Road Blocks
So I’m writing along, grinding out my 500 words a day, and all of a sudden I hit this stumbling block where I think that what I’m writing isn’t very good. That I’m doing too much dancing around and not enough focusing on the real story. It’s hard to maintain perspective when you’ve been so close to a subject for so long. How much of the backstory is necessary and how much should just stay in your head?
It’s one of those things that are a part of the craft. Elmore Leonard said that he writes by just leaving out the boring parts. Exactly, but how do you know?
I’m writing this entry as a kind of diversion, a respite from working on what I need to work on. But it’s also a time to think. To try to step back and consider what the real story is, and what I need to leave off the page. For a writer, that’s just as important as writing well. Leave out too much and your reader doesn’t understand the character motivations. Leave in too much and it’s boring.
I’m going to jump back into it now, and I’ve got a feeling I’ll be leaving a lot of words written that won’t make it onto this blog. Does it still count toward my 500 words? I’m going to say it does. But I’d be a lot happier if they were words I felt sure I was going to publish.
— Ric Hess, 66 days ago
Opening Day, an excerpt from a novel in progress by Chicago writer, Ric Hess
XII
I climbed out of bed the next morning and sat around with a cup of joe, thinking. Then I got on the phone. Mick Sessions was a career Florida beach bum. He’d worked the pool at the National Hotel with me most afternoons. He’d been born on the beach, lived his whole life there, and he’ll be there when he’s seventy, still wearing his board shorts and puka shells.
“Jesus, talk about a blast from the past,” Mick said. “What’s up, brother-man?”
We talked for a bit and I brought him up to speed on the last few years.
“Fuck, dude, that’s a trip. Jail sucks.” Mick the philosopher.
“Yeah, well you know, what doesn’t kill me and all that. Anyway, I need a favor.”
“Sure bro, speak.”
I told Mick what I was looking for.
“I’ll see what I can do. Peace.” It was a start.
He called me back the next morning – early the next morning, waking me from a dead sleep. Pool bums and bartenders keep different hours.
“Who the fuck is this?” I barked at the telephone.
“Dude,” Mick said, “I’m doing you a solid. Remember?”
I could hear the early morning sounds of the beach in the background; gulls screeching, breakers rolling up on the sand, the rattle of the chaise lounges as they were dragged out into neat rows along the deck.
“Yeah, sorry, what do you got for me?”
One of the things he had was the number Roxanne had left behind for emergencies, bought for the price of two lap dances from one of the other girls at the Cheetah. I let Mick pat himself on the back for that one for a while and then I asked the question that had been gnawing at me.
“What’s the story with Rox and Tommy?”
“Well,” Mick said, “Her and Tommy been running together pretty regular of late. Not hooked up on an exclusive basis I don’t think, but close enough. I’d say he’s closing that deal.”
“Spare me the details.”
“Dude, don’t kill the messenger. Anyway, I’d bet that wherever she is, he won’t be far away.”
“Thanks, buddy, this helps.”
“No sweat,” Mick said. “Don’t be a stranger.”
I thought about the situation over another cup of coffee. Then I got dressed and hit the street. One way or another I wanted to know the whole story, and I wanted to get it straight from Roxanne. Now I had a place to start digging.
Lately I’d been spending way too much time outdoors to suit my tastes, but I wanted a pay phone for the next call. There are still a few around, if you know where to look. With caller ID and *69 and all the other annoyances, I didn’t want to make the call from home.
It seemed that I had to run a little interference first. I pulled the door shut behind me and I found Psycho Pete, the neighborhood disaster story, huddled at the corner of the building out of the wind, waiting.
“Danny, I need ten bucks to get into the Diplomat tonight, help a brother out?”
Pete had grown up two blocks away. He’d played ball for Lane Tech, got himself through high school – which in the Chicago Public School system was a small success in itself. He’d even had a wife and kid. The family bailed, once he let the booze and the meth and who knows what else get the better of him. Now he stood on the street, day after day, begging change, waiting to die.
They called him Psycho because, other than his more obvious problems, he’d walk down the street, singing at the top of his lungs. He preferred old Motown, with Barry White and Luther thrown in for contemporary flair. He didn’t really have an ear or the pipes for it, but as far as I was concerned, singing was the sanest thing about Pete’s life. And he was a Cub’s fan which goes to show he wasn’t completely a lost cause.
His face was an open horror of broken, raw skin, and you could smell him coming two blocks downwind. But I felt sorry for him. There, but for the grace of God. We had developed our own peculiar exchange, one that allowed him to maintain a little dignity when he hit me up.
“Pete, what’s the good word?” I reached into my pocket and the animal hunger that appeared in his eyes made me wince.
“Same shit, different day.”
“Taking it one day at a time, right?”
“Take it any way I can get it.”
“How do you bleed?”
“Cubbie Blue”
That was the show. We played it a couple of times a month with variations. I handed him a ten-spot and Pete shuffled away on bruised and frozen feet. I hoped he really was going to find himself a room. The Diplomat Hotel was an SRO, a flea-bag, hooker and druggie hangout, but it was better than the street.
I walked over to the Walgreens at the corner of Belmont and Sheffield. I bought a Tribune from the girl behind the counter, and I took my change and fed a couple of quarters into the phone. I dialed the number Mick had given me.
“Ambassador Arms, how may I assist you?”
I knew the place, a condo hotel in Streeterville, Chicago’s tiny east side. Steel and glass shoved up in a big pile over on the lake side of Michigan Avenue, real swanky; doorman, concierge, room service day and night. I asked the operator for Roxanne Garrard.
“I’m sorry, we have no guest registered by that name.”
I was about to hang up and then I had a thought. Roxanne used to use a stage name when she was dancing, when she was on the road and didn’t want to be found.
“Try Harding, Nikki Harding.”
The operator clicked a few keys, “My pleasure,” and the phone was ringing in my ear.
“Hello?” said a voice that I remembered pretty well.
“Morning sunshine,” and I could tell from the way that she shut up and sucked her breath in that she knew who I was. But then another voice, one that I was a lot less thrilled about, piped up from the background.
“Who the hell’s that?” Tommy growled.
“Wrong number,” Roxanne said. And hung up. All of a sudden I was back to hating the telephone again. But I’d started with a phone number, now I had an address. Progress. I hailed a cab.
“I am to be taking the Lakeshore Drive?” The driver looked back at me in the mirror.
“Yeah, the Drive.” Ninety percent of the cabbies in Chicago are from Africa and India; the only thing these guys know about driving in the city is Lakeshore Drive and the highway out to the airports. They’ll get you where you’re going, but if you don’t give them directions they’ll rob you blind. This guy was in luck though. For once Lakeshore Drive was the right route. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
I piloted from the back seat and then I paid the fare and found a coffee shop that had a view of the front of the Ambassador Arm’s front door. I ordered a cup of coffee and settled in to wait. I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for, but I was playing this one by ear.
Two hours later the waitress was getting tired of filling my cup and my nerves were jangled with all the caffeine I’d swallowed. I popped her a twenty to shut her up, then I saw the doorman across the street start to scurry around like his ass was on fire.
He was opening the door and hailing a taxi, practically bowing. I knew what kind of effect Roxanne had on men. So it was no big surprise when I saw her emerge and scurry into the cab. She must have smiled or said something sweet, because the guy lit up like the Fourth of July. I hopped up from my table and out to the curb where I grabbed the next taxi in line.
“Follow that cab.” Sure it sounded a little corny, but I had to say it.
The driver looked back at me through the mirror and sighed. “Whatever, pal, you’re the boss.”
For once I had a pro. He just put down his Sun Times and punched the meter and we were off.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to say to her, I was going to play it by ear. I figured there was a fifty-fifty chance she was going to tell me to go fuck myself, but she was going to have to do it face to face.
XIII
We wound up in front of Marshall Field’s on State Street. They call it Macy’s now, but it’s Marshall Field’s to anyone who’s lived in Chicago for more than a month. I shoved the fare across the seat, and then I was up moving across the sidewalk, fast, wanting to get to her before she got inside.
“Roxanne!”
She stopped cold and turned around. She saw me, no doubt about it. Then she turned on her heel and kept on going. I started running and caught her just before the door.
“Roxanne!” I grabbed her arm and swung her around. She rode with the momentum, swinging her big purse up hard, catching me on the ear with the clasp. My eyes teared up and then I was busy, trying to hang on with one hand and defend myself with the other.
“Fuck you, Danny Menary, let go of me!”
We started to attract a little crowd. A fat woman in a fur coat decided to show some solidarity, “You tell him sister.”
I thought about giving her the finger but my hands were tied up. Then Roxanne belted me again and I got mad.
“GODDAMN IT, KNOCK IT OFF!”
Roxanne stopped struggling, taken aback by the volume. The crowd took a step away and got quiet. I could see the cell phones pop out as citizens got ready to dial 911. I needed to get the situation under control.
“Look, I just want to talk to you,” I said, “All I’m asking for is a few minutes.”
“I gave you a year once,” Roxanne said, “Remember? And look what you did with that. If you’re looking for a little trip down memory lane, I’m not interested, Danny. Those days are gone.”
I let of her arm, keeping an eye on her purse. “Let me buy you a drink – I’ll tell you what’s on my mind and after that, you say the word, I’ll never bother you again.”
The crowd started to disperse, some of them looking disappointed that the fireworks were done with. Roxanne was tapping her foot, impatient, that same cold film that I’d witnessed the other night, shrouded over her eyes. But I thought that I saw something else, something that made me feel that tracking her down had been the right move. Standing next to her was like looking through that book of photos in my apartment, the familiar longing and lust jousting with an electric tension that somehow reminded me of a circuit completed.
“Come on,” I said, “Let’s walk.”
“Where are we going?” But she followed me.
I took her elbow, both to guide and disarm her, and I walked us around the corner over to Miller’s Pub. Miller’s is the kind of old time Chicago joint with dark paneled wood, cozy booths and big drinks where you can sit around for a long time with no one breathing down your neck. As long as you’re spending money, they’re happy.
We got a booth and ordered drinks. She was watching me, waiting.
“So,” I said, “Where do we start?”
“You better start quick and get to the point.” Roxanne leaned in across the table. “I’m not the one who walked out, leaving me wondering what happened. You know it was a month before I even knew you were in jail? Do you have any idea what that month was like? And then I found out what you got busted for. You were a pool boy, Danny. Did you really think you were going to be all Miami Vice and score some big dope deal? Tell me that there was some more depth to your plan than that.”
Actually that really had been my plan; more or less. I’d been playing out of my league, making stupid moves and I’d lost. But there was more to it than just me being young and stupid and that’s the part I wanted to get across.
“You were dealing,” Roxanne said. “Tell me something that I don’t know.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” I said. “If you’d just shut up and let me talk.”
“Five minutes,” Roxanne said, “That mouth of yours just cost you time.”
I started over, trying to find the right way in. “I was doing it for us,” I said, “I wanted to take you places, buy you things. Like all those other guys.”
“I wasn’t with those other guys,” Roxanne said, “Remember? I was with you. This was never about us, Danny. This was about you trying to prove some stupid point.”
She had me there.
“Okay, maybe you’re not entirely wrong, but you’re not right either. I was doing it for what I thought we both wanted. I wanted it faster than it was coming. I fucked up.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Roxanne stirred her drink with her straw. She sighed, “Okay, we’re here. So tell me the parts I don’t already know.”
So I played it again – the thunder steel slap of the door, the sinking despair curling up from the pit of my stomach. The frantic, screaming men, pistols drawn, swarming over the room. And I told her the part I hadn’t told Russell, not even sure at the time why I wasn’t telling him, just relying on some deep instinct, or embarrassment, that made me pull the last detail and hold it close.
*
Pat hauled me out to a squad car, lights flashing all over the parking lot, the people from the Condo crowded around the perimeter to see the show. There was a limo parked off to one side and Pat had a conversation that I couldn’t hear with the uniformed cop holding my arm. They let me go and Pat walked me over to the limo. A tinted window slid down from the back and Tommy leered out at me; he couldn’t have been happier if it was Christmas morning.
“Have a nice vacation, Danny boy,” Tommy said rolling up his window.
I stood under the lights on the steaming asphalt and watched the limo drive him away.
XIV
“Tommy?”
“Oh, yeah. He had me set up good. And he made sure he was there for the party.”
Roxanne and I sat in our booth at Miller’s, not saying much of anything. When there’s something that’s been eating at you for a long time, something that you’re sure you’ve finally got all figured out, it’s interesting to have some new information come along that turns everything you thought upside down.
“So Tommy gets you out of the way,” Roxanne chewed her straw. “Then he thinks he’s got me back where he wants me and so upset that maybe I’ll turn to him for a shoulder to cry on.”
“Something like that,” I said. “It’s the same thing my boss said when I told him about our situation. That old boy doesn’t miss a beat.”
“Well then why didn’t you tell me all of this before?”
“Because when I say that I told Mike about our situation and he figured out what was going on, I’m not talking about ancient history. I’m talking about just the other night. That’s why I came looking for you.”
Roxanne clicked her tongue, walking herself through it. “Look, don’t go getting your head all swelled up, but I took it pretty hard when you disappeared. You might say I lost it. Say what you want about Jimmy, he’s always been decent to me. He was going down to Puerto Vallarta and he took me along. No strings, no pressure. He’d go out during the day and I lay by the pool and drank.” She laughed at herself, “I drank a lot. We got back to Miami; I kept on drinking. I think it finally wore him out.”
“It wore him out?”
“I mean, all along I was whining about you, trying to find out what happened. I thought you were dead, Danny.”
“I wasn’t drinking on the beach, that’s for sure.”
“Do you think I was having fun? You broke my heart you son of a bitch. The reason I say that it wore Jimmy down was because one day he sat me down and told me that you’d gotten yourself busted. That you were gone and weren’t coming back.”
“Let me guess, he told you he might be able to help me.”
“Something like that. I have no idea what it’s like in prison, Danny, but I knew it couldn’t be good. I don’t know how they did it but I couldn’t find you anywhere, you were buried. I asked Jimmy if he could help and he’s all ‘Forget about him kid, that guy’s out of your life’. And on that he wouldn’t budge. I kept on asking and he kept on saying no. So since I couldn’t talk to you, I asked him to watch out for you, make sure you were alright.”
“And Jimmy said he would, if you did something for him, right?”
“I made him a promise. I told him that I’d stick with him, that I wouldn’t quit the club. I told him I’d do whatever he needed if he kept an eye on you and made sure you landed on your feet.”
“You asked him to do that?”
“What can I say,” Roxanne shook her head, “I was in love.”
Roxanne chewed her lip for a while and then she stood up, the flashing anger gone, replaced by a weary resignation.
“Look, Danny, I don’t know how I feel about all of this. It’s a lot to process, you know what I mean?” She turned to go and then turned back, “And just in case you’re wondering, I’m not going to mention this little meeting to Tommy. He’d be pretty pissed off if he knew how I’d spent the afternoon. Keep away from him, Danny. And I think it would be better for everyone involved if you stayed away from me.”
She walked away. Most of the male heads, and a good portion of the females, turned and watched her go. I sat there by myself, thinking.
“Your friend is gone?” The waitress was somewhere between sixty and eternity and the years hadn’t been kind, but there was a little spark in her eyes that let you know she’d had her day.
“Yes, she’s gone,” I said.
She was gone, but I knew it wasn’t over.
— Ric Hess, 69 days ago
