Mojo - 26. Chapter 24: The Lamp-Stick Battle

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Chapter 24: The Lamp-Stick Battle

Ironically enough, these were the kind of accommodations my ex would seek out as retro-cool – the El Cortez Motel. Rat-pack chic he’d call it, with its perfect 1950s nicotine-stained panache, right down to the vertical neon marquee and fins on the bar windows.

Oh, yes, I should mention its most non-conformist feature was having a biker bar attached to the front office. And the patrons’ “choppers” and “hogs” – or mincers and pigs, whatever is the right term – lined up in the motel’s parking court like dominos.

As for the clients’ private quarters, the walls were white; the pictures of fruit or flowers looked out from dusty velvet. Furniture was minimalistic in style, with abrupt corners and angles. On the countertops resided some peculiar table lamps reaching their shades for the stars. Why people back then liked three-foot-high lighting fixtures, I shall never know.

I had just barely turned on the lights and closed the door to our second-floor room, when Gordon pushed me against it. We made out, blissfully unaware of anything else. We must have been attractive to look at too, as we were still in our cocktail attire.

Knock. Knock.

The bellow rang in my ears. Eyes opened, lips separated. We froze.

Knock!

Me and my boy ducked down to the floor. But when I scrambled my arm up the wall to the switch, Gordon whispered: “That’s dumb. The people will see the light go off and know we’re here!”

I was about to argue the point with him when my phone vibrated with a text. “Hi guys. It’s Sadeeq outside your motel room door. Whatcha up to?”

I gave my boy the hush-finger and let him read the message.

We bunkered down and said nothing.

Knock. Knock. Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock…. Knock…knock.

At last they trailed off into parting silence.

After a few minutes of quiet, I gingerly made my way to the window. I parted the blinds and saw no one. Just as I was about to give the ‘all clear’ signal, my boyfriend got a text.

I watched his face explode with shock. “Oh, shit!”

“What?”

He chirped hoarsely: “Pizza’s here.”

I peeked out the blinds again and spotted the delivery man coming up the open steps.

Shrugging at Gordon, I opened the door.

Sadeeq Amergin strolled in, saying, “Hi, guys. What kinda peeza-pie we get? I can’t eat mushrooms, by the way.”

The mad poet stretched out on one of the two beds just as the delivery man arrived. Gordon paid him, and I noticed Sadeeq crack open a small bottle of ghetto hooch – Cisco – koolaid-flavored and deadly strong.

Gordon walked over with the food, and Sadeeq leapt to his feet. “Wanna drink? I’m gonna have one.”

He didn’t wait for a reply, just started plopping old, half-melted ice from the motel-room bucket into plastic cups. While the syrupy, candy-red liquor slurped in after, he chatted merrily as if to himself. “Funny about that rough and tumble leather bar being attached to the motel. I bet it used to be a typical greasy spoon, like motel guests expect for coffee and eggs, but just like everything in Trump’s America, there’s more money to be made in vice than honest nutrition.”

He handed out the cups. “Careful. It ain’t no wine cooler, and assuming you like cocktails of cough syrup and rubbing alcohol, you’ll find the initial taste surprisingly easy to swallow. After that, give it time to work. They don’t call it paranoid-punch, reason-acid or liquid-meth for nothing.”

Sadeeq laughed up a storm at his own witticism, and then took out the desk chair to sit. With a sweep of his ponytail, he helped himself to his own cup and a slice of ‘peeza-pie.’

“That cocktail party was a bust tonight,” he said with greasy lips. “You guys bounced at just the right time. After that it was all struttin’ and posin’ like their vacant stares off into the ether was some form of speaking in tongues.”

While he blathered, I morosely sat on a bed and took my first sip. It wasn’t bad, but after I swallowed, I saw Sadeeq perving lust-filled eyes at Gordon over the rim of his plastic cup. I fortified myself by draining my drink, despite my boy’s warning glare. I just wished the noisome poet would disappear.

Gordon took a slice of food, and as he chewed, the poet resumed his chatty ways.

“That Beauty Cult is too much, and I know about mixed up religions, let me tell you! I’m half Palestinian and half Irish, so I got faithful ‘drama’ and pageantry up two ends as a kid.”

I could see those ethnic traits in the man, especially in the broad brown eyes but narrow and pale cheekbones. Although the man’s scruffy hair was not a common attribute to either cultural group as far as I knew.

“Speaking of drama,” the poet continued, “you should have witnessed the brouhaha at my gym this afternoon. Wildfire-gossip spread about this big-dicked guy and his L.A. cop boyfriend scouring dives all around town. Apparently they’re hot on the trail of a runaway teenage boy and the pedo who kidnapped him.”

“Big dick…?” I asked, fearing the worst.

“Yeah, guys in the shower said he’s a real tripod of a man, if you know what I mean. In fact, that reminds me of a poem I once knew by somebody or the other who was famous. I think it goes:

“For nature had so

Qualified him for a lover,

His body seemed but the skirt

Of the mighty member it bore.”[1]

I glanced at my boy. He didn’t seem too concerned, but I stiffened with a nasty suspicion. Could Gordon have texted Assauer our location…?

Although fuming, I dared not say a word in front of Amergin. I held out my cup, and the poet refilled it; this stuff was making me warm from the inside.

After he poured himself a top-off, the poet added, “Yeah, and his cop boyfriend, who’s some kind of higher-up on the force, is even offering a thousand-dollar reward. Man, oh, man”—he shook his head—“I sure could use a cool grand, lemme tell ya.”

Me and Gordon played dumb, and I finally took a pizza slice for myself.

Sadeeq went on, “This is pretty good pie, but I bet most of the hoity-toity would never know it. They never appreciate what they can come by cheaply. Those folks – with more moola than sense – must be told by tastemakers what’s trendy. Gordon Ramsey pizza, anyone…? YUK. Give me good old-fashioned American peeza, swimming in pepperoni grease, and loaded with so many ingredients they slide off when you go in for the first bite. You know what I mean? Those restaurant-guide-clutching Foodies, for example, wouldn’t know good wholesome food if it bit ‘em because they never grew up on it. It’s a shame really, but it’s our current social condition: we never read, write, watch, enjoy or eat anything pure anymore; we’re like sick men, only craving that which’s bound to make us sicker.”

When me and Gordon merely chewed on in brooding silence, Sadeeq held up his cup. “I offer a toast. As William Burnaby, the great poet, put it:

“Once enjoyed,

We straight to a new desire,

For the absent pleasure’s

The only one we admire.”

I gave my boy a rancorously sidelong glance and mumbled: “That sounds familiar.”

I drank – in fact, drained my cup – watching Gordon become upset. Anger flushed the side of his neck.

Sharply turning to Sadeeq, I said, “Poet, spare us. We’ve heard it all before. And what do you think those bikers in the bar would do to us if they knew we harbored a poet in our midst?!” I chuckled bitterly. “Just think of it; even the art community stoned you at the commune. Imagine what a regular crowd would do to your type.”

“I’m not afraid of the mob mentality. I have to navigate it every day.”

Gordon defended Sadeeq. “We’re all entitled to our opinions, Kohl. And we all deserve the elbow-room to express ourselves without others saying ‘spare me.’”

I felt my jaw go slack, barely registering how the poet’s desires for my boy had kicked into high gear.

“Oh, Gordon!” Sadeeq schmoozed. “What a treasure of a young man you are. So handsomely endowed with both brains and looks, and a heart o’gold to boot. You must be such a real blessing to your mother.”

“He is,” I scoffed. “But not only to her. In fact, you might say he’s something of a public-access treasure.”

Gordon had had enough. He stood up, grabbed the vinyl-upholstered bucket by its clear plastic handle, and clipped shortly: “I’m getting ice.”

Once he’d cleared off, slamming the door behind him in fact, I got in a huff, jumping to my feet. “You’re dense as a board, despite your poetic sensibilities.” I started shouting. “Can’t you see we just want to be alone?! Now, scram; be-gone; vamoose; get out!”

Pounding sounded on the wall from the room next door, accompanied by a muffled-but-angry voice yelling “Shut the fuck up!”

“Well?” I asked Sadeeq at the top of my lungs. “You going to leave, or am I going to have to throw you out?!”

More pounding arose from the wall.

Sadeeq narrowed his eyes and stood. “There’s something suspicious about you two, isn’t there…? Say, how old is that kid, exactly?”

I was relieved I could tell him the truth. “Eighteen. Now, clear out” I went to the door, opened it and waited impatiently.

Sadeeq wavered for a second, appearing sad and misunderstood, then he grabbed his Cisco hooch and stalked towards me. In the doorway, he paused. “I thought….”

“You thought what?!”

“Oh, never mind. I guess I was wrong about you. See ya.”

The mad poet exited, and I slammed the door gleefully after him. The guy next door repeated his wall-banging and profane threats, this time adding something about calling the cops, but I thought ‘Who cares!’

I paced a circuit around the room, fuming, thinking everybody judges me. ‘Why can’t they leave us the fuck alone? What’d I ever do to anyone? What’d…we—'

I stopped cold in my tracks, realizing my boyfriend should have been back by now.

Outside, the chill night air and the lights from the open parking lot below assailed my sweaty brow and eyes. I got to the opening of the ice room.

Sadeeq was pushing Gordon against the back wall, snogging the teenager passionately, the ice bucket still in the boy’s hand.

“What. The. Fuck!"

“Hey now…” Sadeeq tried to slip sideways along the front of the ice machine with a slick grin. “The kid was giving me signals—”

“No, I wasn’t!” shouted Gordon.

“You can’t blame a guy,” the poet finished, pausing to make a run past me for the exit.

He bolted and I easily latched onto his sleeve, shouting, “You slime! This is how you act?!”

Sadeeq broke free, walking backwards along the balcony in a defensive posture. His bottle of Cisco sloshed out blood-colored goo as he went.

“As I say, he was—”

“Giving signals, my ass!”

Lights came on in the room windows as we passed.

“Kohl,” Gordon cried from behind me. “Keep your voice down.”

That slight distraction emboldened the poet, and as Sadeeq got to the pool of light coming from our open room door, he tried to dash inside. No doubt he had plans of locking us out, but I got there just in time and pushed the maniac back into the room.

The door slammed open against the wall, and the walkway began to fill with people coming out to see the fight.

Gordon came in behind us. My anger turned on him. “You’re a slut, just like your mother warned me!”

“It’s your fucking jealousy!” my boy yelled back. He jabbed a dismissive finger in Sadeeq’s direction. “How can you think I’d ever be with a poet like that?!”

Sadeeq mumbled: “Poets get no respect.” His blasé tone made me look and see he sat at the desk, casually typing out a text message.

Gordon sobbed. Big tears formed under my boy’s beautiful eyes. “Your tweets nearly broke my heart in two…you’re the only bard I’d ever…I’ve ever…. Goddam it, Kohl – I tried to kill myself when I was Assauer. How can you now try and hurt me like this?”

I regretted my words of accusation, but I still had one nagging doubt. “Baby, tell me – did you or didn’t you tell my ex where we were?”

“Yes, but don’t worry! He was texting me a hundred times a day, so I said leave me alone; I’m safe in San Diego with friends and not to worry. I didn’t say anything about you or where we’re staying. I swear it!”

His reassurances hardly settled my mind.

I suddenly became aware of all the faces peering through our door when a big, hairy-chested man in monogrammed El Cortez Motel bath robe and slippers pushed them aside.

“What in the Sam-Hell-Houston is going on in here!”

It was the sweaty, unshaven front desk manager.

“Nothing, sir,” I said.

Frank squinted, surveying our faces one by one with penetrative hostility. Then he alighted on the half-eaten pizza and its greasy box on his floral bedspread. “So, what are you guys anyway? Drug addicts; runaways – both?!”

Surprisingly, it was Sadeeq who got all upset. He pushed past me so he could be the closest to Frank and his perspiring scowls.

“Back off, buddy,” the manager warned the poet. By now he was at the corner of the desk himself.

Sadeeq puffed up. “You have no right to suppress folks you look down on just because they are down and out, you…you, Republican pollster you!”

Frank slapped him. “Don’t you call me that!”

The crowd outside our door gasped at the severity of the poet’s insult. They watched as Sadeeq, no doubt still stinging mad, grabbed one of the tall, ugly table lamps and ripped the pug out of the wall.

“You’re trying to oppress me!” said Sadeeq. “Don’t come any closer—”

“Or what?” taunted the manager, picking up the empty plastic water pitcher from the counter.

“Or this!” The mad poet choked up his grip on the wooden lamp and took a swing.

The manager ducked, holding up the pitcher as his shield. Then Frank turned on his heels and bolted out the door.

People screamed and stepped aside as Sadeeq pursued the manager down the walkway, swinging wildly. His hysterical shouts echoed around the verandas: “Poets get no fucking respect!”

Me and Gordon scrambled out to the balcony just in time to see the poet catch up with the manager on the steps. I told my boy, “The crazy poet has had too many dips in the paranoid punch.”

Gordon gave me a funny look.

“What…?” I asked; he said nothing in reply.

Looking back to the action, we saw Frank turn and expertly land an uppercut with his plastic pitcher, connecting just above Amergin’s eye, and opening a gash there. Touching the blood from his own poetic body, Sadeeq let out a barbaric yawp.

As they continued downstairs, the enraged poet repaid the wound by viciously beating the man about the head with the silk-shade end of the lamp. The cord flew wildly like a whip to strike Sadeeq’s arms and chest.

The manager stumbled out onto the pavement of the motor court, shielding his head with both arms and yelling “Help!” He was chased around the parked cars and motorcycles for a few minutes before going almost to the center of the lot, tossing his pitcher aside, and standing his ground. Frank assumed a proper boxing stance and put up his dukes.

By then the patrons and kitchen staff of the leather bar had poured out to stand around to watch the brawl. Shouts arose from the drunk biker dudes and their chicks: some for the punch-tossing man in the robe, others for the lamp-wielding ‘artiste.’

A Rottweiler being walked by an insomniac old woman dragged her from the street into the court to join the melee. His angry barks at Man’s madness sorely strained the blue-hair’s ability to hold the choke collar. Finally, he was able to tear into Sadeeq’s trouser leg like a ragdoll, and the bikers started scuffling. I guess they had some old cornbeefs to settle amongst their drunken selves.

The Vietnamese dishwashers, in their greasy white aprons, hauled out pans of cold water, which they gleefully dumped on Frank instead of the mad dog; the motel manager was liked by none.

But the water did manage to scare the dog back to sanity, and the lady quickly exited them the way they’d come.

In another moment, the motel owner emerged from the door of his ground-level home. He was an intimidating sight – paunchy, wearing a wife-beater tank top, holding a lit stogie and looking like an extra from a TV Mob show. He stepped right between the two principal scufflers, but had enough menace of presence to halt all the fighting.

“What in the name of sweet Baby Jesus is goin’ on here?!”

Both adversaries shouted: “He started it!”

“What are you,” said the owner against Sadeeq, “an addict or a runaway – or both?”

This upset Sadeeq all over again. He shouted: “Nobody appreciates poetry anymore, goddamn it!”

He took the cigar out of his mouth. “Are you a poet?”

“Yes.” Sadeeq straightened up his composure. “Online I go by the name of the American-4-All.”

“Sadeeq Amergin? The Tweeter, Youtube performer, social media celeb poet?!”

“Why…. Why, yes. You’ve heard of me?”

“Oh, shit yeah! I’ve heard you’ve got a wicked tongue.” The motel owner suddenly got friendly, draping his arm across the back of Sadeeq’s shoulders, and telling the manager, “Hit the showers, Frank. I got this.”

Frank skulked off, gathering the open flaps of his robe and shucked slippers with as much dignity as he could muster.

The owner told the poet, “I’ve heard about you because my two-timing goomah is gone all artsy-fartsy on me. See, this girlfriend of mine keeps bitching at me about leaving my wife and whatnot, so I want you to bad-mouth her in a couple of rhymes, and maybe then she’ll learn her lesson.”

Sadeeq looked so crestfallen, me and Gordon busted up, big time. This two-bit poetaster was getting a taste of the kind of attention his ‘talents’ deserved.

Just then we saw the bikers and motel patrons scatter like locust; flashing red lights and two cop cars pulled into the motor court.

My boy and me ducked down to watch from behind the handrailing. “Scheisse!” I exclaimed, for out of one of the pig trolleys popped Assauer and Nasser – that uniformed higher-up from Tre-Princely Knight’s dinner party. I guess my ex had tricked and slept with him, and then stayed in touch.

“Which one of you’s Sadeeq?” Assauer asked.

“That dirty rat poet…” I muttered. But we heard no more of the conversation down below, because I grabbed him, and me and Gordon ran into our room. The boy locked the door.

“Hide!” I said.

“Where?!” he said.

We looked around. The closet was no good. Both beds were still made and draped with ugly 1980s black and flower bedspreads going all the way to the floor. I went to the bed shoved in the corner and lifted the skirt. “Under here!”

“No, no! They’ll look under—”

“Then…” I lifted the top mattress; the dusty box frame was below. “Lay flat as you can, face down, and don’t make a sound or move a muscle.”

He did, and I let the mattress fall on top of his grunting body, arranging the bed skirt to be in perfect order again. Then I thought better of the slight lump running down the center and quickly rumpled sheets, pillows and bedspread to hide my boyfriend’s form in disarray.

Just then, loud banging sounded. “POLICE!” and the manager opened the door with his key.

Two San Diego cops stormed in and immediately began searching. Sure enough, the first place they looked was under the beds using their flashlights to penetrate every nook and dust bunny.

Assauer strode in next with a sneer on his face. The crowd was back on the walkway, gaping like guppies to see the goings on.

Inspiration struck and I immediately fell to my knees at the feet of my ex. I pleaded: “Please, please just let me see my Gordon one more time!” This was shouted at enough volume for my audience to hear loud and clear.

“What the fuck you talking about, idiot?! Spitzbub!”

“Is this the way it ends…?” I murmured, digging in.

He reached in anger and pried my fingers from his shins.

I shellacked my tone with misery. “I haven’t seen him since he abandoned me to shack up with you – cuz your dick is so freakishly large all of a sudden.”

This made Assauer gulp and turn sheepishly to the crowd, who started busting up and passing the intel along the motel grapevine.

“I don’t know what game you’re playin’, Kohl—”

“No games, sir. Just let me see my boy one last time before I kill myself.” I gripped his thighs this time, feeling his priapic donkey dick for myself. “Just tell him to text me, for God’s sake, Mr. Assauer, sir. Just one last text before I consign myself to the deep!”

Assauer shoved me to the floor. He was about to start yelling when the two uniformed cops came up to us.

“There’s no one here,” the one said derisively.

“Yeah. You’ve wasted our time.”

Both men roughly shouldered past Assauer out the door; they shouted to the crowd: “Break it up; nothing to see here; move it along.”

I stood up and tried to control my victorious leer.

“This is not how it ends!” Assauer walked past me and went straight to the bathroom. I heard him angrily shove the shower curtain aside, doing his own search for Gordon.

“Well, well, well.”

I turned to see the lookie-loos had completely dispersed, but now Sadeeq darkened the doorway. Being slow on the updraft as he was, the poet simply stared close-mouthed as Assauer darted from the bathroom and tore through the closets.

My ex then looked under the desk and beds.

“What’s he—”

I silenced Amergin with a finger to my lips. The man had a big fat reward check in his hands.

In a rage, Assauer shouted and ripped all the bedclothes off, balling them up and slamming them in the middle of the floor.

He paused, glaring back at me, before inhaling and calmly stroking his hair into position.

“You know,” my ex said in desperation and tiredness. “I used to be cheerful and positive. I used to even be ‘sweet’ in a way. In other words, I used to be all those things Gordon is now, so, I tried to rescue him before it’s too late; before you do to him what you did to me.”

Miffed, I replied, “Grow up. We’re all free agents in life. You decided to run with me. Accept responsibility at least for that.”

“I do. Fuck, I certainly do. But Gordon’s decided to come with me. He knows the better man when he sees him, so hand him over.”

In my mind, I knew it was over with my ex. Forever. I’d always love Assauer in a way, but for now, it was done. “It’s best you go. Like I said, I haven’t seen the boy since he dumped me to shack up with a fly-by-night flutist like you.”

He walked to the door, pausing there. “Don’t turn him into a jade, Kohl. Just don’t. Love him better than you did me.”

With as much dignity as he could, he walked out of the room, only to come back a moment later and rip Sadeeq’s check into a million pieces.

As the mad poet crumpled to his knees, clutching at the worthless confetti, and sobbing “My money; my money,” I leaned out the door and watched Assauer be hugged by his L.A. cop boyfriend in the motor court. Both men got in a patrol car, and after they pulled out of the El Cortez Motel parking lot, I closed the door doubting I’d ever see my ex again.

When I turned around, Sadeeq was standing. His expression had turned mad-dog. “What the fuck did you do to my money!”

“I thought artists weren’t supposed to care about cash.”

“Fuck that.” He started stalking around the room. “Where is he?”

“He is eighteen, you know.” I kept my voice calm. “He can decide for himself where he wants to be.”

“Not when there’s money involved he can’t!”

“Look, truth is, once he saw the cop cars, he took off running. He’s probably halfway to the Naval Base by now, but if you hurry, you can probably still catch up and collect your ransom – I mean, reward – money.”

I opened the door and gestured for him to kindly get the fuck out.

He glanced around one last time, and slowly started to leave.

My boyfriend sneezed.

Sadeeq was just passing through the portal when he muttered absentmindedly: ”Gesundheit, Gordon.”

I tried to close the door behind him, but the mad poet pushed his way back in.

“AH! HA!” he announced. “I knew it.”

Gordon started to panic and cry out: “Get me outta here!”

I closed and locked the door before running over and upturning the mattress.

Sadeeq made himself comfortable at the desk chair and resumed pouring a cup of Cisco.

In the meantime, I helped my boyfriend stand, stretch and brush off.

“Well, well, and what do we have here?” the poet said. “I may have to send another text….”

My blood zoomed to dangerous pressure levels, but Gordon looked crafty. He laid a hand on my chest and told me silently, ‘Let me deal with this.’

He sauntered up seductively to the side of Sadeeq’s chair, pressing his bulge on the man’s arm. “You’re hurt,” he said, touching the poet’s wounded eyebrow. “Let me clean it for you.”

By the time my boy parted from him, the poet was mesmerized. I shoved the pizza box aside and sat on the untouched bed. A moment later, Gordon was back with the small first aid kit from the bathroom.

Sadeeq swallowed hard as the boy went about cleaning his wound, his young lithe body in contact with his own.

After the bandage was applied, my boy told the man “Stand, please,” and picked up one of his own shirts from where the cops had spilled it on the floor.

Placing the collar in his teeth, he undid Sadeeq slowly, one button at a time, disrobing the man from the waist up. After he threaded the sleeves and rested the shirt on the man's shoulders, he began to close it up. “Can’t have you walking around in a torn and bloody shirt; you can have one of mine.” He ended by lovingly stroking the man ponytail back into position around the side of his neck.

The song Smooth Operator coursed through my mind.

By the time my boy got his index finger in a position to play with the man’s chest hair, the poet’s tongue lolled out his mouth. Then with puppy-dog eyes, the sexy teenager said, “Me and Kohl have to get out of town. If you really do love your Gordon like you say, now is the time to save us.”

“Don’t know….” The devious bard-wanna-be split looks between us. “A thousand bucks is a lot of—”

“We have stuff – stuff, jewelry, money, goods – things you can pawn. We’ll get you your grand, won’t we, Kohl?”

I was hesitant, but then— “Yeah, we’ll get you that, and more maybe, but you’ve got to help us get out of San Diego.”

Sadeeq took a drink. “And in exchange, I can be a part of your gang…?”

Having just finally shed Assauer for good and gotten Gordon to myself, another potential rival was the last thing I wanted, but we were in a jelly. “Yes.”

“Okay. I have an idea, and we’re lucky enough that the boat’s leaving tomorrow.”

‘Gott im Himmel,’ I thought, ‘not another boat?! I didn’t know if I liked the sound of this….’

_