by Jeff Shelby
She walked over to the bars, her sandals clapping against the concrete floor. She rested her hands on the metal door.
“How did you know I was here?” she asked.
“A friend of mine works here,” I told her. “She thought she was doing me a favor.”
“She?”
She knew Liz from years ago, but I didn’t feel like giving her any details.
I shook my head. “None of your business.”
She shrugged. “Just checking.”
We stood there awkwardly for a few moments, each of us trying to avoid looking at the other. A four-year gap in a family relationship is hard to erase in just a couple of minutes, particularly when the parties weren’t sure about wanting the chasm to disappear.
Carolina was the first to break the ice. “Where did you get the bruises on your face?” she asked as she studied me with a little more focus.
“Someone’s fists.”
“Why?”
I shrugged. “Why not?”
My sarcasm may not have fazed her, but I knew that indifference could sometimes get to her.
She pulled her hands from the bars and folded her arms across her chest. “Are you here to tell me my fate?”
I leaned back against the wall. “They’re dropping the charges.”
She slid her eyes away from me. “The stop was ridiculous anyway. I never moved out of my lane.”
“You blew.21. You were lit. So the stop was good. Carolina.”
My sarcasm always failed. My indifference was a long shot. But I knew using her first name would draw a little blood because it reminded her that I didn’t think of her as a parent.
“You’re my ride home, then?” she said, colder than before.
“Have I ever been anything else?”
“You know better.”
“No, actually, I don’t,” I said. “My most cherished memories are propping you up in the passenger seat after carrying you out of some dive.”
“Stop it.”
“And then lugging you inside the house, only to have you wake up the next day pretending it all never happened.”
“Noah.”
I smiled. “I mean, honestly. That accounts for a good part of the early nineties, right?”
Her eyes locked on me for a moment, the faint lines at the corners now defined with tension. Her lips were pursed tightly together, contemplating her response. She knew I was right, yet she’d never admit it. She’d always lived in the moment, preferring to ignore the past, no matter what the consequences or how it had affected me.
She dropped her arms from her chest. “I didn’t ask you to come here, Noah. If you don’t want to deal with me, then just leave,” she said, as if it didn’t matter to her. “I’ll find my own way.”
I knew that was true. As many times as I’d rescued her from a bar or a parking lot, there had been just as many nights when she had managed to get herself home. I’d lie in bed, knowing that sometime in the middle of the night at the oddest hour, a car door would slam outside and the front door would creak open, signaling that she was home and I could look forward to the same scenario the next night. If I left now, she’d figure out some way to get out and get back to her life.
An officer approached from down the hall. He looked at me, uninterested. “She going with you?” he said.
I looked at Carolina, my mother. So much of me wanted to say no, just to say it in front of her face and see if there was any satisfaction in walking away from her. See if it made up for all the anger, guilt, and shame I’d felt for so many years.
But a small part of me simply saw my mother and felt sorry for her once again.
“Yeah,” I told the guard. “She’s going with me.”
Nineteen
For two people with big mouths, my mother and I were having an easy time keeping them shut.
Carolina and I rode up I-5 from downtown without speaking, the only noise being Ben Harper’s whispering from the speakers of the Jeep. The wedge of silence sat between us like an uninvited passenger.
I took the Sea World Drive exit, went east, then made a left on Morena, heading back into a neighborhood that I always did my best to avoid.
Bay Park is a small community cut into the hills that face west over Mission Bay and out to the Pacific Ocean. The majority of the homes were built in the 1950s, but the views and sprawling decks kept their values in the half-million-dollar range.
Sandwiched between the bottom of the hills and the highway was a small cluster of bungalows. Small lots, drab paint, and no views made it an area that the other residents in Bay Park tried not to claim.
I’d grown up in the bungalows and I didn’t want to claim them, either.
My mother lived in the same house two blocks off of Morena that she’d raised me in. The blue paint was still faded, the small lawn was still overgrown, and the garage door that always stuck was still half a foot away from closing.
And I still hated it.
I eased the Jeep next to the curb and shut off the engine.
My mother turned to me. “You’re living in Mission Beach, right?”
“Yep.”
“Same place?”
I nodded. “Same place that you’ve never been to.”
“You’ve never invited me.”
“You needed an invitation?”
She shrugged. “You usually grimace at the sight of me. I figured it would only be worse if I came to your home.”
I stifled a sigh. “My grimace is usually related to your level of intoxication.”
She looked away from me, out the passenger window.
I stared at what used to be my home. The front window was off my bedroom. I had climbed through it regularly during high school, not because I was sneaking away, but because I hadn’t wanted to see Carolina passed out on the sofa as I left. The window had become my portal to the sane world.
My mother turned back to me. “Do you see Carter these days?”
“Almost every day.”
“Is he good?”
“Sometimes, but not usually.”
She smiled. “I always liked him.”
“That makes you one of the few.”
“He was a loyal friend. Everyone needs someone like that looking out for them.”
I looked at her. “Most of my friends called those people parents.”
Her jaw tightened and she looked down at her lap. She folded her hands together tightly, one of the knuckles cracking. “I suppose. But I meant that I was simply glad that you had such a close friend.”
I fought the impulse to feel badly about what I’d said. As a teenager, I’d rarely said what I’d wanted to say to her. I’d been afraid. No matter how absentee, she was the only parent I had. Now, as an adult, I wasn’t going to regret whatever came out of my mouth. She could try to make me feel guilty, but I would fight it.
She unbuckled her seat belt. “Do you want to come in?”
I looked at the house again. So many nights I had come home and stood outside, not knowing what I would find inside. A passed-out mother. A strange visitor. Or no one at all.
I didn’t have a choice then. I always had to go in.
“No, thanks,” I said. “I gotta get moving.”
She stared at me for a moment, knowing I was probably lying. But then she nodded quickly. “Okay. Thank you for the ride.”
“You’re welcome.”
She opened the door and stepped out of the Jeep. “And tell your friend thank you, too. For doing whatever she did.”
“Yeah. I’ll tell her.”
She cleared her throat, then hesitated as if she were going to say something. She pinched the bridge of her nose, shook her head slightly, and looked at me. “Okay, then. Goodbye, Noah.”
She shut the door and I watched her walk toward the house, stepping carefully on the cracked pavers that split the middle of the lawn.
I could feel it coming and I wanted to smother it, to shove it back down wherever it was coming from. I didn
’t need it, didn’t need to set myself up for the disappointment that I knew would inevitably arrive with any attempt at a relationship with my mother. I didn’t want to feel like I needed Carolina Braddock in my life in any capacity.
But I couldn’t stop it.
I opened my door and stepped out of the Jeep. “Hey. Mom.”
She stopped on the front porch and turned around, a mild look of surprise on her face.
“Saturday night,” I said.
She stared at me, puzzled. “Saturday night what?”
My throat tightened and I had to swallow before I spoke. “Come to dinner. At my place.”
She looked at me for a moment, as if she thought I might be teasing her, ready to pull back the string when she reached for it. When I said nothing, she nodded.
“Saturday night,” she said. “Okay.”
I watched her walk inside, the anxiety over our next meeting already churning away in my stomach.
Twenty
I drove back to Mission Beach, my body beginning to wear down at the end of the day. It was becoming a regular thing.
My head was aching, too, but that was from the wear and tear of the emotional ride of the last few days than anything else. I considered swinging by the SandDune for a drink, but I knew the taste of alcohol would remind me of my mother and the blown-out windows of the bar would remind me of Moreno, Lonnie, and all the other unpleasant characters that had planted themselves in my life.
And the more I thought about Carolina coming to my house for dinner, the more reckless it felt. I’d been caught up in the moment and not thinking clearly. Lonnie and Mo knew where I lived, a fact that was starting to weigh on me more by the day. My home wasn’t completely safe for me, much less anyone else.
While waiting for a red light to change, I dialed her on my cell and got her answering machine. I left a stumbling, vague message about meeting at a restaurant in Mission Beach on Saturday rather than my home. I knew she’d take it the wrong way, but I’d deal with that when I saw her.
I opted to park the Jeep several blocks up from my place. I knew the early evening party traffic would be choking the alleys and I didn’t feel like fighting it. I took the opportunity to walk down the boardwalk and collect my thoughts.
The air was still as I strolled up the concrete walk next to the beach, the usual evening breeze sucked up by the lingering heat of the day. The water at the edge of the sand rippled like a black canvas tarp. The laughter and conversation that floated around me from the evening revelers as the darkness descended felt familiar and comfortable.
I wasn’t sure I wanted my mother coming into this familiar and comfortable environment because all I’d ever known from her presence was disruption. I’d grown accustomed to being on my own, to living in my own world, and I didn’t want to adjust any of that for someone I would never be able to fully trust.
A group of people on the balcony of a blue stucco two-story let out a cry of appreciation. I looked up. Beer bottles raised in the air, they rocked and swayed to the muted music from inside their place. I shook my head, smiling. Those yells and cries, the constant stereophonic noise that poured out of the houses up and down the boardwalk, those were the things I knew I could count on.
I hopped the low wall onto my patio and watched the dark ocean roll in and out for another minute. I thought about going in and calling Carter, but I was afraid he’d tell me he was with Dana, and that was something I didn’t want to know about. I didn’t want to think about the Plutos or the gang members, either. For one night, I needed a breather.
That left Liz. She said to call her.
I pictured her face, the half-Hispanic, half-Italian features that had taken hold of me a long time ago and refused to let go. I had my doubts about whether we could coexist, but I knew that every time I saw her, I felt like we should be trying.
Maybe it was time.
I headed for the sliding door. As I reached for it, I froze.
The door was an inch from being closed.
I pulled my gun and listened.
Nothing.
I eased the door open with my left hand, the gun heavy in my right. No lights and the television was off. Definitely not Carter.
I stepped into the living room and looked into the shadows. Nothing broken or disturbed. I could hear my breathing and tried to relax.
Something was wrong, but I couldn’t place it.
I moved over to the front door. The deadbolt was intact and I couldn’t see any damage around the lock.
I scanned the room again, then moved down the short hallway toward the bedroom, replaying the living room in my head, trying to compare the picture of what I’d just seen to what it normally looked like. Television, coffee table, sofa. They were all there.
Then it hit me.
The longboard.
I turned back to the far corner of the living room. The longboard that always stood in the corner was gone.
The muscles in my back tightened and my index finger flexed around the trigger of the gun.
Then it hit me again.
The longboard.
Literally.
The board came charging out of my bedroom, slamming into me and knocking me onto my back, the gun flying from my hand. I recognized Lonnie sliding across the top of the board, his momentum carrying him over and past me into the dark living room.
I rolled over quickly and grabbed him by the ankle as he tried to scramble to his feet. He jammed a heel into my mouth, but I remembered last time and I wasn’t letting go. The pain that had riddled my body in the previous days had transformed itself into adrenaline.
I got to my knees and threw myself forward, landing on him as he tried to get up. I forced him back down to the floor, I slammed his face into the floor, his nose cracking on the hard surface.
He screamed and I grabbed his hair, pulled his head up, and rammed his face into the floor again, the adrenaline ripping through my body. His body shook beneath mine as I pressed all of my weight into him.
A hand yanked at the waist of my shorts while another grabbed my shoulder, tearing me away from Lonnie. The hands picked me up with the ease of a crane and hurtled me across the living room and into the dining room wall. Red and black clouds exploded in my eyes as I hit the wall back first. Lightning rocketed through my back and legs as I slid to the floor. I shook my head and righted myself against the wall, trying to clear my vision.
Mo was helping Lonnie off the floor. They looked as if they hadn’t even changed clothes from the last time I’d seen them.
I tried to get up, but my knees buckled and I slid back to the floor.
“Fucking cocksucker,” Lonnie said, a hand across his nose, his voice wet and muddled. “You fucking cocksucker.”
I tried to rise up again, made it halfway before my knees gave out again and I fell to my left. My hand landed on something steel, something cold, something friendly.
My gun.
I slid the gun next to my leg, my hand locking onto it like a magnet.
“I told you’d we’d be back,” Lonnie said, removing his hand from his face and exposing what looked like a smashed piece of clay where his nose should’ve been. Blood oozed from his nostrils and he’d smeared it across his mouth. “Here we are, asshole. And you’re gonna talk this time.”
“How about Mo steps outside, you little piece of shit?” I said, trying to sit up straighter against the wall. “You want me so bad? Let’s go. Just me and you. Or does Mo always do your fighting for you?”
“You can’t handle me, motherfucker,” Lonnie sneered.
“I’ve done it twice, dumbass,” I said, tightening my grip on the gun. “And I’m just wondering. Do you call him Mo because it’s short for Mommy?”
“You’re fucking dead,” Lonnie said, moving toward the glass slider. He reached for the hanging blinds and started to pull them closed. “Grab him, Mo.”
Mo grunted and took a step toward me.
“Don’t fucking move, Mo,” I said, raising
the gun and aiming it at his chest.
He looked at it, a blank expression on his face. No fear, no anger. As if I were holding a plate of cookies and he wasn’t sure if he was hungry. He turned to Lonnie.
Lonnie, on the other hand, looked a little scared, his hand frozen on the cord to the blinds. He licked the blood on his lips and shook his head slowly. “You think that matters?”
“I’m guessing, yeah, it does,” I said, keeping the gun on Mo and glancing at Lonnie. “Seems to have frozen your mommy right in his footsteps. Wanna give him a kiss?”
Lonnie stared at me, his eyes cold and flat, full of hate. He looked at his hand, his red fingertips illuminated by the moonlight from outside. Then he looked back at me, a small, ugly smile emerging on his small, ugly face.
He looked at Mo. “Get him.”
Mo turned and rushed at me. I froze for a second, stunned that he would charge me with a gun aimed at his chest just because Lonnie said to.
Then I squeezed the trigger.
The bullet hit him in the right shoulder and he grunted, stopping in midstep, his eyes still locked on me.
Lonnie moved for the glass slider and I jerked the gun in his direction and fired. The slider shattered and Lonnie disappeared into the shower of glass.
I swiveled the gun back at Mo. He had his left arm across his chest, his hand covering the expanding wound. He pulled his hand away and examined the blood like a child cut for the first time.
“Let’s go!” Lonnie screamed from outside.
“Don’t move,” I said, locking the gun on him.
Mo reacted as if he didn’t even hear me. He pivoted and I fired, but the shot missed high.
Mo jumped the coffee table and charged through the shattered glass door faster than a man with a bullet in his body should’ve been able, following Lonnie out into the night.
Twenty-one
Detective John Wellton said, “A little cold in here last night?”
He was standing where my sliding door should’ve been, the early morning fog rolling up off the water and trying to work its way into my house. Wellton wore black jeans and a white golf shirt, his ebony skin even darker against the shirt. His gun was holstered at his waist. He had his hands on his hips, his legs slightly spread, and I wondered if he thought that stance made him look taller.