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  The air tanker banks hard at the end of the wide ravine and circles around to fly back past less than a hundred feet in front of them, close enough that Patrick can see the pilot and copilot with their heads turned directly toward him. Both of them are smiling like angels behind the glass of their cockpit, Patrick figures they have a right to.

  As if on its own, Patrick’s right hand shoots out toward the plane, his fingers spread painfully wide in salute. In reply, the plane waggles its wings in victory as it heads back for another load of water.

  “I want my Mommy,” the little kid says, and Patrick’s shoulders slump as he slowly turns to look uphill and sees what the fire’s left of the old man and this kid’s mother.

  Their bodies are close together, like a couple taking a forever nap together. Patrick covers the little boy’s eyes as he totters uphill and stops just below the crest.

  Their clothes are burned right off them, but Patrick refuses to look at the young mother’s dead nakedness, refuses to violate her afterlife modesty. This isn’t porn, its real life after all.

  Instead he stares down unflinching at the old man’s fire denuded corpse, takes in the sagging muscles, the scarred flesh. The old man’s body has faded ancient ink on its charred shoulder. A screaming eagle stooping, Patrick has no idea if it had been supposed to represent anything.

  Down on the old man’s fried midsection, Patrick sees three quarter-sized hole-shaped scars stitched in a widely spaced row. Patrick knows what that means at least, having one dime-sized bullet hole scar himself from a 25, on his calf.

  But these are bigger than Patrick’s scar, it looks like maybe the old man caught himself some AK-spray one upon a used-to-was. Patrick wonders what war the old man was in.

  A sudden wave of panic washes over Patrick, and he digs his free hand into his pocket to make sure he hasn’t lost his big brother’s foldie in all the excitement, terrified that the only family heirloom he had left might be gone. But it’s still there. Billy’s still there in his pocket, safe at home.

  Soaked from the life saving water even though it’s already steaming off him in the still-present heat, Patrick stumbles uphill toward the smoking crest of the hill with the little boy nestled safe in his arms. The ground surrounding them is smoking too, and shattered trees exploded from their own super-heated internal water rear their dead stumps in crazy directions all around.

  There are still a few smoldering hotspots, but they’re few and far between. The firestorm had used up all its fuel in a single psychotic gulp before being stopped in its tracks by the air tanker. They’re safe for a bit – until another wildfire comes their way, of course.

  Patrick can see the tail of another air tanker sticking above and beyond the ridgeline like a shark fin as it screams past low, dumping its own load onto the unseen highway on the other side. Patrick can hear the monotonous two-note bass riff of an approaching helicopter. Distant and unseen, he also hears the wound out diesel snarls of multiple trucks barreling closer with each second.

  Patrick reaches the crest and looks down. There are about half a dozen newly arrived CDF trucks below looking like randomly parked toys, ant-like figures in fire gear are running around through the brush with implements in their hands. Even from the crest Patrick can see that the asphalt of the highway is melted in patches, some stretches of road even looking like they’ve been fused into glass.

  Patrick also sees what’s left of the old man’s Grand Prix down there. The Grand Prix had been a 67, stock cherry except for the custom chrome rims and the silver flake paint job. It had been a beast of a car and Patrick had admired it even though he hadn’t been about to admit as much to the old man.

  Now the windows are melted right out of that distant Grand Prix into puddles on the ground, and the metallic silver paint is baked away to reveal the naked steel body. The Grand Prix stands on its deformed chrome rims in charred blobs of ashen tire rubber. The frame is sagged to the pavement like a sway-backed horse too old for the saddle.

  Patrick’s hobo bindle had been in the Grand Prix, everything he owned in the world has gone up in smoke with the old man’s car. Patrick’s going back to Eureka with nothing more than the clothes on his back.

  The other two autos and the blocking CDF truck are all in the same state of destruction. One of the cars is actually on its side from when its gas tank blew.

  To the left, Patrick sees a male firefighter sobbing over the charcoal silhouettes tattooed into the road where the first two firefighters fell. A burly woman firefighter pats the sobbing male’s shoulder.

  Shouting toy figures below point at him and the little boy in his arms. Patrick starts limping down the hill toward the waiting CDF-ers, making ready to rejoin the land of the living. On the way he passes the crispy critter remnants of the old lady and the fire fighter who tried to save her.

  Patrick’s unable to get the old man out of his head even as he goes down. He looks ahead to the days, months and years that now confront him.

  He may have to beg for work; may have to humble himself to others. But he’ll stop blaming the world for his hard luck and his own fuckups. He’ll be a man about it, just like Brother Billie and the old man would expect of him.

  Yes, Patrick thinks as he reaches the road and firefighters surround him and the boy, stroking them and touching them, enclosing Patrick and this lucky little kid in the animal solidarity of all survivors.

  It’ll be good to be Right.

  It’ll be good to be a Man.

  Paraplegic Killer Chimp

  You heard me. See, my wife cheats. That ain’t automatically bad: Her hygiene’s always been out of left field, and she craves dick like a goat on Spanish fly.

  Wants it way more than I can supply if you catch my drift. Suffice it to say I’m no Ron Jeremy.

  I don’t mind as long as she’s discrete. But when I find the strange’s smelly drawers in my bathroom, or I pass guys on the stoop exiting my house still tugging up their zippers and thanking me for my wife’s skills? You can imagine what goes through a guy’s pulsing brain.

  So I’m reading this article in the paper about some chimpanzee at the local zoo that’s had a spinal injury. Poor Chimpo’s paralyzed from the waist down, they’ve even given him a wheelchair.

  I get to feeling sorry for that chimp. I mean, his only job in the world was for zoo-goers to gawk at him, and to throw occasional clumps of his own shit at them to liven things up.

  Now he can’t even do that minimalism. He’s as useless as me.

  He’ll push himself around in that wheel chair until he dies, probably in protective custody from the other chimps. See, I’d heard chimps even commit murder on their own kind; they’re advanced that way just like us humans.

  That’s when it occurs to me: maybe me and Chimpo could help each other out.

  I rent a second story industrial, and break Chimpo out of the zoo, wheelchair and all. I set him up in that rental and take care of him. Get him to trust me.

  It ain’t fun: Did you know chimps can’t be potty trained? Chimpo has a grand old time crapping his wheelchair until I finally stock up on disposable diapers.

  I’ll spare you the gory details of our training program, but graduation goes something like this: At night, when no one’s around, I take Chimpo outside into the alley and give him a boost to the fire escape. See, his lower body is useless, but that upper body of his works just fine.

  He climbs up hand over hand, and then crawls through the window with his legs dragging and dead. He clambers up the bed that’s in there, reaches into the gunny sack hanging from his shoulder, and pulls out the .38 that’s in there and shoots all six of the blanks it’s loaded with.

  He empties that pistol full of blanks into the department store mannequin I have lying under the covers. I try to make it as true to life as I can for him; I even have a wig on the mannequin, about the color and texture of my slut wife’s hair.

  Chimpo’s easy to train, he’s smart. I teach him that if he does all those steps r
ight and in order, that he gets a pack of smokes and an eighth of Old Overcoat to suck on.

  Yeah, it’s hilarious watching Chimpo chain smoke and chug at his bottle. Guess I’m just lucky he doesn’t have more expensive taste in his alcohol.

  So then it’s the night. I take Chimpo to the building me and my wife lived in.

  I listen long enough to know she doesn’t have any gentlemen callers – I can tell because she’s a screamer, the whole building knows when she’s entertaining. But our apartment is silent as the tomb.

  Up the fire escape and through the window Chimpo goes, only this time the .38 in his bag is loaded with live rounds. I wait for the gun shots signaling my wife’s departure to hell. When those shots come I’ll fade and Chimpo will be left holding the bag, literally I suppose.

  I wait, but no shots come. So I creep up the fire escape and peek in the window.

  It’s dim inside, but something’s happening on the bed, shapes are thrashing around. And then the screaming starts.

  It’s my wife screaming, and Chimpo too, like they’re killing each other. Then the lamp next to the bed goes on and I see what’s happening in my bed.

  My wife has a strap-on dildo buckled around Chimpo’s waist and she’s riding him cowgirl style; staring me right in the eyes. Fuckin monkey’s dick may be limp and paralyzed; but he knows exactly what’s happening, they’re both screaming jungle love at each other. As I cringe away, I realize she knows I’m out there, and she turned on the light deliberately, she wants me to see.

  Those monkey house orgy screams mock me as I stumble away down the street.

  But never say die, right?

  I heard about this gorilla at a Zoo in the next town over. Old Kong there has a spinal cord injury like my Chimpo, but way worse.

  Kong’s a quadriplegic; they’re training him to make his electric wheelchair go by blowing in a plastic tube. Kong is especially useless, just like me. Just like Chimpo before my wife turned him into a sex toy.

  I’ll break Kong out of his zoo, I’ll put a remote control unit in his electric wheelchair and then I’ll strap a plastic explosive suicide vest on his chest, just like those towel-heads do over in Iraq.

  Problem is, I’ll only be able to get at Chimpo and my wife when they’re in a handicap access area. But that’s where they’ll be anyways, right?

  Carny Love (A Chapter Deleted From STREET RAISED)

  "There's a carnival going on right now, down by the Coliseum," Reseda said to Speedy as she read today's edition of the Oakland Tribune. Her copy of that East Bay rag thrashed around in her tiny hands even as she gave the command. "You want to take me to it."

  "Okay," Speedy said.

  Speedy had fallen in lust on the spot the first time he'd seen Reseda last night, in that motel off Seminary Avenue. She'd sat in the corner of the mark's room, looking demure and proper, watching the whole time Speedy and Fat Bob robbed her dealer boyfriend, appearing bored and uninterested.

  There was a fake innocent air about her that didn't fit in at all with the milieu of that drug house. Speedy was distracted from the work and his gaze kept returning to her again and again during the rip-off. She just sat there looking back, favoring him with that infuriating Mona Lisa smile.

  Her boyfriend finally got froggy after they found his poorly hidden stash and Fat Bob had hammered the fool down into a bloody mewling pulp on the motel room's cheaply carpeted floor. Her eyes lit up with an avid hunger at the sight, and Speedy realized he wasn't about to leave without her.

  It had been a good haul in drugs, cash, plastic and iron they'd beaten off that particular mark. Even greedy Fat Bob had been satisfied with his cut for once. Speedy had given most of it over to his crimie cuz he was more than happy with his own end: Reseda, his living piece of loot.

  She'd spent last night and today with him, but Speedy make a move on her, wondering why the whole time. Her demeanor was pleasant, she gave no sign she'd resist his advances. Hell, she was playing house with him at his crib ferchrissakes.

  His hands kept twitching to grasp her to him as he did all the street girls he was used to, but the memory of that look Speedy had seen in Reseda's eyes as she watched Fat Bob hammering her erstwhile 'boyfriend' demanded clarification. The danger Reseda's unknown personality quirks represented) that was what kept giving Speedy a stiffie every time he looked at her.

  He was in lust, but he wasn't going to just dive in before he'd had a chance to map Reseda out a little bit. They'd get naked soon enough he figured.

  "Okay," Speedy said again in response to her demand to take her to where the action was, sensing an opening. They'd been on the road in his latest chota wagon within minutes after that.

  The carnival was set up in the large commercial zone surrounding the Oakland Coliseum, down by 'the Flats' off 66th, in the old White Front parking lot on Hegenberger next to Malibu Grand Prix and the Drive-In. As they approached the garish lit-up maw leading into the carnival proper, Speedy noted that it was the usual motley selection of rickety rides, with a cheesy midway bisecting it offering games of chance in exchange for Chinese-slave-labor-manufactured prizes.

  Liberal amounts of saw dust were strewn on the ground in the avenues of heaviest foot traffic. That eternal background olfactory hum of the Carnival imbued: flat beer, old popcorn, stale sweat and congealed blood.

  Speedy did a mental catalog of the crowd, assessing the current threat level. There were other whites, but they were definitely in the minority here, outnumbered about two to one by the Eses, maybe three to one by the Mayates, the Brothers. A couple of Asian rat packs were snuffling around too.

  Speedy was strapped but he knew a lot of the others here had to be also. He got along well enough with La Raza and the Bloods, though not as well with the Asians. But he knew shifting relative numbers always had a strange way of changing people's racial attitudes. A 'get along' black might act a lot less friendly if his race was in the overwhelming majority, though Speedy knew that was true of his white boys as well.

  As they entered what passed for the midway, Speedy saw a tired looking ride attendant hosing out vomit from one of the cars in the Zipper. The attendant was wearing greasy, faded brown coveralls, zipper open to his crotch. His jailhouse tattoos rippled on his bird-narrow chest, skin still pale enough that he probably hadn't raised very long ago.

  His eyes were on the ground rather than focusing on his work. He kept looking at the patch of asphalt enclosed by the battered portable picket fence designed to keep onlookers away from the ride. The attendant finally tossed down his hose and walked around to various spots under the Zipper where he paused and picked up change, drugs, wallets and loose bills of various denominations before returning to the Zipper's entrance and waving in the next set of victims.

  "This is what they call a Shake Machine," Reseda explained, seeing Speedy’s attention. "The Ride Monkeys run it hard to shake the rubes’ pockets empty, and then they get to keep any ground score that hits the midway below."

  "Cool," Speedy said in sincerity, always interested in learning new ways to make the Marks pay.

  There were three big rig trailers parked next to each other immediately opposite the rides, one with its twin back doors open wide. As they passed, Speedy saw a lighter flicking to life in the depths.

  A trio of ride attendants was illuminated by the lighter's flame, standing huddled around a smoking bong. Judging by the strewn sleeping bags and other unidentifiable effects scattered around the floor of the trailer, this looked like where the attendants crashed when the carnival was on the road.

  Speedy noted all the attendants wore the same faded brown coveralls. He figured the only difference between their current uniforms and the ones they'd worn inside was the color.

  Reseda marched past the rides and straight up to the nearest game stall on the Midway. A couple was just walking away from the stall. The guy was seething with rage for some reason, while his girl stroked his arm and muttered reassuring words.

  Behind the counte
r, the grimy looking game attendant stood alert. He had a Mohawk that needed some major landscaping. Some pretty transgressive looking tattoos crawled out his collar and up his neck.

  There was a duck pond behind him with little numbered rubber duckies floating together in an endless circle around the tank. Cheesy prizes adorned the shelves at the back of his territory, his stall.

  "Al-A-Ga-Zam," Reseda said to the guy, her hands flickering in a cryptic hand gesture too fast for Speedy to follow.

  The Mohawker's eyes widened and his hand flickered in reply. "Right back at ya, little sis."

  "First on the right, your joint's in a good loc," Reseda said with an approving nod. "How the Clems treatin ya?"

  "They're quite cruel," Mohawker said, with a sad look Speedy figured for fake. "Sometimes they even leave with a little money still in their pockets."

  Reseda and the carny laughed together at that one. Speedy figured Mohawker liked Reseda just fine.

  A vague proprietary impulse prompted Speedy to wrap his arm around Reseda's narrow waist and tug her close. Reseda didn't resist, but she didn't take her eyes off the carny either.

  "This one's mine," Speedy said quietly to Mohawker.

  "Baby needs milk," the carny said with a miniscule sneer, gaze shuttling back and forth between Speedy and Reseda as if gauging her response for approval.

  "I ain't 'Baby,'" Speedy said, pinning the dickwad with his eyes and not letting go.

  The carny stared right back at Speedy for a few seconds before finally looking down and away with a shrug. "Maybe you ain't, but it don't matter." He looked at Reseda. "We're having an after party in the Back Yard later, come on by my trailer if you like." His gaze flicked at Speedy then away. "You're both welcome."

  Reseda's smile widened. "As long as no Ride Monkeys are invited. A girl's got to have her standards."

  Speedy tugged Reseda away as Mohawker leered in reply; she didn't resist Speedy's pull as they wended their way through the enthusiastic throng. Speedy felt the eyes of the Carny burning holes into his back, maybe even on the bulge in the back of Speedy's waistband where his 45 was stashed?