The Interview (2 page)

He pushed back from his table. Six foot, maybe 200 pounds. He had
thirty pounds and a half-inch on me. “What the fuck did you
just say to me?” He tottered slightly. Nice bonus, but I
didn’t need the help.

I held his stare as he crossed the short distance between our tables.
I pushed everything out of my mind save his movements. I took in the
way he moved, the way his right fist clenched tighter than the left.
I shifted slightly to the right in anticipation of him coming at me
from his right. He didn't disappoint.

I exhaled, “Hard of hearing and stupid. It's tough.”

“I'm going-”

“-to fuck me up. Yes, yes, I know.” I finished his
sentence. He hesitated for a sec, then came hard and fast. I waited.
The key is to be patient.

Frankie taught me that.

When he was fully committed to his charge, I brought my right leg up
and placed my foot on the table leg. I took a breath, exhaled, and
shoved the table as hard as I could into his path. The table hit him
in the waist. His momentum carried him and the table forward but I
had already slid out of the way. It would have been nice if his face
connected with the table, but I had to settle for him doubling over.
Before he could recover, I formed a two-handed grip and smashed my
arms down on the base of his skull. Now his face collided with the
table. His nose burst, and a tooth led a gush of blood out from his
mouth. He grunted, then tried to stand upright. I kicked him in the
back of the knees and he crumpled to the floor. I brought my right
knee up and connected squarely with his jaw. On his knees, he swayed.
I was on the verge of kicking him in the face when he fell over.

I watched him for a few seconds to be sure he was done. He was out.

I turned with my hands up, as if the cops were already there.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

The kids were staring at me with open mouths. Dad was shaking his
head as if to say, “No problem, just don't hit me.” Mom
had a disturbing glint in her eye. The young couple looked at me in
wonder.

I looked to the kitchen and saw Yolanda talking on the phone. Great.
I would be spending the night over at 401 Chapman. She placed the
phone back in its cradle and walked towards me. “Don't worry,
that wasn't the police.”

“OK.” I glanced at the other witnesses.

“That guy started it,” the boyfriend said.

“Yeah, you didn't have much choice,” said Dad.

“Are you a superhero?” asked the youngest boy.

“No,” I said. “I'm a mailman.”

“I don't think Lu could do that,” Big Brother said in
reference to the mail carrier on Route Six. The family must live on
his route. Lu was Vietnamese, 5'4” and maybe 130 pounds.

“Maybe. Lu is a pretty cool guy.”

“Nah, I don't think so,” said Big Brother. “He's
afraid of our dog. No way he could do that.”

I looked up at his parents. The glint in Mom's eye was growing into
something that was probably going to make her husband a very happy
man when they got the kids to bed later that night.

“Well then.” I looked at Yolanda, gestured to the
crumpled man on the floor, and asked, “What do you want to do
with him?”

“Someone's coming,” she said. The two cooks came out.
Each of them grabbed a leg. They dragged him in back.

“OK then. I'm going to go have a cigarette.”

“Do you still want your food?” asked Yolanda.

“Yeah. I'm hungry.”

As I pushed through the door and into the heat, I heard one of the
boys, I think it was the younger one, say, “I want to be a
mailman when I grow up.”

His parents must have been so proud.

I AM NEVER WITHOUT MY iPod. There is usually an earbud in one of my
ears. My life has a 16-gigabyte soundtrack that rarely ceases. It is
random mostly. Planned on occasion. Distant background at times.
Front and center at others. The artists range from
Prince
to
Megadeth
to
Bonnie
Raitt
to
Bon
Jovi
to
Beethoven
and everything in between.

I passed hair salons, markets, and stairways that led to small
apartments above the businesses. Families lived in rooms smaller than
mine and shared a bathroom with five other families. It was a shitty
way to live. I passed the doorway that led to a collection of rooms
where last year 15 people died when a hot plate started an electrical
fire in the early morning hours. Five of those who perished were
children. The memory should have made me sad.

It didn't. Such is the way with me.

It had been a little over a year since my last physical altercation.
I sometimes work the door at a few bars in Newport, but mostly I tend
bar. I'm good at both. I mix a good drink. I know what customers
expect of me and I give it to them. Women like my face, my long
unruly curls of hair that rest upon my shoulders and hang in my face,
and my toned body. Guys aren't intimidated or challenged by me
because I know how to project that aura of “I'm just chillin'.”
I can tell the troublemakers and I know how to deal with them. Last
Fourth of July, I had a kid wired on crank who wanted to see what I
had. He ended up in the hospital after his arm got in my way. I am
not violent, but I am cold and calculating when it comes to violence.
Fortunately, I don't have many situations that call for violence
while I deliver the mail.

I would have made more money if I still did the bar thing full-time,
but Frankie talked me into the postal gig before she left. It
requires less energy, less concentration. I don't have to pretend as
much because I don't see most of my customers. Couple a day, but I
can go two or three days without having to talk to anyone. It's nice.
I spend the office time with my earbuds in and my iPod shuffling
through songs. I don't do the office politic thing, and I could care
less about the union.

I reached the end of the block. I headed back towards the restaurant
in time to see two guys dragging my handiwork across the sidewalk and
into a black Suburban. They both looked in my direction briefly
before getting into the SUV and pulling away.

Huh . . .

I stubbed the cigarette out and dropped it into a trashcan, then
entered the restaurant.

Tacqueria is one of six Mexican restaurants in a two-block stretch of
Santa Fe Ave. in Old Towne Placentia. I liked their food the best.
The downside was they only served beer. I do not drink beer as a
rule. I don't like the taste, and nearly forty years has been ample
time for me to acquire a taste for it.

The air in the restaurant was cooler than outside but heavy with
humidity. The walls were yellow with brightly colored suns and
flowers painted randomly throughout.

The family and young couple had departed while I was smoking. The
blood was gone, and there was no other indication of what had
transpired ten minutes ago.

I spotted my Arnold Palmer and a basket of tortilla chips on the
table next to the one I had shoved into the guy's stomach. I sat down
with my back against the wall, and took a long drink of my Arnold
Palmer. Ahhh! Good stuff! I wasn't a big fan of golf, but I loved
Mr. Palmer's concoction.

Yolanda appeared with my empanadas. She was a pretty
twenty-something. Beautiful brown eyes, nice smile, light make-up.
She set the plate in front of me.

“Gracias, Yolanda.”

She nodded in response, then said, “Thank you, Kelly.”

It is amazing what a woman can communicate with three simple words.
There was an undercurrent of emotion contained in the words that,
when combined with the look on her face, told me clearly that I could
have her.

I held her eyes for few moments. She was beautiful. I could almost
taste her: sweet and salty. Could almost feel the way she would move.
How long had it been since I had seen Frankie? Too long judging by
my body's response to Yolanda's unspoken offering.

I looked down at the food. I concentrated. She expected something
from me right now and it was not part of my routine. I pulled from
memories, observations, and emotions from long ago, in an attempt to
gauge what I should do to not lessen the importance of her offering
or disrespect her intent.

I looked up, a smile with what I believed to be just the right touch
of regret playing on my lips, and said, “You are welcome,
Yolanda.”

Yolanda looked into my eyes as she interpreted my words and
expression. Finally, she said, “She is a lucky woman.”

“No. I'm the lucky one.”

She paused a moment longer, testing me I think, to see if my heart
was as true as I pretended it was. She nodded her head, then leaned
down and kissed my cheek.

“The owner asked that I tell you that your meal is on him.”

“His dime,” I said.

“He can afford it.”

Then the door opened and a group of people thankfully ended the
moment.

I ate my food, drank three Arnold Palmer refills, left a twenty on
the table and slipped out while Yolanda was in the back.

The night was still miserably hot. I stood outside Tacqueria and
stared at the black Escalade parked in front of my Cougar and the
Suburban parked to the rear. The Escalade driver’s side door
opened. A large man extracted himself from the SUV and stared back at
me. I took a deep breath, and walked across the street to my car.

“I need you to come with me,” he said.

“Sorry,” I replied. “Gotta get up early in the
morning.”

“Not askin'.” He flexed his body. He was a big guy
wearing an expensive suit. I thought I could take him. The passenger
door opened and an equally huge man stared at me across the top of
the Escalade.

I glanced up and down the street. Weighed my options and said, “OK.”

WE MADE A LITTLE TRAIN of three as I followed the Escalade up
Bradford. The Suburban stayed right behind me. We hung a right on
Chapman then went left on Kramer. As we passed the police station on
the corner, I briefly considered shooting into the parking lot and
grabbing the nearest cop. Sounded like more trouble than it was
worth, so I kept on going.

We turned right on Alta Vista and went up the hill then dropped down
the other side before turning right on Dunnavant. To the right was a
fifteen-year-old neighborhood with streets named Pebble Beach,
Spyglass, and Augusta. To the left was a five-year-old collection of
large homes with tiny yards built on streets named after Placentia
politicians. Dunnavant became Faley, which became Robertson. We
followed Robertson around till we hit Soto Place. I was not surprised
when we hung a right and entered Sorority Row.

Soto has thirteen houses along its right side. The left side of the
street is one long retaining wall that keeps the backyards on Little
Drive from falling onto Soto. The first seven houses have nothing to
do with Sorority Row. It is the final six that have given this nice
little street a very bad reputation.

Stories are told of the scantily clad college girls who inhabit these
six houses. They occasionally run down the street naked. Throw wild
parties every night of the week. Sign for certified letters in
nothing but string bikini bottoms and stars upon their nipples. They
are strippers, high-priced call girls, part of a harem, or a bunch of
rich kids thumbing their noses at their parents. Depending on who was
telling the story, they also had no qualms about giving the lucky
mailman a blowjob while he stuffed pennysavers into the NBCU that
served as the mailbox for this mythical street.

In its defense, Soto isn't the only street in Placentia that
supposedly has women of loose moral standards when it comes to
mailmen and society's dress code. I, personally, have a 65-year-old
fellow on my route who likes to answer his door as if every day is
his birthday. His neighbors will tell you he also gardens in the
nude. There is a woman over on Gillilan who eats young male letter
carriers for lunch while her husband is away at work. I, regrettably,
can confirm that one as true as well.

What made the Row special was the fact that those six houses were, in
fact, filled with beautiful college girls. Every carrier in the
office, females included, has seen them. Whether or not any of us
have seen them running down the street naked or have had their dick
sucked while standing on the side of the road is another matter
altogether. What no one was sure about was how they afforded the
houses they lived in. These were million-dollar-plus homes that all
seemed to be owned by a bunch of gorgeous young women.

I was on the lookout for any naked women or even just a nice ass in
some floss, so I would have seen them if they were there. Nothing.
Just a quiet street in an upper-class Placentia neighborhood. The
lead SUV stopped at the last house on the street. With a wave of his
arm, the driver indicated that I should park in the driveway. I
parked behind a collection of three cars that were individually worth
more than I made in a year, and two more that were worth more than I
made in five years.

I got out. Looked at the cars, then back at the Cougar. I patted her
roof. “It's OK, babe. I love you. I'd never trade you for one
of these high-priced bitches.”

I walked up the drive. I didn’t know what to expect next, so
when the front door opened I went with it. The woman in the doorway
did not fit the description of the mythical women of the Row. She was
something much more. Much, much more.

She was six feet tall and black. I'm not talking Halle Berry or
Vanessa Williams black, I mean black as night. Her eyes were blue
surrounded by the purest white I have ever seen. Her teeth were even,
straight, and WHITE in all capital letters. I couldn't detect one
single trace of make-up. All I can say about her body is, “Ohhhh!
Myyyyy! Goooddddd!” Proportion defined in the dictionary is
her. I can't even describe it. I'll just fuck it up. She was wearing
tight, tight blue jeans and a loose fitting white t-shirt that showed
just the right amount of cleavage while emphasizing the rounded
curves of her breasts. Her feet were bare, save for some red polish
on the nails. Even her toes were hot.