by Ivy Pochoda
Fuck y’alls. Lemme hold it.
Let him hold it. Let lil banger hold it.
Only if he’s got the balls to fire it.
You gonna put yo money where your mouth is, lil banger.
You gonna play with it like a doll or you gonna pull the motherfucking trigger.
Lemme see it, Ren had insisted.
Give it him.
Shoot out the window, not at your foot.
Shoot in the direction of Stone Cold Boys. Show ’em you hard. You hard, lil banger?
Less than sixty seconds. That’s all it had taken from the moment one of the older kids had put the 9 mm in Ren’s hand to the moment he’d nosed the thing through the curtains and fired. And that was it. His life. Done.
HE PULLED OUT THE CLIP AND EMPTIED THE BULLETS INTO HIS HAND.
Somewhere someone was singing. A prayer it sounded like. Or maybe he was imagining shit, what with the ghost on his case and all. Ren closed his eyes. Shook his head. The song disappeared, or maybe the blood rush in his ears dammed it back.
He jiggled the bullets, rolling them like dice. Hard to imagine something so small landed him here.
Ren stood up. He tucked the gun in the waistband of his pants. He cracked his neck side to side. All he was doing was coming down on some junkie dealer, someone who spread poison where folks were trying to stay safe. He narrowed his eyes in the dark, drawing his focus inward, blocking out everything but the task at hand. He’d used the same technique when zeroing in on one of his larger murals, beating back the outside world, the other areas of the wall, even the other sections of his piece in order to bring whatever small corner he was working on to life.
The muttering started again. He pulled his hood over his ears, listening instead to his hair rubbing the fabric. He booked it out of the alley.
He wasn’t looking left or right. He wasn’t even looking ahead. He was zoned in on what he had to do, thinking about it so hard that he wasn’t even thinking about it at all, more thinking into the black space around it. He didn’t see the person kneeling on the ground at the far side of the alley before it was too late and he’d tripped, sending the gun skidding along the ground.
Ren fumbled for the gun, launching his body over top of it like it was a football. He recovered it and jammed it back into his waistband. Then he got to his feet, ready to hustle off.
“Aren’t you going the wrong way?” It was Flynn’s voice.
Ren flicked his lighter. The white boy was on his knees, a small mound of rocks in front of him. His hands were pressed together like he was praying.
“What’s it to you where I’m going?” Ren said. He was sure Flynn could hear his heartbeat. Sure he could detect the gun sagging his pants.
“Where’ve you been all day?” Flynn asked.
“Around.”
It’s like Flynn knew. And maybe he did. Maybe Puppet had said something to someone and the word got around that Ren had been drafted.
“So you don’t know about Laila,” Flynn said. “People are saying she won’t make it through the night.”
“Shit,” Ren said. The gun felt cold against the small of his back. “Shit.”
Flynn resettled on his knees.
“You’re praying for her?” Ren asked.
“For her, for me. For everyone.”
Ren hadn’t noticed that he’d been sweating. And now the sweat had dried cold, making him shiver. Marcus’s ghost was suffocating him, standing too close, making it hard for him to breathe.
Flynn returned to his prayer. “You’d better hurry, brother,” he said.
Ren needed to get rid of the gun. He needed to wipe it clean. He’d figure out what to say to Puppet and his crew later.
At the eastern edge of the alley he found a half-full can of soda, which he poured over the 9 mm. He took off his sweatshirt and rubbed the sticky liquid over the gun. A few blocks from Crocker he dropped the thing down an open sewer. He listened to it rattle and clatter. He crouched down and sparked his lighter. He saw nothing glinting down in the dark.
Only then did he remember he hadn’t mentioned to Flynn that Blake had been asking about him, that the dude sounded like he had bad business in store. But it was too late to double back.
THE WEARY STREETLAMP HALFWAY UP CROCKER WAS FLICKING ON AND off, showing a crowd of people in front of Laila’s camp.
“It’s blood, man,” someone said. “Stand back. You don’t want what she’s got.”
“Someone take her to the medic spot. She’ll die better over there.”
“That place only kills you quicker.”
Ren shouldered through them.
Laila was flat-backed on the sidewalk in front of her tent. A dark streak ran from her mouth down to her chin.
“Who’s gonna take her to the doc?”
Laila raised one hand and shook it back and forth.
“She’s saying she don’t want to go.”
“How you can tell what the lady’s saying?”
Ren squatted down. He slid his arms under his mother’s frail body. “Don’t let them take me,” she whispered.
“Ma,” he said. “I’m not letting you stay here.”
Her fingers fumbled for his wrist, clawing at him until she got a grip. Her hand was all parchment and sinew. “You of all people should know what it means to be locked away somewhere you don’t want to be.”
“Ma—”
“We all make mistakes,” she said. Ren had to press his ear to her lips to catch her words. “It doesn’t mean we should be denied a few graces.”
He lifted her. He could feel every bone—the protruding wings of her shoulders, the snaky climb of her vertebrae.
“Careful boy, she might have the TB.”
“Back off,” he said to the crowd. “She needs air.”
“Not this air.”
Laila coughed again. Ren could see the tendons on her neck strain and her rib cage press against her T-shirt. She squeezed Ren’s hand. Ren loosened his grip, worried his mother’s bones would crack. The fit subsided and Laila went limp.
“Get that woman to the health center,” someone said. “We don’t need bodies on the street.”
“No,” Ren said.
“Dying don’t cure a woman of foolishness.”
“Leave us alone,” Ren said, shooing the crowd away as he lowered his mother into her tent.
The group shuffled off but loitered nearby.
Laila’s lips parted and fluttered, but no sound came out. Ren found a half-empty bottle of water and helped her drink. The liquid dribbled down her chin.
A police car rolled down Crocker, slowing at the curb. The remaining crowd scattered, retreating to their shadows. The white beam of a flashlight shot from the passenger window, blinding Ren.
“What’s the trouble here?”
“No trouble, sir,” Ren said.
The flashlight bounced from Ren to Laila. “What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s having trouble breathing,” Ren said.
“You want to tell us if you’ve got anything on you that you don’t want us finding before we get out of the car and take a look ourselves?”
The gun was in the sewer. “I got nothing,” he said.
The door to the police car opened and slammed shut. “Save it,” the cop who’d been sitting in the shotgun seat said.
The cop told Ren to back out of the tent and stand against the wall. He patted him down. He dug deep into Ren’s pockets, pulling out the last of his loose change—a single dime—which he let fall onto the sidewalk.
When the cop was finished, he spun Ren around, blinding him with the flashlight. “What’s up with your lady friend? What’s she got in her tent?”
“I don’t know,” Ren said, blinking and looking to the side to regain his vision. “Nothing.”
“Which is it? I don’t know or nothing?” He jabbed Ren’s chin with the flashlight. “Look at me when I’m talking.”
“She’s sick. Maybe TB, maybe worse. That’s ho
w come she’s choking.”
His partner cast his flashlight over Laila. “Take a look at this.” He let the light bounce around Laila’s stick-thin limbs, ropy neck, and sunken cheeks.
“I’m taking care of it,” Ren said. “I’m taking her to the medic.”
The cop turned the light on Ren. “Be sure you do. A person dies on the street it becomes our problem. And you don’t want to be creating problems for us, do you?”
“No, sir.” He hoped his voice sounded steady.
The police got in their car and pulled off.
Ren crouched down. Laila fumbled for his hand. She was saying something, but her words sounded like static—a dry, indecipherable crackle. Ren leaned closer. “The ocean,” she said. “You got to see that ocean.” She broke off on a coughing fit. “It’s beautiful.” She pointed at Ren’s drawings hanging from her tent frame.
Laila’s breathing was jagged—sometimes pinched and high-pitched, others a painful rattle like something in her lungs had come loose.
Ren sat cross-legged, his back to the street. He placed a hand on Laila’s forehead, wiping away the sweat that ran hot and cold.
Laila’s eyes flickered below her slitted lids. Her lips were open, drying out as she struggled to breathe. It looked like she was forming words that wouldn’t come. Ren wet a cloth with water and squeezed a little liquid onto his mother’s mouth and tongue.
Laila’s hands rested on her legs. They twitched and fluttered, like she was typing or playing the piano, like she was sorting through some invisible objects.
Ren couldn’t tell how much time was passing. He hoped that the sun was far off. He didn’t need the cops shaking them out.
He poked his head out of the tarp. The sky was still black. He could hear a few folks rustling around prepping for morning. He ducked back into Laila’s tent. The air was tight and close. His hands were clammy. His legs cramped. He wanted to close his eyes but he feared sleep, worried that when he was out he’d be carried off along with his mother. He dug his nails into his palms to keep himself alert.
The first trucks were rolling past in the semidark. A couple of voices carried down the street. Someone approached the tent, paused for a second, then continued on.
The air in the tent changed. There was a release, like a pin-popped balloon. Ren reached out to wick the moisture away from Laila’s forehead. Her skin felt different, more like paper than flesh. Her face had shifted, not slack but calm. Her semiclosed eyes were still. Ren reached out and brought her lids down. He let his hand linger, hoping. His mother didn’t move.
He got up and opened the tent flaps wide, pinning them back, and letting in as much air as he could. He found another water bottle behind some balled-up clothes. He kneeled down next to the body. He began to wash his mother’s face, removing the flecks of blood around her mouth, the city grime wedged into the creases of her cheeks and below her eyes. Ren moved on to her hands and feet, trying to wipe away as much of the streets as he could.
A few people gathered in front of the shopping carts, watching him work. Someone brought him a couple of towels. Another gave him two liter bottles of water. Ren lifted Laila’s thin shirt and cleaned her stomach and the brittle hull of her rib cage.
Outside the tent a woman was singing a hymn Ren didn’t recognize. She kept her voice low, trying not to draw attention to their congregation. Ren replaced Laila’s shirt. Someone handed him a clean sheet—a rare commodity on the streets. He wrapped his mother from toe to crown and backed out of the tent. The small crowd parted for him. A few people patted him on the back and squeezed his shoulders. Then a woman he’d never seen before came up and stood directly in front of him. She pulled a handkerchief from her bosom and wiped away his tears.
He walked down the gray street, hoping Darrell’s crew would keep Laila safe until he returned. He knew what he needed to do—one tiny criminal act, sure, but he needed wheels if he and Laila were going to get to the ocean. No more getting waylaid.
He rounded Sixth and turned on San Pedro passing the community arts center. He was hustling, which is why he almost missed it—his own face staring back at him from behind the window, proud as anything. In the photo he was squinting in the sun and his crinkled eyes made him look like he was puzzling something out. There was something in the background—a flash, a trick of the light, some weird aftermath of Nancy’s jury-rigged, tinfoil light bounce.
Ren leaned closer so his nose was almost on the glass. That thing in the background, that diamond-shaped starburst, he swore he knew what it was. Because if he narrowed his eyes a certain way and let the thing come into focus, it was clear. There was no mistaking his ghost disappearing. Vanishing into the ether. And just like that. Gone.
29
BLAKE, LOS ANGELES, 2010
It was all falling into place, that’s what Sam would have said. He would have said that there was no denying that this shit was preordained, that it was predestined, that whatever spirit had been watching over him in the afterlife had swooped down to earth and was guiding Blake now. And who was Blake to deny the spirit’s assistance? Who was he to resist this call? You’re a stupid motherfucker. You look an omen in the face and turn away, Sam said.
After all, what were the chances of Laila’s boy turning up at his camper? What were the chances of him knowing where to find the Flynn kid? He’d saved Blake a day’s work and Sam would have claimed there’s a blessing in that.
I’m counting them, Blake said to the empty camper. One by one.
You’d better, Sam said.
He spent what remained of the day moving most of Laila’s meds. He spent the night half asleep in case the kids from up the hill had figured out that he was the sort of person they should report to the cops.
He rose before the sun began its losing battle. He put the dreamcatcher, the chess set, and his battered white sneakers in his pack along with his few clothes and set off for the Cecil Hotel. He had a day’s work ahead of him. The boy, then the redhead. Then the next bus to San Diego.
Bribing the clerk at the Cecil was easy. The guy looked like he was on the wrong end of too many graveyard shifts. It only cost Blake a half bottle of Ritalin to score the Flynn kid’s room number. “If he’s not there, check the roof,” the desk clerk said. Then he pinched his thumb and forefinger and pressed them to his lips, slitted his eyes, and made a deep sucking noise.
The boy wasn’t in his room. So Blake braved the fire door to the roof, guessing, rightly, that like everything else in the Cecil the alarm was busted.
The roof was blackened by years of pollution and urban grit. Trash had blown into its corners where it had become bleached and faded. There were birds’ nests and debris nestled in the industrial air vents and the scattered remains of a few beds and dressers. And there, leaning on the low wall overlooking Main, his back to the fire door, was the Flynn kid.
“I guess you could say this is better than that desert,” Blake said. “But then again, maybe you couldn’t even say that.”
The kid turned.
“James,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you.”
The boy went white under his dirty street-streaked tan. He dropped the joint over the edge of the roof.
“Careful,” Blake said. “Don’t be wasteful.”
James backed up and pressed himself into the wall like Blake was going to come for him, like he was going to do a back dive down to the street.
“I’ve been looking for you,” Blake said again, “and here you are, not too far from my own pad. Funny how our paths cross.”
“You l-l-looking—me.” The boy was stammering.
“You sound like you’ve been smoking too much.” Blake reached into his pocket where his knife was folded in its sheath. It was funny how easily it all came back, the old menace, the casual threatening voice.
“Did you talk to Britt?”
Blake smiled. He knew he looked nasty when he showed his teeth—that his smile was anything but welcoming. “No,” he said. “But you gues
sed why I’m here.”
James seemed to relax. He peeled himself away from the ledge. “You haven’t talked to her?”
“I haven’t,” Blake said, “but I’m guessing you might have. In fact, it’s better for you that you have and we can wrap up this little chat quickly and painlessly.”
“I saw you,” James said. “You came out to the ranch a few years ago. You stayed in one of the cabins.”
“I did.”
“You were smoking. You were watching me.” James was worrying his hands like an old grandmother, rubbing his thumbs. “You stayed out there all night. You didn’t come in the house. Why?”
“I didn’t see what I was looking for. It seemed to me you were all alone.”
James was chewing his lip, staring at his fingers, anything but meeting Blake’s eye.
“My dad and Britt had split for a while. They were at some trailer in Malibu.”
“So you do know where she is.”
“I mean, I did—I don’t. She’s not at the ranch,” James said.
“That much I know.”
Now James looked at him straight. “You—”
“Yeah, me. But you knew that.” It had felt good but not great, watching the flames consume Howling Tree Ranch, like it was a job half done.
“So if she’s not at the ranch and not with your daddy in Malibu, where is she?” Blake said.
James lips moved. He muttered something Blake couldn’t catch. He knew and he wasn’t saying. “She left him. A few years back.”
“And?”
“What are you going to do if I tell you?”
“To you or her?” Blake gave James another nasty smile that would have made Sam proud.
James inched along the wall, like he was somehow going to slip away. Blake took two steps and pinned him. James leaned back, his floppy blond hair dangling down toward the street.
“Where is she?” Blake said.
“I don’t—”
“I will find her,” Blake said. He hoped it sounded convincing.
James crumpled. He doubled over and sagged, then slumped onto the tarry roof. The kid smelled like the farmhands with a little of the fetid downtown tang in the mix. Blake crouched down and leaned close to James’s face. “Did you leave a marker? Any sign that Sam passed through this world?” The kid started worrying his damn hands again. “I didn’t think so.”