Safe

by Ryan Gattis

  After, he went to the garage and got a ladder. He took all the cameras down and put them in the sewage services van he was driving before telling Lil Tricky a car was waiting at the curb. It was from his uncle since he was needed somewhere and that somewhere ended up being the storage spot in Carson.

  I’m nodding, but not at what he’s saying. I’m nodding since I’m looking at the follow car and I’m remembering how me and Lonely took it out last week on some errands, and I’m smiling now since I know there must still be a gun in it. Under the driver seat. That’s lucky.

  Lil Tricky notices me smiling and says, “You smile a lot, you know that? You might need to fix that. It’s not making you look so tough.”

  “Sure,” I say, like what this kid thinks about me or anybody else ever meant anything, “I’ll see what I can do about that.”

  It’s not much but that gun is my new peace of mind just in case Ghost don’t do what he said he’d do, or even if he does and I need to take care of Lil Tricky to get away. I’d rather not, since he’s Rooster’s little nephew and all, but if I have to, I have to.

  Besides, it’s not like Rooster won’t already be looking for me. He’ll just have one more reason on top of all the others.

  Ghost

  Tuesday, September 16, 2008

  Morning

  67

  At the bottom, I give them their phones back and I’m about to give the follow-car keys back to Lil Tricky, but Glasses swipes them and tells Lil Tricky to switch it up with him. Next thing I know, the kid is making himself all comfy in my shotgun seat and I got to tell him to buckle his ass up right as Glasses’s getting in the follow car. At first I’m thinking it’s because he wants to try to follow Mira, but he doesn’t. When I pull out towards Hawthorne Boulevard, he’s right there behind me. Good.

  As I’m speeding up, Lil Tricky’s rubbing his hands and saying, “Okay, break it down for me, like, what else do I need to know to kill safes like that?”

  I don’t feel like answering, so I don’t. I’m mainly just squinting at the road and pushing one of my thumb knuckles into my forehead to offset the pressure.

  The respect in this kid’s tone is good, but I’m thinking, What else? You never learned anything to begin with. I don’t say that, though. Instead I’m looking at this little dude for the first time. I mean, really looking at him. Mustache playing on his lip. Eyes all lit up because he’s still buzzing about all those locks getting done. And right then, I’m thinking about how this little dude probably isn’t even eighteen yet, and how he grew up where I grew up, and so I’m looking for some sameness in him.

  Because in Lynwood, growing up in them eighties and nineties, safety was for other people. For white people not named Blanco. For people with money. For people living in Bel Air with the Fresh Prince or some shit. Safety was for people on TV. Not us. Never us. All we got handed was risk and running.

  And so, not growing up with anything like safety, I’d get all confused when I found it in unexpected places. In a hospital bed with some nurse looking down on me, telling me they just took some kind of tumor out of my head. Or with Rose, at the beach in Pedro where I’m aiming us now, in the aquarium down there with her touching sea hares in the touch tank, and up by the Bell.

  That was the kind of safe I didn’t know I’d had till it wasn’t there anymore. Of being with someone that you care about. Knowing you’re a team. There’s promises in that. How you’ll look after each other. Do anything to protect each other.

  And when that happens, there’s this funny thing about it, it doesn’t feel right. It feels like maybe it’s fake and not worth it. The first few times, feeling anything like safety made me anxious. Nervous. Sweaty. Because I thought it was me slipping. I thought I wasn’t allowed to feel it at all.

  The lights are going our way as my head’s thumping me like the road thumps the tires. We’re flowing down to PCH as I’m wondering if Lil Tricky’s the same somehow. If he’s a little me. And I’m wondering how to angle him, maybe, so he can’t go my route, and while I’m thinking about that, all’s I say to him is “I’m going to need you not to talk.”

  I don’t know how he feels the weight of it, selfish as he is, but he does.

  And while I’m pulling up to a stoplight that goes green for us, I put Rose’s tape back on, rewind to the end of “Quality or Quantity,” then count the five seconds with her again, but right this time.

  While it’s quiet.

  68

  We’re not even to Crenshaw when “Please Don’t Be Gentle with Me” by the Minutemen starts, and that’s a tough one, because I remember how Rose said something almost exactly like that when we went out. It was a kind of thing where I didn’t know if it was a date and she didn’t either, but we went to Santa Monica Pier and tried to cut fishing lines and we laughed about how I was seeing more white people than I’d ever seen in my life before, and at the end of it all, I went to hug her and it was awkward and I was thinking how I’d hurt her if I hugged her for real, and that’s when she said she was human, not glass. I couldn’t break her, she said. But it looked like it, I swear. Eighty-eight pounds she was. Right near the end. Not even ninety.

  The song ends and me and her count the space between together before “I Love Playin’ with Fire” by the Runaways comes on, riding on guitars, and then Joan Jett’s growling and I remember how Rose would smile with half her mouth whenever she heard this and kind of swing her head side to side. This song was always Rose’s way of saying to me that she wasn’t scared of me, or scared of the things I’d done. But I knew it was because she didn’t know them all.

  Lil Tricky’s looking at me now, bringing me out of it. He’s watching me listen. Watching my face.

  “Don’t be getting crazy on me,” he says. “Don’t be, like, driving us into a concrete divider or something.”

  And cool and calm despite blinking through pain, I say back, “I’m past crazy. Now I just want to end where I need to end.”

  He’s still looking at me.

  I don’t take my eyes off the road, but I say, “You still want to see me blow my brains out?”

  “Hell yeah,” he says, with the kind of toughness that isn’t toughness at all.

  “Why?”

  And he doesn’t have an answer to that. He tries, but gives up pretty quick and just watches Lomita businesses scrolling by outside his window because looking at the Thai-massage and food places, a donut spot with Cajun food, a pet shop that only sells reptiles, is easier than giving me a real answer.

  I did up a will last month. Lawyers charge way too much for that shit. Mira’s guy, Willis-Jackson, doesn’t give discounts.

  I would be giving the Jeep to Mira, but when I’m done with it, she won’t want it. So it’ll go into a lot somewhere and then maybe get auctioned off.

  All the rest goes to Frank and Laura. Everything I ever got.

  I’ve been saving a long time.

  One of the virtues of living in the past, I guess. Once I had the Jeep, I was good.

  Never bought a house or a condo. Just rented an apartment off Frank for less than he ever should’ve been charging me. He bought my building for rental income back when everything went down in the eighties. Savings and loan or whatever. Smartest financial thing he ever did, he said.

  I’ve never had hobbies or collected anything. Some vinyl, maybe. A record player to play them on. It had two tape decks in it. I tried to make some tapes for Rose on it, but it never felt right, so I stopped. Instead, I just listened out for stuff I figured she would’ve liked. Always tried to listen with her ears to new stuff. Propagandhi, maybe. Less Than Jake, also a solid maybe. Anti-Flag, definitely.

  Saving half my salary every year for the last, what? Thirteen years.

  No. Fourteen.

  Frank’s going to be surprised when so much of what he paid me comes back, and my stipulations are for it to help pay for Laura’s college. Wherever she wants to go. There was never enough to buy a building, but it’s enough to help wi
th Stanford.

  I’m going sixty-five on the 110 South, watching Glasses in my rearview, following tight.

  That’s when the Buzzcocks come on, and I’ve been waiting for them, dreading them, because this’s one of the songs where it’s Rose’s true sadness. Her frustration. And it always hits me hard, like the years in between didn’t dull her pain one bit.

  Because what did she get? She wanted a lover just like in the song. Didn’t really get one, not how she might’ve liked and needed. Putting this song on the mix was her way of saying, I’m a teenage girl and my life’s supposed to be in front of me, but “What Do I Get?” Cancer, that’s what she got. Chemo. Insomnia. An erratic stomach. A hood boy, too late. An early fucking death.

  By the time the song’s over, we’re driving past refineries you can smell, and Lil Tricky’s screwing his face up and covering his nose while Rose’s trying to rescue the mix with the Clash, her trying to tell me “I’m Not Down,” but I never believed that, and I don’t think she ever thought I would.

  In San Pedro, the 110 Freeway dead-ends at a stoplight and I turn left onto Gaffey. It’s hilly down here. We go up, down, up, and then before going too much up again, I turn on Twenty-Second and go down to Pacific, where I turn right.

  When the song’s over, I’m counting five with Rose again and stopping the tape because I can’t handle the Raincoats right now. They’re last.

  Down by Cabrillo Beach it’s so early that I can’t park in the lot because there’s no one there to open the guard gate, so I have to park us on the hill on White Drive.

  “I got to see something,” I say to Lil Tricky. And I leave him in the car.

  Glasses, already parked behind us, has the phone in his hand, probably calling someone to tell Rooster where we’re at.

  When I get to where the sand is, I take my boots and socks off.

  I get it between my toes.

  It’s the best I can do, because I can’t smell the salt of it. I’ve got some kind of flowers in my nose now. Lavender, maybe. The scent of something long gone.

  The first time I was here, I was seventeen, and it was because I couldn’t say no to Rose’s face. I got in her Jeep, with the seat leather hot like a grill, and her fingers on my neck making me jump, I was that nervous.

  But then she took me to the sea. This part of it. This exact part. And she gave me new eyes to see it by talking about how the light hits the water. The way the ocean arches its back and throws sun everywhere, the way it tumbles and spits, the way it hits the beach and rolls back into itself.

  I’m looking out at Terminal Island, thinking how it’s my turn now, and I got to close my eyes and stop feeling all sorry for myself.

  Because all’s I’m thinking about right now is how my heart has been broken a really long time, since before I was even an adult, and how I’d never thought that before.

  Only now. Only here.

  Glasses

  Tuesday, September 16, 2008

  Morning

  69

  First thing I do when we’re parked is, I call Leya. Lil Tricky tries walking up and getting in the car with me, but I give him a look that tells him he’d better not.

  He don’t look happy about it, but he don’t push it. He stands out in front of the bumper with his back to me, looking at the sea.

  When Leya picks up, I can’t ask about the log first. I got to build to it. We jump through the right hoops. Is she there okay? Yes.

  Is the little man okay? Yes, he’s sleeping.

  How’s the puppy? She’s not a puppy anymore, but I’ll always call her that. She’s good. After all that is when I can ask about the log and not hurt feelings.

  “Of course I have it. It’s the first thing I grabbed, the most important thing.” I hear her unzip something and push some things around in a bag before she says, “I’m looking at it right now.”

  “Prove it.”

  Pages flip and she starts reading a date, a phone number, where I was when I took it and who it was from. She skips the part about what it was about, which is cool, since I’m already good.

  I don’t need to hear any more. Relief comes at me and jumps on me like my dog when she’s happy to see me.

  “You’re real good to me,” I say to Leya, “too good.”

  She argues that, since she’s kind, but she shouldn’t. I know I don’t deserve how she takes care of me and how she sticks with me through whatever. She could’ve had a normal life if she wanted, a husband that didn’t have a messed-up eye and a messed-up face and worked at the DMV or something, you know? Somebody safe.

  But Leya always says that life’s not about deserving. It’s about making choices and dealing with what comes, especially things you can’t control.

  I say to her, “Did you hear about that thing that happened in Morelia?”

  “No, what happened?”

  She’s got a tone like she’s distracted and tired. I get that. My stomach has been decent for a couple hours but I’m starting to get real dry eyes. That happens when I stay up too late. I also got some nausea creeping on me when I say, “Three grenades got thrown in a whole crowd of people there just celebrating Mexican Independence Day.”

  She’s not distracted now. She sort of yelps before hushing herself since Felix is nearby. “That’s terrible, Rudy! Do you know about your family? Are they okay?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does anybody know why it happened? Was it crazies?”

  “It was some organized crazies.”

  My wife, she’s quick. She knows what I’m saying when I say that. “Did that make up your mind about anything?”

  “Maybe it was a shove, another one, but my mind is already my mind.”

  “I get that. Come home, amor. Come be with your family.”

  I’m about to say something about how there’s no home to have anymore, but it’s like she’s reading my mind when she says, “Home is where we’re together.” She knows that hits me, so she locks it in by saying, “We only look forward. We don’t look back.”

  When you’re younger, when you’re stupid, you can’t appreciate a wife. When you’re old enough to know enough, you get how you need one to be better, to even make it through. I wouldn’t be here right now without her. That’s just a fact. I feel like only when I had something I couldn’t stand to lose did I see clearly where I was and what I was doing. And when I saw that, I had to change.

  “With my one eye,” I say, since it’s a thing of ours that started when I was trying to cheer her up after the miscarriage, “I’m looking forward to seeing you soon.”

  “How soon?”

  “Soon as I can. You know how I feel about you.”

  “I do,” she says, and then, “Say bye to Felix.”

  The phone rustles and stops, so I tell him to be good to his mother, that I’ll be there soon, and when I am, it’s about figuring out a new life. I stop after that since I don’t know what that looks like yet and it feels weird having said it.

  When Leya comes back on the line, she says, “Bye. Drive safe. We’re right here waiting for you, at home.”

  I tell her bye too. I hang up with my heart heavy in me. I know she’s putting on a brave face, being a little too nice, camouflaging how she feels, how scared she is we’re doing this.

  I check the premarket price on BBY. As soon as Ghost does what he’s supposed to, I’ll make a call, promise Collins the logs, but make it a condition that the stocks get thawed out. As soon as it’s unfrozen, I need to place a call to sell all of it at the opening.

  If I can get a buy for it at $42.40, then it’s worth $655,000 today, give or take. Even with capital gains, that’s a whole new life. A whole new world.

  Lil Tricky sees me fussing around with the phone and walks up to the car again, but I wave him away for a second time. He looks like he’s not sure what to do with that, so he just stands there on the hill, staring down onto the beach where Ghost is walking back towards us like he’s trying to memorize all that sand with th
e bottoms of his feet.

  Ghost

  Tuesday, September 16, 2008

  Morning

  70

  Oranges. That’s what I’m smelling when I leave my boots at the beach, get back in the car, and drive us up toward Korean Bell Park with sand grinding between my toes. I go up one last big hill on Gaffey and pull us into the parking lot across from the basketball court in the last space on the middle so no one can block my view of it. Or the cliffs and the sea behind it. Glasses rolls in two down from me on the same side with nothing parked between us.

  That court is where Rose used to steal people’s basketballs and toss them to me to boot over the fence, down onto the cliff below. I only ever got one gone, but when I did, Rose pulled a damn brand-new basketball out of the Jeep and handed it to this high school kid, like no problem. You should’ve seen the look on his face. Like, he’d thought he lost everything and then it all came back and better this time.

  The first time I tried to kill myself, not really on purpose, but if it happened, it would’ve been okay with me, I did a bunch of downers and got in a bath at a motel room that wasn’t even mine. That was a week after I’d seen Rose Grace Stenberg’s obituary in the Times, and I figured I’d just fall asleep and drown. Obviously I didn’t. There was something loose about the old rubber stopper, and maybe I kicked it when I sunk down, but I woke up later in an empty tub. Cold and puckered up like a raisin.

  Rose and I never ate oranges together or anything, but I feel like she’s here with me now, in the car, trying to hold me. It’s a heavy-blanket kind of feeling.

  Lil Tricky’s looking at me again, but now he’s nervous.

  “Rose wanted to die looking at this sea, wanted her soul to just drift out to it,” I tell him. “I don’t think she ever did.”

  He doesn’t ask about Rose or who she was, so I don’t drag it out. I’m looking down at the steering wheel when I say to Lil Tricky, “I need you to give me the gun Rooster had somebody give you, and then I need you to get out.”