Death of a Second Banana Free Dating, Singles and Personals

Death of a Second Banana Posted: 7/20/2009 7:34:05 PM
Small part of something I've been working on... Across the street from the bus station were a couple of rooming houses. I went that way. At the first, there was a bad smell in the lobby. Shades were pulled--everything was in shadows. A nasty looking cat lounged on a lint-covered sofa. When I entered, it hissed, then ran off up the stairs. No one else was about. Ringing a little bell--a door buzzer screwed to the counter, actually--I waited five minutes before a woman came out of the office. She wore a bathrobe; and like the sofa, the robe was peppered with bits of lint. “I’d like to see about a room,” I said. She threw me the long eye. “I don’t rent to just anyone off the street,” she said. A woman was coming down the hall. “That *hole above me is pissing in the sink again," she snarled when she got to the counter, "every time he does that, it bubbles up in mine. I thought you were going to say something-" "I got this to take care of." “I think I’ll check elsewhere,” I told the woman in the bathrobe. * The next place seemed better. It was all cinderblock - like a jail. Inside the lobby, a couple of old men sat at a table playing gin rummy. A desk clerk stood at the counter, leaning on scabby elbows, watching a small TV and smoking a cigarette. There was a coffee station in the corner. I liked that--free coffee. “How much for a room?” I asked the guy at the counter. “One hundred a week.” “Air conditioned?” “Of course." “Only works half the time,” added one of the card players. “Is that true?” I asked the clerk. “The rooms are comfortable,” he assured me. Didn’t seem to really answer the question, but after the bus ride and now feeling tired and constipated, I wasn’t in the mood to hike around town looking for something better. Handing over the dough, I signed a slip, was given a receipt, and up I went to my room. It wasn't much of a room. It was small. The bed hardly fit in there. The TV didn't work. The bathroom was down the hall. The air conditioning was on, but wasn’t doing much. I’d live with it, I decided, for now. I hung around for a while, laying on my bed and staring out the window. Finally, I got up, went out, went over to Fremont Street. I’d never seen palm trees before and there were lots of them on Fremont Street. To me, palm trees represented paradise. This place wasn’t a paradise, however, I could tell that right away. There was gloom to it all - to all the people walking about. At the Four Queens, I bought a cup of coffee to go and The Las Vegas Sun, then found a bench near The Plaza to sit and sip and read. A guy came up and wanted my coffee. I shooed him away. Another guy came up to sell me a watch. I shooed him off, too. Then there was another guy. He didn’t seem to want anything. He stood there crying--not looking at me, just crying. Tears tumbled down his cheeks. Then he had his wallet out and a photo. I couldn’t see what the photo was. Next, he took a jack-knife from his pocket, opened the blade, then very slowly, sliced open his throat. Growing up in Maine, we had a huge elm tree in the front yard. As a kid, I never gave much thought to that old tree. It was big, but it was just a tree. When I looked at photos of palm trees, however, or saw then on TV, to me, they seemed better than elm trees. Having now seen the places palm trees grow, I know they are not. *** Next morning, I was confronted with yellow police tape wrapped around the front entrance of the rooming house. “You’ll have to take the back door,” Ted, one of the old guys who perpetually seem to play cards at the table, said. There was a large puddle of blood on the sidewalk. A couple of police cruiser were parked out front. “What happened?” I asked. “The guy in number six--Lenny-” said Ted. “Wasn’t he in that detective show?” the other old man--Frank--interrupted. “The one with the fat cop?” “It was a courtroom show.” “He was the sidekick of the fat detective--a second banana. I’m sure if it.” “No he wasn’t,” said Ted. “It was a lawyer show, not a cop show. He was a bit player, not a second banana.” “What happened?” I asked. “I think the show got canceled.” “I mean, what happened last night?” “Someone killed him,” Frank said, adding, “He liked the midnight breakfast buffet at the Golden Gate. Somebody shot him when he was going out.” “Does that happen, often?” “You mean the Movie Star getting killed? No, I think you can only get murdered, once.” “He wasn’t really a movie star,” Frank corrected, “he was merely a second banana.” “What I mean is, do people get murdered a lot around here?” I asked, adding, “I watched a guy kill himself over on Fremont street yesterday.” “That’s why the casinos weld the windows shut,” said Frank. “They don’t want you jumping out.” “You remember that guy who jump off the parking garage on First?” Ted said, seemingly reminiscing. “I remember that,” Frank replied, then to me: “Kid, you ever seen what happens to a body after a seven story drop? It ain’t pretty.” I’d had enough of this. “You got a typewriter?" I asked the desk clerk, who'd been fixed on the TV. "I want to type a resume.” “My wife will do it for you,” he offered. “She charges five bucks a page.” “I don’t have the money to spare.” “Then my wife won’t do it.” “You got your work cards yet?” Ted wondered. “Work cards?” “So you can work.” “What's a work card?” “Tam card, health card, sheriff’s card...” Sheriff’s card? I didn’t like the sounds of that. “You’ll need a sheriff’s card for almost any job. They do a background check. It’s a hundred bucks, I think. Something like that. Frank here could never get one.” “How do I get the card?” I asked. I was getting a bad feeling about Vegas--about job prospects in Vegas. “Go to the cop-shop across from the El Cortez,” Frank explained. “Got to have a job offer, first; but you won’t be offered a job unless you’ve already got the card.” “You’re saying I’ll only be offered a job if I already have the card; but I can‘t get the card unless I‘m offered a job? That doesn‘t seem right.” “Yup,” said Ted. “It’s a pickle,” added Frank. End