Mi fuego es muy sabroso y muy picante y muy precioso. Ay, papi, china mi culo!
(Shout out to all mis amigos on Landers. Keep pushing those shards, vato!)
Showing posts with label hard-boiled. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hard-boiled. Show all posts
Friday, January 22, 2016
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation
While I spent the last five years at 212, 230 Eddy Street, San Francisco, CA, trying my best not to do the "hot bitch from the 70s" routine where I shrink up against the wall and scream that they're coming to kill me for hours on end, it never occurred to me to put these questions to the City government, HUD, or the intelligence community (a pinay who lived in Riyadh? Who are you people fooling...) Anyway:
- What happened to that hot padre who was killed under mysterious circumstances (some say under a cloud) in Rome all those years ago? Was his death where TNDC started going wrong?
- What if it's not all in my head and nowhere else besides in my head? Hmm?
- How did that notorious pig Frank Haros (infamous in the 10 square blocks of the Tenderloin for years to come) able to piss everyone off for so long without paying for it? I mean, who throws money out the window in people's faces and mentions "owning" someone in a predominately black neighborhood and get away with it, among other atrocities? How did I luck into being a part of that freak show (albeit part-time)?
- Government-subsidized housing in San Francisco isn't rent-controlled? What does that bode for TNDC's little system wherein they evict "trouble" tenants?
- What did the sheriff's deputy do when he showed up on the 22nd of October to escort me out and found that a gang of paid police officers had rousted me illegally from the unit? I should follow up on that one. (That's pretty sad: in a town whose police department has no Internal Affairs division, you have to be pretty stupid to get in hot water with the commish...)
- Did anyone laugh at William's "Barbara Hershey from THE ENTITY" jokes?
Other questions may occur to me, but I'm kind of over it...
- What happened to that hot padre who was killed under mysterious circumstances (some say under a cloud) in Rome all those years ago? Was his death where TNDC started going wrong?
- What if it's not all in my head and nowhere else besides in my head? Hmm?
- How did that notorious pig Frank Haros (infamous in the 10 square blocks of the Tenderloin for years to come) able to piss everyone off for so long without paying for it? I mean, who throws money out the window in people's faces and mentions "owning" someone in a predominately black neighborhood and get away with it, among other atrocities? How did I luck into being a part of that freak show (albeit part-time)?
- Government-subsidized housing in San Francisco isn't rent-controlled? What does that bode for TNDC's little system wherein they evict "trouble" tenants?
- What did the sheriff's deputy do when he showed up on the 22nd of October to escort me out and found that a gang of paid police officers had rousted me illegally from the unit? I should follow up on that one. (That's pretty sad: in a town whose police department has no Internal Affairs division, you have to be pretty stupid to get in hot water with the commish...)
- Did anyone laugh at William's "Barbara Hershey from THE ENTITY" jokes?
Other questions may occur to me, but I'm kind of over it...
Friday, February 27, 2015
The Student Becomes the Master
"I'm the rain spattering itself on a pond's surface as three maple leaves glide by. I am the clatter of hailstones on an old-fashioned blue tile roof. I am the typhoon, as copious and as warm as the shower you took this morning before the hapless cicada scared you out of the bathroom."
It was as though Miwako heard the last word, "bathroom," before it was uttered. In a flash, she had drawn her katana from the scabbard far enough to block the stroke of her master's cane sword.
Her master broke away and swung from the other side. That's when Miwako achieved satori: the time a move took had everything to do with its effectiveness.
For the rest of the match, she parried her master's blows easily. When it came time for her to issue a kill, kendo style, where his neck met his shoulder, she stopped short by a millimeter. She was training, and not out for blood or vengeance.
It was as though Miwako heard the last word, "bathroom," before it was uttered. In a flash, she had drawn her katana from the scabbard far enough to block the stroke of her master's cane sword.
Her master broke away and swung from the other side. That's when Miwako achieved satori: the time a move took had everything to do with its effectiveness.
For the rest of the match, she parried her master's blows easily. When it came time for her to issue a kill, kendo style, where his neck met his shoulder, she stopped short by a millimeter. She was training, and not out for blood or vengeance.
Monday, January 19, 2015
Pandora
The Examiner is probably the most trustworthy journalism published in San Francisco now that the Guardian is defunct, but this story (admittedly old) chilled me to the bone. I remember following the tragic case of Paolo Netto in 2013 and 2014, and discussing it at length with anyone in earshot. Certain frienemies were not at all pleased to hear me crying about this boy's death -- for some reasons I will talk to anyone about in private, beyond this blog.
I'm assuming the ME at SF General produced the toxicology report that might fool a rural D.A.R.E class from the early 90s. Why even the Examiner, bless their hearts, employs the journalistically prudent word "possibly." Let me tell you something: most bodies that go into the bay do not come back, and I'd like to think that when they do, it's Mother Nature's way of saying there's unfinished business, as if she's holding us to our own standards of human justice and wants us to know she's watching -- so shape up, people, or else. Superstition? Perhaps. It's still more intellectually sound than some of the shenanigans staff at General have gotten up to over the last five years I've been involved with them. (Thank God that hospital, which sometimes seems like a live David Lynch-produced reality show, is crawling with Feds all the time -- not that they could find the right track with two hands in front of them, but there's hope. Squirming at the bottom of the box Pandora opened, feeble Hope.)
I know it's a little late that I put my two cents in on this, but I couldn't just shut up like I've been told to do every so often in the past. This is just me saying, I'm watching, too.
I'm assuming the ME at SF General produced the toxicology report that might fool a rural D.A.R.E class from the early 90s. Why even the Examiner, bless their hearts, employs the journalistically prudent word "possibly." Let me tell you something: most bodies that go into the bay do not come back, and I'd like to think that when they do, it's Mother Nature's way of saying there's unfinished business, as if she's holding us to our own standards of human justice and wants us to know she's watching -- so shape up, people, or else. Superstition? Perhaps. It's still more intellectually sound than some of the shenanigans staff at General have gotten up to over the last five years I've been involved with them. (Thank God that hospital, which sometimes seems like a live David Lynch-produced reality show, is crawling with Feds all the time -- not that they could find the right track with two hands in front of them, but there's hope. Squirming at the bottom of the box Pandora opened, feeble Hope.)
I know it's a little late that I put my two cents in on this, but I couldn't just shut up like I've been told to do every so often in the past. This is just me saying, I'm watching, too.
Friday, October 10, 2014
Empty Ballroom Blues
Chandler ducked under the temporary blue awning and joined the line outside the Black Hawk at Hyde and Turk, where black and white musicians played side-by-side, where reefer smoke polluted the air. A lot of single ladies there, even on a rainy day in the middle of November. The patrons were mostly white, with quite a few exotic-looking folks in the mix. He loved coming here for cheap cocktails and free conversation -- mostly, it was the latter, for work.
Chandler eyeballed the cloud-breathing crowd. He noticed some high-tone Marina and Heights types: some pearls -- real pearls -- and white gloves.
He turned his collar up against the chill, then reached into his pants pocket to make sure he still had a dime for coat check.
Inside the club, a haze of blue-gray smoke hovered over the patrons. The place was well lit. Nick Esposito and his sextet had taken the stage, surrounded by a tight knot of black-clad enthusiasts. The band started into Empty Ballroom Blues -- who knew where they'd end up? At the tables sat various couples on dates, or quartets of office mates. Chandler threaded through these to Felicia, the beautiful negress who ran coat check. She wore an aquamarine, full-length gown cut to mid-thigh, and was shaped like an hourglass.
"Hey Felicia."
"Hey Chandler -- you still running with Jorge?"
"No, but I've run up on a new case." He surreptitiously passed her a dollar bill and kept his jacket. "Did two men come in recently, guys who didn't check their bags?"
"Yeah. Seems to me it was around Thursday, 10:00 PM, last week. And they stayed for all of 20 minutes or something."
"One of 'em's a dead body -- shoot-out with the cops."
"Bad news."
"Did the other one look like this?" Chandler held up a photograph.
"That's him. Purveying heaters, I take it?"
"Something like that. Guy's a meat packer. I'd say this is his sideline." He passed Felicia a dime. "Call me at the Olympic, room 24. About midnight."
"You bet. Hope it doesn't get that hairy."
"Next time, I'll bring flowers."
"Make it a Venus Fly Trap."
They both laughed.
Down at the Ferry Building, under the tall letters that spelled out "Port of San Francisco," Chandler watched the play of lights on the water. He heard a foghorn, and could make out the looming bank of black, moonless sky threaded with a glowing, white mist.
"Looking for mermaids, stranger?"
Chandler looked up and to his left. Next to him stood a well-knit young dude with blond hair and the face of an angel. The boy's fists were jammed into his pea coat pockets.
"Nah, just waiting for my ship to come in."
"I hear you."
"What's your line of work, stranger?"
"The name's Charles -- Charles Temple. And I'm a student at Berkeley. Just in town for the weekend. Before this I was up in Little China. I got a hotel room on Clay Street."
"Nice. I'm Chandler, work as a private dick. Heading in early tonight, expecting a call."
"I'll walk with you. Where are you staying?"
"The Olympic, on Eddy between Taylor and Jones."
"I know a spot near there."
"Yeah, me too." The two walked towards Market, under the new Embarcadero Freeway. "Just so you know," Chandler confided thickly, "I haven't swung that way since the war, well over a decade ago. You probably weren't out of diapers."
"Oh. I thought, 'cos you were so close to the docks..."
"Well, I wasn't exactly on the market..."
"What do you normally go for?"
"Something a little more pneumatic. Shapely trim."
"Listen, brother, you take home one of those 36-24-36 numbers, she's back at your place, she pops the girdle, and you know what you get?"
"What?"
"KABOOM! Exactly what you deserve: the whole woman and nothing but. Now, you can hop on that jelly roll, or we can go get a beer."
"Beer."
"Got a nickel?"
They'd gotten twisted around just north of Market. The two were near Hotaling and the Financial District, where young guys used to get Shanghaied after one too many. Through the trap door they'd go, then out to sea. Chandler and Temple stopped about 40 feet from a rat-swarmed bin.
Temple turned to Chandler. "You said you were a dick. You packin'?"
Chandler offered the boy his piece, butt-first. It was the snub-nosed .38 he'd had since Fleet Week of '41.
Young Temple cradled the weapon in his right hand. His finger rested over the trigger guard, and he pointed the barrel away from Chandler. One got the notion this kid could fend for himself.
"Good weight. I'm used to rifles, really. My dad hunts deer up in the Colusa mountains. Anyway, I can smell the oil. I respect a man who takes the time with what could save his life."
"Yeah, I'm better with rifles, too," said Chandler, feeling awkward and a need to impress this young buck.
There was a rustle of paper behind them. Temple spun around, and in one eye blink, one fluid motion, cocked the hammer with his left hand and fired a round from the hip. One of the dog-sized rats keeled over in the same instant.
They were sure never to be noticed in this neighborhood at this time of night. It was very unlikely anyone around would report gunfire.
"Sweet shot," exclaimed Chandler. "How'd you do that?"
Temple laughed a little. "I used to watch the cowboy serials every week as a kid, at the cinema. I always wanted to shoot a revolver like the hero did. One day, I bugged my dad until he taught me. He came out of the war an E-5, back in '39, missing a leg."
"Sounds tough. Marine?"
"Sailor."
"Well, you pop like that I just might have to hire you as I'm thinking I might need a tail-gunner."
"Beats the calculus." Temple drew towards Chandler and the two kissed, spontaneously and with the full force of drunken Olympians over the body of bleeding Hyacinth. Chandler, as he wrestled his new, decidedly lean conquest in the dark, did a quick mental calculation to make sure he could offer the boy what the boy needed should he prove useful...
The antique black phone rang abrasively. Chandler picked it up, held the speaker to his ear and the mouthpiece to his clenched lips. "Hello? Chandler here."
"It's your coat-check girl, the dusky dame done come up out the South to beat the white devil and find trouble in Frisco. Or if not trouble, at least a new way of elocutin' things."
"Thanks Felicia. Better safe than sorry. Quick question."
"Shoot."
"Have I ever struck you as 'sweet' that way?"
"No, why?"
"Never mind. I guess I never did have a reputation as a tom cat. It's just, I ran into this kid. Never met the like before. He's got me going all sorts of gay!"
"Well, sir, I'll have you know I entertain fantasies of Tyrone Power, which is blatant miscegenation. I say good night, sir!" She hung up.
Chandler laid his head on the pomade-stained pillow. The couple of Benzedrine he'd taken prior to going out were giving him a hard time, but he tried to allow the beer to lull him down. Whether he slept or not, Conchita would give him a wake-up call around 6 AM. He planned to take a cab out to Mission and 16th, where this scum bag gun dealer had a day job packing pork.
With the windows closed, Chandler couldn't even hear the theater-bound traffic coming down Eddy Street. Most of his neighbors were families visiting the City from Humboldt, Napa, Sacramento, Chico. The doorman and the desk clerk were ample security. He probably didn't even need any check-ups from Felicia, though the case was a violent crime, and he could have spent some more time lingering with that Charles Temple. He felt he had something to prove to the young man, whose Berkeley phone number he remembered as Bridge-3786.
Before finally dozing off, Chandler briefly wondered if he himself should go back to college...
Chandler eyeballed the cloud-breathing crowd. He noticed some high-tone Marina and Heights types: some pearls -- real pearls -- and white gloves.
He turned his collar up against the chill, then reached into his pants pocket to make sure he still had a dime for coat check.
Inside the club, a haze of blue-gray smoke hovered over the patrons. The place was well lit. Nick Esposito and his sextet had taken the stage, surrounded by a tight knot of black-clad enthusiasts. The band started into Empty Ballroom Blues -- who knew where they'd end up? At the tables sat various couples on dates, or quartets of office mates. Chandler threaded through these to Felicia, the beautiful negress who ran coat check. She wore an aquamarine, full-length gown cut to mid-thigh, and was shaped like an hourglass.
"Hey Felicia."
"Hey Chandler -- you still running with Jorge?"
"No, but I've run up on a new case." He surreptitiously passed her a dollar bill and kept his jacket. "Did two men come in recently, guys who didn't check their bags?"
"Yeah. Seems to me it was around Thursday, 10:00 PM, last week. And they stayed for all of 20 minutes or something."
"One of 'em's a dead body -- shoot-out with the cops."
"Bad news."
"Did the other one look like this?" Chandler held up a photograph.
"That's him. Purveying heaters, I take it?"
"Something like that. Guy's a meat packer. I'd say this is his sideline." He passed Felicia a dime. "Call me at the Olympic, room 24. About midnight."
"You bet. Hope it doesn't get that hairy."
"Next time, I'll bring flowers."
"Make it a Venus Fly Trap."
They both laughed.
Down at the Ferry Building, under the tall letters that spelled out "Port of San Francisco," Chandler watched the play of lights on the water. He heard a foghorn, and could make out the looming bank of black, moonless sky threaded with a glowing, white mist.
"Looking for mermaids, stranger?"
Chandler looked up and to his left. Next to him stood a well-knit young dude with blond hair and the face of an angel. The boy's fists were jammed into his pea coat pockets.
"Nah, just waiting for my ship to come in."
"I hear you."
"What's your line of work, stranger?"
"The name's Charles -- Charles Temple. And I'm a student at Berkeley. Just in town for the weekend. Before this I was up in Little China. I got a hotel room on Clay Street."
"Nice. I'm Chandler, work as a private dick. Heading in early tonight, expecting a call."
"I'll walk with you. Where are you staying?"
"The Olympic, on Eddy between Taylor and Jones."
"I know a spot near there."
"Yeah, me too." The two walked towards Market, under the new Embarcadero Freeway. "Just so you know," Chandler confided thickly, "I haven't swung that way since the war, well over a decade ago. You probably weren't out of diapers."
"Oh. I thought, 'cos you were so close to the docks..."
"Well, I wasn't exactly on the market..."
"What do you normally go for?"
"Something a little more pneumatic. Shapely trim."
"Listen, brother, you take home one of those 36-24-36 numbers, she's back at your place, she pops the girdle, and you know what you get?"
"What?"
"KABOOM! Exactly what you deserve: the whole woman and nothing but. Now, you can hop on that jelly roll, or we can go get a beer."
"Beer."
"Got a nickel?"
They'd gotten twisted around just north of Market. The two were near Hotaling and the Financial District, where young guys used to get Shanghaied after one too many. Through the trap door they'd go, then out to sea. Chandler and Temple stopped about 40 feet from a rat-swarmed bin.
Temple turned to Chandler. "You said you were a dick. You packin'?"
Chandler offered the boy his piece, butt-first. It was the snub-nosed .38 he'd had since Fleet Week of '41.
Young Temple cradled the weapon in his right hand. His finger rested over the trigger guard, and he pointed the barrel away from Chandler. One got the notion this kid could fend for himself.
"Good weight. I'm used to rifles, really. My dad hunts deer up in the Colusa mountains. Anyway, I can smell the oil. I respect a man who takes the time with what could save his life."
"Yeah, I'm better with rifles, too," said Chandler, feeling awkward and a need to impress this young buck.
There was a rustle of paper behind them. Temple spun around, and in one eye blink, one fluid motion, cocked the hammer with his left hand and fired a round from the hip. One of the dog-sized rats keeled over in the same instant.
They were sure never to be noticed in this neighborhood at this time of night. It was very unlikely anyone around would report gunfire.
"Sweet shot," exclaimed Chandler. "How'd you do that?"
Temple laughed a little. "I used to watch the cowboy serials every week as a kid, at the cinema. I always wanted to shoot a revolver like the hero did. One day, I bugged my dad until he taught me. He came out of the war an E-5, back in '39, missing a leg."
"Sounds tough. Marine?"
"Sailor."
"Well, you pop like that I just might have to hire you as I'm thinking I might need a tail-gunner."
"Beats the calculus." Temple drew towards Chandler and the two kissed, spontaneously and with the full force of drunken Olympians over the body of bleeding Hyacinth. Chandler, as he wrestled his new, decidedly lean conquest in the dark, did a quick mental calculation to make sure he could offer the boy what the boy needed should he prove useful...
The antique black phone rang abrasively. Chandler picked it up, held the speaker to his ear and the mouthpiece to his clenched lips. "Hello? Chandler here."
"It's your coat-check girl, the dusky dame done come up out the South to beat the white devil and find trouble in Frisco. Or if not trouble, at least a new way of elocutin' things."
"Thanks Felicia. Better safe than sorry. Quick question."
"Shoot."
"Have I ever struck you as 'sweet' that way?"
"No, why?"
"Never mind. I guess I never did have a reputation as a tom cat. It's just, I ran into this kid. Never met the like before. He's got me going all sorts of gay!"
"Well, sir, I'll have you know I entertain fantasies of Tyrone Power, which is blatant miscegenation. I say good night, sir!" She hung up.
Chandler laid his head on the pomade-stained pillow. The couple of Benzedrine he'd taken prior to going out were giving him a hard time, but he tried to allow the beer to lull him down. Whether he slept or not, Conchita would give him a wake-up call around 6 AM. He planned to take a cab out to Mission and 16th, where this scum bag gun dealer had a day job packing pork.
With the windows closed, Chandler couldn't even hear the theater-bound traffic coming down Eddy Street. Most of his neighbors were families visiting the City from Humboldt, Napa, Sacramento, Chico. The doorman and the desk clerk were ample security. He probably didn't even need any check-ups from Felicia, though the case was a violent crime, and he could have spent some more time lingering with that Charles Temple. He felt he had something to prove to the young man, whose Berkeley phone number he remembered as Bridge-3786.
Before finally dozing off, Chandler briefly wondered if he himself should go back to college...
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
"Sukhavati" Excerpt
"Have you ever read Sylvia Plath's 'The Bell Jar'?" Edgeley asked.
"No. I've always been more of a Hemingway girl." O'Reilly as far as he knew had never delivered a baby. She certainly wasn't the type to make any.
"She described a practice wherein mothers were given drugs that made them forget the pain of giving birth, rather than anesthetic during the birth."
"How much do you know about the darker side of the medical community?"
Edgeley's face darkened with disgusted indignation. "Some women when they go into labor attract some pretty fucked up company. The kind of people who fill scrubs because they want a taste of...you probably know."
"Jesus, you sure as fuck know some twisted shit."
"I'm very proud of my mother. She wouldn't take shit from anyone. Cursed like a sailor the whole time. My dad was too scared to leave the delivery room."
"I need you to summon some of your mother's strength now. This Aven program could endanger a lot of lives."
"I hope my little fevered brain can snap as effectively and frighteningly as hers did..."
"No. I've always been more of a Hemingway girl." O'Reilly as far as he knew had never delivered a baby. She certainly wasn't the type to make any.
"She described a practice wherein mothers were given drugs that made them forget the pain of giving birth, rather than anesthetic during the birth."
"How much do you know about the darker side of the medical community?"
Edgeley's face darkened with disgusted indignation. "Some women when they go into labor attract some pretty fucked up company. The kind of people who fill scrubs because they want a taste of...you probably know."
"Jesus, you sure as fuck know some twisted shit."
"I'm very proud of my mother. She wouldn't take shit from anyone. Cursed like a sailor the whole time. My dad was too scared to leave the delivery room."
"I need you to summon some of your mother's strength now. This Aven program could endanger a lot of lives."
"I hope my little fevered brain can snap as effectively and frighteningly as hers did..."
Monday, March 31, 2014
Browsing With Cops
It took me a while to get it, but I finally did. I mean, that's a rare one indeed who didn't grow up playing in the dirt like the rest of us. You've got to wonder, who could fit that profile? Do they even shit like a normal person? Did they ever fight with their parents when they were kids? What were they like on the school yard?
A librarian once told me, when I was surprised he couldn't give me a fact off the cuff (I though librarians were smart) -- he told me, "I don't know everything, but I know how to find anything out. That's what librarians are for." So I go to the library, for their wi-fi and a place to work that isn't my shitty apartment and isn't a precinct full of assholes (God bless 'em.) Sure, the library's populated with ragamuffin scumbags whose socks stink up the place, but I have respect for the institution.
One dude is checking me out, all hateful, so I sit across from him. Make sure to open my jacket so he sees my badge and holster. Yeah, you made me. So? I'll ask you for your ID if I give a fuck about your priors. The feeling's mutual, you know?
I open my Dell laptop and stare for a minute at the screen. I click on Chrome, and it opens up to Google. Now here's my problem: the Internet has my answer, if I can just come up with right question...
Now, I'm looking for a pretty godawful piece of work. If we had to judge, here's our scale: the worst person in the world is God himself (we've seen what shitheads angels can be, right?), and the best person in the world is my wife. Our perp is on one of the lower rungs. Probably has a deep-seated fear that he is not in fact God, and he wants to be...
A librarian once told me, when I was surprised he couldn't give me a fact off the cuff (I though librarians were smart) -- he told me, "I don't know everything, but I know how to find anything out. That's what librarians are for." So I go to the library, for their wi-fi and a place to work that isn't my shitty apartment and isn't a precinct full of assholes (God bless 'em.) Sure, the library's populated with ragamuffin scumbags whose socks stink up the place, but I have respect for the institution.
One dude is checking me out, all hateful, so I sit across from him. Make sure to open my jacket so he sees my badge and holster. Yeah, you made me. So? I'll ask you for your ID if I give a fuck about your priors. The feeling's mutual, you know?
I open my Dell laptop and stare for a minute at the screen. I click on Chrome, and it opens up to Google. Now here's my problem: the Internet has my answer, if I can just come up with right question...
Now, I'm looking for a pretty godawful piece of work. If we had to judge, here's our scale: the worst person in the world is God himself (we've seen what shitheads angels can be, right?), and the best person in the world is my wife. Our perp is on one of the lower rungs. Probably has a deep-seated fear that he is not in fact God, and he wants to be...
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