Ariel Gore - Santa Fe Noir

The angriest cop, billy club in hand, stepped out of his car, still fuming, before he swung into Leo’s mouth and belly like he was swinging a golf club.

And where was he? And who was speaking? Leo moaned lying facedown, handcuffed, pretty much welcoming the zero/void. Officer Prescott at last had something significant to say — “Let’s drop the assaulting-an-officer charge, okay? Can you speed up, please? He’s about to get sick back there.”

The other cop in the front seat grumbled, hearing Leo retching up.

Prescott turned to the backseat and grumbled, “Damn, Leo. Sorry about this. Sorry this happened. But we’re jittery tonight. You better sleep it off in the cell. We’re looking for a real killer out here.”

Officer Prescott may have been right. Maybe the county jail was the place to recover. The rainstorm was a precursor to two days of somber weather. Leo spent his brief jail stint lulled by the pitter-patter, sleeping in a warm, dry place, listening to the rain without hearing the old refrain: Disappointment. Disappointment. Disappointment.

He didn’t bother pleading his case; his stomach panged. When he signed his release papers on the third day (guess the cops really had dropped the assaulting-an-officer charges), the jail officials at the desk handed him a list of fees and sums he owed the county — fees he would have to pay before he could have his bike returned. He thumbed a ride “home.”

He recognized within a few hours that he was still sick. The hurt sustained layers down; down in the pit of his stomach where the billy club sucker-punched him. He took to his natty cot. Lying hours face upward. Dieted on bottled water and canned tuna. Nothing else left at the trailer. Not even a Camo.

He dreamed the same scenes, over and over. He revisited the house fire, less hysterically, in particular the moment which he usually couldn’t stand revisiting when he put his hands over his eyes and (pretty bravely) leaped through the blazing door. He really did it. The dream paired with imagery of the killer? But had that really happened? Pictures of binding/rebinding the Santa Fe killer but good. Brave, too, he supposed, assuming the imagery was real.

It wasn’t worth believing in it. It wasn’t worth revisiting his zero/voids. Leo Malley. $3.85 man. It sort of wasn’t worth believing in himself.

He dreamed he told Giggles the whole story, before she collapsed into giggles. Or congealed like a pillar of salt. In any case, in his memorable moments, seconds, split seconds, he remembered his mantra, Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Racial epithet. Racial epithet . And, rolling over, feeling self-disgust, he realized none of it could have happened anyway.

The next morning, he felt strong enough to hitchhike. Hey Giggles, hey Paula at Wendy’s, starting to miss me yet? Who misses me?

Making his way into Santa Fe, he was halfway to the interior. A newspaper bin. Lo, behold . Sure, he prevaricated when he told Paula and Connie at Wendy’s that he had gotten into a fight, sort of the truth. Connie slipped him a coffee and a Santa Fe New Mexican.

“ We don’t really know what happened ,” read the official quote.

Leo thought: Who? How? Where?

Suspect found in a Southside alley. “We really don’t know what happened. We found him with his hands tied, his feet tied. He won’t offer an explanation.” The suspect is believed to have attempted a murder on that very evening, leaving Ms. Yevette Sandoval bruised and battered in a Burger King parking lot. The victim was discovered shortly before the suspect. The victim has been hospitalized and is expected to live.

The police detective hypothesized, “ Maybe he had a partner. Maybe they had an argument; something led to a falling out. But who knows? Maybe there’s a civilian hero out there. ”

So, Leo liked the sound of it, The police detective, and the phrase played in his mind, The police detective, The homeless detective, The police detective, The homeless detective, The homeless crime solver, like he was a house cat in an office with Private Eye on his door tag. His secret weapon was — Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Racial epithet. Racial epithet. What kind of crime solver am I? What kind of human being am I? What kind of human being am I not? He felt doubtful. He felt awkward. Ha, maybe I shouldn’t feel so scummy. ’Cause it worked, and the killer was a white guy, anyway . He felt unheroic.

That night, back in his trailer, he zero/voided, and as the sickness, the strangeness, and the surreptitiousness of it all caught up with him, Leo Malley began laughing, laughter that pierced the dark, laughter that resembled breaking into midnight song. Disbelief ceded to astonishment. Astonishment ceded to ridiculousness. Lucky that he was going to be okay, by the sardonic laws of the heroic survival of the alcoholic fitless. Very, very lucky that his best gal at Wendy’s slipped him twenty bucks. Lying bedded, he opened his palm in the darkness, and deftly unhooked a painkiller from his five-pack. The popped can went psssst . Camo beer. Camo beer.

Casa Alegre

The place is silent as I walk through the open barbed-wire gate, down the driveway toward the new-looking Big Wheel I’ve seen sitting, unmoved, at least a dozen times from the safety of my passing car. It, and the toys beside it, seem like they were dropped by playing children unaware that they would never be returning to put them away. Or by someone who wanted to give the impression that kids live in the house. After weeks of watching it during daylight hours I’d still never seen any sign of kids. Or of anyone, for that matter.

I step as quickly and quietly as possible toward the back of the property. I made sure to park my car down the block, out of sight of the house, in case they have surveillance cameras. I’d also put on the long blond wig I bought as a disguise a few blocks before turning down the street and parking.

I’m 5'3" and skinny, which makes me little by American guy standards. I figure between that and the wig, as long as I keep my head down I’ll look like a long-haired white guy (instead of a Latino guy with a short black fade) or possibly even a white girl. Which is good because if what I think is going on here really is, I definitely don’t want the sick fuckers knowing who I am.

It all started with Erica. Well, to be fair, it was winter that started me down this path. I’d been looking for an escape from the lethargy that had descended upon me with the falling of the leaves. My motivation, my very life force, seemed buried, like the earth, and I’d sunken so deep into my subconscious that speaking to anyone other than my dog had become difficult.

Somehow driving made it better. It made me feel like I was going somewhere. Even though I was literally just spinning in circles, needlessly burning precious fossil fuels like a fucking moron.

Every morning I woke up to the Santa Fe sunshine and another promise of productivity. I had my morning coffee and toke to motivate the mind, and then whipped out the ol’ laptop. Hell, sometimes I’d even bring it with me somewhere to make me feel like I was really working.

Most Monday mornings I’d end up at Betterday Coffee, the closest café to me. I’d plant myself with my laptop, notebook, breakfast burrito, and visions of lining up a week’s worth of work. Over the years, I’d inadvertently learned enough carpentry to convince people I knew shit. That, along with my Dartmouth degree and my small size — ideal for getting into tight crawl spaces — had made it easy for me to find a steady flow of fairly well-paying work as a property appraiser.