The Prince of Venice Beach

by Nelson, Blake

  So I let Diego take the wave and paddled back to the lineup.

  THREE

  After surfing, I went back to Hope’s. I stashed my board and hung up my wet suit to dry. I rinsed the salt and sand out of my hair with the garden hose and then ate a couple oranges.

  After that, I skateboarded back to the boardwalk to continue my search for Chad Mitchell. I cruised by the chess tables where Tommy Shirts and some of the older guys were sitting around. I stopped and sat with them and watched the thick crowd of people walking by. Everyone in Venice walks the boardwalk at some point during the day. So it’s a good way to see who’s around.

  Tommy Shirts was telling a story about some recent trouble he’d gotten into with the cops. It was the same story Tommy always told: He was minding his own business, not hurting anybody, not trying to steal anything (Tommy was always trying to steal something), and then some cop comes along and starts harassing him….

  I was only half listening. I spun the wheel of my skateboard with my fingers. It was late afternoon now, and hot. I was in the mood for a nap. Or maybe a slice of pizza. I lifted my head up to see who was working at the Pizza Slice… and that’s when I saw the kid.

  My eyes went right to him, despite the crowd. He was by himself, on foot. I didn’t see his face, but there was something about him. He had a strange energy. He wore red shorts and brand-new sneakers, but he also seemed a little ragged, a little out of sorts.

  And his hair: That was the giveaway. He had rich-kid hair, layered and wavy, no sideburns, a real professional cut.

  I kept my eyes on him as he moved along. Then I eased away from Tommy Shirts and his endless cop stories.

  I hopped on my skateboard and slowly coasted along behind the guy, staying about twenty yards back.

  He didn’t seem too comfortable on the crowded boardwalk. Some local skateboarders sped by, weaving wildly through the tourists. He had to jump out of the way. Then he cursed them and flipped them off after they’d passed.

  He was definitely not from around here.

  He walked farther and then turned up one of the side streets. I let him go, staying on the boardwalk but keeping him in sight.

  He walked up the hill, then pulled out a set of keys and beeped open a car. It was a blue Volvo, pretty new. It had ski racks. The plates were from Washington State.

  I stayed where I was. I watched him get in the car. I couldn’t see what he was doing inside. I assumed the car would drive off, but it didn’t. It stayed parked where it was.

  I decided to do a walk-by. I picked up my board and walked casually up the hill, right toward the Volvo. As I approached, I could see the obvious signs of someone living in their car. A bathing suit laid out to dry in the back window. Fast-food cups, hamburger wrappers. Rumpled clothes piled in the backseat. A crinkled map. As I passed, I glanced down and saw his face full on. It was definitely him. Chad Mitchell. He was just sitting there, bored. He was playing with the thick gold watch on his wrist.

  When I was a block beyond the car, I casually stepped into a doorway and ducked out of sight. I called Bruce Edwards.

  “I found him,” I said.

  “Where is he?”

  “Sitting in a car on Rose Avenue. Just up from the boardwalk.” I told Edwards the license-plate number.

  He wrote it down. “How’s he look?” he asked.

  “Fine. Far as I can tell.”

  “All right, stay with him. I’ll call the parents and see how they want to proceed.”

  I hung up. I stood in the doorway, balancing the nose of my skateboard on the top of my foot. There was a lot of pedestrian traffic on the street. Mostly people coming back from the beach. A few going the other direction. I felt pretty invisible standing there. Nobody notices a kid with a skateboard. Except maybe another kid.

  After about fifteen minutes, Chad Mitchell got out of his car. I checked my phone—no word yet from Bruce.

  Chad opened his trunk and got out a skateboard, an expensive long-board, brand-new from the looks of it. He shut the trunk and locked the car with the remote.

  I stayed out of sight.

  He headed down the hill toward the boardwalk, walking at first and then getting on his long-board. I stepped out of the doorway and followed.

  It was evening now. The sun was going down. The crowd on the boardwalk had thinned out. Chad cruised on his long-board, pushing lightly, then coasting for long stretches. I cruised too, staying with him. With fewer people around, it was harder to stay out of sight, to stay inconspicuous. I had to hang back, pushing slowly against the concrete; my older, crappier board rattling along in the growing darkness.

  Chad Mitchell wasn’t much of a skateboarder, but his fancy board made up for it. It seemed to push itself, that’s how smooth it rolled. He had skate shoes I’d never seen before, made of some hemp weave, it looked like. Maybe that was a rich-kid thing, or the latest trend in Seattle.

  He rolled along. I got the sense, even from far behind him, that he wasn’t having much fun. He’d probably enjoyed his new freedom for the first couple days. Away from authority, from teachers and parents. But then the freedom gets to you. And the isolation. No family. No friends. Not even a dog. How many times can you go to McDonald’s and eat cheeseburgers by yourself? How many days can you spend on the beach? How many nights can you sleep in your car?

  Not as many as you think.

  Then something unexpected happened. Two guys appeared. They were a little ahead of us, and on foot, but I could see they had locked onto Chad. They must have spotted the longboard and known how expensive it was. They’d also sized up Chad and could see how little resistance he’d put up.

  They didn’t hesitate. One of them charged across the boardwalk and body-slammed him from the side. Chad went flying and hit the concrete with a heavy thud. One of the guys grabbed the board and then they both swarmed over Chad.

  I started to run forward, then stopped myself. No, I thought. Better to let nature run its course.

  I hung back and blended with the dozen or so tourists who had stopped to gawk at this sudden violence. The first guy grabbed Chad by his shirtfront, lifted him off the ground, and punched him in the face.

  That was hard to watch.

  The other guy yanked Chad’s hemp-weave shoes off his feet. This was also hard to watch. But I stayed where I was.

  They went through Chad’s pockets. It happened so fast the people standing there barely had time to register what was happening.

  I glanced behind me and saw a police car crawling along the boardwalk about a quarter-mile away. The cops couldn’t see what was happening here yet. But things could get complicated if they did.

  Chad, from the ground, made a feeble attempt to kick his attackers. They punched him in the face again. This time, the side of Chad’s head bounced hard off the pavement. “Where’s my weed!?” said the guy loudly. This was apparently to fool onlookers into thinking this was a drug deal gone bad. It was a good strategy. Nobody wanted to get involved in a drug deal. It totally worked. Everyone moved back a step.

  The second guy found Chad’s wallet, attached to a wallet chain, which he tore off Chad’s belt loop with one yank.

  I always knew those chains were useless.

  The last thing they took was Chad’s thick gold watch, which they pulled off his wrist. I glanced behind me to check on the police car, and when I turned back the two thieves were gone. They were that fast.

  The growing crowd now moved toward Chad. He was lying on his side, bleeding and crying and groaning in pain. His white athletic socks, half pulled off, looked strangely clean and ordinary in this otherwise miserable scene.

  I couldn’t let the cops get him. I stepped forward. A tourist woman was leaning over Chad, inspecting his face. I pushed her away.

  “Chad? Chad Mitchell?” I said.

  Chad opened his eyes and stared up at me.

  “Dude, the cops are coming,” I said. “We gotta go.”

  “But he’s hurt!” said a tourist.<
br />
  “Don’t move his neck!” said a woman.

  “Back off!” I barked, and the tourists moved quickly away.

  An old man saw the squad car in the distance. “Look!” he cried. “The police! Someone call them!” People started waving their arms.

  I pulled Chad to his feet. He couldn’t straighten up, but I got him moving, steering him away from the tourists, up a side street, and down an alley. We hid behind a Dumpster.

  Crouched on the ground, Chad groaned and held his ribs. Then he felt the blood on his chin. “What the—!?” he said, touching his lips. “I’m bleeding! My whole mouth is bleeding!”

  I found a napkin on the ground and handed it to him. “Dude, you’re fine. You’re okay.” I peeked over the Dumpster and checked to see where the squad car was.

  “They took my wallet!” Chad cried suddenly. He was feeling around in his empty pockets. “And my keys! Where are my keys? They took my car keys!”

  I told him to stay quiet and stay down. He did, and the cop car passed without seeing us.

  When Chad realized he had been totally cleaned out, he lowered his swollen face into his knees and started to sob.

  I sat there with him, not comforting him, just letting him cry. “Some other creep tried to rob me yesterday,” he moaned. “What’s wrong with these people? This is supposed to be the beach! This is supposed to be fun!”

  “You’re easy money,” I said.

  The truth of this made him cry more, which I figured was probably good.

  I let several minutes go by. I waited until he’d cried himself out.

  “What are you going to do now?” I finally asked him.

  “I just wanna go home,” he said into his knees. “I just wanna go back to Seattle. I hate it here. This place sucks!”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Of course I’m sure!” he whined.

  “Okay,” I said quietly. I got out my phone. I called Bruce Edwards.

  “I’m sitting here with Chad,” I told him. “He says he wants to go home.”

  “Good work,” said Bruce.

  FOUR

  Hope Stillwell was singing in the backyard when I woke up the next morning. She did that sometimes while she hung up her sheets on the clothesline. I was in the tree house and I rolled over and watched her. Hope did a lot of things like that: singing, doing yoga, getting up early to work in her garden. She was a pretty happy person in general. I felt pretty good too. I felt pretty great. I had found Chad Mitchell. And sent him home to his parents in one piece.

  I ate an orange for breakfast and headed down toward the beach. I cruised along the boardwalk like I owned the place.. When I first came to Venice, I was so clueless. I couldn’t skate, I couldn’t surf, I didn’t know what gnarly meant. People called me “Cali” or “California” as a joke. But now I really was “California,” maybe more than a lot of people.

  I cruised by the basketball courts. Huge Diego was there on his tiny BMX bike. That was always an amusing sight. We got a game going with some older dudes, some weekend-warrior types. All through the game, though, I kept looking over at the drinking fountain where Bruce Edwards had appeared. Would he want to hire me again? I had definitely come through for him. Could I work for him on a regular basis somehow? Or maybe become a private investigator myself someday? It seemed possible.

  That night, Hope was having one of her knitting circles, so it was crowded in the house: a dozen women, chattering away, yarn balls rolling around on the floor. I grabbed some snacks and headed to my tree house. Hope had turned on the Christmas lights and the Chinese lanterns in the backyard, so there was a nice glow back there. I balanced my can of Pepsi on a plate of chips and salsa and climbed my ladder one-handed.

  I got settled and turned on my radio. Usually at night, I listened to the Lakers game or Coast to Coast, which is a talk show about paranormal activity and UFOs. Tonight, though, I tuned it to a classical station. I did that because I was thinking about my possible future as a private investigator. I was worried I wasn’t cultured enough. Chad Mitchell was a rich kid. Which meant his parents probably went to the opera or the symphony or whatever. You probably needed to know certain things to work for people like that. And act a certain way. That was why Bruce Edwards wore a coat and tie, even at the beach. You had to look professional.

  I pictured myself, years from now, being like Bruce Edwards: coat and tie, official business cards, a license from the state of California.

  I imagined my own picture ID:

  ROBERT “CALI” CALLAHAN

  PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR

  In the picture, I would look tough and unflinching. I imagined being in a hotel lounge somewhere and someone asking me what I did for a living. At first, I’d avoid the subject, I’d be vague. But if they kept after me, I’d show them my ID.

  “You’re a private detective?” they’d say, amazed. “Do you carry a gun?”

  “I don’t need a gun,” I’d say.

  I liked the sound of that. Maybe I’d put that on my business card.

  ROBERT “CALI” CALLAHAN

  PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR

  “I DON’T NEED A GUN.”

  Or maybe I’d just get a gun. I’d have to take a gun class anyway, at some point. And I’d have to go to a shooting range. I pictured myself with the earmuffs, the safety glasses, blasting away when the cardboard bad guy spun in my direction: Blam blam blam blam—

  “—Cali?” said a voice from below. I snapped out of my daydream and looked down. It was Ailis, a nerdy girl who hung out with Hope and her friends sometimes. She must have been at the knitting circle.

  “Hey, Ailis,” I said.

  “Hey,” she said back. “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing. Getting ready for bed.”

  “Is that classical music you’re listening to?”

  I should have known that somehow, some way, somebody was going to give me crap about the classical music.

  “Yes, it is, Ailis. Do you have a problem with that?”

  “No. I just find it interesting that you, who lives in a tree house and barely knows how to read, are listening to something so sophisticated.”

  “I know how to read, Ailis,” I said to her. “I happen to be reading War and Peace at the moment.”

  This was sort of true. I had an old paperback copy of War and Peace. A hobo I’d met had torn the book in half and given me the front half. I’d never read it, though. But I was going to, as part of my new plan to educate myself.

  “Do you even know what composer this is?”

  “No, I don’t, Ailis.” I lay back the way I was, staring upward, imagining my private-investigator badge.

  “I think it’s Mozart,” said Ailis. “But I could be wrong.”

  “I don’t really care,” I said to my tree-house ceiling. “I don’t even like it, to tell you the truth. I was just giving it a try.”

  “I think that’s very admirable.”

  “Thank you, Ailis. Is there anything else?”

  There was a long silence from down in the yard. I wondered if she’d gone back inside. I rolled over and looked.

  She was still there. She swallowed nervously and said, “Hope said you might want to see Battle for Santa Cruz.”

  This was true. Battle for Santa Cruz was a new movie about an alien invasion of California. That was my favorite type of movie and I definitely wanted to see it. And now, thanks to Chad Mitchell, I had some money. I would probably go see Battle for Santa Cruz that week.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ll probably see it.”

  “Do you want to go together? It’s playing at the Nuart.”

  “Are you asking me out on a date, Ailis?” I said.

  “No, I’m just saying if we both want to see it, we could go together. It’s weird for girls to go to movies by themselves. I never even got to see the last Harry Potter movie.”

  “Go with Hope,” I said.

  “Hope’s too old. She doesn’t like alien-invasion movies.”


  “Well, go with someone your own age, then.”

  “You are my own age.”

  I stared down at Ailis. She had thick black hair and was lately wearing big black glasses, which gave her a dorky, robotic look. Which was fine except that she was eighteen, which was a little old for the robot-nerd thing. Like, that would be funny if she were ten. But she was out of high school. She actually went to Santa Monica Community College. She shouldn’t be so weird and computer-like and into Harry Potter movies. But then, if she were normal, she would have normal guys taking her to the movies and she wouldn’t be bothering me.

  “All right, Ailis. When do you want to go?”

  “Tuesday?”

  “Okay.”

  She turned and walked away. Then she stopped halfway across the yard and turned back. She pushed her glasses up her nose. “Thank you for going with me,” she said.

  “Okay, Ailis.”

  The next day, at the basketball courts, I ended up on a team playing against Jojo Hendrix. Even worse, I actually had to guard him. This was deeply humbling but also fun, if you like a challenge. It wasn’t totally impossible to guard Jojo. You just had to account for his superhuman speed and quickness. Also it helped if you talked to him and got him thinking about other things. Like, what language did God speak? English? Spanish? Chinese? And how small were angels? The size of a small person or a small pet or a dime or a molecule?

  The other fun part of playing in a Jojo game was that people would come watch. He was that electric. One or two spectacular plays and a ripple would spread out across the boardwalk. People could sense something amazing was happening. They wouldn’t know where it was at first. They’d start looking around, checking the street performers, looking out toward the beach. Then they’d realize: It’s coming from the basketball courts.

  Sometimes a hundred people would gather around the court to watch Jojo. Dudes were always telling him, “You should charge admission.” Or someone would offer to pass the hat or whatever, let the people show their appreciation and get Jojo a couple bucks, maybe even enough to buy him a decent meal or a pair of real basketball shoes. But that wasn’t his thing; he wasn’t interested in that. “I don’t need nothing,” he would say, “as long as I am able to love God.” That was a little weird for most people. So they’d shut up and let Jojo get back to the game.