King 13
Nathaniel Matthews had never recovered from a factory accident while working at a printing plant in Clifton in 1968. An insufferable snob, he still managed to become a floor superintendent, one disliked by his co-workers and against whom those workers continually played pranks. While no formal charges were ever filed, one of these pranks caused Matthews to slip and fall into a small vat of lye, used usually for cleaning printing equipment.
Hospital records indicated a long internment in one institution or another. While the company and Workman's compensation paid many of the bills -- and would have paid for reconstructive surgery -- something in the accident had caused permanent mental illness, and Matthews flatly refused anything beyond healing the wounds.
The details of his subsequent living arrangements came from a string of police reports in which he was charged with a variety of quality of life or petty crimes, for none of which he spent more than a few hours in jail. One look at his face and the court remanded him to a shelter or a mental institution, both of which he abandoned as soon as possible.
On the street, Matthews became something of a local legend, called "the freak" by beat cops, called "Meltdown" by street people. He was seen as a kind of prophet or father of the homeless, often organizing petty criminal campaigns, then raising bail for those who got caught.
He was the ultimate survivor, one whom even the harshest of street thugs respected, and in their superstitious way, feared. No one bothered Matthews in the belief some curse would come down upon their heads. So he panhandled, rooted through trash, ran a marginally successful prostitution ring, and remained unscathed.
The legends apparently evolved out of the difficulty in communicating with him, and when I had the street patrol drag him in for questioning, even they protested.
"Come on Sarge, you don't want us to mess with that freak," Patrol Officers Ted Billings said.
"He’s part of my investigation,” I said.
"But him? Why?"
"Because I need to talk to him, that's why."
"But you can't talk to him. At least not in the way you can talk to real people."
"Just bring him in and let me decide that."
A few hours later, after an apparent extensive search along the riverside shanty towns, Billings, helped by two other officers, dragged the pathetic creature into my office.
I was not prepared for Matthews. His appearance shocked me, despite ample descriptions of him, as if I hadn't really believed the descriptions possible, and presumed the man could never look as bad as they claimed.
He looked worse, bent over like a crimpled toad, the worst of his features hidden when the officers first pushed him into the room. The stench reached me first, that terrible, all too human stink people get after weeks, months or even years of inadequate bathing.
"Sit him over there," I told the officers, indicating the chair across the desk from me -- although in truth, I wanted more space and wished my office had windows that opened so I could let in some fresh air.
Billings, clearly disgusted by his handling of the creature, dumped Matthews into the chair, where the toad-like creature began to unfold, revealing the full extent of his horrors -- although at first, Matthews shielded his face with his good hand against the bright office light, a wrinkled gray hand thick with dirt and other unspeakable corrosion.
The face -- behind the hand -- was as wrinkled and corroded, twisted features marring its left side as if a candle held up to a flame, the skin around the eyes, nostril and mouth melted and hardened again. Saliva slobbered out that lipless side, clinging to the jaw before leaving its wet trail down the front of his ragged shirt.
As he twisted around in the chair to face me more directly, the light revealed more of his features, his right hand extended as his left hand and arm hung limply at his side, clearly victim to the same crime that had robbed that side of his face.
"What you want from us?" the pathetic creature snarled.
"I need to ask you some questions," I said.
"Questions? Questions? What kind of questions?"
"About someone you might have known."
"We knows lots of people."
"One person in particular. I'm told that you know about a woman named Suzzane Martin."
The little man nodded. "We know her."
"I've also been told that you know how she got onto the street."
Matthews squirmed and shook his head. "We don't know all of it."
"But you know some of it."
"We knows how she went crazy once, then did all those nasty things for all those nasty people in New York."
"And then she went to the hospital and got herself better. I've heard some of those stories, too."
"Not all the stories, no, no," Matthews said, shaking his head slowly, sadly, from side to side. "She did all those things and worse things, terrible, terrible things, and then went to the hospital, yes, and got a little better, yes, nasty doctors stick her with needles and fills her up with pills, then sends her out saying they can't do any more for her, saying she has to do for herself."
"So?"
"So she's almost better, yes. She doesn't think about no nasty things so much as she used to. She thinks she will find a good man, a steady man, a man with money, and she does, and she gets married."
"Married?" I said. "She got married?"
"Yes, yes, and had a baby, too, and she think she is happy, yes."
"All right, so she was happily married. That seems a far cry from where she ended up."
"Pretends to be happy," the little man said. "Bored happy, happy she hates so much she nearly kills herself with it, yes, yes. Little Suzy tell us, yes, over and over, she tells us, yes, how she hates being stuck in that house with that man, hates to hear him coming home at night -- the thumps of his feet on the porch, the coughs he makes from the door. She says she feels like a slave, yes. Then she has a baby.
"Yes, Yes," Matthews went on, "and she hates her baby, too, yes, hates the poor, poor sweet baby. Terrible, terrible, baby. She hates and sometimes she wishes it would die, and sweet, sweet Suzy would be free. No more nasty cries in the morning to wake her, no more cries in the night, no, no."
"Did she abandon the child?"
"No, no, she just thinks, not acts, yet," the little man said. "She wants to be a good little wife, yes, but tells her husband how if she doesn't get out, she'll go crazy, yes."
"Did he help her?"
"No, no," Matthews said. "He very old fashioned man, yes, man work, woman take care of children, yes, and he work so hard and say he only wants supper on the table at night, no complaints. Then when he drinks beers, he gets angry, yes, thinks about her, says how hard he's work and how she doesn't appreciate him, no. Poor, sweet Suzy never goes to the police or shows the marks or tells anyone how hurt she feels, thinking she wants to kill her husband, too. She begs him to let her out, let her have friends, let her have a job.
"`Back to 42nd Street, you mean!' he husband says.
"`No' she says. `It's not like that. I just want to earn a little of my own money.'
"`What? My money's not good enough?'
"`I didn't say that,' Suzy says.
"`Then what?'
"`I guess I just want to feel useful again, worth something.'
"`And you don't think you're worth something here?'
"`It's different when you have a job and someone pays you for what you do.'
"`That sounds disturbingly familiar, too.'
"`I'm not talking about getting a job on 42nd Street,' Suzy says. `Why do you have to keep bringing up the past and throwing it in my face?'
"`Because people throw it in my face,' the man says. `They keep asking me what it's like being married to a whore.'
"`I wasn't a whore.'
"`Pardon me,' the man says. `What do you call displaying your sexual prowess in Show World then?'
"`I was confused.'
"`Confused enough to send out invitations to everyone you knew? That's confused?'
"`Yes.'
"`And you're not confused now?'
"`I'm not asking for much. I'm not demanding a divorce. I just want a little more freedom.'
"`To send out more invitations?'
"`To find myself,' she says. `After all you plucked me out of the middle of that mess -- and I love you for being such a knight, but I still have some issues to resolve for myself.'
"`I thought that was what the hospital was for?'
"`The hospital dried me out, and set me on my feet again, but it couldn't cure me.'
"`And a job would?'
"`It might help me feel stronger.'
"`Bullshit!'
"`Please, Mark, I'm only trying to make sense of my life. Keeping me caged won't help.'
"`You're not caged. There's no lock on the outside of that door.'
"`But I'm chained here just the same, help in place by you and the baby.'
"`So now you're blaming the baby?'
"`I'm not blaming anybody.'
"`Look, girl,' he says. `You didn't walk into this marriage blind. You knew what you were doing.'
"`I'm not sure I did.'
"`Thanks a whole fucking lot.'
"`I told you, I was confused. You seemed so wonderful, the way a life preserved must seem to someone who's drowning.'
"`And now I don't seem so wonderful?'
"`I didn't say that. I haven't stopped loving you. But I'm not comfortable with the way things are. And if I don't get a little more room, I might stop loving you. And I wouldn't want that.'
"So he says, okay, yes, yes. He finds her a job, a nice safe job," Matthews said. "A job where he can have some friends keep an eye on her, and when he tells her about the job, she is very suspicious, yes.
"`A job? Where?' she asks, thinking he might try and chain her to some other place twice as bad as the house."
"Where did he get her work?" I asked.
"In a bar, yes, a nice clean bar and the right side of town. So respectable, yes and proper. No drunks like us, no cheap wine bottles, no, no, not for this place or the people who goes there. Everybody there gets drunk with a suit and tie on, and gets drunk over dinner."
"She was bar maid?" I said. "After all she was through?"
"Bar maid, yes, and more, much, much more."
"What do you mean?"
Now, Matthews lowered his voice, his good eye and good side of his face, taking on a sly expression as he attempted a grin. "Clean men in suit and ties like things, too," he said with a wink. "likes nice soft things."
"So what happened at this fancy bar?"
"Her boss -- her cruel and nasty boss -- says getting people drunk is not enough."
""What else did he want?"
"To do something special for special customers, yes, to do for those special customers what she does for the cops now."
"And she agreed to that?"
"Not at first, no no, she says `No way, I'm not like that,' she tells her boss.
"`Don't give me that shit, baby,' her boss says back. `I've heard all about your exploits in New York.'
"`But this is supposed to be a family bar, husbands and wives come here.'
"`Sometimes husbands come without their wives,' her boss says. `And if we want to keep them coming, you've got to put out.'
"`And if I say no?'
"`Then you don't work here any more, you dig?'"
"What about her husband?" I asked. "Didn't he put a stop to it, or didn't he know?"
"Oh, hubby knows. Bar man Hubby's best friend, yes, yes, both have good laugh yes, think it all funny."
"And she knew he knew?"
"Not at first. Very secret between those two, a private joke. She goes to work. Does special work for special people and Hubby asks: `how was work, dear?'
"`What do you mean?' she asks, very scared.
"`I mean exactly what I asked.'
"She look at him, studies his face. He gives none of it away, no, no, straight as stone he looks and she sighs and says: `The job is all right. Just cigarette smoke and drunks.'
"Then one day her boss makes it worse and tells her she has to do a private party.
"`What?' she asks.
"`A private affair, for some businessmen. They want to share a little.'
"`Are you telling me I have to be part of a gang bang?'
"`No reason to get vulgar about it. Let's call it group sex.'
"`No,' she says. `I won't do it.'
"`What about your job?'
"`There are limits to everything,' she says. `This job isn't worth going that far for.'
"`What about your marriage?' the nasty barman asks, smiling so sweetly it makes her sick. `I wonder what your husband would say if he knew about all the side work you've already done?'
"`Why you son of a bitch!' she yells and tries to scratch his eyes out, but he holds her hands and grins as she curses. `You're the one who pushed me into this.'
"`Did I?' he says, releasing her hands. `Nobody put a gun to your head. You could have gone and gotten yourself another job.'
"`But now you're holding my marriage over my head,' she says. `If my husband finds out, then my marriage is over, and you know it.'
"`He doesn't have to find out, and if you do this once, no one will ask you to do it again.'
"So she did it, and hated every bit of it, hated the men, yes, and the every which way they did things to her, vulgar men, yes, animal men dressed in fancy suits, did it from under her, from over her, did it in her mouth, in her ass, in her cunt, always hurting her when they did it, always pushing too hard, and laughing hard when she complained, doing it harder the next time, and harder still the time after that. They did it so much she says she could not think of ever doing it again, with anyone, even her husband, and she got blind then, drunk blind, all the faces looking like the same face, until she came to the last face and found it was the face of her grinning husband, a mocking husband who tells the men what a whore she is, and what she did in New York, and how he rescued her from the hospital to become his private whore, but now she looks like she's everybody's whore again.
"`Once a whore always a whore,' he says and laughs and does to her what the other men did to her and right in front of the other men, then later, beats her worse than he's ever beat her before, the way her daddy used to beat her, wearing that same cringing face that her daddy wore, beat and beat until she had to go to the hospital again, this time to fix more than her broken ankle, yes, this time the doctors have to fix her face and arms and one whole leg which he broke with the broken leg of a chair."
"But why the hell did he beat her?" I asked.
"Because she was a whore."
"But you said he knew and joined in on the orgy."
"He knew. But he hated knowing. He seemed to think the whole thing was some kind of test, yes, yes, a test, one he say he knew she would fail, one that she couldn't pass because she was -- he says -- inclined that way from the start, from when she was back on the farm with her daddy, getting worse and more evident as she grew up."
"Well, did she leave him after that?"
"No, no, he left her," Matthews said. "He says he couldn't live with her, knowing she was so inclined. He got a divorce, took the baby and went where Suzy could not find them. Oh, how she cried over that baby, oh, oh. Him she could care less about, but the baby, she loves, that sweet, sweet baby. Once gone, she didn’t hate the baby anymore, no, no. That's all she thinks about. It was crying that filled in her head all the time, yes, yes, she and the baby crying together sometimes late at night."
"Even though she herself wanted to get rid of the baby before that?"
"Yes," the little man hissed.
"Now what do you know about a poet named Zarra."
What emerged from the melted lips might have better suited a cat, a hiss thick with a spray of saliva.
"We hates him! We wants him to die!"
"And why would you hate him?"
"He killed Suzy."
"You mean Suzzane Martin?"
"Yes," he said with the same hiss.
"I seem to recall it was Puck Fetterland that ordered her death."
"But it was the poet that caused it. The poet that didn't want to leave her alone. He wanted to save her. He kept her locked up. And to get at him, the boss killed her."
"So you had contact with Zarra?"
"Yes."
"How long have you known him?"
"We met him on The Strip."
"You mean Market Street."
"Yes."
"What were the circumstances?"
"I asked him for change."
"You mean you were panhandling?"
"Yes."
"And did he give you money?"
"Not at first. He just stared at us, looking like he wanted us to die."
Matthews apparently inhabited one of the deep store front doorways along that section of Market, where he could tap the drunks coming into or leaving the local strip clubs. The doorway had a rusted open gate led to a small cave like space, more suited to a rat than a human being. A soggy green army style overcoat had been spread across the old fashioned floor of crisscrossed tiles to soften it into a make shift bed. A blue nylon knapsack rested against the glass of the inner door. Nearer the light, a brown paper bag with protruding bottle top waited like a picnic lunch, the smell of alcohol oozing up and around the man, mingling with the usual, disgusting odor of street.
"Get away from me!" Zarra snarled.
"But we're hungry," the figure said, advancing another step towards Zarra. "We need money to buy us some food."
"Food? You mean booze," Zarra snapped, managing to stare at those portions of the man's face unmarred by the melting. From these, he guessed the man's age at sixty, and these displayed the usual lack of care, a week's stubble on his chin and a crusty layer of brown on the back of his good hand suggesting an even less frequent bath. "I don't give bums money for food or booze. Now get away from me before I call a cop."
"Nasty! Cruel!" Matthews howled, advancing again with each accusation, though pain showed in his one good eye, as if Zarra had touched upon an old wound. "You nasty to poor old Nathaniel. We've done nothing to hurt you. We only asks for food."
"You wanted money, not food," Zarra corrected, apparently taken back slightly by the sharp accusations. "There is a difference."
"Yes, yes, there's always a difference, yes," Mattews said, hopping forward once more as Zarra backed into a parking meter. "With you it's always different, yes. Money, money, money. That's all you talk about. Don't give no money to nasty beggars, no. Don't let the nasty beggars live for free. Bah! You're all the same."
Then, just as suddenly as he had advanced, Matthews twisted himself around and began to hobble, back towards his small alcove.
"Hey!" Zarra said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."
"Sorry? Sorry?" Matthews howled, voice as shrill as a siren and nearly as loud. "The nasty man says he's sorry!"
Matthews turned, staring over his good shoulder with his good eye, his glare as painful and sharp as a shard of glass.
"All of you are sorry," he muttered, the shrill aspect lost to a tone of self pity. "But no one ever helps poor Nathaniel. No, no, no one helps."
"I did say I was sorry and I mean it," Zarra said, stepping towards the man as he yanked changed out of his pocket, spilling it as he thrust it towards the sad figure. "Here."
His palm glinted with three quarters, two dimes, a nickel and a multitude of pennies, all of which would have otherwise found its way into the jar at home for eventual deposit into his saving account, money that would provide his grub stake in Nashville.
But Matthews did not turn, standing now at the brink of the doorway with his shoulder hunched forward. "We don't want it," he announced.
"What do you mean you don't want it?" Zarra asked,.
"We mean you don't want to give it."
"I'm handing it to you, aren't I?"
"Not because you care, no, no, nobody cares for Nathaniel."
"Fuck you!" Zarra growled and thrust the change back into his pocket as he marched away.
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