I didn’t really believe her, but followed her anyhow. That’s how desperate I am these days. Can you imagine a successful sales executive for a wholesale company so down on herself she would follow the advice of a possible mental case? If I ended up at a garbage bin with a date to dumpster-dive, I probably deserved it.
But we arrived at Track Four and, according to the others waiting on the platform, this was the right place for the train to San Clemente.
I let go a big sigh and turned to observe my benefactress. I couldn’t really decipher her age. Her hair was gray and messy. Her skin was thick-looking and carved with wrinkles. Her clothes were shabby—a housecoat covered by a damaged cardigan, covered again by two scarves. Only her eyes seemed youthful. She had bright blue eyes that shined with surprising clarity. Those bright eyes made me wonder how and why she was homeless.
The woman held on tight to one of those rolling baskets that stand vertically. In the tall basket were stacked various bags, some paper, some plastic, but mostly woven, reusable bags. She had a pile of them.
“Listen,” I began gently. “Can I give you a couple of dollars for helping me out?”
A whistle drowned out my voice. The Metrolink train arrived with the pomp and bustle that should accompany a train’s arrival. The people surrounding me bristled with anticipation and soon crowded in-between the bag lady and me.
I looked for her briefly, feeling a bit ashamed for not handing her a few bills when I had the chance.
But then I was on the train, looking for a seat near the window. Happily, I found a quartet of seats completely unoccupied. That suited me fine. I had my iPod and ear buds and planned to calm my quaking disposition by listening to music.
I welcomed this getaway. I was in the midst of an ugly divorce and needed a weekend to myself. I brought out my music, leaned back, and closed my eyes.
My mind wandered back to the bag lady. The streets of Los Angeles were no place for a vulnerable woman. No doubt she’d come from Skid Row on Fifth Street. Union Station was close by and easy pickings for panhandlers. But Fifth Street, along with the rest of downtown, was becoming gentrified. Decrepit “per hour” hotels were getting made over into luxury condominiums. Trendy cafes were opening on every corner in the hopes of attracting young professionals and celebrities. The unkempt and forgotten souls were being squeezed out.
I felt the train rumble around me and let myself relax. I might have dozed off, I’m not sure, but when I opened my eyes, I jumped in my seat.
There, in the seat across from me, sat the bag lady.
She was calmly appraising me with her bright eyes. Her rolling cart stood sentinel at her side.
My eyes roamed the car. What was she doing here? When did she board the train? I also noticed that our car was nearly deserted (perhaps because of her).
“I didn’t realize you were boarding the train,” I said.
“Sometimes they ask for your ticket. Sometimes they don’t,” she explained.
I didn’t quite follow her reply, but I took it to mean she didn’t have a ticket. Not having a ticket would hurl me into a frightful panic, but she didn’t seem bothered in the least.
“Where are you going?” I asked her.
She shrugged and grinned. “Nowhere special.”
I might have guessed that. Imagine having no other purpose than to live in the moment. For a second, I envied her.
“So…” I reached into my purse. “I want to thank you for helping me.”
I pulled out a five-dollar bill from my wallet and handed it to her.
The bill quickly disappeared within her cardigan and she said, “Oh, bless you. Bless you.”
Feeling as if I’d done a good deed, I decided to take it one step further and strike up a conversation.
“I don’t know if you are interested,” I told her, “but there is the Downtown Women’s Shelter right on Los Angeles Street. I know about it because I’ve donated to it.”
The lady regarded me blankly.
“The people there can help you.”
She sighed and looked out the window. “They won’t take me because of Larry.”
“Who’s Larry?” I asked, surveying her. “You have a pet? A dog?”
“Larry is my husband.”
“Oh.” I looked about the coach. “Where is he?”
“He’s around. He’s never very far away.”
“Well,” I began. “There are places that take couples, I’m sure. Would you like me to help you find one?” I got out my cell phone to access the Internet.
The lady shook her head adamantly. “No one will take me because of Larry.”
I paused, looking at her, and then put my phone away.
Something must be wrong with Larry, I thought. Some of these homeless folks needed medication. Perhaps Larry was the kind of man who held animated conversations with himself, conversations that scared other people. I looked around the coach once again.
I didn’t want to sit near Larry.
“So your husband acts in a way that prevents you from seeking help?”
Why was I probing this woman? I guess because I had a private grudge against my own husband, who I had caught cheating on me with my chiropractor—a woman whose back I’d like to break.
“Why don’t you just let him alone and take care of yourself?” I asked, still thinking about my chiropractor.
The woman scratched her matted hair. “I can’t leave Larry.”
The train made a couple of stops and the passing scenery went from city to industrial. I kind of wished the homeless woman would get off the train, but she continued to sit across from me.
“You want to know how we met?” the woman asked me after we left the Norwalk station.
“Sure,” I said, looking out the window. If she got weird, I would have to move to the next railcar.
“You know Beverly Park?”
“Beverly Park Estates?” Thinking of mansions, I turned to look at her.
The woman rolled her blue eyes. “No, Kiddieland.”
My mouth fell open. I hadn’t thought of that Beverly Park for years. Beverly Park, affectionately known as “Kiddieland” and its next-door neighbor Ponyland, once stood on the site of the fancy Beverly Center Mall. It had closed many years ago—sometime in the mid-nineteen-seventies.
“We met on the scary ride,” the bag lady told me. “He hopped into the seat next to me. I didn’t mind. He was kind of handsome. Oh, the ride wasn’t scary, just a few fake monsters that leaned out at you, but I found myself holding Larry’s hand just the same. We were only teenagers then, but I knew he was going to be the one I stayed with forever.”
I have to admit I was a little entranced by the woman’s story. For a street person, the woman was clear and lucid, plus she was providing me a piece of Los Angeles history.
She went on. “We continued to meet at the Park. There was a carousel and a hotdog stand, and a little train. Most of the rides really were for young kids, but we liked going just the same. Life wasn’t easy at my house, so I got away a lot. Larry, he came from a better family, but he liked me, so he’d meet me there anytime I wanted.”
“Wow,” I said. “You and he have been together a long time.”
She nodded. “Oh, yes.”
“Then what happened? Can I ask why…”
I trailed off. I didn’t want to be rude. It wasn’t any of my business to inquire as to why two young people would start off fresh, with their whole lives in front of them, and then end up on the streets with all their worldly possessions tucked into a single rolling cart.
“Larry and I had a nice life for a while,” she told me, apparently willing to share her history. “He worked for the city. He was a water utility maintenance man. He serviced water mains and fire hydrants, things like that.”
“That sounds like a decent job.”
“It was. It had good benefits, too.”
Then what happened? I was dying to ask her. As if reading my mind, she answered for me.
“Th
e problems began when Larry began to drink. We both had a taste for it. Me, I was used to it because my daddy used to drink, and my granddaddy before that. I guess booze is just in our blood. But Larry, he was more refined. The liquor got to him easier. He became mean.”
I shuddered. I knew where this was going. He’d probably started to beat her or something.
“Were you abused?” I asked quietly.
She nodded. “One night, it got real bad. He got me with a knife.”
She pushed up the sleeve of the cardigan. On her bare arm, I made out the line of a nasty, two-inch-long scar.
“I can’t blame Larry,” the woman said. “I’ve done bad things, too.”
She pushed her sleeve back down, but the memory of that scar stayed in my brain.
“Why did you stay with him?” I asked, thinking about my cheating spouse and the divorce.
“He’s all I have in the world, girly!”
The outburst surprised me. The woman looked a little nutty, so I backed off.
The train stopped at Buena Park, home to a somewhat grander amusement park, Disneyland, and then rumbled south once more.
I looked at my unwanted companion and considered moving to another seat. I so wanted to relax, but I couldn’t. Instead, I kept a lookout for abusive Larry. I didn’t discount the possibility of two thieves, either. Two scam artists who might like preying on the naiveté of a Good Samaritan. Maybe that’s why this woman was sticking close to me. To set me up for her husband to come in for the kill. Again, I thought that maybe I should move to another car—one with more people in it, but I didn’t.
I wish I had.
An announcement came on the train, which advised the passengers to ready their tickets for the conductor. I gave the woman a look, knowing she didn’t have a ticket.
She grinned at me and said. “Sometimes he comes. Sometimes he don’t.”
“That scar on your arm looks like it was a pretty serious stab wound.”
“I don’t want to talk about that no more,” she told me. “That was from a long time ago.”
“And you’ve stuck with him all these years.”
She appraised me with those clear blue eyes. “In sickness and in health. I took a vow with my husband.”
And then, in an unhappy wave, the realization hit me. My husband had left me for another woman. I turned my face toward the window and whispered, “I understand. I understand why you wouldn’t want to be without your husband.”
We didn’t speak for a while. I was so lost in thought that I nearly forgot the bag lady was even there.
“You’re a nice person,” the woman suddenly announced. She was studying me again.
I made no reply.
“Do you really think I could do it?” she asked. “Do you think I could leave Larry after all these years?”
I shrugged. “If you want to.”
“Lord knows Larry has held me back. I never wanted to end up like this, but I couldn’t leave him behind. He needs me to take care of him.”
Out the window, the sun was beginning to dip, casting an orange glow over the hills.
“Do it.” I leaned toward her. “Start a new life. We can always start brand new. Can’t we?”
The woman nodded fervently and I could see a tear escape her eye. She looked around furtively. It was the first time I’d seen her act frightened.
“You’re worried about Larry, aren’t you? Does he know where you are?”
She nodded. “He always knows where I am.”
The train pulled into the Laguna Niguel station and stopped.
“This is your chance,” I told her and pointed to the exit. “He’s not around. Go.”
The woman pursed her lips together in worry and shook her head. After a moment, she rose to her feet, but she was too late. The train took off again.
She sat back down, defeated. Now, it was my turn to stand up.
“What does Larry look like?” I asked her. I planned to make sure he wasn’t nearby. Then maybe this woman could make her escape.
“He’s tall,” she said nervously. “He’s big. He’s got a red plaid shirt on with a grey T-shirt underneath. His hair is gray, but there’s a little black here and there. It’s long. You can’t miss him because he wears it in a braid down his back. I always loved his long hair!”
She stuck an anguished fist against her mouth and a sob hitched in her throat.
“You deserve to have a decent life,” I told her. “You can start over again.”
The station of San Juan Capistrano was coming up.
I walked over to the entrance to the next railcar and peered into it. No Larry. There was a staircase that led up to the second level. I climbed the steps and surveyed the area. There were men, but none of them matched Larry’s description.
The announcement blared through the train: “Next Stop San Juan Capistrano.”
I quickly descended the steps and rounded the corner into our railcar. The bag lady looked at me hopefully.
“He’s not around,” I told her with some excitement. “Are you going to do it?”
“I am.” She wiped away another tear. “I’m going to start over.”
I smiled. For weeks I had felt like a trapped animal, pacing behind the bars of the cage of my misery. Helping this woman had given me the most happiness I’d felt in a long while. Perhaps there was hope for me, too.
When the train came to a stop, I walked her to the exit.
“Good luck,” I told her.
She hopped off and stood on the platform. She turned to look back at me.
“You’re a nice person,” she said once more. “You know how to care for people.”
I waved to her. She waved back as the doors closed.
I realized then that I never found out her name. I didn’t know who she was or where she came from. I wondered where she would go.
Peering into the next car, I half-expected to see a lumberjack of a man come stumbling through, outraged and looking for his wife.
But the train moved along calmly.
I returned to my seat and noticed the bag lady had left her cart.
Oh, poor woman, I thought. Perhaps I could take it to the next station. They might have a Lost and Found and maybe she would think to come for it.
When the train pulled in to the San Clemente station, I tugged the cart out with me. I didn’t see a Lost and Found area but I did spot a policeman.
“Excuse me,” I asked him. “A homeless lady left her cart on the train. Can you help?”
“Maybe a bag has some identification in it,” he offered.
“Probably.” I opened the top bag and reached inside. “It’s all she has in the world.”
I pulled out a red plaid shirt. Feeling a shiver run down my spine, I let it drop to the floor and reached inside again. Out came a grey T-shirt. I held it up like a flag. A large, red-brown stain encircled a two-inch rip in the shirt. The policeman looked at me with renewed interest.
With a pounding heart, I fished deeper into the bag, felt something bristly, and wrapped my fingers around it. Like a rabbit from a magician’s top hat, I pulled out a man’s skull. I held it by the long black and gray braid still attached to it.
I heard a woman scream. Perhaps it was me. I only know that Larry had never left his wife’s side, even after she’d killed him.
And then it hit me with a bang that the witch had gone on to start a new life and left me holding the bag!
Sierra Noir
Tim Wohlforth
Fueled by 50 mph winds, the fire swept across the mill town of Sierra. Its citizens rushed to pack family and a few prize possessions in their SUVs and pickups and head out of town before the flames engulfed them. Sirens rent the air. Forest Service fire trucks rolled into town followed by state police and sheriff patrol cars. Local TV reporters showed up and began making live broadcasts from their vans.
The elementary school caught fire. The principal tried to enter his school, but was driven back by heat and smoke. Two
churches burned. Midday now appeared as dark as midnight, lit up only by the flames of burning buildings
A lone figure deliberately walked across the town’s center square. He wore black jeans and a hoodie, which was tied tightly around his pockmarked face. Cowboy boots. Tall, but so thin that it was a miracle he wasn’t swept up with the rest of the flotsam and jetsam. He bent his pencil frame against the winds, while burning branches and ash swirled around him.
He was oblivious to his surroundings, determined to carry out his assigned task. The fire, the smoke, the winds were good cover. She would be driven out of her house to join the hundreds fleeing the town. Then be vulnerable. There! He saw a young woman with waist-length straight blond hair emerge from a house on the square. Yes, it was her.
He pulled his 9mm Glock out of his pocket and ran toward her. She saw him. Terror struck her with the force of a blow with rebar. For a critical moment she was paralyzed. That was all the time the killer needed. He fired. She lurched forward. Then he pumped two more bullets into the body. The blond girl collapsed face down in a pile in front of him, hair splayed out over the macadam.
The sound of his gun was lost as the flames reached a large tank at a Suburban Propane station at the other end of the square. It exploded with a flash and a bang that shook the entire town.
The killer wiped off the gun’s handle with his jacket’s sleeve. As he walked out of town, he tossed the gun near the burning rubble of the Full Gospel Tabernacle.
*
“Our first fatality,” Amy Grassy, the town’s police chief, said to Lt. John Davis of the California State Police. They stared down at the body of a blond girl sprawled on the pavement in front of them.
“Makes no sense,” Amy said. She knelt by the body, but couldn’t find a pulse. “Lying out here in the middle of the square. It’s not like a burning beam of a building struck her.”
Amy was a stocky woman of forty-five, medium height, short straight brown hair. She was tough. She had climbed to the summit of nearby Mt. Shasta over a dozen times, taking four different routes. “Lonely as God and white as a winter moon,” they said of the mountain, and it was true. Mt. Shasta was why she had fallen in love with the area and decided to settle here.
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