THE UNDERBELLY

"Who you supposed to be, old school?" Savoirfaire taunted, flexing his shoulders and shifting his weight onto his back foot. "Captain America don't live here no more."

"I'm telling you it's through," Magrady repeated calmly, eyes moving from the man's hands to his face, locking onto the faux-designer shades the discount desperado wore. "You and Floyd are done."

"You his father, older brother, somethin' like that?"

"You're missing the point, Flavor Flav," Magrady said. "My message is what you should be focusing on. Floyd Chambers is no longer on your loan list. No more vig off his SSI checks."

The two men stood on Wall, smack in the womb of L.A.'s Skid Row. Unlike the street's more notorious incarnation in Manhattan, the West Coast version didn't boast of edifices as testament to giddy capitalism. The bailout around here was of the cheap whiskey and crack rock variety, the meltdown a daily occurrence.

"Oh, uh-huh." The bottom-feeder nodded his head. "You lookin' to take over some of my territory, that it? Don't seem to me like you got enough weight between your legs to be doin' that, nephew. Don't appear to me you got enough left to run this block."

Several homeless people had stopped to watch the show. Both men were about the same height, roughly the same build. But where Magrady's face was lined and his whiskers grey, Savoirfaire's decades-younger features were untroubled and unblemished — the mask of the uncaring sociopath.

"We're done," Magrady said, beginning to step back and away from where the other man stood outside the open door of his Cadillac Escalade. A vehicle with twenty-two-inch gold spinners for rims. Incongruously, Sam Cooke played softly on the vehicle's sound system.

The thug was butter-smooth in whipping out his pruning knife. The blade was vectoring toward Magrady's neck by the time the Vietnam vet reacted, forearm up. The sharp crescent sunk into his sleeved arm.

"What you got to say now, negro?" Savoirfaire gritted his teeth, expecting to easily pull his weapon free while ripping flesh and sinew. But, having been forewarned by Chambers, Magrady had wrapped several layers of cardboard around his arms under his oversized flannel shirt. The knife was stuck.

As Savoirfaire tugged the blade loose, Magrady drove the heel of his work boot into the hoodlum's knee, eliciting a decisive crack. The asshole teetered and Magrady landed a straight left to his jaw. He plopped down heavily on the contoured seat of his ostentatious 'Lade, his sunglasses askew. Magrady swiftly slammed the door three times on Savoirfaire's shins, causing him to drop his knife.

Over the yelping, Magrady repeated, "It's done." He then sliced the hook knife into one of the Escalade's expensive sport tires. Magrady walked quickly away as it hissed flat and Savoirfaire screamed profanities but didn't come after the older man. There seemed to be a collective disappointment that eddied through the small crowd. The dustup over, the aimless now had to return to the crushing dreariness of surviving.

Making sure to move through the back routes, Magrady eventually made his way west on 6th Street. He hadn't been stupid enough to expect a rational discussion with the punk, yet had hoped it wouldn't come to violence. But really, why else had Chambers come to him seeking his help? He passed one of the specialty lunch trucks that were the fad these days in trendy areas. This one was called Goro-Ga and featured Korean-style bar-be-que beef tacos and chili dogs made from smoked andouille sausages, and those of other meats including rattlesnake. The truck would twitter when it was coming to a specific location. The aroma surrounding the mobile eatery was intoxicating but the line was too long, so Magrady pushed past. His friend was in the offices of Urban Advocacy near Union at 8th as had been arranged.

"How'd it go?" Floyd Chambers asked cheerily. His strong arms propelled him forward in his ergonomically designed wheelchair with its slanted-in wheels. A residual smell of some pungent marijuana was evident on the disabled man's clothes. Mr. Chambers did enjoy his weed.

"Just peachy."

"Great," Chambers bubbled.

"Cut it out," Janis Bonilla chided. Urban Advocacy's lead community organizer was twenty-eight, medium height, and honey-skinned, with several tats and piercings.

Magrady put his hands up. "It went like it went. You just stay off the Nickel for a few days and that chump's radar and everything's gravy, dig?"

"Don't worry about that," Chambers said. "If things work out like it's lining up, I'm on the ones and twos, homey." He popped a wheelie and spun in a tight circle on the coffee-stained carpet.

Magrady and Bonilla exchanged wan smiles. A month didn't go by when Chambers didn't hint at this or that scheme that was going to earn dividends.

Bonilla's cell chimed "Sambita" by the band Kinky. She answered. "Gotta bounce," she said after a quick back and forth over the phone. "We've got a big turnout happening in City Hall over the Emerald Shoals bullshit. Goddamn gala is in less than two weeks."

"The war goes on," Magrady said dryly.

"The offer's still good, champ," Bonilla said, packing files into her messenger bag. She'd asked him recently to consider being an organizer with UA. He'd been sober this time for eight months going.

"I'll sleep on it."

"Sure you will." To Chambers she added, "See you, Floyd."

"You tellin' it," Chambers replied enthusiastically. The three went their separate ways.

* * *

Past one a.m. in the flop he'd scored in his army buddy, Red Spencer's garage for the last few weeks, Magrady awoke with the night sweats, his heart thrumming in his ears. He reached for a bottle of whiskey that wasn't there. The jungle had gone hot and yellow in his head again. Booze. Coke. The meds. The group sessions off and on at various VA facilities. All of it had helped and hindered, but none of it stopped the gnawing from returning. He lay on his back on the couch unable to sleep. He clicked on the portable clock-radio nearby and listened to Art Laboe's oldies show.

He once again read through the homemade comic book on stapled and folded lined paper his son Luke had written and drawn when he was ten. It was the tale of Lionhead Mose, a black jet pilot ace who crash-landed in the African jungle, found the secret Ruby Eye stone, and gained super powers. He fought several villains in the thirty-page epic, aided by his sidekick Roy Boy. Magrady, who hadn't seen the comic book in decades, was surprised to find it in the box of stuff he was storing in the garage.

After enjoying the titanic climactic battle Lionhead has atop the Mountain of the Moon against Cobra Fang, he closed his eyes and tried to drift away, suspended between his nightmares and songs by the likes of Thee Midniters and Bloodstone on the radio. An imitation of sleep finally returned as William DeVaughn sang "Just Be Thankful for What You Got."

"I'd be thankful if I had any shit," Magrady mumbled as calmness descended on him and his mind went blank.

Two days later, a black and white jumped the curb in front of Magrady, and the uniform on the...