Lost Time Incident

October 13, 2003

The Key to Understanding It

"I wrote a blues song. Did I ever tell you about it?"

Big Angie was wearing the same brown suit he wore every day when he made his rounds and I was following along behind him in the cheap blue suit I just bought last weekend. Big Angie was a big dude. His full name is Angelo, but he prefers to be called Big Angie. Not to his face, though. Only when talking about some guy he messed up. 'Cause then it sounds like the guy was messed up by a girl, sorta. But to his face you had to call him Angelo.

Big Angie was a guy who liked to make himself useful. Usually, in our neighborhood, the best way to be useful was to find out who owed somebody money, then go introduce yourself to them. Then, find out how they can repay Mr. Somebody their money. You know, useful.

Big Angie was showing me the ropes. I was new to this whole thing. For instance, I didn't know about the importance of good shoes. Shoes with treads. We were walking down this hotel hallway, the kind people live in full time, and the carpet was so worn down my feet kept sliding. Big Angie had shoes with treads and lots of weight on him, so with every tread he sank in.

"A blues song?" I said. The wallpaper was peeled in some places. Mebbe one of the rooms on this floor, somebody has a kid. Maybe the kid doesn't have any toys and plays instead by peeling the wallpaper. Most of the peeling was kinda low on the wall. I can't blame the kid. Ugly, yellow pattern.

"Yeah. I wrote this blues song, even though I don't play the guitar." We walked past rooms. 410. 412. 414. "And I called it Baby, Come Back Or I'll Die Or You Will.

"How is it a blues song without any guitar?" I asked.

"There would be guitar. I just need someone else to play it. I wrote the lyrics."

"Oh," I said.

Big Angie stopped in front of 432. "Here we are."

All of a sudden, I felt like I had to pee. "Before we go in... you wanna tell me what the lyrics are?"

"Nope," said Big Angie. He rolled his shoulders under the pointed shoulders of his suit jacket. Like a boxer before the bell. Like an octopus that's hungry. Like a-- I don't want to go in there with him.

"I'll tell you when we're done in here," he whispered. "But I want you to know something... when we go in, you're gonna hear some crazy talk from this guy. That's because we're gonna be talking in code. So don't be surprised if things don't make sense to you. You just watch how I do what I do and don't let the particulars bother you. Got it?"

My tongue was grotesquely huge. I could feel it pressed up against my teeth. It hucked up and down against my dry throat but I managed to say, "Yes." I reached into my pocket and handed Big Angie the pass key we had gotten from the guy in the lobby for $40. He wanted us to keep whatever we were doing quiet and wipe off the keys before we gave 'em back. Angie didn't promise anything, just smiled and had me hold the keys.

The key clicked in the door and Big Angie pushed it open quietly. "Remember," he whispered, "code. Be cool."

The room was dark and Big Angie trod confidently through the narrow opening hallway, past the open bathroom door, and up to the bed in the middle of the room. He reached over, flipped up the blankets and lifted somebody out of bed, carried them over to the desk by the window and set them down.

How did he do that with the person making any noise? I was taking all the mental notes I could. It's a rare privilege to see a master at work. I noted that Big Angie managed to lift the guy and wrap the bedsheet entirely around his head at the same time, thus muffling his sounds of fear.

"Hunck," said Angie, holding the sheet tightly around the guy's head. I could see a shadow where the guy's mouth was open, breathing through the sheet. "I need to talk to you."

Whimpering sounds came from a mouth somewhere under the sheet.

"I don't need to hear from you, I need to talk to you. When I need to hear from you, I'll let you know, got it?"

The mummified head of the skinny man started to make some reply, but Angie barked "SHUT UP!" and it stopped. "I didn't say I needed to hear from you yet."

The body underneath the wrapped head was skinny, in a sleeveless undershirt and white, frayed boxer shorts. His knees were like crab apples or maybe they were more like little skulls stuck on the sticks that were his shins like heads set out by Vlad the Impaler to warn away visitors. Nah, they weren't warnings. I could see the guys ribs through his undershirt. No one could be scared of this guy, knees or no. Forget I said any of that.

"Now," said Angie. "Hank the Limp says you owe him money. I told Hank that I'd talk to you about this money. I am now talking to you about this money. Do you know what money I'm talking about? I want to hear you reply."

"MMmph," said the head. The hotel room was dark and I made it darker by closing the door to the hallway. My eyes adjusted to the street lights coming in through the blinds on the window. There was a red blinking sign out there somewhere that stayed on for three secs, then turned off for three secs. It was easy to see when the light was on.

For instance, when it was on, I could see liquid coming off the desk and down the mummy-headed guy's leg.

"Good. Now... this is the first time we've met. And since you can't see me with that sheet around your head, it's not much of an introduction. Even so... we probably shouldn't meet again, even though we're on friendly terms now. I think you can agree that that would be for the best."

Angie paused and looked over at me, his hand still holding the sheet tight around the guy's head. I nodded, to let him know I was paying attention. The red light was off, so I don't know if he saw me nod.

"You have... three days... to get the money to the Limp. It should be easy to get him the money. I mean, he don't move that fast with that limp, so you can catch up to him. Three days means Friday. The 12th. I don't see a calendar on this desk, so you better remember. Let me know that you'll remember."

The head nodded as much as it could in the slack between Angie's fist and where the sheet tucked under Hunck's chin.

"If you don't get the money, you will meet me again. And at that time, you will see my face. And I will be killing you. You don't need to let me know you heard that." Angie's face leaned in close to a cloth-covered ear. "I know you heard that."

Outside a red light blinked on. Turned off. Blinked on. Turned off.

Big Angie let go of the sheet and headed for the door. I took one last look around the guy's room in the red light, the sagging mattress, his knees on the desk, his head shaking, shoulders shaking, a ship at sea in a painting on the wall. I followed Big Angie out into the hall.

I almost slipped on the carpet in my crappy shoes to catch up with him. He was halfway to the stairwell already. As we walked down the stairs, I jingled the pass key in my pocket.

"Angelo," I said. "You said you were going to talk in code? Like, I wouldn't understand anything?"

"Yeah," he said. He kept his hands clenched in fists, not using the hand rail as he went down the steps.

"But it seemed pretty straightforward to me," I said.

"You didn't understand any of it," he said.

My hand slid along the bannister. "But you were just telling him to get money to--"

Big Angie stopped and so then I stopped. He looked back up the stairs. "What you think you heard? You didn't hear. It didn't make sense to you. And because of that, no one can ask you about what you think you heard. It was all in code."

"Code," I said. My hand was slick against the wood of the hand rail. "Oh, code."

"Don't feel bad that it didn't make sense," he said, heading down stairs again. "In time, it will make sense. You're just starting out. You don't know the code."

"I want to thank you again for this opportunity, Angelo," I said. His shoulders shrugged and he grunted and I checked again to make sure I had the key to give to the guy in the lobby. I needed better shoes and I needed to work out and I needed to keep listening, keep watching, learn a trade.

Not everyone gets these kind of opportunities and I'm grateful, I really am. So much to learn.

Posted by Michael at October 13, 2003 05:04 PM