Looking out from the backseat of the classic Lincoln, Frank couldn’t see another white person.
Anywhere.
Except for Clayton over there across the street in front of Roxie’s Lounge, Cook going jaw to jaw with a Black dude who was likely a pimp.
Guy probably armed and dangerous.
Not that Frank held any animosity towards Black dudes in general, that wasn’t the case. Back in Zenith, Johnny Beam was a friend of his for Christ sake. But Zenith didn’t have very many Blacks, and now it felt weird to be surrounded by people who might want to kick your ass just because of the color of your skin.
Sure, he’d had some trouble from Black guys in his ten years behind the bar at the Metro. But he’d also caught a lot of grief from white dudes over the years. Which made sense, given the large differences in the population ratios of northern Minnesota.
One of his favorite lines to people spouting nigger-this-and-nigger-that-shit: “Hey, some Polack kid comes in and starts causing trouble, I don’t condemn the entire Polish race.”
But, shit, this scene here was ridiculous.
They were smack dab in the middle of the Black section of Phoenix.
Did they still call it the ghetto or was it now the Hood?
Whatever you called it, it was a scary place if you were white as a lily and unarmed, which all four of them, of course, were.
And how did they get here?
It had all started a couple of hours ago at the restaurant.
Dinner was great.
Clayton had insisted they order whatever they wanted—price no object—and Frank took him on his word, getting the steak and lobster combo. Surf and turf. He liked that.
Fuck politeness.
Dinner was jovial, but later, over coffee and snifters of fine brandy and cognac, the vibe changed.
Had to have been the speed.
After-dinner mints were on the table in a white china dish the shape of a mint leaf, and as soon as the dinner plates were cleared away, Larry shook four of the orange pills into the dish and passed it around the table. Everyone but Frank swallowed a pill and followed it with a mint.
Frank had himself a mint but returned the dish with the pill to Larry. “I’m gonna pass on the zip,” he said. “I want to get at least some sleep before I hit the highway.”
Larry gave him the fish eye.
Frank thought it was some kind of awkward peer-pressure thing and squinted back his displeasure, watching Larry’s face snap back to indifferent, where it belonged.
Soon the conversations were more long-winded and the shots of barely disguised vitriol toward Larry became more frequent. All seemingly centered on the results of Larry’s frequent trips to the payphone.
Well, Frank didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. He’d heard the discussion back at Rancho Deluxe and knew what the deal was.
Peruvian marching powder. A substance that when ingested might lead you down some suspect path. A path that could easily take you someplace you didn’t really want to go. Someplace you shouldn’t go.
Recalling his own recent excursions with the powder…
Fuck, he didn’t want to relive that.
At the restaurant, it was Larry’s speed—and possibly the craving for cocaine—that had changed the feeling from loose and fun to edgy and sharp.
Tense.
Impatient.
Which somehow led to a one-upmanship match among the men, concerning whorehouses and prostitutes they’d sampled. A discussion that many young men may have had. Frank had heard a hundred of them in his years behind the bar.
What’s that, ten per year?
Sounds about right.
But tonight the discussion had descended into something else. At one point, Clayton Cook, liquored up and coming on to the sharp edge of speed, stated in a voice only slightly below a holler: “Nigger whores are better than spic whores, any day.”
Which brought numerous eyes to their table, as Cook continued: “Ever fucked a one-legged nigger whore?” Looking at the other three, in turn. They all shook their heads to the negative. “Nothing like that stump banging you in the thigh, I tell you. Get you going if nothing else will.”
And that was the impetus that had brought them to this really dark place somewhere in the inner city of Phoenix. They were parked directly across the street from a small bungalow set back in the darkness, about thirty yards from the curb.
Clayton had said he’d been here once before. Sometime last spring—April maybe…
Bryce had chimed in that it was probably the spring consortium meeting, because Clayton had disappeared for a few hours one night.
On this night, Frank and Larry and Bryce had waited in the car as Cook swayed up to the front door of the little house. Frank was glad the street was dark enough that their white skin didn’t stand out like landing beacons at Sky Harbor airport. He watched as Cook knocked on the front door of the bungalow.
Watched him stand there fidgeting for a minute before the door opened and he stepped inside.
(To be continued)
PAPERBACK + EBOOK AVAILABLE
Summer Reading Ebook Special $1.99 (June – August)
Bookshop.org: https://bit.ly/3XG682t
Barnes and Noble: https://bit.ly/3sBA5SZ
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3DEFkYz
https://books2read.com/u/mlEM1B
SEE ALL T.K. O’NEILL’S BOOKS HERE: https://bluestonesblog.com/
To contact Bluestone Press or T.K. O’Neill, email bluestonepress@outlook.com or call 218.724.5806
Bluestone's Blog 