TWO FOR THE NIGHT

KEITH LAUFENBERG

-1-

THE CHEESE LINE

Opportunity makes a thief.---Francis Bacon, Letter to the Earl of Essex.

Jimmy Miller’s eyes fluttered sleepily, as he stared at the ceiling and dozed off. It was half past six in the morning and Miller was in the Labor World hiring office, in downtown Fort Lauderdale. His T-shirt, which had begun life as white as a ghost was now a yellowish-brown, as the dirt and grime he so frequently came into contact with had worked its way deep into the folds of the cloth. He was, as usual, broke and had been sleeping on the streets for over a month, after having lost his job as a roofer and having been locked out of his apartment for non-payment of rent. He had been sent out to a job the previous day by Labor World, sweeping and cleaning up at a construction site and had tried to get on, at that job, permanently but the foreman had refused to even talk to him. Miller well-knew that the construction company paid Labor World eight dollars an hour for his labor, even though Labor World only paid him half of that amount. His head hit his chest and he struggled back to reality, smiling over at the elderly, white-haired man who stood behind the Labor World check-in counter. The man smiled back and Miller stood up and ambled over to the counter.

“Hey, Mister Brumby, anythin’ come in yet; y’know for today?”

“Naw’aw, sawry Jimmy.”

“Shee-it. not even no broom work, sir?”

“ Naw, sorry pal, nothing’ yet.”

“Yeah. well, okay then. You’re sure there’s not no work, then?”

“Why’nt you check back after one, maybe sumpin’ll come in, you know?”

“Okay then thanks, maybe I’ll come back this afternoon.”

The old man watched Jimmy Miller shuffle out the front door, mumbling to himself:

“Yeah-ah, maybe I’ll go over to the piss-cah-bull church, maybe they got some free grub, shee-it, I could use some chow, right about now.”

Outside, Miller staggered down the street, trying to get his bearings. He hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch the day before, although he had drank a pint of whiskey, and his stomach was greedily rumbling for some edible nourishment. He needed the booze constantly, especially since he woke up this morning and picked up the newspaper to see that it was March 16, 1988, which was the 20th anniversary of the beginning of Jimmy Miller’s endless nightmare, for it had been 20 years ago that day, in a faraway land known as Vietnam, that Jimmy Miller had lost his sanity.

It bad been in a village called My Lai and Miller’s platoon had been one of many on a search and destroy mission, searching for Viet Cong troops said to be in the area. They had found only civilians instead, Vietnamese peasants. But the order had come down nevertheless, from on high, to waste the vill’ and the ensuing massacre of the men, women and children had become too much for Jimmy Miller to deal with. It had been as if someone else had done the shooting, as if he had been standing outside of his body watching the other soldiers waste the entire village. Miller had been one of only a handful of soldiers to be charged with murdering innocent peasants and it had shocked him to the bone when he ultimately realized what he and his compatriots had actually done. Everyone realized that Miller and his fellow soldiers were being used as scapegoats but they were, nevertheless, charged and shipped to Fort McPherson. in Georgia. to await a court-martial. The charges were ultimately dropped but the men stayed at Ft McPherson for nearly a month, a month in which Jimmy Miller lived and relived the moment when he had taken part in the mass murder of so many innocent Vietnamese peasants. After the charges were removed, Miller met a woman in a bar and ended up marrying her. They moved up to his hometown in Jersey City where she had two children by him but the marriage eventually dissolved when Miller couldn’t hold a job or stop the nightmares. He slowly drifted down to South Florida after his divorce and ended up staying, working at any job he could find, just long enough to save enough money to go on a drinking binge.

As he shuffled down the sidewalk, Miller suddenly spied the First Lutheran Church, on Third Avenue, in downtown Ft. Lauderdale, a place where they occasionally provided meals for the homeless. He glanced at his watch, it was 7:00 am. and the streets were deserted. Miller had been there several times, when word got to the street that the cheese line was open, a slang term street people used for the infrequent food giveaways the church sometimes had. You could also get a note from the church people that allowed you to go to the YMCA, just up the street on Fifth Street and Federal Highway, where they would give you a towel and allow you to use the showers.

Miller walked into an alleyway next to the church and saw that a side entrance door was ajar.

He nudged it open and slipped inside; there was no one in the church and he walked over to a large desk, sitting in the front of the worship hall. He tried the top drawer but it was locked, so he tried the side drawers and the one on the right side opened up. He removed about a dozen tithing envelopes, lying inside old brown basket, inhaled deeply and glanced nervously towards the door. He felt them and realized they had money inside, then quickly shoved them into his pockets and ran for the side entrance. He slipped out, into the alleyway, and closed the door behind him. He walked to the end of the alley and laid the envelopes on the ground, then tore them open and counted the money inside. He glanced up when he heard a noise but it was only a cat and he returned to counting the money but then jumped up and shoved it into his pockets. He ran out of the alley onto Broward Boulevard and headed towards the main library building, where he knew that he could get some privacy, inside of a bathroom, where he could recount what he had figured at nearly a hundred bucks. It looked to Jimmy Miller as if this luck may have finally changed and maybe now he could get a little respite from his many nightmares, even if for only a short period of time.

-2-

THE GIRL

Necessity and chance

Approach not me, and what I will is Fate.

Milton, Paradise Lost. Bk. vii, 1, 172.

The young girl knocked lightly on the door but no one answered it, even though she heard muted conversation coming from inside. She knocked again, louder this time, and heard footsteps; then the door opened and she inhaled and looked into the face of a portly man dressed in an expensive-looking, pinstriped Giorgio Armani suit. He frowned perceptively and barked:

“Yes, can I help you?”

“Ah, are you Mr. Goldie?”

“What is it John?”

“A young girl For you Pres’.” The fat man stepped aside as the young girl stepped inside.

“Um-ah-um-ah, Mr. Goldie, ah-er, I’m here about a job. you see

Iةةةةة.

J. Preston Goldie stared at the young girl and quickly assessed her potential, she was street trash, as far as he was concerned. Probably had been abused as a child, usually by a family member. A typical day for Goldie, who owned several massage parlors and strip clubs, included going over his assets, the cash that he funneled through his clubs from drugs and other illicit business enterprises he invested in, and occasionally hiring an exotic dancer, something he infrequently did but nevertheless took immense pleasure in; he always had a private session with them before he gave the final okay. Ever since word had gotten out on the street that Goldie had hired Amber Star, who had gone on to become a legitimate movie star, currently earning seven figures, per film, a day seldom went by when at least one female attempted to replicate Amber Star’s good fortune. If it ever did happen again, Goldie was certain, it wouldn’t be by this emaciated-looking specimen. He might have used her in one of his massage parlors but the city was cracking down, as they infrequently but occasionally did, and so he dismissed her with, a wave of his bejeweled hand -

“Sorry, I’m full up at the moment but check back with us next month, sweetie.”

“Buةةةة but Mr. Goldie I, Iةةةةةةة..

Goldie glared at the girl, who appeared even younger than her actual 17 years, and hissed:

“Get out! I said check back with us next month and not with me; check with the club manager, maybe they’ll let me reopen my parlor on Federal Highway.”

“But, but I meant a job in one of your............

“Twenty-one, ah you twenty-one girlie?”

When the teenage runaway failed to respond, Goldie nodded at the heavyset man standing at the door, his attorney, and the overweight shyster barked:

“Hit the pavement girlie.”

The girl’s face reddened and she slunk towards the door of the garish nightclub. Twenty minutes later, Goldie and his lawyer, John Upchuk, were inside an air-conditioned limousine, headed for a restaurant he and his attorney-entrepreneur owned.

“Did you get a whiff of that young hustler John?”

“Oh shit, Jay-Pee, did I ever.”

As the limo sped down the drug-infested northwest section of town, Goldie nodded out the tinted limo window and rasped:

“Speak ah the devil John, isn’t that her?’

“Who, the girl? Where?”

“Over there, standing on the corner of Sistrunk. By the stop sign, Johnny,”

“Yeah, yeah I see her, sure looks like her Jay-Pee, a pity, a real pity, huh?”

-3-

STREETLIFE

I play the: Streetlife, because there’s no place I can go,

Streetlife, it’s the only life I know.

Streetlife, The Crusaders, featuring Randy Crawford.

The young girl leaned against the stop sign listlessly; she had just turned 17 and had run away from an abusive stepfather, who had sexually abused her for the past six years, as well as beating her up whenever it took his fancy. She paled noticeably when a police car screeched to a halt, at a small neighborhood carwash, just across the street. She saw a huge black man throw his hands in the air and snarl:

“Man, again? I got a license man!”

Two policemen exited their patrol car and one barked:

“This place is an eyesore. I’m issuing a code violation,”

The other cop nodded at a black man washing a light green 1986 Cadillac.

“You need to desist washing that vehicle sir. It is a code violation of city law. All carwashes must be enclosed.”

The man washing the Caddy glanced at the cop, then at his cousin, who owned the carwash, and frowned. He looked across the street at the white runaway who everybody knew was prostituting herself, standing less than a hundred yards away, then glared at the cop and then at a drug dealer and several crack-addicts.

‘Are you kiddin’ me or what?” He went back to washing the Caddy but stopped when the two cops pushed him to the ground, where he was handcuffed, then taken into custody.

The young girl brushed at her scraggly hair and watched as the cops argued with, and then arrested the two men washing cars in the open. She glanced at her watch; it was already past noon and she was still stone, cold broke. She wiped at her glistening forehead, as the sweltering South Florida weather did its duty, causing anyone in the open to perspire, as the 86 degrees-plus temperatures and almost 100 percent humidity began to become intolerable. A tall, rail-thin black man, dressed in a purple, silk undershirt and a pair of light green, silk shorts, approached her. He smiled showing her a pair of gold-capped front teeth, a star etched into one of them.

“Hey baby, din’ I tells jew dat Doreen working’ diz co’nah?’

“Ah well, but I mean, Iةةةة..

“Lookit here now ho’, I gone let jew work annudder co’nah if you does me ri’, jew unnerstan’ wha’ I means ho’?”

“Ah-er-un-nah-ah, whaةة.I mean?”

Eddie ‘D.C. Slim’ McKinley put his hand against the girl’s cheek and stroked it, then smiled a golden smile and hissed:

“You gone works fo’ me now ho’, unners’tan’ wha’ I means?”

Two bulky-looking black men roughly pushed past D.C. Slim and Slim smiled and barked:

“Hey, y’all bloods lookin’ fo’ some whi’ meat?”

The biggest of the two men stopped for an instant and glared at Slim, then barked:

“Get outta my way niggah, we ain’t lookin’ fo’ no gash.”

D.C. Slim’s hand went immediately into his pocket, where a straight razor resided, but he quickly withdrew it when he noticed a Saturday Night Special protruding from one of the men’s back pockets, as they bent over and wrestled a street sign up out of the ground. They yanked it out and one man said:

“Shee-it Willie, fo’tee cents a pound fo’ ‘luminum, we gots at leas’ a hundred pounds here, know wha’ I mean?”

********

D.C. Slim was escorting the 17-year old runaway into a notorious, well-known drug house, while Willie ‘the Enforcer’ Miles and Tony ‘Double X’ Mohammad were busy removing a stop sign from where it had been placed, years before, and, all the while, a police car sped down Sistrunk Boulevard with two black men, their hands handcuffed behind their backs, heading for the county jail; the charge being washing cars in the sunlight.

And life trudged on in South Florida, as life has a way of doing.

********

Jimmy Miller clutched a small canvas bag that he had just purchased at the Salvation Army.

Inside the only slightly used bag resided a clean pair of under-garments, socks, a razor and a bar of soap, along with a pair of tasseled loafers. The loafers were something that Miller had always desired, at least since he had seen the executives, the bosses, all wearing them. It would make him feel like a boss; a success; it might not last, and Miller well-knew it wouldn’t but as long as it did he would do anything and everything to prolong it. He also had a suit, still encased inside the dry-cleaning wrapper and hanger, and it was slung over his shoulder, as he walked towards the YMCA building, on the corner of Federal Highway and Fifth Street. Walking inside, he strolled to the main desk and the attendant saw him and barked:

“You got a note from the church Jimmy?”

“I got it right here pal,” Miller barked back and handed the man a crisp, new five-dollar bill.

“Well, found some work huh? Good, here, here’s a receipt, you can use it ‘till ten tonight.”

Jimmy Miller smiled and took the receipt; he would use the weight room and sauna without any embarrassment this time, maybe even take a swim in the pool. With the note from the church you were only allowed to use the shower and he been caught playing basketball one time, a few weeks ago, and had been run out of the building, an embarrassment for anyone much less a man twice the age of the attendant who had evicted him that hapless day in the past.

Jimmy Miller was bound and determined to feel good this day because his luck was changing, he could feel it in his bones and it was about time he felt like a human being again. He had spent about twenty dollars on the clothes, the suit and shoes and gym-bag, and still had eighty smackers left. As he slipped a quarter into the slot to open a small locker, where he would store the remainder of his booty, Jimmy Miller let a confident smile cross his lips, for once he knew he would sleep in an air-conditioned room this night and on a mattress, a nice soft, comfortable mattress, with clean, cool sheets.

-4-

A HUMAN BEING/h3>

”Twas a thief said the last kind word to Christ:

Christ took the kindness and forgave the theft.

Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book. Pt. Vi, 1. 869.

The pimp known by his street name of D.C. Slim smiled his golden smile at one of his best earners, Lucille ‘Juicy Lucy’ McNeece.

He nodded towards the 17-year old runaway and hissed:

“Diz here be Presh-suz, Juice. Now, she be thankan’ ‘er name be Linda, hee. Turn it out Juice.” The pimp glared at the girl for an instant and then strolled to his 1987 Jaguar and roared away.

Juicy Lucy smiled at the young girl and rasped:

“You aw’rye honey? Slim hit jah, din’ he?”

The youngster put her hand to her quickly blackening left eye and hissed:

“He, he that is heةةةةةة

He pack yo’ peanut butter din’ he chile? I knows, Slim ah anee-mule but he makes sho’ yo’bees safe from’nah po’leece annah crazies.”

“He, that is, heةةةة.

“What baby?” Juicy Lucy put her arm around the girl’s shoulder and pulled her closer.

“Did it hurt, you ain’t nevah hadda man do ‘at to you before, huh sugah?”

“My stepdaddy did it to me for six years. Just like it, only he did other things too.”

Juicy Lucy exhaled audibly and hugged the girl closer, then purred:

“Oh. you po’ thang.”

She sobbed lightly, as she bad been on the streets for almost three months straight now and had encountered many, many people, over that period, mostly cops and street people but Juicy Lucy was her first encounter with another human being, and the touch of another human being brought tears.

-5-

MILLER TIME

I have fed purely upon ale; I have eat my ale, drank my ale, and I always

sleep upon ale. Farquhar, The Beaux’ Slratagem. Act i. sc. 1.

Jimmy Miller smiled and lit a cigarette. He was dressed in his Salvation Army suit, with black, executive tasseled loafers on his feet, and was headed for the room he had just paid for, for two nights, in advance. It was a nice little motel just off federal Highway that they had wanted 20 bucks a night for but Miller had struck a deal on, for 35 smackers for the two nights; cash talks bullshit walks, Jimmy Miller always said. He had always liked drinking his namesake and was especially fond of Miller’s Lite, but had been drinking Milwaukee’s Best for the past several months, considering it was the cheapest beer in town at $3.59 for a 12-pack. He actually stepped up a notch and bought Old Milwaukee, which he liked better, and splurged on it, as they were $4.29 for a 12-pack. It was almost six p.m., and the hookers and drug dealers were just waking up and moving onto the streets of the inner city, as they were on streets the world over, as the day turned into night, for they did work that was best done in the cover of darkness. Jimmy Miller turned the key in the door that led to his private little motel room and walked to the bed and laid down, closing his eyes for several minutes, as the cool air seeped through the pores of his sun-baked skin. His eyes opened and he sat up and reached for his first brew of the night; he popped the cap on it and chugged it down in one thirsty gulp, then quickly popped the next one. Maybe he would go out and find some of his old street buddies and share some brews with them, he pondered silently, then smiled, as the alcohol worked its way into his bloodstream. He meant to turn that familiar glow into an even more familiar buzz and he meant to do it as soon as he possibly could because if there was one thing Jimmy Miller knew for sure it was that when he was high he was safe, safe from the nightmares and safe from all his many shortcomings and failures.

-6-

THE PICK-UP

All wickedness comes of weakness.---Rousseau, Emile. Bk. i.

The car pulled to the curb and the lone driver pushed the button that slid the passenger-side window down and motioned towards the young, garishly-dressed white hooker and barked:

“Hey baby, you workin’ tonight?”

The young girl approached the ear window and smiled at the man.

“Yes-ah, what do you want?”

“Hah! What do I want? What’s jer name baby? I ain’t seen you around, you new to town?”

“Well, ah, yes, I am.”

“Well, what’s jah name baby?”

“Well, Presh’uz.”

“Precious huh. Well, get in Precious, C’mon, I won’t hurt you, c’mon lil’ babe.”

She looked over her shoulder and couldn’t see D.C. Slim. She kept looking for him when she felt the door bump her behind, as the overweight man had reached over and opened it.

“C’mon there Precious, get in. I won’t bite jew? Unless you let me ahah, hah!”

She slid onto the seat and the man pulled the door shut and barked:

“How much Precious honey?”

D.C. Slim had told her what to charge and so she mumbled:

“Well, wha’chew want? Some head costs you thirty, half-n-half’s fifty.”

“Wha... what? Shee’it, I can get a nigger over on Federal for a sawbuck.”

The girl’s eyes shifted to the man’s trousers where he had his hand stuffed down the front. Slim had told her what to do when she encountered this behavior and so she reached for the door-handle but the man grabbed her hand and hissed:

“Whoa there baby. Wait a minute, Fifty is okay.”

He put his car in gear and the girl shrieked:

“Wait, wait, where are we going?” D.C. Slim had shown her where to bring the John’s, to a room where he could insure that he got their money before anything happened. She panicked until the fat man put his hand on her leg and cooed:

“Don’t you worry now lil’ babe, I gotta nice apartment and I know how to treat a lady like you. Nothing bad’s gonna happen.” His tires squealed as he pulled away from the curb and D.C. Slim peered from inside the small room he was in, out of the Venetian-blinds, and saw the ‘83 Dodge Dart with his new ‘property’, Precious, inside it and he turned towards Juicy Lucy and spat:

“Diz ho ain’t payin’ no atten’shun Juice!”

-7-

THE MEETING

o God! that one might read the book of fate! Shakespeare. II Henry IV. Act iii, sc. 1, l. 45.

Jimmy Miller stood over the toilet bowl, where he had been urinating for over sixty seconds and frowned. He finished what was left in the beer can in his hand and then stumbled back into his room and collapsed onto the bed. Empty beer cans were littered throughout the room, along with cigarette butts and Miller’s suit coat and shirt. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was past two a.m. in the morning and searched futilely for a full can of beer. His search quickly proved fruitless and he walked to the front door of the motel-room and opened it. causing the blast furnace that was South Florida to slam its 95 percent humidity and 94-degree temperature straightaway into his face. He took a step backwards and the refreshing air inside the 65-degree air-conditioned room felt cool on his face and as smooth as silk inside his nostrils; he couldn’t remember the last time that he had felt so comfortable or so safe, safe from the screaming bosses and safe from the shakes and safe from the nightmares and failures. But, then he swallowed and looked around the room, at the littered, empty beer cans and his yearning returned. He walked out the door and into the 94-degree night and stumbled and staggered towards the all-night liquor store that he knew was just around the corner and where he also knew that he could buy some more happiness. He bought a six pack of old Milwaukee and a bottle of cheap whiskey, a sure sign that he was now willing to escape into a total world of darkness. He was heading back to his motel-room when he saw something moving in the bushes next to a large dumpster. He stumbled over and saw that it was a young, garishly made-up girl and that she had a large welt underneath her left eye and blood trickling from her forehead and nose. He put the brown paper bag containing his six-pack and whiskey on the ground and bent down next to the girl. He put his palm on her cheek and she moaned, then sat up, looking dazed and confused. Miller took out the whiskey and twisted off the cap, then poured a drop into her mouth. She gagged for a second and spit out saliva and blood, then hissed:

“Ah, were, ah-er where am I?”

“You’re in Fort Lauderdale.”

“I mean, I mean, where am I?”

“Ah-er-um, well, this is Federal Highway. Wha.. what happened to you?”

She stared at Miller dully and suddenly, inexplicably a shiver ran down her back and she took a quick swallow of the now opened whiskey.

“Well, I, I don’t really remember too much. I think a man hit me and threw me out if his car.”

“Oh, Gee-zuz. Wha... what’s your name?”

“Ah, well, Presh’us, ah-er, I mean Linda.”

Miller helped her get to her feet and then guided her towards his motel. They were almost there when a helicopter flew by overhead and Miller dropped to the pavement and started howling. It was the young girl’s turn to help him stand up and they both stumbled to the door of his motel room, which he opened and they both tumbled inside onto the floor. Miller realized that the chopper had brought back to his memory-bank that day, 20 years ago now, in Vietnam and he pulled the whiskey bottle out and took a long swallow. He offered the girl a sip and she took one and then stared at him.

“Are you aw’rye, Mister?”

“Aw-er-um, yeah-yeah sure I am, sure.” He stood up on unsteady legs and then helped her up.

“You wanna use the bathroom, take a shower? Help yourself, plenty a clean towels still in there. I showered at the Y earlier, y’know?”

The young girl nodded and headed for the bathroom. Thirty minutes later she walked out of the bathroom, with nothing on but a towel wrapped around her scrawny body. She saw Miller sprawled on the bed, the whiskey bottle, now half-empty, clutched in his hand and she walked over and sat down next to him.

Miller stared into her face and she smiled and he offered her a drink of whiskey, which she took, causing the towel to slide down her bosom and fall onto the bedspread. Jimmy Miller’s long asleep loins suddenly came alive and, when she put her hand on his leg, he leaped on top of her and quickly ripped his own clothes off. It was all over in five minutes and Miller felt ashamed, she was so young, just like in ‘Nam. He reached for the whiskey bottle from where he had set it on a small table and it fell off and quickly drained onto the cheap linoleum floor. He scowled and got up and went into the bathroom.

The girl was sitting with her knees resting underneath her chin when he returned to the room and had her hands wrapped around her legs, staring dully into space.

“Look, ah-er Linda. I gotta go got another bottle okay?”

“Yeah, sure, gaw’head.”

“Whereةwhere are you from?” Miller said it off-handedly, as he reached for the door-handle but her answer froze him in his tracks.

“Atlanta. Well, I was born there but I grew up in Jersey City. My mom moved there when I was only three.”

“Jahة.Jersey City?’’

“Yeah, my Dad was from there. He left us when I was little and Iةةةةةةة..

“Whoa, wait a minute, Wait a minute.” Miller’s head was spinning and his ears were ringing and not just from the alcohol. He stared at the girl; He had two daughters, named Linda and Susan and although Susan was born in Jersey City Linda had been born in Atlanta. It had to be a coincidence; it couldn’t be what he was thinking but he inhaled deeply and barked at her:

“What was your mother’s name, Linda?”

“Rhonda.”

This answer took the breath from Miller’s chest and he collapsed onto the floor; things were spinning out of control.

“See my step-father he abused me, he, he molested me and when I saw him start to look at my younger sister I knew I had to leave or kill him. I should have killed him buة.but I was scared.”

“Hah...hah... how about yah ah father?”

“Well, my Daddy was in Vietnam and he couldn’tةةةةةةةة.

“GOOD GAWD!”

The girl stared at Miller and she saw that he appeared to he hyperventilating.

“Ah-er, what’s the matter Mister?”

“Was, was your father’s name Jimmy Miller.”

“Why, why yes, did you know my daddy?”

Miller barely made it to the door before his stomach rumbled and he vomited, all over the door and rug. Vomit was streaming down his shirt when the girl touched his arm and she gasped:

“Whaة.. what’s smatter with you Mister? Whة. who are you?”

“I’m Jimmy Miller. I’m your father, Linda, I’m your father!”

Suddenly, the girl’s face turned ashen and she ran past Miller, out the door and into the street, screaming and hollering hysterically as she ran, naked as the day she was born, screaming “no-no-no” as she ran north on Federal Highway, down the middle of the highway.

********

Bobby Rolex had been driving his taxicab for over fifteen hours and he was bleary-eyed, as he drove down Federal Highway when the call came in for a pickup, just past Sunrise Boulevard and Federal Highway. He immediately sat up in his seat and stepped on the gas-pedal and, just as Linda Miller ran out into the street, Rolex’s eyelids closed for barely an instant, but in that instant his cab plowed into the 89-pound, emaciated body of the girl who had been known on the street as Precious, for the last eight hours of her life.

The impact threw her into the air and onto a telephone pole, then onto a city sidewalk, where she lie, as dead as she could possibly be. Jimmy Miller began screaming hysterically upon seeing the collision and he collapsed onto the pavement next to his daughter. He glared up at Rolex who barked: “I din’ see her Mister, really I din’. Look, I called the cops, they should be here anytime now.”

Miller stood up and walked to the cab; he saw it almost immediately, a .45 caliber pistol, just like the one he had in ‘Nam. Before even he realized it, it was in his hand and an instant later it was in his mouth.

-8-

TWO FOR THE NIGHT

Night is the time to weep;

To wet with unseen tears

Those graves of memory, where sleep

The joys of other years.---James Montgomery, Night.

Joe Misery and Pete Winslow were the two paramedics that got the call. Two dead bodies, one a young girl, was naked and her body was twisted and crushed beyond recognition by the impact of a one and a half ton automobile that slammed into her emaciated, tiny frame, while the other corpse, a male, was a lump of unrecognizable skin, bloody facial hair and bones where, at one time, a face had been. They pieced together what had happened from the officer on the scene and the cab driver. They figured the girl was a hooker and the guy was out of his mind, on drugs. probably crack, so easily purchased in Ft. Lauderdale.

Bobby Wilson, the policeman, yawned and noticed that it was nearly four am. He finished up his report and nodded at Bobby Rolex.

“Don’t worry cabbie, they were both messed up.” Joe Misery, who worked the graveyard shift and hadn’t missed a night in over a decade, shook his head and rasped:

“Just two more for the night guys, two more or the night.”

Wilson stared at Misery, then Winslow and Rolex. He seemed about to say something but walked to his patrol car instead. He glared for an instant at the two dead bodies, both now ensconced inside the ambulance, and croaked: “Just two more for the night, Gee’zuz I gotta get off the night-shift.”

The ambulance rolled down Federal Highway and Joe Misery was oblivious of the night. He turned on Fifth Street and whisked past the darkened building of the YMCA, then shot past Andrews Avenue and rolled over the railroad tracks. He was totally unconcerned with the blaring music that reverberated from the innumerable boom boxes, or the hookers and crack-heads waving and yelling at them; it was just another shift for Misery, as he glanced at his watch and noticed it was half past four in the morning. Misery had spent almost a decade in the Navy before deciding to rejoin civilian life and had spent two tours in Vietnam. He glanced out the window and wondered idly if the streets of Saigon were as littered as they had once been, with hunger, poverty and prostitution.

It was four-thirty in Ft. Lauderdale, what time was it in Saigon? He had been there in 1968 and ‘69 and wondered if what was happening in South Florida was still happening there, as well as other parts of the world? He had been in ports all across the world, from as diverse as Alaska to as faraway as New Zealand and knew that everywhere there was poverty and prostitution and wondered why? As he stared transfixed at the pimps, hookers and jitterbugs that lined the streets of N.E. Ft. Lauderdale this early in the morning, he needn’t have pondered the question of poverty and hopelessness, for, as the Devil must get his due, scenes similar to this one on the gritty streets of the inner-city of Ft. Lauderdale were being played out in one form or another in every major city in the vast expanse of land known as the United States, as well as innumerable others the world over.

As the ambulance, that was now masquerading as a hearse, rolled on, Misery wondered about the young female corpse for an instant, so young and fragile.

Where was she from? Was she just another abused child and how did she get to where she now was, a corpse in the back of his ambulance? Misery needn’t have surmised for at this very hour, in a house just off Newark Avenue, in Jersey City, the reason why the child’s corpse lie on the bed in his ambulance, was entering the room of his last remaining stepdaughter, 11-year old Susan Miller McCloskey, as she lie asleep in her bed, dreaming of the school lunch she would eat the coming day, as they were having chili dogs, her favorite. She had yet to experience the sheer horror that had been her older sister’s life for the past six years but, as her 300-pound stepfather began moving towards her bedroom, she was about to become yet another statistic and one that would end up, as her sister had, dead, or scarred beyond repair, never being able to return to any form of what the human race considered normalcy or sanity. The morbid thought of the corpse soon left Misery’s mind when he pulled the ambulance into an open all-night McDonald’s, something no ghetto dare be caught without, as fast food outlets and all-night liquor stores were a mainstay of modern day America; they littered ghettoes from the Four corners of the country, from Seattle to San Diego and from Boston to Ft. Lauderdale, as well as every major city, and even numerous minor ones, within it boundaries. At this particular McDonald’s they were having a special, Big Mac’s for 99 cents, and as Misery rolled down his window and prepared to order, he glanced for an instant in the rearview mirror at the two body bags. Pete Winslow followed his gaze but quickly put it from his mind, as he shrugged his shoulders and barked:

“Get me two Big Mac’s, a large fries and a large choc-lit milkshake Joey, shit I’m hungry.”

Misery shook off his thoughts also, of the girl and the older man. Hell, it didn’t matter anyway they were nobodies. nada, nothing. They were two more for the night that’s all, just two more for the night, that’s all they were and all they ever would be, now. Misery convinced himself of this, as he licked his chops when the smell of the cholesterol-ridden, fat-saturated, all-American fast food hit his nostrils and he salivated, which put a wide smile on his otherwise somber pasty face.

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