Kill Your Kids
(January 24, 2016)
In the middle of the night someone began putting stickers on the pristine bumpers of very expensive cars in very expensive neighborhoods. These were highly adhesive stickers imprinted with enigmatic slogans such as, “No U.S. President Should Ever Have AIDS,” “I Never Touched Her,” “Help Stop Youth Violence—Kill Your Kids,” and “I Support War, Just Not This War.”
CHAPTER 31
The Day after the President’s Speech
(January 27, 2016)
The day after the President’s speech—I remember the speech annoyed me because it cut into my favorite show—I was at work unpacking a shipment of a popular new E.L. James novel about bondage when one of my co-workers said, “Hey, did you catch that clown on the news last night?” He was a lanky teenager with severe acne distorting his pale skin into a craggy landscape of bright red scars. His name was Bill.
“Yeah,” I said. “I used to imitate him. In my act. Everybody loved it. All my fans.”
“Fans?” Bill released a nervous little laugh. “Of what? Your advanced stock boy skills?”
I laughed too, mimicking his actions. Of course, I thought, how could he know? I had never told him about my previous life. “No,” I said, “I was just jokin’ with you.”
Bill nodded, not smiling anymore. “That clown has some good ideas, you know. I think I could get behind some of what he was saying, except I’ve heard he’s secretly soft on them Muslims. He takes credit for bumping off Bin Laden, but that’s ridiculous. He’d never go out of his way to jack up a Muslim. Know why? ’cause he is one.” He laughed again, much louder than necessary. “I mean, listen, how’re we gonna know if these fuckheads in Iran want to kill us unless we torture ’em and find out, y’know?” He went back to stocking the E.L. James book. A novel about sadomasochism. Part of a series.
“Some of his ideas were good,” I said. “Some of them weren’t. I heard a guy on the radio say he’s crazy.”
“Aw, he’s not crazy. He’s just way too politically correct is all. What we need is to get someone in the White House who could have a sense of humor about these things.”
“Yeah,” I said.
CHAPTER 32
Heart
(February 18, 2016)
Someone parked a pickup truck on the sidewalk in front of L.A. International Airport that contained a gigantic papier-mâché representation of a heart. Not a Valentine’s Day heart. A real one, aorta and all. Hung around the heart on a thin chain was a large, sloppily painted sign that read “Ceci n’est pas une bombe.”
CHAPTER 33
Dr. Mary’s Monkey
(July 4, 2016)
I was standing behind the information desk, on a slow shift, wishing someone would ask for help just so that I could have something to do, when I spotted a young couple arguing quietly in the political science section. They seemed frustrated, like people who’ve been looking for a particular book for a while and can’t find it. The young girl was pointing toward me, but the boyfriend seemed reluctant. I tried to ignore the argument, but couldn’t. They fascinated me.
They were dressed strangely. The girl wore a green bomber jacket with orange lining on the inside. One side of her head, just above the left ear, was shaved. That spot was now taken up by what looked like a tattoo of a Maurice Sendak illustration. The rest of her hair was a raven-deep black. She had silver piercings in her eyebrows, lips, cheeks, and nostrils. She wore a green and black plaid mini-skirt, torn fishnet stockings, and combat boots imprinted with details from what might have been a Hieronymus Bosch painting. The boyfriend wore a black bomber jacket with military patches sewn haphazardly all over them. Unlike her, his entire head was shaved. He had piercings, too, even more than she did, and colorful tattoos that covered his massive arms. I couldn’t make out what they were exactly … just abstract shapes, perhaps.
She was so much smaller than him, but she seemed to have a savage temper that made up for this discrepancy. The boyfriend finally gave in, and they approached my desk, holding hands.
As they drew nearer, I realized the boyfriend was much older than I had expected. He was at least twenty years older than her, maybe even more. The girl had to be in her late teens. Certainly no older than twenty.
When she spoke, when she was close enough for me to study the hazel specks in her eyes, I realized I had seen her before.
The tagger outside the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.
Sweat beads began to trickle down my forehead. I now had her within reach. Should I call security? Even if I did, would they arrive in time to make the difference?
The girl said, “We’re looking for a couple of books.”
“Which two?” I said. Just remain prim and business-like, I told myself. Don’t let on that you know their true identities. “Two?” she said.
“Yes. The titles. Of the two books.”
The boyfriend was staring down at the floor. He wanted to be elsewhere, no doubt about that.
“Well,” she said, “I guess I meant more than a couple. One book is called The Turner Diaries.”
The Turner Diaries. I had read an article about that book in the L.A. Times many years before. It was a flagged book. Timothy McVeigh had used it as a blueprint to destroy the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. If you tried to check that book out of a library, the librarian had to turn your name in to the FBI. I knew that for a fact.
I’d seen it in a movie.
I punched in the title on the keyboard in front of me. I was relieved to see we didn’t have it.
“Sorry,” I said, “we don’t have that one.”
“I told you,” the boyfriend said, under his breath.
The girl nudged him in the ribs with her elbow. “Shh,” she said.
“The second title?” I said.
“The Anarchist Cookbook,” she said.
Now I knew they were criminals. The Anarchist Cookbook was on the American Library Association’s Top 100 Challenged Books. It taught you how to make bombs and LSD at home and even worse things. What were these people up to?
I punched in the title. “We used to have this title in stock,” I said, “but not anymore. Would you like me to order it?”
“No,” the boyfriend said quickly. “That’s okay.”
The girl sighed in frustration—at him, I think, not me. “The third title,” she said, “is The Big Brother Game.” That title seemed vaguely familiar. I remembered seeing it in the stacks, but I couldn’t remember where.
“There’s a revised edition out,” I said, reading the information off the screen. “It says we have a copy in the store.”
“We know that,” the boyfriend said. “We looked it up on the computer, but when we went to the section it was supposed to be in, it wasn’t there.”
“Political science,” the girl said, pointing at the shelf where I had first seen them arguing.
“Let’s go take a look,” I said, leading them back over to that section. I tried not to think about the fact that I was standing within the proximity of suspected terrorists, no doubt wanted by the anti-terrorist division of the FBI. I tried to focus. Do your job, Elliot, I urged myself, just do your job and everything will be fine.
I scanned every single title in that section, but couldn’t see it. “Perhaps it’s been misshelved,” I said.
The boyfriend said, “Let’s just go.”
Then it hit me. Of course. I had shelved the book myself, just a couple of weeks ago. The cover was white and showed an eye peering through a keyhole. It was a guide to protecting yourself from electronic surveillance and other forms of government scrutiny. When I saw it, I assumed it belonged in the conspiracy section, which was lumped in with the paranormal books: all the UFO nonsense and the memoirs of demonic possession and reincarnation and ghostly visitations.
“I remember where it is now,” I said. “Come over here.”
What’re you doing? I thought. You’re leading them right to the tools they’ll use to destroy innoce
nts.
And yet I couldn’t help myself. I had a very strong work ethic. I had to do my job.
I guided them right to the book. I pointed at it. “Is that what you’re looking for?”
The girl pulled it out of the shelf. It was stuck between a book called The 80 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time and another one called Dr. Mary’s Monkey which (according to the cover) somehow connected the creation of the AIDS virus to the assassination of JFK.
“Hey, that’s it,” the girl said, all smiles, “thanks a lot, man.”
“Thank you,” I said, genuinely happy that I had managed to please her.
“Let me see that,” the boyfriend said, yanking it out of her hand. He flipped through the pages. “Yeah … yeah, this should do okay. How come it’s stuck in here with all these weird books?” He gestured toward a recent book about Atlantis, and another one about pet spirit guides.
“I shelved it wrong,” I said. “From the cover, I thought it belonged in the conspiracy section, which we keep right next to the paranormal section. Both genres seem to attract the same audience. According to the computer, though, it’s supposed to be in political science. Sorry about that.”
“It’s okay,” he said, “forget it.” He grabbed the girl’s elbow and began to walk away.
“No,” I said, “it’s not okay. It’s my fault. I should’ve done my job more efficiently than that. I sincerely apologize. Allow me to ring you up, and I’ll give you a ten percent discount for your troubles.”
“That’s nice,” the girl said, “but you don’t have to do that.”
“No, it’s okay,” the boyfriend said. “That sounds good to me. Lead the way.” He laughed.
I led them over to the cash register. As I said, it was a pretty slow shift, so there were only two registers being used. I walked over to a third register and began ringing them up. I hoped they would use a credit card. Then I would have the information I needed to bring them to justice.
“This would normally be $22.95,” I said, “but you can just give me $20.65.”
The boyfriend was looking the other way, at some anorexic Goth chick passing through the horror section, when the girl pulled a man’s wallet out of her purse. She laid the black leather wallet (decorated with a skeleton wearing a sombrero) on the counter, then pulled out a gold credit card from a small flap inside. I took it from her and read the information on the card. I wanted to memorize it right then and there, just in case. Her name, it said, was Gretchen Malone.
“May I see some I.D.?” I said.
The boyfriend’s head snapped back toward me at that moment.
“Oh, hey, listen, that’s okay, man,” he said, “we’ll pay cash. I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry about it.”
I said nothing. I just nodded and gave the card back to Gretchen. More suspicious behavior. I was checking these behaviors off on a list unscrolling rapidly in my mind. I had to remember everything. The FBI would need it for their investigation.
“Uh … hey,” the boyfriend said to Gretchen, “you got some extra cash? All I’ve got’s a ten and… .”
Gretchen sighed and rolled her eyes. She dug out a couple of crumpled bills from deep inside her jacket pockets and handed them to me. I gave Gretchen a plastic bag and wished them both a nice evening.
“Thank you,” Gretchen said. The boyfriend said nothing.
They left the store.
That’s when I noticed her skeleton-wallet was still sitting on the counter.
I didn’t turn it in to lost and found. I kept it. During my break, I went into the back room and sat at a Formica table covered with sticky spots of Coca-Cola. When I knew no one was watching, I riffled through the wallet. I found photos of friends, dressed just as strangely as her and her boyfriend. Also, I discovered tiny photos of murals spray painted on private property in the dead of night—all of them anti-American propaganda.
It scared me. It scared me that such a talented person could piss away all her creativity on such negative nonsense. What must have happened to her in her childhood to make her this way? Had she been sexually abused?
Suddenly, I felt sorry for her. I didn’t want to turn her into the authorities, not if I didn’t have to. That would be a last resort.
The second my shift was over, around eight, I grabbed my jacket from the back room and started walking toward the address printed on her I.D. I knew that street. I wasn’t far. Only about twelve blocks away. Besides, it was a nice night for a stroll.
It was a relatively upscale area just off Melrose. Not chichi, but nowhere near being poor either. It didn’t surprise me that a girl like that would live in such a neighborhood. I remember commenting once, on stage, that I had never seen an anarchy symbol spray painted in the ghetto—only in the suburbs. “Poor people don’t give a shit about anarchy,” I said. “They’d just be happy if we tried democracy for a change. Oh … hey, now there’s a crazy concept. Don’t spread it around. These days we might get arrested for even joking about it.” That had been at Prospero’s, not so long ago. I couldn’t comprehend a mind that could think that way, and yet I could remember it. All of it. The words. The delivery. The intonation. It seemed like another lifetime, like watching myself in someone else’s movie.
I approached the house. A duplex. From the upper window I could hear loud music blaring. The Ramones? “There’s no law, no law anymore/I want to steal from the rich and give to the poor/Winter turns to summer/Sadness turns to fun/Keep the faith, baby/You broke the rules and won/Sha-la-la-la/Sha-la-la-la-la-la/Sha-la-la-la/Sha-la-la-la-la… .”
The door was white, and had a decorative stained glass window in the middle. It was cracked, as if somebody had thrown something hard at it. I knocked on the door. A tired-looking woman in her mid-forties answered the door. She had dark rings under her bloodshot eyes, too much flesh on her gut. She was wearing a rumpled nightgown with cigarette holes in it. She stared at me, puzzled.
“Who’re you?” she said.
“Is Gretchen here?” I said.
“I’m Gretchen.”
I was thrown off balance for a second. But just for a second. It kind of made sense.
I held out my hand. “Hi. Is your daughter home?”
She ignored the hand. “I thought so,” she said. “Jesus, another one. How many of you are there?”
“I’m sorry?” I said.
She closed the door in my face. I didn’t know what to do. I stepped away from the porch, thinking I should just leave. Then I heard the sound of The Ramones shutting off abruptly.
A few seconds later the door opened again. It was her, dressed exactly as before.
“Hi again,” I said. She stared at me, confused. “Uh … I just came by to give you this.” I held out the wallet.
She looked at the wallet, then back at me. “Oh, you’re the dude from the bookstore! I was wondering what happened to that. I didn’t even notice it was gone until a few minutes ago.” She came down off the porch and took the wallet from me. “This is kinda special. My first boyfriend gave it to me years ago, back in the eighth grade. He didn’t know it was a man’s wallet. He didn’t know much of anything. He was kinda sweet, though.”
She paused for a moment. “Hey … how’d you know where I live?” she asked.
“From your driver’s license,” I said. “I mean … your mother’s name on the credit card.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Okaaaay. Well, that’s kinda creepy.”
“Just trying to do a good deed.”
“Jesus, that’s even creepier. I guess you’re a real Boy Scout, aren’t you?”
“Um … no,” I said. “I’ve never been in the Boy Scouts at all.”
She paused for a moment. “Riiiight,” she said. “Well … thanks for the assist.” She started to back away.
“Hey, wait a second … can I ask you something?”
She just stopped and stared at me, waiting.
“Why do you do it?” I said.
“Do what?”
“Sp
ray paint those … murals … all around town.”
She glanced down at the wallet, as if remembering the photos. Then she smiled. “What, you a fan?”
“You’re extremely talented.”
“I know.”
“Why do you waste it?”
A wave of anger flashed across her face. “What the fuck’re you talkin’ about?”
“Why don’t you use your talent to paint positive images?”
She laughed. “Because I paint what I see. There’s not a lot of positive things going on in the world, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I see a lot of positive things. Every day. The world’s filled with a whole lot of nice people, selfless people.”
“Who? You mean you?”
I shrugged. “Well, I’d like to think so… .”
“A lot of people would like to think so. And it’s usually the bastards, rapists, and serial killers who think they’re the most ‘selfless.’ Which category do you fall into?”
“None of them. Honestly. Listen, I’m just saying… .”
“Where the fuck do you get off commenting on my art? What’re you, some fuckin’ critic? You write for Juxtapoz? ART-news?”
How could I make her understand? “No, no. I’m not a journalist.” I was growing more and more frustrated. “Try to see it from another perspective. Don’t you know you’re defacing private property?”
She laughed. “Are you for real? I’m sorry, man, I don’t believe in private property.”
“Belief has nothing to do with it. How would you like it if someone destroyed something that was precious to you? What if they spray painted your house?”
She shrugged. “I’d probably help ’em out.”
“Okay, well … what if they spray painted over one of your murals then?”
“That’s what it’s there for. To be destroyed. That’s what everything’s here for, as far as I’m concerned. You’ll find that out if you stick around any longer. Till November, let’s say. That’s gonna be a good month for everybody.”
“I’m just asking you to think a little bit about what you’re doing.”
Until the Last Dog Dies Page 23