by Ray Garton
“Where are we going, anyway?” Carter said as his laughter subsided.
“To a party,” Rain said.
“Par-tay!” Carter shouted.
“It’s at my friend Monty’s house in Compton.”
“What?” Adam said as Carter simultaneously said, “Oh, shit.”
“What’s the big fuckin deal?”
“The big fuckin’ deal,” Adam said, “is that we can’t go to Compton because we’re not armed!”
“Jesus, what a coupla fuckin’ pussies!” Rain said. Leaned her head back, rolled her eyes. “It’s not that bad. He doesn’t really live there, that’s just where he’s staying until he gets back on his feet. It’s a nice little house and tonight he’s having some friends over to welcome me back.”
“Okay, but we’re not staying long,” Adam said. “We’ll go in, you can say hi to your friends, then we leave.”
“Who died and left you my fuckin’ nanny?” Rain shouted so loudly that Adam winced.
“You were the one who wanted to go out,” Adam replied, almost as loudly. “So we’re out. But we’re in my car and I’m driving, so we do things my way. Now, if you want to go to Compton and hang out till you get shot in a drive-by or raped by a drug dealer or employed by a pimp, you’ll have to do it in some other car with some other guy at the wheel.”
Rain smiled with satisfaction and said, “Well, Big Brother...we’ve only known each other a couple days and you’re already coming outta your shell.”
“Quit analyzing me and tell me where to go,” Adam said.
“How about to an analyst?”
In the backseat, Carter tried to stifle his laughter, but it got out anyway.
Adam glanced over his shoulder at Carter and said, “How would you like me to kick your traitorous ass out of the car in Compton and leave you there?”
Carter’s eyes widened. “Traitorous? I just thought it was funny, that’s all.”
Rain was looking at Adam with an annoyed frown. “You talk like a fuckin’ librarian, Adam, what’s wrong with you?”
“If proper English offends you, I’m sorry. You’ll just have to deal with it.”
“Proper English doesn’t offend me,” Rain said. “But people who use it so fucking condescendingly do.”
A snicker from the backseat.
Adam was surprised to hear her use such a word. And correctly.
They were silent for a while and Adam turned on the radio, found some music. The four of them did not speak again until they arrived at their destination.
A small community, Compton had a primarily black population. At first glance, it looked like a pleasant neighborhood beneath the California fan palms. With a closer look, its problems became clear. Houses and shops and even fast food restaurants had black iron bars on their doors and windows. Heavy sheets of metal slid down over the doorways of shops at closing time. Storefronts, apartment buildings, even houses were marred by graffiti, speckled with bullet holes.
Monty’s house—or the house in which he was staying—was more like a cottage. On the corner of two narrow intersecting streets, it was small, once cute, now crippled and battered by its own environment. Graffiti on the door and walls, bullet holes beneath the two windows that flanked the front door. Paint curled up in narrow strips, like dead cracked skin on the heel of a foot. The street was lined with houses exactly like it.
Cars were parked all around it, some blocked in by others. There were no sidewalks on either side of the street. The road simply ended on each side, replaced by rocky dirt. The rough ground made up a tiny yard, much of which was taken up by a battered old Mustang on blocks. No lawn, no fence. The concrete walkway leading up to the porch steps was broken into chunks of gray rubble. Music with a heavy beat rattled the foundation of the little house from inside.
“This isn’t a yard,” Adam said as they walked around the car over the oily dirt. “It’s an obstacle course.”
“You’re such a fuckin’ pussy,” Rain said.
“Boyz N the Hood was shot around here,” Carter said to no one in particular as he looked around with interest.
A bare, yellow, anti-bug bulb in a fixture over the door bathed the small porch in the color of unhealthy urine. The concrete steps were narrow, cracked, with broken corners. An old wooden graffitied door stood behind a sturdy iron security door with a shiny brass deadbolt lock.
Rain went up the steps first and kicked the screen door hard four times.
Carter leaned close to Adam and whispered, “I think we should keep the smartass remarks to a minimum. Somebody’s libel to bust a cap in our asses, know what I mean, Big Brother?”
“Knock that shit off!” Adam said. His nervousness made his voice tremble.
After more kicks, the door finally opened. Adam almost exclaimed, Opie Taylor! but clenched his teeth and swallowed instead.
The young man at the door was in his mid-twenties, but had the innocent, freckled face of a small-town country boy, with red crew-cut hair. He came out and picked Rain up in his enormous, muscular arms. His entire body rippled with muscles. Shorter than Adam by a few inches, his lack of height somehow made the muscles seem more threatening. Like snakes coiled to strike beneath his tight gray Tasmanian Devil T-shirt.
Still clinging to him with one arm, Rain said, “Guys, this is Monty. He’s the shit, okay? Monty, these’re the guys. That’s Carter, and that’s my new big brother Adam.”
Monty stepped out past Rain, smiled and extended a hand to Carter. Monty’s hand was no bigger than Carter’s, but when they shook, Carter’s knees wobbled. He didn’t fall, but could do nothing about the look of agony on his face: head back, eyes clenched, lips sucked between his teeth.
“Nice to meet ya, Carter, how the fuck are ya?” Monty shouted like a deaf man.
When Carter tried to say hello, he cried out in pain instead.
“Oh, shit!” Monty said, laughing as he released Carter’s hand. “Did I hurt ya, there, dude? Fuck, I didn’t mean to do that.” He pushed Rain aside, put a hand on Carter’s shoulder, pulled him toward the door. “Fuck me, man, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to squeeze ya so hard, c’mon, let’s get you inside and take care of that.” He put his arm around Carter’s shoulders, ushered him through the door. “We’ll get you a beer and find you somebody who’ll massage that hand with her titties, okay? Sound good?”
“Hey, Monty, they came with me,” Rain said. “They’re mine.”
Monty turned to her and said, “Look, Rainy, it’s great to see ya, but don’t be a cunt, okay?” He let out a piercing, “Woo-hooooo!” and went inside after Carter.
Adam turned to Rain and smiled. “Welcome home.”
Face suddenly ugly with anger. Rain grabbed his elbow and opened the screen door. “C’mon, let’s go join the fuckin’ party.”
Inside, the little house reeked of alcohol and marijuana. The rap music was so loud, it was nothing more than pounding, roaring noise. Beneath it all, Adam could hear loud laughter and shouting, surprisingly audible in spite of the music. Every square inch of the house was occupied by people. Shoulder to shoulder, back to back.
Faint, night-light glows from some corners held off utter darkness. Adam let Rain lead him deeper into the house, through the crowd, which was made up of all colors. Shiny hair, shiny scalps, lots of piercings and tattoos.
“In here,” Rain shouted at Adam as she pushed through a door. There was light on the other side. Inside, the noise was muffled, but not by much. Adam could still feel it in the floor.
It was a bathroom. Adam faced a bathtub filled with ice cubes and water, cans of beer and bottles of hard liquor. There were also a strip of six off-brand condoms and a torn, soggy issue of Good Housekeeping magazine resting on the surface of the ice.
Rain grabbed a can of beer, another off-brand, probably something made for one of the grocery chains. “Want one?” she said.
Adam shook his head. He wanted to keep his senses sharp, and what judgment he possessed in tune.
&n
bsp; He heard two distinct sounds: wet sucking and steady tinkling. Turned to the sink in the tile counter behind him, a mirrored medicine cabinet on the wall above it. Beyond that, another door, this one wide open, and the toilet, where a petite Asian girl sat urinating as she sucked loudly on the enormous glistening erection of a tall black guy standing beside her.
“Holy shit,” Adam said, turning his back to the couple immediately. He opened the bathroom door a couple inches to leave.
“What’samatter?” Rain said.
“Well, shouldn’t we...I don’t know, leave them alone?”
Rain looked at the couple and laughed. “You haven’t partied much, have you? C’mon, let’s go find Monty and Carter.”
Back through the crowd. Rain stopped to take a hit off a joint offered by a Samoan guy who looked like a Sumo wrestler. When she handed the joint back, he turned to Adam and said, “Ganja?” Adam smiled, shook his head, moved on. Ahead of him, Rain stopped repeatedly—a hit off a bong, a swig of vodka out of the bottle, a snort of something—and Adam turned them down behind her. Faces began to look at him strangely, probably wondering why he had come.
“Hey, dude!” An arm suddenly squeezed Adam’s shoulders so hard he was afraid his head would pop off his neck like a champagne cork out of the bottle. Monty pushed his face close to Adam’s and shouted, “Rainy’s talked a lot about you. Thinks you’re a fuckin’ prince, dude! Talks about you like you invented the fuckin’ sunlight!” He laughed and patted Adam on the back so hard, Adam would have fallen over if there had been room to fall.
He frowned, thought, That can’t be true. Why would Rain talk about me that way?
Monty said, “Let’s go find a place to talk.”
They caught up to Rain and she and Monty shouted at each other. Adam couldn’t understand what they were saying, so he ignored them, looked around.
A black girl was sprawled and motionless on a nearby sofa. Her head had fallen back, mouth open like a deep sleeper’s. A tourniquet on her left arm, tied tightly above her bleeding inner elbow. Right hand resting on the cushion, lightly holding a syringe. She wore a tight, low-cut, sleeveless top that showed off her ample cleavage, but was naked from the waist down. A platinum-haired Latina knelt before the still girl, head between her thighs. Adam watched the platinum head roll around in a lopsided oval motion. Four guys stood behind her and laughed as they watched. The girl on the sofa lifted her head, looked around with dead eyes, then vomited on herself. It soaked her black top and spattered onto the platinum hair. Neither girl noticed. The guys made sounds of delighted disgust.
As if seeing the syringe had opened his eyes, Adam noticed others on the end tables and coffee table.
“Hey!” Carter shouted behind him. “We finally made it to high society, huh?”
Deep in the crowd, male voices shouted angrily, rose above all the others.
“I’m going to the car,” Adam said over his shoulder. He squeezed around Rain and Monty and headed back the way he had come.
The angry voices grew louder as the others dropped a few notches. Sudden cries and shouts came from the crowd as a disturbance broke out. Most of them hurried backward, away from something. Adam stopped, looked back. A large bald man and a larger man with dreadlocks circled each other. The bald man held a knife, the guy with the dreads nothing but pot-roast-sized fists. They shouted at each other, threw a few punches. In a blink, the man with the dreadlocks was no longer empty-handed. His right hand held a large handgun. So big, it looked like an exaggerated toy, something that might squirt water, not shoot bullets. Screams erupted.
“Jesus Christ!” was one of them, and it came from Adam. He knocked people out of his way and stepped on feet. His heart pounded in his ears, nearly drowned the cacophony behind him. He pulled the front door open and slammed into the heavy screen door. Nearly knocked himself to the floor because it was locked. Adam turned the lock, pushed the door open, threw himself out of the house. Nearly tripped on the steps and broken concrete path, ran left to go around the Mustang in the yard.
The gun fired inside once, twice. Glass broke to Adam’s right. The ground swept up like the hand of God and hit him in the face.
THIRTEEN
Adam hit the ground rolling. He stopped in front of the Mustang and took a quick body inventory to see if he had been shot. Relieved to find nothing more than sore elbows and a scratched forehead, he crawled the rest of the way to his car.
A helicopter flew overhead, passed a slow searchlight over the neighborhood. Always there, a part of the night in Los Angeles, although they never seemed to find anything.
Once inside the Lexus, Adam locked his door. His hands and arms shivered with fear. Sweat broke out over his body with stinging suddenness. He was furious with himself for coming. He should have said no to Rain and stayed with it, but no, he’d caved, believed her scary little story about going to the police. He clenched his hands into fists, made the trembling stop.
A group of partiers rushed out the front door and headed for their cars. Among them, Adam saw Carter and Rain. He opened his door, got out and waved at them. “Hey! Come on! We’re going!” He got back in, slammed the door, locked it again, reached over and unlocked the passenger door.
Carter fell in. His face sparkled with sweat. “Son of a bitch!” he said in a jagged voice. “Honest-to-God gunfire!”
Rain got in with no hurry and left the door open as she said, “I think Monty wants to talk to you, Adam.”
“I don’t care if Monty wants to crown me king of Denmark, we’re getting the hell out of here.” He started the car. “Close your door, Rain.”
“No. You have to talk to Monty.”
“What do you mean, I have to talk to him?”
Rain turned and smiled at Carter. “Could you let us speak privately for a minute.”
“And get outta the car? You’re funny.”
She sighed, leaned close to Adam and breathed, “Monty’s gonna help us.”
“What?” Adam shouted.
She nodded at his door and said, “C’mon, let’s step out. Just for a second.”
Adam did not want to, but did, anyway. They went to the front of the car. The engine idled as they whispered to each other in the headlight beams.
“What do you mean, he’s gonna help us?” he asked, trying to contain his anger.
“I mean that’s what he does! He’s done it before, lotsa times. And he’ll give us a discount because he’s my friend.”
Adam pointed at the house and asked, “That buffoon in there is a hit man?”
Rain continued as if he had not spoken. “Monty, uh...I don’t know, he’s got some fuckin’ thing for me. Normally, I’d be down with that because I think Monty’s hot, but he fucks guys, too, and I don’t fuck people who can’t make up their fuckin’ minds. I mean, you gotta have some kinda standards, right?”
Adam stepped very close to her, neck muscles taut. “Have you been fucked out of your mind? You’re telling me that guy is going to kill your mother for you?”
“He’s going to kill both our parents. For us.”
“Oh, no, don’t give me that us shit. If that guy’s involved, you can count me out.”
“You don’t even know him!”
“I know all I need to know. Jesus, we’d be lucky if we got caught. We’d probably all end up dead. I wouldn’t let that guy change the oil in my car, Rain, and I’m sure as hell not—”
“Hey, you guys, wait for me!”
Adam and Rain turned toward the voice. Monty rushed toward them wearing a long tan coat that flapped around his legs like a cape. It was a cool night, but not that cool. Adam did not like the look of it.
Rain said, “You gonna tell him that?”
“Ran outta vodka,” Monty said as he jumped into the car, taking Rain’s seat.
Rain got into the backseat with Carter.
The engine continued to idle as Adam stood beside the car, staring at the steering wheel. He wanted to go home, and intended to make that his
only goal from that moment on.
“You comin’?” Monty said. “You want me to drive? I know this fuckin’ neighborhood upside-down.”
Adam threw himself behind the wheel and pulled the door closed. “Where are we going?” he asked as he drove away from the house.
“Liquor store,” Monty said.
Adam turned right, then right again. “I saw one coming in, just a couple blocks up here.”
“No, that store closes at, uh, eleven. Gotta go to another one. Make a left up here.”
“Across that traffic? Uh-uh. I’ll take the long way.” He turned right, got into the left-turn lane at the next light and made a legal U-turn. Went back the way he had come.
Adam glanced in the rearview and saw Rain on Carter like a hungry predator, kissing him as Carter’s surprised struggles weakened, finally stopped.
Monty laughed. “Hey, they look pretty fuckin’ occupied, huh?”
Adam felt sick to his stomach.
“Rainy says you gotta job. Hasn’t told me shit, though, so I don’t know if I wanna fuckin’ do it or not. Somethin’ about your parents. You wanna fill me in, Adam?”
Monty turned on the radio and found a rap station, turned it up so loud it caused Adam’s ears actual physical pain. He expected them to start bleeding any second. He was afraid to protest this time, let it pass. He had to shout to be heard. “I, uh...I think Rain might have been a little hasty.”
“Little pasties? What?”
“Uh...I think she spoke too soon. We haven’t decided on our plans yet.”
“Oh. Well, fuck.” Monty shook his head slowly. His knees bobbed and he slapped his thighs to the music as he spoke. “You gonna do your fuckin’ parents, you gotta have somebody like me, dude. You get tagged with somethin’ like that, man, you’re fucked. You need somebody’s got no fuckin’ connection to the family.”
“You’re a friend of Rain’s.”
“Nah, that’s no fuckin’ problem. Her mom, your dad, none of ’em ever fuckin’ met me. Don’t know me from shit. Hey, does your dad fly?”
“Huh?”
“Your dad, does a have a fuckin’ plane?”