Red and green running lights play in zigzag reflections across the black water of my dream.  A docking bell rings as a harbor taxi cuts a wide circle and nears the pier where we are waiting.  I’m laughing about something, and O’Hara is gesturing wildly.  Again, the bell rings as I awaken to the darkness of my room and the ringing telephone on my bedside stand.

“Hello,” I say, fumbling the receiver to my ear.

“Are you Neil Landerman?” a man asks in a Spanish accent.

“Who is this?” I ask.

“O’Hara told me to call,” the man answers.

“O’Hara told you?”  I turn on my bedside lamp and ask again, “Who are you?”

“Never mind that.  Just tell O’Hara the police have Ramirez.”

“The police?” I ask, as the caller hangs up.

I light a cigarette and blow the smoke out in a straight stream.  O’Hara is in trouble again.  He skips through life with abandon, like a flat pebble across a pond, splashing along, defying gravity, until, like the pebble when the skipping stops, he finds himself in over his head.  It’s his downfall, and his charm.

We go way back.  Two disoriented college graduate draftees caught in the broad net of wartime conscription.  The Vietnam War is raging, and it has become a very questionable war with no end in sight.  Reluctant warriors at best, facing the daunting prospect of two years with the Army, dodging bullets, we, through separate but similar discernment and arrangement, choose to do our service time at sea in the Navy Reserve.

Having little interest in things military, we face each day dreaming of the days when we can get back to the lives we left on hold, a disposition that sets us at odds with the Regular Navy culture.  Immediately singled out, what begins as constant petty punishments over shoeshines and belt buckle infractions soon degenerates into a contest of wills and a self-perpetuating cycle of punishment, push back, and more punishment.  Some of the punishments are laced with blind envy, which makes them all the more stinging. 

Month after month it wears on, and in the bleak half-light of shipboard slog, where happier memories and broader perspectives fade, the struggle takes on personal and primal dimensions.  Convinced that our very souls are at stake, it becomes a battle we could not and would not lose.  It is out of this forge of perturbation that we draw the steely resolve and rarefied sense of humor that becomes the stuff of our friendship.

After our Navy years, O’Hara, an aspiring cartoonist, sets out to mine human folly for the humor he features in his cartoons, but past that, he hears the cries for help in its wake.  He begins to see solace as the other side of humor and embraces this insight as the completion of the circle in his life.  With perilous disregard for institution or person standing in his way, he invents generous and imaginative schemes to help those he sees as swamped by the backwash of cupidity.

I throw myself into graduate school and become completely absorbed in my first love, painting.  When I hear of O’Hara’s ventures in Mexico I fear the worst, but he is not to be deterred. 

Over the years, there are tales of brushes with the law, and recently he informed me that his travels to Mexico have come to a stop, and that he will be lying low for a little while, a development I’m sure is somehow related to my midnight telephone call.

His hiding place, an aging Victorian, stands dark and tall against the pale yellow predawn fog, her weathered fretwork, faded, gone or dangling by a nail. Her grand foyer is lit by a single light bulb hanging on a wire from the center of the antique coffered ceiling, and ghosts of glittering receptions past linger in the shadowy colonnade of high arches.

I follow the dirty maroon carpet as it snakes past a dozen closed doors toward the back of the house.  The air hangs heavy with a mix of cooking odors, urine and cigarette smoke.   

It’s a lousy place to live, but serves O’Hara’s present needs very well.   He meets expenses odd-jobbing it.  With no mailing address, cartoon submissions are on hold.  Instead he draws grocery store adds for a small advertising company in the Mission District, little men with big heads and big smiles holding up bottles of catsup or detergent or other specials of the week.  And he raises earthworms for a local nursery, something he learned in Mexico.  Both are cash deals, no questions and no receipts.

There is a trace of light under O’Hara’s door, so I quietly let myself in.  He is lying on his back across the bed, with the ceiling light on, fully dressed and sound asleep. 

“Hey, buddy.”  I shake his shoulder.  “I brought coffee.”

He wakes with a start, pushes up on his elbows and squints at the tall figure leaning over his bed.  “Landy?… Hey…what time is it?”

“About five.”  I hold out the styrofoam cup.

“Five?…Are we supposed to be somewhere?”

“No.  I just came over.”

He hangs his feet over the side of his bed and gestures toward a chair heaped with clothes.  “Just throw that stuff off.”

“You got a cigarette?” he asks, putting down the coffee and rubbing his face.

“Sure.”  I take one and offer him a light.

“You couldn’t sleep, so you came over here to roll me out.  Right?”

“That’s close,” I say, running my tongue along my upper lip.

“I know,” O’Hara says.  “Let’s go to Napa…taste some wine…check out the girls… make a day of it.”  He sips his coffee. “I need to get out of this place for a while. What do you say?” 

“Maybe.  But first, tell me something…Who the hell is Ramirez?”

“Ramirez?”  O’Hara’s jaw tightens and his eyes flash to life.  “What Ramirez?”

“I got a phone call in the middle of the night from some guy telling me to tell you that the police have Ramirez,” I answer. “What do you think of that?”

“No shit?  The police?…Ramirez?”  He tips his head back and blows smoke toward the ceiling.  “Where was he calling from?”

“How should I know?” I moan.

O’Hara looks down and wags his head. “We’re all in deep shit now.”

“We?  This has to do with that Border Patrol mess, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Great,” I reply.  “And this guy is calling me.”

O’Hara draws on his cigarette.  “I have to stay in touch with these guys…I can’t have a phone…you know?”

“And I suppose Ramirez Whoever has my phone number too.  And now the police have it.  This is not good, O’Hara.” 

“I don’t think Ramirez has your number,” O’Hara reassures me.

“You don’t think?”  I’m on my feet.  “We’re already way past whatever you don’t think.  Talk to me O’Hara.  I have to know who this Ramirez guy is and what’s going down.  I have to know when to duck and what the hell I’m ducking.”

Someone down the hall shouts, “Keep it down, people are sleeping here.”  A door slams.

O’Hara closes his door.  “All right. Got another cigarette?”  He is pacing back and forth in what little space there is between his bed and the door. “It means the cops have Ramirez.  He worked with me on the boat.  We were hauling coffee north to sell up here.  I was buying directly from the growers, giving them a better price than they would get dealing with middle men and governmental graft, and making a little profit by selling directly to restaurants in San Francisco.  It’s great coffee, and everybody was happy.  Well, everybody except the Mexican government and our Customs people, but we were careful to stay under their radar.”

“And we know how well that worked out.”

O’Hara nods, but his nod is really a shrug.  “So, you want to know the rest, or not?” he asks.

“Yeah, yeah.  Sorry.”

“Well, there were these workers who wanted to go north to look for work, and we were going that way, so why not? 

“Why not, indeed!” I suggest facetiously.

“That’s it.  You really don’t want to hear this, do you?”

“I do.  I’m sorry.  I won’t interrupt you again.”

“Well, I didn’t take any money from them.  They helped me load the coffee, and I gave them a lift.  You know, it seemed easy enough.  In fact, we had done it a dozen times.”

O’Hara takes a long drag on his cigarette. 

“And?” I ask.

“And, we usually dropped the workers off at night on a beach near San Simeon about half way up.  But this one night everything went wrong.  Somehow, the Border Patrol got wind of the landing, and they were waiting for us.  They moved in with lights everywhere, shouting in Spanish over bullhorns.  It was a big mess.  One of the Mexicans pulled a gun, started shooting toward the lights, they shot back, and everybody scattered into the night.” 

By now, O’Hara is resting his face in his hands.  “You know the rest.  It was in all the papers.”

  “Yeah.  A patrol officer was shot,” I add.

“Wounded,” O’Hara clarifies.

“Wounded…It’s still serious stuff.”

“I didn’t know any of the workers had guns,” O’Hara explains. “If I had known they had guns, I wouldn’t have allowed them aboard.”  His lament is polished and shaped by weeks of rumination in fear and solitude, and it pours out like blood from an opened vein.

I nod, recognizing both the heart and the impracticability of what I have just heard.

“That’s it,” O’Hara goes on.  “That’s what this Ramirez thing is all about.  They have my boat, and now they have him.”

“Very bad business.” I reply.  “And it means their coming for you next, doesn’t it?”

“Could be.”

“Could be?”

“They’ll be coming,” O’Hara concedes.  “Ramirez will be watching out for his own skin, and he knows about this place.  I have to pack some stuff, and I need to call a guy.”   He grabs the pillow from his bed, pulls off the pillowcase and begins stuffing it with clothes, books, anything within reach.  “My books,” he says, glancing around the room.  “I can’t take all my books…and the worms…” 

“You need to get the hell out of here now, with whatever you can carry,” I interrupt.  “I’ll take care of the rest of your stuff later.” 

“Right,” O’Hara says, handing me the pillowcase. “Finish filling this with my stuff, and fill anything else we can carry.  There’s a pay phone at the Shell station.  I’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” I answer.  “But hurry.”

“It’ll be all right.  You’ll see, I can stay a step ahead of them…and I can tell you when to duck,” O’Hara reassures me, studying my face for a reaction as he goes out the door.  From the hallway he shouts, “Duck!” and then he laughs.

I fill the pillowcase with O’Hara’s things and turn my attention to one of his books lying on his nightstand.  I’m into the second page when I hear what I presume are O’Hara’s footsteps in the hallway.  

“About time.  What kept you?” I ask as the door opens, and I look up from my book.  Where I expect to see O’Hara, I see instead, a policeman with a pistol pointing in my direction.

“Just put the book down easy.  Put your hands on your head and turn around slowly,” the policeman says.

I drop the book. “There must be some…”

“Shut up.  Turn around easy, and keep your hands on your head,” the policeman repeats, motioning with his pistol.

My heart is pounding in my throat as I feel the policeman’s grip and the crunch of handcuffs closing around my wrists.  Hands slide along my sides and up and down my legs, stopping at my back pocket to remove my wallet.  Then without a word, I’m grabbed by the shoulders, turned and pushed into a chair.

The policeman is joined by two others, another in uniform and one in a gray suit.  One of the uniformed officers stands next to me, his pistol in its holster, feet apart and hands clasped behind his back, a fat man, who smells like he needs a change of underwear.  The other two, standing by the window, go through the contents of my wallet.  Neither says anything.  The uniformed officer examines each item briefly and then passes it on to the one in the suit.  He studies the contents, nods, passes them back, pauses to look out the window, then turns, crosses the room and plants himself in front of me.

His face is long and gaunt, and his ill-fitting suit hangs loosely off his shoulders. He draws his eyes into thin slits and stares down at me for a time before he speaks.  “Mr. Landerman, where is John O’Hara?”  His voice is thin and whispery, and his eyes open slightly as he finishes the question.

“These handcuffs are cutting off the blood to my hands,” I complain.

“Answer the lieutenant’s question,” the uniformed officer says.

“It’s all right.  I’ll handle it.  Take off the cuffs,” the lieutenant says.

The handcuffs are removed.  I study the red marks on my wrists and rub them gently, one and then the other.  O’Hara isn’t coming back.  By now he will have seen the police car and made a run for it.

“Now we can have a little talk here, or we can put the cuffs back on and go downtown.  It’s up to you.  So, where’s O’Hara?” the lieutenant asks again.

“I don’t know,” I answer.

“Then what are you doing here in his room?”

“The same thing you are, I guess, looking for him.”  I glance at the lieutenant’s face.  His eyes have become very thin, and his head is tilted forward.

“When did you last see him?” the lieutenant continues.

“Buying a little time, I run the flat of my hand up my forehead and push my hair back into tufts between my fingers.  “A couple of weeks ago, I guess…We had dinner together.”

“Where did you have dinner together?”

I’m thrown by the question.  I can’t imagine why the lieutenant cares about where we had dinner.  “Ah…here in the City,” I answer.

“And you haven’t seen him since?”

“No.”

“Do you know what I think?” the lieutenant ventures.

I don’t answer.

“I think you had coffee with him this morning…right here in this room.”  The lieutenant glances at the styrofoam cups, one on the floor next to my chair and one on O’Hara’s nightstand.  “And it looks like somebody has been packing to go somewhere.  Wouldn’t you say, Mr. Landerman?”

“I don’t know.”  My throat is dry and tight. 

“Well now, maybe I should explain something to you.”  The lieutenant rocks up on his toes.  “Your friend O’Hara is wanted for attempted murder of a federal officer, and if you are protecting him in any way, it makes you an accessory.  That’s a very serious crime.  Do you understand?”

The lieutenant’s threat set my thoughts adrift.  Back to the Navy years, when threats and punishments were the everyday texture of life.   

“Do you understand, Mr. Landerman?” the lieutenant repeats.

“Oh, I understand,” I answer, staring down at the uniformed policeman’s shiny black shoes.

“Don’t get smart with me, Landerman.  Where’s O’Hara?”

The lieutenant leans forward to play up his insistence, but at the same time I detect an element of resignation in his voice.  The lieutenant doesn’t want me.  He doesn’t even want to deal with me.  He wants O’Hara.

“I don’t know,” I answer flatly.

“Okay, have it your way.  But I’ll be watching you, and if you’re lying to me I’ll string you up right along with your buddy.  I don’t need your help to catch him.  I’ll catch him.”  The lieutenant motions to the uniformed officer by the window, and the officer returns my wallet.  The uniformed officers continue to rifle through O’Hara’s things, and the lieutenant resumes his watch at the window.

“Mind if I smoke?” I ask.  No one answers, so I light up. 

One of the officers, curious about the wooden flats stacked in the corner of the room, lifts the lid of the top flat.  An odd stench fills the room as he removes a handful of wet shredded newspaper and coffee grounds.  “Shit!” he exclaims, pulling his hand back.  “Worms.  Goddamn worms.  Boxes and boxes of goddamn worms.”

“He raises them for money,” I volunteer.

“What kind of maggot raises worms in his bedroom?” the policeman remarks, kicking the stack of flats.

When they finish going through O’Hara’s things, the two uniformed officers show the lieutenant what they found, and the three of them go out the door without a word.

I push my hair back and hold it there, the cigarette between my fingers smoking like a small white chimney on the top of my head.  Their footsteps fade away toward the front of the house.  Walking in step, they sound like one very heavy person.

For a time after my cigarette, I stare down at my feet, tapping one and then the other lightly on the floor.  Then glancing around O’Hara’s room, I note especially the square corners of the furniture, windowsill, the stack of wooden flats, the long straight bookshelves and a small framed watercolor on the wall.  I painted it years before, when O’Hara and I shared a small studio near the beach, a sanctuary away from the ship during the Navy years, where I painted and O’Hara worked on cartoon submissions while we were in port.   My glance returns to the long shelf of books and the stack of flats in the corner of the room.  I will move O’Hara’s books to my place later, but not the worms.  

One by one, I carry the flats to the side yard.  The morning fog has turned to a cold drizzle, and the tall pines bow and whisper in the driving westerly wind.  I carefully dump each flat on the bed of pine needles beneath the trees until the ground is alive with a writhing mass of worms.  Slowly they begin to spread and disappear beneath the loose needles.

In the high branches of the pines, a flock of starlings huddle together, facing into the weather.  One of them, spotting the worms below, drops down to a lower limb and begins shrieking.  The sound attracts the others, and they descend from branch to branch through the trees until they are all in the limbs just overhead, shrieking and darted from limb to limb, their yellow beaks wide open, flashing their deep red throats.  Some of them swoop down at me, brushing my head with their wings in attempts to drive me away.  Others dance around the circle of worms, darting in and out, fixing their yellow eyes on me and snapping their tails from side to side.  The shrieking becomes almost deafening, but I stand over the worms until they all disappear beneath the needles, and the birds return to the branches above. Then I lean the empty flats in a row against the trunk of one of the pines and leave the grove.  As I lift the latch on the side yard gate, a sudden shiver sweeps across my shoulders.   The drizzle is fast becoming a light rain, and low rolling clouds darken the winter sky like a foreboding omen of things to come.

-> Click here to view the art full-scale. Or, click the image in the story header.

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Leon Kortenkamp is a San Francisco Bay Area writer, artist and professor. He holds a MFA degree from the University of Notre Dame. 

His recent stories have been published in Curbside Splendor, Pilgrim Literary Journal, Straylight Literary Magazine, Harpoon Review and Flash Fiction Magazine. 

His work often features a consideration of constrained emotion lurking in the mundane, reflecting his conviction that ordinary objects and everyday events are deeply charged with spiritual reality.

Art: Leon Kortenkamp.