King Suckerman

Eleven

Dimitri Karras woke early on Friday morning, started some coffee, watched the rise and fall of Vivian Lee’s back as she lay sleeping on the couch. The coffee perked, and Karras shook Vivian awake. She greeted him with stale breath and went to the bathroom to wash up and brush her teeth.

They took their coffee by the window in the morning sun. From his seat Karras could see Duncan Hazlewood and Libby Howland leave the Trauma Arms and walk toward Connecticut for their breakfast at Schwartze’s.

“You get in late last night?” said Vivian.

“Yeah.”

“I guess I fell asleep in front of the tube.”

“You did.”

“That reefer kinda knocked me out. You always get weed good as Eddie’s, Dimitri?”

“Always,” said Karras with a smile. The same response he had given Donna DiConstanza at Benbow’s. Karras, even with the smell of Donna still on him from the night before, unable to stop himself from giving Vivian the same tired response.

Vivian’s long black hair gleamed in the light. You can always look good in the morning when you’re young, thought Karras. There had been heavy baggage under his eyes when he had had his first look at himself in the bathroom mirror that morning.

“I was looking through your bookshelf,” said Vivian. “You’ve got quite a selection.”

“Yeah, I’m hooked up.”

“I like to read.”

“It’s one of those good habits.”

“You’ve got a lot of interesting books.”

“Some of those are from a class I taught out at College Park while I was getting my master’s.”

“In literature?”

“Yep.”

“So you did some time in graduate school.” Vivian pushed a strand of hair away from her eyes. “That what kept you out of the war?”

“Who said I stayed out?”

“You don’t have the look. Like you’ve seen something that made you lose something else forever. You’re too... I don’t know. You look too privileged. Nothing’s hit you yet.”

“A moving target, sweetheart. That’s me.” Karras looked into his coffee cup. “You’re pretty smart, Vivian. Pretty observant. For a nineteen year old—”

“I’m gonna be twenty next month.”

“Okay. But you’re still pretty smart.”

“So that’s it, right? You stayed in school to get the deferment.”

“Yeah. I took it to the legal limit. My mother used a part of her insurance money, from when my father died, to keep me in school. By the time my number came up the draft was over. So, yeah, you’re right. I’ve been privileged, I guess. Much more privileged than a lot of my friends.”

“Were you against the war?”

“I never met anyone who was for it. But I can’t say I went out in the streets or protested against it or anything like that. In the end, I was just against dying.”

“I’m glad you didn’t go.”

“Thanks.”

Vivian reached out, ran her finger along Karras’s laugh line, touched his mouth. “You’re kinda cute, Dimitri, you know it?”

“I’m cute, all right.” Karras took her hand, placed it gently down on the table. “Let’s get out of here, okay? I got a few things to do this morning. I need to get an early start.”

Karras and Vivian left the apartment and walked south. The sidewalks were dense with people, tourists in for the big Sunday show. The papers, the TV news, all the stories were on the upcoming Bicentennial bash. The carpenters had been hammering down on the Mall for weeks now.

Karras was relieved when Vivian told him she wanted to spend the day hanging at the circle. He gave her his duplicate apartment key, left her with a girl she recognized at the fountain, told her he’d see her later, and got on his way.

Karras went down below the circle to the Jefferson Coffee Shop on 19th, entered the narrow city diner through a glass door tied open with heavy string. The open door told him that the Jefferson’s air conditioner had gone down once again. He had a seat on an orange stool at the end of the counter next to a guy named Dale, the huge but gentle bouncer who worked the Brickskeller, a glorified beer garden on 22nd above P.

“Hey, Dale.”

“Dimitri.”

“How’s it goin’?”

“Goin’ good.”

It was that time between breakfast and lunch when the lawyers, government types, and IBM repairmen were already hard at work, and the local restaurant workers were just starting their day. Moe and Terry, a couple of waiters from the Palm, the pricey steak-and-lobster house next door, sat in the middle of the counter, laughing about something that had happened at a four-top the night before.

Pete, the Greek who owned the place, walked down to Karras, set a cup of coffee in front of him, took his order, said, “Okay, young fella,” went back to the grill, and cracked open a couple of eggs with one hand. Like Karras’s old man, who had also been named Pete, the Jefferson’s Pete was a veteran of the Philippine campaign of World War II. This Pete did not know Dimitri’s father, but he had heard of him. Peter Karras had died under violent, mysterious circumstances in 1949. About his father Dimitri Karras knew little else.

Karras liked the Jefferson. They never broke the yolks on his easy overs, and as far as lunch deals went, the Royalburger with shoestring fries was one of the best combos in town. Pete, reserved in a friendly kind of way, had recently returned to the store after a long illness; his teenaged son had stepped up to run the place for the last six months while his father recovered. The son, a skinny, Camaro-driving, outgoing kid with shoulder-length curls, was in the back of the coffee shop, talking and joking with the dishwasher, a boy everyone called Butterball, and the grill-girl, another teenager from the Shaw part of town. She was keeping up with the conversation while singing along to Hot Chocolate’s “You Sexy Thing,” which was blasting from the house radio. In the Jefferson, the radio dial was always set on WOL, except for that period after lunch when Lula, the booth and counter waitress, was allowed her hour of gospel. Karras came here in the mornings for breakfast and a daily dose of Top 40 funk.

A leggy blond secretary came in for some carry-out, endured the burning eyes of all the men at the counter while she waited for her food. She left hurriedly. Dale and Karras discussed the Wayne Hays affair, an exchange prompted, of course, by the Liz Ray look-alike who had just left.

“Wayne Hayes,” said Dale, shaking his head. “Man lost everything for a piece of tail. Can you believe it?”

Karras said, “I can.”

Karras left three on two twenty-nine and stepped out of the Jefferson into the prenoon heat. He walked north, pointedly going around the circle rather than through it, stopping once or twice to talk to friends, passing girl-watching businessmen, stoners, cruising homosexuals, short-skirted secretaries, doe-faced chicken hawks eyeing little boys, the whole Dupont stew. A pimp-wagon Lincoln rolled up Connecticut, heavy wah-wah guitar and bass pounding from its open windows; a quick-footed, bearded Arnold and Porter messenger wearing a Rock ’n’ Roll Animal T-shirt waved to Karras from across the avenue.

Karras stopped at Real Right Records above R, stepped into the store. They had a Graham Central Station tune, an epic instrumental workout called “The Jam,” cranking through the house KLMs. Cheek was in the corner of the shop, talking to a P-Funk-loving regular, a kid named Mills with a major-league Afro, who had his own personal copy of Standing on the Verge of Getting It On cradled under his arm. Mills claimed to have Parliament’s Osmium on the Invictus label in his private collection. Cheek had never actually seen it, though, and had repeatedly asked Mills to bring the proof into the store. Cheek and Mills had gotten past that now and were arguing about the meaning of a certain cut off Maggot Brain.

Rasheed stood behind the counter, gave Karras an eye sweep. Karras nodded, and Rasheed nodded back. He head-motioned Karras to the back room.

Marcus Clay sat doing the books at an old desk amongst general clutter and cartons of stock, squinting in the dim light. He looked up as Karras entered.

“Mitri.”

“Marcus.”

“What’s goin’ on?”

“Marvin Gaye.”

“What you doin’ today, man? Anything? Or you just wanderin’ around?”

“Got a little business to take care of.”

“Business, huh?”

“Yeah. After that, maybe go out and see my mom.”

“Tell her I said hey.”

“I will.”

Clay rubbed his face, looked through the open door frame leading to the floor. “Damn, those boys are playin’ that Larry Graham loud.”

“Ain’t No Bout-a-Doubt It.”

“You agree!”

“I’m sayin’ that’s the name of the LP.”

“Whatever the name, it’s still too goddamn loud.”

“You got a record store here, Marcus.”

“Now you’re gonna tell me how to run my shop?”

“Just pointing it out.” Karras had a seat on the edge of Clay’s desk. “What’s up, man? What’s botherin’ you?”

“The money and shit.” Clay dropped his pencil on his desk. “Still haven’t figured out what to do about that. Damn fool thing I did.”

“You haven’t heard from anyone yet, have you?”

“Not a damn thing yet.”

“Then relax. We’re all right.”

Clay looked up. “Where’s your girl?”

“Out.”

“You—?”

“Uh-uh.”

Clay grinned. “Showin’ some restraint. Not like you, man.”

Karras started to tell Clay about Donna DiConstanza and the Benbow’s men’s room the night before: how he’d gone out and just fucked someone, anyone, to keep himself from hitting on the teenage girl back at his crib.

“You know me, Marcus,” said Karras. “Just trying to do right.”

Clay, agitated and tight, stood up. “Goddamn, man, those boys just gotta turn that shit down!”

Karras followed Clay out to the floor. Clay went behind the counter as Rasheed stepped aside. Cheek and the Mills kid had kept up their intense discussion without missing a beat. Clay lowered the volume in the store.

“All right?” said Clay.

“Solid, boss,” said Rasheed.

“Hey, Marcus,” said Karras, who had stopped at the H bin of the store’s Rock section. “When you gonna get around to moving Jimi into Soul?”

“What?” said Clay.

“What, haven’t you ever listened to Band of Gypsys?” said Karras.

Rasheed laughed as Karras walked toward the door.

“Dimitri,” said Clay. “We still got a game this evening?”

“Chevy Chase Library,” said Karras.

“I was thinkin’, after that we could hook up at your place for a little thing. Listen to a few records, dance some.” Clay’s eyes smiled. “Me and Elaine, you and your... friend. You know?”

“Sounds good,” said Karras. “Later, Marcus. Later, Rasheed. Y’all take it light.”

Clay said, “You too.”

Rasheed stood on the throw rug covering the cash box in the floor. “You hear what your boy said about Hendrix?”

“Yeah,” said Clay, moving out from behind the counter. “Told you he was down.”

“He knows his music is all. But down? I wouldn’t go so far as all that.”

Clay grinned a little as he walked away.

Karras went back to his place, scaled out some ounces, bagged them, rolled a joint for himself. He made a couple of phone calls, put some ball clothes together with the herb into a gym bag, and left his apartment. He put the top down on his Karmann Ghia, slapped his eight-track of Johnny Winter And into the deck, and pulled out of his spot. Down on Corcoran Street he hooked up with a guy named Robert Berk, passed him three ounces of weed, took back a hundred and fifty in cash.

Karras took a few hits of Columbian while driving north through Rock Creek Park. He went slowly by a group of city kids riding tenspeeds showing orange flags; the kids blew whistles at him as he passed, Karras watching them in the rearview. The reefer had taken, Winter singing the Winwood-Capaldi song “No Time to Live,” Johnny’s junk-ravaged vocals going out against his own lovely blues guitar.

Riding high in the park in his sporty ragtop, the wind blowing back his long hair, Dimitri Karras smiled.