The Last Will and Testament of Ernie Politics

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...THE GOVERNMENT IS USING race relations to keep the common man from uniting and bringing down the imperialist pyramid system. The racial tensions have been eased with the civil rights movement, but branched out into the Arab peoples, who in turn oppress their women. The establishment fuels the fires of negative racial and gender relationships by publicly condemning the oppression of women, while privately encouraging proper gender roles with the sales of things like Barbie Dolls. This association of women with the perfect body image and infinite sweetness, causes internal struggle for both men and women as they try to grow into the modern world, while trying to hold onto the All-American tradition of the nuclear family. This constant tension keeps society focused inward on their own problems and not on the outward problems of big government committing crimes against humanity. John Q. Public trying to be sensitive and well rounded, while still being the breadwinner and Jane Q. Public trying to make her way in the modern world establishing an able minded identity while still being able to take care of the family and bake them goods like strawberry shortcake....

The splash of cold, rusty water couldn’t wash away the images of Ernie Politics ranting on the corner of Franklin and Vermont, throwing doll heads at passing cars. Ray stared back at his weary reflection in the gas station bathroom mirror, remembering the last time he saw his friend alive, but couldn’t shake the crime scene photos his imagination had constructed.

He could see Ernie’s thin arms, the pink translucent skin sawed off at the wrists where his attacker had removed the hands. His face was contorted into permanent shock. Streams of dark crimson flowed down his cheeks, a hot spring bursting forth from the pits where his electric red eyes once lived.

After the police interviewed Ernie’s known acquaintances, the file went into a pile of unsolved transient murders, the “to do” stack of a retiring detective in the Robbery-Homicide division. In the movies, it’s always one last case that draws the old, grizzled officer back into the fold, tying up all the loose ends. In reality, it’s like any other job. On their last day, they’re ready to get the hell out, spend some time with their grandkids and enjoy midday naps, leaving that pile of cases for the next guy.

The case did have some interesting particulars. An albino with missing appendages caused a bit of a stir. But with no motive, no real background, and no known enemies, curiosity quickly deteriorated into a theory that the murder was part of a gang hazing. Ernie was singled out because of his big mouth and unusual appearance. Now the ashes of Ernie “Politics” Gaffney sat on a shelf in a plastic bag, waiting the requisite four years before the Los Angeles County coroner’s office tossed it into a mass grave along with the remains of a thousand other unclaimed bodies.

The gas station owner banging on the restroom door pulled Ray from his memories. He dried his hands and face with a wad of paper towels and unlocked the door.

“Get outta here before I call the cops.”

Ray stopped and stared at the gray-faced man just long enough to make him uncomfortable, then tossed the used paper towels at his feet before walking past him.

He stopped at the outer pumps, pulling a stick of gum out of the pack he’d pocketed while asking for the bathroom key, and looked at the prick across the street. With Ernie gone, he figured he’d never have to talk to that son of a b***h ever again, but there he was, enlisting the asshole’s help for the second time in forty-eight hours. It only seemed logical to go to the man who knew Ernie Politics best, but Ray hated Benny 7-11.

Benny always made a point of his appearance. He didn’t wear the same ragged clothes day after day. He would go to the Goodwill donation bin on Hollywood Boulevard at dawn, just before the place opened, and would pick out the most original ensemble. Then he would give himself a hobo shower in a public restroom, even taking the time to shave his cheeks and chin, but he never touched his disgusting mustache.

It began to take on a life of its own, growing well over his lips and beyond the creases of his hustler’s sneer. The ingrown and dead hairs acted as a filter for all of his meals, preventing the wettest remnants of his food from reaching his mouth. The effort he placed in making himself look somewhat respectable was always undercut by the pride he took in neglecting the hideous creature on his face.

Benny made his living soliciting change from people who frequented convenience stores. He would greet the patrons politely, opening the door for them, asking that they not forget the doorman on the way out. As he opened the door for them again when they left, he would hold his paw out for a polite donation. Sometimes the ploy worked, sometimes it didn’t, but Benny 7-11 always had a smile on his face. Regular customers at the handful of stores Benny had in his rotation were amazed at how upbeat Benny was when he opened the door, no matter how many people decided his service wasn’t worth their spare change. It was because Benny had a special secret.

When business was slow, Benny 7-11 would go into the store. The shopkeepers tolerated his presence because whatever money he could finagle out of their patrons, he usually reinvested in their merchandise. He was good-natured, never obstructed the entrance, and never hindered their business. He would slowly wander the aisles, plucking a Grandma’s Cookie or pack of sunflower seeds from the shelves. He’d spent time building up the clerks’ trust, so they figured they didn’t have to watch him too closely, knowing he would never shoplift. But when their eyes were turned away, or focused on other customers, Benny 7-11 would make his way over to the coffee station and grab a handful of to-go coffee lids. Those lids made their way into the waistband of Benny’s pants and eventually came to rest on his sweaty, never washed, hairy as his upper lip, balls.

He usually did one more lap of the store before returning to the coffee station and pulling the lids out of his drawers, checking them for stray pubes, and putting them back into the stack at random intervals. He’d pay for his item and resume his post back outside the door, grinning from ear-to-ear every time he was ignored by a person holding a coffee cup, right before they took a nice big gulp of mocha java laced with his rancid nut juice.

Benny 7-11 had sent Ray into lockup after he’d started poking around for information. A few weeks earlier, Ernie Politics had been arrested for aggravated assault and ended up in the same cell Ray had recently occupied. Like most of L.A.’s homeless, Ernie had a few previous arrests, most of them misdemeanors: trespassing, public intoxication, disturbing the peace. Usually he did nothing more than putter his 99-cent store shopping cart up and down the streets of the City of Angels. After he was found dead, Ray went looking for Benny to find out what had really happened. And, of course, Benny had a long-winded story to tell.

“So, Ernie attacks this spic kid, don’t know who, probably just some asshole in the wrong place and was real quickly taken into custody, right, and shoved in the clink to cool off. Now, you and me and everybody else knows, you spend a day in holding then you’s done. Released. Finito. Maybe they send him up to Gateways for some antipsych meds. But he don’t move. Ernie was in holdin’ seven whole days. They didn’t process him to be moved to general population to await trial, didn’t do nothing with him. About day three at the L.A. County Bed and Breakfast, he starts to get real paranoid, like they’re never coming for him and are gonna let him rot. So, he starts beggin’ around the room for a paper and pen like they’re hookers and blow, finally getting a ballpoint out of some dude covered in s**t and a stack of Post-it notes out of the pocket of some corporate dude with a double limit DUI blow. And then, they finally come for him.”

“He starts rantin’ to me about how they only let him out ‘cuz they were followin’ him and wanted to keep tallies on all his known associates before finally doin’ away with him, and that all his secrets and final thoughts on the matter were, and I quote, ‘In his will.’ You want some answers? Get yourself arrested and look behind that metal slab they call a mirror in holdin’ number two, hopin’ you get yourself lucky enough to be placed in holdin’ number two. All I know is, he tells me this whole tale and three days later they find him without his hands or eyeballs. He may have been crazy paranoid, but that s**t is worth a look. Now, I’d go myself, naturally, but I have a livelihood to protect here. I’d hate to have mom and pop towelhead in there see me get dragged into a squad and then find themselves tellin’ me to move along. You get my drift, Cobbsy?”

As much as Ray hated to admit it, Benny 7-11’s intelligence had checked out, even if he was one tooth poorer for it. Now, perhaps Benny could be of more assistance.

Ray found him in West Hollywood at his usual perch on Santa Monica Boulevard, wearing a bright pink windbreaker and some loud golf pants.

“Looks like you had some jaw trouble there, Cobbsy,” Benny called to him as he nodded politely to the old Asian man entering the store.

“The bulls didn’t take too well to you sleepin’ in an ice machine? Nice choice, by the way. You couldn’t have gotten pinched for anything more p***y, like disrupting a feather convention or givin’ out too many free hugs?”

Benny laughed at his own joke. Ray wasn’t in the mood.

“You wanna put your bullshit slinging aside for a minute and see if you can make heads or tails of this nonsense?” Ray asked, holding the crumpled piece of paper out to Benny.

He snatched the paper out of Ray’s hand, trying to appear tough. Benny 7-11 saw the burning hate in Ray Cobb’s eyes and realized that with Ernie gone, he was definitely down a few friends and up a few enemies.

“Well?” Ray asked with an impatient tone. Benny unconsciously looked up at every person entering the store without him there to dutifully open the door.

“What’re those, phone numbers or somethin’? Addresses? I dunno,” Benny shrugged.

“Those numbers, that pattern. You’ve never seen it before?”

“You knew Ernie, man, he was always writing some crazy s**t you could never make heads or tails of. There was always some theory about somethin’ or another. Maybe it was the last year’s average lotto numbers, like he was looking for a pattern, or maybe he was countin’ how many people were in that cell with him from day to day. I sure as hell wish he was ‘round right now so I could ask him, but far as I know, it was a dude who was hallucinatin’ with paranoia, wrote some crazy s**t on a scrap of paper and stuck it behind a mirror. Probably don’t mean nothin’.”

“If you thought Ernie was just talking nonsense, why the hell’d you send me in there?”

“You mean to say you didn’t enjoy the air conditionin’ none?” Benny joked. The throaty laugh scraped at Ray’s ears.

“Turn it over,” Ray stared through him, trying not to grit his teeth and irritate the hole where his molar used to be.

“Sometimes I wondered how that see-through bastard ever got to writin’ so small. Can’t make it out too good, my eyes ain’t what they used to be, pretty sure I’m getting a cataract or somethin’ in the left one, but that ain’t no English. Looks like Russian or Spanish or somethin’. Only word I can make out is here at the top. Looks like,” he squinted at the paper, “Manifesto. Jesus, that little bastard had a one-track mind.”

“Do you have a copy of Ernie’s manifesto?”

Ray never took the time to read the entire 1300-page rant on everything from how Black Friday was a communist conspiracy to how public buildings and bookstores use the cheapest brand of toilet paper to irritate the bowels of the lowest common denominator. The manifesto was Ernie’s life.

“Naw, man. You know he changed that s**t every few days, scribblin’ stuff out, addin’ notes in the margins, writin’ extra pages. Last version I read was like two years ago, after that I’d just take ‘em from him and throw ‘em away. With Ernie, man, if he brought up some new thought on the proletariat or whatever, and explained it in that book of his, I’d just nod and smile at him right through it, repeating somethin’ he said earlier in the conversation so it sounded like I was listenin’.”

“Glad to know you were such good friends.”

“Now don’t you put that s**t on me,” Benny started to get upset, “Ernie was a good dude, always good for a talk and a laugh, but you couldn’t take him all the time neither, so don’t play mister innocent over here.”

“I didn’t come here to play the ‘who was a better friend’ game. I could give a s**t. I’m just trying to get some answers and you are apparently the dumbest f**k in L.A. County.”

“Would you care to repeat that, Cobbsy?” Benny asked, his anger swelling.

Ray got as close to Benny’s face as he could, navigating past his mustache.

“You heard me.”

The bell on the door rang over Benny’s shoulder, neither of them taking notice.

“Get out of here,” a heavy accent said from behind them, “I will call the police for you hanging out at my store!”

They broke their gaze and both turned to face the dark-skinned clerk who stood quivering on the sidewalk, brandishing a broom handle. Ray had taken one good whack to the jaw in the last twenty-four hours; he wasn’t looking forward to another one. Benny just waved his hand at the man before hurrying around the corner with Ray behind him.

Once out of sight of the storefront, Benny changed his tone.

“Listen, Cobbsy, I don’t wanna fight you on this. We both wanna know what happened to Ernie, right? So why don’t we work together to figure out what this s**t says? Find one of Ernie’s latest manifestos. f**k this big ego bullshit.”

Ray looked down at the creased and stained paper in his hand.

“Seems to me, if you really wanted to know what this was, you would’ve gone after it yourself.”

“What you want, Ray? You want me to admit I’m a chickenshit for lettin’ you do the dirty work? Fine, I’m a chickenshit. Now gimme another look,” Benny reached out for the paper as Ray shoved it into his pocket.

“I think I’m about done with you,” Ray spoke softly, letting all the rage he felt toward Benny throb at the base of his spine.

“You wouldn’t even have that s**t if it weren’t for me. You’d still be cryin’ over that cardboard box Ernie called home, wiping your tears with the s**t stains on his underpants.”

“Time to walk away, Benny,” Ray’s hands remained in the pockets of his coat, but he could feel the electricity running down the tendons of his forearms, his fingers starting to shake as he held tight to the worn lining.

Benny stepped back and reached into his own pocket, pulling out a battered hunting knife. Ray remembered the day Ernie gave Benny the weapon, after Benny was mugged on Skid Row. Ernie slipped it into the cast where Benny’s wrist had been broken and merely said, “For protection,” before going back to handing out handwritten pamphlets. Ray looked down at the knife and back up at Benny. Sweat ran down Benny’s face and spackled wisps of hair to his forehead.

“Really?” Ray asked without moving.

“Just give it here. Didn’t wanna hafta do this, but you had to be stubborn.”

Ray had seen people stabbed, beaten, shot, raped, and killed over stupid arguments and items of little importance, but Benny was a different brand of scumbag; he didn’t pull out the knife unless he had to protect himself and his cash flow. Ray knew the note was more than just a piece of paper.

He looked at the dull blade, shaking in Benny’s unsteady hand.

“Now’s about the time I’m gonna make you admit you’re a chickenshit. Chickenshit.”

Benny flinched as he realized Ray wasn’t going to relent to his empty threat. The thrust at Ray’s gut was predictable and sloppy. The telegraphed movements gave Ray plenty of time to dodge the blow as he grabbed Benny by the greasy hair and slammed his skull into the cement wall.

“Listen up, you coffee-lid-d**k-wiping motherfucker. I’m sick of your f*****g face!”

Ray spit on Benny as he spoke, spittle catching on his mustache like rain droplets on a canopy of banyan trees. His fingernails dug deep into the tendons of Benny’s wrists, causing the knife to drop to the concrete.

“If you didn’t think this note meant anything before, you sure do now.”

Ray kicked the knife out of Benny’s reach and let go of him.

“I don’t know s**t!”

Benny was holding one hand to the gash above his left eyebrow, while the other was clumsily trying to gather the change that flew out of his coffee cup after being kicked in the struggle.

“Where’d you toss those manifestos?” Ray asked through clenched teeth.

“What?”

Ray kicked him in the guts hard and he doubled over on the cracked sidewalk, coughing.

“Ernie’s papers, you dim s**t! When you didn’t read them, where’d you toss them?”

“In the garbage, fuckstick,” Benny gasped in, trying to regain his breath.

Ray stamped down hard on the hand Benny was using to gather change and heard a snap as his shoe sandwiched Benny’s middle finger with the cement. Ray silenced his shriek by giving him another sock to the midsection. Grabbing the scruff of his shirt, Ray raised Benny up to meet him face to face.

“I know you’re dumb, but you’re not stupid enough to deposit those papers where you knew Ernie would find them. You and I know that Ernie was about all you had.”

His breath was fire on Benny’s cheek.

“This little beating I gave you doesn’t compare to what could come your way if you don’t give me some answers. So, unless you wanna lose the use of both of your hands, I suggest you quit f*****g around, or you’ll spend the rest of your days m**********g with your feet.”

“Lindberg,” Benny rasped out between coughs and tears.

“You’ve seen what I can do to you, Benny. What’re you feeding me?”

“Lindberg, I swear. Use my name. You’ll get access.”

Ray dropped the sobbing mess that was once Benny 7-11 to the ground.

“You know what happens if you’re lying, right?”

Benny nodded, trying to keep himself in a little ball, not knowing where the next blow would come from.

“I’m going to need some insurance.”

Benny looked up at him with glossy, shocked eyes, no idea what “insurance” meant and scared out of his mind to find out. Ray reached down, grabbed Benny’s mustache, and yanked hard, pulling a huge section of it out by the roots, leaving a bloody gap. Ray shoved the hunk of hair into his pocket.

“Just a little collateral. If Lindberg pans out, you’ll get it back.”

Ray looked around to see if anyone bothered to take notice of his little battle. His hands were shaking as he grabbed the knife from the ground and tossed it into a storm sewer. Taking one last look at the damage he’d done, his mind unable to process what caused him to snap, Ray tried his best to control his breathing. The accelerated beating of his heart started an engine in his legs and he disappeared into the neighborhood.

Benny slumped against the wall, his middle finger broken and askew. He wiped the blood from his eyes and cried heavily to himself, cursing Ray Cobb under his breath.