John Domini - Talking Heads - 77

Junior cuffed the wrench-head aside and backed off. He and Kit were left facing weapon to weapon.

“Heyyy,” Junior said.

“Keep away, Rebes.”

The inspectors went on hammering behind the locked closet door. The clamor went up his spine and threw red halos wherever he looked. Or was that it the cons who did that, their screaming? There were dizzy effects, outcries from people that weren’t even in the building. Kit heard the voice of a ghost at Bette’s seance, the rough talk of Leo Mirini on the phone. He and Junior seemed the center, the hinge.

“This is crazy,” Kit said. “Talk to me.”

“Can’t talk if you be gettin so excited, sweet butt. Gettin excited, they always tellin me, that’s symptoms paranoia. You know? They tellin me I got a history. But if you just give me that iron, man, we won’t have no history.”

“Junior, Junior listen.” He was freezing, soaked. “I can still help you. We can put this behind us.”

The con limped a step nearer, fists bobbing.

“Back off!”

“How you gonna help me?” Junior’s eyes were lemon wedges. “You don’t know. I been through all my symptoms paranoia, been down to the end of every line. You know what a man can go through, when he’s alone in his own place? I been scratchin them walls, writin. Takes me right to the end of every line there is. ”

“And where’s that?”

“Don’t try no sweet talk, pretty boy. I’m here to tell you, ain’t nobody out on the street knows what’s the shit like the man at the end of the line.”

“I want to hear it, Junior. Everything you know.”

“Oh yeah?” Junior’s mouth flattened. “That why you din say nothin when Garrison was crackin me upside the head?”

Nowhere else for Kit to look.

“I know what’s the shit,” Junior said.

“I came down here, Junior. I tried.”

“You tried. That’s the shit , the oldest most stinkin ofay tourist dogshit ever. Man, your story bout me din even use my real name.”

He might still have been inching closer, his chin over his claws, a yellow mantis. Or was it only the effort of listening? Kit bent more defensively, his butt against the door. “I guess you did a lot of thinking.”

“I did me so much thinkin I learned I didn have to think. Thinkin’s like Tinkertoys, nowadays you get a computer. I’m way past thinkin, man. The world’s worst nightmare.”

“But you want people to know, don’t you? You want them to know the truth.”

“Aw, man. Still just thinkin. Oh this poor victim of society, thinkin Tinkertoys, clickety-click. Oh this poor child, picked himself the wrong way to get a pretty piece of butt. I’m way out free from all that, my man. I’m everywhere.”

Junior smiled, and his battered complexion gave him a natural eye shadow. “I’m way out there scattered all over naked and free. A rapist and murderin superfreak, floatin free at the end of every line.”

Kit kept the iron bar angled up.

“Like see, you ask me, where’s the drug? Use to think it was the drugs they givin me too, you know, use to think the drugs takin me away. But the drugs, they make you weak. You gotta be strong to make it out where I am, gotta be strong and do like I did with that chain. Whomp on it, whomp on it some !” For a moment, arms pumping, it looked as if Junior had Houdini handcuffs. Punch a button somewhere and they’d come apart. “You want to be everyone’s nightmare, man, you got to do somethin unreal . You got to whomp, you know what I sayin? Then you Superfly. Whomp, whomp. Everybody can see you ain’t no faggot victim of society.

“But the drugs, man, those drugs.” His eyes shrinking once more, Junior shook his head. “They make you weak. Garrison and the guy on Monday-Wednesday, tryin to make me weak.”

“That’s something people need to hear,” Kit said. “The truth about the drugs, Junior, that’s—”

“Aww, honky dogshit. Drugs ain’t nothin to tell. My Mama’s had the drugs all her life, you know. It ain’t a Saturday night for her less she’s got her wine.”

The word Mama sounded wildly out of place.

“Useto watch my mama down at that church,” Junior said. “That wine all in her eyes. Wine stay in her eyes for days, after some Saturday nights. She screamin about Jesus. I see my Jesus up there, see the face of my Lord Jesus lookin down! Man, Jesus is the drug. Some big old Jesus face lookin down makin things right— that’s the drug. That church my mama got, only way to get the dogshit out of that place be to burn it down and piss all over the ashes.”

Junior spoke as if they were alone, almost a gossip’s side-of-the-mouth. Yet by now, the inspectors weren’t the only ones banging. The other cons were at it, using God knows what. Food trays, knuckles, the rubber bottoms of their institutional shoes. Kit’s wooze grew worse, stickum between his ears. It was all he could do just to keep a good grip on the wrench.

“I know you,” he tried again.

“Big ol Jesus face lookin down.” Junior showed his teeth, he spat. “Jesus nothin against your worst nightmare.”

“Nothing compared to what’s at the end of the line.”

The boy met his eyes. “My mama’s reverend you know, he say, ‘Keep movin on up. Brother, keep movin on up.’ On up to what , man? We nothin and we always be nothin.”

“Junior, Junior. Let me help.”

“We nothin, ofay. Nothin unless we floatin free and fuckin naked everywhere , pissin all over the ashes.”

“Yah, Junior!” one of the other cons screamed. “Showtime!”

“I’m trying,” Kit said. “I think I can do some good.”

“Aw you messed-up lyin tourist asshole. You don even like havin me this close.”

The cuffed fists nearly touched the wrench head. Yet Kit had leaned forward, his face exposed. Junior was right — he’d been a coward and a liar, and now it was time to do better. Time to act.

A slam from the stairwell, a shock in spite of everything.

A blood-colored can sailed into the center of the room. Had one of the others gotten loose? But what would they be doing with a tear-gas canister? The cylinder splashed down and boiled across the puddle, coils of greasy air hissing from each end. Finally, the security officer:

“Ad? Amby? What the fuck ?”

The canister worked fast, a bad ‘60s memory on top of everything else. It stung Kit’s eyes, it turned the room to smoke, and he couldn’t answer. The inspectors hammered, it got to his knees, he couldn’t answer. Now came the first hot shock in his lungs as the canister squirmed and boiled.

“ Smart boy ?”

A shadow loomed in the rusty air. Kit glanced up, startled, and Junior caught him hard across the face.

“Mothafuck,” he said.

“Hey, is that you?” Garrison called.

Junior whacked him again, backhand and off-balance but a dead hit on the original sore spot. “Nothin but talk.”

“Is that you?”

“ I got him !” Kit screamed.

The last slap had left him stooped. With one red glare he fixed Junior’s position — those lemon-wedge eyes sunk in shadow, those prideful cheekbones — and whipped the wrench up into his face. Kit swung from the gut. Something gave at the end of the clout, a breakage that sent a tremor up the iron. A shiver up the elongated tool and right to the ends of Kit’s nerves, so that while Junior’s head was still lifted by the first blow, Kit jerked his weapon back down. From the gut, putting his back into it, Kit yanked the handle like a pulley-rope so the head’s fat metal Gshape caught Junior a second time between the eyes. A second hit. The follow-through carried Kit’s shoulder forward into the kid’s chest. Junior’s cuffed hands dropped into the center of Kit’s back.