Before I get down to the actual nitty gritty (actually, it's more gritty
than nitty), I feel I should include a preamble about Coos Bay, Oregon, where
the action transpires.
Everyone I know who has spent any time there at all, and who
also is familiar with the oeuvre of director David Lynch, has compared
Coos Bay to Lumberton, the setting of Lynch's Blue Velvet. Yet as I
always point out, there is a crucial difference: Lumberton is a lovely, idyllic
little town with a seamy underbelly; Coos Bay is ALL seamy underbelly with some
nice scenery hastily glued on.
Our story opens with your narrator sucking down sea breezes at the Captain's
Cabin on a brooding winter evening, the charcoal-cloudy sky swollen with the
threat of rain. In Coos Bay, pretty much everything is threatening.
The Captain's Cabin, like the town itself, was once sort of handsome
and rustic, but had fallen on sleazier times after the fishing and timber industries
went tits up. Goddamn Reaganomics.
The place had sunk comfortably from a decent restaurant and lounge with a
sturdy oak bar to its present incarnation as a druggie/queer/hooker dive festooned
with the sort of classy nautical accoutrements normally found in a town's
second-best fish-and-chips emporium.
I was sitting with Feo, a twitchy Mexican guy, and his toxic girlfriend whose
name escapes me (Mona? Donna? Lana?). Feo was hoping one of the hookers would
sell him some meth, but it was a dicey proposition.
We're not talking about Julia Roberts-style prostitutes with hearts of
gold and proper dentition, here. These gals serviced the many international
ships that steamed into port, so they had several layers of hard bark on them.
Frankly, you'd have to be plum loco to even strike up a conversation with
one of them, much less fork over any dough for a little slap-and-tickle.
Feo considered himself a charmer, though, and he was waiting for an opening.
I was just hoping some hooker wouldn't get annoyed and cut his face. Like
I said, these ladies were plenty scary. If anyone tried any monkey business,
a typical ship-hooker response was to pull out a flick knife and slash the face
of the oaf in question.
Chuck, a bartender at the Cabin, once made the mistake of informing Tammy,
a fairly notorious member of the working-girl community, that he she'd
had enough to drink. Fair enough; this was, after all, Chuck's job and
she was at least three shots past hammered. But then he tried to escort her
out the door. Yikes!
With the speed and precision of a striking cobra, Tammy (even drunk!) made
a decisive slice to Chuck's peeper region. After that, he sported an eye
patch and was charitably referred to as "Chuckpatch."
It should be noted that Chuckpatch now blended in with the hokey seafaring
décor in a big way. New customers figured he was going the extra mile
to add some atmosphere to the dump, and his tips rose accordingly.
Anyway, Feo decided to take his chances with the hookers and left the table.
I can't even remember why I was hanging out with him. You couldn't
be too choosy if you wanted company in Coos Bay. It was like a life raft after
a maritime disaster: Whoever showed up was deemed OK, even if they were soaking
wet and smelled like fish.
Across the room, Zipper and Big Al were drinking with some loudmouth. The
guy was tall and skinny with a semi-'fro of red hair, and he kept flapping
his yap about what an "awesome" hoops player he was.
A few words about Zipper and Big Al: Zipper was a Coos Bay legend, the grinning
local deity of chaos and mischief. He had these huge gray eyes that were always
brimming over with plans for artful havoc. He was a bottomless drinker who never
got sloppy. A long-haul trucker who'd inhaled every drug known to medical science--
and many that were developed in less clinical surroundings-- he was match, fuse,
and cherry bomb all rolled into one tow-headed man-child.
Big Al was the muscle in the equation, Luchabrazzi to Zipper's Don Corleone.
Zipper raised a helluva lot of hell and created some truly riotous scenarios.
And if anyone ever made a squawk, then Big Al would deal with it.
Big Al wasn't tall, but he was wide and took up a lot of space. He was
an American Indian, though no one knew from which tribe. Big Al didn't
talk, and he had a murderous scowl perpetually pasted to his concrete face.
It was a look that said, "Listen, White Man, I am still incredibly pissed
off about you guys fucking over my people and reducing us to a bunch of third-class,
poverty-ridden clowns. And if you start any shit, I will cheerfully beat your
ass with an ax handle."
Zipper was the strobe light that Big Al danced to and the relationship worked
for both of them. Zipper was afforded protection from hotheads and Big Al got
some action from Zipper's castoff honeys.
On this night, a gangly redheaded dude was yammering about his basketball
prowess and Zipper was goading him on with drinks and feigned interest. Big
Al said nothing.
"I've got a sweet jump shot," Red bellowed. "And I can jam!
Shit, you can't jam; you're too short. I once jammed over a black dude!"
Zipper finished his beer and belched authoritatively. "Maybe we should
play some time... hombre!" he challenged. And that's how the
shitball really got rolling.
After another round, it was decided that they would get up a game of two-on-two.
It would be Zipper and Big Al against Red and... me.
"You can have Chandler," Zipper said, nodding his head in my direction.
Hell, I didn't even realize he knew I was there! Now I was embroiled
in one of his epic fool's errands.
Red looked me at me like I was infected. "I don't know,"
he said dubiously.
"Oh, he's pretty good," Zipper insisted. I'm not sure
where he got that piece of intelligence. I was cut from the team in the seventh
grade. Besides, I was on my fifth sea breeze; I couldn't hit the floor
with my hat.
I looked around for Feo. He had apparently split with some hooker, leaving
me to entertain his vile girlfriend (Mona? Donna? Lana?). Normally I'm
happy to chat up an eager young filly, but what's-her-face would have gagged
a fish peddler. She was almost intriguingly bereft of redeeming qualities.
"If you're going to the bar, get me a Brandy Alexander,"
she barked. I had a headache.
I suppose a little midnight basketball wouldn't kill me.
We schlepped out of the bar and piled into Red's Jeep Cherokee and took
off for a schoolyard across town. Red continued his stream of hoop blabber,
with me in the front passenger seat. Zipper and Al settled into the back like
chauffeur-driven VIPs.
Red was shit-faced and driving way too fast. I wasn't totally tanked,
but I definitely had a heightened sense of well-being. Zipper and Big Al were
like the pyramids: same as they ever were.
We were headed to Eastside Elementary School, which necessitated some tricky
maneuvering. Red didn't know the way, and I was doing my impaired best
to navigate.
Geographical note: About a quarter of a mile before you reach the school,
there is this stupidly dangerous turn that suddenly rears up out of darkness
like Sasquatch and shoots off at a 90-degree angle. There's a big sign
with an arrow on it that indicates where to make the turn, but oftentimes it
wasn't there because so many drunken slobs (cue foreshadowing music) plowed
right through it.
If you missed the turn, you would find yourself airborne for a short time
before coming to an ungraceful landing in the front yard of Deputy James Hilliard.
I swear, it's true. Something like 17 or 18 unlucky cars a year drove
off the road and ended up bent and broken in a cop's yard. Hilliard even
had the tow truck company on his speed dialer.
Since I've just given you a pretty hefty description of this
treacherous bit of topography, you shouldn't have to be Nostradamus to figure
out what happened next.
It was partially my fault. As we approached the turn, I suddenly realized:
We didn't have a fucking basketball!
"Hey! We don't have a fucking basketball!" I said.
A shadow passed over Red's face. "What are you saying?"
he asked.
Then we were off the road and into space.
It actually seemed like all was well for a second. It was like
when Wile E. Coyote runs off a cliff and stays afloat for an instant, waiting
for the laws of gravity to catch up with him and cook his goose. Apparently,
the Coyote runs really fast.
My heart plummeted down an elevator shaft. No one even had time to say, "Oh
shit."
Next, we rudely encountered the planet known as Earth. It felt like Atlas had
whacked the vehicle with a titanic croquet mallet.
Red's face rebounded off the steering wheel hard, but I had my own problems.
My head smacked the windshield, tattooing a spider-web pattern into the glass.
Fortunately, I have a noggin like a cinderblock and there were no punctures.
I did, however, end up with a bump the size of a Magic Eight Ball.
When my wits returned from sabbatical, I was aware of some dipshit honking
his horn. The dipshit turned out to be our driver. Red had no idea he was marooned
on the premises of a law enforcement official. He was blasting the horn and
hollering like a 10-year-old girl who'd found a Gila monster in the shower.
There was a good deal of gooey red all over his face; we learned later it was
just a broken nose. But as anyone who has ever had a broken nose can tell you,
it hurts like a mad bitch.
Lights were coming on in the Deputy Hilliard household. I knew I had to get
myself away from this sorry site. Instead, I fell out of the Jeep, crawled around
for a while and vomited on a miniature windmill.
Red continued to bawl and honk. Zipper and Big Al were still in the back seat.
"Al, choke him out," Zipper said.
Without blinking, Big Al threw a beefy arm around Red's neck and applied
some pressure.
In the Joseph Wambaugh novel "The Choir Boys," the cops refer
to slapping a chokehold on a suspect as "making him do the chicken,"
because of all the flapping and squawking.
Red was doing the chicken. I sat on the ground watching this disturbing scene
and it occurred to me that it felt more like a fever dream than some combination
of crappy luck and pitiful driving.
We heard a door slam and a number of salty phrases flying around. Hilliard
was on the move.
Big Al finally released his grip. Red slumped over and came to rest with his
forehead on the steering wheel.
Zipper materialized out of the darkness and offered me a hand.
"You OK, Chandler?"
"Peachy," I replied. (I don't remember my exact reply, but
I hope it was something cool like that.)
The three of us beat feet out of there as best we could. In the next driveway
over from Hilliard's, Zipper found a basketball.
"Jesus," I sputtered. "You didn't have to kill the
guy!" From behind us, we could hear the deputy angrily trying to rouse
Red from his inert state.
"Al knows his business," Zipper said, dribbling the ball, oblivious
of the racket he was making. "He's choked out lots of guys."
"No one's died yet," Big Al said.
The fact that he'd actually opened his mouth and we'd heard sound
come out was possibly the oddest part of the whole night.
Big Al had this weird half-smile on his face, which was like rapturous bliss
for him.
Some time later, the significance of the event dawned on me. He had counted
coup on the white man and regained some measure of self-respect-- and dignity
for his tribe.
I still don't know what tribe Big Al belongs to. The tight-lipped ass-kickers,
maybe.
We got to the schoolyard. Since there was only three of us,
we ended up playing horse. In the distance, the wail of a siren could be heard
over the bouncing ball and swish of the net.
John Chandler is a freelance journalist living in Portland, OR. This is his first story for Lime Tea.
