Too Big to Die

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

  To emphasize Patterson’s words, Baker held out his hand, palm up, to the kid. “No one is leaving here without us seeing that video.” When the kid didn’t move, Baker added. “We can wait all day in this heat if we have to, folks.” Suddenly, several phones appeared and were thrust in the direction of Officer Baker, but Baker took none of them. Instead, he continued looking at the kid with the skateboard, hand outstretched, waiting. “No, I want his.” He paused. “What’s your name, son?”

  After a pause of his own, the kid replied, “Charlie.” When Baker stared harder at him, the kid said, “Charles Benjamin Cowart. You happy now?”

  “Take off the shades, Charlie,” Baker ordered, “and let’s see some ID.” Reluctantly, Charlie removed his sunglasses, hooking them in the neckline of his shirt as Baker had done to his own. He produced his ID and handed it to Baker, who checked it over, then handed it back.

  “Oh, come on,” snarled Marla. She glanced down at her watch, then glared at Baker. “I have places to go. People are waiting for me.” As much as I hated to agree with her, I wanted to end this standoff and get home to a cold beer and air conditioning. I was melting like soft serve ice cream and could feel the skin on my arms starting to collect a sunburn.

  “Well, Charles Benjamin Cowart,” Baker said to the kid. “What’s it to be? Standing here in the hot sun or letting me see your phone?”

  With great reluctance, Charlie queued up the video and gave the phone to Baker. The cop watched it, and those of us close to him could hear the audio. Charlie must have been on the scene early because the video started about the time Burt Sandoval asked if we needed help and continued until the cops showed up. I couldn’t see the phone screen, but from the sound he’d caught it all, including the smashing of the window and Marla Kingston arriving on the scene in full diva screech mode.

  When it was over, Baker said to Charlie, “You’re a regular Steven Spielberg.”

  Charlie snorted with disdain. “I’d rather be Quentin Tarantino.”

  “I just bet you would,” Baker replied. “We’ll need a copy of this.” He reached into his breast pocket and produced a card. “If you want to hang on to that phone, email the video to the address on this card.” When the kid hesitated, the cop added with unquestionable authority. “Now.”

  Charlie took the phone back and punched the screen while studying the business card. A minute later, Baker reached into a pocket and pulled out a cell phone. He checked the display, then said to Charlie, “Thanks. You have anything else you want to add?”

  Charlie shook his head. “I was passing through when it went down. Just heading into the store to grab something to drink.”

  Patterson approached. “The IDs check out, but there are quite a few outstanding tickets on Mrs. Kingston. Parking and moving violations. At least a dozen.” I could have sworn I saw a tiny smile peek out from behind Baker’s closed lips at the news.

  Baker glanced at Charlie. “Give my partner your contact information, and you can go.”

  With Charlie turned over to Patterson, Baker scanned the remaining dozen people. “Where’s the guy who helped you?” he asked us.

  Greg and I looked over the crowd, then shrugged, almost in unison. “Looks like he took off,” Greg said. “But he said his name was Burt Sandoval.”

  “And how do you know this Sandoval guy?” Baker asked.

  “We don’t,” I replied. “He offered to help us get the dog out of the car.”

  “You mean steal my dog, don’t you?” sneered Marla as she stood adjusting her stance from foot to foot. Either she had to go potty or her ladder-height shoes weren’t comfortable or maybe she was worried about those outstanding tickets. I was also pleased to see that, like the rest of us, she was sweating like a pig in the heat; her heavy makeup was not holding up well.

  Baker turned to her. “From the video, I’d say they weren’t stealing anything, but they did save your dog’s life.” He pointed at the dog, who was still asleep in Greg’s lap, totally unaware of the brouhaha his predicament had caused.

  Patterson returned and whispered something to Baker. This time the smile didn’t play coy but spread across Baker’s face in a thin line of off-white teeth. Baker whispered something back. Patterson got out a small wallet-size portfolio that I recognized as a ticket book. Not that I’d received that many tickets, but enough to know. Patterson got busy scribbling on the pad. I held my breath, sure Greg and I would be cited for something. I saw phones come out again and knew there would be more videos.

  “Mrs. Kingston, you’d better find another way home,” Baker advised. “A tow truck is on the way to impound your vehicle until you pay those tickets. You can get the location of the impound lot from the driver.”

  “You can’t do that!” Marla screeched.

  “We can and we did,” Baker said calmly.

  Patterson ripped a slim piece of paper from his pad and handed it to Marla, along with her ID. She snatched it as if it was hot from a grill. “That’s a violation for endangering an animal,” Patterson explained. “You can pay it at the same time you pay those tickets.”

  Marla waved the ticket in Patterson’s face. “I’m not paying this or those bogus tickets. They’re the ones who vandalized my car. Do your job and lock them up or my husband will have your badges.”

  “Mrs. Kingston,” Baker said calmly. “You should be thanking these people. That ticket will cost you $100. Had the animal been injured, it could have cost you $500 and time in county jail. Now I suggest you put a leash on that dog and remove anything you want from your vehicle before the tow truck gets here.”

  “And what about them?” Marla waved the hand holding the ticket in our direction. “Arrest them.”

  “They’ve done nothing wrong in the eyes of the law,” Patterson explained. “They rescued an animal in danger.”

  “And it’s all on video,” Baker added. “If you want to file a personal complaint against them for vandalism, you can do so when you pay the fines.”

  “This is an outrage!” Marla screeched. She turned to the crowd to make her case. “You all saw this. You see how I’m being treated. My rights are being violated.”

  More of the crowd broke off, some heading for the store, others for their cars. No one stepped up to defend the former reality star’s honor.

  Patterson handed back our IDs. Like the rest of us, sweat was dripping down the side of his face. “Give me your phone numbers, and then you can go as soon as you give the dog back to its owner.”

  “And you two,” Baker snapped in our direction, “stay out of trouble. We know all about you.”

  No problem there.

  Greg was reluctant to hand Maurice back to Marla when she reached for the animal. The dog didn’t seem too eager to go either. I could tell Greg wanted to give Marla a tongue lashing but was restraining himself. As soon as the dog was handed over, we stored Wainwright’s dish back in our van and went on with our grocery shopping. Just before we entered the store, I turned back and saw that the tow truck had arrived. I’m sure if Baker and Patterson had not hung around, the driver of the truck would have been assaulted by Marla Kingston. Waves of anger were coming off her to rival those coming off the blacktop.

  four

  I was putting away our groceries when Mom called to say she was on her way over. I’d barely put away a loaf of bread when the doorbell rang. Greg was in the living room playing with Muffin. We’d picked up a new stick aerial toy to help get her mind off of hunting Dumpster. She was loving it, attacking the feather on the end like a lion picking off an antelope. Wainwright was supervising, his head following the up-and-down and side-to-side swing of the stick. As soon as he heard the doorbell, he got to his feet, letting loose with the bark he reserved for friends and family. The old dog moved slower these days, but his enthusiasm was still intact.

  “I’ll get it,” I told Greg as I passed by him. “It’
s my mother.”

  I nudged the dog aside and opened the door. Sure enough, my mother, Grace Littlejohn, was on the landing, looking cool and collected in a summer denim skirt and floral print blouse. On her feet were hot pink sneakers. Mom was of average height, slim, and on the brink of turning eighty. She was also still pretty spry. Wainwright’s tail wagged happily as she opened the screen door and quickly came inside. I just as quickly shut the front door so we would not lose the cool air being kicked out by our AC. Before greeting me, Mom bent down and said hello to Wainwright. The grand-doggy and grand-kitty always came first.

  “Were you parked in front of our house when you called?” I asked her.

  “Maybe,” she replied without looking at me.

  Finished greeting the dog and cat, Mom stood straight, her big purse hooked over her right arm. Her eyes shifted between Greg and me with disapproval. “How come you two always have the most fun without me?” she snapped. Before I could tick off several reasons, she added, “I swear, you do it on purpose.”

  “What are you talking about, Grace?” Greg asked her.

  “That smashed car window,” Mom replied with her usual impatience. “The dog rescue. At the grocery store. You knew you were being videoed, didn’t you?”

  In a flash of memory, I recalled all the phones held aloft during the rescue of Maurice, and it wasn’t just Charlie Cowart’s. “Yes, Mom, we did,” I answered. “But that happened less than two hours ago. How do you know about it already?”

  “Already?” Greg parroted with surprise. “Where?”

  “It’s on YouTube,” Mom explained. She put her purse down on the coffee table and pulled out her iPad. My mother was an ace with her iPad. She even had her own blog called An Old Broad’s Perspective, which was surprisingly popular, and not just with the AARP crowd. Sometimes I wished she’d just sit and knit or get addicted to playing bridge.

  “There are a couple, but this one is the best. It’s even gone viral!” She made the announcement like we’d just won Powerball.

  In no time, my mother was showing us a video of what had gone down in the parking lot of the grocery store. It began just as Greg raised the crowbar and took his first swing. There was a lot of background chatter and cheering. The video zoomed in on Greg’s face, then pulled back as he took another crack at the window. There was another close-up at the final swing. The taker of the video seemed to be standing several yards back because the wider shots got the entire car, including Burt and me near the back trying to entice Maurice away from the front. Then the camera scanned the crowd briefly, showing its enthusiastic support and several others also taking photos and videos. In the front of the crowd was Charlie Cowart taking his own video, the one the police watched. The clip then went back to the action and recorded Burt helping Greg open the door to the car to free the dog. A loud cheer went up from the crowd when the animal was safe in Greg’s arms, and another went up when I produced the doggie water dish.

  Mom paused the video and tapped the screen. Specifically, she tapped the image of me bending over to present the water to the dehydrated animal. “Not your best side,” she said without ceremony. “That outfit makes you look like one of those black-and-white cookies.”

  I looked down at what I was wearing. I still had on the same outfit, a white boxy camp shirt and black capris. I thought I looked passable, considering it was Saturday and a thousand degrees outside.

  “You know the ones,” my annoying mother continued. “Round cookies with half white icing, half chocolate.”

  “I know what a black-and-white cookie is, Mom,” I said, barely keeping the snarkiness out of my voice.

  I glanced at Greg. He was looking anywhere but at me and Mom, but there was a trace of a suppressed smile on his face. “What do you think, honey?” I said to him. He wasn’t getting off that easy.

  He shrugged and still didn’t look at me. I was positive that if he did, he would break into laughter. He knew how my mother got under my skin, especially her barbs about my weight. “I think you look nice, sweetheart.” Finally, he glanced up and tossed me a wink. “You always look nice.”

  I shot my mother a smug smile.

  “He has to say that if he wants to keep getting nookie,” she said, delivering the line with her usual deadpan zing.

  “Give up, sweetheart,” Greg said to me with a little pat on my ample behind, which only underlined my mother’s comment. “You can’t win this, although I do think black-and-white cookies are delicious.” I smacked his hand away.

  “Is that why you came over, Mom,” I asked in a tense voice, “to insult me and whine about you not being in the video?”

  She shrugged. “Insults comes naturally. It’s a gift.” She pointed at the iPad. “But I sure wish I had been there. I’d love to see Marla Kingston in person. I’ll bet she’s had a lot of nips and tucks over the years.” She started the video again, and the three of us watched it until shortly after the cops showed up.

  “Who took this video, Grace?” Greg asked when it was over. “Can you tell?”

  “It’s someone called the Human Stain,” Mom answered.

  “Like the Philip Roth novel?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Mom responded with a nod. “At least that’s the name of her YouTube channel. Her real name is Holly. She goes all over Southern California filming people and stuff she finds interesting or newsworthy. Sometimes she travels too. Sometimes it’s fun stuff and sometimes it’s serious, but it’s always interesting.

  I moved the iPad closer to me. With a few taps I was at the profile page for the Human Stain. There was a headshot of a young woman with long straight dark hair. Her face was mostly obscured by the back of a large cell phone turned sideways so that all you could see was her mouth and forehead. The profile read: Female voyeur located in Southern California. People fascinate me from afar, not so much up close. Name’s Holly, as in the poisonous plant. I read the profile out loud.

  “That’s kind of cynical,” Greg noted. “I’ll bet she’s pretty young.”

  “Young or not,” Mom said, “she’s been doing this for a couple of years and has well over twenty thousand subscribers.”

  “That’s pretty impressive,” I agreed. I got up and headed for the kitchen. “Mom, Greg and I were about to have a cold beer. What can I get you?” My mother and my half brother Clark were both recovering alcoholics with many years of sobriety behind them, so I knew she wasn’t going for the beer. She usually went for hot coffee. “I even have some freshly brewed iced coffee in the fridge.”

  Mom and Greg both had their heads bent toward the iPad, watching a replay of the video. Mom glanced up. “Iced coffee sounds good, Odelia. It’s hotter than Satan’s ass out there today.”

  Was Satan’s ass hot? I pictured the Devil posing naked for a cheesecake calendar. He looked strangely like Ryan Gosling. I shook my head hard to clear the image.

  When I returned with the two beers and a tall glass of iced coffee, Mom was gone. A few minutes later she emerged from the hallway that led to the guest bathroom.

  “Do you know there’s a duck in your tub?” Mom asked calmly as she took her place back on the sofa. “Cute little bugger.”

  “I won him in a poker game,” Greg said without taking his eyes off of the iPad. Mom didn’t ask anything else about Dumpster and Greg didn’t offer. It was as if winning a duckling in a card game happened every day.

  As I put my mother’s beverage down on a coaster on the coffee table, Mom glanced up with a smirk. “Better be careful, Greg, or Odelia might get jealous.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. I stood next to Greg and looked at the screen over his shoulder. Instinctively, he put an arm around my waist and drew me close. Just as naturally, one of my arms went around his shoulders.

  “Just watch,” Mom said as she replayed the video, stopping it shortly after Greg took his first swing at the window. At t
his point the camera had zoomed in on Greg’s face, beaded sweat and all. It hung there nearly a full minute, then went wide as he took another swing with the crowbar.

  “So?” I asked. “We saw this before.”

  “Hold your horses,” Mom said. She started the video again for a bit, then paused it again. “And here.” Once again the camera zoomed in on Greg’s face. It was the last swing. The video zoomed in again soon after, showing Greg’s head bent down slightly as he comforted the dog. The camera stayed on Greg and the dog a pretty long time, then again went wide and took in more of the activity, including the part where Marla Kingston came screaming onto the scene. “And again here,” Mom noted as she paused the video again. Once again the camera zoomed in on Greg. This time the camera caught him dressing Marla down over her treatment of the animal.

  “I think this Holly person has a little crush on your man,” Mom said before taking a drink of her iced coffee.

  Greg and I both laughed, then I said with another chuckle, “Greg’s pretty cute, Mom. Why shouldn’t she?” I squeezed Greg’s shoulders. My hubs was good looking, with slightly wavy brown hair and a neatly trimmed Van Dyke beard. The thin strands of gray now showing in each only added to his rakish good looks. To top it off, he possessed a killer smile that radiated a hint of mischief. In spite of the wheelchair, many a time I saw female heads turn to watch him with appreciation when we were out in public.

  “I’m just saying,” Mom continued, “that she seems rather taken with him. You don’t see her zooming in on anyone else, do you? Not even that Marla monster, and she’s famous.”

  “Grace,” Greg said after shaking his head, “I’m sure some of the others involved got close-ups too. Maybe she edited them out.” He paused, then tacked on for good measure, “Then again, I was kind of the superhero of the day.”