was playing again, and the front door was pushed open by an army of what looked like twenty-five Tinley Park cops.
“Show’s over!” one of the cops said. “Everyone out!”
Then someone threw a glass, another yelled, “Fuck you!” and that’s when all hell broke loose. The cops charged in with their flashlights and nightsticks, swinging at men who’d overturned tables, tossed chairs, and they even swung at the men who weren’t too drunk and only trying to leave. Ray was frozen, petrified beyond movement, and when he heard George yelling for him, calling his name over and over, Ray only became more frightened, and he slid into the bathroom and closed the door.
The first two cops who burst in would have probably only slugged Ray Dwyer a few times if he’d simply listened when they said, “Come on, fucko. Let’s go. Come on,” but he didn’t really hear what the cops said; he only stood there, petrified, hearing threats, and not orders, shooting from their mouths.
The last time he’d had a run-in with the police — when Ray Dwyer had fought them, that is — was when he was a proud, fresh, eighteen-year-old union quarry trucker who was blocking the Tamco entrance gate, on strike with the other drivers and machinists who were up against a greedy, no-good management staff that was trying to yank the food right out of their goddamn mouths; he’d fought the cops who’d tried to pull them away so the dirty goddamn scabs could get through, and had been a hero. He’d been bailed out of jail by the president of the local, who bought him a drink that afternoon at the Stone City tavern, right there on Patterson Road. Loads of guys bought Ray drinks that afternoon, so many drinks that they eventually had to carry him home to his mother and three younger sisters. And for weeks after that, loads of guys slapped his back and told him how proud his old man would have been, seeing his boy, Ray, stand up to them cops like that. A real Dwyer, they’d called him. An honest-to-God fucking Dwyer.
But this time. Ray Dwyer wasn’t on strike against anyone; he was simply confused and scared, as were the five, ten, then fifteen cops who beat and dragged him out of the bathroom when he wouldn’t come out on his own. Later, these cops would say Ray Dwyer swung at them, but he honestly couldn’t remember.
And once they had Ray Dwyer on the floor, the very same floor where Rita, only moments earlier, had relaxed a roomful of drunken men with mature, calculated beauty, the police officers swung their nightsticks and flashlights high above their heads, and beat Ray Dwyer within a stifled breath of his life.
Ray’s body didn’t take the beating as well as it had thirty years earlier. This time, the cops left much more than a smooth scar under his hair. One of his lungs was collapsed, one of his arms broken, and the doctors were quite sure Ray Dwyer would never see out of his left eye again.