by John Shannon
‘I hope the view of Tuscany doesn’t interfere with your schoolwork,’ Jack Liffey said.
‘Noon bus to campus!’ Bunny yelled from the house.
‘Not me!’ Maeve called back, retreating to the kitchen for a refill.
Forty years ago, the view from his Long Beach State apartment had been of a cracked alley with toxic-looking pools of water. He wondered if she took him too seriously, with that straightforward gaze of hers, seeing only some imaginary pillar of grown-up strength. No one was that strong. Recently he’d come to feel that his life was winding down without ever quite panning out in the ways he’d once hoped. Except this incredible, precious daughter.
Maeve had her own problems now, he thought, and that was as it should be. Worldy-wise in her peculiarly innocent way. He loved her energy and bedrock integrity and her high spirits, and wished he could be twenty again to experience her as a pal.
‘You’ll do OK here,’ Jack Liffey called to her in the kitchen. ‘I just stopped back to see if you’d run into anyone yet with a big store of knowledge of the canyon. I need some seventies lore.’
‘Dad, you know you came here to check up on me.’ He smiled a bit sheepishly. ‘Not true. If I don’t trust you by now, it’s way too late.’
She stepped back outside and fluffed her dad’s hair, before sitting and sipping with two hands. ‘Sorry. I’m a bit wound up still – college is so new and scary. How’s Loco doing? I forgot to ask.’
Loco was their dog, who had recently had serious surgery and some horrific chemotherapy for bone cancer. ‘Loco is the thing itself. He’s always got that. He never stands back and wonders, what if I’d been born a zebra or maybe to a richer family? He’s a little slower these days, but he’s OK.’
‘Wonderful.’
‘How’s school?’ He’d just noticed a little powdery residue on the table that looked suspiciously like the lost tail of a line of cocaine.
‘Overwhelming. UCLA is a very big place, you were right.’
‘I thought you might have more fun at a small college, but your hypothetical circle of friends is a lot bigger here. How do you like Axel and Bunny?’
‘Give me a little time. We met off a notice board. But they seem OK.’
When she wasn’t looking, he ran a forefinger over the residue of powder, then waited until she looked away again and wiped it quickly against his gum. Yep – the abrupt chill and then the speedup. It had been a long time for him, but he’d once known it well, the bad years after Nam, and then after the loss of his safe tech job and the breakup with Maeve’s mom.
Get yourself out of here, he thought. She’ll make her own mistakes, in her own way, and you’ll still be there for her.
‘Dad, when you’re right you’re right. I did meet a local blowhard if you want to talk to someone. He was walking his dog. He insisted on telling me everybody who’d ever lived in this house over the years. He’s in the little orange house uphill, the one that looks a bit like a Taco Bell. There’s a horse in back.’
‘Thanks, hon.’
The taste of hammering defeat rose suddenly in Jack Liffey. He wondered if he’d find a guy much like himself at the Taco Bell house; a know-it-all, aging without grace.
Jack Liffey got home to Chicano East L.A. before dinnertime and decided to cook something. Lately, Gloria had been bringing half her lunch home or just pulling out a frozen burrito at random, if not just drinking her dinner in Coronas or Tecates – and who could blame her on the LAPD’s twelve-hour shifts.
He found a number of likely-seeming ingredients in the pantry, the ear-shaped pasta, sun-dried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, and some dry salami he could fry up to bring out the flavor. Gloria loved strong tastes. A little onion and garlic and a couple of jalapeños and they’d be fine with the Mexican-Italian concoction and a salad. He missed Maeve dropping in for dinner now and then, carefully picking the meats out of whatever he cooked, but it would still happen, he was sure.
Loco’s yellow eyes watched him from the door, probably wary these days that all he loved could be yanked away from him without much notice.
‘Hey, dude, you need a new doggie girlfriend.’ Loco had never been spayed, but the chemo had pretty much put an end to the random appearance of his pink appendage. ‘Anything you want from me, just speak up.’ He dropped a round of salami that Loco sniffed at suspiciously.
Once in a while, entirely justified by events, he’d growl a little, but that was it for speaking up.
Jack Liffey was surprised to hear Gloria’s RAV-4 coming up the drive early. He was amazed how much the prospect heartened him. Nothing wrong with loving someone, but he knew you had to be careful about counting too much on their presence.
Jack Liffey had a deep superstition that relying on anything too much drove it away. Gloria had been assailed by so much of her private grief recently that she’d almost stopped touching him for comfort.
He heard her come into the front room, fuss with her holster and pistol, set it aside, and then take a little more unaccountable time dealing with something. She had been raised by foster parents who hated her Indian heritage, but even that never quite seemed sufficient for her deep inner rage.
He overdid his banging around in the kitchen on purpose to attract her. He knew she had to come his way to get her first beer.
‘Hi there … Jackie.’
She could barely force his name out for some reason, and it hurt him down deep. ‘Bad day?’
‘Always.’
‘You’re early,’ he said as brightly as he could.
‘They gave me some time off because there’s a … thing they want me to go to tomorrow.’ At the old avocado-colored fridge she got out a long-neck Corona, then bashed the cap off on the edge of the wood counter top. Her macha gesture.
‘Thing?’
‘Police conference, up in Fresno. The role of thirteen-region DNA in rape investigations. Jesus, who wants to go to Fresno?’
‘But you get to go through Bakersfield. You could say hello there.’ That was a touchy mine he’d just planted on purpose.
Their eyes met for a moment, though she couldn’t sustain it. A year and a half ago, he’d summoned her up to Bakersfield to help him rescue Maeve from a real mess, and he was pretty sure in the course of it all she’d connected in some way with Sonny Theroux, an investigator he’d been staying with, a smart guy from New Orleans he’d once liked a lot.
‘God, no,’ she said. ‘That was a bad time and place for all of us – especially Maeve.’
What a lousy liar she was, he thought – at least on this level. Was this going to be it for him? She was twelve years younger than he was, and so was Sonny, a clever and appealing guy, who was still as desperately lonely as any man could be and almost certainly in love with Gloria.
Jack Liffey knew he had a tendency to leap to farfetched conclusions, especially sinister ones, and he did his best to calm himself down inside. ‘How long will you be gone?’
‘Tomorrow for travel, and then the weekend.’
‘I’ll miss you a lot. Feel like some whatever pasta tonight?’
‘Let me unwind and have a couple. But sure. Thanks a bunch, Jackie. You’re always a real prince, and I love your cooking.’ She gave him a half kiss on his cheek, then harder on his lips, and he knew something was going downhill. ‘You’ll be all right here?’ she asked.
‘I won’t starve. I saw Maeve today.’ Even when your imagination starts to give up on something, you still go on counting on it, he thought.
‘Tell me in a minute. I have to regroup.’ She headed out to the front room with her beer.
He’d betrayed women enough times in his life to know all the faint signs of bad faith. But he wasn’t done yet. Sonny, we were friends once. But I’ll fight to the death for this woman.
The phone rang as they were eating dinner and he ignored it, as usual. A police emergency for Gloria would come in on her cell. After five rings, the monitor squawked so loud they both winced.
‘Lif
fey! Pick this fucker up now if you want to keep your assignment. We’re losing a million dollars a day and we expect you on the job twenty-four seven!’
‘People with a lot of money really are assholes,’ Jack Liffey said equably, without budging an inch.
‘Threatening people is nuts,’ she said, frowning. ‘You back yourself into a corner. Every cop knows that. Either you got to really fuck them over or you got to admit you can’t. Go on, Jack, get it.’ Part of her seemed to rejoice that he was being drawn away from dinner, and away from her.
But he shook his head. He’d call Reston later. This is Jack, you prick. Eat me!
Gloria was frowning. ‘Jack, Jack. You can’t let your ego get in the way of the job. They taught us lots of brilliant stuff like that at the Academy.’
‘Oh, can’t I?’
‘Is something eating you?’ she said, cop instinct.
He had an indelible image of a moment where something had passed between her and Sonny Theroux while he was watching. He held out one finger on each hand and then drew an imaginary square around himself. ‘That’s where I sit, Glor. That’s all I’ve got. If I give it up, I’ll never get it back.’
‘Oh, don’t be so full of bullshit, Jack. I back down every day when it’s for the best. Even with assholes.’
He didn’t know how much to say, so let it pass. ‘Maybe I’m just a little upset because I can see Maeve is gone for good now.’
‘Not very far.’
‘No, but the cord is cut. It’s the way it’s got to be, I know it.’ You always lose what you love, he thought.
I slip on my red eyeshades and check into the Tiki-Tai Motel on Ventura Boulevard down in the San Fernando Valley. I use my Alan Smithee credit card – it’s the name directors use when they’re so ashamed of a project they want their name off it. If I’d gone over to the Malibu side of the canyon, where the movie culture was a lot stronger, that name would have been recognized for sure.2
I have a secret affection for anonymous motels in anonymous towns so the Tiki-Tai makes me happy as a clam. Fame really does suck – you’ll never know. I never appreciated that when I was younger. To remain impeccably polite to some old hag or a group of giggling teens – and you have to explain the same crap over and over. Yes, I loved kissing Beyoncé in Permanent Tourist. No, I didn’t do my own motorcyle stunts in Ride to Live.
In ten years, there was probably one intelligent and challenging question: how did I first learn I was black? Jesus! That’s the whole fucking deal, you know? With a kindly white Moms and no dad in the picture, it takes a while to figure it out. What age? I just don’t know. Go ask your President, kiddies.
I slip out of my room in the motel past the ridiculous Easter Island head and make my way across the umpteen-lane Ventura Boulevard to a Fatburger restaurant in a mini-mall. They’re legend in L.A. – the Valley’s one big contribution to high school cuisine, and I’ve never even sampled one.
My head is getting heavy again, and I don’t know how long I can hold off the Skinnies. My meds are at home in Brentwood, but so is Paulita, and wouldn’t this sudden compulsive dive into my past be nice to try to explain to her?
I collect my plastic number tepee and wait patiently for my Fatburger. A young girl out on the street with spiky green hair glares in the window at me, possible recognition, and her boyfriend with his Popeye arms and big tattoos throws me a possessive glare. Maybe even racist. One of the heartbreaks of being African-American in America is always having to deal with that, and never knowing when it’s coming.
Jesus, man, I wouldn’t do that freaky girl to save my life.
I wonder if I’ll ever get any closer to understanding Sandstone, or Moms – or finding a useful hint about my father. All I really know is she got impregnated at that sex club, when she was fucking who knows how many men, night after night after night. (For a moment, I feel sick.) And, of course, I know Mr Lucky was black.
Moms – Donna Wisecki, Donna Freedom, Donna Robin’s-egg, Donna Bird, Melanie Bird. She went through Students for a Democratic Society, then some tiny Maoist group in Santa Monica, Esalen, Rolfing, Gestalt Therapy and Primal Scream – just about everything but a really bad religious cult. She told me she’d actually heard the Manson Family play some ragged rock music at the Topanga Corral. Thank God she didn’t get caught up with them. I wasn’t really around, of course, but the only thing left of all that time now seems to be a lot of ruined lives, a lot of regret and a few prison sentences. And me.
For just an instant a Skinny peeks in the window of the fast-food place and I look away. These spooks come from that time in Sydney, Australia – shooting Southern Lights – when I chose to sneak off to the museum and I saw the spindly stick carvings of what the Aboriginals call mimis, mischie-vous unbelievably scrawny spirits who slip in and out of the cracks in rocks to bedevil men, or help them – as they choose. I’d been seeing my own mimis, the beings that I called Skinnies, for two or three years by then, and every wooden image stopped me in my tracks in that museum and rang my bell.
The waitress brings my oversized drippy burger and greets me insincerely, with a backward glance of ‘maybe I know this guy.’ I almost tear my jaw muscles taking a bite, then choke a little.
We don’t want you to hurt yourself, a chirpy voice says right into my ear.
Are you guys included in the budget of this crappy pic? I ask.
The Skinnies emit their rapid giggles, just out of sight somewhere. Their intrusion leaves a smell on the air like patchouli oil, as usual. They all tell me their goofy names, but I never learn them, on purpose.
My drugs. I need them. But they’re so far away in Brentwood, man.
Trust us, a Skinny says. Look at us. We always know what’s best for you.
For some reason, a number of painstakingly restored nineteen fifties cars begins passing slowly on the boulevard outside, blessedly diverting my attention. Amazing – they turn off into my own motel, one after another. Is this real? Of course it is. What is more real than a 1957 Plymouth with maybe the tallest tailfins that ever rumbled down an assembly line?
Skinnies, you have nothing to say about car culture, do you? Nor anything else about the ordinary world. That’s your weakness. You live in a world of illusion. You little shits never pay attention to the birds and the flowers.
‘Dis de way Americans live?’ Winston Pennycooke asked, looking contemptuously around the small, furnished apartment that Harper had rented for him. His eye fixed on a small old-style picture tube TV.
‘There’s a bad recession going on now, my man,’ Harper said.
‘I-an-I not care about any recess.’
It was uncanny. With the floppy three-color knit cap, the gold silk shirt and the checkered bell-bottoms, he was a near perfect clone of his dead brother Trevor whom Harper had worked with a few years earlier. Even the height – six-seven or so. ‘Tomorrow, maybe, you get the big Beverly Hills mansion. For now, you prove to us you’re bad Tony Montana. Your brother was my right-hand fixer for a year and he was cool, he was down.’
‘Straight way I get to your country, ma’an, you stick me in the slavehouse. I dunno. I give you half my wage back if you put my tongue in some real Jamaica brown rum tonight.’
‘Winston, man, how much younger are you than Trevor?’
‘Call me Ratchet, ma’an, with respect, like we all say “Terror”. Din’t know no Trevor person. I seven year younger. I-an-I nineteen las’ mont’. Terror my idol. I got to find the one that kill him.’
‘Don’t worry about that now, Ratchet. I’ll have work for you soon.’
‘Cha, look, my mind run to de romantic. An’ I don’ mean no kissin’ t’ing. I mean like de ol’ knights of de Round Table. I got to venge Terror.’
‘All in good time. I’ll find out exactly what went down. All I know now is a man named Jack Liffey was with him at the end. We need a real man with no fear. You help my business, and I help yours.’
Harper knew his man, or boy. He took a bottle of Moun
t Gay Eclipse rum out of a paper bag and handed it to Winston Pennycooke, who did his best to keep his eyes from going wide as saucers.
‘Super you bring dat, boss. Oh, dat de bes’.’
It was a long drive from East L.A. to Topanga, but Jack Liffey had shortened it some, or maybe not, by waiting until after the last tardy bustle of the rush hour and then going up the Hollywood Freeway and across the Valley. He’d called back and cursed out Reston for threatening him. ‘Do that to me again, motherfucker …’ He’d always had a strange-rooted need to challenge whatever had the power to hurt him, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t get on with the job. Almost out of spite.
Just before he hit Topanga Canyon Boulevard at the Valley end he passed a big tiki motel and just to nail it all down, its parking lot was filled with lovingly restored 1950s cars. A complete time warp, he thought.
Without trouble he found what Maeve had described as the Taco Bell house – just an ordinary bungalow with an added arch of orange stucco and a tile roof. The lights were on, and a battered Chevy stake truck, with tall plywood sides, was parked in front. The truck door said Rolf’s Rubbish Hauling in crude lettering. OK, Rolf, you’re it.
A big man answered the door. He looked straightforward and physical. Jack Liffey offered him his best version of a business card, which even had his real name and phone, but no big detective eyeball.
‘My daughter lives down the hill, she’s going to UCLA, and she told me you seem to know a lot about the old times in Topanga.’ The dog Maeve had mentioned materialized behind the big man’s legs, a bulldog growling gently.
‘Hush, Gord. You want to talk to me because …?’
On an impulse, Jack Liffey squatted to greet the dog on its own level. It glared back at him. ‘I just blew my entire 401K on my dog’s bone cancer. May you both escape that fate.’
‘If Gordie gets that sick, my 401K will buy him a Big Mac as a sendoff. You were about to tell me your business, Mr Jack Liffey.’
‘Have you heard of the black actor Tyrone Bird?’
‘Of course.’