“Need to learn to spell, buddy.”
There was a host of angels on every side, and U2 was on the soundtrack, with “If Will Send His Angels.” America was in the grip of angelic fever then, Danny DeVito had proclaimed his success due to his guardian angel; the bestseller list was full of titles like, Getting to Know Your Angel.
Dade thought it was full of shit. The hippie stared at him. Dade was wearing a long black duster, his perennial cowboy boots, and a T-shirt with “Never mind the Bollocks...” In his waistband was a SIG, locked and loaded. Dade had his Ray Bans on and the guy couldn’t see his eyes, so he didn’t know what he was dealing with, he asked,
“Do you know the name of your angel?”
Dade hadn’t yet discovered Tammy or he’d have said her. He looked at the guy, adjusted his Bans, asked,
“You fuckin’ with me buddy?”
The hippie, full of love, peace, and other good karma, didn’t cuss or ever raise his voice, had just done a bong and was way mellow, said,
“My angel’s name is Aine... that’s, like, Gaelic.”
Dade loved this, rarely did he meet an out-and-out fruiter and he sure liked to play, he said,
“That’s, like, a crock, man.”
He leaned heavy on the man, get the Woodstock buzz up there. In his head The Clash was unreeling with “Straight to Hell,” and he could feel his mojo pumping... he knew “Trash City” would automatically follow. He glanced round the shop, there were lots of Dungeons &. Dragons figurines interspersed with the angels, the hippie was clearly an equal opportunity employer or just lazy. Dade spotted a Buddha, incongruous among the other stuff, asked,
“What’s with the small fat dude?”
The hippie sighed, explained,
“That’s Prajnaparamita, who contemplates the essence of nothing.”
Dade was excited, he didn’t know why but it sang to him, said,
“How much?”
The hippy, sensing a sale, got hot, asked,
“You don’t want an angel as well?”
Dade could turn on a nickel, one moment, he was your best buddy then he’d a knife at your throat, he was turning fast, asked,
“You deaf, I asked you the goddamn price you fuck, I want a angel, I’ll reach over, grab me one, I’m getting through to you?
He was, and the price for the Buddha was steep but Dade had recently hit a 7-Eleven, handed over half the freight. The hippie began to wrap it and Dade snapped,
“Don’t bother.”
He set the little fat fella on his dash, made him happy. When he got busted later and did the hard time, the Buddha disappeared but by then, Dade had the concept of nothingness ingrained in his heart, he didn’t need a figurine to remind him.
You wanted to set Dade off, and it wasn’t a difficult task at the best of times, mention Texas. He’d done a stretch, among his first, in Huntsville and learned that the Lone Star State was not kind to inmates. The warden telling him,
“Y’all the crap I wipe on my boot and you know what, boy?”
Dade didn’t know squat then, his education was only beginning, and he muttered that no, he didn’t. The warden had given him a full-voltage smile, which Dade was to learn was the worst of bad news. Those guys smiling at you, you were in line for whooping hurt. The warden explained,
“I’m a good ol’ Texas boy, like to keep my boots spit and shined, you gonna be messing with my footwear while you’re my guest?”
Dade swore he wouldn’t.
It was a hard year, he learned the meaning of retaliate first, and it was not something he ever forgot. Leaving Texas, the troopers warned,
“You don’t come back, boy.”
He planned on staying the hell away.
A movie Dade saw, The Stepfather, set off a bomb in his head, not that it needed much to ignite his already frenzied brain, it was about a psycho who literally adopts a family, and becomes the American dream.
For a time.
Then he slaughters them.
Dade wasn’t sure which he liked best, the instant family and all the values he’d never have or the massacre. But the concept lodged. Meet a divorcée with kids, then charm your way in, have the whole package for a few months, play with that gig, and then pull the plug. When he took the heavy fall and did the long stretch, it was this vision that got him through many riots, lockdown behind the walls. He even had a faded snapshot of a woman with two kids, it came with a cheap wallet he bought in Reno, the divorce capital. Somehow, it survived his strip search, the trip to the pen. He showed it to various inmates and it bought him a certain amount of kudos, the most dangerous motherfuckers on the planet got soppy when confronted with this.
Go figure.
Over time, he came to believe it was actually real, so when he did meet Karen, it was like he’d had her all those years. Her boy had a baseball mitt and Dade shouted,
“What about them Mets?”
Got a blank look from the kid.
But he learned, took it easy, slow and measured, charm oozing from every pore. The little girl, she never bought his act, plus, she missed her real dad. Glen, her dad, was a drunk but had entered a 12 Step program, was putting his act together, intended reclaiming his family.
Dade was never, never going to let anyone, anytime, anywhere take something away from him. In prison, they’d taken away near all he put value on but he’d found a whole new set of, if not values, then priorities, and chief among them was, if they fuck with you, you get medieval on their ass. Real simple in Dade’s mind, they didn’t want to live with him, they didn’t want to live.
Do the math.
House invasions were becoming increasingly more frequent in the heartland; even Ohio, the setting for electoral confusion and aggravation, saw gangs storming into homes, laying waste. Dade felt he’d brought a new slant to the art: car invasion. Wipe the vehicle, the occupants, the whole nine, clean off the earth. Put that in yer car commercials.
Dade had come late to Shane MacGowan, the punk era. The Pogues happened while he was inside and the music of the tiers was either Johnny Cash, gangsta rap, or Mex whining. In a diner way down in the Bayou, he’d heard “Fairytale of New York”... and been riveted. Kirsty Mac-Coll with Shane MacGowan. Later, he found the video, the black-and-white one with the NYPD singing “... Galway Bay.” Dade knew Galway from shinola but went out and bought a Claddagh ring. Lost the damn thing in a tussle with some bikers near Fresno. They’d been trying to take his finger but settled for the Irish wedding band. Dade hated Angels.
That one of them was riding low on his bike with Dade’s ring would be a slow and slower burn. When the shitstorm went down later, with the one named Fer, it was real personal for Dade.
In his mind, the Angels and Shane MacGowan were linked, it made little sense but rationale was never top of his agenda. He’s scoured magazines for references to MacGowan... adored a piece he read by Suggs of the group Madness.
“I remember seeing Shane a few years aback and he said... I can’t talk now, I’m doing an interview.”
Hours later, the interviewer staggered out, having been drowned in about nineteen bottles of wine, his bag hanging open and fuck all in his notebook. Dade would have given a lot to see the bold Shane in concert but The Pogue’s heyday was nigh done when Dade got out of the penitentiary. Still, he imagined what it would have been like to attend concerts such as the infamous one titled Hell’s Ditch Party.
That Dade would relinquish Shane, and others like Johnny Cash for Tammy Wynette was a remarkable about-face, even for a chameleon like him. A bottle of tequila and a botched attempt at housebreaking were the catalysts that brought Dade to his love of the blond singer.