Christopher Sorrentino - Trance

“Why don’t you all sit down and I will see what is going on in my kitchen,” she said. She prided herself on being a very direct person. The SLA obediently traded places with the black women.

Sheila had some trouble with the kitchen. One thing, she spent about an hour the day before cleaning it all up with Fantastik and Mop & Glo and all that. The real official cleanup for killing things that can’t be seen with your naked eye. And now there was a bunch of dirty ass shit in here, and stacked on her dinette too. Like who hasn’t got sense enough to stack crates of bullets on the floor, thank you.

Lillian knew her roommate was a fussy person. She saw the look on her face.

“Sheila, girl, it’s just for today. They call up about Compton Avenue and they gone.”

“Yeah, they in here now, though.”

“Sheila, the man just paid the rent.”

“Girl can’t add.”

“Your half the rent.”

“Can’t buy peace of mind.”

“Buy a whole lot of other stuff,” said Lillian.

Charles Gates banged on the glass of the kitchen door with his fist and the three women jumped.

“Here’s Cinque,” announced Charles Gates. “He likes the place. He thinks it’s fine. He’s calling up today.” He sounded breathless, excited. He added, “I’m skipping work today, helping Cinque out.”

“Who cares?” said Sheila sulkily. Someone was honking in the driveway.

“That’s my ride,” said Charles Gates, beaming. “I’m telling them to go on without me.”

“How they know you suppose to be here? Cocky turkey.”

“Charles, what?”

“You never guess who’s in here. Cinque, that’s who. The Symbionese Liberation Army who took Alice Galton. They got guns and they got bombs. You want to see him? They just show up, middle of the night, blam, out of nowhere. I’m, like, wooo. This is different. I’m staying. I’m helping Cinque today. You want to see him?”

The other man looked at his watch. “I gotta open today,” he said, apologetically. “Maybe I’ll come see him tonight.”

May 18, 1974 Women’s Bathroom Hollywood Station, Vine Street

It’s an odd note that Tania duplicates in her Palmer script on sheets of blank notepaper she finds in Ray Fraley’s glove compartment, taking whispered dictation from Teko and Yolanda. The brief message will be deposited at several prearranged dead drops around South Central Los Angeles. What it means is that tomorrow another communication will be left in the restroom at the bus station. If conditions are favorable, there may actually be a physical reunion there between the divided forces of the SLA.

They stop at a drugstore off Hollywood Boulevard to buy Scotch tape before getting on the freeway and heading back toward Inglewood. On one occasion Yolanda believes she sees Dan Russell’s van up ahead in the number two lane, and she slows so abruptly that Teko slides off the backseat, landing with his knees on Ray Fraley’s back. Teko curses and snarls but Ray Fraley gives only a sharp inhalation, because he is afraid to cry out.

1466 East Fifty-fourth Street

Sheila’s kids came into the kitchen for breakfast.

“I’m hungry,” said Timmy, the eleven-year-old.

“I’m hungry,” said Tony, the eight-year-old.

But there were all these boxes, bullets and the like, stacked up in front of the cabinet where she kept cereal, and she wasn’t about to touch them.

Who’re these white people? What’s all this stuff? It was a different kind of morning, just say. She put glasses of milk in front of the kids.

“Yuck!” said Timmy.

“I want Lucky Charms!” said Tony.

“We don’t have no Lucky Charms, you know that,” said Sheila. She got up the courage to take the boxes of cartridges and gingerly move them to another spot. They were heavy. She opened the cabinet. No cereal. In the other room, Cinque was handing Crystal a twenty and sending her to Sam’s to buy beer, bread, cold cuts, and cigarettes, and Sheila asked her nice to buy some cereal and milk. Crystal shot her some look; probably she was counting on keeping the change. Sheila wasn’t going to hold her breath, just say.

UNITED STATES POST OFFICE, COMPTON STATION

He says, Are you telling me these trucks stayed right here? and I said, Yes, sir. And he looks at me funny and says, They’re dirty, these trucks, because they are parked on this street all night. At first, you know, I think he is joking. But still I’m looking him right in the face because it’s near impossible to tell. He’s a real cold fish. Cold fish eyes. By and by I’m like: he means it.

So what I said? I said to him, We ain’t got the keys, sir. And he says: What? What did you say?

Yeah, like that. I tell him, We’d like to keep ’em looking clean too, sir, but we ain’t got the keys to the trucks. The carriers come back and park them where they like. Been doing it that way a long time, I guess.

Well I, well you know, you know what I heard was. What I heard was that they sent him over here from Century City ’cause he’s reweighing all the damn flats up there. Says he knows the mailroom boys in all the office buildings are fudging on the first class rates. Every now and then he finds one that’s under by ten cents or so and he sends a bunch of ’em right back. Lawyers going bananas in their fancy offices. You know how they like to send out their flats.

Say, now what’s that gal up to?

You lose something under there, miss?

Damnedest things people do.

Sure be happy to help you find it. No questions asked.

Well, she’s got her mind fixed on something. Not that I’m ever sorry to see a lady in that position. Anyways, that’s why I’m heading out to the hardware, get these here keys copied. Bet you lot of people get their mail late today, I’ll tell you.

Tania stands and readjusts her wig and casts a quick glance around her. The man and his companion, both wearing uniforms that seem somehow even more drab, even less convincing an assertion of authority, than those worn by ordinary letter carriers, watch her abstractedly while they talk. She is a sort of oddity here in Compton. The drop is under one of the drive-up mailboxes behind the post of fice building; the Lincoln waits around the corner. Tania is unarmed and feels exposed here without the others. As she hustles back, more anxious about getting to the car than she is concerned about the LETTER TO THE PEOPLE’S surviving the curiosity of the two postal employees, she catches a sidelong glimpse of her own photograph, hanging among the wanted posters.

1466 East Fifty-fourth Street

Sure enough, there was no breakfast in the bag Crystal lugged back. Sheila hoped it was nice and heavy. Cinque cracked open one of the quarts of Colt.45 and lit a cigarette while Crystal carried the remaining stuff into the kitchen, where the fat white one right away started making sandwiches. She was pretty nice, the only one didn’t creep around like she was in a museum of black people or something. Sheila asked for two sandwiches for Timmy and Tony right away, then called them in from the front room, where they were watching cartoons with the white man. The kids ate a sandwich and Charles Gates had one and Crystal too and the pile of sandwiches for Cinque and the white people looked pretty skinny, but the fat one didn’t seem to mind too much. Sheila took another nerve pill.

Charles Gates took his sandwich into the front room, where he stood eating it, looking on as Cinque and the white dude watched the street through the windows. Cinque spoke to him without turning around.