Choke Hold

Chapter 1-3

Eli was renting a one-bedroom bungalow on a block of aging tract homes located south of downtown and the university campus, just a few miles from the rapidly gentrifying black ghetto and his office above the funeral home. It was a mixed neighborhood, mostly Hispanic and solidly working-class. It wasn’t necessarily safe, but then it wasn’t gang turf, either. The rent was reasonable, the house was clean, the trash pickups were regular, and if there were rats, he hadn’t seen any.

On this sunny morning before the holiday weekend, he was putting a loving, hand-rubbed coat of paste wax on the ’69 Mustang in his driveway. Some boys were playing ball in the street. Eli looked up occasionally from his buffing to keep an eye on them. It was early and traffic was light, but kids think they will live forever.

Eli was admiring the flawless shine when Bones drove up in his classic and just as immaculately maintained Coupe de Ville.

As he hopped out of the Caddy, Bones gestured expansively toward the gleaming sports car. “What happened to that bucketa bolts you used to drive?”

“Took her down to Tijuana,” Eli said proudly. “New interior, three coats of lacquer. Less than a grand, all in.”

The paint was a deep, metallic orange – not exactly a Ford factory color. There were doubtlessly a few low-riders in this town with the same new paint job.

“You come into money?” Bones teased.

“New credit card,” Eli shrugged.

“Careful, now. You got gambling debts, remember.”

“I’m expecting a big settlement,” Eli informed him. “Slip and fall in a classy department store.”

Just then, they heard c***k! and a hardball sailing high and hard smashed through the rear window of the Mustang.

“Damn!” Eli said, thinking immediately his new card would take another hit.

Bones reached in to pluck the ball from the back seat, and he and Eli headed off to confront the boys.

But Miguel and Ramon and their friends didn’t see them coming. Those two boys were locked in a fistfight. Miguel, who looked to be about twelve, was the bigger physically, but there was plenty of fight in Ramon, who was wiry and quick, maybe younger. But he had the advantage of wielding the baseball bat.

Bones came between them, grabbed the bat, and tossed it aside as he pushed the boys apart.

“Whoaaaa,” he said.

“Butt out!” yelled Miguel, eager to pound Ramon now that the bat was out of the picture.

Eli held up his hands, addressing Ramon, the only boy he knew by sight. “Conoces la palabra lawsuit?”

“Look out,” Miguel jeered. “He’s a law-yer.” Apparently, this made Eli the new enemy and Miguel the new defender of innocent Ramon.

“Do you boys have the money to pay for what you did to my car?” Eli asked, and it wasn’t a rhetorical question since he wasn’t sure there was enough left on his card to manage it. “You plan to be rich one day?”

“Millions!” Miguel shouted, even though Eli was still focusing on Ramon on the assumption that, as the batter, he’d hit the errant ball.

Pulling a dollar bill out of his jeans, Eli turned and handed it to Miguel. “Okay, here’s your million bucks.”

“Yeah!” Miguel said, snatching the bill.

“What’s your name?” Eli asked the smaller boy.

“Ramon.”

Eli shook his hand. “Well, Ramon, I’m your attorney, Eli Wolff. And this is my associate, Mr. Jackson.”

Deftly, Eli turned to Miguel, snatched the money back, and gave it to Ramon.

“Lawsuit’s over. You win!” he told the smaller kid.

“Jeez!” came the cry from Miguel as it was Ramon’s turn to say, “Yes!”

But now Eli plucked the bill from Ramon, quickly tore it in half, handed one piece back to Ramon, and kept the other half for himself.

“You gotta pay my fee.”

Ramon was staring disheartened at the torn bill when Eli grabbed it again, tore off a postage-stamp-sized piece, and gifted the scrap ceremonially to Ramon.

“I had expenses,” he explained.

The boys were still trying to make sense of the civics lesson as Eli pointed to the Mustang. “You guys are going to work this off. Ramon, I’ll be having a talk with your mother.”

Bones gave the ball back to Ramon, whose guilty look made further fact-finding unnecessary.

As he and Eli walked back to the house, Bones grinned. “Nice work back there, counselor.”

“I guess I’m not exactly telling them the legal system works.”

“You know what they say.”

“No, what do they say?”

“Those who can’t do – teach.”