Denise Hamilton - Los Angeles Noir

Tito Tomas! he’d scream, laughing.

Hey, sunshine, let’s go out for a walk, I’d say, grabbing him and lifting him into a bear hug.

Veronica had stopped taking Emerson out to the playground, because he couldn’t keep up with the energetic activities and ended up alone. And she resented the stares of the mothers and nannies, the other children especially. Manny, to his credit, believed this to be wrong. He insisted on dragging Emerson out to the parks and malls. He insisted that other people were fucked up to stare. They argued over it. She’d search the neighborhood to find him. They screamed at each other in public.

Manny tried to make Emerson use his walker everywhere . The neurologists and PTs told them it would keep his muscles stretched. But Emerson refused. He threw tantrums at malls, dropped down to his knees and cried, drawing the stares of passersby who looked at Veronica as if she were abusing her disabled child.

Go on, leave us, I would tell her. Go shopping.

She’d hesitate but walk away, letting me kneel down beside her boy. I’d smell his sweaty, musty hair. I cherished his boy-smell, these sweet moments, the joy and sorrow I drew from these fleeting seconds of male bonding of which I wanted more. I would whisper in his ear, make him laugh, coax him with promises of ice cream-and have him using his walker in no time.

He let me take him to Douglas Park, played on the slides and swings, tossed bread at the ducks in the pond, walked over grass. The park had changed since I was a kid. Gabe and Veronica and I used to wade through dirty pond water, catching tiny frogs and tadpoles in the reeds. Now the pond had been converted into a fancy Japanese water garden, complete with babbling streams, wooden benches, landscaped boulders. Even the ducks looked cleaner. The kid’s play area had new bright play equipment, handicap accessible, and the mothers seemed different now, too. Thinner, more stylish.

Manny resented my ease with Emerson. The boy let me take him to the basketball court across the street from St. Dominic’s after Sunday mass. Manny watched with jealousy as Emerson used his walker on the crowded court, without shame or self-consciousness, and let the black teenagers lift him up to dunk the ball.

Nothing I did was good enough for that chump. After I got saved and became a youth minister at an evangelical strip-mall church in Culver City-where I ran the boys’ club, as well as addiction recovery groups-you’d have thought he’d come round to me. But he never did.

I drove my truck up to their apartment complex and started circling the block, looking for a parking spot on the narrow side streets. I smoldered over exactly how to do what I wanted to do. Remembering my mother’s worried face, I thought, Hold on, don’t do anything rash, you’re risking a lot of hurt and pain here, will let down a lot of people if you get caught breaking probation. They’d put you away for a long time. When you got out, how old would Emerson be? But then I remembered his slit braces in Veronica’s hands and that was it.

I pulled into the driveway behind one of their neighbor’s cars, blocking it in. I stomped around to their garden apartment and banged on the green door. The front blinds moved, then shut. I banged on the door again. It finally opened.

Manny wore a sling, his face blue and black, a piece of skin torn below his eye, stitched. It looked as if someone had pressed barbed wire into his face.

Veronica’s not here, he said.

I want to see Emerson.

He’s at your tita’s place, Manny said. He spoke a bit snidely, as if I should have known.

Get in my car, I said.

What?

We’re going for a drive.

He tried to protest so I grabbed his shirt and pulled him out of his apartment. I put him in the truck and we sat there, engine off, windows open. The air smelled of sun-warmed avocados fallen on the grass.

So, Veronica tells me you got yourself beat up by some kid’s father, I said.

Manny shook his head. Lips tightened, angry no doubt that Veronica came to me. It wasn’t like that, he said.

That was a smart move, I said. Now Emerson will really have his peers’ respect.

You don’t understand. I couldn’t not do anything. We tried talking to the teachers, the principal. They said they were investigating, but they need to expel that kid now , Tomas, to keep him out of Emerson’s face .

So you went over to the father and got beat up.

Fuck you, Tomas.

Maybe you lost your cool? Made them defensive.

You’ve got a lot of nerve, Tomas. This is my son we’re talking about.

His jaw trembled with anger. I felt hot, my shirt damp against my vinyl seat. The fermenting avocado smell made me feel like hurting someone. But I told myself to hold my temper, let him talk.

I said, Tell me what happened.

And he told me.

That’s not a satisfactory explanation, I said.

What the fuck do you want from me?

I plucked one stitch from his face, causing him to kick the dashboard in his struggle. He cursed. I quieted him with a look and said, When Veronica came to me this morning, her face was bruised again. I should really hurt you. But I am going to give you an opportunity to redeem yourself. To be a real husband and father.

Manny began to speak but seemed to think better. Then he asked, Where are we going?

Where does Harley Douglas live?

Venice.

Do you know the house?

Yeah, he said after a pause.

We drove down the hill to Main Street and headed south past the arty boutiques and cafés and restaurants. We crossed Rose and headed into Venice. Beyond the older buildings to the west I caught flashes of bright ocean. We crossed over streets that used to be canals nearly a century ago, blocks where amusement park rides and buildings had once stood.

We reached Abbot Kinney, with its more boho shops, looking a lot like Santa Monica’s posh Main Street had when I was a kid. The martial arts studio where I used to study Filipino stick-fighting when we lived in Oakwood, the black neighborhood inland to its north, the old bungalows and cottages ravaged by cool salty nights. But Harley Douglas lived on the ocean side, on the gentrified streets. Many of the weathered buildings had been renovated, or replaced by condos. I noticed a beautiful woman walking a pure white husky, while sipping from a paper coffee cup. The neighborhood is one of the few in Los Angeles where people actually walk.

When we lived near here it was a different place. The old buildings colonied by hippies were falling apart then. Some were empty, condemned. Our house was on its last legs. On stormy evenings, Pacific Ocean winds would blow against the clapboard walls on our creaking block.

Even then, some of the older structures were starting to be torn down and replaced by upscale condos, but in the summer of ’94 a gang war broke out between the blacks and Mexicans and the construction stopped.

From the look of things now, real estate had soared again.

That’s where they live, Manny said, pointing to a narrow modern structure of steel and wood and glass four stories high.

I parked across the street.

That’s a pretty funky house, I said.

He’s an architect. Designed it himself.

You got beat up by an architect?

He used to be a military engineer. Apparently he has a black belt.

He’s still an architect.

What are we doing here? he asked.

Sit, look, listen, I said. Tell me about the father. Tell me what he looks like. We need to plan.

The house was made of ecologically friendly materials, and utilized solar energy. His first floor was concealed by a shiny hammered metal wall softened by elegant bamboo. Its entrance opened to a narrow alley, but the sound of waves echoed among the buildings. He must have had quite a view. I could see the upper levels above the bamboo. They were walls of glass that revealed glimpses of affluence and style-leather furniture, a drafting table, pieces of skylight and sky.