Multiplex Fandango (22 page)

Once they hit
Silver Lake Road
, they headed north, only stopping around noon so each could eat an ear of roasted corn and share an iced lemonade at a catering truck with the garish logo of a dancing taco.
Three blocks later, Homer made signs that they were approaching their target.
They'd turned north onto Hillhurst and stood on
Los Feliz Boulevard
.
The place was a mix of retro clothing stores, antique fronts, and yuppie attempts at chic modernization.
All around people went about their own business.

"I don't see anyone," murmured Hemingway.
"Can't you give me anymore information?
Can't you be clearer?"

Homer wished he could.
Sometimes the information was vague like it was today.
He'd felt like a homing pigeon.
He didn't know where he was going, until he actually faced that direction.
And his only clue was the image of the statue of Hyperion, the Sun God, an unwanted harbinger from an age
-
old lecture.

There has to be something.
Keep trying Hemingway.

Half a block further, Hemingway stopped.

What is it?

"Probably nothing," said Hemingway as he stared at the immense neon sign.
In towering purple letters it said
The
Derby
:
Hollywood
.
He relayed his find to Homer.

I've heard of the place.
An old 1940s dinner club.

"Just a sign," said Hemingway.

Nothing is as it seems.
I feel him nearby
, said Homer.
Pay close attention and look past the obvious.

When they'd turned sixteen, Father Jim had taken them aside.
There was no party.
They had too many boys at the home for a party.
But sixteen was a special time at the home, and one day late into summer, Father Jim took them to the Hyperion Water Treatment Plant in
South Los Angeles
.
For a long time, all of the city's run-off went through Hyperion.
Whether it was rain, drain or the results of ten thousand flushes, everything eventually ended up at Hyperion.
Father Jim let them talk to the workers where they were told stories of money, and needles, and the trash of the city that kept sticking to the grates.
Occasionally, they'd find babies, some miscarriages, so small that they didn't seem real.
But by the averted glances as the workers described the process of removing the bodies, it was obvious that the babies were all too real.
As a way of changing the subject, they recounted the tale of a flyblown horse, and how they had to hire a towing company to remove the body.
But the tales of the flushed babies stayed with Hemingway and Homer.

"Everything eventually ends up at Hyperion.
Someone, somewhere, shoves a body down the drain, and the body travels a lonely underground path, only to be plucked from a grate before it can return to the ocean where all life was first created."

They hadn't fully understood then, but the words had stayed with them.

"Their trajectory was determined by the person who threw them away.
They had no chance, these babies.
You two, on the other hand, have a chance.
Not by accident, your tragic trajectories intersected with mine; especially yours, Homer.
Yours was a divine trajectory.
You were reinvented by a bullet fired from an indifferent man.

"Do you ever wonder why people fire their guns into the air?
Why not at the ground or at a tree or into the water?
Why into the air?
Could it be that they're challenging God?
Don't they realize that these bullets they fire towards the heavens, eventually lose power and fall back to the earth?
More importantly, and here's
the best question of them all
—
is God as indifferent as these men?
These are all questions you will ask yourself over the years.
These are all questions that must be answered.
Let these be your driving force, powering you through life as God's chosen low men.
But to fully understand, you need to pay attention and look past the obvious."

And then Hemingway saw him.

A boy and his mother walked beneath the sign and paused before a store window.
The boy couldn’t have been more than five years old.
With black hair, dirty brown skin and wide brown eyes, he seemed like any other underprivileged Mexican kid.
He held his mother’s hand while she stared longingly at a red dress in the window of an upscale clothing store, out of place in the low
-
income streets of Rampart.
The boy wore a yellow shirt
,
which had captured the residue of more than one meal.
He wore blue shorts and black Nike flip
-
flops.

Do you see him?

“I hate this part.”

Do you see him or don’t you?

“All I see is a boy and his mother,” murmured Hemingway.

Yes.
I feel it.
That’s him
.
Homer squeezed his friend’s wrist.
Remember.
This is God’s will and we're his low men.

"I don't like it."

"We're saving the kid.
We're designing a better future for him.

"I still don’t have to like it."

No you don’t.
Then after a moment he added,
but you still have to do it.

"Fine," moaned Hemingway.
"How long do we have?"

Only a few more seconds.

Homer heard a cheer erupt from a nearby radio.
A Mexican announcer screamed the word
Goal
, his excitement drawing the word out endlessly.
A dozen voices joined in as they shouted their joy.
Mexico
had defeated Costa Rico in soccer.
From far off, he heard a series of gunshots.

Hemingway had been so busy watching the men in the barbershop he'd almost missed the signal.
The men had suddenly leapt to their feet and had begun to embrace each other in the oddest way, he couldn't have helped but stare.

Now
! came Homer's command.
Do it now!

Hemingway glanced once at his blind friend, then returned his attention to the boy.
From his position twenty feet down the sidewalk, he could make out the disinterest in the boy's eyes.
The way the kid shuffled his feet, it was clear he'd like to be anywhere but out with his mom window
-
shopping.

If he only knew.

Hemingway surged into motion, waving his arms wildly, attempting to gain the boy's attention.

Hurry
.

The boy glanced in his direction, and then looked away.
But his curiosity got the better of him.
He looked again.
This time, Hemingway shuffled several feet closer and was waving one hand in greeting, trying to show the boy how friendly he was.
When the boy regarded him, Hemingway smiled hugely.
He waggled his finger for the boy to come closer.
The boy glanced up at his mother who was still entranced by what she saw in the window.
The boy seemed to make a decision, then, and let go of his mother's hand.
He smiled timidly.

Hurry.
Faster.

Hemingway motioned for the boy to come closer with both of his hands.
The child took one step.
Two steps.
Then he turned back to his mother.

God but you must hurry.

Hemingway felt desperate.
Things were happening too slowly.

Then Homer heard the approaching car, the screech of its failing brakes, then the clamorous sound of it crashing through the parking meter as it leapt the curb.

When the boy saw the car, he fell back several more feet as he tried to get out of the vehicle's centrifugal trajectory.
His mouth shot slack as the Caprice struck his mother square in the back, carrying her through the window and into the red dress on display.
When the car finally stopped, only the rear bumper was visible.
The red dress
was
lying upon the grou
nd like a puddle of so much
blood.

Not yet.
A little more
.

The boy turned towards Hemingway.
Through tear-shocked eyes, he was trying to make sense of what had just happened.

Hemingway waved frantically, desperate for the boy to move two more steps closer.
Then he grimaced as he held out his arms.
The boy deserved better.
He needed love at a time like this.
Not what Hemingway promised him, but real love.

The boy staggered one step.
Then two.

Perfect
, sighed Homer.

Then the child lurched and fell as the descending bullet intersected with his brain.

Hemingway lowered his arms and let them dangle at his sides.

The boy lay in an expanding pool of blood.
His feet twitched.

Hemingway grimaced and grasped Homer's outstretched hand.
Both men backed away from the wounded child, then turned.
Neither smiled at their success.
Neither was proud of a job well done.
Why should they?
They were low men and had the worst job of all.

The
y
hurried along, aware that they needed to make some distance from the body in the event that they'd been seen.
Even though the child would survive, Hemingway couldn't help but feel uneasy about his part in the divination.
Now without a family, once Saint Mary's released the boy, Father Jim would take him in.
The boy would join twenty-four of his fellow oracles already in training.
Father Jim had dreamed of the boy, just as he'd dreamed of Homer.
Only Father Jim could dream of an oracle.

Hemingway guided Homer somberly down Sunset, reminding himself that if it hadn't been for them, that the boy would have most surely died.
Hemingway wished the thought made him feel better.
He allowed himself a few more moments of self-pity, and then reminded himself that he'd have a lifetime to make it up to the boy.
After all, within a few weeks the boy would be arriving at the home where Homer and the others would begin his training.
In time, the boy would get over the loss of his mother.
In time, he'd get over his blindness and learn to see in the special way.
In time, he'd learn to speak the way Homer did.
And if Hemingway was really lucky, the kid would divine the cruelty of necessity and never ask the question
–
Why didn't you save my mother, too?

The answer that the child would eventually learn would concern the geometry of God and the necessity of precise trajectories.
And then, once he understood, he could become one of God's contemptible few.
He'd become a low man too.

***

Story Notes: This is another one of my
L.A.
stories. The idea came to me when I was driving down Sunset one day and I saw two homeless men similar to Hemingway and Homer. One was clearly blind, and I thought it curiously endearing that they’d help each other. Also that week in the news a child was killed when a bullet shot into the air came down. Where I come from the idea of firing into the air would never
occur to us, so this was a very different idea for me to grasp. And I took it from there.

NOW SHOWING ON SCREEN 10

The Secret Lives of Heroes

Starring Mickey Flaves as the man

who wished he’d never paid attention

“The reason animals never make eye contact is because they don’t want to know what’s coming.”

–
Ted Nugent
, Rockstar and Big Game Hunter

Filmed in Rotoscope

you who were a hero in some revolution

you who teach children

you who drink with calmness

you who own large homes

and walk in gardens

you tell me

why I am on fire like old dry garbage.

From the
“
Black Birds Are Rough Today
”

by Charles Bukowski
–
1988