George Pelecanos: Drama City

Shirley, the girl in the halter top, approached Rachel and stood before her.

“’Scuse me,” said Shirley. She was tiny, with almond-shaped eyes, Hershey-colored skin, and a pretty smile. She looked to be thirty, but had given her age as twenty at a previous meeting. Her drug use had stolen ten years from her looks. If her daughter was in first grade, Shirley had given birth to her at fourteen.

“Yes?”

“Can I get one of them Marlboros?”

“Sure.”

Rachel shook one from the deck. Shirley took it, and Rachel offered her a light.

“That’s okay,” said Shirley, slipping the cigarette over her right ear. “I’m gonna save it.”

“You’ll need these,” said Rachel, handing Shirley the matchbook.

Shirley smiled. “You have a blessed day.”

“You also,” said Rachel Lopez.

Shirley went to the curb and stood with her hand on her hip. Rachel crushed her cigarette under her sneaker and walked to her car.

The short woman, looked like an addict to Lorenzo Brown, had bulging eyes, ill-fitting clothing, and a bandanna covering her ratty scalp. The woman, along with Lorenzo, Rachel Lopez, and many others, was in line at the Subway shop near Florida and New York avenues. She was standing in front of the Plexiglas that separated the employees from the customers, raising her voice at the employee, a Hispanic woman, who was building her sub.

“How you gonna put mayonnaise on my sandwich when I asked you for mustard?” said the woman.

The employee did not look at the woman or answer. There was no need to argue or even reply. Also, there was a problem with communication, as the employee spoke little English. She simply replaced the top portion of the sub roll and used a knife to spread mustard on the bread.

“I want some more cold cuts on that motherfucker too,” said the woman. “More turkey and shit. You listenin’?”

The small customer space was near filled with blacks, whites, and Hispanics, many in uniforms and some in low-end office outfits of the Docker-and-poly variety. No one told the woman to mind her manners or to simply keep her mouth shut. A few of the customers, insecure about their own place in life, enjoyed the woman’s rant. Most, Rachel Lopez and Lorenzo Brown included, were uncomfortable with the scene but did nothing to stop it. If they did, it would only end with more aggression, and anyway, a person filled with so much self-hate could not be changed. Still, many in the store, Rachel and Lorenzo included, felt mildly ashamed for not coming to the employee’s defense.

“See that?” said the woman, who turned to Rachel Lopez, saw the Latina in her skin and eyes, thought better of it, and turned away. She focused her gaze on Lorenzo Brown, who stood beside Rachel. “ You see, right? People come in here, takin’ our jobs, can’t even speak our language, how the fuck you think they can do some simple-ass shit like fix a submarine sandwich?” She looked back at the woman making the sub. “That’s right. Put some more meat on there like I told you to.” She rested a hand on her hip, her voice dying down to a mumble. “Tryin’ to cheat a woman up in here.”

Rachel Lopez and Lorenzo Brown got their subs, paid for them separately, and walked out into the sun.

They sat in Rachel’s Honda because Lorenzo said the van smelled like piss. The day before, Jerry, one of his fellow officers who was driving that particular Astra, had transported a cat in a cage, and the cat had shaken and peed all the way to the shelter. Jerry had apparently forgotten to clean the bottom of the cage at the end of his shift.

Lorenzo couldn’t help noticing that Miss Lopez’s car was as messed up and unclean as the van. Empty Starbucks cups and gum wrappers littered the faded mats, sprinkled with ashes, that covered the floorboards. A whole rack of paperwork and files had been carelessly tossed on the backseat. A couple of green little-tree deodorizers hung from the rearview mirror, but the interior of the Honda still carried the smell of nicotine.

Least it didn’t smell like urine. Cat pee was the worst. Lorenzo hated that smell. Unlike the earnest patchouli-oil-wearing types he worked with, he could never get used to that sour, nasty stench, and he couldn’t seem to get it out of his clothes. Now that he thought of it, patchouli oil, whatever that junk was, it turned his stomach too.

“Tuna’s good at this one,” said Rachel, wiping a bit of it off the side of her mouth.

“They do it right,” said Lorenzo.

Rachel dug into the rest of her sub as Lorenzo devoured his. She had asked for hot peppers, and the woman behind the counter had been generous with them. Rachel craved the spice. It was always like that when she was feeling poorly behind drink. Her body had been depleted of something and was begging to get it back.

They finished eating without speaking further. Rachel had turned on one of those radio stations played country, her music, and a song Lorenzo did not recognize and would never want to hear again was coming at a low volume from the dash. The two of them were out of the same era but had different taste.

“So,” said Rachel, after consolidating all of her trash in one bag and dropping it behind her to the floor of the backseat. “How’s it going?”

“All good,” said Lorenzo, his usual reply.

Rachel Lopez nodded and looked at Lorenzo directly, trying to draw his eyes to her. She was good at this, pulling him in.

“It is good,” he said.

“Nice to hear it,” said Rachel. “Piece of cake, right?”

“Got its ups and downs,” said Lorenzo. “Most times I get up in the morning, I’m anxious to get off to work. But some days? I just don’t feel like dealing with people. You know, all those things people do that get on your last nerve. I’m talking about the politics and all in the day-to-day. Gives me headaches.”

“Welcome to the grind.”

“But still, it’s goin’ fine.”

“You feel that way, you’re doing better than most.”

He looked at her, and her eyes smiled. Miss Lopez had pretty brown eyes, even without makeup. She tried to hide her looks, tried to hide the things about her that were physically attractive, her figure, everything. But she couldn’t hide that nice spirit. With good people it just came through.

Showed you, the way you judged someone up front, it could be all wrong. But how she’d acted the first time they’d met, he figured that was deliberate.

When he’d first come out of prison, he’d been contacted with a written notice and follow-up phone call, and told to report to a Miss Lopez, his probation officer, out in some office building in Prince George’s County, over in Maryland, within seventy-two hours. After going through a metal detector, he sat in a waiting room like a doctor’s, had girl magazines all round: Rosie, Good Housekeeping, stuff like that. He was wondering why they didn’t have any reading material for men, car magazines or SI, ’cause it had to be mostly men waiting out in this lobby. Then Miss Lopez came in, wearing a middle-age lady outfit like she had on now. She shook his hand, her eyes cool, telling him that this was business and she was all business, and that was how it was going to be.

They went into a room, looked like any interrogation room he’d been in at any police station, scarred table, blank walls, all of them like the rest. She didn’t offer him coffee or a soda or nothing like that.

Miss Lopez then went over form number 7A, which described the conditions of his probation, point by point. Most of the rules any fool could have guessed. He couldn’t commit any more crimes, couldn’t own a firearm or any other “dangerous device” or weapon, and had to “refrain” from the use of controlled substances. As he was a convicted drug felon, he also had to submit to regular drug testing. He couldn’t leave the judicial district (for him that meant D.C., Maryland, and Northern Virginia) without permission, was required to notify his parole officer as to any change of address, refrain from frequenting places where illegal substances were being distributed, refrain from excessive use of alcohol, notify his PO of any arrests (including traffic violations), and meet his “family responsibilities,” which meant child support. He was to tell the truth at all times. And, Miss Lopez said, the most important requirement was he had to maintain lawful employment.