Little Five Confidential

[jack_babalon]

The old man was found in Goldsboro Park. He was laying flat on his face in the grass, butt naked and dead. Some grade school punk rocker and his friends discovered the body over by the sewer line that ran between the parks tennis courts and the row of apartments running right off Euclid Ave. That was roughly two hours ago. By the time the cops showed up there was already a sizeable crowd checking out the crime scene. Little old ladies stood shoulder to shoulder with junked out gutter punks, craning their necks to get a glimpse of the old man. Skins & yuppys traded quizical glances with each other, while stoic Rastas confered amongst themselves. Squad cars kept arriving. Questions traveled through the gathering mob:
"Who was he?"
"Why is he naked?"
"What the fucks going on here anyway?"
And standing there with front row tickets to the police tape boundary are Rockabilly Nick & I, smoking cigarettes and cracking jokes. Nick's a big pulp novel fan, an encyclopedia of Elmore Leonard, James Ellroy and Raymond Chandler. Right now he's explaining to me the nuances of what the cops are doing, what they're looking for and what they'll do next. It's like having my own private CSI agent provide commentary to the DVD movie of my life.
A half hour ago and I got home from work only to see the law amassing across the street at the park. I knew Nick lived on the other side of Goldsboro so I quickly rang him. He answered after the twelve ring; hung over, waking up & pissed off.
"What?" he barks
"And a good morning to you too, sweet cheeks. Look out yer window man..."
"Why?"
"Cops"
"Hang on"
He sets the cradle down and I can hear a wrestling match off the tube, muffled in the background. Then I could hear him mutter a 'holy shit' before he picks the phone back up.
"What's going on?"
"You tell me? Are they raiding Stopper's?" Stopper is the drummer for the Pillz a local punk band and also a good friend of mine. He lived next door to Nick at the time, and often had quite an array of characters dropping by his pad to crash, to party or to lay low from the law.
"Nah, theres something goin' on in the park...."
We both go silent with thought and then at the same time we ask:
"Hey wanna go check it out?"

The sun is setting and one of Atlanta's finest has finally laid a blanket over Grandpa Death's bare ass. We got a power couple behind us, bitching about property rates with thier cellphone voices booming over the murmur of the crowd. You know the type. They move out of the sticks into the city, trying to get some culture and then proceed to do their best to cover every inch within a square mile of their townhome into a stripmall.
Right the guy is telling his woman how he's gonna have a talk with his real estate agent. Nick & I exchange knowing looks.
"Jesus man" I say loudly "It looks like the Dixie Mafia are back in town"
"Oh yeah" Nick says playing along "Stripped & strangled. Definetly they're calling card"
"Looks like the truce is over"
"Probably. The F.O.L.K.S.' won't like this"
"F.O.L.K.S'?" I ask innocently knowing the answer
"Yeah, Fellowship Of our Lord King Satan"
"Wouldn't that be F.O.O.L.K.S then?"
"Yeah. But F.O.O.L.K.S sounds gay"
"Definetly. Hey aren't they that gang that attacked that police station recently" I say referencing John Carpenters Assault on Precinct 13
"One and the same" Nick says, barely able to keep from laughing. At this point we both whistle with worry simoultaneously and sneak a peek at the SUV power couple behind us. The woman has gone pale and the guy has his mouth wide open like the slack jawed yokel he is. Typical. You can put a hick in a Izod shirt, a pair of 100 dollar sandals and give him a cellphone that takes digital pictures, but he's still a hick rube mouth breathing the moment he hears something out of the ordinary. SUV couple quickly disappear out of the crowd and Nick & I allow ourselves a quick giggle. Meanwhile the crowd has grown sizably. What is that about people that they need to witness tragedy. Even Nick & I know that we're held there by the gravity of some morbid fascination. Maybe it's a primal instinct, back when we painted the cave walls with myths & huddled around the campfire against the gathering dark. An instinct that says "Hey one of us monkey men just dropped dead, what's up with that?". Of course maybe there was nothing on TV that night. We both zip up our jackets against the wind, plain clothes are on the scene now. A news van has pulled up across the street. No reporter has shown up yet, and its like Groundhogs Day. If a reporter steps outside and does a story on it, then you know we're dealing with a murder. If no one shows up and the van drives off, then we know we're dealing with a run of the mill 'Old guy dies naked in a park' story. Meantime this is a great way to meet the neighbors. Hit on local Emory girls. See old friends who have stopped by from the Star Bar up the road. Nick and I pass a flask back and forth. It's a party all of a sudden, or would a wake be more aprapo. Finally Nick kills the mood by announcing loudly:
"Y'know they say the murdered always returns to the crime scene!"
Everyone goes dead quiet. One of the plainclothes looks up at us...us? At me and my skinhead looking shaved head! We all just stand there looking down and Nick is beaming at the effect at this little pronouncement. Nodding as if to say 'That's right. I went there. And I got a good look at each and everyone of you motherfuckers - so don't think I don't know that someone here knows whats really going on". I have to say though, that's one of the things I love about Nick. I can push an envelope at times, but Nick folds it up, makes a paper airplane out of it, lights it on fire and launches it out a window into traffic. The crowd breaks up, everybody feeling guilty or sure that the person next to them should. I go home to a frozen dinner,WREK Atlanta,Magick without Tears and a good night wank. Wondering still to this day how the old guy ended up dead, naked and face first in Goldsboro Park.