Shame the Devil

SIX

Roman Otis stepped up onstage. There were just a few people in the late-afternoon crowd, sitting at the bar. The joint was down on the east end of Sunset, just past Fountain, one of those places that served Tex-Mex as an afterthought. The sign said El Rancho, but in his mind Otis called the place El Roacho because he had seen plenty of them crawling the brick walls. No, he’d never eat the food at El Roacho, but they did have a nice karaoke machine set up with a premium sound system, and that was why he came. Otis had slipped the owner a few bucks to buy the tapes of some of those old ballads and midtempo tunes he loved so much.

Past the stage lights that shone in his eyes, Otis could make out silhouettes at the bar, a couple of Chicanos and a woman named Darcia, nice-lookin’ woman with a fat onion on her, who had come in to hear him sing. At the end of the bar sat Gus Lavonicus, top-heavy and kind of leaning to the side, with that cinder-block-of-flesh-looking head of his. Otis would be done in a few minutes, and Gus could have waited outside in the Lincoln. But Gus was a thoughtful kind of guy who liked to support Otis whenever he performed. Otis felt it was a damn shame that his sister and Gus weren’t getting along.

The music track began. Otis closed his eyes as his cue for the first verse neared, and then he jumped in. He kept time with his hand against his thigh, kept his other hand free to gesture along with the music. He thought of it as a kind of punctuation, what he liked to call his “hand expressions.” This would have been his signature as a performer had his life gone the other way. But it hadn’t gone the other way, and to get negative about that now went against his principles of positivity. He was fulfilled, in his own small way, just singing in places like this when he got the chance.

“So very hard to go,” sang Otis, “’cause I love you sooooo…”

Yeah, this was a good one. He sounded right, stretching out and bending those vowels against the Tower of Power horn section. This here was one of his favorites, had inspired him to get the custom-made “Back to Oakland” ID bracelet he wore.

“Thanks, y’all,” said Otis as the music ended, Gus and Darcia’s applause filling the dead air. “I appreciate it. I truly do.”

Otis stepped down off the stage and went to the bar. He put his car keys down in front of Lavonicus.

“Go ahead and get the Mark warmed up, Gus,” said Otis. “I’m right behind you, man.”

“You sounded good, bro,” said Lavonicus.

Lavonicus got off his stool, uncoiling to his full seven feet. He ducked his head to avoid a Budweiser mobile suspended from the ceiling as he turned. One of the Mexicans nudged the other as Lavonicus passed.

Otis pushed his long hair back off his shoulders, rubber-banded it in a tail. He said to Darcia, “Get up, baby. Let me have a look at what you got.”

Darcia stood up, smiled shyly, struck a pose. She wore cinnamon slacks with a matching top.

“Now turn around,” said Otis, and as she did, Otis nodded his head and said, “Yeah,” and “Uh-huh.”

“You like the way I look, Roman?”

“Baby, you know I do.”

“We gonna see each other tonight?”

“Wished I could, but I can’t. Gonna be out of town for a few weeks, I expect. But when I get back we’re gonna hook up, hear? Maybe I let you cook me a nice meal. Afterwards…” He leaned forward and whispered in her ear. She giggled as he brushed a hand across her hip.

“For real?” she said.

“I’m gonna get a nut in you real good, baby. I wouldn’t lie.”

Otis signaled the bartender with a finger-wave over Darcia’s glass. The drinks were cheap here, cheaper still this time of day. He left dollars on the bar, kissed Darcia on the neck, and walked across the wooden floor. Wasn’t no kind of trick to gettin’ pussy when you got down to it. You just needed to know how to talk to a woman, that was all.

“Say, man,” said Otis as he scanned to 100.3, L.A.’s slow-jam station, on the radio dial.

“What,” said Lavonicus.

“You get to keep one of those red, white, and blue balls when you came out of the league?”

Lavonicus breathed through his mouth as he thought it over. He had thick red clown lips and large gapped teeth. Otis found him to be an ugly man – like that Jaws-lookin’ sucker from that bad run of Bond movies – but he understood why his sister Cissy loved him. The man was as loyal as a spinster to her vibrator.

“Naw, I didn’t keep one,” Lavonicus said, his voice monotonous and deep.

“ ’Cause I’d pay good money to have me one of those with some of your old teammates’ autographs on it. Especially Marvin Barnes and Fly Williams. Listen, I was incarcerated when y’all were playin’, and they didn’t even televise those ABA games back then. But even so, Barnes and Williams were legends in the joint. Those were two black men who took shit from no one.”

“Barnes and Williams both ended up doing time.”

“That’s what I know.”

“Barnes.” Lavonicus shook his head. “He could party all night and still play. Fly gave himself that nickname, but nobody was more fly than Marvin Barnes. The man drove a Rolls-Royce, wore a full-length mink, platform shoes… shit.”

“Y’all had Maurice Lucas, right?”

“Uh-huh. Freddie Lewis, too. Caldwell Jones…”

“And Moses Malone?”

“For a while.”

“Shoot, man, why didn’t you win the championship?”

“We beat the Nets and Dr. J. in the first round of the play-offs.”

“Yeah, I remember that.”

“But the Kentucky Colonels took us to school after that. Hell, Roman, we were just out there having fun.” Lavonicus smiled. His knees touched the dash. He lowered his head to look through the windshield. They were heading west on Little Santa Monica. “Where we going, bro?”

“Frank’s supposed to call me any minute on my cell. Gotta pull over when he calls, ’cause we need to have a serious talk.”

“What about after that?” said Lavonicus.

Otis said, “Gonna pick us up a couple of guns.”

Otis turned up the volume on the radio. The O’Jays were doing “Brandy.” Now that was one pretty song.

“Sippin’ on a cherry soda pop,” sang Otis, “building houses made of sand…”

He looked out the driver’s window as he sang, let his hand dangle in the wind. Palm trees in the middle of the city. Who would want to live anywhere else?

Now he’d have to make some money to keep this lifestyle going. Because it couldn’t get much better than this. Cruising through Los Angeles in a Mark V, the sun shining every day, listening to the O’Jays… free.