No offence Intended - Barbara Seranella Read online

  No Offense Intended

  Barbara Seranella

  1999

  1

  "NO OFFENSE," the plumber began.

  Munch sighed. Why did people always feel the need to warn you before they said something stupid? She looked up from the carburetor she was working on and gave the man in the stained overalls her full attention.

  "But don't you think that working on cars is kinda, I don't know, unfeminine?"

  She lifted out the float assembly on the quadrajet. "Yeah, I worry about it all the way to the bank. What kind of gas do you bum in this thing?"

  "Whatever," he said. "Why?"

  She shined her droplight into the float chamber.

  "You're full of shit here." She kept her face straight, knowing the double entendre would be lost on this Neanderthal. It was 1977, for God's sake. Didn't he realize that barefoot and pregnant went out with the sixties? "This is going to take at least a half a day" she said. "n fact, it would be better if you left it overnight." She looked over his shoulder and spotted Happy Jack, the owner of Happy Jack's Auto Repair. "Hey Jack. You wanna write this guy up? He needs a carb overhaul."

  Jack grabbed a clipboard and headed their way.

  "You got a visitor," he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. Her boss's expression told her that he didn't approve. She followed his gaze and understood why Munch's visitor leaned against the fender of a blue Chevy pickup. The truck was fairly new: a '74 model, perhaps even a '75. Sleaze was doing well, it seemed. His mother had named him Jonathan Garillo, but on the street he was known as "Sleaze John." The last time she'd seen Sleaze was when he was driving for Sunshine Yellow Cab out of Venice. That was a year ago—in another life. Driving a cab had been just the vehicle for Sleaze's other various vocations: pulling cons on tourists, ripping off dopers trying to score, running numbers for bookies unwise enough to trust him.

  "Thanks, Jack," she said, climbing down from the milk crate she stood on when she worked on trucks.

  "This won't take long."

  Leaving Jack to write up the plumber, Munch made her way over to where Sleaze waited. The truck's idle stumbled as she drew closer. The bearded stranger in the passenger seat glanced at her briefly and then looked away She stuck her grease rag in her back pocket and approached them warily

  "What do you want?" she said.

  "What happened to hello?" he asked.

  "Hello. What do you want?"

  "You got a light?" A Cheshire cat grin stretched his full lips. He was clean-shaven and a brunette this week, which complemented his even white teeth and thickly lashed eyes. There was a time when she had thought him quite the fox.

  She pulled out her lighter, automatically reaching for the pack of Camels in her shirt pocket. With her lighter in his hand, he pointed to her cigarettes and, almost as an afterthought, asked her for a smoke.

  Same old Sleaze. She shook her head, wondering what this visit would cost her.

  He lit both their smokes and exhaled a "Thanks."

  She caught his hand before her lighter disappeared into his pocket.

  "What are you doing here?" she asked.

  "I've missed you."

  "Sleaze—" She glanced at the man riding shotgun, noting his long sleeves and dark sunglasses. A faded blue jail tattoo crossed the man's left jugular vein. She recognized the insignia of the Aryan Brotherhood: a pair of jagged lightning bolts that formed the letters SS. The man crossed his arms over his chest and rocked back and forth.

  The truck's idle stuttered again and then resumed an even pace. "Hear that?" Sleaze asked. "What do you think that is?"

  "If you want work done, you're going to have to leave it. I'm backed up right now," she said, aware of Jack hovering protectively just out of earshot.

  "I'm in kind of a hurry, too," he said. He looked around, then dropped his voice. "Actually, I'm in a little bit of a jam."

  Munch noticed that the gas cap of the truck was painted blue. She reached out and touched it. The surface was tacky She leaned in the open window and saw the ignition wires dangling under the dash, their insulation stripped and two of them twisted together. The passenger moved a hand to his cheek and kept it there. The gesture was fine with her; she didn't want to remember him either. She pulled the rag from her back pocket and carefully wiped off all the surfaces she remembered touching.

  "I don't want any part of this. I could get revoked for just talking to you."

  "Since when did you pay attention to court orders?" he asked.

  "Since I got a year suspended. I've changed, Sleaze. Don't mess this up for me."

  He appraised her from under half-closed lids.

  "Yeah, I heard you got religion. I'm real proud of you. Are you happy?"

  "Yes, of course." The words came out too quickly He raised an eyebrow, making him look a little like Clark Gable. Had he picked up the defensiveness in her tone?

  "You look really good. I was going to say something."

  She snorted. "Spare me. You want to do something nice for me? Just get out of my life." She kicked the tire of the truck. "And take this with you."

  "Hey don't be like that. We've got too much history"

  "I forget it. It's like you said. History. What happened and what didn't happen was . . . for the best. Neither one of us wanted to be dragging a kid around." She looked at his face to confirm that this was the truth, but she couldn't read him.

  "Aren't we at least friends?" he asked.

  "I never had friends, Sleaze, just using partners."

  She looked pointedly at his travel companion.

  "So that's it, huh? The rest of us are just shit on your shoes?" His tone and expression were accusatory like she was some sort of traitor to the cause. But there was no cause, she thought angrily just a bunch of loaded assholes trying to justify their existence.

  "I'm just trying to tell you that I've got something good going here," she said. "I don't want to mess it up."

  "I'm not looking to mess you up."

  "I have a disease, John. I have to be careful."

  "What are you talking—disease?"

  "I'm in remission from alcoholism and drug addiction. I can't be around anyone still using."

  How could she make him understand? She wasn't sure herself. She was spouting program dogma at him, all the tools of defense she had learned. Maybe it would be easier if he just got mad at her.

  "And that's how you want it?" he asked.

  "That's the way it has to be."

  "What about Deb?" he asked. "And Boogie? I thought he was your ace boon coon."

  "I haven't heard from them in almost a year. I don't even know where they are."

  "They're up in Canyonville."

  "Where's that?"

  "Oregon. Pretty country if you don't mind rain."

  This news made her pause. "She made it, huh?"

  Moving to the country had been their mutual dream. The country was a place for fresh starts, cleaner living, a good place to raise Boogie. "You got a number for her?"

  Sleaze reached into his pocket and drew out his wallet. "Just a sec. You got a pen?"

  She handed him her pen. He walked over to the counter and picked up several of the shop's business cards. Behind her, Jack frowned.

  Sleaze flipped one of the cards over, wrote the word "Snakepit" and copied down a number from his wallet with an Oregon area code. "She doesn't have a phone at her house," he said, "but you can usually reach her here."

  "Snakepit?"

  "It's a bar in Canyonville."

  "Is she doing all right?"

  "She's got an ol' man."

  "There's a surprise." Deb always had an old man. She alway
s fell passionately in love for life with each of them and cried buckets when they left. Munch envied her that—her depth of passion.

  "He's an asshole," Sleaze added.

  Her face twisted in a wry smile. They were always assholes, especially after Deb was done with them.

  "I did some business with him," Sleaze said. "He tried to get over on me."

  "Uh—huh." She didn't need to ask for any particulars. Nothing he said or she asked would move the conversation any closer to the truth. Sleaze had a way of explaining things that neatly sidestepped any culpability on his part. The other guy was always wrong and usually a step too slow. "I have to get back to work. Just tell me what you want, Sleaze."

  He glanced back nervously at his companion in the truck. "Like I said, I'm in a little bit of a jam. Nothing serious. It should blow over soon."

  "And I'm supposed to do what?" she asked.

  "I just wanted to see you," he said, watching traffic as if he were waiting for something. "It's been so long." He reached over and touched her cheek. "Too long."

  She pulled back. It was time to end this exchange.

  He wasn't the first to come around from her old life. She'd found a simple formula for getting rid of the others: her ex-using partners who had somehow managed to sniff her out, sensing some prosperity not their own that might be available for leaching. They'd come to her with hard-luck stories, told with sorrowful faces and sincere tones. Maybe they thought getting clean and sober had somehow affected her memory That she wouldn't spot their games since she was no longer on the pitching side. She had learned that it was easier to indulge them: listen to their bullshit and agree about the unfairness of the world. Then she'd loan them money—sometimes a twenty (she'd gone as high as fifty)—and they would promise to pay her back as soon as they "got on their feet." The ones who owed her never came back. The money she "lent" was a small price to pay to ensure that they wouldn't return.

  "How much would it take to get out of this jam?" she asked, reaching for her wallet. She carried her wallet in her back pocket, like a man would. Maybe the plumber was right. She looked over in his direction and found Jack watching her. He tapped his watch. "I've got to get back to work," she said.

  Sleaze saw her go for her wallet. He probably wasn't even aware that he had licked his lips. "I've got a kid," he said, "a little girl."

  She felt a lightning bolt streak between her gut and heart. He always knew how to find the soft spots. Hadn't he been the one who taught her how to isolate the mark and single out the vulnerabilities? She tried to think if there were any way he could know about the scarring within her body how it had rendered her infertile. She had spoken of it at meetings, so it wasn't exactly privileged information. But the meetings that she attended were here in the San Fernando Valley. Had he somehow heard?

  "Good for you," she said. "Who's the mother?"

  "Karen."

  "That broad who worked at the phone company?"

  Another mark, Munch remembered. Karen was always good for a twenty that Sleaze would collect on her lunch break while Munch waited in the front passenger seat of the taxi with the meter off.

  "Yeah, that's the one."

  She felt an uncomfortable flash of heat shoot up the back of her neck. It was time to play "Name That Emotion." Emotions were a new thing, another dubious gift of sobriety Before, they'd never been an issue. Before, if anyone had cared to ask at any given time how Munch was feeling or what she was feeling, she would have had only two possible answers: good or sick. Sobriety opened up a whole new range. Those first few months, her sponsor, Ruby had driven her crazy asking her how she was, what was she feeling. Finally Munch had told her: She was pissed off. Then Ruby had patiently explained that anger wasn't an emotion. It was a reaction. Get past the anger, Ruby said. It was a shield, a coat of armor.

  Munch looked at Sleaze. He had a kid. He and Karen had a kid. How did that make her feel? She didn't have to think too long.

  Ruby said that one day maybe Munch might adopt. That was another of those nebulous in-the-future things that Ruby was always promising. Like getting married one day Munch told her that yeah, that might happen, but first she needed a date.

  "So what do you want from me?" she asked.

  "I want you to meet my kid," he said.

  "What about Karen?"

  "Karen's dead. She OD'd." His eyes clouded. If she didn't know better, she'd think he really felt bad. This realization annoyed her. More jealousy? she wondered.

  "I've been staying in Venice," he said. "You're going to laugh when I tell you where." He held up an oval rubber key fob with the number 6 stamped on it. A single door key dangled from the stainless steel ring.

  "What? Back at the Flats? Many happy memories there."

  "There's a few, you can't say there isn't. The truth is I haven't been home in a few days."

  "Too hot?" she asked.

  He grinned that infuriating I-know-I've-been-bad-but-I'd-probably-do-it-again grin at her. She had to fight herself to not respond with a smile of her own. How did he get his eyes to twinkle like that?

  "So who's watching this kid of yours now?" she asked.

  "A neighbor."

  "Does this kid have a name?" She felt herself being sucked into his bullshit. Forget the kids name, she told herself, forget misplaced loyalties to old running partners. She wasn't a part of that world anymore. The war was over. She had surrendered.

  "Asia."

  "Asia?" she echoed, shaking her head. What kind of name was that? She turned to step away from him. She had work to do. She didn't need this shit. He followed her as she walked back to the Cadillac she'd been working on, the one with the leaking water pump. She was conscious of her walk and how it didn't wiggle. Steel-toed boots didn't lend themselves to sexy walking.

  "Actually" he said. "There is one other thing."

  "I'm sure there is." She squeezed her arms around the radiator shroud of the Cadillac to get to the four bolts that held the fan on. She knew she would pay for this action later. Soap and water wouldn't completely wash out the bits of fiberglass that would embed in her arms. She'd be itching for days.

  Sleaze leaned over a fender, ingratiating himself under the hood.

  "I just need you to take the baby over to my sister's and pick up a few things at the apartment. Mostly just the baby's stuff—clothes, her car seat, a couple toys."

  She paused, feeling that tug between two worlds, and thought about Venice Beach—the place that used to be home. Nostalgia filled her as she remembered all the old haunts: the boardwalk, the circle, Hooker Hill, Sunshine Cab. There was a time when she knew who she was and what she was about. Think harder, she told herself, think about the misery attached to that old life—the running, the constant fear, the hopelessness.

  "I don't go to Venice," she said.

  "I'm not asking you to stay there," he said. "Just a quick pit stop. You'll be in and out in two minutes."

  "What about your sister? Have Lisa go to Venice."

  "I'm kind of overextended with her," he said.

  "You mean she's fed up with your bullshit."

  "No," he said. "The thing is, there's these guys—"

  "Don't tell me any more. I don't want to know."

  She put her cigarette between her teeth to free her hands as she worked the ratchet. Smoke filled her eyes and she squinted, feeling her face scowl. She stopped working and threw away the butt.

  "But you'll come?" he asked, dangling the key She looked at him for a long minute, framing a reply

  ''You're my only hope," he said.

  "Don't do me like that. I'm not anyone's only hope. I didn't get sober to keep digging losers out of holes. Whatever you've gotten yourself into, that's your problem. I can't get into any of that."

  "You've changed."

  "That's what I've been trying to tell you."

  "You didn't use to be so cold."

  She wanted to say that wasn't it. She was anything but cold. All her using career she had wound h
er feelings into a hard knot and stored them in a place deep inside her. A place so dark and barren that nothing and no one could get to them. She had hoped that eventually all that was vulnerable would shrivel and die, free her from the pain of life. But it hadn't gone like that. Now that she was going to live, she had to tread carefully He would never understand that her reprieve was a daily thing, so instead she said nothing. Let him think what he would. The fender lifted slightly when he stood.

  Through the reflection of the Caddy's windshield, she watched him climb into the cab of the truck and then shake his head like he was disappointed. He said something to his passenger and the other guy nodded and said something back.

  It pissed her off. Who the hell did he think he was, passing judgment on her? He was the one who fucked up, right?

  Her knuckles slammed into the cold steel of the engine block as the socket slipped off the bolt she was loosening. Now look what he'd made her do. She felt tears well up in her eyes.

  Feelings sucked.

  When she looked down she saw he had left the key on the fender.

  2

  MUNCH SPENT the next two hours sweating over the Cadillac. Three bolts had broken off inside the block. One shop teacher at an extension class she had taken at West Valley College called it electrolysis when two metals such as aluminum and steel bonded inseparably Although she had liked the sound of the word, how it rolled on her tongue, part of her always felt that it was too benign a term to assign to a condition that always gave her so much grief.

  "Rust never rests," she said aloud as she pried the leaking water pump loose from the motor with a large screwdriver. Earlier in the day she had explained to the owner of the Cadillac that the bearing supporting his impeller shaft had failed. Any other mechanic might have just said that the water pump was broken and let it go at that, but she loved explaining to people what was wrong with their cars, especially when it gave her the opportunity to sound out the words always ringing in her head.

  The broken bolts in the Cadillac added an additional forty-f1ve minutes to the job, Forty-five minutes that she didn't have to spare. Why did this sort of shit always seem to happen on Fridays? she wondered.