Last night was weird. Elise, the girl from the club, called to tell me that her grandmother had passed away or some bullshit of that nature, which for me meant that I wasn’t going to be getting a home-cooked meal tonight. She had promised me one last night, right after I pushed her through thirteen obnoxiously loud orgasms. I never really expected that the offer of a home-cooked meal would come to be realized. I’ve heard countless promises in the aftermath of countless similar strings of orgasmic bliss. Precious few ever actually materialized.
Hunger was creeping in on me quickly and I hadn’t yet determined what I wanted to do to remedy the mild pain. Already adjusted to the fact that dinner tonight wasn’t going to come from the kitchen of a certain grateful ex-housewife, I needed to come up with a solution. I had already decided that getting the car out of the parking garage wasn’t worth the effort and since it was Saturday night, hailing a taxi just wasn’t realistic. This left me with a list of options which narrowed down to calling for delivery and calling for takeout. In an attempt to cure a mild hangover caused by mixing liquor the previous night, I hadn’t as much as poked my head out the bedroom of my loft apartment all day, so I figured a night walk might be just what I needed to return to the land of the living. I fumbled through the drawer in the kitchen that I use to store the countless door hanger menus left by the countless take out joints within a few blocks of my apartment and settled on the one from the Chinese dive that induced the least amount of gag reflex for me, Chung’s Chinese.
Chung’s is, in no way, considered health food dining. In fact, based solely on the amount of grease and MSG involved in the preparation of Chung’s food, it’s generally considered the shortest route to pre-mature heart failure. That said, it’s easily the tastiest food available within three blocks of my apartment. Chung’s Chinese does offer delivery, but I prefer to pick my food up in person for reasons that don’t need to be explained, but are generally understood by anyone who has ever experienced the complications associated with having Chinese food delivered by an actual member of the Chinese community.
I slipped into some jeans and a black, tattered t-shirt with the name of a local band emblazoned across the front, which had been given to me at a concert by the same band. The back of the shirt was hand signed in silver ink by all of the members of the band. I wasn’t a huge fan, but it seemed pretty frequent that someone would be in awe of the shirt and me for having such a prize. Next came my high tops. They were laced for easy on/off action. I grabbed my wallet and keys, tossed on my beat-to-hell biker jacket and headed for Chung’s.
Chung’s was three blocks away and this was a Saturday night, which guaranteed that on my walk, I was sure to be offered pussy for money, an expansive variety of drugs and the opportunity to lighten myself of any spare change. My pot stash was in good shape and I had no need for any second hand sex. All that remained was the scattering of transients between home and food. Today was going to be one lucky transient’s big break, relatively speaking. Being in a particularly giving mood, I had already prepared a single hundred-dollar bill to hand off to the first person that hit me up.
I expect that the average transient has no idea what to do with a hundred dollars, and I might even go as far as to say that an amount of money like that would bring a transient more pain than pleasure. None of this was my problem, however. My scheme didn’t extend past issuing myself a little good karma for the low, low price of one hundred dollars.
Seven minutes into my walk, as if on queue, I was approached by a seedy looking male who’s face I was familiar with. He was the cheapest drug dealer on the street. I didn’t get into the rough stuff, but it was generally accepted that this dude was the hood’s low-ball drug dealer. Anyone who does anything will tell you that cheap isn’t always best, unless you’re a junky.
Next up was the oldest whore on our street, Jazz, short for Jasmine. I don’t mean oldest in age. I mean that she was the longest standing prostitute in the neighborhood. I’m pretty sure she was actually taking money for sex before high school had ended. I can say that because we attended the same school and a friend of mine was among the first to pay for her services. There was no confirmation on her health, but given her long history with whoring and drugs, most of the locals (including myself) believed her to be a disease-ridden casualty of street life.
Even though I recognized her, she seemed unable to identify anyone by recognition, despite the fact that she addressed every person she saw with that familiar “Hey, baby! Where ya been?” As I walked by, she extended her hand to me and repeated the lines lifelessly. I continued on.
The first transient to approach me was “Gus”, another regular of the neighborhood. He was a boozehound and his mental faculties were the long-standing victims of that vice. He had already seen me coming and was preparing his pitch as I approached. He stammered out the words, “Sir, could you spare – “ but I stopped him in his tracks by handing him a paper note, folded over twice. I didn’t expect Gus to even really compute that he was holding a relative fortune in his hands and for a moment, I thought of the countless ways he could have used that money to better himself. Those thought were almost instantly pushed out by the realization that I may have just provided him with the means to kill himself – alcohol poisoning would come easily and painlessly. Time would tell. Having passed through the gauntlet of bums, drug dealers and hookers, I arrived at Chung’s to retrieve my dinner.
Chung’s was a small place – not even enough room for seats on the inside. There were two park benches bolted to the ground on the sidewalk outside the storefront where overflow customers would wait when there was a rush. Inside were two isles of items, which were clearly imported directly from China, now for sale here in this tiny store. None of the items had even a single word of English on them. I guess the consumers of these products were either from China or had the contents explained to them at some point.
Tonight, there were only two customers in front of me. Immediately, an odd sense of stress could be felt throughout the tiny business, odd because such a small crowd should not have fostered impatience or the pressure to hurry from either side of the counter. Chung was the owner of the store as well as the cook and the clerk. The only job he didn’t do was delivery. That job was his son’s.
Chung looked stressed, but not from the burden of cooking. He was displaying both fear and irritation. When I entered the store, he seemed a little stunned at my presence. That was odd. The customer was a tall, lengthy black man with shorts hanging below his butt and a basketball jersey hanging down below the top of his pants. He seemed agitated as well, also fearful and irritated. The third person was standing between the first customer and the drink cooler against the back wall. She was an Asian woman, short and older. She was crying.
Quickly, I discovered the problem. The tall black man was attempting to conceal a ragged handgun from my line of sight, keeping it close to and behind his leg. For the most part, he was successful. I couldn’t see much of the weapon. Just enough to note that it was not a revolver, but rather a semi-auto. This would end up playing in my favor shortly.
Once he could see that I could see his weapon, it came out of hiding. Without pointing it at me, he gestured that he was willing to use it. He put his index finger on the trigger and attempted to make it obvious that he had done so. In a true television cliché, he held the piece horizontally, as if to paint a more ‘gangsta’ picture of himself. It only served to make him look silly, but I decided against mentioning it to him.
Piercing the silence, he barked at Chung to open the register. Chung did not appear to be willing to give up the night’s income to someone who had not worked for it as hard as he had. The tension began to rise. My left hand instinctively moved diagonally across my torso, expecting to land on the pearl-handled grip of my own gun. The same gun that was currently sitting on my night stand in my apartment, waiting for my return. Fuck-.
Without my permission, my body stepped closer to the gun-brandishing man. Immediately, I discovered (to my own astonishment) that I was not afraid, though I wasn’t sure why just yet. I was now standing directly to the armed man’s left, leaving just two feet between us. Now, even more agitated, the man swung the gun in my direction, bringing the open barrel of the gun just inches from my nostrils. At this distance, I was now able to see what may have given me that little boost of confidence just moments earlier. This gun, now sharing space with my nose, had a safety switch. From my now intimate perspective, I could see that the switch was resting solidly in the “SAFE” position. A sly look came over my face. In response, the gunman’s face revealed a new level of concern. The next things that happened changed the game for everyone.
With the speed and precision of a primal act, my left hand swung up toward the gun. My index finder targeted the spot behind the trigger of the gun and hit it’s target, but not quick enough. With equal speed, the armed man coiled back. Now with a new look of anger and shock, he lowered the gun (horizontally) and pointed it at my chest. With vengeance and force, he pulled the trigger, as if trying to push the projectiles out quicker. The silent air was filled with the hollow, quiet clicks of the hammer crashing down into the gun’s empty chamber as he re-engaged the trigger, fruitlessly, four times.
Showing supreme dismay for his own blunder, the amateur now gave his attention to his firearm in an effort to correct the error, another tactical mistake. With his attention centered on his failed weapon, I lurched forward with my right hand and latched onto his gun by the barrel, and then lurched them both toward me. As my right hand recoiled with man and gun in tow, my left hand was now on a collision course with his unsuspecting right cheek. Open palmed, it made contact with his face and knocked him off his balance. He released the gun as he attempted to regain his footing. I spun the gun around, chambered a round, released the safety, and trained it back on him with a subtle smirk of victory.
As he stumbled, then grabbed at the air between us where the gun had once been, my left leg began to surge upwards, launching my foot at rocket speed toward his crotch. I hit the bull’s eye with amazing accuracy, which toppled the giant down to his knees, huddling in a pain that I tried not to imagine. He looked up at me in pain and spat out “You’z a dumb mutha fucka. You just signed your death warrant.”
The tiny Asian woman ran from the store screaming, arms flailing around in the air. She banked off one of the two isle ends and exploded a display of what looked like the Asian equivalent to Campbell’s soup. Cans flew wildly about. She almost tripped on one in her haste to get out through the front door. After a minute of recovery, the tall black felon began to return to his feet. I re-centered the gun on him. He looked at me and gave off a short, painful chuckle, followed by, “You won’t use that on me! You scared!” In response, I fired two rounds into his left thigh. He returned to the ground once again.
“FUCK!!!” He yelled. I responded condescendingly with “Watch your language.” From behind the counter, Chung yelled, “Yea! FUCK OFF, ASS WIPE!” Chung’s English was not incredibly refined even when he was calm. When angry, his use of foul language was comedic long before it was ever intimidating. Tall Black Man replied with “SHUT THE FUCK UP, BITCH!” I had warned him. Now I needed him to know that the warning was sincere.
I spun the gun around again and grasped the still warm barrel, pointing the butt of the gun forward. I swung high and crowned the potty-mouthed criminal with conviction. He apparently didn’t see the strike coming. He spun and fell to the ground, collapsing into a pile. As soon as he was down, Chung flew over the counter and landed on the felon. Catching his footing and settling on solid ground, Chung jabbed the huddled mass repeatedly with his tiny foot. Little harm came from his attack, but Chung, I’m sure, felt much better as a result.
The police pulled up in Hollywood fashion, screeching tires, lights ablaze, guns clutched in angry fists, ready to take on the micro-sized crime wave. But by then, I was back on my couch enjoying my dinner. $4.35 is what I was charged, same as last week. The police never showed up at my humble, eclectic apartment to question me. I assume that’s because Chung assumed the role of hero in my absence. Good for him. Or bad, I can’t be sure.
