The hardness in my jeans had slipped away.I gave her a smile as fake as all of hers had been.
“That’s not what Dookie said,” I told her.
Her eyes narrowed and she snorted.“What does that little faggot know?”
I didn’t have an answer, so she turned and stomped away.
24
The Hole was a dive.That much I had expected.I hadn’t expected it to be so dark inside.Or nearly empty.Out here on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, I figured business would be brisk, even at three in afternoon.
Coming from the light outside to the darkness inside gave everyone a chance to check me out before I could even be sure how many people were inside the bar.I noticed the fat guy behind the bar immediately.An old man who was no doubt a regular sat at the far end of the bar.In the corner, a skinny black kid who couldn’t have been old enough to be in the place sat whispering to a blonde woman in a Raiders jersey standing next to him.
I moved to the bar and saw that the fat bartender had a sour-puss for a face.He looked at me for several seconds from his position half way down the bar, as if he were considering whether or not to serve me.Finally, he stepped over, looking incredibly put out.He put both hands on the bar and leaned toward me slightly.A slightly misshapen “USMC” was visible on his forearm.
“Getcha?” he muttered, still unhappy at moving.
I wasn’t supposed to drink, ever since it became a problem for me.The drink and the tranks.But I beat both and I could have an occasional beer and not go crazy.At least I figured I could, unlike those pathetic addicts I’d met in all those meetings I had to attend.They had no will power. Besides, I knew I wasn’t going to get far in this place ordering club soda.
“Labatt Blue?”
His eyes narrowed.“You want Canadian, I got Molson.Otherwise, it’s Heineken or Budweiser.”
“Molson, then,” I said.“In the bottle.No glass.”
If he cared that I didn’t want to drink from a glass in his place, he didn’t show it.He pulled a Molson from the cooler and popped the top.
“Five bucks,” he said as he slid it in front of me.
That was steep and I knew it.I also saw that he didn’t have his prices posted, like he was supposed to.It was a good bet he was hitting me for at least an extra dollar and would pocket the difference.That is, if he was just tending bar and wasn’t the owner.If he was the owner, he was just raising his profit margin.
I put a ten on the bar and he quickly made change.I didn’t figure he got too many bar checks from Liquor Control agents.Not with his volume.They would be tied up with whatever new place downtown was drawing all the hot women, and hence all the guys chasing them.Those places would do in a night what this former Marine did in a week.So they got the attention and he got to play his little games with the Molson or whatever else he felt like doing.
I left the five ones on the bar and took a slug of the Molson.It was cool and crisp and the taste of it immediately made me want to drink it down and order another.Instead, I sipped it a second time and put the bottle back on the bar.
The trick was to act like I wasn’t interesting at all and that should get everyone interested.I knew I didn’t fit in.The bars I belonged in had well worn bar stools, maybe some repairs made with colored duct tape, but the tears in the seats weren’t left alone like they were in this place.The people who came to The Hole didn’t bother combing their hair in the morning and no one noticed.Or cared if they did.
I’m poorbut clean, I thought, suppressing a smile.I hoped that my long walk had served to dirty me up a little.I’d purposely tousled my hair some before coming inside.The jeans I had on were simple Levi’s and were well worn.The T-shirt underneath was a plain blue.Neither one would raise an eyebrow, even in here.My jacket might, though.It was the dark brown leather jacket that every American male owns, a knock off of the World War Two bomber jacket.I imagine my generation probably wore the jacket more due to Indiana Jones than those heroes of the air, but either way, every guy seemed to have one.Mine had belonged to my dad.God knows wherehe got it or why he kept it, but it was the only thing of his I had.
If I’d known I was coming to The Hole, I’d never have worn it.Of course, if I’d known how much walking I was going to do today, I wouldn’t have worn my cowboy boots, either.At least they were heavily worn and a scarred dark brown that didn’t suggest wealth of any kind.
I sat and sipped and waited.The sourpuss bartender made a point to ignore me, standing in what must have been “his spot” with his arms crossed.The old man at the end of the bar showed no interest, either.He sat and stared down at the shot glass in front of him and every so often, he’d lift it with shaking hands and take a small sip.Sometimes he’d cough and it was a horrible, phlegm-filled sound that reeked of death.After each coughing fit, he brought a wavering hand to his lips and puffed on his cigarette.The smoke curled up around his face.I knew if I sat there long enough, he’d ask me to “buy an old man a drink.”
I figured the woman in the Raiders jersey to be one of Rolo’s working girls.She wore a pair of stretch shorts and a long Raiders jersey that hung down almost like a skirt.Compared to Tiffany, though, this one was a looker.If it’d been her grabbing me behind the paint store, we would’ve been talking about more than forty bucks.
I put her out of my mind.It was the kid I was interested in, the one that sat next to her in the booth. Every now and then she leaned down and he whispered with her.He wore a light blue basketball jersey over a white t-shirt.Silky black pants and oversized high tops rounded out his attire.He sat on the very edge of the booth, both feet out from underneath the table.
It was too dark for me to guess his age.Still, he had to be well under twenty-one.He couldn’t be Rolo.
Could he?
I thought about how young some of the criminals had been when I worked the streets.I remembered once that Tom Chisolm and I stopped a car with three Mexican bangers on their way back from an attempted drive by.We’d held them there until a few more units were on scene and then brought them out one by one.The third suspect came from the back seat and stood about four feet tall.I swear to God, I thought he was a midget.But he wasn’t.It was eleven year old Esteban Guitterez, younger brother to Rueben and Benito.They ran in some Brown Pride gang that was only local.When we did our searches, it was the eleven year old, Esteban, who had two Star nine millimeters in his waistband.
Rueben and Benito had probably given him the guns to hold as soon they spotted us behind them, knowing that a juvenile wouldn’t get any serious time for a weapons possession.That’s probably what happened.Probably.That was easier to believe than Esteban as the designated shooter in the drive by.
That happened over ten years ago.From what little I paid attention to the news, it seemed to be getting worse, not better.A picture of sixteen-year-old Kris Sinderling, looking twenty if she were a day, flashed in my mind.
Could an eighteen-year-old black kid run whores out on East Sprague?
Yeah, maybe.I just didn’t think so.Maybe it was the old-school traditionalist in me, but I wanted a guy in a purple Cadillac, wearing furs and rings and a wide brim hat.More likely, it was just the way the kid carried himself.He had the edginess of one who serves, not the confidence of one who is served.
I sipped my Molson and waited.
25
I polished off the first Molson and sipped my way through most of another when my patience was rewarded.
The door swung open and light filtered in through the doorway.Outside had grown considerably darker since I’d come in. I realized I’d be walking home in the dark.I thought of the distance and the terrain and all the crack and gangsters and whores between me and home and decided right then that I’d take a cab.I also started wishing I’d brought along my gun.It would’ve been illegal for me to carry it in the bar due to state law but the reassuring weight of a short-barreled.45 would have been nice.