High Desert High Read online

  Also by Steven Schindler

  Sewer Balls

  From the Block

  From Here to Reality

  On the Bluffs

  The Last Sewer Ball

  High Desert High is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life places and public figures are mentioned, they are fictional situations and not intended to depict actual events. Any other resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  COPYRIGHT© 2017 STEVEN SCHINDLER

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE THIS

  BOOK OR PORTION THEREOF IN ANY FORM WHATSOEVER.

  FOR INFORMATION AND REQUESTS CONTACT:

  The Elevated Press

  350 N. Glendale Ave.

  Ste. B-240

  Glendale CA 91206

  [email protected]

  www.TheElevatedPress.com

  ISBN-13 978-0-9662408-0-1

  ISBN-10 0-9662408-0-4

  eBook ISBN 978-0-9662408-4-9

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CONTROL NUMBER:

  2017952792

  THE ELEVATED PRESS ORIGINAL TRADE PAPERBACK

  FIRST EDITION, NOVEMBER 2017

  EDITOR: BRIAN McKERNAN

  COVER PHOTOGRAPHY: CRAIG WOLF

  COVER DESIGN: CRAIG WOLF

  www.craigwolf.com

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  THANKS TO JIM SCHNEIDER, PATTY WILLIAMS,

  AND RUPERT MACNEE FOR THEIR THOUGHTFUL INSIGHTS AND

  COMMENTS.

  VERY SPECIAL THANKS TO

  BOOK EDITOR, BRIAN McKERNAN

  PHOTOGRAPHER/ COVER DESIGNER, CRAIG WOLF

  AND MY WIFE, SUE SLATER-SCHINDLER, FOR HER LITERARY

  CRITIQUES, LIFE-COACHING SKILLS

  AND EVERLASTING SUPPORT

  THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO ALL THOSE

  WHO RUN TOWARDS DANGER,

  NOT AWAY FROM IT

  Praise for Steven Schindler’s novels

  Sewer Balls

  “Probably the best novel produced by the small presses in 1999” -The Small Press Review

  From the Block

  Winner- Best Fiction- Indie/ DIY Book Awards

  From Here to Reality

  “Required reading!” - New York Post

  “A very funny Hollywood story told with wit and passion by someone who’s obviously been there.” -Jay Leno

  On the Bluffs

  “Schindler could be the male version of bestselling author Nora Roberts, blending the right amount of romance and suspense… a captivating writing style.” -Glendale News Press

  The Last Sewer Ball

  Grand Prize winner -New York Book Festival

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Steven Schindler was born and raised in the Bronx and has also lived in Washington DC, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Having worked in television for over 25 years as a writer and producer, he has produced TV programs featuring The Who, Anwar Sadat, Michael Jordan, and Vlasta the Polka Queen (among others), winning four Chicago Emmy Awards.

  He lives with his wife in Los Angeles and can often be found riding a dirt bike up a rocky trail near Joshua Tree, California.

  High Desert High

  Chapter One

  St. Mark’s Lounge, a bar in the East Village, had seen better days. It didn’t used to have a hunky bouncer at the door, scantily clad hot-chick bartenders, air conditioning that would keep raw meat fresh for a week, fifteen-dollar shots, and a clientele born in every corner of the country except New York City.

  It used to be a dive bar. And for people like Paul Santo, those were the better days. On any given night in the ‘80s you might see Allen Ginsberg sipping a beer with a table full of fellow beatniks, punks, bikers, Polish immigrants, and Village locals hanging out in this joint on St. Mark’s Place, just a little west of Avenues A, B, and C, known as Alphabet City. The bartender was either the owner, Stosh, or one of his sticky-fingered relatives. The jukebox ranged from Woody Guthrie to Richard Hell and the Voidoids with everything in between. On any weeknight you were just as likely to witness a bottle hit over some jerk’s head as you were to see a couple of guys with their heads and beards precisely shaved half bald only on one side, performing a perfectly choreographed tap dance routine to Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone.”

  Paul Santo waved to the bouncer, walked in, and took a seat at the bar by the large-screen television. He was exhausted after working a double shift and was happy to have the air conditioning set to Helsinki winter, which also made the bar maids look even better in their tank tops.

  As usual, it was the end of a long day. He had his guys looking for some good dope in the neighborhood. With orders not to bother with weed or pills, they were only to look for the real stuff. And lately there was nothing. His crew hadn’t made a decent collar in days, and that was just a street-corner hustler selling nickel bags of black tar heroin to rich NYU idiots. Most of the big-money action had moved uptown, hidden in plain sight in posh Upper East Side high-rises or Riverdale mansions. Nope, these streets were pretty clean now. And he was damn proud of it.

  Lieutenant Paul Santo, NYPD, had just turned fifty, but could probably beat anybody in the bar at hoops, handball, ocean swimming, and downing vodka on the rocks. Five foot ten, one hundred seventy-four pounds, with an afro that would make Lenny Kravitz proud. Like Kravitz, Paul is multi-racial. Paul was multi-racial before it was cool. Or presidential.

  Paul may be physically fit, but he’s tired. Not tired from his double shift. That’s nothing. He’s tired from more than two and a half decades of chasing drug dealers, thugs, and armed morons packing heat with the serial numbers removed and trying not to lose his soul in the process.

  His father was Italian and Irish, his mother was black and Puerto Rican. And some people in his old Bronx neighborhood said he inherited the best of all four ethnic groups. Or the worst, depending on the situation.

  He used to go to St. Mark’s Lounge in the ‘80s with his Bronx buddies because of the exotic atmosphere. It was nothing like the Irish gin mills back in his Bronx neighborhood called Kingsbridge. Those bars were filled day and night with working-class heroes getting kicks and having laughs with their own gene pool; mostly Irish, Italian, Jewish, Puerto Rican, German, and the descendants of whatever else the cat dragged in a generation or two earlier.

  But the St. Mark’s Lounge in the ‘80s? That was the East Village. St. Mark’s Place, like the rest of the city, was out of control. Junkies, street hookers, dealers, and bums were everywhere. Instead of the psychedelic sounds that wafted through the air in the ‘60s, the soundtrack of the ‘80s was the sirens of fire engines, cop cars, and ambulances trying to keep pace with the chaos that was everywhere. But in all that chaos there was also a raw excitement that surpassed the ‘60s and ‘70s. The Vietnam War and the draft were over. Kids were joyously running amuck. It was pre-AIDS, so everybody was banging everybody. Cops had pretty much given up trying to bust people for smoking weed or drinking beer on the streets and in the parks. There was too much real crime going on. On the average there were around 2,000 murders a year in the ‘80s; six a day. It was so common to fall victim to violent crime that people stopped reporting them to the police. And that’s when Paul became a cop, class of 1985.

  A gorgeous twentysomething bartender ignored two sweaty guys in suits clamoring for attention when she noticed Paul.

  “Hey Paul! I haven’t seen you in a while. Where’ve you been, honey?”

  “I just jetted back from the south of France with Kanye and Kim. They dropped me off at the Lexington Avenue subway and bang, here I am. How are you, Brielle?”

  “Fantabulous. The usual
?”

  “Make it a double.”

  By the time Paul goes into his wallet, pulls out a twenty, and placed it on the bar, Brielle is back and places his drink on a coaster in front of him. She doesn’t pick up his money. She winks at him.

  “Thank you, doll, but take the money,” Paul said, picking up the drink and taking a swig.

  It’s hard for Paul to believe this is the same place as back in the day. But then again that’s true for the entire East Village. In fact for the entire Manhattan island. It’s just the other boroughs that are going to hell now.

  “Brielle. Can you please put on the Mets game?”

  “It’s midnight?”

  “They’re playing the Dodgers.”

  Brielle gave him a blank stare.

  “On the West Coast. It’s only nine there,” Paul shouted over the bar chatter.

  “Only for you, Paul!”

  A drunk in a designer suit, who looks like he just graduated middle school, leaned over. Paul is repulsed by his sliders-and-beer breath.

  “I love L.A.! Are you from California?” The drunk asked enthusiastically.

  “Perish the thought, junior,” Paul shot back.

  Paul lost himself in the game while the moronic thumping of the XM radio electronica mix got louder, as did the banter of the amateur drunks who have taken over his hangout. The Wall Street crowd used to get out of Dodge on the various commuter trains to the burbs, or car-service it to Upper East Side brownstones. But these new masterbaters of the universe Uber over from the financial district to their nearby luxury loft mansions in the very neighborhood deemed once too dangerous for the cops to even care about: Alphabet City. Much like the Marines battling apartment-by-apartment and building-by-building in Fallujah, gains against the bad guys were hard-fought with many temporary advancements, setbacks, lost battles, and political quagmires, as the body-bag counts climbed higher and higher. Like many combat veterans Paul prefers not to talk about his days deep in battle with the enemy. He has seen his share of blood, guts, and brains splattered on walls, and was very close on many occasions to having the mess of DNA soup be his own.

  It was the bottom of the ninth and the Mets were winning by two. A double by the Dodgers’ first baseman Cody Bellinger with two outs and the bases loaded put an end to any glimmer of hope Paul still nursed with every double-vodka on the rocks.

  “That game is still going at two in the morning?” Brielle asked while serving the last of the still-thirsty crowd.

  “Not anymore. Inning over. Game over. Series over. And probably season over.”

  “I thought the season ended in October?”

  “Not for these Mets. Late August is about the norm for them. Are you staying open until four tonight?”

  Brielle looked at the amount of cash on the bar, which wasn’t much. These one-percenters rarely leave twenty percent for the servers.

  “Nah. Darcy has already started closing everything out. Why? You want me to drive you home again?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “Let’s get a bite first.”

  “Whatever you want. You’re driving.”

  “It’s your car.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You’re in the driver’s seat.”

  Paul was close to thirty years older than Brielle. On these neighborhood streets back in the ‘80s seeing a fiftyish guy with an afro wearing sweatpants walking down the block with a twentyish babe in a tank top might give the appearance of a pimp walking with his ho. But now with all the new-money high-finance swindlers living around here out with their future ex-wife number two or three nobody even gives them a second look.

  “Do you want to eat near here, or wait until we’re back up in the Bronx?” Paul asked, a little bit slower than his normal rat-a-tat delivery, which is the only indication that he’s had a few.

  “I’m starving. Let’s just walk over to the Brasserie.”

  “The Brasserie can kiss my ass-ery. That used to be the B&H Dairy. You could get a nice bowl of borscht there. Or potato soup. Or pierogies. You know what pierogies are?” Paul asked, playfully.

  “Yes. It’s like a potato dumpling. I’m part Polish, you know.”

  “Very good! You know what a galabki is?”

  “That’s a cabbage roll with meat inside.”

  “You are on a cabbage roll, my dear! Do you know what a garagshki is?”

  “Garagshki?”

  “Garagshki?” Paul said adamantly, stopping his stride and confronting Brielle.

  “I give up.”

  “It’s the key to the garage, knucklehead!”

  Brielle laughed hysterically as she always does to Paul’s corny jokes. Paul was almost old enough to be her father, but he reminded her more of her grandfather. There was something about Paul’s no-bullshit bluntness, honesty, and toughness that reminded her of the old codgers who came around to visit her granddad in New Hampshire. Some of that rubbed off on Brielle; she had LIVE FREE OR DIE tattooed on her wrist.

  The Brasserie was open late to take whatever leftover cash the drunks had on their way home. The tables were wrought iron with Italian marble tops, accessorized with fine linen napkins and real silverware. But the food was no better than your average Queens Boulevard Greek diner, and the portions half the size.

  The place was packed, but they found a booth in the back next to the kitchen door. Hipsters with hillbilly beards and full-body tattoos mixed with the sloppy-suited financiers as they all downed greasy faux French food before they hit their nearby two-million-dollar studio lofts and three-grand-a-month walk-ups. There was laughter, dumb drunk conversations, and too cool for school scowling from some actual French tourists. A waitress, who had the telltale look of a bored, overqualified millennial actress finally approached them.

  “What can I get you?” she asked, obviously put out that she had to stoop so low as to work for a living.

  Paul was still scanning the menu and pointed to Brielle who ordered first.

  “I’ll have a small green salad. Oil and vinegar on the side.”

  “I thought you were starving?”

  “I am.”

  “I’ll have two over easy, bacon, home fries, dry whole wheat toast, a side of fruit, and a hot tea. And add a veggie burger to her order.”

  “I can order for myself!” she whispered as the bored waitress walked away.

  “I’ll tell your momma on you, back in, where is it in New Hampshire again?”

  “You know where it is, you just like to hear me say it!”

  “So say it!”

  “Dixville Notch”

  “Ha, I love that! Dixville Notch!”

  The front door bursts open and a diverse group of 20 or so young protesters with signs and banners are chanting.

  “No justice no peace no racist police! No justice no peace no racist police! No justice no peace no racist police! From Palestine to Ferguson end racism now! From Palestine to Ferguson end racism now! From Palestine to Ferguson end racism now!”

  The protesters are splitting up and going from table to table with stunned diners watching in disbelief.

  “Solidarity not sympathy! Solidarity not sympathy! Solidarity not sympathy! Stop police terror now! Stop police terror now! Stop police terror now! Pigs in a blanket! Fry ‘em like bacon! Pigs in a blanket! Fry ‘em like bacon!”

  Brielle looks terrified as she studies Paul, wondering what he might do. Paul reaches over to the next table where a waiter is refilling the salt and pepper shakers, and he picks up a discarded sports section off the table begins reading it.

  She taps him on the arm. “Are you okay?”

  “As long as my food gets here soon, I’m fine.”

  It’s clear three of the protestors are the leaders. They are African-Americans and look fiercely angry and going right in the faces of the patrons.

  “Stand with us! Or you’re against us! Stand with us! Or you’re against us! Stand with us! Or you’re against us!” They scream until the people at the table stop eat
ing and stand with them as they go from table to table, working their way to the back where Paul and Brielle are sitting.

  “Paul, we can just slip out the back through the kitchen.”

  “Why? Is something going on?”

  “Paul! Let’s just go!”

  “I ordered food and I’m going to eat my food.”

  The three troublemakers are getting closer. “Stand with us! Or you’re against us! Stand with us! Or you’re against us! Stand with us! Or you’re against us!”

  A light skinned, mixed race African-American wearing a t-shirt with a photo of a black woman and the name JOANNE CHESIMARD printed underneath approaches Paul. His chant of “Stand with us! Or you’re against us!” gets louder and louder. He’s holding a large, professionally printed banner that reads, STOP RACIST POLICE TERROR BLACK LIVES MATTER.

  Every patron is the restaurant is standing except for Paul and Brielle. She goes to stand, and Paul grabs her arm, pushing her back down in her seat.

  “Do you work here?” Paul said coolly to the shouting protester. “I said do you work here? Because if you do, would you please tell our waitress that our food is overdue?”

  “Stand with us! Or you’re against us! Stand with us! Or you’re against us!”

  “Do you work here?”

  The chant gets louder and angrier. The guy with the banner is yelling louder and louder, his face fraught with anger and violence, getting right in Paul’s face.

  “I’ll take that as a no,” Paul said calmly. “I suggest you move on.”

  The protestor becomes even more vociferous in his chant.

  Paul looks at him, steely eyed. “You really don’t want to go there, do you? You know what’s ironic about this, Brielle?” Paul shouted loudly over the screaming protestors. “This guy here is whiter than me!”

  “Fuck you!” yells the protestor. “You ain’t black!”

  Paul calmly reaches over and picks up the jar of salt on the next table the waiter was using to refill the saltshakers. “Maybe. But you’re awfully white!” Paul yells, throwing the jar of salt in his face, ripping the sign from his hands and violently tearing it to shreds. Brielle jumps up and pushes Paul away from the protestors, who have elevated their screams and yells into an all-out rage.