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Technicolor
Eulogies: Death, jail and a man with no-name.
a short story
by Steve Rineer
I knew that the scene would be one nearly impossible to act in
without the accompaniment of copious amounts of cocaine, vodka,
codeine cough syrup and the various other downers I could get my
hands on: xanax, valium, vicodin; where have you gone, Quaaludes-are
you not made anymore. And that was baseline...no pleasure...just
make do. Trips to the bathroom, coming back with a full paper cup,
the redsyrup tinged the vodka purple and my nostril ringed ever so
slightly with a white powder. How does one face this the plain
american nightmare...it is spreading out and now it is the world's.
America Has Victory: should write a song. Faceless and sterile
empire: earth. Deceit, order and boredom-oh my!- have won. The
sickeningly white walls, the shoes squeaking on the linoleum floors:
who has not contemplated suicide: the starched whitecollar men
cheating on their wives (their mistresses fucking them for money),
their daughters blond and tender breasted and ready for 15 or maybe
more minutes of fame, in the second before they fall asleep they
pray and pledge allegiance and wonder what is death and laugh at us
so consumed by an abstract unreal thing. They won't ever die. The
thought of it resides in the sides of my head just above my ears and
I can feel it pushing the gray hairs out and out...I have no courage
or nobility. Could never pull the trigger of a gun barrel to my chin
or jump off of a large building. Can only, every once in a while,
wish that the universe had denied my soul's request for this being
flesh.
I watched her shake ever so slowly to death...always seizures rock
us to end...it's the minimum needed to separate soul and skin...I
was sick with crying and why why why. You are gone and what is love
anymore. Forget the memories...gone anyway...slide into the routine
of a fetus on the cusp of birth (half in half out it's a warm sort
of dying- fly fall slide glide shoot shit and dirt). Ask immature
questions. Why must we be and then not? Especially considering love
was there. It was. A little. And it is a rare thing. Buzzbuzz the
straightstuttering cycle of a flatline so sorry. Oh medicalmachine I
am full of hate: the stories you tell.
And there were two young boys designated to pulley her down into the
grave. The ropes letting her down were a pale yellow. The boys were
out of sync though. Where were the professionals. One cranked with
passion the other with a slow solemnity. One cranked with a desire
to be done and the other cranked with a fear of the finality of
death and dust to dust or more likely he was lazy. Passion and
desire angled furiously into the earth. Coffin then tipped and the
ropes spun and gave. The coffin crashed unbalanced into the bottom
of the hole of death: the forever waste-away of flesh. Appearing
first was her dead veined angled leg splayed out at the knee. And as
the dust rose from the bottom of her earthly eternity the coffin
sprang open. Her veil had fallen to the side of her face. The makeup
was smeared past its boundaries; eyeliner on the nose and forehead;
lipstick on the chin. Arms cranked out at the elbows unnaturally
screamed broken bones ungodly angles. A cubist corpse she seemed. Oh
so modern but oh so human above all else human she was dead and
twisted and she was laid to rest with a touch of humor, let us admit
there are laughs at all of our funerals. We must hope. Laugh
please...but must I whisper I want you to cry and sob to the point
of sickness. Please miss me.
I walked towards the parking lot. Away from the general tumult
around that particular grave. The mourners stood transfixed and
staring at the dead in the hole. Her dad disbanded from the crowd.
In my periphery he was running to catch up with me. So many poor
flat plaque markered dead; where have all the large ugly ground
protruding gravestones gone. We are too cheap. He grabbed my elbow.
Features of his face vague in the fatigue of tears and funerals. I
can only envision his eyes. They were clear and green and steady.
And he trained them upon my own wasted and tired and scared eyes.
Nervous smiles. We stood with the kind of gravity that kills grass
and browns it...eventually grounds it to dirt.
“I
don't blame you, son.”
“I
didn't do anything. What are you talking about. Fuck you old man.”
I turned and walked away. Up a small green slope and into the
parking lot. Sky light gray. All cars white gray and black; no
color. Only a blue one. Mine. Her dad was still standing there. He
watched as I opened my door.
“You
know she loved you,”
he screamed.
“Don't
you think she would have liked that?”
he pointed back at the disordered mass of mourning and tried to
laugh. I got in my car and pulled out of the spot. I rolled my
window down.
“No.
I don't. Your daughter was a dirty drug fiend and a whore. Good-day
sir.”
Black and white soon behind me. Red, blue. Yes, sirens flashing. The
cops. Drift the steering wheel into the bike path.
“Pull forward,”
the loudspeaker says.
“What...”
Squint into my side view mirror. Objects
closer...yes...than they appear...they are beginning to creep; it
seems as if pigs believe they are allowed to brush bumpers without
exchanging insurance information. The passenger cop opens his door
and begins to walk. A trick of mine. Pisses them off. I pull forward
about 50 yards onto a legitimate shoulder. The black cop jumps in
the car. Pursuit. Pursuit. Call channel 9. Get the spikestrips
ready, mother fuckers. A flask under my passenger seat, half whiskey
full. A few roaches in the ashtray. Wonder what drug residue could
be anywhere. But oddly enough no cocaine I can remember. None.
Almost always is. But not today. I laughed.
“What's
so funny, mother fucker,”
the big black cop said to me. At my window. Dominating my view of
traffic and sky, trees standing still while cars flew by. All
happened suddenly. His thin white partner stood back at the car
door, his arms crossed.
“She
was Blaaack as the niiiiiight...”
of course, Louie was whiter than white. Their vehicle and their skin
matched, being partners: they have got to expect the song. But they
didn't let me finish. A taser was dropped near my head, it bounced
on the gravel. One of the cops straddled my back, forearm in the
throat. I slept and dreamt...stop laughing at me love...get off
me...in the dream was a small room supposed to fit all mankind's
suffering I'm claustrophobic...stuck at the bottom of a pile...my
son in his little grave...pale white and blue death and only three
years old...all I do is an attempt to escape thought...don't
you...hold a grudge against memory that preserves death...death
proved reality to me...the majority of my time is spent with the
imagined image of him at the bottom of the pool crying and screaming
please daddy, please...why must time continue on only one way,
future-bound: let me dive into the pool...Johnny, baby, don't
worry...daddy's coming...a cruel dose of unconscousness...To see him
so clearly on the back side of eyes...then to wake up with fat pig
mounted upon my back, a certified kidney puncher...am I substitute
for your wife tonight...someone to beat...do you jerk off thinking
about your authority...shine your badge with your own come...Oh yes
oh yes stroke dick my forearms are getting ripped: putting cuffs on
so many people. Badge so shiny. I am somebody. Men on my back. The
static of walkie-talkies. Cars creep by with looks of shame. Our
species must police itself? How sad...when will we evolve...with
god's help of course...of course. I scowl and practice silence. A
flashlight unlit bounces into the back of my skull. Sun half in the
sky half out. No reason.
“Jesus”.
“Shut
the fuck up, compadre." Might've been Mexican. Knew Spanish.
Luckily, I used to work construction: it means friend or partner. He
hit me in the back of the head again. Oh guess he was being
sarcastic. Millions of stars sky blinked and the sun did too.
Quick quick before this rage subsides. Buzzed and waiting in a
holding cell. Cold concrete walls. Such extreme sadness gathers
round our government institutions and hospitals. Places of endings
and places of people never to return to their former selves. The war
has been raging on in the background, mumbled voices on the tv box
and the radio saying please please help me like the squeakings of a
fly. The noise goes ambient becomes like wallpaper that is such a
part of our lives that it has slipped beyond being part of dull
routine, it has become something which is constantly forgotten.
Remembered in the cold drafty corners of our lives and times. Then:
forgotten.
You care. Then: don't care. Quick, Quick the dreams, the thoughts
this environment imparts.
The artistic left is such a boring costume. Atheist and vegetarian.
I am a pacifist. I am a lover of both sexes. I am I am. A writer. A
writer of eulogies. Obituaries. Exploding in Technicolor. Like an
ol' musical from the golden, halcyon days of Hollywood. Some say god
is dead. Language if not already is dead has vultures circling the
sky above its letters to the editor. Word god is maggot covered,
even the death about her has grown stale; the corpse should be
entombed, coffin placed in the ground, cremated...the body is
decomposing, the bones are being bleached in the sun. Are we too
cheap for proper burial (are we slowing down the resurrection?)
My mind searches beyond this reality, screen of bars, horizontal
and vertical. The colors, the colors...What a trap!
Life.
The rage never subsides. It turns into other things, diseases of the
soul.
Everybody's dying. All ways. Rat-tat-tat, with fingers like pistols,
I shot at all the policemen and at some of the alleged around me.
One of the cops very familiar. He walked towards me.
“You
son of a bitch,”
he said, his arm slipped between the bars in waiting handshake and a
smile slid onto his face.
“How's
a going, my man,”
hands shaken. Vague recall. Possibly from high school. Or before.
Maybe after. Definitely one or the other.
“I
heard you got a fucking deuce. I'll see what I can do.”
He never gave me his name. I got a ride to my complex, sirens
flashing he cut in and out of traffic ran red lights, laughed,
slapped my thigh, let one wheel go up the middle concrete curb, he
then went up on it completely, two wheels. He flattened a road sign,
many bushes. Punched me in the shoulder. Pulled into oncoming
traffic, laughed,
“look
at all these scared motherfuckers getting out of my way.”
“Of
course you dumb fucking pig, I'm scared. Who the fuck are you?”
I said with heavy breathe and a sheet of sweat fresh upon my
forehead. He looked slightly ashamed, he pulled the patrol car over
to the right side of the island, turned off his sirens and, in
silence, drove perfectly. I felt as if I had chastised him rather
harshly.
“I
didn't mean to drive like a complete pussy...I mean you are a police
officer, using sirens and unsafe speeds in a gratuitous manner is
one of the reasons one becomes a cop.”
He looked at me with teeth gritted and shut, his jaw muscles
forcing his mouth into some parody of a grin. I don't know. He
started out by slowly going in and out of traffic, the sirens
on...within ten seconds we were on the wrong side of the street's
fucking sidewalk and he had his head out the window.
“These fucking
pedestrians don't know they have the right-a-way,”
he said. I could
see the panic starting further up the side of the road; the people
closest just barely jumped out of the way, I believe we clipped an
old man's wheelchair and sent a lazy bicyclist into a light pole.
The fear had crept onto the whole street, even the people on the
other side's sidewalk were running into stores, some ran into the
street, everybody had their own little theory regarding their safety
i.e. where the police car wouldn't be. Ttraffic came to a
standstill...You have the right of way. You sons of a bitches. Look
at em jumping out of the way. That's what's wrong with Americans
these days...he then screamed out the window,
“stand up for your
fucking rights, you pussies!”
He looked at me square in the eye and
he looked like a drunk Nebraskan who'd recently traded in his horde
of demons for the devil himself; he seemed to be trying out the
devil, as if he were considering capitalizing that and making it
official.
“Are you...?”
I couldn't catch my breath.
“What's
wrong, Paul?”
he slowed the car to a stop and gave me his full attention.
“You
are fucking insane. I don't understand this shit. Yes, you fucking
idiot they have the right of way, but you have a big fucking car.
You will kill them. Rules and right of ways, illegal u-turns cease
to exist when people find themselves faced with trying to survive.
There's fucking kids...shit...”
He drove perfect like before and this time I let him be embarrassed.
He drove like Mr. Rogers all the way to my complex.
“Take it easy,”
I said.
“Hey,
you mind if I come up and clean my gun. Please please please its
fucking dirty man,”
he got into the posture of begging and clasped his hands shaping
them as if into prayer. He kneeled down, knees into dirt.
“Stand up,”
I pulled him to his feet,
“People'll
think im a fucking narc. God's sake. And I don't let cops into my
house, anyways. 'tis my right.”
His eyes went watery.
“Paul,
not as a cop as a friend, fuck man we've been through so much and
you, man...you, just...”
Try to remember any drugs left out. Maybe the bong. No big deal. Who
is this fucking guy? So sad if I answer no.
“Ok
man, but friends don't snoop around my house and friends don't
arrest each other for drug paraphernalia.”
“Pauly,
pauly, pauly...drugs...why didn't you tell me. I have cocaine I
confiscated today in the trunk. You like that shit? You can have it.
Tell me. Probably have some weed back there too. Usually whatever. I
forget the boring parts: writing reports, putting stuff in evidence.
You know.”
Is this is a joke?
“Yeah,
bring whatever. I'll do a little. I mean, I do sometimes. This ain't
a fucking setup is it? This is a strange day. You are a character.”
He nodded his head and grabbed a full bag of coke out, like one
that I'd only seen on Beverly Hills Cop, a fucking kilo or some
bullshit. He searched around and put a few various baggies in his
pocket. With the cocaine under his arm, I guided him to my
apartment. A few neighbors looked at me, somewhat sympathetically,
with certainty of my impending arrest. I wasn't sure. What the fuck
was going on?
Inside the house he went straight to the kitchen table and pulled a
towel from his pocket and layed it upon the table. More of a rag, it
was slightly oiled; he placed the gun upon it. He handed me the
coke. Searching his pockets, he began to arrange oils, conditioners,
long brushes, small cloths of exotic material onto the towel.
“Do
some coke,”
he said. Moment of truth, I figured. I opened the bag and more fell
out than I could afford. I lined it up and followed the line into my
nose and straight back, it quickly began to drip. The numb nose numb
throat; the numb hair all the way to my toes all numbed and aglow.
“Holy
shit, this is good.”
He smiled with serene kindnesss.
“I'm glad you like it, Pauly,”
he
said as he grabbed my shoulder. He stayed until dawn. Taking the gun
apart to it's smallest components. Washing everything. Slight oil.
Used a small safety pin to clean the threads of the tiniest, most
inconsequential screws. He radiated the serenity of a wiseman.
Who is this guy? He'd told me somewhere along the night that the
coke was mine. My nose stayed within inches of the table; his eyes
stayed within inches of whatever he was working on. In this way, not
a lot was said. But an understanding was reached. I think. He liked
to clean his firearm; I liked the cocaine.
“I'm
glad you enjoy that stuff, Paul.”
he'd smile at me like one imagines a saint might. I don't remember
him leaving and I don't know how I ever fell asleep. I suspect that
days plural were slept through, but I will never know.
I woke up to loud knocking.
“Hey Paul open up.”
It was the officer with no name. How did he
know me?
I opened the door.
He threw a baggy of pills onto the living room table.
“Ever
heard of oxycontin? Figured you might...”
I lifted the bag and looked at the pills. These were 80 mg.
Tablets. Big fuckers. Potent too.
“Where
do you get all this shit?”
“Fucking
criminals, you know. Mind if I clean my gun?”
I pointed to the kitchen table. The giant bag of coke undented sat
there. He repeated his gun cleaning routine. I alternated lines of
chopped up oxy cons with coke lines. I smoked a few of the pills off
foil. This became a regular occurrence. I'd wake up to something
new. He gave me three thousand dollars one night that he had taken
from a drug dealer. I didn't even know his name. Or how I might've
met him. A character out of a book. My consumption of these great
drugs was growing like mountains into the sky, with use so high I
walked in clouds and haze and a sky that sweat like skin covered in
water vapor. I never left my house. He stayed more and more. His
patrol car parked in the complex's parking lot. His gun sparkled, as
he finished cleaning and putting it together, like Sisyphus rolling
groundwards, he took the gun apart and would begin again. Is this a
dream?
I'm pretty sure of the year. Couldn't tell you the month.
He became the best friend I had.
“Why
do you always clean the gun?”
I asked, “Doesn't
your boss wonder where you are? Who are you?”
He just laughed. I began to call him no-name and he laughed even
harder. I questioned his actually being an officer of the law and he
began to laugh unable to stop. He didn't say a thing. He eventually
stopped laughing, straightened up his posture and set back to work
on the gun.
From that point on I called him No-name and he would always laugh,
sometimes throwing in a
“Oh Paul, fucking Paul. You are funny my
friend”.
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