White Heat Page 8

  “Laurie, are you in there?” Him. Her hands shook as she flattened herself as flush with the floor as she possibly could.

  “Laurie, it’s Gary. With all this rioting going on I wanted to see if you were okay. Your car’s at the end of the driveway, but maybe you’re with friends or neighbors. Are you in there? Let me know. I’m worried. I care about you.”

  She didn’t know what to do. He seemed genuinely concerned. He was also crazy. She decided to stay flat on the floor. She wanted to turn the lights off. That would have been a giveaway. She hoped he’d leave soon.

  He went around to the kitchen door. Knocked again. It sounded like he was trying the windows. God please. No! It was impossible to meld with the floor any further. That didn’t stop her from trying.

  “Laurie, if you’re in there, open the door. I want to protect you. I love you. Don’t be scared. It’s only me.”

  He sounded like they’d known each other for ages, instead of having only been on one date together. He sounded like she’d reciprocated his feelings. She never had. That date had been okay, barely. There was no need to see him again. How did he get this idea that he loved her—and that she loved him back? It was crazy. He was crazy.

  She crawled to the still-unplugged living room phone. Plugged it back in, dialed nine-one-one. The line was busy. She hit the redial button. Still busy. What good was a restraining order? She couldn’t get through to the police. Even if she could have gotten through that night, they probably had other things to do.

  “Laurie, I don’t know if you’re in there. I’ll sit in my car for a while to make sure nothing happens.”

  Footsteps padded away. She crawled to the window, peeked under the blinds. He got in his car, rested his head against the headrest. She crawled back to the center of the room, lay on her back, staring at the ceiling. Wide-eyed, for hours.

  At five-thirty the next morning, the footsteps came back to the front door. “Laurie, I have to go home and shower for work. You didn’t come home. Maybe you’re in there, maybe not. I have to go. I’ll call you later. Things shouldn’t be so bad in the daylight.” He started to walk off. “I love you.”

  The footsteps receded again. She crawled to the window and looked out under the blinds. Watched him drive off. Her heart finally began to return to its normal rate. She was tired, but wired on adrenalin. She waited a few minutes. When he didn’t return she went out the front door to get the morning paper. There was an audio cassette on the mat. A red rose was attached to it. She picked it up, looked at it, a compilation Beatles album: Love Songs.

  CHAPTER 12

  The streets were on fire. If I was a user—drug user—this would have been the worst bad trip of my life. It was anyway. We raced through Dante’s inferno. Demons appearing on all sides of us. My pistol was in my lap, ready. Was I? That was the real question.

  Geysers of flame shot up on all sides of Martin Luther King Hospital. It was almost pretty. Almost. It wasn’t almost hot—it was blistering. We were all coughing. Rita and I started to pull Tiny from the backseat. It wasn’t easy. We had to roll him this way and that to get him out of the car. He tried to help as best he could. He wasn’t doing well, having trouble breathing, not from the smoke but from the damage the Uzi jammed down his throat did. We finally got him out, standing between us, and walked him into the emergency room. You’d have thought the Dodgers and Giants were in the playoffs. We had to take a ticket. A nurse practitioner went around triaging the incoming patients. She looked down Tiny’s throat, took his pulse. He was stuck somewhere in the middle, after the gunshot, knife and burn victims, before the broken fingers. He signaled us to leave. We didn’t want to.

  “It’s best if you do leave. He’ll be all right,” the nurse said. Her arm swept across the no-longer sterile hospital hall. Now it was a mass of bloody brown, black and white bodies.

  “What do you want to do?” Rita said.

  “Let’s stay.”

  Tiny looked up, forced a smile, still having trouble breathing.

  “You really must go,” said the nurse. “We don’t have room for any extraneous people.”

  Tiny tried to talk, squeaked out: “Go on. I’ll be okay. I’m feelin’ better now.” His voice was weak. He looked around, scanning the hall. Was he checking to see if Maurice was there? “All these people—” He put his hand out for me to shake. I did. But we didn’t go. Until he had seen the doctor and been assigned a bed.

  “We’ll check up on you,” I said as he was being wheeled down the hall.

  “Take care of yourselves. It’s murder out there.” This time he wrote instead of trying to talk. He leaned his head back against the pillow.

  Rita and I walked a gauntlet of crying mothers, screaming babies, hurting men and boys, out of the hospital to her car. Her car wasn’t dark gray anymore. A thin mist of light gray ash covered it. She opened the trunk, took a spray bottle with blue liquid in it and a roll of paper towels and cleaned the front and rear windows. Even in this mess, she didn’t litter, throwing the used paper towels in a small plastic bag in the back seat.

  Traffic moved slowly along Compton Avenue. There weren’t many cars out. Everyone drove cautiously. No one wanted to antagonize another driver and get blown away for no good reason. Hell, why should this night be different from any other in the Big Orange? City of Angels. City of Dreams. And like most dreams this one was going up in smoke.

  We were silent. The tension wasn’t between us. It was outside, a steady stream of ash and smoke, sirens and thudding choppers. Bangers banging, people running. Looters looting. Anarchy. I think neither of us knew just what to say. Rita started to laugh.

  “I don’t even know where I’m heading. I’m taking you home, right?”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Mama said I should loan you my car. If you don’t mind, I’d rather just drive you there so I can have access to it.”

  “I don’t mind. But if you just get me out of this area, I can make my way home.”

  “Am I heading in the right direction?”

  She was heading north. I nodded.

  “Of course. North and west.”

  The better L.A. neighborhoods were north and west of South Central. I didn’t know if she was being snide or just stating a fact. White people—most of them—lived north and west. Plain and simple.

  “How do you know Tiny?” I said, trying to change the subject.

  “He’s a friend of the family, grew up in the same neighborhood.”

  People ran in front of us, causing Rita to slam on the brakes more than once. And more than once they were carrying TVs, VCRs, anything they could get their hands on. One couple had a six-foot-tall refrigerator they were moving across the street in starts and stops.

  I looked across to Rita, a face of calm silhouetted by flame and smoke. It was hard to think about Teddie during the fracas in the house with Warren, Maurice and their cuzzes. Hard to think about her while we were taking Tiny to the hospital, hard to now with the ruckus outside the Shadow—I wished it was a shadow, slipping silently and unnoticed along the street. Looking at Rita reminded me of Teddie, of why I’d been in South Central in the first place. Teddie was cute. Rita was beautiful. She definitely had it over her sister in the looks department. Why wasn’t she a star?

  “What do you do?”

  “Huh?” She looked at me, then turned back to the road. “Oh, yeah. I’m a draftsman.”

  “Architect?”

  “No, draftsman. The architect designs. I draw lines. Only today I do it on a computer. Some day I might go back to school, become a full-fledged Frank Lloyd Rita.”

  “I like that, Frank Lloyd Rita. I’ll just call you Frank from now on.”

  “And I’ll call you Johnnie.”

  I looked at her quizzically. She saw from the corner of her eye. “Frankie and Johnnie,” she said.

  It felt like flirting. I wasn’t sure. In the middle of a riot that had to do largely with race, two of the major protagonists of color, blac
k and white, were flirting. It was more surreal than the motion picture flashing by outside the car’s windows.

  “Should be a lot of work for you when this is over, Frankie.”

  “Unfortunately. This makes me very sad.”

  Lucy’s, the taco stand at La Brea and Pico was still standing. The fires hadn’t gotten that far—yet. And we were closer to home, my home. Not much traffic on the streets. Not many people about up there either.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “A little. But I don’t think we should stop out here,” she said. I gave her directions to my place from there. Keep heading north on La Brea. Turn left at Beverly Boulevard. Then it’s only a few blocks and a right.

  We pulled into my driveway. Everything was quiet in the immediate vicinity, except for Baron’s anxious barking. There was the now ever-present sound of sirens and choppers in the distance. The smell of smoke. But my little piece of heaven seemed just fine.

  The glow from my security lights hit her just right through the car window. She was half in silhouette, half in the dusky light. She could have been a model. Should have been.

  “Would you like to come in?”

  She thought about it. “I’d like to call my mother, tell her I’m okay.”

  “No problem, assuming the phones are working. I’ll even fix you up something to eat, if I have anything to fix.”

  Baron greeted us, jumping on me to say hello, then on Rita, checking her out. I pulled him off.

  “It’s okay, I love dogs. What’s his name?”

  “Baron.”

  “Good boy. He looks like a handful to take care of.”

  “Hell, he takes care of me.”

  Her mother’s line was busy, or out of order. I fixed a healthy high cholesterol meal of eggs and bacon. The pistol sat on the table next to us while we ate in silence. I wanted to talk to her. Didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to talk about Warren, Teddie, Maurice or her mother. Not about her job, or mine either. I wanted to talk about us. Was it because she reminded me of Teddie? I hardly knew Rita well enough to fall for her so strongly, even if she was beautiful. I didn’t know anything about Teddie either. Maybe it was just the fuckup part of me looking for trouble. I didn’t know. Didn’t care. What I did know was that I wanted her.

  I put on the little TV in my breakfast room. Every channel had the riots. I’d figured they would. Hell was breaking out all over L.A. Maybe Rita would see it and not want to drive home. But where would she stay? No point staying in a motel. Why spend the money? Why chance driving on the streets anymore? I had a spare bedroom.

  I hated myself for being so insidious. Not enough to stop, though.

  “Pretty bad out there,” I said.

  “It’s terrible, really terrible.”

  “Still can’t get through to your mother?”

  “No.” She looked bleak. “And Warren’s probably out doing who knows what?”

  She dialed the phone again. It was a few minutes after 11:00 p.m. Her mother picked up. “Mama, I was worried about you. You’re line’s been busy.” She waited while her mother talked. “Yes, I’m okay. I’m at Duke’s house. Tiny’s being taken care of at MLK. Yes, there were a lot of people out. Lots of fires….I’m sorry, I thought I should keep my car and drop him off home….No, we made it here in one piece, no trouble….His neighborhood’s kind of quiet. At least right around us….Mama, I hardly know him….Okay.” She turned to me. “She wonders if it will be safe to drive home this late.”

  “You’re welcome to stay here.” More than welcome. I had nothing nasty on my mind. I wouldn’t force anything. If it happened, I wouldn’t fight it either. If it didn’t happen, we could stay up watching the City Fireworks Show or an old movie.

  “Yes, yes, mama, that’s what he said.” Mrs. Matson had obviously heard my invitation.

  “I have a spare bedroom. It’d be no problem.”

  Mama heard that too. It was settled. Rita was staying. She was worried about what she’d wear to work the next day. That was quickly gotten over.

  Baron followed us as I showed her the spare bedroom. It was in the middle of the house, halfway between the front and rear. A good size. The walls were eggshell white. Levelor blinds covered the windows. A never-used desk sat in one corner. A double bed across from it. One wall was lined with bookshelves, filled with books. My library. Two windows that didn’t get much light since they were on the north side of the house. Rita approved. It was comfortable enough.

  She headed back, out of the room. I was blocking the doorway. She stopped, three feet in front of me. I didn’t move. It was awkward. She looked at me. Didn’t avoid my eyes. I looked into hers. It lasted only a fraction of a second. I backed out. She walked through. We ended up in the den, at opposite ends of the couch. The TV droned in the background. I thought about offering her one of my special gin-laced lemonades. Thought better of it.

  It didn’t feel right to make a move. She had just lost her sister. Her brother was walking around with a chip on his shoulder that someone was bound to knock off and shove in his mouth sooner or later—might even be me—and here she was in a strange man’s house—a white man’s house—in the middle of a major riot. I wanted to talk to her, if nothing else. Didn’t know what to say.

  “I’ll give you some pajamas or a T-shirt to sleep in. You can also have my robe.”

  “I’m not sleepy.”

  “Who would be tonight? I don’t think anyone’s going to sleep well.” I shifted to face her better. “I can put a tape in, comedy or something. Maybe that’ll help.”

  “No thanks. I think I’d like to leave the news on.”

  “Afraid of seeing Warren?” I knew I shouldn’t have said it as soon as it sprung from my mouth. I thought she’d be pissed. She wasn’t.

  “I do worry about him. He’s so angry.”

  “How come you’re not?”

  “How do you know I’m not?”

  “You don’t seem to be.”

  “There are things that upset me, sure. Some of the same that upset Warren. But why go around being mad all the time? You just got to pick yourself up and go about your life. You can do it if you want to. I have a good job. There are still some problems, but then I hear my mother talk about how it was when she was my age, or my grandmother. I don’t expect things to change overnight.”

  “You know what I think, I think life’s hard for everybody. Doesn’t matter what color.”

  “It is. But it’s still harder for black folks.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. People do make it.”

  “It’s a struggle.”

  “For all of us.”

  “At least you’re honest. The one thing that does make me mad are these white liberals who don’t speak the truth about their own prejudices. They patronize. They’re hypocrites. What I’d like to know is what schools do they send their kids to, public or private? I’d rather know a bigot and know where he stands for real than some of these phonies who smile to your face, then stick a knife in your back.”

  “You’d love my friend Jack. He says what he thinks and means what he says. Sometimes he’s not such a nice guy, but he’s loyal.”

  “Like a dog? I guess we all have a friend Jack. They’re mean and nasty, but they tell the truth.”

  “He speaks his mind, that’s for sure.”

  She got up. “I think I’ll wash up now. Maybe try and get some sleep.”

  I showed her to the guest bathroom, gave her a new toothbrush, my robe and an old pair of pajamas. I hadn’t slept in anything but the buff in years. “If you need anything just let me know. If not, I’ll see you in the morning.”

  I went to my own bathroom, washed, put on a pair of old pajama bottoms. I walked through the house, turning off lights, locking doors and windows. Walking down the hall, I came to Rita’s room. The door was half open. The light on. She was sitting at the desk looking through musty notebooks of my butterfly collection. I hadn’t collected since I was a kid. Hadn’t looked at the books since
I went into the service. She saw me in the doorway. Looked up. The smile that crossed her lips was a slight one. Barely a smile at all. It was beautiful.

  “Did you collect these?” she said.

  I took a step inside the room. “When I was younger. I haven’t looked at them in years.”

  “I know,” she said, brushing dust off the cover. “It’s hard to imagine you collecting butterflies.”

  “It was a phase.” I was embarrassed.

  “Don’t be embarrassed. I used to collect them myself.”

  “Really?”

  “What made you start?” she said.

  “One of the first memories I had as a child was being in my grandmother’s yard, seeing a Monarch butterfly. It flitted about. It was beautiful. I didn’t know what it was. My grandmother told me.”

  “In L.A.? Did your grandmother live in L.A.?”

  “On Fuller, near Beverly. Not too far from here.”

  “I haven’t collected in a long time either. Maybe we can compare collections some time.”

  “I’d like that.”

  It wasn’t planned on either of our parts. We’d both been thinking about it. Somehow we ended up in the guest bed together. Her naked body was sleek and taut. Perfectly proportioned. It didn’t seem like a one night stand to me. I wondered if that’s what it was to her. Two people coming together in the midst of crisis, letting off some pent up emotion. I hoped not.

  We fell asleep wrapped up in each other, a tangle of limbs. My dreams were nightmares. Back to the Inferno. I woke up in the middle of the night, sweating. The light from the hall fell across her body in a chiaroscuro of light and dark. She woke up.

  “Is anything wrong?” she said.

  “Nothing, just a bad dream.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Sun streaked the windows. It bled through the blinds casting film noir shadows across our naked bodies. Rita lay soft and warm next to me, taking long, quiet breaths. Baron was on the floor next to the bed, laying on his back, feet in the air. The sirens and chopper blades had died down somewhat. We had made love again, long and hot. Didn’t take any precautions. In the heat of passion, you don’t always do what’s right. At least I don’t. We didn’t talk much. What was there to say?