Jackson Ford - The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with Her Mind

Then again, he knows a thing or two about being denied a history.

The quote crosses his mind again as he rides down the freeway, heading towards the glimmering skyscrapers of downtown LA. Beneath him, the Royal Enfield Bullet Classic growls and roars, its tailpipe spitting as he weaves his way through the late-night traffic. It’s not a good sound, and it’s got him worried: a thrown engine might be the one thing that could ruin tonight. But Jake and the bike have been together a long time, since the Detroit days, and it’s always come through for him. Royal Enfield started making bikes over a century before, in 1901, and the Bullet Classic dates from 1933. His isn’t that old, of course, even if it sometimes acts like it.

His helmet suddenly feels too tight. As he slows to pass between two honking pickup trucks, Jake reaches up and unclips the chin strap, pulling it off and wedging it in his lap.

He’s tall, a little over six feet, with a lanky frame and a dirty crop of shoulder-length blond hair. It blows about his head as he accelerates, framing a face that could be that of any aspiring actor in LA—the kind of actor that populates every audition in town, clutching well-worn headshots and proudly talking about the Best Buy commercial they did, or the indie movie from six years ago that performed well at film festivals. It’s the face of a barista, of the barman who pops your beer, of the guy across the hall in your apartment building with whom you’re on nodding terms but never actually speak to. If anybody chose to look closer, they’d note the rips in the leather jacket, the ancient Timberland boots held together with straps of duct tape, the scabs on his hands. But they never look.

The Enfield’s engine blats, its rusted green gas tank reflecting headlights from every direction. The air stinks of smoke from the fires, but Jake doesn’t mind. Tonight is the night he finds out who he is. Chuy has promised him everything, all of it, the mother lode. Every detail of his past. As long as as he can do what he promised.

There’s no way he’s letting this opportunity slip. No way, no how.

A grin splits his face. He feels good. Really good. Even the old pain in his jaw, the familiar ache from endless clenching as he sleeps, is barely background noise. Fifteen years he spent in foster care. Fifteen years of bumping up against a federal system that either couldn’t or just plain wouldn’t help him. Documents that they wouldn’t let him see. That they misplaced. That they didn’t give enough of a shit to look for. Why would they? For a kid that would almost certainly be rehoused in a few months, a year at the most? They didn’t care that his history had been obliterated. No matter how hard he begged and pleaded, they wouldn’t help him. Even the good ones, and there were very few of those.

No one would tell him where he came from.

The road ahead of him curves, the traffic tightening. As he brings the bike to a gentle halt, Jake glances at the car next to him and sees a tiny face looking back at him through the rear window. A little boy, maybe three or four, strapped into a car seat and staring with undisguised wonder.

The sight rattles him a little—what’s a kid like him doing up this late? Then he relaxes. Parents coming back from a party, maybe, the kid dozing in the back seat, waking up briefly and spying him through the window.

Jake grins at the boy, his own teeth reflected in the glass, and flips a cheerful, almost lazy salute. The boy laughs, delighted—Jake can’t hear him, but he can imagine the laugh, crystalline and clear. One of the adults in the front seats turns around, saying something to the boy, who ignores her.

An idea blossoms—an absurd, risky idea, one that on any other night he would shy away from. All the drivers around Jake are looking forward, concentrating with herd stupidity on the clogged road ahead. And the drivers behind him won’t be able to see what’s happening. So why not? Why the hell not? If he’s going to have any audience tonight, why shouldn’t it be a child?

He makes an elaborate show of looking around. In reality, he really does check—simply because the night is going well doesn’t mean he wants to tempt fate. But nobody is looking at him, the drivers all concentrating on how terrible it is to be stuck in a traffic jam.

He looks back at the boy, holding eye contact. The helmet in his lap rises until it’s level with his chest. He winks at the goggling child, puts a raised finger underneath the floating helmet, and makes it spin like a basketball.

The kid’s mouth falls open, his eyes huge in delighted disbelief. As he turns to tell his parents, Jake drops the helmet back down. The kid is going nuts in the car seat, pointing, bouncing up and down. The mother glances at Jake, her gaze dull, uninterested. He pities her. There is no one else with a Gift like his, no one, and she doesn’t even realise it.

The traffic moves. With one last glance at the excited boy, Jake accelerates, gunning the throttle and speeding away, leaning into the highway as it curves.

He has come a long way. A thousand miles, a thousand different sleeping spots. In a way he’s grateful for all of it because it led him here. To this great and glorious night, when he will finally find out where he came from. He has three tasks to complete, and the night wind is rushing through his hair, and the bike’s engine is now steady, purring underneath him.

His history might have been denied, but it hasn’t been obliterated yet. And if there’s one thing he’s discovered over the past fifteen-odd years, it’s that he is very hard to destroy.

It’s nearly midnight by the time we get back to Paul’s Boutique.

That’s what I call the house we use as our office, even if nobody else does. Technically, Reggie’s the one who runs the show, not Paul, but I’d been listening to some Beastie Boys a couple of weeks into our time there and the name was too good not to use.

Surprisingly, they didn’t want me to put a sign on the door.

It’s in Venice Beach, which itself is kind of a strange name. It makes the place sound a lot nicer than it is. It’s got some OK spots—a few nifty restaurants and coffee shops—but mostly it’s just bungalows, bad bars and bullshit tourist stores. And our office. Because they have to put us somewhere.

Reggie lives in the back room, and we work out of the front. It’s on a street called Brooks Court that is only marginally nicer than the alley Annie and I crash-landed in earlier tonight. I would have preferred Carlos to drop me off in Leimert Park, where my little apartment is. It’s on the way. But Reggie insists on a face-to-face debriefing after a job, and I’ve been dumped on for missing them in the past.

I’ve moved apartments a bunch of times since Tanner first stuck me in LA, but I’ve always worked out of the Boutique. It might be kind of a shithole, but walking inside after a job, sitting on the ratty-ass couch and drinking a beer or a cup of coffee is like letting out a breath you’ve been holding for a long time. It’s my way of transitioning back to being a normal person. One with a life that doesn’t involve doing black-bag jobs for the U.S. government.

Besides, you can climb up on the roof if you know how. It’s a great place to sit and drink a beer.

Annie is out the van the second Carlos pulls in, even before he cuts the engine, barging through the door leading to the living room like it personally offended her. Paul follows, stopping for a moment to fiddle with the garage door remote.

Carlos has been silent for most of the way back—he’s like that when he’s behind the wheel, preferring to concentrate on his driving. Now he puts a hand on my shoulder. Speaking very gently, he says, “How many organs would you sell right now for a cup of coffee? Be honest.”