Fatally Haunted

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  Back at the motel, Lulu walked to the mirror. She re-touched her mascara, smeared now from crying. She lifted her chin, grabbed her fake leopard print bag from the bed, and clicked her scuffed up heels across the dusty, wooden floor. The plastic eyes of Felix the Cat slid back and forth and the ants marched in time, as Lulu pushed out under a smoke-colored Los Angeles sky.

  Back to TOC

  Cat Walks into a Bank

  Gobind Tanaka

  “You okay?” Her stare continues to ask the question. “Looks like you saw a ghost.”

  Not sure how long I’ve been watching her spin a neon gel pen across her fingers. I was caught in a flashback of Lance Corporal Kim Johnson spinning a government-issued ballpoint. By itself a happy memory, but another always follows that chills me to the bone.

  “I was just remembering something. Someone.”

  “I like your watch, by the way. Even though it’s a man’s watch.”

  I notice her wristwatch is small and ornate. Mine reads eleven hundred hours, 11:00 a.m. civilian time. “I just think of it as a regular watch. Tough to read hands on a little jewelry piece. Why should we have to strain our eyes more than men?”

  I stretch my neck and roll my shoulders. Clear my head with a shake.

  She smiles and looks me up and down, at least what she can see over the elevated bank deposit slip counter. Still unconsciously spinning her pen. “Your futuristic jacket is awesome, form fitting and stylish, yeah. But in this heat?”

  “Armored motorcycle jacket, protects my spine and joints.” I lift my helmet and skinny backpack into view above the counter. “Feels fine in the wind.”

  “Nice.”

  We stare at each other across the elevated counter, both holding down deposit slips. I’m starting to feel warm. I realize I’m blushing. I never blush.

  I break the gaze and glance around the marble-floored bank. Very high ceiling. Parking lot access and a hallway at one end, a vault at the other. Loan officers at rows of desks. Half their customers Asian, the other half Hispanic or European. Asian Americans comprise a majority of Diamond Bar residents.

  A middle-aged woman holds the front door from the street for a younger woman pushing a stroller, baby asleep.

  Kim Johnson wanted to raise kids. I got to know all my Marines—their families, dreams. She taught kids, worked as an assistant teacher before enlisting. She planned to get her credential using G.I. Bill college benefits.

  I tear up the deposit slip and stuff it in the counter’s stupid little brass trash door.

  The woman across from me laughs. “Yeah, I hate pushing paper into those tiny things too. You’d think it’s the nineteenth century. Can’t they just provide wastepaper baskets?”

  I think I’m agreeing, but my voice comes out like a grunt. I’m still seeing Kim Johnson’s face.

  She wrinkles her forehead and frowns. “You really seem upset.”

  I clear my throat, set down the chained bank pen I’ve been holding, and sigh. Through the front window I watch the outside air shimmer, already in the nineties. I was glad to walk into air-conditioned comfort, but now I feel clammy and cold. Again. The bank A/C scrubs all odors, unlike my gunpowder- and blood-scented flashback.

  “I sort of did see a ghost.”

  She raises her hands, palms facing me. “Hey, didn’t mean that literally.”

  “I do. Well, not a ghost exactly.” Whoa. I almost confided in this complete stranger.

  I take a real look at her. She looks about thirty, like me. Athletic like me, but thinner, like a dancer. Narrow aristocratic face, Korean or Japanese. Nicely proportioned features, alert intelligent eyes. Not conventionally pretty by either American or Asian pop media standards, but lovely nonetheless.

  I offer my hand. “Catherine Suzuki. Call me Cat.” We shake.

  “Traci Kim. Call me Kim. All my friends do.” She grins. “I know, I know, like a million other ‘Kims’ in L.A. So who were you thinking of?”

  “A, uh, a friend who died.”

  Her eyes fill with compassion. Empathy. “I’m so sorry. What happened? How did he die?”

  “She. Combat. In a bank, actually.” I grimace. “My squad stopped Iraqi bandits from robbing a bank in Kirkuk. A lance corporal took multiple rounds in the gut, armor-piercing. I took off her flak jacket, held her intestines. She lost too much blood.”

  “The shots missed you?”

  “Most. I took a few in my vest, two in a leg.”

  “You were lucky.”

  I feel like she just punched me in the gut. “Lucky? I hate that word. Near the end of my tour I felt like I was on borrowed time. I lived. She died. So did all the robbers. Body count in our favor, battle success for The Brass, but we didn’t care about that. We lost a comrade.”

  Kim looks contrite. I’m still pissed, but I know she doesn’t deserve my anger. We stand silent, still.

  The young mother with stroller stops at our counter, leans past me, and snags a deposit slip. She shares a sheepish smile with us and says, “Sorry.”

  Kim and I simultaneously say, “No problem.”

  I hear a plop and look down. A pacifier rolls to a stop on the floor. I squat, pull a napkin from a pocket, wipe the pacifier and hand it to the mother.

  She smiles and says, “Salamat po.”

  I reflexively respond, “Walang anuman po.”

  The mother rolls the stroller over to a couple of chairs near a large-leafed potted plant. She calls the older woman Tiya, meaning Auntie. As the two women converse with a security guard, I soak in the soothing sing-song of Tagalog, familiar from childhood years spent playing at my Filipina friends’ houses.

  Kim and I look at each other again.

  Kim says, “You survived.” She pauses, nods to herself. “Survivor’s guilt.”

  “Yeah. Big time. I was her squad leader, her sergeant. Why her? Why not me?”

  We stare at each other a while. Kim glances around, as if noticing other people in the bank for the first time.

  I shake my head. “I don’t know why I told you that. Any of it. I never talk about it.” Why am I opening up to this person? I haven’t shared this with doctors or other vets. Who wants to hear this anyway?

  Kim puts a hand to her heart. “Been happening my whole life. One night in Culver City a Nisei mechanic came over from his service bays to unlock his friend’s tennis store. I’d been literally window shopping. While I test swung rackets, we chatted away. Eventually the mechanic talked about his time in the U.S. Army. Enemy fire wounded him in the Korean War. He heard a priest administer last rites over him in a MASH unit.

  “‘I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak,’ he told me, ‘just heard them say I wouldn’t last until dawn.’

  “That night he watched a yellow glow the size of a golf ball fly lazy figure-eights above him in the tent, occasionally swooping down to take him into the White Light.

  “He told me, ‘Each time I chased it off, saying I wasn’t ready. In my mind I waved my arms, but I was in a coma. Then I opened my eyes, and all the doctors were surprised.’”

  Kim points at me. “He told me, ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I never told anyone, not even my wife.’” Kim shakes her head. “Used to think everyone heard private stories. Found out darn few people actually listen.”

  So she’s a Trauma Whisperer. That’s my name for people who do this. I’ve met several, and I’ve seen people confide in my father and sister. Always in a mundane social setting: grocery store, coffee shop—normal places.

  First time I’ve been on the sharing side. Well, other than shrink appointments and group sessions at VA hospitals. In World War I they called it shellshock. In World War II and Korea they called it battle fatigue. Since the American War in Vietnam we call it post-traumatic stress syndrome, PTSD. It changes you.

  Kim glances at the teller line. “You on a break, early lunch?”

  “No, visiting my cousin. Running errands and killing time
until she’s free later.”

  “What’s your line of work?”

  “I’m figuring that out. Still new to civilian life, less than a year now. How about you?”

  “I settle insurance claims, do investigations. Just conducted an interview near here. I’ll get a business card from my purse. Do you have a card?”

  “Negative. Well, I have my Marine Corps business card.” I root in my cargo pants pocket for my card and she digs in her purse.

  I watch an open teller number flash on the availability screen. I look back to our counter. Kim piles up stuff from her smooth leather shoulder bag: pens, receipts, small makeup case, flashlight. Inside her purse I glimpse panties, socks, some female necessities. A couple more items join the pile.

  “Is that a selfie stick?”

  “Yep.” Kim stretches its telescoping shaft to about twenty inches and unfolds the phone holder. “Better photos with this.”

  “Hmm.” Photos I take with my phone in outstretched hand shrink everything except my face. Maybe I should get a stick.

  I make a crew of four as they enter, two from the front, two from the parking lot. They are self-assured, arrogant even.

  Just like the crew that marched into that bank in Kirkuk, only to get surrounded by my MP squad because, well, we were there.

  I take a deep breath. Only a memory. Just a flashback.

  This quartet sports matching prism-hued mirror sunglasses and various pattern Hawaiian shirts in riotous colors instead of riot gear or cheap criminal togs. Besides L.A.’s thriving community of real Hawaiians, only musicians, hipsters, and class clowns wear Hawaiian shirts.

  In my mind musicians can wear whatever they want—it’s the sound that counts—and I do see them all over L.A. wearing “whatever.” But hipsters and clowns are lame. I would dismiss these four dudes as harmless dorks but for the long cylindrical duffel each carries slung cross-body to keep hands free. The duffels sag from weight.

  Maybe it’s sports equipment. They’re jocks.

  All four start texting on their phones.

  Kim finds her business card, puts the pile back into her purse. She hands me her card, reads mine. “Captain Suzuki. United States Marine Corps Military Police. Like NCIS?”

  “No, NCIS agents are civilians, and they investigate. MPs police.”

  “So-o, like shore patrol?”

  “No, shore patrol is just a duty assigned to any sailor—they just put on an SP armband. USMC Military Police is an MOS.”

  She looks puzzled.

  “Sorry. MOS means military occupational specialty. It’s a numeric code for a job. As MPs we guard things, basically. Ships, embassies, bases. Brass if called upon. That’s the short version.” No need to get into gory details. Yet I already have.

  Kim purses her lips, shakes her head. “Brass what?”

  “Big brass. Comes from insignia.” I tap where a general pins his collar star, then the crest of my shoulder, where his epaulet would hold another. “High ranking officers, VIPs, that sort of thing.”

  “Oh. Wait, you were a sergeant and a captain?”

  “Came through the ranks to become an officer. We call that a mustang.”

  “Cool.” Kim looks at the baby in the stroller, checks out the length of the teller line. “Hey, I’m sorry for that choice of words before. Of course you weren’t lucky, you lost a friend.”

  The word “friend” jars me, even though I used it first. I pivot a bit, enough to scan the lobby again. Checking out my environment is a habit I deliberately keep sharp, but at this moment I just turn away and clamp down my jaw. I will NOT tear up.

  Lance Corporal Kim Johnson’s life was my responsibility—as was her death. As sergeant and squad leader I carried responsibility for each Marine I commanded. Not friends. Marines. In some ways closer than family.

  Kim gets my attention. “Hey, I gotta a transaction to make. This cell phone number current?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Want to get tea or coffee sometime?”

  “Sure.” I return her wave as she gets in line. I think she just asked me out on a date. Without setting a date. Like getting permission to ask me out.

  Maybe. For sure. Hope flutters inside me.

  Maybe. Doubt creeps in.

  Can I let myself feel attraction, infatuation again? At eighteen I got clear on my sexuality, then served my enlisted and early Annapolis years under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. I kept people at a distance as an officer, easy to do as a Marine MP.

  After years of service I came home. Got counseling. My family is fine with it, but I don’t know many lesbians. I don’t know many people period.

  I got other counseling too, about combat, coming home. Talked with other vets. I started to regain a civilian perspective six months after I got back to The World. “In Country” means the combat zone while “The World” means home, civilian life. Gradually I got away from wondering every time a person passed me on the street if they packed a knife, gun, IED.

  The real work came after that, dealing with the consequences of my combat actions, my experiences. It’s true what they say; I remember every face. What I saw of the faces, anyway—before death, after, or both.

  I look out the front window at immaculate storefronts across the boulevard. This kind of town accentuates my disconnection between war and peace. There is no war here, yet there is little calm, little satisfaction. People fuss over stuff we never think about at a base checkpoint, an embassy gate, standing watch on an aircraft carrier. Arguments over parking spaces or restaurant reservations. Complaints about slow traffic or the weather. Debating perceived flaws in perfectly fine products we can’t even get in a war zone.

  The four Hawaiian Shirts stand near the doors they came in. They aren’t conducting any business like the customers around the bank, just staring at their phones. Not one sets down a heavy duffel.

  I’m about dead center in the lobby, far from the parking exit. I might make it past these guys and out the front way if I walk now, might get to my bike in the lot. Or not, and I’m better off here for sight lines.

  Besides, what if I’m wrong? Odds are slightly better for a flash mob. Lightning won’t strike me twice, right?

  I shift my stance to watch the entire crew via peripheral vision. Unstylish military haircuts, flat tops with buzz cut sidewalls. A severe version of what we call “high and tight.” All white guys, their looks ranging from Slavic to Black Irish to blond.

  One of the things I like about spending time here—or anywhere in The 626—is feeling normal, just a human being. Here folks don’t come up and ask “What are you?” or tell me “Your English is very good.” Here I’m not treated as a foreigner. My family has lived in California for five generations, since 1898.

  I had to deal with some prejudice in The Corps. Some Vietnam, Korea, and WWII vets hate all Asians. Others travel to countries they fought in and visit former enemies, now comrades, so I don’t judge books by their covers. I’m complexion neutral.

  Clothing though, I judge, because people express themselves in their presentation, or lack thereof. And even more by their focus, stance, actions. These Hawaiian Shirts are sketchy—they just don’t belong.

  Diamond Bar is right next to the 57 and 60 freeways. Partly because of its network of freeways, L.A. is the bank robbery capitol of the world.

  I check my watch again. Freeways are parking lots during rush hour, but it’s just after eleven, so the 57 and the 60 are wide-open.

  I examine one hipster/clown, then another. Might have thin, lightweight Kevlar vests under those wild shirts. Or, maybe they’re just ’roid ripped.

  The Hawaiian Shirts simultaneously pocket their phones. They spread out to points that cover the entire lobby. All four nod to a tall woman with jet-black dyed hair in the teller line.

  Jet-Black ducks under the vinyl band bordering the teller line. She drops a note on the branch manager’s desk and pulls a long barrel .44 Magnum out of
her gigantic tote bag.

  Not just any .44 mag revolver, either. It looks like an actual Smith & Wesson Model 29 with six-and-a-half-inch barrel. The effing Dirty Harry hand cannon. Its powerful recoil will lift the barrel way above target after every shot, just like you see in the Clint Eastwood movies. Bad for shot grouping.

  These observations and thoughts come from the part of me trained to coolly evaluate potential enemy combatants or criminals. As sergeant I would decide how to order my squad to deal with the threat. As captain I would deploy my company.

  I lower my center of gravity below my navel and raise my mind and intuition to my third eye.

  Another part of me resides at my heart, where I feel emotions I’ve worked hard to recover. I know the heart-in-my-throat feeling.

  Jet-Black takes an isosceles stance. She looks stout enough to handle the pain of her gun’s recoil, and holding the big weapon in the branch manager’s face she certainly gets his attention. First step in getting his cooperation.

  Folks at desks near the manager watch in stunned silence.

  People in line are facing the opposite way, toward the tellers. Except for my new friend Kim. She’s been watching her environment as if it were performance art, probably the only non-bored person in line. Her eyes bug out at the sight of Jet-Black drawn down on the manager.

  A young redheaded customer with acne notices Kim staring. He follows her gaze and his eyes bug just like Kim’s. “Omigod, omigod, omigod!” he shrieks. Seems like twenty times. Each iteration rises an octave until he squeaks.

  Jet-Black nods to the Hawaiian Shirts. They unzip duffels and extract long guns: two shotguns and two AR-15s.

  People gasp at the weapons, disbelieving. Most go quiet. A few shout in anger, or scream in fear, or babble. Their voices meld into a chorus of gibberish.