Knucklehead, page 27
The old woman’s eyes met mine again. I smiled and waved. She turned away and called to someone across the courtyard. “Mira,” she said. Then she said a bunch of stuff I didn’t understand, though I did recognize a few words, including the one at the very end of her little speech, holding out the vowels like the town crier—“Ne-griiiiiii-toooooooooo!”
I laid back down. On the one hand, I’d have bet my life that I was the only person on the block with an undergrad degree, let alone a doctorate. On the other hand, maybe they did need to worry.
The crone continued to announce my arrival. Mayate kind of sounds like a sports car.
Lesson.
Thursday, November 2, 1995
“It has occurred to me that some of the conflicts in my life may have been avoidable.”
The monumental nature of this revelation seemed lost on Rachel. But I’d promised I would keep her posted, and this was big news.
“At the time, certain . . . events . . . did not seem avoidable. Quite the opposite—they seemed inevitable. Either someone was demanding something of me that they were never going to get, or someone needed to learn something and it was up to me to teach them.” I flashed back on that frat boy, years ago, standing there with his windpipe all stove in. “Sometimes the lessons are hard. But I know that, in a very real way, I have left everybody better than I found them.”
“What the fuck are you talking about.”
“It’s OK. I got off track. My point is, even the times some dude was in my face, asking for it, I could have done something other than what I did. I could have walked away. That’s what everybody else does, right? People don’t stand up to bullies. They just go home. That’s why we have tyranny and exploitation and a dying planet. But my point is that I could walk away. Y’see?”
Nothing.
“OK. Remember the last time someone said something stupid to you and all of a sudden you had this urge to hit them in the head with a bottle?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t do it, right?”
“Not so far.”
“Well, that’s what I mean. That. I’m gonna do that.”
“Marcus. What have you been up to out there.”
“Up to? Uh, well . . . living. Learning.”
“And what have you learned.”
“Dude, I just told you!”
Pause. “Is that it.”
“Man, I’ll be lucky if I learned that.”
The Terrorists Win.
Saturday, November 4, 1995
Goddammit. God damn it.
He was dead. He stood up for peace and they murdered him. His own people shot him in the back.
It was night in Tel Aviv, and it was chaos. Police cars and ambulances sparkled everywhere, too late.
Rabin had just finished speaking at a peace rally. He was walking to his car when some asshole came up behind him and put two in his back. He was gone for sure.
People everywhere. Some were wailing. Some were mad. I knew that some were glad. Not a week earlier, the right wing was in the streets, protesting peace with Palestine. Protesting peace. Many of the protesters held pictures of Rabin sporting a Hitler mustache. The man was basically the anti-Hitler, but that didn’t matter. All you had to do was draw that little ’stache on someone and they were dead. I wish I was allowed to hate like that.
The camera cut to a podium at the edge of the scene; some guy was speaking frantic Hebrew at a small cluster of mics. “There was no conspiracy,” a monotone interpreter said. “This is not a conspiracy. One shooter, and we have him. There is no conspiracy.”
I turned off the TV and got in the bed. It was noon here, but every other reaction that crossed my mind was now verboten. The kitties and I cuddled and listened to the world outside.
Even if I have to change my ways to survive, that doesn’t mean I was wrong about this place. Earth is exactly what I thought it was.
Safety Net.
Thursday, November 16, 1995
I was out of money.
Fair enough. I hadn’t had a job in forever. And I had no prospects, or even a plan. I would try to imagine going back to a firm, and it just wasn’t happening.
I had $620 in the bank and $37 in my pocket. After December rent of $595, that was $62 total for enough food to last me and the kitties I didn’t know how long. And so, after doing a little research, I found myself at the Human Services Agency of San Francisco, also known as the welfare office.
I stood in the middle of the large, grimy space and got my bearings. I was doing it again: living the life my mom had suffered and struggled to spare me. I couldn’t have been any more ashamed. On the other hand, I didn’t have any money. That takes care of a lot of shame.
When you are about to get out of prison, they tell you: Go straight to the welfare office. Go there before you get a place to sleep or fuck a woman or find the punk you think snitched. Walk there straight from the Greyhound station, trash bag luggage still in hand, and start the paperwork going, so you can get your first check as soon as possible. I didn’t hear anyone actually say that while I was locked up, but I was sure they must say it all the time, because everybody in the welfare office looks like they got out this morning.
In fact, the vibe in the welfare office was thicker than it had been in jail. Maybe that was because you could actually get away with something at the welfare office. We were not locked in, and there were zero guards. Almost all the dudes were brothers, and all were ready to fight. We were outnumbered by women three to one. They were almost all white, and all had babies. They were ready to fight too. They looked like every chick on Jerry Springer. I was in love with all of them.
I had to wait in three different lines before I was waiting in the line where you give your application form to somebody. Long ago someone had glued to the floor, behind a faded yellow line, two paper shoeprints signifying that the person at the front of the line should go only as far as the footprints AND NO FURTHER UNTIL CALLED. For the benefit of the dim, this directive was echoed on dozens of crudely handwritten signs covering the walls. There were signs everywhere, even more signs than in court, prohibiting all manner of normal human behavior. One sign said NO READING. No reading? Seriously?
Those design elements that had not been inspired by the criminal justice industry were borrowed from banks and “urban” liquor stores. For example, the clerks behind the counter were encased in Lucite. Even if you were bold enough to defy the paper shoeprints, you still couldn’t have done anything to the clerks, because they were literally bulletproof. If the thickness of the glass didn’t tell you that, their boredom in the face of the unchecked prison vibe did.
My current line trailed up to a long row of about 20 windows, three of which were staffed. The one to the far left appeared to open up; a large dirty blonde with two babies in a double stroller and two toddlers on foot began her slow caravan to some other line. The mother fumbled with a stack of loose papers while the larger toddler struggled to push the stroller. Together, the two babies plus the stroller almost certainly weighed as much as he did. And he had to reach up to grab the handles. But clearly this was little dude’s job, and he managed. The caravan pushed on.
I waited. Once I was at the yellow line, I did not approach the window before I was called, because something told me that I should go NO FURTHER UNTIL CALLED. But finally I thought I heard a “Next!” from that direction. It was difficult to hear through all that glass.
Her name tag said that she was “Tiffnie.”
“Good morning, Tiffnie!” I like addressing clerks by name. It’s friendly, while at the same time it points out that if I need to complain about you I already know your name. Tiffnie did not seem impressed.
I began the process of transmitting my paperwork to Tiffnie. Perhaps at some point a fellow applicant had squirted lighter fluid through a slot in the glass and set someone on fire. That had been all the rage at New York subway token booths several summers earlier, and the response was the same bank-like feature I saw here. There was a clear Lucite cube built into the Lucite wall. You open a little bulletproof door, stick your documents into the cube, and spin the cube around so that the door faces the clerk. Actually, you can’t spin the cube yourself; the clerk does that. Then she opens the little door, glances at the upper-left corner of the top of your six applications, and tells you that you don’t qualify.
“Don’t qualify for what?” It was the welfare office. None of us qualified; that was why we needed welfare.
“Your assets. Exceed our maximum.”
I stood there, struggling to understand those five words. I had $600 to my name. Didn’t I mention that? Did I add two zeroes by accident?
Eventually, all those years of the Socratic method paid off: I formed a question. “What is the maximum?”
“Two hundred dollas,” Tiffnie said with a straight face as she shoved my papers into an overstuffed bin. “Come back then.”
Are you fucking kidding me? But I had exhausted Tiffnie’s patience. She was staring past me, at the yellow line with the shoeprints. I turned to see who was next. A member of the Aryan Brotherhood stared back, a wad of papers crushed in his fist.
“Next!”
The newly released AB enforcer began stomping toward us. I cut my losses and fled.
Hustler.
Monday, November 20, 1995
Plan B was to straight-up rob people. I would revolutionize the robbery industry by targeting people who had money. Maybe I’d work the Oakland hills; maybe Sausalito. Some guy walking his dog in a place like that would have enough on him to keep me going for a month, once I figured out how to fence jewelry.
That was Plan B. Plan A was this.
I stood at the end of the long hallway on the second floor of the Superior Court. I didn’t know what kind of cases I should be looking for, or how to spot them. So instead I scoped out certain kinds of people. They were not hard to find.
All up and down the hall, dozens of small groups conferred, trying one last time to settle out of court. At least 80% of those groups fit the following description: a greasy man in a cheap suit, usually white, speaking gruffly to one or more even shabbier people, usually not white. Bad lawyers bullying poor people.
A biker and his old lady were being yelled at by a man who looked like Danny DeVito. The biker was wearing his “good” Harley shirt, all eagles and lightning and purple. The old lady had opted for the hooker-at-church look. They seemed like good prospects, but I couldn’t trust that I didn’t just want to fuck the old lady. My dick was still out to get me. I moved on.
A tall, sad-looking black man in a brown Kangol, brown rayon button-down shirt, and brown Hammer pants was being mistreated about halfway down the hall. His bully was particularly sweaty, with eyes that darted all around while he barked. The brother’s attention was alternating between the lawyer’s loud dripping face and a piece of paper in his hand that baffled him.
These two will do nicely.
I approached and interrupted with all the legitimacy I had left. “A word?” I said to the brother in the Kangol. He stood mightily confused for a moment, then followed me across the hall.
“You look like you’re getting railroaded over there.”
Kangol nodded many times.
“What kind of case?”
“Ar, rah—they’re evicting me?”
“Unlawful detainer?”
“Yeah. That.”
“You got roaches?”
“Yeah.”
“Mice?”
Kangol lit up. “Yeah!”
“You tell your landlord about it?”
“Uh huh!” He seemed impressed at my ability to divine his new and unique situation.
“How many months of back rent you owe?”
“Only three . . . and a half . . .”
“And what’s the rent?”
“Four hunnit.”
“Hm.” For a second I considered finding out where he lived, walking away, and getting the place after they kicked him out. Four hunnit would be easier to rob each month than six hunnit. Then I remembered the roaches and the mice.
“OK. I can get you out of this. Or damn near. I can help you, a lot, right now. Do you believe me?”
Kangol nodded.
“For a hundred dollars cash right now, I can tell you what to say to that fuck over there.” Those last few words I said loud enough for the fuck to hear. He was even sweatier now. Maybe he thought I was with the State Bar. “You got a hundred dollars?”
Nodding.
“On you?”
“Yeah.”
I waited. Kangol reached into the front pocket of his Hammer pants and pulled out a respectable wad, peeled off two fifties, and handed them to me. I wondered too late if we should have been more discreet; I was not at all sure that what I was doing was strictly ethical.
“Best hundred you ever spent,” I said, tucking it away. “You got a pen?”
* * *
Ten minutes later, Kangol was back before Sweaty McShyster. He still clutched the papers—the summons and complaint in his unlawful detainer—but they were now turned over to the other side. That side had been blank. Not anymore. We’d even rehearsed a few times while the fuck stared. Now I stayed close while they conferred. Not close enough to get roped into their conversation, but close enough to hear.
“Counselor. I am advising you of my intention . . . to move . . . the court . . . for leave . . . to file . . . ah . . . affirmative . . . defenses. And . . . counter claims. For breach of . . . the . . . ah, rah . . . implied warranty of hab . . . habit-bility.” Close enough. “And for retal-tory eviction.” He was pretty proud of himself.
“Do you even know what those words mean?” Sweaty asked. Rarely had I heard more contempt in a person’s voice. Even lately.
“Yeah,” Kangol said. He seemed to suddenly remember that he was a foot taller than his adversary, because he closed the distance between them and towered. “It means I told that motherfucker you work for about the goddamn rats and the goddamn roaches. And the busted heater. And the motherfucker sicced you on me. That’s illegal.”
The pale wet face fell slack.
“You wanna talk settlement? Counselor?” A bit of spittle flew out of Kangol’s mouth and landed on the shyster’s nose. I smiled. Hammer Pants was going to be all right.
* * *
My client and I walked out of the courthouse together after filing the handwritten Stipulation of Settlement in the clerk’s office. He had until the end of next month, six more weeks, to move out. And he didn’t have to pay any rent—not past, not future. If he didn’t move out, Sweaty, Sketchy, and Fuck LLP could have judgment entered against him for all five months’ rent—$2,000. Sweatstain had insisted on that, and I didn’t fight it very hard. If Kangol was stupid enough to blow a deal like this, then fuck him.
We stood around until the shyster came out, shot us a fearful glance, and scurried away. I didn’t want him following me. Learned that from Simona.
We watched him go, and I turned to shake hands and say goodbye. Then I was getting hugged. A full-on embrace. My head came up to dude’s neck, so I got a snootful of cologne with a touch of funk while I was mauled. I did not back him the fuck off of me. Client relations are important.
“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
When he was finished, I wiped my face and said, “You are going to move out, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I believed him. “Then you’re good.” I reached out for my shake, though it was pretty anticlimactic now. “You take care.”
“Thank you.” Kangol took off. He was practically skipping.
Shit. I laughed out loud. Law is easy.
So much for Plan B.
Crash Test Dummies.
Friday, November 24, 1995
In the three weeks I’d been living in the Mission District, San Francisco’s Latino neighborhood, I’d had more racial slurs hurled at me than in 20 years of living in New York, if you count slurs en Español. I would be walking by some dudes, not staring at them or anything, and more often than not one of them would hock a loogie at the sidewalk and a mayate at me. Spike Lee on Telemundo. It would have pleased me to know that in 15 years my new neighbors would lose their precious barrio to white 25-year-olds with stock options and bad fashion sense. Meantime, I kept to myself.
I had a new hustle but I was still poor, and driving home with a trunk full of groceries felt like the exciting privilege it was. The day was cool but sunny. I was blasting Cypress Hill. Here is something you can’t understand: how I could just kill a man, they said.
We didn’t think about it, but New York in the seventies and eighties was a high point for non-white race relations. To the Puerto Ricans I’d grown up with, I was basically a Puerto Rican who spoke bad Spanish and drank weak coffee. Life in the Mission was a crash course in both the current state of affairs and the sometimes all-important East Coast/West Coast distinction. I learned many things. I learned, for example, that Mexicans are not Puerto Ricans.
Not everything I learned was negative. I also learned that there were women in the world with names like Sad Girl or Little Shorty who hid hard bodies under baggy sweats and wore dark red lipstick and a shitload of eye shadow and got tattoos in remembrance of dead people. Goth chicks, basically. Tough goth Latinas? That’s a thing? And I learned that I desperately needed one. I also learned that I wasn’t going to get one. Ever. I almost had a better chance of getting an Asian chick.
But, most importantly, I was learning to be a cholo. For me this represented progress.
Every culture has its thugs, but each culture’s thugs are different. For a while, I was like a skinhead, or a homie—loud and eager to engage. But now I had a record. A change was in order.
I’m ignorin’ all the dumb shit! Cypress Hill announced.
I liked cholo style because it reminded me of cats. Cats are fast, but they choose to go slow. Cholos are ready to handle shit, but when they are not handling shit they seem relaxed. They know how to be still, how to laugh, how to not constantly boil with rage. Those were all things I needed to learn.
