RUFF STUFF

RUFF STUFF

A

Novel by Smcallis

This is a work of fiction. No similarities between any person living or dead is intended, and any such similarity is purely coincidental. All characters © 1992 by
Smcallis.

CHAPTER 11

SIX EQUALS SIX, REDUX

IT WAS ALONG AN ABANDON RAILROAD TRACK, amidst the squalor, that was now the urban sprawl of Hamtramck that she came. The year was January 1993. Snow was on the ground, it fell in great white flakes that filtered down and collected on the brim of her Detroit baseball hat. The wind blew in icy gust, she did not care, there was no cold wind that blew that was colder than her own icy heart. In her pocket was a notebook. Recorded in her neat methodical hand, all the information she had collected over the weeks of her investigation. She was if nothing else, organized and precise. She had three warrants folded neatly in a manila envelope. One for a Reginal Carr a.k.a. “High-Top,” felony drug trafficking, racketeering, murder and conspiracy to commit murder. An Otis Marcus "Big Dick" Alexander also wanted for felony drug trafficking and manufacture of meth amphetamines, and a Crispin “Crack’n Coke” Larsen. Wanted for kidnapping, murder one, and felony drug trafficking, a nice bunch of choir boys.

No, this was the right location. Her snitches on the street confirmed it. Her keen detective intuition told her this was the right place, and she was seldom wrong. They were here, the girl was here too, they took the girl so she would come, poor dumb bastards, didn’t their mother ever tell them to be careful what to wish for? Well now, they got their wish. If the girl was harmed . . . it didn’t matter, Lea was going to get the girl, and she was going to kill them.

The snow covered gravel crushed softly under her feet. There was an abandoned burned out car, a Volvo; it was hard to be sure. She past heaps of trash, a dead dog, and her feet literally crunch over garbage strewn in the streets and vacant lots. The height width and depth of the urban decay was devastating. No wonder these wretched people turned to crime and drugs just to eek out a miserable existence. That was as far as her sympathy went. Lea grew up in hard times. Lea’s family knew poverty, hunger, going without. Lea could not imagine her father turning to crime, not even to feed his family. No, these people were drug dealers, murderers, and racketeers. They didn’t care about their own people, they had kidnapped Luka, threaten to kill an innocent child, just to get back at her. They were used to getting their own way, this time they had bitten off more than they could chew. They hadn’t counted on Lea Swift. They didn’t know that she was not afraid of them. They didn’t have brains enough to know it was they who should be afraid of her. Her grandfather dwelled within her, he had taught her too much. She was a killer she was death. Today Lea Swift had come for them. Lea continued her approach towards the towering tenement building, “The Hornets.”

A bullet thudded into a tree behind her. Lea was still two hundred yards from where the shot came. If they hit her at this distance, a bolt of lightening from the blue might as well strike her down. She did not draw her weapon she did not react. Cold frost blew from her lungs as she continued her trek.

There were six men, not four. Curtis Isaac had two brothers, Maurice, and Jamie. Isaac stood in the doorway, behind the others. For a brief instant Lea considered that the odds against her were not good. Then the words of her grandfather boomed in her head. “Frauline, shoot as I tell you to shoot, you will kill them. Kill them Frauline, kill them all.” Lea’s heart hardened, kidnap a ten-year-old girl, threaten to kill her and then face down one woman with five armed thugs. Isaac was a coward and a user to the end, it made no difference, they all would die today.

“Curtis Isaac, I’ve come for you! I've come for the girl!” Why even bother to warn them? This was a mystery even to her, in the end, it was the gunfighter’s code; even though she intended to kill them, it was a point of honor that they at least know why she had come.

“Fuck you white bitch! Come and get her!”

“Tell your boys if they don't want to get killed, it’s best they clear out now! “

"ALL RIGHT, DAT’S ‘NUFF, KILL ‘ER BOYZ! CAP ‘ER HEAD!”

A bullet whipped past Lea's cheek like an angry hornet. She never reacted. From somewhere behind a huge cement planter, came the chug, chug, chug, heavy slugs from a MAC-10. A hail of gunfire erupted from the foyer, in an uncoordinated symphony of death. Lea found herself in the worst possible situation, shot at from all directions. Wild, undisciplined, highly inaccurate fire, fifteen-year-old boys don’t shoot too good. Still, the volume of fire was deadly; Isaac and his thugs were feeling confident, one woman against six, one woman against six hardened gangsters.

Lea struck a vulnerable pose, slightly built, oddly out of place, a blonde, blue-eyed white girl in a Detroit baseball cap, lost in the middle of the darkest urban of sprawls that was the decay of Hamtramck. Lea remained unperturbed, even as bullets kicked up chips of concrete, thudding into the trees behind her. At seventy-five yards, she knew she was invulnerable.

The flap on her leather jacket opened and the skeleton holster released the Ruger. Menacing, oiled, and blue-black, this was a modern-day gunfighter’s weapon, loaded with deadly hollow-point bullets; it remained a revolver, and traced its origins back to the Wild West and the days of Wyatt Earp and Wes Hardin. There was no fear in this woman’s eye as she drew back the hammer and pointed the weapon down range. In any critical instant, some men blink an eye; some men draught a breath, Lea swift used that first quarter second to squeeze off two shots, piercing the glass door of the foyer, a double tap.

Six equals five. The cylinder rotated like a gattling gun. Three seconds later, there was no one left to oppose her. The silence of death broken only by the icy frost she blew from her nostrils. The gunfight lasted just three seconds. She had expended six rounds and killed five men. Behind the cement planter, a boy lay dead, along the fence line, dead. Presumably, these were men; they were only boys Isaac had sent to the slaughter. Now they were dead. Shell casing from the Ruger spattered to the pavement. The brass of six fresh bullets flashed in the sunlight of the January day. The Ruger snapped shut, loaded for death.

Isaac retreated into the squalid depth of the Hornets, retreat being a relative term. Isaac fled, fled like a craven coward. He had watched in horror as Lea Swift shot his men down. Isaac pissed himself. He knew he was a dead man. He knew he was so fucking dead―unless he got to the girl; this crazy white woman was going to kill him.

“Luka! Yeah, that’s the ticket.”

Isaac always hated that little white nigger. The girl was a nuisance and stupid, worst of all she wasn't really black . . . at least she wasn't black enough. Isaac laughed a cruel laugh; he actually took pleasure in the memory of the last fleeting glimpses of a child's terrified face as he shoved her down and shut the door.

The refrigerator was a derelict, an old-fashioned model from the ‘50’s with the locking handle. The plan was that the child would suffocate. The girl didn’t need to be alive to remain useful. Retrieve the money, whack High-Top, stuff them both in the fridge, and dump the whole mess in the Detroit River. End of problem, end of Lea Swift. Isaac clutched his AK-47, now Lea Swift came for him. Isaac calculated just how much air there might be, the girl was small, she may still be alive, she was his only hope.

RUFF STUFF
A

Novel by Smcallis

This is a work of fiction. No similarities between any person living or dead is intended, and any such similarity is purely coincidental. All characters © 1992 by Smcallis.

CHAPTER 12

OUT OF THE PAN AND INTO THE FIRE

LOOMING GREY AND MASSIVE, with every window broken, the derelict project, The Henry B. Horner building was a menacing entity all unto itself. Covered meticulously with random friezes of rival gang graffiti, there was no sound save the sporadic drip, drip, drip of a window air conditioner and the constant flap of laundry from the upper windows. The “Hornets” sat a cold, toothless giant, a failed testament to the policies of the Johnson era Great Society.

Lea Swift, stood alone, incredibly vulnerable, surrounded by a vast chain linked enclosed courtyard that had once perhaps been a passably pleasant place for families to picnic while the children played on the swings. Decades of urban neglect and gangland warfare left little to appreciate. Weeds choked the cracks of the sidewalks. The grassy areas worn to dirt, the trees, once a noble row of oaks and maples, hung their heads, in a craggy un-kempt file of neglected forestry.

Now, there was nothing but silence. Death was everywhere. Five men lay dead, boys really, she killed them. As surely as Wild Bill Hickock squared off against Davis Tutt, in a modern day translation of that 1865 duel, Lea Swift shot them down at seventy-five yards. The echoes of the violent gun battle rung her ears, the acrid smoke of gunpowder hung in the air; the barrel of the Ruger red hot from the sudden furry of her gunfight.

Lea watched as her quarry, Isaac, disappeared into the blackness. His men were dead. Isaac stood alone, naked, utterly transfixed in horror, as Lea shot his men down. Effortlessly, methodically, the entire gun battle lasted less than five seconds. Isaac, he’d seen enough. Not even the firepower of his AK-47 machine-gun gave him security against a foe that could seemingly kill at will. He ran, he ran away like a craven coward.

Lea found herself alone.

Grim faced, Lea flipped open the cylinder on the Ruger Redhawk, letting gravity cast the spent shell casings to the pavement. In a well-practiced ballet of function and movement, she expertly inserted a fresh load, the revolver snapped shut, Lea pulled back the hammer to full cock, an action so well rehearsed it was second nature. The weapon actuated with all the precision that exacting German engineering could muster. The cylinder rotated smoothly, bringing the next shell into firing position. Loaded for death, now the real business of killing began. Lea raised the Ruger to combat position, like an attack dog sniffing for prey, the woman and the gun pressed forward. Luka was somewhere in the building. She would kill Isaac, that was secondary, she would find the girl, of that she was certain.

A mere three-second dash separated Lea from the shattered interior of the foyer that was the “Hornets.” Seventy-five yards, that was the remaining distance. Not even a full sprint this was no challenge. Lea was fast, even at thirty-five, she was still faster than a champion sprinter. Three seconds, Lea recounted to herself, her heart pounded, her lungs sucked at the air, any second she expected to be cut down in a hail of automatic weapon fire. There was nothing. She burst through the shattered glass doors, and entered the dust-filled confines of the “Hornets.”

Her gift of great speed was not matched with endurance. Lea’s legs felt weak, her body shook, her chest heaved, she was winded. Lea leaned against a post until she caught her breath, then began to pick her way past the blasted battered bits of the foyer, as her eyes became accustom to the gloom, she foraged deeper into the uninviting depth of the “Hornets.” She found herself at a severe disadvantage, not knowing the lay out of the building, death lurked around every corner. The Ruger lay at full cock; she closed her eyes, and listened. There it was again, Isaac was coming.

Lea’s first inclination was to lie in wait. Her position was strong, with a solid concrete pillar for cover. Her thoughts turned to her Grandfather, what would he do? Grandfather, he was never one for ambush, caution was not his forte. His was a direct approach; he feared nothing. It was they who feared him. He used this fear to his advantage, as long as they were afraid of dying―then he intended to do the killing.

Lea’s thoughts returned to a time, to Stillwater Okalahoma, that faraway fate filled day of that cold January morning; she could still feel the weight of the Webley revolver, as Grandfather pressed the weapon into her small hand. His words boomed in her head, words she remembered as a girl, ten-years-old, going on eleven.

“Kill them Frauline, kill them all.”

Lea's grip tightened on the Ruger, “All right.” She left the safety of the pillar. At once, Lea’s vision was shattered with a crazy-quit blast of automatic weapon fire. Chunks of ceiling tile cascaded down from overhead; bits of concrete dust pummeled her, bits of grit drove in between her teeth and down her throat. The air was filled with the cacophony of a full mag of 7.62 mm bullets smashing into the floor, the walls, the ceiling. Bullets collided all around her. Only when the mag was empty, only when the shooter stopped to reload, did Lea scramble to safety.

Lea felt a trickle of blood run into her eye. A chunk of concrete pierced the brim of her Detroit Tiger’s hat, and cut her forehead. Such was the force of the onslaught. The air was a swirl of choke-filled debris. She couldn’t hit what she couldn’t see. From her belt, she pulled out her mag-light, 2000 candlepower pierced the swirling dust. She heard the tale-tell swoosh, of the elevator doors open. Isaac was comming.

Lea shook her head; dust cascaded from her blonde hair. “Okay, Isaac, you bastard, you want to play rough, have I got a little surprise for you!”

Lea had one advantage not enjoyed by her Grandfather. Her Ruger Redhawk was more than two-and-a-half times more powerful than Grand Pa Doc's venerable Colts. She flipped open the revolver cylinder, six unspent shells dropped into the palm of her hand. She carefully pocketed the rounds. From another pocket in her jacket, she broke open a wax packet and inserted six fresh bullets, one at a time, these were hot loads. Lea permitted herself a wicked smile. Steel jacketed with a tungsten core, armor piercing bullets, with this load; the Ruger could punch a hole in an engine block at 200 yards.

The elevator doors swooshed open. Isaac cut loose with a second blast of spray-and-pray AK-47 fire. Concrete dust exploded all around her.

“Isaac! I have come for you!”

“Fuck you white bitch!” More machine gunfire.

“Isaac, give me the girl! I’ll kill you another day.”

Isaac wasn’t finished with this white bitch, not yet. He was going to say something, he probably would have said something, if his newfound surge of testosterone driven ghetto impudence weren’t cut short by a telltale clack-click of a jammed weapon. “Oh, shit!” Was in fact what he did say, muttered under his breath, followed by the swoosh of the elevator door closing.

That was the only opening Lea needed, she came out from behind the post and fired. The stainless steel elevator door now afforded about the same level of protection as Swiss cheese. Isaac never knew what hit him. The Ruger punched perfect holes in the gleaming steel door, blasting whatever it struck on the interior, the tungsten cores continued on burying themselves a full fifteen inches into the cinderblock structure beyond. A perfect pattern of three shots, about man high, not a sound or a movement ushered from the elevator.

A full minute passed. Only then did the needle begin to move, first a jerk, then a steady progression towards the sixth floor. Whatever was on the other side of that elevator was not dead, wounded or trapped. Lea didn’t care one way or the other. She launched herself at the stairs.

Twenty-seven steps each, six floors. Even Lea with nearly superhuman athletic prowess couldn’t beat the elevator to the sixth floor. For what seemed like an inexcusable eternity, she lay at the bottom of the uppermost stairwell, winded, exhausted. She took off her Tiger cap, smoothed her hair, her hand came up covered in blood. Lea grimaced, “Alright Isaac, let’s do this.”

Because of the building layout, the stairwell no longer opened directly towards the elevator foyer. Worse yet, Lea had know idea where Isaac had gone. She took up a combat position and inched closer to the corner.

An old woman, a nosey neighbor, opened her apartment door.

“What’s going on out here?”

Lea whirled and pointed. “Get down!” The old woman retreated, no idea how close she came to death.

Lea kicked a can. The soda can skidded out from behind her position into the open, making the most grand and glorious clattery-bang. As if on cue, the corridor was lit with an uncontrolled burst of automatic weapon fire. The shells spattered, stuttered, stopped, and started. Bullets arched crazily all around as if someone had a hold of a tornado.

Lea listened for the clack and then the click. She burst from behind the corner. Whatever, whoever was on the other side of that corridor she fully intended to kill. The Ruger was at full cock. Lea was ready, her instincts were primed, she was ready willing and able to pump Curtis Isaac’s ass full of lead. She wanted to kill him . . .

What hand of providence prevented her from pulling the trigger, even to this day, she did not know. Lea found herself pointing a fully loaded .41 magnum revolver straight at the face of young girl . . . a child, a small round faced African-American girl, maybe ten, not more than twelve, clutching the most enormous assault-rifle, struggling to insert a new magazine. The girl succeeded at the last second in pushing in the magazine, and pulling back the breach block.

Lea faced down the girl, her pistol never wavered. The inscrutable question remained, was Lea actually prepared to kill this child? Her Grandfather, he could have killed her―quashed her like an insect. Murder, death came so easily to him, it was never a question of IF―it was only how many? Fortunately, Lea never had to answer the question.

“You don’t want to do that.”

The barrel of the Ruger flicked, as if to give emphasis to her words, “Put down the gun. We’ll talk.”

The young African girl looked at Lea, covered in dust, her white blue-eyed blonde face smeared in blood, yet the pistol still pointed, the hammer drawn to full cock. The woman meant exactly what she said: Put down the gun.
Shaila dropped the gun, and burst into tears. It was only then that Lea lowered the Ruger, and released the hammer. She sheathed the terrible revolver to the confines of its skeleton holster. The child was not the enemy. Lea rushed forward to console the girl, she smoothed her hair. Lea hated Isaac even more.

“What’s your name child?”

“Shaila . . .”

"I'm Lea, I'm your friend. I'm here to help you. We’ve not much time. Shaila, where’s Luka?” Lea looked into the girl’s tear filled eyes. All the guilt, all the meaness Shaila had ever done to Luka came pouring out. Lea knew she did not know and had no reason doubt her.

“Where’s Isaac?”

Shaila only shook her head; his hold on her was too strong.

“He told you to stay here, didn’t he? He told you to kill me.” The girl was inconsolable. Lea held her tight. “Hush child, don’t cry. Run and hide. I’ll come for you when it’s all over.”

“. . . Are you . . . are you going to kill him?” Her face was full of years.

Lea’s answer was direct, instead of the Ruger, from behind her back, she drew t her Grandfather's Colt, a .45 calibur M11911 Colt-auto pistol, clad in .99 fine silver, etched from barrel to butt plate in the most fantastic mythological Aztec deities. Lea looked Shaila in the eyes. “I’ll kill him for you baby―I'll bring his head back on a platter. I promise. He’ll never hurt you again.”

* * *

Was Isaac dead? Killing Isaac was unavoidable; Guy Painter was just going to have to wait. The problem now was, without Isaac to question, where was Luka? Lea faced the stark reality of six floors, 179,000 square feet of dilapidated tenement building to search. Time was not on her side. Luka could be anywhere. Lea could bust down every door and terrorize innocent occupants all without any guarantee that Luka was even here.

It wasn’t that Lea didn’t know what to do―Lea didn’t want to do what she knew she had to do.

There was only one possible way to find Luka.

Lea took off her clothes.

Ahoy thar DAKOTA!

06.13.07

PHILADELPHIA ENQUIRER, DeVito's scene on "The View" had its sweet resolution . . . Danny DeVito (Matilda) still needs backers, however, for his latest Jersey Films project ― The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, based on the popular children's book.

“I've got Morgan Freeman, Pierce Brosnan and Dakota Fanning, but the studios are giving me a hard time,” says DeVito.

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, by Avi, © 1990 Orchard Books.

SYNOPSIS: Charlotte Doyle (Dakota Fanning), is a 13-year-old Schoolgirl who boards the merchant ship Seahawk in 1832 for a voyage from England to her home in Providence, Rhode Island. Charlotte is raised in an upper-class family and, wants very much to be a proper lady. Her family has already gone to Rhode Island and she was left to come alone in order to finish her year of schooling at the Barrington School for Better Girls. As the other families that were supposed to accompany her mysteriously fail to appear, Charlotte finds herself the only passenger on the transatlantic voyage and the sole female on board.

     Charlotte is devastated by the deplorable conditions on the ship and thinks of the crew as her inferiors. Captain Jaggery (Pierce Brosnan) is the only person Charlotte can relate to on the ship. Early in the voyage, she meets Zachariah (Morgan Freeman), an old African cook. Zachariah gives Charlotte a small dagger “for her protection” and tells Charlotte that the crew seeks revenge against the captain for some of his actions. She later has tea with Captain Jaggery. During this meeting, Captain Jaggery tells Charlotte that he has a few muskets and that these are the only guns aboard the ship. As the voyage passes, Charlotte slowly mingles with the crew and reads to them from her books.

     Later, Charlotte finds herself watching a member of the crew sew. The needle snaps and Charlotte offers to get a new one for him. She goes into the forecastle, the crew's room. While looking for the needle she sees a pistol (contrary to the captain’s words) and a round robin, a pact telling of an imminent uprising of the crew against the captain. Charlotte goes to tell Captain Jaggery, who then calls the crew on deck. They arrive with weapons, ready to attack, but none do so because of the captain's muskets. Charlotte is forced to take sides in the mutiny. A member of the crew is killed and Zachariah is flogged mercilessly by the Captain. Charlotte does not think as highly of Captain Jaggery anymore and feels that he is rather cruel.

     Charlotte decides to join the crew to make up for causing the death and whipping of the two-crew members. She is at first rejected, but then the crew agrees to let her join if she can climb to the highest point of the ship, the royal yard. After an arduous climb, she comes back down successfully.

     The captain leads the ship into a hurricane. In the commotion, the First mate is killed with Charlotte’s knife. The captain charges Charlotte with the murder of the ship’s First mate. The captain finds Charlotte guilty after the trial. Though sentenced to be hanged, she ends up confronting the captain on the bowsprit and as Captain Jaggery was about to fall over board, Charlotte had the option to save him, or let him fall to his watery death. The captain falls into the ocean and drowns. Her friend, Zachariah, tells the crew they need a new captain, and Charlotte is chosen to be the ships new captain.

     A few days later the Seahawk docks in Providence, Rhode Island, where her family lives. However, Charlotte finds her family unwilling to believe her story, and they disapprove of her outlandish tales. Eventually she decides to leave her family and return to life at sea, the place where she now believes is home.

RUFF STUFF

RUFF STUFF

A
Novel by Smcallis

This is a work of fiction. No similarities between any person living or dead is intended, and any such similarity is purely coincidental. All characters © 1992 by Smcallis.

Chapter 10

ON A FAIR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER
THE FAIR CAME TO TOWN. In all its glory, the sights, the sounds, the smells, the crowds. A great Farris wheel dominated the midway, spinning tantalizing in all its neon glory, like a great eye, beckoning young and old alike. "Come to the fair." There were switchbacks, corkscrews, bumper cars, cotton candy and hot dogs. Blue ribbons for the prize hog, pies by the dozen, tractor pulls and demolition derby. All the talk at school was about the fair. The fair brought excitement to the sleepy town of Stillwater Oklahoma. Lea was miserable, she couldn’t go, and she didn’t have any money. There was no money for anything as frivolous as the fair. The roller coaster, the cyclone, the pony rides these were the things a ten-year-old girl, going on eleven dreams were made of. Only the smell of cotton candy, the sweet scent of the Cracker Jack and pop corn, wafting over the fence this was as close as a farm girl from a poor family was to come to the fair. The neon lights and call of the calliope seemed only a distant dream.

Kate, she had money, her family owned the general store. On Friday night, Kate took great wads of 20-dollar bills from the cash register, and took all the girls from the sixth grade to the fair. Kate boasted a new dress, she had fresh ribbons in her hair, Kate invited Emily as her special guest, Lea, who was in the fourth grade, was not invited.

Brad had fifty cents, Lea had twelve cents, it cost a whole dollar to get onto the midway. Even if they picked up bottles along the road all weekend, they couldn’t make the two dollars it cost for admission, let alone buy tickets to ride the cyclone. The fair seemed as far a way as the moon.

That was when Grand Pa Doc came to town. He drove an enormous twelve-cylinder Mercedes-Benz Touring Sedan, all black and shinny with bulletproof glass and electric windows that went up and down at the touch of a button. He brought a great hamper full of presents for all the children, a turkey and great sausages and good black German bread. Grand Pa Doc came home; it was like Christmas in July!

Lea’s mother, his daughter, hated him; she barely tolerated his presence in the house. Lea’s father a tall good-looking ruddy Irishman, hardworking, longsuffering, even he was afraid of him. Uncle Bernard, Lea’s uncle, that was a different story, he wasn’t so scrupulous, he always figured good old dad was good to tap for a couple thousand dollars. Grandpa Doc usually stayed with Aunt Irene and Uncle Bernard. When Grand Pa Doc was in town, Uncle Bernard spent, he bought a new tractor, new carpet for the living room, and a new Chevrolet coup appeared in the driveway. The family was greedy for what Grandpa Doc brought, after all, Grandpa Doc was rich, he was fabulously wealthy, infamous, and wore expensive clothes bought in the most exclusive shops in Europe. His car, always the latest and most expensive models, when he came, his visits were an occasion to lavish food and fabulous gifts on the unwashed masses of his family. The family, the Bernard half, was cynically willing to except his largess. Lea’s mother, the Swift half, took virtually nothing, and remained forever skeptical of his past, fearful of his reputation.

The sheriff, the deputy DA at the county court house in Oklahoma City, they too took notice when Grand Pa Doc came to town. They all had questions, papers, a stack of warrants for his arrest. Yet, they never came around. They had families, they too were afraid. Grand Pa Doc was a man best left alone, he had powerful friends in Washington, London, Moscow, he came and went as he pleased, and this was one hornet’s nest the law was content to leave alone.

“FRAULINE!”

He scooped up Lea in his great powerful arms. He was a huge man, broad brimmed hat and a mustachioed face. He lifted his favorite granddaughter up in the air, his waistcoat parted just enough, for Lea to catch a glimpse of those terrible silver pistols, one cradled under each arm. Lea was not afraid, she was never afraid of Grandfather, she was not afraid of the gold Nazi Swastika pin he wore on his lapel. She was not afraid of the whispers of rumors that he was a terrible murderer. That he was a killer, a mass murderer, a Nazi war criminal, she didn't even know what that ment. None of that mattered. He was her Grandfather, together, they shared a special bond, a kindred spirit, and they understood each other implicitly

“Your mother, say, you can only stay four hours with me. It is Saturday afternoon, ve get ice cream, go to the moving-picture show, no?”

“Grandpa, can we go to the fair?” Her desire to go to the fair, literally burst out, Lea was at once ashamed to be so selfish and greedy.

The old man chuckled.

“Can we take my friend Brad? Please, Grandpa Doc; I want to ride the cyclone and the pony ride.”

“Ja, Frauline, ve go to the fair. You ask this young Herr Bradley, ve go to the fair.”

Lea was so happy her heart nearly skipped a beat.

This was one fair Lea made sure to do right. They rode the Cyclone, the Hurricane, the Tilt-A-Whirl and the bumper cars. They got lost and stupid in the house of mirrors, the haunted house. They ate hot dogs and cotton candy until Lea thought she was going to throw up. It was the most grand and glorious day of a lifetime. Lea even met Kate somewhere on the midway, Kate sneered incredulously, until she saw Lea still had a fist full of tickets, Kate had only two. Somehow, however mean it seemed, it was very satisfying. Lea and Brad rode the Cyclone again, and again just for spite.

On the way out, they passed the Carney booths where you “Guess your weight,” “The ring toss,” “Whack the Mole.” For the first time all that long afternoon, Brad actually took a hold of Lea's hand. Lea thought it took forever. Together, they walked hand-in-hand past the shooting gallery. Brad squeezed Lea's hand and told her to take a shot. Lea still had four tickets left. At first Lea didn't want too, ashamed of showing off. Bradley urged her on. Huge stuffed animals of all kinds hung tantalizing in the gallery as prizes, the target, the size of a paper plate, less than fifteen feet. It didn’t seem quite fair. Brad had seen Lea shoot, Lea was a crack shot; she paid her four tickets and loaded the four .22 caliber rim fire cartages into the rifle. “Which one should I shoot?”

“Go for the Koala bear, n’ the Mickey Mouse.” Brad said. Lea carefully squeezed off two shots, both misses. Lea appeared frustrated, embarrassed, there was no possible way she could have missed. Lea concentrated, controlled her breathing just as Grandfather had taught her, and drew down on the two targets, two more shots. Both missed.

“Sorry kid.” The carnival booth operator was smug, it was a racket, he knew it, Lea now knew it, and she now knew she'd been cheated. “You got more tickets,” he smirked, he was a pimply faced fifteen year-old-boy, “I’ll give you another go . . . “

Grandfather, he’d seen the whole thing. He was to have none of it. “You cheat my Granddaughter!” The old man roared. From under his waistcoat, he drew two pistols, two pistols, clad in .99 fine silver, intricately engraved with all manner of fantastic Aztec deities, from Quetzalcoatl, to Tlaloc, two M1911A1 .45 caliber Colt Auto pistols, the absolute instrument of Nazi vengeance and Allied justice. It was an act of providence that caused the Carney operator to dive for cover. Stuffed animals, plates, targets, exploded.

“Oh, shit!” Lea pulled Brad to the ground.

Forty-four bullets later, the smoke cleared, Grandfather surveyed his carnage with satisfaction. The shooting gallery was a splintered shambles, all the targets, prizes, riddled with great black bullet holes. Save the two stuffed animals Brad had chosen, the Mickey Mouse and Koala bear twisted in the chaos, unscathed.

Seconds after the last shot fired, the smoke cleared, the ground glittered with spent brass. That was when the Deputy Sheriff came to arrest Grandfather. He was a good-looking young man, around twenty-eight, a native Oklahoman. Born, raised, grew-up all within the eight-mile radius of Payne county Oklahoma, he was honest, sincere, a hard-working farm boy. His is law-enforcement career up to now, uneventful, limited to arresting pickpockets and rousing sleeping drunks off park-benches. He was if anything completely unprepared for a standoff with a gunfighter.

The Old Man drew down on him. Lea hid her eyes, terrified, not for herself, not for Grandfather, she feared for the life of the deputy; certain Grand Pa Doc was going to kill him.

Grandfather, was cool, he was so cool, he drew back the hammer on his pistol, one click, then two, and pointed―the Colt auto-pistol glinted in the sunlight. He was a man who had stared death in the face, faced down six desperate men armed with submachine guns, and killed them all. One pitiful deputy, from a backwards county in Oklahoma, represented no threat. Grandfather, the consummate killer, faced him down, their eyes met. The poor lad, quaked in his boots, he knew he was dead―one heartbeat away from death.

“You don’t vant to do that.”

The Deputy now functioning less on bravery and more on pure adrenaline and dumb training, mumbled something about how Grandfather was under arrest and that he was to . . . Grandfather, he ignored the young deputy as irrelevant, with a swirl of his waistcoat; he turned his back, and walked away.

“Get your Koala bear Frauline, ze Mickey Mouse doll too Herr Bradley. Ve go now.”

It wasn't until long after they got back to the car, out of the parking lot, through the one stop signal in downtown Stillwater, and had made the turn onto the dusty gravel 10 ½ mile road, that Lea realized, Grand Pa Doc didn't have any bullets left.

RUFF STUFF

RUFF STUFF

A

Novel by Smcallis

This is a work of fiction. No similarities between any person living or dead is intended, and any such similarity is purely coincidental. All characters © 1992 by Smcallis.

CHAPTER 9

A NETTLESOME CATCH

CURTIS ISAAC WAS A GANGSTA. A thug, a hoodlum, a petty criminal-architect whose sole motivating purpose was to effect fear in the local populace and thus gain respect. Respect, is the currency traded on the streets, respect, the stock and trade in the Projects, respect, is what makes the difference between a man and a Gangsta in the urban sprawl of Hamtramck. Isaac, he needed that respect, if he were to maintain his position as boss, shot-caller, Lord High Pooh Bah of The 42nd Street Curs, a minor street gang, renowned for their ultra-violent culture, access to illegal drugs, guns and freight. The Cur’s made their home in “The Hornets” a hulking, Johnson era project, these were a nasty swarm of wasp. Their willingness to commit murder was legendary, as was their staggeringly poor marksmanship. It was a thug’s life.

It was a cold morning; High-Top warmed his hands over a burn barrel that stood in the vacant lot between the two derelict buildings that served as the executive office of the 42nd Street Curs. He deliberately rolled a cigarette, licked the edge, and lit it on a flange of glowing metal. He took a puff, and passed the fag to his boss.

“Yo, dawg, I say we do business wit him, chea?”

Isaac said nothing.

“Aw snap! Man, he be cool up-and-down! He gonna slide, past West side brutha. Fo real! Tell me I didn’t lite dem Chessie bitches for nothing! Ee got the goods, ee got duh connections. It’s lak free money home-ee.”

Isaac drew down on the cigarette he remained apathetic. He didn’t like it. High-Top was number two, his chief lieutenant, confidant, his best friend and arch-rival. High-Top was hot on the success of a raid on a cross-town rival gang, the Chessies. High-Top and his crew killed five Chessie bangers, and in the process captured a semi-trailer. The Curs were now sitting on a windfall, almost two tons of pure cocaine. Exactly what to do with the cocaine, how to get rid of it, how to defend it, that was what this meeting was about.

“Muthafucker and piss!” Exasperated with his boss after months of indecision, High-top stabbed a finger in Isaac’s face, a shocking act of complete disrespect. A direct challenge to Isaac’s authority, “You nev’ah gonna be more’n a sorry-ass two-bit muthafuck’n nigga. ‘Zac, you pass on dis deal brutha, you are one fucked-up crazy nigga. Dis is gold baby.”

“Ain’t-a-gonna-swap.” Isaac was adamant. “I don’t do no buiz-ness wit no whiteys.”

“What the fuck you talk’n ‘bout?” High-Top snorted, this was beyond impossible; he’d done all the work. He planned the raid, staged the raid, pulled the trigger, he had the freight. Now Isaac didn’t want to do business because the buyer was white. Racism was a waste of time, a game for schoolyard punks this was business.

“Let me truthanize you muthafucka! Dem Chessies be bad man. I killt five home-boys for dis shit! Dey hit us, we hit back, dis is war! We need dis freight to defend our territory. Two million dollars dawg! You pass up dis deal, I swear, I’s gonna bust a cap in yo head.”

Isaac’s eyes narrowed, the tension between the two men escalated to a palpable level. It was not an idle threat. Isaac expected this move long ago. High-Top had the muscle, his crew was loyal, and they outnumbered his. The deal was for two-million dollars of pure cocaine. High-Top negotiated the deal. Isaac was never so clever. Murder he understood, extortion, intimidation, manipulation, these were the tools of the trade. Isaac was a common hoodlum, an evil-small minded little man. He thought small, but he fought hard, and held on to what was his with a vicious psychopathy that would have made Joseph Stalin proud.

The two men grew up together; Curtis Isaac and Reginald Carr, they went to school together. Expelled together, both men made their bones in the ranks of the Curs; blood in blood out was the rule of the street. Isaac was always the leader, the more vicious of the two. Isaac was a narcissist, a nihilist, a pure sociopath. Isaac was the kind of punk you read about in the newspaper, the one who kills his own mother for bus fare. High-Top by contrast was intelligent, introspective, always a quick wit and a good leader. The two men fed off each other, together they were greater than the sum of their two parts. Each supplying what the other lacked. If the situation called for smarts, the figuring out, the what-to-do, High-Top was there. If it required murder . . . Isaac was more than willing to supply the dirty work. Now, after twenty-five years on the street, the two men stood at the pinnacle of a minor criminal empire. Forty-two blocks of Hamtramck territory, two-million dollars and two tons of cocaine.

Isaac’s control over his territory was absolute. Death, in the form of drive-by shootings was the penalty for even the slightest incursion. Protection money was his stock and trade. Money ruthlessly extracted, from every mom and pop grocer, hot dog stand and business, legitimate or otherwise, up and down the block. Everyone paid. No one bought or sold, from the lowest tamale cart to the national Sear’s and Roebucks outlet.

Late payers feared burnout or death. No one paid late. Every drug deal that went down in his territory; Isaac was entitled to a cut. This was enforced with ruthless efficiency. Prostitution, gambling. He controlled that too. Everyone paid him. It was a money making machine. Isaac was the “Yurtle the Turtle” of 42 square blocks of Hamtramck. King of a house, King of a tree, the hulking tenement project, The Hornets, that was his castle. Isaac guarded his empire with a jealously and paranoia that was beyond vengeance. Nothing more sophisticated or complicated entered into his brain. Violence he understood, territory he understood, respect he demanded and murder was his only response.

Money, on the other hand, the art of making money from money that was a mystery. Isaac was a thug. He was content when he could make a couple of thousand here, a couple of thousand there. What he didn’t understand was the real art of making money. That money makes money. The whole notion that the couple of pathetic thousand dollars he turned every month could somehow miraculously transmute into hundreds thousands of dollars. The idea that two thousand dollars made in a drug deal, instead of being evaporated into the ether, squandered on paying his satellite cable bill, that the same two-thousand dollars could instead be transformed, invested, into a hundreds of thousand of dollars, millions of dollars. The art of finance, negotiations, of investment. The big picture, the world stage. All that was lost on Isaac

High-Top was a different creature altogether, he was left brained, these concepts he understood perfectly. High-Top understood with a clear clarity, and Zen like spiritually that there was a whole world outside of Yonkers and that world had money, he had money. He had freight, and the whole world was his oyster.

Except for the color of his skin, his lack of advantage, his lack of education, High-Top could have been a top executive trader with Smith Barney. What he lacked in any degree whatsoever in finance, he made up for in “horse-smarts.” High-Top intuitively understood how to make money with money. He tried to explain this to Isaac. “Money makes money.”

Brandishing his trademark Glock 19, Isaac countered, “Fucking fear makes money.”

High-Top went away in despair. He remained undeterred, Isaac was wrong, Isaac was a Neanderthal. High-Top continued to search for ways to invest the 42nd Street boy’s money. He was a smooth talker, a consummate “used-car” salesman, a person who could sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo and steal it back again. All without the Eskimo ever knowing, he’d been scammed.

Even without being a fucked-up paranoid psychotic, Isaac instinctively recognized that High-Top’s ambition was a danger. High-Top was smarter than he was; Isaac knew that brains made High-Top a dangerous rival. Worst of all, High-Top was popular. His crew was loyal; High-Top was a good boss, a valuable man, he thinks he’s cool, but a chipper awaits him. Note to self―Kill High-Top.

The deal was for $2,000,000. The underwriting partner negotiated in the black and called himself Sherman-Williams. Williams assured them that he hated niggers, secondly, if anything went wrong, anything at all, he would kill them, he would find them, he would kill their families, and he would kill anyone they ever knew.

Isaac, unaccustomed to being threatened, a King in his own country, told the buyer to “Go fuck yourself!” High-Top, always the cool negotiator, corralled his boss, explained that there were bigger fish in the sea than 42 blocks of real estate in a run-down neighborhood in a sorry-ass wanna-be suburb of Detroit. That he wasn’t top of the heap. Isaac needed to learn, he needed to learn he could do better, he wasn’t going to do better if he wasn’t willing to except he wasn’t top-o-the-heap, the biggest fish in the sea.

“Gangsta, I's gittin my dawgs on your ass! Yo are not fucking Pablo Escobar! Yo dawg, need to learn yo place man, bide your time. Two million dollars, dat’s more money dan we’ll ever see in our sorry-ass life time. Listen up muthafucka, yo have any idea how long it takes to extort two-million dollars out of a tamale cart! Dey want to do business with us, I say we kiss der ass!”

Two million dollars, that is enough money to make a man think, that sum of money didn’t even exist in Curtis Isaac’s universe. Two thousand dollars, twenty thousand dollars, even two-hundred thousand dollars. Isaac understood these numbers. Two million dollars? High-Top assured him the deal was to go down. The drugs were in their possession. The money was to be transferred to an anonymous Swiss bank account. In return, Isaac was to supply 40 kilos of freight. Not some junk crack, but pure cocaine, with a street value of $95,000 per click. Cocaine, transferred in propane tanks to a nameless faceless container ship, bound to the Dominican Republic but in fact under the direct auspices of the Mexican government and the Mexican Mafia via El Salvador, ultimately, to make sale on the streets of Amsterdam. A place Isaac didn’t even know existed outside of windmills and wooden shoes. Stupid fucks, the Dutch will buy anything. This was the biggest deal in Isaac’s universe. Two million dollars, this was all or nothing.

There was only one problem, one nettlesome catch. One detail of which Isaac did not like one little bit. There was no fat brief case full of money. No stacks and stacks of neatly bundled 100 dollar bills. No money, no money at all, no money exchanged hands, just a plan manila envelope, the contents of which contained a single stiff piece of white bond paper, the 20 lb. variety. Written upon which in single spaced 12-point New Roman Times, was a code, a password. Sixteen digits, sixteen letters and numbers granting access to a bank account in Switzerland. Without the password, there was no money. Two-million dollars was suddenly reduced to a single white sheet of paper and sixteen numbers and letters. To Isaac this was incredulous. Isaac wanted to kill someone.

“I give somebody forty clicks of cocaine! You tell me nigga, where’s da fucking money?”

High-Top reassured his boss. The money is in the account. “Trust me dawg, its safer dis way.” High-Top showed him the special check-book, showed him where to sign his name, the password. To Isaac, this was all too much it amounted to foolishness, double-talk, a sham, bullshit . . .

The money is in the fucking account. The money is in the fucking account. Issac's brain was on fire with paranoia. Now, where to hide the password? This presented a conundrum without solution that burned Isaac’s thoughts. Inside the toilet tank? Too easy, “I could have thought of that.” Under the floorboards? Paper? Paper is no good. Paper can be stolen. There was nowhere, nothing could be trusted. There was no hiding place good enough. Every time he thought of a place, he knew High-Top was smarter, and could think of that place too. His own stupidity infuriated him.

Isaac sat in his chair; he drank whiskey and smoked cigarettes as he considered his problem. His fiendish brain worked back and forth, kneading the problem. What to do with the code? Whack High-Top that was the main problem, he considered all the angles, killing High-Top that was the easy part, High-Top trusted him. He could lure him into any ambush of his choosing, High-Top’s crew, on the other hand, that could be a problem; They were loyal, if they knew their boss was dead, they could be out for revenge. He would have to kill a few of them too.

Isaac drew down on a cigarette; he had a skull-splitting headache and a raging hard-on. He spun the poly-composite pistol on the table beside him like some kind of divining device. He stared down vast expanse of his own naked belly. Every inch of which was covered with gang tattoos. His stomach wasn’t so taught, his physique wasn’t so lean. The tattoos bulged and undulated, as his now paunchy 30’s something body heaved with every breath. The tattoo’s spoke for themselves, each one added in succession, a chain, a tombstone, a skull. Each was symbolic, added after an initiation, a murder, time spent in prison, the tattoos amounted to a gangster’s résumé. A rite of passage, Isaac stared at his own ink-festooned naked belly, at once he had a ghetto borne epiphany. There was his answer. Flesh! Smooth, white, pristine flesh, flesh was the ideal hiding place . . . Flesh, moved, flesh was transitory, depending on who’s flesh, flesh was beyond suspicion.

“Now who's flesh?" That was the question.

“Shaila! Ahhh, git me dat lil’ joker kid, tell dat lil’ devil fuck to come'ere im gittin some disrespect over ‘ere. You talk her stupid finger-fuck talk. Tell ‘er to com’ere. She’s so stupid, that dumb lil’ white-nigger shan’t tell nobody.”

Luka played quietly on the dinning room floor, she had a coloring book, crayons and a doll that Lea had given her. She couldn’t hear Isaac bellow, but she felt the vibrations of her sister’s footfalls. Luka knew at once, something was up, either she had done something or was to blame for something, but either way, this was no good. Luka was terrified, she gathered her things in a defensive circle. Shaila at first tried to beckon the deaf girl, pretending to be friendly, she offered her a cookie, the very same cookies Luka had stolen from Mc Donald’s the night before. Luka was too smart, Shaila was not her friend. Luka retreated under the table. When trickery didn’t work, Shaila summoned her two brothers, acting as thugs; the three siblings tackled their sister. Punching her, and with the help of her two brothers, Shaila dragged and pulled her half-white sister down the hall, kicking, twisting, but otherwise without a sound. Luka didn’t scream, not in a normal sense, she didn’t know how.

But she did manage one word.

“KITTY!”

“You dumb lil’ white bitch!” Shaila punched her sister, she punched her again for good measure, blood poured from Luka's nose.

“You shut the fuck up. You don’t scare me! There is no Kitty!”

Luka struggled against the combined weight of her sister and two brothers as she was dragged down the hall like a sacrificial lamb. Luka made what noise she could, nothing mattered. Thrown before the alter of a lazy boy, that contained Isaac, drunk and high on cocaine, he flashed a gold toothed grille, as he caught a hold of the girl and held her up at arms length like a prize turkey, all seventy-four pounds of her, legs and arms splayed out akimbo.

Luka struggled fiercly, Isaac laughed, and flung the girl over on the couch. When she tried to flee, he yanked her back so hard he nearly dislocated her shoulder. Ten-years-old, going on eleven; Isaac pinned the hapless child down with his knee, clamped his hand over her mouth. The zipper made a metalic tearing noise as he stripped down her jeans, he felt the cotton of her "Little Mermaid" underpants. Luka closed her eyes. There was no denying that Isaac was enjoying himself. The idea that what the girl thought was going to happen, and what in fact was going to happen gave him cruel pleasure.

"Not now baby, not yet."

There was business to attend to, the girl lay helpless, half-naked, pinned under his weight. Isaac set fire to the single sheet of bond paper and watched it burn to a cinder, he spat into the ashtray, poured in a little beer for good measure, and stirred the black ashy mass into a thick amorphous paste. He selected a particularly sharp needle and held it up to her face. The girl flinched. Her skin was the color of pure white oak; he smoothed her flesh up to the nap of her underpants.

“Time for a little jail house tattoo, baby.”

* * *

SHE OWNED THE NIGHT. She stalked the asphalt jungle that was the rooftops of Hamtramck. A dangerous predator, her belly growled, she was hungry, a lone she-cat crept along the brick and parapet, hunting for prey. Her eyes, sharp as razors, caught every nuance of movement, supremely adapted to hunting in darkness, the night represent no more impediment to her than a cloudy day to a two-legger. Her sharp ears, picked up every sound, a cricket, a mouse, her nose, so keen no scent escaped her. She was a hunting and killing machine.

The tuna fish can, set out by the “little one” was empty. Phoebe licked at it hopefully, searching for more. There was no food this night on the rooftops, save the pigeons. Pigeons were a special case, abundant, they were plentiful, but catching them in sufficient quantity to feed her veracious appetite was a problem. For a large predator like herself to expend such energy for a reward of such a small meal, in the end, she was often left with little to eat save a mouth full of feathers.

The whole of the urban landscape seemed more like a desert to her. There was no vast expanse of open grassy range, no herds of animals to hunt. Even finding water in this urban environment presented a problem. The “little one” she was always quite regular, setting out a bowl of milk and a pail of fresh water. The cat came every night. Sometimes there was a special treat in the form of a can of tuna or a Big Mac. Phoebe had no concept of what a “Big Mac” was outside that if was fat and juicy and very tasty. The corporate connection or even the slightest notion of the human conundrum and ramifications involved for the “little one” to offer such a tasty meal. How Luka had to lie, cheat, and steal, to get the sandwich from the restaurant, past her covetous brothers and sister, up to the rooftop. All that was lost on a top-predator, she gobbled the sandwich down without even the slightest care in the world. That Phoebe was Luka’s only friend, the great cat did not understand. The cat came, ate the offerings, sometimes stayed, she purred, watched with interest as Luka made finger signs for:

I

L ● O ● V● E

K ● I ● T ● T ● Y.

Phoebe came every night. She ate the food, but wasn’t grateful, since gratitude was a complex human emotion to which she was incapable. She came at night, took what was offered and disappeared into the darkness. Sometimes she left a mouse or chipmonk, if that amounted to gratitude, then that was a close to gratitude as she came.

Whereas gratitude was purely a human concept, what Phoebe did posses was keen sense of territory. The rooftop, six floors up, a sprawling Johnson era projects building, known colloquially as “The Hornets.” Phoebe considered this to be her territory. She urinated and scratched copiously to mark what she considered hers. What she did not know, what she could not know, was there was a certain “two-legger” known as Curtis Isaac who also claimed this same brown stone building as “his territory.” Interestingly enough, both Phoebe and Isaac shared exactly the same primordial views on territory. Territory is to be fought for; territory is to be defended unto death. Territory is to die for.

The die is cast; the great stage of conflict was set, the urban gangster and the she-cat. 9 mm vs. mercurial tooth and claw, neither one even knew of the other’s existence yet each was the other’s mortal enemy. The she-cat, felt the ache of an empty womb, and had inadvertently, inexplicably, claimed the very property most coveted by Isaac. The she-cat claimed the “little one” as a surrogate cub. Isaac too claimed the same "little white-nigger bitch” as his own personal property; her leg was swollen and sore, his mark was on her, her flesh was now his flesh, a mark worth two million dollars. The stage was set for the inexorable clash between primordial entities. The law of the Jungle: Never come between a mother and her cub, and the law of the street: Never fuck with Curtis Isaac.

DAKOTA HAS WINGS

HOLLYWOOD, CA―Dakota Fanning joins the all-star cast of “WINGED CREATURES” (2008). With Forest Whitaker, Kate Beckinsale, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Josh Hutcherson and Jackie Earle Haley “Creatures” is being directed by Rowan Woods.

The story follows a group of complete strangers who are witnesses to a brutal murder suicide in a Los Angeles restaurant who form a unique relationship with each other as they cope with the aftermath of the incident and how they affect the people who help them along the way.

AIN'T NOTHING BUT A HOUND DOG

A GREAT DEAL has been written, talked-about, spec- ulated upon and postulated about DAKOTA FANNING’S new movie “HOUNDDOG.” Now that the movie is out, and has been screened by critics at Sundance. A great deal of the furor has died

down. No more alarmist segments on FOX News, Hanity and Combs seem to have lost all interest. The lies perpetuated over the alleged “rape scene” by Blue-line radio have proved hollow and much ado about nothing. The movie was so utterly smothered in rumors, half-truths, conjecture, and convoluted bald-faced lies that the project earned the unsavory moniker: “The Dakota Fanning rape movie”. The (negative) anticipation built up to such an un-realistic level, that the extra strata of controversy churned people’s anticipation into such a frothy frenzy that any semblance of realistic expectations were altered to such an extent that no movie could live up to its hype. Some people (critics) just plain made-up-their-minds sight un-seen, and even after screening the movie the reality that there was no substance to all the allegations, made no difference whatsoever. In fact, some people may have actually been disappointed (angry) that there wasn’t MORE THERE to hate, and thus now realized how stupid they looked, and so naturally, they had an axe-to-grind. TRASH THE DAKOKA FANNING RAPE MOVIE! That was the hue-and-cry of the un-washed masses spilling forth from the Sundance movie theatre.

 I remain an ardent supporter of Dakota and this project. When I first read the plot treatise, I had an immediate positive gut reaction. The involvement of Deborah Kampmeier, an exciting up-and-coming director. The rural South in the 60’s, Dakota singing Elvis . . . Dakota is not what you would call a great singer. She sang a few bars of “Hushaby Mountain” in “WAR OF THE WORLDS” but Dak remains pretty much, an averge girl in the singing deparment. After hearing Dakota sing “Do Rei Mi” with the Muppets on The Queen Mary, I changed my mind, this girl has incredible “stage presence.” Here she was, a relatively average singer, singing with the Muppets, and she had the audience in the palm of her hand. Dak convinced me she could do a credible job with the singing. If this sounds like a perfect breakout vehicle for Dakota. The incontrovertible fact is, unfortunately, “HOUNDDOG” was not well received at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. HD won no awards and finished with a whimper rather than a bark. This is a rather evil turn of events, for a much-anticipated Dakota Fanning film.

I suspect “HOUNDDOG” was in the doghouse long before the festival even began. There exists a grave misconception as to the nature of child sexuality. That the mere suggestion, the hint that pre-teen children have a sexual nature and they are sexual creatures is so utterly taboo, and forbidden as the mere thought that this might be even hinted at in cinema is to be stricken from every book and tablet. The facts are children are sexual creatures, and by eleven or twelve are very much aware of their own sexuality. It seems absurd to deny this, and the reality that kids do know the difference between boys and girls and what goes where and why. They may not understand the exact ramifications, but the basic penis goes in the vagina thing, they have that down pat. Some people have ratcheted up their arguments, “changed their claim” if you will, now that the alleged rape scene turned out to be all bluster and no show, the new complaints are that Dakota gyrates her hips, cavorts in her underwear and plies a boy with a kiss to show her his penis. The naysayers are never satisfied. All this brings us back to Dakota and her movie “HOUNDDOG” The movie depicts rape, the rape of a minor child. Rape is about power and not about sex. The movie is, however, less about rape than it is about overcoming adversity, Redemption.

P.S. HAPPY THIRTEENTH BIRTHDAY DAKOTA!

ON DAKOTA BEING NAKED

On Dakota being Naked . . .
DAKOTA FANNING―the most important child actress of the decade hazards her most dramatic film portrayal to date in Deborah Kampmeier’s shocking indie drama. Set in the rural South against the backdrop of the 60’s “Hounddog” is about a sexually abused girl who finds solace and ultimate redemption in the words and music of Elvis.
     So what’s all this expostulation? . . . Hue and cry? . . . near pandemonium? Just because Kampmeier dares to focus her unflinching camera’s eye on the issue of child sexual abuse? That she chose to depict said abuse in a realistic and graphic manner; that she cast as her actress not an unknown, but none other than child-super-starlet Dakota Fanning. Dakota doesn’t even appear naked in “Hounddog”. There is an implied rape scene. She cavorts to Elvis tunes in her underwear. She shares a couple of fags with a boy in a truck that appears to be about her age. She’s called a “Nigger lover” by another character. She gyrates her hips to a couple more Elvis tunes, sings to a lamp stand. That’s it. That’s the controversy. Talk about much-ado-about-nothing. These are the facts that have riled the tail-feathers of a great many provincial political-correctors.
     It’s all about Dakota. If Dakota were not the actress in question, “HD” wouldn’t even register on the radar. We need to examine more closely the underlying sociological themes that has everyone so exercised. What is it exactly that has caused so many people to have a tizzy over this? That a normal all-American underage girl has the ability to be naked on camera? It’s been done before, the molestation scene and subsequent rape of Jena Malone in “Bastard out of Carolina” (1996) is far more graphic—not to mention Jena’s character is subjected to horrific child abuse. Brooke Shields appears nude, NUDE in “Pretty Baby” (1978), albeit she’s lying in repose on a couch and the scene is static. Kate Maberly appears nude in an innocent bathtub scene in “The Secret Garden” (1993). There is a legitimate nude scene by an unknown actress in the final reel of the movie “The Mission” (1986) it takes place after the Portuguese soldiers have massacred the Indian village. The scene is of a pre-pubertal Guarani Indian girl who cautiously picks through the burning rubble of her village to retrieve a violin before climbing into a canoe with her brother and little sister. The children are all naked, and the scene is beautiful. Jenny Agutter was 15 when she filmed her nude scenes for “Walkabout” (1971).
     The reason for the cacophony? Because we are suddenly faced with the prospects of our innocent pig-tailed Fern, of “Charlotte's Web” being naked, rapped and abused. This violates every rule of our collective parental sub-conscious. The truth is, Dakota is growing up, little innocent Dakota of “I am Sam” no longer exist. It is hard to let go. The fact of the matter is that if Dakota is to strike out on her own and break that mindset of the pure and innocent child. She must do something dramatic.
     In all the hurly-burly, hullabaloo over the prospect of Dakota being naked, nobody, not one person has stopped to consider how courageous and brave Dakota is for taking on this challenging movie role. This plucky little girl has guts; you have to give her credit there. This is a daunting task for Dakota to take off her clothes in front of the all the production crew on a movie set. Even on a closed set, you’re still talking about a minimum of a half-a-dozen people, all fully clothed, all looking at you, pointing cameras and lights and sound booms while you stand there in the breeze clad only in underwear.

      I suspect that Dakota is very comfortable with her body. All 12-year-old girl’s have chests, even our Dakota. Why are we American’s so hung up on the naked human body? Why do we find it so hard to except that all children have “naughty bits.” We see them, we know they are there, but you put them on film and suddenly everyone goes into conniption fits. I suspect it has something to do with our Puritan roots. Its those gosh darn Pilgrims with their funny hats and blunderbusses that’s whose to blame!

     We Americans are a violent people. We were born to violence; our history is one of violence and more violence. Our revolution was violent, we tore our country asunder in 1861 in a great Civil war; we shot ourselves to pieces in the Wild West. We are a violent society. We watch violence on our TVs our movies, everyday. We love violence; we cheer violence with the best of the Roman’s in the coliseum. Yet subject us to a little nudity, a little nakedness and we blush like schoolgirls.
     Maybe “Hounddog” is this year’s “Brokeback Mountian.” We collectively survived the all-American cataclysm of gay cowboys, why not a naked Dakota Fanning?

THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE, a retrospective

“Ask her no questions, she’ll tell you no lies. Ask her too many and somebody . . .” THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE (1976).

I recently purchased TLGWLDTL on DVD from Amazon. The movie holds up surprisingly well, and is even better than I remembered. It is prehaps Jodie's best performance as a teen. The film opens on Halloween night in a New England seaside town. Rynn Jacobs (Jodie Foster) is celebrating her thirteenth birthday, alone, in her father’s house. The evil Frank Hallet (Martin Sheen) drops by; he is a notorious ephebophile, with an unwholesome interest in Rynn.

The next day, Cora Hallet (Alexis Smith), the landlady, arrives at the house. She snoops about, attempting to find the wherabouts of Rynn's father, and discreetly ask Rynn whether Frank has been bothering her. Rynn claims her father is in New York. The situation gets tense when Mrs. Hallet demands the jelly glasses from the cellar. Rynn steadfastly refuses to let her in the cellar.

A few days later, Mrs. Hallet returns to pick up her jelly glasses Rynn has retrieved from the cellar. The seals are missing, “The seals are in the cellar.” Mrs. Hallet, refuses to be put off again, she pulls back the braided rug and flings opens the trap door, suddenly terrified by something she sees, Mrs. Hallet screams and rushes out of the celler, she knocks out the cellar door support and the heavy door crashes down on her head. When Rynn opens the trap door, Mrs. Hallet is dead.

After the initial shock, Rynn tries to hide the evidence; she tries to move Mrs. Hallet's car. Rynn’s inability to start the car attracts the attention of Mario (Scott Jacoby), who is passing by on his bicycle on the way to perform a magic show. He suspects Rynn is not telling the truth, but he agrees to help her move the car.

Later in the evening Rynn and Mario have dinner. Officer Miglioriti (Mort Shuman) stops by to tell them that Frank Hallet has reported his mother missing; again, he asks to see her father, but Mario tells him that Rynn's father has gone to bed. This act of loyalty cements the bond between Rynn and Mario.

The romance between Rynn and Mario continues to blossom and Mario gets more and more involved in the goings-on at Rynn's house. One day, the two move the bodies out of the cellar and bury them by the side of the house. It starts to rain heavily, and Mario catches a terrible cold, Rynn offers to climb under the covers with him.

"Mario, have you ever?"

"Hundreds of times."

After dinner, Officer Miglioriti returns to the house, inquiring about her father—he has begun to suspect that her father does not exist. But Rynn calls upstairs, and an old man comes down the stairs, wheezing. Miglioriti does not notice that the old man is Mario.

Later that night, Rynn hears the trap door slam shut. She goes downstairs and is shocked to see Frank Hallet coming out of the cellar. He has put the pieces together and realized that Rynn's father is gone and that Rynn killed his mother. He offers to protect Rynn's secrets in exchange for sexual favors. Rynn is cool, she suggests they have a cup of tea . . . Hallet remarks that the tea tastes like almonds, and Rynn says perhaps it is only the almond buscuits. Frank coughs, he tells her she has pretty hair, he coughs again. Rynn sits very still.

* * *

Those who know me, know that this blog is dedicated to Dakota Fanning.

“From failing hands we pass the torch to be yours to ever hold high.”