Mean Willie
by Philip J. Lees
When the rain started, Mean Willie was finishing up with a punk who owed the Gator money and should have paid it back by yesterday. Willie cursed and turned up the collar on his stained Gore-Tex raincoat. This was the final warning, so the punk could still just about stay on his feet. He was a short, Hispanic looking guy with greasy black hair tied back in a pony tail and he stood there clutching his shattered left wrist to his belly and coughed a spray of blood onto the sidewalk, so the rain could wash it into the gutter and away.
“I’ll have it by tomorrow,” he whined. “Just gimme a break.”
“I’ll give you a break,” Willie snarled. “I’ll give you a break in the fuckin’ neck if you don’t come through. Kapeesh?”
The punk nodded and scurried off. Willie walked back down the alley, keeping close to the wall for what little shelter it offered. The rain was coming down now, so hard he had trouble seeing where he was going and by the time he reached the street, his pants were sodden from the cuffs to the knees. Icy water had squelched through the hole in his right shoe and soaked into his sock, and more wetness was beginning to work itself up his sleeves and down his back.
Willie stood on the corner, getting his bearings. He was already about as wet as he could get, so there wasn’t any point in hurrying. He had one more call to make and he might as well get it done before heading home to get dry. In his present mood, he wouldn’t need much time.
The address was on a scrap of paper in his pocket. Willie walked the few yards to the nearest street lamp and hunched over against the lamppost, trying to find a position for his body that kept the rain off the paper without throwing a shadow that made it impossible to read.
That’s when the lightning struck. Willie never heard the thunder because he spent the second or so it took to arrive curling over and dropping to the sidewalk in a twitching heap. The last thing he saw was the paper with the address dropping from his suddenly numb fingers and being snatched away and washed down a storm drain.
§
“Good evening, Mr. Proud. I’m glad to see you’re feeling better.”
“What happened to me, doc?” Willie tried to sit up, but all his muscles felt like they’d been beaten on for an hour or two. Even his face. Especially his face.
“You were struck by lightning,” the doc said, like it was something he saw every day. Hell, maybe he did!
“Am I gonna be okay?”
“Yes. You were lucky, Mr. Proud. The lamppost took most of the shock.”
“Lamppost?”
“You must have been touching it when the lightning struck. In the rain. Don’t you remember at all?”
He remembered the rain, Willie thought. The rain and the punk’s blood.
“Not a thing, doc.”
“Well don’t worry.” Then the doc seemed to catch on that Willie wasn’t the worrying type. “It’ll come back or it won’t,” he said. “There’s nothing we can do about it.”
The doc made a note on a clipboard and hung it at the foot of the bed. He scratched behind his ear with the pen before slipping it back into the breast pocket of his white coat. He was a shortish guy with something Asian about his features. He looked too young to be in charge of Willie’s case, but he sounded confident enough.
“I’m keeping you overnight. You should be able to leave in the morning. Take it easy for the next few days, though.”
Willie was going to ask about something for the pain, but he bit it back. Hospitals gave him the creeps and he didn’t want some nurse sticking a needle in him with god knows what. The doc was on the way out when he turned around.
“By the way, your employer, Mr. Ali, called. He told me you’re fully covered. Now get some rest.” The door closed behind him.
That was one thing about the Gator, Willie thought, he sure looked after his people. His was the only bed in the room, and there was a phone and a TV. Willie wondered if it had cable. He’d had cable at home for a while, until the company found out.
He reached up painfully and rubbed his jaw. He needed a shave, but apart from that his face felt weird, as if all the muscles were stretched. Mind you, his whole body felt that way, so that was that. He’d get some rest, like the doc said, feel better in the morning. He fell asleep to dreams of scraps of paper being slapped to the ground and pulverized by the rain.
§
Willie got back to his apartment around eleven in the morning. He’d wondered if he should report straight back to the Gator, but decided he’d better have a shower and a shave first. While he was fumbling for his keys to let himself into the building he felt something brush against his pants leg and when he looked down he saw a black cat rubbing against him. It was purring, and stared up at him with yellow eyes and one of those cat expressions that could mean anything. Willie would normally have given it a kick to send it on its way, but somehow he didn’t feel like it today, so he just finished opening the door and squeezed through it so the cat couldn’t follow him inside.
They’d tried to keep him in the hospital longer, until the same doc came back on duty and checked him out. But Willie made such a stink the nurse finally hurried away and fetched his clothes. She wouldn’t stop hassling him even then, so when she shoved the pad under his nose for him to sign he said a few things that shut her up like she was in shock, the silly bitch!
Ten minutes under the hot water had Willie feeling more like his usual self. He lathered his face and reached for the razor, turning to let the spray stream down his back. He’d been shaving in the shower for a couple of years now, since he got that scar across his eye. The doc back then had said he was lucky not to lose the sight in it. Bastards, all of them! Truth was, he couldn’t stand to see his mug in the mirror any more.
After he cut himself for the third time it began to dawn on him that something was wrong. His face didn’t feel right. Cursing, Willie turned off the faucet, wrapped a towel around his middle and stepped out of the shower cubicle. The mirror door of the bathroom cabinet had been opened flat back to the wall for as long as he could remember, but now Willie flipped it closed and took a look.
What the hell? Willie grabbed a hand towel and wiped away the rest of the soapy lather that still clung to his face, but that just made it worse. The person looking back at him from the mirror wasn’t himself. Something had happened to the muscles in his cheeks and the corners of his mouth were stretched upwards. He was looking at a guy with a big smile on his face, like a congressman who’d just been elected, or somebody on a game show who’d won a trip round the world. Even the scar didn’t look too bad any more. The new Willie looked like a good natured stooge who’d buy anybody a drink and tell them the story of his life.
Willie put his hands to his cheeks and tried to drag them down, wipe out that smile. But that just made it look like he was enjoying a secret joke, and when he took his fingers away again the grin came right back. Jeezus H. Christ! What was he going to do?
It was getting late. Muttering to himself, Willie shaved the rest of his face, looking in the mirror as little as possible. The hospital had laundered and pressed his clothes from yesterday, so he pulled them right back on again and set off to see the Gator.
§
The Gator was in the back room of the restaurant with some of the guys he kept around him for show—a faceless bunch of accountants and lawyers who spent most of their time scribbling on papers spread over the Formica table top. The Gator didn’t trust computers and there was a paper shredder in the corner that was always switched on.
“Hey Willie! You’re lookin’ happy.” The Gator roared with laughter and his troupe of morons followed suit. If anybody else had said something like that, they’d have paid for it right away—but this was the Gator.
“Hey, Gator, I …”
“No need to apologize, Willie. You got struck by lightning. Could happen to anybody, right?”
“Right, Gator. Look …”
“Never mind, mon. Never mind.” Gator twirled his cane with the silver top. He had picked that up in Jamaica last year, along with the white suit, the Panama hat and the ‘mon’, during the six months when things got too hot for him here and he had to disappear for a while. Gator’s brown eyes twinkled at Willie from under long eyelashes. “So now you look like a movie star. That’s cool with me, mon. I could even get to like it.”
How did the Gator do it? Willie wondered. He should have felt really pissed but instead it didn’t bother him, even when the Gator was twanging his violin like this.
“Hey, Gator. Let it go, wontcha? Gimme a break.”
If the Gator had been a broad, he’d have been a looker, Willie always thought. But if you made the mistake of thinking that the sharp suits and the smooth, coffee-colored skin meant that the Gator was soft you could be in big trouble. More than a few punks had gone to the morgue with Gator’s smile and pearly white teeth the last thing in their minds.
“Hernandez paid up, Willie. You did good.” Gator said.
“Huh?” Oh, yeh. The punk from last night. That was his name. Willie shrugged.
“Just routine,” he said. “No big deal.”
“Well, I got another job for you, if you’re up to it.”
“Sure,” Willie said. His body still ached some, but he wasn’t going to say anything.
“Your friend, Miranda,” Gator said. “She’s late. She needs a reminder. Take care of it, okay?”
“Sure, Gator. I’ll get right on it.” It would be better than hanging round here with all those sniggering pen pushers staring at him, anyway.
§
Willie knew Miranda had to be forty at least, but she looked like thirty trying to look twenty. That was fine by him, and she was great in the sack. They had a deal where Willie got her services for free whenever he felt like it, which wasn’t all that often, and in return he would sometimes help her out if she had a problem with a john.
But this was business, Gator’s business, and that came first.
Miranda had somehow managed to spend a year in Europe and now drove one of those boxy French cars that look battered even when they’re new. She smoked slim cigarettes through a long holder and drank wine from a glass with a stem.
“Willie, dear, you’re looking great,” she said, after she took the chain off the door and let him in. “Come for a roll in the hay? It’s been a long time.” Even in the middle of the day she had her face painted on, and she must have dyed her hair in the last few days because Willie couldn’t see any dark roots showing. She was wearing a blue silk robe that was belted tight round her waist and Willie knew from experience that there wouldn’t be anything except Miranda underneath it.
“Sorry, Miranda. I’m here from the Gator.” Willie tried to sound serious, but it was difficult when he could still feel that smile smeared across his face.
“Hey, are you kidding me?” She turned away and walked over to the bar. “Drink?” Willie shook his head. “Anyway,” she said, “I know I’m late, but it’s only a couple of days.”
“That’s still late,” Willie said.
“So what? You come in here looking like Clark Gable and now you’re gonna beat me up?” She poured herself a glass of something that came out of a tall, blue bottle. Now what the hell was that?
Miranda took a sip and looked at him over the glass. “I thought we were friends,” she said.
“Sure we are,” Willie said, “but this is business. You know how it is.” He’d worked her over a couple of times before, for similar reasons, nothing too heavy though and she hadn’t held it against him. She knew it wasn’t personal and he’d never touched her face.
“I’ll have it by tomorrow,” Miranda said. Strange, she didn’t seem scared, just curious.
“Not good enough, sorry. You know how it is,” he repeated. He walked across the room towards her, rubbing his aching left forearm. Best get it over with.
But she just stood her ground, sipped at her drink, looked at him with that strange expression he’d never seen before. What the hell was it? Other times she’d come on to him, begged him not to hurt her, but here and now she looked like she was waiting for him to ask her to dance. How was he supposed to hit her when she was just standing there like that?
“How much is it?” he asked.
“Five hundred.”
Willie sighed. “I’ll cover for you till tomorrow,” he said. “But no longer, understand.” Maybe by then he’d have his old face back.
Miranda nodded. “I swear, Willie.” She raised herself on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. “And thanks.”
§
Willie got the money from the bank and went to give it to the Gator, feeling like he didn’t know what he was doing. Maybe the lightning had done something to the inside of his head, made him go soft.
Gator flipped through the roll of greenbacks, then passed them behind him to one of the accountants, a stubby guy named Brown, who licked his fingers and started peeling off the bills and placing them in a neat pile on the table. Brown reminded Willie of that kid in high school—what was his name? Dinsley? Dunsley? Dunbar! That was it, Dunbar. He’d always hated that kid. Dunbar always answered the questions Willie couldn’t answer, had his hand in the air before Mrs. Cunningham had even finished asking the question, before she even said, “Willie, can you tell us?” with that smile on her face. Willie always hated Mrs. Cunningham, too, especially that smile. It made him feel small, like the snail you break step to tread on when you’re walking through the park. Willie didn’t like to feel that way.
“Any trouble?” Gator asked, like he was reading Willie’s mind.
“Nah. She’s okay,” Willie said. “Is just her memory’s not so good these days.” He made like he was sipping from a glass, tipped it back. “You know.”
Gator laughed, broad lips spread over white teeth. Willie’s mother used to laugh just like that, mouth open, eyes alive with good nature. But with the Gator you never knew what was behind that laugh.
“Miranda’s okay,” Willie said quickly. “She won’t do it again. I gave her a good talking to.”
“‘A good talking to’,” Gator repeated, spacing out the words. “Willie mon, sometimes I worry about you.” He smiled and grasped Willie’s shoulder like they were brothers.
“Go home now,” he said. “Get some rest.” He squeezed the shoulder once and then turned away. Willie was dismissed.
§
Willie didn’t feel like going home, though, not right away. He spent as little time in that apartment as he could. He stopped at a newsstand to buy a paper.
“Sure is a beautiful day,” the newspaper guy said. Willie couldn’t remember the guy ever speaking to him before, except to make change. He grunted, but the guy kept on going.
“Makes a change to see the sun, after all that rain last night, don’t it?” Maybe it was the sun, because Willie felt good, in spite of his aching body.
“Tell me about it,” he said. “I was out in it myself. Got struck by lightning.”
He picked up his paper and walked away before the guy could ask him if he was kidding or not. Best to leave him off balance. That thought made the smile feel right for once.
Willie got himself a coffee and a donut and took them to a bench in the park where he sat until he’d finished reading the few parts of the paper that interested him. Then he stopped by the drug store to pick up his hemorrhoid prescription and bought himself a six pack of Coors while he was at it. He had to fill in the rest of the day somehow.
When he got home that cat was there again, like it had been waiting for him. This time it slipped through the open door before he could do anything to stop it and followed him upstairs to the apartment. It rubbed against his legs some more and meowed at him. It obviously expected to come in. Well, why not?
Willie wrestled a can from the six pack and stuck the rest in the fridge. There was a carton of milk in the door so he pulled it out and sniffed at it. Seemed okay. Hell, it was only a cat, anyways! He put the milk on the drainer. Slurping his beer, he found a plastic bowl in one of the cupboards and put it on the floor and filled it with milk. The cat ran straight over and started lapping at it. It looked up at him and meowed again.
“Just this once,” Willie growled. “Remember that.”
He turned on the TV and flipped through the channels until he found something that wasn’t a cop show. Some kind of spaceship was blasting some other kind of spaceship with some kind of ray gun. That would do. He turned the sound down and stretched himself out on the sofa bed. After a few minutes, the cat leaped onto his belly, curled up and started licking itself like Willie wasn’t even there. Willie was feeling sleepy and couldn’t be bothered to shake it off. Anyway, the warmth of its body felt kind of good.
“No claws,” he said. “Understand?” The cat went right on licking. Willie shook the last drops of beer down his throat, put the can on the floor and lay back and closed his eyes. The aching wasn’t so bad now. A good night’s sleep and he’d be right as rain.
§
The beer forced him to get up and take a leak once during the evening, but apart from that Willie slept straight through until late the next morning. He felt much better, but when he looked in the bathroom mirror that smile was still there, dammit!
The cat wanted to stay, but when Willie gave it some heat it went out the door. Enough was enough. It could go back to the street, where it belonged. It was time for him to get back to business.
When he got downstairs the super was sweeping the hall.
“Morning, Mr. Proud,” he said, leaning on the broom, but his eyes were on the cat, which was running round Willie’s feet now, batting at something invisible like it was shadow boxing.
“Morning,” Willie said. That was more conversation than they’d had all year.
As soon as they were out the street door the cat ran off and disappeared down an alley. Yeah, right. He didn’t care if he never saw it again, either. Better pick up some fresh milk, though, just in case.
But that could wait until later. First he had to see Miranda. One day, he’d said, and that was all she was getting, no more. Otherwise she’d think he’d gone soft, and when even one person thought you were soft that was too many.
He knew there was going to be trouble when he saw the baby blue Cadillac convertible parked outside Miranda’s place. Cursing to himself he ran up the stairs. The chain had been snapped off the door and the Gator was inside with one of his heavies, a black guy named Chance. A radio somewhere was playing a song Willie didn’t know.
“Ah, there you are, Willie mon,” Gator said, smiling that smile. “I had a bet with Lou here that you’d show up sooner or later.”
Willie looked around. Miranda was curled up on the floor on the far side of the room. The swelling round her left eye was already turning blue and there was blood on her cheek. She was sniveling to herself and groping in her purse, probably looking for some tissue to clean herself up. The song finished and the radio switched to an ad for Demerol.
“It’s control,” Gator said. “You gotta keep control, Willie. Don’t ever forget that. Right, Lou?”
“Right, Gator,” Chance nodded. So when had Chance graduated from ‘Mr. Ali’ to ‘Gator’? Willie realized that if he put a foot wrong he could be in real deep shit. On the other hand they shouldn’t have beat on Miranda’s face. A girl had to earn a living. That made him mad. He could feel the anger growing deep inside himself, like it belonged to somebody else.
“Hey, Gator,” he said, “I got control. I got you your money. I can handle her okay.”
He took a step towards Miranda and scowled as best he could. “You got it for me, right?”
She nodded, still fumbling in her purse. “Yeah, Willie,” she said, “I got it.” Her tears mixed with the blood on her cheek and her nose was off shape somehow. Had Chance broken it?
Willie turned back to the Gator. “You see,” he said. “There’s no problem.” The stranger inside him, the new guy, was still mad, but Willie stayed cool on the outside. He could feel that smile on his face, so he used it, looking from Gator to Chance and back, playing them with the smile, keeping them relaxed.
“Ah, but Willie, mon,” Gator said, “there is a problem. The problem is you lied to me.” He was still smiling, too, but only with his mouth now. He tapped his cane on the floor.
“Take a break,” Chance said, like it was a signal. “We’ll finish this.” He turned to face Willie, and moved forward, facing him off. It was a challenge.
The new guy had been there inside him for a while, Willie realized now. Ever since he left the hospital, in fact. He just hadn’t done much—nothing that bothered Willie, anyhow. It was the new guy who had adopted the cat, who had given Miranda a break. But now the new guy was mad and getting madder. With Chance, which was bad enough, and with Gator, which was worse, suicidal even. He could tell from Chance’s expression that he’d like nothing better than for Willie to mess with him.
Somehow, though, Willie didn’t care, or at least the new guy didn’t. Before Willie could think about it the new guy had taken control of his right arm and driven his fist into Chance’s belly, wrist deep and hard up against the bottom of the diaphragm. Maybe it was Willie’s smile that fooled him, but Chance wasn’t ready for it and his head came down as the air choked out of his lungs.
He couldn’t stop now. Willie pulled out the sap he always carried in his jacket pocket and laid it across Chance’s neck, just behind his left ear. Chance went down like a dead tree as Willie turned around again. Miranda was climbing to her feet. Her mouth was open and her lower lip was cut. Gator was looking from one to the other with expression Willie had never seen on his face before. He could tell what it meant, though. Gator was scared. His skin looked sick, too, more yellow than brown, and his knuckles were white where he gripped the top of his cane. The Gator, scared. The old Willie couldn’t hack that at all but the new guy seemed to like it.
He’d gone too far to back off, so Willie just let the new guy take over. He took Miranda by the elbow and pulled her gently close to him.
“Let’s leave it there,” he said to Gator, like he was just talking about the weather. He pointed to Chance with the hand that still held the sap. “He’ll be coming round in a couple of minutes but he won’t be feeling good. Just get him out of here, okay? No more trouble.”
Gator nodded. He seemed to understand that this was the new guy talking, not Willie.
“I’ll take Miranda for a drive,” the new guy said. “Get her fixed up. We’ll stay out of your way for a while.”
Chance coughed and a thin stream of vomit dribbled from one corner of his mouth onto the carpet.
“I think I need a break,” Willie heard his voice say. “A holiday, you know? Until I get this sorted out.” He tapped his own cheek, by the corner of the smile. “You know, ‘mon’?”
“Okay, Willie,” Gator said softly. He leaned to help Chance, who was trying to roll onto his knees.
As they went downstairs Miranda was still shaking. She pressed close to him, her arm through his. Willie looked down at her and she smiled back through runny makeup. Above and behind them, back in another world, Chance was retching.
This wasn’t good, Willie thought. It wasn’t good at all. But it was a helluva lot better than before.
- End -
© Copyright Philip J. Lees 2010