Finding 52 (8 page)

Stinky Mama

1979

R
eg was in a foul mood, a very foul mood indeed. It was July 2, and while he should’ve been enjoying the warm summer morning he was already pissed at the Lieutenant. He’d been assigned the only vehicle in the entire Riverside Police Department fleet of patrol cars that had no air conditioning. It came with air straight from the factory, but Reg was convinced the police command had decided to not have it fixed. He believed they conspired to assign that particular vehicle to anyone who was in the department penalty box. That accolade currently belonged to him—he hadn’t written a traffic ticket in six months.

So there he sat, in a patrol car with no air conditioning and the shade tree wasn’t exactly his idea of beating the heat. In two days he’d be expected to pull double shifts for the Fourth of July fireworks, a party that was three days long. The weather report called for temperatures in the mid-nineties for the rest of the week.

Reg hated Riverside’s annual Fourth of July extravaganza, and he hated overtime. It was said that Riverside had the fourth-largest fireworks display in the entire Midwest. Riverside took its fireworks serious and with that the entire police department was expected to pull double shifts all three nights.

The crowds were huge and everyone simply had to be in the thick of things; nestled in the park along the river for the one hour of euphoria. The city fathers loved the Fourth of July fireworks because it brought all manner of people from all over the state and all walks of life to Riverside where they would spend their money. Of course, once the display was over they all expected to be home in five minutes and with that the traffic accidents, drinking, fighting, and sassing the policing would soon begin.

Reg was ensconced in an already-overheated patrol car and hell-bent on reading a few more pages of his book when the dispatcher called. A neighbor dispute was in progress and when Reg heard the address his head began to throb. The caller was complaining about Stinky Mama. She was a crazy old bird that kids loved to taunt. Her real name was Cora Engerer and she was at least eighty years old and weighed less than a hundred pounds. She had a two-inch razor-sharp nail on her baby finger and claimed the nail was used to clean fish. Cora was as feisty and energetic as she was crazy.

She owned or sheltered cats. At least fifty cats, but neighborhood folklore had that number in the hundreds. Of course, anyone would begin to stink when they lived with dozens of cats, and Cora was no exception. To make matters worse, she had somehow decided Victor Hugo was her kindred spirit. When she discovered the connection the real Victor Hugo had with cats her fate was sealed.

Three years earlier her cat Victor Hugo was still alive and Cora loved that cat, more than she’d loved anything in her sorry existence. She found him lying in the gutter. He’d been struck by a car and his hind legs were ruined; the driver had run over the both of them.

Cora nursed the little critter back to health as well anyone could, and she took him everywhere with her. She improvised a long piece of rope and tied it around her waist, and the other end was rigged to a special cat harness that secured him for his daily walks. He would painfully moan as they sauntered about, but Cora assured everyone that he was just purring because he was a good kitty.

When Victor Hugo finally died of natural causes, Cora was not to be denied. She kept him around and in many ways he became a talisman for her. Every night she’d place him in her chest freezer and take him back out in the morning for the next wonderful day. She would walk him and give him his favorite catnip toys to play with in the front yard. Most days he didn’t smell too bad except in the summer after dinner when he began to thaw out. There were other times she’d forget to tuck him into the chest freezer at night. When that happened the next morning was ghastly, he’d be thawed out and by lunchtime the flies would pay him a visit. Summers were the worst and the house reeked. Cora was no admirer of air conditioning or even fans.

One day a small child asked her why she had so many cats. She replied with a Victor Hugo quote, “God made the cat so that man might have the pleasure of caressing the tiger.” The little girl ran home screaming and crying. She didn’t want to be eaten by a tiger.

When her parents called the police, the officer met Cora on her front porch. She said, “Everyone has noticed the taste that cats have for pausing and lounging between the two leaves of a half-shut door. Who is there who has not said to a cat, do come in!” It was just another Victor Hugo quote, which did nothing to endear herself to the officer. He hurried her back into the house and told her, “If I have to come back here today I’ll get rid of each and every one of your cats. This place smells like shit.” Cora slammed the door in his face and that was that.

Before long Cora was officially known as Stinky Mama. Everyone called her that but she didn’t mind. By then her entire house was filled with cats and Victor Hugo memorabilia. There were dozens of Victor Hugo coffee mugs, drinking glasses and dishes, there were Victor Hugo calendars and Victor Hugo clothes all over the house. They all had one thing in common: Victor Hugo and cats.

The house stunk to high heaven and Stinky Mama didn’t mind one bit. To her it was delightful. She even secretly called all of her cats Victor Hugo. When Reg was given the call to her house she was officially one of Riverside’s top-ten crazies.

Reg pulled up to the house and got out of the car. Several children were riding their bikes on the sidewalk and the parents were visibly upset. Stinky Mama was already giving Reg the stink eye; he gave her a dirty look to even things up a bit as the parents waved him over.

One of the fathers explained, “Stinky Mama is swinging a broom at our kids when they ride by her house on their bikes.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Because she’s a crazy old bitch!”

“Now sir, there is no call for profanity.”

“Well, maybe not, but she’s crazy and you already knew that much before you arrived.”

“But why would she do such a thing?”

“The city just poured a new sidewalk and she thinks it’s her property. All of us happen to disagree so we told the kids they could ride their bikes on the sidewalk.”

Reg told everyone to go back into their houses and he’d speak with her. He walked toward her and she had the broom in her hand and was sweeping the new sidewalk.

As he got closer the stench was discernible. It really did smell like shit. To make matters worse, she was wearing an apron over her dirty dress; there was an image of Victor Hugo on the apron. Reg couldn’t help but notice Stinky Mama had been cleaning fish sometime in the past day or so. Fish guts and who-knew-what-else covered the apron.

Reg told her the children were allowed to ride their bikes on the sidewalk.

“NO!!”

“Well, they are because it’s city property.”

“MY SIDEWALK,” she shouted.

“You listen to me. This is city property and you don’t own the sidewalk, the law is clear.”

“MINE!!”

“You just wanna knock off the sweeping and get back inside. Your cats probably need to have a go at that apron.”

“NO!”

She started sweeping the sidewalk again. Reg decided it was time to show her some real police presence and he grabbed the broom and began to take it out of her hands. He was careful to avoid that razor-sharp nail. She pulled the broom back toward her and he was surprised at her strength; he chalked it up to one part insanity and one part adrenalin. He pulled the broom back and she did likewise as she shrieked, “MINE.”

“Let go of that broom you stupid woman.”

“EAT SHIT AND DIE!!!”

“Give me that broom right now!”

“NEVER! MY BROOM. MY SIDEWALK. ALL MINE!!”

Reg thought enough was enough. He’d handled her with kid gloves too long. It was time for him to really take charge, time to put her in her place. He pulled the broom toward him and then pushed it back toward her. He did that a couple of more times and made sure she was off balance. He then gave her the “Coup de grâce.” Reg was never short on ideas and he’d developed a plan. He was ready to give her the final blow. The propeller move, as it were. He still controlled the broom and made it go halfway around, just like a propeller on an airplane, and then immediately reversed direction.

Stinky Mama went arse over tits and airborne. For a brief moment in time, he began to smile but only for that very brief moment. She landed hard and directly on her head. He heard a loud “clunk.” It was the sound of freshly poured sidewalk and her noggin colliding.

He was terrified. Two things immediately occurred to him and he envisioned both. Stinky Mama was dead and the blood would soon pool under her head; the second was a visual of his first pension check. The check had grown a pair of wings and it was literally flying away in his mind’s eye, he would be fired and probably do jail time and that would even be worse than working the three-day Fourth of July Festival.

Stinky Mama had the survival instincts of a cockroach in an atomic blast. Her eyes fluttered and then opened wide. She screamed and shrieked as only she could. He was sure the piercing noise had caused blood to trickle out of his nose.

He was able to gather his wits once he realized her blood wouldn’t appear on the sidewalk and his pension check was still a possibility. He said, “You crazy old bitch, I kicked your ass and it was a fair fight, I’ll do it again if I have to.”

“But it’s my sidewalk!!”

“It’s not your sidewalk and it’s not the city’s sidewalk. This sidewalk belongs to me and from now on I say what happens and what doesn’t happen on my sidewalk. Are we clear?”

He was actually holding Stinky Mama’s baby finger with the two-inch razor-sharp nail. He held it very close to her eye and for a brief moment he thought it’d be great fun to actually use it for something other than cleaning fish.

He leaned into her and made sure others wouldn’t hear what he was about to say as people had begun to gather, now that the gunfight at high noon was over. “You’re all finished with your nonsense and acting up and such. This is my sidewalk and you’ll do exactly what I tell you to do. Otherwise, I’ll kick the living shit out of you again. I’m sick of you and your stinky cats. Do you understand?”

Stinky Mama was finally defeated. She lay on the sidewalk in abject pity. For the first time in her life she realized it was finally over, the unbearable neighborhood children would taunt her until her dying days. A tear rolled down her cheek as she said, “Yes, officer.”

Reg took the broom and refused to help her to her feet. He thought to himself, in for a penny in for a pound, no need for politeness here. She got up and slowly walked into her house, a defeated old lady.

He gathered his wits and looked around. There were at least twenty bystanders and some of them actually applauded when he said, “Stinky Mama should no longer be feared by any of you; her ass is grass and I’m the lawn mower.”

When the crowd began to scatter, he walked to the end of the block to speak with the father. Reg was in a cheerful mood and wanted to do a little follow up before leaving; he had a way with people and was always looking to make sure the Riverside taxpayers felt they got their money’s worth.

“As you probably know, she is no longer anyone you need to concern yourself with, she’s only a shadow of her former self,” Reg said.

“You were amazing the way you put that old biddy in her place.”

“Why, thank you. I was only doing my job. Your children can ride their bikes on any sidewalk you allow.”

“You should’ve been here when she was swinging that broom around at the children; she looked like a whirling dervish. The dead cat she drags around with her was flung loose and is lying in the bushes. See him over there? The dog catcher or someone should come and get him.”

Reg walked toward the bushes and sure enough, Victor Hugo was laying there and none of the other cats would go near him. It crossed Reg’s mind that the cats had more sense than Stinky Mama. “Wow, that must have been quite a show,” Reg said.

Reg pulled away from the curb and told the dispatcher he was clear from Stinky Mama’s location. Minutes later, he stopped at a local convenience store and poured himself a cup of free coffee and went back to the business at hand; it really was a great book.

As the weeks and months passed it was evident Stinky Mama would no longer be a problem. She kept the cats and the smells all to herself. Victor Hugo spent most of the time in the freezer.

Time passed and one day Reg and his wife were sitting in their living room reading the newspaper. Phoebe had the obituaries and read one out loud that she thought Reg just might be interested in hearing.

“Says here Cora Engerer passed away.”

“Do tell? I haven’t thought of Stinky Mama for years. She must have been around ninety when she croaked?”

“She was ninety-one years old. Cora listed her cats as next of kin.”

“Figures. She was one crazy bitch,” Reg said.

“I guess she was.”

“So does it say what she died from? Was it natural causes?”

Phoebe smiled and set the paper down. She looked at Reg and said, “According to the newspaper, she died from an old head injury.”

The Traffic “Cop,” Prisoner Exchange, and the Guinea Fuck

1979

C
alvin and Quentin were working together and they went out to their patrol cars and called in service. They immediately received a call of a suspicious person: Neal Grote. Neal was crazy and had clearly been drinking; he was trying to direct traffic with his penis.

Calvin got out of the car first. “For the love of Christ put that thing away, you’re making us both look bad,” Calvin said.

“Well, it gets their attention. I don’t have a police uniform or even a flashlight; this seems to work fine for me.”

Quentin took a look at Neal and said, “Holy shit, Neal’s hung like a Shetland pony. Looks like crazy has its reward. I wanna call for backup; I think some of the others need to see this stud.”

“Nah,” Calvin said. “Let’s just take him to the hospital and they can check his levels or whatever it is they do. The night is young and we need to get Neal out of our hair early.”

They coaxed Neal into Quentin’s patrol car with promises of more alcohol and Neal was eager to go. On the way to the hospital Quentin smelled a lit cigarette. He said, “You’re not supposed to smoke, but as long as you behave I suppose it’s alright.”

A minute or so later Quentin smelled burning flesh. He pulled over and Neal said, “This one’s for you,” as he burned another hole in his forearm.

“Knock off the bullshit,” Quentin said.

Calvin pulled over to see what had happened and he could smell the burning flesh from ten feet away. He thought,
What the fuck?

Neal looked at Calvin with a smile on his face. His penis was still in his pants but he was drooling. He seemed defeated as he turned to Calvin and said, “This one’s for you.” He held the lit cigarette and pressed the tip into his other forearm. The smell was sickening but Calvin was mesmerized.

“Holy shit, Quentin, this guy’s cool!”

“What should we do?”

“I’ll tell you, if we take this goof to the hospital, we’ll bring an entire shift worth of paperwork on us. Another thing, they’ll wonder why you let him smoke in a police car.”

Quentin was defensive, “I rewarded him and let him smoke because he kept his pecker in his pants, which is more than he’d been doing when we first saw him. Don’t even think about judging me, my motive was pure as the driven snow.”

“I guess,” Calvin said. “Lucky for us we never called this in. The hospital isn’t expecting us. I think we only have one option. I think we do a prisoner exchange.”

Quentin was in total agreement and said, “I’ll drive, you keep an eye the prisoner.”

Prisoner exchanges were not uncommon in Riverside. Matter of fact, they were still frequently used in 1979. When the police tired of someone they’d simply take them to the next town, or in this case, Franklin. Riverside and Franklin were in different counties, but the two cities were only ten miles apart. Franklin was nearly twice the size of Riverside, but they only had a quarter of Riverside’s asshole population. There was no love lost between the two police departments, it was understood the Riverside cops started dumping their troubles on Franklin first. They did so every other night and they were darn good at it.

On the way to Franklin, Neal began screaming like a banshee for no apparent reason. Calvin was covering both of his ears. Quentin was driving with one hand and holding one ear with the other, his head was already beginning to hurt. He kicked the speed up to nearly a hundred and almost struck a woodchuck near the Franklin city limit sign.

Quentin slammed the car into park and Calvin was already out of the car and opening the back door. Neal was still screaming. They were at the Franklin train depot. It’d been deserted years ago and the main depot residents were large city rats and other pests. Stew bums were known to camp out in back where they could sleep without being disturbed. Broken glass and garbage took the place of grass and flowers. It was a real shithole.

The stew bums—there were four of them tonight, and they all began to bolt when they saw Neal. This was not the first time he’d been dropped off at the depot, and everyone was terrified of him. One of them shouted, “Run! Run for your life, that crazy motherfucker’s back.”

Neal sensed an opportunity for even more fame; he began to howl as he looked at the sky.

Quentin thought he’d spice things up. “Hey! You better run. We’re out of silver bullets and I think that might be a full moon.”

Calvin was keeled over laughing and when he looked up he was amazed that Neal had his penis back out and was waving it about and howling.

“Fuck this noise, Quentin. Time to go,” Calvin said.

They got back in the car and drove a ways with their headlights off, just in case the Franklin cops were in the area. Neal was an afterthought and their only concern was the Guinea Fuck.

The Guinea Fuck was one-part legend and one-part real. He was highly skilled in the finer art of prisoner exchange; it was rumored he’d done more exchanges on behalf of the Franklin Police Department than any three Riverside cops put together. The Guinea Fuck was always out there in the shadows waiting; waiting and watching and then waiting some more.

Months earlier on a hot summer night, the Guinea Fuck was dropping off two stew bums and three shoplifters in Riverside. It was around midnight; the stew bums smelled funny and the shoplifters were busy dumping their contraband in the back of the police car.

That night was the record for prisoner transfers, five in one night; clearly the Guinea Fuck was a celebrity. In many ways the Riverside cops held him in the highest regard.

It was rumored that the Guinea Fuck and Ivan had had a showdown a few years earlier. They were dumping shit off on each other’s turf. The Guinea Fuck had a guy that had recently crapped his pants and he thought it appropriate that the individual should go directly past Go and forget the $200, because this guy definitely belonged in Riverside.

Ivan had a diseased prostitute that gave everyone a bucket of creep. She reportedly suffered from lesion ear disease. It was rumored she’d look like a porcupine if she had as many things sticking out of her as had been stuck in; Ivan couldn’t wait to drop her off right in the middle of downtown Franklin.

Prisoner transfers always occurred by way of River Road. It was a ten-mile straight shot from Riverside to Franklin, so the drive only took a few minutes. On the night that Ivan and the Guinea Fuck had a chance encounter, there was already bad blood between them.

Ivan hated the Guinea Fuck on the basis that he was from another department. The Guinea Fuck hated Ivan likewise. They drove plain cars that night and when they were both about halfway to their destinations the Guinea Fuck spotted Ivan.

“Cocksucker!!” The Guinea Fuck was livid, he slammed on his brakes, and Ivan slowed to a stop. They both got out of their cars.

The night was darker than a whore’s heart. Ivan sized up the Guinea Fuck and said, “Whatcha got in the backseat?”

“Some guy that ate your mother’s cooking, Fatso! I think he pooped his pants. What was your mother’s address again? The last time I left her place I was too worn out to look.” The Guinea Fuck was pleased to notice Ivan seemed pissed. He continued, “Maybe your mother can clean him up? It wouldn’t be any worse than baby Ivan’s diapers, huh?”

Ivan responded. “I’ll tell you, I was gonna remain professional, until you insulted my mother that is.” Ivan walked over to the Guinea Fuck’s car and took a peek. He said, “I’ve seen worse.”

The Guinea Fuck looked in the back of Ivan’s car. “Who’s she? The Avon Lady?”

“Nope! It’s your sister; you should take her back to Franklin yourself. Take her to the clinic, whydontcha. They can do wonders with penicillin these days. She told me that you took her to your high school prom because you were afraid to date strangers. Any truth to that?”

“TAKE THAT BACK YOU FAT FUCKER,” the Guinea Fuck roared.

“Will not.”

“You damn well better, or else.”

They both stood in the middle of the highway and glared at each other. Their passengers watched in amazement: They watched the two policemen face each other and they watched as their hands moved toward their holstered weapons. Time stood still.

A smile began to form on the Guinea Fuck’s face. “Hey Fatso, I have an idea. Do you believe in fate?”

“I guess.”

“We can leave this to fate if you want.”

Ivan was intrigued. He said, “How’s that?”

“Simple. We blindfold them and spin them both around until they both get real dizzy. We take their blindfolds off and see how they do, either way it’s only a five mile walk. Let fate decide where they end up.”

Ivan said, “Not a bad idea. For a Guinea Fuck, it’s a darn good idea.”

Ivan had some rags in the trunk of his car. They blindfolded the prisoners and did the exchange right there. The Guinea Fuck spun them both around for a minute or so and removed the blindfolds.

“You two are getting a real break tonight. We decided to let you go home, so get going, start walking,” Ivan said.

They both tried to walk and that was when the vertigo really kicked in. They bumped into each other a couple of times and spun around in the middle of the road before falling down. By the time Ivan and the Guinea Fuck were back in their respective cities the two prisoners were laying on the shoulder of the road near a dead possum. They fell asleep side by side.

That was then and this was now. Calvin and Quentin were back in Riverside and Neal was an afterthought. With any luck he’d be gone for a few months. It seemed odd to Riverside’s finest that the judges and city attorney never caught on. They’d invariably ask what happened to this person and where did that one come from? The boys in blue would simply chalk it up as a need for variety.