Pnk Cadillac
It was time for a drink. First things first. I walked over to the corner car emporium called Midnight Blue Shoes and Stuff. They sold Dutch shoes at a great discount. They were made of wood and came with leather interiors and cloth insoles. The owner of the outdoor business was a Russian nationalist. He had no legal papers to authorize his stay in this country but that did not stop him from collecting welfare or owning businesses in town. Shoe sales were down around the feet and down generally speaking so he sold used cars to fill in that financial void and as a side line to fill the gap, the large, otherwise vacant lot.
A bright, perfectly new, pussy cat neon pink 2020 Cadillac Coupe Deville caught my eye. It was love at first sight. I bought it on the spot. Money was no object. I had no objection to money but I had none and no job so no problem. I made a deal with Ivan the Russian where I would wash and sell the cars on his lot and sell wooden shoes on the plastic outdoor tables for him so he could concentrate on his prostitution business on the other side of town. I told him I would lend him my new car when ever he wanted it as long as he returned it at the end of the business day each day.
After taking my new machine for a spin I parked in front of my pad which coincidentally was situated next door to the neighborhood pub. I went inside my second favorite place on Earth to celebrate with a couple double shots of tequila and lime. (Church and the movies are tied for my first favorites.)
It was 10:00 am in the morning of the second day of my visitation to the bar when I finally staggered out to a surprisingly blinding sun light and to find my car covered with a variety of different sized round purple spots painted on my new ride. A bum was standing by with a paint brush in one hand and a half empty gallon of purple paint in the other. We immediately got into it. I said, “Hey you! You lousy bum!” “What the hell are you doing to my car?!” He said, “I thought it was an elephant.” “My elephants have polka dots so I took care of it.”
I threw him in the trunk with a jar of peanuts and went home to sleep. I have a heart. I couldn't leave him there with no food but I do intend on making him accountable and to see the error of his ways.
My new boss Ivan called me the very next day screaming and throwing a fit about the carnival looking vehicle which we happened to sharing at this point in time. I thanked God I could not understand Russian because he went on a lengthy rant filled with what I surmised were very choice superlative vulgarities in his native tongue directed at me and my unappreciated actions from his perspective. He finally came down to earth and began to speak to me in English. He wanted to know who perpetrated this atrocity and why. He made it clear that he could not and would not be seen driving around town in a clown mobile. It was simply bad for business. What would his prostitutes and clients think and what about law enforcement? He was already under suspicion and microscopic scrutiny by the local and international law agencies regarding some of his questionable business practices and activities.
Something had to be done and done quickly. Ivan was already frantically scrambling through the pages of his hit man kill book looking for the right goon, the right individual to liquidate the party or parties involved in this matter, not to mention the poignant fact that my job was on the line and I was in mortal danger of losing my life and in jeopardy of having my car repossessed.
It was time to pay a visit to the bum who was still occupying the trunk of his elephant, a/k/a, my car. I'm sure the oxygen supply must be about depleted by this time in those tight quarters and I did not want some stinky filthy bum taking up residence there a minute longer. It could devalue the worth of the vehicle.
When I got there he was still alive so I asked him how he was enjoying his new home. He mumbled something about water. I suspect it had something to do with the salty peanuts.
It would be difficult, no, impossible to hit him up for money to restore the vehicle to its original beauty and luster. After dragging him out of the car, shaking him around a bit, which was an act of raw futility, as the bum would certainly not have any more or less sense shaken into him by my actions but never the less, something positive had to come about immediately before the situation escalated into something lethal.
Explaining that actions have consequences to this individual would have little to no impact on him. It would be like talking sense to a brick, telling it to stop being so rectangular, not to break windows or stop being so 8 × 4 × 2.25 inches in dimensions.
I had visions of bullets being feverishly fed into high powered rifles by Ivan's snipers, his mafia gang, who were already hungry for a hunt, twitching and itching with anticipation for the kill, to pull the trigger to close the deal.
I pulled the bum up by his filthy gray coat lapels and dragged him into the pub for a drink and a think. We did both for several hours when I finally came up with a brilliant idea. It would be easy to simply walk across the street to the shoe/car emporium to have a calm conversation with Ivan but he would shoot us on the spot. (No doubt about that.) It would be better to have a mediator present at a neutral location to present our case. I bought the most expensive bottle of Russian vodka I could get my hands on at the crusty convenience store near by. That was mistake number one. I wrapped it in a brown paper bag and secured it with duct tap. That was mistake number two. It is a little known fact that Russians, generally speaking, do not like vodka. Look at the facts. They come from a country where in reality they can only get vodka because it is easy to produce. It is pretty much all they get to drink all the time. When they leave their country they look for anything other than vodka. Variety after all is the spice of life. Rumor has it that they prefer a single malt whiskey or any top shelf Scotch.
I had become friendly with Ivan's sister Katorina. She is a very pretty girl in her twenties. She works nights at Ivan's other place of business doing what women of the night do for fun and enormous profit. She might be able to smooth things over in this matter.
Katorina is very bright, much smarter than her brother so maybe we had an outside chance of surviving this situation with the aid of her intervention. First things first. She said to nix the vodka so I gave it to the bum because he would know how to dispose of it properly and with due diligence. He wasted no time in consuming the evidence and what was our mistake #3 in poor judgment in no time flat.
A plan was hatched to meet up with Ivan at his primary cat house. He would be more vulnerable there according to the sister. He loved the prostitution operation more than the gun running, the shoe and car sales and even more than the drugs, which yielded a handsome profit by every measure. Truth be told; The flesh trade is a growth industry.
Meanwhile, the bum, his name is Enoch by the way; we figured that out after he finished off the vodka and became intolerable. He became tediously talkative. That was a terrible thing to experience because his language skills were lacking syllable proficiency, correct syntax, proper grammatical usage and other elements of meaning or sense remotely related to the English language which we love so much and trust in to see us through this dreary life.
Enough about Enoch. I feel like shaving his head, painting him purple, duct taping a cow bell to his forehead (You can never have enough duct tape when it comes to Enoch) and sending him out to pasture.
We have more pressing matters at this hour. Katorina, Enoch and I made our way over to Ivan's main brothel on 42nd. St. in the pink and purple polka doted clown thing and waited for him to arrive. Needless to say he was surprised to see us there in his private place when he entered.
He loves his little sister so he spoke to her first with measured words. “What are you doing here?” “This trash was supposed to be taken out hours ago.” (referencing Enoch and myself) “Why do you bring it here?” I whispered nonsense in her ear, pretending to be a negotiator saying something substantive to help our case. Ivan saw right through my ruse. He was not a man you could placate with BS.
He approached me close up with his mean face and nasty breath and said, “Purple polka dots?!”
I directed my vision to Enoch with a slanted smile. I said, “Ivan this is Enoch.” "Enoch this is Ivan.” “I think you two have something to discuss.” I knew the moment that I opened my mouth that I was making mistake #4. The chances of Enoch salvaging this situation were nil. As soon as he said anything he would seal our fate and we would be killed.
Katorina was not only a sister. She was a solid full-throat-ed business partner. She spoke up and invformed her brother that I am her friend. She respects me. She convinced Ivan that I was the main victim in this incident. It was my car vandalized by the bum. She convinced her brother that Enoch had recently been released or escaped from the county mental asylum. He became confused nad disoriented by the hot sun, mistaking my vehicle for his imaginary multicolored elephant friend.
Ivan looked over the bum from head to toe, from front to back, scratching his beard, pondering the situation, its plausibility and said, “Yes!” “This guy is a clown.” “John you are off the hook.” “Clown man you are on the hook.” “You buy me a new car or you die.” “You have 24 hours.” There was no way in hell the bum was going to conjure up a car or even a picture of a car in 24 hours.
Katorina came to the rescue. The family businesses were more than lucrative on her end. She had her hands in all the operations. She had just completed a major clandestine arms deal with an Israel based underground group. She had more than enough funds to buy a fleet of new cars.
Being Enoch's official spokesman, I asked Ivan what kind of replacement car he would like and if he wanted a different color. He insisted on a new Maybach Exelero. They are only $8 million dollars. What's a few million dollars between friends? He also insisted on non elephant and non fantasy animal related colors for the transaction to be acceptable.
My good friend Katorina was equal to the task. She covered everything, even threw in a new happy pink paint job for my Cadillac and a happy meal, another jar of peanuts for Enoch. He apparently developed a taste for them while marinating in his nasty unclean juices in the trunk of my car the other day.
Most likely he does not live in a house or have access to a card board box as a dwelling. The trunk of my car was probably the closest thing to home he ever experienced in his life so it might not be a stretch to conceive of him not owning a computer. In any event I wanted to cover all contingencies of him ever bothering me again. I laid down the law. He was informed in a not so gentle manner that he was forbidden from contacting me by email or Enock-ing on my door ever. (That means forever.)
I took his paint brushes and paint cans away from him and threw them in the bay. I let him off with a warning. If he comes near me or my car again with stories about elephants he will see more than spots before his eyes. We said our good-byes. Katorina and I went for a drink in the pub. I got her a Vodka sour and ordered a tequila for me. Obviously she slapped me and said, “You idiot!” “I hate vodka!” It wasn't a total lose. Later on I drove her home in my newly restored hot pink Cadillac. She invited me up to her place to bake some cookies and for other educational activities that I am not at liberty to divulge on these pure pages.
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