Head Wounds

FOURTEEN

ABOUT A MONTH after I’d modified Tony Vaneer’s Vermont ski hideaway, I woke up on the floor of a sweltering room in Bridgeport, Connecticut. For most of that month I’d been drinking Jack Daniels on the rocks, when rocks were available, or straight up in a plastic cup when they weren’t. I’m not sure if I got through a whole bottle each day. I’d buy the stuff by the case and by the end of the day any form of arithmetic was way beyond the possible. Recollection was also a challenge—degraded further by waking up in a lot of different places, few involving a bed.

This time it was a floor, a solid hardwood floor painted dark red, which is how I interpreted my first waking sight. As I gained an addled, blurry form of consciousness, I went to sit up. That’s when I noticed the broken ribs, which felt like a sharp knife being slipped into my lungs. A startled little squawk came out of my mouth, and I fell back on the floor.

The room wasn’t entirely fixed in place. It tilted and turned with nauseating bumps and jolts. I forced my mind to calm down and took slow, deep breaths, testing the limits.

I felt around for wounds or blood, locating the center of the pain, but nothing else. The blood was all on the floor; it wasn’t paint. Some of it was mine, I concluded from the stinging clot on my lip and the reddish brown spray down the front of my shirt. The rest belonged to the dead man propped up against the wall directly across the room from where I lay. Everything between the bottom of his sternum and above his belt was rust-colored spongy looking slop. A river of blood had traveled down his left side and fanned out across the floor.

I sat up against the wall, imitating the other man’s position. There wasn’t much else in the room. An overstuffed sofa decorated with swatches of half-completed needlepoint, a couple of rolling office chairs, an upended coffee table and a floor covered in cans, bottles, titty magazines and buckets of take-out chicken, the bones strewn everywhere—some afloat in the sea of blood—plus a rusty old Frigidaire and a gigantic TV balanced precariously on a pair of milk cartons. Two windows, one door. No pictures on the walls, no written explanation of how I got there or why my blood was mingling with a dead man’s.

I gathered myself together for about a half hour before trying to stand. By then it was almost easy. I leaned against the wall and felt for my wallet. It was still there, stocked with cash. I opened and shut my hands, breaking open scabs across the knuckles, getting the circulation flowing and loosening the jammed-up joints.

I’d been in a half dozen full-out fistfights in various bars, clubs and street corners that month, that I remembered. But I couldn’t recall where I got the fat lip. It was too fresh. Must have come along with the ribs.

On the other side of the door was another room. Nobody was there, dead or alive. I went from there into the kitchen where I washed out the gash with dish soap. I took a Salem out of a crushed pack on the drainboard and lit it with the gas stove. The menthol fumes went great with the hangover and the coppery taste of my busted lip. I caught sight of myself in a mirror. Along with the split lip I had a black and purple bruise over my right eye. My beard was about a week old, grayer than my hair. I was grateful that my eyes were too bleary to see much else.

I found my silk baseball jacket hanging behind the front door. It had been a dusty taupe color when Abby had given it to me. Now it was hard to tell. I zipped it up over the filthy shirt and went down two flights of stairs and out to the sidewalk in search of a drink. I recognized the neighborhood. Crossing the street to get a better perspective on the apartment building, more of my memory trickled back in.

I’d gone to the building with my friend Antoine Bick and his cousin Walter, the guys I’d hired to help me gut Abby’s house. It actually took us the whole day and most of the night to get the stuff into a pair of semis, including extras like hardwood floors, ceramic tile and the custom kitchen she’d just finished installing. Abby was still in Europe with Tony Vaneer, so we had the leeway to execute a thorough and professional job. Whatever the team didn’t want for themselves we took down to New Jersey and dumped in a landfill.

Antoine was gracious enough to let me stick around after that, or thought it too much trouble to tell me to get lost. I’d been hanging with him and Walter and two or three other associates, whose social life entailed a zesty mixture of sugary alcohol, exasperated but hopelessly charmed young women, illegal drugs and gang warfare. They mostly let me settle my own disputes, usually the result of being a middle-aged white guy in traditional Levi’s, button-down dress shirt and silk jacket, smoking filtered Camels in clubs and apartments that hadn’t seen a white face since the death of Martin Luther King had brought out the riot squad.

Things leveled out after they started calling me CB, which I later learned was short for Charles Bronson, growing out of my original moniker, Death Wish.

“Don’t go dissin’ the old ghost, dog,” Antoine would tell the occasional challenger. “He got a mental situation. And hits like a motherfucker.”

As I got my bearings, I knew where to go from there. I started to walk down the street, but then yielded to the perverse urge to jog. My ribs lit up with every stride, but I could still get enough air in my lungs to allow a slow but steady pace, which is how I usually ran anyway.

People on the sidewalk moved cautiously out of the way. They didn’t know what I was about, but assumed it couldn’t be anything good.

There was a breakfast joint on a corner a few blocks away that served heart-choking mounds of colorful local cuisine and fat doughy hard rolls with bottomless cups of charred coffee. Antoine loved the place because it was owned by his late mother’s best friend, a woman named Éclair, the appropriateness of which nobody had the courage to point out when she was within earshot.

“Hey, CB,” yelled Walter, seeing me come in, “you ain’t dead.”

Antoine looked genuinely glad about it. The others were perplexed.

“Éclair, get this man a coffee,” said Antoine. “Can’t live without the shit. If you please, ma’am,” he added when she shot him a baleful look over the Formica counter.

I sat in the booth, squeezing a wiry little speedball named Franklin Leghorn into the corner, and lit a Camel.

“You might’ve checked my pulse,” I said to Antoine.

“Sorry, man. The way Darrin was goin’ at you with the butt of that gun, I figured you for white meat tartar.”

“Who’s Darrin?” I gripped my midsection as a jolt of pain streaked across my ribs. “What happened back there?”

“You’re messin’ with me.”

“No. I can’t remember. Not quite,” I said, after thanking Éclair for the chewable coffee, which she’d learned to give me as a double in a tall Styrofoam cup.

“Fuck, man,” said Antoine. “Darrin got aberrant with this evil little shotgun. I don’t know what set him off.”

“You fed him enough crack to get all’a Bridgeport high, then tole him his bitch been fuckin’ some Chinaman sellin’ fruit outta the back of his Expedition,” said Walter.

“I did? That was inauspicious.”

“CB save our ass,” said Walter to Antoine.

Antoine looked embarrassed.

“I sincerely thought you was dead,” he said to me. “Darrin come out with this sawed-off, lookin’ like he’s plannin’ to ventilate the room. Then you’re in his face, screamin’ shit, grabbin’ at the barrel of that gun. We’s all tryin’ to find cover in Darrin’s fucked-up little crib, while you and my boy’re beatin’ on each other like psycho versus psycho. Old Darrin was givin’ me the look of hate when he wasn’t workin’ on shootin’ your ass. You really don’t remember this shit?”

In truth, some of it was coming back. I’d actually had most of the outline when I woke up, but I thought it was a dream. Or some execrable phantasm courtesy of all the bourbon I’d been drinking.

“Yeah,” I told him. “I think I remember. I shouldn’t be drinking so much. Degrades the mental acuity.”

Everybody smiled at that.

“If that’s the case, CB, your acuity be turnin’ into some sorry shit,” said Franklin, earnestly.

“So who shot Darrin?” I asked the table. The smiles disappeared and everybody but Antoine started looking around the room.

“Not entirely certain about that, CB,” he said. “With all the screamin’ and commotion, you tryin’ to get the gun from Darrin and him beatin’ on you and swingin’ around that ugly little barrel, it just went off.”

“Went off?”

Walter sighed a loud sigh.

“Here’s the way it went down,” he said, waiting quietly to get full command of the floor. “Darrin come bustin’ in yellin’ he gonna smoke Antoine, throwin’ in some derogatory nonsense we don’t have to dwell on here.”

“That’s right,” said Antoine.

“That’s when CB does the kamikaze thing with the screamin’ and grabbin’ at the sawed-off. The point is, Darrin can’t get the muzzle pointin’ where he wants to, so he’s smackin’ CB with the barrel like this,” he demonstrated a vigorous two-handed thrust that caused Jared, the guy next to him, to lean out of the way.

“Damn, Walter, not so realistic.”

“And then jammin’ the butt of the gun in CB’s guts like this,” said Walter, pantomiming the action.

“He’d’a shot you dead if it weren’t for us jumpin’ on the barrel of that gun,” said Franklin to me. “Darrin had some kind of supernatural strength in him, that’s for certain.”

Walter shot a withering look at Franklin, who raised his hands, then did the zipper-my-mouth move across his lips. Walter sighed again and pressed on.

“Like the man said, we all jump in on things, but then Darrin got clear of everybody for a moment, and had that piece leveled at my chest, which I personally assumed was the moment of truth for yours truly, but for some reason he decide to use that golden opportunity to jam the butt end one more time straight into CB’s face, which I agree with Antoine should’ve been the curtain call for your ass. CB goes flyin’, and Franklin here, wriggly little fucker that he is, gets back in Darrin’s face before he can swing the sawed-off back into the game.”

“See, Antoine. I tole you that,” said Franklin. “You gotta start believin’ me when I tell you shit.”

Antoine looked conciliatory.

“Sorry, man. You’re right about that,” said Antoine.

“So, basically,” said Walter to me, “you was out cold when that gun went off. So cold we figure you was dead or about to be. I’m not sure why you ain’t dead, like you oughta be, but that’s a question for modern science, which ain’t at our immediate disposal.”

“We shot the motherfucker, is what he’s sayin’,” said Jared.

“Shot him with his own piece,” Franklin added.

“And was gonna say it was you that done it, since you was dead anyway and past the point of arguing,” said Walter. “And before you get all indignant about it, you gotta admit, it was a natural decision.”

“Or tell the truth. Simple self-defense,” I said.

They all looked at me piteously.

“We all gonna pretend that’s sheer naivety on your part,” said Antoine.

“Okay,” I said. “Sorry. Being dead, even temporarily, slows your mental faculties.”

“You got that right,” said Franklin.

“What’s the difference between faculties and acuities?” asked Jared.

“Only one of ‘em got tenure,” said Antoine, grinning at me, the only one in the room likely to get the joke.

“Where’s the shotgun?” I asked, eliciting more patient, knowing looks.

“Where nobody ever gonna see it again. Maybe in a million years when some archeologists be excavating Bridgeport,” said Antoine.

“Not much reason to be doin’ that,” said Walter, “‘less they studyin’ lifestyles of the beaten down and fucked up.”

“So nobody called the cops,” I said.

“We was still debatin’ the options,” said Antoine. “And now you throw a wrench in the only plan we all liked.”

I had to admit I wasn’t going to be much strategic help. I was a little preoccupied trying to separate the alcohol poisoning from the broken ribs, smashed-in mouth and emerging headache. It wasn’t getting any easier to breathe, and the possibility of internal injuries was haunting the fringes of my ground-up consciousness. I might have considered driving to a hospital if I still had my car, the slick import I was getting around to returning to the company when it disappeared at some time from some place, neither of which I could quite remember. Instead, I grappled with the decision of what to have for breakfast, checking out the half-eaten meals around the table for inspiration.

I’d picked well, judging from the first half of the meal, though the ultimate outcome was undecided after a small army of Bridgeport city cops arrived.

——

The criminal justice system seems to operate in several different dimensions at once. There’s the one we all want to believe in, the one described by officials invited to address a sixth grade civics class. There are the various versions seen on television and at the movies. There’s the cynic’s dimension, where criminal justice is all venality and corruption, a cruel oxymoron. Then there’s a dimension no one outside the system itself really knows or understands, guided by precedents and protocols both ancient and improvised, where there’s plenty of justice in the true sense meted out every day, though the process defies common wisdom and experience.

It was in this context that I found myself sitting at a large, beat-up wooden table in a precinct house somewhere in Bridgeport chatting with investigators from two different judicial districts. One Fairfield, which included Bridgeport, and one Stamford, my former hometown.

My legal status at that point was cloudy at best. They’d brought me in on a warrant from Stamford in connection with a massive act of vandalism. It was committed at a house in the leafy section of town known for its stone-walled colonialism and pre-postmodern cubes.

“That’s my house. You can’t arrest me for gutting my own house,” I told the guy from Stamford, who was frowning into a manila folder full of paperwork.

“The complaint was signed by an Abigail Acquillo.”

“That’s my wife. Until she divorces me. Then she’ll likely get what’s left of the house. On a very nice lot, she’ll tell you.”

“It says here you two’re divorced.”

“Not until I sign something. And I haven’t signed anything.”

The guy looked unconvinced.

“You can’t just tear apart a woman’s house.”

“You can if you’re properly motivated.”

“While you’re here,” said the cop from Bridgeport, impatient with his colleague from Stamford, “we thought you might tell us what you know about Darrin Eavenston.”

“He’s dead.”

“We know that. We told you that.”

“Not me. You told Antoine when you arrested him and his crew.”

“You weren’t on the list. We didn’t know about you,” said the Bridgeport cop.

“Pays to keep a low profile,” I told him.

“Not low enough,” said the cop from Stamford.

“Besides the vandalism thing, you’re apparently a missing person,” said the Bridgeport cop. “Your wife is seriously looking for you.”

“Wants me to sign something.”

“So what about Darrin?” he asked.

Then I realized what was going on.

“You want me to tell you about the shooting in return for help on this Stamford thing?” I asked.

“We’re not saying that. You’re saying that. We’re just asking you if you know anything about Darrin Eavenston, right Cliff?” he asked the Stamford cop.

“Yeah,” said Cliff. “Before I haul you back home.”

I still wasn’t feeling all that great, having had only a little of Éclair’s cooking and coffee and a few hours to move from partial intoxication to an all-out hangover. I wondered what the precinct policy was on serving cocktails to vandalism suspects.

“You guys have any coffee?” I asked. “Black’s fine. Espresso’s even better, if you have it.

“You want that in a demitasse?”

“Go ahead, Bernie,” said Cliff. “I’ll watch him.”

Bernie shrugged and left us.

“There’s a bit of a flaw in your strategy here,” I told Cliff. “What’s that?”

“You’re trying to threaten me with something I’m not afraid of, to coerce me into talking about something I’d talk about for free.”

Cliff’s confidence might have wavered at that point, but it didn’t show. What he knew was that he had a warrant in his pocket. Anything else he heard was for somebody else to sort out.

My admiration for the Bridgeport police went up considerably when Bernie came back with an excellent cup of French vanilla.

“Okay Bernie,” said Cliff, “we had a little talk while you were out. He’s ready to give it up.” And then he winked at me.

“Excellent,” I said, toasting the air between me and the cops.

Bernie pulled out a small pad and a pen.

“You talk, I write.”

I spent the next hour describing the scene in the apartment the way I thought it probably unfolded. I didn’t know how well any of it would be corroborated by the other guys, but I had some faith that the Bicks would stick to the story Walter had laid out at Éclair’s, knowing it was the only one I had to work with and, if believed, sympathetic to their cause. As it turned out, my narrative, designed to flow seamlessly into an unimpeachable case of self-defense, turned out to fit neatly with the cousins’ testimony.

That it came from me, a white, heretofore law-abiding corporate executive, albeit recently degraded, was probably the deciding factor in ultimately absolving the whole crew. None of which I knew at the time, or even cared about as the world inside the interrogation room blurred around the edges and the two cops started to sound like they were talking inside an echo chamber.

I tried to point this out to them, but they didn’t seem to notice until I threw up Éclair’s breakfast and Bernie’s cup of French vanilla and passed out face down in the result.

——

So I got my hospital stay anyway, which settled the question of internal injuries, which I didn’t have, and raised the issue of a concussion, which I did.

I was surprised to learn from Cliff McCloskey, the Stamford cop, that I hadn’t signed the divorce papers, but I had signed over the house in a quit-claim transaction weeks before. With all the frivolity this had slipped my mind. Not that remembering would have changed what I did.

Cliff was there to greet me back into reasonable consciousness. He escorted me over to Stamford, where I was scheduled to consult with the Stamford DA. She’d just had a meeting with her counterpart in Bridgeport, who’d asked for her help in brokering my ongoing cooperation in the Darrin Eavenston thing.

So I spent a few agreeable hours with Cliff and the DA, a young woman aging before her time under the stress of her job. We hit it off for a bunch of reasons, including some shared marital difficulties. The upshot was she offered me a deal. Cliff told me most people would recommend I get a lawyer, but if it was up to him, he’d just take the deal and thank his lucky stars. I told them I’d used up my lucky stars, but her deal sounded fine—a little time in detox, a fat check to Abby and a year’s probation, which included some time on the couch after the drying-out phase.

I took Cliff’s advice.

The abrupt end to my bottle-a-day medicinal program wasn’t the worst of it. It was the regular visit of the staff psychiatrist for whom I developed a thorough and abiding hatred, which eventually he came to devoutly return. A corruption of his professional standards over which I still feel a certain pride.

On the day they let me out another doc came to visit, this one a neurologist. He told me to try to avoid getting bashed in the head for at least the next few years.

“Nobody knows for sure, but concussions like this could lead to Parkinson’s, or worse,” he told me. “You won’t be the first boxer to be mumbling in his beer before you’re out of middle age. Though judging from your blood alcohol at admittance, booze’ll probably get there first.”

“That’s the competitive spirit for you.”

“It’s your life. Though you might think about the people who love you before you throw it all away.”

“Too late for that, doc,” I told him. “Nobody does and it’s already gone.”

——

I did manage to live long enough to get another concussion about four years later when a thug named Buddy Florin sucker punched me while I was standing at a urinal. The doc that time said it had to be my last one if I had hopes of keeping my faculties, acuities or any other mental function reasonably intact.

So Ross Semple was at least right about one thing.

There was something wrong with my head that getting hit wouldn’t likely improve. And it frightened me, to a depth and degree I didn’t like thinking about. Probably because there was something else wrong with my head, this related to multiple beatings of an entirely different kind.