Plaster City (A Jimmy Veeder Fiasco) (13 page)

“You remember my old man?” Bobby asked.

“Sure. You talk to Rudy much? I don’t even know where he’s at.”

“Still out by Coyote Wells, far as I know. He’s sober now, but that don’t make things okay or fixed. He stopped drinking. He didn’t invent a time machine.”

“What made you think of him?”

“Are you fucking kidding?” Bobby said with a humorless laugh. “He’s all I’ve been thinking about.”

“You’re not him.”

“No shit, but the father you become has everything to do with the father you had. I’m thinking that’s one of the reasons I avoid my kids. I’m afraid I’ll do the shit my father did to me. Made me turn out to be me. Trying to not accidentally or on purpose make a couple of fuckups.”

“It’s natural with what you’re going through, to—”

Bobby didn’t let me finish. He definitely wasn’t interested in my boilerplate there-theres.

“It’s like the old joke,” Bobby said, “I didn’t know my dad drank, until the one day he came home sober. All day, that son of a bitch was hammered. Rudy could knock them back. Fun a lot of the time, but that turned quick. As he got older, he got worse and worse. When the farm was tanking, he was too all-gone to step up. Drunk ain’t a good way to save a sinking ship. My mother had to keep everything going. The house, the farm, me. And that made her old young. She was beautiful. You remember how pretty she was when we were kids?”

I nodded. “She made the best chorizo and eggs.”

“No lie. Now she’s an old lady. Not even sixty and she’s just old. Worn down by my dad’s shit and life and all the hard that comes with it. Am I different than Rudy? Am I?”

When I realized the question wasn’t rhetorical, I answered. “You do your drinking. More than most. But you work. More acres than me. Never saw the booze get in the way. Until recently. With Gris and stuff. You’re heading down a bad path. It ain’t been good, man.”

Bobby looked back to the spot he had been staring at. I followed his eyes, but there was nothing but empty street.

“I never told you, never told no one,” Bobby said, “but starting when I was eleven—close to around when we met—my father would come home shit-faced, after drinking out at Portagee Joe’s or by himself on some ditch bank. He would stumble into my room.”

“Oh, Jesus.” My jaw must have dropped, because Bobby immediately reacted to my expression.

“What? No, man. Not that. I wasn’t molested. Are you kidding me? He didn’t touch my butthole. Christ on a corndog.”

“You said he came in your room at night drunk. I assumed.”

“Let me finish, dumbass, before you jump to incestuous man-boy rape. I’m fucked up, but not that bad.” Bobby talked to me like I was slow, spacing out each sentence so I understood clearly. “He would come in my room. He would wake me up. Make me get out of bed. Get dressed. I’d put my shoes on. We’d go out to the barn. And we’d box.”

“Box? Like fight?”

“Yeah. I think my old man thought he was teaching me some valuable lesson. We wore boxing gloves, stupidly big on my little fists. It wasn’t punishment. He needed someone to fight, but not someone who could beat his ass. Rudy ain’t a big dude, but I was a fucking kid. Maybe in his drunk brain, he was toughening me up or some other bullshit. He probably wasn’t punching full on, but he knocked me all over that barn. Beat me ’til I pissed myself the first time.

“I was game. I fought back. But I couldn’t’ve hurt him. I was eleven. I could barely reach his face, so it was all shoulders and arms. After the first couple times, it became regular. Like maybe once a week, three times a month, he’d come home looking to spar. It got to where I would wait up, kind of wanting to go at it. I got used to the feel of it, getting hit, hitting. And I was learning. I might’ve lost at night to Rudy, but those losses translated to wins when I fought another kid.

“Then at some point—around fourteen—it changed. The whole time, he wasn’t getting any bigger or stronger. He never improved, was always fucked up, and was the same little bully. On the other fist, I was getting bigger and stronger and better and I was stone fucking sober. Top of that, I was so used to getting punched, the pain didn’t hurt no more.

“So one night, Rudy’s all hammered, comes in my room and tells me to put on the gloves. I’m ready. I can feel it. I know one of these days, it’s all going to turn. And that night, I went out to the barn. I could hear ‘Highway to Hell’ in my head like it was my theme song walking into a ring. I found my opening, slipped a jab, and I beat the holy hell out of him. Beat the living shit out of my own fucking father. Beat him for the three, four years he beat me. And when he hit the ground, I tore off the gloves and beat him with bare fists. Marquis of Queensberry could suck a dick. Beat him some more for all the things I couldn’t think of. Drunk bastard cried and begged. It was the last time we fought—there was no way he would risk taking a beating again, defeated the purpose—so I beat him because I couldn’t tomorrow.

“It was like my fucking bar mitzvah. That night I became a man. I’m not shitting you, the next morning I started shaving.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Bobby said. “As stupid as it sounds, it was the only thing that was Rudy’s and mine. Our only real father-and-son moments.”

I called Angie, angry at myself that I hadn’t sooner. All the drama at Becky’s house had been a crazy distraction. She answered on the first ring.

“Are you okay?” Angie said, making me feel even worse for taking my time.

“It’s fine. I’m fine. The screaming wasn’t really screaming. I’ll explain it later, but everything’s okay. Sorry about that.”

“I hate this shit,” she said, just loud enough for me to hear.

“I know. It’s not all the time,” I said. “You were going to tell me something before.”

“It’s about Juan,” she said, taking a breath before she continued. “He woke up a few times in the night. Nightmares. Shaking, scared, confused. I caught bits and pieces, but there was something. You need to come back.”

“I want to, but a bad dream—”

“Juan remembers her, Jimmy. He knows that she’s gone.”

When I got back to the table, Bobby was still on the phone with Becky. Her voice was loud enough on the other end that I caught most of it. She told Bobby that she wasn’t a fucking idiot and she didn’t tell Russell a thing because it never fucking happened and was he stupid and if he ever mentioned it again, she would castrate him with her crafting scissors. Bobby played it smart, apologized, and hung up.

Bobby turned to me. “Back to Becky’s house, bro. We got work to do.”

“Only to pick up my truck, Bobby. I have to head back, go home. It’s Juan.”

“What’s up? Is he okay? Did he get hurt?”

“No, it’s something else,” I said. “He remembers Yolanda. I can’t be gone while he’s working this out. It’s his mother.”

“Damn. Yeah, I get it,” Bobby said, chucking his coffee cup in the trash. “Let’s go.”

We left the café and walked the half block to Bobby’s Ranchero. Bobby unlocked the passenger door, and then froze, staring at the key in the keyhole.

He turned to me. “I hate to ask, but can you give me a half hour? I know you got to go, but I need you to look at that fight of Julie. The whole thing. On a monitor, not a phone. I can’t do it, man. I tried. I told you. It’s too fucked up. It won’t take long. I need you to sit at Becky’s computer and watch that fight from beginning to end.”

NINE

The streaming video opened with a cheap title straight out of a VHS exercise video circa 1987, but instead of some name like “The Exerfit All-Body System by Armando,” they went with the considerably less imaginative “Extreme Girl Fights 18.”

“There are eighteen of these? What’s wrong with people?” I said to myself. I sat alone in Julie’s room, but I could feel Bobby right outside the door, waiting to hear the verdict. Probably covering his ears. Definitely drinking a beer.

I had to become a member of the site “Gonzo Junction” to watch the full video. From the anatomy lesson I got on the home page, it appeared to be mostly a porn site with occasional dalliances in violence and fail compilations. The array of perversions presented as a free introduction made me feel like a Puritan. Whatever happened to the simplicity of penis-in-vagina sex? It was everything but, but especially butt. Straight sex was the poem that rhymed within a chapbook of avant-garde blank verse, pornographically speaking.

Giving these exploitative scumsacks my credit card information made me sick, but it was the only way to see the whole video. Luckily if they decided to rob me, they’d only get the eighty-five dollars or so that was left on the card before it maxed out. I wanted to sneak a quick smoke before watching, but knew that would be putting off the inevitable.

After the titles, the video opened with LaShanda hitting the open hands of a big Mexican dude. No gloves on either of their hands. She had decent form, but there wasn’t much snap to her punches. Men laughed somewhere in the background. Getting a longer look at her, LaShanda looked younger than I had thought, sixteen tops. She wore a half-shirt and short shorts that showed off her dark brown skin. Her long arms were well-defined and her legs thick, the body of a sprinter. I wouldn’t have tangled with her. A tale of the tape appeared on the screen as she threw jabs.
LaShanda. Aka The Black Bitch. 5
'
8
"
. 128 pounds. Detroit, MI
. She looked at the camera and gave her best sneer, more theater than sincerity.

I made notes on a piece of paper, writing LaShanda and Detroit, figuring if Julie was using her real name, maybe LaShanda was too. She did her pre-fight warm-up in front of a white wall. The background gave me nothing to go on.

The screen cut to Julie, who shadowboxed, sweat already dripping furiously from her nose and the strands of hair that fell in her face. She turned to the camera and threw a few shots at it, then went back to work. She worked out alone. No seconds. She had excellent footwork and her hand speed was something to watch. Knowing the result of the bout, I could see how she overcame LaShanda’s height and reach advantage. The tale of the tape came on the screen.
Julie. Aka The Desert Rat. 5
'
3
"
. 117 pounds. Indio, CA
.

Jump cut to a group of men standing in a circle, a makeshift ring that the two girls would fight inside. They were between two buildings, somewhere industrial. White snow covered the ground, so light that the surface blew out, reading only as an overexposed glow. The girls faced off as they danced and peacocked. They taunted each other, barbs like “Imowna fuckin’ kill you” and “You dead, bitch” and—well, actually that’s all they yelled back and forth.

When the talk was over, the fight began. No Michael Buffer. No referee. No ringing bell. No explanation of the rules, if there were any. No pomp at all. It just started when LaShanda threw the first punch, catching Julie on the side of the head, the abruptness as jarring as the immediacy of the violence.

I’ve attended a number of violence-centric events calling themselves sport or entertainment or competition. I’ve been ringside at boxing matches and MMA cage matches and even pro wrestling. I’ve seen karate, capoeira, and a number of other displays of martial artistry, demonstrations that ranged from brutal to beautiful. Hell, I’ve been to bullfights, cockfights, dogfights, and even a rabbit fight (which still haunts my dreams). But two teenage girls whaling on each other beat them all for pure discomfort.

Watching the video had the same effect on me as getting in a fight. My skin quivered and my heart raced as the added adrenaline coursed through my body. I found myself making fists so tight that my fingernails left moons in my palms. I got a taste of it when I watched the preview at the party, but seeing the whole thing, I learned something I didn’t like about myself. I found the video compelling. I know I’m talking about my friend’s daughter fighting another underage girl. But there was something so raw and real and violent and wrong that made it hard to look away. The same human drive that made it impossible not to rubberneck a car wreck for blood and bodies. We can’t control the primitive inside us.

When the two girls got in a clinch, pulling at each other’s shirts, wiping streaks of blood on each other, the cameraman was forced to do a complete 360 to stay on the action. That’s when I saw it—or rather, him. I backed the video up, waited with the mouse over Pause, and clicked at the spot.

“Bobby, get your ass in here. I found something,” I yelled, turning toward the door.

But Bobby was already in the room. He stood in the doorway, watching over my shoulder. I don’t know for how long, but long enough. He wept. Silently. His entire face contorted in complete heartache. His shoulders and stomach shook with each breath. Hunched over, holding his side, his body looked close to collapse. He wiped his face with his hand, tears and snot smearing his cheeks. He let his body slide down the doorframe and sat on the floor, broken.

I stood to approach him, but Bobby held up a hand and shook his head.

“It’s okay, man,” I said.

“No” was all he got out.

And I watched the most fearless man I knew finally confront true fear. For the first time I think Bobby recognized that this wasn’t an adventure—a Mavescapade—but there was something real about everything that was happening.

Rubbing at his eyes, he rose silently and left the room. I didn’t follow. Water ran in the bathroom and Bobby blew his nose. I heard Becky’s voice. The two of them spoke softly to each other, a mother and father living through a nightmare. I couldn’t make out most of what they said.

I only heard Bobby. “I’m sorry, Beck. For everything. I’ll get her back.”

When he walked back into the room, his eyes were bloodshot, his face red, and he looked a little shaky. He took a breath, pointed at the monitor, and said, “What have you got?”

I couldn’t think of a way to console him, to be his friend. All I could think to do was get back to work. All I had to say was “Take a look.”

I pointed at the monitor. On the screen, Julie and LaShanda were a grotesque paused blur, nothing but streaking color. The crowd behind them appeared in sharper focus. And there he was. Behind some screaming guys in the front row, Chucho watched the action with a stupid smile on his face.

“That rat fuck,” Bobby said. “Somebody’s lying to someone.”

“Chucho told Gabe that Julie worked for Driskell. Maybe that was bullshit.”

“Driskell did look surprised. With those two big guards, if he knew her, he would’ve been more overconfident, said ‘I knew her, so what?’ ”

“Gabe could’ve lied too. Sent us on the wrong track. Chucho is his boy. He’d want to protect him, yeah?”

“We don’t know where Chucho is, but I bet Gabe does.”

“Looks like we’re headed back to Thermal.”

Bobby and I were silent for the drive back to Gabe’s house. Not that we could have talked with the deafening pre-confrontation Grand Funk Railroad on the stereo. We stared out the front windshield, lost in thought and anticipation. Bobby was most likely bouncing concern for his daughter against the punishment he was about to dole out.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Juan. I knew I needed to get home. Angie could only do so much. Their relationship was different. It wasn’t fair to either of them for me to be gone.

But seeing Bobby crushed by that video, it was hard to take off in the middle. We finally had a decent clue. I decided to chase down this lead, but no matter what, to be home to tuck Juan in at the end of the day. A shitty compromise. But when you’re in the shit, that’s the kind of compromise you get.

Sleep-deprived, I had lost track of time. It was somewhere between late morning and early afternoon, the sun bright and hot. We rolled to a stop in front of Gabe’s house. The neighborhood showed no signs of life, its residents working, looking for work, or on the couch giving poor people a bad name.

Gabe’s motorcycle sat in the driveway next to the LeBaron.

“How you want to do this?” I asked Bobby.

“Gabe might’ve told us the truth, but we need to be sure. Need to find that Chucho. Hell, he might even know where Julie is. Gabe’s scared of me. Let’s make him terrified.” Bobby reached under his seat, pulling out a pistol.

“Do you really need that?” I said.

Bobby didn’t bother to answer. “Front door. We go in hard. Show him we’re not fucking around. He’s got answers. I know it. Those answers, they’re our property. We don’t leave without them.”

Bobby rooted around deeper under the seat, found what he was looking for, and handed me a pistol. I would describe the caliber or brand or whatever else gun stuff I was supposed to know, but I grew up with shotguns and rifles. And while I had fired handguns, I knew shit-all about them. It was a revolver. I knew enough to know that. It had a short barrel and nice weight. I looked down the barrel. I opened the cylinder. It was loaded. I didn’t know what else to look for, so I nodded.

“When was the last time you fired a gun?” Bobby asked.

“Few months ago. Rattlesnake in Juan’s sandbox. Before that—” I stopped, remembering the time before that. When I had shot a man in the Algodones Dunes. A man who threatened me and my family. I didn’t feel guilty, but I can’t say it made me feel good.

“That going to be enough firepower for you?” Bobby asked.

“It’s more than enough, but I’m not bringing it.” I handed the pistol back to Bobby.

“You sure?”

“I wouldn’t know what to do with it. I’m not going to shoot anyone. And the idea of waving it at that kid—I can’t do it.”

“Don’t underestimate the effectiveness of waving a gun around, Jimmy. It gets the quick answers. And we don’t have time to fuck around.” Bobby returned the pistol he had handed me under his seat. “You want to wait in the truck?”

“It’s a car,” I said. “No. I’m coming in with you, but I don’t need a gun to have your back.”

Bobby nodded and jumped out of the Ranchero. I followed his lead, staying low like we had seen actors playing SWAT team members do in movies. We ran along the sidewalk, onto the dirt lawn, and to the front door. I was out of breath from the less-than-one-block of physical exertion.

“Are you kidding me? That’s pathetic, man,” Bobby whispered, shaking his head.

“Quitting made it worse. I shouldn’t’ve quit.”

“That is definitely not the moral.”

I gulped in air. “Hold up, I got to take a puke.”

I bent over a dead potted plant, but nothing came up. I tried to coax it by miming vomiting, but no bounty. I rose and gave Bobby a look of attempted grit and determination. I doubt I pulled it off.

“Sorry. I’m good,” I said. “I’m ready.”

Bobby shook his head and muttered something. All I heard were the swear words. He tried the doorknob, but it was locked. He shrugged. He knocked. We waited.

Angel answered the door, his drawing pad under his arm. Bobby reached in and pulled him toward us, getting one hand over his mouth. The drawing pad fell to the ground. I dropped to a knee and put a finger to my lips.

“Is Gabe here? Nod your head if he is,” I whispered.

Angel nodded.

“Where in the house? In the bedroom?”

Angel shook his head.

“Living room?”

Angel shook his head.

“For crying out loud. Are you going to name all the rooms?” Bobby said, and then leaned into Angel’s ear. “If I take my hand away, you promise not to yell? I hate to threaten a kid, but that’s a threat.”

Angel nodded.

Bobby slowly peeled his hand from Angel’s mouth. Angel didn’t look particularly scared.