The Killing of Butterfly Joe Page 17

  ‘Joe! Let’s go!’

  ‘I want to give you a chance. I will leave you this information leaflet. Should you repent and overnight wake up and say, what have I done? Call this number and order a few cases. Lucky for you I believe in a merciful God.’

  I waited until we had got to the car before giving him a piece of my mind.

  ‘Jesus. Joe, what was that about? They were hardly being rude. It was so . . . unnecessary.’

  ‘They were denying me the right to make a living. That has to be challenged.’

  ‘What you done now?’ Mary asked.

  ‘I was sticking to my guns.’

  ‘They ’cuse you of hawking?’

  ‘They don’t know the definition,’ Joe said.

  ‘How did you know that, Mary?’ I asked.

  ‘He does this. I ain’t helping you iotas, Joe. Not this time.’

  ‘This time?’ I asked.

  We were not even at the end of Main Street when a patrol car with two policemen inside pulled up behind us, giving one ‘wooo’ of its siren. Joe slowed up at the city limit sign and annoyingly started dee dee dee-ing as though nothing serious was happening. The patrolman appeared at Joe’s window and signalled for him to open it. The driver’s side window of the Chuick was bust so Joe lowered the back window leaving me to speak on his behalf. ‘Sorry, officer, the window’s stuck. I keep meaning to get it fixed.’

  The sheriff peered in and addressed Joe. ‘Step from the car, sir.’

  ‘A please would be nice, officer.’

  There was a pause. I remember thinking what kind of policeman would he be? The trigger-happy type or the used-to-assholes type? I was so angry with Joe I remember thinking, ‘Please, let it be the former!’

  ‘I will ask you one more time. Step from the car, sir.’

  ‘Just a please, officer. It’s a simple courtesy is all.’

  ‘Joe! What is your problem?’

  The officer loosened his holster.

  ‘Come on, Joe,’ I said. ‘It’s not worth it. He’s . . . Joe? Come on!’

  ‘Sometimes freedom requires a sacrifice of protest, Rip.’ Joe was seemingly intent on going from minor road traffic offence to electric chair in as short a time as possible. He sat there rigid, ‘sticking to his guns’. The patrolman stepped away from the car and started talking on his walkie-talkie. I caught the word ‘backup’.

  ‘Joe. Can’t you . . . just . . . ’

  ‘Don’t waste your breath,’ Mary said. She seemed so nonchalant about it, like she’d seen it all before. ‘He is the stubbornest bastard on earth.’

  ‘All I asked for was a “please” and he’s loosened his holster. He knows that I’ll cooperate but out of his own law-bound pride, puffed up by the sense of power given to him by the gun and a badge, he refuses. I am a free-rider here.’

  I opened the glove box to fetch my passport. My hands shaking. I noticed a gun – the gun Edith gave to Mary for the road. What seemed sexy now looked dangerous.

  I got out of the car.

  ‘Rip! What the heck?’ Joe reached out to stop me.

  The patrolman drew his gun. ‘Raise your hands, sir.’

  They were already up. ‘Officer, I am so sorry about my friend. He’s upset. He isn’t thinking straight. I can vouch for his good character. This is not typical.’

  The patrolman’s walkie-talkie buzzed and he took it. ‘Backup on Main Street. We have a Level 2. Sir, put your hands on the car.’

  Level 2. What the heck was Level 2?

  ‘Sir, place your hands against the roof of the car, facing the car.’

  ‘Of course, officer.’

  ‘You have your papers, sir?’

  ‘They’re in my bag, officer. My passport. In the front there.’

  I’d seen these scenes a hundred times in movies and the person being pulled over always seemed so cool, so insouciant. But the idea of criminality is so much more appealing than the reality. As I placed my hands on the hot metal of Chuick’s roof I felt a warm trickle of pee in my Fruit of the Looms.

  ‘You too, ma’am.’

  Mary got out, hands raised, and placed them obligingly on the car, standing next to me.

  ‘He’s doing a Texas.’

  ‘What’s a Texas?’

  ‘He got accused of hawking and told the owner that when he was president he’d see to it her store was the first to be closed for violating his rights. They kept him in jail for a week. Ma had to drive down there and release him herself.’

  ‘Why don’t you say something?’

  ‘Because he don’t deserve it. He’s too proud. I hope they kick the crap out of him and lock him up for good.’

  Joe sat in the front implacable as a buffalo. I confess that, like Mary, I wanted them to beat the living shit out of him, put him in jail and leave him there to rot. For a few, red seconds I wanted them to kill him, I really did.

  A second patrol car arrived – backup. The second patrolman was wearing shades despite the gloom. He asked the first officer to run the checks on the car. I wondered what trail of offence and felony might be revealed. I felt sick. What had I got myself into?

  The second patrolman seemed more relaxed and put up a calming hand to the first patrolman, who couldn’t have been much older than me. Lucky for Joe the second patrolman was immediately able to see that Joe was more of a dick than a danger.

  ‘What have we got here?’

  ‘The driver is refusing to cooperate, sir.’

  The second patrolman went to the passenger door. Opened the door and leant in.

  ‘We have a problem here, sir?’

  ‘We have a problem, officer, but it has an easy and simple solution.’

  ‘And what would that be?’

  ‘A little more politeness from your colleague could have prevented this . . . escalation.’

  ‘May I see your papers . . . please?’

  ‘There you go! Of course, officer.’ Joe pointed to the glove box. ‘May I?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  I had seen this scene too: a patrolman asks for papers as a prelude to the driver either taking off, pulling a gun on the policeman, striking the policeman, spinning the policeman a line. Joe handed his papers to the second patrolman, who glanced at me and then at Joe’s ID.

  ‘If you’d step from the car, please.’

  ‘Why yes, of course,’ Joe said.

  ‘We had a complaint you were hawking goods and that you then insulted the store owner, threatening her.’

  ‘I merely asked the woman to explain the difference between a hawker and a salesman. Do you know the difference, officer?’

  ‘Well, I believe a hawker tends not to have a licence to sell.’

  ‘Well that is a good guess, officer, but it is not the case. There is no difference except that a hawker is, technically, someone who carries their wares with them. Soap. Life assurance. Bibles. Are you saying therefore that you’d arrest someone for selling Bibles?’

  The second patrolman called back to the first who was on his walkie-talkie. ‘You run the checks, Officer Flynn?’

  It didn’t look good: a complaint of a disturbance of the peace leading to a beat-up, dodgy looking car with unusual crew and cargo: a big clown, a little European guy, a girl not wearing shoes, a bald eagle in a box (a gun in the glove box), a hundred dead butterflies in the trunk.

  ‘What is this car?’

  ‘Well, sir, it’s my own creation. A cross between a Chevrolet and Buick and I call it a Chuick.’

  ‘Are those actual miles?’

  ‘Closing in on a million, sir. And if I might add that in all those miles I have driven I have never encountered this kind of treatment for what is after all an everyday right of every American. The day it is an offence to sell your wares in this country is the day America dies, officer. A sore day. An apocalyptic day. What was it Nathaniel Hawthorne said, Rip? “If a man can’t sell, he is lost”?’

  I refused to corroborate.

  ‘Is that beer?’

>   ‘That’s mine, officer.’

  He nodded. ‘Should be in a brown bag.’

  ‘Sorry, sir. I’m from Britain.’

  The second patrolman then saw Jimmy Carter on the back seat.

  ‘Is that a bird?’

  ‘Yes, officer. The national emblem of this great nation. We’re aiming to set him free in the Grand Tetons. I hate to think what he would make of this situation, officer. He’s probably thinking, “Am I really the emblem of a nation that arrests people for trying to sell goods?” Maybe America needs another kind of symbol. I don’t know what would be more appropriate. I guess it would have to be one that devoured its own kind maybe? Like . . . a spider.’

  ‘Sir, would you open the trunk for me, please.’

  The second patrolman seemed happy to play Joe’s politeness game and Joe was cooperating. He popped the trunk. The second patrolman looked in. ‘You have a licence to sell these?’

  ‘Well sir, I don’t need a licence. Except in some towns where they violate people’s rights. Like Lubbock, Texas. Or Centerville, Iowa.’

  The second patrolman examined a 6 by 4 containing a spectacular green-stained zebra wing. ‘My old lady would like these.’

  Incredibly, Joe began to sell it to him. ‘Well, take one for her, officer. I’ll offer it to you wholesale.’

  ‘Where do you get the butterflies?’

  ‘From official suppliers. This one comes from a farm in Costa Rica. And we have our own small butterfly house, too.’

  The first patrolman, who had been back at his car, the black spiral flex of his radio pulled taut and as far as it would stretch, came back. ‘Licensed to an Edith Bosco. PO box address in New York State.’

  The patrolman handed Joe back his papers.

  ‘Well. You are free to go. Just as long as you don’t go selling in this county.’

  Joe shook his head.

  ‘I can’t promise that, officer.’

  The patrolman looked at Joe.

  ‘Are you saying you will sell? Or that you intend to?’

  ‘Well, sir, they are the same thing. I both will and intend to.’

  ‘Then I guess you leave me no choice.’

  ‘I just can’t promise it, sir. We need monies for gas and food.’

  ‘If you’re telling me you’re going to sell in Richmond County then I will have to arrest you now.’

  ‘Very well.’

  The second patrolman sighed.

  ‘Then turn and put both hands on the roof of the car, please, sir.’

  Joe did as he was asked, smilingly. ‘Of course, officer.’

  The patrolman did the Miranda and then frisked Joe. ‘Feet apart.’ He then had him turn, with a please and a thank you, and asked him to hold out his hands which he cuffed.

  ‘I must say, officer, you have set a good example to your fellow officer there.’

  I turned to Mary, pleading with her to intervene. She shook her head.

  ‘I will have to ask you to accompany me to the station, Mr Bosco. I’m charging you for selling goods without a licence and disturbing the peace. You sure you want that?’

  ‘I don’t think there was real peace to disturb here, officer. It’s just a peace maintained by control. And that is no peace at all.’

  Joe had to duck down a long way to get in the back of the patrol car.

  We followed them to the station, where we had to sit around for an hour waiting for Joe to be processed. He emerged, still smiling like this was all a wonderful experience. ‘They’re going to put me up for the night. It’s going to cost five hundred bucks for the privilege.’

  ‘Five hundred dollars!’

  ‘Bail.’

  We had $300.

  ‘You take credit cards?’ I asked the duty clerk.

  ‘Cash only.’

  ‘We’ll need to sell some cases. How far to the next county?’

  ‘It’s about thirty miles to Bloomfield. But the stores will be closed by now.’

  ‘What are we going to do, Joe?’

  ‘You’ll have to go sell first thing tomorrow. Just make sure it’s in a town that respects the constitution of the United States.’

  ‘OK.’

  I looked at the deputy sheriff. ‘Is there a reasonable budget motel around here?’

  ‘There’s a Ramada on Main. If you drive back east, there are some cheaper motels. You could drive on to Bloomfield from there tomorrow.’

  ‘How long will you keep him?’

  ‘Till someone pays.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  In which I discover that Mary isn’t what I thought.

  Black clouds lay ahead. We could see lightning in them but hear no thunder. Mary and I walked back to the car just as the rain started. Big, hot, generous American rain that started playing jazz on the roof. We sat listening to the tunes, our breath steaming up the window.

  ‘Joe will get himself killed one day. It’s a miracle he isn’t dead already,’ I said. ‘What was that about? It was as though he wanted to get arrested.’

  Mary shrugged. ‘He don’t like to be talked down to. That storekeeper must have looked at him superior. It’s his hillbilly blood. Prolly.’

  ‘But they didn’t. Not really.’

  ‘Look. My brother’s crazy. You ain’t worked that out yet?’

  Joe was different. But he wasn’t crazy. I could see a method in his madcapness: to me it was all a bit of an act, for effect; he knew full well what he was doing, I was sure of that.

  I think we both realized at the same time that Joe’s incarceration = imminent consummation.

  ‘You must have done two-fiddy by now.’

  We drove back out on the highway and pulled in to the first motel we could find. It was called Park Plaza Court. It had plastic Doric columns either side of the reception door – mock-heroic for my ersatz odyssey. Before I went to book a room Mary handed me a thick brass washer. ‘Put it on your wedding finger. In case they make us take two rooms. Out here people still think you should be married if you take a double. I put it on when I travel with Joe. People don’t always believe I’m his sister, on account of us looking different.’ I let Mary put the ring on and went to sign in the newlyweds. I could barely write my name in the register with the anticipation. A month-long prick-tease was about to come to an end. I grabbed Joe’s Big Deal Case with the freaks and fetched my passport again, seeing the Walther.

  ‘You want the gun?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘You know how to use it?’

  ‘I’m an American.’

  The woman in reception had a gold plate name badge with black lettering that said Tammy McCarthy. Tammy asked me for my passport number and my mother’s maiden name and made me sign the book. I wrote our names as Mr and Mrs R. Van Jones.

  ‘Is that a Dutch name?’

  ‘I’m from Britain,’ I said, not wanting to go into how I had come by my new Dutch name. But just when I didn’t want it to, my nationality became a matter of great fascination and an excuse for Ms McCarthy to list her ancestry back as far as her great-grandfather in ‘Aberdeen, Scotland’. She drew her family tree for me on the motel stationery. I nodded as politely as I could and humoured her platitudes about England and the Queen and how my country would always be a special friend to America. Then she took an eternity to find a key that was attached to a key ring on a wooden block as big as a brick.

  ‘That’s just so’s you don’t go off with it. It used to cost me three hundred dollars a year in unreturned keys.’

  I found Mary in the back seat giving Jimmy Carter a fresh litter of USA Todays. ‘You get a room?’

  I wiggled the key. ‘Room 19. Another sign.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well. You’re nineteen.’

  ‘What’s with you and signs? You’re more superstitious than Clay. What we do about Jimmy Carter?’

  ‘We can leave him,’ I said. ‘Check on him later, maybe.’

  ‘He’s been awful quiet.’

  ‘He�
��ll be fine.’

  We left Jimmy Carter with some crackers and water and we went inside. The motel room was like any other but it was precisely that homogeneous functionality and anonymity that made it sexier than any Ritz or Grand. The ghosts of lust-filled nights were tangible in the brown counterpanes on the double double-beds and the flock wallpaper flecked with what looked like smeared moths. We weren’t the first or even the hundredth couple stepping into that room intent on ecstasy but I’d wager few would have had the built-up desire we had. I pulled the door behind us and we kissed. She pushed me back against the door and tippy-toed, pushing herself against me before breaking off and going to test the springiness of the nearest bed. I joined her on the bed and we started to kiss again; but again she broke off and started to take in the decor of the room and in particular the painting that hung on the wall between the beds. It was of a wagon train passing along a red dust road through a canyon all bathed in an overly orange sunset. ‘You think that’s meant to be Arizona?’ I looked at it, trying to see what she might be seeing, frustrated at the diversion. ‘Maybe. It’s just a fantasy of the West.’ It was a terrible painting. ‘I like it,’ she said. The painting had no merit whatsoever and her liking for it should have been enough reason to stop right there, but lust trumps compatibility every time. I read her interest in the decor as just more teasing (oh my ability to read signs!). I started kissing her neck, deciding to take command, but when I tried to ease her onto the bed she stiffened her arms and held me back.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing. Is the door locked?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You sure?’

  I went and tested it and put the chain on for good measure. I returned to the bed and resumed my love-making, which was – to be frank – not going well. When I tried to undress her, her hand slapped away my unbuttoning fingers. She looked afraid.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She shook her head then she said: ‘I ain’t done it before.’

  ‘Oh.’

  My reaction was one of genuine surprise and disappointment. It did not seem conceivable that she’d not done it before, the way she carried herself and talked, that knowing animal swagger. Then again, if I’d been thinking straight, thinking with my brain instead of my loins, I’d have seen it for the bravado that it was and the insecurity Isabelle had warned me about. That assurance, that innate physical ease I’d seen in the waterfall and witnessed in my room back at the house: it was all an act, an act that so many girls must feel obliged to perform for the benefit of horny boys like me.