Downtown Beirut pt. 4
Bodega. Hardware store. Thrift shop. Vacant lot. Bake shop. Empty storefront. Bar. Laundry. Bodega. Vacant lot. Empty storefront. Pizza. Bar. Halfway house. Theater. Corner shop. Empty storefront.
Previously: Animal’s wanted by Internal Affairs and has no idea why. He’s determined to find out before he does anything else. Meanwhile, Ryder and Stiles get serious with NATO.
Animal walks with his head down, his shoulders hunched, trying to blend in but failing. An entire lifetime of developing a certain walk, an attitude, an energy, means he’ll forever be recognizable as one thing and one thing only: cop. He stays close to the buildings, dodging shoppers, bums, kids, trash, dogshit, and open vault doors. He can do that on autopilot. He could probably do it blindfolded.
Bodega. Hardware store. Thrift shop. Vacant lot. Bake shop. Empty storefront. Bar. Laundry. Bodega. Vacant lot. Empty storefront. Pizza. Bar. Halfway house. Theater. Corner shop. Empty storefront. Mix and match into endless combinations across the neighborhood. Somewhere nearby, a car alarm wails, ignored by everyone.
Animal knows he’s too exposed where he is. He cuts through a vacant lot, watching out for rats, jumps a low fence, and emerges from a narrow alley onto the next block.
Eddie Ruiz—that’s who he needs to find. Eddie’s a friend, one of the few plainclothes guys left who might talk to him, who might know what Internal Affairs has on him. But Eddie’s not at the diner he likes to go to, or the dive bar on 3rd, or the deli, or the corner spot.
Finally, he spots Eddie’s car—a fucked-up Chevy Impala with a dented fender and primer-gray patches—parked on 7th Street. The laundromat’s windows are fogged with steam, and the hum of dryers fills the air like a low, constant growl. The Impala’s Eddie’s, taken from some lowlife drug dealers a few months back. He’ll use it, run it into the ground, and leave it in some vacant lot on C. Maybe the next one he commandeers will be a Mercedes.
Inside the laundromat, Eddie sits on a folding chair, flipping through a copy of Mad Magazine, waiting for his clothes to be done. He looks up as Animal walks in, and his expression shifts from boredom to unease. “Animal,” Eddie says. His tone is cautious, like he’s not sure what this is.
“IAD wants to talk to me,” Animal says.
“So you come and talk to me instead? Like I want any part of it?”
“Come on, Eddie,” Animal says. “You hear things. You know how this shit works. What’s blowing back on me?”
Eddie tosses the magazine onto the empty chair next to him and stands up. He’s impatient. Annoyed. Maybe Eddie doesn’t like Animal as much as he thought. “You sure it’s not Pueblo?”
“It’s not that.”
“You sure? You screwed yourself bad on that raid.”
Animal’s voice rises. “You should fucking hope it’s not Pueblo, because as I recall, you were there too, Eddie.”
Eddie walks over to a dryer and takes out an armful of clothes. He dumps it into the backseat of his car. Animal follows him out, still waiting on an answer. He notices how Eddie’s looking around, head on a swivel, which on one hand is what everyone does around here, but it’s different.
“You’re radioactive, Angelo. I don’t know why, and I don’t care. Maybe think about stopping by the house, maybe you can get ahead of it.”
Animal stands there, silent. Not the answer he wanted, but he knows Eddie’s not lying.
“And nothing personal, but fuck off,” Eddie says. “I don’t need to be seen with you.” He pulls away from the curb and roars up the block.
Two-thirds of NATO are running through their short setlist in the basement of Black Box, an infamous squat located off Avenue C.
Ryder’s playing a cheap no-name he found abandoned upstairs, trying to maintain a D-G-A groove while screaming lyrics over it. He’s keenly aware of the audience in the room—an audience of one. Jim Magazine, a local legend, punk before punk existed. He’s over there, flicking through last week’s Village Voice. He doesn’t look like he hates what he’s hearing, but that isn’t saying much. Stiles, the drummer, is doing his best to keep things on time.
The basement of the squat is by far the nicest part of the building. Open and spacious, painted an institutional green, it has that mothball smell that a lot of pre-war buildings in New York have. Ryder sweeps it out daily. It’s reserved, via unspoken rule, for creative endeavors only, while the upper floors are divided into warrens with pilfered lumber, cinder blocks, cardboard, or sheet metal for habitation.
In addition to NATO, four other bands use the basement for practice. A well-known local zine is pasted up and photocopied there. A sixteen-foot canvas fills one whole wall—an incomplete recreation of The Raft of the Medusa done in a creepy faux-Tex Avery cartoon style, leaving much to be desired. A women’s collective waits in the stairwell for NATO to finish. They’re rehearsing a play, and they booked the time on the signup sheet.
Ryder doesn’t so much conclude the song as give up, sticking a meaty A5 and screaming the last few lines of lyrics. Stiles gets the hint and winds down. It’s pathetic in terms of craftsmanship, but since when, Ryder thinks to himself, does that matter compared to passion?
Jim Magazine closes the Voice and leans back in his chair. “Not great, boys.”
“We’re still exploring possibilities.”
Jim snorts. “Exploring possibilities? What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means we can’t be just some cookie-cutter hardcore band,” Ryder says. “We gotta do something different, something raw and real.”
Jim says nothing. He’s getting ready to go. Ryder looks helplessly at Stiles.
“We need a gig, Jim. We need some experience on stage, with an audience. You can hook that up.” Ryder knows he sounds whiny.
“Whatever you got, Jim. We’ll do it.”
Jim looks at them for several long moments before heading towards the stairs.
“Get some decent gear first,” he says.
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Continues weekly.
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