At dawn, Alma lay next to Hosea in the bed under the apricot-filled window. The fruit pressed against the screen, rubbing in the breeze.
She had waited all this time for the death of an infant, shrunken and helpless; for the death of a child, the bacteria floating into a small cut or grinning mouth; for the death of one of the fighting, hard-eyed boys, falling from a tire iron or knife or bullet fired by an angry Treetown rival.
Finis had lain in the barren backyard for hours, while Enchantee sobbed and police measured and squatted and wrote. The neighbor had sat quietly in a plastic chair next to his back door, his hand loosely bandaged, while they asked him questions.
Finis was being cut open. He was downtown.
Alma heard Hosea’s harsh, steady breathing. She slid from the bed to the floor.
When Sofelia hadn’t come home, all those years, Alma had kept waiting for the bad news, the good news, any news, and by then, it was too late to do what she’d always thought she would when one of them was gone. She knew she would crawl.
She lay flat on the cool hardwood floor near the bed, feeling her damp skin on the boards. Summer heat was here. She could smell the lemon oil on her floors, the waxy-citrus shine as if she were crawling under her own trees, in her own grove.
Pulling herself along by the elbows, each new section cooler until she passed over it, she slithered into the hallway. At the next doorway, she saw saw them all laid out like tamales in their sheets on the floor, where there was room for them all. Kendrick, Jawan, Jalima, D’Junior. Enchantee lay on the bed. She couldn’t go back to the house across the river.
Alma slid into the front room, table legs like beams before her eyes. Sofelia lay on the couch. Her boy Mortrice was gone. Hosea had told her, when they took Marcus to the hospital, and she had only nodded, lips tight.
Julius sprawled in the big chair, his feet wide on the floor, his mouth trailing sleep-spit. She passed his shoes. He’d heard about Finis from someone already, and he’d come home until the burial. He hadn’t said yet where he’d been, and Alma crawled toward the kitchen, not sure she wanted to know at all.
The candles were lit at the Madonna’s feet, and she glowed in the dim archway. Alma knew her grandmother was already awake. She put her palms flat on the threshold of the kitchen, where the tile floor was porous and she could dig her nails into the ancient grouting.
Her grandmother stood at the stove, her tiny feet in the round-toed lace-up shoes she wore every day. They were close to Alma’s cheek, blunt as puppy noses, and then Abuela bent and crouched near her, holding a hot tortilla, the brown lightly-burnt circles still smoking.
Alma leaned her head on her arm at the table, chewing the gritty corn with her eyes closed.
Abuela poured coffee in front of her, set out the plates of chorizo and huevos with salsa and then put Alma’s palm around the jar of last year’s apricot jam. Her grandmother sat across from her, the tiny eyes like seeds, the nose bent hard like a turtle, the fingers moving her own into a soft clasp. “Mi hija,” she whispered. “Mi hijita.” My little girl. My child.
The last thing Marcus remembered before the long sleep was the waiting room, the other bleeding, coughing people, the blaring TV, and finally Paul Moyer, his voice trembling. “The rampage of looting and arson has reached the landmark Frederick’s of Hollywood store. People, they are burning history in Hollywood.”
“Oh, now it counts,” Marcus remembered murmuring, and his father staring at him. Then he dropped off.
SaRonn came to his room on the second floor. “I heard about your brother, baby, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for me, too. All of us.” She lay on the bed beside him after she’d closed the door, crying silently, her head on his chest. His bandaged hand lay useless in the channel of blankets beside him, and his good hand rested on her head.
Finis was in the newspaper she brought, as the final paragraph in a roundup of local riot news and victims.
The front page story was dominated by a large picture of Lanier’s pigs. Marcus stared at the blackened heaps around their snouts.
“In an incredible photograph showing the wide swath of riot damage in southern California, pigs are shown rooting through ashes in rural Rio Seco. The city, sixty miles east of Los Angeles, suffered several incidents in the urban unrest that exploded after the Rodney King verdicts. This dilapidated building was burned to the ground, but it is believed that only transients might have been inside. Some charred evidence of habitation were found, but as in many other burned buildings in Los Angeles, no remains can be positively identified.”
Marcus put down the paper for a moment. SaRonn went into the hospital bathroom, and he heard water running. He glanced at the rest of the article.
“Scattered reports of rioting came in from San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Atlanta; closer to home, Pomona, San Bernardino, Long Beach, and Rio Seco reported violence or looting.
“In the city of Rio Seco, the SuperSave market was looted and burned while owners Reza Soltani and Essey Borzog watched helplessly. Several people were injured in random shooting incidents, and one man was killed in a riot-related shooting. Finis Thompson, 32, was apparently attempting to break into a Rivercrest home hours after the unrest began; when Thompson, of the Treetown area, wounded the homeowner with a knife, he was shot and killed. Police are investigating; the homeowner has not been charged.”
Harley came into the room when SaRonn was drying her face. Marcus saw Harley’s mouth working hard, and he nodded. “I’m sorry about your brother,” Harley said, standing uncomfortably. “I came to tell you thanks for the information about the Cambodian kid. Salcido pieced more of it together.”
“There’s another chair right here,” Marcus said, and Harley sat down.
“Usher Price had a forty-five-caliber slug from a stolen CHP weapon in his chest,” Harley said. “Same kind of slug, from the same gun, was in the wall behind the doughnut shop. Salcido told me what happened the other night. So it looks like the owner’s nephew—”
“Samana,” Marcus said.
“He gave his grandma a bunch of money, and then he ran away for good. He left her a piece of paper saying he was going to Texas, to join some gang called the Cold-Blooded Cambodians. I had to get most of this out of the uncle.”
Marcus nodded. SaRonn said, “Was this one of your students?”
“Yeah,” Marcus said. “You think he shot the other two kids.”
Harley shrugged. “Different gun. It’s hard to tell.” He stood up. “Thanks for your help, though. I’m still working on the two kids, and I don’t have conclusive evidence or proof about the two girls or the cross-dresser or the guy in the Kozy Komfort.”
“The shadow man,” Marcus murmured.
Harley looked at him. “Yeah. Lotta shadows out there, huh? We got Web Matheson’s wife sure he got car-jacked, but it looks like he skipped town or something. That’s a great one to sort out. All right. I hope you get the use of your hand back.”
“The doctor said it should be stiff but usable. All I ever do is write and read and talk. It’s not like I do any hard work. That’s all I hear,” Marcus said.
Harley raised his thick eyebrows like leaping fingers. “Hey, that’s what I do, and I call it hard as hell.”
The hand throbbed and ached, and Marcus tried to imagine what his father’s shoulder had felt like months before. Months of the shit, he thought, dressing in his street clothes. The shit has gotta be over.
The doctor said no infection had set in, and Marcus didn’t tell him about the canal water washing his blood down the grate, washing whatever organisms into the webbing of tendon and bone and skin that was puckered and raw around the two holes. “You weren’t too close to the guy, huh?” the doctor had said, and Marcus shook his head. “All that gunfire we had, I’m surprised we didn’t get more random bullet wounds like this.”
He stared at the hand now, waiting for SaRonn to help him tie his shoes, thinking, His blood’s all over Daddy’s orange trees, Abuela’s olive trees, and Uncle Oscar’s place. Mixed in with all that choc dumped over the years.
SaRonn came into the room with a bag for his things. “You ready?” she said. “You comin to my place and rest. I won’t let Willa jump on you unless you want her to.”
“Only after you do,” he said. But he walked over to the mirror slowly, his laces dragging, to look at his hollowed-out face. Like Finis, he thought, when I don’t eat much. His eyes were clear from so much sleep, his hair was puffy-long, growing out from the fade. I can’t handle braids, he thought. I gotta get a trim. Tomorrow’s the funeral. Don’t say good-bye. Say, I’ll check, man. I’ll check.
Enchantee spread the newspaper over the table at work. The voices creaked into her headset. Late paper. Stolen paper. Wet paper. She tapped the computer keys, murmured into the tiny piece of metal near her mouth.
At lunch, she and Janine read silently.
From the endangered sand moths and fairy shrimp in their natural habitat to the creditors pressing him for loan payments to the floodwaters inundating his exclusive golf-course community, Web Matheson’s recent problems had mounted to the point that police feel he may have decided to disappear, leaving his numerous troubles behind for a new life elsewhere.
Matheson had withdrawn the last of his personal savings from a Rio Seco bank the afternoon of his disappearance, and his wife reported that he had called her, sounding distraught and angry, to say he would be working very late. His new Chevy Blazer was seen by a casual acquaintance that night, heading eastward on the freeway toward the desert, where he had recently purchased a large tract of land for which his payments were delinquent…
Janine said, “I see y’all ain’t gettin no bridge now,” and she laid another newspaper section near Enchantee.
The City Council has decided to shelve plans for the Historic Gateway Corridor at this time. In light of the recent unrest in part of the area considered for the project, along with the disappearance of developer Web Matheson, who had supported the plan, council members voted to scrap plans for the restored bridge and freeway entrance until further studies have been made. The council voted increased funding for crime prevention and police staffing…
“He was Abby’s brother-in-law,” Enchantee said, looking at the campaign photo. “His wife’s having a baby any day now, and he’s gone. In the wind. Like they always say about Treetown brothers.”
“Hey,” Janine said. “Like men in general, okay?”
After work, Enchantee had to drive to Abby’s to drop off a coat she’d borrowed. A dark, Indian-featured woman she’d never seen before answered the door, frowning at her. “Abby?” Enchantee said, holding up the coat, and the woman nodded warily and let her in, pointing to the living room.
Enchantee heard several voices, one loud and professional that she didn’t recognize. She stopped at the small table with the blue bowl and one floating pink camellia. “Okay, now, if you’ve got the gun with the safety off, and an intruder is approximately…”
She touched the camellia petals. Carrie Smith Donohue’s clear, irritated voice cut him off. “You’re all being remarkably paranoid.”
The professional voice said, “Hey, I’m from Utah. This place is one disaster after another—fires, floods, earthquakes. But if you want to learn how to handle riots and criminals…”
But Carrie Smith Donohue wasn’t finished. Enchantee spun the camellia in the water and heard, “Really, this is no different than any other place with a Mediterranean climate and residents of Mediterranean temperament. You have the weather, the heat, and you have people of varying southern-type bloods—Indians, Spaniards, and Africans. And I feel terrible for Connie, but even though Web was from Orange County, his grandfather was orginally from the Ozarks. White trash. Blood is—”
“Carrie, shut up for once, huh?” Abby’s father cut in. “I’ve got things to do, if the gentleman can finish his presentation.”
Enchantee put the coat on the floor in the foyer and turned to go. She was outside when Abby came around the corner of the house. “Chani! I was checking on Dylan in the back. God, he misses you. Lourdes is Salvadoran, she’s really nice, but she can’t have a conversation with him.”
“D’Junior misses Dylan, too,” Enchantee said carefully. “You guys are having a class, huh?”
“It’s so stupid,” Abby said. “Some former sheriff with a security firm came over because my mom wants to hear about protection. Bent won’t do it. He says he’s not falling for mass mentality. He says look at guys like Marcus.” Abby put her hand on Enchantee’s arm. “But aren’t you glad you weren’t in your old neighborhood?”
“It was scary all over,” Enchantee said, heading down the walkway under the roses. “I’ll see you.”
She drove down Pepper to the house on the corner of Olive and Grove. Ocie Mae’s old house. Her granddaughter was renting it to Demetrius for a few dollars. SaRonn had fixed it up. Enchantee stood on the stone steps, looking inside. She hadn’t been able to go back to her house yet. Maybe someday. D’Junior came running outside, holding a stick. “Uncle Marcus get shot, too!”
“I know,” Enchantee said, taking the stick away.
Hosea handed the hubcap to Octavious. He and Kickstand and Nacho King stood around looking at the car.
“Oh, man, check him out! He got the ’52 Chevy, the dual carbs…”
“Man, your cousin wantin a hooptie, I got a ’66 Rivvy for sale at the crib, come check it out. Got them original skirts.”
Hosea saw Marcus walk slowly up the gravel drive, his hand in a sling. His chest ached with a sharp, stabbing pain, and he leaned against the stones, feeling for the jar of choc he’d put on the flat rock shelf. He took a drink, seeing the sun falling behind the trees along the riverbottom in the distance. Tomorrow he would bury his walking son, his ghost-eyed son. This one came up, trying to grin, his forehead clear and unmarked, his wire-rimmed glasses hiding his eyes.
“The Rivvy,” Marcus said to Octavious and the other men. “The Deuce and a Quarter. The El Dog. What you gon sell me, Eight, my brother? I’m tired of my Funkytown Bug.”
“You got any money?” Kickstand said, and they all laughed.
Oscar came out of the coldhouse, motioning for Hosea to follow him to the palm-lined fence overlooking the riverbottom. “Marcus bringin back his reporter friend sometime,” Oscar said. “He were okay for a sherbert. He ain’t drank a drop a choc—he throw that up if I give it to him. But he ate him some chitlins.”
Hosea looked at his brother. “You let them pigs out day after that fire—didn’t none of em run?”
“Hell, no,” Oscar said, looking at the river. “Soon as them ashes was cool, I let em look for what they want in there. And Lanier dropped a load a lettuce and strawberries somebody thrown out the market. They ain’t foolish. They went on back in.”
Hosea nodded. He’d heard what Marcus had said the newspaper wrote about Matheson running away, what the detective had told them. More drug chemicals—ether—just like the Kozy Komfort fire. But Oscar wasn’t saying anything.
Hosea turned to walk back, and he saw his wife’s grandmother sitting in a bronze-painted chair near her rose garden, watching a large moth move so fast from flower to flower that Hosea could barely see a blur.
She looked up at him and pointed to the movement. “Angel. Paloma de la luz,” she said, but she could see that he didn’t understand. “Nobody see,” she whispered, her tongue hesitant.
The apricots were still green. The other fruit was just pebble-sized. The olive trees were covered with their dangling sprays of tiny florets.
In May, the only thing Paz harvested was the mirage of water. The jacaranda tree bloomed now, the fern-swayed branches turning to bursts of lavender trumpet flowers that eventually wilted and fell during the warmer days, until the trunk was circled with a pond of pale blue. All she gathered was the scent of jasmine tangled with the roses in the corner and the sight of the icy blue carpet near her feet, before the heat of summer swept in with Santa Ana gusts. When she looked across the river at the spirit lake, still trembling in the saddle of the hills the way it would for months, she felt the cool wafting across the water and through the branches, to touch her folded hands.