Peter Maravelis - San Francisco Noir

The rain rattle-crashed on the windows, the evil trees slammed their devil branches on the roof of the little house, Gina pulled the covers over her head. “Oh ow oh ow oh ow.”

“Shshshhh. You’ll annoy the demons. Be brave, oh blackheart babe, be brave.”

“Hey, I’m dyin here. One eye, purple cheek, held captive in a wilderness hellhole.”

“What time they expect you at your place of gainful?”

“When I get there. I’m just the inventory monster trapped in the basement, any shipments get there before I do, they pile up. I suit up, show up, count em, log em, sort em, shelve em. Simple. I do it inna speed-stupor. Work one all-day-all-night shift and it’s done. Commerce recommences. And I get paid. Do it again after I’ve slept some.”

“You wanta callem, or what?”

“Yeah. I better. They aren’t likely to call my PO, but they might start callin hospitals. Or morgues.” Gina rolled off the futon onto the floor, crawled around for a while patting the slate. “Cigarette? Grrr. Cigarette? Ahhh.” Inhale. “They think that highly of me. Right. Let’s hava shot of coffee here-I’ll take another Percoset, thank you-then make a break for civilization.” She held out her coffee cup.

Alhambra poured. “Not civilization. I’m not happy with civilization. Yunno? It don’t work for me.”

Gina held her coffee cup in both hands, cigarette dangling from her lips, she couldn’t figure out how to sip since the cigarette was in the way and she wasn’t about to let go of the cup with either hand. Mornings were filled with dilemma. She growled, “Civilized is soothing drugs. You have soothing drugs. Ergo. Civilized.” She sucked the cigarette down to the filter, put the cup in one hand, pinched the cigarette out of her mouth, and tossed it into the embers of last night’s fire. She held her hand out for the pill. “Thank you.”

Alhambra said, “Civilization treats pain with lectures. You know that.”

“Right. I came all the way up here to get my face mashed in so I could get properly loaded. Got it.” Gina pulled her shirt on. “Beats whatever else I had in mind.”

They rattled into town, avoiding the fallen branches, hydroplaning through the rivulets streaming across the road. Monte Rio. Vacation Wonderland. Two bridges, one street. No beach in the winter, the river ate it. There was a movie theater in a Quonset hut with an immense mural on its side, runny with water. The metal ridges of the hut blurred the painted trees into menacing shapes. Gina muttered, “And my granma tol me this place was friendly. Ha.”

A large red amanita mushroom graced the sign for the Wonderland Diner. Alhambra said, “You’ll like it here, Gina.”

Gina looked dubious, but as they entered she murmured, “Whoa. A real diner. Cool.”

Knotty pine walls, sweet breakfast smells, a waitress with a sharp take-no-prisoners grin greeted them. “Good morning. Sit yourselves wherever you’re most comfortable. Coffee?” Not even a small blink at Gina’s broken face. Maybe smashed up faces were common. Maybe the waitress was just good.

Alhambra grinned back. “Mornin. Two double espressos, please, to start.”

“Comes double. You want double double?”

“Yes, please.” Alhambra whispered to Gina, “Great coffee. They tested every kind they could get their hands on-”

The waitress pulled the handles on the old espresso machine like an Italian barrista. Serious. No shortcuts like the machines at Peet’s.

“Sounds like my kind of job.”

“Pffft. You would be the worst waitress on the planet. It’s an art.”

Grumbling, “I wanta be the taster, not the server.” Gina bit the lemon peel, sipped her double espresso. “Damn. Well. All right then.”

“Country pleasures.”

Gina didn’t respond, she got up, bringing her coffee with her, walked to the side of the diner, called her job. They hadn’t missed her, really, but they were aware that the work wasn’t done. Not to worry. She’d deal with it when the roads opened up. Sometime in May. Monte Rio had a certain appeal.

“Okay, so tell me: What do people do up here?” Gina spoke through a mouthful of biscuit ten minutes from the oven with real Maple syrup poured over. She stabbed at her bacon and spun it around on her fork, pointing the whole arrangement at her friend.

Alhambra chewed her BLT on rye, considering an answer. “Same as anywhere. Folks try to get by, grab the energy of the earth and put it to work.”

“Energy of the earth? Crap.” Gina wasn’t going to be mollified by an outstanding breakfast. “Diddlin. That’s what happens when you don’t have the energy of the city. Ya go soft in the head and spend all your time diddlin.”

“Define.”

Gina’s mouth opened, closed. She scowled. “Eh. You know what I mean.”

Alhambra looked up.

Gina felt a large ominous shadow on her right. She craned her neck, wincing for effect, focused her one functioning eye on the steel worker who stood by their table.

“I know you.”

Gina’s lips parted, starting to snarl then wiggling into a limp smile. “Yeah?”

The six-foot steel worker with the blond buzz cut spoke in a melodic soprano, she stood sort of shy, one foot on top of the other. “Uh-huh.” She shifted to another self-effacing position. Her eyebrows lifted, her head tipped to the side, one shoulder raised up-a sort of traditional body language for you-know-where-we’ve-been.

“Jail?” As soon as Gina spoke she would have eaten her own head if only she could’ve fit it in her mouth. In for a nickel. “Which one?” In for a dime.

“Bryant Street. You were on your way somewheres else, probably don’t remember me. Name’s Joey. They called me Big Rig .”

It would be impolite to admit she didn’t remember anyone quite so large, impossible to say she had no memory at all of someone who tried so hard to be small. And failed so utterly. “Ah.” Perhaps the woman was smaller then?

Joey pointed, a small movement, at Gina’s arm. “That my design, that one there.”

Gina took a long breath, blew it out. This person was too sizable to insult, but truth is truth. “No. It ain’t. It ain’t yers. It’s from the hand and mind and soul of a monster great master in the Mission. I watched it bein born in his psyche, I watched it get drawn here on my arm, and I watched him, in total tattoo trance, ink this sucker by hand with needles he tied together right there in front of me with secret knots, and with ink he ground up hisself from pine sap. So don’t give me no shit about it’s yours.” Her lower jaw stuck out: Nobody fucked with Mission history.

Joey shrunk back, her lilting voice floating as if it was a whisper of wind. “Oh. I see.”

“No. You don’t see.” Gina made a small grunt as Alhambra kicked her under the table. “Yesterday a complete toad haulin around a Day-Glo wheelchair told me the same thing.” She moved her chair back in order to speak directly up at Joey. “I apologize for bein harsh to you, but the skinny fucker popped me in the eye when I told him to go fuck himself.”

“That asshole! He been stealing my designs, calling them his own.” The color rose in Joey-Big Rig’s face, her eyes went glinty gray, her arms swelled up like pumpkins as she clenched her fists. “That gnarly bastard couldn’t put a tattoo on a fucking grapefruit.”

Gina thought better of pointing out that the design on her arm wasn’t Joey’s. Instead she nodded, glad to have support in her appraisal of the man. “Dead eyes? Mummy face? Crap ink?”

Joey nodded, her color shading to something less volcanic. “He kills people. He uses the same needles on everyone. Steals other folks’ work and twists it into something ugly.”

“Carryin bad tattoo art is death in itself.” Alhambra spoke, cool waters to soothe a restless soul.