Steve Prusky: Out of Polonia

Stan and Celina were reared fenced inside the Polonian hamlet of Hamtramck on Andrus Street. Pole Town, as Hamtramck residents call it, is a two square mile Lilliputian burg darkened by the Gulliver sized shadow of Detroit. 

The pair emerged from their immigrant mothers’ wombs to the New World in 1949 and 1950. They were both born at Detroit Osteopathic Hospital in Highland Park. They were inaugural Baby Boomers. From birth, they were groomed and dubbed first generation Polonian Americans. They grew up in as clannish an atmosphere as any other immigrant ethnic groups in Detroit: Albanians, Lithuanians, Catholic Poles and Polish Jews, a few block long pockets of unassuming Czechs. Stan and Celina were as fluent and literate in Gdansk Polish as they were in English. They grew up fed a dual diet of old country culture and the novelty of the Free World. Their émigré parents nourished them on Chopin, Kielbasa, Warszawa dills, Kud nad Wisłą, Three Kings Day, Easter Monday in competition with the iconic Americana of Gun Smoke, Aretha Franklin, “That Was the Week That Was,” and full color news clips of the made for TV Vietnam War performed almost live each dinner hour. Their Palonian heritage exiled them to Hamtramck: a transplanted European enclave surrounded by prosperous, liberal, tempting, but off-limits America.  

Their cliquish second-generation peersPomazaniec‘the anointed’ Stan spitefully called them, ostracized them, denied them social privilege outside Ham Town. The anointed lived in the nicer parts of Detroit. They flourished on the fringe of their ethnic Hamtramck roots as if the town was an Indian reservation and they the vigilant cavalry hemming the hostiles in. They were aloof, nearly immune to old land cultural mores by bloodline longevity. They languished in second-generation hierarchal privilege by luck of birth. Most shucked the old country ways and adopted the liberal freedoms of the US as if Palonian tradition had become a cultural infection no antidote can cure. They considered themselves Americans first, distant Polonians last, a quantum no return leap past their roots. Stan and Celina walked a tight rope equidistant to Polonia and the world outside Hamtramck. 

Socially excluded by the anointed, it was natural Stan and Celina turn to each other. They remained heads together mates, intimate as lovers, mutually protective of each other to a degree well beyond even the basic tenets of marriage. 

Early Saturday morning they stepped out from Kaminski’s corner market on Caniff and Joseph Campau, each of Stan’s arms slaved to two weighty grocery bags for Celina’s mother while Celina kept pace beside him.

“Mamma’s cleaning the house up all nice and neat right now for tonight,” Celina said. “Probably needs my help. Let’s take our time going home.”

Stan suggested, “Let’s stop at Simanski’s used book store up on Conant, and see what he’s got new. There’s nothing in these bags that’ll spoil.”  Celina nodded, grateful for Stan’s ability to productively waste time. She slipped her arm in Sam’s, surprising him with her gesture of affection. They slowly strolled down bustling Conant Street like new lovers oblivious to all that is wrong in the world, but Stan could easily find fault with every corner of Hamtramck.

Since he could recollect, Stan remained focused on a path out of Polonia. If he stayed, a low paying factory job would be the extent of his future. He felt no obligation to tithe the social dues of subservience his generation and their immigrant parents believed they owed. He was anxious to meld with the fast moving current of upwardly mobile 1960’s America. Stan had no wish to be a Polonian in denial, he simply wanted to jump a few rungs on the ladder of upward mobility, surpass the status of ‘the anointed’ on the first round. Stan was determined to be first generation American, not first generation, or second, or third generation American born Palonian. On the other hand, Celina timidly accepted her ethnic fate. She struggled to balance her staid old country upbringing with the startling self-confident aura of impetuous America swimming laps in an Olympic pool of prosperity. 

A little further east on Conant, after the bookstore and two twenty-five cent paperback novels Celina liked, they came upon the smell of fresh butchered animal blood in Kieslowski’s Meat Market. They gazed in awe at the macabre display of Kieslowski’s amply stocked storefront window lined with tripe, lamb chops, ham hocks, blood dripping beef ribs stacked chest high. Stan stepped in Eliezer’s Kosher Deli next door and bought a small round of soft Camembert and two Pierogies to share with Celina. “Sorry for these paltry lookin’ things,” Stan said, “the Jews should to stick with making latkes, let us Poles make a proper Pierogy.” They threaded through the maze of sidewalk kiosks stocked with every trinket imaginable and staffed with aggressive Polish speaking attendants prepared to swindle any one that took the hook. The couple sat on the slat bench in front of Koszniak‘s Bakery to eat. Stan observed the activity on Conant Street like a practiced Baudelerian flâneur. He listened to the din of kobieta bickering with the butcher and sidewalk vendors hawking cheap black plastic bead rosaries and nickel plated St. Christopher medalschains were extra. “We have to get out of here someday, don’t you think?” Stan said. A focused bapʨa scurried past, late for weekday morning Mass. The tail of her Babuška flapped in rhythm with her escalated pace. The long city block possessed every accoutrement an imported version of old Polonia requires. Each soul contently ambling past the duo appeared certain life in Hamtramck is simply . . . life. “Pole town I mean. Look around us; you’d think this street is no different than a Warsaw open air bazaar catering to peasant farmers in town for the day.”

“I’ve never been to Warsaw.” Neither had Stan. “From intimate to belligerent so quick: Where did that come from? Why such a hurry Stan? I can’t leave. My family’s here. I’m happy near my family. Go where?” Celina asked.

“Any place that doesn’t resemble this signed in stone copy of the old Poland.”

*

Saturday’s were cultural re-affirmation day for Celina and Stan’s families. The two clans were members of the Polish Century Club. At dusk each Saturday both families crammed in their rusting second hand station wagons and went to the Century Club Hall in Mardi Gras moods, as if the day before Sabbath was Fat Tuesday and Sunday Mass Ash Wednesday.  It was July 3, 1967; a few weeks until the Detroit race riots and mad dog insanity reigned unchecked for three days, five complacent months prior to the ‘68 Tet Offensive, seven months before the first Super Bowl; a year until the first man stood on the Moon. Celina had matured into a curvy, graceful olive skinned Polish Venus at eighteen. Stan, gangly and uncoordinated during puberty, turned into a vigorous, sinuous hormone afflicted nineteen-year-old alpha male three months earlier.

Celina’s mother had the house in order by the time Celina got home with the groceries and two twenty-five cent worn thin second hand paperback novels.

“What timing.” her mother scowled.

“Sorry matka, books--you know I read.” Her mother snorted disapproval at so frivolous a purchase. “Books! Books! Why buy books? Go to the library, but no late fees. Save for the Mass tithe basket, clothes, college,” her mother scolded. Stan’s family gathered at Celina’s for drinks before their weekly exodus to the Hall.

*

At the Century Club later, the women freely clucked the latest community gossip in Polish. They fretted over the parish priests that drank too heavily from the sacrificial wine casks before they incoherently flubbed through weekday Mass in Latin to the few believers present. Whether the silk robed men were drunk or sober, none of the faithful understood the ancient language anyway.

  

“Billie Jackobilski is in the Hamtramck jail again for fist fighting, drunk on Stoli vodka at Raymond Dregovich’s bar on Joseph Campau,” Stan’s mother railed.

  

“The old Reichold Chemical plant in Ferndale had another explosion, killing Tadeusz Szymanski and five others,” Celina’s solemn mother mourned. “Thad left three kids and a wife behind. Those who can not afford to help long term must contribute to a one-time collection for the family.”

“Yes, of course,” Stan’s mother agreed without thinking which of her husband’s skimpy paychecks the donation might come from.

The women nipped from a purse size bottle of Madeira Celina’s mother sneaked in as if the sweet liqueur were eighteen-carat liquid gold: the Club didn’t stock Madeira at the bar. The tired, labor worn fathers, ojciecs, many partisans during the Nazi occupation of Poland, later outlaws when Soviet tanks thundered in, lazed about drinking beer, joking, poking fun at their wives plumping bottoms and thickened waists.

The club gorged on Smalec Hors d’Oeuvres and a full course snowball dinner served from the festive trough of New World prosperity. Stan pecked at the old fashion polish dishes, silently pining for pizza, hot dogs, hamburgers and fries instead.  Celina, soft spoken, mostly silent, dutifully traditional, spoke only Polish at the table. She slowly relished each mouthful of the old homeland dishes. However, no staunch Polonian influences could stop Celina’s overwhelming chemistry from radiating post pubescent female youth. Nothing man made could prohibit her hormones from multiplying, spilling over, gravitating toward Stan. 

Celina sat on Stan’s side of the long fold out table during the communal feast. She helped clear the table, sat back down, angled her chair to face Stan and confronted him with her fresh new woman-hood. Her long, straight black hair shined. Its tips kissed her waist. Her smooth shaved legs emitted a corona like the howling moon. Stan smelled her pheromones a room away. Her autumn brown eyes narrowed to a visual swoon, oozing rich hormones in his direction. Her mini skirt rode up her muscle-toned legs when she sat facing him. She provocatively crossed her right leg over the left; her skirt crept higher, revealing a quick peak at her fluid inner thighs. She angelically stared at him as if she had just reconfigured the four virtues of the Australian Southern Cross. Both families spotted her inviting body language. The mothers excitedly cackled and cooed. The men shared glances of approval. Stan looked up from Celina’s naked legs to the reflective pools of heat in her eyes. She proffered him a Mona Lisa smile, amused by the hypnotic testosterone swelling his eyes.

The adults sipped drinks after dinner; Armada Cream Sherry for the women, the best Polish vodka found Stateside for the men. 

Sam and Celina stayed at the table and continued facing each other. Sam, distracted by Celina’s less than subtle innuendos, paid no attention to the blathering adult’s gathering at the bar. He was so taken by Celina he would have ignored the second flood, or a gun to his head. “I’ll get beer,” he volunteered. 

“None for me,” Celina said. She crossed her left leg over her right, slower than before, as if her limbs spoke paragraphs of her intent. Sam, her lone audience, watched the choreography of her molten thighs, smiled, placed one hand on her knee, caressed her cheek with the other and kissed hershe kissed back. Stan hurried to the bar to fetch a Pabst for himself and cream soda for Celina. Those left at the table sat silent in Stan’s absence. 

Celina absorbed all the implications of his soft touch, his kiss, the pleasant mingling of their tongues. She leaned back on her chair as comfortably limp as surrender gets.

  

The band started up. Excessive drinking and shameless laughter took place. The crowd danced to traditional Polish Polkas, mazurkas, Chopin etudes with an occasional brew of pop music stirred in for the teens. After guzzling the first beer, Stan wandered to the bar for a second and took a seat while he waited.

Celina got up and slowly flowed across the dance floor like a female Moses in command. She sauntered toward Stan as if her desire had parted the Red Sea for her to reach the other shore. Her black three-inch heels chiseled her taught calf muscles and sculpted her slightly exposed inner thighs, as if she had resurrected Michelangelo to polish them marble smooth. Her skin tone looked recently poured like glistening fluid amber.  Her short tight black skirt revealed every shapely bit of her as if there was no need to undress her ever and expect more.  Her black Chiffon top accented her raven flowing hair like a brook of jet black endlessly spilling from her crown.  Her eyes were two ponds of brown mist, her lips a pout.  She sanctioned he take her hand to dance. “C’mon Stan, playtime is over.  We’re both grown up.  Hold me,” her low throaty voice was as lust laden as a sultry invitation could be. There was no doubt any one in Pole Town would deny this night belonged to them. Her arms surrounded his neck, possessively clutching him. She looked up to him, kissed his cheek. He wrapped both arms around her waist, resting his hands on her hips, kissed her forehead in reply. His testosterone level leapt over tall buildings, the Alps, the Statue of Liberty, yet he knew tonight that there would be nowhere to land. They held each other close, slow dancing through each waltz, love ballad, slow paced étude. They drank together at the bar between dances. They kissed, slid their barstools close as if their mutual lust had permanently welded the chrome steel legs permanently together. Celina whispered Stan an invitation between drinks, “It‘s time they put you and I to bed,” she said. Stan hesitated. He wistfully breathed in her ear, kissed the nape of her neck. They held each other, drank arm in arm.  He smoked his first cigarette with her. Celina asked Stan dance a polka with her.

“It’ll be the last dance for a while, I got drafted. I leave for the Army next week.” Stan said. 

The Red Sea closed. Stan began to drown as if he was Pharaoh’s first charioteer in the chase to corner Moses.  “So that’s what’s wrong with you! It explains this afternoon on the bakery bench. When did you get the news?”

“Yesterday’s mail. You had to know this was coming. I’m nineteen. Everyone my age is going. Celina, I have no antidote for this. Can you take a chance and wait?”

“Oh, of course I’ll wait. Is there another choice?” Stan had no options. The war was an affair practically every American male his age was bound to inherit. “Kocham cię,” Celina said. Stan could not reply. 

Celina left Stan sitting cold at the bar. Her high heals quickly clicked across the polished wood dance floor like raindrops tapping tin. The sea parted again as she crossed to the other shore. The waters imploded head on closing close behind. Stan felt as if she abandoned him in a dingy back alley with no light to guide him to the street. Although Stan’s affection for her glowed bright, the shiny chrome gleam dulled with his admission. Stan sat at the bar the rest of the evening staring at the top shelf liquor. Celina sat on an uncomfortable seat in a row of like seats single girls used while waiting for invitations to dance. No one asked Celina; it was obvious she only danced with Stan. She whimpered, wept, well beyond the last dance, the last drink, her last glance at Stan as he left the Hall with his family.

*  

Stan left for basic training the following Tuesday. In league with five other bay windows on Andrus Street, Stan’s mother immediately hung a two-foot long vertical silk red, white and blue banner decorated with one blue star in her front window.

The Army did not discriminate; all ethnic groups were welcome.  Even first generation U.S. Palonians got invitations to this war. No second generation ‘Hybrids’ ostracized Stan in the Army. The possibility of violent death in combat tends to promote equality among all those facing it. Stan arrived in Hue just in time for Tet. It was the year of the monkey in Vietnam.

Both families kept on living.  They habitually observed the traditional Polish holidays. The Saturday evening family gatherings at the Hall remained a sacred re-assertion of Polonian heritage. The matkas partook of their obligatory nips from hidden bottles of Madeira, gossiped, exchanged old country recipes. The men cajoled their wives for their bulging waistlines and swelling bottoms, swilled Pabst Blue Ribbon and Stolichnaya Vodka, gratefully feasting on their Polish homeland meals. The anointed prospered, moved to the suburbs while Conant Street continued to be Polonian. Celina clung closer to the old country ways. Stan got out of Polonia and never returned. His mother sewed black ribbon diagonally across the blue star banner in her bay window, walked to St. Florian’s church on Poland Street and lit a candle before she prayed.

 

A native Detroiter, Steve Prusky has lived in Las Vegas  since 1987. His fiction, photography and poetic work have appeared in Camel Saloon, Bactrian Room, Foundling Review, Eunoia Review, Orion headless, Assisi Online Journal, The Legendary, Whistling fire and other publications. 

STEVE PRUSKY: SAVING THORSON

Real life does occur in Vegas. Normal people live here. Sam is one. He truly is a well adjusted, thriving resident religiously on time with the rent, current with his credit cards--mostly. He keeps a regular non-gaming job, grills steaks and dogs on weekends, saves for his kids college funds, stays on level terms with his ex-wife, watches football on TV ignorant of the spread, listens to classical music on internet radio. To locals like Sam, the novelty of the Las Vegas Strip is not an attraction, destination or detour; it is an obstacle to avoid along the serious highway of life toward the prosperous normal parts of town. That is not to say the touristy, subtly sinful Strip is not wondrous, tempting, unequaled entertainment. The casinos and mega-resorts on Las Vegas Boulevard are surreal adult playpens…for visitors. There is a darker side to Vegas vacationers never visit. City-wide skid rows; transient, transparent, as dysfunctional in their fluid cosmopolitan makeup than definably unstable, flourish nightly on countless dim lit Vegas streets. Thorson moved in next door to Sam. Thank a flaw somewhere in his ancestral gene pool as Thorson’s contribution to the dysfunctional side of Vegas.

Sam was cordial to his new neighbor that first week in August. He approached Thorson and his friends as they perched on the diamond plate Tommy Gate of the rented U-Haul. They were on break from lugging Thorson‘s stuff in the apartment next door. A full cooler of iced beer sat on the ground below them.

Before Sam could form up a greeting Thorson chirped, “How you doin’?” Sam’s new neighbor reached out to shake his hand, “Thor, short for Thorson. I prefer Thor. Wanna a beer?” Thorson’s voice was a garish shriek, as if a wood tongue depressor had been deliberately broken off in his throat.

Sam paused a moment, holding back a chuckle before he spoke, “Yes… Well… I’m Sam. I‘ll pass on the beer,” Sam smirked. The name ‘Thor’ just did not fit. That handle had too many masculine connotations Thorson lacked. Numerous chrome-plated metal decorations stabbed his face. Sam hesitated to guess what other covered parts of Thorson might be pierced. He was Baby Huey fat. He kept his Cleveland Cavaliers sleeveless basketball jersey tucked in, revealing flabby upper arms. The olive drab military belt looped round his wrinkled desert camouflage cargo pants cinched his mid-section a notch too narrow, revealing a bull nose cliff of flab all ‘round. His pant waist fit well above his hip. The crotch appeared to sport too high a rise, perhaps affecting that part of the anatomy that can change a man’s voice from normal to a high-pitched, pig-like squeal similar to the deformed tones gurgling from Thorson’s larynx. His puffy, cherubic cheeks betrayed a drinking problem with a wild guess at what else he consumed. His eyes appeared as bloodshot as rotting egg yokes. Sparse, fine blond stubble sprouted in splotchy patches across his face; not enough to sport a beard, but rather an indication he was too lazy to shave the islands of thin soft fuzz blooming between his metallic facial adornments. Thorson’s manner, appearance, limited vocabulary, hissing voice struck Sam as that of a grown man still suffering prepubescent metabolic chaos.

“Well, we gotta get goin’” Thorson rasped. “Only half way moved in and it’s gettin hotter by the minute.”

“It’s 110 degrees out now. Just looked,” Sam said.

“I didn’t know the heat gets this bad here,” Thorson whined.

“You could have picked a better time of year to move,” Sam advised. “Doesn’t start cooling down in Vegas ’till mid-October, beginning of November. Good luck.”

“Hey! Later me and these guys are goin’ to a tit bar off the Strip. Why don’cha come with us? We’ll hoot at the dancers’n stick dollar bills in their g-strings.”

“Can’t do it,” Sam said. “Want to finish up a book, see the news, get to bed early.” Thorson’s face expressed blank-eyed shock Sam would skip a good time in Vegas.

“Alright dude, but your goin’ to miss some fun,” Thorson said, disappointed Sam refused.

“Thanks though,” Sam said. Sam quit the high-end tit bars years ago when he realized paying for a peek excluded touching the product too.

All his stuff moved in, the first priority, Thorson’s new X-Box, quickly wired in and set up, came to life. Thunder, explosions, passionate yelps of victory, and grunts of defeat rang out through Sam’s wall. Thorson and his helpers lounged on his pristine soon to be violated Cool Deck coated porch. They drank beer mixed with Red Bull to stay drunk longer without passing out. They loudly flattened empty beer cans on the porch floor and tossed them like Frisbees at passing traffic on the street beyond the parking lot wall. One broke out pot, another produced a bag of yellowish, speedy rocks and glass pipe. They butted their cigarettes on the quickly blackened surface of his porch floor; hurled empty beer cans across the parking lot competing to be the first to land one on top the corrugated steel roof of the covered parking structure. They waxed drunker, higher, noisier; sprung well past the ionosphere from the jumping board of ‘go fast’ rock cocaine. They left for the strip tease circuit near midnight, defective mufflers roaring, tires spinning, hurling mocking insults at each other as they thumped over speed bumps that failed to slow them. Then silence.

Sam caught Thorson in the parking lot next evening, “Kinda loud late last night. Won’t be a habit will it?”

“Naa. Just wanted to show my buddies that helped me move a good time. Sorry. Were we too loud?”

Sam let it go.

Toward the end of August, Sam up late past midnight on a Saturday lit a cigarette on his porch. Just off swing shift, Thorson waddled along the curb edge of the complex parking lot toward his front door. He wore a starchy, well pressed police blue permanently creased uniform shirt with “Thor” stitched in flaring gold Mistral Script above his left breast pocket. A shield shaped shoulder patch advertised a local armored truck outfit that saw fit to employ him. His verdant jungle camo pants looked soiled wrinkled, unwashed in the dim night-lights. He slung his pistol belt over his shoulder, as if fatigued from a rough day sitting on top all those bags of cash at fifteen dollars an hour. He walked hunched over in a slow, heal dragging shuffle as if he were an overworked Egyptian slave struggling to haul another chiseled granite block to the top of the ruling Pharaoh’s tomb.

“What caliber pistol is that?” Sam asked.

Thorson stopped, stood up straight, his hollow eyes turned bright, enthusiastic. He proudly blurted, “A Beretta nine. Fourteen rounds. Fifteen with one in the chamber.” Thorson slickly slipped a hollow point bullet from his belt as if it were a precious nugget of gold plucked from a miner’s sluice, handed it to Sam and lectured, “With this, you aim at the asshole’s head, you take his fuckin’ shoulder with it. It’s like a mini-bomb; explodes on impact.” Sam shook his head up and down as if enlightened.

“Yeah. I never had ta use my piece. Ya never know though, the day might come,” Thorson eagerly implied.

“Damned impressive,” Sam sarcastically exclaimed. Thorson oozed of instability. Add a gun to that affliction and a formula for disaster brewed.

Thorson had toured enough tit clubs, bars, ‘Rub and Tug’ massage parlors to blaze a nightly round trip trail from and to his apartment each night after work. By October, he became an honored regular at the pricier spots along his route. The multi-colored neon glitz of Vegas nightlife gripped Thorson past mere short time tourist fascination. It gnawed at him, chewed, swallowed, digested bits of him as if he were the favorite tray on a local’s only buffet. This sleepless twenty-four hour adult Disneyland had Thorson hypnotized. As if it were the first euphoric high off a rock that eludes you each hit after, Vegas became an instant addiction, a high Thorson ineptly chased ceaselessly, carelessly.

Some get tricked quick, hooked, burned up, fried crisp on the Vegas grill of thrills. Thorson was about to be served up charbroiled.

Through November, Thorson cultivated a coterie of loud, pinch faced, hollow minded, imitation Thorson clones. Three weekends that month a steady stream of tattoo coated characters draped in stainless steel lip, ear and nose rings, clumpy black boots, jangling silver chains strung from belt loops and hip pockets steadily slinked in and out of Thorson’s apartment from Friday night to early Sunday morning. All were welcome, stranger or not. Excessive body piercing was not a requirement as long as they brought alcohol or pot, or rocks. Thorson kept the volume of his CD player well up above normal. ‘Kill the dog, shoot the kids, beat the wife’ music rattled pictures on Sam’s side of their shared communal wall. The gang smoked, drank, pissed on the bushes outside Thorson’s apartment past dawn. Some settled on Thorson’s porch, flicked still lit cigarette butts near Sam’s front door betting on who would light up his outdoor wicker chair first. A few roamed the parking lot spotting hot selling rims they conspired to steal later, sat on hoods of cars they didn’t own drinking and smoking. Thorson was the noisiest of them all, his laughter blasted loud as a yodel heard three buildings down. He and his buds invaded, terrorized the complex. Monday mornings, when Sam left for work, Thorson’s porch landing lay littered with beer cans, paraphernalia and an occasional overnight visitor sprawled out on a cheap vinyl beach chair.

After a month of Thorson’s weekend parties, Sam caught his neighbor leaving for his shift, wrinkled camo cargo pants cinched too tight around his mid-drift, stiff work shirt on this back, the Beretta strapped to his hip.

“Your weekend sprees are gettin’ out-a-hand Thorson. “

“Call me Thor,” he said, as if the conversation would not continue until Sam got his name right.

“No…. you go to Hell Thorson. Quit this shit. Give me peace.”

“No! Fuck you Sam. I’ll do what I want,” Thorson grasped his pistol grip.

Sam knew better than to argue with a man who wears a gun. He abruptly turned his back to Thorson, left for his apartment. Sam retrieved his .45 revolver from a tattered shoebox, cleaned and loaded it, placed it in the drawer of his bed stand.

A light snow coated the desert floor Thanksgiving Day. Sam watched football and read three Bukowski novels in three days. Quiet, solemn, alone on Christmas Day. Sam read Plath, Stallings, Justice, emailed his folks back east the usual platitudinous holiday greetings, called his ex in Reno; spoke briefly with the kids. They thanked him for the toys he sent then they ran off to unwrap more. Later Sam had dinner alone at the Fiesta Casino buffet on Lone Mountain and Rancho.

New Years Eve in Vegas tops New Orleans Mardi Gras, Rio Carnival for unruliness, debauchery, mob rule. It’s commonly regarded by local Vegas residents as ’Amateur Night;” an annual reason for tourists from around the world to inundate the Strip, drink too much, coke up, shoot up, smoke up, pretend the law does not apply to them while the locals stay inside. Sam stayed in. The party at Thorson’s apartment peaked near midnight. Thorson drunkenly waded through the crowd, his Beretta cocked in hand. He stepped out on his porch and popped three caps off in the air the last three seconds of the old year. After midnight, Thorson and his band headed for the Strip. Peace ensued. Sam slept.

Near noon, New Years Day, an under-age girl, probably dressed slutty at first, now in ragged slept in clothes, just awake, bra-less, her ratty, tangled blond hair a nest, stained mini skirt smelling of alcohol and too much sex knocked on Sam’s door.

“Can I use your phone?” the still drunk bimbo asked. “I woke up alone. There’s no one at your neighbor’s apartment.”

“Do you even know my neighbor’s name?

“No. Some one else I don’t know brought me here. I don‘t remember much else.” Sam let her in and handed her his cell.

Five calls later, after every recipient of her calls refused to rescue her, she asked Sam to drive her home. He wiped his phone with Lysol and led her to his car. Her house was only a few blocks away, near Cheyenne and Craig. The drive was much longer than Sam’s frazzled patience.

Sam got the collect call later that afternoon, “I accept the charges,” Sam agreed. He wondered why Thorson didn‘t have a quarter for a local call.

“Sam? …. Thor here,” Thorson slurred.

“Yeah, I know. What is it Thorson?”

“They stole my car, my cell phone, my wallet. They kyped my gun. Can you come get me?”

“Who are they Thorson?”

“My buddies at the party at my house last night. Come get me,” Thorson empirically demanded.

“Where are you?

“I don’t know.”

“You’re at a pay phone?

“Yeah.”

“Damn Thorson. Shoot me a flare. Describe some land marks idiot!”

“I’m a block from a titty bar called Loose Babes.”

Sam was familiar with that part of town. It was near Valley View and Desert Inn; a ghetto the locals dub ‘Naked City.’ Topless bars, hookers, criminals, cops, panhandlers, homeless reign in this part of town. It sets the standard for the bottom end of life Vegas breeds.

“Alright asshole. This shit stops now,” Sam growled.

Thorson teetered, wavered, bounced against the glass in the urine stained phone booth, red faced, pants and shirt soiled and torn, nodding, sick, on the verge of alcohol poisoning. “I’m fucked,” Thorson wailed. “My mom and dad’l sling me from my balls for this.”

“Do they live here, in town?” Sam was surprised.

“Yeah. Two blocks away.”

“Call them!”

“They’ll be pissed, hold back my allowance, ground me.”

“Your allowance! Goddamn Thorson. I don’t care. You’re a grown man with a twelve-year old mentality. Call your parents Thorson. I’m not daddy.” Sam hung up and continued watching the Rose Bowl game.

Thorson’s parents brought him home a few hours later. They stayed with Thorson two days straight to clean him up. Thorson’s father knocked on Sam’s door before he and his wife went back home.

“I’m Thorson’s father. Thorson thinks very highly of you. He respects you. He believes you are peaceful, honorable, straightforward.”

“I’ve tried to deceive him otherwise,” Sam angrily retorted. “I’d rather he fear me than think of me in any other capacity than peaceful, honorable, straightforward.” Sam grew angrier, “Thorson is a drunk, a drug fiend. He’s obtuse, inconsiderate. I’m not fond of him as a neighbor. He belongs in rehab for a month… longer. Why don‘t you see to it. He has the mentality of a Wall Mart greeter. He’ll be harmless to himself and others near him in that environment if given simpler tasks assigned to him like gathering shopping carts from the parking lot or greeting customers at the door. Oh yah, and don‘t let the asshole get another gun either; he couldn’t keep track of the one he had.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way. It’s the truth, every word. When we retired here from Cleveland, he came with us. We rented this apartment for him. His job sends his paychecks directly to us. We control his finances because he‘s incapable of such a task. We give him a weekly allowance from it and pay all his bills. Sometimes we supplement his pocket money if he wants a new video game or other necessity. Truth is we aren’t able to manage him when he lives with us. This is his first experience living alone.”

“Christ! The separation isn’t working well...Is it? He’s thirty-years old. What’s his phobia?” Sam blurted.

“Immaturity mostly. He just never grew up.” Guilt ridden, Thorson’s father stared down at his spotless wing tip shoes.

“Lucky you,” Sam’s sarcasm again. “You control his money but can’t control your son. Classic enablers; that’s you and ‘ma.’ Thorson isn’t intellectually capable of progressing past childhood. He’s emotionally crippled, shallow in ways a shrink would diagnose as too psychologically damaged to repair. Even you realize that. Don’t you! Most of all he’s a nuisance to me.”

“We’re aware of his condition, but there‘s no helping it. He’s aware of his condition. We just can’t take him living with us anymore. We keep him close instead. I apologize for his behavior.”

“No need to apologize,” Sam growled, “I hear that crap from Thorson every day he screws up. His behavior doesn’t change--apology or no.”

Thorson’s father backed away, sensing Sam’s impatience was struggling at the tethered end of anger. “Please help us?”

“So, essentially you want him to be any one else’s problem but yours. I am the fortunate surrogate you want to take your place. Does that sum it up?”

“Not in so many words. But, we could use your help.”

“I’m not pop or mom. If Thorson does not calm down, I won’t call the cops, although I should. I’ll just take matters into my own hands. You won’t like it. He’ll like it less.”

“Maybe that reaction is exactly what he needs,” Thorson’s father meekly encouraged with regret, “We don’t know what else to do.”

“Man, you must be desperate if you want me to discipline your little boy. Commit the fuck!” Sam threw the door shut.

For a week, Sam brooded. “I’m too blessed with decency, compassion,” Sam moaned aloud. “Why me?” he grieved. “God damn… I’ll regret this. I know I will.”

Sam caught Thorson on his porch hunched over, head covered in a black hooded sweater, dripping beads of perspiration, chain smoking, cowering, hiding from the stark emptiness of another alcohol free day. Sam approached him, gently laid a hand on Thorson’s shoulder and asked sympathetically “How’s it going Thorson?”

“I got fired last week,” he almost whimpered. “Missed too much work, they said. Cops are still looking for my car. They took my gun permit too. Couldn’t find my keys so Mom and dad paid to have the locks changed. They aren’t giving me any money. I’ve been sober seven days though. Dad told me he’d get me new video games if I stay clean a month.” Thorson moped, stared at the stained porch floor cow eyed, shaking uncontrollably with the DT’s as if struck with malaria. Thorson resembled a tail tucked, gun-shy pup running rear end first from a rifle blast.

“Real hard task masters--your parents,” Sam mocked. “If there’s anything you need just let me know, I’ll help you get through this if I can.” Thorson was mute. Instead, he lit another cigarette from the cherry of the last, continued staring at the floor as if it held an antidote for his condition.

Sam took the pistol from his bed stand drawer unloaded it and placed the piece back in its shoe box, broke out his checkbook, paid bills, replayed Schubert‘s “Unfinished“ Symphony.

Thorson managed to stay sober, a month and one day. He got his new video games.