By The Fire In Little Aleppo

A columnist from the Cenotaph once described Little Aleppians as “carbon-based random opinion generators” and she had her finger on the pulse on the community. Locals tended to believe in the official story (Oswald killed Kennedy), the official unofficial story (the CIA did it), the alternate official unofficial story (the Mafia did it), the predictable unofficial unofficial story (the Illuminati did it), the unpredictable unofficial unofficial story (two opposing sides of a holographic universe collided at the exact spacetime point that was JFK’s skull), and the batshit crazy story (invisible draculas) in equal measures and also depending on who was asking. Agreed-upon reality was argued over in Little Aleppo, at least until something blew up.

Something blew up.

Dampin’s Pianos had been on Aloferra Street for going on 50 years; the showroom was the size of two basketball courts, and its windows took up half the block and advertised sales on Bösendorfers and Bechsteins and Beisners. Most were black, and a few were brown, and none were white because white pianos are for assholes. That’s what Mercy Dampin thought, at least, and she owned the place so she must have been right. Grands, too. There were a few Babys over in the corner by the bathrooms, but mostly it was the imperious Grand in all her slightly-different-but-always-massive variant: Classic, Full, Recital, and the queen herself, the Concert Grand. (Pianos were female, Mercy thought. It was obvious. Look at them.) Other instruments often have gargantuan subspecies, but most are novelty creations useful on few occasions, and all except the upright bass is ridiculous-looking. The baritone sax is among the least dignified of all horns, and no one wants to hump the contrabassoonist. Only the mighty piano becomes glorious with size.

Along the intrastellar lanes that whiz and gee high above and slightly to the west of Little Aleppo and every other neighborhood in the galaxy, alien races often apply the Grand Piano Cutoff to civilizations they encounter. “Have they whipped up a grand piano yet?” That was the whole test. Had to think up a culture’s worth of bric-a-brac beforehand to build a piano. Needed to invent math, and have an Industrial Revolution, and figure out how to kill elephants. The piano is an unaccidental object, and the alien races who zip and zop along the interstellar lanes apply the Grand Piano Cutoff: it is forbidden to vacation on any planet that has invented the instrument.

Mercy Dampin did not know about the GPC, and did not believe in spacemen of any sort, but she would have agreed with their choice of benchmark. Something about the curves, maybe the shine, maybe that she did her homework lying under one as her father, Forthright Dampin, played and waited for customers. Bach and Beethoven and all that mustiness, and jazz, too, and just whatever came into his head or fingers at the time. Mercy took lessons, practiced, never came to her. She could play–put the music in front of her and she could perform it–but not musically. Forthright died when Mercy was at Harper College, and she took over the shop.

She let the local players swing by. It was quiet in between customers, and there is a great deal of “in between customers” at a piano showroom. Freddy from Senegal would thank her for letting him “get rambunctious for a moment,” and Plums Jenner teased forgotten chords out of the keys until he started crying and left; Mercy finally had to 86 Smiles Davis for his recidivistic smuggling of one or more cats into the store. Annabelle Monk came in a lot. She was Mercy’s favorite. She smelled the best, for one, and had not once nodded off in the bathrooms back where the soundproofed cubicles with uprights in them waited for school to let out. Dampin’s had since its opening seen moderately-priced piano lessons from moderately-talented piano teachers as its most lucrative stream of revenue, which is why Alan Delon, who was 12, and Laila Ma, who was a sophomore at Harper College, died in the explosion along with Mercy.

All the sound there could ever be, and then none. There were pedestrians on Aloferra, but not right in front of the shop and so there were no deaths on the sidewalk, but a couple on their first date had their ear drums blown out and so did a man walking his dog, a terrier, that sprinted away after the blast. The Toyota parked outside had shattered windows and the heat had bubbled the blue paint off the doors. The man did not notice the terrier’s flight, then he did. “LUCY!” he yelled, and then dug around in his ears with both fingers, and yelled again. “LUCY!” The dust and smoke hit the daters, and they were gray and she threw up on him, and he ran like the terrier, and she threw up again. The globe had been blown off the lamppost, and the bulb was hanging and then fell a dozen feet to the ground.

And then the sirens wailed. Atop the Fords in red-and-blue bubbles that the cops of the LAPD (No, Not That One) scorned as out-of-date but the Brass wouldn’t replace, and in thick red bars crowning three-axled trucks bristling with jacks and prybars and ladders. Grand pianos burn for longer than you’d expect even under direct hosing, and the strings melt and break and PING WHANG themselves free from their moorings. After a few of the firemen got their coats sliced open, the chief pulled them and watered down the building until it put itself out. The cops kept the crowds, which had begun to gather, from approaching the scene or stealing a firetruck. The paramedics tended to the deafened couple and the dogwalker. The reporters showed up. Print first. The Cenotaph‘s offices were closer than KSOS’ studio, plus the bomb went off during the 5 o’clock news so all of the cameras were being used.

“Hey, Chief. Chief,” Iffy Bould called out from behind a round cop. “Honey, lemme through.”

The round cop was Officer Honey. He was the most spherical man anyone had ever seen; the Abstract Mathematicians at Harper had proven that you could derive Pi from him.

“Chief said he didn’t wanna talk to you.”

“Which chief?”

“What?”

“There’s two chiefs on the other side of you. Police Chief and Fire Chief. Which one said he didn’t wanna talk to me?”

Officer Honey had big round thoughts; he sensed a trick, but could not pin it down. Honey wanted to take his nightstick to him, but Iffy was a journalist, so he could not be struck in the head with a baton, at least not without much more distraction present. Were he poor, or a minority, Honey could get away with what was locally referred to as a Little Aleppo Knighting, but it was 198- and you weren’t allowed to beat up reporters in public anymore. This was a serious to blow to Honey, as it was his customary opening move when dealing with the public.

A thought occurred, bounced around, lost momentum, left a smeary husk. A gotcha thought. A plug for that big fucking mouth of Iffy’s. It was:

“Which one did you want to talk to?”

“The one who didn’t say he doesn’t wanna talk to me.”

The plug was chewed up, spat back. Honey now contemplated his customary second move: sneaking off. The only bad thing about being a cop, Honey had decided very quickly upon receiving his badge, was the work. He liked the uniform, and he liked hitting people and telling them what to do, and he liked the free food. Oh, and parking wherever he wanted. Sometimes Honey parked in his neighbor’s driveway because fuck him, that’s why. Great perks being a cop. But the actual copping part of being a cop was not for Officer Honey, and so he had mastered the art of being somewhere other than a crime scene.

“Which one didn’t say that?”

“I got no idea what people aren’t saying, Honey. You can’t quote a negative.”

After fighting and flighting, Honey was all out of ideas. He had been with the force for over ten years, and had never needed anything beyond violence and absence, so he decided to start again and hope for a different result, or the piano store to explode and kill him.

“Chief said he doesn’t wanna talk to you.”

“Me specifically?”

“Maybe.”

“Did he mention my name?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Do you remember whether or not he said my name?”

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.”

“You don’t.”

“Chief said–”

“HONEY, LET HIM OVER, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!”

That was Chief Somme–Frenchy to his friends–the police chief. He was standing by the hood of his car around eight feet away, within the protective cordon of bright-yellow sawhorses that cut off Alaferro Street on both sides and contained the blaze and the firetrucks and two cop cars. Except for keeping the crowd back, there was little for the police to do until the flames died out. The chief was staring into the fire pondering the immense load of shit that had just been dumped in his lap. He was trying to, more rightly, but Officer Honey’s voice had wrapped around his brainstem like ivy climbing a pole, but instead of chlorophyll, the ivy was powered by dumbfuck. Chief Somme could picture it, was enveloped in the vision, the curling tendrils reaching towards his mind and infecting all they touch, turning sunlight into sweet stupidity. He swayed a bit, caught himself.

Officer Honey pulled the sawhorse back, and Iffy slid through. Lolly Tangiers followed; Honey closed the barrier on her waist.

“Ow,” Lolly protested. “Really?”

“She’s with me,” Iffy said.

“Chief told me to let you over. That’s it.”

“She’s part of my equipment.”

“Hey,” Lolly protested again.

“Equipment is a step up from where you were a couple weeks ago,” Iffy said to her. “I worked for the Cenotaph for two years before I was technically equipment. There’s kids out there that would kill to be equipment.”

While she was sure that statement was not specifically correct, Lolly did appreciate the truth in it. She had started as a Copyboy, which is the journalistic equivalent of one of those novice monks always getting whamped with bamboo sticks. Plus, she had to make the lunch run, and there is no less thankful job in all the indoor-employment world. It is the Kobayashi Maru of the office world, in that the lunch run can never be perfectly completed and is therefore more a test of character than a simple errand. The deli will always be out of beef stroganoff, or you would buy the weird, expensive mango-carrot-blackberry juice instead of the weird, expensive mango-carrot-boysenberry juice for Barry Cho and he’d break into tears. One time Lolly had been sent on the lunch run and forgot the list back in the office. She had gone around the bullpen with her notebook, carefully recording each order, and then–she guessed and verified later–set the notebook down while putting on her jacket and not picked it up. She couldn’t go back up. The male reporters would make fun of her. She didn’t feel it was sexist, as the male reporters had the previous week tormented a Copyboy into quitting by sending him out for fictitious foods such as  face cheese, Baked Alabama, and gluten-free seitan in the shape of a robust panther. She couldn’t go back upstairs.

So, Lolly took the cash and went to Cagliostro’s for pizzas; it was only a couple blocks and the pies were still hot when she got back, so the smell hit the reporters before they could get mad and no one complained, except for Barry Cho, who broke into tears. She only had to get Iffy’s lunch now, and he got a tuna sandwich from the deli on the corner pretty much everyday, and always gave her enough money (unlike half the cheap bastards in the bullpen) and a couple times he bought her lunch, too. It was easy lifting as far as paying dues went. Herbert “Hurl” Lowry was the Cenotaph‘s star columnist. He wrote square-cut sentences about the average Little Aleppian on Tuesdays and Fridays, and physically berated his cub reporter the other days. Hurl did so, and fequently. It was how he had received the nickname. Iffy had so far not winged anything at her skull. He had tossed her some things–car keys, a banana–but that doesn’t count. He had also so far not hit on her, not even a little bit, not even when he was drunk. She had drawn aces as far as the mentor thing went, she figured, so if her lot was to be called “equipment,” then so be it.

“Let me in,” Lolly said. “The man can’t do his job without me.”

“You heard the equipment,” Iffy agreed.

“I’m press!”

Iffy drew his pack of Kools from his pocket, offered it to Lolly, Honey, both refused.

“The equipment is press equipment,” he said

“Chief Somme only said for you,” Honey stuck to his talking point.

“She’s like my shoes. Can I wear my shoes over to talk to the chief? Think of her as my shoes.”

“Is she equipment or shoes?”

“Shoes are equipment. They absolutely fit within the category.”

“Then why are they two different words?”

“Did you really just ask me that?”

“Can’t answer, huh?”

“HONEY, YOU CRETIN, LET ‘EM IN!”

That was Chief Somme again. He often thought of murdering Officer Honey, just straight-up shooting him in the face during roll call one morning. Or running him over six or seven times: forward, reverse, forward again. He had tried sending Honey out on dangerous missions, but the muffin-headed fuck was incapable of getting killed. He got lost on the way to active gunfire incidents, and ran out of gas on the way to hostage situations. Plus, he was too recognizable to send undercover. (Chief Somme had tried sending Honey to infiltrate the Gabacho Brothers’ organization, but they just got him drunk and sent him home and had their lawyer file a complaint in court.) The chief thought about staging a break-in at Harper Zoo, dispatching Honey, then pushing him into the lion’s enclosure. On the other hand, the chief thought, why should the lion get the pleasure of killing the fat little fungus? One shot, no one would blame me.

The worst part was that Chief Somme had no one to blame, not for sure. The position of Chief of the LAPD (No, Not That One) had only recently fully professionalized. Until the mid-70’s, the position–had been filled by representatives of whatever criminal faction was in charge. It was much like being a medieval Pope. To further the analogy, there were on two occasions in the late 50’s more than one Police Chief “appointed” at the same time. The Cenotaph made tons of jokes about schisms and Avignon, but nobody got them. 1963 was the Year of Four Chiefs . Marleybone, Tannoy, Finnegan, and Beginagain. All the paperwork was fucked up from that year. One of them must have hired Honey. He had checked the files, but there was no definitive answer. Honey just arrived, full-formed and round and shitheaded. Was he immortal? Was he even human?

“Chief Somme,” Iffy said. He had lit his Kool along the short way, and it dangled from his lip as he flipped open his leather notebook.

“Bould.”

“How many dead?”

“I got no idea. At least one.”

“What happened?”

“Building exploded.”

“Someone blew it up.”

“Gotta wait for the forensics team to say that.”

“A masked figure hacked into the evening news earlier tonight and said this…”

Iffy flipped through his notebook, Lolly handed him hers, he read from the opened page:

“Good evening, Little Aleppo. My name is not important. What is important is that the man calling himself the Downsider reveal his identity and take nude photographs of himself. If my demands are not met, things are going to start blowing up. This is the part where I show you I’m serious.”

And handed her notebook back.

“Shouldn’t we take this threat at face value?”

“How can we take someone who won’t show their face at face value? Checkmate, dingus.”

“I don’t call you names, Chief.”

“Off the record?”

“Sure. Off the record.”

“I just saw the fucking teevee thing just like you did. That was ten minutes ago, I got here five minutes ago, and now it’s now. I got no idea what’s going on. No one does. It insults both of our intelligences that you thought I would.”

“Don’t blame me: you give off an air of authority and competence.”

“I’ll know what I know when I know it. Which will be sooner rather than later, but right now I don’t know dick about fuck. As clueless as you, and that’s saying something. Let’s go back on the record.”

“Sure.”

“As you can see, our response was almost immediate. Within minutes. My officers formed a cordon around the area to give Little Aleppo’s brave firemen the proper space to do their jobs. They have not completed their search of the building, but we have one dead so far. We are working right now to identify the victim and notify the family. Off the record again.”

“Okay.”

Chief Somme pointed at the young woman in the brownish sport coat that she had chosen specifically for its shapelessness. Iffy had approved: it was one of the most boring garments he had ever seen. Reporters don’t put themselves in their stories, he had lectured her, and that begins with the wardrobe.

“Who is this person?”

“Lolly Tangiers,” she said, and extended her hand; Chief Somme shook it.

“Tangiers?”

“Tangiers.”

“Like the fruit?”

“Like the city.”

“I don’t give a shit. Back on the record.”

“Okay,” Lolly answered.

“She doesn’t get to say when I’m on and off the record,” he said to Iffy. “I don’t know her. That’s your job.”

“She has my proxy,” Iffy said.

“She can’t have your proxy. You’re present.”

“Let’s go back on the record.”

“The Little Aleppo Police Department will work tirelessly to ascertain the facts behind this incident. We will pursue every lead, and in fact we’re working on several leads right now. If there is a connection between the broadcast and the explosion, it will be fully explored and the perpetrator brought to justice.”

“You have leads?”

“Several. Like I said.”

“Can you tell me about them?”

“Of course not.”

“How do you have them? The bomb just went off. Was there a warning from somewhere? Did you keep this information from the public?”

“Off the record. Don’t be an asshole, Bould. I have no fucking leads.”

“That’s not how the record works. I have to say we’re off it.”

“I declared it.”

“No. It’s not a declaration thing. It’s the thing where the two guys are launching the nuke and they both have to turn their keys at the same time. You can’t just call it.”

“The girl nodded her head when I said ‘off the record.’ I saw it.”

“She’s a young woman,” Iffy replied.

“My name would be great thing for you fellows to call me,” she said.

“Quiet, equipment. Chief, would you like to amend your statement about working on leads?”

“What I meant to say was that we are working on developing leads. And remaining open to all possibilities.”

“Such as?”

“Commies.”

“You think the Russians did this?”

“Wouldn’t put it past ’em. Fuckers don’t fight fair.”

Chief Somme had a brick-sized walkie-talkie on his belt, which squawked three times and a deep voice came out.

“Chief?”

He took it to his mouth, clicked the talk button.

“Chief Somme here.”

“This is Aron. Me and Relleno are over at the teevee studios, Chief. No one weird’s been in or out today. No new hires. The guy who owns the place, Loomis? He says it was Communists.”

The walkie-talkie dropped to the chief’s waist, and he pointed at Iffy with the other hand and said,

“I told you it was Commies.”

“I really don’t think it was them, Chief.”

Back on the walkie:

“Question everybody hard. And check every inch of the building. And then go check the antenna.”

To Iffy:

“The teevee comes from the antenna, right?”

“The one on Mount Lincoln?

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

The walkie:

“Go check the antenna.”

“The one on Mount Lincoln?”

“The giant fucking antenna on the top of the mountain that can be seen at all times from everywhere in the fucking neighborhood, yes. The antenna. Go up there and check it out.”

“For what?”

“For irregularities. Be a fucking detective.”

“Hey, Relleno! You know anything about antennas?”

There was a crackle.

“No, Chief, he doesn’t know anything about antennas, either.”

“Aron, get the fuck up there.”

“Chief, it’s getting dark.”

“And take pictures of the scene so I can look at ’em when you get back. Over.”

The walkie back on the belt, but it squawked again.

“Whaaat?”

“Chief, you around a teevee?”

“I’m at the fire, dipshit.”

“Yeah, sure, okay. So, uh, Loomis? The owner? He’s on camera now and ranting about Communists infiltrators in the neighborhood. He’s gonna get everyone all riled up.”

Paul Loomis owned Little Aleppo’s teevee station, KSOS, and he was a Commie-fighting man. He was a business-owner. He was an entrepreneur. He had a massive head, and had to his knowledge never been wrong. That watch he’s wearing? Same one the astronauts wear.

“Aron, what are you saying?”

“Should we stop him?”

“Is he threatening anyone by name?”

“No.”

“But you want to stop him?”

“He’s really going wackadoodle, Chief.”

“Detective. Son. What you’re describing is a coup.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Still. Let’s not do that, okay?”

“Off the table, Chief.”

“Do the interviews and get the fuck up that hill. Over.”

Chief Somme replaced the walkie on his belt and said to Iffy,

“All of that was off the record.”

“The junta attempt? Sure.”

Crowds growing on either side of the trucks and cars and men and fire. Not the usual boisterous tumult, and the food carts stay a respectful distance back. No one even heckled the cops, and Little Aleppians had been known to heckle cops during religious services. Folks in the neighborhood were not virgins to explosions. Criminals blew each other up all the time. The Gabacho Brothers simply adored sending bombs to people, but the recipients always deserved their fates. This was different. This was not that.

Beer-Cooler Ethel still sold tallboys of Arrow, though. Iffy bought two, slipped one in his coat pocket, popped the top PSHT and slurped the foam from the lip. He was walking south, back to Pryor Street, back to the Braunce Building, walking quickly. Back to the typewriters and presses and deadlines. The Cenotaph‘s readers needed to be told what had happened, and it didn’t matter that the Cenotaph‘s writers had no idea themselves. The paper’s gonna thump onto doorsteps 12 hours from now, Iffy figured. Might as well not be blank.

Lolly caught up with him, matched speed, and said,

“I interviewed the Fire Chief.”

“He tell you to fuck off?”

“Tell is underselling it. He demanded I fuck off.”

“Yeah. He’s working. There’s a building on fire.”

Iffy handed her the tallboy. It was white with “Arrow” in red script letters; the cross-bar of the “A” is an arrow pointed towards a bullseye that replaces the “O.” Over the years, there had been dozens of varieties from the local brewery. Arrow Air was the low-calorie offering (it was half-water). Arrow Paprika sold phenomenally in the Hungarian diaspora, but that was only a handful of guys named László. There was also Crossbow, which was the company’s attempt at entering the “alcoholic beverages you can’t get in a bar, only a liquor store and not a nice liquor store, one with bulletproof glass in between you and the cashier” market. On paper, Crossbow was a malt liquor, but in the can or 40-ounce bottle, it was plain old Arrow with two or three shots of pure grain alcohol poured in. Introduced at a price point intended to lure customers away from their customary tipple (addicts are brand-loyal), Crossbow was an immediate success with the cirrhotic and belligerent. The Town Fathers made it illegal within weeks, their argument being that “the only people drinking this shit are the exact people who shouldn’t be drinking this shit.”

Beer-Color Ethel sold plain old Arrow. PSSHT Lolly raised her can up towards Iffy. He clunked it with his, and she took a sip.

“You gotta drink that down. Finish it before we get back to the office.”

“A lot of guys drink at the office,” she said.

“Yeah, they’re degenerates. Y’gotta at least keep up appearances.”

He lit a Kool.

“Paper went to bed at 4:30, though,” she said. “It was already printing when the explosion happened.”

“Yeah.”

“Are they gonna stop the presses?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Do you think they’ve already done it or do we get to do it?”

“Do it? Do what, dramatically burst into the room and yell ‘Stop the presses?'”

“Yeah, that.”

“It’s so much more mundane than that,” Iffy said. “Goose tells one of the union guys to turn a key.”

“It’s not a big red button under a plexiglass shield that flips up?”

“Nah. Guy named Eddie turning a key.”

“Is it an impressive-looking key?”

“Regular key.”

The smell of fried piano was still in the air, and both slugged from their tallboys. In the morning, the Cenotaph would name the dead, Mercy Dampin and Alan Delon and Laila Ma, and note their ages and home addresses. A black-and-white photograph of the fire held purchase above the fold, and within the newspaper were various conjectures, and residents snapped it up. A second printing, even. Something about the story just hooked the readers, and there were plenty of them in Little Aleppo, which is a neighborhood in America.