Cheap as Wisdom (PGM) – con’t

And again, the apparent wino is leaning against the glass, before turning back to kick a stone off the curb.

            See that?

            He’s impatient.  Isn’t every drunk?

            That’s just it junior.  They are not.  They sit on the fire hydrant, they lean against the dumpster, they chew down their last cigarette butt and carve the yellow grime out from under their fingernails with a pop top, but what they don’t do is pace around like a goddamn housecat.

            Right.

            But this guy.  This guy’s got some kind of objective, and it ain’t just booze.

            So maybe we ought to have a conversation with him?

            You’re picking up fast Junior.  Let’s see what has our man dancing.

Leave the Driving to Us

Cheap as Wisdom (PGM)

            The third cup of coffee was starting to take hold, the tumblers and discs in his brain lining up, intuition and insight beginning to flow.

            Now tell me, Castellano.

            Sarge?

            Tell me why this character would be waiting in front of a liquor store at 8 a.m. on a weekday morning.

            Because he’s a drunk?

            Incorrect.

            Incorrect.  Incorrect.  The place opens at 9, so he’s killing time, waiting to buy a pint or whatever so he can get his day off on the right foot.

            Look at him.

            Yeah?

            The young cop tugged lightly on the soft fringe of his beard, staring through the windshield at the pacing, gray-coated figure.

            Watch him.  Watch.

            After a few steps, the pacing man paused in front of the door, leaned against the glass with cupped hands over his eyes, hanging there for a moment as if attached by suction.

            What time is it?

            About quarter to.

            So this wino, even if he doesn’t have a watch, this wino knows what time this place opens every morning because he’s a regular wino and this is where he picks up his regular boost.

            Sure.

            So unless he’s really hurting.  I mean unless the screws are really being put to him, he knows what time this place opens better than the owner.  He’s a drunk alarm clock.  Every morning, same time.  His body walks him here on automatic pilot from wherever the hell he sleeps, church basement, SRO, whatever.

            I get it Sarge.

            So watch.  Watch.

Cheap as Wisdom (PGM)

He’s not a bad kid, Haltek thought, just has that stupid affliction everyone has today – expertise.  Everyone knows everything about everything.  Such a bunch of sharpies, how’d the fucking society get by before all these junior geniuses came along.  Right way to eat, sleep, walk, stand up, sit down.

            So much self-awareness.  They act like they invented it.  At least there was enough detachment to keep from trying to fix everybody.  Point out the problems, but that’s enough.  We’re all still too busy trying to unfuck ourselves.  Some small comfort in that.

Let’s Move Before They Raise the Parking Rate

David . . .

Never forget that you’re a fighter.

Cheap as Wisdom (PGM)

            We’re all so goddamn gullible.  We want to find comfort in the small things, life’s little operations, and then we pick up the remote.

            Good thing you got it wired.

            Wired nothing.  I’m as guilty as the rest of us.  I just have the gift.

            What gift is that?

            I can see what a fuck up I am.

            That earned a laugh.  The first in a long time, Haltek let a single sideways tsk through his mouth.  He followed it with a sip of coffee lest the rookie get the idea he was developing a sense of humor.

            I’m outta smokes junior.  Duck in and grab me a pack, and re-up on the coffees too.

            Yeah.

            Fuck up.

            I’m gonna regret sharing so much wisdom with a vet like you.

            You’re gonna regret my bouncing your ass around the block unless you get moving.

The Cat with the Burner on High

Pacific Garden Mission (con’t)

            Asleep on the job guapo.

            The brown man, dozing into his own belly.

            Aye!  Quiet you stupid.  I been up since 4.  I hear you come up the stairs when I’m to start.  I get to sleep.

            This is my buddy Grig.

            You face don’t look so good buddy.

            Lou rapped him a good one last night.  Didn’t believe he was a friend of mine.

            Help yourself.

            Artemio waves toward the orange coffee urn, then swings his thumb back over his shoulder at the rack of donuts.

            That’s mighty kind of you friend.  Grig is trying to be polite, despite is head throbbing at the temple from last night’s swat, and from the inside from the lack of caffeine.

            Kind nothing, that fucker he don’t fix shit in this building.

            This fucker don’t raise the rent for the last three years neither.

            Yeah.  You okay sometimes.

            Get the coffee bud.  I’ll grab us an assortment.

            Grig fills a pair of waxed cups, smelling the cinnamon Mexicans always brew in.  It’s a soothing smell.

            In the front under the bakery’s front window is a card table and a pair of plastic chairs, a makeshift waiting area.  Artemio drags the works on to the sidewalk on nice summer afternoons to play dominoes and slap flour dust off his thighs.  Today it’s perfect for a pair of makeshift heroes planning to shortcut effort and make an instant fortune.

Pacific Garden Mission (con’t)

Artemio’s Panederia on the first floor. Pale enamel, decades old.  Herculean mixers whirling in polyrhythms.  Fat brown men shouldering sacks of flour.  A dusted radio blares panachanga over the din.  Then a narrow corridor of jaundiced fluorescence and buckled paneling, to where the namesake dozes on a barstool next to cooling racks of donuts and cinnamon knots.  His sons, nephews, cousins whirl around him, moving the pastries while his goggle-glassed daughter commands the cash register.  Jesus watches from the calendar over her shoulder, eyes toward the cash drawer, hands caressing his own flaming heart.