God Forgives; The Rest of Us Hold Grudges

If I had known what I didn’t know then five would get you ten I more than likely would have still taken the case. Must you ask? I guess I have to tell you. My day started like any other day. Woke up, got out of bed, took a pill for this, and a pill for that before finishing off what was left of that nacho supreme platter. It didn’t matter that the crisp chips had turned soggy overnight, I was hungry and that’s all that mattered. 

After breakfast and gussying up, I grabbed a cup of coffee and a doughnut at the Amy-Joy doughnut place on York Road in Towson. I took the same reliable route to work. 

The morning mail had nothing new and neither did my answering machine. And keeping with the pattern, my receptionist Marcia, who had been with me from day one, had nothing to add. It has been ten years since the wet paint on the opaque bubbly glass of my office's front oak door announced Rabbitsuit and Associates Private Investigators was open for business. Adding "Since 1958" was a nice touch I think. 

I was halfway through reading an article in the News American about the protests being organized for the upcoming Democratic Party convention in Chicago when Marcia buzzed me on the intercom.  There was someone who wanted to speak to me. Nothing new. That’s how things work in my office.

This is where my story begins. 

She walked into my office like she had been there before. She was a slim young woman about the age of twenty-two, with blond hair flowing down from her bright red beret.  She wore round red-tinted sunglasses, like a high-end fashion model. Her tie-dyed extra-large t-shirt was offset by a round red pin with a profile of Mao Tse-tung that looked like Alfred Hitchcock’s profile and a round blue Free Huey pin. Her ensemble ended with faded denim trousers and red high-top sneakers. 

She didn’t wait for me to ask her to sit down. Without a shred of nervousness, she began to speak.

“May I assume that you are the Rabbitsuit of Rabbitsuit And Associates,” were the first words she said.

“Yes, ma'am, you are correct. How may I be of service to you?”

“You really are Mr. Rabbitsuit?”

“Asking twice won’t change that fact. How may I be of service to you, young lady?”

I could see by the look behind her rose-colored sunglasses she looked a little disappointed. When she regained her confident air, she sighed and in a whispy voice said, “You sure don’t look like a man that would have a name like Rabbitsuit. I kinda had a picture of an older man with long flowing white hair and a funny wrinkled derby hat who smoked a corn cob pipe; not someone like you. I wasn’t expecting to see someone who looks four or five years older than me and dresses in matching blue jeans and has one of those shirts custodians wear and sports a crew cut. If you don’t mind my saying so, I am more than quite relieved that you do not look like what I thought and feared you might look like.”

“And why is that?”

“That’s because I was worried you might be some kind of crackpot who was going to talk a lot of mambo-jumbo and make me wish I had chosen somewhere else to go. However, in spite of you wearing a crew cut you look like someone who could be a member of the group I work with.”

“And what is that group?”

“Well, actually it might be two groups. You see I am a member of the Towson State College chapter of the Students For A Democratic Society and a member of the Black Panther Party Support Group. And if you were prepared to let your hair down, you would look like you were one of us. You may take that as a compliment “

“Thank you, young lady. And you look like the kind of beautiful woman that would not look at me even if I was on fire.”

“Oh, that’s just a bunch of bourgeois hogwash. You look like the kind of man I would love to talk to at one of those parties where everyone is discreetly stoned and Charlie Parker is playing on the record player.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, only make it Charles Mingus”

“Now I know we two are going to hit it off. I absolutely adore Charles Mingus. You know, I dated Booker Ervin for a bit. He’s such a sweet and gentle man. I still miss him sometimes. But enough chit-chat. I’m here today to talk business, not stroll down memory lane.”

“And what is the nature of your business, young lady?”

“Well, Mr. Rabbitsuit, it’s kinda hard to explain.”

“I'll be the judge of that. Just start talking. And if I have any questions, I will ask them. So what brings you to my office?”

“Now I know you are going to think that I’m crazy.”

“Sorry, young lady, if you want someone to tell you whether you are crazy, that mental hospital Sheppard-Pratt is a ten-minute drive from here. In my line of work, psychoanalysis is not a service we provide. The letters on my door and my ad in the Yellow Pages tell the public at large how the people in this office earn their bread and butter. So just go ahead and speak your mind.”

“Well, Mr. Rabbitsuit, I am not the kind of person who looks under their bed to see if there’s a spy under it. However, I have begun to have some suspicions.”

“Like what?”

“I have the creepy feeling that someone’s following me.”

“Could you go into more details?”

“Yes. I began to have these feelings about two weeks ago. I saw a robin’s egg blue VW bug in my rear window just as I was pulling out of my driveway to go to school. And when I got to Charles Street heading north, I noticed that this same bug was still behind me. At first, I thought I was just being paranoid. 

"That's when I saw I needed gas and pulled into that gas station on North Charles Street near Eddie’s Supermarket. The bug drove passed me while I got gas. Then I took the Towson Bypass road to go to school. The bug was following me again!   

"I drove to school and tried to put it out of my mind. When nothing else happened, I started thinking I was wrong until a few days ago. I saw that same VW bug parked in front of my car on Lake Avenue.  

"This time I saw a skinny little man sitting in the driver's seat taking pictures of my apartment building. I don’t think he saw me because I was about to fix the direction of my blinds before I raised them. Seeing him, I left them down. 

"Instead, I went out the back door of my building, jumped into my car, made a U-turn, and headed off to York Road. I heard the sound a car makes when it's making a fast U-turn. That bug was right behind me.

"So, I did what my boyfriend told me to do after I told him what was going on. When I got to York Road, I parked my car by that machine that puts air in your tire and pretended to check the air pressure in my tires.  It must have been less than a minute later when I saw that same bug stop at a red light. 

"Now dig this. I don’t know if you believe in Karma but as I finished faking what I was doing, this chick pulled up to that red light. I swear she could have been my doppelganger. She was driving the exact same car I was driving and had the same Free Huey! bumper sticker on the rear left-hand side of her bumper! She even wore the same red beret I was wearing.

"That’s when I saw that dude in the bug cut in front of the car next to him and start to follow this chick. I was freaking out, but I stayed cool. I just went about my business and came home that night. 

"There it was again! Parked right in front of my apartment building. Only this time the car was empty. So I snuck out the back way to get the car's license plate number and went back to my apartment. 

"It wasn’t five minutes later when I heard the lady who lives below me yelling. I peeped through my blinds and saw her yelling at the man in the bug. She was pissed and wanted to know why he was parked there and taking pictures of the apartment building. 

"I couldn’t hear what he said, but my neighbor yelled back, 'Art student my ass. There ain’t nothin’ artistic looking about this apartment building. So if I was you I would go somewhere’s else and find another apartment building to take pictures of before I call the law!' 

"Bug dude said something. Then my neighbor yelled, 'Listen, you little piece of crap, I was not stuttering. Either you take that crapped-out excuse for a car further down the road or I will call the cops.” Then she went into her apartment and came back with her husband who's about six foot two and built like a brick shit house and carrying a Louisville Slugger. 

"I guess that was just about the time my other downstairs neighbor came downstairs and asked the man in the bug why he was still there. This dude told my downstairs neighbor that she should just be cool because he had called the police. But the dude in the bug kept on talking louder than before and apologizing and was saying something about how unique my apartment building looked; he said it reflected what he called Nuevo-art deco era art. While he was talking a cop pulled up beside that bug. The guy in the bug showed the cop his license and registration. And dig this, as he was pulling away from the curb, the cop saluted him, and the guy in the bug waved back at him as if they were old army buddies. Now you can call me paranoid all you want but, I am no innocent babe in the woods. And I have never seen a cop pull someone over for any reason and give the driver a salute when he had finished doing business with that driver. And that’s the God’s honest truth!”

“Yes, young lady, it does strike me as being a little suspicious. But tell me, was that the last you have seen of him?”

“Well, I thought so until last Saturday afternoon when I was leaving Gino’s chicken and burger place near the graveyard in Towson. He was in the graveyard! I don’t know what he was looking for, but he was looking at these tombstones and writing in one of those flip-over notebooks. 

"I don’t think he noticed me. I watched him for as long as I could before I was the next person in line to place an order. When I got my food I took a seat by the front window of the place and looked out the window and he was still walking around in the graveyard. I don’t think he knew I was watching him because I saw him walk behind a tombstone and, while he was looking out onto the street, he pulled down his zipper and took a piss. I’m glad I was done eating. That was really gross. That’s when the lady sitting by the window got up and asked the manager to call the cops. Let me tell you she was really ticked off. But, do you know what? After that cat pulled up his zipper, he still kept walking around the graveyard, right up until the police arrived. When the cops finally did arrive he was still walking in the graveyard. So the cop walked across the street and we could see the two of them talking. Then the policeman asked to see some ID and the guy showed him something. And dig this. After the officer gave him back his ID, he saluted him and escorted him across the street to his car. And when the lady who had called the police asked him why he didn’t do anything the policeman said he had no proof other than this lady’s word that he had urinated on a tombstone. The policeman told us the guy was an art student at the Maryland Institute College Of Art and was doing something for a class assignment. When the lady who called the police to come asked him why he saluted this man, the cop said something like the guy told him he was going to school on the GI Bill or something like that. The lady told this officer she wasn’t buying what he said and he said something sort of cryptic to her. I remember it was really off the wall. He said 'That’s because those who know don’t tell and those who tell don’t know.' I think he thanked the lady and told her to let the matter go. That’s when the lady told the officer she was going to file a complaint because she felt that the guy in the graveyard was up to no good.

"I didn’t see this guy for a day or so. Then I saw him when I was going to see Paul Butterfield and his new band with horns at Johns Hopkins. He came in right behind me. I nudged my boyfriend and told him that was the guy. My boyfriend was going to speak with him, but the guy just got up and left the place. 

"And the last time I saw him was yesterday at an event where I was helping to staff a literature table and make some new contacts. I saw him as I was going off to a building that had a ladies' room. When I got back, he was still at the table paying for a copy of Quotations From Chairman Mao (That’s the little red book ). Then he looked me straight in the eye and blew me a kiss and walked away like it was no big deal. The guy who was helping me out at the lit table told me the creep asked if I had a boyfriend. And, Mr. Rabbitsuit, that was the straw that broke the camel's back. So here I am today. That’s because like that Dylan song says 'The cops don’t need you and man they expect the same' But Mr. Rabbitsuit, that doesn’t mean I have to take it on the chin either.”

"So will you take the case?’

“Yes, I'm taking it!”

“That’s good. My mom would like to meet you and work out some payment arrangements. Are you busy tonight?’

“No, I suppose not.”

“Good. Where do you live?”

“Why do you want to know?’

“That’s because my mom won’t know where to pick you up for dinner, silly.”

“She payin’?”

“Naturally she is, so give me your address and phone number just in case she’s running late. So be ready and waiting outside for her to come by. She drives a yellow Volvo with white-walled tires. It’s real bright yellow so I don’t think you will miss it. Oh, and she’s taking you to some kind of classy joint so just to be on the safe side wear a tie and jacket. That’s sure to make a good impression on her.”