Coolin' the heels...
...I didn't want to do it, but I guess I had to. If I didn't there would have been much
more trouble, than there was when I just did it. I think.
McKinney chuckled under his breath and nudged me. I nodded back to him, the universal sign
of acceptance. It was just as well. With that little rite of passage behind us, there
would be no other trouble. Men, manly men anyway, are like that. You fight; make a mess,
anger the females around you with this apparent frivolity. Then the 'better man' gets a
knee on the other guy's chest and rears back ready to kill and the pinned fellow says,
'ok, I give' or its equivalent. One of them says, 'sorry man' and the other says, 'nah,
don't worry about it, my mistake' and its settled -- for life. Wolves are like that, in
their pack they fight, you know, to get the pecking order sorted out. The go for the
other's throat, catch it between their teeth and just squeeze gently when basically the
fight is over. The two of them know their relative place and its done.
Broads aren't like that. One broad crosses another, (or the perception of a 'cross'
occurs), and it is on. Sometimes it doesn't come to blows, but it doesn't have to; because
the memory of that slight is burned in permanently. Forgiveness between broads just
doesn't happen. They're like snakes fighting, they kill their own every day.
Knowing this about people tends to explain much of what happens. It also is useful when
you arrive at county lock up. You got cops on one side, which where crime is concerned,
they pretty much act like girls anyway, and you got hardcases on the other side and well,
you gotta be a man or you don't survive the night. McKinney was the biggest, near as I
could tell, meanest, baddest dude in the place. He didn't bother with me right off, I
think he wanted to see how I faired with the attitude of this other guest, Blandino,
before he decided to get up.
I muttered, 'They interupted "Walking away from the past", those guys...'
A tallish slender olive skinned man with slicked back hair stood. His curvey pattern
shapped tattoo caught my eye, but before I could get a good look, he spoke somewhat
unkindly, as I might of guessed he would, 'Did you say something?' He looked around the
large cell, as if one of the other guests might answer the question for me. 'If you said
something... heh... ' He tried to pause menacingly, 'you interrupted my train of thought'.
I pointed to the man I would later, much later, learn was McKinney. I stood with my frame
perpendicular to the tattoo'd guy pointing with my right hand. I had him figured for a
knee twitch, that would let me know if he was going to strike, so I kept one eye there but
had the other leveled across the room.
No one was speaking much before, but somehow the room got much quieter. Carlyle thought he
heard the drunk in the corner thinking, 'Oh, boy, Captain's got us headin' the wrong way
now'.
McKinney stood and cracked his knuckles. The moved fairly well without the waddle one
might have guessed would be present. He looked me right in the eyes. I looked right back
at him, and I saw I had him. It was that way sometimes for me. A fight like this was over
before it was ever started. I could see it, turning around in his head. He was thinking
that I shoulda backed away, but I didn't. And he just knew he was going to wake up
hurting. But he couldn't back off now, not after standing up and all. He had the weight of
everyone on his back, but he alone knew who was the better man. Any distraction, any
excuse to avoid this altercation would have been a divine intervention as far as McKinney
was concerned.
Well, he must have been a very pious man, because just before it was on, one of the
policemen started bangin' on the bars with a night stick, just like they did when they
dropped me off. It was obvious they were doing it just to wake those who'd nodded off,
searching for more pleasant dream surrounds than the current pissed on walls. That's when
he chuckled under his breath, and nudged me. And I let him save face by nodding, but I
knew and he knew there would never be trouble between us.
'Andrews! You got a visitor already. Seems you're pretty popular', the police man sneered
as he clumsily fitted the lock with its key. He explained that another guy on the job came
up from the seventeenth while we walked to another part of the station. 'Looks like you've
been busy all over town', he said as he locked me into a grey room with a table and two
chairs.
The guy who came in looked like my Uncle, no ... I didn't have an Uncle. He was older than
I was, but so much more innocent. Oh, he'd seen just about everything there was to see,
but he hadn't done it all. He was dressed like a detective, but better than the joker who
arrested me, more like that guy's partner. The one who just watched as I got hauled off
stage.
'Ander, I'm James Victor, I'm here to help you', he started out.
'It's Andrews, everyone keeps messing up my name around here.'
'Ok, Andrews, it's me -- James Victor', he stressed his last name particularly.
'Great', I leaned forward trying to copy his conspiratorial affectation, 'we know each
other's names'. I shook my head and sighed, 'lets get on with the party'.
'Right, ok, well, Hans told me everything. See, he was up in the offices when they came
into the boathouse. He knows it all, he heard the whole thing.'
'Hans? yeah ok, Hans saw it all. They going to put him in my line up. What kind of
interrogation is this? You're supposed to ask me if I was at such and such on the night of
October 7th.'
A puzzled look came across Detective Victor's face. He looked at me and squinted trying to
see into my head. I obliged him by opening my eyes and staring at the ceiling. He drew
back and stood. 'I'm sorry. I've got the wrong man, or something' and began for the door.
'Hey!', I stopped him, 'Can you a least leave me a cigarette for my time?'
He returned to the table and set down a pack of Arbor Golds and he stopped, 'If you ever
see someone named Ander, will you tell him that Hans was there, he knows?'
'For a whole pack of those I'll tell him whatever you want me to'