Category

Serial

Mar 31
0

Windy

By | Serial | No Comments

Rhea walked out of Gallows office at nine-thirty-five that same morning. Her car was parked half a block up, in the department lot. The air was thick with the edgy undertone it gets just before a Santa Ana wind has been freed. It tickled the back of her neck and got under her skin as she clenched her fists and walked fast – the sudden anger in her nearly exploding with the rules in her head:. “Fix myself. Forgive myself. Date old guys. What the fuck?! Don’t drink too much. Don’t eat sugar. Pay your rent. Stop the bad guys. Forgive yourself. Fuck! Find your sister. Find your sister. Find your sister…”

This was her choice: continue to see Gallows and “fix herself” and go back to the LAPD or… try and up her word count at the Hollywood Pulse and make enough to pay her rent and hopefully, eventually make enough more to go down to Ensenada and pursue the Domingos case – which could be connected to her sister- on her own. That wasn’t a bad idea. Working outside the system had it’s disadvantages. But it had it’s advantages too. She wouldn’t have to lose her driving force – her edge – by “forgiving herself” (what bullshit!) She wouldn’t have to follow department rules, either – and she could start sooner. Except for the money thing. Maybe she could start here in LA and wait to go to Ensenada. She needed to think.

The crawling rush hour traffic slammed to a stop just past Micheletornia. There was road work for a block and a half. She figured it would take about forty minutes to go the four or so miles to her apartment so she turned right on Echo Park Blvd and drove a few blocks up into the hilly little hood studded with little stucco bungalows to Valerie Bakery. A chocolate chess tart and a cup of coffee would surely help her think.

She was second in line at the funky neighborhood cafe, behind a tall lanky man with salty brown hair. She looked past him at the bakery case. There was one chess tart left. Then she saw his brown skinned finger point to it. Bummer.

She approached the counter, glancing at both the pasty case and the chalk menu – her choice now was between a six buck piece of pie, a six dollar croissant, a five dollar side of toast or a three buck cookie called the “Durango”. She went with the cookie and a three dollar cup of coffee. At six dollars, she was over her limit but, fuck-it.

She sat at a little outside table, wondering how many words she could conjure up to describe the medium sized chocolate chunk and pecan cookie, dusted with Hickory salt. Enough to survive? She contemplated going back to Gallows and wondered how long it would take her to successfully fake self-forgiveness.

As she pondered her options, the man with the tart walked up Echo Park boulevard. She watched his backside as he strolled deeper into the hood. He had a Day-Lewis vibe, she thought, with a little more hunk but, at about forty, he was at least twenty years too old to turn her on.

She turned her attention to a twenty-year-old riding his bike down the street. He stopped at a stop sign. He was a little skinny but fit. He looked at her. She smiled. He smiled back and rode away. In her mind he’d have to do. Words came. She wrote a few of them down:

“He brushed past me with a smile in his eyes and a random way of walking that could easily hypnotize any two-bit writer from Paradise to Blythe and baby… that was me. I followed his invitation up a windy little street to his bungalow … and gave him a bite or two of my cookie named Durango.”

Jun 04
0

Tart Man

By | Serial | No Comments

The man walked another four and a half blocks, up a winding little street to a four-unit stucco building built in the thirties. He entered the garden apartment. Inside, a battered and dusty old sky-blue surfboard propped up against the living room wall was the only bit of personality in the cracked plaster interior of the little one bedroom unit.

The man went into his tiny kitchen and put the tart on a paper towel. He got a dark beer out of his fridge and popped the top. As he started to take a bite of the tart, he heard a key turn in his front door. He opened the utensil drawer next to the ancient stove and took out a small twenty year old glock.

“Mr. Jones?” came a familiar voice. “You here? I’m gonna kill you.” The afore-mentioned Mr. Jones pocketed the glock and went into his living room.

“It was an accident, Leland.” Jones told Leland Hays, who was standing in his entryway, pissed off. “And stop threatening me every time shit happens.”

“Shit?!” Hays hissed, turning red. “That’s seventy five grand up in smoke! Why the hell were those girls in there?!” He carried on, talking about the Domingos fire.

“Ozrin wanted the pick-up there.”

“He never told me.”

“I thought he did–” Jones carried on, returning to the kitchen.

“You thought?! No. You don’t think, you do as you’re told. I had to hear it from the cops? The COPS!” Hays followed him.

“I just found out myself.” Panama told him, keeping calm.

“When?”

“This morning. I went over there for the pick-up, saw the Police tape–”

“The fire was three days ago. You were gonna leave them there for three days?”

“…I left them food.” Panama took out a knife, sliced the tart in half.

“I called Ozrin.” Leland informed Jones, “He says the pick up was tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? No–” He offered half the tart to Hays.

“And he said the location was never changed–”

Jones put the beer to his mouth, “Ozrin’s paranoid. He changes the location every other time then changes it back.”

Hays watched him take a long pull of the beer.

“Thought you quit all that.”

Jones took another. “I did.”

Hays took out his wallet,

“Get three more now, Before Ozrin takes his business somewhere else.” He tossed five twenties on the worn counter. “There’s a hundred for gas.”

He turned to leave, then turned back and almost smiled,

“Those girls dying is on you.” Then he was gone.

Panama Jones checked the time. It was ten-forty-five. He dumped the rest of the beer, took a bite of the tart, grabbed his board and left.

Jun 15
0

Jim Beam

By | Serial | No Comments

After writing five hundred and twenty words, Rhea hit a wall. She was done. She couldn’t think of another thing to write about donuts and twenty-year-old men or tarts and forty-year-old men. She’d tried her best to imagine it but she couldn’t. What she had wasn’t going to cut it – word-wise and, thus, money-wise. She took a break and decided to concentrate on the Domingos case.

She retrieved her LAPD passwords from an encrypted file and entered them into a department database. She waited, fingers crossed. She got in. Before her were the databases of records; the histories of people and buildings – the pages that told the stories that made up LA. She searched records and more records and more records trying to find any info she could on Domingos, Leland Hays and a bartender named Myrna.

Forty seven web pages into looking at Domingos’ business tax records and scant employee records she’d found little of importance except a three-year-old misdemeanor building code violation regarding the steps leading down to Domingos’s liquor storage cellar. That got her thinking about liquor delivery to the place. She wondered if the bartender signed for the deliveries. She called seven local liquor distributors and found two who had delivered to Domingos in the last year.

Young’s Liquor Distributors had an office and warehouse five and a half blocks west of Leland Hays’s Furniture Import warehouse.  The manager – a nice, neat man named Mavery – was on the floor, counting cases of Jim Beam. Rhea flashed her badge – man this was getting easy – and Mavery told her Domingos was one of their smallest accounts but he remembered them well and was “Sorry to see them shut down.”

“Do you remember who signed for the deliveries?” Rhea asked him.

“Yeah…” he thought, “The bartender. A woman. ’bout fifty. Mexican, I think.”

“Do you remember her name?” Rhea asked, trying to push back that little thrill she felt when something just might go her way.

Mavery shook his head, “No. But–” Rhea held onto the thrill and he delivered, “I should have a copy of the receipt.”

Rhea followed Mavery into his office. And there in the middle of a tidy book full of receipts was a messy, scrawled signature: “Myrna Saldano.” Rhea took a photo of it, thanked Mavery and left.

She got in her car and smiled. She had a name! Her first impulse was to call Strickland. It was habit. Every little bit, good or bad, about a case she would share with him. But now she couldn’t. Her momentary high faded. She went back to her apartment determined to find Myrna Saldano.

But Myrna Saldano was nowhere. On paper, she did not exist. After again scrubbing through her best databases, Rhea found no record, no past or no whereabouts of Myrna Saldano. The only hint that the woman existed was that signed liquor delivery receipt and Mavery’s description.

Still… if she did exist and lived in LA, she’d need money. Her trade was bartending. Time to hit the streets.

Jun 04
0

Gardening

By | Serial | No Comments

About four-thirty that afternoon, a landscaper named Bernardo, with a survey map in hand, staked out the boundaries of Daisy’s land. The flattened little mound where the coyote had laid was, indeed, just outside the markers, like Daisy and Travis had thought.

“Do you want all succulents?” Bernardo asked her as they discussed the landscaping of the wild, sloping part of her back yard. “Or also some native brush, some rock rose, some agave.”

“The agave sounds good.” Daisy told him as she studied the placement of his markers, “And some flowering natives would be nice – maybe a tree for shade? A Palo Verde tree, right down there.” she pointed to a spot a few yards down the slope.

“Do you want hardscaping?” he asked her.

“Yes.” Daisy nodded, “I do… but maybe just some flagstones in the dirt. And a path to a small bench. Can you carve out a little path alongside the edge?” she pointed to the side of her property, next to the mound.

Bernardo looked around and made a few calculations. “It need some grading. And it’s a big area… Again Daisy nodded. “Six grand.” he estimated. “Ballpark.”

Daisy agreed. “When can you start?” she asked.

“I can start in five weeks.” he told her, adding, “I’ll need a two grand deposit at least a week before.”

“I’ll give it to you now.” she offered, “Then we’ll be all set.”

She easily scrambled up the few yards to her back wall. She stepped over it and strode back across her patio to the iron gate over her back door. It was heavily arched with a thick fuschia bouganvillea vine, studded with thorns – part of which had fallen across the gate. As Daisy grabbed the vine to pull it aside, Bernardo hurried to her.

“Careful, Miss–! It has thorns–” he warned. She smiled, unscathed and went inside.

A minute later she came back out with two thousand dollars, in cash. “Five weeks from today, I’ll expect your workers here.” she told him. “Don’t change the date, I don’t like to wait. If you do, I’ll take the deposit back and get someone else.”

Bernardo realized she wasn’t one to be messed with. He thought for a minute, going over his schedule in his mind. Satisfied he could deliver, he nodded then took the money. The date was set.

Bernardo drove his old pickup down the hill. Daisy went back out onto her patio. Poo and Ralphie were there, waiting. Inquisitory looks were on their faces. “Right now, it’s just landscaping.” she told them, “I don’t know yet if I want it dug up. I have five weeks to decide.”

Aug 26
0

Taquitos

By | Serial | No Comments

Out of the almost Seventeen hundred bars in LA., Rhea narrowed her search down to twenty-seven. Knowing that a fifty-something year old Mexican woman wouldn’t be mixing Twinkie-tinis at the Skybar or pulling drafts at Barney’s Beanery or keeping it neat at the Frolic Room eliminated close to a thousand. Adding in the geography of LA and transit times, that knocked out another six hundred.

Rhea started at eight at La Golondrina. It was Friday night. The popular place stayed open until eight-thirty. Weird. Especially for a tourist place but that’s the way it was. She knew Myrna probably wouldn’t be there but La Golondrina was on Olvera Street and walking Olvera was a good place to start – walking Olvera was also, for Rhea, a self-inflicted wound.

The trinkets and sweet treats sold at the brightly-colored wooden vendor booths hadn’t changed in twenty years, making it easy for Rhea to let the pain of her past memory there fuse with the goal of the present. Pain always focused Rhea, as did guilt. And the three-buck taquitos with green sauce at Cielito Lindo momentarily took the edge off. She bought two classic ones. She took them to a little green table and dug in. Heaven. Not wasting the moment and thinking ahead, she took out a little paper notepad she carried and a pencil and jotted down a few words: Young. Creamy, Hot Mouthful – about the creamy tang of the signature sauce that blanketed crispy curled tortillas and the promising guy who was dipping them into the fryer.

Downing the last bite, she walked across the brick path to the famed La Golondrina. The bar area was packed. The two bartenders were male. “Is Myrna on tonight?” Rhea asked one of them. “Who?” he replied. Rhea waved him off; knowing it was a long shot to ever expect to see a woman bartender working an old-school Mexican restaurant.

Next up, she crossed Alameda and went into Union Station. The deco Traxx restaurant had an old bartender who looked like Nosferatu. But they didn’t have a Myrna.

The third, fourth, fifth and sixth bars were scattered over a few blocks around downtown. All bartenders were men except for one transgender Russian woman. None had heard of a Myrna.

The seventh was a dark-red old-world bar in a classic Chinatown joint that featured Mu Shu pork, Won Ton soup and lots of plum sauce. Behind that small bar was a snake-skinned old dame named Madame Wu. Rhea asked her over a sidecar if she knew of another woman in town who poured named Myrna. Her dyed-black eyebrow barely raised. But it raised in recognition of the name Myrna. Ignoring Rhea, she moved down the bar to pour a shot of Chartreuse for a ninety-year old dancer. Rhea now had an answer. Myrna Saldano was real. And local.

It was last call. Rhea left three-fourths of her sidecar on the bar and left.

Once home, Rhea forced her mind away from bartenders and darkness and tried to finish her taquito review. She fished the notepad from her purse and jotted some more thoughts down. She liked using paper. She’d been using paper to take notes ever since she got her first notepad from Strickland when she was sixteen, a terrified kid looking to him for hope on the darkest night of her life.

“…write down anything you remember.” He’d told her as he wrote his phone number on the pad, “Anything at all, then call me. Anytime.”

She wished she could call him now and tell him how sorry she was for letting him down. But she couldn’t. She wrote. She had to make a lot of it up… “–a sinewy gaucho casually walking by bought me three taquitos with extra heat for five-twenty-five and he sprung for a Champurrado. In the back of his Camaro parked in a lot on Main, he turned me into a liar for every time I’ve ever said “no” to a man or a meal that could set me on fire..” She hated making it up. She wanted it real. She found a snack sized bag of Maui potato chips and turned on the tv. Not much was on her basic cable. OVC. News reruns. Old PBS shows. She settled on a Huell Howser re-run. He was visiting Porto’s Bakery. It was an entire show about cakes: Mango cheesecake. White chocolate raspberry mousse. Kiwi merengue torte. Grand Mariner with chocolate ganache. Lemon curd pound cake. Vanilla custard cake with pineapple filling… she should have turned it off but her mood was dark and so she watched and let her mind be pierced with thoughts of her sister.

A pledge break reeled her mind in. She turned the tv off and went outside to the courtyard. It was late. All the apartments were dark. She sat in a plastic chair by the pool. The only sound was the constant whisper of cars driving by outside.

A moving shadow startled her. A young coyote darted from behind a trash bin enclosure. It stopped when it saw her – stared her down, unafraid. Finally it skulked away and slipped out between the rails of the courtyard gate, heading up Laurel, toward the hills. A greeting came to it from somewhere in those hills, the sound of its entire pack howling. It died down. Rhea shivered. She looked at her phone. Three AM. When the quiet settles into the cracks of the night and the ghosts in the air kiss your skin.

Apr 04
0

Normal Road

By | Serial | No Comments

Aggie Day Porter loved cake. Every normal Kid loves cake and Aggie was born on Normal Road – 606 Normal Road, in a little stucco house with a little front yard that had a lemon tree and a blow-up pool. Birds sang in the Spring, she had a kitten named Poo and her big sister Rhea would ride them on her bike to the Lucky Market for Moon Pies and Fritos after school.

Their back yard tucked into a thicket of wild raspberry vines that crept down to a muddy river that ran alongside the Santa Fe Railroad tracks. They were gnarled old vines so dense and dark and riddled with thorns and “coyotes and snakes that will eat you if you don’t fall in the river first!” their Mom warned, forbidding them to go in there.

But they were hung with fat berries sweetened by the sun and at night the sisters could hear them call “Eat me.” through their open bedroom window. Late one summer night five-year-old Aggie heeded that call. She slipped out the window, padded barefoot across the dewey grass to the edge of the thicket and looked in. Moonlit berries, glowing like scarlet jewels, hung just out of reach inside the tangle of thorny vines.

Aggie found a ragged opening near to the ground and wriggled her way in. Stretching her arm out as far as she could, she picked a berry and ate it. Elated by its nectar, she followed the berries deep into the thicket, eating every one she could reach. The deeper she went, the darker it got as the thickening tangle blocked all the light from the moon. She could smell the river’s sludge now, and hear its low sounds. But the berries were heavenly, so she forged on. Bigger thorns tore at her nightgown, trying to grab her. As she pulled away, she lost her balance and fell, tumbling down toward the river. The vines rolled around her, finally growing taut and stopping her at the water’s edge. The shore’s slime lapped at her feet; wet worms and slugs explored her toes. Though it tickled and made her giggle, she was tired and scratched and full and wanted to go home. She looked around. She couldn’t see the way out. Lost and tangled and alone in the damp prickly dark, she started to wonder what critters were hiding there, waiting to eat her.

She looked up, and found a little patch of starry sky. She’d been taught that God lived up there so she prayed, “Please God, I want to go home.”

Out of the nearby dark came a tiny voice: “Stay where you are, your sister will find you.”

“OK.” Aggie whispered back then laid her head down on the ground. Just before she closed her eyes she saw a spider with a double crooked leg wobbling along a vine, coming toward her.

“I’ll stay with you until she comes.” the spider with the tiny voice said.

“Thank you.” Aggie answered and opened her hand. The spider crawled onto her palm and lay down. Comforted by the company, Aggie went to sleep. She didn’t dream.

Apr 04
0

A Karmic Web

By | Serial | No Comments

Aggie kept Tamarind for one hundred and sixty eight days. They played Candyland and Hide and Seek with Poo. They ate a lot of Nutter Butters and saltine cracker sandwiches. Aggie fed Tamarind nectar from a honeysuckle plant so she wouldn’t have to eat bugs (which made Aggie cry). Instead of spinning her webs for traps, Tam spun them for fun. Over six days in November, she spun a kid-sized badminton net between a clothes line pole and a jacaranda tree. Tamarind would sit on the top edge of the web-net and watch Poo and Aggie play. Eight days before Christmas, while Poo was trying to bat a birdie, she accidently whacked Tamarind and she died.  

“Maybe she’ll be happier in heaven and her leg won’t be extra crooked anymore.” The girls’ mom, Stel, told Aggie, trying to cheer her up. 

“But I’m her family.” Aggie cried, certain that family is all the happiness anyone ever needs. “God will bring her back.”

“I don’t think God has time for a little girl’s spider.” Stel told her, putting it to rest. She didn’t have time for one of Aggie’s God talks. The Porter family was in the Swap Meet business and it was their busiest week of the year. They sold painted tin Christmas ornaments, wind-up toys, string lights of the apostles; Virgin Mary and Rudolph the Reindeer glow-in-the-dark figurines and baby Jesus night lights – which were their biggest seller. But they only had two left. Steve Porter decided he’d drive down to his supplier Renaldo’s store in the morning. If he left early, he could get to Ensenada by ten or eleven, pick up four cases of night lights and be back in LaMirada in time for that night’s holiday swap meet at the drive-in. He’d take the girls along…  Aggie liked road trips and Rhea loved the food.  
 
They went to bed early. “Bless Mom and Dad and Rhea and Aggie and Poo and grandma and grandpa in heaven.” Aggie and Rhea prayed as they knelt at the bottom of their twin beds. “And Please God,” Aggie added, “If you have time, send Tamarind back to me.”

Rhea watched Aggie wrap Tamarind’s body in a piece of crumpled tissue paper and lay it next to her pillow. They both got into their beds. Stel came in to say goodnight to her girls. Aggie was already asleep. Rhea pretended to be. Stel picked three and a half pairs of socks off the floor and two used Kleenexes. Thinking the crumpled tissue paper by Aggie’s pillow was just another Kleenex, she picked it up too. She turned out the light and closed the door.

Stel threw the socks in the dirty clothes hamper and the tissues into the kitchen trash can. The can was full. She squished it down then pulled out the bag and loo tied it shut. Steve took the bag out to the trash bins which were on the street, ready for the morning collection.

Still awake, Rhea listened to the sounds of her house quieting down for the night. Ten minutes after she heard her parents’ muffled voices fade as they fell asleep, she got out of bed. She took off her nightgown; underneath she was wearing tights and a sweatshirt. Quietly, she took the screen off the side bedroom window, stood on Aggie’s toy box and climbed out.

Apr 04
0

Front seat

By | Serial | No Comments

Javier Adelente’s old battered ’79 Toyota truck sat low to the ground. The cab seats were shredded from wear and the front windshield steamed from the breath of Rhea and Javier, locked in the singular passion of young love in a front seat.

“No no no no no… Rhea mumbled as he kissed her over and over… His warm brown skin smelled like Dial soap. His hands slid down her body–

“Oh. Oh. Oh. OK…” she panted as Javier shoved his hands under her ass and lifted her onto him. They’d been there before. He was her first love and she was his. She was sixteen, he was seventeen and it was getting harder and harder to “wait”. She could feel the Christmas lights from the little houses on Normal Road blinking on and off, like some absurdly merry warning.

“No,” she told him again but he kissed her neck and pushed her right knee down so she straddled him. She barely managed to whisper, “We promised we’d wait till Christmas. It’s only a week away”.

“I know…” he agreed. She pulled away.

The birth of Jesus had nothing to do with first time sex but they’d thought it was a good idea; a present to each other. They were teenagers, full of gesture.

“Let me have another.” she asked. he reached down and grabbed a grease-spotted brown paper bag and held it open for her. She took out a handful of fresh fried tortilla strips scattered with sugar and cinnamon. The warm sweetness filled her mouth as she crunched down, still straddling him.

“These are sooo good.” She told him. “Tell your mom thanks.”

He watched her eat it – watched her joy – watched as she spilled cinnamon sugar down her chest. She tried to brush it off.

“I’ll get it.” He said as he started to lick it off. Whatever resistance she’d had disappeared with the feel of his tongue on her skin and the warmth of his breath. She opened her sweater and let the sugar spill further down into her bra. He followed it with his tongue, reaching around with one hand and undoing her bra, freeing her for his mouth.

Feeling him big and warm underneath her, she pulled his mouth to her breast and closed her eyes. As his tongue flicked her nipple, he slipped his hand inside her panties and slid a finger into her. Man it felt good. She moved against him. She pulled off her sweater and pressed closer to him. Then he screamed…

“There’s a spider!” and threw her off of him as he scrambled to get away from it as it crawled across the driver’s side window. She slammed against the steering wheel. The horn honked LOUD.

“Get down!” She grabbed him and they tumbled to the floor and tried not to make a sound; freaking a little as they heard the door of a nearby house creak open.

She sneaked a peek down the street. Three houses down, Steve was looking out her front door. After a moment, he went back inside. She sat back up, but Javier stayed on the floor.

“Is it still there?”

“The spider?”

He nodded. She looked around then saw the spider, still walking across the window. She looked closer. It was kind of wobbling. She looked closer still. It looked just like Tamarind. She let it crawl onto my hand.

“What are you doing!?” He kind of freaked.

“I’m taking it.” She told him. She kissed him with the promise, “I’ll see you Christmas night.” She opened the door and got out. She never saw him again.

Apr 04
0

Bedtime Story

By | Serial | No Comments

Five hours later, just before dawn, Aggie was still sleeping as Rhea, clenching the spider loosely in her hand, snuck back into her bedroom through the window. She tiptoed over to Aggie, whose sleeping body was twisted in dream. She pulled a Kleenex from a box by the bed and settled the spider into it.

“Stay there.” she whispered, “Stay there until my sister wakes up.”

Realizing she was talking to a spider, she shook her head and folded the tissue over the spider and tucked it next to Aggie’s pillow. She went to bed. She fell right asleep.

The spider wriggled out of the tissue and wobbled to the corner of the bed where Aggie’s green jacket hung from a post.

Five hours later, just before dawn, Aggie was still sleeping as Stel put the green jacket on her and tucked her into the back seat of the family’s Acura. Rhea snuggled into a pillow in the front passenger seat. Stel loaded them down with pop tarts, peanut butter, a thermos of orange juice, Triscuits and a jelly jar full of water and a ziploc baggie of kitty kibble for Poo, who was asleep in Aggie’s lap. Steve started the car. Stel leaned in and kissed him. “Try and get back by four.”

“We’ll make it by then, easy.” He kissed her back.

Stel shook Rhea a little, this was important, “You Dad’s going to be busy so watch your sister.”

“I will.” Rhea promised then Stel added, “And bring back some of Joe’s rellanos.”

“OK.” Rhea promised again.

Stel kissed her fingers then touched the Saint Christopher medal that hung from the rear view mirror. She waved as the car drove off.

 

Apr 05
0

Pacific Dreams

By | Serial | No Comments

At seventeen, Panama Jones was achingly, heartbreakingly beautiful… from his Mexican green eyes to the arch of his feet to the warmth of his smooth, sweet skin.
He didn’t think about it much, all he thought about while working part time as a janitor at the Vasquez senior center on Whittier Boulevard was making enough money to hang on to the studio apartment he shared with his mom, Lourde. 

After work on a Monday in August,  he cashed a paycheck for $237.12. He bought two milanesa tortas at La China Poblana and ate a late dinner with his mom at home. He put two hundred bucks in the drawer in the TV stand for rent. An hour later, Lorde’s boyfriend showed up with a stash. The two of them smoked an old one then found they were out of papers. “Do us a favor would you mind and get us some?” Lorde asked Panama. She opened the tv drawer, took out a five and handed it to him. She opened it enough that the boyfriend noticed the cash. Panama noticed the boyfriend seeing the cash. They locked eyes, for a second.

“Sure.” Panama told his mom as he took the five and left, hoping the weird feeling he had would go away.

Panama left, closed the door and was three yards down the hall when he heard the deadbolt latch shut. He went back and tried the door. Locked. He knocked. He heard them talking. He knocked harder. No one came to the door. And he knew. He wasn’t welcome. He said a silent goodbye to his mom, hit the boulevard and started walking. It was a little after eleven.

Panama dropped down Alameda to Venice then headed west. He bought a donut and coffee at the Donut King then didn’t stop until he hit the beach a little before seven am. He’d never been there before, never seen the ocean, never left home. The cool mist surprised him. It cocooned him.  He had three and a half dollars and nowhere to go but he knew he wasn’t going back.

Before the sun set that day, he ventured in. The force of the waves close to shore surprised him; knocked him down. 34 year old Chelsea was just ending a long ride on a short board. She grabbed him up. Then she took him in. For three months and four days, she called him “Baby.”

“Hey, Baby, bring that lotion over here. Lie down, now… roll over on your back.” Or “Baby, you hungry?” And sometimes, “Baby, you’re gonna break my heart.”. 

She shared her bed with him, her food and soon enough, her heart. She knew she couldn’t keep him but she tried.

“Just get in there, Baby, get in there. Hold your breath and dive under until you feel the rush pass over.” Chelsea taught Panama how to get past the first set of waves until they got to the breaks that were big enough to ride. He took to surfing like religion. Indeed, it was his savior. Every time he went under a wave, he forgot everything. Every single wound, every single fear. The first time he rode one, good things almost seemed possible. He used Chelsea’s board every morning while she was at work. But afternoons and weekends, she wanted it for herself.
“A good used one’s under two hundred bucks.” She’d tell him, “You can save that in no time bussing tables on the or even working at McDonalds.”

She could’ve bought him one but she knew he’d probably take it and run – he was starting to talk about the breaks at other beaches he’d heard about: Point Dume, San Onofre, Imperial, San Felipe. 

She also knew he could find another woman to buy him one. And he did. 

Women gave Panama everything: shelter, food, sex, pot, love. They turned him on to the chili verde at Felix’s in Redondo; the surf breaks at Solana, San Elijo, Rosarita; the strips at Huntington; Lady M weed; Astro Burgers’ onion rings; Kama Sutra positions four through sixty-nine and the Yellowtail marinated in tequila and lime at Joe’s café in Ensenada.

Panama had just finished a plate full of the fat, sizzled fish and was buying some twinkies – they called them “Bimbos” down there – at Boom Boom carneceria just down the street from Joe’s when he first met Leland Hays. He’d been between women for a few months, sleeping on the beach, making a few bucks selling joints to surfers from the two ounces of Salinas Gold a woman in San Diego had given him.

“Could get you killed.” Leland mentioned as he slipped Panama a twenty for a joint of the smooth weed.

“Hey man, be cool.” Panama backed away, “Just a couple sticks’s all I got–“.

“I am cool.” Leland leaned in, “Just sayin’, sellin’ can get dangerous. Cartel doesn’t like competition–”

“Three sticks. That’s all I got– just need a few bucks for food.” Panama walked away.

Leland’s words slowed him, “I can get you five, six hundred for a few nights work.  Easy money.”

“Easy money.” Words that should’ve made Panama run. But he was so young then… stoned and way less worldly than he thought. Five or six hundred was enough for a month’s stay at the San Ysidro Motel –  he was a little scared of sleeping on the beach ever since  a friend of a friend had got his head cut off one night sleeping at Imperial. Plus he could get a board of his own. He’d sold the second hand one a woman in Pismo had bought him – he’d had nowhere to keep it.

He followed Leland across the street.  As Hays got into a sweet, sweet ride – a new blue VW van, Panama was right behind him.

“How easy?” he asked.

error: Content is protected !!