I stare blindly through the bus window as SWAT guards in flak vests wave us by the Base Line checkpoint. My seatmate, a Catholic schoolboy, susses me: “You okay, Pastor?”
I cannot stop trembling.
My block is status quo when I get there. Outside the halfway house a social worker counsels a female consumer swaddled in a ratty chenille bathrobe. “Look, princess, you can’t be down on yourself. You’re doing great. You’ve made a lot of friends in this place. Your discharge papers are in order. And you’re gonna get into the treatment program you want. You’re fine. It’ll be a great Christmas this year.”
Maybe the social worker is right. It will be a good Christmas. But my homecoming is marred by a letter from the offices of Dougal and White. I rip open the manila envelope it comes in. I blaze through the missive:
this is your final warning. if you persist in illegally retaining property that does not belong to you, our clients at blessed world will have no other recourse than to turn this matter over to their security division. the normal procedure is for their investigators to contact you in person. your parole officer has been advised of the situation. thank you.
I tear the letter into shreds and toss it out the window. An updraft captures the paper, propelling it into the air. Up and down, round and around.
At dinnertime I wash my hands in the kitchenette sink like there’s no tomorrow. Then I trudge into the other room. I turn on the overhead lights. I’m rewarded with a gruesome sight—my hands are crusted with blood. It’s a case of obsessive compulsive stigmata.
As a bonus, the upstairs neighbor is beating his dog again, something he does with alarming regularity. The mutt keens with an agonized howl that rips through floors and walls. My mood takes an unexpected dip, shifting from black to blacker. Maybe it’s the killings I saw today. Or the letter from Dougal and White. Maybe I don’t need a reason.
I reach under the wingback’s fusty cushions for the .25. The pistol gleams like a toy squirt gun in the light. I check the clip—to make sure it’s full. I flick off the safety. Next, I stick the muzzle in my mouth and curl my index finger around the trigger.
Nobody knows what happens when we circle the drain. Possibly we leave this existence for paradise. Or maybe we don’t. If I squeeze the trigger, I hope my destination is pleasant.
Diagrammatically, the bullet will tear through my palate, the short journey ending in my brain. I won’t die—the .25’s slugs are too puny. I’ll merely collapse to the floor without ceremony or pomp. Blinded. Unable to talk. Incapable of movement. A vegetable. I won’t remember Sugar Child getting hogtied. I won’t know who Rhonda is. For the rest of my days I’ll be sequestered at General Hospital.
August 2000. I’m in General Hospital with shingles. The guy in the next bed is a Hells Angel named Frank. He shattered his leg—his panhead crashed into a tree in Del Rosa. He’s a cool dude, generous with his Newport cigarettes. He also has a portable AM radio. Together we listen to Thin Lizzy, Marvin Gaye, and Sammy Hagar. His mother and two younger brothers visit him every day. The brothers are a pair of hulking blond cats in black leather vests and engineer boots. Miniature versions of Frank. Their mom is a blue-collar madonna with bleached ringlets and a pierced nose. She chainsmokes her own brand, mentholated Marlboros. Nice people.
Much of my life is behind me now. Memories delude me into thinking there’s more to come. But the only thing I can rely on is the past, and even that’s turning into quicksand. I pluck the .25 from my mouth. I put it on the coffee table. In all honesty, I don’t want to kill myself. I just think I do.
The donations bucket watches me from its spot under the chair. It curses: you pathetic asshole. I want more money.
I pay no attention to the bucket. Instead I gaze out the window. The North Star shines brighter than a disco ball in the polluted black sky. The moon waxes over Mount San Gorgonio.
□ □ □
The hands that play the tambourine. The eyes that saw Dalton shoot a man dead. The tongue that reveled in Rhonda’s private parts. The ears that listened to the better-dressed donations solicitor say I was fucked. The mouth that chants, help the poor. The nose the SWAT security cops bashed into the pavement. The nerves that shake whenever I go through a checkpoint. The stomach that lives on carrots and nonfat yogurt. The hair that fell out in prison. The neck Dalton chokeholded. The skin scabrous from the desert wind. The brain that thinks about death. The lips Sugar Child kissed. The heart that beats frantically. This is a hymn for my body.
I go downstairs and step outside for a breath of fresh air. I start coughing—the northwesterly wind brims with creosote and smoke from the Devil Canyon fire. To deter looters—the mall was vandalized the other night—a camouflaged SWAT armored personnel carrier is parked by El Pueblo. I stand on the sidewalk, motionless, numb, snug inside my cocoon of woe.
As I reenter the hotel two cats shoulder past me into the lobby. One is tall and black, the other short and white. The short cat wheezes at me: “My name’s Rick. I’m a caseworker for Blessed World. This guy,” he gestures at the other man, “that’s Andrew. He just got his meds and needs to start taking them. So who are you, the security guard? If you don’t mind, we’re in a hurry to get inside and begin his paperwork.”
Andrew holds a Walgreens bag of prescription drugs, his passport to a better world than the one he’s coming from. I want to explain to him there is no better world. As usual, I’m wrong. I simper: “Rick? You know where you’re going?”
“Sure do. This is the halfway house, isn’t it?”
I take in the lobby’s potted cacti, the desk clerk giving me the evil eye. I look at the sky varnished by smog. I witness a shooting star over Cajon Pass. I make a wish on that star, that one day everyone will find their way home.
“No, it isn’t. The halfway house is next door.”
I go upstairs and pad into my rooms. I take a moment to dwell on the life of Italian theoretician and writer Antonio Gramsci. He served a long stretch in the pen. His wife waited for his release. Rhonda was not interested in that kind of lifestyle. Alonzo says she’s currently residing in posh Santa Monica—scored herself a rent-controlled condo near the beach. On that note, I shut the lights and hit the sack. Hopefully, my father will visit me tonight.
I wait, wide-eyed in the blistering dark.
But he never shows up.