FATHER'S DAY - THE FINAL EXCITING EPISODE

Hey Blogsphere Folks: Father's Day - the novel - is the source material for the feature film being produced by my production company. Hope you enjoy reading Earl's story.
...And please check out the exciting trailer - starring the amazing John Billlingsley (Star Trek, 2012, Hawaii Five-O) for the film HERE

FATHER’S DAY

Written by: James M. Russell

Copyright 2015© James M. Russell

CHAPTER 49:

Ian was having the time of his life so it wasn’t surprising that he wore a big smile on his face as he walked through the front door of the downtown bus terminal located on East 7th.  Carrying his father’s bowling ball bag in one hand and a small, pink, gift-wrapped box in the other, he knew what he was looking for and it didn’t take him long to find it.

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Everyone knew that Vince Saunders had shit for brains.

Even Vince accepted the fact that he was probably no rocket scientist. On the game Evil Dead II, however, Vince was, in his words, ‘the King!’

Nobody had even come close to his game score.

Nobody.

It was nearly five P.M. and Vince had to get home pretty close to his usual time of five-thirty or his mom might figure out that he hadn’t gone to school. He wasn't in the mood to listen to her go on and on about skipping classes and spending his day at the bus station playing video games. “What was the point,” he once told her, “You have a degree and you’re workin’ a lousy $8 an hour job at a lousy call center.

He hated school anyway.

The girls were kickin’, but with no car and no money none of them would give him the time of day. He didn’t care. If he needed to get laid then Karen Henderson, that transfer student from Orange County, the one that everyone said was crazy, could always be relied on to give him a little piece, when she wasn’t busy carving pictures in her arm with a ballpoint pen.

Vince was about five minutes into this round of Dead II.

His score so far was 12,154.

Another forty-six points and he would break his own record. That asshole in the leather jacket and cap, however, was creeping him out.

“I don’t like people watchin’ me when I’m playing,” Vince said to Ian just as his Red Army Gladiator picked up extra ammo and switched from sniper rifle to automatic pistol.

Ian refreshed his smile then stepped up to the game machine and stared at Vince’s score.

“You’re good.”

But just as Ian spoke those words, an Emperor Drone suddenly stepped out from behind a column and blasted his Glad.

The game screen when blood red then flashed ‘Game Over’.

 “12,156! Never seen anybody rack up that many points in D II.”

“Yeah, well, it would have been a hundred maybe two hundred more if you hadn’t been fuckin’ staring at me.”

“Sorry sport,” Ian offered brightly.

Vince began searching for a quarter but suddenly froze when Ian slapped a Benjamin Franklin atop the machine.

 “Say, don't suppose you'd be interested in making an easy hundred bucks?”

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Vince stared at the Benjamin for a minute then continued searching his pockets for a coin. Vince had had a similar offer last summer from some old guy with a week’s worth of facial hair. The pervert was going to pay Vince fifty bucks for two hours of stuffing envelopes, but once he got in the guy’s car, Vince found out that it wasn’t envelopes that the guy wanted to stuff. His prospective employer wouldn’t take no for an answer, so Vince had to dive out of the car when the guy slowed down to make a turn. Since then he had had three or four similar offers, so by now he knew that the direct approach was best.

 “Fuck off!”

------------

Ian leaned over and fed a quarter into the video machine and Vince began playing.

“You don’t even know what you need to do to get that hundred dollar bill.”

“I don’t do that shit.”

“No, no. You’ve got me wrong sport. I just need you to deliver…”

Then Ian set the pink box on top of the machine and stepped back.

“…this little box to sunny Barstow, California.”

“I look like a fool to you?”

“It’s just a ring, my friend, and you’ll be delivering it to my Cecily; she works in the snack bar, right inside the bus station. Just hand it to her and get back on the bus. Three hours there, three back.”

“Open the box,” Vince said while in the midst of a complicated gun battle.

Ian sighed then carefully undid the bow, removed the ribbon and lifted the box top.

Vince kept one eye on the video screen as he leaned forward and looked into the box. A gold ring, with a green stone, mounted atop it, lay on a bed of white cotton.

Vince gave the game his full attention for a moment then glanced at the box again. “What’s underneath the white stuff?”

Ian smiled then picked up the ring with one hand and the cotton padding with the other. “Just an empty cardboard box, my friend. Trust me, this is legit.”

“Why don't you deliver it yourself?”

“I gotta get to work. And I know what you’re gonna ask. Why didn’t I mail it? Well, I coulda if I didn’t fuck up and forget all about her birthday until this morning. Come on, my friend. You want the hundred or not?”

“When do I get paid?”

Ian returned the ring to the box, closed it and retied the bow. He set the box on top of the hundred-dollar bill then pushed it toward Vince.

“Right now. But only because I trust you.”

Ian dug into his back pocket then slapped two more bills on the machine.

“An' here's thirty bucks for the ticket. Keep the change. Bus leaves in eight minutes. Platform four. Oh. And could I ask you one more favor?”

Vince was about to pick up the money when he froze.

“What?” he asked with a sense of dread.

“Relax sport. No big deal; it’s just that you’re kinda my weight and height, so I was thinkin’ it would be cool if Cecily thought it was really me. Just for a quick minute.”

“How’s she gonna think that?”

“Glad you asked.”

Ian slipped off his jacket and baseball cap and handed them to Vince.

“Consider them a token of my appreciation.”

“That works for me.”

Ian glanced at Vince’s watch.

“Six minutes...better hurry.”

Vince snatched up the money, pulled the hat onto his head then hurried toward the ticket counter.

Ian stepped in front of the machine and continued playing Vince’s game but after less than ten seconds of battle, Vince’s Glad was ambushed and the screen flashed ‘Game Over.’

Ian gave the much-abused machine a quick kick then strolled off at a casual pace.

----------

A long, green bus ticket flapped in Ian’s shirt pocket as he hung up the pay phone then picked up his bowling ball bag and joined a dozen other passengers waiting to board the bus marked Valle Verde.

Ian smiled broadly, impressed by his ingenuity.

“So what’s so funny?” somebody shouted.

Ian turned and suddenly found himself in a staring match with some gorilla standing in the Reno, Nevada line a few feet away.

Thirty-three year old Peter Boyle, or Petey as his sister called him, got real pissed off when people laughed at him. The problem was, there was a lot to laugh at.

1.    His clothes were too small for his six foot three body

2.    His love of plaid pants and Hawaiian shirts was much too painful to view at anything other than a great distance.

3.    And his insistence on cutting his own hair to save money, gave his head the look of a tropical island after a catastrophic hurricane.

Petey hadn’t always been a walking visual disaster. When his mother was alive, she used to take great care dressing her son, making sure that his pants matched his shirt and that the length of the pants matched the length of his legs. But, Mrs. Boyle had died two years ago in an unfortunate single car traffic accident when the brakes on her passenger van failed while she was on her way to visit her aunt in San Diego. Now it was just his sister, Urma, and her boyfriend, Frank, living in the house.

Urma had inherited the entire estate, but there was a paragraph in his mother’s will giving Petey the right to continue living in the house.

Pete was glad he didn’t have to move.

Although lately Frank had been hinting that come September when the baby was due, Petey might want to find his own apartment, just for his own peace and quiet. Petey knew that Urma wouldn’t want him to leave.

He and his sister were very close. In fact, it was Petey who had punched out Lester Trudy when Petey overheard him telling a customer at his car repair shop that Mrs. Boyle’s van was mechanically sound up to the week before the accident, and that the cause of the accident likely had more to do with somebody getting tired of waiting for their inheritance.

No way Petey was gonna let anybody get away with saying bad things about his sister.

Petey had given moving some consideration, even looked at an apartment for rent, but then, last Sunday, at dinner, he announced that he’d decided that he didn’t mind crying babies so he was going to continue living in his room to be close to his sister.

It wasn’t long after that Frank won a free trip to Reno and gave it to Petey.

Normally Petey wouldn’t travel so far from home, just in case his heart acted up again, but Urma said that it was fine and even picked up a new set of pills for him from the drug store.

‘Generics,' they called them.

Urma said they were exactly like the other pills he had, but less expensive and didn’t have any printing on the side of the capsule.

Urma was good at saving money.

Petey wrote down everything that Urma told him as she packed the pills into their individual sandwich bags.

The orange pills, which were the same as the old, red, heart pills, were to be taken at noon, just before eating.

The little white pills, which were the same as the green, blood pressure pills, were to be taken twice a day with food.

And, the big white pills, which was the same as the old, little white pills, were to be taken the first thing in the morning before breakfast.

Petey had to admit that although Urma didn’t take care of him quite as good as his Mom used to, he still thought that she was a pretty good sister.

She even made him promise not to get into any fights. Ulma knew that her brother was very sensitive and that short tempers ran in the Boyle family.

And Petey knew that ‘a promise is a promise’ but when that little prick in the other line looked at him and smirked it just made Petey’s blood boil.

-----------

“Why nothing, my friend,” Ian replied with an even bigger smile.

“Don’t you lie now; I knows you waz lookin’ at me!” Petey shot back angrily.

Ian had been in those kinds of situations a million times before, so he knew that he had three choices:

1.    Avoid eye contact and ignore the guy

2.    Apologize, and back away

3.    Come out swinging

During the first six months or so of jail he had tried the ‘come out swinging’ option, most new guys did, but he’d found it was a waste of blood and other body fluids. Plus, the goofball must have had a foot in height and at least eighty pounds on Ian, so chances were that it would be a fight that Ian couldn’t win unless he used one of his Molotovs on the guy.

But there were too many witnesses for that.

“I’m very sorry,” Ian began in the most polite tone he could conjure up. “You’re right, I was looking at you. But, it was only because my father, God rest his soul, had a jacket just like that one. And, it reminded me of him. We were very close. He died suddenly of cancer just ten days ago.”

Ian kept his eyes fixed on Petey’s no-name black walking shoes while the seconds went by as the slow-witted giant tried to decide what he was going to say next.

“Oh,” was the sum of Petey’s response.

Just then a male voice, coming from behind, caught Ian off-guard, “Put that in the cargo area for you, Sir?”

Ian turned around then stepped back to avoid having the young baggage handler grab his bowling ball bag, but he tripped backward over another passenger’s suitcase.

The Molotovs inside his bag clanged together as Ian struggled to maintain his balance.

“No, thanks,” Ian shot back then hurried past the Baggage Handler who paid no attention to Ian, figuring that he was just another oddball, one of the thousands that he had encountered during his four months on the job.

When his turn came, Ian jerked the ticket from his shirt pocket and handed it to the bus driver, a thin black man in his fifties whose limp uniform hung from his body like overcooked pasta.

“Thank you, Sir. One way to Valle Verde,” he murmured as he punched several holes in the stiff paper then handed it back to Ian.

Ian climbed the metal-edged steps to the seating area then made his way down the narrow aisle toward the rear of the bus. He held his bowling ball bag high to clear the headrests then chose a seat three rows from the back, on the driver’s side. The seat next to him was vacant. He hoped it would remain that way for the duration of the trip.

Fourteen minutes later, the bus left the station.

Right on schedule.

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From the moment Wallish and Mathison walked through the bus station door, everybody knew they were cops. It was that kind of crowd.

The two detectives figured that the Timmins kid probably knew that the police were looking for him so it stood to reason that the perp would try to leave the city.

Probably by bus or car, the two low-budget travel alternatives.

Bad guy’s never took the train. And neither Wallish or Mathison figured that the suspect had the cash to fly.

Headquarters had already sent a photo and description of the perp to the bus station security guys, but the two detectives thought they’d pay the place a personal visit.

The detectives began scanning the inside of the bus station as soon as the automatic double door slid open. Wallish took the right half and Mathison the left.

High and low.

Side to side their eyes canned the station.

They continued this time-honored technique right up to the ticket counter where three agents were working in their respective cubicles.

“Excuse me, Madam, could you step away from the counter for a moment? Police business.” Mathison said to the elderly Hispanic lady who was rummaging franticly through her purse while standing at the first window.

She didn’t look up immediately, but then she saw the badge Detective Mathison held at eye level.

The Hispanic woman retreated three paces then resumed searching the depths of her purse.

Wallish laid a grainy copy of Ian’s prison photo on the counter while his partner continued to scan the crowd.

“Good afternoon, I’m Detective Wallish and this is Detective Mathison, MDRPD. Have you seen this guy? He was probably wearing a black leather coat with a blue guitar on the back and black leather cap.”

The ticket agent, a young woman with stringy brown hair and a face that only a mother could love, stared at the photo for a brief moment.

“No.” she mumbled lethargically then resumed staring blankly at her computer monitor.

“Could you ask the other agents, please?”

The ticket agent, who obviously assumed that she had her job for life, stood reluctantly then showed Ian’s photo to her co-workers. The third agent, a woman in her twenties with bookish, wire-rimmed glasses, nodded when she saw the photo then walked to the morose agent’s window.

“You’ve seen him?”, Wallish asked brightly.

“He looks familiar,” the bookish agent said hesitantly.

“About five-foot-five. Black leather jack...”

“Blue guitar on the back!” she said suddenly, “Yeah, bought a ticket for the 6:23 bus to Barstow.”

“Are you sure?”, Wallish asked.

“Of the face? No. The fore mentioned articles of clothing? Absolutely. My ex-boyfriend owned a cap just like it when I met him. He donated it to Goodwill, at my insistence."

“Did you see the guy in the photo get on the bus?”

“Hello? I’m here.” She gestured to where she stood, “And the bus platform is there, so, as you can see, I have significant line-of-sight issues. I just sell the tickets detective; I don’t stack’em and rack’em.”

“What time is the bus due to arrive?” Mathison asked.

The scholarly agent glanced at her co-worker’s monitor.

“9:48. Give or take an hour or three."

 “Thanks,” Detective Wallish shouted over this shoulder and the two of them dash toward the front door.

“Wow that expression of gratitude filled me with warm fuzzies all over,” the agent murmured before shuffling back to her cubicle.

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Detective Mathison exited the bus terminal, weaved his way through the full parking lot to the street and had the engine of their illegally parked car started before his slower partner even opened the passenger door.

“You think he got on that bus?” Mathison asked as he dropped the transmission into drive.

 “Well, we know he bought a ticket at least,” he replied hesitantly. “Guess there’s only one way to find out.”

“Give Barstow PD a call?"

“What? So tomorrow morning we can watch the news conference in which those dick heads announce that they captured the Molotov Murderer? Besides, they don’t know what the Timmins kid looks like, don’t have access to N.C.I.C., and we can’t send them a photo, only because I left my battery operated, portable photo scanner, and WIFI-enabled personal digital assistant with e-mail capabilities in my other pants.”

Wallish grabbed the dashboard for support as his partner launched their car from zero to Mach One.

“Anything at or just under the sound barrier is fine with me partner.”

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Sergio was of the opinion that cops were some of the smartest people on the planet.

There was no point trying to tell him any different so none of his drinking buddies even discussed the subject in his presence.

Sergio also claimed that he had an IQ of more than 140.

In that regard, he was probably telling the truth.

A large percentage of America’s homeless were probably very smart people who, if it weren’t for debilitating mental illnesses, or habitual substance abuse, would be holding down jobs, having families, and living under roofs.

They probably would also pass up the opportunity to ingest large quantities of cheap wine; but not Sergio, and not this evening, which is why he lay, sprawled on the dirty sidewalk outside the Greyhound bus station in downtown Los Angeles.

Some would have looked at his half-closed eyes, blank expression, and scattered limbs and thought that he was out of it, but Sergio knew what was going on around him. That’s how he was able to recognize the two men as plain-clothes policemen as soon as they exited the bus station. The two officers must have been in one hell of a hurry because it wasn’t more than two seconds after they sat in the car than their tires began to squeal and their white Ford shot down the street. Everybody turned to look, including Anwar, a regular in the area, who then tripped and fell on top of Sergio, his boney knee sinking into Sergio’s abdomen.

 “Sorry, Sergio. Sorry.” Anwar kept apologizing as he scrambled to his feet.

Sergio tried to speak, but his lips felt numb and his tongue just flopped around inside his mouth. By the time Sergio was ready to tell Anwar that everything was all right, Anwar was gone.

Sergio hoped that the blow didn’t start his ulcer start bleeding again and hoped that the wind picking up from the east didn’t mean that he was going to spend another night shivering.

Twenty minutes had passed before Sergio realized that the sun had dropped behind the Sears building. His daily signal that it was time to make his way to the 3rd Street Mission for his evening meal. He had a process for standing after lounging for a prolonged period of time on the unforgiving sidewalk:

First, he sat up.

Then, turned over and rose onto all fours.

Then up onto his left leg.

Then his right.

When he stood this time, however, Sergio noticed that he had not only soiled his pants but left a large pool of pinkish colored urine on the sidewalk.

Without hesitating, Sergio pulled his threadbare handkerchief from his back pocket, lowered his body onto one knee and began to mop up the spill.

His mother, bless her soul, taught him to always clean up his own mess.

CHAPTER 50:

It was nearly ten o’clock and Wanda had just finished cleaning up after the evening meal.

Wanda liked washing dishes. There was something satisfying about a rack full of clean silverware and plates. When she was a child, Wanda used to stand on a wood box in order to be able to reach the sink. Back then her mother washed. Wanda rinsed and stacked.

If she closed her eyes, Wanda could see her mother standing at the kitchen sink of their home on Victoria Avenue, wooden-handled brush in her right hand, gleaming white dinner plates in her left.

In those days, Ivory was the dish soap that most women used. And it wasn’t that liquid stuff that everyone used now, back then dish soap came in a bar.

A few years ago she tried to find dish soap bars but was told by Mr. Chin, the manager of the Ralphs down the street, that dish soap no longer came in bars.

Wanda stood at the door, her hand on the light switch, as she scanned the kitchen to make sure everything was in place.

She tried to be quiet as she climbed the carpeted stairs that led to the second floor.

Didn’t want to wake up Earl, who must have been asleep by now since she hadn’t heard him moving around for the past thirty minutes or so.

About midway up the staircase, Wanda smiled when she remembered the first night they spent together.

Only because she didn’t get a minute of sleep.

First, there was the intercourse thing, which was kind of awkward and uncomfortable.

Then, later that night she discovered that Earl snored every time he turned onto his left side. But even worse than his snoring, sometime in the early morning hours Wanda came to realize that Earl was like a human furnace, generating an amazing amount of heat. So much that Wanda often had to set a small electric fan in their window just to cool the bedroom. She eventually got used to sleeping with just a sheet on her half of the bed.

Wanda leaned into the dark silence of the bedroom and stared for a moment at Earl’s shapeless lump beneath the covers.

“Maybe we need to talk, the two of us, about Ian,” he said in a strong, clear voice.

“We do talk Earl.”

“Not really, not since Ian went off to prison.”

“Well what do you want to talk about?” she snapped.

“I don't know. I…”

Earl knew what he wanted to say next but he was afraid. Afraid that once the words escaped his mouth he could never retrieve them. Afraid that his wife would never forgive him. So he remained silent and so did she, both pretending that unspoken fears had less substance than those given voice.

Wanda continued staring at her husband’s back for a few more moments as the rage grew within her. Then, creating nothing but the sound of ruffled air, she turned and resumed her journey down the hall toward the bathroom.

Although Earl could neither see nor hear Wanda leave, he no longer sensed her presence in the room.

He did, however, feel himself falling, a novelty feeling that at first he merely regarded with curiosity. But as Earl continued to fall, his curiosity turned to fear, for he began to sense that he was plummeting toward a dreadful place. Earl tried to fight back, tried to slow his descent, but his body lay paralyzed, his eyelids fixed open.

And Earl Timmins began to wonder if he was dying.

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Wanda sometimes wished Earl were dead.

Not really, of course, but occasionally such dark thoughts crept into her head.

The bathroom door was open; it always was when no one was using it, so Wanda stepped inside and, with a practiced movement of her hand, flipped on the bathroom light.

She knew what Earl meant! And it wouldn’t have been the first time that he had tried to turn her against Ian.

Against her own son!

 It wasn’t that Earl doesn’t like Ian. He loves him. Of course, he does.

But he shouldn’t be so critical of the poor boy.

Ian could see it of course.

He had eyes!

If only Ian hadn’t gotten mixed up with that rotten bunch of kids!

It was those kids where really were to blame.

Earl knew that; the police knew that; the judge, that prosecutor, they all knew it. So, for the life of me I don’t understand why they were all so hard on poor Ian when he was trying his best to be a good man, a good citizen.

Wanda leaned on the sink and tried to relax. There was no point getting worked up.

The doctor had told her that her blood pressure was on the high side when she had her yearly physical a few months ago. She certainly didn’t want to have to take medication to control it so Wanda had to watch her salt intake and avoid stress. So Wanda began brushing her teeth and tried to think about something that would distract her. 

Like Earl’s toothpaste, which she never used because it tasted like flavored sand.

Or the still-boxed mirror she bought on sale three months ago. The one that movie stars use, with a half dozen or so little lights surrounding the mirror. The bathroom’s ceiling mounted light made her look old and tired.

It was still in the box, despite her husband’s promise to install it three months ago.

Why?

Because, she once explained to Sybil Pearson, the stylist who does her hair, her dear husband is a bloody perfectionist!

“I’m a carpenter, I don’t know how to do electrical work properly,” Earl said when Wanda came home with the new mirror.

What he meant was ‘perfectly’, not ‘properly’.

Earl was such a perfectionist and it drove her crazy sometimes.

Most people would have just bought a how-to-book, wired it up, then turned it on to see if it worked.

No. Not her husband.

First he had to research the best techniques, the correct tools, city, and federal codes and regulations.

When they first started dating, Earl had promised to make her a coat rack for her room. She didn’t want anything fancy, just something for her to hang her nightclothes on after her morning bath.

What a production he made!

First he had to take measurements, then decide on the design, the wood, the stain. When he asked her whether she wanted a satin, semi-gloss or glossy finish she thought she was going to scream. It took nearly five months from the time she first mentioned the coat rack to him to the time he finally mounted it on her wall. She could have picked one up from Woolworths and attached it to the wall herself in less than an hour!

Wanda ran her tongue over her newly cleaned teeth as she screwed the cap on her toothpaste.

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It was some kind of tropical island. Earl was sure about that. The lush green forest, the majestic mountains, the pale yellow bananas hanging from the trees, legions of black people working in the fields beneath the hot sun pasted to the lazy blue sky. All of it looked just like the movies, just like the pictures in the magazines, just like the stories he had heard from the guys about their vacations in the Caribbean.

And it seemed real. Except somehow he knew it was just a dream and that he was really lying in his bed.

Suddenly, Earl’s focus shifted and he realized he was looking at the passing countryside through a dirt-covered window, so he turned his head.

The bus was full of black passengers, none of whom paid any attention to him.

 Over his head, brightly colored suitcases and bulging brown cardboard boxes filled the storage bins that ran the length of the bus.

At his feet, a thick layer of sugar-white beach sand.

As a bead of sweat escaped from his hairline, raced over his temple and rolled down his cheek, Earl became aware that his whole body was burning with heat.

A stifling heat that clung like Vaseline to the linings of his lungs.

Just then the bus hit a rut in the road, then another. Earl swayed and bounced in the seat, then swayed again. That was when his shoulder came in contact with someone. Earl turned to apologize, only to discover that the person sitting next to him was Ian, dressed in his Boy Scout uniform, sitting upright, rigid, staring straight ahead.

“Son?” Earl asked and immediately everyone turned and looked at Earl, all except Ian, who remained motionless, his unblinking eyes fixed straight ahead. It was almost as if Ian were…

    One of the passengers, an old woman with withered skin and pale white hair raced from her seat in the back, staggered to the front of the bus and shouted in patois at the man behind the wheel, “Driver! Wher’ we a go?”

The uniformed bus driver, a black man with a badly scarred face, turned, but instead of looking at the woman, he looked directly at Earl and said with an English accent, “Why, nowhere that chap hasn’t been with a father or a friend.”

Simultaneously, all the passengers turned toward Earl, blinked one eye, smiled knowingly then turned and resumed looking straight ahead. Earl reached out to touch his son’s arm but as soon as his fingertip came close to Ian’s pale white flesh his son burst like a balloon and lay in a heap of latex on the seat.

The bus veered sharply to the left. The driver shouted “Flat tire!” and wrestled with the steering wheel until he brought the careening juggernaut to a safe stop.

“This is where you get off, ole boy,” the driver said gently to Earl.

As Earl stepped off the bus onto the red dirt road, he turned and watched as the tire inflated itself, despite the dozens of neatly placed nails protruding from its tread.

Just then the bus’ engine roared, and the hulking mass lurched forward, picking up speed with each gear change. Earl read the words Somfolo Norisp painted in bold white letters across the back of the midnight blue bus. Below the right tail light was a silver nameplate with the words, Parker Brothers printed in black.

    Tall sugar cane - fields and fields of it  - with the tops reaching perhaps ten feet into the sky, formed two solid walls on either side of the road. Earl shut his eyes, hoping to end the dream, but strangely, his closed lids did nothing to block his view.

Suddenly a rustling sound came from somewhere deep within the sugar cane wall in front of him, then more rustling from behind, and to his left. Dozens of black people, none more than three feet tall, emerged from the field. All the people were dressed in the same shade of blue: the men in tuxedoes, the women in floor-length gowns. All except for one man who was dressed as a clown, complete with face paint and carrying a handful of colorful balloons.

    The little people surrounded Earl with a sea of blue formality. One, directly in front, took Earl’s hand and led him into the field. Walking was not as difficult as Earl thought it would be; despite the thick sugar cane and before long Earl found himself in a large, circular clearing.

A hundred, perhaps thousands, of sugar cane stalks, lay on the ground, their tops pointing in the same direction. It was if they had been flattened with one majestic sweep of a gigantic hand.

At the center of the circle lay an elderly white woman, her body held down by a dozen sparkling gold railroad spikes driven through her flowing, white satin gown. The little person led Earl to within a few feet of the Satin Woman, stopped, then pushed Earl from behind in the woman’s direction. Earl approached cautiously, then stared at her kind face. The woman smiled then spoke with a voice of silk. “What is the answer, Earl Timmins?”

 Earl paused for a moment, confused, and then admitted fearfully, “But I don’t know the question?”

The little people, their voices in harmony and unison, sang a single word, “Question!” then clapped their hands once and pointed toward the sky.

The Satin Woman smiled, washing away all of Earl's fear and, at the same time, his energy.

Earl’s legs suddenly gave out and he dropped to his knees. Now closer to the Satin Woman he was immediately shocked by the clarity and depth of her eyes.

"Why is the sky blue, Earl Timmins?”

Earl wanted to answer her but couldn’t.

“Blue!” the little people sang again then clapped their hands.

“I am so sorry,” the woman softly whispered just as a single tear raced from the corner of her eye and exploded into flames in the dry cane.

Instantly the woman was engulfed in a raging inferno.

Earl wanted to save the Satin Woman, but his body refused to move.

And so he just stood there and watched her burn.

Within a minute, the flame had done its work and all that was left of the Satin Woman was ash and charged sugar cane, Earl collapsed to the ground and tried to cry away his cowardice.

But the tears would not come.

----------

The bathroom fell into a sullen darkness as Wanda switched off the light and began her journey down the hall. She stepped over the squeaking floorboard adjacent to the half-oval end table then entered the silent bedroom. She noticed that Earl had turned onto his left side, which meant that a he would soon begin snoring. Still, she wasn’t about to try to turn him over. If he woke up, then there was a chance that he would start that foolishness again.

Wanda slipped out of her housedress and into her nightgown. The sheets felt cooler than usual, the pillow too. She had lain there for two or three minutes waiting for Earl to begin snoring when she suddenly realized that she couldn’t hear him breathing.

That’s when she bolted out of bed and ran around to Earl’s side.

“Earl?” she said loudly while shaking him roughly.

“Earl. Wake up!” But Earl was still in that far off land of big cane and little people and, therefore, couldn’t hear his wife’s command.

After stumbling over the bed covers that lay in a heap on the floor, she turned on her bedside lamp, snatched up the telephone receiver, and dialed 911.

----------

It seemed like an eternity, but it was probably only five or six minutes before the ambulance arrived. Wanda figured she must have looked like a fool standing barefooted, in nothing but her nightgown on the front lawn.

“He’s here! He’s here!” she shouted,  but they were still much too far away to hear her desperate calls.

The attendants, a tall, sandy-haired man in his twenties, and an older, stern-looking woman, finally pulled into their driveway, leaped from their vehicle and ran through the front door.

Wanda couldn’t keep up with them so she contented with shouting directions.

“Top of the stairs. Second door on the right. Hurry! Oh, please hurry.”

Wanda was not quite to the top when nervous exhaustion and fear won out and she collapsed into a heap on the stairs.

Wanda sat on that uncomfortable perch for nearly five minutes while she cried and cried. When she finally managed to climb the few remaining stairs to the top, she staggered to within a few feet of their bedroom and leaned against the wall.

She couldn’t go in.

She couldn’t have borne seeing him that way.

The stern-faced woman came out first. Carrying two orange toolboxes as she walked up to Wanda.

“Do you have medical insurance ma’am…”

“Insurance?” Wanda repeated, still lost in grief and fear. “Yes, insurance. There’s a health card pinned to the corkboard in the kitchen. Washington Federal. Our policy number is printed on the front or back. In the kitchen.You’ll see it.”

“Thank you.” And the woman disappeared down the stairs.

The young man, looking apologetic, came out soon after and forced a smile.

“Is he OK?” Wanda finally found the courage to ask.

“Your husband refused to go to the hospital ma'am...” and then he held up an official looking piece of paper with Earl’s scrawled signature at the bottom.

“But…” She blurted out.

“He signed the release. We can’t make him go.”

“But…”

“He’ll be OK. Blood sugar is way off. Fatigue probably. Those burns didn’t help either. He fell into a mild diabetic coma. You should give your family doctor a call tomorrow morning first thing.”

The young attendant studied Wanda’s face for a moment, looking for signs that she understood what he had just told her.

“First thing. I’ll call his doctor first thing in the morning. Thank you for coming.”

The attendant paused then, remembering that his new partner was a stickler for keeping their call duration ratios as low as possible, smiled and said softly, “You’re very welcome” and, within moments, he had disappeared also.

Wanda remained motionless for several moments, staring at the pale light that spilled out of their bedroom onto the hallway. Finally, she stepped cautiously to the doorway and looked in.

Earl lay on his back with his eyes closed. The duvet had been pulled neatly over his body and up to his chin.

“Earl?”

After a moment’s pause, her husband’s eyelids fluttered open and he replied weakly, “Hey Babes.”

Wanda took another hesitant step toward their bed, “Are you OK?”

“Fine. Couldn’t be better.”

And with that Wanda’s legs gave out and she sat heavily on the floor beside him. And the tears returned.

Earl wrapped his left arm across his wife’s shoulders and lay his head against hers. It was several minutes before she was able to speak…

“You and Ian...You're all I got. I don't know what I'd do if...”

“I know, Babes. I know.” And then Earl closed his eyes and wished to God that he had had the strength to save the black man, the courage to save the Satin Woman, and the wisdom to save his son.

CHAPTER 51:

 Through most of the thirties, forties and fifties, Valle Verde, current population 1,472, was known as the Black Palm Springs. It was in the late twenties that black Angelinos, as the citizens of Los Angeles called themselves, started buying half-acre plots of land in the desert community at the northwest edge of Los Angeles County known then as Mureka. Blacks were prevented from owning property in Los Angeles and even barred from beaches and public swimming pools.

That changed in the fifties when a California court proclaimed that nobody was allowed to tell black folks where they could or could not buy property or where they could swim. But prior to that legal no-brainer, the only place that blacks could go for recreation was Mureka, which, in 1939, changed its name to Valle Verde.

That same year saw the construction of a fifty-acre park with clubhouse and public swimming pool.

There was nothing geographically unique about Valle Verde. No bubbling hot springs, no majestic vistas, no towering forests. Just a place of refuge where Black Angelinos could play baseball, and horseshoes, and dance, and hold parades and all the other things that people do in the name of recreation.

Earl and Wanda had started spending the occasional weekend at the Hodge Cabin just after Ian was born in 1976. They had wanted to get their son out of the city so that he could see the blanket of twinkling stars that lit the California sky, so that he could play in country dirt, listen to the crickets at night and feel the clean air in his lungs.

Earl and Wanda didn’t know much about Valle Verde’s history and, although they did notice that they saw a lot of black people when they went into town for supplies or to a movie, neither Earl nor Wanda thought much of it. “Folks is folks,” Wanda always said.

 Ian’s bus trip to Valle Verde took nearly two hours. It would have been longer in the morning or afternoon rush hour, shorter if the driver hadn’t stopped twice to inspect a right front tire that he said was making a funny noise.

 Ian needed a drink even before he stepped off the cramped bus and sucked in his first breath of dry desert air.

He didn’t have a plan, or even a clue about what he was going to do, other than hide out until things cooled down. He made the cops made them look like fools, so he figured that they would be piss with him. So even though they probably didn’t have any proof linking him to the boat accident, or the sports car fire, or the Mercedes thing, he was likely to be railroaded for all those three mishaps just because he was an ex-con.

“Can I get your luggage for you, Sir?” Ian was so busy looking for the nearest bar that he didn’t even notice the bus driver approach.

Ian recovered quickly and smiled.

“Thanks. I already got it,” he said as he hoisted his bowling bag into the air. “…but!”

Ian pulled out a dollar bill and stuffed it into the driver's shirt pocket.

“That’s for the smooth ride brother.”

The bus driver didn’t bother to glance at Ian’s tip,  instead he just said perfunctorily, “Thank you, Sir.”

“Anytime, bro.”

Ian began walking toward Hazel’s, a bar advertising non-stop exotic dancers and a happy hour. The square, neon-lit building was about a half a block farther down San Martinez.

The bowling ball bag seemed heavier, but that was probably because he was getting tired.

Ian was less than a hundred yards from the front entrance when the cackle of a woman’s laugh caught his attention.

Ian turned and saw a group of about a half-dozen men and women, all decked out in Stetsons, blue jeans and shiny western boots, all laughing or just talking, in the parking lot of a bar called Chaps. Ian had noticed the bar when he first exited the bus station but decided that it looked too fancy. Still, the Stetson group looked like they were having a good time so Ian changed direction and headed toward Chaps instead.

He was just a few meters from the front door when a mean-looking bouncer emerged suddenly from a side door with a squirming woman draped over his broad right shoulder and a cheap patent-leather purse in the other.

He dumped the woman and her purse the dusty ground and yelled angrily with a thick Middle-Eastern accent, “And stay out bitch” before stepping back into the club and slamming the door behind him.

The woman, who was about Ian’s age and, judging from the difficulty she had standing, was very drunk.

    “Who you calling bitch you motherfuckin’ commie slime,” she shouted at the closed door before losing her balance and falling, butt-first, to the ground.

Ian smiled; he liked the girl's spirit so he hurried in her direction. By the time he was at her side, the drunken woman was already on her feet. Although not likely for long.

“Need any help?”

The drunken woman turned and tried to focus on Ian’s face.

“An’ fuck you, too,” She said with a slur then began to totter.

Ian caught her when her upper body had reached forty-five degrees.

“Hey. I'm on your side. What’d you say we check out somewhere else?”

The drunken woman looked at Ian from top to bottom then frowned.

“You got money? I only drink with gentlemen who got money.”

Ian thrust his right hand into his pants pocket and pulled out a handful of bills.

“How's this?”

“That’s a very good start,” she said then lapsed into a pretty accurate imitation of a drunken hyena’s laugh.

“What’s your name?” Ian asked, trying hard not to laugh along.

“Cynthia! Old enough to drink! Ain’t from around here! Don’t swallow it! And that Sir is all you need to know.”

“Well, Cynthia, my name’s Ian. What do you say we buy a six-pack of beer and find someplace that we can just sit and chill?”

Cynthia nodded just before her eyes rolled back into her head and her legs gave out. Ian laid her arm across his shoulder to provide some support, but she pushed him away.

“I can walk on my own,” she mumbled, then pointed down the street. “Mac’s Market ain’t too far.”

As Ian and Cynthia walked, him in a straight line, her, careening all over the sidewalk, he suddenly reached out and grabbed her ass. Cynthia yelped, slapped away his hand then continued walking.

----------

It was five minutes past closing time when Valle Verde’s two-time table tennis champion, Eric Mascoll, wandered out to the sidewalk, picked up the sandwich board advertising Live Bait,” carried it into the darkened store and locked the door behind him. Despite the little bit of studying that he was able to get in during his three to seven shift, he figured that he still had about four more hours of hitting the books if he was going to be ready for tomorrow’s chemistry exam.

Eric, a gangly but muscular seventeen-year-old made $87 per week, working three four-hour shifts at Mac’s Convenience Market. He would have worked more, but his parents wouldn’t let him. They were afraid that the additional hours would drive down his B+ grade average. Which would have been a strong B if it weren’t for Chemistry. The proton-electron-neutron stuff was pretty easy but the periodic table! For the life of him he just couldn’t commit it memory. He had tried everything: flash cards, word association; he had even composed a song that incorporated all the elements.

Nothing worked.

Eric was about to throw the inside bolt when a guy and a girl rushed up to the door and shouted through the glass, “Can you let us in? Just want to buy a six pack and some smokes.”

Eric hadn’t closed the till so he figured, what the hell, then flipped on the store lights and unlocked the door. His guy rushed in and went straight to the beer cooler, the girl, who was pissed out of her mind, stood just inside the door smiling at him at he stepped behind the counter.

“How you doin’?” he asked her.  More out of embarrassment then the need to more about her condition than was obvious.

“You’re cute. You got a name?”

Just then the guy rushed to the front of the store and set a six-pack down so hard that he almost broke the glass counter.

“Camels,” he said, hardly moving his lips.

Eric had just turned to grab the smokes when something hit him on the back of the head and his legs gave out.

He heard the guy say, “Get your own girlfriend asshole,” just before he felt another blow and another.

----------

The clerk just wouldn’t go down so Ian had to hit him four times with the metal bar they used to weigh down the stack of LA Times newspapers.

 “Holy fuck!” Cynthia shouted at Ian. “What the fuck you do that for?”

But Ian was too busy shoveling packs of cigarettes and cash from the till into a plastic shopping bag to answer.

Cynthia waited about twenty-seconds for an answer then stumbled out the door.

Ian caught up to her on the sidewalk.

“Nobody fucks with my girlfriend.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? Firstly, I only just met you and secondly, you killed that gentleman for sayin' Hi”.

Ian smiled that smile of his.

“He ain’t dead,” Ian said in a soothing tone before setting down his loot and bowling bag and rushing back into the store.

In less than thirty seconds, there was a bright orange flash inside the store and Ian ran out. Dark gray smoke began to billow out the open door soon after.

“But now he’s dead.”

Cynthia strode determinedly toward the store just as a fireball of soot and angry flame blew out the front window.

The searing heat drove Cynthia back onto the street.

“You must be fuckin’ crazy. I’m out of here!” Cynthia announced before turning and taking two unsteady steps toward freedom, but Ian caught up to her and began speaking in a calm, measured tone.

“Ahhhh. I thought the two of us were gonna have a beer?”

“You're fuckin' crazy. You killed that guy!” Cynthia said in a hysterical tone.

“No. We killed him.”

That stopped Cynthia abruptly and she turned and looked Ian in the eye.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Hey, baby. You were with me so that makes you a murderer too. We’re in this together. Cynthia and Ian. Like Bonnie and Clyde. You know, in the movie, what’s her name Dunaway and the smooth guy.”

Just then, Cynthia's legs gave way and she sank to the sidewalk.

“Come on. You said you'd have a drink with me. Just one beer then we go our separate ways. I won’t tell the cops on you if you don’t tell on me. Promise. One beer.”

There was no way she was going to spend a second more with Ian, but Cynthia’s stomach couldn’t take the turmoil any longer and instead of walking away as she wanted, she instead doubled over as a volatile mixture of alcohol and beer nuts rose up her throat and spewed from her mouth.

 Ian waited until her stomach stopped heaving before helping Cynthia stand upright.

“Thada girl.”

As he began leading her away, the Molotov bottles in Ian’s gym bag clanged loudly but she was too drunk to notice.

“One drink and I’m outta here,” she said with a slur.

“One drink,” he replied.

----------

Victor Kennedy had been driving around all day with the addressed and stamped envelope that contained the electricity bill.

First was a trip to the doctor’s office, then he drove his wife to her sister’s, then grocery shopping, two trips to the bank, and finally, home. All that time the stamped envelope was in his inside coat pocket, ready to be mailed, evading his consciousness the entire day.

It wasn’t until he was about to brush his teeth and go to bed that he suddenly remembered. His wife Abby couldn’t understand why he had to go out to mail it right then. It was late and the cool night air wasn’t good for his asthma, but she had long ago given up trying to fight her husband’s stubbornness. When Victor set his mind to something, then that was just that.

There were two post boxes near his house. One, in front of the Valle Verde Community Park, and the other in front of the elementary school. The United States Postal Service emptied both boxes at nine and five, and since it was well past five, he knew that the envelope wasn’t going anywhere tonight, but at least it would be on its way first thing in the morning.

The street in front of the school was pretty empty. One or two cars drove by travelling east, but there was no pedestrian traffic. Not unusual for that time of the evening when most people were home having dinner with their families, or watching TV, or both.

Victor parked on the opposite side of the street, adjacent to the post box. Normally he wouldn’t have left the engine running; he had a good friend who had his car stolen that way, but it was less than forty feet from his car to the mailbox and back, so he didn’t see the harm. Besides, who was gonna steal a 1991 Toyota Tercel with 180,000 miles on it.

Victor had just set the envelope into the post box drawer when he heard a car door slam. He turned in time to see a young fellow push a woman into the passenger seat, slam the door then run to the driver’s side, jump in, and drive off.

“Why I’ll be!” was all he could manage to say as he watched the Tercel’s taillights disappear over the top of the Carnot Street hill.

After a few minutes of staring in disbelief at the empty spot where his car was once parked, he turned, pulled down the mailbox drawer to make sure his envelope hadn’t gotten stuck, then began walking home.

CHAPTER 52:

It was after midnight, When Earl opened his eyes, Wanda was still wearing that green house dress of hers.

She lay atop the duvet.

He lay under it.

Earl had no idea how long they had lain there, her bedside lamp had been burning. In the nightmarish world from which he had just emerged, he had lost track of time.

Earl took a silent inventory of his body and determined that he felt OK. He probably would have gone back to sleep if it weren’t for his bandaged arm, which had gone numb. So Earl shifted his weight and almost immediately Wanda awoke. Not fully at first but in an abbreviated version of the lengthy process of the grunting and stretching that she went through every morning.

Eventually, she opened her eyes and looked at him.

“How you feeling?” Wanda mumbled.

“Fine. Couldn’t be better.”

“I’m gonna get changed for bed,” she said while briefly attempting to re-arrange his hair with her fingers then she climbed off the bed and staggered out of the bedroom and down the hall toward the bathroom.

After a moment of silence, Earl heard the rush of water as she flushed the toilet.

Earl had nearly drifted back to sleep when the phone rang the first time so

it didn’t really register in his consciousness. The second ring seemed harsher as if the telephone was annoyed.

Earl groaned, then forced his stiff body into a sitting position and glanced at the white-faced clock on his night table.

 1:47.

Must be a wrong number, he figured.

-------------

As was her habit, Wanda always turned the tap on full-force when she washed her face, so she didn’t hear the phone ring the first or second time. She did hear a fragment of the melody just as she turned off the water but figured that it was her imagination.

Nobody would be calling this late. She figured.

------------

“Hello?” Earl asked only to be met by static, then the sound of muted, drunken laughter at the other end of the line.

“Hello?” Cynthia shouted, trying to compensate for the lack of signal strength.

“Hello?” Earl repeated.

 “Hello. Can you hear me now?”

“Yes,” Earl replied.

 “Is it her? Give me the phone,” a man said in a muted voice.

“No. It’s him,” the woman whispered.

 “Hello, Mr. Timmins? May I speak to Mrs. Timmins please?” she finally said into the phone.

 “She can't come to the phone right now. Would you like to leave a message?”

    Earl heard the unmistakable rustle of someone covering the mouthpiece with a hand then the muffled question, “You wanna leave a message?” then the woman yelped and whispered loudly, “Stop that I...” and then silence.

After a moment, the woman came back on the line. “No. No message. Goodbye.”

Earl didn’t wait for the caller to hang up, setting the receiver back onto its cradle quietly.

“Was that the phone?” Wanda asked from within the bathroom.

He decided to lie. Not because he wanted to but because he felt he had to.

“Yes. Wrong number.”

Earl paused for a moment then lifted the receiver and dialed *69 as Wanda had showed him last year when they began receiving a flurry of heavy breather calls.

“We’re sorry. The number cannot be reached by this method,” was the only answer he received, but it didn’t matter. Earl was now certain that the call was from his son.

Earl had no idea what became of Detective Wallish’s business card, but he suspected that Wanda threw it out.

“Thank you for calling Pacific Bell,” the electronic eunuch droned, “In order to assist us in processing your request, please speak clearly into the phone. For what city is your request?”

Earl hated computers, especially computers with voices.  Timmy, one of the footing carpenters at the job site, once worked as an information operator for Pacific Bell before he was laid off when the phone company replaced all the operators with a voice recognition program. One of those stupid ideas whose time had come.

 “Los Angeles.”

“Do you wish the number for an individual or business?”

Earl hesitated, not sure how to answer “Business I gue..”

“Please say the full name of the business.”

“Marina Del Rey Police Department.”

There was a moment of silence before a real person came on the line. His voice was distant and dispassionate, his tone as cold and impersonal as his computerized partner. “Is this an emergency?”

“Well, not really.”

“Just a moment please,” the real person droned perfunctorily before the line fell silent, only to come alive moments later.

“Main switchboard?”

“Yes, that’s fine.”

And with that, he was gone, leaving his digital co-worker to reply…

“The number is 323-526-5541. I repeat, the num...”

Earl depressed the telephone button, cutting the computer off in mid-sentence then dialed the number.

The line only rang once.

“Marina Del Rey Police Department. How may I direct your call?”

Earl glanced apprehensively at the open bedroom door but found solace in the sound of rushing water coming from the bathroom. Nevertheless, he cupped his left hand around the telephone mouthpiece and whispered.

“May I speak to Detective Wallish? He's...”

“I'm sorry Sir, but I can hardly hear you... could you speak up?”

Earl turned his back to the bedroom door then repeated, this time louder. “May I speak to Detective Wallish? He’s in Homicide.”

“One moment, sir.”

The man, with his smooth baritone voice, could easily have made a living introducing jazz on some FM radio station.

“Detective Stone, Homicide.”

“May I speak to Detective Wallish?"

The sound of rushing water ended scant seconds before the bathroom door opened with a thump and Earl heard Wanda’s footsteps. He had just enough time to hang up the receiver, re-position himself on the bed and shut his eyes.

“That’s better,” Wanda said as she straightened the collar of her PJ top, climbed into bed, and switched off her table lamp.

 Just then, Earl sat up then set his feet on the floor. 

“Just going to get a glass of milk, then I’ll put on my PJs.”

“I'll get it.”

“No. I could use the exercise.”

Earl stepped into his slippers, thrust his arms into his housecoat and was out the door in one continuous motion.

As his hand was about to touch the kitchen light switch, Earl paused, What if that boy’s father is here waiting? But he need not have worried because when Earl flipped the light he found himself very alone.

The telephone receiver was in his left hand, and the right was about to dial when he suddenly remembered something about the young woman’s phone call. He tried to dismiss the thought, but it refused to budge so Earl quietly hung up the phone and walked softly through the foyer and into the family room. His hand ignored the dozen other movie reels in the battered cardboard box and instead, picked up the reel labeled 1990.

Earl was pretty sure that Wanda was asleep by now. Nevertheless, he switched on the movie projector as quietly as he could. The machine clattered then began flashing familiar images on the screen as Earl lowered himself into his easy chair.

----------

The first images on the reel were of Ian’s fourth birthday party.

Gayly colored balloons and streamers.

Sugar-hyped kids.

Everyone, children, and adult, talking at the same time.

 When Ian stepped up to the huge, white-icing cake and blew out all four candles with childish glee, the room erupted into cheers and applause then broke into an energetic rendition of “Happy Birthday.”

Earl reached out and turned down the speaker volume. It was then that he noticed that, unlike the millions of times he had watched this particular sequence before, this time he was not singing along. Nor was he smiling, for a blanket of sadness had settled over Earl Timmins and the weight of that sad fabric stifled all emotion. He could barely manage to draw breath, or blink when his eyes began to burn from their uninterrupted exposure to air.

“…Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to Ian. Happy birthday to YOUUUUUUU....”

Earl reached out and nestled the control knob between his thumb and forefinger then twisted it to ‘fast forward’. The main and take-up reels lurched into a frenzied spin that continued until Earl twisted the control back to ‘play’. A few seconds of footage taken at Disneyland flashed in Kodachrome brilliance on the screen before Earl once again commanded the projector’s motor to advance. This time, however, a brittle splice could not take the strain, and the film snapped.

Normally Earl would have carefully removed both reels and used his Super 8 mm film splicing kit to join the two ends. But Earl didn’t have the time, so he quickly fed the loose end from the main reel through the projector’s series of sprockets then fast forwarded, sending precious feet of movie memories shooting out the rear of the projector and tumbling to the floor in a frenzied heap.

When the film stopped racing, the rustic front porch of the Hodges cabin flashed onto the screen.

Earl, Ian and tall, thin man named Johnny stood abreast.

Each dressed to go fishing.

Each holding a pole in their right hand.

Johnny sported a peaked cap that read, Twin Palms Gas Bar. Earl and Ian were both hatless.

Earl spoke directly to the unseen camera operator.

“Can you get us all in Wanda?”

“I’ve got ya.”

Then Earl announced, “All right men! Poles at the ready and… march!” and the three sportsmen began marching in place with Ian and Johnny struggling to synchronize their movements with Earl’s.

“Earl! Pretend you just came out of the cabin.” Wanda said then zoomed in on Earl as he exited through the front, then screen door. Each time, the bell mounted on the screen door tinkled softly.

“Sweet Jesus!” Earl whispered as he sat back in his chair.

----------

There was something about the gleaming statue perched on the mantle that caught Earl’s attention.

Perhaps it was the way the streetlight's glow, spilled through the family room window, and reflected off the young batter’s gold shrouded figure.

Perhaps it was just that Earl needed a diversion, something to give him a moment’s respite from the nightmare that had enveloped him.

Earl knew full well that he needed to call the police and tell them where Ian was hiding. He didn’t want to, but what choice did he have? Ian needed help. But most of all his son needed to stop hurting people.

“Siding with the police,” he whispered. Because that was exactly what Wanda would say he was doing and she would never forgive him for turning in their son to the police.

She hadn’t even forgiven him for siding with the referee eighteen years ago.

-----------

Wanda was always the loudest parent in the stands.

She even received a small trophy one year attesting to her “vocal enthusiasm” as the team president referred to it in his speech at the year-end awards dinner. But although most were amused by Wanda's antics, Earl often was not. Of course, Wanda wasn’t the only parent to yell and scream from the stands. But she was certainly the loudest and most energetic. Even Ian had to ask his mother to tone it down.

Not his exact words of course.

Ian loved baseball. He wasn’t a natural athlete, but he and his father had tossed the ball around enough on the front lawn so that practice-born skills, made up, in part, for his lack of speed and agility.

His mother was convinced, of course, that her son would someday play for the major league, but neither Ian nor Earl shared her optimism.

The championship game didn’t start until 3:15. By then, the crowd had thinned, leaving a dozen or so Starlight parents, an equal number of Buccaneer parents and a few conscientious adults who were there to cheer on all the kids, not just their own.

When Wanda saw that Ian was first up at bat she shot to her feet, screaming and applauding at such a volume level that the kids had difficulty hearing their coach’s instructions.  Earl, however, remained seated and expressed his support a little more subtly.

Ian struck out on his first turn at bat.

His second trip to the plate didn’t come until the final few minutes of the game. By then the score was 2-2 and everyone was feeling the pressure, though mostly the parents.

Ian’s first swing sent the ball racing out into left field. But the poor kid was so surprised that he had actually hit the ball that he just stood at home base.

Until Wanda screamed at him to run.

The left fielder for the Starlights snatched Ian’s ball from the grass and threw it in a high arc to first. From where Earl was sitting, it looked like the ball and Ian reached first base at exactly the same moment. The umpire, a portly man with a straggly white beard, punched the air and announced, “Yure out!”

Pandemonium broke out in the Buccaneer stands and Earl suddenly found himself surrounded on all sides by parents, all screaming their unhappiness with the umpire's call.

Earl remained seated.

Wanda decided otherwise, something that Earl didn’t realize until he turned and noticed that her seat was empty.

Earl coaxed his body into a standing position and scanned the crowd. He didn’t see her in the stands, so with a sudden sense of dread he glanced out onto the field, and there she was, standing toe to toe with the jolly ole ump who was at first amused by Wanda’s arm-waving and shouting, then annoyed.

Earl hurried out onto the field and stepped between the umpire and Wanda just as someone in the stands shouted, “Get off the field lady!”

“Come on Wanda,” Earl said, gently pulling her away, then added, “It was a fair call.”

Wanda suddenly wrenched her arm free and glared at him.

Eighteen years later, he still remembered the savage look in her eyes.

----------

Earl dialed the number from memory then cupped his hand over the receiver. It sounded like the same woman who answered earlier.

“Marina Del Rey Police Department, how may I direct your call?”

“May I speak to Detective Wallish, please?”

“One moment.”

It must have been a slow night at the station because, for the second time, Detective Stone answered.

“Detective Stone, Homicide.”

Earl hunched over, turning his back to the kitchen door.

“Detective Stone? It's Earl Timmins. Ian's father.”

“You the guy who hung up on me a little while ago?”

“Yes. Sorry... I didn't mean....”

“What can I do for you, Mr. Timmins?”

“Detective Wallish asked me to call him if I knew where Ian was. I’m pretty sure my son is in Valle Verde, staying in the Hodge’s Cabin just north of the city off Del Valle Road.”

If Earl and Detective Stone had been talking face to face instead of on the phone Earl would have seen that the detective was probably a regular-enough guy who, judging from the dark circles that surrounded his brown, bloodshot eyes, could have used a couple weeks of sleep. 

At forty, he was more muscular than most guys his age.

Though shorter.

As he was talking to Earl, Stone sat on his usual perch, the edge of his desk. He didn’t use in his chair much. A claustrophobic for as long as he could remember, the walls of his cubicle would begin closing in thirty seconds after he sat down.

“And just what makes you ‘pretty sure’ about your son being in Valle Verde, Mr. Timmins?” Stone replied just as he noticed his partner, Linus Cutter, standing at the office door beckoning impatiently. Cutter, the older half of the ‘Cut Stone Brigade’ as they were known around the station, glanced at his watch then leaned heavily against the doorframe.

 “He called.”

Detective Stone suddenly straightened his back, temporarily losing his well-practiced slouch. Even his eyes turned from listless to moderately interested.

“You received a telephone call from your son?”

“Well no. I didn't really know who was callin’ but I'm sure Ian was there, laughing in the background, and I heard the bells on the door.”

“You heard the bells?”

“Yes. The bells on the door.”

     I don’t have time for this fuckin’ asshole, Detective Stone thought to himself, and he was right. It was twenty-two minutes past the end of his shift and was, therefore:

Going to catch hell from the Chief if he claimed overtime

Going to catch hell from the union rep if he didn’t

     Plus, even though he’d never met the man, Detective Stone didn’t like Mr. Timmins. How could he? The guy’s son was a fuckin’ murderer, so what did that make the father? The detective figured that Timmins senior was probably a boozer or drug addict or he fucked his son when his wife wasn’t looking…or all of the above. The detective did know, however, that sooner or later the law would catch up with Ian Timmins and his fuckin’ sicko father too.

“Thank you, Mr. Timmins. I'll be sure to pass your message along to Detective Wallish when he gets back. They’ve probably just gone out to grab a bite to eat. Valle Verde. Hutchinson Cabin.”

 “Hodges,” Earl said immediately.

“Hodges Cabin. I stand corrected. Don’t worry, Mr. Timmins, I will communicate this information to Detective Wallish. Thanks for calling.”

Earl thought he heard a click on the line but wasn’t sure so he kept listening to the dead phone, at least until Wanda coughed; then he quietly replaced the receiver onto its hook.

Standing in the dark kitchen, Earl suddenly felt very tired, and for a moment thought that perhaps he should go back to bed.

Things would be clearer in the morning, they always were. But Earl didn’t make it further than the bottom of the stairs. And there he sat down, on the third step up, barely five feet from the dusty cuckoo, who wasn’t asleep of course, despite the lateness of the hour.

Homeless cuckoos never slept.

Only waited and watched.

And that was exactly what the cuckoo did from its lofty perch.

Watched as Earl Timmins collapsed onto the staircase and hung his head.

After a few minutes, most of it wasted in a swirl of pointless thoughts and stray memories, Earl straightened, and, for some reason, glanced up at the framed photo above Grandma’s pine table.

Ian was twelve when the Sears and Roebuck’s photographer took the photo. Grandma Leola had given Ian that doe-brown suit.

Earl wished that she was still alive.

He wished that he could take her to International House of Pancakes, where she would order her usual: blueberry waffles, lightly toasted; Egg Beaters, scrambled; bacon, crisp; and coffee.

He would wait until she’d had her first sip, not before, then ask Grandma Leola what he should do about Ian.

She would know.

She always had something to say that would make these important decisions easier.

Earl continued to stare at the Timmins family photo.

Wanda’s laughing eyes, his son’s nervous smile, his own slightly crooked tie.

Earl stared forever at that photo until… until he knew what had to be done.

Not that his dead mother spoke to him, or even that he used higher reasoning to come to a conclusion. No, it was nothing as straightforward as that.

Sitting there on the third step from the bottom.

In the foyer of their home.

In the dark.

Earl just knew.

The banister groaned under his weight as Earl pulled himself up. He tiptoed to the back porch where he kept his gardening clothes and slipped on his Hawaiian shirt, khaki pants, white athletic socks, and sandals. Then returned to the foyer where he eased the hall closet open and pulled out that small soft- sided suitcase that Wanda kept on the overhead shelf. Although it had not been used in probably four or five years, there wasn’t a speck of dust on it. His wife was quite a housekeeper.

Earl stuffed his gray wool sweater into the suitcase then walked quietly toward the kitchen.

Even before Ian was born, Wanda kept all of their medication in the kitchen cabinet over the sink. Well beyond the reach of any children. Earl removed the whole bottle of Glyburide, then the bottle of Altace, and Digoxin. But after considering for a moment, he decided against the Lipitor, which he only took once a day.

He didn’t plan to be gone that long.

Earl also figured the should take a bottle of water, to wash down his pills, but decided to buy something along the way.

The front door squeaked a little when he opened it but not enough that anyone would hear. He patted his back pocket to make sure he had his wallet, his front pocket for the car keys, then he lifted his heavy corduroy coat off its hook and closed the front door.

Upstairs, Wanda lay motionless in their bed.

Listening.

Angry.

Body tense.

She knew where he was going and she was not going to stand for it.

CHAPTER 53:

 The sharp evening air felt refreshing at first, but as Earl continued walking down the dusty red, lava stone path to the driveway, it turned increasingly chilly. He was glad he brought the sweater. 

Dew covered Ole Grand, forming goblets of shimmering light on her horizontal surfaces and cascading rivers on every vertical.

Earl knew where to find his squeegee, under the driver’s seat where he always kept it.

It took less than a minute to clear all the glass, front, back and side windows, but as soon as he sat behind the steering wheel his breath started to fog up the inside of the windshield, so he wound down his window to allow cool air to enter.

Ole Grand started smoothly, and after a few moments the automatic choke opened, slowing the engine’s idling speed.

Earl had his hand on the lever, about to ease the gear lever into reverse, when Wanda’s hand suddenly shot through the open window, shut off the engine, and yanked the keys from the ignition.

It scared the hell out of Earl.

Scared him so that it took Earl a long time before he could speak.

By then Wanda, her yellow bathrobe flapping behind her, was ten feet away, still charging toward the front door.

“Wanda!” was all that he could think of to say.

-----------

I will not allow it…I will not! She kept repeating over and over to herself as she hurried toward the front door. She knew Earl couldn’t catch up to her before she reached the downstairs bathroom.

I would not allow it!

The front door was wide open, just the way she had left it, and the bathroom door was merely five or six steps into the foyer.

The bundle of keys didn’t go down the drain with the first flush.

Too heavy.

But with the second flush they raced out of sight and by the third flush Wanda figured that they were pretty well gone.

Earl was standing beside the car when she marched out the door.

-----------

“He’s our son!” she shouted.

“I know that. You think I don't know that? But he has to stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop hurting people.”

“Earl Timmins you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Who says our Ian has...”

“Wanda!”

“Except that man from before but he paid his debt to society! All that is over!”

“It's not over.”

“Yes, it is! Now come inside!”

Wanda turned, so confident that Earl would follow that it wasn’t until she had nearly reached the front door that she bothered to look back. By then Earl had grabbed the overnight bag and was walking down the driveway toward the street.

Wanda caught up with him, grabbed the handle of his bag and tugged, but despite his burns, Earl’s grip on the handle remained solid.

“No, you don't. You're...”

Then Wanda tugged again, but this time a fiery bolt of pain raced up his arm and the handle slipped from his hand.

“..not going anywhere!”

Earl, however, continued walking to the end of the driveway and south on Arlington.

------------

Wanda knew Earl would come back. Her husband wouldn’t last an hour in the chilly night air.

He’s not a well man.

Any minute I’ll see him walking back toward the house.

I’ll make him a cup of tea, maybe herself one too, and then they would go to bed.

In the morning things would be clearer, they always were.

Earl just had to get this out of his system.

He’ll be back.

He had to.

He’s not a well man.

And so she waited, standing in the driveway of their silent home for nearly twenty minutes. By then the night air had begun to chill her bones, so she walked reluctantly back toward the house, glancing once or twice over her shoulder just in case.

But he never came back.

---------

The trip had been long and boring.

According to regulations, one of them should have sat down at their computer and filled out an out-of-jurisdiction travel report but they were both tired, and hungry, and just wanted to go home.

If Wallish had even gone to his desk he would have seen Detective Stone’s hastily scrawled note stuck to his monitor but it was Mathison who logged onto the system to see if the Ferguson kid’s autopsy report had been posted while his partner returned the Browning tactical shotgun they had borrowed to the weapons lockup room.

They were both on the floor less than five minutes before stepping back into the elevator for the return trip to the lobby and then home.

CHAPTER 54:

Mr. Ferguson had watched the whole thing from his car, parked down the street from the Timmins kid’s house.

He really thought that the parents were going to come to blows.

The kid’s father was certainly determined to go somewhere. But where?

Maybe it was to visit his kid, or maybe the guy had a girlfriend on the side and this blow-up wasn’t about their son at all.

Maybe he should follow the kid’s father or maybe he should stay, just in case the kid came home.

Mr. Ferguson was in the middle of a go-stay dilemma when the FM station began playing a waltz by Vivaldi. The sounds of strings filled the dim interior of Mr. Ferguson’s SUV, sending his thoughts spinning in a swirl of reason, revenge and exhaustion.

The headlights were strong and clear as they swept across and past him then returned, bathing the interior of his car with a harsh white light.

Mr. Ferguson glanced into his rear view mirror then turned down the radio's volume. Through the glare, he made out two police officers, one reflected in his driver’s side mirror, and the other in the passenger’s side mirror. They exited their cruiser almost simultaneously, one hand resting on the butts of their guns while the other held their respective flashlights.

Mr. Ferguson placed his hands at ten and two on the steering wheel then waited.

He wasn’t nervous in the least.

The officer on the passenger side stopped his approach opposite the rear door while the other officer stepped up to the driver’s side window and shone his flashlight in Mr. Ferguson’s face.

     “Good evening, sir, is there a problem?”

“No. I was driving home and started to feel drowsy. So I pulled over to take a quick nap. Been working long hours.”

“Have you consumed any alcoholic beverages this evening, Sir?”

“No. Just tired.”

“May I see your driver's license please?”

“Certainly.”

Mr. Ferguson reached into his back pants pocket and removed his wallet, being careful to make only smooth, deliberate motions. He pulled his hard plastic driver’s license out and handed it to the officer who then placed it under the flashlight’s beam.

“How long have you been parked here, Mr. Ferguson?”

“Just a few minutes, officer.” Then Mr. Ferguson grimaced on the inside because he knew what the officer’s next move would be if the officer had any sense.

He’d fucked up, as his daughter would so eloquently point out whenever he managed to do just that.

-----------

“You fucked up Daddy,” were Sara-Ann's first words when he walked through the door yesterday morning. It was barely past five and he was surprised to see her up so early.

“Mommy’s in Kaiser. She had one of her attacks last night.”

“She OK?” he asked, but evidently Sara-Ann had decided that she was going to be the one asking all the questions.

“Where have you been all night?”

He couldn’t tell her the truth about sitting in front of the kid’s house then following the father to the bar, then chasing his son’s killer. He couldn’t tell her any of that, so he lied.

“Working baby.”

Sara-Ann was having a tough time of it. She had been close to her brother, and, when she needed her mother most, Heather could provide no comfort to their daughter. And he, well, ever since the funeral, he has been pretty busy tracking down the Timmins kid.

The truth was, the moment Tony was murdered they stopped being a family. Stopped being there for each other. It wasn’t that he hadn’t noticed. He just couldn’t do anything about it. Not now. Once he did what he had to do then they could get on with their lives.

 “I’m going to see her at the hospital,” he said as he turned and hurried back toward the driveway where he had just parked his car. Sara-Ann followed him, her emotions raging.

“She’d be dead if HM hadn’t checked on her around midnight. Why does Dr. Jans give her that stuff?”

 “He told us, Baby, the dosage of that new medication walks a fine line. Too much and she might have a reaction and too little and she might slip into depression and…”

“Slice up her wrists again?”

 “Yes, or something just as bad.”

“Mommy needs you around Daddy.”

“I know Baby. I fucked up.” And then he shut the door and backed down the driveway.

He knew his daughter was right to be upset. He knew he had fucked up, but he had a mission that she wouldn’t understand.

Nobody would understand.

Except God of course.

----------

The officer took two steps forward then did what Mr. Ferguson expected he would do. He laid his palm on the stone-cold hood.

The officer had caught Mr. Ferguson in a lie, but, curiously, he held his perfect poker face as he stepped back then examined Mr. Ferguson’s driver’s license with greater scrutiny.

“Please wait, Sir.”

The officer turned and walked back to his cruiser. Mr. Ferguson watched in his rear-view mirror as he punched his name and other information into the cruiser’s computer.

It took less than thirty seconds for the database to reply, even less time for the officer to make his return journey, walking with a lesser degree of caution.

“It would be better if you did your sleeping at home, Mr. Ferguson,” the officer said as he handed him his driver’s license.

“Yes, I will. Thank you. Goodnight.”

That was the end of Mr. Ferguson’s quandary. There was no possibility of him remaining parked on the street now, so as cruiser 5221 pulled out from behind his SUV, Mr. Ferguson followed, making a right at Torrance Avenue while the police car continued south.

He drove around for ten or fifteen minutes, looking for the kid’s father and hoping that he would not cross paths with cruiser 5221 again.

It was at a red light at the intersection of Torrance and Maple that Mr. Ferguson just happened to glance to his right and froze.

There, sitting on the transit bench, and staring right at him, was the kid’s father. Mr. Ferguson looked away, then drove off quickly when the light turned green. He circled the block then parked behind a Volkswagen Beetle and watched as the kid’s father continued to sit on the bench, unmoving, seemingly unaware of his surroundings.

It was almost as if the man had died with his eyes open.

----------

Life would never be the same for him and Wanda. He knew that. But he also knew that he had to find Ian, so when the 444 West bus pulled to a stop in front of him and opened its door, he somehow found the energy to stand and step onboard.

There was nowhere to sit.

The bus was full of shift workers, all of them either lost in a catatonic daze or sleeping fitfully, their heads cocked against the fogged windows.

Earl made his way through the crowd to the back, stood in front of a Pinkerton’s Security guard, his coffee-and-donut-stained uniform crying out for a visit to a washing machine. Earl hung on with both hands to the overhead bar as the bus’s suspension did its best on the potholed streets.

    “So why is the sky blue?” the woman’s smooth voice asked from somewhere behind him.

Earl neither turned nor responded, not from rudeness but because there was something disturbing about the question. But he couldn’t figure out what, so he ignored the woman, rationalizing that she wasn’t speaking to him anyway.

“Hello? You didn’t answer my question,” she called out with a hint of impatience.

At the rear of the bus, a black man, the same painter Earl and Wanda first saw in the Folsom Prison waiting room, wearing the same paint-speckled overalls, lying in the same fetal position, spoke while barely moving his mouth. 

“Shut up yure rass woman, you’re making too much fuckin’ noise.”

The black painter’s words lingered in the air for a moment then disappeared.

Just then the bus pulled up to the next stop and hissed as it opened its front doors. A Latino woman, dressed in an impeccably ironed cotton smock printed with a faded catalogue of every species of ivy, stepped into the bus then stood at the front, just behind the yellow line.

“Why is the sky blue?”

Earl glanced at the passengers to his left and right then turned, cautiously, to find a heavily made-up woman, wearing a tattered white satin gown, staring directly at him. Although he was sure that they’d never met before, there was something familiar about her.

Earl glanced at the black painter, who now held his eyelids shut with a Herculean effort that contorted his face into a menacing scowl. Earl didn’t want to risk speaking and further annoying the man but, at the same time, he felt obliged to answer the woman’s question.

He decided that a whisper might placate both parties.

“Sorry ma'am, are you speaking to me?” he said softly.

“You must be at least six foot three. My husband, bless his soul was six one and you’re taller than him,” the Satin Woman announced loudly.

“No ma’am I’m only five foot nine.”

“How curious,” she said in a reflective tone, “you seem much taller.”

Suddenly the guy sitting next to the Satin Woman opened one eye and cleared her throat.

“Lady, you’re disturbing my sleep.”

But the Satin Woman ignored him.

“Most people don’t know. Don’t know why the sky is blue.”

Earl paused to think for a moment, not searching for the answer but instead rummaging through the corners of his memory, still trying to remember where he had heard that question before.

From the back of the bus, a Latino teenager, the brown skin that covered his shaved head contrasting sharply with his brilliant white T-shirt, spoke dispassionately, almost with disdain. “The sky reflects the blue in the ocean.”

The Satin Woman shifted her eyes to the side, offered the Latino teenager a gentle smile, then turned and stared at Earl.

Suddenly a broad grin broke across her face.

“You know the correct answer, but you are afraid to speak it. Why?”

“Because the guy doesn’t talk to fuckin’ crazy people,” the black painter shouted. Several passengers snickered aloud, a few even laughed before the crowd lapsed back into a collective silence.

“Alameda Street. Next stop, Greyhound bus station,” the bus driver called through a thick Korean accent.

Earl reached out, tugged on the grimy bell cord then stepped in front of the rear doors, ready to exit. His eyes rested on the stenciled No Smoking sign while his mind continued to race about, overturning bits and pieces of his memory.

Earl recognized that he wasn’t a great thinker.

Although he often wished he was.

But Earl’s failure to remember where he had last heard that question wasn’t his fault. Dreams were not meant to be remembered, any more than lovers were meant to be coveted. Doing so squeezed the life from them, leaving empty vessels of thought and affection. And although the genealogy of the question eluded Earl, the Satin Woman was right, Earl knew the answer.

----------

Mr. Worthington was probably the least popular science teacher at Torrance High School. So when Earl picked up his class schedule on the first day of his senior year, and saw that he was going to be in Mr. Worthington’s physics class he considered trying to switch, as some of his buddies had done. But Earl had already dropped baseball in favor of tennis, so he didn’t think that the Program’s Counselor was likely to look favorably on a second request.

Mr. Worthington was a pig. Or at least that was what everyone said. Earl had only seen him in passing, in the hall or on the playground, and although Mr. Worthington did always seem more casually dressed and disheveled then the rest of the staff, Earl didn’t notice anything unsanitary about the man.

Seconds into the first hour of the first day of Mr. Worthington’s class Earl realized why the students avoided him.

Physics 108 started at ten in the morning but because all the students wanted to make a good impression on the first day everyone was in their seats by nine fifty-five. Mr. Worthington walked through the classroom door at precisely ten, but his stench preceded him by several minutes.

It wasn’t just his obvious reluctance to use underarm deodorant that made it a living hell to spend two hours in a closed classroom with the man. It was his unfamiliarity with soap and water that really made his classes an unpleasant experience. Without a doubt, Mr. Worthington smelled worse than the poor souls who lived in the bus shelters, doorways, and alleys of Los Angeles. And his clothes were another matter.

Either Mr. Worthington had five identical sets of brown tweed jackets, pale green dress shirts, tan and green argyle socks and khaki pants or he wore the same clothes every day, every week and every month through the entire school year. One morning when Mr. Worthington stepped out of the classroom to use the washroom, Brian Foster, a career jokester, wrote BF in pencil on the right sleeve of Mr. Worthington’s jacket, which was hanging on the back of his chair.

Brian said he wanted to test how long Mr. Worthington’s jacket went between trips to the cleaners. Three years after he and Brian graduated, two separate friends swore to Earl that the penciled initials were still on Mr. Worthington’s sleeve.

Mr. Worthington was truly a walking science experiment.

It was half way through the course, probably January or February that the class began to study light and color. Mr. Worthington liked to begin each new section with a question. A ‘brain teaser’ he called them. He had just finished writing ‘Why is the sky blue?’ on the blackboard when the office assistant, a brown-noser named Justin Fleming, suddenly appeared at the classroom door and told Mr. Worthington that he had an important phone call.

As soon as Mr. Worthington left the room, Henry Glasson ran up to the board, erased the teacher’s question, then scrawled, Why don’t you take a bath? All the kids laughed, including Earl.

Later that day Todd Adams told Earl that Mr. Worthington’s important phone call was from the hospital. His father had died.

When Mr. Worthington returned to the classroom, he simply erased Henry’s question and rewrote his. He didn’t seem upset or preoccupied, but Earl could tell he’d been crying.

Earl always regretted not trying to stop Henry from writing his bath question or not erasing it before Mr. Worthington returned.

-----------

The bus lurched to a stop, slamming Earl against the Plexiglas rear exit enclosure. There was a hiss of air, a momentary pause, then the door opened and Earl stepped onto the trash-littered sidewalk. Though he tried to fight the urge, something stronger, either within his heart or mind, forced him to turn around. And at that same moment, the Satin Woman also turned, looked out the window and smiled, but, although her joy seemed sincere, a torrent of thick black tears raced down her pale white cheeks. In that brief moment, Earl and the Satin Woman searched each other’s faces for answers never to be.

Earl watched as the bus continued to the next stop where it disgorged two passengers and swallowed three more before shutting its door and disappearing into the urban distance.  He then turned and walked through the nearly empty parking lot to the front doors of the bus station.

CHAPTER 55:

The double doors slid back and Earl stepped into the bus terminal. Although it was only 5:56 in the morning, the ticket clerks, sitting in their cubicles on the left wall, had already accumulated a line up of a dozen or so anxious people.

Earl stepped into the red-roped maze and wound his way to the end of the line, behind a small, elderly man who must have bathed in Old Spice. At first Earl found it difficult to take a deep breath, but after a few minutes his nasal passages adjusted, although his eyes continued to water.

 The ticket clerk, a perky young woman with a tattoo in the shape of a monarch butterfly on the side of her neck, seemed genuinely concerned when she noticed Earl step up to her window and dab his eyes with a nicely pressed white cotton handkerchief. “Are you OK, Sir?”

Earl smiled, “Yes, thank you. Could I have one ticket to Valle Verde, please.”

The agent spent a moment keying information into her computer then spoke without taking her eyes from the screen.

“Round trip or one way?”

“One way,” Earl replied without pause or thought, then immediately drew inside himself, troubled that he had not asked for a round trip. After all, when he found Ian they both would be coming back together. He would insist on it. Then the two of them would call the police, hire a good lawyer and begin the process of straightening out the whole mess. He should have asked for one round trip and a one-way ticket from Valle Verde to Los Angeles. But he didn’t; he only bought a one-way ticket, and that bothered him.

“That will be twelve dollars and seventy-five cents,” the ticket clerk said.

Earl pulled a ten and a five from his wallet and slid them under the thick glass window that separated the ticket clerk from her customers. She replied with a flimsy paper ticket and two dollars and twenty-five cents in change.

“The bus begins boarding in twenty minutes. Platform six. Thank you for traveling Greyhound and have a nice trip.”

“Thank you kindly,” Earl replied then walked through the crowded waiting room to the door that led to platform six. Only one other person, some kind of Buddhist monk, was ahead of him.

Finally the bus driver, a portly man with two day’s growth of black stubbly beard on his upper lip and chin, punched Earl’s ticket then noted....

“No baggage?”

“No. None,” Earl replied then stuffed his newly punched ticket into his front pants pocket and climbed onto the dimly lit bus.

He sat near the front, behind the driver, second row back.

Window seat.

Five or six passengers climbed aboard after him, but Earl didn’t pay much attention to them as they walked down the aisle, some struggling with kids, or knapsacks or both.

The driver must have been behind schedule because the PA had just finished announcing the last call for passengers to Valle Verde when he leaped into his seat, shut the door and roared out of the station.

Earl closed his eyes to give them a rest.

He couldn’t afford to sleep of course.

He needed to think.

To plan.

To practice what he was going to say to Ian.

But the instant Earl’s head laid against the seat, his body, exhausted and dangerously depleted of glucose, dragged his restless mind into a fitful state of unconsciousness. And there he remained, oblivious to the passing landscape, the bumpy ride, and the warm rays of morning that were beginning to break over the concrete horizon.

----------

Mr. Ferguson pulled in behind the Valle Verde bus then followed closely as it ascended the 7th Street on-ramp to the 5.  His eyes felt heavy, his body limp with exhaustion. For a moment, he wondered whether he was doing the right thing, but the image of his dead son, laying on that metal gurney, revived his anger and vanquished all doubt in an instant.

“It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” he said in a determined tone.

CHAPTER 56:

The bright orange desert sun had nearly completed its ascent into the toxic haze that blanketed Los Angeles County. Sheathed behind the opaque gray curtain, it lost all definition and had been transformed into a borderless globe of soiled light.

Mr. Ferguson struggled to remain awake, struggled to keep his car within the middle lane of traffic.

The Valle Verde bus was just ahead. Its dinner plate sized taillights led him up the 5, racing past Silver Lake and snaking through the Hollywood Hills.

The lumbering bus, and the sleek SUV that followed it rounded a slight curve and both found themselves on a strip of straight highway that disappeared into the distance. As Mr. Ferguson stared at the bus’s taillights, his eyelids drifted closed.

    When he finally awoke, Mr. Ferguson found that he had somehow drifted across two and a half lanes onto the roughly paved shoulder. The driver of a Ford Tempo in the passing lane leaned on his horn, snatching Mr. Ferguson from his slumber but, as was common with slumbering drivers, he over-steered while trying to escape the shoulder and nearly broadsided a Porsche.

Fortunately, Mr. Ferguson managed to avoid an accident and soon he was fully awake and back on course. But the adrenalin that the near tragedy produced quickly wore off and, in less than five minutes, his eyelids had begun drooping yet again when his cell phone began to chirp. Mr. Ferguson’s eyes snapped open in panic, but he quickly realized that, thankfully, he was still driving straight and that his car was still in the middle lane.

The cell phone, perched on the dashboard, rang once again. Mr. Ferguson shifted his eyes from the highway long enough to notice that the lime-green display read ‘Home Calling’ but he wasn’t going to answer it.

How could he?

And if he could.

And did.

What would he say?

So Mr. Ferguson just kept driving, ignoring the ringing until it stopped. That was when he noticed that the Greyhound bus was no longer in front of him, or behind, or anywhere.

He wanted to get off the freeway, but there was no exit in sight, only the dry, desert tundra that bordered the black asphalt populated by pools of glimmering heat.

-----------

Tortured by nightmares when he slept, and memories of the past when he was awake, Earl drifted in and out of slumber the whole trip.

He was in the middle of a particularly bad dream when the guy sitting beside him, wearing skin tight jeans, a matching denim shirt and a blazing white Stetson returned from the bathroom reeking of cigarette smoke and anxious to talk.

“You going to Valle Verde for business or pleasure?” Earl’s neighbor asked.

Earl opened his eyes, grateful that he had escaped his nightmare, then sat up in his seat. “Pleasure, I guess.”

“Me too. Going to visit my kid. Girl just turned thirteen. You got kids?”

“Boy, twenty-three.”

“Greatest feeling in the world being a father. You must be proud of him.”

Earl turned and stared out the window, but all he saw was the reflection of a sad, tired man looking back at him.

Earl started to reply but something rising in his throat prevented the words from escaping his mouth. The cowboy glanced at Earl, then, evidently not one who felt comfortable around emotion, busied himself by flicking invisible specs of lint off his jeans. Earl wiped the tears from his eyes with the handkerchief, then took a deep breath. After a while the cowboy figured it was safe to speak.

“You OK, mister?”

“Fine. Couldn’t be better.”

----------

The digital speedometer read one hundred and two miles per hour, then one hundred and six as a green sign, poised above the freeway, grew in the distance. Mr. Ferguson glanced over his right shoulder then pulled first into the middle lane then into the far right one. He was awake now, but the horror of his dream would not leave him.

His wife believed that dreams had meanings.

He thought they were just random electric discharges. The mind performing a bit of molecular house cleaning.

The Hasley Canyon Road off-ramp led him directly to a service station. The sign, painted in white letters on the metal roof, read Ed’s Gas Bar and Picnic Center.

Mr. Ferguson had just slowed to make an illegal left turn into the station when a dry, wiry ball of tumbleweed flew out of nowhere and bounced off his front windshield.

Curiously, his wife also believed that tumbleweeds contained the spirits of those souls who spend their whole lives in relentless pursuit of nothing in particular and so, in death, they are condemned to roll and bounce across the barren landscape forever, and ever. 

----------

The Gas Bar had two pumps, the ancient one had a hand written sign taped to it that read ‘broke’, the other pump looked new. Mr. Ferguson pulled into the station, shut off his engine and climbed out into the stifling heat.

“Only got super. No regular.” A man’s voice called out from deep within the white, stucco, double-bay garage.

“OK!” Mr. Ferguson replied hesitantly.

After a few bangs and a clang, a lanky man in his early sixties strolled out of the darkness into the harsh sun. He was dressed in grease-stained, once-white overalls and a pair of yellow flip-flops.

“Ain’t worth my while to pump two, three bucks.”

“Fill it up, please.”

The Lanky Man wrestled the nozzle from its perch with his slender right hand then removed the gas cap from Mr. Ferguson’s SUV and began filling the tank.

“Bakersfield’s another ninety-two miles. Take you an hour and a bit of drivin’ at the limit, but not many people drive at the limit anymore. I’d tell you that you missed the exit for Magic Mountain, but I don’t see no kids so I figure you weren’t going there anyways.”

“Could tell me how to get to Valle Verde?”

A shutter raced through the Lanky Man, who then turned and looked directly into Mr. Ferguson’s face.

Mr. Ferguson noticed immediately that the skin on the lanky man’s face was lined and hard. His head, devoid of hair, bore a half dozen or so ugly sores. But it wasn’t the man’s dermatological condition that had the greatest impact on Mr. Ferguson; it was the color of his eyes.

Or rather, the lack of color. Fore the Lanky Man’s eyes were a pale gray, giving him the look of an animal, not a man.

 “You got business there, son?”

“Why do you ask?”

“It’s pretty early in the day. Shops in Valle Verde don’t much open until noon.”

“Thanks,” was the most polite reply that Mr. Ferguson could think of.

The flow of gas suddenly jerked to a stop and the Lanky Man yanked the nozzle from the tank and set it back into its hanger.

Mr. Ferguson glanced at the pump then pulled out his brass money clip, slipped out two twenties and set them in the man’s grease-stained hands. The Lanky Man rubbed the bills between his thumb and forefingers for a few moments then, satisfied, he shoved the money into his top pocket.

“Want me to check your oil?”

“No thanks.”

“You want change?”

“No thanks.”

Mr. Ferguson was already behind the wheel, engine started and was about to ease the gear lever into drive when a large shadow stepped up beside him.

“Son?”

Mr. Ferguson turned and looked up.

With the blazing sun directly behind him, the Lanky Man’s face appeared pitch black.

Only his ghostly irises were visible.

“Keep going east on Hasley Canyon ‘till you get to a fork about a half mile down, go right about one mile to the Del Valle fork, go left and Del Valle will take you right into the town of Valle Verde. Twenty minutes driving at the limit, but not many people drive at the limit any more.”

“Thanks.”

“I’d like to offer ya one piece of sensible advice if I may, although you ain’t obliged to follow it.”

“What’s that?”

“You might want to avoid Valle Verde for a while. Since yesterday, they seem to be havin’ a run of bad luck.”

Mr. Ferguson nodded his understanding then drove off.

After a couple of minutes, he lowered the passenger window to create a crosswind. The desert air felt good but, although it warmed his body, his cold heart remained full of hatred and bitterness.

------------

Ian Timmins slept, blissfully unaware that two fathers hurdled toward him.

They say that a sleeping face is a blank canvas, waiting for the viewer to paint it from their mental palette of emotion. A child’s face we usually paint with the whites of love and innocence, a young woman’s with the rose colors of beauty and charm, an old man’s with the dark shades of physical pain and regret.

Ian’s face, half buried in his pillow, was a blank canvas too. A canvas waiting for one of the two fathers to paint.

CHAPTER 57:

Earl was not fully awake when the driver’s announcement blared over the bus’s PA system.

“Valle Verde coming up. Last stop. On behalf of Greyhound, thank you for traveling with us. On behalf of me, your driver, hope you had a nice sleep… I certainly did.”

There was a splattering of laughter from the sullen crowd, but most were not sufficiently awake to catch the levity in the driver’s words or just didn’t think it was funny.

Of all the passengers, the Cowboy laughed the loudest.

Earl didn’t laugh at all.

The bus jerked to a hissing stop, then, after sputtering once or twice, the engine fell silent. Nearly everyone stood at once except the old and infirm who needed time to get their arthritic limbs and atrophied muscles to respond.  The Cowboy didn’t even try to stand, but instead, turned to Earl and asked, “I guess you’ll want to be getting out?”

Even the Cowboy must have known that it was a stupid question, but Earl figured that his traveling partner was just stalling.

The narrow aisle was impassable, filled with a single line of shuffling passengers who now and then came to an abrupt halt when one of them paused to wrench a bag or box from the overhead compartment.

The Cowboy finally raised himself up with just his arms then carefully lowered his weight onto his bent legs and stepped into the aisle. Earl then scooted out of his seat, and into the aisle with surprising energy for a man of his age and depleted glucose level.

The mid-morning sun shone harshly on Earl’s face as he stepped out of the bus into the harsh, desert air. A few of the passengers had loved ones waiting for them.

A frail white-haired couple were met by a young man and his smiling wife.

A heavily tattooed middle-aged man, his muscular shoulders hunched over with fatigue, suddenly broke into a run and swept a petite woman and her young child into his thick arms.

A teenager waved cautiously to a man in his thirties and, beside him, a woman who looked to be in her mid-forties. The teen bore a striking resemblance to the woman and Earl figured that she was his mom, the man, probably the boy’s stepfather, but it could just as easily have been the other way around. 

Earl glanced about for a taxi and saw one right away.

----------

The letter said that his wife was going to die and that there was nothing that the hospital could do about it.

Those weren’t the actual words, but Frank was no fool, he could read between the lines. Mr. Steward, the accounts manager, said that Frank’s drug coverage from the credit union didn’t cover the Tetra…something or the other.

He and Mildred had hoped that the new drug might have stopped the spread of cancer to his her bones. But there was no guarantee that it would work, which was why his plan didn’t cover it.

‘Experimental’ they called the treatment.

But the magazine article that his wife’s sister had sent him said that it held promise.

Hell! Frank and Mildred weren’t asking for miracles.

‘Promise’ was good enough.

The doctors had tried everything else. And although Frank had faith in the Lord, he figured that it couldn’t hurt to give the Almighty a little medicinal support.

Frank didn’t know how he was going to tell Mildred. He wasn’t afraid she would cry; after nine months of battling that damn cancer they were both pretty well cried out. He just hoped that she wouldn’t go quiet on him like she did when they first discovered that mole on her back. The moment they returned home from the doctor she locked herself in their bedroom and didn’t come out for nearly a week. Wouldn’t talk to anybody.

Not Frank, not their daughter, not the Reverend.

Nobody.

After two days, she finally agreed to open the door wide enough so that Frank could push in a tray of food, but she still didn’t speak.

Five days later, he was in the kitchen making his supper when she walked in, said good evening then carried on as if nothing had happened. She was fine after that, although the chemo nearly killed her.

Frank decided that now was as good a time to tell her as any, so he turned the key in the ignition, dropped the gear lever into drive, and snatched up the microphone to tell dispatch that he was booking off. That’s when he thought he recognized the guy waving to him from in front of the bus station.

Frank pulled a U-turn and stopped beside Earl.

----------

“Earl Timmins. That you?”

Earl had stared at the taxi driver for several moments before he recognized him.

“Frank Sheppard!” Earl shouted just as old friends did when a lifetime had passed since their last meeting.

Earl reached in through the passenger window and the two men shook hands.

“How you doin' Frank?”

“Same as always. Haven't seen you in these parts in years. How's the family?”

“Couldn't be better.”

“So who’s with you?” Frank asked, glancing about. “You ain't up here alone?”

“Wanda. Wanda's coming up to meet me... and Ian. In fact, Ian should be up here already. You haven't seen him have you?”

“Not sure I would recognize 'im if I did see 'im. Been a long time since you and the family spent a summer up these parts. You remember Mildred? Mildred Henry? Ran the flower shop on Main Street.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Married her. Been ten years now.”

“Good for you Frank. Sorry, I missed the wedding.”

“So when's Wanda supposed to meet you?”

“Anytime now. Frank? Wonder if you could give me a lift to the Waverly? I'm supposed to meet her there. She's driving up from the city.”

“Sure. Git in.”

Earl pulled open the door and climbed into the back where the air was cool and the seat much more comfortable than the one he’d spent the past two hours in. The interior was spotless, not an easy task for a country taxi. But Earl remembered from the few times he’d ridden in Frank’s personal car, a Cadillac Coupe de Ville, that Frank always kept it in pristine condition, inside and out.

“You still got that Caddy, Frank?”

Frank glanced into the rear view mirror and laughed,

“Hell no, sold that baby years ago. I’m a Ford man now. Say, where’s your suitcase?”

“Wanda’s bringing our clothes and things up with her.”

And with that Frank drove off, not abruptly like taxi drivers are apt to do in the city but casually and deliberately, checking first to make sure that no cars or bicyclists or pedestrians were nearby. 

Earl didn’t recognize Valle Verde: not the stores, not the shiny new post office, not the street signs, and certainly none of the people.

     “Lotsa things have changed since you were last here.”

“That’s for sure.”

“You remember the Lido? There on Fifth Street? Well, coupla years ago they ripped out the insides and put in four movie theatres. In the same building!

The Century Grill is gone too.

Oh, and we got our own Water and Power office.

And our own crime. Murder just last night. The convenience store there on Fleming and Third. The bad guy killed Mr. Roger’s boy then set him and the store on fire. Can you imagine? Now what kind of animal would do a thing like that?”

A rage suddenly filled Earl. A terrible rage that strained his very sanity. He wanted to scream to relieve the pressure but scream what? “My son is probably that animal! And yes, I am his father! And yes, I am so sorry!”

But Earl did not speak, much less scream. Instead he remained still, his face locked in an expressionless stare. Finally, when he felt it was safe, he took a deep breath and said with patient, carefully chosen words, “Could you hurry just a bit, Frank? Don’t want to miss Wanda.”

Frank looked into the rear view mirror and studied his friend. Earl was aware of Frank's gaze, but only vaguely. Instead, Earl struggled with the whirlwind of thought and emotion that swirled uncontrollably through his mind and soul. Slowly, a glimmer of light arose from the ashes of despair and he allowed himself a moment of hope.

Hope that it wasn’t Ian that hurt the Roger’s boy.

Hope that Ian would promise not to hurt any more people.

Hope that Ian would come home with him.

Hope that Wanda would continue loving him.

“They catch who did it?” he asked, trying to give his question the façade of casual inquiry.

“Not yet.”

It was then that Earl began tracing clockwise circles with his forefinger on the smooth vinyl seat and his breathing fell shallow and slow.

Earl Timmins couldn’t remember ever thinking about suicide in his whole life but now, sitting in the back of Frank Sheppard’s taxi, a foul darkness descended over his spirit and he began to consider what a total failure he was.

Those people his son killed would probably still be alive if Ian had had a different father. A better father, he thought over and over.

The darkness still enveloped Earl when Frank steered his taxi into the parking lot of the Waverly Diner and stopped.

Earl climbed out with difficulty and leaned in through the passenger window, his wallet open, his hand already pulling out a twenty. Frank just shook his head.

“Wouldn't hear of it.”

Earl smiled, remembering that there was no point arguing with Frank Sheppard.

“Thanks, Frank.”

“My pleasure.”

Frank quickly scanned the parking lot.

“Don't see Wanda. You want me to wait?”

“She'll be here any minute now. You go back downtown and see if you can get some paying fares.”

And the two men laughed.

“Well say hello to Wanda and the boy for me. Say! Why don’t the three of you stop in sometime for a beer or two? You remember where I live?”

“I remember. Thanks. We will.” And then Earl turned and began walking slowly toward the front door of the diner.

The Timmins family hadn’t been to the Waverly Diner in nearly fifteen years. It had been their favorite restaurant, mainly because of the garlic mashed potatoes. Wanda was crazy about them, Earl too. Ian liked them when he was smaller but not so much as he grew older.

The Waverly was run by Andrew and Thelma Ruddock. The diner had been in their family for years. Grandfather Ruddock built the one-room establishment in 1923. All the old timers ate at the Waverly; the new people, ‘The Outsiders’, the long-time residents called them, ate at McDonalds or Taco Bell, both of which seemed to pop up overnight, one on the northwest corner of Coolidge and Marvin Avenue and the other on the southwest corner.

The old timers wouldn’t be caught dead in either of them, although last year they started taking a shining to the coffee at the Winchell’s that opened up across from the Parker Street entrance to Valle Verde Park.

A visit to the Waverly was a requirement of any Timmins family country visit, no matter how short or long. One July 4 weekend they had three dinners there in a row. That was the time Wanda spent all night cooking food, then, didn’t realize until they reached the cabin that she had left all her hard work packed neatly into a cardboard box, on the kitchen table back in Torrance.

Boy was she mad.

Besides the garlic mashed potatoes, there wasn’t anything really special about the Waverly that set it apart from other country restaurants. The rest of the menu was passable, the coffee strong, the service friendly, but only if the waitresses, Fanny, and Marsha, were having a good tip day.

The regulars considered Earl and Wanda one of their own, even though they lived in the city. Partly because Earl once helped Andrew and Thelma put the roof on a new storage shed they had built out behind the diner. Andrew knew Earl was a carpenter and just wanted him to have a look at the trusses he and his brother-in-law had installed the day before. Ten minutes later, Wanda and Ian found Earl balancing on one of the walls, hammer in one hand and crowbar in the other, trying to straighten out the mess.

 Earl worked two days straight on that shed, right up to the time they had to leave for the city, and refused to accept one dime of payment, although Thelma made him take home a half-gallon sized Tupperware container of garlic mashed potatoes.

Earl took another ten steps or so toward the diner then glanced over his shoulder. Frank was gone so Earl turned around, weaved his way through the parked cars, and strode north on Del Valle.

Earl figured it was nearly two miles to the Hodges Cabin. A few minutes by car but much longer on foot. Earl’s step was strong but occasionally his heart began racing and stars danced before his eyes. It was long past time for him to take his medicine, but there was no point thinking about that now.

He had to find Ian. And soon.

-----------

Fanny was sure that the man she saw in the parking lot was Earl Timmins. But she only caught a glimpse of him as she poured a customer’s coffee and happened to look up.

 Funny that he didn’t come in and at least say hello, she thought, then wondered how he and Wanda were doing.

And that son of theirs. Now, what was his name? Cute enough face but cold eyes. What was his name?"

----------

“Jessie, this is Frank.”

    “Who’s calling in?”

    The ‘assembled in Malaysia, from components manufactured in South Korea’ Foster Industries Model 53 radio, which replaced the Heathcraft that Frank had built himself from a kit, always sounded tinny and hollow, but the boss said that they needed to improve their communication infrastructure, so there was nothing to be gained by pointing out that the new units sucked lemons.

    “Jessie, it’s Frank, can you hear me?”

    “Of course I can hear you, you’re clear as a bell… a bell submerged in twenty feet of water…and resting on the bottom…and stuck in ten inches of mud…an…

    “Booking off, Jessie. Going home.”

    “Ten four Frankie boy. You OK?”

    “Fine, just got some stuff to take care of. Talk to you tomorrow.”

    “Same time. Same station.”

    “You got it.”

    Way back when, Frank and Earl used to sit and talk for hours about different stuff. Some of it important and some of it just guy talk. So, Frank could have told Earl about Mildred and cancer but this morning just didn’t seem like the right time. Maybe if Earl took Frank up on his invitation and dropped by for a drink.

Maybe then.

Maybe.

Frank was nearly home then he suddenly turned left onto Lexington. He thought that he’d swing by Winchell’s and pick up one of those crumb donuts Mildred liked. Maybe one for himself, and a couple of coffees too. Once he got home, he’d take her out onto the veranda.

It was always easier to talk about serious stuff out there.

He probably wouldn’t show her the letter, just tell her what it said.

As Frank made a right off Martinez and pulled into the lane that led to the drive- through window, he glanced in through the front of Winchell’s. The old timers were all gathered around Simon Adams, who had today’s edition of the Signal spread out on the table. Frank couldn’t tell for sure, but he figured that they were reading about what happened to Mr. Roger’s boy.

Frank just shook his head and wondered silently, What kind of animal…!?

“Welcome to Winchell’s. May I take your order?”

CHAPTER 58:

Wallish and Mathison were both surprised when the call came over the radio. They figured they were well out of reception range and therefore ‘safe’. The Staff Sargeant’s instructions were clear and his tone abrupt. Wallish turned left into the first driveway, reversed then headed back to headquarters where the lieutenant was likely waiting to tear them a new asshole. They had been driving in silence for nearly half an hour when Mathison hit the ‘scan’ button once again and a familiar tune came on the radio. As Wallish listened to the original lyrics to Wade in the Water, his mind sang the words he learned long ago.

 “Free Huey Newton…free Huey Newton racist cops…free Huey Newton we need our brother beside us.”

Charles Wallish – ‘Charlie’ back then -  must have sung that song a million times back in the sixties. Mr. Newton was the organization’s leader and the police were always arresting him for something or other.

He sang it in marches.

Sang it on picket lines.

Sang it at community meetings.

Membership in the Black Panther Party of America, a Black Nationalist organization that championed the rights of the poor, usually required the applicant to apprentice for an unspecified amount of time.

Nineteen-year-old Charlie worked in the kitchen of the Saint Augustine’s Church, preparing hot breakfasts for between twenty to thirty elementary-school aged kids every morning.

The free program was started by the Panthers to address the fact that many poor kids, black and white, headed off to school every morning without a proper breakfast. Charlie worked the toaster, likely as close as he ever came to cooking, turning out dozens and dozens of evenly browned slices of bread, which he stacked symmetrically on a large platter.

The platter was then transported, by another apprentice Panther, into the cafeteria where the kids ate.

Charlie was an early riser even in his youth, so he didn’t mind having to get up at 5:30 Monday through Friday to make it to the church by 6:20. It was an unpaid position, of course, but Charlie loved it. His fellow workers were always upbeat, the parents appreciative and the kids…. well, decades later Charlie could still remember the smiles on those kid’s faces as they filled their stomachs with what may have been the only nutritious meal they would receive that day.

Charlie was never granted full membership in the Panthers. Some party officials suspected he was an undercover cop.

Charlie turned out toast for the Breakfast for Children program for about a year and only quit when his father needed some help to get around after his first heart attack. Eight years later Charlie did join the police department but never during the interview process did anyone mention his association with the Black Panthers, so neither did he.

---------

Cars, trucks, pedestrians and kids on bicycles.

Wanda didn’t remember there being that much traffic, but then again it had been a long time since she'd sat in Grandma’s rocking chair and just looked out the window.

 There was always so much to do.

Gardening, volunteer work, regular trips to the doctor for her and Earl, visits to Ian.

Always something.

But not today.

Today she had been doing nothing but sitting.

Sitting. Sitting. Sitting.

She had gotten up to use the washroom once. And about two hours ago she made herself a cup of tea.

But otherwise she had been just sitting, and watching.

Five hours and not one phone call: not from Earl, or Ian, or anybody.

The roar of an approaching car drew Wanda forward in her seat, but when it came into view she saw that it was just one of those flashy Japanese cars, like the ones young people were so fond of.

The most sun their living room ever got was a narrow strip of white around ten or eleven in the morning. The strip appeared gradually, moved quickly across the window ledge, over the Indian rug then climbed the globe lamp and disappeared. This morning Wanda noted its entire journey for the first time in years.

She wasn’t mad at Earl. She knew what he was like. How stubborn and holier than thou he sometimes got. But she wasn’t sorry for last night. He had no business going anywhere and he knew it.

Ian was their son, for better or worse.

When they got back, she resolved that she was going to take a much more active role in Ian’s life. Maybe enroll him in some night classes. Get him a gym membership. Insist on meeting all his friends so that he didn’t fall in with the wrong crowd again.

Just then a small boy, who couldn’t have been more than five, rode past the front of their house on his tricycle. A bedraggled woman in a loose fitting, navy blue, and exhibiting the worse slouch Wanda had ever seen, struggled to keep up with the boy.

When she was just about to the Timmins’s driveway, the woman turned and looked directly at Wanda.

Or at least Wanda thought that the woman was looking directly at her but, given the distance, the harsh morning light, and the reflection on the living room window, it was unlikely the woman could see Wanda at all.

Nevertheless, Wanda felt as if the woman was looking directly at her and the look was angry.

Wanda had no idea why.

It was nothing that Wanda had done; she had never seen the woman before in her life, but the clenched jaw, the narrow eyes, and the way the woman tightened her fists all conveyed her rage.

The woman continued her stare for only a second or so before turning her attention to the boy, who managed to veer toward the lawn, getting his right wheel stuck in a rut. The woman lovingly helped the child-free his wheel and then continued walking until she and the boy’s path carried them behind the Morris’s hedge and out of sight.

Wanda thought a long time about the angry woman. Occasionally sipping her stone cold tea and running her right hand, back and forth, over the rocking chair’s smooth armrest.

Wanda’s hand fell still when a big black sedan suddenly appeared and pulled to the curb across the street from the Timmins’s house. Wanda leaned forward to get a closer look then watched as the driver, one of those Indian guys with a greenish-colored turban, pulled out a street guide, studied it for a few moments then roared off.

 Earl probably figured that she was mad at him.

But she wasn’t.

Sure, she was pretty hot when he tried to drive off last night but she got over it quickly, Epsons always did. And, thinking back to last night, to be honest, she did kind of fly off the handle and felt bad afterward.

Guess that was part of the reason she had been sitting all this time.

Guilt.

And worry of course.

The motorcyclist was already going pretty slowly when Wanda first saw him pass their house and stop in front of the Peters’s, one door south.

Wanda decided that she would wait maybe an hour or two more then put up the streamers and banner in the foyer. She already had all the ingredients she needed for the chocolate cake – her husband’s favorite.

Maybe tomorrow she’d call the seniors’ centre in Whittier. They always needed volunteers. Ian could help out a couple of hours a week. It would look good on his resu…

The sudden ring of the telephone so frightened Wanda that it rang twice more before she finally composed herself enough to answer it.

“Hello.”

“Mrs. Timmins? This is Detective Wal…”

“Ian’s not here!”

“May I speak to your husband?”

“He’s not here either, now would you please just leave us alone!”

-----------

 Wallish’s next call, made from a payphone located in the parking lot of a Winchell’s Donut, was to the Buena Clarita Sheriff’s Department.

------------

The incline wasn’t steep, but it was taking its toll on Earl.

His right leg had developed a cramp in the calf that didn’t want to go away and a dull pain had settled just behind his eyes.

But mostly he was just tired and cold.

The cold part didn’t make a lot of sense because the late morning sun was full in his face and his clothes were soaked with sweat.

Earl had been walking for nearly forty-five minutes now up Del Valle, a narrow two-lane road that snaked north from the Waverly then dead-ended at Hasley Canyon Road. Earl figured that the Hodges Cabin was still another mile or so, but first he’d come to the Twin Palms Gas Bar, a stone’s throw from the cabin.

 “Twin Palms then the Cabin. Twin Palms then the Cabin,” he repeated aloud, then silently to conserve his strength.

A couple of cars flew past him while he limped along the dusty shoulder, two going his way and one, a pearl-white SUV, headed toward town. None of them stopped. He didn’t blame them. There was a time when he felt perfectly safe offering a stranger a ride but not anymore. Too many bad people out there.

CHAPTER 59:

Mr. Ferguson's SUV zoomed under the sun-bleached banner that read ‘Welcome to Valle Verde.’

If he hadn’t gotten lost, he might have arrived before the father could warn his kid. Now it was going to be harder.

Much harder.

The bright yellow ‘Fresh Pizza’ sign caught Mr. Ferguson’s eye so he swung into the parking lot and grabbed the first available spot. There were maybe seven cars and at least a dozen people hanging out in the parking lot, so he figured that it was a good place to begin his search.

Mr. Ferguson grabbed Ian’s photo from the passenger seat and climbed out of his car.

“Good morning. Have you seen this person?”

The teenager, probably no more than sixteen, barely looked up from his dog-eared issue of Time magazine. And when he did, it was to glance at Mr. Ferguson, not the photo.

“You a cop?” the kid asked as he continued to read about China’s new hydroelectric project on the Yangtze River.

“No….He’s my son and…he has Alzheimer’s… early onset…so he wanders.”

The kid turned to look at the photo and studied it for several seconds.

“Sorry.”

“You bet!” said one of the old men sitting in the center of a group of friends.

“You’ve seen him?”

“No. I ain’t seen him. At my age I don’t see much of anything. Alls I’m sayin’ is that I knew a fella with the Alzemmer thing.”

Mr. Ferguson allowed the man to finish speaking then turned and held Ian’s photo for the other men to see.

In turn, they each shook their heads.

“Thanks anyway,” Mr. Ferguon muttered then stepped out into the Valle Verde sun.

Somebody must have seen the Timmins kid!

-----------

Fanny couldn’t get that man’s face out of her mind.

It was Earl Timmins.

She was sure of it.

But why then didn’t he…

Maybe that city living finally got to him and, like the rest of those Angelinos, he started thinking he was too good for them.

And where was his car?

He was just walking.

Walking from where?

And where did Earl go?

---------

The first thing Mr. Ferguson noticed when he stepped through the door of the Waverly was the TV hanging from the ceiling in the far corner of the room.

The second thing was that not one person was watching the annoying talk show, although one or two people looked up whenever particularly loud canned laughter blasted from the TV’s small speaker.

Mr. Ferguson paused at the door, waiting to be seated but after a few moments he decided to take the only empty window booth.

Since he arrived in Valle Verde, he had spoken to at least fifty people. Not one of them had seen the Timmins kid or they weren’t saying.

Mr. Ferguson needed something to eat, but even more than food, he desperately needed a coffee, or two. 

-----------

Fanny had a pot of decaf in one hand, filling Chester Ahmed’s cup, his third refill for the morning, and collecting dirty breakfast dishes with the other hand when the new customer walked in so didn’t pay much attention to him.

The Waverly was a place for the locals to hang out, but it wasn’t unusual to have the odd stranger walk through the doors either. Especially since that industrial park opened north of them.

The guy was cute.

Had money.

But was way too old for her.

Fanny grabbed a menu from under the counter and hurried toward his window booth, but he’d already made up his mind.

“Just coffee and toast, brown, cut straight, not at an angle, and buttered right up to the edge, thank you.”

Lord save us! She shouted to herself.

Fanny hated those types. They had to have everything their way or not at all. Ten out of ten times, it was their mothers who spoilt ‘em. Fanny’s second husband was the same.

One day he spent half an hour showing her how to arrange his laundered clothes in the dresser drawer, by color: dark to light, blue to yellow.

“Just like the friggin’rainbow,” her words exactly.

They had been married just over three years when, one spring day, he didn’t come home.

No “Bye”.

No “I need my space.”

No, nothing. Just gone.

Not that she was surprised.

Working late. Moody. Strange credit card charges. Stopped complaining about his Barbie doll secretary.

Shocked the hell out of Mr. Barbie. Frannie heard that the poor fellow quit his job and just sat on the porch work waiting for his wife to come home.

Not Fanny.

She didn’t give a rat’s ass whether she ever saw Ole Rainbow Socks again. As far as she was concerned, he was a “lazy, limp dick, beer swigging, sack of shit,” her exact words whenever describing him, with special emphasis on the ‘dick’ and ‘shit’ to impress people with her poetic use of language.

“Would you like the cuts to run north-south or east-west?” Fanny asked ‘Buttered to the Edge.” But she guessed he wasn’t in the mood for ‘constructive sarcasm.’

“Beg your pardon?”

“Number three comin’ up!” Fannie announced for all to hear then dashed off, only to return moments later with a fresh pot of coffee.

She had just filled his cup when she noticed the photocopied picture lying on the table.

 “Ian! That was the kid’s name!” she whispered to herself.

--------

Mr. Ferguson’s eyes locked with Fanny.

“You’ve seen him?”

“Now how could I forget a name like that? My first husband’s father was named…”

“Have you seen him?” Mr. Ferguson repeated impatiently.

“Yeah. Last night. He and some lady friend of his. I didn’t recognize him then, haven’t seen the kid in what ten, maybe fifteen years, but yeah that’s him.”

“You know where he is?”

Mr. Ferguson figured that his last question must have triggered alarm bells in the waitress’s head because her face took on a hesitant expression and her body language, defensive.

“I’m a good friend of his; we were supposed to meet to go fishing."

But from Fanny’s cold stare, Mr. Ferguson realized that he was going to need something more impressive than words to sway the woman so he reached into his pocket and pulled a twenty out of his money clip.

“The kid owes me money,” he whispered, then set the twenty on the edge of the table.

Fanny snatched it up with blinding speed.

“Heard him mention something about the Hodges Cabin. Old man Hodges used to own it. Now the executor of his estate rents it…”

“Where?”

“Is that a second question?”

Mr. Ferguson jerked another twenty from his clip and set it on the table. Seconds later, it was buried in her hand.

“Keep goin’ north. About two miles. Turn left onto the first road past the Twin Palms. The Hodge’s Cabin is a couple hundred yards in. Can’t miss it.”

Mr. Ferguson leaped from his seat then bolted through the door. In less than thirty seconds, he was in his car, seconds later the Waverly was behind him as he raced north on Del Valle.

As he roared around a particularly angular curve, an emaciated coyote dashed in front of his SUV.

Mr. Ferguson swerved, and although he managed to avoid creaming the poor animal, he couldn’t recover fast enough to avoid skidding into the shallow ditch beside the road.

His SUV rolled once, then again, before finally coming to rest on its roof. Inside his battered car, Mr. Ferguson’s unconscious body hung in a limp mass from his lap belt as rivulets of blood ran down his outstretched arms and began to form a small pool on the underside of the SUV’s roof.

CHAPTER 60:

Wallish didn’t see the Post-it note on his computer monitor until he arrived for work and sat at his desk. He knew where to find his partner. Every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, Detective Zach Mathison had breakfast at Monica’s Grill, an airy diner on Melrose, just east of the Long Beach Freeway.

Detective Matheson parked free in the nearby public parking lot, a hand-lettered sign that read Police Emergency protected his 1999 Toyota Corolla from being ticketed or towed.

“He Charlie,” Mathison said through a mouthful of hashbrowns. “What’s up?”

Ten minutes later they were surrounded by a sea of rush hour traffic on the 405.

-----------

Sweat cascaded in torrents off Earl’s forehead, flooding his eyes with its salty brine.

He was becoming dehydrated and he knew it. The stars before his eyes were brighter now and moved slower across his field of vision. They seemed to have no discernible pattern, although most seemed to move from left to right.

And then there was his knee. The pain shot up his right leg and lodged in his hip, sometimes arching through his scrotum to the other side. It felt like something heavy was resting on his balls. 

The knee thing wasn’t new. It sometimes bothered him at work, but he could usually sit down for a couple of minutes and the pain would go away. But he couldn’t, wouldn’t rest. Besides, the Twin Palms was just around the next corner, or the next. He was sure of it.

When yet another downpour of sweat washed over his eyes, Earl started to reach into his back pocket for his damp handkerchief but, disturbingly, his right arm did not respond; instead it hung limply at his side.

He tried again to make it move, but again he failed.

It was as if the muscles had been severed, the nerves disconnected.

Finally, Earl used his left arm to retrieve his handkerchief, blotted his forehead and when he reopened his eyes, the Twin Palms Gas Bar was visible about a hundred yards up the road.

Earl glanced at his father’s Gruen then leaned slightly forward and tried to hurry his step, but his legs would have none of it and they maintained their snail’s pace.

It took nearly five minutes for Earl to cover the short distance to the rusting metal sign that stood at the corner of the lot. The sign, formerly of gleaming white enamel, rose from a thick solid base then split, forming the tops of the two palm trees. The green neon tubes that once were the palm trees’ leaves had long since been broken out by vandals. Now even the green paint that represented the leaves in daylight had faded to orange, giving it more the look of a large carrot than a once vibrant palm.

Earl’s path took him directly under the sign, past a phone booth and up to the front door of an aluminum-clad, one room office that looked out on the two surprisingly modern gas pumps.

One for regular.

 One for premium.

It took only a couple twists of the front door knob for Earl to figure out that it was locked. Just then he saw the handwritten sign, scrawled in capital letters on the back of a blank Visa credit card form. “BACK IN AN HOUR”.

Earl leaned heavily on the doorknob, grateful to have the support, little though it was. There was no bench within sight, only a pile of used tires off to the side, the rubber decaying minute by the minute under the harsh sunlight.

Earl stood upright then, gathering his strength, took a hesitant step, then another and another until he had walked around the side of the building. There he found that the door to the men’s washroom was also locked, but, perhaps as a result of haste or an administrative oversight, the women’s washroom was open. Earl entered immediately, then locked the door behind him.

The air in the six by seven, windowless enclosure must have been at least ten degrees hotter than outside, but Earl was grateful for the refuge. He sat immediately on the toilet barely glancing to see if the lid was down. Fortunately it was, although Earl wouldn’t have cared one way or the other.

The sink, shining brightly from a recent cleaning, was within arm’s reach and Earl twisted the cold-water tap full on. The pipes popped and groaned for a moment before a rusty orange liquid burst from the nozzle. Earl waited for the water to turn reasonably clear then splashed great handfuls of it on his face and over his head.

His vision had begun to clear a bit now. The shooting stars were gone but his right arm was still unresponsive and that worried him.

Earl had just taken two refreshing sips of water from his cupped hand when a black curtain began to descend over his eyes and without having time to brace himself, his body fell forward, his head drooped on the edge of the sink, and he fell, helplessly, into another world.

-----------

At first, all Earl could see was the deep blue sky, framed on all sides by the yellow crowns of sugar cane plants. Then, slowly, he began to rise, float really, up into the air. Finally, he was looking down at himself. Dressed in his work clothes, a half-dozen golden stakes, the same ones that once held down the Satin Woman, now pierced his shirt and pants. Suddenly an unseen chorus sang a familiar refrain.

    “Bluuuuuueeeee!” and the sound of many hands clapping at once split the air.

    Earl looked from side to side and found that he was surrounded by dozens of the little people.

All of them staring up at the sky.

Earl raised his right hand and began waving as he spun clockwise. When he had completed the full circle, he spoke to his double, directly below him on the ground.

    “I know why,” Earl admitted.

    “Earl! Is that you?” his captive double asked.

    And then a great weakness overtook Earl and he felt himself falling, and falling.

When Earl opened his eyes, he found that he was now lying on the ground. The crowd of little people, each one holding a golden spike in one hand, and a rubber mallet in the other, knelt then began driving the spikes into his clothes while laughing merrily. As they worked, red beads of sweat dripped from their chins and noses and splattered on Earl.

------------

“Earl Timmins! That you?”

Earl tried to open his eyes fully but halfway was all he could manage. He didn’t recognize the man standing in front of him, but the voice was familiar.

“I know you. Sorry, I forgot your…?” Although Earl’s slur teetered on the edge of the incomprehensible, Johnny was able to make out what he was saying.

“Johnny. Johnny Bristol.”

“Hey, Johnny.”

You drunk, Earl?” Johnny asked accusingly as he set down his mop and bucket.

“No. No.” Earl replied just before the black curtain descended once again and he slept. For how long he didn’t know, but he was drawn back into the world of the waking by the sound of Johnny’s voice coming from far, far off in the distance.

“Well, if you ain’t drunk then what the hell are you doing in the ladies’ washroom?”

“Not feeling well. Sorry.”

Johnny studied Earl for a moment then set down his mop and pail and grabbed him under his arms and lifted.

But Earl didn’t budge.

“Can’t do this all myself. You have to do yure part.” And with that Earl set his feet firmly on the floor and pushed. Rising slowly, but rising nevertheless.

“Not feeling well. Sorry,” Earl mumbled just as his legs gave out and he sank. Johnny tightened his grip on Earl’s arm and although he couldn’t support all of his weight, it was enough.

Flexing muscles he could not feel, Earl stood again, slowly.

“Well come on. Let’s get you to the office and get some coffee into you.”

“Hard candy,” Earl muttered.

“Well OK. Got some of that in the vending machine.”

Johnny managed to wrestle Earl out of the washroom and around the side of the building to the now-open front door. Johnny guided Earl to the padded desk chair, which was more black electrical tape than original brown vinyl and set him down gently.

Earl sat up straight, just for appearances sake.

“Hold on just a sec,” Johnny said as he rummaged through his pockets for change. “Lifesavers OK?”

Earl nodded.

The Carousel Company vending machine required one dollar for candy and fifty cents for gum. Johnny found seven quarters and a few dimes in his pocket so he figured he’d buy two packs.

Earl jerked the paper wrapper off the first roll and set three onto his tongue.

“Diabetes?”

Earl nodded.

Took my older brother, God rest his soul, you remember Stanley? Tall fellow, loved anything fried.”

“You got any orange juice?”

“Cranberry do?”

Earl nodded then popped two more Lifesavers into his mouth. Johnny returned with an unopened bottle of juice, which he set on the desk atop a pile of dusty invoices.

Earl pulled out his wallet and began to open it, but Johnny just shook his head. Earl paused then slipped the wallet back into his pants pocket.

“Thanks,” Earl mumbled through a mouthful of round candy.

“Back in a jiff,” Johnny announced before strolling out the door.

The sugar passed easily through the lining of his stomach and into his bloodstream, rushing through his body and finally to his brain. Slowly, the fog lifted and Earl was able to think with greater clarity.

His right arm was even working now, but he knew it wouldn’t last, though.

He needed his medication and he needed to rest, but before any of that could happen, he needed to find Ian.

-------------

The broken water main sent a silvery plume into the air forming occasional rainbows that glimmered in the desert sun.

Wallish and Mathison had been stuck in the traffic jam for the past twenty minutes while the construction crew scrambled to contain the torrent of water their own backhoe had unleashed.

Cars were getting through but slowly, very slowly. The three or four inches of water that covered the road meant that driving at anything faster than a crawl would likely short out the ignition. All the two detectives could do was to wait their turn along with a couple of hundred other cars.

-----------

“Of course I know his name. Earl. Earl Timmins. Decent guy. You probably only met him once, maybe fifteen years ago at the Mary Winchester’s house. Earl beat the pants off all of us at Scrabble…His son? No, I ain’t seen his son. Don’t know if I’d recognize him if I… Well excuse me but I ain’t no doctor, Felix. All I know is that he’s at my station and he don’t look so good.”

Johnny swatted at the wasp that had somehow got into the phone booth with him. He didn’t want to hit it, les’ it made the little fellow mad; he only hoped that the turbulence from his passing hand would blow it out the partially opened door.

 It didn’t work.

“For Christ sake, what good’s the Sheriff’s Department then if you can’t just come get him. I sure don’t want the fellow to up and die on me out here.”

----------

Earl could see Johnny in the phone booth, and at first he didn’t think much of it, but the more he thought about it, the more he wondered why Johnny would pay a quarter to make a call when he had a phone on his desk.

 A battered pickup cruised to a stop beside the regular pump and stopped. The driver must have been in a hurry because he blew his horn even before he shut off the engine.

Johnny leaned out of the phone booth and shouted, “Be with you in just a sec!”

Earl continued to watch Johnny a few moments more then took a long drink of the cranberry juice, his first. The cold liquid burned at first but after the second or third sip it flowed smoothly, massaging his throat all the way down.

He was about to take another drink when it finally dawned on him that Johnny was probably calling the police.

Moving quickly now and without even thinking, Earl stood, stuffed the second roll of Life Savers into his pocket then tossed the used wrapper and empty juice carton into the trash basket and hurried toward the back door. It only took Earl a few seconds to unlatch the three deadbolts before stepping out into the noonday sun and quietly closing the door behind him.

Earl’s mind raced…

If the police get to Ian first…

Oh dear God.

 Ian might even hurt a policeman or heaven forbid, a policewoman.

 The cops have guns.

 Sweet Jesus! Guns!

I have to get to Ian before the police.

Before something terrible happens.

CHAPTER 61:

The tumbleweed dragged at Earl’s pant legs as he half sprinted, half stumbled over the desolate terrain parched by the desert sun and raked by the dry wind. The soles of Earl’s shoes, designed for concrete and asphalt, fought for traction.

The shooting stars were out again.

Not unexpected.

Earl knew that the medicinal effects of the candy wouldn’t last long. Fortunately, his right arm was still working because he needed it for balance as he struggled to remain upright over the uneven ground.

The hill overlooking the cabin was not far, perhaps two or three minutes at the rate he was traveling. Less, if he could coax his legs to move faster; so he tried, and for a few feet he picked up speed before the ground rose up and met him. Earl didn’t lie down intentionally. But in a way it was a welcome break. On the other hand, he couldn’t afford to rest.

As Earl sat on the ground he wished he were younger; he wished he had the strength to make it to the cabin, and, once there, he wished that he would be able to find just the right words to convince his son to surrender to the police.

To be honest, Earl had no real proof that Ian had hurt that man’s son, or that woman on the boat, or that poor man in the car…or God forbid the young Roger’s boy. It could have been coincidence or just…

Earl’s thoughts were suddenly thrown off course when he caught a fleeting glimpse of someone moving in the distance.

Someone short and blue.

------------

Even through the darkness, punctuated here and there by slivers of light that streaked from gaps between the boards covering the windows, the Hodges Cabin extruded rustic appeal.

A small kitchen with a gas stove, fridge, and sink was tucked into the northwest corner of the 20x20 living room, crowded inexplicably with three dining tables, a brown leather sofa, and six recliner chairs. All positioned in no discernible pattern.

The walls, papered with a lively motif of Victorian horse-drawn carriages on a cream background were largely bare. Although a photo of Huey Lewis, looking stately in his signature black leather jacket, hung in the center of the west wall.

The door that led to the bedroom was half open and unlike the few pristine open stretches of living room, the bedroom floor was littered with trash and empty beer bottles.

Inside the windowless room, Ian and Cynthia, both fully dressed, both deep in silent, motionless slumber, lay side by side on the bed.

Cynthia suddenly coughed, dragging her into the waking world.

Her eyes half opened first, then she moaned. It was only when she tried to move that she realized that her left wrist was tied with torn strips of bed sheet to the black iron bedpost.

Fearful she would wake Ian, she tugged at the knot with slow, smooth movements. Fortunately, she’d broken the nail on her right index finger about a week ago so she had little trouble loosening the entangled fabric.

She was within thirty seconds of freeing herself when Ian’s breathing grew faster and less uniform. Cynthia glanced about for a weapon. But there was nothing within sight, much less within reach. Then she noticed the ball-like ornament perched atop each end of the headboard. Cynthia once helped her brother Murray assemble their bed so she knew that the balls simply screwed on.

Ian spoke without moving his body or opening his eyes.

“Since you managed to get untied. Hand me a cigarette will ya Babes?

Cynthia jerked her right-hand free of the binding while turning the ornamental ball with her left.

“Sure.”

Cynthia would have liked to smash Ian in the mouth, breaking every single one of front teeth, but he was lying on his stomach so she had to be content with slamming the ball into the back of his head.

“Smoke that, asshole!”

Ian curled into a fetal position, covered his head with his hands, then rolled off the bed and hit the floor with a thud.

Cynthia stared at his still body for a moment then leaped off the bed, jerked the car keys from his pants pocket and bolted for the front door.

She remembered where Ian had set the booby-trap so she easily avoided catching her foot on the clear nylon fishing line strung about a foot above the floor.

    The fishing line trick was just one of the skills Ian picked up in prison.

-----------

“What’s the big fuckin’ secret? Why can’t you tell me? If it ain’t a bullet hole then what is it?”

Todd, or Mr. T as he liked to be called, was sick of the fuckin’ question. And just as tired of his new cellmate, although they’d only been together in 56B for a couple of weeks.

The kid was a pain in the ass.

Always asking questions about this and that. Questions about what Todd was in for (fraud), how he got caught (girlfriend ratted him out), how he got started in the business (his older brother) and how many other cellmates he’s had (plenty in the past five years).

“I don’t wanna talk about it, kid,” Todd called Ian kid, partially because of the age difference between them and partially because his first wife named their kid Ian and Todd didn’t like the name. He would have gone down to city hall to change it to something decent but he was serving five to ten for firearms possession at the time.

“Sure the fuck looks like a small calibre – .22 or .32.”

Todd never tried to hide the circular scar on the left side of his head, just above his ear. He even got Chris at Diablo’s Body Art to wrap a tattoo, of a fire-breathing, medieval dragon, around the scar. How he got it was a great story, but he got tired of telling it after five or six years. Actually, the scar had a twin brother, on Todd’s left butt but not many people knew about that the second one.

 “It ain’t a bullet hole; it was sort of a carpentry mishap,” Todd muttered, hoping that would satisfy the kid and allow him to get back to reading the April edition of  D-Cup Momma’s Magazine with one hand and spanking his monkey with the other. Todd was a tits man. Didn’t matter whether they were real or not, long as they were big. Both of his exes had jugs the size of watermelons. He wouldn’t have given them the time of day, much less married them, if they hadn't.

“You weren’t wearing your safety helmet?” Ian continued.

Todd paused while he wiped his cum off on the sheet with a facial tissue then slipped the magazine under his mattress.

“Wasn’t wearing anything at the time – just my birthday suit when the piece of board with nails fuckin’ hit me.”

“Holly fuck!”

“Booby trap. Husband set it 'cause he knew I was bonin' his wife. Every Thursday morning, three to four, like clockwork.”

Todd spent the next twenty minutes explaining to his cellmate how the booby-trap worked. Its construction, its triggering mechanism, materials, everything. The kid even badgered Todd until he finally drew him a diagram of the whole thing on the back of a paper towel.

The booby trap was pretty simple. Some transparent fishing line, three cup hooks, a steam iron or something heavy, and a wood plank five or six feet in length with nails, the longer the better, protruding through it every six inches or so. The only other components required were a dark room and someone you didn’t like.

Ian had no trouble finding the rusting toolbox once they broke into the Hodges

Cabin last night. It was just where he remembered it was -- inside the wooden cabinet next to the ancient propane stove.  Ian improved on the design by adding a horizontal cross bar, converting the studded portion into the shape of a cross, and giving it a wider reach.

Ian figured that out all by himself.

-----------

Cynthia staggered to the front door and jerked it open.

The sunlight assaulted her eyes, but she recovered and leaned headlong into the morning, slamming the door behind her.

She hurried to the Toyota and climbed in. Once the engine roared to life, she dropped the transmission into gear and raced off, with the tires spewing dust and dirt.

----------

What a wondrous and strange thing the human mind is. A gray ball of tissue and fluid, it lives by electric impulses that streak over and through it.

Microscopic electrons control what we think, see, and feel.

What we love and hate.

What we remember and forget.

But sugar and oxygen are the essential components of that electrical activity and Earl’s brain was running dangerously low of both. And he knew it.

Coming from out of nowhere, the little man in the blue tuxedo ran over the crest of a nearby hill then stopped not more than ten feet from Earl. The man had a solemn look on his face, a mischievous tilt to his head and eyes that glimmered with the radiance of a thousand golden sequins.

Earl was about to speak to him when he heard the car engine. He couldn’t really be certain but the sound seemed to come from in the direction of the cabin. Earl struggled to his feet and began running. The little man stepped directly into Earl's path and raised his stubby arms as if trying to block Earl.

Neither man did anything to avoid the impending collision. Instead, Earl continued his frenzied rush while the little man stood his ground. Earl felt nothing as they collided and didn’t look back to see if he had harmed the little man.

----------

The cloud of billowing dust followed Cynthia all the way to the smooth tarmac of Del Valle where she turned right, heading toward town.

She decided to ditch the car just outside the city limits, wipe her fingerprints off the steering wheel and door and everywhere else, then go home and act like nothing happened.

With any luck, her stepfather wouldn’t be off work yet and her mother, well Cynthia hadn’t seen her mother stumble out of her bed until at least one or two in the afternoon in years. It took that long for the Ripple, her Mom’s wine of choice, to work its way out of her system.

    No one had seen her with that psycho anyway she figured, except the kid in the store, and he was probably… Well, he was probably in no condition to say shit.

    Cynthia had just come around a curve, not speeding but driving right on the limit when she saw the hitchhikers, their arms extended, their thumbs in the air. She hit the brakes just from shock then immediately floored the gas pedal until she was safely past the pair.

No way she was gonna pick up a short black guy in a blue tuxedo and a tall woman in a white satin dress.

-----------

Just when Earl didn’t think he could go any further, he finally reached the top of the last hill. The Hodges Cabin lay directly before him, not more than two hundred feet down a gentle slope.

He looked for a car or something powered by a motor, something that would have made the noise he heard, but saw nothing.

It didn't matter.

Earl paused to get his breath then charged down the hill.

The front door was closed, but thankfully, not locked.

Earl shuffled a few feet inside then paused while his eyes adjusted to the darkness. The living room was crowded with furniture, most of which he recognized. But the red, vinyl-covered easy chair, the fake brass floor lamp, and the red leather footstool were all new additions – at least new within the last fifteen years.

Earl didn’t see anyone sleeping on the sofa so he figured that Ian, assuming he hadn't just driven away, was in the bedroom, and since the interior of that room was deathly silent and pitch black, his son was probably asleep, if he was there at all.

Sweet Jesus, what am I doing? he thought, but dismissed the moment of doubt just as quickly. It was too late to turn back now, even if he wanted to, and he didn’t. He couldn’t.

Earl worked out two paths that would lead to the bedroom door. One would take him left, around the love seat and past the footstool, and one to the right, which would lead him between the small kitchen and the lamp. He decided to go left. For no reason other than the path seemed shorter.

He had just shifted his weight to his left foot, ready to step forward when the wooden floorboard creaked loudly.

From within the bedroom, Earl heard the rustle of clothing then Ian moan.

“Cynthie?” Ian called in a groggy voice.

Earl’s heart began to race.

He didn’t know how his son would react to his unannounced visit, so Earl thought it would be best if he surprised Ian while he was still at least partially asleep.

So Earl hurried, from where he stood, around the love seat and then on a straight path to the door never even noticing the slight pressure on his shin as his left leg snagged the trip line.

    Although the steam iron raced toward the floor, the elasticity of the fishing line delayed the rise of the nail-studded board so instead of hitting Earl vertically, it struck at an angle with one nail slamming into Earl’s chest and another into his hip, neither penetrated his clothes. But it shocked the hell out of Earl.

“Jesus!” he shouted.

A moment later Ian rushed from the bedroom, brandishing the same ornamental ball that Cynthia used to dent his skull.

“Dad! What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to take you home.”

“Not fuckin’ likely,” Ian replied but before Earl was able to press his point a dull orange flash lit up the room and an ear-splitting gunshot pierced the silence.

The doorframe, a few inches to Ian’s right, splintered violently. 

The next sound was the jingle of a spent bullet casing as it hit the floor. Earl turned around to see who fired the shot.

Even in the semi-darkness he recognized the man; it was Mr. Ferguson.

Out of the corner of his eye, Earl noticed Ian drop the ball then slowly raise his hands into the air.

“Stop it!” Earl shouted, but Mr. Ferguson didn't lower his gun, instead he awkwardly shifted it to his left hand, then, while keeping the muzzle pointed at Ian, reached out to the wall and flipped the switch.

Mr. Ferguson was a mess. The entire left side of his head was covered with a glistening crimson veil, his ear dangled by a narrow strip of pale flesh.

Earl didn’t know who to watch, Mr. Ferguson or his son so he divided his attention equally between the two.

    “What's your problem, sport?” Ian demanded.

“You murdering bastard, Tony was my son,” the man shouted while repeatedly squinting, as if he was having difficulty focusing his eyes.

“Who the hell is Tony? Never heard of him, you got the wrong guy. Tell him, Dad.”

“Please mister,” Earl said in a whisper then noticed his son backing up.

Earl took a half step toward Mr. Ferguson but stopped abruptly when the man turned and pointed the gun at Earl’s chest. “I’ll kill you too if I must. I will.”

Just then Mr. Ferguson turned the gun toward Ian and took aim but his injuries must have been even worse than they appeared because Mr. Ferguson suddenly doubled over in pain and a frothy mixture of blood and mucus spewed from his mouth and nose with gut-wrenching force.

As the Mr. Ferguson dropped to his knees, Earl noticed that Ian had disappeared into the bedroom.

Earl paused, trying to decide whether to help the man or go for help.

He had just taken a step toward Mr. Ferguson when a full beer can rocketted through the air and smashed against the wall directly behind the kneeling man. Before Earl had a chance to turn toward the source, another can zipped through the air. This one found its mark, slamming into Mr. Ferguson’s head with such force that the impact sprayed blood onto the wall behind.

Mr. Ferguson’s body remained motionless for a moment before he first dropped the pistol, then his athletic frame, now seemingly devoid of muscle or bone, hit the ground like a bag of cooked oatmeal.

Both Earl and Ian, holding his knife in his left hand, dove for the pistol at the same time, but although Earl tried his best to gain control of it, Ian was stronger and quicker.

 “Put the gun down, Son,” Earl said in a calm voice as he stepped in front of Mr. Ferguson and directly into his son’s line-of-fire.

 “He tried to kill me Daddy!”

Earl lunged, hoping to knock the pistol from Ian’s hand, but Ian waved the knife  menacingly and Earl retreated.

“What did I tell you about guns? Put it down!” Earl shouted, but Ian did not. And so, father and son stood apart, face-to-face, neither backing down, neither moving until Mr. Ferguson groaned then coughed up more blood.

Earl turned, pulled the cover off a nearby sofa and used it to cover Mr. Ferguson’s chest and shoulders, all the while keeping his body between the two combatants.

“Help me lift him. We have to get this man to the hospital.”

But Ian was unmoved by his father's command; instead he dashed to the left, where he had a clear shot and took aim. But again Earl stepped between his son and the injured man.

“What are you doing? We never taught you this! I never…”

“It’s self-defense. Daddy. He was trying to shoot me, maybe you too!”

“You killed his son, didn’t you?”

“No!”

“And the woman on the boat…”

“No! I never…”

“And that man in the parking lot and the boy at the convenience store?”

“No, Daddy. No.”

“Tell the truth, son!”

“I never hurt any of those people. ‘Respect all life.’ You used to tell me.”

“You remember?”

“Of course. Of course I remember.”

Earl adjusted the blanket covering Mr. Ferguson then noted that the man had fallen motionless except for his eyelids, which still flickered with life.

Ian lowered his gun a few inches then scanned the interior of the cabin.

“You remember the Hodges Cabin, Daddy?”

Earl looked up and tried to see through the tears in his eyes.

“I remember.”

“I had some of the best times of my life in this cabin. I really did.”

“Son, this man needs...”

“How’s Mommy, she OK?”

“She’s worried, Son. Like me. Worried.”

“I can’t go back to jail, Daddy. I just can't.”

“Unless we can prove that you didn't hurt those people you might have to.”

“No fuckin' way. It’s terrible in that place. Please don't let them take me. They said bad things about you and Mommy in there.”

“What do you mean?”

“The prison psychiatrist said I set fire to that man 'cause I was abused as a child and it was my way of...”

“Abused? Who abused you?”

“I had to tell him that you used to beat me...”

“Beat you? Your mother and I spanked you. We never beat you. We spanked you. Maybe five or six times in your whole...”

Ian smiled then said in a calm, almost apologetic tone, "Dad. You’ll never be able to come to terms with your transgressions unless you honest confront your..."

"We never beat you!"

“That's a fuckin lie!”

 "Watch your mouth, Son!"

Ian smiled defiantly and looked directly into his father’s face.

 “Fuck… fuck… fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck."       

Earl saw Mr. Ferguon’s right foot move but before he could react the entire leg swung violently, knocking Ian off-balance but not upending him as he had hoped.

“Asshole! That’s the last time you’ll try that shit.” Ian shouted as he raised the gun.

Earl reacted immediately, rushing at his son and pinning his arms with a bear hug, but Earl’s charge was so quick that his momentum toppled both father and son and they hit the floor with a bone-crunching thud.

The pain in his side was sharp and immediate and Earl feared that he had cracked a rib. But despite his discomfort, Earl continued to hold on to his son.

Hold on for dear life.

His son’s life.

Ian squirmed and kicked, but when that failed he used his head.

The first head butt connected with his father’s mouth, splitting his lower lip.

The second hit Earl square in his forehead.

Ian leaped to his feet the moment he felt his father’s arms fall slack but to his surprise, Ian discovered that the pistol was no longer in his hand.

Ian searched frantically for the gun, but Earl knew he wouldn’t find it. That was because the pistol lay beneath Earl’s left thigh. And there it would have remained if Ian hadn’t shoved his father to the side. Fortunately, Earl’s hand was closer to the gun then Ian’s and he was able to grab it first.

Ian quickly retrieved his knife from the floor then smirked as his father rose to his feet.

“What are you gonna do Daddy…Shoot me?”

“No, Son. I couldn’t do that. But I need you to put down the knife. I need you to put it down now. We have to end this thing.”

    “Yes. Shoot him. Shoot the bastard,” Mr. Ferguson slurred.

    Ian charged at the injured man, screaming, “Shut your mouth you fuckin...”

    But Earl shoved Ian back with a push so powerful that his son fell on top of the bowling ball bag, breaking the bottles inside.

    Gasoline streamed over the polished oak floor, wetting the back of Ian's shirt and forming a pool at his feet.

Ian rose first to his knees, getting them wet with gasoline, then stood fully, and charged, only to come to an abrupt stop when Earl suddenly raised the pistol and fired a shot into the air.

Bits of gray plaster and wood splinters floated down from the ceiling.

---------

TIMMINS, Ian McCarthy, born September 25, 1972, died tragically on June 20, 1992. Loving son of Earl and Wanda Timmins. Alumni of Torrance High School. Survived by his parents, aunt Enni Sloane and cousin Caroline Pyette.

-------------

“OK. Here’s the deal. I'll help you carry the old guy to the road then I take off and you flag down a passing car.”

“‘Fraid I can’t let you 'take off' son.”

“I never hurt those people! You, believe me, don't you?”

“No, Son. I’m afraid I don’t.”

“OK, Dad. I confess. You got me. I guess jail ain't so bad. Couple more years and I’ll be out anyway. I don’t know why yur so upset. Every one of those fuckers deserved what they got.”

“What did you just say?”

“You got wax in your ears, Dad? Isn’t that what you always used to say? You got wax in your ears son? Wax in your ears son. Now give me the gun before you hurt yourself.”

    "No."

    Just then Ian feigned shock and pointed to something behind Earl, "Dad! Look out!"

 Earl had only made a quarter turn when Ian grabbed the gun barrel and tried to jerk it from his father’s hand, but Earl hung on tightly.

“Don't son. Please.”

Ian smiled then began twisting the pistol.

The muzzle flash lit up the room for only a microsecond, but the sharp sound and the acrid smoke lingered in the air.

Ian's smile turned to horror when he looked down at his chest and saw blood oozing from a perfectly round hole just below the top button of his shirt. 

“Daddy?” He said with innocent bewilderment as he probed the depths of his father’s eyes.

When Earl fired the second time, the muzzle flash set Ian’s hands ablaze, then his arms, then his chest as the flame consumed its host with avaricious zeal.

Ian let out a banshee-like scream then fell to the floor, writhing in agony.

Earl’s third shot stilled Ian’s body; the fourth and fifth had no effect on his son’s inert form, now the center of a roaring inferno that sent flames eight feet into the air.

The smoke from the burning clothes and flesh, and hair quickly filled Earl's lungs and he began to cough violently.

Mr. Ferguson crawled to where Earl knelt, slipped the gun from his hand and pointed it at what was left of his son's killer.

But he didn't fire. Instead he simply pointed the gun and pointed, and pointed until Earl finally turned and said to him, “It's finished.”

CHAPTER 62:

When Johnny returned to the service station office, he had no idea where Earl had run off to but he figured that he had better phone Deputy Sheriff Murray back to tell him not to bother to send an ambulance.

Johnny was still on the phone with the Sheriff when he heard the first shot, the Sheriff heard it too and said that he’d be right out as soon as he finished the report he was working on. 

The sound of gunshots was noting new. Johnny had trouble before with people shooting' at rabbits or empty beer cans or signs – anything.

A real pain in the ass.

And dangerous.

Two years ago one-weekend warrior put a bullet hole through the roof of the Twin Palms. Actually, two holes if you count entry and exit.

Johnny had already ended his call to the Sheriff when the second shot rang out, then the third shot, fourth, and fifth.

Then silence.

Johnny was certain they came from the direction of the Hodges cabin and, although he was curious, he wasn’t interested in stopping a stray bullet.

The Sheriff drove past the Twin Palms, likely on his way to the Hodges Cabin, as Johnny was finishing off the meatloaf sandwich his wife made him for lunch. A few minutes later there was a siren then a couple minutes after that, an ambulance raced past.

It wasn't until he saw the two California Highway Patrol cars that Johnny's curiosity overcome his caution and he climbed into his pick-up.

Johnny was driving straight toward the thick column of grey-black smoke belching into the baby blue desert sky when he noticed the yellow police tape stretched across the road.

Johnny pulled his battered Ford F-150 on to the shoulder and parked in the soft dirt. A knot of people, some of them locals from town, stood at the crest of the hill, about a hundred feet from the road where a young Deputy stood guard, watching to make sure that no one went past the tape, attached at one end to a tumbleweed and at the other, to the door handle of his car.

The crowd of gawkers included Lloyd Martin, the town’s barber, Phyllis Everett, who worked in the post office, and a guy in his 20s who Johnny has seen around town but didn't know his name.

The ruler-straight line of smoke that Johnny noticed the moment he stepped out the front door of his gas station didn't originate from the cabin's chimney as he had expected, but instead, billowed through a jagged, black hole in the roof.

At ground level, fire trucks and cop cars, all with their emergency lights spinning dizzily in the desert sun, surrounded the cabin.

Three fire fighters, stripped down to their T-shirts, their suspenders hanging to their knees, worked at rolling up a fire hose. One fire fighter, still in full gear, trained a wide shower of water on the still smoldering roof.

The first person the ambulance team brought out by stretcher through the cabin's front door looked alive but Johnny figured that the second guy, enclosed in a black body bag, had probably gone to meet his maker.

The two ambulances drove single file up the hill. When they were about a hundred yards away, a young Deputy Sheriff, who Johnny had never seen before, unfastened the yellow tape from the door handle of his cop car and let the two ambulances pass. He then reattached the tape, did his best to brush the dirt off his shoes then resumed his guard duties.

It was only after a few minutes that Johnny noticed the legs of a man sitting half in and half out of Sheriff Murray’s patrol car. Johnny couldn’t see the guy’s face, it was buried deep into his hands, but Johnny could see the Sheriff kneeling on the ground beside the man, the officer’s hand resting on the man’s shoulder as if he was trying to provide some comfort to the fellow who seemed to be saying the same thing over and over.

----------

“Oh God, no! No! No! Oh God please…please!”

----------

Although the man’s features were blackened with soot, the Sheriff Felix Murray recognized Earl the moment he saw him sitting on the floor of the cabin. Earl looked older, but he still had that kind, honest face the Sheriff remembered. Felix liked Earl the moment they first met that night at Mary Winchester’s house. Even though he was from the city, Earl had a way about him that made him seem just like regular folk. It was Earl that taught Felix how to dovetail joints so that they come out perfect every time.

Felix was the first officer on the scene. He dragged the Ferguson fellow out of the smoke-filled cabin then went back in to get Earl.

The ambulance arrived soon after.

“Earl? Earl? It’s Felix Murray. Sheriff Murray. We met once at Mary’s place. You beat me pretty bad at Scrabble. Remember?” 

But Earl just sat there, his butt half-on and half-off the cruiser's rear seat.

His legs outstretched.

His hands enveloping his face.

His head down.

“Earl?” The Sheriff repeated, softer this time, as he would to a friend.

Earl remained frozen for a few moments more then suddenly shifted his eyes to Felix as if he just realized that the man had spoken to him, but he didn’t know what he had said.

“Felix?”

 “Yep, it’s me. You and Wanda ain’t been up these parts in a while.”

“Wanda?”

“Earl. Do you know where you are?” Earl lifted his eyes and read the sign above the cabin door.

“Mr. Hodges Cabin.”

“That’s right. Just like the sign says.”

“Earl, the other man, Samuel Ferguson, you know him?”

“No. Not really I jus…”

“Well, that Ferguson fellow talked up a storm before they took him off to the hospital. Said your boy came at the two of you with a knife. That true Earl?”

Earl paused for what seemed like forever. And in his mind it probably was.

“Ian is my son.”

“I know that Earl. What I need to know is if attacked you that knife we found.”

“Ian.”

“The gun was still in your hand when I found you so I assume it was you that shot… shot the deceased.”

“Ian.”

“The Ferguson fellow said you fired a warning shot. That true?”

It took a moment for the words to register but when they did Earl’s face contorted and, with his hands clasped in front, he cried ever so quietly while rocking back and forth.

“I shot my son! I shot my son!”

Deputy Sheriff Boyle, one of the officers on the scene walked up quickly, “The two detectives said they were still about thirty minutes aw…” but Felix silenced him with a wave of his hand.

 “I shot my son. Hodges Cabin. Ian son. Daddy.”

Sheriff Murray couldn’t even pretend to understand the terrible pain that Earl Timmins was feeling and, as a father himself, he hoped that he would never have to.

 From Earl’s dead eyes, blank expression, and incoherent rambling, Sheriff Murray figured that Earl’s mind had gone inside itself to rest and hide in a place where sound, and light and pain didn’t exist.

A safe, quiet place where speech was unnecessary. Movement forbidden. And time stood still.

Sheriff Murray set his hand on Earl’s shoulder and left it there while he tried to decide what to do.

After a few minutes, Deputy Boyle scurried from his patrol car parked nearby and whispered to the Sheriff, “The detectives said it was OK with them if it was OK with you.”

Felix continued to stare at Earl for a moment then squatted in front of him and looked into Earl’s face.

“Earl we’re gonna send you home, ya hear?”

One of the words was strong enough to get Earl’s attention. “Home?”

“Yes, that’s right. We’re gonna send you home while we continue our investigation here. More testing and the like. In the meantime, you can go. But once you get home you stay home so we know where to find you. You understand Earl? Go home and stay home."

“Home.”

“We called you a taxi. It’ll be here anytime now.”

Earl glanced at the Sheriff, then at the sign over the door, then back at the Sheriff, then at the sign again.

Eventually, his eyes settled on some nondescript section of the ground.

“Home."

And that was the last word Earl said before he drifted back to his private place.

-----------

The talk with Mildred hadn’t gone well. She didn’t cry or anything after he told her about the letter, she just sat quietly, not really saying anything.

When he mentioned the Mexican cancer clinic that his brother Meyer had seen on TV, she sort of smiled and said that it sounded like a good idea. Then she took up her needles and started knitting, and knitting, and knitting.

Frank asked his wife if she wanted to go into town and get an ice cream or something, but she didn’t answer. Instead, she just kept knitting and knitting. There was really nothing he could do when she got like that, so he didn’t mind it when the dispatcher called him at home and asked if he could take a customer to the city.

Those kind of fares were good money and chances were that any kind of Mexican clinic was going to cost a heap of cash – cash they didn’t have.

Frank pulled to a stop behind the yellow police tape and waited for the Deputy Sheriff to reach his driver’s window.

“Deputy Sheriff Murray called for a taxi.”

“Just a moment, sir.”

Frank watched as the young Deputy Sheriff walked to his car, pulled out the microphone and began to speak. He couldn’t hear what the young fellow said, but it wasn’t much.

The crowd of people standing twenty feet to his left were looking at something so intensely that none of them seemed to noticed him.

The young Deputy suddenly returned the microphone to its clip on the dashboard then walked briskly toward Frank’s taxi.

“You may proceed, sir. Straight down the hill. Sheriff Murray is waiting for you at the front of the cabin.”

Frank dropped his taxi into gear and drove forward slowly, waiting for the yellow tape to be removed from his path. Once over the crest of the hill, exhaled sharply and muttered to himself.

“What the hell?!!!”

-----------

Tuesday, June 20, 2008 - Incident Report, page 3 of 10 - Filed by: Sheriff Felix Murray, Badge #6795

“After we removed Mr. Timmins from the cabin, and his diabetic emergency was stabilized by the attending paramedics, I placed him in the back of my patrol car, with the door open. I remained with Mr. Timmins for approximately thirty minutes. Although Mr. Timmins remained in semi-dazed state, he was able to confirm that he had acted in self-defense. A claim supported by Mr. Samuel Ferguson, whose statement is attached.

At approximately fifteen hundred hours, Deputy Sheriff Boyle advised me that he had just completed a radio conversation with Detective Charles Wallish, badge #3464, of the Marina Del Rey Police Department. Detective Wallish, the senior investigating office on the Molotov Murder case, authorized the release of the deceased suspect’s father pending our continuing investigation and the autopsy results on the deceased. As two vehicles were tied up at the scene (#34 and #36) and car #38 was currently in the shop for repair, the Santa Clarita station had no means of transporting Mr. Timmins back to his home in the city. And as Ms. Connie Watson of the Valley Ambulance and Medical Transportation Service advised against allowing Mr. Timmins to take public transportation, I immediately asked Deputy Sheriff Boyle to call Frank Sheppard, a local taxi driver who the department had hired in the past.

Mr. Sheppard arrived at the crime scene at approximately fifteen forty-two. I instructed Mr. Sheppard to drive Mr. Timmins to his home, located at 2451 Arlington Avenue in the City of Torrance and to bill the Department for the full cost of the fare plus the usual gratuity of ten percent.

Mr. Frank Sheppard and I helped Mr. Timmins walk from my patrol car to Mr. Sheppard’s taxi. As per the information from the attending medical personnel, Mr. Timmins was noticeably stronger after being treated but was still unstable on his feet.

Mr. Sheppard’s taxi, with Mr. Timmins sitting in the back seat, departed the crime scene at fifteen fifty-six. I resumed my supervisory duties, overseeing the collection of evidence, maintaining crime scene security and liaising with the various emergency service personnel. It was in the course of our detailed search of the interior of the cabin that Deputy Boyle and I discovered…. (report continued on next page).”

-----------

Frank noticed it as soon as he saw Earl’s eyes. He had the same look as Jeannie before she died.

It was kind of hard to describe to someone who hadn’t seen it.

Frank was talking to Woodie Ing, a freelance photographer from Sacramento, who was in Valle Verde a couple months ago to cover some story about coyotes. Frank drove Woodie around the whole of one day and most of the next. Frank couldn’t remember how they got onto the subject of suicide, but Woodie knew the look. Said when he worked as a staff photographer for the Sacramento Bee he had the misfortune of having to cover a half-dozen suicides, mostly jumpers.

Usually, he’d get there after the fact, but once, maybe two times, he arrived when the jumper was still perched on the bridge, or window ledge, or the like. He’d seen the look in their faces. And each time it was the same.

Empty.

Haunting.

Like the person wasn’t really in their own body. Like they had already died and that only an empty shell remained.

Frank’s sixteen-year-old niece, Jeannie, had that look the last time he visited her in the hospital. The next day the morning shift nurse found Jeannie dead on the floor of her room, her wrists sliced over and over with a ballpoint pen.

    Earl had that look and it made Frank sad... and afraid for his friend.

-------------

Traffic on the southbound 405 was a mess so it took Frank nearly three hours just to reach the 10, then another forty-five minutes before the volume of cars thinned around LAX.

    During the whole trip, Earl never said a word, but then again, neither did Frank.

    It was just past six when Frank turned onto Earl’s street. The block started at 2900 so Frank figured that Earl’s house was about midway down.

    Frank recognized Ole Grand immediately, pulled in behind her, and parked.

He and Earl sat motionless and silent for maybe a minute or two, neither men looking at anything in particular.

----------

Sheriff Murray and Deputy Sheriff Doyle had to wait about an hour for the forensic photographer just to arrive. Then another forty-five minutes for her to take the necessary photos.

The team from Fowler’s Mortuary was finally able to move the deceased around 4:30.  Even that late in the day it was still stifling hot inside the Hodges cabin. Being the senior investigating officer, the Sheriff entered first and, as was his style, he paused just a few feet into the crime scene and tried to piece together what went on and the logistics of where the events occurred.

    The interior of the cabin was a mess. The firefighters had moved some of the furniture so that they could get at the ceiling.

Felix stepped a foot or so into the cabin and began his scan of the interior. From where he stood he noted the bullet-shattered door frame, the section of scorched floor where the Timmins boy died and the blood trail that likely represented Mr. Ferguson’s path through the interior.

    After a few minutes, he was satisfied with the probable accuracy of his mental reconstruction of the events.

    “All right Deputy Boyle,” he called out through the open front door and immediately the young man entered carrying an orange evidence retrieval box in one hand and two fresh pairs of rubber gloves in the other. Deputy Boyle handed one pair to Felix then both began their tasks.

    One of the first pieces of evidence the Sheriff ‘bagged and tagged’ were the three spent bullet casings that he found lying in a pool of water near the west wall of the cabin. One of the casings was likely from the shot fired by Mr. Ferguson, the second, from the warning shot that Earl fired and the third from the fatal bullet that felled his son. Felix had just begun collecting blood samples for DNA testing when Deputy Boyle, working a few feet away, said brightly, “I got the shell casings.”

“I got the three already,” Sheriff Murray said matter-of-factly.

“Well, I got three more,” replied Deputy Boyle.

Sheriff Murray remained bent at the waist, still searching the floor when he whispered, “shit!”

------------

Earl set the tip of his forefinger on the clear watch crystal. It was a silly thing to do, silly and stupid, touching his father’s watch, hoping it would bring him some peace.

Beneath Earl’s finger, the second hand continued to race from moment to moment, as indicated by sixty short black lines on the watch face. It was only after the thin metal hand had gone around once, then twice, that Earl removed his finger and wondered silently what his father in heaven was thinking at that instant.

-------------

“How much do I owe you Frank for the…?”

But Frank turned to face Earl and just waved his hand.

“Already taken care of.”

The medicine that the paramedics gave Earl and the last couple of hours of inactivity had rejuvenated him. And he climbed out of the taxi with a speed that even surprised Frank.

Earl had already made his way between the two cars and was near the front door when he suddenly stopped. Frank was afraid that Earl was on the verge of some medical emergency but after standing there for about ten or fifteen seconds, just staring at the two green balloons attached to the front door, Earl said in a strong, clear voice, “Thanks for the ride Frank. Say hello to Mildred.”

When Frank reached the street, he felt a bit of relief. He was free of Earl’s tragedy, and though he felt sorry for his friend, he didn’t need other people’s problems, he had enough of his own.

--------

As Earl’s right hand reached out toward the door bell button, he thought he heard the TV but the sound disappeared the moment the bell began playing God Save the Queen. Wanda, still dressed in the same bathrobe from the night before, jerked the door open then just stood there. At first he thought that she might still be angry with him but her face showed neither anger, nor joy, nor fatigue for that matter.

“Wanda…”

“My heavens Earl. Where have you been? You look terrible.”

Wanda took Earl’s arm and guided him inside, through the foyer, into the family and room, then covered him with a blanket.

“Now don’t you move. I’ll be back in a minute with a cup of tea.”

“Wanda. There’s something I have to tell you.”

“One minute. You just relax.”

And then she was gone.

His chair felt good, so he leaned back and tried to do what Wanda had instructed.

Earl was asleep less than a minute later.

-------

Mathison and Wallish had already been sitting in their car in front of the Timmin’s house for nearly ten minutes. They sat in silence, Mathison with a take-out cup of expresso, Wallish with a large decaf.

Doctor’s orders.

     “Zack. We don't need the cuffs.”

“Charlie. Both Timmins and Ferguson lied through their teeth. Self-defense is one shot... maybe two... The Sheriff came up with six at last count. Anyway, we gotta cuff him, it's regulations.”

Charlie’s cell phone beeped just as he was about to take another sip of his lukewarm coffee. He slipped his cell from his inside jacket pocket and glanced at the screen.

“Voice mail.” He said dispassionately as he pressed button number one on his keypad.

“Why’d you say LA has such lousy cell phone coverage?”

“The mountains.”

“Oh yeah. Mountains.”

Ever since that incident at the shooting range, Charlie didn’t hear so well in his right ear so he always used the speakerphone. Button number three.

“You have one message. First message.”

“Happy Father’s Day to you. Happy Father’s Day to you. Happy Father’s Day dear Daddy. Happy Father’s Day to you.”

Charlie pressed the disconnect button, pocketed his cell, took a sip then suddenly tossed his coffee out his window and dropped the now empty cup into their department issued in-vehicle trash bag.

-------------

Wanda wasn’t thinking.

Only doing.

Rage has a way of affecting a person that way.

So even though it had been nearly a year since the saleswoman showed Wanda how easy it was to attach the pressure hose, start the compressor, then use the nail gun, somewhere deep within Wanda’s brain she remembered. Surprising since last year she visited hundreds of stores, talked to thousands of sales people, looked at a million different brands and models.

Earl always took good care of his tools so naturally the compressor’s motor started with the first pull. Wanda waited until the pressure gauge needle crept up from the yellow area to the green, then picked up the hose and began uncoiling it as she walked backward.  She had more than enough to make it to the family room.

-------------

Earl recognized the roar of his compressor.

The sound was comforting. And the roar pushed him further and further into the slumber he so desperately needed. But that ethereal journey came to a sudden end when a pain, possibly the worse he had ever experienced, raced from his right hand up his arm and squeezed the air from his lungs.

The scream frightened him, even more so when he realised that the tortured voice was his.

Earl’s eyes snapped open and he tried to raise his injured hand, but he couldn’t because a two-inch nail fastened his hand to the armrest of his easy chair. Earl watched in shock as a  single stream of crimson rose from around the metal spike, trickled between his thumb and forefinger then raced down the armrest’s vinyl skin.

Just then he felt cold metal press down on the back of his left hand, the compressor roared again and a loud ‘bang’ shattered the air.  Earl looked up and saw Wanda, her eyes black with rage, standing directly in front of him.

In her right hand she clutched his nail gun, clutched it so tightly that the veins in her hand and forearm stood out like subcutaneous serpents.

“You son of a bitch. You killed our Ian and now...”

Wanda slammed the nail gun against Earl’s chest.

But at the same moment Wanda jerked back the trigger, Earl heard a pop, then the hiss of escaping air.

Earl and Wanda looked and saw Detective Wallish, standing in the foyer. In his left hand, he held one section of the hose and in his left, another.

When he finally spoke he sounded almost apologetic.

“The door was open.”

------------

Mr. Ferguson plead guilty to possession of an unregistered handgun and was fined $600.

Wanda was released from custody the next day, Earl refused to file charges. They divorced and she now lives in a small desert community outside Los Angeles with her ailing mother.

Earl was convicted of manslaughter and served two years less a day. He still lives at 2451, still makes beautiful cabinets, still drives Ole Grand, and the turn signals still work most of the time.

THE END.... hope you enjoyed Earl's story