The Crossroad by Steve Prusky

Sam’s crossroad was a swirling urban nether world in the slummiest part of Detroit. This intersection never evolved. Instead, it became an admission free museum of relics from a past Mob wars and the “Fix” once ruled. Layers of graffiti swathed the granite exterior of the gargoyle trimmed late Nineteenth Century bank building--now a smut store--opposite Sam’s cramped second floor flat. The first floor Roaring Twenties style diner in his building served stodgy Blue Plate specials from 6:00 PM until midnight. The noisy bar directly below his room on Calumet Avenue attracted as many cops as criminals. Fourth Street bellowed shotgun groans of semi trucks engine braking, wailing sirens speeding to a crime a fire or another smack

back drug fiend sprawled face down in the shadows of an abandoned wig shop near the corner. Progress relegated this decrepit part of the city into an obsolete narrow pinch point cross-town traffic must pass through en route to other blemished parts. Its final function was as an overused heart fighting congestive failure, yet it still struggled to pump lifeblood through its worn arteries to the distant appendages of the greater, equally unhealthy urban whole. Stark inner-city existence reigned on Sam’s corner of Calumet and Fourth.

           Sam prospered as well as a real estate agent trying to sell empty shacks in a ghost town. He kept a low wage night watch job at a shoe warehouse in the antiquated industrial district near down town. He managed well enough to stay only a few hours ahead on his weekly rent. The roach infested tenement he occupied; its sluggish toilet, weak stream lukewarm shower, radiated steam heat suggested the Great Depression never left his building while the rest of the world moved on. The thin lumpy mattress of his twin-sized hide-a-bed suited him fine. The one-man galley kitchen, a dripping faucet, chipped porcelain sink loaded with a week’s worth of unwashed pans and dishes kept his roaches busy and strategically located in one place rather than aimlessly drifting throughout his entire flat for

nourishment. The coffin-sized closet housed two pair of jeans, undone laundry, a few tattered tee shirts and a hill of twice read paperback books; the literary ghosts of his limited college education.  His flat was a warm womb that cloistered him secure with a front row view of the energy flowing steadily below him on Calumet and Fourth.

           Sam lived on this squalor-ridden corner by choice, not for an initial lack of ambition.  The GI Bill funded his college. Sam aggressively pursued a degree. He became an established institution on the dean’s list, a legend among professors that were convinced he was on the literary path to a PhD. Sam dropped out the last semester of his junior year; Smack and Wild Turkey coaxed him to their university; they became his intellectual heroes rather than John Donne or Mavis Gallant.  Drained cerebrally dry Sam pulled the plug on his future to earn his street degree.

          Heroin and a steady supply of sour mash whiskey fulfilled his simple needs. Emotionally exhausted, excessive compulsive, unable to vent his inward anger without violence; he adopted the lifestyle of a socially withdrawn recluse. He sought anonymity in bars swam in the wet warmth of an occasional nameless woman. He relished a no holds bared fistfight simply based on the wrong word said. Sam blamed his condition on the

insanities he took part in during a war the previous generation dumped on his. He faulted his failure as a compassionate, loving man on all the women he allowed near enough to know him intimately. When string of lovers discovered how abnormal and self destructive he truly was most all of them surrendered to their inability to change him packed their make up kits and left. He credited his excessive alcohol abuse to his dysfunctional upbringing: an alcoholic wife-beating father, a blank eyed heartlessly cold as death mother. He blamed his off and on smack habit--a left over vice from his close proximity to the Poppy fields in Thailand during the war--for his inability to succeed. He placed the burden of his failures on anyone or anything but himself.

          Ten years had passed since college. During that period, Sam blundered and tripped through a litany of offenses: assault, resisting arrest, possession of drug paraphernalia.  He followed the backwash of lost humanity to this derelict dead end urban crossroad. Those instances he temporarily kicked ‘H’, he drank until his tracks healed, then predictably relapsed and anxiously pounded on his connects’ door.  He was a marginally functioning alcoholic when he wasn‘t smack back.  When playing with the needle and spoon, he was a waste of a human life.

          Sam’s bellicose boozy neighbor, Doc, was a retired dentist. Doc meticulously cultivated black creeping vine like hairs stubbornly protruding from his nostrils. His turkey neck and jowls wobbled when he talked or shook his head yes and no.  Doc’s unshaven wrinkly face and grey tainted stubble mirrored the flesh and blood image of an odometer that had spun too fast, turned over at least twice indicating it was more the miles Doc put on than age that made him appear twenty years dead and still standing in line for burial. Doc and Sam were friends of convenience with a consistent thirst for anything 100 proof or above in common. Although Doc disapproved of Sam’s erratic heroin habit, he let it go convinced Sam was more honorable than most, less dramatic than others.

          Doc came by with a fifth of Brandy. “Let’s drink and philosophize,” he slurred. Doc had a head start on the bottle.

          “I’m good with that,” Sam said. “We’ll go down to the bar when this bottle is gone.”

          “Done,” the old man said between swigs. Doc and Sam sat in the kitchen and propped their feet up on the table. They quietly observed the dregs of life pass along the opposite side of Fourth Street from the

permanently stuck shut nook window. Hookers with one foot in the gutter and one on the curb flagged down tricks. The corner rock dealer alertly stood by leaning against the liquor store facing Calumet with a baggy full of product ready for business.  His granite eyes darted constantly in every direction for trouble or a sale. He always had a preplanned route to take for a quick flight from the cops. Sam conjured an image of Prohibition Era crime boss Sam Gianolla stuck at the traffic signal on Calumet and Fourth fifty years ago, relighting his half-smoked Cuban Diplomaticos cigar, impatiently fidgeting in the back seat of his chauffer driven V-12 armored limousine. Inside of fifteen minutes, Sam and Doc emptied the fifth and stumbled down stairs.

          The neon darkness inside the bar below welcomed them to a simpler world of less. It was an alcoholic toilet. It smelled of anything drinkable that could possibly grow stale; everything drunk from that remained unwashed; everything that a wet, mildewed mop tucked head up in a corner near the men’s room could soak up; spilled beer, vomit, urine, soured wine. Sam and Doc were regulars, caste in stone drunks--no denying it. The bartender addressed them by first name. He fed them drinks on credit until Sam’s payday or Doc’s Social Security check came in. They drank Jack Daniels

shots with tap beer chasers, at times laid a bet on a game of eight-ball and studied the aesthetics of the world floating by the opened bar room door. They closed the place often on Sam’s nights off.  Tonight was Sam’s night off. 

          By the seventh round the old dentist bravely slurred, “What in the fuck are you lookin’ at?” to the tattooed, buff, bullish two-time felon staring at them from across the bar. Sam stood up ready to defend Doc, yet subconsciously weighed what mysteries may lay beyond his own death. The felon stood up and laughed. “Nothing,” he said grinning. He admired the inebriated hump backed old man‘s courage and recognized the dread in Sam’s owlish worn eyes.  Joey was also perceptive enough to spot Sam’s ‘I don’t give a fuck’ ready to die fighting posture. “I’m Joey.  Let me buy you both something.”

          Joey’s first conviction, after many previous misdemeanors, judicial warnings and probation, was Trafficking in a Controlled Substance--fifteen years. His second was Assault with a Deadly Weapon--ten. “All I did was pistol whip a guy for beating me out of my money.” Joey said. He wore a sleeveless t-shirt with a pocket for his Pall Malls, scuffed black biker boots and tattered jeans. Joey’s tats were all prison cell ink, including Arian

Brotherhood thunderbolts under his upper left arm and a rose-colored serrated knife blade wrapped in grey barbed wire on his upper right bicep. His for-head just above the left brow cast the pinkish silhouette of a 4 inch poorly stitched scar.  Joey was 6’ 4” tall and weighed in wet at 250 pounds.  His shoulder long hair was streaked grayish white. His thumb length beard was moonless night black. Joey’s friends were friends for life, as were his enemies. Sam did not think a name like Joey fit a man with so threatening a presence. He imagined a handle more brutal, bruising, intimidating, disarming; something Italian like Rocco, or Latino--Marco, maybe Irish--Brogan; not Joey. The three palled up and got drunk while a zoot suit clad combination pimp pool shark behind them practiced his game alone.

          Joey turned round on his stool and watched the pro caress the table as authoritatively as he did his whores. The player caught Joey attentively watching him swiftly manipulate the angle of each shot with nonchalant grace. The pimp was a master of the game. After some teasing and badgering, Joey accepted the shark’s challenge at five dollars a ball. The con neatly lost all his money. Sam played him with the same result, losing all his rent money. Doc gave it all up too. Between games, while the losers racked the balls, the shark excused himself and sneaked to the can to take a few hit

off a rock pipe. After he sunk the last game winning eight ball, the smug shark sauntered up to the bar taunting, “Now, you boys look me up when you want some lessons on the proper way to play eight-ball.  I’ll charge you a nominal fee.” He peeled off a bill from a fist-sized wad of twenties for a double gin and tonic. 

           “That’s our God damned money you’re flaunting,” Joey said. “A friendly sportsman like shot or two from you won’t put too much of a dent in that roll.”

          “It’s a hard life.” The shark sneered. “It’s harder if you’re stupid.” 

          Doc jumped at him first, then Sam got up ready too brawl, confidently walked to the scuffling pair, got Doc off the pimp, slung the player over his shoulder and slammed him hard flat back on the pool table. His head thumped the slate like ice cracks. Sam got hold of the pimp’s lacquered, in-laid Mother of Pearl custom-made cue and threatened to pummel him senseless with the butt end of it. Joey stayed on his stool, ordered another shot and said, “You got him Sam.  You got him dude, “almost doubled over with laughter, slapping his knees, chuckling at the violent comedy.  Sam took their lost money, the pimp’s bankroll and his pool stick too.

          Joey turned to the bartender and said, “Any problems with this?”

          “Nope, never did like the son of a bitch anyway-- bad for business,” the shuffling bulldog face old man said. Now get the fuck out a here.”  He yelled to the shark. “You’re shit canned from this hole for good.” He turned to the heroic threesome for approval and said, “This round goes on me.” They drank free the rest of the night and the bartender got dunk with them.

          They closed the bar at 2:00 A.M. Sam tipped the bartender sixty dollars and split the shark’s money evenly with Joey and Doc. Although Joey lost the most, he was too impressed with Sam and Doc’s character to complain; the monetary loss was worth making two rare friends in one day. Sam, Joey, Doc and the bartender wobbled up to Sam’s flat. Doc and the bartender passed out on Sam’s fold out bed.  Sam and Joey stayed up, sat down at the kitchen table and gazed out the window.  They peered through the night shadows on Fourth Street. Sam leaned forward, clutching the shark’s cue stick upright between his legs as if it were a phallic growth. Thickening pre dawn traffic maneuvered through the crossing from all directions. The four-way light flashed its colors like cardiac valves sequentially passing the appropriate doses of plasma through each asphalt vein feeding distant extremities of the city their daily dose of life. Joey pointed out the jonesing pool shark they beat floundering across the

junction like a lost lamb in a snowstorm anxiously searching for a benevolent dealer who might front him a rock so he could get a grip. “Look at that asshole tripping over himself to get hold of a free rock,” Joey said.  Sam snickered and then refocused back from the street to his own reflection in the glass as if reading an incomplete rough draft narration of his directionless life. The paltry kitchen decor behind his glassy eyed face portrayed a blurry portrait of the bleak reality he refused to trade up for.