Peter Maravelis - San Francisco Noir

He was nattily dressed in a sharp suit and tie. Lights came up behind him, revealing an orchestra, which began to play. Ray smiled and bowed to the audience, who continued to applaud. He then turned and picked up the microphone, sat down on the stool, and began to sing.

Twenty years later. In the corridor of a decrepit nursing home, elderly people in wheelchairs, mostly black, were either sitting in or being pushed along by attendants. One of the former, a woman in her eighties, sat in a wheelchair placed flush against a wall, ignored by the overworked staff. The woman, now blind, wearing dark glasses, was Vermillion Chaney.

“I don’t recall that night too good,” said Vermillion. “I’m old enough now I don’t recall most too good, though sometimes I surprise myself, rememberin’ the tiniest detail from way back in the day. I know Revancha was a workin’ girl, sure I did. Used to be she hung out at the Toro Club down Bayshore. Almost always she’d bring her man to the Chinita. Never had no trouble about her till that night.

“Ray Sparks? Everybody knowed Ray Sparks. Famous singer like him? Nobody miss that face. I heard he sometimes hung at the Toro, sat in with the band, after hours, like that. Maybe he just run into Revancha for the first time. Can’t say one way or another. About the shootin’, it’s like I told the po-lice when it happen, I was just defendin’ the girl and myself.”

Revancha Lopez, now in her mid-forties, was seated on a bed in a crummy hotel room. The evidence of a hard life showed in her face.

“My name is Esquerita Revancha Lopez y Arrieta. I ain’t been usin’ for six years, since before my last holiday at Tehachapi, and I won’t start again, the Good Lord wil-lin’. The street broke me. If you can believe this, I got me a straight job now, cleanin’ rooms at the Chinita. Ain’t that a twist? ’Bout that night, I heard so many stories, ’bout the man bein’ set up and all, ’bout Miz Chaney be in on a hustle, even that she and I was hired by the FBI or a black militant group to put him out the way. People make up shit like that don’t need no TV. They got enough goin’ on inside they own mind entertain’ theyself.

“I knew Ray Sparks for a while before that. He had this image, you know, clean-livin’ man, good family, still singin’ gospel some Sundays. Cat was a player! Not only that but I heard his wife was runnin’ the streets, too. I had just got back to the Toro Club after doin’ a piece of business when in walk Ray with his cousin, Anthony. Was Anthony come over to me, buy me a drink. We shootin’ the shit for a few moments, then here come Ray. Puts his arm around me, says somethin’ like, Señorita Lopez, I figure it’s about time you treat me right. I said, You got what it takes, Ray . We was playin’, straight up. He’d had a few drinks already, he didn’t want no more, and he was all over me, tellin’ me how beautiful I look, he don’t know why we ain’t got together before, makin’ me feel good. Back then, it don’t take but fifty dollars to make me feel good, but Ray, he liked to have some style, you know what I mean. He know it’s gonna cost him, but he liked to play like it’s on the house. One thing, with this girl was nothin’ doin’ on the house.

“Now I’d been with Anthony before, so Ray, he know the deal. The three of us was havin’ a good time. Ray be rubbin’ against me, I knew he was ready to do some business. Inside an hour, we get in his red Corvette, tool over to the Chinita. I ask him, Don’t you want to do better than this? He say, Baby, I’m in a hurry to get at you . Okay by me. I didn’t figure him to be a freak. I ask for a hundred dollars. Star like him can’t think under that. He pay for the privilege of bein’ a star. He took off his pants. I got to my underwear and next thing I know, he starts beatin’ on me. I mean, serious, usin’ a belt. I tell him to quit, he don’t need to be doin’ that. He say, Don’t tell me what I need! He throw me down on the bed, push my face into the pillow so I can’t scream, hittin’ me. Then he sticks his dick in from behind, finish in a hurry. Then he get up, go into the bathroom.

“When I hear him relievin’ himself, I jump up, scoop up all the clothes off the floor, and run out the room. I run to the office. Miz Chaney let me in, she by herself, lock the door. A few seconds later, Ray bust it down. Miz Chaney be afraid for her life, that’s the truth. He come at me, shoutin’ I stolen his wallet. Chokin’ me. Miz Chaney come up with a hand cannon, tell Ray to turn me loose. Next thing I know, there’s Ray on the floor, everywhere is red. It weren’t the worst time in my life, but it was sure the beginin’ of a downhill. I keep thinkin’, slide gotta stop sometime. I keep thinkin’, but it don’t really stop.”

Ray Sparks was half-seated on a nightclub stool.

“Who you looking at ain’t Ray Sparks, it’s the ghost of Ray Sparks. Here it is twenty years later, and I look the same, not like Revancha Lopez and Vermillion Chaney. You’ll have to decide for yourself if it’s a comfort to look like you did when you died on into eternity. They don’t look so good as me but they got to live a lot longer. What people do with their lives is mostly fuck ’em up. Almost no way they could do anything else. I always liked that saying, Give a man enough rope and he’ll hang himself . Just some folks got themselves a longer rope to hang with.

“People like to blame other people for their own troubles. Even me. One thing I picked up on recently-in eternity, all thoughts and things are recent-is how there is no particular way to avoid what you do or how you do it. It’s like waking up in the middle of the night, hung over, and snoring in the bed next to you is an ugly whore. And you think to yourself, this can’t be me, shacked up with some nasty skank. Me is little Ray, running with my dog down along the river. Seven years old, me and my dog running next to the river and it’s about to rain. Nobody bothering us. But no mistake, it’s you in that bed, feeling like a bomb gone off in your head, and it ain’t no cute puppy lying there. You got to ask yourself why, and then if you got a lick of sense, do something to change your situation. If you never ask yourself the question Why? then you ain’t got a chance. You got to be brave.”

“Don’t you be listenin’ to that man!” said Vermillion Chaney, who rolled herself up to Ray in her wheelchair. “Talk like he sang, smooth as silk. Didn’t shoot you on purpose,” she said.

“What do you mean, didn’t do it on purpose?” said Ray. “That was on purpose as possible to be. You shot me three times. Once in the back.”

“Pistol felt light as a feather in my hand.”

“You got to like pulling that trigger.”

“Light as a feather,” said Vermillion.

Revancha walked up to Ray and said, “I didn’t mean to steal your clothes.”

“Only my wallet.”

“Your wallet was up in those clothes somewhere. I would have left it, after I took what was owed me.”

“There is no such thing as an honest whore,” said Ray.

“Man gets violent, what’s a woman to do?” said Vermillion. “God put that gun in my hand, told me to use it.”

“Better leave God out of this,” said Ray.

“When I was a little girl, eight years old,” said Revancha, “Mamacita took me down on Mission Street to La Iglesia Espiritu Santu to pray for my father, who was in the prison hospital. He had got stabbed in the stomach in a fight. We didn’t know it then, but at the same moment we was in the church, he died. I liked lightin’ the candles.

“We was about to leave when a man comes in off the street, wearin’ nothin’ but dirty rags. Had a long beard. I said, Mama, look it’s Jesus Cristo ! The man started blowin’ out all the candles, then picked ’em up and stuffed as many as he could inside his shirt. He looked up at the cross and shook his fist at it. He shouted, There’s no hiding place for the damned! Then he ran out of the church, droppin’ candles as he went.