Aftershock & Others: 19 Oddities Read online

  Neglected? I blew my stack at that and told her if she didn’t cease and desist—yeah, I said that; heard it on Law & Order or someplace—if she didn’t stop filling my little boy’s head with her garbage, I’d have her joint custody thing tossed out on its ear.

  She gave me this hard look and said that I’d never have sole custody again. Then she slammed the door in my face.

  Things were kind of at a stalemate for a while. J stopped using Gypsy talk around me, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t getting an earful from his grandmother and being told not to use or mention it at home.

  But last night changes everything. I don’t care if the judge is a grandmother ten times over, no one can get away with teaching a child to say something like that to his own father.

  So all this crapola is on my mind as I drive to today’s job in downtown. Yeah, there really is a downtown L.A. That’s where the city’s skyscrapers cluster in the basin. That’s where you find the convention center and city hall, that big tapering building everyone knows from Dragnet. The whole rotten situation’s on my mind when I park in a municipal lot, and I’m still steaming about it as I step off the curb to cross Figueroa.

  I hear a voice behind me yell, “Oh, shit!” and I hear a horn blaring, and I look up to see this Ford F-150 pickup running the red light and making a beeline for me. I see the guy behind the wheel and he’s got one hand holding a cell phone against his ear and the other wrapped around a Starbucks cup, leaving his left pinky for steering; he’s looking down and I know, I just know he’s spilled some coffee in his lap. He ain’t got a clue as to what’s happening and I realize I’m a goner and somewhere in my head J’s voice is saying, You’re going to die tomorrow.

  All this takes place during a single heartbeat and just as I start into a much-too-late dive back toward the curb this eighteen-wheeler tools into the intersection from the left, cruising with the green, and knocks the shit out of the pickup, knocks it into next week, leaving me in the middle of the lane shaking and sweating and sick and hoping I haven’t peed my pants.

  I stagger to the other side and lower myself to the curb. I sit bent forward, holding my floating head in my shaking hands. Nobody notices me, which is fine. I’m not keen on having people watching as I hurl breakfast. Everybody’s gravitating toward the wreckage in the intersection. Everybody except this bent old black guy with a cane and a Fred Sanford beard.

  “You gotta be the luckiest-assed man on God’s earth,” he says as he stops a couple of feet from me.

  I look up at him but say nothing. I’m not lucky. I’m unlucky. I’ve got a witch for a mother-in-law. Oh, not a witch who casts spells and cooks up magic spells. No, she’s a witch who plays with your head. Because that’s what Gypsies do, and they’re good at it.

  I see how this works now. She hypnotizes or does whatever she does to Jason to make him say whatever she wants him to say. You’re going to die tomorrow is a brilliant choice, especially when it comes from your son. It puts you on edge, throws you off your rhythm, distracts you. Distracts you to the point where you’re on autopilot. You see the little green walking man sign light up and you step off a curb without checking to see if anything’s coming your way.

  “Here,” says the old guy. He’s holding out a pint bottle swathed in a paper bag. “Take a pull. You could use it.”

  I wave him off and struggle to my feet. “Thanks, but I’m wobbly enough already.”

  “Lucky guy,” he says as I walk away. “One lucky fucking guy.”

  I’m better by the time I get to the job, but I’m still not right. Taking charge though, dividing up the crew into details and telling them to get their asses in gear takes my mind off what almost happened.

  The job is in one of downtown’s older buildings. Real old. One of those narrow three-story dinosaurs that hung on through the ferro-concrete building boom. Me and my guys have been hired to move a big old Kelvinator-sized safe out of the third-floor office. Ordinarily not a problem, but in this case the building’s been renovated umpteen times since the safe was moved in, and one of those renovations was a major overhaul of the staircase. Mainly narrowing it to increase the square footage of rentable space around it. The result: the safe can’t go down the way it came up. The solution: knock out a window and enough wall around it to get the safe through, then winch it down to the sidewalk.

  Yeah, I know, sounds like a mess, but trust me, the window and its wall are a much easier fix than a ripped-up stairwell.

  By noon we’ve broken through the wall, the winch is in place, and the safe chained up and ready to go for a ride. I head downstairs to guide it from there and to make sure the landing pad stays clear of the curious. I’ve got about a mile of yellow caution tape wound around the area but over the years I’ve learned never to underestimate the stupidity of the average L.A. pedestrian. Even though my safety record’s just about perfect, my liability premium is still through the roof. One bad accident, just one, will put it on the space shuttle.

  Nobody gets to play the old Looney Toons flattened-under-a-safe scene on my watch.

  As I hit the sidewalk I see the old black dude from over on Figueroa standing at the front of the gaggle pressing against the tape.

  I nod. “What’s up?”

  He shrugs and smiles, showing two, maybe three teeth. “Nothing better to do.”

  “Retired, huh?”

  “You could say that.”

  I get to work directing the guys on the roof with the winch and the guys inside with the safe. Pretty soon we’ve got the safe out and dangling in space. I signal the winch guys to start easing her down. As the winch starts cranking I look across the touchdown area and see some kid, a little Korean girl, no more than three, standing a couple of feet inside the tape. It’s not like she’s in danger or nothing, but I want her back where she belongs. I start toward her but I don’t go two steps before something squishes under my right boot.

  I look down. “Shit!”

  Which is exactly what it is. A nice fat pile of dog shit.

  Behind me I hear the old man laugh and say, “Maybe you ain’t so lucky after all!”

  As I stop to kick my boot against the concrete I hear a screech of stressed-out metal and hoarse shouts from above. Before I can look up, the safe slams onto and into the sidewalk directly in front of me.

  For the next few seconds, all around me, there’s no sound. Then someone says “Madre!” and another voice laughs and soon it’s a babble that I barely hear. Because I’m looking at the safe and knowing that’s exactly where I would’ve been when it hit…if I hadn’t stepped in that dog shit.

  I sense someone beside me. I turn and it’s that old black guy. He’s come through the tape and his wide brown eyes with yellowish whites are staring at me from inches away. He grabs my forearm and squeezes.

  “Wh-what are you doing?” I feel like I’ve got a mouth full of epoxy.

  “Jus wanna touch you, man. Thas all. I ain’t never had one lick of good luck in my whole damn life, and you…you gots enough for two, three even. Maybe some of it will rub off.”

  I yank my arm free and pull away. Not toward the building and my guys. Away. Just away.

  Half an hour later I’m in a bar, having lunch—a golden liquid with a foamy cap. Every since I pulled myself out of my post-Maria binge, I haven’t had a drink before five or six at night. Not one. But today is different. I’m quivering down to my intestinal lining.

  Because now I know what’s happening. I had it all wrong. I thought Jason had been coached to tell me I was going to die today, but it wasn’t that at all. It’s Ralda. She’s put some kind of Gypsy curse on me. The joint custody agreement ain’t enough for her. She wants J all to herself.

  And J…the old lady’s always said he has a “gift”…maybe some part of his subconscious sensed what his grandmother was up to and tried to warn me.

  Or maybe…

  Christ, what am I thinking? I don’t believe in any of this shit. Never have.

  And yet… />
  Something’s wrong today. I can feel it. Not just that I was almost killed twice. Something more.

  Maybe almost is the key word. I should’ve been flattened by that pickup, but the eighteen-wheeler saved me. I should’ve been crushed by that safe, but I stepped on a juicy dog turd at just the right moment to delay me just enough to stay alive.

  Almost as if I’m caught in the middle of a tug of war. Ralda is out to get me, no question, but something—someone—else has been pulling me back from each brink she pushes me to.

  Who? Only two possibilities that I can see. One is Jason—not consciously, because he would have told me about it last night or this morning. But maybe unconsciously he’s using his “gift” to fight for his dear old dad.

  The thought brings tears to my eyes. My little boy, taking my side against his grandmother’s black magic.

  The other possibility is Maria. I’ve never believed in an Other Side. I’ve always figured when you’re dead, you’re dead. But what if I’m wrong? I mean, I’ve been wrong about lots of things in my life, so why not add the afterlife to the list.

  What if Maria’s here, invisible but hanging close to me, shielding me from her mother’s curse?

  But what if it’s simply luck that’s keeping me alive? What if that old street dude is right? That I’m the luckiest man alive.

  Fine. Great. But nobody’s luck lasts forever. When does mine run out? Maybe I’ve used up my share for the day or the week or the month and from now on I’m on my own.

  Which means I have to make my luck.

  I raise my beer glass but stop it halfway to my mouth. It’s only my second, but maybe that’s part of Ralda’s curse: drown my fears, get sloshed, and splatter my truck and myself against a bridge abutment.

  No way. She doesn’t get me that easy.

  I leave a sawbuck and the rest of my beer on the bar and get the hell out. I stand blinking in the sunlight, wondering where I can go to be safe. Not downtown L.A. Any second now someone could lose control of their car, jump the sidewalk, and flatten me against a wall like a swatted fly. I wish I was home but I’m sure as hell not risking the freeway to get there. Like jumping into a lion’s den.

  I need a place that’s wide open. And public. Away from trucks and safes. Someplace I can get to without crossing too many streets. Only one place comes to mind.

  I start walking, eyes on the move to check for threats above, below, and around. I hang back from the curbs at crosswalks, I don’t step onto the street until everything’s come to a dead stop, and then I stick close to my fellow pedestrians, figuring their presence will dilute the curse or whatever it is that’s dogging me.

  It takes me longer than I ever could have imagined to reach Pershing Square, but I make it in one piece. I’ve been here before, just out of curiosity. It’s a pretty cool place with all this modern architecture-sculpture and landscaping and fountains, but I can’t appreciate any of that now. All I want is a safe spot, and I think this is it. If I hang out at the center here, no car can get to me, even if the driver’s been paid to run me down. It’s open enough so that nobody can sneak up on me. And it’s far enough from any buildings so that even if there’s an earthquake nothing can fall on me.

  I buy a paper, find a good spot near Pershing’s statue, and hang here, reading, watching. Every so often someone from my crew calls my cell and I tell them what to do, but I never say where I am. Don’t want nobody knowing that.

  My stomach starts to growl as the sun settles behind one of the taller buildings but I’m afraid to eat. What if it’s poisoned? Not like the hot dog guy is out to get me, but if I’ve got a curse on me and if there’s one poisoned frank in the city, it’ll find its way to me. Same goes for a drink. Never know when you might pick up a tampered cola.

  I’m cursing myself for being so crazy paranoid, but all I need to do is survive the day, make it till midnight, and I’ll have beaten her.

  So I keep waiting and watching. I should call to let Jason know I’ll be late, but I’d have to talk to her, and the last person on earth I want to talk to is her.

  I hold my safe perch well into the dark. Finally I look at my watch: 10:58. Just a tad more than an hour to go.

  And suddenly I want to be there in Ralda’s bungalow, eye to eye as the clock strikes twelve. I know it’s crazy but I can’t resist the urge. I want to laugh in her face when that moment arrives.

  Real careful-like, I make my way back to the garage, get in my pickup, and start the trip to Lomita. My guts are tied in knots as I get on the 110 and head south. I keep my sweaty hands tight on the wheel and stick to a middle lane where I won’t be in the way of the speeders and won’t have to deal with on-ramps and off-ramps.

  The Lomita exit is coming up and I’m checking my rearview to see if it’s safe to ease right when I spot two low-slung cars, one bright orange, the other canary yellow, racing my way through the traffic like candy-colored bullets, weaving in and out at suicidal speed.

  Every muscle in my body clenches as I somehow know without a doubt that one of them is going to kill me. Not on purpose, but it’s going to happen. He’s being controlled by an unseen hand, just like me.

  I realize now that the whole stupid idea of seeing Ralda at the last minute didn’t come from me, but from her, pushing me out of my safe spot and onto the road where she can finish me off.

  Panicked, I freeze. Go left? Go right? Stay where I am? All I can be sure of is that whatever move I make will be wrong. But I’ve got—

  What’s that popping noise? Oh, no, oh God, they’re shooting at each other. It’s some sort of gang thing and I’m going to be caught in the middle of it.

  A sudden calm slips over me. The panic, the fear, the indecision melt away. I give myself over to the inevitability of what’s about to happen. It’s over…all over. This is where it ends for me and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

  In this strange, peaceful mood, I hang in the center lane. The traffic seems to slow. The air thickens as the world around me grinds down into second gear, then into first. I hear rapid-fire pops, see flashes blooming from the windows of the onrushing cars as the orange one veers to my right, the yellow to my left. They continue their barrage as they flank me. The sound is deafening. My windows shatter on both sides, peppering me with an ice storm of semi-sharp safety glass. I can feel the whoosh of the slugs as they hurtle through the car, even feel one tug at the hair at the back of my head. I see—or at least think I do—the bullets whizzing past my face from opposite directions. And I brace for the one that will end me.

  And then the two cars are past. They’re still shooting at each other but they’re moving on. And I’m still alive. The guy ahead of me ain’t so lucky. He winds up in the gunfire sandwich, just like me, only I see the silhouette of his head jerk left as it catches one and suddenly his car veers onto the shoulder and jumps the railing.

  I roll my own car onto the shoulder a little past where he went over. I stop, open the door, and vomit. Or at least try to. I ain’t had a thing to eat since breakfast and so only a little bile comes up.

  I look around and see other cars pulled over, people out and jumping the railing to go check on the guy who went over, others talking on their cell phones—to the cops, I hope.

  I close the door and slump against the steering wheel, gasping for air. I should be dead. No way I should have survived that barrage. I should be down in that ravine with the other poor bastard.

  But I’m not. And the only reason I can come up with is protection: Here’s further proof, damn near undeniable proof, that someone’s protecting me.

  With that thought fixed firmly in my head and heart, I slip the car back into gear and head for Ralda’s house.

  I have her beat. I want to see her face when she realizes it.

  “Vincent!” Ralda says as she opens her front door. She’s traded this morning’s housedress for a ratty purple robe, but she’s still wearing those fuzzy white slippers. “Where have you been?”

 
; I brush past her and turn to face her.

  “Worried about me?” I say with a wolfish grin—at least it feels wolfish.

  In fact I’m feeling pretty wolfish all over—tough and mean and pretty goddamn near invincible.

  “Yes. And so was Jason. He kept listening to the news for word that you’d been killed like his mother. He was terrified.”

  Some of the wolf dies. I hadn’t thought of that. One parent gets killed on the road and J can’t help worrying about the same thing happening to the other half of the team.

  I look around but don’t see him.

  “Where is he?”

  “In my bed.” Ralda fixes me with this you-should-be-ashamed stare. “He fell asleep watching the late news, hoping he wouldn’t hear about you, praying you’d call soon.”

  I feel like a shit, but only for an instant.

  “I’d’ve been home on time if it wasn’t for you.”

  Her eyes widen. “Me?”

  “Yeah. You. You!” I hear my voice rising and I let it go. “Don’t think I don’t know about the curse you put on me. You were out to kill me today, but it didn’t work. First off, Jason warned me. And second, someone’s been protecting me. Someone more powerful that you, Ralda.” I laugh and I don’t particularly like the sound. “Christ, I couldn’t have died today if I tried!”

  She’s looking at me like I’m a crackhead or something.

  “Vincent, are you mad? Where did you ever get the idea that I could lay a curse on anyone? Others have that power, but I do not. And even if I could, do you think I would deprive Jason of his father, his only surviving parent? I may not like you, and I may think you’re hurting Jason by ignoring his gift, but I would never wish another tragedy on that poor boy.”

  Something in what she’s saying and how she says it strikes home, hits true: Ralda don’t give a damn about me beyond what I mean to J. And she’d never do anything that might hurt him.