No offence Intended - Barbara Seranella

No Offense Intended

Barbara
Seranella
1999
 

1

"NO OFFENSE," the plumber began.

Munch sighed. Why did people always feel the need to
warn you before they said something stupid? She looked up from the
carburetor she was working on and gave the man in the stained
overalls her full attention.

"But don't you think that working on cars is
kinda, I don't know, unfeminine?"

She lifted out the float assembly on the quadrajet.
"Yeah, I worry about it all the way to the bank. What kind of
gas do you bum in this thing?"

"Whatever," he said. "Why?"

She shined her droplight into the float chamber.

"You're full of shit here." She kept her
face straight, knowing the double
entendre
would be lost on
this Neanderthal. It was 1977, for God's sake. Didn't he realize that
barefoot and pregnant went out with the sixties? "This is going
to take at least a half a day" she said. "n fact, it would
be better if you left it overnight." She looked over his
shoulder and spotted Happy Jack, the owner of Happy Jack's Auto
Repair. "Hey Jack. You wanna write this guy up? He needs a carb
overhaul."

Jack grabbed a clipboard and headed their way.

"You got a visitor," he said, jerking his
thumb over his shoulder. Her boss's expression told her that he
didn't approve. She followed his gaze and understood why Munch's
visitor leaned against the fender of a blue Chevy pickup. The truck
was fairly new: a '74 model, perhaps even a '75. Sleaze was doing
well, it seemed. His mother had named him Jonathan Garillo, but on
the street he was known as "Sleaze John." The last time
she'd seen Sleaze was when he was driving for Sunshine Yellow Cab out
of Venice. That was a year ago—in another life. Driving a cab had
been just the vehicle for Sleaze's other various vocations: pulling
cons on tourists, ripping off dopers trying to score, running numbers
for bookies unwise enough to trust him.

"Thanks, Jack," she said, climbing down
from the milk crate she stood on when she worked on trucks.

"This won't take long."

Leaving Jack to write up the plumber, Munch made her
way over to where Sleaze waited. The truck's idle stumbled as she
drew closer. The bearded stranger in the passenger seat glanced at
her briefly and then looked away She stuck her grease rag in her back
pocket and approached them warily

"What do you want?" she said.

"What happened to hello?" he asked.

"Hello. What do you want?"

"You got a light?" A Cheshire cat grin
stretched his full lips. He was clean-shaven and a brunette this
week, which complemented his even white teeth and thickly lashed
eyes. There was a time when she had thought him quite the fox.

She pulled out her lighter, automatically reaching
for the pack of Camels in her shirt pocket. With her lighter in his
hand, he pointed to her cigarettes and, almost as an afterthought,
asked her for a smoke.

Same old Sleaze. She shook her head, wondering what
this visit would cost her.

He lit both their smokes and exhaled a "Thanks."

She caught his hand before her lighter disappeared
into his pocket.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"I've missed you."

"Sleaze—" She glanced at the man riding
shotgun, noting his long sleeves and dark sunglasses. A faded blue
jail tattoo crossed the man's left jugular vein. She recognized the
insignia of the Aryan Brotherhood: a pair of jagged lightning bolts
that formed the letters SS. The man crossed his arms over his chest
and rocked back and forth.

The truck's idle stuttered again and then resumed an
even pace. "Hear that?" Sleaze asked. "What do you
think that is?"

"If you want work done, you're going to have to
leave it. I'm backed up right now," she said, aware of Jack
hovering protectively just out of earshot.

"I'm in kind of a hurry, too," he said. He
looked around, then dropped his voice. "Actually, I'm in a
little bit of a jam."

Munch noticed that the gas cap of the truck was
painted blue. She reached out and touched it. The surface was tacky
She leaned in the open window and saw the ignition wires dangling
under the dash, their insulation stripped and two of them twisted
together. The passenger moved a hand to his cheek and kept it there.
The gesture was fine with her; she didn't want to remember him
either. She pulled the rag from her back pocket and carefully wiped
off all the surfaces she remembered touching.

"I don't want any part of this. I could get
revoked for just talking to you."

"Since when did you pay attention to court
orders?" he asked.

"Since I got a year suspended. I've changed,
Sleaze. Don't mess this up for me."

He appraised her from under half-closed lids.

"Yeah, I heard you got religion. I'm real proud
of you. Are you happy?"

"Yes, of course." The words came out too
quickly He raised an eyebrow, making him look a little like Clark
Gable. Had he picked up the defensiveness in her tone?

"You look really good. I was going to say
something."

She snorted. "Spare me. You want to do something
nice for me? Just get out of my life." She kicked the tire of
the truck. "And take this with you."

"Hey don't be like that. We've got too much
history"

"I forget it. It's like you said. History. What
happened and what didn't happen was . . . for the best. Neither one
of us wanted to be dragging a kid around." She looked at his
face to confirm that this was the truth, but she couldn't read him.

"Aren't we at least friends?" he asked.

"I never had friends, Sleaze, just using
partners."

She looked pointedly at his travel companion.

"So that's it, huh? The rest of us are just shit
on your shoes?" His tone and expression were accusatory like she
was some sort of traitor to the cause. But there was no cause, she
thought angrily just a bunch of loaded assholes trying to justify
their existence.

"I'm just trying to tell you that I've got
something good going here," she said. "I don't want to mess
it up."

"I'm not looking to mess you up."

"I have a disease, John. I have to be careful."

"What are you talking—disease?"

"I'm in remission from alcoholism and drug
addiction. I can't be around anyone still using."

How could she make him understand? She wasn't sure
herself. She was spouting program dogma at him, all the tools of
defense she had learned. Maybe it would be easier if he just got mad
at her.

"And that's how you want it?" he asked.

"That's the way it has to be."

"What about Deb?" he asked. "And
Boogie? I thought he was your ace boon coon."

"I haven't heard from them in almost a year. I
don't even know where they are."

"They're up in Canyonville."

"Where's that?"

"Oregon. Pretty country if you don't mind rain."

This news made her pause. "She made it, huh?"

Moving to the country had been their mutual dream.
The country was a place for fresh starts, cleaner living, a good
place to raise Boogie. "You got a number for her?"

Sleaze reached into his pocket and drew out his
wallet. "Just a sec. You got a pen?"

She handed him her pen. He walked over to the counter
and picked up several of the shop's business cards. Behind her, Jack
frowned.

Sleaze flipped one of the cards over, wrote the word
"Snakepit" and copied down a number from his wallet with an
Oregon area code. "She doesn't have a phone at her house,"
he said, "but you can usually reach her here."

"Snakepit?"

"It's a bar in Canyonville."

"Is she doing all right?"

"She's got an ol' man."

"There's a surprise." Deb always had an old
man. She always fell passionately in love for life with each of them
and cried buckets when they left. Munch envied her that—her depth
of passion.

"He's an asshole," Sleaze added.

Her face twisted in a wry smile. They were always
assholes, especially after Deb was done with them.

"I did some business with him," Sleaze
said. "He tried to get over on me."

"Uh—huh." She didn't need to ask for any
particulars. Nothing he said or she asked would move the conversation
any closer to the truth. Sleaze had a way of explaining things that
neatly sidestepped any culpability on his part. The other guy was
always wrong and usually a step too slow. "I have to get back to
work. Just tell me what you want, Sleaze."

He glanced back nervously at his companion in the
truck. "Like I said, I'm in a little bit of a jam. Nothing
serious. It should blow over soon."

"And I'm supposed to do what?" she asked.

"I just wanted to see you," he said,
watching traffic as if he were waiting for something. "It's been
so long." He reached over and touched her cheek. "Too
long."

She pulled back. It was time to end this exchange.

He wasn't the first to come around from her old life.
She'd found a simple formula for getting rid of the others: her
ex-using partners who had somehow managed to sniff her out, sensing
some prosperity not their own that might be available for leaching.
They'd come to her with hard-luck stories, told with sorrowful faces
and sincere tones. Maybe they thought getting clean and sober had
somehow affected her memory That she wouldn't spot their games since
she was no longer on the pitching side. She had learned that it was
easier to indulge them: listen to their bullshit and agree about the
unfairness of the world. Then she'd loan them money—sometimes a
twenty (she'd gone as high as fifty)—and they would promise to pay
her back as soon as they "got on their feet." The ones who
owed her never came back. The money she "lent" was a small
price to pay to ensure that they wouldn't return.

"How much would it take to get out of this jam?"
she asked, reaching for her wallet. She carried her wallet in her
back pocket, like a man would. Maybe the plumber was right. She
looked over in his direction and found Jack watching her. He tapped
his watch. "I've got to get back to work," she said.

Sleaze saw her go for her wallet. He probably wasn't
even aware that he had licked his lips. "I've got a kid,"
he said, "a little girl."

She felt a lightning bolt streak between her gut and
heart. He always knew how to find the soft spots. Hadn't he been the
one who taught her how to isolate the mark and single out the
vulnerabilities? She tried to think if there were any way he could
know about the scarring within her body how it had rendered her
infertile. She had spoken of it at meetings, so it wasn't exactly
privileged information. But the meetings that she attended were here
in the San Fernando Valley. Had he somehow heard?

"Good for you," she said. "Who's the
mother?"

"Karen."

"That broad who worked at the phone company?"

Another mark, Munch remembered. Karen was always good
for a twenty that Sleaze would collect on her lunch break while Munch
waited in the front passenger seat of the taxi with the meter off.

"Yeah, that's the one."

She felt an uncomfortable flash of heat shoot up the
back of her neck. It was time to play "Name That Emotion."
Emotions were a new thing, another dubious gift of sobriety Before,
they'd never been an issue. Before, if anyone had cared to ask at any
given time how Munch was feeling or what she was feeling, she would
have had only two possible answers: good or sick. Sobriety opened up
a whole new range. Those first few months, her sponsor, Ruby had
driven her crazy asking her how she was, what was she feeling.
Finally Munch had told her: She was pissed off. Then Ruby had
patiently explained that anger wasn't an emotion. It was a reaction.
Get past the anger, Ruby said. It was a shield, a coat of armor.

Munch looked at Sleaze. He had a kid. He and Karen
had a kid. How did that make her feel? She didn't have to think too
long.