There is no point to this story:

About a week or so ago, a client called me up and said his father was in an embarassing situation and he couldn't talk about it on the phone. I told him to come to my office. He said to meet him somewhere. After making it clear that the meter starts running... now... I showed up at 26th and California and met him in front.

It seems his father had an previously unknown fondness for tranquilizers, a few cleverly concealed trips to the mad house and an absolutely shocking taste for the bellyflesh of teenage boys. He'd picked up a boy wonder prostitute and apparently bit the kid so hard on his stomach that the kid kicked him in the chin, slamming his mouth shut so fast that he chipped four teeth. But he was rambling and carrying on so much that the kid, after no doubt taking every C-Note on the old man's person, dropped a dime from a few blocks away about some bloody old man spitting out fragments of enamel in an alley. Or so that's the speculation.

26th and California--if you live in this city, you know what that address means. It's hell. I've never spent a day in prison, not even an hour. My record is completely clean which is why I could take sleazebags for clients, beginning with a lecherous Outfit goon that was murdered shortly thereafter by his own kind. Now I just take other people's sleazebag relatives for clients as a favor, which isn't to say it's free, because you wouldn't go to this place by choice if a fucking leprechaun told you he had a pot of gold inside. It's in the ghetto and it's even worse inside.

Apparently, the cops put this pederast old man in lockup with drunks and petty thieves (who are usually crackheads), which snapped whatever thread was holding him to reality. I look around and his kid is white--white as a fucking ghost. I've never seen anyone so pale their skin was almost transparent. He seems slightly better though after I get there since like all people who fear The Law he grasps at a few bullshit words of comfort.

By the time we got there, they'd taken his old man and put him in isolation. The next step was the infirmiry. After some intense voodoo I got them to let me see the old man. He looked like John Wayne, if you looked past the foam coming out of his mouth.

Since the kid (who was picked up with a savage bitemark on his gut about an hour later--it's not smart to walk down the street without a coat in January, in a white shirt, with blood pouring out of you) wasn't going to do anything, they were only holding him on a charge of disturbing the peace. Get arraigned, pay a fine, leave. But they can't dump him out in this condition. With his kid's consent I get them to drag him to the infirmiry and dope him up. Just before he goes under, in a whisper (but audible), he says:

"Cop... shoot cop... cop... shoot cop..."

Which became my signature, along with the rest of the lyrics to Life Sex and Death's "Guatemala." I have no idea how this guy heard it--maybe the hustler had it on his iPod or something. But like a good attorney, I smile and discreetly shove a pillow over his head before anyone hears him. For all I know, he did shoot a cop.

So the man is knocked out, and I'm discussing what to do with him with his son. This is gonna look awful in the society pages, and their family has some deep roots among the people who line their mina bird cages with those things. Sending him back to the bug house sounds reasonable, but it would take hours, and the son said he couldn't stay that long (God I love to see devouted children!) I tell him the bureaucratic shit is going to take all day anyway, and I had to get to court in a couple of hours, so he better makeup his mind.

In the end, the old man was taken to the bughouse where, his son was told, his mother used to have him committed everytime he was arrested.

Again, no point to this story, no moral and no happy ending. The old man will get out again and take a piece out of some 17 year old hustler's calf. His son will call me, and we'll repeat the process all over again.