The Prince of Venice Beach

by Nelson, Blake

  I sat. I waited.

  “She told me where she was. Not the exact location. But she said she was here in Los Angeles, and that she had met one of my people, a young person, who I assume is you, since you recently quit the search.”

  I started to offer an excuse but he stopped me.

  “No, no, I understand,” he said. “Grisham told me. That is entirely in your rights. And I’m sure when you met Reese, she persuaded you that she was not a common runaway, that she was in danger or was the victim of some conspiracy, or some such thing. I’m sure it was thoroughly convincing. I don’t blame you in the least.”

  I watched him closely.

  “You see, the thing about Reese is”—he paused, looking pained—“she has a condition. Different doctors call it different things. But the basic idea is: She lives in a kind of fantasy world. She does not completely connect with reality at times. And she is, unfortunately, going through one of those times right now.”

  Richard Abernathy sighed and took a drink of his ice tea. He was balding on the top of his head. But on the sides, his hair was thick and speckled gray. He had solid features and appeared deeply confident in himself, though at the moment he was obviously in distress over the loss of his daughter. He spoke carefully about her, as if it was crucially important that he keep the facts straight in his own mind.

  “It appears her latest idea is that I am somehow responsible for her mother’s death. And maybe, I am, in some way,” he said, looking into his tea. “But her version of it. Or her versions, I should say. Whatever she told you. That is not the reality of the situation….”

  “You’re saying she’s a liar?”

  He shook his head sadly. “Not a liar. God no. It’s just that… like for instance, one Christmas, when she was six years old… somehow she decided she had a brother, and that he had died in a fire. All Christmas she talked about it. She would tell our dinner guests, she told her teachers, she told a policeman at the mall. She had a brother, who had died in a fire, under mysterious circumstances. But in fact, she had no brother. She never had a brother. We told her that. We told her over and over.”

  I maintained my silence.

  “As for my wife,” he continued, “she was a lot like Reese in that way. That’s why I fell in love with her. She was a dreamer. A visionary. Incredibly creative and talented. She had a similar way of reinventing the world, making it more the way she thought it should be, as opposed to the way it actually was. This can be a great quality in a partner. It gives you the feeling that anything is possible. Of course the doctors have their own terminology for these things: delusion syndrome… personality disorder… disassociation… I don’t like to think in those terms. To me it’s the price you pay for an extraordinary mind. The point is, Reese is not well. She needs to be under the care of her doctors. I consider her to be in great danger right now.”

  I watched Mr. Abernathy closely as he spoke. I watched his face. I watched his eyes. How did you know if someone was lying? I didn’t know. How did you know if someone was telling the truth? I didn’t know that, either.

  “What do you want from me?” I asked.

  “She trusts you,” he said. “I could hear it in her voice. I think she’ll contact you again. Or maybe you can contact her. In either case, I beg of you, call me. Help me find her. I’ll pay you twice what you were getting before. I’ll give you a bonus. Whatever you want, it’s yours. And I won’t say anything to Grisham. He will continue his search as well, but you can report directly to me.” He slid a business card across the table toward me.

  I took the card. I held it in my hands. I considered my situation.

  Then I cleared my throat. “Here’s what I’m going to do,” I told him. “If I can help her, I will. But I’m not working for you and I’m not taking any money.”

  Abernathy looked confused. “But why not?”

  “Because I don’t know who’s telling the truth.”

  “What do you mean? I’m telling the truth. Reese is a sick girl. She needs help!”

  He dug into his inside coat pocket and pulled out some papers. “These are doctor’s evaluations. The best doctors in San Francisco!”

  I took the papers but I didn’t look at them.

  “She trusts you,” said Abernathy, pleading now. “She told me that. You could potentially save her. She’s a beautiful, talented young woman. And with the right treatment, she could live a normal life. She could be a person like you, someone who overcomes their circumstances, and makes something of themselves….”

  I was surprised by this personal flattery. Richard Abernathy had done his homework.

  “If I don’t find her,” he continued, “who knows what will happen to her. Down here? In this world? Among these people…?” he gestured out the window at the Venice locals, his whole body cringing with disgust.

  We both sat in silence for several moments. Mr. Abernathy became lost in thought. It was like he’d forgotten I was there. What if he was the one who was disconnected from reality?

  I stood up. He started to stand too, but I motioned for him to stay where he was.

  “So you’ll call me, if you see her again?” he asked.

  “I told you. I’ll help if I can. But what form that will take, I’m gonna make my own call.”

  “But I’m her father! She’s a child! She has serious mental-health issues!”

  “Lots of people have issues,” I said. “That doesn’t mean they aren’t telling the truth.”

  Out of the restaurant, I headed for the boardwalk. My heart was pounding in my chest. Now what the hell was I supposed to do? I reached for my phone—my new replacement phone—but I hadn’t put Ailis’s number in it yet.

  I went to the Pizza Slice where Strawberry was standing in the middle of the boardwalk, holding up her PIZZA SLICE $1.99 sign. Jax sat on the curb a few feet away.

  I sat down beside Jax. Then I collapsed, lying back on the dirty concrete and putting my forearms over my eyes.

  “What’s your problem?” Jax asked me.

  “I’m having a professional crisis,” I said.

  “Dude, you have a profession? Besides sucking at basketball?”

  “Cali finds people,” said Strawberry.

  “What?” Jax said. “Who does he find?”

  “Runaways,” said Strawberry.

  Jax turned to me. “No way.”

  “I helped him,” said Strawberry. “I found Reese Abernathy.”

  Jax looked at both of us. “Who’s Reese Abernathy?”

  “She’s rich,” said Strawberry. “And she’s beautiful.”

  “She is?” asked Jax. “Well, where the hell is she?” He kicked my foot.

  I sat up and sighed. “I don’t know, and I don’t care,” I said. “I’m off the case. I’m done with these rich and powerful types. You can never tell who’s lying and who’s telling the truth.”

  “I told you,” said Strawberry.

  I shook my head. But I smiled too. Because Strawbs was right. She did tell me.

  TWENTY

  Then one day Jax showed up at the basketball courts carrying an unusually large pillow, still in the packaging. We stopped playing and watched Jax lay it down carefully on the bleachers. “Birthday present,” he said, before we asked.

  “For who?” I said.

  “Strawbs.”

  The rest of us had not known it was her birthday. But Jax knew. He really liked Strawberry, it seemed. He was always hanging around the Pizza Slice, showing up with little presents, like miniature colored marshmallows, which he stole from the Beach Mart and which were Strawberry’s favorite food. He would also do anything to make her laugh. Like walk around with a melting ice cream cone stuck upside down on his head. Or demonstrating how to catch seagulls with your bare hands—he actually caught one and almost got his face pecked off.

  What Strawbs thought of Jax was more of a mystery. You could put in a lot of Strawberry time and never really know what went on in her head. “She’s the strangest girl I
ever met,” said Diego. For me the question was: Where did she go when she spaced out? Like you’d see her sometimes, and she’d be staring into space like she does, completely oblivious to her surroundings, and you’d be like: Where is she right now? What’s it like there?

  We continued our basketball game. We let Jax play, which was not the greatest idea since he can barely dribble and mostly crashes into people. But we got through it without anyone getting hurt.

  Afterward, Jax rinsed his stubble head in the drinking fountain. Then he picked up his enormous pillow. “Let’s go find Strawberry!” he said.

  Diego and I went with him. She was sitting on the curb, in her usual spot.

  “Hey Straw-girl. I got you something,” said Jax, very pleased with himself.

  He handed her the pillow, which was almost as big as she was.

  “Oh,” she said, gripping it in her small arms. “What is it?”

  “It’s a pillow!” he said.

  She looked more closely and then saw the little sticker on the wrapping that said: PILLOW.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “That’s just part of the present,” said Jax. “There’s another part. But it’s over on Sixth Street.”

  So Jax led the group of us on a walk to Sixth Street. We arrived at a house there that I’d never seen before. Nobody seemed to be home. We walked around to the side, and Jax reached over the fence and opened the gate.

  This made me nervous. Letting yourself into random backyards was a good way to get shot on Sixth Street.

  “And this,” said Jax, playing the tour guide. “Is my uncle’s girlfriend’s house.” He led us into the small yard. One of those portable tool sheds stood near the back of it, next to a swing set. The shed had been fixed up to look like a large doll house. Someone had painted shutters by the windows and flowers along the base of it.

  Jax went to it and opened the door and motioned for us to look inside. We did. There was a good-sized room in there. It was clean and swept. Along one wall was a cot. And on the cot there were some blankets folded up.

  Jax took the pillow from Strawberry and ducked inside. He laid the pillow at the end of the cot. “And that… goes there!” he said with a flourish.

  None of us understood. Strawberry least of all.

  “This is yours,” Jax told Strawberry. “You can stay here.”

  “I can?” said Strawberry.

  “My uncle’s girlfriend lives in the house. She says you can use the shed whenever you want. You can live here.”

  I got it then. Strawberry had found her tree house.

  “And there’s a little shower thing on the side of the house,” said Jax. “You can take showers.”

  “And you can stash your clothes,” I said.

  “You can wash your clothes,” added Diego.

  “I would live here?” said Strawberry. “In this?”

  “Yes,” said Jax. “Right here. And my uncle’s house is one block down. That’s where I live. You can come over whenever you want. You can watch TV.”

  Strawberry stood there, speechless.

  “Try out your pillow,” said Diego.

  “Yeah,” said Jax. “Lie down.”

  Strawberry touched the cot. It was one of those Army Navy ones, pretty big, pretty comfortable. She turned and lowered her tiny butt onto it.

  Jax was beaming. He was so happy. Jojo was always telling us that you had to give of yourself. That was the only true happiness, doing something for another person. Jax was experiencing that right now. He was so happy he could barely stand it.

  Strawberry slowly put her full weight on the cot, then turned and lay down on it. Her eyes were wide open, but she rested her head against the pillow and let her head sink into it.

  “Look at that,” said Diego. “You’re a doll in a doll house!”

  Everyone smiled at that. Even Strawberry. But then her big eyes got soft and wet and we all realized she was overwhelmed and confused and she didn’t know how to respond to this.

  “C’mon,” said Jax, suddenly embarrassed himself. “Let’s go look at the shower.”

  He and Diego went out. Strawberry sat up.

  “I never know how to act when people do things for me,” she said to me quietly.

  “Just go along with it,” I said. “Do it for them. Let them feel good.”

  That night, I had another dream about Mugs. In this one, I was walking along the boardwalk and I heard someone call my name. I looked down, and at my feet there was a grate over a deep storm drain. That’s where the voice was coming from.

  I got down on my knees and looked through the grate. Ten feet below me, there was another grate. Mugs was trapped beneath it. I could see his hands gripping the bars as he told me, in a strangely calm voice, that water was coming up beneath him.

  “I need your help with this, Cali,” he said. “This is not something I can deal with right now.”

  I could see the water all around him. It was rising up fast. It reached his chest, his shoulders, his neck….

  “I know we’ve had disagreements in the past,” he said, his face now pressed against the bars. “Which I am willing to discuss. But right now, what I need from you, is a commitment—”

  The water rose over his face and covered him completely. And yet his mouth continued to move, bubbles now coming out, instead of words.

  “Don’t worry,” said a stranger behind me, who had stopped to watch. “Nothing he says after he’s dead can be used in a court of law.”

  I jerked awake, terrified. I threw off my covers. I tumbled out of the tree house, sliding down the ladder half dressed. When I landed in the grass my whole body was shaking. I climbed over Hope’s fence and ran into the street. I didn’t know what I was doing or where I was going. I didn’t even have my shoes on.

  I found myself walking toward the beach. It was very late, four a.m. probably. Venice was dead quiet and you could hear the soft rush of waves in the distance.

  I walked along the boardwalk, beside the long lines of sleeping bags and hobos and dogs and tents. All those people without a home, but at least they could sleep at night.

  I came to the tattoo parlor that Jojo lived behind, and I suddenly realized why I had come out here. I walked around to Jojo’s little cardboard shack. It was very small. You could see his bare feet sticking out one end of it.

  I bent down. “Jojo,” I whispered.

  He grumbled and shifted.

  “Jojo!” I whispered again.

  He lifted his head and looked out at me.

  “Who is that?” he asked, sleepily.

  “It’s me, Cali,” I whispered. “I gotta talk to you.”

  “What is it?”

  “I think I might have done something bad. Something terrible.”

  This got his attention. Jojo sat up and dug through his junk for his SpongeBob shoes. Those were terrible shoes, which upset me even worse.

  Jojo crawled out of his hut. He stared up at the stars and said something about “The light of God’s love.” Then we went for a walk.

  I told him what happened with Mugs. Going slowly at first, but then blurting out the rest in a rush of tears.

  Jojo put his hand on my shoulder and listened. Just like he always does.

  Diego texted me the next morning and told me there was a problem with Strawberry. I had been up late with Jojo, but I felt better now, so I got dressed and went down to the basketball courts.

  Jax and Diego were there. Jax said that Strawberry had not been back to the shed. She’d slept in the grass by the chess tables that night, without even a sleeping bag. He was very worried about her. He wanted me to talk to her.

  So I went to the Pizza Slice and found her, sitting on the curb, looking like a leprechaun. She was throwing pieces of pizza crust to the seagulls.

  I sat down beside her. I didn’t say anything at first. I helped her feed the seagulls.

  Finally I said: “Jax said you haven’t stayed at that place he found you.”

  “I don�
��t like it there.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s too far.”

  “Yeah. It’s pretty far.”

  “And it’s dark.”

  “Maybe we could get you a lamp,” I said. “Or a TV.”

  “I don’t like TV,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “It tells you things that aren’t true.”

  I nodded. She was probably right about that. “Don’t you at least want to keep your stuff there?”

  “I don’t have any stuff.”

  “What about your backpack?”

  She shook her head.

  `“Okay,” I said. I looked at her. “You know, we just worry about you. It’s dangerous out here.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “Okay then,” I said.

  I got up and walked back to the basketball court. They threw me the ball and waited for me to say something. But there was nothing to say.

  TWENTY ONE

  The next night, Ailis and I drove to the Topanga trailer park. This was on Jojo’s advice.

  On the drive, I told Ailis the whole Mugs story: the way Buckalter approached me, the disposable phone, the fact that I never knew where Buckalter was, or who exactly he worked for. And then getting sucker punched on the pier by the old man and his friends.

  “And now you’re going back?” she said. “To talk to those same people?”

  “That’s what Jojo said to do. And he’s right. I gotta find out what happened. Or at least offer to help if I can.”

  “You need closure,” said Ailis.

  “I need to sleep at night,” I said.

  Ailis pulled into the Topanga parking lot. Her car lights swept across the old school bus, still packed to the ceilings with crap.

  We parked close to the entrance so we could get out fast if we needed to. Ailis shut off the car. We both sat there for a moment. I released my seat belt and opened my door.

  Ailis did too.

  “What are you doing?” I said.

  “I’m coming too, right?”

  “Into that thing?” I said, pointing at the decrepit school bus.