Every Man a Menace (3 page)

Raymond did as he was told. He moved slowly.

“Now, take off your shirt. Set it with your coat.”

Raymond turned and looked at Shadrack’s face. The man’s expression seemed to say that he just wanted to get this over with, too. Raymond pulled his shirt off and dropped it.

“Take your boots off,” Shadrack said.

Raymond bent down, keeping his eyes on Shadrack, and untied his boots.

“Socks, too.”

“Come on,” Raymond said.

“You’re a stranger, boy. I don’t know who the fuck you are. Said you’re Arthur’s friend, you know me, you know my reputation. You think I’d let you in off the street? Like y’all don’t know who the fuck I’m talking to? Y’all don’t know the fuck I’m dealing with? Shit, don’t make me worry about how dumb you are.”

Raymond felt a little stab of shame when he said this.

“Before I talk to you about anything that me and Arthur
might
want to talk about, I gotta know you’re not coming in here wearing a damn microphone. Not because”—Shadrack paused and looked up at the ceiling like he was addressing a listener somewhere else—“not because I’m partaking in any kind of criminal conspiracy, mind you, but because I respect Arthur’s privacy. Get it? Now take your fucking pants off. Let’s get all this bullshit over with. We gonna do this, or you gonna turn out.”

Raymond took his clothes off. He felt sick. Shadrack looked his body over—made him raise his arms, raise his balls—told Raymond he should be used to it coming out the pen. Raymond felt himself slip into the kind of trance necessary to get through this type of thing. After a few minutes
Shadrack went down the hall and returned with a brand-new white T-shirt, still in plastic, like he kept them around especially for these occasions. While Raymond unwrapped it, Shadrack found some used blue sweatpants, held them up to check the measurement, and handed them over. He didn’t give him anything for his feet. Raymond’s own clothes went into a black trash bag while Raymond eyed the shotgun.

Having knotted the bag, Shadrack cleared off a space on a dirty couch across from the TV and told Raymond to sit down. Then he pulled a radio out from under the table, turned it on so that static filled the room, and found a station playing Mexican music. He pointed first to his ear and then to the ceiling, just as Gloria had, as if to say,
They listening.

“Tell me exactly now. Why’d Arthur send you to see me?”

Raymond’s stomach knotted up. He thought about it for a moment and then said, “The man’s happy with the situation you and Gloria got going here. It’s a good relationship, works good for everybody. But Arthur’s been hearing things from certain people.” Shadrack’s eyebrows shot up and he began to speak, but Raymond raised a finger and quieted him. “He’s been hearing that you’ve been acting a little on the strange side.” Raymond paused for a moment, let it sink in. “Not the fun kind of strange, either. Strange enough that people are starting to worry. That’s why I’m here. He sent me to check in on you. That’s it. See what your status is, nothing else. Make sure you stay on track, just for the week. Get everything taken care of—let me tell him everything’s fine. He’s just worried that if you keep making everyone nervous …” He left the sentence unfinished.

“And he believes you can communicate with the Seven Gods because of what?” asked Shadrack.

“I don’t know what that is,” said Raymond. The stereo continued to blast its Mexican music. The nervous feeling in Raymond’s chest had connected to his breath and grew with each inhale. He felt scared. Shadrack stood over him, his face angry. The energy in the room had shifted.

“You thought you could come in here and communicate with me using human words?” Shadrack said. He pointed at his chest and tapped at it a few times, a gesture Raymond didn’t understand. Then he mumbled a few indecipherable sentences. It sounded like he was speaking backward, talking in tongues.

“You don’t speak Seven-L, do you?” asked Shadrack. He stood there, rocking from one foot to the other.

“I’m afraid not,” said Raymond. He felt nauseous. His forehead started to sweat. Shadrack was looming over him, blocking his way.

“And you’re just a boy, too,” said Shadrack. “How old are you? Fifty-five?”

“I’m thirty-two, now.”

“So, the—the—the—” Shadrack stuttered and then seemed to change tracks. “Are we friends?” he asked, looking truly concerned.

“I’d like us to be friends.”

Shadrack sat down beside him. Raymond noticed a sheen of sweat on the man’s face. He took a few deep breaths, like he was trying to steady himself.

“Remind me one final time,” said Shadrack. “What services are you offering?”

“I’m just a friend. Someone to help, help make sure everything goes smooth.”

“Like a helper?”

“Exactly,” said Raymond.

“Oh,” Shadrack said. “I see. Hold on.” He jumped up and left the room. Raymond looked at the door, then at the shotgun; he thought about walking out, but something told him to stay. He took a deep breath and tried to relax.

Shadrack came back into the room. He stood in front of Raymond and held out a bottle of Visine. “Open your mouth,” he said.

“Nah, I’m good,” said Raymond.

“Open up, friend!”

“What is it?”

“It’s LSD. Come on. Open up.”

“I got a piss test next week,” Raymond told him.

“They don’t screen for acid,” Shadrack said. “Come on, punk.” He was smiling now; Raymond saw his teeth. They were gapped and pointed, the molars capped in gold.

“Look, it ain’t nothing,” he said, squeezing a few drops into his own mouth. “Now open your damn mouth. We gotta celebrate your ass getting sprung.”

Raymond opened his mouth. Shadrack squeezed the bottle so that a solid squirt hit Raymond’s tongue. He tried to spit it out.

“No, don’t spit it out!” Shadrack yelled. He jumped around, laughing. He jumped on Raymond and hugged him. “You a crazy son of a bitch!” Shadrack said. “You’re fucking crazy!”

Shadrack wanted to go to a party after that. He let Raymond put his own clothes back on, and then he got himself dressed: black pants and a wrinkled black suit coat over a white V-neck T-shirt. He sprayed some hair spray into his hair, ate gum, gave Raymond gum, grabbed a black doctor’s bag, and led them downstairs to the garage.

“You sure you should be driving?” Raymond asked.

“Sometimes I am, sometimes I’m not,” he answered.

Shadrack’s car, a silver Toyota, was so normal looking that Raymond’s mind was put somewhat at ease. He couldn’t feel the drugs yet, but despite his nervousness he felt somehow happy, too. They were getting along. They were friendly now. He would be able to handle this job after all. Shadrack pulled the garage door open and the outside world—cold air, concrete, and street light—was suddenly right there.

They got in the car and fastened their seat belts. Shadrack slowly backed out, watching carefully to make sure the mirrors stayed clear of the door. Raymond asked again if he was sure he could drive, and Shadrack said he could do it with his eyes closed.

They worked their way down Mission Street. Raymond was still just nervy, not high, but the neighborhood had taken on a more festive atmosphere. The people looked happy, dressed up; bright colors and music seemed to be coming from everywhere. Even the bums were laughing. Shadrack was driving with a focused expression on his face. It seemed, to Raymond, like a perfect way to celebrate getting released from the penitentiary.

The party was right off Dolores Park. “This man you’re gonna meet is a true child of the Seven Gods,” Shadrack said,
once they’d parked. Raymond couldn’t tell if he meant it or not. They walked up a steep hill to reach the house, which to Raymond seemed like a pleasantly odd thing to do. He breathed in deep. His chest felt open. The drugs were setting in.

He hadn’t taken acid since he was a teenager. The house looked like a palace, looming straight up from the sidewalk three stories high, its surfaces new and clean. Shadrack rang the bell and pointed at a camera above it. Raymond felt a shyness pass over him.

A voice came on the speaker. It sounded like a man pretending to be a woman.

“Who is it?”

“Special delivery,” said Shadrack, looking into the camera.

They stood there and waited. Shadrack set his bag on the ground, ran his hands through his hair, took a deep breath.

The door swung open so fast that Raymond almost had to jump back. A regular-looking guy, a businessman, stood on the other side. He wore a blue button-up shirt, tucked in like he was at an office. He had a softness around his cheeks and gut. He smiled big at Shadrack.

“The Doctor has come!” he said. He was in his forties, white.

“We’re both doctors,” said Shadrack, flicking his thumb toward Raymond. Then he stepped forward and the two men hugged and slapped each other’s back like a secret handshake.

When they’d separated, the man turned to Raymond. “How are you? Brendan Moss,” he said, holding out his hand to shake. His eyes were wide open, like he was playing around. Raymond shook his hand and flinched—it was soaking wet.

“I was washing dishes!” the man yelled.

“Come on,” said Shadrack, waving them up the stairs. When Raymond passed him he whispered, almost like a preemptive reprimand: “Handle your high, brother.”

They stepped into a large room. Raymond gawked at the height of the ceilings, the glass windows, everything clean and modern. He’d expected some kind of biker party, not this. People turned their heads and stared, and Raymond froze until the heads swung back, the noise of conversation resumed. Moss grabbed him by the arm and pulled him toward a bar. “Get this guy a drink,” he yelled out. People smiled as they passed. Raymond felt gripped by the realization that just three short days earlier, he’d been wearing a blue uniform, living in a packed gymnasium, eating canned tuna on special occasions.

The bartender, an Asian man, was wearing a white shirt and black tie. They smiled at each other and Raymond was briefly certain he knew him from somewhere. When he tried to admit this his voice sounded strange in his ears. The bartender’s smile faded a little, and he turned toward Moss for help. But Moss—his hand still on Raymond’s arm—was looking somewhere across the room.

“Get him a drink,” said Moss.

Raymond looked back at the bartender. He seemed annoyed.

“What can I get you, sir?” he asked.

“Budweiser?” Raymond couldn’t think of anything else.

“We only have Peroni, sir,” said the bartender.

Raymond nodded, uncertain. He could still feel the heat of Moss’s hand on his arm, but when he looked, he saw
that Moss had left him standing there alone. He searched the room for Shadrack, but he couldn’t see him either. The lights had been turned down, and the room felt candlelit now. Everyone’s clothes looked beautiful. It was a costume party, Raymond thought. He took a breath and turned back toward the bartender, who was holding a bottle of beer out for his examination. It looked fine. The man poured it into a glass.

Raymond’s hands were sweating. His ears popped. Where had Shadrack gone? Where was Moss? There was a fireplace at the other end of the room, and he walked toward it.

He had been lost in the blue and orange tangles for God knows how long when someone grabbed his arm. He turned, expecting Moss, but instead found a young woman asking if he’d walked there.

“Did I walk here?”

“Do you work here?” she said again. She had a foreign accent. She looked over his shoulder as she talked.

“In this building?” Raymond asked.

The floor below his feet seemed to be moving in small circles. The woman he was speaking with looked, suddenly, elderly. Her makeup was thick, Raymond realized; she was much older than he’d thought. At some point he understood that they were standing in the middle of a group of people. He stepped back from the older woman; there were chairs set around them, people sitting and talking. To his right, a woman with long blond hair held a dog in her lap like a baby. It looked cute until he noticed she was breast-feeding it. She saw Raymond watching and stopped; she pulled up her shirt to cover her breast and gave him a nasty look.

The place had become crowded. He was still holding the beer, he realized, and he drank it. He started trying to move a little, in time to the music, but he felt strange, like a bear dressed in clothes, and then he kicked over a glass and red wine spilled out. The glass had broken. People were clapping at him. A short man with makeup all over his face pushed toward him and began to chant, “Enemy, enemy, enemy.” Raymond stumbled back to the bartender to ask for a rag. A beautiful woman with dark hair stepped out of his way. Raymond, for a moment, became transfixed. But someone grabbed him before he could talk to her.

It was Moss. “Don’t worry, friend!” he said. His long eyelashes looked fake. He pulled Raymond in and hugged him tight. His body was soft, Raymond thought, like he was wearing some kind of padded suit. But he was wet, sweaty.

“Where’s Shadrack?” Raymond asked.

“Come on!” said Moss. “He’s been looking for you.” Other people were dropping their drinks now. Raymond heard glass shattering. Someone had smeared shit or mud all over one of the walls. Everyone seemed to be talking at once. The white dog the woman had been nursing followed behind Raymond’s feet. Its mouth was stained red and looked bloody. They passed a homeless man in the hallway. He had long dreadlocks, and piercings covered his face. “Sorry, inmate,” the man said.

“Come on!” Moss said again. His face, now, resembled a loose-jawed puppet. “He’s in there,” said Moss, pointing at a door at the end of the hallway. A red glow the color of fire
leaked out from beneath the door. Moss put his hand on Raymond’s lower back and pushed him forward.

They found Shadrack sitting on a chair that looked like a throne. Two women sat on a bed to Shadrack’s right, regarding Raymond with peaceful expressions. They seemed friendly. Graceful.

“Found him,” said Moss, who had now taken on the appearance of an angel, wise and gentle. Shadrack’s hair flowed down over his shoulders, his posture straight. He seemed philosophical.
Impossible,
thought Raymond. This wasn’t the same man he’d met earlier.