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an la crime story | An LA Crime Story - Part 2

Aug 29
0

Night Flight

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After nineteen-year-old Travis Del Rio got out of Rhea’s car, he hurried across Vine to an alley a half-block up from Fountain. Three doors down, he pushed a button next to a steel door with a camera above it. Someone buzzed him in.

Inside the cavernous photo studio and lab, Travis approached the woman behind the long white counter that spanned the back wall. She looked up from a lightbox. “It’s ready.” She handed him a round tin film container about three inches in diameter. “Uncut.”

“Thanks Jess.” He pocketed the tin, then left.

Back outside, on Vine, he checked the traffic. It was pretty light. When there were no cars on the block in either direction, he leapt straight up and disappeared into the night sky.

Travis loved flying at night. The skies, even over LA, weren’t very crowded between four and five. It just wasn’t an all-night town. New York was; Vegas was, Paris was but LA was a company town and that company was the film business and people had to be on set usually by five or six am. There were only a few flying about now, getting from one place to another or just digging the swoon through night air. There were a few birds and bugs out too, some of them he knew. Two night owls, Chloe and Drew, were perched on the Spectrum cable stretched above the little houses on Vista del Mar, looking for rats. But for the most part, he felt harmoniously alone. It was basically a forty second flight from Vine and Fountain to his boss’s house but Travis zipped on over to the Gelson’s on Franklin and Bronson. The upscale supermarket was open twenty-four hours. It also housed Victor Bene’s pastry shop. Travis bought a slice of Princess Cake, a blond brownie and an individual kiwi tart. To go.

Mar 31
0

Impossible

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In a Little Tokyo office, just 2 blocks from LAPD Headquarters, Dr. Elena Gallows was blending a kale and banana smoothie after a morning kickboxing workout. She stayed fit. She had to. Being a cop therapist wasn’t physical, but it may as well have been. Feeling strong, she was ready to take on the day, even ready to take on the surprise of Detective Rhea Porter knocking on her door. Their first and last session nearly two months ago was testy and when Rhea cut it short and left, Gallows didn’t really expect her back. Rhea looked good, though. Calmer.

“No I don’t. I look like crap.” Rhea answered the shrink’s compliment.

“Here we go.” Gallows thought but Rhea softened.

“Sorry I didn’t make an appointment. Do you have time for me?”

Gallows checked the clock. “I have a hazing-damaged rookie in twenty minutes.” she said then added. “You can have the twenty but it’s not going to be any easier than it was.”

“I don’t care. I just need it to be fast.” Rhea informed her.

“That’s up to you.” Gallows slammed back.

The Doctor gestured to a seat next to a potted orchid. Rhea sat, the orchid caught her eye. It was fake. Gallows prided herself on being healthy and all-natural, yet here she was with a fake orchid. This made the doctor somehow flawed in Rhea’s eyes. It made her opinion matter less. Still, she needed the doctor on her side. She needed the doctor to tell Strickland that she was cured of her need for young men so he’d put her back on the squad.

“Nice orchid.” Rhea smiled.

“Thank you.” Gallows responded. “Ready?”

“Ready.” she told the shrink.

“Let’s start with your sister.” Gallows dove in.

“OK.”

“Do you feel responsible?”

“Oh… we’re starting there.”

“Yep. You want fast. Let’s do it.”

“Ok…” Rhea let out a breath, “Yes.”

“You feel responsible.”

“I am responsible.”

“So you seek out men… young men… who cannot love you to punish yourself.”

“I seek out men who can fuck a lot for a long time because it stops me from thinking about dead kids, missing kids, abducted kids, homeless kids and how there is nothing I can do to stop it.”

“You could start with yourself.”

“No comparison. He wasn’t a kid. He was legal age and I don’t do that anymore, doctor.” Rhea lied, “Not in awhile.

Gallows checked Rhea’s file. “The one you were caught with – Kevin?”

Rhea nodded and pointed out, “”Caught” is a strong word.”

Gallows leaned back. “Correct me Miss Porter.”

Rhea copied her; leaned back too, “… Glimpsed. Noticed.”

“You were suspended. Detective Sergeant Strickland recommended suspending you because… you were noticed?”

“He said it looked bad. To the division.”

“The Exploited Kids Division.” Gallows said, emphasizing “kids”.

“He was eighteen.” Rhea repeated.

“And a pro.” Gallows added.

Rhea opened her hands, gesturing that either she didn’t know or it didn’t matter, then added, “That’s on him.”

Gallows let it go. She had another direction to explore: “Maybe Detective Strickland was also concerned about you.” She told Rhea.

There was no way Rhea was gonna tell a shrink who worked for the force that maybe Strickland had a thing for her; that maybe he was jealous; that maybe he was inappropriately using authority to punish her for his desire. Rhea couldn’t prove any of it and Gallows would take months delving into it. Gallows was a shrink. And shrinks loved shrinking. Better to give her less to shrink about.

“Maybe…” Rhea answered.

“Do you like being a cop?” Gallows asked, changing direction again.

“Yes.” Rhea answered.

“Why?”

“I like busting bad guys.”

“You feel like you’re making a difference?”

“No. I’ve busted forty-two preds in seventeen years. Each time I thought it was going to change things– well, at least slow down the horror. It did not make one bit of difference. Kid trafficking”, she answered, emphasizing ‘kid’, — is a booming business.”

“So… forty-two days out of seventeen years you liked your job?”

“No. I like going to work. I like chasing some bastard down. I like thinking it might be the one who took Aggie. I still like thinking I might find her.”

Gallows checked her file again, “It’s been how long–?”

“Twenty two years. She was five.” they were both quiet for awhile. “There’s a chance.” Rhea affirmed.

“OK. Look, Detective–” Gallows sounded blunt–

“I’m done with them. With younger men.” Rhea interrupted.

Gallows ignored her, “You are not going to get your job back if you don’t stop–”

“I have stopped–” Rhea interrupted.

Gallows carried on, “–if you don’t sop with the boys–”

“Young men.” Rhea corrected her.

Gallows continued, “And you can’t stop until you stop the need to destroy yourself.”

“No–” Rhea shook her head.

“I know this is tough–”

“No no no–” Rhea went on.

“But to do that, we have to get you to a place where you can feel good about yourself and to do that–”

“Don’t say it–” Rhea kept on.

“–like I told you before, you will have to forgive yourself for what happened to your sister.”

Without hesitation, Rhea affirmed, “Not gonna happen.”

“Forgiveness can be powerful.”

Rhea matched her, “My power is guilt.”

Gallows looked at the clock. Time was up. She stood up. So did Rhea. Rhea stuck out her hand, hoping. Gallows hesitated, then shook it. Then she held on and looked Rhea in the eye. “Fridays are good. Before nine or after four thirty. When you’re ready.” Gallows smiled and let go.

Rhea left.

Mar 31
0

The Last Tart

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Rhea left Gallows’ office and walked to her car, parked half a block up, in the department lot. The air was thick with the undertone it gets just before a Santa Ana wind has been freed. It tickled the back of her neck and got under her skin – made her edgy. Angry. Everybody’s rules started exploding in her head: “Fix yourself. Forgive yourself. Date old guys. Don’t drink too much. Don’t eat sugar. Pay your rent. Stop the bad guys. Forgive yourself. Find your sister. Find your sister. Find your sister…”

She had a choice: continue to see Gallows and “fix herself” and go back to the LAPD or… try and up her word count at the Pulse and make enough extra money 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 advantages. Except for the money thing. And the power thing. And the resources… She needed to think.

The crawling traffic slammed to a stop just past Micheletornia. At this rate, it would take Rhea forty minutes to go the four miles to her apartment. She needed food. A chocolate chess tart and a cup of coffee would surely help her think. The next light was Echo Park Boulevard. A right turn took her a few blocks into the little hood studded with stucco bungalows that was home to Valerie Bakery.

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. She watched his backside as he paid and took the tart. He had a Day-Lewis vibe; sexy, she thought. Maybe she would ask if he wanted to split the tart. But he had to be about forty, too old to turn her on. He walked away, further on up Echo Park boulevard.

She approached the counter; got a five buck cookie called the “Durango” and a four dollar cup of coffee. At eleven dollars including tip, she was over her limit but, fuck-it.

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

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.”

Apr 05
0

Pacific Dreams

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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. 

After work on an August Friday, he cashed a paycheck for $237.12. He gave his mom 200 dollars toward rent. She put it on the TV stand. An hour later, her boyfriend showed up with a stash. He saw the cash and asked Panama to go get them some papers.

“Be right back.” Panama told his mom as he left, hoping the weird feeling he had would go away.

He was three yards outside the apartment when he heard the deadbolt latch shut. He went back and tried the door. Locked. He knocked. 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 nine.

Panama dropped down Alameda to Venice then headed west. He didn’t stop until he hit the beach a little before seven am. He’d never been there before, never seen the ocean, never been more than a dozen blocks from home. The cool mist surprised him. It cocooned him. He had thirty-seven dollars and nowhere to go but he knew he wasn’t going back.

Before the sun got high that day, he ventured into the Pacific. The force of the waves surprised him; one knocked him down, hard. A thirty-four-year-old surfer named 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.”. 

Chelsea 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 or even working at McDonalds or Taco Bell.”

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.

Apr 01
0

Photo I.D.

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It was a green curry wan that beckoned Rhea hardest. ‘Toolong’ on Hollywood Boulevard was a tiny, cheap joint wedged between a used appliance store and Mel Pierce Camera. She had always thought they had a so-so Kee Mao but a pretty decent Pad See Ew. But she’d never tried their Wan. She found a parking spot only a half block away – a miracle in LA. As she approached, she passed by three young men hanging around outside.

“You shouldn’t eat alone.” the one with olive skin and a careless vibe whispered as she opened Toolong’s decaled door, around nine that night. She’d intended to write the sexy parts of her reviews based on memories and fiction – but this one smelled like clean cotton T shirts and summer skin. He smelled like youth. She didn’t intentionally hold the door open for an extra second but maybe she did.

She took the booth farthest from the front windows. He slipped in across from her.

“What’re we having?”

She pulled two menus from the slot behind the bottle of soy sauce and slid him one. As he looked it over, she wasn’t quite sure he could read. The waitress showed up.

“Something to drink?”

“A Tsing Dao” Rhea told her “For me and…”

He nodded, “Me too.”

“You have some ID?” The waitress asked him.

Though his ID said twenty-one, Rhea was pretty sure he was younger.

“But all we’re doing is eating.” She thought, then ordered,

“Green Curry Wan, Pad See Ew, Phad Thai and…” she looked at the kid. He smiled,

“Whatever you want.”

“Chicken Sa-Tae.” Rhea closed her menu. The waitress left.

“So…?” She asked him.

“Andy.”

“Andy. Yeah,” she thought. And my name is Beyonce. Still, the less she knew, the better. And… all they were doing was talking.

“Been in L.A. very long, Andy?” She asked as the waitress brought them their beers.

“’bout three years. I’m from St. Paul.” He answered and told her he’d left there so he wouldn’t be a burden on his mom who “Praise God” had beaten cancer but still had a lot of bills to pay. It was an OK story, good for playing the “heartstrings” card. He even wore a saint’s medal around his neck, which he fondled: Saint Nicholas. Patron saint of children.

Even if it wasn’t just a prop, Rhea didn’t want to tell him there wasn’t any God or any saint that protects kids so she let him ramble on… about video games, comic books and bands. While all she could think about was how smooth his arms were, how soft his lips as he mouthed the neck of that beer; how young his dick was, how good it would feel and how bad this could be for her… Trying to concentrate on her new job, she got out her notebook and wrote down a few words.

“What’re you doing?” He asked.

“Writing.”

“Is that your new job?”

She looked at him.

“Kevin’s a friend of mine.”

Ah. Her reputation preceded her. She wanted to ask how Kevin was – if he was still on probation. She hadn’t seen him around. Not that she was looking. But she missed him a little. She’d come close with him.

“I made more money when I knew Kevin.” Was all she said, letting Andy downsize his expectations.

“That’s ok.” he smiled. She felt that familiar, addictive throb between her legs and smiled back.

The waitress brought the food just then. As she set it down, he told her,

“We’ll get this to-go.”

Apr 03
0

Semi Dark

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The food was getting cold and they were getting hungrier as Rhea drove past the third in a row of her favorite dark parking places… but it wasn’t even ten o’clock yet and there were too many people around.

“The alley behind IHOP is pretty good–” Andy offered.

“They closed it off.” she let him know, “Construction”

“The streets around Michelortenia?”

“Zero parking.”

“Pico?”

They both shook their head.

“Your place…?” He asked, casually. Hopefully.

“No.”

Though she and Kevin had gotten busted in her car and it clearly wasn’t a good idea to fuck in it anymore and they were only about a mile from Rhea’s apartment, she sure as hell didn’t want any of these guys there. It was just too personal. And besides, Strickland was on call that night. He could be home. No way would she risk him seeing her with this kid. If anyone was going to see her going down again, so to speak, it wasn’t going to be him. In a way, she loved him. She sure as hell respected him. He’d tried so hard for so many years to be a friend to her.

SHe started to wonder what the hell she was doing. “This is a bad idea.” she told Andy and headed back toward Toolong’s. “You can have the food and I’ll give you ten bucks, but–”

He was quiet. He nodded; seemed OK with her decision.

“I just can’t risk this right now–” she tried to explain.

“That’s OK.” he agreed. “It’s still early. I’ll find another one.”

She laughed. “I’m sure you will.”

She stopped at a stop sign.

“It’s warm out.” he said. She nodded. “Yeah. Well, it’s August…”

“Yeah.” he agreed then pulled off his T shirt. She tried to keep her eyes on the road but his arms, his shoulders, his chest– the fitness of youth was something to savor.

“Thanks for the food. OK if I eat?” he said and opened a carton of Phad Thai.

“Sure.” she said and glanced over. He thrust a finger into the carton, then two – deep into it, the angle of his thrust let her know he knew what she wanted. He rubbed the nub of a prawn that stuck out, circling it. He pulled his fingers out and sucked the sauce off. “It’s still warm.”

She looked away. Kept driving. She was hot; wiped her brow.

“Want a taste?” he asked. Before she could answer he leaned across her, pressing down on her then he opened her mouth and put some noodles inside. They were thick and warm and flecked with heat; she let them slip down her throat. His fingers lingered; she sucked them. He pulled them out.

She drove up Cahuenga then down Odin to a little street below the Hollywood reservoir. It was quiet and almost dark. She parked, jammed against a clump of chaparral. He grabbed her legs and pulled her to him, kissing her neck, her shoulder, the hollow beneath her collar bone. He pulled her T shirt down with his teeth then sucked her breast as he pulled off her underwear. She grabbed his head and shoved it down, down down. He draped a string of noodles around her core.

“Jesus. They’re cold!”

He leaned in and blew warm breath on her, then sucked and ate and blew until she screamed.

“Get the fuck in me NOW.”

He reached down, unzipped with one hand, then came up to her. A second before he parted her, she shoved him away.

“No, no. No dipping.”

He grabbed her hand and put it on him. “Feel it–”

“Use your fingers–”

A little pissed, he asked, “Why?”

“Because it doesn’t count–!”

He put his face back into her. And his hands. But he wasn’t that into it anymore. She moved against him, harder and harder.

A loud sudden THWUMP! Rocked the car, scaring them. He jerked up, hitting his head. “What the fuck?!”

Rhea looked out the window and saw a coyote skulking up the street. There were coyote footprints on the hood of her car. Andy rubbed his head.

“You OK?” She asked him. He nodded then zipped back up. They were done.

Rhea grabbed a napkin out of the bag and wiped herself off. “What a waste.” She muttered.

“You can just give me forty.” He told her. “And a ride back.”

She closed the boxes of food and put them in their bag. She dug into her purse. She gave him twenty bucks. Neither said another word. She dropped him off on Cahuenga then went home.

Rhea parked in her spot in the underground garage of the Laurel apartments then hurried up the ramp and past the pool in the courtyard. She opened the door of number 114 and went inside.

She slammed the Thai Food into her microwave; nuked it then ate it with a cold Tecate by her open window. God she hated herself. She’d failed at absolutely everything in her life and now this… thirty eight years old and she still couldn’t come. She wondered why people always said “Failure wasn’t an option.” It was always an option… hence flavored coffee, anything soy, Domino’s pizza… Now here she was in the warm nicotine light of an LA summer night thinking up frothy innuendo for two bits a word and all the oyster sauce she could eat.

She opened her notepad and read the words she’d written there. “Noodles. Sticky. Young lips.”

She ate the nuked Thai food. She thought, then she wrote more on the paper pad:

“–I kissed pungent curry wan oozing from blistered chicken hunks dense with a lingering heat– And under a coyote moon with Phad Thai dripping down my thighs, good lord he made me smile – like every other time I’ve ever said ‘yes’ to a man or a meal that could set me on fire…”

She crumpled the paper and threw it in the trash. She grabbed another beer and went outside to the courtyard. It was late. All the apartments were dark. She sat in a faded plastic chair by the pool. It was quiet except for the soft constant whisper of cars driving by outside.

A moving shadow startled her as a young coyote darted from behind a trash bin. It stopped when it saw her – stared her down, unafraid. It skulked away and slipped out the open courtyard door, heading up Laurel, toward the hills. And coming from somewhere in those hills she could hear the distant sound of a pack of coyotes howl.

Rhea shivvered. 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…

Mar 31
0

Hour of the Wolf

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At that moment, in the moonlit tangle of brush that edged a wooded ravine, a skinny coyote lay, listening. His ears perked up as a car whispered by. When he heard a soft thud in the brush below, he moved toward it.

On a ridge above the ravine was a cracked old house with a stone patio that kind of crumbled down the hill below the first O of the Hollywood sign. On the edge of that patio sat a barefoot young woman looking down past the ravine at the dark little forest that grew around the Hollywood Reservoir. She was twenty-seven. Her name was Daisy Valentine. She held an old Pentax camera in her hand. When she saw a little glow of light rise up through the trees, her eyes lit up. Excited, she slipped off her patio and scrambled down the brushy hill toward it. The only sound in the night was the sharp “Click. Click. Click” of her camera as she snapped pictures. Nearer to the forest, she stopped by a rock, bracing herself as she rattled off another 24 snaps of the puff of light as it ascended into the starless sky above LA. A gang of coyotes yelped and howled. She moved toward them. She stopped when she came upon the skinny coyote with something in its mouth.

“Let it go.” She told him. But he didn’t. He held on… to the little child’s arm in his mouth.

“Let it go–” she said again. “Here, have these,” she pulled a small bag of Cheetos out of a pocket and offered them. It was hardly a fair trade and she knew it. He shook his head and skulked away with the arm, toward the ravine. She looked up at the sky. The little puff of light disappeared into the heavens. She turned and went back up the hill.

Apr 04
0

Two Bits a Word

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Rhea leaned in the doorway of Manny’s office, eating a strawberry swirl ice cream sandwich. She was watching him as he finished reading her Toolong review. She was nervous, hoping he liked it. He blushed as he got to the part where she’d written “… I licked the last bit of peanut sauce off his left ball, trying to cool us both down. The hint of sesame oil in that salty butter eased us into the eve’s last hour. As his hands slipped from my head, I left him there, sated by fat noodles of buckwheat flour.”

“Poetic.” he glanced at her, still blushing. It made her laugh.

“It’s OK?” she needed to know.

“The curry thing was five-ninety-five?” he asked.

Rhea nodded, “Sorry. I’ll try and watch that.”

“OK.” He nodded, “The rest seems OK.”

“Great.” she let out her breath. “So when do I get paid?”

“You like Mexican food–?” he changed the subject.

“Who doesn’t?”

“You like Posole?”

“Of course.”

“You tried the one at Tres Hermanos?”

“Are you kidding?”

“It’s good.”

“They buy their tortillas at Ralph’s.” she informed him.

“Don’t be a snob.”

“On a five buck limit?”

“Ok. OK…” he let it go for now then informed her, “You get paid Thursday, when it prints.”

“OK, I’ll see you Thursday–” she started to leave. He stopped her, “Did you really? In the car… or– ”

“Or?” she asked him.

“Did you make that up?”

“Yes, Manny.” she answered, “I really ate in my car.”

She again started to leave. Manny stacked her notepad pages. “I’ll type this up this time but next time use a word doc and email it to me or use your phone and message it.”

“I always use paper.”

“I am your boss you know.”

“I know.” She nodded. “I know.”

Apr 04
0

Piece of Cake

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Rhea had 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, she thought as she snuck past his apartment. She wished she could call and tell him how sorry she was for letting him down. He’d tell her “You can do better.” She’d try not to cry. He’d put a hand on her shoulder, careful not to hold her close. Then tomorrow they’d carry on, trying to make a dent in the booming business of child exploitation… and still trying to find who kidnapped her sister 22 years ago.

The door to apartment 112 opened.

“Rent was due yesterday, Rhea.” the 60 year old apartment manager wheezed at her.

“I paid you–” she started.

“Seven hundred. You owe nine fifty.” he finished.

She dug into her purse and gave him all the cash she had: eighty four bucks. “I’ll have the rest on Thursday.”

“plus the late fee.”

“Yes, Cubby, I know.”

She opened the door to 114 and went inside. Her studio was tiny. A sofa bed slammed up against the kitchen counter and a little desk in a corner filled the room. She got a beer out of the little half-fridge and opened a bag of Maui onion potato chips. She turned on her old Sony TV to PBS. A Huell Hauser rerun was on. Porto’s Bakery. An entire show about cake. Mango cheesecake. White chocolate raspberry mousse. Kiwi meringue torte. Grand Mariner with chocolate ganache. Lemon curd pound cake. Vanilla custard cake with pineapple filling… every single one reminded her of her sister.

Apr 04
0

Normal Road

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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.

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