In Nine Kinds of Pain Page 9

  Liz is silent.

  Dallas jams his (stroking) hand into his pants pocket, and produces some green bills. “Here, Julio,” he says, “keep the change!”

  Wednesday

  Here is Wisdom

  Jimmy Bible. He’s one of those “redneck cops” who can’t seem to draw a line between reality and the video game Grand Theft Auto. Or maybe he’s just watched too much Batman and considers himself a vigilante crimefighter, not a responsible peace officer with a badge. He likes to wave around his “tin” and isn’t opposed to, as he puts it, “crackin’ some skulls” to get the information he wants, or the bust he needs. Jimmy considers himself a “thinker” and enjoys imposing his theories on anyone around him who may or may not care. For instance, Jimmy theorizes that, if you live in Detroit, you can only be an ICP fan (a Juggalo) or an Eminem fan, but not both (ICP, for those of you not in the know, stands for Insane Clown Posse). If you ask Jimmy about Kid Rock, then he says, “I guess both could like Kid Rock, too.” So, if you have your wits about you, you can catch Jimmy not thinking everything through. Jimmy once killed a man, a Latino crackhead, who drew a pipe wrench on him, Jimmy claiming it was a sawed-off shot gun. Jimmy beat the crackhead to death with his police-issued-industrial-type flashlight. The Latino community was outraged, picketing the courthouse, erecting monuments and painted memorials all around Southwest Detroit for the slain crackhead, but the city ignored the Latinos and only temporarily suspended Jimmy. It wasn’t until Jimmy beat a black crackhead to death, a guy that he was using as his snitch, that the city acknowledged that Jimmy possessed no such License To Kill, and laid him off indefinitely. Jimmy writes poetry now from an undisclosed bunker (his basement).

  You walk to the other side of the park, past the trucking company that makes the park a dustbowl on a really dry day, the part of the park nearest to Dearborn, and you see the soccer fields. There’s a soccer tournament today, the Mexicans versus the Arabs. The Arabs used to have the park all to themselves to play soccer. In fact, they had the park all to themselves to do whatever they wanted with it, since the black & white people in the neighborhood were too afraid to use it anymore. The Arabs use the park as a giant parking lot during holy days of worship, when the loudspeakers blare a droning prayer from some man who obviously can’t carry a tune, and cars from (the license plates say) Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky (that Arab family must be the most popular in their little hometown in Kentucky!) and other states. And they had the park all to themselves to play soccer. But, when the population of Mexicans in Southwest Detroit exploded to infinity, they had competition as to the use of the soccer fields. Sometimes they just play against each other, because it’s easier that way. Most of the players from either side speak little English, but they don’t need to speak English. Those soccer games rival any professional game, because both sides are so good.

  Walk to the edge of the park and you’re steeped in the Middle East. During 9/11, it was scary there for the black & white people. The Caldeans were just waiting for some white person to say something hateful, anything hateful, and they were ready to stomp them to death. But that didn’t happen, from either side.

  Across from the park is the cemetery, and lining the cemetery gates are old houses, some still in decent shape. On the corner is a large empty lot where two houses once stood, but now the lot is owned by Frankenstein Anson Davis. He walks, talks, looks, acts just like Frankenstein (and would probably smell like Frankenstein if anyone really knew what Frankenstein smelled like), and when he chases you off his lot, he runs with his arms out straight, just like Frankenstein. Frankenstein Anson Davis looks like he has a used car lot on his corner (no car is newer than the 1986 brown Taurus), but he works on carburetors in his spare time, when he’s not escaping villagers with torches. He calls his place “Anson’s Carburetors” and only gets business from the people who don’t want to pay what Midas or some place like that charges. Anson’s full time job is at the Humane Society. He’s the Grim Reaper of the animal world, gassing someone’s beloved pet to death, which is an appropriate job for him since he looks like a ghoul to begin with. He got in trouble at his work a few years back. It was discovered that Anson wasn’t putting some of the dogs down—he would take the ones who were dying, who should have been put to sleep, sent to Doggie Heaven very peacefully, and sell them to local drugdealers, who train their attack pitbulls by allowing them to chase and kill the dogs Anson sold them. Anson would determine if a dog was stable enough to stand and allow itself to be chased (or, in most cases, mauled without much of a chase), or if it was in too poor a condition and not worth selling. Sometimes the dogs that Anson sold still had some fight left in them, like the Dalmatian bitch that was dropped off by its owner (who didn’t want to stay because he couldn’t bring himself to watch his dog die). Anson walked the dog in one side of the building and out the other. That dog gave one of the pitbulls a hell of a fight, according to Anson. But it still ended up being mauled to death. It was that Dalmatian that triggered the investigation on Anson, since no dog body was ever reported cremated and Anson’s supervisor got suspicious. When the supervisor began to tape Anson’s daily activities, he found that Anson was also feeding newborn pups, pups that “no one really wanted anyway,” according to Anson, to the snakes they had there.

  But Frankenstein Anson Davis was never fired, or suspended. Just told to stop.

  Father Costa’s Love for Baby

  She steps to him, swaddles his arm in her arms. “You look tired. But I’m here with you now. That’s all that matters. Right?”

  “Right,” he replies. “But you must be hungry, Mary my love, so let’s go inside the Temple. I have some food in there. Okay?”

  “The Temple, Jesus?”

  “Yes,” he says. “Follow me. Everything’s fine. Come inside with me.” He takes her dried hand. She fears the Temple, though.

  She is led up; up one-then-two-then-three steps, then she stops. “I’ll be up there in a minute,” she says. He soaks her up in his chestnut eyes. He releases her hand. The singing in his ears confirms that he is in love with her, because his heart leapt when he first saw her. Parting his hand from hers now, he feels alone, a pitiful feeling that he hates himself for, a sense of calling that he knows must have been felt between lovers. They are not lovers yet, though. He reaches the top of the stairs until he is at the white porch. His figure grows smaller to her in the flood of yellow morning as he vanishes through the Temple doors.

  The early-morning singing in the streets can be heard all the way into the vestibule of the Temple where he waits. He looks up and sees her standing in the iron-wrought fig-leafed doors. He listens.

  “I don’t belong here, in the Temple,” she says.

  “Yes, you do. You belong here as much as I do,” he replies. “You’re as much a part of the Temple as anyone in this city. As much as the rabbis, as much as the sick, as much as the broken-hearted. You’re the crucibulum, the necessary crucibulum. You still serve to perpetuate God’s will, even though you have turned your back on him. Do you understand what I’m saying, Mary?”

  She approaches him. She takes her finger and caresses his wrist. “Does that hurt you?” she asks.

  “No,” he replies.

  She lifts her finger and caresses his scarred forehead. “Does that hurt you?”

  “No.”

  She kneels in a crouch and caresses the top of his foot. “Does that hurt you?”

  “No.”

  She caresses the top of his other foot before straightening.

  “Why did you ask those things of me?” he says.

  “I don’t know,” she replies. “But I see you hurting. I see wounds in you.”

  She excuses herself and goes down the dark hallway toward the prayer room. Standing alone, he listens. The singing outside has stopped. He wonders why. Less than a minute later she returns with a vessel full of an unguent that smells of the soft brown moss that one could only see growing wild in the shallows of the Palestinian rocks. T
he spikenard is precious, and expensive, and is probably here in the Temple to be bartered with later for food for the guests.

  She draws it to him and begins to stroke his feet with it.

  “Does this relax you?” she asks.

  “Do I appear tense?”

  “Yes, you do,” she says softly, “and tired. And your coloring is off. You look pale, and sick. Are you sick?”

  He is. “No,” he says. “I’m just a little nervous. I want to speak at the Temple porch this afternoon, and I’m a little afraid. That’s all.”

  She cradles his one foot in her lap, wiping it with her silk dress, and then begins to stroke the other foot in the oil. “You’ve spoken here before, Jesus, so I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

  “Yes, you’re right. I’ve spoken here before. But not under these circumstances.”

  “What circumstances?” she asks.

  “Never mind,” he says. “Are you going to spend the night here in the Temple with me? There’s no where else in the city for you to stay. All my friends are staying here in the Temple with me.”

  “With you?”

  “With me . . . and the rest, too. I want you here.”

  “Why?”

  “I want you around,” he says. “That’s why.”

  “Then, you just want me in the Temple to be beside you?”

  “I always want to be with you, Mary. I want you to be around me. I like to breathe you in, then exhale you. Is that so wrong?”

  She smiles. “It was never wrong, Jesus . . . with me, anyway. It was only wrong with you.”

  And God the Father, he thinks.

  “Then stay,” he says. “Let’s get you some food, woman. Okay?”

  “I can’t stay, but thanks for the offer.”

  He grimaces. “What? Where are you going to stay then?”

  “With Joanna. In the south part of the city.”

  “Joanna . . . the wife of Herod’s steward?”

  “Yes,” she says. She wipes off his other foot.

  “So you’re staying in Herod’s palace then?”

  “No,” she replies. “Herod’s in Galilee right now, and she’s at her old place. By the theater.”

  He nods. “Okay. Just be careful. You know that I trust you, right?”

  “I know,” she says.

  “You know your fidelity to me was never in question,” he says. “I trust you. I know you will never read with another. That’s why I want you to keep a promise to me.”

  “Anything,” she replies. She sits up attentively.

  “Good,” he says. “I want you to leave here after my death.”

  She appears puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I need you to leave here, Jerusalem, and this whole area after my death. You can’t stay around here. After I’m gone, no one will protect you, and they’ll be after you.”

  “Should I ask why?” she says.

  “I think you know why,” he says. “Just promise me you’ll go. As far away as possible.”

  She picks herself from the floor and sits next to him. “About your death, I won’t speak. I promise.”

  “Good,” he says.“I want you to stay in the Roman province, just not here. Go east, near Gaul, or maybe the Pyrenees. Or maybe west. The people of Rome must also hear my words, and of me. You will be very important in that regard. You will be an important instrument.”

  She keeps her eyes down, so he lifts her chin until her eyes met his. “That will be your punishment for loving me.”

  Their dialogue is broken when she stands. “Father, I’m going back to my room now. To take a nap. And then I’ll be going out later to get some air. You need anything?” He appears to her to be in thought, his eyes glazed. “Father?”

  Costa looks up at her and wipes his mouth. He doesn’t say anything.

  “Well, if you need something, I’ll be up in my room.”

  “Mary?” he says.

  She turns. “Did you say something, Father?”

  “I love you,” he says.

  “I love you too, Father,” she says. She’s thankful for him.

  But her eyes showed puzzlement. He doesn’t know if she really feels that same love for him. She doesn’t realize that only her touch can provide to him that burning passion, and he feels his heart ache with her absence.

  Dallas’ Lunch at the Bar

  The last thing Dallas wants to be reminded about is the police department. He has bigger fish to fry. Which reminds him that he’s hungry, so he orders some fried fish fingers and fries and a tall one. When he meets with civilians, he likes to meet them at Dial-A-Rib down the street, because it’s All-You-Can-Eat and not cop territory. But when he meets with other cops, he likes to meet here, at the Shugar Shack, because it’s a cop hang-out, and what cops do in the Shugar Shack stays in the Shugar Shack.

  Dallas nods to the next table. He recognizes one of the guys, the one eating the frog legs. That guy’s one of the Big Four. And since that guy’s eating with three other guys, Dallas assumes the other guys are Big Four, too. Dallas had a chance to be Big Four, but he decided not to. Big Four has a bad reputation in the city. Big Four rides in a black Impala with all tinted windows (which is a violation of city code for cars registered in the city) and drives slowly. Big Four don’t put up with no shit. Big Four will take you down. Dallas had a chance to be Big Four. Now Dallas knows he will never be allowed to be Big Four.

  A Tall Black Man enters the Shugar Shack. It’s Ronald Frady.

  “Over here,” Dallas says, motioning to the corner table behind the pool table. He likes this table, because it’s out of the way and hides in the dark.

  “Hey, buddy,” Frady says, stripping off his jacket. “You have some good news for me?”

  “You like fish?” Dallas asks. “I ordered me some fish.”

  “Naw,” Frady replies, “I haven’t liked fish since I was a kid. Now, any news?”

  Frady looks directly into Dallas’ eyes and knows at that second, knows instinctively, knows for sure, 100%, that Dallas found her. And he wonders if Dallas will hesitate in telling him where Baby is. Is Dallas going to hold out for something, maybe money? Is Dallas her friend now? Maybe, he thinks, he should follow Dallas tonight, find out where she is, find out if Dallas is fucking her or not, find out if she has his stuff? Dallas knows, Frady knows. Dallas knows.

  “I don’t know where she is,” Dallas says. “I checked all my spots and asked around. I ain’t seen her, and nobody else has either.” He thanks the waitress for his fish, and shoves a fry in his mouth.

  Frady lights a cigarette. “Nobody knows where she is. That’s what you’re telling me,” he says.

  “That’s what I’m saying,” Dallas says. He doesn’t look up at Frady, which confirms to Frady that he’s lying. “Nobody seen her since that day. Maybe she’s laying low. She’ll come out eventually.”

  “Well, I can’t tell you how disappointed I am,” Frady says. “I’m very disappointed. But, you did all you could do, right buddy? You did your best, so I can’t fault you for that. I’ll still help you out, though, and if you hear something, you’ll call me at the station, right?”

  “Oh yeah,” Dallas says. Frady sees that Dallas suddenly looks relieved. Frady knows that he’s going to pay Dallas a visit. But first, he’s going to see how things go with the Canadians. He has to meet with them tonight. “You sure you don’t want some fish?” Dallas asks.

  “I told you,” Frady says, standing to leave, “I don’t like fish.”

  WednesdayintoThursday

  Here is Wisdom

  If you live in the city, then you know that winter is the best time of year. Winter is peaceful. All the noise is inside. And in the winter, crime slows down, because it’s just too cold to kill and steal.

  And the snow, the snow also makes it harder to be a criminal, because it’s always in the way. It’s harder to run from the scene of a crime in snowboots through two feet of snow.

>   Winter is usually a time for the criminally minded to work out their plans for what they will do in the spring. They will raise holy hell, by God! This city won’t know what hit it—when it gets warmer outside.

  One of the drawbacks to the introduction of winter, getting into the holiday season, is having to deal with Devil’s Night. A great standing tradition within the borders of the city of Detroit. National newscasts used to focus their attention on Devil’s Night in Detroit—which for you not in the know is the night before Halloween—because they like to see Detroiters burn Detroit to the ground. It’s mostly abandoned houses that go up in flames, of which Detroit’s cup runneth over, but the abandoned houses are near occupied dwellings and, you figure out the rest. The Detroit Fire Department will tell you that they discourage and abhor Devil’s Night, but they go through the trouble of printing up t-shirts proclaiming their involvement in “surviving” the night, bragging about how many runs they had. It’s a strange dynamic, a Mystery of the Firefighters’ Faith—they hate the fires, yet love the fires. And once that night’s over, you sigh in relief, because you know that winter isn’t far behind.