About Violence

Chapter Two

[Though I said I’d post a new chapter each Thursday, it occurred to me that because this is the week before Christmas I will be traveling on Thursday, so I’m putting the second installment up early. In the new year I’ll return to a regular schedule. For some reason, when I paste the copy into Substack I lose indentation. Looking it over, this doesn’t bother me much, but if it becomes a problem and makes the dialogue less clear, I’ll figure out how to fix it in the future. Anyway, that’s it. As always, feel free to comment!]

I gave Mike the news and he was okay with it, though he was still uncertain about whether Mary could kick. That wasn’t my job, so we shook hands and left everything as fine. I figured we were good for a couple of oil changes, maybe a set of second hand tires when I needed them. Mary stood to the side, glaring at the floor.

And everything was fine. I was trimming boards to exacting standards and minding my own business, paying my bills and taxes, doing my part in the economic machine. All was well.

Five weeks later, I was chopping walnuts for a salad when my phone rang.

“This is Frank.” I said.

“Pope? That you?”

“Yes. This is Frank Pope.”

“This is Rico. I need your help.”

It took a few seconds. Rico? Who the hell is Rico? “Rico? Like East Cambridge Escalade in the dirty alley Rico?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“And you need my help?”

“I think so, dude.”

“Okay. So? What’s this about?”

“We’ll need to meet somewhere.”

An hour later I pulled up near a Brazilian coffee shop on Somerville Ave. It was mid-November but warm for that time of year. I was wearing a Red Sox t-shirt and a black fleece zip up. No flies on me. Fashion genius.

The Escalade and the Accord were parked near the door and six hombres were milling about like the drivers at a funeral. They were all wearing sunglasses and bristled with weapons though none were obvious or out in the open. I wondered for a moment if I was going to be whacked.

“Hey guys,” I said as I walked past them to the coffee shop door. “What’s shaking?”

No one tried to stop me. They all took a half step back and cleared a path. Okay, so I was going to be whacked inside. Interesting. I stepped in to take a look.

Rico must have rented the place by the hour because he was the only customer in there. The waitress stood at the counter, watching with her arms crossed. She seemed a little bit angry. She was probably counting the loss she was suffering from three dozen empty seats. Rico was in a booth away from the window. He gave a “come here” shake of his head when he saw me come in, so I walked over and sat directly across from him.

“Hey” I said.

He said nothing.

I waved to the waitress and she came over. “Coffee and a blueberry muffin if they aren’t terrible.” I said.

Rico was quiet. I waited for my coffee. I was curious as to whether she’d bring me a muffin. I was bored and wished we could hurry this up, but sometimes when you push these things it goes badly. Eventually my coffee came. There was a muffin, too.

“Well” I said. “Why am I here?”

Rico said nothing.

I do badly with boredom. I took a bite from the muffin top. The muffin was good, but not so good that it was worth driving over here to watch Rico stare at the table. Not so good that I wanted to end my life on that note, either.

I gave it a solid five minutes. Okay. Maybe four. Rico was wrestling with something, trying to decide if it was something he actually wanted to tell me.

“Rico” I said. “I have a couple of requests. First, if you brought me here to kill me, let me finish this muffin before you do. It’s not a ten, or even a seven, but I’m starving. If you haven’t brought me here to kill me, you’re at risk of boring me to death. So just tell me what we’re doing.”

Rico was silent.

“Okay fine. I’ll finish my muffin and go. No harm, no foul.”

“No.” Rico said. “Stay. I’ll tell you.”

I had my coffee in one hand and a well-bitten muffin in the other and I sat back and spread my arms.

Rico turned ever so slightly, just enough so he could see me in a sidelong glance. I admired the gesture. It looked very serious. I filed it away as something I’d need to practice in case, one day, I needed comical gravitas. He smiled. “Jesus,” he said. “You really aren’t afraid of anything.”

“Nope.” I muttered. I had a little less than a bite left and a few crumbs on my fingers.

“Tell me about this. How can you have no fear? Some fear is necessary.”

“That is true,” I said. “There was a learning curve. Having no fear is not the same as having no judgment, but it’s tricky. I had to learn most things the hard way.”

“What things?”

“How high is too high to jump from, some dogs bite, everyone is not my friend, hot things burn, someone is always tougher, all of that sort of thing.”

Rico turned face on and considered me over the rim of his mug. He was trying to read my face and searching for a lie that wasn’t there.

“Doctors have told me,” I said, telling a story I’d told many times, “that at some point during my early childhood—maybe even at birth—my amygdala has been damaged, but none seem certain as to how this happened. The amygdala is two small bits of the brain that, taken together, are roughly the size of a baby’s fist, low and centered about where the spinal cord enters the skull. I’m not an expert, but over the years I’ve done some reading on the subject, being compromised in this regard, and it seems the amygdala is the center of the reflex and memories we call “fear”. The general understanding is that this is the region of the brain that floods our bodies with hormones when we are startled or hurt, or imagine being hurt, and then creates the powerful memories, what we call fear, of those things that don’t end well. Touch a stove and get burned, the amygdala creates a memory loaded with emotion so you remember not to touch hot stoves. Imagine being eaten by wolves? Same thing happens. For whatever reason, this doesn’t happen to me. So. No fear.”

“That is incredible.”

“I guess. It’s normal for me.”

“It’s always been like this?”

“As far back as I remember. I think it was hard on my parents at first. I’d have walked up to a Grizzly bear like it was a Golden Retriever had there been any around. It took me longer, I think, to understand that some things hurt and that pain can be avoided, because I don’t create fearful memories.”

“But pain is the same?”

I shrugged. “Same as what? It hurts. People say they are afraid of it. I don’t know what they mean.”

Rico sat up. “Okay” he said. “Okay. I’ve got to face this head on and that’s that.”

I had nothing to say to that. I was finishing a muffin and drinking coffee. I finished my muffin and took a sip.

“My cousin is possessed?” he said.

There was a long quiet.

“Now I don’t know what that means,” I said, being completely honest. “In jail or owned by slavers?

“No, you idiota! Possessed by a demon!”

“Demon. Ahhh..” And suddenly I was wondering if Rico was crazy. I really didn’t know him at all.

Rico let out a sigh and punched the air. “She’s been cursed!” he said. “She has a demon inside of her!”

“Okay.” I said. “Let’s assume that’s the case. What do you need from me?”

“That’s obvious.” Rico peeled a couple of hundreds from a large roll of bills and pinned them with the saltshaker. A tip for the waitress for ruining her morning, which was likely less ruined, now. “This is very scary shit, mi amigo. I need your cojones. I need someone who is not afraid to see what they see. And you owe me one.”

“Okay. Suppose I agree to meet your cousin. What am I talking about? How you want to do this? Just drop in?”

“Yes. I have some things I have to take care of, but I can pick you up around seven, and bring you to her. Where you want me to meet you?”

“Here works,” I said. “The muffins aren’t bad.”

“This place closes at five.”

“That’s okay. I’ll get one to go. Here works fine.” It didn’t seem wise to give Rico my address.

Six million years of evolution have honed fear to a finely tuned instrument, and if people are afraid of something, there is usually a good reason to be. Most people can trust their instincts. I can’t. Horror movies look like bad movies to me. So, I try to listen to my father’s advice from years ago, when he would say, “Do the math, Frank.”

People are afraid of demons. People have all manner of unreasonable fears, but usually they are grounded in something. What’s the fear of demons rooted in?

I was turning this over in my mind as I drove home, trying to guess what had struck Rico speechless, and I had no idea. Was his cousin sitting up in a filthy, levitating bed? Head spinning? Spitting pea soup across the room? The point of Dad’s exercise was to assess the risk to my personal well-being. I’ve had to do this for my entire life, and it comes as natural as breathing now. When I was a kid, I had to learn to break things down and make self-preservation a priority. This probably made me more skeptical than most. My father understood this and tried to help me out. He did. As a child, I wouldn’t have climbed into a stranger’s car, for example. Not because I had any fear of stranger’s or their cars, but because I would do the math. I might be fine (most people are harmless), but there was a chance that I would not be. Self-preservation demanded that I go with the odds. Getting into the car might not end well. Walking home likely would. Take the odds.

This is true of so many things. There are countless instances of things that I chose not to do only because I took Dad’s lesson to heart and thought it through. Thin ice avoided. Spiders not touched. Alleys bypassed. Drunk drivers I’ve chosen not to ride with. I did not avoid any of these things because I’d been afraid. I heard my father’s voice in the back of my head, paused, and thought it through. I believe I made the right choices, because I’m here, but the truth is that I have no idea.

A few blocks from the Brazilian coffee shop I stopped at a Korean grocer because they carried bags of dried Thai peppers, which can be difficult to find. These are the thin, dried red peppers that give heat to Thai food. I use them sparingly, but I like to have them around. I bought a bag and was back at my place in fifteen minutes.

Kelly was sitting at my kitchen table and reading the newspaper when I came through the door.

“Hey Pope,” she said. She didn’t look up from whatever she was reading. Her thick hair strained against the restraints—elastics or bows or whatever she uses—and a rebellious strand the color of dirty straw fell into her line of sight. She shoved it behind her left ear.

“Hey.” I said. “You make coffee?”

“Nope. Just got here.”

“You want coffee?

“You have cream?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

I took a box of filters out of the cupboard and put one into the coffee urn, measured in about eight teaspoons of Dunk’s and set the kettle to boil.

“What are you reading?”

“Paper.”

“Okay.”

I figured if she didn’t want to talk, she didn’t want to talk. I found a Mason jar that was clean and dry, and the gasket was intact. I put it on the counter and slipped on a pair of vinyl examination gloves.

I tore open the bag of Thai peppers. It held more than I’d expected, but with a little compression, I figured I’d get them all in the jar.

“What are you doing?” Kelly asked. She still hadn’t looked up. I really envied her. I could use that sort of focus.

“I bought some Thai peppers. They’re usually used for decoration, but they add some character and spice to a few dishes.”

“Thai peppers, huh? What do they taste like?”

“I don’t know. They taste like heat, I think. I only use a little bit in curries and stuff like that.

Kelly looked up, curious. “Hot peppers? How hot?”

I shrugged. “Hot. Really hot. I don’t think they are technically food. They are really, really spicy. I chop them up and use tiny bits in chili and stir fries.”

Kelly has always pushed. It was one of her most endearing qualities. If you told her she couldn’t, she would. I have no fear, of anything, and it is a handicap. I’d grab a piece of white hot iron out of a forge using my bare hand if the math told me to do it. Kelly felt fear, but she would never let it best her. That’s courage, I think, though I have no idea. Where I feel no fear, she feels it, but chooses to ignore it. A dangerous choice, in my humble opinion. Courage, to me, though, is like Van Gogh’s Starry, Starry Night to a blind man. I wish I had her courage. I don’t have courage, because I don’t have fear. I think I understand it a little, though, and everything I know about it I learned watching Kelly and another friend I will speak of later, Marvin.

“C’mon,” she said. “Are they one of those insanely hot peppers?”

I didn’t know. “They’re hot. I don’t think they are actually even food. I don’t think people eat them on their own, anywhere, ever. I bought way more than I need. I’ll never use all of this.”

“Let me have one,” she said.

“That’s a bad idea,” I said. “Look. I’m wearing gloves. You do not want to eat one of these.”

“Just shut up and give me one.”

“Kelly,” I told her, “They are not food.”

“C’mon! Just give me a fucking pepper.”

I held the jar out so she could choose one. She did.

Kelly grabbed a small, bright red pepper, and popped it in her mouth. She gave it a few chews. She looked at me, wide eyed.

And then she burst into tears.

“You fucking bastard,” she said.

I was shocked.

“You prick! Get me some milk.”

“What?” I didn’t know what she wanted or where the anger was coming from.

“Just get me some milk, you prick! You let me do that!”

I went to the fridge and got some milk and poured it in a glass.

Kelly chugged most of the glass of milk, but she tilted her head back and held the last swallow in her mouth, like she was gargling.

There was nothing I could do, about anything, so I just looked out the window. There were sparrows on the roof two houses away. It looked like they were mating. Two males were bristling and dancing around a female. They looked happy, at least. As happy as sparrows can be.

Kelly wasn’t.

“You could have warned me,” she said. She had a milk mustache.

“More than I did, you mean? I told you they were not food. Not for human consumption.”

“You knew I wouldn’t listen.”

“I told you they were death hot, used only sparingly. I suppose I could have found a Magic Marker and drawn a skull and crossbones on the jar, but then you’d have eaten two.”

“You could have warned me.”

There was nothing to say, so I didn’t say anything. People make choices, sometimes bad choices, and you can set yourself on fire and dance and they are still going to make their choices; and then, invariably, they are going to look for someone to blame. It’s just how humans work, I think. I’ve never had anyone to blame. When I picked up a hot pan because I had no fear of hot pans, for the third time, I understood that no one was capable of running ahead of me through life labeling everything that might hurt me. It just wasn’t going to happen. I think I was nine. My parents were off the hook, as far as I was concerned. Some things hurt and had to be avoided. It was up to me to figure them out.

I poured Kelly a cup of coffee and one for myself. I put a teaspoon of sugar and a splash of cream in mine and two teaspoons in hers. Her eyes were still watery and her breathing was returning to normal. I waited.

“That sucked,” she eventually said.

“They’re pretty hot.”

“And it wasn’t your fault. You told me.”

“I tried to. No one tells you anything.”

“Okay. That’s true.”

“I’m sorry. I should have been more…what? Emphatic?”

Kelly laughed. “Yeah….THAT would have changed my mind.”

This is why I love Kelly. We’re like two sides of the same coin, or the inside and the outside of an intricately embroidered sock, or some other lame analogy that escapes me. I don’t know what fear is. She feels everything, but chooses to kick fear in the nuts. I think she actually feels every second of terror but chooses to muscle through. I don’t know. I just know she is brave.

People think I am brave and that’s funny. I’m not “brave”. I’m brain damaged. When Kelly tells me not to do something, because it will not end well and will cause me pain, I generally trust her. I rely upon her. When I try to warn her? Well, this is how it goes.

Peas in a pod.

Sometimes Kelly and I sleep together. We are grown ups and we love each other, but I doubt we’ll ever be a couple. One of the things Kelly warns me about is Kelly. I don’t fear anything, but I have to listen to experts. She tells me it is hopeless and I have to believe her. Yeah, pain is pain and fear is fear, and they aren’t the same thing. I know that loving Kelly is going to cause me pain. I’m just not afraid of it. She, on the other hand, is afraid for me. It's complicated.

“Where’d you go?” Kelly asked.

“Strange morning,” I said. “Remember that dealer I told you about a month or so back? Rico?”

“Yeah.”

“Well he wanted to meet with me, so we met at a diner. He thinks his cousin is demon possessed and he wants me to take a look.”

“You know that’s crazy, right?” She took a sip of coffee. Her taste buds seemed to be recovering.

“Demons? I guess. I don’t know much about it. Just the usual movie stuff.”

“Pope. There are no demons. People do this shit to themselves and to one another.”

I laughed. “You’re probably right. Anyway, I’m going there tonight. I’ll let you know.”

I broke five eggs into a bowl and put a skillet on the stove. While the skillet was heating I diced a small clove of garlic, and ground some pepper and salt into the eggs. I put in a dash of the cream and a little water and whisked.

“You want toast?”

“Duh!”

“I know it’s silly,” I said, “but I made a promise so he’d cut Mike’s kid off. I’ve got to do it.”

I dropped some toast. I got the butter out of the fridge and set a skillet on the burner. I put a little less than a tablespoon of butter in the pan and waited for it to melt. When the butter had melted, I gave it a swirl around the pan and poured in the beaten eggs.

“Want me to come with?” Kelly asked.

“Like you say, it’s a nothingburger. People being mean to one another. A little mental illness. Film at 11. I’ll take a look and we can talk about it tomorrow. If there’s any contribution you can make? I’ll let the crossword editor at the Globe know and he can pass it on.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

I laughed and folded the omelet.

Kelly took off in the early afternoon to do something or other with paint. I took a quick shower, and put on some baggy jeans, a black t-shirt, and a pair of beat Converse All Stars that were as comfortable as slippers.

I didn’t strap on my gun. I sat on the edge of the bed and did the math. My job, as I understood it, was to just go along and see whatever it was that there is to be seen. Odds were good we’d be walking into a highly charged emotional scene, and people would be totally wrapped up in their personal concept of good and evil and their understanding of God and the Devil, most probably all instigated by someone’s psychotic break, and none of this was the least bit predictable. I had no idea how many people would be there.

Introducing a weapon into the mix would exponentially increase the odds of something going sideways and the odds of someone being shot by about 100%. It probably wouldn’t be me, but it could be my gun, and that would entail weeks and months of answering questions and maybe facing criminal charges. Bad bet. Thanks, Dad.

I took a small knife that I usually carry when I’m doing carpentry. The handle and the blade are both made of steel and anodized a flat black. Open, the blade is maybe two and a half inches long, but it is sharp enough to shave with because I keep it that way to trim oak and other hardwoods. There is a spring clip riveted to the handle, and I can carry it in my pocket, secured by the clip, so it won’t disappear into the pocket with the keys and change and loose bills. I can open it with a snap of my thumb, using either hand. It’s a great tool. It’s also a nasty weapon in a pinch.

I slipped on a black fleece that zippers up the front and has zippered pockets. It had flecks of fine sawdust on it because I hadn’t run it through the wash. I was ready. I set off to meet Rico.

A few minutes before seven I found a legal place to park, locked the car and walked up the block to the coffee shop. Rico was already there, sitting in the front passenger seat of the idling Escalade. I didn’t recognize the driver. I climbed in behind him.

“Hey,” I said.

Rico nodded. “This is my nephew, Chaz. Chaz, this is Frank Pope, the guy I told you about.”

Chaz looked at me in the rearview, and nodded. He didn’t say anything. I guessed it must be a family thing.

Rico half turned in his seat. “We’re going to Dorchester. I don’t know what we’re going to find, or even what I want you to do. I guess I just want someone there who can see whatever we see clearly, you know? Without shitting their pants.”

Rico looked scared. So did his nephew. Both were sort of pale and stretched thin, with identical creases at the corner of their eyes and a mossy dampness—not sweat, really—just a suggestion of glossiness on their foreheads.

“Works for me. Let’s go.”

Chaz had the radio tuned to an R&B station. An ad for something ended and Earth, Wind, and Fire began performing “After the Love Has Gone”.

“And turn this shit up,” I said.