Deep Ellum Blues

It was the most innocent of incidences, one that could happen to anyone who had eaten a bad oyster or two a few hours earlier. Lando felt sick. Suddenly, he felt terribly sick and ran into the bar’s restroom to relieve himself of whatever was roiling inside his stomach. He made it inside the restroom, but he didn’t make it to a sink. He didn’t make it to a toilet. He had no control over the raw, gushing vomit that chose when it would come out of his mouth. What was unfortunate was that it came out on the boots of another man in the restroom, splattering the man’s footwear and jeans.

Lando straightened up and began to apologize to the man, but the man didn’t seem to end. That is to say, the man was tall and wide and looked meaner than any of Satan’s minions. The man looked at him and slowly drew out a knife. Or a machete. Lando couldn’t tell through his swimmy eyes, but he knew that the blade was big,

“Son, you done despoiled my boots. I killed the alligator that these here boots are made of, you understand? With this here knife.”

Lando nodded weakly, wondering if he was about to be the knife’s next target. He tried to clean off the boots but the man pushed him back down with his foot.

“Name’s Leon, but folks around here call me the lion. Wanna know why?”

“Uh, Leon means lion,” Lando said.

“Does it? Hmmm,” the man said thoughtfully. “Didn’t know that. But folks call me lion because I protect my turf like a large, ferocious lion.”

“Maybe they call you Leon because it means lion,” Lando countered.

Leon picked Lando up off of the floor and put the unsharpened back edge of his knife next to Lando’s throat. This act didn’t make Lando feel any safer.

“I should go ahead and just slit that skinny little throat of yours, son.”

Lando noted that Leon’s eyes looked dead, like those of a shark. Maybe Leon needed a new nickname, he thought. This thought was immediately followed by the thought that Isha would be pissed if he managed to get himself killed in a bar bathroom in Deep Ellum. Pissed at him.

“Uh…I…I…” Lando stuttered for a moment before Leon put his huge hand over his mouth.

“No more talkin’, son. Gimme your wallet and walk away.”

Lando considered declining, but the knife told him to do as he was told. He handed over his wallet. Leon told him to “scoot on outta here,” so he scooted on out of there.

Isha was waiting for him by the restroom door, worry lining her face.

“A man took my wallet,” Lando said. He still felt weak, from the incident and from the aftereffects of the bad oysters.

Isha had no such problem, so she marched into the men’s restroom to confront the thief. Lando wanted to tell her not to go in there but he just didn’t have the strength to do so at the moment. Besides, he was pretty sure that Isha would get his wallet back. She was very persuasive. Irritatingly so at times.

Isha came out of the restroom a couple of minutes later and dragged Lando outside. She was actually frightened, and her voice suggested that she had just had a life-changing experience.

“Let’s leave. I mean right now,” she said. The urgency surprised Lando but he did as he was told. He wanted to leave the immediate premises as badly as Isha did.

“What happened?” Lando asked.

Isha looked at him and gulped. Her eyes were wide with fear and she almost couldn’t speak.

“That man. Monster. Monster man. He has this knife…”

“Yeah, I know. I think it’s about ten feet long.”

“He just took it out and…and…well, he took my handbag and told me to scoot on outta there. His words.”

“Me too,” Lando said, the two words conveying all that needed to be conveyed at the moment.

Isha and Lando looked around, realizing their predicament. They had no money or credit cards to get home. The streets of Deep Ellum were teaming with all sorts of people, many of them in outrageous costumes. There were street musicians everywhere, and it seemed like every corner had a drag queen or two doing a performance. Prostitutes wandered in and out of the crowds, offering services to those who looked like they might be in the mood for their specialized skills. Although the scenes were exciting, there didn’t seem to be many people who would be willing to help them out.

After an hour of pleading for help, Isha heard a voice come from a darkened doorway in a side street they had stumbled on to.

“Lookin’ for a good time, sweeties?” A woman who had to be in her 40s stepped out into the light. She was dressed in about 3 square centimeters of fabric and had a cigarette dangling from her lips.

“Uh, yeah,” Lando said quickly. Isha gave him a pitying look.

The woman started listing all of the services she offered, some of them quite unique, along with prices. Isha was amazed at the panoply of skills this woman claimed to have.

“Well, really, I meant that I just need some money so we could get home. If you could see your way to lending…”

“Get outta here before I get Big Bill to take care of you,” the prostitute said viciously.

As luck would have it, Big Bill was already there, making his rounds. The pimp was big, as advertised. He took one look at the prostitute, who nodded slightly. Big Bill then hit Lando on the side of the head with a baton.

Lando reeled backwards and went down, stunned. Blood was coming from his head and his eyesight blurred. Big Bill approached him, ready to hit him again when he felt a sharp, intense pain between his legs. Isha had the foresight to stave off further attacks from Big Bill by kicking him in the family jewels.

Big Bill staggered to the side and Isha hit him in the head with her right elbow. Big Bill didn’t go down, though. He swiped blindly at Isha, connecting with her cheek and sending her rolling along the street. The prostitute jumped on Isha and started hitting her. Lando, somewhat recovered, hit Big Bill in the nose, sending a spray of blood all over him. He then dragged Isha, who had gotten the upper hand, off of the prostitute. She was also covered in blood. They ran off down the street, looking back to make sure that they hadn’t been followed.

The couple found their way back to a main street, seeking help. The people they accosted, though, avoided them.

“It must be the blood,” Isha said, exhaustion tinging her voice.

“My head hurts,” Lando complained.

Isha looked at him and smiled. Gentle, sweet Lando had broken the nose of a man twice his size to protect her. It felt primal. It felt glorious.

“My eye hurts, sweetie,” Isha said. She winced in pain and tried to open her left eye.

“It’s black,” Lando said in wonder. Sweet, gentle Isha had a black eye from a fight. He didn’t know why, but it was sexy.

“Ahem.”

Both wheeled around at the sound. Two policemen. Thank God.

“What seems to be the problem, folks,” the older of the two spoke up. He looked serious. Lando wanted a serious cop because they were in a serious situation.

Isha started to explain their predicament, but it was clear that the cops weren’t really listening. The cops were far more interested in their bloody clothes and their lack of identification.

“Are you here legally, ma’am?” the younger cop asked Isha.

Isha was not the type of person to anger easily. She had been raised to be polite and respectful, and she was usually those two things. But this pushed her over the edge. The night had pushed her way past her upbringing.

“Why, because I look like an Indian?”

“It’s just a question, ma’am,” the older cop said laconically.

“Please answer the question, ma’am,” the younger cop said, but with a lot more force behind the words than his partner offered.

“Yeah. I’ll answer your question,” Isha spat out. And she responded with three words. An imperative sentence. The first word was “go” and the last word was “yourself.” I will leave it to the reader to figure out the middle word. Suffice it to say that a) the command was physically impossible in the tradition sense of the act and that b) it pissed off both of the officers of the law.

The cops’ reaction was immediate. The younger cop grabbed Isha roughly by the arm, but Isha put an elbow in his face and sent him to the pavement. The older cop took out his Taser, aiming it at Isha. Lando jumped on his back and took him to the pavement. They rolled around on the hard surface, attracting quite a crowd.

The Taser clattered away and was picked up by someone in the gathering crowd. The older cop punched Lando in the stomach. Lando threw up some more of the bad oysters on him, catching him full in the face. The cop scrabbled at his face, spluttering. Lando took this opportunity to bull rush the cop to the ground again. The man landed with a whoomp and laid there. He was out of shape and out of breath.

The younger cop grabbed his gun, but the person who had picked up the Taser shot him in the chest, sending electric currents thrilling through his body. He went down in a heap, jerking spasmodically. Lando and Isha limped and stumbled and reeled through the crowd, trying to get away from their blue-suited assailants. Cop cars started showing up, so the crowd dispersed quickly. A spent Taser lay on the ground.

Bloody, beat up, and exhausted, the couple went down back alleys and deserted streets, wondering what to do next. It had been an eventful three hours, and none of those hours had treated them kindly. But they were happy.

“You kicked some ass, Ish. It was kinda sexy,” Lando said. He checked his teeth, finding one disturbingly loose. It was so loose, in fact, that it popped out with the slightest of provocation. He held the tooth out and looked at it, spitting out blood.

“I’ll need to see our dentist,” Lando said. Isha hugged him and told him that the lost tooth was a trophy of this memorable night. Lando, right now, looked very sexy with blood in his mouth and missing a tooth.

“My face hurts,” Isha said. She slid down a wall and leaned her head back, sighing deeply. Everything hurt, but it didn’t bother her much.

“You have a black eye, Ish. And blood on your cheek,” Lando said.

The couple sat there for a few moments, collecting their thoughts and deciding what their next move would be. As they pondered, a groan came from down the alley. The couple looked at each other, shrugged, and moved towards the sound. It was that kind of night in Deep Ellum.

They located the person behind the groan and stopped dead, looking at each other. It was Leon.

Isha bent down and studied his face. He was certainly in bad shape. Like them, he was covered in blood. He also had two black eyes and an arm that hung limply. Lando inspected it: good old Leon had a dislocated shoulder. With a quick jerk and a loud yell from Leon, Lando put his shoulder back in place.

“Well hello, Leon,” Isha said. Her eyes sparkled at the irony of the situation.

Leon looked up with bleary eyes. He groaned again and shook his head. Just my luck lately, he thought. Gasping in pain, he stood up – with their help.

“I reckon it carmel,” he said.

“Karma,” Isha corrected.

“That thing,” Leon said softly.

“What happened, Leon? The alligator’s family come looking for you,” Lando said. He was still pissed at Leon.

“I got the hell beat outta me by a couple of cops, a big-ass pimp, and one of his ladies. They were all pretty beat up, so I reckon they was all in a bad mood to begin with. One of those dumbass cops asked me what I was doing with this here handbag,” Leon held out Isha’s handbag, which she quickly snatched from him, “and I told him it was none of his damn business. Well that set him off. And that big ol’ pimp and his woman jumped in just for the hell of it, I guess. I gave as good as I got, but the pimp finally put me down. I just crawled away and laid here on the ground.”

“Leon? Honey? We have a little story for you.” Isha laughed. She then recounted what had happened to her and Lando.

“So you two beat up them cops and the pimp and the hooker?”

“Yeah, we did. Isha did most of the ass kicking, though.”

“Krav Maga,” she offered.

Leon looked at her uncomprehendingly.

“Brazilian street fighting,” she added.

“You don’t look Brazilian,” Leon said.

“Never mind, Leon. How did you get here?” Isha asked.

“I drove my truck.” Leon pointed in the general direction of nowhere.

The battered trio went looking for his truck. Isha took his keys and kept on clicking the alarm button. After an hour of searching, they found it. They laid Leon gently in the back of the truck. Lando got behind the wheel.

Lando looked at Isha.

“This is all my fault,” he said. Silence ensued for a few awkward seconds. Leon chuckled in the back seat. The couple turned around and looked at him.

“The oysters? Yeah, I listened to your pitiful story.”

“It’s true. If I hadn’t eaten those bad oysters, I wouldn’t have tossed up my cookies on your boots and none of this would have happened.”

Isha nodded, and then she leaned over and kissed Lando deeply. She could taste the blood in his mouth and feel where his tooth was missing.

“But it did happen, and it was glorious,” Isha said.

“It was my doin’, too. My woman done left me last week so I was in a foul mood. Called me a crow magnet and a Phyllis something-or-other,” Leon mumbled.

“Cro-Magnon,” Isha said.

“Philistine,” Lando added.

“I still don’t know what those words mean, but I reckon they’re bad.”

Isha turned around to speak to Leon.

“Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll drive you to a hotel near our place and get you all tucked in. Tomorrow, we’ll come by and drop off your truck and you can go home. You’re in no shape to drive tonight, buddy.”

“I ain’t got no money left,” Leon said.

“That’s okay. We’ll pay for it. You can pay us back if you want to. If not, consider it a gift for a fun night in Deep Ellum.”

“I’ll pay you back. I may be a crow whatever, but I pay my way.”

Isha squirmed around in the front a little and removed her bra. Lando looked at her in bemusement. She never went out in public without her bra.

“It’s busted anyway. Besides, it’s a trophy. We’ll get a little display case for this and your tooth. We’ll hang it up in the living area.”

“That’s sure to piss off both of our families,” Lando said. He was smiling.

Leon chuckled in the back.

“Trophies are good,” he muttered.

Hey Leon. I have a sister that’s a big disappointment to the family. She likes to hunt. She rides motorcycles. She drinks beer,” Isha informed him.

“Uh huh. Congratulations, I guess.”

“She is terribly Cro-Magnon and a true Philistine. You wanna meet her?”

Leon sat up, wincing a little at the pain.

“Sure. I mean…”

“You two are made for each other. She’d jump at the chance to hunt alligators.” Isha snatched up Leon’s phone and entered her cell number.

“My name is Isha, in case you forget, but I put my number under the name ‘bra woman.’ You’ll remember that, right?”

“I reckon so,” he said, blushing.

Lando whispered to Isha. She nodded enthusiastically.

“We’ll all meet up where you got your boots puked on. Next Friday? Around 7-ish?” Isha put a note in his phone and gave it back to him.

“You two are kinda cool,” Leon said before sliding back down on the seat.

“I want my wallet back,” Lando said. Leon threw it up front.

“Sorry. Forgot I had it,” he said by way of apology.

With Leon safely in bed, the couple drove home and plopped on the couch. They were spent, exhausted, bone-weary, drained, and fatigued. They felt absolutely marvelous. After taking a shower, they went to bed, each ruminating on the night’s events.

“Do you think those cops will recognize us when we go back?” Lando asked quietly.

“I hope they do. One of those assholes knocked your tooth out.”

Fur Elise was playing softly as the couple drifted off to sleep. They dreamed of blood and pain and punches to the face. They dreamed of missing teeth and broken bras. They dreamed of bad oysters and vomit. Isha smiled slightly throughout the night. Their Deep Ellum blues slept with them.