The Sapphire Express (7 page)

Then, suddenly, the brunette got up and gave me her phone. I took it because I was too surprised to do anything else, and she said, “Look, this is my son at his boarding school in upstate New York. He is so handsome, a real heartbreaker.”

I didn’t say anything, but I looked at the picture that depicted a regular-looking young man in a tuxedo.

Then she moved over to the young mother and showed the same picture to her. The mother looked at the photo and said politely, “That is a very nice picture.”

Then the brunette parked her ass on the chair next to her and said, “We are flying to Grand Cayman tomorrow. We go there every month. It’s a great place to party, and the mudslides are to die for! You should go sometimes. Do you travel?”

Before the young mother had a chance to answer her question, she continued, “I used to go to Florence with my idiot ex-husband, but I like Spain better now because the men are waaay hotter there. They are so fucking hot, oh my God.”

That was it. My turn.

I leaned toward the young mother and said, “I think it’s time to put the earmuffs on now.”

She understood immediately what I meant and covered her daughter’s ears with her hands. Then I looked at each member of the revolting trio individually and said, “Excuse me. All of you—excuse me!” They all turned and looked at me with their surprised, drunken faces, and I continued in a stern voice, “You know what, you goddamn rotten pieces of human excrement? No one here is interested in hearing if you are going to the Grand Cayman tomorrow, OK? Nobody cares if you go to the goddamn moon or meet the pope himself, capisce? I mean, look at you people. You are truly repulsive, self-absorbed pigs who should just stay in their gilded sties. You come here with your poisoned livers, your red wine, your disgusting clothes, and your fake bodies, and you complain about everything. You talk about your cheating shithead husbands who can’t keep their entitled cocks in their pants, and you force us to listen to your stories about your useless lives. You come here thinking that money makes you special and that you can do whatever the hell you want because you have some cash to burn. Are you really that stupid? I mean, look at that young mother with her perfect child over there. Look at her! She is pure, she is kind, and she has wonderful manners. She is a beautiful angel from the heavens, and you are polluted demons from the deepest spider holes of hell. She doesn’t deserve to share a table with your kind. The fun is over. Take your Botox-filled foreheads and your filthy mouths and get out of here before I unleash my fury on you and make you pay dearly for your rudeness.”

The troika looked floored, and they clearly didn’t know how to react to something so unexpected and unembellished. They seemed a little scared, too, and I just stared at them, still fuming inside. Then the semimuscular guy dug up some hidden courage from his off-brand heart and asked, “What the fuck did you just say, asshole? What the fuck did you just say to my mother?”

I looked at him calmly and said, “I told you the truth that none of your brownnosing friends will ever tell you.”

The guy got up and said, “Let’s go. You and me, outside, now! I will kick your teeth in. Nobody talks to my mother like that.”

I got up, went nose-to-nose with the wannabe and said in a voice that augured true and guaranteed danger, “Son, you have a choice to make right now. You can go outside with me, or you can leave with your mother and her friend. If you unwisely choose the former, I promise you that you will not wake up tomorrow. You have my word. Now, what’s it going to be, young man?”

The semimuscular guy looked at me in a state of bewilderment, and it was clear that I had triggered the classic fight-or-flight reaction inside the young bull. He tried his best to look tough and tall, but the game was over before it had even started. The inexperienced mind quickly decided that the flight option would suit his master quite nicely, after all, and the young man lowered his head sheepishly and said to the women, “Let’s go. This man is crazy. He ain’t worth it.”

I didn’t say anything, and the trio left in a hurry after throwing a pile of twenty-dollar bills on the table.

I sat down and looked at the young mother and said, “I am sorry, my dear. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I just couldn’t let that go.”

“I am scared,” she said quietly.

“I understand. The dinner is on me,” I said and gave her sixty dollars. Then I left the Fallen Samurai and drove straight to Johnny D’s, still hungry.

5

Apologies

Johnny D’s was almost empty and still recovering from the madness of the night before. The place desperately needed a few more hours of rest, and the bartender was clearly apprehensive about the new wave of crazies who would soon arrive like a Swiss train and write a new predictable story full of vomit and human wickedness on the bar’s dirty walls and stained floors. The bar’s patrons weren’t maybe the most responsible people in the world, but goddamn, were they reliable when it came to getting their alcohol in time. There was no doubt in my mind that the thirsty crowd could have achieved some truly amazing things if they had just been able to direct their dedication and energy at the right target. It felt almost unfair that society so callously dismissed all the hard work they put into their wet mission. The downtrodden addicts must have been extremely disappointed that hard work was only considered hard work if it was the right kind of work.

I sat down on my favorite barstool, ordered a whiskey and soda, and started watching a dusty TV that the shaky hands of an incurable alcoholic had mounted precariously on the wall. The damn thing was so wobbly that I began to wonder when it would fall on some crackhead’s head and kill him, but before I could fully visualize the looming disaster, the bartender interrupted my thoughts by placing a fresh drink in front of my face. He didn’t ask any unnecessary questions that time around, and I raised the glass on my dry lips, took a proper swig, and thanked the man politely.

The bartender looked at me like something was bothering him, and he closed his eyes and started rubbing his eyelids with his thumb and forefinger. Then he asked, “Uh, can I make a quick recommendation, man?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Well, I don’t normally interfere with people’s drinking and whatnot, but I think you should drop the soda.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you see, when you drink that much soda with your whiskey, you need to go to the bathroom frequently, and that wonderful lavatory of ours isn’t exactly a place you want to visit more than is absolutely necessary. It’s for your own good, if you know what I mean.”

I thought about his words for a moment and asked, “OK, so what is your recommendation, Mr. Bartender?”

“A godfather.”

“A what?”

“A godfather. It’s a short drink that has a shot of whiskey and a shot of Amaretto in it. It’s sort of like Italy meets Kentucky, and they have unprotected sex. Good stuff, trust me.”

“OK, bring me one, and we’ll see.”

The dirty man walked to his precious bottles and started mixing the drink in earnest. After about two minutes of pouring and stirring, he came back with a small glass full of amber liquid and handed the glorious concoction to me enthusiastically.

I raised the glass to my lips and tasted the curious creation gingerly while the bartender was watching me with quiet anticipation.

“So?” he said excitedly after I put the glass down.

“I like it,” I said.

“Good,” he said and walked to the sink and started washing beer glasses with a brand-new bar-top rinser that looked totally out of place in the filthy bar. The man was whistling and smiling victoriously like a man who had just introduced Alaskan king crab to a seafood virgin.

I took an elegant sip of my godfather and turned my head 180 degrees when I heard someone entering the bar with a loud bang. The room was dark and smoky, but I could still recognize the bony figure of the crazed man I had choked unconscious the night before. The putrid zombie was back, and my pulse was rising rapidly.

The sordid creature saw me immediately and sat on the barstool next to me. He looked weak and sick, and paranoia and fear had overpowered all the rage and foolhardiness that had ruled his body less than twenty-four hours ago. He was like a retired bodybuilder who had lost all his muscles, strength, and self-confidence, and I couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for the man.

I looked into his hollow eyes and asked, “How are your balls?”

He gazed at me with confused eyes and said, “What? My balls, what?”

“Oh, forget it,” I said.

The slim man lowered his head and said quietly, “Look, Ramses told me what happened last night, and I’m sorry.”

“Who is Ramses?”

“The boss man, the barkeeper.”

“Ah, I see,” I said and took a swig of my drink.

“Well, I just wanted to apologize about the knife and all the other shit that happened. I am on probation and, fuck, I shouldn’t be doing this crap anymore.”

I looked at him listlessly and said, “Look, I don’t give a damn about apologies or forgiveness or whatever. I don’t give a rat’s ass about what happened last night, and the whole thing is totally meaningless to me. You can apologize all you want, but it doesn’t do anything. You could have just sat there and pretended that nothing happened last night, and I would have been just fine.”

“So we are good?”

“Yeah, we are good, we are bad, we are whatever the hell you want us to be. I really don’t care.”

The slim man seemed relieved, and he ordered a beer and a shot of rye and started watching a boxing match on TV.

I looked at the dirty, mangled ten-dollar bill in his scaly addict’s hand and said, “If you are going to sit there and pretend that I invited you to drink with me, I might as well give you advice.”

The slim man turned his head and said, “OK, whatever.” Then he turned back to the TV and started tapping the counter nervously with his fingers.

I took a sip of my drink and said, “Look at me when I talk to you.”

He turned back again and said, “OK, OK, calm down, man. You can give your advice now.”

I looked at him coldly and said, “Well, let me just start by stating the obvious. You are a professional drug addict, and you pump any shit you can get your hands on in your veins, right?”

“More or less, yeah,” he said and continued tapping the counter and started bouncing his right knee up and down.

“Well, then own up to your deep entanglement with the druggie lifestyle. Be a fucking junkie and don’t apologize to anybody for what you do. I mean, you do crazy shit every single day, and when, or if, you wake up in the morning, you know that you are going to do crazy shit again, right?”

“I guess, yeah.”

“Well, you see, when I go to Kroger and buy a gallon of nonfat milk and a piece of cheap salami, it is a normal thing for me to do. I don’t run around apologizing for my milk and salami. You know what I mean?”

The slim man looked confused, so I continued, “What I mean is that when you pull a knife on someone, or do some other stuff that normal people find, uh, a little unconventional, just try to remember that it is a totally normal thing for you to do. You don’t have to apologize for that because it’s your life, and you have accepted that unconventional stuff like that is going to happen when you choose to become a junkie. Be authentic, man. That’s all I’m saying here.”

“You should never become a therapist,” the slim man said and started watching the TV again.

“Well, you know as well as I do that if you don’t stop torturing your veins, you will not make it. Therapy won’t save you. Your friends and family won’t save you. Only
you
can save yourself, and it would be better if you would just accept that nobody gives a shit about you or your future. My honest guess is that you are going to be dead within a year. So have fun, enjoy your madness, and forget your pathetic apologies. Being an addict is your life, and you need to embrace it and start loving it.”

The slim man looked at me with a pensive smile and said, “Maybe you
should
be a therapist.”

“So you agree with me?”

“Ha! I think you are adorable. You don’t know much about addiction, huh?”

“I know enough.”

“Yeah, well, let’s get one thing perfectly clear, old man. I use heroin because it’s the only painkiller that works, OK? Something horrible happened to me when I was young, and it scarred me for life. I have to numb my brain every morning, or I won’t make it through the day. Drugs saved me, and without them, I would be dead already. You see, I would have killed myself if I hadn’t discovered heroin. It takes the pain away. Of course I would take fucking Tylenol instead of smack if it worked, but it doesn’t.”

“So you blame someone else for your addiction?”

“Damn right I do. If you cut a leg off a talented racehorse before its first race, it ain’t gonna be a winner, no matter how much people are rooting for it.”

“Uh, I guess not,” I said. Then the slim man’s phone started ringing, and he walked away in a hurry.

After about ten minutes of rare tranquility, Ramses brought me a small plate of stale peanuts and said, “We do have food here if you fancy, sir.”

“Well, in fact, my dinner was cut short tonight. What do you have for me, Chieftain?”

“Bratwurst.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah, and fries—maybe.”

“OK, give me one bratwurst, two godfathers, and a glass of ice water. No fries. They are unhealthy.”

“Coming right up, Boss,” he said and seemed surprisingly happy to serve me. Maybe I was, after all, a customer he could tolerate.

Soon the white Bavarian wonder arrived, and I started savoring its beautiful Germanic flavors like it was my last meal. The sausage was amazingly tasty, and I was pleased to learn that the mighty banger from faraway lands complemented the godfather quite nicely—or maybe it was vice versa; I don’t know.

The evening progressed absolutely magnificently, and I enjoyed observing the unimaginable misbehavior that had engulfed Johnny D’s, once again. The unscripted human freak show had a slight therapeutic effect on me, and I had to admit that I was much happier there than in some sterile hotel lobby bar where the faceless owners charged twelve bucks for a sugary drink, and where people tried their very best to look successful, cool, and pretty. I liked unpredictable nights better than dullness and silly pretentiousness, and at least at Johnny D’s everything was possible—everything screwed-up, that is. Good things rarely happened in that sordid bar, and I liked it that way. Bad was the new good, and I was becoming the master of filth.

Before I knew it, I was the only customer in the bar. Ramses had kicked the rest of the crazies out, and he started cleaning the soda guns lethargically with a dirty rag. For some reason, the man didn’t seem to be in a hurry to tell me to piss off, too, but I was getting tired and decided to take a quick bathroom break before heading home.

I got up and stretched my stiff arms and legs a little before heading to the powder room. I opened the dirty, germ-ridden door with the tip of my index finger and stepped in. The place was nasty, as always, and I walked reluctantly to the urinal that was littered with wet smokeless tobacco and cigarette butts. I opened my zipper and released the bitter effluent that my body no longer wanted in its dominion. There was a lot of sewage in my pipes, and I closed my eyes and enjoyed the healthy stream of strong urine that filled the clogged bowl fast. Then I washed my hands carefully with soap and hot water and winked at the valiant man staring at me in the dirty mirror.

As I was about to leave the stinky bathroom behind, I noticed a blue shoe peeking out of one of the graffiti-filled toilet booths. I shrugged and approached the curious sight cautiously and pushed the door open with my right boot. There was a man lying on the floor next to the dirty toilet bowl. It was the slim man. Dead.

I closed the door, washed my hands again—more carefully this time—and left the bathroom. Then I walked to Ramses and said, “There is a corpse in the snorting room. It’s the knife avenger. Overdose. No question about it. Dirty needle still hanging from his arm.”

Ramses looked at me skeptically and asked, “What the fuck?”

“Yeah, the slim man cashed his chips.”

“No, no, fuck no!” Ramses shouted and ran into the bathroom.

After a minute or two, he came back and said in a drained voice, “Goddamn, they are going to shut me down now. This is the second time in six months.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Jesus Christ! I try so hard to make this place work, but it’s like running in a swimming pool. I am not making any progress, and now I will finally drown.”

I was quiet for a moment and asked, “What are you going to do?”

Ramses didn’t answer. He was just massaging his forehead with his right hand and looking distraught and depressed.

“Are you going to call the cops?” I asked.

He looked at me lifelessly and said, “I have to because you are here.”

“Maybe you don’t,” I said.

“What do you mean? You can’t get involved in this shit.”

“Maybe not, but what if I want to?”

“What are you saying, man?”

“Look, I am bored to death, and I feel like I owe something to that poor bastard. I want to give him at least a proper funeral. The coroner will just throw his broke ass in the morgue, and he will get a crappy public funeral at some depressing cemetery that nobody ever visits. Let me take care of this one, man.”

Ramses looked at me incredulously and asked, “Are you serious?”