Chapter 15.
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But Frank didn’t go splat.
Instead, when he smashed into the alley, traveling near a hundred miles-per-hour, the solid ground stretched like taffy, absorbing his velocity, until he was several feet deep. And then, like a trampoline rebounding, the pavement unwarped, shooting him into the air.
When next he hit the ground, it remained solid. The impact snapped him backward, his skull thudding off concrete and gravel, pain flooding his mind with a blinding light. A beat later, his senses gathered, and he checked his head for blood, finding none.
He breathed deep, wincing.
“Damn, that hurts,” Frank said to the empty alley, patting his body, searching for breaks or other injury. Though his ass and skull throbbed, he seemed okay. Nothing serious. So he stood, taking his bearings, and what had happened flashed through his noggin.
Corny had fallen after his prosthetic leg detached, knocking crap all over his apartment…. Frank picked up some stuff before tumbling crown over soles… And then fell thirty-some stories from a skyscraper?… Before he hit the ground….
Which gave way….
Like Laffy Taffy?
He snorted at the absurdity.
Impossible.
No way in hell THAT happened, he thought, standing up and dusting cinders off his suit. Regardless, I’m stuck in an alley and I’ve got to hit Severance by eight.
He checked his watch and breathed easy since he had ample time, albeit little to spare. He straightened his tie, cocking the fedora atop his head, again feeling like Lucky Luciano.
Now, where am I?
His gaze swept the alley. Typical: a brick building to his left, a small duplex right, a weedy fringe, and chest-high chain-link fence separating commercial from residential. He recognized the place when he glanced up, reading the weatherbeaten ‘ELIOT NESS FOR MAYOR OF CLEVELAND’ mural. It wasn’t the one across from the worksite, but another, on E. 76th, near Hough. He snorted, wondering how the hell he’d ended up there, dozens of blocks west of his truck.
“Fuck,” he said to Eliot Ness’s faded visage. “That gimpy idiot must’ve spiked my drink with hippie joy-juice. MK-Ultra and ‘I don’t do drugs,’ my ass.” Shuffling towards the alley mouth, he removed his jacket because the evening air was hot and unbearably muggy, sweat threatening to pool in his—Frank froze, his gaze shooting to Ness’s image.
“Damp armpits? It was colder than a witch’s left tit in a brass bra.” He concentrated, sensing the oppressive ambient air. Had to be ninety. “Leastways, it WAS cold, but now…”
A growl radiated from deep in his belly. Nothing made sense... When he saw Corny, he’d wring his scrawny neck for this monkey business.
“After watching Peggy perform, of course.”
Ness’s menacing mien gazed down in stony silence, and Frank shrugged. Though the painting gave Frank someone—or technically something—to talk to, the G-Man’s flat image couldn’t help Frank in three-dimensional reality. To catch a bus or hail a cab to Severance Hall, he walked towards Hough Avenue.
Metal screeching on metal and the puff of brakes announced an RTA bus. Frank thanked God, turned left, and dashed for it as a lone black male in a chef’s whites stepped to the concrete.
Frank closed the distance, sprinting from intersection to intersection, slowing to check for traffic at each crosswalk before bolting towards the ‘proletariat chariot,’ waving his arms and hollering. Instead of heeding him, the driver shut the door and pulled a U-turn, driving away and stranding Frank.
Crap.
He stopped and hunched, hands on his hips, catching his breath, his lungs on fire and heartbeats thudding like tom-toms.
God, I hate growing old.
The black cook crossed Hough Avenue, so Frank raised his voice and trotted his way, saying, “Wait up, would you, young fella?”
The cook halted as Frank jaywalked, catching up. “Hey, you know which bus runs to University Heights?”
“That one, sir, the number nine.” He nodded at the bus rumbling up the road, burying his hands in his pockets. “Doubt more are coming tonight.”
Frank asked, “Why, it’s early?”
The chef pointed up the street, “Riot, sir.”
Frank gulped, noticing a large crowd of coloreds milling across Hough from a dive bar. A smaller group, white men armed with rifles, faced them, protecting the watering hole. Further up the street, a small grocery store burned.
“The fuck…” Frank said, slipping into amazement for several beats. “You know what happened?”
The cook shrugged. “Hell if I know, just finished working. Riding home, the bus dispatcher orders the driver to head back downtown. I begged him to let me off. Gotta pick up my kids from my mama, who’s babysitting, but I want to avoid this mess.” Disgust on his face as he peered at the mob, he sucked his teeth.
Frank whistled. “Amen, boss, amen.”
A ‘CRASH’ sent his pulse racing.
A flash, and his eyes shot up the block.
With a ‘WHOOF,’ a mint-condition, black late ‘50s Cadillac Coupe De Ville in an apartment parking lot went up in flames, fins and all. Across from it, two slender negro high schoolers hightailed through a scrubby, vacant field.
Heedless of the danger, Frank dashed after them but gave up as he reached the car. He skidded to a stop, almost falling on his ass because the dress shoes, lacking the waffle-soles he was used to, slipped on the tree lawn. As his heart slowed to normal, he watched the scrubby field, straining to see the firebugs, but they’d vanished.
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I have to call the fire department and then the cops. Because trash like that, burning a mint-condition Caddie…. Why?
He considered the painstaking work that went into the refurb. The hours locating parts, buffing, polishing, and matching original specs. That careful craftsmanship, destroyed by a bottle, gas, rags, and a Zippo.
Anger raged in his belly as he peered into the darkening evening, inhaling the rancid scent of burning plastic and gasoline, searching for the kids he knew he’d never see. He ground his molars, thinking, God damned low-life vandals… It’s hard work, building things up, easy-peasy tearing shit down. He sighed, turning back towards Hough, where he’d for sure find a payphone to call in five-oh and the firedogs.
As he walked, Frank groused, thinking about the mindless vandalism. He could dig a dude robbing for food since he had robbed money-grubbing grocers during the Depression, him a growing youth, always hungry, his parents struggling to survive. And he could understand crimes of passion. Further, he had seen drunks and addicts in DTs, so could dig why they robbed to support their habits.
But blowing up a classic car for kicks makes no sense, he thought. Idiocy.
At the intersection, Frank peered both ways, scanning for a phone booth. Odds were, the bar, which the sign declared was ‘CLUB SEVENTY NINE’ had one inside. He snorted. Between white dudes with rifles and colored guys with rocks, Molotovs, and whatnot, he’d avoid Club Seventy-Nine like the plague. As Frank crossed Hough, the cook emerged from a side street and halted in front of the dive, raising his hands. Three large, beefy cops swooped after the cook, a red-haired thug tackling him. The cook cowered in supplication. But the police kicked and bashed him, over and over, the cook squirming in pain, grunting. Mortified, Frank dashed up the road towards them.
“Wait, stop,” he said, his voice booming. “Any fool can see the kid’s not resisting.” Confused, the police halted, looking at him, their mouths hanging open, gasping with exertion.
“Besides,” Frank said, pointing towards the burning car, “just saw two young kids firebomb a Caddie up the road. Colored boys, high schoolers.”
A plug-ugly, pock-marked cop kicked the kid, grabbing his short afro and turning his face towards Frank. “He’s the vandal, right?”
Frank laughed, spiteful, his lip snarling. “Not a snowball’s chance in hell. The kid was helping me. We saw the firebomb go off, was some teeny-boppers. Maybe sixteen, eighteen… five, even ten years younger than him, easy.” Frank’s gaze shot to the cop, his eyes narrowing as his gorge rose. “And what’s your badge number, officer? Christ, clubbing and kicking an unarmed civilian—”
Stars, literal stars flashing across his vision, cut Frank off.
His knees buckled. A pain burned along his eye socket.
Without thinking, he ducked and raised his arms, protecting his head. The officers followed suit. Because bottles and chunks of brick and concrete rained down upon them. Sensing safety, Frank dashed to the other side of the street, the three cops trailing behind, towards Club Seventy-Nine. The armed white men rushed towards them, waving their rifles, keeping the rioters at bay. A husky man in a cheap navy suit ran to him, raising his rifle to the stone-throwers. Their ardor quelled by the threat, mob retreated.
The man dragged Frank to the bar’s entrance, and grabbed his chin with his stubby fingers, shaking his head. “Christ, old timer, you’re gonna have a shiner there.”
Across the street, several colored men dressed in black leather, two wearing Black Panthers berets, hustled the chef away. Frank was glad the kid was safe. He didn’t deserve the beat-down the cops gave him.
The stocky armed man released Frank’s chin, pushing him through the door. “Get some ice on that.”
Frank dug in his heels, and asked, “Payphone in there? I’ve got to call my son in Mentor. After the fire department.”
The man nodded. “Out of order, but tell the bartender Zac said you can use the phone behind the bar. On the house.”
As the door closed behind him, Frank breathed deep, the air inside heavy, humid and boozy. But quiet. He savored the contrast. The street was a cacophony of chaos: people yelling, rocks and bottles smashing, and whatnot. Club Seventy-Nine seemed like a fortress of solitude.
Frank crumpled into a barstool. A small black-and-white TV set in a cubby over the bar showed an Indians’ game against the Angels. The Tribe had a runner on second, with Rocky Colavito stepping to the plate.
Frank wanted the phone, bad, but the bartender huddled with a group of armed partisans near the entrance, handing out soda pops, their outsides dripping with condensation, planning their protection, he reckoned. It seemed reasonable, given the nearby grocery burning, swarmed with firemen protected by a ring of coppers.
Weird day.
Glad to have something good to watch, Frank settled in, removing his fedora and suit jacket and placing them on the stool next to him, savoring the bar’s ceiling fans.
The bartender returned, and Frank ordered a whisky with a beer chaser, ice for his eye, and a phone. “Zac told me to say he sent me.” The bartender nodded, scurrying off, Frank snapped his fingers, dragging out his plug of tobacco. “Oh. and an empty plastic cup.”
The guy shrugged, laying out the empty cup first as Frank bit off a chew, settling the chaw between cheek and gum. He nodded.
Life is good.
One by one, the bartender laid the shot and beer before Frank. Frank reached for his wallet, and the man shook his head. “Not if Zac sent you, day like this.”
“Thanks boss. The phone?”
“Oh, shit, forgot,” the bartender said as he took a phone from behind the bar, wrestling the cord free from the floor mats. A few beats later, he succeeded and lay the phone at Frank’s elbow.
“Thanks. Saw a firebug out there, I gotta report,” Frank said, spitting before sipping his beer, motioning out the window. “Though it looks like the locals have the fire department working double-time tonight, saving them shops down the street.”
The bartender nodded, his lip curling with disgust. “Animals, the lot. I say, if you don’t like America, go back to Africa, see how you like it there.”
“Amen,” Frank said, nodding and picking up the receiver. “No respect.”
“You can say that again.” His jaw muscles bulging, the bartender leaned back, watching the TV as Rocky Colavito cracked a two-run homer, and the barkeep punched the air. “Atta boy, Rocky.”
Frank clapped… before doing a double-take.
Freaking Colavito batting for the Indians… tonight? Impossible. He’s retired, “the radio voice of the Tribe” as that boob-tube commercial says… The fuck’s going on here?
Laying the phone back in its cradle, Frank tapped the bartender’s shoulder to get his attention. “Hey, boss, what’s the date today?”
The guy turned and shrugged. “July eighteenth.”
Frank nodded, fishing for information. “Seventy-eight?”
The bartender laughed. “You some sorta hippie smoking that wacky tobacky?” Frank’s cheeks grew hot as the man shook his head, a whimsical expression on his face. “Just busting your balls, buddy. It’s still sixty-six.”
“Of course, of course.” Frank narrowed his eyes, hiding the shock he felt. He didn’t want to look like a fruit loop from The Twilight Zone, so he laughed and said, sensing an easy out, “I just meant, is this seventy-eight… you know,for the dispatcher, 78th and Hough?”
“Oh, I get it, no, 79th.”
“Thanks.”
Frank gulped.
Fuck.
To disguise his anguish, Frank spit tobacco juice and sipped his whisky, cursing Corny silently. He grimaced: the whiskey was harsh, and nasty, bottom-shelf well liquor. Still, it calmed his nerves. The bartender went back to watching the game and Frank dialed zero for the operator, asking for the fire department when she picked up. The phone buzzed with clicks and static as the operator connected him.
He spat into the plastic cup, sneering.
Freaking July,1966. How am I gonna get back to Severance Hall in Cotober,1978 to see Peggy?
Zero ideas floated to mind except for waiting twelve years and three months.
Fuck.
A few beats later, as Frank sipped and stewed, a dispatcher picked up, and he reported the flaming car.