Drama City

FOUR

The short woman, looked like an addict to Lorenzo Brown, had bulging eyes, ill-fitting clothing, and a bandanna covering her ratty scalp. The woman, along with Lorenzo, Rachel Lopez, and many others, was in line at the Subway shop near Florida and New York avenues. She was standing in front of the Plexiglas that separated the employees from the customers, raising her voice at the employee, a Hispanic woman, who was building her sub.

“How you gonna put mayonnaise on my sandwich when I asked you for mustard?” said the woman.

The employee did not look at the woman or answer. There was no need to argue or even reply. Also, there was a problem with communication, as the employee spoke little English. She simply replaced the top portion of the sub roll and used a knife to spread mustard on the bread.

“I want some more cold cuts on that motherfucker too,” said the woman. “More turkey and shit. You listenin’?”

The small customer space was near filled with blacks, whites, and Hispanics, many in uniforms and some in low-end office outfits of the Docker-and-poly variety. No one told the woman to mind her manners or to simply keep her mouth shut. A few of the customers, insecure about their own place in life, enjoyed the woman’s rant. Most, Rachel Lopez and Lorenzo Brown included, were uncomfortable with the scene but did nothing to stop it. If they did, it would only end with more aggression, and anyway, a person filled with so much self-hate could not be changed. Still, many in the store, Rachel and Lorenzo included, felt mildly ashamed for not coming to the employee’s defense.

“See that?” said the woman, who turned to Rachel Lopez, saw the Latina in her skin and eyes, thought better of it, and turned away. She focused her gaze on Lorenzo Brown, who stood beside Rachel. “ You see, right? People come in here, takin’ our jobs, can’t even speak our language, how the fuck you think they can do some simple-ass shit like fix a submarine sandwich?” She looked back at the woman making the sub. “That’s right. Put some more meat on there like I told you to.” She rested a hand on her hip, her voice dying down to a mumble. “Tryin’ to cheat a woman up in here.”

Rachel Lopez and Lorenzo Brown got their subs, paid for them separately, and walked out into the sun.

They sat in Rachel’s Honda because Lorenzo said the van smelled like piss. The day before, Jerry, one of his fellow officers who was driving that particular Astra, had transported a cat in a cage, and the cat had shaken and peed all the way to the shelter. Jerry had apparently forgotten to clean the bottom of the cage at the end of his shift.

Lorenzo couldn’t help noticing that Miss Lopez’s car was as messed up and unclean as the van. Empty Starbucks cups and gum wrappers littered the faded mats, sprinkled with ashes, that covered the floorboards. A whole rack of paperwork and files had been carelessly tossed on the backseat. A couple of green little-tree deodorizers hung from the rearview mirror, but the interior of the Honda still carried the smell of nicotine.

Least it didn’t smell like urine. Cat pee was the worst. Lorenzo hated that smell. Unlike the earnest patchouli-oil-wearing types he worked with, he could never get used to that sour, nasty stench, and he couldn’t seem to get it out of his clothes. Now that he thought of it, patchouli oil, whatever that junk was, it turned his stomach too.

“Tuna’s good at this one,” said Rachel, wiping a bit of it off the side of her mouth.

“They do it right,” said Lorenzo.

Rachel dug into the rest of her sub as Lorenzo devoured his. She had asked for hot peppers, and the woman behind the counter had been generous with them. Rachel craved the spice. It was always like that when she was feeling poorly behind drink. Her body had been depleted of something and was begging to get it back.

They finished eating without speaking further. Rachel had turned on one of those radio stations played country, her music, and a song Lorenzo did not recognize and would never want to hear again was coming at a low volume from the dash. The two of them were out of the same era but had different taste.

“So,” said Rachel, after consolidating all of her trash in one bag and dropping it behind her to the floor of the backseat. “How’s it going?”

“All good,” said Lorenzo, his usual reply.

Rachel Lopez nodded and looked at Lorenzo directly, trying to draw his eyes to her. She was good at this, pulling him in.

“It is good,” he said.

“Nice to hear it,” said Rachel. “Piece of cake, right?”

“Got its ups and downs,” said Lorenzo. “Most times I get up in the morning, I’m anxious to get off to work. But some days? I just don’t feel like dealing with people. You know, all those things people do that get on your last nerve. I’m talking about the politics and all in the day-to-day. Gives me headaches.”

“Welcome to the grind.”

“But still, it’s goin’ fine.”

“You feel that way, you’re doing better than most.”

He looked at her, and her eyes smiled. Miss Lopez had pretty brown eyes, even without makeup. She tried to hide her looks, tried to hide the things about her that were physically attractive, her figure, everything. But she couldn’t hide that nice spirit. With good people it just came through.

Showed you, the way you judged someone up front, it could be all wrong. But how she’d acted the first time they’d met, he figured that was deliberate.

When he’d first come out of prison, he’d been contacted with a written notice and follow-up phone call, and told to report to a Miss Lopez, his probation officer, out in some office building in Prince George’s County, over in Maryland, within seventy-two hours. After going through a metal detector, he sat in a waiting room like a doctor’s, had girl magazines all round: Rosie, Good Housekeeping, stuff like that. He was wondering why they didn’t have any reading material for men, car magazines or SI, ’cause it had to be mostly men waiting out in this lobby. Then Miss Lopez came in, wearing a middle-age lady outfit like she had on now. She shook his hand, her eyes cool, telling him that this was business and she was all business, and that was how it was going to be.

They went into a room, looked like any interrogation room he’d been in at any police station, scarred table, blank walls, all of them like the rest. She didn’t offer him coffee or a soda or nothing like that.

Miss Lopez then went over form number 7A, which described the conditions of his probation, point by point. Most of the rules any fool could have guessed. He couldn’t commit any more crimes, couldn’t own a firearm or any other “dangerous device” or weapon, and had to “refrain” from the use of controlled substances. As he was a convicted drug felon, he also had to submit to regular drug testing. He couldn’t leave the judicial district (for him that meant D.C., Maryland, and Northern Virginia) without permission, was required to notify his parole officer as to any change of address, refrain from frequenting places where illegal substances were being distributed, refrain from excessive use of alcohol, notify his PO of any arrests (including traffic violations), and meet his “family responsibilities,” which meant child support. He was to tell the truth at all times. And, Miss Lopez said, the most important requirement was he had to maintain lawful employment.

“It means you’ve got to hold down a job,” she’d said, like he didn’t understand the official words.

“That’s not gonna be a problem.”

“I know it’s not. You have to work.”

“What I mean is, I’m close to gettin’ something already.”

Miss Lopez sat back and folded her arms, the universal don’t-bullshit-me sign. “What would that be?”

“I’m about to get a position with the Animal Rescue League,” said Lorenzo.

“Over there on Oglethorpe?”

“Yeah. Yes. They gonna hire me, I expect. I’m pretty sure I gave a good interview. And I didn’t hide nothin’, either. The man in charge there, he knows all about my incarceration.”

Miss Lopez pointed to number 13 on the form. “He would have to. Understand, any job you get, I’d visit you from time to time at the site.”

“I figured all that,” said Lorenzo. “Anyway, I should know if I got it or not real soon. Couple of days, tops.”

Miss Lopez had looked at him different right about then. The cool in her eyes kind of melted away. She didn’t act all nice to him sudden or anything like that. That would come later. She’d do her home visit, and then he’d start to meet with her in her own personal office, not in that box. And she’d gradually begin to treat him like an acquaintance and, later, almost like a friend. She was like those teachers you’d have back in grade and middle school, the ones you didn’t think you were gonna get along with. The ones who acted the toughest in the beginning, who laid down the ground rules from the start. Those were the ones you ended up respecting most, and remembering long after the school year had passed.

“Why?” said Rachel Lopez.

“Why that job?”

“Yes.”

“I believe I can do it, for one. Matter of fact, I know I can.”

Lorenzo went on to explain about the program he’d gotten hooked up with in prison. They had this thing where the inmates could get involved in the training of dogs. These were animals that had been selected to be guides and companions to blind folks, handicapped, the elderly, shut-ins, and the like. Lorenzo had signed up for the program and, once involved, found he had the aptitude for it.

“You like animals?” said Rachel, her arms now uncrossed, the tone in her voice less hard.

“Always did,” said Lorenzo.

“You grew up with dogs?”

“No, I never did own no animals myself. Well, that’s not right, exactly. I did have this kitten I hid for a while, from my mother, when she was around. Before I went to stay with my grandmother.”

Lorenzo shifted his position in his seat. The chairs they had in that room were hard. Plus, he was uncomfortable talking about himself to this stranger. But he had started it now, and the words, for some reason, were tumbling out.

“I found this kitten in the alley where we stayed at the time, in Congress Heights. Down there near Ballou, in Southeast?”

“I know the neighborhood. I’ve had a few offenders down there over the years.”

“That ain’t no surprise.”

Rachel Lopez, with an uptick of her chin, told him to keep talking.

“I was just a young kid,” said Lorenzo. “Seven, somethin’ like that. This was just before my mother went away. Before I moved over to my grandmother’s in Northwest. I came up on these kids in the alley, they were gonna drown these kittens in a washtub back there, said one of their mothers had told them to do it. I snatched one out of there right quick and ran to my house. I couldn’t save them all, so I just took the one.

“I knew my mother would get all siced if I brought an animal into our house. She was… she couldn’t handle much of nothin’ by then, you want the truth. An animal in the house, I knew that would set her off. So I kept it hid for a while. Looking back on it, wasn’t no way my mom didn’t know. You can’t hide that smell. I was takin’ tuna fish and bits of chicken out the fridge for that kitten too.”

“What happened?”

Lorenzo shrugged. “Kitten got out. I suspect my mother put it out. Dog in the alley got hold of it, killed it dead. My first lesson in the laws of nature. I wasn’t angry at that dog or nothin’. Dog was just doin’ its job.”

Seemed like Rachel Lopez stared at him a long while then. Finally she said, “Well, I hope you get that position.”

“I aim to get it,” he said.

He did. But he didn’t last more than a few months on Oglethorpe Street. They were just warehousing animals there, doing nothing active about helping the ones in peril on the street, and he was no more than a paper pusher. After all that time in a cell, he didn’t want to be walled in, sitting behind some desk. From a coworker at the Rescue League, Brown heard about an opening at the Humane Society, where officers were honest-to-God investigators, empowered through a charter of Congress to seek out violations and violators of animal health and rights.

Irena Tovar, the woman who ran the Humane Society office on Georgia Avenue, gave him an extensive interview. First thing off, she asked him about the specific nature of his criminal charges. Brown figured she wanted to know if he had a rape or domestic abuse or something like it on his record. He told her of his drug offenses, leaving out the violent acts of his past and anything else for which he had never been arrested or charged. She said she had no problem with the fact that he had done time or that he was under supervision. She said that she believed in redemption and she hoped that he believed in it too.

Miss Tovar had hired him, and he had been at it since. He had found it odd, at first, to be wearing a uniform and a badge, especially while he was still on paper, just strange to be on “the other side.” Strange too that he took to it so quick. From his first day out there, it was like he had slipped his hand into a broke-in glove.

“Lorenzo,” said Rachel Lopez, pulling him back into the present. He stared out across the parking lot at the Capital City Market, where all those Asians and other ethnics had their wholesale food businesses.

“Yes?”

“You been by the clinic lately?”

“I been meaning to go.”

“You need to get by the clinic and drop a urine.”

“I will. You know I’m gonna drop a negative too.”

“No doubt,” said Rachel. “You still need to do it.”

“I will. But look, I did have a beer or two this week.”

“I don’t have any problem with that. Your agreement talks about excessive alcohol use. Doesn’t mean you can’t live a life.”

You live one too, thought Lorenzo. I can smell that wine or liquor, or whatever you had last night, coming through your skin right now. In the summertime, when you sweat, it’s real plain. Also, when we meet real early in the mornings, I see how your face is kinda puffy and your eyes be all red. So you’re human; you got your problems like everyone else. Like they say at the meetings: Don’t judge.

“How’s everything else?” said Rachel, cutting her eyes away from his, reading his look. “How’s your daughter?”

Lorenzo nodded, seeing a little Chinese girl standing outside one of the markets, holding some kind of toy in her hand. “I guess she’s good.”

“Her name is -”

“Shay,” said Brown. “I see her, but her mother doesn’t let me talk to her.”

“Ever?”

“Shay don’t even know who I am. I went in a few months before she was born.”

“You talked to the mother about it?”

“I tried. Sherelle ain’t lookin’ to bring me into my little girl’s world. I been putting some money aside for Shay. Just a little bit, understand? But I been doin’ it every month. It’ll help with her college someday, she wants to go.”

“That’s good, Lorenzo.”

“I’m gonna stay on it. I want her to know me. I don’t expect her to love me or nothin’ like that, but still.”

“Maybe in time.”

“Speakin’ of which,” said Lorenzo, glancing at his watch. “I got some calls.”

“Me too. You just keep doing what you’re doing, hear?”

“I plan to.” Lorenzo shook her hand and opened the passenger door of the Honda. “Have a good one, Miss Lopez.”

“You also.”

She watched him go to the Dumpster in the Subway lot, deposit his trash, then walk to his van.

Lorenzo was trying. He was not as pure as he made himself out to be in her presence, but he was one of the better ones. He had chosen a road now and he wanted to stay on it.

She had felt the day she’d met him that he would make the effort. The fact that he worked well with animals, that was a good sign. Most of the time she put little stock in reports and statistics, but studies did show that animal-friendly inmates had lower rates of recidivism. She believed that people who were good to animals had more human potential than those who were not. That was just common sense.

Rachel wasn’t naive. Lorenzo had committed some crimes, most likely, that were not in his jacket. To go as far as he had in the game, he almost certainly was involved in acts of violence. Perhaps he’d even killed. At the very least he had done some bad things beyond the mechanics of dealing drugs. But she did not think that the Lorenzo Brown she knew in the present was a bad man.

She could tell this by looking in his eyes.