me.
I follow him. What the hell, right.
John Ransom Miller doesn’t drift and meander the way I do. He knows where he’s going and he obviously expects people to get the hell out of his way. He takes the escalator two steps at a time and bullies his way past a throng of Japanese tourists, then outside. This no-nonsense attitude of his gives me a sense of purpose and I hit the street at a cool ten yards behind him. There’s a nasty wind coming off the bay and I button my coat against it. I light a cigarette and wonder grimly if I will have to ration them, as I have no cash on me. Then I start to worry that Miller will hop into a yellow cab and leave me standing on the sidewalk, a scarecrow equipped with useless skin and teeth.
Options.
If he does get into a cab, then I could get into the next cab and tell the driver to follow him. This maneuver probably doesn’t work outside of the movies, but who knows. I might get a driver who has seen a lot of movies and secretly wishes his life was more interesting and I can always show him my gun when the subject of money comes up. But I don’t like this plan. It has been my experience that big-city cabdrivers are not to be fucked with and you never know when you will meet the one who has his backseat boobytrapped with poison gas and spring- loaded spikes and is in fact driving around all day just hoping to encounter someone like me, a stupid asshole with a gun.
I keep one eye glued to the back of Miller’s head and scan the street with the other. A half block away I see a stout, middle-aged guy buying coffee at an outdoor espresso hut. The guy wears gray pants, a dark blue blazer. Bright red suspenders under the jacket, white shirt. He wears glasses and his hair is long and wispy. The man is distracted and soft. I watch as he pays for the coffee and receives his change.
He puts his wallet into the left breast pocket of his jacket and proceeds toward me. I take a breath. I have done this more times than I can count, with mixed results. But this guy looks like an easy mark. He takes a drink of his coffee and cringes as if he has burned his tongue. He’s perfect. I look ahead to be sure that Miller is still in sight, then lower my head and stumble directly into the guy with red suspenders and that hot coffee pretty much explodes all over his white shirt and now I see that it’s not actually coffee but some kind of giant mocha with whipped cream, which of course not only burns him but makes a fine mess. The poor bastard yelps and nearly falls over, which is not at all what I want. A good pickpocket is fluid and graceful and easily forgotten. He doesn’t cause a scene.
Jesus, I say. I am so fucking sorry.
The guy is sputtering and I catch him by the lapels, as if to help him up. The mocha is dripping down the front of his pants in little chocolate rivulets and the guy moans in despair. No one pays us any attention and I glance up the street to see that Miller is disappearing around a corner. I apologize loudly and use my right hand to smear the whipped cream around on my guy’s chest and slip my left hand into his breast pocket, palming his wallet.
My favorite shirt, the guy says. My favorite shirt is ruined.
It’s not ruined, I say. Take it to your dry cleaner and it’s good as new.
I can’t, he says. I’m a communist.
What?
I don’t believe in dry cleaners. They are servants of the ruling class.
How about that. I just mugged a communist and I will eat my hat if his wallet is not empty. The last time I looked at a newspaper, the Russian government was running vodka into Canada and selling used office furniture for pennies. This guy has probably got moths in his pockets. I give his collar a brutal tug and he flails weakly at me. He is so mournful that I’m tempted to slap him around but I don’t have time for such indulgences.
You motherfucker. What kind of communist drinks a mocha with whipped cream?
The guy moans. I can’t help it, he says. I’m a victim of advertising. I walk past a Starbucks and I become a robot. Their mochas are divine.
The gods are laughing at me. I can hear them up there.
You’re a class traitor, I say.
The communist goes limp in my arms and I drop him like a sack of compost. He immediately curls up on the sidewalk and I imagine he will lie there until the stormtroopers come for him.
eight.
I RUN LIKE THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN IS BEHIND ME and come around the corner in time to see Miller walk into a drugstore maybe a block away. I take a breather and fade into the shadowy mouth of an alley to inspect the comrade’s sticky wallet.
Two dollars.
The wallet holds three yellowed clippings from a communist newsletter, two sad dollars and one expired library card. Leonard Brown, 2112 Valencia. I regard the dollars with a gassy sigh and lean back against a wall of red bricks to contemplate life. One man is soft in the belly and clumsy. He is confused. He drops three of his last five dollars on a capitalist mocha and is allowed a brief moment to savor the hot, bittersweet chocolate. Then another man, thin and hungry and only slightly less confused, comes out of nowhere and uses that mocha to fuck up the first man’s favorite shirt and thereby ruin his day.
For two useless dollars.
I could buy a pack of gum and god knows gum will be handy when I run out of cigarettes. I won’t go insane and I will have fresh breath and this shit should be funny. Jude will surely think so, tomorrow. John Ransom Miller might think so. I leave the two dollars untouched and dart across the street to drop Leonard’s wallet into a mailbox.
What to do.
I can’t grab another wallet. My skull is still tingling from the first. I stare at the dark windows of the drugstore and wonder what the hell Miller is doing in there. I could use the gun to rob the store and maybe take him out in the crossfire, thus solving two problems at once. I could empty the cash register, then chop off his finger and hustle back to the King James. Then I would have plenty of time to get good and drunk before dark.
I feel a headache coming on. My vision goes black around the edges. Blackbird on the wing. I’m tired of walking. I’m tired of stink and vapors. I’m tired of California already. Winter is gone, a torn wing. The horror of Christmas lights in the month of May. The swab of yellow glimpsed through trees is nothing to fear, the yellow is nothing but the sun. I have to keep walking. But when did you last eat something, when did you become sick. Such a simple thing, to ruin the body from within. Child’s play, chutes and ladders. Easy to poison the blood, to wither the precious organs. The nervous system is consumed by Phineas and already the sense of smell is gone. Perhaps it’s time to kill yourself and soon, before madness sets in. The fingers and toes will be first to fall from the host. The shadow that walks beside you is neither man nor woman. The shadow is a friend, the shadow is your beloved. The shadow beside you is death.
Come on, boy. Don’t you know me.
Death is always on the wing.
Lucy. Henry. Eve. Moon. These are my dead. They died on my watch, all of them an arm’s reach away. The beautiful dead flutter beside me always, torn clothes I can never take off.
John Ransom Miller exits the drugstore, a small white paper bag in hand. Prescription drugs, maybe. I hope he has some good stuff, something I can steal from him later. He heads up the street and I follow him, still penniless. Three blocks pass and I start to wonder if the bastard is just walking home. Now he’s entered a BART station. I follow, wondering how far two dollars might have taken me. The machine that dispenses tickets informs me that for two dollars one can gain entry on BART, but not necessarily return. I am weirdly cheerful as I hop the turnstiles like the scumbag I never wanted to be and luckily the guard is off taking a crap somewhere, or shining his shoes.
The train isn’t crowded.
Windows streaked with fingerprints. Smoke blue carpet. There are so many empty seats that I feel indecisive and find myself standing across from Miller. He is too restless to sit. He stands with his feet wide apart and his hands in his pockets. The train lurches forward and as I reach for the bright steel safety bar, a smile edges across
