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god | An LA Crime Story

Feb 13
0

Hot Sauce

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Omelette Man was Manny Valdez, an East LA native and Homeboy graduate who put hot sauce on everything: eggs, donuts, french fries, ice cream – He kept little packets of the stuff in his car and his desk drawer. It’s what he first noticed about Rhea – her double use of verde and Cholula.

The second thing was the way she alluded to food and sex. Valdez published a little throwaway rag, “The Hollywood Pulse.” It was one of those freebies stacked at the neighborhood stores and eateries that featured blurbs on local events, local politics and food – covering topics like the chorizo at Yucca Meats, traffic on Sunset and the craft fair at Michlortenia Elementary. His aging food reviewer was growing partial to “senior specials” which was a valid market but Valdez wanted to “tart up” the Pulse – make it more hip – to try and get in some new advertisers and more classifieds, which made up the bulk of the bi-weekly paper. He needed a new reviewer and he needed an angle. This Rhea chick might be it. It also looked like she was a low-rent eater – definitely a must.

“A cheap food writer.” He specified.

“Cheap food or cheap writer?” Rhea asked, already let down before she even got the job.

“Both.” Valdez answered.

“How cheap?” Rhea asked, already let down before she even got the job.

“Twenty five cents a word, five to seven hundred words. Bi-monthly reviews but fifty bucks a week for food.

So what? I go to Jitlada and get only 2 things and an egg roll? Catfish is twenty bucks. Prawns, thirty. That’s hardly comprehensive.

“No no. Downgrade. No single item or entree over ten bucks.”

“Ten bucks? Rhea challenged him, “You’re talking three Guisados, or maybe a side of Mee Grob or a family sized payday and a Yoo Hoo at 7-11.” She pointed out.

“Exactly.” Manny was on board; he liked her thinking. Look, you get a couple things are fifteen, that’s OK. Primo thing…I need it to be sexy. Like what you said about the dude and the tamale.”

“I didn’t say anything.” Rhea pulled back. Her radar lit up.

“I heard things.”

“What do you think you heard?”

“A date. Some food. An “encounter”…”

Rhea’s arm shot out fast as she reached over and yanked open the right side of his jacket, looking for a badge. “You Vice?”

“What?” he asked, surprised by the move.

“I haven’t seen you before. Are. You. Vice?”

“No…” Valdez smiled. This was getting interesting, “A little paranoid?” he commented.

“With cause.” She acknowledged.

They were quiet for a minute. Manny spoke first, “So…you interested?”

Rhea wanted the job. It could work out to Thirteen hundred twenty five. It wasn’t much but it was something. Still, “I’m not sure I’ll be any good.” She worried.

“Me either.” Manny agreed. “What the hell, let’s give it a try.”

“Two things …” Rhea hesitated, “There’s some food I just don’t like–”

“Crap–” Valdez thought, this could be bad. “Like what–?”

“Cantaloupe, turkey bacon, soy, kale, veal – on principal – and duck, except Peking.” She told him.

Valdez nodded; that wasn’t too bad. He didn’t like turkey bacon either. “And the second thing?”

“You can’t tell me what to eat.”

“Let’s give it a shot.” Valdez agreed and stuck out his hand.

Rhea shook it.

Apr 10
0

Remains

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Rhea followed Sheena along the top rim of the cement embankment that cradled the LA river. It was a little after nine, daylight was almost gone. As they neared the Chavez Bridge, Sheena hesitated above a clutter of debris lumped under the bridge. Sheena’s camp.

“Stay here.” Rhea told Sheena as she scrambled down the bank where the trickle of river water ambled under the bridge. She walked a few yards to the camp remains: a moldy sleeping bag, some squishy old sweat pants, three empty Cheetos bags and an empty can of Progresso Light Pot Pie soup.

A sudden whoosh of air brushed down on her – a Santa Ana gust – that carried on it the smell. Unmistakable. She looked around for a body but she knew it would be a little farther away. She took another whiff then looked up the opposite embankment toward where it came from. A skinny coyote sauntered across the bridge just above. A woman in her twenties followed it, stopping mid-bridge to gaze out and around. It was the same woman who sat on the stone wall overlooking the reservoir. She was still barefoot. Noticing her, Was she homeless? Rhea wondered. Maybe not… she carried an old 35mm camera and an air of cool. The woman looked back at a building just behind her. Then she looked down at Rhea. A look came over her – a hesitant half-smile that pulled Rhea in like a memory.

“Find anything?” Sheena’s voice broke the spell.

Rhea turned. Sheena was about to skitter down the embankment.

“Stay there!” Rhea called up to her. Rhea glanced back up at the woman on the bridge. She was moving on… just another hipster photog, Rhea figured, looking for a moody downtown LA pic.

Rhea scrambled back up the embankment to where Sheena was waiting. “You have somewhere you can stay for a few nights?” she asked her.

“What is it?” Sheena asked, unsure if she wanted to know.

“Probably just a dead dog or racoon. I’ll get animal control to pick it up in the morning. Is there somewhere else you can crash-”

“I’ll find somewhere–”

“Try the shelter on San Pedro–”

Sheena shook her head. Hard.

“They’ve got better security now–” Rhea half-heartedly tried to convince her but Sheena wasn’t having it. Rhea understood – it would take an army of security and the compassion of masses to stem the violence and troubles of the homeless in LA. Rhea dug around in her pockets and gave Sheena all she had, almost seventeen dollars.

“Get some food. And be careful–”

Sheena took the money. Suddenly she grabbed Rhea and hugged her. “You too.” she cautioned then hurried across the street and headed downtown.

Rhea walked across the Chavez Bridge. Below her was the homeless camp. Behind her was the city skyline. A few yards from the boulevard on the northeast side of the bridge was a sagging, shuttered old bar called Domingos. She went around to the back. She checked in trash cans and knee high weeds, sniffing and honing in on a spot behind an old tire.There it was: a rotting dead possum. She backed away then turned around. She was facing the back of the bar. She sniffed; smelling something else. She walked to the bolted back door and put her nose to the edge of it. She sniffed again. She went around to the front. That door was jammed tight with twenty years of grime and a ten dollar lock. Deciding the smell gave her cause, she jimmied it open. The whiff of charred beans kissed her as it escaped the place. She went inside.

The light of an LA night bled through three small curtained windows. Her eyes adjusted to a hazy dimness. There was a bar against one wall, a pool table in the middle of the small room and a closed door in the back. A page of smoke slid out from under it. The door was locked. Three kicks knocked it open. Smoke veiled the room. Rhea walked through it. A blackened stove stood against a burned wall, splattered with the scorched remains of a pot of food that had exploded.

Rhea slid a finger through a layer of wet soot, pitted by drops of water from the ceiling sprinklers that had put out the fire. But they hadn’t put it out fast enough. There was a spent extinguisher on the floor, still in the hand of a dead girl lying there. The girl looked around eleven. Her other arm reached out to two more dead girls, huddled together by the bolted back door. They looked about six and seven. Their arms were around each other. Their eyes were open. Their bodies were splattered with extinguisher foam. Their nostrils were blackened with smoke.

Rhea checked them for a pulse. The youngest girl was still warm.

She pressed the sides of the girl’s mouth open. Her blue lips puckered like a snapdragon. A poof of air slipped out, shimmered, then fluttered away, as though she’d exhaled one last dream.

It made Rhea jump.

Outside, on the cement bank across the river from Domingos, the young photographer dropped to one knee. She braced her elbow on her thigh to steady her lens and snapped off a half dozen pictures of a faint little puff of shimmering light as it rose up into the night sky just above Domingos.

In the blackened kitchen, Rhea checked again for a pulse on the little girl. Nothing. The girl was dead. Rhea took out her phone and snapped a few pics of the three bodies. Then she called the boss.

Mar 31
0

Impossible

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Dr. Elena Gallows was fit. She had to be. Dealing with troubled cops was her specialty and though the battles were all mental, they wore hard on her body. She’d just come in from a morning kickboxing workout and was making a smoothie in the kitchenette of her office in little Tokyo, just 2 blocks from LAPD Headquarters. 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 twenty minutes.” she said then added. “It’s not going to be any easier.”

“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 reminded her. “Eighteen. He was eighteen.”

“So Detective Sergeant Strickland recommended suspending you because…?”

“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 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.”

“It can be powerful. Forgiveness.”

Rhea matched her, “My power is guilt.”

Gallows looked at the clock. Time was up. She shook Rhea’s hand and held on to it as she looked her in the eye. “Fridays are good. Before nine or after four thirty. When you’re ready.” Gallows smiled then let go.

Rhea left.

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…

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.

Apr 04
0

A Karmic Web

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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

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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

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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.

 

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