Know your enemy.
In The Gutter, it's best to forget.
In The Gutter, it's best to forget.
Waiting for the Man by Patrick Cooper
“Ever seen a
picture of him?”
“Who?
George Leslie?”
“Western George
Leslie, word. I imagined, while I was reading about him, I imagined him with a
hard face. Hard, but handsome, y’know? I don’t think he was busted or nothing.
Or like, like a brute.”
Walter leaned
forward, his elbows on the green felt tabletop. He held his hand close to his
chest and sighed. “These are the things.”
“What’s that?” Raymond
said, looking up from his pair of eights.
“These are the
things you think about, huh?”
“What do I think
about?”
“The face of some
guy been dead hundred something years.”
Raymond rearranged
his hand and went on. “He used to be an architect. ‘Fore he started taking off
banks, guy studied architecture. How about that?”
Sitting across
from Raymond, Phil folded and said, “Say, wasn’t this the guy designed the
Jewish Community Center?”
Raymond scowled.
“I don’t-”
“Nobody cares the
guy was an architect!” Phil slapped a hand on the table. The pile of chips trembled.
“Or what he fucking looked like! Can we play a game a cards in peace, without
hearing this shit?!”
“Easy Phil,”
Walter said. He put a hand on his younger brother’s shoulder. “Kid’s just
bored. Got him thinking about dumb shit. I told him. I warned him this gig comes
with its share of boring nights.”
“I ain’t bored,” Raymond
said. “Was just reading about the dude, George Leslie, and wondered what he
looked like, is all.”
“Enough talk about
it, okay?” Walter said. “Let’s just play cards. Whatever comes outta your
mouth, until the man call, let’s keep it about cards.”
They played in
silence.
Phil rocked in his
seat and mopped sweat off his jowls with an old handkerchief.
“You cool, brother?”
Walter said looking at him. “Don’t let the kid get to you. Just a stupid kid.”
Phil shifted in
his folding chair. Tossed his cards on the table and said, “I think about it
too sometimes. I do, sometimes.”
“Think about
what?” Walter said.
“About his face.”
“George Leslie’s
face? Why would you-”
“Not his face…Dad.
Dad’s face.”
Walter and Phil
exchanged knowing looks. They’d come up orphans. State raised, sharing a
four-by-six room with artichoke-colored walls. They shared foggy memories of
their dad. He’d only been around until 1981, when Walter and Phil were still
pups. That was the year cops pulled a dozen balloons of cocaine out of their
father’s ass. A dozen. Christ.
Phil pulled the
cigarette out from behind his ear and tapped it against the back of his hand.
“Ever try to remember what he looked like? Dad?”
Walter sighed.
“Find it best not to.”
Phil looked
absently at the green felt. “I do. At night sometimes. Or when I’m on the can. Always
had these deep bags under his eyes, I remember. Always made him look sad or
tired.”
“Or strung out,”
Walter chimed in.
“Your guys’ old
man a deadbeat too?” Raymond said.
“Prison,” Walter
said. “He was in prison.”
Raymond nodded,
like that explained everything.
Phil shimmied his
chair backwards and stood up. “I’m going out for a smoke. You wanna smoke?”
“I’m good,” Walter
said.
“I only smoke
blunts,” Raymond said. “Cherry blunts, is all.”
Phil pointed to
the rotary phone on the small table in the corner of the room. “If
the man calls, holler for me.”
Walter said he
would.
Phil pulled up the
fur collar of his jacket and stepped outside. A gust of wind snuck inside and
blew the cards off the table before the door closed behind him.
“Ah, shit!” Walter
tried to grab cards out of the air as they floated around him.
Raymond got on the
floor and helped Walter pick up the cards. “Fifty-two pick up, eh?” he said,
smirking. “Y’know, I’m down with what you said.” His face turned serious.
“What? What I say?”
“About it being
best not to remember your old man’s face. I remember mine all too fucking well.
Wish I didn’t. Piece a shit.”
The door opened
and Phil came in with his hands up.
Two men with beige
nylons over their faces came in behind him; one had a pistol trained on Phil’s
back, while the other held a pillowcase with bloodstains on it.
“You know what
this is!” the one with the gun said. “Wallets, bankrolls, rings, whatever else
you’re carrying, in the bag!”
Raymond got to his
feet. “Whoa, whoa. This place. You know whose place this is, yeah?”
“Put your shit in
the bag, guy! Do it! And you! Up! Off the floor!”
“My knees,” Walter
said. “I got arthritis. Gimme a sec, goddammit.”
Raymond tossed his
wallet in the pillowcase.
The men yelled for
them to give up more.
Walter struggled
to get up on one knee. He bit his bottom lip and grabbed the emergency
sawed-off from under the table.
Phil saw where his
brother’s arm went and dove to the floor.
Walter stood and fired
the shotgun. Flesh and blood sprayed in ribbons as the midsection of the gunman
tore open. Walter racked and fired at the one holding the pillowcase. His chest
opened up and he crumpled to the floor.
Phil stood and brushed
his pants off. “Thanks, brother.”
Walter put the
shotgun on the table. He, Phil, and Raymond stood over the two dead men.
Raymond bent to
pull the nylon off one of them.
Phil seized his
arm. “Wait. Just wait.”
“What is it?”
Walter said. “We gotta see who these slobs are. Let the man know.”
Phil squinted at
the smeared faces under the nylon. The noses were smudged, the features cloudy.
“I don’t wanna be sitting on the can someday trying to remember what they
looked like. Might be for the best, like you said. Best we don’t have a face to
remember. So there’s nothing there.”
