Todd Robinson - The Hard Bounce

“I knew her, yeah.”

“I’m so sorry for that, Boo. I guess the old stairwell just couldn’t hold no more.” Dutch shook his head sadly for his poor house falling down around his ears.

“Did you find her?”

“Nah. By the time I got here, there was cops and lights and shit all over the place. Thank God. Thing like that’ll stay with a man. Wish I could’ve been here to help her, but I sure am glad I didn’t find that poor child.”

“Was anybody there at the time?”

“Shit, if they was, they got themselves the hell gone when they saw the police coming.”

“Anybody say anything when they came back?”

“Nobody came back but me. Damn police scared away all my tenants.”

And odds were, those former tenants would be impossible to find even if I knew who they were. Finding a girl was one thing. Tracking homeless nomads in a city like Boston was another problem entirely.

“I need to see the house.”

Dutch pressed his lips together and shook his head. “I wouldn’t go in there right now.”

“Why not?”

“I got a double-crack in there right now, losing his got-damn mind. That’s why I’m out here.”

“What’s a double-crack?”

Dutch smiled, a little embarrassed. “A cracker crackhead. No offense.”

“How long has he been in there?”

“He just showed up today, looking for Louisa. Louisa ain’t been here for months. He’s flipping out, saying he won’t leave till she gets here.”

“I’ll be right back,” I said, crossing the street. From my backpack, I pulled out a thick Maglite flashlight and lit up the front of the house.

The front porch gave an ominous creak as I walked up the steps. Yellow police tape fluttered, broken in the breeze. I pulled a short piece off the rusted iron rail and stuck it in my pocket. I don’t know why I wanted it, I just did. The air wafting out the missing front door was heavy with dark odors of rot and waste. The smells brought with them overpowering memories of the time I’d lived here as one of Dutch’s tenants.

I moved aside the blue nylon tarp that covered the doorway and walked through. A plastic mop bucket that had been used for a latrine sat by the door. I gagged as I passed by and pulled my shirtfront over my mouth and nose.

“Louisa?” A gruff voice called out from the darkness toward the back of the house. My dealings with the chronically fucked-up have given me an ear for the difference between drinkers and brain-damaged lifetime addicts. The guy’s voice sounded like he’d made a career out of huffing any chemical he could soak in a sweat sock.

“Time to go, man. Louisa ain’t coming back,” I called out as I turned my flashlight his way. Roaches scurried away from the sharp glare cast on the floor.

“The fuck’re you?” the voice asked as my eyes detected a flicker of motion in what was once the kitchen.

I held the light low, so as not to blind the double-crack and freak him out further. He was wearing a grimy T-shirt reading Baby On Board and filthy cutoffs with sandals. His skin was so crusted with muck that it was difficult to tell where the dirt ended and the man began.

“I’m the fella who’s kicking your ass out of here. Now move it.” I flicked the flashlight toward the door, in case he’d forgotten how to get there. I hoped my no-bullshit tone would pierce his addled brain.

“I ain’t doing nothing until Louisa comes back.” He emphasized his point by waving a short piece of rebar menacingly in the air.

My thin patience snapped, and I brought the bright flashlight beam straight into his face. “Hey!” he yelled. He defensively brought the metal post up over his head. In one motion, I flipped my hold on the flashlight and brought the handle down hard on the knobby bone in his wrist. The junkie howled in pain as the rebar clunked onto the floor.

From behind, I slipped the flashlight between his legs, turned it flat against his thighs, and pulled back. I grabbed a handful of his slimy hair and pushed his upper body forward. Trick of the trade. A ten-year-old could pull off the move against an NFL linebacker. I had no trouble maneuvering a skinny crackhead. He was like a smelly marionette in my grip.

As I scooted him toward the door, he lurched sideways to escape. Not only didn’t it break my grip, but his aim was terrible. Using his own momentum, I dunked him head-first into the shit bucket. His screams quickly gurgled out as I held his face down in it.

“Oh, God! Lemme go! Please! I’ll leave!” he begged when I let him up for air.

“How long you been here, you fuck?” I snarled.

“I-I just got here this morning, man. I just wanted-”

I cut him off with another dunking. His screams gurgled up through the viscous fluid.

“Were you in here on Saturday, you dirty fuck? You like to put the hurt on little girls? Huh? Answer me, shitbird.”

Thick bubbles rimmed around his submerged head as he screamed. His arms and legs whipped around wildly, clawing for any purchase. He grabbed at my pants legs, my arm, my shirt. I held him down harder.

I stopped when I heard Mr. Dutch pleading, “Boo, let him go! He wasn’t here. He really did just show up today. He was in lockup.”

I let the crackhead go and he scrabbled into the corner by the door, turtling himself up, whimpering like a child waiting for the next blow. “I just want my Louisa,” he blubbered. “I just wanted to find my Louisa.” He rocked back and forth, clutching his knees close to his chest.

Dutch stared at me, horrified. There was only one crazy nutcase covered in shit in that room right then. Nobody needed to point fingers to figure out who it was.

Dutch led me out back, where a spigot and hose still gave water despite clanking a protest. I washed off the mess best as I could, but there was no amount of cleaning that would save my clothes. I was going to be walking around in a potato sack if I lost any more of my wardrobe.

“I’m sorry, Dutch,” I said, sick with myself.

“S’okay, Boo. You feeling a lot of hurt right now. I can see that. Jest don’t think poor George deserved to suffer from it.”

Knowing the crackhead’s name made me feel worse. “I just lost it, Dutch. I thought… I don’t know what I thought,” I said, turning the faucet off with a squeak.

“Like I said, it’s okay. At least you got George to hit the bricks. Probably don’t have to worry about him coming back, neither.”

Dutch led me back to the wide stairwell at the south end of the house. I remembered going up those stairs to the room I’d kept my sleeping bag in. The stairs supported me just fine back then. But ten years was a long time in a house that should have been demolished in the early 1990s. Stringy wisps of carpet remained tacked onto the edges of the stairs, fibers black from the flames that burned through the house. A wide hole opened like a gaping mouth three steps from the top.

Carefully, I walked up the first four steps. Cassandra couldn’t have weighed more than an even buck with all her clothes on and wearing wrist weights. The stairs creaked, but gave only a little under my two-thirty.

“Be careful, Boo,” Dutch said nervously. “No offense to you or that little girl, but the last thing I need is another dead whitey in my house. The damn police already put me through their suspicious-nigger line of questioning.”

“I’m all right,” I said as I made my way higher. One step below the hole and the stairs still held me. I was only eight feet off the ground floor, but I knew falls from lesser heights could kill, especially if you weren’t expecting the drop. I ran my fingers along the edges of the broken planks. The wood grains were swollen with moisture, but didn’t appear to be suffering any excessive rot.