Dukkha Unloaded. Loren W. Christensen
“Oh yes, oh yes. None of them too interested in me, except every once in a while one will make a move when the pickin’s slim, you know. But I’m still straight as an arrow. Mostly I tend to the furnace in the winter and the air conditioners in the summer. I clean up things too. Pretty good job, I guess. Pretty good job.”
Angela leans across and gives him a hug. “Thanks, cousin. I’ll tell Auntie Beth I saw you.”
“Thank you, thank you. Got to get over there to see her. I do.” He extends his hand to me. Take care of this girl, Sam. She can be ornery but she’s a good one.”
“Ornery?” I say with pretend surprise. “No way.”
Angela struggles not to smile.
* * *
“To be fair,” I say, as I guide our car down Burnside, “we should stop at Mary’s Club to see if they’ve seen anything unusual.” Mary’s Club, located on Broadway, one block south of Old Town, is one of the oldest strip joints in Portland.
“Uh, huh. You want to know if any of those topless girls have seen anything?”
“Well, you just got an eyeful of bottomless dudes.”
“There were bottomless dudes there? Why didn’t you tell me?”
We’re tension free for the moment and I hope it continues, but I’m not betting on it.
“You familiar with Second Chance, an old secondhand store at Two and Davis in Old Town?” I ask.
Angela shakes her head. “No. Why?”
“I know the owner. He’s got another store on Southeast Fifteenth and Taylor. If he’s not there, he’s usually at his Davis store. We can check to see if he’s seen anyone around who’s caught his eye.”
“Let’s do it,” Angela says. “Will he be dressed?”
“I so hope so.”
I find a parking spot a couple blocks away from the store. It’s a pleasant, partly sunny June day so there are lots of people on the sidewalk, a mix of down-and-outers and uptowners, the latter braving the two- or three-block walk into Old Town to lunch at No Cows Allowed, a spendy, all veggie eatery.
“In five years,” I say, gesturing toward everything in our path, most if not all of the winos, dopers, panhandlers, and low-income folks down here will be a thing of the past, replaced by glossy establishments catering to the high-rise folks.”
“Think you’re right,” Angela says. “But as is always the case, those displaced won’t be helped out of their poverty and addictions. They will be shoved somewhere else, the east side of the Willamette River, maybe, or to North Portland. But the one place they won’t be allowed to go is to the neighborhoods where the politicians, attorneys, money lenders, and CEOs live.”
“So right. It never fails to amaze me why—”
“Hell-oooo salt-and-pepper people,” a raggedly looking man says gravelly, stepping out from a doorway and blocking our way. “Help an old altar boy buy a jug of communion wine, will you?” The guy looks to be in his thirties but they’ve been hard years. He’s got grime imbedded into his skin, long unwashed hair, and filthy, mismatched clothes. Panhandling is legal in Portland, but it’s illegal to block people’s path. When we start to move around him, he sidesteps to block us. “Your donation?” he says, holding out his palm, his mouth smiling, his eyes not.
“You’re going to move out of the way,” Angela says. “We’re the police. Move now!”
“Come on, pepper,” he says, reaching for her jacket. “Be a good Catholic and—”
I grab his arm and yank it toward me hard enough to spin him completely around. I reach around and cup his forehead with my palm and pull his head up and over until he plops unceremoniously onto his rear.
“We’re the police, pal,” I say to the top of his head. “I want you to—”
He kicks at Angela, just barely missing her leg, and reaches behind him to grab my ankle. I jerk my leg away, drop down onto one knee, and slide the inside of my wrist over the bridge of his nose. Before he can bring his hands up, I pull his head back against my chest, grab my fist with my free hand, and pull my wrist in hard against his schnoz, wiggling my hand a little to grind in the misery.
“Aaaah! Sweet Lord!” he bellows, his rough voice now nasal, his hands struggling to pry my crushing wrist away.
“Put your hands behind you,” Angela commands, her handcuffs ready.
“Do as she says,” I say into his ear as I apply more pressure. “Do it or you will never breathe right again.” He releases my arm and quickly puts his hands behind him. “Cuff him now.” I scoot back a couple of inches to give her room. She snaps on one, then the other.
My cell phone rings. It’s got to be Mark. It will have to wait.
I keep my hand on his shoulder as I stand and lean over to look at him. His nose is pouring snot and blood, and tears are making dirty rivers down his cheeks.
“Stay still, altar boy,” Angela says. She extracts her hand radio from a holder attached to her pants belt. It was hidden under her jacket. I didn’t even think about asking to get one before we left the office. Guess I’m rustier than I thought.
“Four Four Four,” she says into her hand radio.
“Four Four Four,” dispatch repeats.
“Can we get a uniform car to Two and Northwest Everett to transport a prisoner for us?”
“Eight Thirty-Two, can you do it?”
“Eight Thirty-Two, we’re a couple blocks away.”
Twenty minutes later, Angela and I are again on the way to the secondhand shop. The two uniformed officers knew him and said his street name really is Altar Boy. He had two warrants for failure to appear, one for an assault on a police officer and the other for aggressive begging.
“You know,” Angela says, “I could have handled the man if you’d given me the chance.”
“Sorry,” I say. “Soon as I saw him reach for you, I just reacted. I didn’t know if he was going to grab you or hit you, and I couldn’t see if he had a weapon in his other hand.”
She laughs. “Well, it was pretty cool. There a name for your nose crush move? It’s gotta hurt.”
“There is,” I say. “It’s called nose-oyama crush-azuki. It’s a good one because it messes with the recipient’s breathing and vision, plus it hurts like holy hell. Not particularly a good police technique unless you got a partner to do the handcuffing.”
“Good thing I was there to save your ass,” she says with a smile.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Oh, man, are we flirting with each other? Don’t need it. Don’t need it at all.
My cell rings again. I pry it out of my pocket, thankful for the distraction, and check the screen. “Mark,” I say. “How are you doing?”
“Sam. Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“It’s good. I’m actually working. Rodriguez put me to work in Intel today and already I’m out serving and protecting. At the moment I’m in Old town with Angela Clemmons. We just pinched an aggressive panhandler.” Angela smiles at me. “It’s Intel’s secondary mission, you know.” I expect him to laugh but I get only silence. “Mark? You okay?”
“Yeah. Just so tired. I was going to bother you for a ride but I’ll grab a cab. Got to get home and check on the place, and get a shower.”
“Listen, buddy. We were about to interview a man but I can get over to the hospital after and—”
“No,