Fogtown (3 page)

A respiratory virus had been circulating throughout the Tenderloin. There was a dull tone to Richard Rood’s skin, courtesy of the flu. Without being asked, he sat down at Stiv’s table and issued bad vibes. He said, “Where in damnation have you been?”

Stiv was concise. “Around.”

“We’ve got trouble.”

“Who does?”

“You and me.”

“We do?”

“For reals and I’m only going say four things here, dig? Let me chop it up for you,” Richard said. “You’ve been fucking me. You can’t turn shit into sugar and I don’t want any excuses from you. I just want my money.”

Stiv sipped at his coffee and remained poker-faced. He was resplendent in a red Pendleton shirt that he’d gotten at the flea market in Berkeley, blue Ben Davis jeans, and a black leather motorcycle jacket; his hair had been recently barbered into a modified quiff and was stiff with Brylcreem. His steel-toed Chippewa engineer boots were planted flat on the floor.

Richard’s accusation was indisputable. The dealer had fronted Stiv an ounce of
mota
to sell. Not the good stuff, not Humboldt green; Richard didn’t trust him with top-quality merchandise. The product had been Sinaloa dirt weed, a lousy grade that attacked your lungs as if it were napalm. The wholesale price to Stiv had been four hundred dollars. A tad inflated, but reasonable. Anything Stiv earned over that sum was his to keep. But Stiv wasn’t a good businessman. Nor was he practical. Instead of selling the pot, he’d smoked the whole bag. Stiv knew he’d erred. It was no secret. And he didn’t have the money. He didn’t have anything. He had nada. He paused before answering Richard, taking his time, and then said, “I’m sorry, man. I ain’t got it.”

With a moue of disbelief, Richard Rood rolled his eyes and chastised him. “What did you do with the weed? Did you even sell it?”

Stiv demurred. “I didn’t do a damn thing with it.”

“Then where is it?”

“It’s gone.”

Richard zeroed in for the kill. “You smoked it, didn’t you?”

“Did not.”

“Did too. You’ve got it written all over your tired-ass face. You smoked it.”

Stiv put the coffee cup on the table and threw his hands in the air. The gesture was saturated with defeat. “Okay, okay, I did. What can I say, dude? It’s a weird time. I’ve got a wife and kid. I’m stressing and shit.”

Because he was sick, Richard Rood’s throat hurt and it was difficult to talk. He should’ve been at home in bed. Instead he was running all over town collecting his money. His nose was stuffed up and he couldn’t inhale through his nostrils. His eyes flamed red with disgust as he said, “Once you dipped into the bag, you couldn’t stop smoking. So you just kept going.”

Rood’s reputation had its origin in the puckered, cross-shaped blob of scar tissue that ornamented his forehead. Legend had it, a rival drug dealer dusted on PCP—the man believed he was the reincarnation of Judas Iscariot—had been mad at Richard for stealing a jar of morphine tablets. The rumor of the theft had spread in the ghetto with the speed of a venereal disease. Everyone knew a showdown was coming and that it would be nasty.

Exhibiting his customary disdain for no-count idiots, Richard had ignored the gossip and gone about his business. His mistake proved near fatal as his adversary cornered him in an alley one fine evening and shot him point-blank in the face with a .22 Colt derringer.

A derringer is a modest gun, suitable for low-key situations such as a brawl at a party or a rumble in a nightclub. For assassinations, it isn’t adequate. The derringer’s bullet, the kind of ordnance that was sold under the counter at swap meets, blossomed out of the barrel and hit Richard Rood in the head. But it failed to penetrate his skull. The slug planted itself between his eyebrows, sticking out of his skin like avant-garde jewelry.

Realizing he wasn’t dead, Richard underwent a severe mood swing. Not having any family, he felt alone. More alone than he’d ever been in his life. That had hurt more than the bullet. Being vain, he was enraged that his flawless complexion had been marred. He tugged at the slug with his fingers, but couldn’t get it out. Half-blinded from
the blood running down his skin, he caressed the twisted piece of lead that was supposed to have killed him.

His foe took off, never looking back.

Because he was uneducated—a tenth-grade dropout from San Francisco’s Galileo High School—Richard wasn’t quite sure what the bullet in his noggin was supposed to mean. But from then on, his rep was sterling. No one ever dared to tangle with him.

Aware of Richard Rood’s history, Stiv did an inventory on himself. He was young and didn’t have a pot to piss in. The only thing he had going was a penchant for recklessness that bordered on self-destruction.

“Stiv, pay attention to me.”

“Uh, what?”

“You don’t know shit from Shinola. You are lower than a broke-dick dog.”

Stiv’s reply was marinated in resignation. “You’re right.”

Richard’s jheri curls were a black corona around his face. He flexed his biceps and heard the distinct sound of a jacket inseam giving way. The cheap stitching in his suit was busting apart. “Sure as hell,” he said. “You’ll have to pony up that money.”

Stiv parried. “And if I don’t?”

“Further trouble will befall your ass.”

The two men were sitting face-to-face. Except that the top of Richard’s head was level with Stiv’s chin. All sounds in the space between them died away, building disquietude polluted with cynicism. The other customers in the café had prudently departed. The counter-person was busy washing dishes in the back. Stiv was of two minds. Part of him said to drop it and walk away. Deal with the problem later. Worry about the money some other time. That was the passive Stiv. Another side of him wanted to get mad and cause a scene. That was his aggressive streak talking. But he was afraid of Richard. Crossing the man would earn him a one-way excursion to the morgue with a death certificate tied to his foot and a burial in a pine box. Thinking rapidly, he pontificated, “All right, man, I’ve got a plan.”

Richard Rood wasn’t impressed. “What is it?”

Stiv leaned forward and gave the dealer his most sincere look. The illumination in the café reflected the nervous warmth in his eyes. “Give me another day.”

“To do what?”

“To get the money.”

Rood smiled with heartfelt malevolence. His big white incisors were wet with spit. “And what if you don’t come up with it?”

Stiv didn’t know what was worse, the diminutive Richard, or his own rash mouthing. “Don’t sweat it,” he said confidently. “I’ll get the cash.”

Staring out the window at the rain, Stiv had other issues on his mind that were even worse than Richard Rood. The rent on the room at the Allen was overdue and the bookworm Jeeter Roche never took no for an answer. He was the type of building manager who never cut you any slack. If you didn’t have the money, you were out on your ear.

Stiv had also gotten involved with Jeeter’s wife. That had been another one of his quick-witted moves. The affair with her had been going up and down for weeks, and he was dying to end it. To cap it off he’d been seeing a ghost in the Allen Hotel.

The spook wore a pair of leather chaps studded with silver bells and a coarse white linen shirt. His feet were shod in rough cowhide boots. His youthful handsome face was haggard from exhaustion; his long black hair was matted in clumps. On the brocaded sash binding his waist were a holstered single-shot pistol and a sheathed butcher’s knife. A braided quirt hung from his left wrist. His clothes were covered with the reddish-brown dust indigenous to the shores of the San Francisco Bay. His name was José Reyna. From Sonora in Mexico, he’d been an outlaw in the 1830s. San Francisco had been a sleepy bayside village populated with Mexicans, Ohlone and Miwok Indians, and gringo gold miners.

Stiv thought he was going bonkers and went to the mental health clinic on Shotwell Street. He was processed by a zealous twenty-seven-year-old psychiatric social worker out of UC Berkeley, a cat by
the name of Norbert Deflass. Uniformed in a buttoned-down oxford shirt, pressed khakis, and topsiders with a cowlick in his hairdo, Deflass was courteous and enthusiastic, more like a shoe salesman than a social worker.

He ran Stiv through a battery of tests and then interviewed him, just the two of them in a whitewashed cubicle at the rear of the clinic. The room had two chairs and a desk. Norbert parked himself behind the desk, put his shoes on it, and said, “Look, Stiv, you’re under a lot of pressure with having a kid and everything. How’s your wife doing? How is she handling it?”

Stiv hunkered in a folding chair. He didn’t like the look in Norbert’s eyes. It was too friendly. “A lot better than me. She’s a tough cookie.”

“How old is she?”

“Nineteen.”

“Wow, a baby mama. That’s young. She must be a together kind of woman.”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“Is your relationship stable?”

Stiv bristled. He didn’t appreciate the question. His sex life wasn’t the social worker’s business. “What do you mean?”

“You’re not planning on leaving her, are you, because of the kid?”

Stiv mulled it over. He decided not to say anything about the affair he was having. That was a separate issue. “No. I’m sticking it out. Like, family is important, you know?”

Deflass seemed to buy it. “Good, but here’s the deal. I’m going to advise medication. You need something to smooth out the edges.”

Stiv was nonplussed. “What’s wrong with me?”

“I’m not a shrink, but I think you’re borderline.”

The diagnosis didn’t mean a thing to Stiv. It was a jumble of words that he’d need a thesaurus to sort out. He was more curious about the drugs. They were more his style. He said, “What can you do for me?”

“I’m writing up a report for your doctor. I want him to give you a prescription to suppress the delusions. And Stiv?”

“What?”

“When you see things, when you have these episodes, do you hear voices?”

“Voices?”

“Yeah, people talking.”

Stiv mused, “No, I see pictures. In technicolor.”

“That’s a hallucination.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. It’s not a ghost. It’s something internal that you’re creating. Do you even know who José Reyna was?”

Stiv bobbed his chin in negation. “Nah, not before this.”

“Allow me to explain it. You want to know?”

“Okay.”

“Ever hear of these psychiatrists from England, R. D. Laing and Peter Cooper?”

“Nope.”

“How about Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari?”

“Nah.”

“They were like pioneers in their field. They’d say the hallucinations weren’t a problem.”

“Really?”

“You bet. It’s how your subconscious is trying to heal itself.”

This was mildly interesting to Stiv. “How’s that?”

“By coming up with history. The truth is, you’re experiencing a period of mental instability.”

It was the last thing Stiv needed to hear. “What are you going to give me for this, uh, mental stuff.”

“Haldol. You’ll love it.”

As the rain battered the window, Stiv became fearful. He hadn’t talked to Norbert Deflass since yesterday. At the social worker’s request his shrink gave him a script for Haldol, but the stuff hadn’t been so wonderful. The drug plagued him with muscle spasms and
cottonmouth. His brain was reduced to glue. Haldol benumbed his arms and legs and killed all feelings in his hands and feet. He stopped taking it after a day.

The baby was fussing in the bed and distracted Stiv. He turned around to see what was up. Straining to get at his mother’s tits, the brat was tremulous, as though he had Parkinson’s disease. His mouth was open; the glaze in his eyes was rabid. Sharona unbuttoned her black satin nightgown and whispered, “There, now, it’s okay, Booboo.”

Unhooking her nursing bra, she poked a breast in the infant’s tyrannical mouth and he began to suck, gurgling heartily. Sharona half-closed her eyes and let the baby go to work, feeling the rhythm of her milk draining down his throat. She patted his fanny, and he dug his fingers in her hair, drooling on her gown. Finished with her tit, he chortled once and fell asleep.

Stiv walked over to the bed and sat down next to his son and wife. Sharona regarded him and the baby. The father of her child was a recent graduate of a six-month stint in county jail for selling nickel bags. Stiv often seemed no older than the infant. He had the same mindless expression on his face. It was a disconcerting comparison exacerbated by the fact that Stiv hadn’t had a job in seven months. There was no food in the icebox. No money in the bank. She said to him, “You all right?”

He didn’t answer her. How was he supposed to know if he was okay? His mind was a sieve, a Pandora’s box. You opened it and ghosts came out. He got up and wandered to the closet, selected a pair of black Dickies, and stepped into them. He then went to the table and flipped on the radio. While absentmindedly listening to a news reporter talk about the Brinks truck robbery, Stiv concocted a scheme to get some cash. That was the number-one order of the day: improve his finances and pay the rent.

The radio newscaster was interviewing the chief of police about the Brinks caper. The chief’s voice was impassioned with anger as he made a plea for the public to get involved. He said the robbers were criminals of the worst kind. Before the policeman went off the
air, he gave out a snitch number for citizens to call if they had any information. Stiv fiddled with the radio dial and changed it to a jazz station, KCSM in San Mateo. Horace Silver’s “Tokyo Blues” flowered into the room.

Listening to the music, Stiv flashed on Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher. He liked fiction, Turgenev and Gogol, novelists whom his grandmother had advocated, but whenever Stiv was feeling blue, reading Nietzsche cheered him up. A quote came to mind: “Find an exalted and noble
raison d’être
in life; seek out destruction for its own sake.”

Getting the rent together was going to be a bitch. The last time Stiv had gone out looking for money, he’d attempted to rob a mom-and-pop store in the Mission, a hole in the wall at Nineteenth and Lexington. It was an easy target. Nothing fancy. The place was empty. The street outside was quiet. It was a cakewalk. All he had to do was stick a gun in the proprietor’s face and demand the loot. He’d done it before. He could do it in his sleep.