Naomi Hirahara - Santa Cruz Noir

“You will stop? For this family? For the ones that love you?”

“ Yes, Pops, yeah.”

I smile at him. “Me and your mama, we left Mexico because of bad men. Because I did not want to be a bad man. I do not want my son to be a bad man. You can be better, Juan. Here, in this town. If you go to school. If you work hard. You can be better than me.”

I embrace him. He stiffens again, then becomes limp, and slowly he wraps his arms around me.

“Swear to me,” I say.

“I swear, Pops.”

Tonight, I will bury the gun at the edge of the yard after I dismantle it piece by piece. I will bury it next to the bodies of two dead men who once came to my home. I think perhaps Rojelio was wrong, perhaps the sickness won’t follow this time.

Me and Martha are cleaning the house on my day off. Her telenovela plays on TV, something to laugh at while we mop and sweep. Lupe is in her room playing dolls. Juan is still at school. Because he’s been good this week, I let him take the Toyota.

The phone rings from the kitchen, and I go to answer. When Juan’s voice crackles high and frantic into my ear, part of me wishes I had let it ring. I remember, then. He is a better liar than me.

“Pops!” he says. “Pops, I did something. It’s bad, and they won’t stop now, so I’m coming, I’m coming—”

“Juan. Slowly. Where are you?”

“Fuck fuck fuck. Aw man. Aw maaan.”

“Juan.” I keep my voice low, but Martha hears anyway. She hurries into the kitchen, her face creased in worry.

“Is it him?” she says. I nod. “He’s in trouble?” I squeeze my eyes shut, nod again.

“Where are you?” I say to him.

“Driving, Pops. They’re following me. They keep following me!”

Sirens sing, far away through the phone. A song for Juan. If he listens, if he stops — yes, prison maybe, but he will have a life still.

“Stop for them, Juan. Do it.” The kitchen darkens, and I lean against the refrigerator. Martha grasps my arm, steadies me.

“They’re following me! They won’t stop! I’m coming home. Okay? I don’t know where to go. I’m coming home.”

“Be calm, m’ijo . What did you do?” My ear burns against the plastic of the phone.

“A cop pulled me over and... Fuck. I had weed, okay? A lot. And I just drove away. All I did was drive! But now there’s more cops, and I’m scared, I’m scared, I’m—”

The sirens scream. Loud in the phone, too loud. They are not only coming from the phone. My eyes meet Martha’s. I see my terror mirrored in them. She shakes her head, mouths one word: No .

“What’s that noise?” My daughter runs into the sitting room. Her hair held back by a plastic tiara, her face scrunched in wonder, cradling her doll.

“Stay with her. Stay inside,” I tell Martha. Nausea wrestles with me. I push it down. Bury it deep. My wobbling legs carry me to the front door. I open it, and peer down the road into the late afternoon.

The screech of tires, the roar of an engine. There. My truck. A blur down the pavement, but filling my sight faster than I can believe. It slides across the road, leaving black marks like streaks of blood in front of the driveway. The smell of burning rubber, and I cough. Smoke fills the air. Juan stumbles from the car drenched in thick sweat, his eyes rolling wildly, panting. The police follow.

“Listen to them! Juan, whatever they say! LISTEN!” I scream at him, descending the front steps to our walk, running past the old oak and the swing I built for him long ago.

He stares beyond, at something I cannot see. Police cars screech to a stop, fencing him in. A young officer, crazed with adrenaline, yells into a bullhorn: “Put your hands in the air! Drop to your knees and put your hands in the air!”

“Do it, Juan! Do what they say!” I scream. Can he hear me over the damn noise? He jerks his head again. Okay, okay. He will stop.

Instead, he runs toward our home.

“Stop! Stop or we will fire!” the officer shrieks. His hand crawling toward his gun belt.

No.

The sirens scream into my ears.

“Stop! Juan, por favor, stop!” My voice straining over the noise.

“Pops?” he says. For a wonder, he listens, and stops near our fence. He sees me for the first time.

“Turn around slowly, with your hands on your head!” the cop commands.

“Juan. Turn around. Show them you do not have a gun,” I say.

He opens his mouth, as if to tell me something.

“Listen to them m’ijo . Do it!”

He breathes out a short laugh, and turns.

I catch the glint of metal tucked into his jeans.

“I’m taking it out now, it’s okay, I’m taking it out,” says my son, as his hand dips down.

They shoot him. His body whirls in mad circles, while the police fire again and again. A bullet whines by my side, almost finds me. The guns roar until smoke chokes the air. Juan rests, finally, in a twisted heap by our fence, one hand curled around a post. He almost made it home.

I cannot swallow. Cannot breathe. The stench burns my nose. I slump forward until my knees settle on the ground.

“Back away, sir! Back away!” the police yell.

I hold up my hands and crawl to my boy on my knees. They let me do this until I am close.

An officer walks toward me, the calm one. He kicks Juan’s gun away. “That’s close enough.”

Still I cannot swallow. “But he’s my son.”

“Papa! Papa!”

Shivers nearly knock me over. My teeth rattling in my skull, I twist my neck around. My daughter. Why is she covered in red? Blood? Not her blood, please God.

“Papa! Mama won’t get up!”

I frown. My eyes wander to the front of our home. I see Martha crumpled in the doorframe, dark red blooming across her blouse, spilling down the step. Her body still, as if she is sleeping. In that moment, I understand.

I understand everything.

Se sigue hasta que se conduce.

Wallace Baineis a critic, columnist, and editor in Santa Cruz, and the author of A Light in the Midst of Darkness, a history of Bookshop Santa Cruz. His work is nationally syndicated and his fiction appears in the Catamaran Literary Reader and the Chicago Quarterly Review . He is the author of Rhymes with Vain: Belabored humor and attempted profundity and The Last Temptation of Lincoln, from which his play Oscar’s Wallpaper was adapted.

Jon Bailiffis a retired lifeguard EMT, union shop steward, and marine rescue guard. He’s been a blacksmith, carpenter, artist, painter, weaver, and art teacher with Creativity Unlimited, William James Association, County Office of Probation, and Hope Services. He has lived in Santa Cruz for thirty years — not a local.

Jessica Breheny’swork has been published in Avery: An Anthology of New Fiction, Electric Velocipede, Eleven Eleven, elimae, Fugue, LIT, Otoliths, Other Voices , and Santa Monica Review . She is the author of the chapbooks Some Mythology and Ephemeride . She lives in Santa Cruz.

Susie Brightis a best-selling author, journalist, audio producer, and editor. Her past works include The Best American Erotica, Herotica , and Full Exposure , as well as the memoir Big Sex Little Death . Bright was a screenwriter and/or consultant for Bound, Erotique, The Celluloid Closet, Transparent, and Criterion

Collection’s reissue of Belle de Jour. She is Editor-at-Large for Audible Studios, and the host of Audible’s longest-running podcast , In Bed with Susie Bright. She is a lifelong Californian.