Lee Goldberg: The Walk

Marty did. There was a photo pinned to the visor with a rubber band. He slid it out and looked at it.

It was a picture of Molly, a radiant smile on her face, a smaller version of herself in her lap, the two of them on a picnic blanket on a lush lawn somewhere. The kid was maybe five, old enough to know how to pose adorably for a camera.

“My whole life has been a series of accidents,” Molly said, “Clara is the only one that made me happy.”

Clara even made Molly smile now, entwined in metal, holding hands with a stranger. The thought of a child made Molly smile as easily as it made Beth break into tears.

“Do you have children?” she asked.

“No,” he replied. “We tried for a while, but it didn’t take.”

For months, Marty snuck away from the network for “power lunches” at a Beverly Hills fertility clinic, masturbating into a cup in their tastefully appointed hospitality rooms. At first, it wasn’t so bad. There were worse ways to spend a lunch hour than jerking off with an X-rated DVD.

But one day he stepped from his hospitality room with his sample cup and bumped into Freddie Koslow, a studio development guy, coming out of the hospitality room next door. The two infertile executives stood there, holding their cups of sperm, casually discussing projects in development as if they’d just bumped into each other at the Bistro Garden.

That was the last time Marty visited the clinic. But he didn’t tell any of this to Molly. It was bad enough half the television industry knew about his shiftless sperm.

“We weren’t trying for anything except some fun,” Molly said. “We did it just once, and that was all it took. Roy disappeared right away, and I couldn’t stay in Thalia, not like that. So I left before she was born. I was heading for San Francisco, but the car broke down as I was passing through LA. So I stayed. See? Another accident.”

Molly’s face suddenly crunched into an agonized wince, her eyes closed tight, squeezing out tears of pain. She reached out and grabbed his wrist, squeezing it hard, digging her fingers into his skin until he had to stifle a cry of his own.

Her grip eased, and when she opened her eyes again, he saw just how scared she was. No amount of talking was going to distract her now.

“She’s at Dandelion Preschool in Tarzana,” Molly said in a rush, “you’ll call the school from the hospital, let them know what happened?”

“Sure,” he said.

And then Marty heard it, the unmistakable rumble, like a stomach growling below his feet. Molly’s eyes went wide.

“What is it?” she cried out in that one, hanging instant before the inevitable.

“Aftershock!” he yelled.

“Aftershock?”

Marty realized his mistake too late, and just as he saw the betrayal and confusion registering on her face, the shaking started, the giant, unseen waves rolling under the street.

He gripped Molly’s hand tight, tucked his head down, and closed his eyes to ride it out. The rumbling grew louder, the subterranean thunder mixing with the sounds of concrete cracking, glass breaking, metal grinding. The two wrecked vehicles rocked back and forth, creaking like rusty hinges. The car slid away, jerking her hand from his grasp.

Marty reached out for her again, but was driven back into a fetal curl by falling masonry that shattered on impact, exploding into dusty shrapnel that pierced his skin in tiny pin-pricks.

And then it was over. The rumbling receding like a fleeing stampede.

Marty unfurled slowly, stinging all over, and surveyed the damaged. The Volvo had slid a few feet, and so had the truck, gasoline gushing out of its ruptured tank and surging towards the live wire dancing on the street.

He ran to the car and leaned into it. Molly stared up at him with desperate eyes, one hand reaching out to him, blood gurgling out of her mouth, drowning the words she tried to speak.

She was trapped and so was Marty, confined by a few dwindling seconds, forced to choose between her plight and his own survival.

Marty looked from her to the wire. The fingers of gasoline were only a few inches from contact with the wire. He had seconds.

Molly grabbed him, pulling him down.

He whirled around, and for one horrified moment, thought he’d have to fight Molly off to escape. But she immediately let go, opening her hand to show him the picture she clutched in her palm, offering it to him, her eyes pleading.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and ran.

He heard her yell one, last, desperate time, something that sounded like “Angel,” and then the truck erupted behind him, the force of it lifting him off his feet and hurling him onto Alameda Street, the fireball rolling over his head.

Marty hit the pavement face-first, too hard and too fast to do anything to break his fall, knocking the air out of him, crushing his glasses and smashing one of the tiny water bottles in his jacket pocket. As he lay gasping for breath, a piece of paper fluttered in front of his face, tiny flames beginning to curl the edges. It was the picture of Molly’s kid. He slapped the flames out with his hand.

The edges of the picture were charred, but the smiling faces were intact. The Molly in the photo and the woman he’d left behind, the woman with the pleading eyes and bloody smile, were two different people. Marty would never be able to reconcile the two images, one of which he knew he would never shake.

Angel.

Was she crying out to her daughter, her little angel, with that last breath? Or was she calling out to Marty, mistaking him in her desperation for something he definitely was not? Or was she screaming in horrified recognition at the dark spirit that came to take her away?

He’d never know, but he’d probably never stop wondering, either.

Marty took the photo and staggered to his feet. Every part of his body seemed to ache. His hair was singed, his face was scratched, one pant-leg was torn at the knee, and his crotch was soaked with Evian, but he’d made it.

He turned slowly towards the narrow street, staring at the sight in disbelief. Both vehicles were engulfed in flames, the fire spreading to the ruins of the nearby buildings.

If he’d hesitated another second, he would have been burned alive. That’s how close he cut it.

Up until today, he managed to live his life without risking it even once. And now, twice in one morning, he’d barely avoided death.

That kind of luck doesn’t last, not for real people. He was almost killed, all because he stopped, all because he let himself be pulled into someone else’s problem. Molly’s certain death nearly became his.

He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Marty turned his back to the fire, crammed the picture deep into his wet pocket, adjusted the straps of the gym bag over his shoulders, and started walking.

11:40 a.m. Tuesday

Marty’s Ray-Bans teetered precariously on the bridge of his nose, held in place by only one arm. A lens was cracked, too, but there was no way he was taking the glasses off. They were part of his disguise as he moved purposefully up the middle of Alameda Street, carefully winding his way through the debris field of fractured pavement, smashed cars, and crumpled buildings.

His dust mask was crushed, but he molded it back into shape and pulled it up over his nose and mouth. He only had three masks left and wasn’t disposing of this one until it absolutely couldn’t be used any more. It also covered his face and helped conceal any sympathy or fear that might inadvertently escape.

Smoke and dust filled the air, shrouding him in a swirling fog of destruction. He welcomed it. The haze further obscured him from others and they from him.