Speedy's Big Moving Day
Michael Hansen

"That's him now," Joel said softly. Skip followed his brother-in-law's gaze to see a tall man just closing and locking the door to the downstairs apartment. As Skip watched, the man turned and trundled down the front walk toward them. His face reminded Skip of a mournful Doberman.
Joel took a hesitant step toward the man then paused, just outside kicking range. "'Scuse me, Speedy. You got a minute?"
Speedy stopped and rotated on the balls of his feet until he was facing them dead on. His hands dangled empty at his sides as he looked at them expectantly.
"Something?" Speedy didn't move.
"My brother-in-law here has a problem. I told him you can fix problems, sometimes."
"Sometimes. Depends."
"Yeah, well, I can't help him with this one, but maybe you two can make some arrangement. I'd owe you one. Skip, this is Speedy; Speedy, this is Skip." Joel turned to walk quickly up the sagging wooden porch steps and into his apartment. He didn't look back.
Skip was very aware of his relative youth and scrawniness as he looked up at the older man in front of him. Speedy stood as straight as a Marine drill instructor, and his wolfish face was utterly still as he watched Skip rub his hands on his pants legs.
Skip spoke first. "I have this problem, like Joel said. I been sharin' a house with some people over in Alameda, a couple of pot dealers. I mean, sure I partied with them, what's a few bong hits? Everybody does it, right?"
Speedy nodded. "Sure."
"Anyway, this gangbanger chick Darla moved in, and since then things been gettin' wilder and wilder. Like she just took over, you know? And she comes to me tonight, and she says they're tired of my raggedy ass, that some crack slingers from over here in Oakland will give them twice what I'm payin' for a place to deal from. So she kicks me out—and she kept all my stuff, too!"
Speedy had studied Skip's face owlishly as he listened. "What about your roommates? Did they back her up?"
"Yeah!" The anger he'd repressed up until now welled forth onto Skip's face. "And I thought they were my friends!"
"Why didn't you tell her to take a hike? Why'd you let her run you off like that?"
"She's packed, man. All her friends are packed, too. Me, I'm not into guns. I called the cops; all they did was give me a form to fill out. I came to Joel for help, but he ain't willin' either. He just pointed me at you, said you had a rep for gettin' things done."
Speedy shrugged, his gaze flicking over his shoulder reflexively as if to see if anyone was creeping up behind him. Nobody was that Skip could see. "Maybe I do. You got wheels?"
"Yeah. That's my truck over there." Skip looked down the block.
Speedy followed his gaze and looked at Skip's battered green pickup parked a little way off under the sulfurous glare of a streetlight. He nodded once more.
"How much money you got?" he asked then.
Skip licked his lips. "Uh, about five Cs."
"Okay. You keep three hun starting over money. Sleep on somebody's couch, I don't care. I get the other two hundred, half in advance for expenses. For that, you get your stuff back, and some payback."
Skip pursed his lips for a moment, then bobbed his head up and down. "It's worth it to me. Whaddayou got in mind?"
"Wait here," Speedy said, and went inside his place. He came out a few moments later, carrying a burlap-wrapped bundle. "Now we go for a ride." They got into the pickup and took off.
Speedy was living on San Pablo Avenue. They drove down it now, past the sullen glow of the trash fires, and the hookers who hooted and beckoned at them. In the near distance, the sewing machine chatter of an Uzi was answered by the business-like cough of a shotgun blast. Skip concentrated grimly on his driving—this was one neighborhood he didn't want to have a fender bender in.
At Speedy's direction, they turned down a side street with most of its streetlights shot out. As they drove past a rundown apartment building he said, "This is the place." Skip parked the truck and killed the engine. Speedy made no immediate move to get out. His eyes scanned the street ceaselessly, and when he spoke, his voice was quiet. "We're going to meet some people. Keep your mouth shut, and do exactly what I say. Got it?" Skip nodded.
They got out of the pickup, Speedy carrying the burlap bundle down by his leg. From a darkened doorway down the block came the harsh tinkle of a breaking bottle followed by several angry voices. Speedy glanced over, but didn't slow his pace. He continued toward the entrance to the apartment building, with Skip following close behind. The front door swung open freely, the latching mechanism smashed beyond repair. They continued through the lobby and up three flights of garbage-strewn stairs without incident. They stepped out into the third floor hallway and walked down the corridor, stopping in front of a gouged and scarred door, originally painted blue. There was fast, vicious music pumping loudly through it. Speedy rapped several times on the door—someone inside turned the music off abruptly. The door whipped open hard, and several skinheads with baseball bats filled the doorway like pitbulls crowding a dog run. "Speedy-man!" the largest one said with a feral grin. "And a new playmate!"
Speedy advanced on the skinz and they swung out of his way like gates. He stopped just inside the entrance and waved his client in after him. Skip stood right next to Speedy as the large skin closed the door behind them. The apartment was a den of skinheads and bootwomen, with at least a dozen standing and lounging around, smoking and drinking beer. There were holes punched in the walls, which were covered with graffiti, mainly three-legged swastikas and declarations such as "Bay Area Skinz Rule!" as well as various racist comments, most of them misspelled. Cigarette butts and broken glass littered the floor. A couple of skinz lay passed out on a stained mattress in the corner, almost buried in empty beer cans; from the look and the smell, one or more of their friends had urinated on them. On another mattress a naked couple was fucking. The guy was on top, and Skip watched his pale buttocks rising and falling as he hunched himself savagely into the girl below; Skip suddenly realized the girl was staring blankly up at him past her lover's burly shoulder, and he looked quickly away, reddening in embarrassment. Two shorthaired bootwomen sat at the only table whispering to each other and eyeing Skip & Speedy. Their eyes glittered, and their laughter was like broken glass. Skip felt every eye in the room was on him.
Seated on a ripped broken-down easy chair in the center of the room was a skinhead with a tattoo on his shaven skull, depicting a corpse-worm burrowing in and out of his head. He was naked to the waist, wearing red suspenders and covered with scars. A battered Louisville slugger leaned against his leg as he held court among his werewolves. "Speedy," he rasped, extending a beer to his visitor. "What can we do for you?"
Speedy threaded his way to the beer and cracked it open, swilling half of it down in a single guzzle.
"I need some backup, Buzz," he replied at last. "Two guys with bats should do it. Quick job, in and out, three-way split." He turned toward Skip. "Lay a hundred on the table for beer money." Skip complied, and the room relaxed almost visibly.
Buzz nodded. "I think for this that me and Fuck-up should suffice." He stood, stretched, picked up his bat, and called "Fuck-up!" over his shoulder.
A skin squatting on his hams in the back corner rocketed to his feet. He was an upright slab of beef, his neck and shoulders dwarfing his bald head. His eyes had all the expression of the buttons on a rag doll's face. "Fetch a bat," Buzz commanded. "We have business." Both men donned bomber jackets with hooded sweatshirts underneath.
Fuck-up picked a bat from the pile by the door, and the four men filed into the hall, trooping down the stairs and out the front door. Skip slid into the driver's seat. Speedy rode shotgun; Buzz and Fuck-up rode in the bed. Skip saw that they had their hoods up, covering their shaved skulls. As he pulled away from the curb, it occurred to him to wonder why a coven of racist skinz would choose to live in one of the blackest neighborhoods in Oakland. He shrugged the question away.
He drove his truck past the loitering armies of homeless in downtown Oakland, down the neon drenched length of Broadway into the Alameda Tube and underneath the Estuary, the engine sounds of the truck moaning back from the filthy tile tunnel walls as they passed beneath the countless tons of water above. Traffic was light. They emerged onto Webster and abruptly hit the main drag. Sailors from the nearby naval base mobbed the sidewalks, wandering between their watering holes: the bars and massage parlors, the pool halls and cheap hotels. Among them prowled the scavengers and predators that fed off them. As they waited at the stoplight at Lincoln, a young sailor on his hands and knees projectile vomited into the gutter as passersby jeered. His girlfriend for the evening looked on blankly, snapping her gum in indifference.
Skip turned left on Lincoln. After a few blocks, he turned left again, and drove down a side street into a residential neighborhood. The streetlights were fewer in this area, and there were large pools of darkness between them. He pulled over to the curb, engine running. "That's the place three houses down," he whispered unnecessarily, and pointed. Speedy looked, and saw Skip's erstwhile home: a house about the size of a postage stamp with a lowered red mini-truck parked in front.
"Park as close as you can," he ordered. Skip didn't respond for several seconds.
Fuck-up leaned around from the truck bed and glared into the open passenger's window. "Let's get a move on!" he griped hoarsely. "I want more beer!"
Skip took a shuddering breath and said, "All right." He pulled out from the curb and rolled slowly up to the house, parking directly in front of the mini-truck. The crew climbed quietly out of the pickup. Speedy was again carrying the bundle along his leg—Buzz and Fuck-up carried their bats behind their backs. The group moved up the front walk, stopping at the base of the porch steps. The porch light was off. Rap music was leaking out the door, the bass notes hitting with the impact of a muffled rubber hammer. It was loud, but not quite loud enough to warrant the neighbors calling the cops.
"All right," Speedy said. "Buzz, Fuck-up, you know the drill. I'll go in first, you two follow: fan out and back my play. We'll make the split after." Speedy turned to his client. "Skip, you'll shut the door behind us. Stay on the porch and wait for my call." Speedy looked at his client. Skip was staring fixedly at the house like a mouse hypnotized by a snake. "Skip," he hissed, and touched the man's arm. Skip jerked as if he'd been awakened from a dream he didn't want to remember.
"What?" he asked dully.
"Give me the key to the front door," Speedy demanded, and held out his hand palm up. Skip fumbled in his pocket, produced the key ring, and thrust the door key into Speedy's hand.
"Is the lock a knob, a dead bolt, or both?" Speedy asked him.
"Dead bolt."
"Good." He looked at Skip appraisingly. "Relax. You'll do fine." Speedy made a last quick appraising scan of the neighborhood. All the surrounding households were plugged into their nightly television fix—there was no traffic, no pedestrians. Just the night wind sighing through the trees in the front yards. He turned and led the way as the group crept silently up the steps onto the porch. Speedy stuck the door key between his front teeth and pulled the burlap sack off what was now revealed as a double-barreled sawed-off shotgun, clean as a whistle and glistening with gun oil. He handed the sack to Buzz. Speedy pulled back the hammers, cocking both barrels, and depressed the safety button. Holding the sawed-off in his right hand, he used his left to insert the key in the lock. He gently turned it until the bolt unlocked with a metallic thud that Skip was sure could be heard by everyone in the house, even over the music. Speedy removed the key, handing the ring to Skip. He grasped the knob, again with his left hand. Even gentler now, he turned it until it wouldn't turn anymore. "Show time," he said softly. Then he briskly pushed the door open, and took a long stride into the room.
"How do," he drawled. Through the open door, Skip saw all five heads in the pot smoke filled room whirled to face Speedy. They all had looks of what Skip interpreted as stupid surprise on their faces. From Speedy's right, Darla, green-eyed hellcat of a girl, came charging at him, and a hulk in a trench coat ahead of Speedy was fumbling for something under his arm. Speedy lunged forward and stuck his shotgun against the bridge of Trenchcoat's nose, hard enough to break the skin. The hand under the trench coat froze. Glancing to the side, Speedy kicked Darla's legs out from under her. She toppled over hard against the wall and slid down to crash on her side on the floor. Speedy's initial lunge had cleared the doorway enough for Buzz and Fuck-up to follow him in, bats brandished over their heads and skinheads gleaming. The marks froze as the two skinz spread out and threatened the group from both flanks. Neither man blocked Speedy's field of fire. Skip shut the front door from outside and leaned against it for a moment before turning to scan the rest of the sleepy block in frantic paranoia. His heart was pounding as he looked for any sign that the neighbors had noticed anything, but he didn't think anyone had. He didn't think anyone inside had seen him yet either, or even knew he was involved with this. He'd wanted to make them pay before, but now part of him wanted to just hop in his truck and split before any of his roommates saw his face. But he wanted his stuff, and he suddenly realized he'd do anything to get it back.
Through the door Skip heard muffled conversation he couldn't make out, then the sounds of a short, sharp commotion. The door opened to reveal Speedy standing in the opening. "C'mon in," he commanded, and Skip obeyed. The stereo continued thumping mindlessly as he reentered the house he'd had been evicted from earlier in the evening.
Everyone was there, and their eyes bored holes in him as he entered the room. Chris and Anthony, his pothead roommates, were gaping and goggling at him as they sat dazed on the sofa. Chris, a fat young man with a face like Herman Munster, yelped "I can't believe you did this!" His friend Anthony, a pale dark-haired ghost, only stared with his mouth hanging open.
Trenchcoat's eyes were watering, the tears overflowing onto his broad cheeks. Blood from his cut nose was now dripping steadily off the end of his chin as he sat holding his injured knee without saying a word.
Gangbanger Darla knelt on the floor, her red hair hanging over her face. Her shirt was ripped down the front, and she had her arms crossed, hands holding her top to keep her breasts from spilling out like frightened puppies. She was shivering, whether with rage or terror Skip couldn't tell. Still, he figured if her looks could kill, they'd all would have been greasy smears on the floor
There was a man sitting in the easy chair Skip didn't recognize: he was a weasel-faced shrimp in an Oakland Raiders starter jacket, and he radiated cool.
Buzz was going from person to person, frisking them quickly but thoroughly, sticking the loot in Speedy's burlap sack. Fuck-up hovered to one side, slapping his bat against his palm; he looked disappointed that nobody was making trouble.
Speedy handed Skip his keys. Skip said nothing to anyone, carefully avoiding any eye contact as he hurried down the hall leading to the back of the house. He turned on the light and stared down in dismay at the scattered heap of his previously boxed belongings. The cockroaches had already rifled through it, but he figured he didn't have time to see what was gone. He just wanted this over with. He quickly tossed the stuff on the floor into one container or another, picked up a precarious stack of box, and carried it to the front room.
Speedy held the sawed-off at his waist, left palm pressing down on the barrels. He wasn't aiming at anyone in particular, but he didn't have to: if he cut loose in these close quarters, he'd splash the marks all over the wall like broken balloons full of red paint.
Under Fuck-up's watchful eye and eagerly hovering bat, Buzz was still looting the room's occupants. Guns and rolls of bills and IDs (for future modification or sale) were going into the sack even as Skip walked across the room.
A low coffee table dominated the space between the sofas, with several half-empty forty-ouncers on it. The reeking water from a knocked-over bong dripped off the table onto the red shag carpet, and a large plastic bag bulging with what looked like high-grade sensemilla lay open in front of the Retros. A smaller bag filled with rock cocaine sat in front of Weasel-face. As Skip set down the stack of boxes by the front door, he saw Buzz scoop up both bags and eye them reverently before casually sticking them in his coat pocket.
"In the sack," Speedy said firmly. Buzz swiveled his head up to favor Speedy with a flat stare. Speedy stared right back, brows raised questioningly. "Everything goes in the sack," Speedy said, almost apologetically. Buzz abruptly turned away and dropped the plastic bags into the burlap sack with the rest of their plunder. Skip went back to his old bedroom to get the rest of his stuff.
Skip had finished moving his reclaimed belongings to the door, where it stood in a disordered tower of odds and ends. He stood next to his stuff, grinning nervously at his former persecutors.
Speedy's eyes were locked onto the roomful of marks, in targeting mode. "Time to split. Skip, take your stuff and wait in the truck. Make it one load," he said. Skip opened the door, picked up his things, and awkwardly staggered out with the stack teetering precariously over his head. Fuck-up threw up his hood, held his bat behind his back and followed him. Just as he went out the door, Skip saw Buzz looking at Speedy strangely for a moment. Then, the bag clutched tightly in his hand, the skin strode out the door to follow the others.
Skip tried to be careful as he deposited his stuff in the back of his truck, but he tower of boxes toppled over to spill across the bed. As he looked down in consternation, twin presences loomed up on either side of him, boxing him in: Buzz and Fuckup.
"We'll take the keys," Buss said, his hand outstretched. His other hand still clutched the sack of loot in a seemingly unbreakable grip. Neither of the skinz made any overtly threatening move, but they didn't have to ask twice. Skip's hands were shaking as he dug his keys out of his pants pocket. They were still shaking as he watched the two beefy skinheads climb into his truck and drive away, the ancient engine whining with effort. His shoulders slumped as he watched all his possessions disappearing into the night. Loose comic books and scraps of his personal paperwork swirled up from the truck bed in the back draft to drift into the gutter like trash
He looked up at the house to see Speedy standing in the open door watching the receding taillights of the pickup. Speedy looked even more mournful than usual.
Speedy whirled and disappeared inside. Skip heard him bark some orders, then Speedy ran down the steps to join him at the curb. Trenchcoat harsh chuckles leaked out the open doorway to follow him.
Speedy had somebody's keys dangling in his hand. "In the mini-truck!" he ordered, as he switched off the alarm and unlocked the driver's door. He slid in and opened the passenger door. Skip got in and started to speak, but Speedy brusquely gestured him to silence. His eyes snapped back and forth like they were on rubber bands.
"Where's the nearest place that sells beer?" he asked abruptly after a moment.
"Uh, the School Store, three blocks down," Skip muttered. He jerked his chin in the same direction the pickup had disappeared in. His face was red with embarrassment and he wouldn't look at Speedy at all.
"We'll swing by there first," Speedy said, his voice seeming to attempt a display of confidence. Skip wondered whose benefit the attempt was for. Speedy started the mini-truck and headed out, doing not one mile over the speed limit. As they departed Darla cautiously stuck her head out the front door and goggled after them, like a mollusk peeping from her burrow. Behind Darla in the house someone finally turned the music off.
Skip could see the neon sign of the market ahead of them, flickering fitfully. It was a mom-and-pop, the storefront flush with the sidewalk. Sure enough, his pickup was parked in front, bold as you please. There was no sign of Buzz and Fuck-up. Speedy pulled the mini-truck around the corner from the entrance and stopped.
"You wait here. When I honk the horn, leave the keys in the ignition and come running." Speedy got out under the too-revealing streetlights. He stuck the sawed-off down his waistband, flipped his Pendleton shirt over it, and walked around the corner, trying to look casual but walking as stiff-legged as he were a grenade about to go off.
It seemed like forever went by then, but it couldn't have been than a minute or two before Skip heard a short blast on what was recognizably the horn of his old pickup, and he ran around the corner as if propelled by a slingshot. He saw Speedy standing next to the open driver door of the truck holding the reclaimed burlap sack of booty. Then he saw Buzz and Fuck-up standing over by the store entrance, and stumbled a little. Neither one of them had their Louisville sluggers, but Skip could see the bat handles sticking out of his heap of possessions in the truck bed. Amazingly, Speedy seemed to have everything under control. The two skinz stood passively looking at nothing in particular as Skip hurriedly walked around the driver's side of the truck, staying well out of reach of Buzz & Fuckup as he did so - he wasn't about to tempt fate. As he eagerly climbed into the truck Speedy ambled back over to the skinz, who still hadn't moved.
"The marks' mini-truck is around the corner with the keys in it." Skip heard him say. "That's your cut from this job—that, the beer and the beer money Skip already gave you. Okay?" Both skinz visibly relaxed.
"Okay." Buzz said. Speedy backed away toward Skip's pickup, then opened the door and stuck his leg inside, preparing to enter. "Speedy!" Buzz called after him. Speedy froze and looked at him, tensing a little; he still held the sawed off ready.
Buzz stood carefully still, both his hands showing. "It was a big haul, and it was right there. You know how it is?"
Speedy nodded. "Sure. I know how it is." He finished climbing into the pickup and handed the keys across to Skip. "You can drop me off at my place." As they pulled out, Skip looked over his shoulder and watched the two skinheads putting the beer in the bed of their new mini-truck. Both of them were smiling.
Skip drove them back down squid-infested Webster Street, then under the waters of the Estuary, up Broadway through downtown Oakland, and along San Pablo Avenue to Speedy's front door. The two men sat silently at the curb in the truck for a few moments; each was engrossed in his own thoughts. Speedy finally turned to Skip.
"Was that enough payback for you?" he asked. Skip's mouth opened for a moment in surprise, and then he furrowed his brow. Finally, he nodded, his eyes shining. Speedy smiled, as briefly as a flashbulb in a darkened room. "Good," he said. "Then I'll have the rest of my fee now." He accepted the hundred dollars from his client, and put it in his pocket with the loot from the rip-off. Speedy reached into the sack and pulled out a four-barreled derringer, hefting it a few times in his hand. "You know, Darla and her friends may come looking for you." Speedy held the little pistol out to Skip, offering it to him.
Skip looked at the derringer for a long moment, then shook his head vigorously. "Naw, man. I told you I'm not into guns." Still, he felt a growing fascination with the power this little piece of metal represented. People will do what you say, a voice whispered as his hands began to creep toward it as if against his will.
But he'd waited too long. Speedy shrugged and put the derringer back in the sack. "Suit yourself." Skip watched as Speedy climbed out of the pickup with his sack of booty and stuck the sawed-off down his waistband. Speedy unlocked all the dead bolts on his front door and disappeared inside, shutting the door behind him. Then Skip started the truck and drove off to find somewhere else to live, somewhere not in Alameda.

Michael Hansen tells us, "I'm a Bay Area boy, grew up around Oakland, came of age down in Hollywood & Compton, and have traveled widely since. Once fortune teller in a
whorehouse, I've bounced, drove cab, and been a competition kick boxer. I've owned
many guns in my life, but I currently own none -- I think I'm tired of them."