I was sitting on the front porch of my new abode on Carroll Canal,
looking over my tiny but productive front-yard organic garden as the quacking
ducks floated by on the ebbing tide.
Out of the corner of
my eye I also kept watch on the stark-naked hippie chick who was sprawled on a surfboard
– tits, and other nice stuff, turned to the sun – getting an all over tan as
she floated on the gentle waters.
I had a joint in one
hand, a cold beer waiting patiently near the other. In the house, Hoyt Axton
was on the stereo and he was singing in that fabulous, whiskey voice of his: “… I wish I may,/ I wish I might;/ Had the
money that I spent last night…”
Just as Hoyt started
on his rooster crow, the phone rang. I almost didn’t answer, but what was the
point of possessing something so modern as a very long telephone cord that
could reach you no matter where you were? The Funk brothers had paid for a
pretty elaborate phone system in my house – for the early ‘70’s, I mean - so I
could be on constant call as their city editor.
I answered the phone.
“Allan,” the voice said, “Bill Cohen, here.”
Damn. My old boss.
I was sorry I had
answered. I mean, I liked the guy and he had always been straight with me. Pepperland's short existence was do to the freedom he'd given me to run it. However, I was now on to new things as well as some very heavy responsibilities
and I was loath to interrupt my Sunday reverie. But there nothing to do but be
polite and see what was up. I excused myself for a second so I could go inside
and switch off the stereo.
I returned to the
porch, pinched out the joint and swigged a little beer to get the pot roughness
out of my voice.
“What can I do for
you, Mr. Cohen?” I asked.
“It’s about Roger
Gagne,” he said.
My heart sank. Oh,
hell. Of all the things that were delicate in Mr. Cohen’s empire, Roger needed
the most careful handling. I’d said as much when I turned over the keys to the
new manager.
I’d explained to the
guy who replaced me that Roger basically kept more than fifty units running, in
locations that included not just the Ocean Avenue complex Mr. Cohen had bought
up, but some rather exclusive buildings he’d recently purchased on the Marina
oceanfront. Not only did Roger keep everything working, but he also very
cheaply renovated each unit as the old tenants moved out, so Mr. Cohen could
justifiably hike the rent.
I had explained all
this to the new guy, but I could tell that he wasn’t listening. I immediately
summed him up in my mind as more than a bit of a jerk, but what the hell, over? It
was his job now, not mine.
“What about Roger?” I
asked Mr. Cohen.
“He’s moved,” Mr.
Cohen said. “He’s no longer working for me.”
I knew that. Jack had
told me that Roger had gotten pissed off at the new guy and had moved out.
Nobody knew where just yet, but not to worry – he was somewhere on the Venice
Canals. He’d hunt us up by and by.
“Yessir, I’d heard
that,” I said.
“Have you seen him?”
“Nossir,” I said.
“But I’m sure I’ll run across him soon. He’s still in Venice – I know that.”
“Well, Allan,” Mr.
Cohen said, “I’d like to ask you to do me a favor. See if you can find Roger
for me, please.”
“What for, sir?” I
asked, my curiosity starting to cut through my reluctance to get involved.
“Tell him I’d like to
get my floor back,” Mr. Cohen said.
I almost said,
“Fucking what?” But I buried that outburst with a small gobble, covered by a
sip of beer.
Mr. Cohen explained,
but never mind his explanation – he was way too businesslike to really tell the
story properly.
Here is what
happened: The new manager was an overbearing control freak. He continually
fucked with Roger. So Roger fucked back. He warned the guy flat out, I learned
later, that he’d better “get the fuck out of my face or I’ll remove your face,
you dumb mother fucker.”
Now, when Roger said
he was going to “remove the face” of a “dumb motherfucker,” it usually meant
that he was about to go into high gear. But Rog liked his job and his apartment
with its bomb shelter so he backed off a bit, trying to give the guy a little
room.
Despite Roger’s best
diplomatic efforts – meaning he hadn’t ripped the new manager’s face off -
matters continued to go downhill. What really pissed Rog off was that the guy
had apparently mistaken his attempt at diplomacy for weakness.
Their mutual piss-off
escalated.
Eventually, it
reached the point where Roger really was considering removing the “mother
fucker’s” face, but sweet Nancy intervened and convinced him that maybe it was
time to move on.
Roger was doing
damned well at that point. He’d paid off his fines and attorney fees for the
marijuana fiasco and had a helluva business going doing upscale work for
upscale people. I mean, when Roger went to appointments to check out new jobs
in Beverly Hills, he wore a very nice jeans outfit, picked out by Nancy. No
paint spots. No grease. They were clean, clean, clean. And she never, ever, let
him forget his two false front teeth when he went out on a bid.
In short he was at a
point where he didn’t really need the free rent at the Blue Meanie Apartments.
Especially when it meant that he’d have to take shit. Truth be told, when Roger
was broke – I mean sleeping in the streets, broke - he wouldn’t have taken shit from anybody for
any reason. So why in hell would he start now?
Anyway, Roger told
the new manager to fuck off, but let him keep his face. He moved his family out
– leaving a very desirable single unit vacant that the new manager could rent
at a much higher price and preen before Mr. Cohen.
The manager
immediately posted a sign and got an immediate response. Within twenty four
hours of Roger’s departure, the manager took a young couple over to view the
apartment. Being a lazy SOB, he hadn’t viewed the unit himself before the showing.
Anyway, he talked up
the place like a storm. Sure, it was a single, but it had an enormous kitchen –
a kitchen as big as his own – a walk in closet large enough to be a small
bedroom and a main room that was not only very large but had been completely
refurbished, down to gleaming, newly renovated, hardwood floors.
Do you remember the floors?
I ask again, Dear Reader, do you recall the episode where Roger was under fire and found it
necessary to cut out the living room floor? The very same floor that he’d cut
out to create the bomb shelter bolt-hole beneath his apartment just in case Mrs.
Mad Bomber started shooting at junkie whores who were coming on to her husband
again.
Remember that?
Sure you do.
So, Mr. New Apartment
Manager approached the unit, waxing large about the marvelous amenities the
young couple would encounter. Plus, he emphasized, this was a perfectly decent
complex, with very nice people – upscale people – mostly their age and with
interesting jobs in the music industry, the arts, and so on and so forth.
He unlocked Roger’s
door and threw it open.
“Come see,” he said,
striding into Roger’s old apartment.
And he fell face
first, seven feet or more, onto the sandy floor of Roger’s bomb shelter.
It seems that when
Roger left, he’d taken the entire floor with him.
The only things that
could vaguely be called flooring were the six-inch borders that Rog had left
all around the room.
“I left all of the
joists too,” Roger told me later. “I didn’t want to be a butt wipe for the guys
putting in the new floor, so I left them something to tie into.”
As kind as Roger was
with the joists, the manager was totally demoralized. Humiliated before his
potential tenants, who at first reacted with horror when he plummeted into the
room, then laughed their heads off when they realized he was uninjured and just
spitting sand, instead of his teeth.
They laughed even
harder when he tried to lay the blame on a former handyman, and they wisely
walked away, still laughing, but having no intention of paying rent to a guy
who was such a son of a bitch that the previous tenant had removed the entire floor.
I gleaned all of the
above while Mr. Cohen was politely, and succinctly, relating his problem.
Finally, he said,
“It’s going to be really expensive to put in a new floor, Allan.”
I agreed. Carpets are
expensive. Tiles are expensive. A whole frigging floor has to be really
expensive.
He said, “You would
be doing me a big favor if you could find Roger and tell him that I will pay
him to give me back my floor. I won’t even consider pressing charges.”
That was a laugh. No
way could I see Mr. Cohen waltzing into the Venice PD and filing charges to get
his floor back. He’d be laughed out of the station, and humiliated to boot. The
Venice PD did not like black people, Hispanic people, young people with long
hair, and they had a particular hate on for gay or lesbian people. If you were
a member of any of those groups you were basically putting your life into their
hands. Given the slightest excuse, they would club you half to death.
But he was a really
nice guy, even for a landlord. So I said, “I’ll see what I can do, Mr. Cohen.”
Time passed. Not a
lot. Weeks, maybe a month and a half - no more.
I walked to
Shanahan’s Market. It was a nice walk, going through all the canals, stopping
at each bridge to see what you could see.
Did I mention the
naked chicks on surfboards?
Well, it wasn’t
always like that. But one could hope, couldn’t one?
Besides, the canal
waters were peaceful, the few row boats upon them making an Impressionist
painting, and there was music everywhere, pouring out of hundreds of stereo
speakers. There was Rock ‘N Roll, of course. But when I reached the last canal
I could hear a wonderfully live Flamenco guitar number - each plucked string
clearly defined, each strum a waterfall of classical musical colors. The
guitarist was a noted musician who just happened to be the president of the
local Communist Party. In order to eat and pay rent to the “Capitalist running
dogs” he played and taught music on the side. I never got the nerve up to ask
him for lessons. Stupid me.
As I listened and
watched, I wished Steve Lenzi was there to limn the scene in a poem. But he
wasn’t so I walked on.
Eventually I arrived
at Shanahan’s, bought a bag of groceries and exited.
Roger came out at the
same time. He was carrying a 12-pack of beer.
“Hey, Rog,” I said.
“Hey, Allan,” he replied.
I said, “Got a
minute? I need to talk to you.”
He grinned, that
malicious smile of his curling up. I’m certain he knew what I wanted to talk
about.
“Sure, let’s talk,”
he said, easing down on the curb.
I sat next to him and
he freed a couple of beers, opened them with his key-chain opener and handed me
one, kept the other for himself.
He took a long pull.
I did the same.
Roger said, “So,
what’s the haps, man? What do you want to talk about.”
I said, “Mr. Cohen
called.”
Roger took this in.
Sucked up more beer. Nothing more in the way of explanations was required.
Even so, he wanted to
grind it.
“What’d he want?”
Roger asked, giggling and knowing very well what Mr. Cohen wanted.
“He said he wanted
his floor back.”
Roger laughed and
laughed at this. He laughed so hard that he couldn’t stop for a long time. He
asked about the discovery of the missing floor and when I told him about the
manager doing a sky ground into the basement he laughed some more.
I thought it was
pretty funny too, but I was on a mission of mercy for Mr. Cohen, so I didn’t
join in. I smiled in a friendly manner, but sipped beer whenever the humor of
the situation threatened to overcome me. I must confess, that when I related
the scene of the asshole manager doing a sky ground into the sand, I nearly
snorted beer through my nose.
When I judged that
Roger was laughed out, I said, “Mr. Cohen told me to tell you directly that he
will pay you one hundred dollars if you return his floor. No questions asked.”
Roger got suddenly
serious. “No, shit?” he said. “A hundred dollars?”
“No questions asked,”
I said.
He chewed this over
and I could see his attention fading.
“I’m pretty sure I
could get him up to a hundred and fifty dollars,” I said.
“Sonofabitch,” Roger
said. “One hundred and fifty dollars for a floor.” He laughed. “It’ll cost him
more to replace it, not counting the down time on the apartment rental.”
“Okay, okay,” I said.
“He authorized me to go as high as two hundred and fifty dollars.”
“Fuck,” Roger said,
very much in awe. “That is one helluva temptation.”
He paused, opening us
some fresh cans of beer. “I’m just down the canal from you, Al,” he said. “Old
place I’m fixing up. Two stories, but small, you know?”
I nodded. I’d seen
the place on one of my walks. It was a small house, painted bright Mexican blue
and set upon an enormous lot where someone had started an elaborate vegetable
garden.
Roger said, “If you
saw my place, you saw the floor.”
And I remembered
seeing this enormous wooden object leaning against the side of the house. It
was odd, not just because of its size – it reached nearly to the top story of
the building it was propped against – but because it was so well finished.
Stained oak, varnished and finished to a gleaming masterpiece. But with an
apparent purpose that I could not fathom at the time.
“Yeah, I think I saw
the floor,” I admitted.
I took a slug of
beer. “So, what do you say? Will two hundred and fifty dollars do the trick?
Hell, I could maybe even boost him to three hundred. Christ, Rog, you could do
a lot with three hundred dollars. Return the floor, no questions asked. Collect
three hundred dollars. How can you go wrong?”
Roger nodded, tipped
back the can, and swallowed the contents. He burped, opened another, but this
time he took careful sips, small sips, as he considered.
Finally, he raised
his head and looked at me, that crazy Roger smile creasing his face.
“Fuck his three
hundred dollars,” he said.
“It’s too good of a
fucking story.”
THE END
NEXT: A NEW WEEKLY BLOG - LUCKY IN CYPRUS
*****
NOW SUPPORT YOUR STARVING
WRITER: BUY THE BOOK!
TALES OF THE BLUE MEANIE
 |
| Venice Boardwalk Circa 1969 |
In the depths of the Sixties and The Days Of Rage, a young newsman, accompanied by his pregnant wife and orphaned teenage brother, creates a Paradise of sorts in a sprawling Venice Beach community of apartments, populated by students, artists, budding scientists and engineers lifeguards, poets, bikers with a few junkies thrown in for good measure. The inhabitants come to call the place “Pepperland,” after the Beatles movie, “Yellow Submarine.” Threatening this paradise is "The Blue Meanie," a crazy giant of a man so frightening that he eventually even scares himself. Here's where to buy the book.
*****
FREEDOM BIRD: THE SUMMER OF LOVE
During the Vietnam war, GIs who managed to survive their tour of duty were flown home in chartered airliners, which they called “Freedom Birds.” This is the story of three young men – from wildly different backgrounds – who meet on such a plane and make a pact to spend three days together in San Francisco. Their goal: to spend every cent of their mustering out money in a party of a lifetime. And they’ll get more than they bargained for: because when they land, it is July 1967 – in a time that would come to be known as “The Summer Of Love.” A place and time where each young man will have to confront the ghosts who followed them home from the jungles of Vietnam and contemplate a future none of them had imagined.
*****
ALL THREE STEN OMNIBUS EDITIONS NOW ON TAP
The entire 8-novel landmark science fiction series is now being presented in three three giant omnibus editions from Orbit Books. The First - BATTLECRY - features the first three books in the series: Sten #1; Sten #2 -The Wolf Worlds; and Sten #3, The Court Of A Thousand Suns. Next: JUGGERNAUT, which features Sten #4, Fleet Of The Damned; Sten #5, Revenge Of The Damned; and Sten #6, The Return Of The Emperor. Finally, there's DEATHMATCH, which contains Sten #6, Vortex; and Sten #7, End Of Empire. Click on the highlighted titles to buy the books. Plus, if you are a resident of The United Kingdom, you can download Kindle versions of the Omnibus editions. Which is one clot of a deal!
*****
HERE ARE ALL EIGHT AMERICAN EDITIONS OF STEN
YOU CAN BUY THE TRADE PAPERBACKS, E-BOOKS AND AUDIO BOOKS BY CLICKING ON THE STEN PAGE!
*****
THE STEN COOKBOOK & KILGOUR JOKEBOOK
Two new companion editions to the international best-selling Sten series. In the first, learn the Emperor's most closely held cooking secrets. In the other, Sten unleashes his shaggy-dog joke cracking sidekick, Alex Kilgour. Both available as trade paperbacks or in all major e-book flavors. Click here to tickle your funny bone or sizzle your palate.
*****
IT'S A BOOK!
THE COMPLETE HOLLYWOOD MISADVENTURES!
*****
STEN #1 NOW IN SPANISH!
Diaspar Magazine - the best SF magazine in South America - is publishing the first novel in the Sten series in four
episodes. Part One and Part Two appeared in back-to-back issues. And now Part Three has hit the virtual book stands. Stay tuned, for the grand conclusion. Meanwhile, here are the links to the first three parts. Remember, it's free!
