The Cascading: Knights of the Fire Ring

by CW Ullman

“When my aunt finally fell asleep, I took her car. Let’s go before somebody steals it,” Jordan kidded.

  Jordan suggested Charlie slump down in his seat as they drove away from the rising sun.

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  While sitting on the couch, cradling in her lap Molly’s sleeping head, watching the televised images of the smoky, smoldering destruction of Los Angeles and waiting hopelessly for word that her sons and husband were still alive, Cindy had come to the conclusion that she would kill herself. In a span of twelve hours, her life had been rendered meaningless. All the family she had left, her daughter and granddaughter, were closer to Charlie than to her.

  She had been spurned by her lover when she pressed him for a deeper relationship. When Sam Sweet told her he would never break up his family because of the mayhem that would ensue, she was confused. She thought he loved her and shared her desire to be together. He brushed off that notion with the comment, “Why would we want to be together and screw up what we have?”

  Did he not get it? They were in love and all the talk of how miserable their lives were would end when they could finally marry. He shared with Cindy all the things his wife did that drove him crazy and she noted that she would not behave like her. He complained of his wife’s lack of affection and Cindy reasoned that would never be an issue, because she could not have enough sex with him. While there might be financial considerations from the break up of the marriages, their love would sustain them through the tough times. She had friends who divorced and their kids all survived it, and once she would tell them that Sam Sweet was the man that made her happy, they would all want whatever gave her joy.

  “This works because we spend stolen moments together,” Sam shared. “We leave everything at the hotel door, hit the rack, and screw our brains out. It’s perfect.”

  “But you hate being with her,” Cindy said, not able to even mention his wife’s name.

  “Everybody is annoyed with their wives. I may not like a lot of the things she does, but she’s the mother of my kids. You’re too much of a romantic. If we got together, by the end of a year we’d be at each other’s throat. You see that, don’t you?” Sam asked.

  She was a fool. She realized all the sweet gestures, the compliments, the gifts she received that had to be hidden when she got home, the loving looks, and afternoons in hotels, were really about nothing but sex . What she had assumed were Sam’s attempts at being discreet by meeting in progressively cheaper motels was, in fact, him just wanting to save money on such a frivolous routine. She was even a bigger fool for disregarding Curtis’s wife, Claudia’s reproving caution not to invest too much meaning in the weekday rendezvous’. When Claudia told Cindy that Sam had a reputation as a player, Cindy argued that their relationship was different from his other affairs because he really loved her.

  As blatant as his lack of commitment might appear, she had held out hope of changing his mind. She pleaded her case, but he was unreachable. She was caught between anger at his indifference to her pleas and hope when he would touch and soothe her. His touches meant he really did care after all, and she figured once she called his wife at home and told her of the affair, she would throw him out and then he would have to come to Cindy.

  Frustrated by her inability to accept the affair’s limitation and then threatened by a completely insane proposal, Sam lost his cool and grabbed her by the shoulders and spewed, “Listen and listen good. If my wife died tomorrow and you were the last woman on earth, I wouldn’t be with you. Do I make myself clear? I have fucked hundreds of women, that’s what I do. If you ever call my home with your delusional bullshit, I will deny everything. No one we know has ever seen us together, except the times you came to my surf shop. I will tell my wife you are a sick bitch who stalked me. Then I will ruin you in this community by telling people you’re smoking crack like your daughter. My advice to you: keep your fucking mouth shut. Understand?”

  She had overstepped with her suggestion, but felt he did not really mean what he had said. Even though he told her not to contact him again and that they were done, she thought he just needed time to cool off.

  But after he left the room, her self-criticism was relentless. Of course, he would not be with her, because she was Cindy, the girl nobody wants, the girl who had a child out of wedlock who relates more to her stepfather than her mother, the girl married to the owner of the smallest surf shop in the area. Why would anybody want her?

  Now, while watching television she was flooded with feelings of worthlessness. If she had been home, the boys would not have left, or had she been at the surf shop, she would have told Charlie not to go. One thing would have prevented the other, and she would have avoided this cascade of remorse, regret and grief.

  Cecily had awakened upstairs and unlike her usual habit of playing in her crib, she was crying. And, unlike her usual plea for Mommy, she was calling for G Ma. Cindy carefully laid Molly’s head on the couch to attend to Cecily. When she got into her room, Cecily was standing in her crib and reached for Cindy.

  “G Ma and Mommy,” Cecily said. “G Ma and G Pa. Don’t leave.”

  “Do you want Mommy?” Cindy said, and Cecily shook her head and hugged Cindy’s neck.

  “Bryce needs G Ma,” Molly said.

  “Yeah, we all need somebody.”

  “Bryce needs G Ma,” Cecily replied.

  “Let’s get you dressed and send you and Mommy over to Grandma Colleen’s.”

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  Curtis and Ronnie were asleep in chairs, while Jordan was sitting next to the bed, praying for his brother. He learned from the nurse what all the monitors meant and watched them intently. He was not just watching them, but willing the indices to stay where they were. He feared that if he looked away for even an instant, they would drop to dangerous levels. Jordan saw the monitors as keeping Bryce alive.

  Bryce had been shot through the stomach and the bullet was embedded in his pelvis. Had it been three inches to the right, it would have severed the spinal cord, causing paralysis. Reflecting on what had happened in the last twenty-four hours, Jordan vowed to never do anything rash again. His dad would have told him to stay put in the house and call adults. He should have called Grandpa Chris, instead of panicking and driving off in the Volvo. Fear compelled him to force everyone to his will and this is what it had wrought. His brother almost got killed, the Volvo was a wreck, Surgeon was lost, they still did not know where their father was, and that was the whole point of driving to Darla’s.

  Jordan did not want to think about his dad’s fate. He, Bryce, and Curtis were protected in the Volvo from thrown objects; his dad on a motorcycle would have had no shield at all. He forced himself to focus on Bryce and decided he would think about his father later. Right now his brother needed Jordan and Jordan needed his brother.

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  “What happened?” Charlie asked Jordan Franklin. “I mean, what…how…?”

  “Darla and I became friends when Curtis introduced us at Girl’s Eyes. When I told her where I was from, she told me she had an aunt who lived near there. I gave her the phone number to my aunt’s house. So she called me after the riots broke out and told me you were on the way down and would probably come down Normandie,” Jordan said.

  “Why was I going to her house?” Charlie asked.

  “You’ll have to ask her,” Jordan replied.

  With Jordan driving, Charlie looked out the car window at the columns of smoke drifting into the sky from the burning buildings. Because the LAPD had pulled back to regroup at Parker Center, the police headquarters, the firefighters had no protection and stopped fighting the fires. Charlie wondered what was the point of setting fires.

  “People get tired of the bullshit. How’d those cops get off? You saw the tape; they must have beat Rodney King fifty times. He wasn’t resisting arrest. They were just beating the poor boy. How’d they get off?” Jordan asked. “Black men can’t get no fair trial and white men go free. That ain’t right, Charlie.”

  “It doesn’t seem
right, Jordan,” Charlie agreed. Although he had not followed the trial, he was aware of the tape of Rodney King’s excessive pummeling at the hands of white policemen.

  “Do you know what happened to Surgeon? He took out three of the guys when we were chasing you. I knew you were near because I heard the dog whistle,” Jordan asked.

  “I had forgotten that Surgeon was down here. I whistled him to run off. Jordan, I want you to come live with us. I know about the problems with Claudia at Curtis’s, so I want you to think about staying with us until things get worked out at his house,” Charlie said.

  “She doesn’t like me, Charlie. I do nothing wrong and she’s just on me. I can’t take it. I get on with Curtis, Gail, and Stephanie, but that woman just doesn’t like me,” Jordan replied.

  As they were driving back to the beach, police cars with flashing lights were racing past them. Police from LAPD, L.A. Sheriffs, Torrance, Redondo Beach, Hawthorne, and every community in Los Angeles County were responding to the riots. The first day was tepid compared with the second and third days. The police departments from the Los Angeles area were so overwhelmed the governor of the State of California declared an emergency in order to release the California National Guard to patrol Los Angeles County. However, even that was not enough, and for the first time in the history of Los Angeles, active duty Marines stationed at Camp Pendleton in San Diego County were summoned to provide assistance.

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  Molly reluctantly agreed to take Cecily to her grandparents. Her mother said she would follow along in a bit. After Molly left with Cecily, Cindy walked through the house looking at the pictures of her family. She was enveloped in a melancholy guilt, and wanted to be free of the problems she caused. She felt alone, abandoned while she had abandoned her family. There would be no more joy in her life, as she was sure her family’s death would haunt her forever. When she found Charlie’s gun, the radio was playing “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” a song by Aretha Franklin. It was 5:30 in the morning as she looked out the window, holding the gun to her chest. The lyrics she heard were, “…And when I knew I had to face another day, Lord, it made me feel so tired.”

  Out in front of the house, Molly was struggling with Cecily who was unusually agitated. She was fighting her mother about leaving and kept screaming for G Ma. Upstairs, Cindy could faintly hear Cecily’s cries for her.

  Charlie and Jordan Franklin were walking down the alley toward Charlie’s street. From the opposite end, Curtis and Ronnie had joined up with Chris and Colleen and were just turning the corner when they saw Molly with Cecily. Cecily, in a voice no one had heard before, in a volume no one thought possible, yelled, “G Pa!”

  Chris’s seventy-year-old legs sprinted towards his son, with Colleen running closely behind. Cecily tore lose from Molly and ran to Jordan Franklin. In the morning haze, Molly realized the man walking toward her was her stepfather and screamed out, “Charlie.” Cecily’s call caused Cindy to stand and look out her window where she saw her husband running toward Chris, Colleen, Ronnie, Curtis, Molly, and the leader, Cecily. She put down the gun and rushed down the stairs and out of the house to join her family in a fervent and emotional embrace. They stood touching each other’s faces and crying in relief. Cindy was sobbing and apologizing for not being there when she was needed. She was saved from telling Charlie about Bryce and Jordan, when all were surprised by Curtis’s story. He told them of the gunshot, but that Bryce was stable. Curtis could not get Jordan to leave the hospital because he was convinced his vigil was paramount to Bryce’s recovery. Chris, Colleen, Molly, and Cindy had seen the house fire and the beating of the motorcyclist and were in elated disbelief to hear they were all alive.

  Charlie said to Cindy, “I am so sorry for not being here for you. I screwed up. The boys would never have come for me had I stayed home. I’ll never do anything that stupid again.”

  Cindy could not speak for the tears that choked her. While feeling the same sentiment, but for reasons she could not share, she could only hold Charlie and cry into his chest. Ronnie told everyone it would be safe to go to the hospital and he had the A-1 Carpet van ready to drive everyone.

  As they were released from the emotional embrace and Charlie was able to get a breath, he thought of Mahatma Ji and what he would say, “We are very lucky, Charlie.” He saw Cecily in Jordan’s arms clutching his neck and repeating, “Jordan save G Pa.”

  Jordan asked her, “How did you know, little girl?”

  Cecily answered as though it was obvious, thinking everyone saw images of the future cascading through their imagination, “Because, I saw it.”

  As they walked arm and arm, Charlie asked, “Has anyone seen Surgeon?”

  Curtis told him to look down the sidewalk. In a loping trot, the chocolate Labrador came down the street. Charlie got down in a crouch and called, “C’mon boy.” Surgeon picked up his pace and ran into Charlie, bowling him over and licking his face while Charlie sat trying to hug his neck.

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  CHAPTER X

  Cindy’s knees went out from under her when she saw Bryce on a ventilator in the hospital bed. Charlie grabbed her as she buckled. The doctor approached them and said, “We’re out of the woods.” The bullet had torn two holes in the stomach and he had lost a lot of blood, but would recover.

  While they watched Bryce, all five of them felt responsibility for what had happened. Ronnie regretted not hiding the guns from his coked-up brother-in-law. Curtis thought he should not have driven the two boys into the area of danger. Charlie wished he had been more alert to the whole pace of the King case and the jury deliberations. Cindy believed her affair had distracted her from her family and Jordan was inconsolable for his role.

  Jordan did not want a hug, because he did not want his focus on Bryce interrupted. When his mother said he needed to get some sleep, he said he would sleep later. She touched his arm and told him to look at her. He reluctantly turned to look into her eyes and she saw his weariness and red-rimmed lids.

  “He is going to be okay. I’ll stay here until he wakes. I promise.” An orderly rolled in a bed and opened it. Cindy said, “You’re going to lay right there.”

  Jordan’s eyes filled with tears because his mother was talking him into something he did not want to do. Jordan’s grandfather, who had a special alliance with his red-headed grandson, touched Jordan’s shoulder. The boy relented and was greeted by Jordan Franklin who said, “I’ve played football against your brother. He’s tough and he isn’t going to let no bullet take him out.”

  Jordan lay down staring at his brother. He fought his closing eyelids and as he drifted off, he slurred, “Get me if anything happens.”

  Cindy always believed in Charlie’s unique spiritual connection. She turned to the group and told them she wanted to pray for her son. They grasped hands and stood in a semicircle around the bed. Ronnie reached out and grabbed the exiting doctor to include him in the prayer. Cindy turned to Charlie and asked him to lead them.

  Charlie was always uncomfortable with attention, but now his son needed him and his heart was opened to this moment. He said, “Let’s close our eyes. We call upon your mercy-.” He was talking but could not hear what he was saying. He had a vision of Bryce the first time he had ridden a wave all the way into shore without falling off his surfboard. Bryce came running to him wearing a wetsuit and carrying the board under his arm, grinning from ear to ear with all the exuberance of a six-year-old.

  Charlie opened his eyes while praying aloud, still not hearing the prayer, but seeing the edges of the room in light. Mahatma Ji appeared next to the bed and touched Bryce’s head while smiling at Charlie. He then pointed to Charlie’s left and nodded. He had pointed at Cecily and nodded again.

  Charlie finished the prayer as a crying Darla and Tobie entered the room.

  “I am so sorry. How is Bryce doing?” Darla asked.

  “He’s going to recover. I’ll tell you later about the last twenty-four hours. It was harrowing,” Charlie said. �
��Did Luemveld make it to your place?”

  “What do you think I should do?” Darla asked.

  “I wouldn’t do anything. I have a feeling police attention will be focused on the riots and she’s not coming after Tobie without a police escort,” Charlie said.

  Molly was holding a sleeping Cecily. Charlie picked her up and laid her upon his shoulder. He wanted to stretch his legs, so he took her outside to walk in the parking lot. Gardena Memorial was a short distance from Florence and Normandie and he could see more columns of smoke forming by the hour. The sounds of sirens filled the early morning. Cecily woke up and yawned in Charlie’s face.

  “How are you doing, Little Face?” Charlie asked.

  “Fine,” Cecily replied.

  He brushed back the hair from her face and kissed her forehead.

  “Jordan save G Pa,” Cecily said.

  “Jordan did save G Pa. When did you know that?” Charlie asked.

  “At the Christmas trees. When did you know that?” Cecily asked, assuming he saw the same vision.

  “I don’t think I saw it. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention,” Charlie said.

  They walked a little longer in the lot as Cecily pointed out the smoke, fire engines, police cars, birds, trees, and clouds.

  “Cecily,” Charlie asked. “What else do you see?”

  What she said next worried him.

  “Rusty cries with a woman,” she said.

  He figured Luemveld would be back, making everyone’s life miserable again.

  “G Pa?” Cecily asked.

  “Yes, Cecily.”

  “Who was that man in the room who pointed at me?” Cecily asked.

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  CHAPTER XI

  The rioting continued until May 4th. During this time there was a dusk-to-dawn curfew in the city of Los Angeles. Other cities around the country had riots in response to the verdict exonerating the police officers, but they were not on the level of Los Angeles, where fifty-three people died. One of the victims was found in a burned-out car in the field near Charlie’s motorcycle accident. The police were able to identify the body only by the car’s license plates. It was Wilamena Luemveld, and from her autopsy it was deduced she had been alive when the car was set afire. A story detailing her life was carried the next day in the Los Angeles Times. The article reported she was in the area to rescue an alleged abuse victim.