Look at it this way: it was a crapshoot. The odds were against me. But it’s nothing to worry about. I just have to live my life. Hold my head high. Do the best I can.
You have saccharine thoughts like that when you’re handcuffed and naked in the backseat of a SWAT squad car en route to county jail. The cops up front are laughing about how easy it was to bust me. That a nude man on E Street isn’t hard to pop, even if he’s hiding on the bus. The assholes—they took my tambourine.
The SWAT car zooms by El Pueblo. I peep through the back window, admiring the garden I planted. Twenty-dollar bills impaled on tree branches. Ten-spots lolling by the curb. Homeless folks are pouring out of Pioneer Park to harvest greenbacks from the sidewalk.
I’m not alone in the backseat. I’ve got plenty of company. An entire orchestra. Rhonda is the loudest: I don’t understand you. That time you went down on me? It was dreadful. Bad technique. Bad everything. Instead of talking with me, instead of just being tender, you tried to control me. And I freaked out, didn’t I? It’s all your fault. It always was. You ruin everything. Alonzo is merciless: I invested much too much into our friendship. All that energy, all that love, completely wasted. Do you know how selfish you are? No, you don’t. You’re a narcissist. Rudy from Muscoy spews: Rhonda not only made a pass at me, she put her hand on my you-know-what. I’m not lying, dude. Your wife did that. While you were in prison. So go fuck yourself. The bank robber goes for my throat: I told you to give the suitcase to Jesus Christ. But you had to give the cheese to a bunch of homeless pendejos. You betrayed me, puto. Dalton chirps: I’ve got great news, Pastor. The district attorney is going to throw the book at you. And I can’t wait to get you into the strip cell. Just you, me, and a pair of brass knuckles to redesign your pious face. Superman gets in the last word: you tragic fuck. How could you compare yourself to me? Look at you. This shit would never happen to my ass. Not in this lifetime. And there’s only one Superman. That’s me. Not you, asshole.
Here it comes. Christmas Day at county jail. No visitors. No bail. The felony tanks reeking with Lysol. The toilets brimming over. A tin bowl of congealed oatmeal and margarine for dinner.
And no Dos Passos novel this time around.
Let’s be reasonable. I have to get the fuck out of this car. Like pronto. There’s only one way to do it. Five breaths in, eight breaths out. In, out. In, out. Now go: I head-butt the backseat’s metal security screen. I lacerate my scalp, bleeding on the floor. Perfecto. The SWAT cops bawl at me to stop it. Boom: I butt the screen again. Pissed off, the driver brakes the squad car, double-parking just past El Pueblo. His partner vaults out of the vehicle, trots to my door. He unlocks it, then reaches for his taser.
You ever been tasered? You’ll do anything to avoid it. Anything. Short of begging for mercy. Which only makes the pricks want to taser you even more. The SWAT officer rips open the door, looms like a werewolf in the backseat. I feint to his left. He flinches—all that blood on me. I lunge past him and somersault onto the pavement.
It’s showtime.
I pogo to my feet and dart up the sidewalk. A SWAT foot patrol sees me coming—they race to cut me off. They’re in single file, orderly, and silent. I’m intimate with their parochial silence: it’s rubber-bullet time. The worst of times. A volley is fired in my direction—the air glistens black with rubber.
Hampered by the handcuffs, I leg it toward El Pueblo. At full tilt I stumble and crash into the eatery’s windows, ramming my forehead through the double-thick panes—the plate glass breaks into shards. Shaking off blood, I skid into the dining room, dancing barefoot in broken glass. I leapfrog onto the nearest tabletop as more SWAT cops breeze into the restaurant. I kick a salt shaker and ketchup bottle at them. Then I get a load of Sugar Child in the doorway. Standing proudly alone. Just killing it in a silver lamé ballroom gown. A frayed strap hangs from her bony pale shoulder. Her nubby hair is greased with Vaseline. SWAT cops tackle me from behind—I receive a double blast of pepper spray in the eyes. Playing hard to get, I broad jump from the table onto the floor. I shoot by the startled cops and head out the door into the street. I turn right, rushing toward Base Line.
□ □ □
I’m running faster than punk-ass Superman ever did when an unexpected coolness touches my face—the sun passing behind a palm tree—and for a delicious moment everything is new again. The sky is indigo blue. The mountains sparkle. Nothing has been lost. No one is a loser. And it seems all my problems will end, that I’ll never revisit loneliness or pain, but the end is very far away, and the last war is just beginning. I run through the street, crazed from pepper spray, shouting: “Sugar Child! I love you! I really do!”
But rubber bullets are flying everywhere, and nobody hears me, nobody at all.