The Disposables (3 page)

At 117th Street I stopped under a streetlight and looked around. Nothing moved. It was too early in the morning. I stepped
out of the yellow halo into the shadows and waited twenty minutes. Nothing. I walked across the street on a diagonal over to an ancient pepper tree to check, the way I always did every time I came home. The way my night had gone, I knew it was going to be bad before I looked. Lately, things had been going too well.

The empty Gatorade bottle stuck up in the Y of the thick boughs, the red-labeled punch flavor signified an emergency. The last five days the tree cradled the green-labeled bottle, and meant, “Situation still okay.” Yellow meant hurry. Red meant emergency. I'd half expected the yellow, but the red scared the hell out of me. It made me want to run full-out until I got there.

Shit.

What else could go wrong?

I suppressed the dangerous urge to throw caution to the wind, took a couple of deep breaths, and started the long tedious process of bob-and-weave to make sure my tail remained clean. In and out of side yards, into backyards, cutting across streets, stopping, waiting, and listening, a different path each and every time. There wasn't much time. It would be dawn soon. I cut it short, shorter than I should have risked.

In the last backyard, just north of 133rd, I moved quietly along the familiar path.

I saw the glow of his eyes moving fast right at me. I was downwind. He hadn't caught my scent. “Junior, wait, wait, it's me. Junior!” He skidded on all fours in the dirt.

“Keyrist, dog.” He snuffled and jumped with his huge paws up to my chest. I'd almost been eaten by my own dog. I gave him as much love as the little time I had left allowed. I hadn't planned on coming, so I didn't have his treat. He didn't seem to mind. He was in it for the lovin'. He was a good friend with a big heart, as long as you were on the good-guys team. I shoved him off and moved to the back door. Just in the few
months I'd been coming, I knew every inch of the place, and still the porch wouldn't let me by without a creak.

I turned the knob. It wasn't locked. My heart skipped a beat. Damn, he knew better than that.

The stuffy air inside the small lath-and-plaster house smelled of bacon grease, okra, and greens. It sparked a nostalgic moment that took me back many years and made me wish I was back there, away from all the pressure, these problems. The feeling hadn't happened in a long time. The shooting of the kid at the liquor store, the sudden realization of being old and helpless was what set me off.

The dim orange-yellow glow from the living room lamp filtered into the kitchen on the floor. I eased the door closed. The house was absolutely quiet, minus the snore. I stopped and opened the refrigerator. The bright light near blinded me. Just as I thought, they were out of milk and low on just about everything else. I was a fool. The old man had begun to panic. I couldn't blame him.

I peeked around the corner. He sat in his easy chair his head back, his mouth open, gums exposed. His teeth were on the end table next to him as he quietly snored. His short-cut afro was cotton white. I carefully put my hand on it and remembered a time when it was jet black and glistened, a time when he was built like a world-class boxer and wasn't afraid to keep the neighborhood safe from the thugs. Feeble now, and too old to care about anything but the two small children asleep on his lap and the others, two over on the couch in a makeshift bed and three more on the floor with pillows and blankets. Dad slept too soundly to be an effective night watchman. I felt bad that he was left with the job of caring for the children. I felt even worse about what I had to do to him in a couple of weeks. He knew the plan. He was unafraid to be
alone looking into the backside of forever. My old man never complained, never.

Because of the situation, he wasn't allowed to leave the house and had to pay the neighbor kid to buy the groceries. Had to pay him extra so the neighbor kid wasn't inclined to talk and ruin the good thing we had going. The cover we wanted people to believe—crazy old man living by himself, a recluse who doesn't want to venture out into the real world—so far it had worked fine. It just cost double for the food and supplies.

The kids looked as if they'd grown in the two weeks I'd been away. The responsibility of their safety caught me up short. How could I keep them safe? Who was I to think I was better than the county system? Was I doing the right thing here?

Of course, I was. Each one of these kids had been returned, by a judge no less, to an abusive home. Returned to parents who only wanted custody to keep the welfare checks coming. Some people were just plain wired wrong, mentally and emotionally. They did not consider kids to be living, breathing human beings. Children were disposable, even their own. Of course, I reassured myself, the kids were better off with Marie and me.

The kids needed to be in their beds in the bedroom. Dad was a soft touch and had let them stay up late watching TV and he'd fallen asleep with the rest of them. One at a time, I picked up the Bixlers, Ricky and Toby, two black boys, six and seven respectively, and carried them to their bedroom. They'd been taken into custody after their mom's boyfriend's PCP lab caught fire in their apartment. They hadn't escaped unscathed. Their arms, legs, and backs rippled with scar tissue. They'd spent two months in the burn unit and were then
dumped right back with the same mother who still lived with the same boyfriend, now out on bail.

I came back and lifted Sonny Taylor. He'd almost died overdosing on some meth his mom had left out on the living room coffee table. I'd found him in a closet where his mom had left him while she went out foraging for dope money.

Little Marvin Kelso was so light in my arms, so young to be a victim of abuse. Even though there was a court order keep-away, his mom, Julie Kelso, had snuck the molesting slime ball suspect back into her house.

Wally Kim, a Korean kid, lost his mother, a prostitute who died of an overdose, and left him without relatives to care for him. And half-Mex-half-white five-year-old Randy Lugo came to our attention after his fifth visit to Killer King hospital for a broken bone.

I carried them all into their bedrooms and tucked them in. Alfred was conspicuous by his absence. I missed him dearly.

In the six months we'd had the kids, I treasured every minute I had with them. We wrestled on the floor, tossed a ball in the house, and played silly games. It didn't matter what we did so much, what mattered was the laughing, giggling, and cheering. And the hugs. It wasn't complicated. They hungered for attention and love. For me, maybe they partially filled Alfred's empty place, but I'd come to love them as my own. I gave all I had and wished I'd had more time to give. I couldn't imagine letting anything bad ever happen to them again. I wouldn't allow it. These kids' lives and security were more important than any petty crime I might commit to keep them safe.

I lingered a little longer with Alonzo, my grandson, Alfred's twin, and watched him sleep. The gentle rise and fall of his chest, the baby softness of his pudgy cheeks, his pure innocence, he was pure vulnerability.

I left Dad asleep in the chair and went into the kitchen. From my pocket, I took out the wad of bills, that if caught with, I couldn't explain and would violate my parole. I peeled off twenty hundreds from the roll of two hundred and fifty bills, 25K, and laid them on the table. Two grand would be more than enough to last him until I could make it back the following week. I started for the back door, stopped, went back, and added another ten one hundred dollar bills. The money was important but not more than my dad's peace of mind.

I had my hand on the doorknob when the old man's voice from around the corner reached out, “Chantal called, said it was real important.”

Dad had been so proud when I joined the Sheriff's Department, even more proud when I was promoted to detective on the Violent Crimes Team, working the South Central Los Angeles area, making the ghetto safer by putting away the violent predators. He told all his friends over and over, told everyone on his mail route, as well.

I'd been out of the joint now six months, had seen him on many occasions in those six months, and still I felt overwhelming guilt for having let him down. He'd lived by a code of honor with a strong work ethic like I've never seen in anyone else. He never missed a day in forty years as a mail carrier for the post office. He never backed down from what was right.

The worst part of it, after it was all said and done, I was nothing more than a common street thug, now an ex-con on the dodge trying to keep from going back.

I let go of the doorknob and went back into the living room. He had his teeth back in and smiled broadly, his brown eyes clouded with cataracts. He was always happy to see me, even from behind the thick glass wall in visiting.

“I got your message at the tree and came over directly. I put some cash on the table out there and didn't want to wake
you. Sorry it took so long to get over here. Thing … things have been a little out of control.”

“You touch my kids, you're going to wake me. You should know that.”

I got down on one knee, put my hand on his. “I know, Dad. I'm sorry, but we're almost through it.”

I'd taken off the apron in the hospital and thrown it away, but some of the blood had soaked through to the dark work shirt and left unmistakable blotches. His eyes scanned my swollen eye, the bandaged hands. His palsied hand came up involuntarily to touch my face but stopped short. “I know you would've come sooner if you could've. I didn't want to give you the emergency signal but … but I was worried about Alonzo, his asthma medicine is running low, and Alonzo, he wants to see you something fierce. I know it's not fair to you with what you got going on, but it kills me to see him so sad.”

“It's okay. You did right. I left you enough to last you through.”

I fought a lump rising in my throat and tried not to think about Alonzo or I'd probably tear up again. “Did Chantal say what it was about?”

“Yeah, something about a guy named Ben something.”

I sat back on my heels. “Ben Drury?”

“Yeah, I think that's it.”

“I have to go.” I got up and kissed him on his forehead. Ben Drury meant bad news, the worst. Chantal wouldn't have risked calling unless Ben meant to make a home call. I had to roll fast. Parole agents didn't make home calls on Sunday. Something was up.

“I talked to Marie tonight, she said she was going to have some meds dropped off tomorrow, okay?”

He nodded.

“She'll check over Alonzo. And, I think I forgot to take the
Gatorade bottle down. Can you have Toby do that for me, old man, right away so I'll know the next time?”

His hands were crippled up with arthritis. He patted my arm with a weathered claw, “You take care, son, you hear?”

“I always do, Dad. I wish I could stay longer. I have to go.”

He closed his eyes and nodded. I started for the back door and then switched direction, went down the hall to the bedroom. I stroked Alonzo's soft hair and kissed his forehead one more time. In his sleep he mumbled the name, “Alfred,” his brother. Alonzo was small for a three-year old, so vulnerable in such a violent world. The clock ticked in the back of my brain. I had to go. Soon it would be over. Then I'd make it up to him.

I grabbed a cookie from the cookie jar on the kitchen counter on the way out, stopped at the door, and looked back at Dad, Alonzo's great-grandfather, who stood at the entrance of the living room. “Tell Alonzo, no matter what, I'll come see him tonight. Okay?”

“I shouldn't tell him that if there's any chance at all you won't make it. It'll break his little heart.”

For a second, I thought about Ben Drury, calculated the odds, then said, “You go ahead and tell him.”

On the porch I gave Junior the cookie and patted his head. There was nothing else to do but run for it. Taxis didn't come into the ghetto when it was dark, not this far south. I had to make it back to Killer King, the farthest place a cab would venture down from Imperial Highway, and only if the money was right. Short of carjacking, a taxi was the only way I was going to get to Chantal's in time.

Five blocks west and thirteen long blocks north. I couldn't run the whole thing and had to walk-run, my face and hands throbbed, my old body yelled that the brain had gone off line into the red zone and threatened a full meltdown.

At Killer King I used the pay phone out front, hoping Marie wouldn't come out for a smoke and see me. She didn't know about Chantal. She knew about the apartment, but not about Chantal. Marie wouldn't understand. I paced in the shadows waiting as the sun broke on the horizon. I wasn't going to make it.

According to my parole officer, I was supposed to be home in bed on Sunday mornings. I was labeled High Risk because of my commitment charge. Drury had my work schedule, my entire life schedule. He had the ability to drop in on me at anytime. Until now, Ben had been cool and always called first, a professional courtesy only extended from parole agent to ex-cop.

The situation now called for a serious two-step shuffle, lie to him about how my job was going, and hope Mr. Cho wasn't mad enough to call him to rat me out. Then hope Ben didn't find out for two more weeks. That's all I needed was two more weeks.

I paid the cabby twice the fare to take me up to Crenshaw and then gave him a twenty-dollar tip for busting some of the red signals at empty intersections. At the gate to the apartment my hand was almost too swollen to get in my pocket for the keys. Chantal lived in a three-story apartment building, one as upscale as they came for the Crenshaw district. I fumbled the keys, got the gate open, and looked back to the street for the light-blue, nondescript government car Ben always drove. Still too early for his visit. Though, this was an extraordinary situation that added variables. He never made a home visit on Sunday. Something was definitely up. And added fuel to the theory that the cops on Long Beach Boulevard may have been watching for more than the torch, the guy robbing his victims and afterward tossing the can of gasoline on them.