All Involved (14 page)

I'm fixing to get up on the 105 Freeway, and this thing isn't even done being built yet, cuz fuck it, why not? I'm laughing as I fly past them
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
signs and up on a ramp that ends in the sky with a bunch of girders sticking out and no asphalt. It's a good parking spot, man. Up here, it feels like my road, like it's been built just for me. I got my eyes north on fire dots and a smoke smudge so fucking big that it goes all the way across the sky. It's black everywhere, like it got dark early. I can't see no San Gabriel Mountains. I can't see Downtown. I can't see shit.

But I can see more than I seen all day. And it kind of feels like I been in a submarine for hours, looking through one of them Paris scopes, but now I'm up on the surface and I open the hatch and look out.

It's quiet too. Quieter than you'd think. I don't even hear any sirens.

Traffic's way good though. I can see the 710 from here and nothing's on it. Every fool's either at home waiting it out or getting into some shit. They ain't out driving. Which means the best time to drive in L.A. is when it's burning to the ground. I think that shit's
funny as hell! Even funnier, days like this come once every couple decades around here.

See, when it comes to Mexican people in this city, we know all about the zoot suiters getting beat the fuck down by white marines and navy dudes and shit. Everybody's
abuelo
has got a good story about that. What was that, like 1944 or something? Close enough.

So
that
shit was about race. It was simple, like: see a brown dude looking slick, smack the shine straight out of his shoes with all your white brothers. Unleash on that fool for dressing prettier than you, you know?

After that happens, everybody looks back and is like (in my best white-newscaster-dude voice), “Wow, that was terrible, just awful, no way should that ever happen again.”

But then they forget about it, and they forget they even thought it was bad, and for a while nothing happens, but nothing got fixed either, it's just getting drier, ready for another burn, and that's when Watts happens, which I guess blew up in the '60s, cuz nobody's old-as-fuck uncle will shut up about that shit either. (I don't know much about families—shit, I don't know
anything
about families, but it seems like the kids never listen. Me, I always listen to the older people. I might not
look
like I'm listening, but I always am. I might not actually do what they say, but I hear it. I hear them. My ears never turn off, man.)

And then after Watts, the same thing happens as before, right? Everybody looks back and is, like, “Wow, that was terrible, no way should that happen again,” and the fucked-up thing is they
mean
it this time, but they sure as shit don't remember last time, and still nothing changes.

And shit hasn't changed since. So that's, what? Twenty years apart for race riots? Enough time for everybody to forget again, right? Cuz it's nineteen-ninety-fucking-two, and this's what? Like, thirty? Probably a little less? Doesn't matter. The way it's blowing up, this one's overdue.

This shit is like a bank loan.
With interest
.

And I might never say much that makes sense to anybody but me, but make sure you write this shit down. Or underline it. Whatever.

If L.A. ever dies, if the people all give up and leave, carve this on its fucking tombstone . . .

L.A. has a short fucking memory. It never learns
nothing
.

And that's what's gonna kill this city. Watch. There'll be another race riot in 2022. Or before, I dunno.

Shit.

Hold up.

It occurs to me right now I really shouldn't be driving around up here too much cuz it could collapse or something. I turn around in my seat and look at the moneybag before busting out in a huge smile. I think about the heroin and weed in there while I dip another fingernail in the
cocaína
and rub it in like a gum treatment, then I turn this van around and ease down the ramp.

Shit is scary sometimes, sounding all crumbly! Was definitely easier going up than coming down. But when I'm back on the ground, I know that what I need is to go back to the hotel. I need to hide this shit good. The money and everything.

But here's another thing about L.A. It's big as fuck but people keep to their corners. There's whole blocks where people only speak Spanish or Ethiopian or whatever.

It's like every race's their own fucking boxer, and when that happens, when you get that mentality, it's easy to look at everybody else as an opponent, somebody to beat, cuz if you don't, you don't get what's yours. You don't get the prizes, you know?

And maybe that's it right there, in nutshells, like they say.

You plunk a bunch of people down from all over everywhere, keep them in their corners and don't let them mix and figure shit out, and they all got minds to compete, cuz shit, everybody in L.A.'s hustling all the time for everything.

Wait, where was I?

Shit.

Man, this headache's fucking
killing
me.

Like, it's so bad I can feel my heartbeat in my head.

Boom-boom
.
Boom-boom
.

I dip into my white stash again and put it under my tongue this time. It tastes like when I had to swallow aspirins without water, except worse. More bitter. I take a big breath through my nose right about then, trying to fill my lungs all the way up before I let it go and push the taste out.

So, uh, like I said, there'll be more of this same shit in 2022. Just watch.

If it were up to me though, that one'd be robots versus people.

Cuz at least then we'd have to get together and shit. Damn. I'd love to be here for that too. You know it'd be some straight-up
Terminator 2
shit. We could bomb down the L.A. River in a semitruck and motorbikes for real then!

Yeah.

That shit sounds tight, but maybe that's cuz my headache's fading and my teeth are buzzing in my fucking head right now, man.

I rent another hotel room with the loose cash, one directly across from the room I already got for four more days. Well, now it's ten. When that's up, I'll move to another hotel where no one's ever seen me before in their lives. Maybe out in Hawthorne or some shit. You know,
far
.

For now though, the new room's on the same floor as my old one (the second), across the way, but nobody knows it's mine. I paid that fucker at the desk not to say shit to nobody. And I think I'm good cuz he barely speaks English and he's got no Spanish, which means if Fate or Momo ever know to ask him questions, he won't be any kind of help. I don't know if he's Chinese or what. Korean, maybe?

Fuck it. One's as good as the other to me. The less English the better.

None of the rooms are in my name. One's for Shane, just Shane, and the other's under Alfredo Garcia. You know, like them old western-type movies?

I make sure nobody sees me go in the new room. When the door shuts behind me, I lock it and pull the curtains closed. I drag the fucked-up chair over to the air vent above the TV and use the tip of Momo's knife to undo the screws on it.

It's fucking dusty as shit in there when I open it up! I cough for like two minutes straight before I grab two hand towels and scoop dust bunnies out of there straight into the trash, saying, “Fuck you, dust bunnies! You're never any good to nobody.”

Directly after that, I put the H in, the weed, and the rest of the cash. I stack it up neat in there.

In the bathroom, I grab as much coke as will fit into one of them clear plastic Kodak film-holder canisters that I keep around for whatever I'm holding. I tip it in, careful not to spill, but that shit's slippery. Some hits the sink but I'm on it. The rest I wrap up tight in the plastic bag from the ice bucket and put that in the vent too. Then I screw it back up, hang the Do Not Disturb sign on the knob, and bone the fuck out.

Down in the parking lot, I hear somebody call out to me and I almost have a fucking heart attack as I reach for the gun in my pocket.

“D.B.,” he says, “hey, Devil's Business! What the fuck, fool?”

I turn and it's Puppet. Poo-Butt Puppet.

I can tell I got to play this hard. “What'd you say? I ain't your fucking fool!”

When I first met this fucker, he didn't think I had a nickname, and he always knew I was up to no good, so he came up with that Devil's Business shit like it was fucking smart or something. Like it had class. Now even though he knows I go by Creeper, he still keeps up with it. I don't know why. Ego, I guess? Who knows why people do the fucked-up shit they do?

“Oh, I'm sorry,” he says without sounding sorry. “You holding?”

Puppet wants to know if I got drugs on me. Now, what do you think, I'm gonna tell this fucker the truth?

“No,” I say, “not since like a hour ago.”

“Oh man, you're fucked up right now, aren't you, homes? You should've fucking
shared
that shit.”

Like I'd ever share my shit with Puppet on purpose.

When Puppet gets close and I can tell he doesn't exactly need more cuz he's looking glazed as fuck, but he doesn't just want to know if I got shit, he's also got something on his mind and he's right about to tell me about it.

When this happens, I make sure to fucking listen hard, to listen like I'm not listening at all cuz the streets hear everything and know everything. If you think they don't, think again.

“You hear Fate's crew got Joker and them? Some chick went in last night late and opened up on a party.” Puppet turns his hand into a gun by pointing his finger at imaginary targets across the parking lot. Then he thinks better of it and turns it sideways. “Like,
blam
,
blam
,
blam
. All kinds of cold-blooded, homes!”

Some chick,
huh? He must mean Payasa. Couldn't be anybody else. For some reason, that kind of hits me too, cuz I know she hasn't rolled that hard before. It's like she popped her cherry capping those fools. It's like she's a new woman now. Not a virgin no more.

“Yeah, I heard that,” I say, even though you know I hadn't heard that shit.

Still, it's better if he thinks I did but that's only cuz this is the only fucker on earth I want thinking I'm smarter than he is so he doesn't get it into his head that he can get over on me.

After one of them long awkward silences, Puppet finally says, “I bet you I can light more fires than you. We could have, like, a contest or something. What do you think? You man enough?”

He's got a lighter out and he's playing with it like it's something
big. I almost laugh in this motherfucker's face. I keep it inside though. Like he has any clue he's already one behind, two if you count the handball wall, which I definitely do. He also doesn't know I got a ton of shit just burning a hole in Garza's van. I mean, not literally, but it could, you know. But then I think, you know, that isn't such a bad idea.

Like, I could burn a hole in this city so big that nobody ever did anything like it in the history of America. In the history of the world. Not since, like, a war or some shit. And, fire? Fire's like a cleaner. It transforms all the dirty stuff and makes room for the new. Cuz bleach burns too, right? It's like the same thing.

I pause and stare at Puppet before moving my eyes to this homeless dude shuffling through the parking lot, hobbling on a little metal cane with feathers tied to it but keeping his head up like he's the shaman of Los Angeles or something. He don't even look at me, but even from far away I can tell he's got a nasty scar on the side of his nose I can see. For a second I think about giving Puppet one just like it.

Then I turn back to him and talk like I'm Charles Bronson. “You're fucking
estupido,
Puppet. Why would I do that juvenile shit?”

Juvenile means childish, like something a dumb fucking kid would do, immature. And Puppet's still trying to explain to me why it's not stupid, why it's not like that at all, but it's too late cuz I'm already in the van and revving the engine and counting the bottles out the corner of my eye. Forty-four, still. No, forty-two.

Did I tell you I rolled up more rags and stuffed them in the bottles? No?

Well, I did.

And when I pop the shift to drive all I think about is how I'm gonna be the biggest fire starter in the history of the world.

The biggest one nobody ever knew about.

A hero, kind of.

A legend.

I got my two best lighters in my lap now (black BICs, motherfucker), and I don't even give a fuck what neighborhood I'm in. Lynwood, Compton, whatever. South Gate? HP? Who fucking cares? All I know is I bang a right on Western from Imperial and decide I'm gonna drive north till I run out of gas, hucking cocktails all the way.

I'm gonna light this city on fire all by myself. Burn it to the ground so we can rebuild with better shit. So we can start over. Someday somebody's gonna thank me for this shit.

First thing, I get a routine going.

I pull up to a place that looks like it'll catch good—maybe it's got an awning, or the door's open, or a window, and when I see that, I grab a bottle, light that shit, and chuck it out the driver's window like the world's best paper delivery boy. Except it isn't papers. This shit smashes and goes
fwoom
like a motherfucker!

I think I'm edging up into Inglewood or something when I start seeing the words
black owned
and
black owners
spray-painted on the sides of liquor stores, pawnshops, all that. Big black letters. All caps. At first I got no fucking idea what that's about.

But after a couple blocks it occurs to me that
mayates
need help figuring out which shit to fuck up. I gotta laugh at that. And when I'm done laughing:

       
1.
 
I throw at those too.