touch the floor, which is wet throughout the section. The men look out expressionlessly over the common area.
There are two empty seats in a row. I choose the one at the end, unbutton my coveralls, and sit down, feeling slightly less conspicuous in the corner. I close my eyes and try to picture the process of food moving through my system. Something tells me that the meatloaf and peas might come out still meatloaf and peas.
I hear rustling and grunting noises coming from my left. Someone sits heavily and breaks wind like an M-80 in a trashcan. I open my eyes and look over: It’s the biker from the mess hall. The man is a naked mountain of billowing white flesh, his huge belly pouring out over his lap as he hunches forward.
He turns his head and looks at me. With the net off, his hair spills wildly over his face and down his back. “Hey, fish, how’d you like your cow-turd patty?” He chuckles and farts again.
I shrug. I really don’t feel like conversing at the moment.
“Hey, man, I saw you and that jig with the big muscles in the mess hall. You know you can’t let the niggers fuck with you that way.” I notice a tattoo on the guy’s arm. A blond-maned Conan the Barbarian type skewers a caricature of a black man with the sharp end of a flagpole. Above the stars and stripes are the words “Aryan Nation” in an ornate script. “You hang with us and jigs’ll leave you alone, that’s fer damn fuckin’ sure.”
I say, “I’m not hangin’ with anybody, man. I’m outta here.” Which I have no idea is true. I guess I’ll get arraigned tomorrow, but I can’t afford a lawyer.
“Yeah, well, next time then. You come check us out next time.”
“There won’t be any next time,” I say.
The bearded guy says, “Yeah, right, and I’m here ’cause they got the wrong fuckin’ guy. Hey, you’re not really a fuckin’ Jew, are you?”
I look at the biker, his hairy face and the mad-dog gleam in his eye, and say, “What’s the matter, you don’t like them either?”
The biker looks away, grunts, and voids his bowels in a wet explosion. “Fuckin’ jail food.”
12
It’s three in the morning and I’m standing on Bauchet Avenue outside of the county jail. I start walking. There are no buses and I have no cash for a ride. No magic cabbie is going to appear out of the blue, unless Daniel got processed out even quicker than I did. At least I got my stuff my back. I fish my cell phone from my pocket; the battery is dead. With any luck, I’ll get mugged and finally hit the bullshit trifecta.
Lights from behind me. A silver BMW pulls up to the curb, the window hums down, and Tanya leans across the passenger seat and says, “Come on,” as she opens the door. When I get in she stomps on the gas and we blast off into the bleak, sodium-lit LA night.
“So, Charlie, you’re kind of an accident waiting to happen, aren’t you?” She runs a red light without blinking and puts her hand on my knee. “What are we ever going to do with you?” Her hand moves up my leg and long red fingernails do a little scratch dance on my thigh.
I tell her I need to use her phone. We hit the onramp to the Santa Monica Freeway doing close to ninety. She reaches in her purse, but instead of a cellphone she pulls out an amber vial with a little spoon attached to the cap. She unscrews the cap and helps herself to a healthy snort in each nostril. I don’t need a wakeup but go through the motions anyway.
Her cellphone is so tricked out you need a technical degree to turn it on, but I manage to dial Mindy’s number. I get her voicemail and tell her I’m on my way home, try me at the number on her caller ID.
“Charlie, you’ve been through a lot. I’ve got a room at the Oceana. Whoever you’re calling is probably sleeping anyway.” Her hand moves up even further and gives me a little pat. She says, “You deserve a break. Call it a celebration of your new freedom.”
There’s not much else to do at three in the morning.
There are two empty seats in a row. I choose the one at the end, unbutton my coveralls, and sit down, feeling slightly less conspicuous in the corner. I close my eyes and try to picture the process of food moving through my system. Something tells me that the meatloaf and peas might come out still meatloaf and peas.
I hear rustling and grunting noises coming from my left. Someone sits heavily and breaks wind like an M-80 in a trashcan. I open my eyes and look over: It’s the biker from the mess hall. The man is a naked mountain of billowing white flesh, his huge belly pouring out over his lap as he hunches forward.
He turns his head and looks at me. With the net off, his hair spills wildly over his face and down his back. “Hey, fish, how’d you like your cow-turd patty?” He chuckles and farts again.
I shrug. I really don’t feel like conversing at the moment.
“Hey, man, I saw you and that jig with the big muscles in the mess hall. You know you can’t let the niggers fuck with you that way.” I notice a tattoo on the guy’s arm. A blond-maned Conan the Barbarian type skewers a caricature of a black man with the sharp end of a flagpole. Above the stars and stripes are the words “Aryan Nation” in an ornate script. “You hang with us and jigs’ll leave you alone, that’s fer damn fuckin’ sure.”
I say, “I’m not hangin’ with anybody, man. I’m outta here.” Which I have no idea is true. I guess I’ll get arraigned tomorrow, but I can’t afford a lawyer.
“Yeah, well, next time then. You come check us out next time.”
“There won’t be any next time,” I say.
The bearded guy says, “Yeah, right, and I’m here ’cause they got the wrong fuckin’ guy. Hey, you’re not really a fuckin’ Jew, are you?”
I look at the biker, his hairy face and the mad-dog gleam in his eye, and say, “What’s the matter, you don’t like them either?”
The biker looks away, grunts, and voids his bowels in a wet explosion. “Fuckin’ jail food.”
12
It’s three in the morning and I’m standing on Bauchet Avenue outside of the county jail. I start walking. There are no buses and I have no cash for a ride. No magic cabbie is going to appear out of the blue, unless Daniel got processed out even quicker than I did. At least I got my stuff my back. I fish my cell phone from my pocket; the battery is dead. With any luck, I’ll get mugged and finally hit the bullshit trifecta.
Lights from behind me. A silver BMW pulls up to the curb, the window hums down, and Tanya leans across the passenger seat and says, “Come on,” as she opens the door. When I get in she stomps on the gas and we blast off into the bleak, sodium-lit LA night.
“So, Charlie, you’re kind of an accident waiting to happen, aren’t you?” She runs a red light without blinking and puts her hand on my knee. “What are we ever going to do with you?” Her hand moves up my leg and long red fingernails do a little scratch dance on my thigh.
I tell her I need to use her phone. We hit the onramp to the Santa Monica Freeway doing close to ninety. She reaches in her purse, but instead of a cellphone she pulls out an amber vial with a little spoon attached to the cap. She unscrews the cap and helps herself to a healthy snort in each nostril. I don’t need a wakeup but go through the motions anyway.
Her cellphone is so tricked out you need a technical degree to turn it on, but I manage to dial Mindy’s number. I get her voicemail and tell her I’m on my way home, try me at the number on her caller ID.
“Charlie, you’ve been through a lot. I’ve got a room at the Oceana. Whoever you’re calling is probably sleeping anyway.” Her hand moves up even further and gives me a little pat. She says, “You deserve a break. Call it a celebration of your new freedom.”
There’s not much else to do at three in the morning.
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