The Price of the Ticket Read online

  “Ouch.”

  “Mr. Paulos?”

  “It is he.”

  “I’m Robert and I’m calling on behalf of the Old Prisoner’s Home. How are you today, sir?”

  “You’re calling from where?”

  “Where I’m calling from is hardly relevant, Mr. Paulos? This is a telemarketing service? It’s on behalf of whom I call that matters? How are you today, sir?”

  Is it just me, thought Pauley; or is it simply true that a declarative pitched in the interrogative smacks of condescension, or dimwittedness, with no in-between?

  “I’m trying to stay afloat without giving myself a massive embolism, Robert?” Pauley replied testily, hesitating over the invoice. “What’s the date, Robert?”

  “I beg your pardon, sir?”

  His eye fell on the front page of the day’s Chronicle, folded unread beneath the invoice book. Friday the 30th. He filled in the blank. He hadn’t realized it was so late in the month. Not good. What would eventually become the rent was loaded into the truck, but the actual cash rent money would be due tomorrow, and since he’d bought the truck he didn’t have the full amount. Payoff would have to be hurried along.

  “Sir?”

  “Ex-cons aren’t supposed to associate with one another, are they?”

  “I beg your pardon, sir? But I am not an ex-convict, sir?”

  “Then buddy, you are a bleeding heart.”

  “Mr. Paulos, I haven’t called to let you insult me…?”

  No, there could hardly be a manner so condescending as one honed to turning declaratives into interrogatives.

  “Don’t interrupt me. As it happens, I associated with convicts in their gestative stages, when we were mere felons, the most fun of all, breaking that and many other rules in advance. But association bloomed into the future, which is present-tense, the Now, in short, where we are all beaten men. In between we read our Hemingway, we read our Louis L’Amour, we pumped our iron, we ate our white bread and our pork and beans and stared through the web of strap steel while drinking the thin black coffee and it was not good. It further occurs to me that I heard a lot of music while I was penned up, more than before or since. After having been beaten at chess by a child-murderer, have you never hummed the quatrain,

  If you can’t do the time, boy

  Don’t do the crime

  All a them fine things, boy

  Get along fine without you

  –so fine without you.…

  He beat the receiver against the post as he sang, badly off-key.

  Then he applied the receiver to his mouth again. “Okay. I lied, it’s five lines.” He was shouting. “But concise, is it not? A credo, as it were, Mister.… I forget your handle. But Mister, I no longer believe myself capable of doing any time whatsoever, let alone associating with those who have. I can’t conceive of it without great pain. They broke me. I am rehabilitated. I can’t imagine the crime I could bring myself to commit, knowing what limbo awaits the convicted.…”

  He stopped.

  He began again. “Four gray walls–”

  He stopped again. What’s this, Pauley? said a little voice. Spilling our guts to a telemarketer, said another little voice, rather smugly.

  Yes.

  Well, not really. The guy had hung up long since.

  “Ah, fuck you, too,” Pauley said quietly. He should have slammed the receiver onto its hook hard enough to tear the phone off the post, but he didn’t. He replaced the receiver very quietly on its hook, as if to do otherwise might be enough to wake the dead.

  The central skyway had survived the earthquake and so had Pauley. They looked good together, with only his new Toyota between them, and a load of torture racks firmly tied off behind him, the whole deal doing fifty and smoothly, over the tarmac. Who was that guy, who slept with that babe, there was a sword between them? To keep them from conjugating untimely? Does Toyota make samurai swords? Look it up! It took so little to get him back on the track–a close tie with how little it took to get him off it. A seat with adjustable lumbar support, for example, to fit the curve of his deteriorating back. He hadn’t even noticed it when he bought the truck. A genuine bonus. The little dweeb who’d previously owned the thing had hardly put a dent in the sheet metal, either. Tender Loving Care must have been his rule. Nor had the dweeb’s ass caved the springs through the bottom of the driver’s seat, like Pauley’s had the Econoline’s. Probably spent his Sundays putting antifreeze on the tires with a toothbrush. The opposable thumb, it’s a miracle. Probably bought the rig solely on the basis of whether a $150 shirt would hang uncreased behind the seat. (Oh, insight!) He twisted to have a look, but his back resisted the movement with a warning twinge. He winced and faced forward again. Pauley wouldn’t know a $150 shirt from a grease rag anyway. Come to think on it, that tranny might have been wearing a $150 shirt when he put it out on the street this morning. Probably why “they” stole it. “They” thought it was an accessory to the couture, yes, I always wear a tranny to the Black and White Ball and I’m running late this year you know it’s always difficult to find a good lube job this close to the big night, and a throw-out bearing; he flicked his wrist at the windshield, fergiddit, sister.

  Pauley had learned to talk to himself long before his father died, got really good at it in prison, and had never seen any reason to break the habit. You meet a better class of people that way, arghh.… The only thing that can help at a time like this is a little aggressive eroticism. He cast a glance at the passenger seat, wondered whether Celeste would be able to fit her aggressive eroticism into it. Need one speculate? Actually, while Celeste could fit her aggressive eroticism almost anywhere, the stumbling block between theory and practice was Pauley’s bad back. He’d wrenched it when he first met Celeste, and kept on wrenching it, and let nearly a year pass before he mentioned the problem. This Toyota’s not the rumpus room that the Econoline was, but then, George Bush didn’t win back Kuwait with horses and lances, either. Commerce, Pauley, follow your leader’s example, commerce first, although come to think on it there’s definitely an aggressive eroticism to the President’s Kuwait response, so far as the average Republican is concerned–not that Pauley knows an average Republican, he hasn’t known an average Republican since he left the joint, which is full of them. Besides, he has never voted. But how could any Republican be other than–but enough aspersions on people he hardly knew. Come to think on it, now that a President had made the world safe for high-test, will this thing run on lamp oil like the Econoline? Or is there a trick to its version of internal combust.… Son of a bitch, look at that gauge, that guy Seam has left this story a full tank of gasoline he’s no dweeb whatsoever but a great man, lumbar support and gasoline, it brings a protagonist to the brink of tears to consider that he need ask for but a little more, like, say, a retirement home in the Sierra Nevada. A tank of gas and lumbar support, he’s a prince among dweebs.…

  Cowabunga, that’s not the fuel gauge reading Hot. That’s the temperature gauge reading Full–and the gas gauge is reading Cold! This act’s running on Empty and overheated to boot, overheating even as you take back what you said about that dweeb, stupid, he’s no dweeb, he’s a con man and thar she motherfucking blows!

  Steam had begun to stream from under the hood and condense on the windshield. Pauley had to turn on the wipers. The temperature gauge swung visibly past the red capital ‘H’, the engine lost power, pre-igniting loudly, and Pauley suddenly found himself parking the Toyota within the vertex of a white ‘V’ painted onto the freeway, forward motion ceased, where the skyway split into Interstate 80 East, toward Berkeley, and 101 South, toward San Jose, with two lanes of people in reliable vehicles bifurcating in a hurry on either side of him, four lanes in all, at the dizzying rate of some 260,000 units per day.

  Pauley may as well have been marooned on a Toyota-sized rock in the middle of a white-water river.

  He turned on the four-way flasher. It worked just fine.

  As Pauley opened the drive
r’s door, somewhat steamed himself, a car screeched and veered wildly, causing a ripple effect among those beside and behind it, punctuated by sudden squeals of locked-up wheels and tires. But since no contact was made, nobody actually slowed down. Sixty in a fifty miles per hour zone assured a smooth flow of traffic, even if some bozo with an overheated truck got slightly in the way. But quite a few of the efficiency experts driving by honked their horns aggressively, quite as if Pauley might get in their way just out of spite, quite as if none of them had ever been in his position themselves. Was it possible none of them ever had? And by god paid their car dealers and mechanics and insurance companies thousands of dollars a year to keep it that way? And was it possible that none stopped because they all knew the animated man cursing within the billow of steam in the middle of the freeway was a tattooed ex-con with a bad back and a load of torture racks, and so were justifiably afraid of him?

  The shabbily dressed driver of the Toyota felt free to gesticulate violently and swear loudly because he’d never expected any mercy in the first place. Nobody on the freeway could hear him, of course. They were all too busy listening to aggressively erotic noise on their in-dash compact disk machines and talking on their cellular telephones at a dollar a minute—a dollar a minute! And, of course, one instinctively shies away from anyone upset enough to get demonstrative about anything–doesn’t one? In public, one ought to be cool. The exception is rock stars, who get paid to act crazy. Later in private one can have a good cry, no matter who one is.

  Pauley shouted curses as he raised the hood, leaning away from the plume of steam that rose in a jet from the radiator cap. Time was when this was a friendly town, a village really, when a neighbor would stop and lend his neighbor a helping hand, and not klaxon all over his business just because he’s been dealt an apparently insignificant setback.

  Pauley knew a few things about engines–in fact, he knew way too much to be optimistic about this one. He wrapped his kerchief around his hand and twisted the radiator cap a half turn to relieve the intense pressure in the cooling system. The volume of escaping steam doubled. He was superstitious enough not to switch off a seriously overheated engine, based on the notion that to do so might encourage the pistons to seize. Some motors can take such punishment, especially older Japanese engines and very old American ones. But the real reason for not switching one off is that to introduce cool water into the radiator while the engine is overheated and stalled will not cool the engine at all, because the water doesn’t circulate. Not immediately circulated the cold water might fracture the dry radiator, the water pump, or some part of the engine block itself–a cylinder wall for example–due to the temperature differential between the overheated metal and the cold water.

  To make or not to make this mistake, however, you need a supply of cold water. If there’s no fresh coolant around, you might as well turn off the engine and forget it. Maybe get off lightly with scored cylinder walls and/or a warped cylinder head.

  First, however, as the motor began to sound increasingly like it was baling hay instead of idling in neutral, Pauley ransacked the cab and came up with a quart of kefir. Undoubtedly, in his rush to defraud somebody before tea last Sunday, Seam had overlooked the kefir, like he had overlooked the water leak, right.

  There being little or no fluid left in it to boil, the pressure in the radiator had eased substantially, enabling Pauley to remove its cap entirely. Then, using the same kerchief-wrapped hand, he twisted the cap off the plastic jug of kefir.

  A strong odor assailed his nostrils.

  Cautiously, he sniffed the plastic bottle.

  The kefir was rancid.

  Kefir is a very thin yogurt drink, often flavored strawberry or carob, not precisely an engine coolant. Pauley dumped it into the radiator anyway.

  The radiator responded greedily, like a floor drain in the United States Senate after a filibuster. The result was a profound indigestion. Pauley had the sense to step back a pace, but he wasn’t prepared for the decisive vigor by which the mass of kefir was regurgitated. It blasted straight up out of the mouth of the radiator, pelting the underside of the raised hood until the thin sheet metal shivered like a piece of loose roofing tin in a high wind. Abruptly the hood strut came loose and the hood collapsed with a crash into a cloud of overwhelmingly fetid steam.

  The motor stopped mid-stroke with a sickening wheeze. Foul vapors continued to hiss, leaking upwards around the perimeter of the hood. Beneath the engine compartment, unnamed fluids dripped to the pavement and coursed down the grade, back toward the vertex of the painted ‘V’. The hood strut hung over the front bumper at an oblique angle, like the tongue of a roadkilled snake.

  A black BMW with tinted windows and a crushed left front fender, uncannily like the one whose driver had insulted Pauley on Sunday, less cannily identical to a thousand others, roared by, sounding its horn. The sharp bray tore through Pauley’s miasma like a shaft of jagged glass. He turned on his heel and flung the empty kefir carton after the BMW with a curse. A sharp tweak in his lower back arrested him mid-throw, modulating the curse into a shout, but all three gestures were lost on the diminishing black car, already dropping over the crown of the ramp and onto I-80 below. Even as it left his throat Pauley’s voice was suffocated by the automotive roar around him. The empty kefir carton tumbled as if weightless above the slipstream, and flew far beyond where Pauley might have been able to throw it unassisted. The carton rolled and spun, darting aside or spiking upward just as it seemed about to fall among the speeding vehicles and be crushed. Diagonally across the freeway, fifty yards from where Pauley had launched it, the carton hovered a moment, just beyond the oxidized guardrail, then dropped out of sight.

  Chapter Eight

  THE GYRE WAS CROWDED AND PAYDAY LOUD. WHEN PAULEY walked in he saw Horseknocker sitting at the bar with his back to the door, but Antoine “the Ant” Churlip stepped in front of him.

  “Pauley, baby. Whuzzup.”

  Pauley knew Antoine. In their long-gone youth they had partnered on various illicit enterprises. Subsequently Antoine had passed through miscellaneous joints at the same time as Pauley. Because he was always transferring in and out without doing too much time, some thought Antoine a snitch. But Pauley knew better. Antoine always had plenty of business going, inside when he was inside and outside when he was outside. He’d never have to turn snitch. Pauley knew him for being his own man, which was a small-time pimp, gambler and thief with no class at all who from time to time did well for himself. You had to take that ‘from time to time’ business literally. If Antoine was out now, he was doing well. But Antoine would be doing time again. Maybe Antoine was a smart yoyo; but he was still a yoyo. So how smart could he be?

  Besides, the Ant would never snitch on Pauley.

  Pauley ignored the greeting and fixed the Ant’s eyes with his own. Pauley had a broken truck on his hands and no time for extraneous patter. But bars are public places, and, for that matter, Antoine spent a great deal more time in The Gyre than Pauley did.

  “Nothing’s up, Antoine,” he growled. “Yourself?”

  Antoine made a face like he was excavating a boil. “Hear times is a little thin, my man. Pretty little stay-at-home of yours doing her nails all day, keeping you up all night, sleeps late and in between.… Could cost a man his peace of mind.” Antoine showed the rotted ferrety teeth of a man endeared to keyholes and other people’s suffering, and winked. “Whynchta put her to work onna street? I might pay for a little myself… in the beginning.” Antoine smacked his lips.

  “Antoine, hey,” said Pauley. “I wouldn’t charge you no money for that.…” he shrugged. “Somebody might cut your dick off for you, though.”

  “Pauley, Pauley. So uptight.…”

  “I’m not uptight, Antoine. It’s just that I’m living with a chick half my age. She can fuck around after I’m gone.”

  “Yeah.… Cool.”

  Pauley’s mouth tightened into a thin grimace. “You got any other advice?” he said quietly
.

  “Hey, hey.” Antoine put a hand on Pauley’s shoulder. “Don’t get your tattoos inna crawl about it.”

  Pauley looked at the hand.

  Antoine removed it. “Since you feel so strongly about her, let’s talk about you.” He lowered his voice. “I could use an experienced hand.” He looked at the palm of his own hand. “What a coincidence. Here I am, talking about hands, and here’s one right here.” He curled his fingers until only one pointed at Pauley. “One night’s work.” Antoine grinned. “Serious cake.”

  “Fuck off,” Pauley said.

  Antoine flicked his wrist next to Pauley’s ear. As if out of thin air, a silver dollar appeared between Antoine’s thumb and forefinger. He showed it to Pauley.

  Pauley ignored it.

  Antoine grinned. “How’s the back?”

  Pauley said nothing, but a twitch passed over his cheek. Antoine had made a little money on the fight that ended with the body slam.

  “What’s this?” Antoine said, looking surprised. He inspected both sides of the silver dollar, affecting disdain. “You musta caught it from some guy you bumped into onna street.” He turned the hand down, flicked it past Pauley’s other ear, and held it up. A dime twinkled along the knuckles.

  “Whoa, whoa, little fella,” said Antoine. “They’re like cockaroaches, these things.”

  The dime traversed the tops of his knuckles, rolled over the pinky and walked back under them, coming to rest between the thumb and forefinger. Antoine held the dime under Pauley’s nose.