Bright Shiny Morning

by James Frey

  How can I help you?

  He speaks.

  I’m trying to find a friend.

  That could be difficult. Who’s the friend?

  He was a homeless man who lived on the boardwalk in Venice. He died a few days ago.

  He’s probably in the county morgue.

  Yeah, I figured. I want to go see him.

  Are you related to him?

  No.

  Then it’s probably not possible.

  Why?

  They don’t allow anyone but relatives in to see bodies, and then, only if they’re there to claim them.

  I need to see him.

  Why?

  Because it’s my fault he’s dead.

  Why do you say that?

  You hear about that shooting?

  Yes.

  It was my fault.

  Did you pull the trigger?

  No.

  Were you with whoever pulled the trigger?

  No. I was with my friend.

  When he got shot?

  Yes.

  The person who pulled the trigger is to blame.

  I have to see him.

  What was his name?

  Lemonade.

  What was his real name?

  No idea.

  How long had he been on the streets?

  Long time.

  You know where he was from, or what he did before he was on the streets?

  No.

  There’s no way you’re going to be able to see him.

  Please.

  It’s not my call. It’s the law.

  What if I just say I’m family?

  If you don’t know his name or anything about him, that won’t work.

  What’s going to happen to him?

  They’ll keep him there for ninety days. They’ll try to ID him. If they can’t, and no one comes looking for him, they’ll cremate the body. They keep the ashes in storage for four years and if no one has claimed them by then, the ashes will go into a grave with the ashes of the rest of the bodies that went unclaimed at the morgue this year.

  They just dump them in together?

  Yes.

  Is there a gravestone or anything?

  Just a plaque with the year they died above the grave.

  He deserves better than that.

  I’m sure he does.

  I have to talk to him.

  I’m sorry.

  I have to talk to him.

  I’m sorry.

  Joe starts to cry.

  I have to talk to him. I have to…

  He breaks down, sobs. The woman watches him. He puts his face in his hands and sobs uncontrollably sobs. The woman watches him. A minute two three sobbing watching. There is an empty chair next to him the woman stands and comes around and sits down and puts her hand on his shoulder she says I’m sorry and he sobs, she puts her other hand on his other shoulder says I’m sorry and he sobs, she hugs him and says I’m sorry and he sobs. When he stops he pulls away there is snot and there are tears on his face he wipes them away and he looks at her and he speaks.

  What do I do?

  Do you want to tell me whatever you were going to tell him?

  Why do that?

  Sometimes it’s just good to say it, even if you can’t say it to the person you want to say it to.

  Just pretend?

  No, just say it. The same way you would if he were here.

  Joe looks down, looks up.

  I’m thirty-nine years old. I know I look eighty but I’m not. One day I just woke up this way, like I aged forty years overnight. I got no idea why, it just happened. Ever since that day I been waiting for an answer as to why. I figured maybe God was sending me some kind of signal or something, or that what happened was part of some greater calling, or meant I was supposed to do something with my life besides drink and beg change.

  Every day I woke up thinking and hoping that it was the day it would finally be revealed to me, and that once it was, I’d do something that would make me feel better about myself, or feel like I was a decent person who had done something with his life. So when I find that girl, that kid, behind a dumpster, and she’s all beat to hell, and fucked up, for some reason I think that if I save her or help her or get her off the boardwalk, then maybe I’ll get my answer. So I tried. I tried to do something good. And I couldn’t do it. So I got you and the rest of our friends to help me. And all that happened was you ended up getting killed. For no reason.

  For no fucking reason. And you were the best person I ever met on the streets. Always happy, always good to people, always willing to help someone. And not because you thought you’d get something out of it, but just because it was the way you were. And you helped me, and I got you killed, and I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I took your life and wasted it for nothing. Because I want some answer to some fucking question that’s unanswerable. Why? Why? Nobody knows why? People saying they know the answers don’t know shit ’cause there is no answer. Life just is what it is and you can try to change it or you can just let it be, but there ain’t no why, there just is, there’s just life, and I’m so fucking sorry, I’m so sorry.

  Joe starts crying again, puts his head down, cries. The woman puts her hands on his shoulders and waits for a minute and he’s done, he looks up, she speaks.

  You better?

  I don’t know.

  I think you are, you just might not know it.

  Guess we’ll see.

  Can I help you in any other way?

  No.

  Come back if you can.

  I will. Thank you.

  Joe stands the woman stands. She hugs him it feels good to him better to him than anything else of the past few days he holds her until she pulls away. She steps back, opens the door, he says thank you again, leaves the office and starts walking down the hall by the time he’s at the exit there’s someone new in her office.

  He leaves. He starts to walk back to the boardwalk it’s early afternoon he’s tired. He stops every twenty or thirty minutes, sits for an hour. When he’s close to the ocean he walks to the bike path in Santa Monica, which becomes the boardwalk when it crosses into Venice, and he starts heading south. When it does cross it changes immediately. The pavement isn’t as nice the garbage cans are overflowing there is trash along the edges of the concrete. Joe laughs to himself, as nice as Santa Monica might be, he thinks life is more interesting with a bit of garbage in it. He walks over to a trash can and picks up a discarded soda cup from a hamburger stand, and he throws it across the border. It comes to rest in the middle of the bike path. He laughs, turns and keeps walking.

  He cuts across the sand, walks to the edge of the ocean. He takes off his shoes, socks, carries, walks with his feet in a few inches of water. The sun is down and it’s dark and the water is cold it feels good on his feet, ankles, sharp, refreshing, makes him feel alert, alive. A hundred yards or so from the taco stand where his bathroom is he stops and he takes off his clothes and starts to walk into the waves they knock him over. He doesn’t bother to get up he sits in two feet of water lets the waves pound him, roll over him, every fifteen seconds another one comes, sometimes they’re over his head sometimes at head level sometimes at his chest. The water’s cold the Pacific in LA never warms up very much. The salt is strong in his mouth, his nose, his ears.

  He starts to shiver. It might be because he’s cold it might be because he needs alcohol. He crawls out of the ocean puts his clothes back on, he picks up his shoes, and he walks across the beach towards the boardwalk. As he approaches the exercise bars near Muscle Beach he sees four men sitting in a circle passing a bottle. As he gets closer he sees it’s Ugly Tom, Al from Denver, Tito and Smoothie. Tom sees him, speaks.

  Old Man, where you been?

  Joe walks towards them.

  Around.

  Al.

  Around where?

  Joe.

  Behind the liquor store.

  Ugly Tom.

  Uh-oh.

  Joe.
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  Yeah.

  Joe sees they’re passing a bottle. He sits down, speaks.

  What’s the occasion?

  Smoothie.

  They caught those fuckers.

  Joe.

  Where?

  Al.

  They were in Santa Monica. Under the pier.

  Joe.

  They in jail?

  Tom.

  Probably for the rest of their lives.

  Joe.

  What about the girl?

  Tito.

  Turns out she wasn’t really living down here. Her father is some rich TV producer in Sherman Oaks and she’d just come down here one or two nights a week. She’s only fourteen. They’ll probably let her go.

  Joe shakes his head.

  That’s fucked up.

  The bottle, which is strong, decent bourbon, comes to him.

  Smoothie.

  Have a drink, Joe.

  Joe takes the bottle, takes a long draw, shivers. He holds it towards Al, who is sitting next to him. Al takes it, speaks.

  We pooled our dough for this. Out of respect for Lemon, and to show him we’re thinking of him, before each draw we say something Lemonade might have said.

  Al.

  Welcome to the party, Joe. It’s the best party we’ve had all year.

  Al draws passes to Ugly Tom.

  It’s a helluva night. Warm and quiet and calm. Don’t think there’s a better place on the planet.

  Draws passes to Smoothie.

  Never had a bottle taste this good. Like they made it out of special water.

  Draws passes to Tito.

  To great friends, the best friends.

  Draws passes to Joe. He holds it up.

  To a great life, the best life.

  He takes a long draw, shivers.

  In 1993, approximately forty years after the public rail system of Los Angeles was shut down, during which time it became the most congested county in America, a new underground subway line, called the Red Line, opens for use.

  Amberton immediately signs the settlement papers. His financial advisor has the funds wired an hour later. Kevin resigns from his position at the agency and goes out to dinner with his mother and his girlfriend. Everyone signs iron-clad nondisclosure agreements. The reporter receives a call from one of Amberton’s attorneys warning him that if he prints anything insinuating any sort of gay relationship or potential sexual harassment lawsuit he will be hit with a defamation lawsuit. Gordon and the other agents on Amberton’s team start looking for a big-budget film that needs a male superstar.

  Amberton spends three days in Casey’s bedroom. He sleeps most of the time. When he’s awake he cries and watches daytime talk shows. He refuses to eat and loses six pounds. He refuses to shower. He refuses to brush his teeth.

  On the fourth day Casey brings their children in to see him. They ask what’s wrong with him. Doing this is Casey’s last-resort tactic, and it always works. Amberton gets out of bed and has a bowl of cereal and takes a shower and brushes his teeth.

  They decide to go to Hawaii. They pull the children out of school. They rent an estate on Kauai they fly over on a private jet. The estate comes staffed with two butlers, a chef, gardeners, a masseuse. There are three homes on the estate. Amberton, Casey and Casey’s girlfriend stay in one. They keep one empty in case they have visitors. The kids and their nannies stay in the third.

  They spend their days on the beach, in the ocean. They hire a surfing instructor they are all able to get up after a few days. They like the instructor and decide to keep him on staff for their entire stay. Amberton thinks about trying to sleep with him, wonders if he’ll do it, and if not, if he’ll do it for money.

  At night they have dinner together on a deck built at the edge of the sand. Amberton is trying to gain weight most nights he keeps his food down. After dinner Casey and Amberton walk the kids and their nannies back to their house they kiss the kids goodnight. Casey goes back to her bedroom with her girlfriend. Amberton either goes to the media room and watches a movie or goes to his bedroom and reads magazines.

  Scripts start arriving, they arrive with offers. The offers are usually 20/20 offers, twenty million dollars with 20 percent of the first dollar gross.

  There are also usually letters with the scripts, from either the director or producers or both, the letters explain why they love Amberton, why they love him for the part they are offering him, why they think the film will be the biggest blockbuster in history, and why they will be heartbroken if he doesn’t take the part. Amberton loves the letters. He has accepted roles in films in the past based solely on the strength of the letters without reading the script. He tapes the best of them on the mirror of his bathroom, and reads them while he gets himself ready for the beach. After fifteen or twenty scripts, including roles as an ex–CIA agent with a kidnapped family, a doctor who, after an accident with an X-ray machine, has the power to heal with his hands, a cop with a drug problem who gets backed into a corner by the local mob, and a superhero called the Caterpillar, Gordon calls him, tells him he needs to make a decision. Amberton asks Gordon which movie will make the most money and take the shortest time to shoot. Gordon tells him it’s probably the film about the detective with a rare medical condition who gets locked in the basement of a drug dealer’s house, which turns out to be haunted, and the detective has to battle the dealer, his henchmen, and the poltergeists, in order to get free in time to make it to his doctor so that he can receive lifesaving medicine. Amberton tells him to accept the offer and call him back with a start date. Two days later Amberton gets the call, he has to be back in three weeks for rehearsals and wardrobe fittings. He finds Casey and tells her, she calls the nannies and asks them to call the children’s school and notify them that they’ll be returning. He knows he’ll need to be buff for the film so he goes back to his room and starts doing push-ups.

  In 1994, African-American football star O.J. Simpson is arrested for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown-Simpson and Ronald Goldman after a slow-speed chase involving fifty LAPD squad cars. He is later acquitted of the crime, despite overwhelming physical evidence, by a predominantly African-American jury. There are no riots after the verdict is read.

  The first time Doug came in to see Esperanza she asked him to please leave, he said okay and he turned around and he walked out of the store.

  The women Esperanza works with all wanted to know who he was and what he wanted and why she sent him away, she wouldn’t tell them. He comes back the next day she sends him away again. Next day same thing.

  He comes back every day for two weeks, same thing. The women think Esperanza is crazy. A nice, polite, slightly chubby, rich-looking white boy comes in trying to fix something up and you don’t talk to him, that’s flat-out fucking crazy. She refuses to address it. He stops coming.

  School ends, she decides not to take summer school. She’s nervous about applying to a four-year school without a clear idea of what she wants to do, she wants to spend her free time focusing on it. She meets with people from Talk and Tequila tries to learn more about their jobs, a financial advisor, a marketing executive, a real estate developer. She meets a news producer at a Spanish-language TV station takes a tour of the studio. She meets a veterinarian, spends a day at a dog shelter. She meets a political consultant goes with him to a debate. She volunteers twice a week with an organization gives English lessons to new immigrants maybe she’ll become a teacher, maybe not, she doesn’t know.

  When she doesn’t have plans, she helps her mother or her cousins or her aunts and uncles around the house she feels a greater sense of attachment to it, to her family, she knows if something happens to them, it will be hers, and she will be responsible for the people who live in it. On most days she runs or exercises, not because she has any ideas about altering her appearance, or shrinking the size of her thighs, she has accepted that they are what they are and will not change, but because exercise makes her feel good, strong, healthy. Occasionally she dates, a mov
ie, a lunch, a Saturday afternoon in the park, she goes on four dates with an LAPD officer and kisses him, but thinks of Doug while she’s doing it, and doesn’t feel the same way she felt when she was kissing him. She wonders where he is, what he’s doing, she wonders if she made a mistake by not speaking to him, or listening to whatever he had to say to her.

  Summer slows down. August is hot it never rains it’s over a hundred degrees on most days, sometimes as high as 110. People do their errands in the morning before the sun is high and burning, the store is incredibly slow at night. One of the women leaves she gets a secretarial position with the city. Another starts, but she gets caught stealing cordless phones and reselling them she gets arrested. Another starts, but she gets fired because she takes two smoke breaks an hour, when Esperanza tells she can’t take that many she says fuck off, I’m an addict, I gotta have my smokes. They decide not to hire anyone else the three women, Esperanza one African American one Mexican American, can easily handle however many customers are in the store. Near the end of August, at the end of a slow night, the door opens all three look up, Doug walks into the store. He looks disheveled, looks like he’s been drinking. One of the women whistles, the other laughs and says white boy is back. He walks straight to the counter, looks at Esperanza, speaks.

  I have to talk to you.

  She speaks.

  Have you been drinking?

  I have.

  I’m not going to talk to you if you’re drunk.

  I’m not drunk. I’m scared. I needed a drink or two or three to be able to come and say what I have to say to you.

  They stare at each other. The women watch them. A moment, two, they stare. The women look at each other, look back at them. One of them speaks.

  Get on with it, white boy, we’re waiting.

  He stares at Esperanza, takes a deep breath.