“Hole in the World”
He comes out back and I’m taking a piss by the dumpster. You spend a lot of time pissing by dumpsters in my style of life. “Roy, my friend,” I say, shaking it off and sticking it back in my pants. “I need your expert help. And I’m willing to pay for it.”
“Seriously folks?” he cracks. “My fellow American, you have my ear.”
“Roy, buddy, oh mystical guide to the hole in the day, I’m going to tell you something. No, never mind, I’m not. Changed my mind on that one. I do need a car, though. A car that no one’s going to notice—Mr. Workaday’s car. I really need to get out of this town, man. I’ve got some really pressing business just a few hours away from here and the fuckers aren’t answering their goddamn phone. And I need to get up there right away before—ah—in case something’s wrong. Can you do something for me, pal?”
“Why don’t you just rent a car, Don? There’s plenty available, even up this far north. Ain’t the fuckin’ Arctic Circle, y’know.”
“I don’t have any credit cards, my friend. Mastercard and Visa run the world, partner, and if you ain’t playing their game, you ain’t renting no fuckin’ car.”
“Man of the world like yourself, Don, you don’t carry any plastic?”
“Don’t act so goddamn surprised. How many cards you got?”
“I had a bunch a few years back when I was working at the casino, but I’m afraid the accounts have all been temporarily severed from my possession. I guess they expect you to pay the money back.”
“Yeah, ain’t it a pisser—banks and their gall.”
Roy pulls in a deep breath and stares up at the almost full moon. I watch a rat scamper underneath a shiny blue Chevrolet and down the way a car horn bends its searing note to the intoxicated neon night.
And then Roy says, “Shit, man, I left my bag inside with Trudy and Ava. Those whores’ll rob me blind.”
He takes off for the door.
Being a thinker, I jog across the parking lot and down to the street corner just in time to meet the Stolten sisters hot-footing it toward the taxi stand. By the time Roy catches up, all sweaty and excited, his bag is safely in my hands and the girls are safely rolling away in the Yellow Cab. They were more than happy to give me the bag after I told them Roy had a gun. I figured it was the best way to deal with a potentially dangerous and otherwise unwisely encountered situation. I mean, Roy’s jaw muscles were working like locusts in a wheat field and his eyes were glowing like the high beams on a semi at four in the morning. Discretion was the better part of valor here, man; know what I’m saying?
Roy eyes me suspiciously, as if to say, who the fuck do you think you are, then he grabs the bag and shrugs. He shakes his head and laughs softly. “All right, you win,” he says. “We’ll go get a car now, Mr. Ex-con. I guess I owe you now, huh? Anyway, that’s what you think, eh?” He smiles some more, eyes bleeding red, and then goes into some kind of weird Indian dance routine which I think is just for my benefit. After he finishes dancing, he starts singing: “Okay Joe, we gotta go, me-o my-o,” rattling it off with a hip–hop beat. Fucking indigenous rap artist.
I just suck up some air and hold it in, praying for good fortune. Anything is better than waiting. I’m getting eaten up, by this waiting. I just have to get to the Moser’s.
Now we are heading somewhere on main street, Tower Avenue. My guy is walking fast, leaning forward, his arms swinging back and forth against the sides of his red-and-black checkered lumberjack coat.
“What the hell, Roy,” I say. What fuckin’ hole in the world are you taking me to now?”
“We’re going to Roy’s own personal used car lot, man. It’s right down the block. Just you wait and see.”
We cross the railroad tracks and come to this huge gray warehouse. Looks like it used to be one of those discount retail outlets that sprung up all over the place in the seventies. Now it houses two bars—Starland and The Classic. A parking lot almost a block long and a half a block wide runs along the south side. Tonight the lot is full of cars, some of them way back in the dark where the pavement turns to gravel.
I’m thinking that Roy sure knows what he’s doing but then we don’t stop at the dark parking lot, we keep on walking.
Here we go again.
“Hey man,” I say, lingering behind. “This lot looks perfect to me. We can just wait out here until some drunk stumbles out to his car and then we cold-cock him and take his keys—’nuff said.”
“That’s not the way I work anymore, Don. Stealth is the key word for the wizened ones, my son. Besides, you haven’t told me the story yet. What it is you’re so hot-pants antsy about that you can’t spend any time with the fine women I find for us?”
“Excuse me? Stealth is cutting a hole in your girlfriend’s fuckin’ floor? Flooring the getaway car down the alley is stealth? You’re fuckin’ crazy, man. A fuckin’ lunatic. I should take a goddamn taxi up to Hovland.”
“Hovland? You’re going up the Shore? Why didn’t you say so? I was born up in Grand Marais. Actually Grand Portage, at the reservation there. And that’s close to Hovland. Yeah man, I lived up there until eighth grade. Then I had to leave because I shot a kid in the ear.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah, that is correct. Indian boy shoots white boy in ear with deadly arrow. Me and some other kids—they were all white—I’m the only skin there—were fooling around with this homemade bow one afternoon. Our arrow was just a stick with a nail in it. We were all shooting the thing, you know, but it’s me who fires off the seventy-five yard shot that hits little Jimmy Nelson square in the ear. Leave it to the skin boy to fuck something up.”
“All’s right with the world then, I guess. But rein it in, man; I never said I needed a driver, just a car. I think I can find my way there by myself. I took a course in map reading—in prison. Always trying to better myself, you know.”
“Man, there’s shit up there that only someone like me knows about. Roads and people and rivers. The highway runs right along the North shore of Lake Superior. There’s heavy magic along that road. You need me. If your shit is bad, things can happen to you up there.” He takes a toothpick out of his jacket pocket, sticks it in the corner of his mouth and starts grinding away.
“What do you mean, if my shit is bad?”
“If your spirit is struggling with the rest of you, or if you are weakened by a disease of the spirit.”
“Sounds like a lot of happy horseshit. And somehow, you don’t seem so spiritual—in the pharmaceuticals department—if you know what I mean.”
“Shit, man, I’m on a first-name basis with every evil spirit on the North Shore. We’re all old friends. They don’t even bother with me anymore because they already fucked me over in every way possible.” He pauses for effect. “Now don’t try and kid me, Don. I know you got some kind of big dope deal going down or something like that. I ain’t seen hash like that chunk of yours—not for a long time around here. Me no drive, then much sorry—no car for you, Johnny.”
“Okay Roy, whatever you say. I ain’t got time to argue with a nut case. You truly are a magical mystical motherfucker. And you guessed right. It is a dope score. Hashish coming in over the pole. How did you guess? But here’s my plan: I’ll give you a grand now for the car and two grand when we get back here. Provided there’s no more fuckin’ around.”
“You got a deal, Al Caponi. What type of vehicle do you prefer? Two door? Four door? Sport utility? Minivan?”
“How about something—shall we say, unobtrusive? Low profile?”
“General Motors unobtrusive, Ford unobtrusive or imported unobtrusive? Just don’t ask for Chrysler. I don’t do Chrysler. A man has to have his values intact.” He turns his head slowly from side to side, scoping out the parking lot. “Tell you what, Don. You watch my back and I’ll go get us a real nice vehicle. Something your mother would be proud of. Got my handy dandy all-purpose used car converter right here in my bag of tricks.”
He sticks his hand down inside the satchel and digs around at the bottom, squinting in the dim light. Out comes a six-inch diameter metal ring with about five pounds worth of car keys strung around it. He shakes it like a shaman’s rattle. The sound is like “Tambourine Man” as done by Judas Priest. “I used to work repo for a car dealer over in Duluth,” he says, smiling, proud of himself. He holds out the keys. “These were my severance pay.” Then he sniffs a bunch of times, rapid fire, and disappears into the dark end of the lot.
(To be continued)
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