Shadow dance, p.4
Shadow Dance, page 4
“What did that asshole mean by that Harry Potter comment?” I rummaged through a sunglasses display to replace the ones that had been crushed yesterday, and found a pair of aviators that fit perfectly on the bridge of my nose.
“You have a red scar on your forehead like a lightning bolt,” the clerk said. “It’s obvious you scared the shit out of them.”
I’d held napkins from the hot dog dispenser to my lips and pinched down to stop the flow. “Most people don’t like the sight of blood.”
“They’re just a couple of bullies. Went to my high school and are still losers.”
“Didn’t those guys saying ‘chief’ bother you?”
“They want me to get mad,” he said. “It pisses them off when I ignore them.”
“I’ve never had patience for bullies,” I said.
“I’m pretty sure they saved themselves from a world of pain. You look like a fighter.”
“I’m not THAT good,” I said. “I’ve practiced a few martial arts, but I’ve never found one I loved.”
“Story of my life. Just switch out martial arts for women,” the clerk said.
“My last year in Afghanistan, I ended up studying krav maga with one of the Special Forces guys. It combines judo, boxing, jujitsu, aikido.”
“Name’s Owen,” he said.
“I’m West.” There it was. My new name. The direction I was headed.
He looked at the glasses on my forehead. “So, what can I help you with?”
I hadn’t yet worked up the courage to ask him for a favor on the wrong side of legal. “Do you like that book? Isn’t that from the author who wrote Cape Fear?” I gestured to the paperback on the counter with a finger pointing like a gun.
“I’m addicted. This is my third time reading The Green Ripper. It’s about a detective, Travis McGee. He has a knack for saving the day and never getting paid.”
I understood addiction. I was a serial reader. Once I liked a book from a given author, I was rabid. I read each book one after the other before I moved to the next. Currently, I was absent both a girlfriend and an author. I’d finished reading Goodbye Columbus in a reverse trajectory of the writer’s career in my overseas Philip Roth addiction. “I’ll have to check it out someday.”
“Here,” Owen said, tossing me the book. “You here for gas? I don’t see a truck outside.”
“It’s parked around the corner,” I admitted. “I’m out of gas and I have a proposition. Can you close down shop for a few minutes?”
“Is what you’re asking legal?” Owen asked.
“Nope.”
“Okay, now I’m interested.”
Owen gestured for me to head out the front door. The bell rang behind me and my eyes watered from the dust whipping across the asphalt. There were no people anywhere in sight—at the station, on the road, on the freeway overpass. Owen paused to lock up the convenience shack. He followed me across the adjoining lot to the alley where I’d parked the truck. The mid-morning sun was now beaming across the dented bed, and I could see more clearly that the truck, like me, had seen better days. Wordlessly, Owen trailed me to the passenger door. I unlocked the truck and opened the glove box, revealing three pistols of varying models and ages. I wasn’t a gun expert, far from it. The only weapons I’d ever shot were in the military. I had no idea of their worth and was at the mercy of whoever bought them from me.
“These stolen?” Owen asked.
“I can guarantee it. My uncle always shaves off the serial numbers. No one will be looking for these, but these aren’t the types of guns you can register.”
“What do you want for ’em?” Owen asked.
“Whatever you’ll give me. I need enough gas to get to LA to help out a friend. If you throw in a pair of sunglasses, I’d appreciate it.”
“I know a few people looking for some peace of mind with a piece of this kind.”
“That’s damn poetry,” I said.
“For Texas it sure as hell is.” Owen stuck out his hand and we shook, the ritual of agreement still a necessity. The gripping of hands was a leftover from days when it seemed a good idea to see if the other guy was carrying a weapon. Owen told me to hang tight while he secured the funds. It gave me a chance to take a piss between the truck and the wall. The yellow stream sent a lizard scurrying out from the shadows. Twin ridges exposed darting eyes as he stuck his head out into the sun, exposed like I was. He didn’t wait to discover the source of the precipitation and took off, looking for new shelter. Humans were animals, and animals all had instincts, whether we followed them or not. I needed to follow the critter’s lead and disappear underground somewhere in LA until I could figure out my next move.
5
Border Shadows
With two hundred bucks in my cargo pants, several bottles of water tossed into the glove box to replace Uncle Miles’s illegal firearms, and a pair of cheap aviator sunglasses, I embarked on my journey. I migrated westward alongside tourists, Native American ghosts, the spirits of gold panners, and hucksters fueling me with the zeal of manifest destiny and a twinge of something that might be the onset of depression. Outside, the long day burned as though a distant fire were burning up the bowl of America. Unlike other travelers, I wasn’t trying to discover something, pursue a long-distance romance, or become rich. My dream was to keep my only friend in the world safe and to escape attention in the pileup of cars near the ocean, to disappear beneath waves of people crashing over one another into the murky ecosystem on the dark floor of the city, out of sight.
I thought about my long-ago brother, the twin I’d absorbed in the womb. Was lil’ bro protecting me somehow from the firstborn curse of my family? My father Louis had thought so. He was also convinced that he had figured out the mathematics of Keno, much to the detriment of the family finances. My mother Louise thought that it was hilarious how he took money from suckers all day yet was one himself. Moms was a firecracker in her own right. Her love of combining booze and pills was a special kind of Molotov cocktail that consumed those around her at odd moments of the day or night. In many ways, I’d always felt like the adult in the family. Not uncommon among my friends growing up, Pops and Moms had been ill-prepared for my entry into their lives.
Louis and Louise, kindred spirits brought together by their names and love of chaos, were no Thelma and Louise. They were survivors, through and through. They conned everyone around them—acquaintances, friends, and family—to fuel their vices. They were so much fun to be around that often folks didn’t complain when their wallets got a little lighter in the process. I had a hard time imagining them not finding a way to survive under any circumstances, even a random act of nature. The family curse, after all, was one of long-suffering. After the hurricane, when their bodies hadn’t been found, I gradually began to accept their departure from my life. I mourned my folks just as I had the brother inside of me, but I felt adrift. My exodus was tenuous at best with the army and Deirdre now firmly planted in the rearview mirror.
Outside, the daylight scared the crap out of me. Even though I doubted Uncle Miles had reported his truck stolen, I felt exposed in the way of ancient desert travelers. We were on the brink of summer solstice. I felt the need to haul ass across the western states to avoid getting crisped. For a day and a night, I did nothing but pump my car and my body with cheap fuel and speed through the remainder of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. I crossed over into California before dawn and almost decided to pull over. The lack of funds meant that a motel was out of the question, and I didn’t want to spend another second in the truck—waking or sleeping—than absolutely necessary.
I thought about all my favorite travel novels and my journey took on a dreamlike quality. Would I discover strange new people on my journey, where I would be either a lumbering giant or a midget tossed around like a doll? Would I be shipwrecked with no escape, no one to talk to, and no place to flee the elements and my own dubious nature? Would I come into the town on a hero’s quest to correct some injustice? Or would I simply disappear into obscurity like an old book that had fallen out of favor?
It’s funny what crosses your mind in the borders between states, between wakefulness and sleep, between being a boy and a man. Why didn’t I feel more solid? Everyone around me grabbed life with gusto while I felt like an observer, a journalist, unsure of setting foot on the scales of life. Books had always been my vice even in school where letter grades hadn’t mattered to me. Even the jobs I’d had, such as they were, from babysitting the kids of the Aces crew to signing up in the army as an MP, were passive activities, watching over others.
I’d learned early on to hide my money and belongings from my folks. When Pops used the cash from hawking my baseball card and comic book collections as gambling seed money I gave up on both pursuits. Moms siphoned my babysitting stash to buy booze, and I started to get savvy about hiding my loot. My favorite spot to hide away cash was in the pages of Mark Twain. It was of the few possessions I kept over the years.
Perhaps Buddy actually was a dog’s name. I had watched over my parents but not nearly well enough. I then traveled halfway around the world to watch over prisoners as helpless as the marks getting fleeced on the gambling riverboat. There was never black or white in either place, just many non-sexy shades of gray.
If a caterpillar turns into a butterfly and a boy into a man, what exactly did a bulldog like me transform into? How many others wandered the earth feeling more animal than human? Perhaps now that I was leaving Buddy behind, West could make better sense of the world as it was. West was a man on the run. West was a madman operating without sleep. West was someone who spoke about himself in the third person and could be the man I’d always feared I’d be.
Not long after sunrise, traffic slowed at a checkpoint. I wanted to park the car on the shoulder of the highway and escape into the desert, but West wouldn’t let me. I drove up to a booth in the far-right lane beneath a yellow sign with black letters that read California Inspection. What in God’s name did that even mean? I pulled up and stopped at a kiosk to my left and rolled down my window. The guy in the booth wore a short-sleeve blue shirt, but it didn’t appear to be a uniform. He had odd patches of hair on his unusually long face, either growing in a bad beard or losing some kind of work dare. What kind of inspection was this? He better not ask to see my license or registration.
“Where are you coming from?” he asked.
“Kabul,” I replied.
“This isn’t a joke, kid.”
“Sure isn’t. I just got home from Afghanistan. I’m on leave to go visit my family in LA.” This was only a half lie as Solomon was as close to family as anyone I had.
“Are you carrying any fruits or vegetables into the state of California?” he asked, and I looked at him oddly. It blew my mind that he was worried about bugs sneaking into the state without worrying about dangerous human parasites looking to take root here. Both of us had our windows open. The space between us shimmered as though even the air had collided with insects and carried smudges of death. Maybe I was just seeing spots from the energy shots and lack of sleep. “Do you have anything living in the car that you are bringing across the border?” he asked, more loudly this time.
Good question. Was I really alive? Hard to know. Finally, I shook my head vigorously with a “no sir” and pointed my forefinger at the inspector. The dude ran his non-clipboard hand through his thinning hair and squinted his eyes at what I assumed was the lightning scar on my forehead.
“You ever read Harry Potter?” he asked.
“No, sir. The books are labeled for young adults. I’m looking forward in life, not backward.”
The man’s face dropped in disappointment, as though he had something clever to say. “I don’t read much but I sure enjoyed those. There’s a kid who fights evil but he’s part evil.”
“Sounds like the story I’m in. Only the villain is me,” I said, feeling the fog of not sleeping surrounding me. Maybe that’s all magic was. Breaking through the border between sleep and dreams, life and death.
“Take care of yourself, kid. And get some shuteye. Your family is waiting for you.”
“On the other side,” I said, thinking about how my folks had passed on but then realized he was talking about California. I chuckled and put the car into gear.
“Thank you for your service,” he said, waving me ahead. Maybe I’d misjudged the guy. It had to suck pulling people over and rifling through their shit. I accelerated slowly until the inspection station was out of my line of sight. A few minutes later, I wondered if it had been a mirage, some passage on a hero’s quest, or a power play from a federal agency desperate to keep its funding. Most likely, it was all those things. I decided to leave all caution to the wind and haul ass to LA.
In Solomon’s last letter, he talked about his gig as a DJ. The bar was called Club Paradise, and it was on Olympic Boulevard. My love of Greek mythology had set the location firmly in my memory. I pulled off the freeway near the ocean and it only took me ten minutes of aimless driving until I turned on Olympic. Hot damn! Maybe my luck was turning. I immediately pulled over next to an intersection where a heavyset white guy in a wheelchair held court, shaking a cardboard sign that read, Injured Vet Needs Food.
LA already reminded me of New Orleans, where tourists and the homeless wandered the streets in each other’s company. I rolled to a stop and parked the truck, ignoring a street sign with several warnings in green and others in red. The truck had paid its penance for my uncle Miles and had been a good travel companion. I would no longer need it. I waited for several SUVs to zoom by and climbed out. I stamped my boots to shake off the tingling in my legs from sitting for so long and reached back inside to get my few belongings from the passenger seat. Now what the hell was I supposed to do?
It was cooler outside than I expected in late June. Perhaps the ocean breeze was to blame for the chill that I felt from the damp T-shirt clinging to my skin. I rummaged inside my duffle bag and pulled on the first piece of clothing I could find. It was a black and silver Saints hooded sweatshirt from the Aces’ lost-and-found bin. I’d held on to it, not for my love of football, but for sentimental reasons. It was the only thing I still owned that Moms had given me.
I slung my possessions onto my back and adjusted the cheap sunglasses on my nose to protect myself from the mid-day sun. I slipped the paperback novel that Owen had given me into my cargo pocket next to my almost empty wallet and dog tags. I gripped the truck keys in my fist and wondered how long it would take for the truck to get towed. From here I could see where Olympic Boulevard dead-ended a few blocks from the ocean. It was clear that I needed to head east to find Club Paradise.
How far could it possibly be? Certainly not longer than the twenty-mile march, with full rucksacks, we’d been forced to do in basic training. Besides, I was stubborn. I flat-out refused to ask the tourists on the street corner to use their phones for directions. They stared at me alongside the man in the wheelchair and hurried across the intersection before the light turned. The vet lowered his sign and took me in. He rattled the coins in his KFC drink cup in a rhythm that must have matched his headphones blaring from a device in his jacket pocket. Were even the homeless in LA more wired than I was?
“Got any change to help an injured vet?” the guy asked, eyes glassy from booze, pills, or lack of sleep. His wheelchair looked almost new. His duds were military issue but from the wrong era, probably thrift store or army navy surplus.
“Where’d you get hit?” I asked.
“Stepped on an IED. Both legs got shredded.”
“What unit?”
“The school of hard knocks,” he answered, defensively, after an awkward pause. His eyes darted around him. I had seen every form of con in the company of my folks, in the Aces lounge, and on the streets of New Orleans with everyone from street performers to drunken college kids finding ways to steal you blind. Often, the body was used as bait. There’s no way this guy served, and I wasn’t about to let him off the hook.
“I’ve been there, man,” I said, and dropped the truck keys into his cup and gestured to the vehicle I’d abandoned with a thumb over my shoulder. I figured he’d be stupid enough to get busted driving to his dealer’s house or KFC in a stolen vehicle.
My new buddy sprang up from his wheelchair and lifted me off the ground with a bear hug. He held me there long enough for me to tell one group of tourists, “It’s a miracle.” The only real miracle is that I didn’t throw up from the smell of whiskey and tobacco rising from his fatigues. Finally, he released me and broke into a happy dance with keys jingling. Finally, the “injured” vet plopped down in his prop, saluting me with the drunken swagger of a soldier on leave.
I turned my back and began marching eastward. Hopefully, Solomon had a place for me to crash. It felt damn good to be traveling with my own two legs instead of by plane or car. The heat was toothless and dry compared to Louisiana and I felt the freedom, the ghost weight of the flak jacket and Kevlar helmet I’d worn for so many months floating away like a bad memory.
6
Sunset Shadows
My mind wandered as I wandered eastward on Olympic Boulevard. I didn’t know the address to Club Paradise and was confused by the signage in other languages. I passed an empty park with more dirt than grass and an office complex with a globe sculpture in a courtyard with a creepy post-apocalyptic vibe and a fountain that did not work. The buildings became shabbier as I trekked eastward. Industrial buildings cropped up alongside dingy mini malls filled with liquor stores, ethnic restaurants, and massage parlors. My new city was not kind to pedestrians. The sidewalks were cracked and strewn with garbage. Buses were few and far between. There also seemed to be many people sleeping on the sidewalk. Perhaps I should have been more concerned about getting an address and directions, and whether Solomon had actually managed to keep a job. I had reread his letter countless times, along with Deidre’s, usually during my night shift rounds.
