Amusement Only

Authors

Ch. 1

Mike Bowers,

June 1993

"Y ou look like you could kill a man," Sonny said to me from across the dinner table.

He really mystified me. Staring at me through the mussel steam swirling up. Mussels. What a transition. Gourmet was munching on coffee grounds and uncooked rations in Kuwait.

What Sonny said got me thinking of my interview with the army recruiter. He was a short man, and it really showed when he climbed in his swivel chair and reached underneath to raise it. I remember him stopping the conversation for him to specifically lift the chair. He had a rainbow clump of prestigious stripes on the left of his chest, and they made him lean over as he walked. Really, it was just the gimp from his car accident. But I had liked to believe he earned a lot of medals. He asked me if I’d ever killed anyone, slipping it into the conversation like any old condiment on a sandwich. I came to learn you don’t talk about that kind of shit. If the movies get it right, death in the cinema is fair enough.

I guess I was eager to please Sonny, knowing he’d said he had work for me. I treated it as a formal audition.

Then the army did its job, I said, laughing.

The dining room went blank for a little after that because nobody wants to talk about death. No one’s dying to come to dinner and discuss morbid shit. My wife, Ann, and Penny, Sonny’s wife, stuffed their mouths with food. It felt like a red cloud of Mikhail Gorbachaev’s tears hovered over the table.

I’ll show you guys something, I said. Ann, what do you have on your plate?

Ann was sitting to my right and was relentlessly confused. Her pepper-colored brows crept up her forehead. Anyone who says surprise divorces from a marriage is full of shit. My guess is it’s easy to stay spontaneous if you change. Ann hates her eyebrows. She says the early onset grays interjecting with the others will faster turn her into a bitch, or a nuisance. I said those two things are the same. We’d always fuss about whether they were or not.

Just, come on, I continued.

Okay, she said. Pork roast and au gratin potatoes.

Perfect. Just what I need.

But you already have some.

That’s the point.

Sonny and Penny watched me sharply. Shit related to the service can captivate anyone. I think it’s one of the reasons Ann wanted to fuck me. But I say that with mighty respect. Military guys will put anything other than an American flag in a puddle for a dainty girl in three-inch heels to step on.

But, as you can see, I continued. Inventory is low. So, give me your potatoes.

Um, okay.

And she did.

Okay. Now, your pork roast.

She scooped some of that and gave it to me as I held my plate out.

Perfect. Thank you so much.

Ann had barely anything left on her plate.

I raised my hand from underneath the table in the form of a gun. I pointed it right at one of Ann’s eyes, her top and bottom lashes touching. The mystery-seeking eye with a trench coat on. It’s her tendency to do this when she knows I’m up to unusual behavior.Pow, I said.

I mimicked the recoil in slow motion.

And that, I said, looking around the dinner table, is a small portion of how war works. A nation wants something, so they take it.

Sonny began to clap, embracing my demonstration.

Encore! he yelled, suddenly. Encore!

Then he took a drag of his cigarette. He held the smoke in, stirring it within his lungs. I swear I could see them die like they’d been tarred and feathered by tax collectors.

Sonny smoked Virginia Slims, and he seemed elegant with that cigarette dangling from his fingers. I don’t think he would ever admit he was elegant in a somewhat feminine way, but I thought it was more of the way unsuspecting people pull off guilty pleasures.

It’s, um, real nice for our family to be able to get together again, Ann said, turning to Sonny. We’ve really never seen this much of each other since I was in school with your daughters. So long ago.

It’s time, I suppose, Sonny said while he shrugged. I’ve always wanted to be a family man.

I’m sure you have, Penny said. So, Mike, how’s school going? Ann told me you were going for criminal justice? Are they teaching you how to narc and stuff?

From what I knew of her until then, she was the type of person to ask something like that—how to narc. Penny Warner was my wife’s Aunt. I forgot that fact sometimes. Ann never really had spoken of her till of late, so I thought of her as an accessory.

The problem was, it seemed like Sonny did, too.

Penny seemed like the stay-at-home trophy of a champion most young girls train to be without ever admitting it. Her first husband owned a High’s market out in Randallstown. The guy was a closet heroin abuser and enjoyed hitting her around, too. She met Sonny just like I’d have guessed. He was throwing money around at some bar in Annapolis. Sonny told me she was in town crooning for a politician, and that he was something like that, so that’s how they met.Penny wore black diamonds on her neck and fingers for this dinner occasion. Grateful that some African died digging them for her to look fabulous. To recompense, she herself did a little slaving of her own over the pork roast, au gratin potatoes, and everything else. The rectangular dinner table was crammed into regions of all kinds of food, from mollusks to cloned butterballs.

At least she had a talent.

Ever since I left the Army, I thought about what I could do well in this world. I guess I was sold on the idea that the Army would pay for my school, so I’d been going to UMBC. It was a proper college in the ’burbs that was in Baltimore, but without Lexington Market, AIDS, and heroin.

The concept of criminal justice seemed okay—esteeming, potentially. And I was already crazy enough to do law enforcement.

School is fine, I said, glancing at Ann. Actually. No, it’s not. It’s rough. They’re paying for it all, but I can only do part-time work at Denny’s. We’re barely getting by, honestly. It’s not enough.

I was fed up each time I had to say shit like that. I wasn’t asking for anyone to feel sorry for poor me, though any spare change at the bottom of the cup would make me feel better. But really, I was just sick of acting like shit was okay when the utility people ostracize you in front of the whole office for overdue bills, when they think you’re on mute.Ann just sat picking at her food.

It’s okay, Ann said, murmuring. Then she reached around the side of the table to grab my hand. He’s just a little nervous because…well, I’m pregnant. We’re pregnant.

This was the first time I’d heard her tell anyone else besides her mother. I guess you live for moments like that.

I was goddamn nervous. More like in pain, and discombobulated. Being with child held a choke on me. I shrank in its grip. I mean, starting to think shit like with child, like I was Tony Blair, something. The moment Ann told me I lost a few friends, and was compelled to fill the void with something like religion. Otherwise I’d, be responsible for this shit world my son would come into. Not God.

But watching Ann’s lips round up when she told them calmed me down a bit. I stopped my short fusing. It didn’t matter whether she had our baby at Johns Hopkins or in a dumpster. She was just happy to be a mother by me. Regardless of condition. That was fine with her. That’s how I knew she really loved me.

They congratulated us with a toast, and we all drank in unison. Ann was drinking Perrier, of course. Fucking Perrier. It felt like initiation. The dining room was more suited to be called a banquet hall. It was so neat. The table was dark mahogany wrapped in olive oil and long so that we sat apart, dining as gentry. Glossy red drapes hung over the windows down to the floor. Dark crimson placemats and black empty chalices sat around the table just for aesthetics. Little trinkets of power. The crystal chandelier hung above us. I could see down to the crow’s foot and follicle of everyone. Even the silverware was spotless and bent just the right amount for the mouth.

I’d always wondered why he lived in Prince George’s County when he worked in and around Baltimore city. Getting to live this for a few nights—I got it. How he lived in quiet autocracy would’ve enchanted anyone. If you can build this from working in Baltimore City, there probably isn’t much more in this life that’s unattainable.

So we’re pregnant.

My heart called a time-out, the same way it did when she first told me. It was in our bathroom, in passing, after I’d gotten off the toilet. The moment could’ve been more sensual. She tried to play it off like it wasn’t big news.

I got a little one growing inside me, she’d said back then, looking in the mirror. I’m pregnant.

She didn’t have much of an ass, but I remember her leaning over the sink to wash her hands and how it poked from under her gown. It was instinctive and a coy thing to do. She perched over the counter just enough that I’d recall why I didn’t pull out. My father told me there’s two major organs fighting for oxygen—your brain and your dick. It’s been back and forth since whenever he told me that.

She has a consistent history of stealing moments. She was so wrought charged up with excitement when she told me and all I could picture was her fleshy lips spreading across her face, making me forget I was supposed to be concerned.

I know we’ve only been dating two years and married one, I remember saying. But fuck it. Let’s keep it. Hold onto what we got.

The same day, the rent increased. Bills know best when to meddle in your successes.

The whole night at dinner, Sonny stared like I was the last human being he’d ever see. He didn’t even try to hide it.

Well, I’ll be damned, he finally said. The government skinhead with a baby on the way. Responsibility awaits.

Sonny was unique in that he was proud to use words buried under modern language. He used them without shame, and to be called pompous would only be a compliment to him.

He stood up to toast again as the room went blank. The way he said it, it seemed like an asshole’s backhanded compliment, but I don’t think he meant it that way.

We all stood to join Sonny. I noticed Sonny had a real talent for galvanizing people, no matter what he said. I mean, he just called me a government skinhead with offspring on the way. Yet there we were, toasting.After dinner, the women went to the deck out back to talk.

Come downstairs, Sonny said, pouring a few glasses of Dewar’s. He said nothing, removed his gray blazer, and threw it on the grand piano. Then he slid on his fuzzy slippers, blew out a big breath, and took to the basement. He disappeared into the shadows downstairs. The entire movement was like an orchestra, or stage direction. I swallowed and followed his lead down the steps.

The basement was in utter seclusion. The walls were painted a mossy olive and the baseboards in golden glitter. The kind of portraits you’d bring up in conversation, even if you didn’t know shit from Crayola, hung around the walls. One painting was of some undesirable looking people lined up in rags dragging a boat. I swear the gallantry this place had even made slavery seem enjoyable. The painting reminded me of my father, and how this could’ve been a symbol for our family lineage. We were men of embittering labor and we kept creating more men of embittering labor, and none of us saw any way out of the cycle.

To the right was a small home theater on a projector, playing a silent war film from what looked like the 30s. Really, I don’t know whether it was silent or the volume had just been turned down.

Sonny’s pager went off, so he excused himself to make a phone call.

He was on the phone when I got there, next to the handcrafted bar, and the lights shone overhead eerily. Sonny’s fingers tapped a silly-looking virtual slot machine. It had no handle and the screen spun between 7s, cherries and bells in silence.Out of order? All weekend? And been off?, he said as his tone rose.Who replaced them? Sonny motioned for me to give him a minute. He seemed flustered—far from what he was at dinner—rubbing the lines on his forehead and then exercising his right to a cigarette. His knuckles were flushed and pale, as his hands gripped the receiver.

Yeah right, you’re making a big mistake. My guys will be in tomorrow to get them.Then he slammed the phone to the receiver and paused, eyes closed, to calm himself.

I’m sorry, kiddo, he said. Please, sit.

Everything okay?

Just a misunderstanding. Not an issue that can’t be…worked out. As lucrative as my business is, these are its diseases. Are you aware of my business, kiddo?

The Foxtail Inn in Hunt Valley?

Well, yes, he said. You’re half right.

Sonny leered at his drink for a while, thinking. There was something I wasn’t getting.

Look at the pictures on the wall, he continued. The cities’ fine politicians don’t shake your hand for giving out moderately priced vacancies.

Alright. Then why do they shake your hands?

Now we’re in business! he burst out, slapping the counter. I bought a vending company a few years ago. Simply put, that machine you see over there, I own a lot of those. Video Poker, 8-liners, Cherry Masters—we call them fast pieces or pokers. Sure, I also have pool tables, jukeboxes, and pinball machines, but the real money is in those fast pieces. And I distribute them to bars, strip joints, and restaurants too. Do you have a five spot on you?

He walked over to the slot machine, and I met him there in front of it.

Never mind, Sonny said. Here.

He took out a bundle of bills and thumbed through them slowly. Like this was show and tell at school.

He handed me the wad. The weight of it was enormous and telling. My feet sank further into the carpet. I don’t know if there’s any kind of power like the weight of a shit ton of money. It’s definitely reassuring.

I slipped a $20 bill from the rest, put it in the machine, and pressed the spin button.

BAR, BAR, BAR.

I knew you were a winner, he said, staring into the backs of my eyeballs. I saw hope in his pupils.

Just luck, I said, laughing softly.Aha! That too! You can’t be scared to get lucky if you want to make some money! I have to ask you—what’s with this school thing? Backpack, crayons, and all. Forgive me, but you don’t seem the type.

"Actually…I walked out of class this past week."

Does Ann know about this?

No, I said. No.

And what, then, would be your plan?

I been in and out of Baltimore County Police, the one in Towson, on Joppa Road, to put in my paperwork at the department. I passed everything, just waiting on a class. I figure pension, benefits, stability. And I don’t have to be fighting some new guy’s war every four or eight years. Ann had enough of me gone in the Army.

I take it Ann doesn’t know this either? he asked.

No, I said. I kind of want to keep it that way. You know? For now anyway…

I do, he said. Which is why, if you work for me, you wouldn’t have to worry about any of that.

Not as a bellhop?

You’d deal with folks with some baggage, but no. With these machines, we have route men. People play, they rack up points and get cashed out by the bartender. Our route men round all the bars that we supply with machines and collect the money. And Mike, I want you to be the route man.

Money? I asked. This isn’t like the casino. That’s illegal, right?

It didn’t matter how old I was. I felt lame, being weary of ethics. It seemed men, in the sense of just the word, did whatever they wanted.

You catch on quickly. Yes. But look at this machine. What’s it say right under the logo?

It said Amusement Only.

And as far as I know, all our clients use my machines with amusement in mind.

You could say a lot of things about Sonny, but his logic was sharp. It left an imprint on you. A lot of those professors at UMBC tried to be who Sonny was.The offer sounds great, I said. But…I don’t know. I don’t know anything about any of that shit. I’m sure there’s a thousand guys all up and down Harford Road who could run for you.

You have it all wrong, kiddo. Listen, when is this cop thing going to start? he asked.

Not sure. Recruiter said it could be 12–18 months. There’s talk of officer budgets and what not.

Here he stared longingly into me and took time with his words. It was like it didn’t even matter what I was about to say.

Working that hard, risking your life over PTSD and pennies. I don’t mean to disparage, and I can’t promise what life will look like in the police department. I can show you what it’ll look like working for me. One of these lives is waiting for you. With a baby coming, you really wanna spend 10 hours away from Ann working traffic on I-95? I trust you, Mikey. And I know you have the head for this. You can start tomorrow and make as much as you have in your hand there.

Sonny made me feel special in a sleazy way. Kinda like a high-demand prostitute.

I can’t tell you anything else, Sonny continued. So, I’ll just give you this to…see things a bit sunnier.

Now, holding in my hands cash this big, I really had to think about it. Taking it was an indictment. I wasn’t stupid. I had to think real hard about it. I think I was waiting for something to go wrong. Some mishap for him to cut the stack in half and say he didn’t mean to give me that much. But it was real. Sonny let me hold it like he had a thousand more upstairs. The way he described this business had me feeling incompetent had I walked away from it, and admitted I couldn’t do it. Really, I’d been certified to kill for an eighth of my life. Any other work I did would be detox.

Take your time to think about it, kiddo, but you would be really helping me out. When you see an opportunity for expansion, you have to be greedy. I’m going to make this money with or without you. The question is, do you want in on some of it?

I did. I wanted all of it.

Later that night I resigned from Denny’s. I knew nobody would be at the office, so I left a message. Ann watched me while I told my supervisor not to call me back. Hell, supervisor. He was just a food manager.

In a few months, Ann said. I’ll be calling in to resign myself.

I damn sure didn’t think this was as fresh as she did. But of course she gets her way in my head as soon as her bottom lip expands below her teeth.

The next day I was to get set up with this guy Rob at the warehouse where Sonny kept the equipment. It was down on Reisterstown Road in a flagrantly ugly part of the city. I guess this way it doesn’t really exist. Driving south through the north side of the city, I admired all the happy and functional shit going on in the street. A stray bullet here was a carnival compared to the agitation in 3rd world nations. The one-level warehouse was tucked in a comfier alleyway about 20 yards back. It had about six dock-style bay doors and the whole thing was light pink in color. Crabgrass dotted the alley and the sewer grate in the middle drained the remaining slosh from last night. There was a used car and repair shop combo across the street, and as I arrived, I saw a man in a mechanic jumpsuit outside the shop, just sitting on a lawn chair, not working. I got to the warehouse pretty early, trying to be impressive or something, like I had to clock in. But there was no uniform or photo ID. No access codes or time slots to punch in.

I must’ve waited a half hour before Rob showed up. He pulled into the alley slowly, his Pontiac Bonneville kissing the ground, and parked next to me. It took all his effort to pry himself out of the driver seat. Each time I thought he’d make it out, he had to replant his feet and dig at the ground again to get out. That man was so big he had to fight for his freedom from the car. I’d guess Rob was about 6’5 and weighed 350 pounds first thing in the morning. He took steps so gigantic he could interrupt a collection of worshipping monks. I thought maybe Sonny found him in the classifieds under utility proletariat.Rob looked out for me in a problematic situation, Sonny had told me before. And if some shit ever goes down, that’s one less thing I have to worry about. You need people you can trust and who can hold their own to delegate to. He’s the big black excuse everyone has not to fuck with you."

I didn’t know what we were getting into, but I knew I wouldn’t die today.

Mike.

Yeah.

Come wit’ me.

We walked slowly around the corner, to where a plain white cargo van was waiting for us. Slow, I learned, was Rob’s only speed. And he carried around a million keys on one ring, like he was born into custodial service.Get in, Rob said.

I did.

So, Rob said as he was driving, military man? Mufuckin’ G.I. Joe?

People loved to be appreciative of a fighter. I got sick of comments like those a long time ago.

So, it’s like this, Rob continued. We gotta’ take care of something first. We goin’ to Lee’s Tavern now. When we pull up, if our machines are outside, we load ’em back on the truck.

That’s it?

For now.

Oh. So, we’re not killing anybody.

He chuckled and asked, Where you get that from?

You know, like in the Italian movies.

Look man, this ain’t the movies, and these ain’t no Italians. I mean, Jeffry got that long ass nose, but I don’t know man. Look, somebody will get fucked up if they have to. We get paid good to take care of things.

Don’t get me wrong, I said. I’m not complaining, but. What’s the real cost of running these things around? I mean, we’re a little more than the UPS aren’t we?Just give it time. Soon it ain’t gon’ make no difference what you do for it. That’s the kinda money we talkin’. Soon you be able to do this on your own. We get you some keys made and what not for the machines. To get in the warehouse, Janis gotta’ buzz you in through the two doors. It’s the first one, then another one after that. You’ll figure it out. She the secretary there. Handles the phone calls and errythin’.

How’d you meet Sonny? I asked.

I’m in the Midway Bar on The Block. I see this smooth-ass moneyman walk in. I’m thinking like, what the fuck this white dude about. Suit on and errythin’. He was real cozy with the owner, you know, prolly talkin’ business. Sonny was drunk as shit and started playin’ some shit like Barbara Streisand on the jukebox. These other dudes at the bar was tryna’ start shit with him for it, and I’m thinkin’ he on his own down here at the Midway. So I trashed both a’ the dudes myself. Sonny asked if I wanted some work later that night after he bought me a drink.

We soon arrived at Lee’s and our machines were outside, just like Rob said. Two video pokers right on the sidewalk, around the corner of the bar like trashcans on garbage day. Rob bopped over to the machines and began to load them onto the dolly. Rob could pick up an entire machine by himself, and I wondered why he even needed me. I stood there twiddling my thumbs and shooting the breeze while he waddled with the machine because I couldn’t haul one myself and we only had one dolly I don’t think anyone else can. When he came back with a hand truck for the other, I gave him a hand, trying to make myself useful. He could pull those fucking things up and down the Chesapeake ’til the sun set.

We have to go inside and say anything?

Nah, Sonny a’ handle dat. Let’s go, Rob said.

We rode all around from the county down to East Baltimore. Rob took me around the stops to get familiar with the regular players and bartenders who cashed them out.

The people took an instant liking to me. If I knew Sonny, I was valued with them. I wasn’t completely naive about all this though. Whatever arrangement they had with Sonny, the ends of the deal were clear. I could tell by their clothes. Sonny wore the suits. The commoners and inhabitants of the pub wore what they could afford. But some of Sonny’s contracts were bars with professional furnishings and staff, although not many. The contrast was a liquor dump with rusty gates protecting the place and winos outside the joint trying to catch hacks downtown.

Catching a hack is when a person needs to get someplace and they stand on the sidewalk, or a quarter of the way onto the street, to flag down a ride. That’s a big thing for people in Baltimore to do, I don’t know why.

The worst place, at least by the look of it, was The 19th Hole on Harford Road. It was the size of a thumbnail and next to the Clifton golf course. The stop was big for stick-up kids, who would then run into the darkness of the course after midnight hold-up. Not even the police would try to run them down.

I thought about the police all day, and whether anybody I met was under investigation. I thought about it all day. It was a little transcendent of coincidental how I could have been on the other side.By the time I shook my fiftieth hand or so, I noticed I’d started working already. The day was an acclimation to delinquency. Really, the people didn’t seem malicious. One drunk guy at Muir’s Tavern saw my Army t-shirt and challenged me to a push up contest. Another to an arm wrestle. All those guys were just harmless bar people who made their way without an etched path in life. I hadn’t thought about it until now, but I respect that in people. I came to that respect again thinking mostly of my father. He played by the rules right all his life and became a sick man who became enemies with the mailman for delivering overdue bill notices to the house. When I was young, I remember my father would sit on the porch every day, drinking Black-eyed Susans that he took the time to make, and waiting for the mailman to show up.

One to three. Come in three.

The radio in our truck had been quiet most of the day, other than Janis, the secretary, giving us odd service calls. Rob grabbed the mic to answer.

Three to One. Go ahead.

Take those pokers back to Lee’s. Copy? the radio bellowed.

Rob hit the mic. Ten-four. Out. He pulled the truck around.

He was quiet until we got back to Lee’s. He knew what was going on, but acted like he didn’t.

What’s up? I asked Rob.

You’ll find out there’s a way things work. And if you don’t do it the right way, shit like this happens.

Wassup, Jeffry, Rob said, as we came into the bar. I heard y’all needed some new machines.

Where the fuck is Sonny at? Jeffry asked, standing behind the bar. Why is he always sending in the grunts to handle some shit?

The bar was empty and a mound of ash sat on the bar near Jeffry where he stood. He stood there like he had been reflecting, or in misery. The bar echoed the fresh stench of a grave account, like a firing squad just after execution of twins, or orphan girls.

He did need some new machines. In the corner sat two broken pokers, and I knew they weren’t ours. Both of the screens were busted, the buttons jacked up and missing. The bill collectors had gum stuck in them. They were done for.

And you, he said, looking at me, Who the fuck are you? What the fuck is this? Seal Team Six?

I just ignored him. The bar was flat empty, and broken glass was everywhere along the floor. Rob and I set our machines back up, the