Michael Thomas - Man Gone Down

She’d call me into the kitchen, and there’d be a plate waiting for me and a scotch and water for her. The radio would be on but tuned all the way down to the right end of the dial, where there was soul. I’d eat — stewed meat, boiled potatoes, fry bread. She wouldn’t. It seemed she never did. She’d move around, busy but slow, doing things and mouthing the words of the songs that came on. I remember them, of course. I listen to them now, but I was a boy then, and although they were so beautiful to hear, they were also so troubling in the same amount — songs of resistance, of loss, of just holding on: love songs, music both sacred and profane, church music evoking sexy fathomless grinds, sexy music calling on God. When she was done with her busyness, she’d sit down. Sometimes she’d sing, “People get ready . .” Her voice was lovely, but she’d only sing a line or two, then perhaps hum, then go quiet and sip and swallow. She was usually so hard to look at: the eagle nose, the freckles, the green eye, the amber eye. For me, my mother’s face seemed like a void, a historical abyss, an emptiness from which, if I ventured, I would never return. But really, it was rich with artifacts, made of memory and blood, things that could be regarded only in the past, never in the present. Perhaps it was the old beer in my little head that would make her face close, and I’d see it, I’d see her — just her eyes, her skin, below the buggy fluorescent and above the tap water and rye vapors, a song on her lips — she was beautiful.

We’d hear the front door open and click quietly shut, and we’d know he was gone. While I got ready for bed, she’d pick out a book for me, and in the lamplight, surrounded by the pictures of great men, some shadowed, but because of the busted shade, some still with a hint of glistening, I’d read to her until I fell asleep.

“Why is it called the oldest profession?”

We ignored Brian. Shake turned the car on, startling the woman. She was alone in the alleyway, looking at us. She was short, chubby, and wearing the obligatory blonde trick wig. Brian was watching her as though he would call on her, if he could’ve found his pecker through his lysergic haze. He started to roll down the window. Shake stopped him cold.

“You roll down that window and I’ll break your fuckin’ arms.”

“I just want to ask her something, man.”

“Leave her the fuck alone.”

“I just want to ask her something.”

“Ask her what?”

“Why she does it.”

Gavin fogged up his window with his breath and quickly drew a cartoonish eagle — tongue out and cross-eyed, like some rascal had just brained it with a mallet. The horns introduced the Beatles. Gavin wrote, “Love, love, love” under his sketch. She walked out of the alley, past the car, and down the street. I could see that Brian wanted to defy Shake, but he was starting to hallucinate. He began to stare at the carburetor’s hump as though he was a herpetologist and it was an anaconda sleeping on the floor. She disappeared into one of the strip clubs on the street.

The snake disappeared, and he jerked his head up. “You’d think that it would stop.”

“What would stop?” asked Shake, annoyed.

“Prostitution — sex for sale.”

“What are you, high?”

“No, Shake, hear him out.” Gavin turned to Brian, who was now fiddling with his coat zipper.

“I mean, why isn’t something else the oldest, like selling bread or wheat or water? What about wisdom? Haven’t people needed knowledge as long as they’ve needed sex?”

“I thought you said wisdom,” said Gavin.

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t.” He opened a beer and looked into the hole as if it was an imploded star. “You’re confusing your terms — your argument. You’re confusing me.”

Shake started to laugh. Gavin tried to hush him.

“You guys are just fucking with me because you think I’m fucked up.”

Brian snorted and grunted like an angry two-year-old. The acid seemed to be making his face distort — for me. He settled himself and looked out his window back down the alley, then out the front, down the street, at the row of strip clubs on both sides. He sighed, “Why doesn’t someone do something?” He shook his head, gestured in front of his mouth to conjure the words—“Something heroic.” He pointed out the front window. “Look, there’s at least six strip clubs on this block alone and I don’t know how many hookers and pimps in alleys, man.” He sipped at his beer and made a face as though it should’ve tasted different. “I mean, I thought technology was supposed to be the great liberator.”

“Technology?” spat Shake. “What technology?”

“Technology,” he stressed, as though changing the intonation would provide clarity. He waited. No one responded. “Like cars, bombs, indoor plumbing, electronic radios.”

“Maybe,” said Gavin, “technology just turned out to be a more advanced oppressor — each advancement that much less humane.”

“Aw, fuck it, dudes — fuck it. Forget it. I’m just tripping.”

“Nah, Bri,” said Shake, turning, suddenly taking him seriously. “But you’ve got to understand that this,” he gestured out the windshield, “this is just a microcosm — for capitalism.”

“Dude, you sound like you’re high.”

“Capitalism?” asked Gavin. He erased the crazy bird, finished his beer, and opened another. “Capitalism — hah — we need more beer.”

“Yeah, Gav,” warbled Brian. The drugs were working on his voice. “How many beers do you have stashed in your coat, man?”

“Enough.”

“You gonna sell your surplus back to us later on?”

“My good man, with beer, there is no such thing as surplus.”

“See, dude — they got you right where they want you.”

“Who?”

“The beer companies.”

“Yes, they do, underage and chemically dependent.”

Brian propped himself up and clenched his jaw like he was either summoning all his courage or trying to suppress a violent stutter. He threw in a finger point, too. “So who’s the pimp and who’s the ho?”

“Pal,” Gavin chuckled, “I’m afraid your analogy isn’t analogous.”

“Yes it is.”

“No, sir, it is not.”

Shake jumped in. Still strangely interested. “Anheuser-Busch is the pimp. Budweiser or Michelob or whatever product is the ho, and the drinker is the john.”

“No,” said Gavin.

“No?”

“No.” He took a long pull. “You’ve misnamed some players and omitted others.”

“Go on then.”

He pointed at his can. “Anheuser-Busch is a company, made up of employees, many of whom don’t share in the company’s profit. Augustus Busch — whichever number they’re on — and his family, are the only pimps, and everyone and everything assisting in the delivery of the product to the consumer, who in turn is not substantially enriched by the process — anyone who truly labors is the whore.” He took another pull and exhaled in mock satisfaction. “You are correct in saying that I, the consumer, am the john, but alas, you’ve forgotten the product, which is the buzz, the high, that swirling in my heart and head that makes me feel a part, that makes me continue on, babbling in this most idiotic manner about this idiotic topic, that makes me carnal and stupid. Gentlemen, yes, indeed, they have managed to distill, package, and market sex, good times, and death in a tin can.”

“Dude, you’re tripping.”

“No. You are. I’m drunk. But I’ll tell you something.”

“What?”

“As soon as I wean myself off this cosmic barley tit, I’m going to turn Augie Busch’s little ash can out into the streets of East Saint Louis. Hah! Trick or treat, Bud Man!” He crushed the can and, forgetting that he’d rolled it up, bounced it off the window.