On the Nickel Read online

  He listened to the silence of his legs, their absolute heavy stillness. It had a different quality than other silences. An aggressive hush, like a belligerent drunk in a bar preparing to bludgeon someone. He swore that his legs had become smug with their new power to immobilize him. Just one nerve impulse, legs, and I will get you back. I swear to God, when I do, I’ll hurt you for this.

  They laughed at him. We give the ultimatums here, they told him. When you’ve separated all that rage from your soul, you may begin to live your life again.

  He wondered if he was going mad. Imagining voices talking at him from his own body, for Chrissake.

  Loco half-rose and glared at the immobile legs. Jack Liffey was maybe thirty feet away from the half-coyote who’d been his pet for ten years now, and the dog approached cautiously across the lawn, a bit sideways and gnarring softly.

  Good boy, he thought. Bite those motherfuckers and let’s see who feels it! Too bad Loco couldn’t read: Jack Liffey couldn’t give the order out loud.

  Find a way to surrender to your weakness, his legs told him. It’ll be your renewal and your survival. Stop your pointless raging.

  His mind was awash in inane counsel, and he felt the need to punch someone.

  Obviously you’re not really ready for the struggle, the voice said.

  The dog yelped once and ran off, as if cuffed.

  I’m in charge here, Jack Liffey thought. Whatever you say, I’m still in love with living. I will talk again and I will walk again.

  It seemed that his legs heard and laughed at him, as if he’d made a grand joke.

  Gloria beckoned her out on to the front porch with one urgent flap of her hand. Out of her dad’s hearing, presumably. Maeve didn’t see her very often in her formal navy blue on-duty skirt-dress, the bulge of her pistol not so well concealed at her hip. She looked a lot more formidable this way, like she could take down a couple of nasty muggers without breaking a sweat, tell them their rights, bang their heads together and cuff them to a parking meter.

  ‘Hi, Glor. You look pretty rough and tough like that.’

  ‘I am tough, kid. You’ll never know. Any change?’

  She meant in Jack, of course. They’d been checking in regularly for some time.

  ‘He forgot and tried to talk a while ago.’ Maeve shook her head. She knew she shouldn’t say it, but she couldn’t help herself. ‘He sounded like Daffy Duck.’

  Gloria put a hand on her shoulder and looked hard into her face. ‘Don’t try to be some macha girl if it’s hurting you.’

  She nodded a kind of thanks. ‘I’m used to Dad like this now, just like you are, but I do want him to get better.’

  ‘He will. I feel it. Jack’s not a quitter. I only wish I knew what he needs.’

  Maeve decided she must have been crazy to go on, but you have to trust sometimes. ‘What if we gave him some simple job? Not directly, but if he was just the overseer. Get his mind back in the saddle, so to speak.’

  Gloria’s broad brown Indio face took on all the expressive suspicion any human face could possibly display. ‘You’re not going Nancy Drew on us? Not again?’

  ‘Of course not. It’s just an idea.’

  The frown did not let up for the longest time, and Maeve wasn’t sure she could wait it out. That was one of the tricks cops learned, she knew.

  ‘If he needs cases, let’s get him some Ross Macdonalds to read; there’s lots of them,’ Gloria said. ‘I read them all in one bad patch in my life. The guy’s a nice diversion until you realize it’s all the same story – the sins of the parents descending on the children.’

  ‘Is that my fate?’ Maeve asked. ‘Something Oedipal?’

  ‘Honey, you’re already as Oedipal as it gets. Except I think they call it something else for girls.’

  ‘You’re right. I idolize Dad. And I’m soooo dying to hear his voice again.’

  ‘Me, too, believe me. But not enough to let you put yourself in danger. How are you doing out there in the cold world these days?’

  Maeve guessed that was probably some kind of code for her recent and still unassimilated lesbian affair, or even the pregnancy and abortion that preceded it. ‘Do you know about Ruthie?’ She watched Gloria’s expression, but couldn’t read it, of course. It was just too oppressive, this whole confusion of sorrows that oozed through her life like lava. The abortion, yes, but Beto himself, the wicked charmer and how she had flown straight to the flame.

  ‘Jack still communicates,’ Gloria said. ‘And he’s worried about you.’

  ‘He’s worried about me? Give me a break. I can walk and talk like a normal person, and I’m perfectly tuned to my own channels, thank you. I’m in the real world, Gloria. It’s just taking me a little time to adjust to a few things, maybe a few mistakes.’ Fumbling my way through an eventful life, to say the least.

  ‘OK. Come to me if you need to, hon, any time. I mean it.’

  Thunder crashed and rumbled suddenly across East L.A., and they both looked up at the vermillion sky, darkening with rain-clouds. A month earlier, it had been the first hard rains after years of drought that had touched off the dread mudslides that had hit her and her dad. And had touched off this interval of tragic strangeness.

  Generally they said L.A. had a true Mediterranean climate and the big rains came in winter from an onshore flow of moist air, trapped over the basin by an inversion. In that particular dread downpour, however, the mudslide had been touched off by a crazy man with dynamite who was in jail now.

  ‘C’mon, Gloria, have a beer and offer me one. You look beat.’

  ‘Thanks, I am.’

  For just an instant, the weak three-quarter moon shone through a rent in the clouds, exotic, brushing their immediate world with silver. The glide on the porch and the tall lilac bushes in the yard stood out like photo-negatives. The old-fashioned domed street lamps on the block seemed to dim in the moonlight and then blazed up again as the dark cloud healed.

  ‘Is it really supposed to rain?’ Gloria asked.

  ‘Global warming,’ Maeve said. ‘It’ll either rain forever or never rain again.’

  ‘Anything along the spectrum from a nice view of city lights to exposed brick walls to the promised return of Jesus will sell these lofts fast.’

  ‘Can I quote you?’ she asked, holding out the little digital recorder.

  ‘Sure,’ Eddie Wolverton said. The westward view out the tall steel-rimmed industrial windows of the top-floor loft was really terrific. All of L.A.’s downtown with the centerpiece being the Library Tower (now renamed for its third change – the U.S. Bank Tower) rising above them at seventy-three stories and 1017 feet, the tallest building west of the Mississippi. Downtown lights were picking out the underside of the low dark cloudbank to give it an eerie lumpy purple-to-chocolate glow. Wolverton had been a partner in rebuilding several of the retro deco buildings he could see out there. The Blue Pacific. The old Wilton Department Store. The only real problem with this building was its location about two blocks too far east, which meant plenty of homeless folk on the sidewalk.

  The architect-builder-preservationist Eddie Wolverton was leading a gorgeous young woman from the magazine L.A. Loft Living around a $3.6 million loft on top of the First Finance Building on South Main. He knew he had nothing to lose from a little Jesus irreverence, if it was witty enough. Very few loft buyers listened to Pat Robertson or any other TV Christian.

  ‘What about that piss smell just outside, and the homeless camping on your doorstep?’

  She was trying to ambush him, as writers always did. ‘You’re exaggerating. We’re just outside the boundaries of Skid Row. And floors three through five are guarded parking so nobody’s going to panhandle you when you park your Maserati.’

  She had long silver-blonde peek-a-boo hair, à la Veronica Lake, his father’s favorite actress whom he only vaguely remembered from old films, and a split-up-the-hip blue dress that invited glances toward the Promised Land, but he was careful not to let that distract him from
selling himself.

  ‘You may be just across the street from The Nickel, but that’s all,’ she said. ‘What do you say to the criticism that by buying and converting these old banks and hotels, you make it impossible for the homeless organizations to set up any more SROs?’

  SROs were single-room-occupancy hotels – what others called flophouses. Eddie Wolverton was a Kennedy Democrat and self-righteous about what he was doing. He insisted that anybody he partnered with support mixed use in his buildings, with shops and affordable apartments downstairs, and he even donated heavily to Sister Mary Rose’s HFA organization six blocks away – the Catholic shelter she called a Home For All.

  ‘If you really want sound-bites, this building isn’t suited for an SRO, and in the long run, I don’t really think the answer to the homeless problem is to warehouse all the schizophrenics and crack-addicts and shell-shocked veterans in tiny filing cabinet rooms downtown so the area becomes unusable for everybody else. Homelessness is a social problem that belongs to the whole city. L.A. should be setting up homeless centers all over the suburbs, not attracting every single lost soul into one big cesspool.’

  An aura of wealth and power was indeed an aphrodisiac, Francie Lusk thought, her legs going a little rubbery as she listened to his confident voice. The woman turned and set her hands on her hips. ‘Mr Wolverton, do you want to fuck me, right here in this empty loft?’ She gathered up her dress to reveal a blue thong panty and a lot of undyed black pubic hair.

  ‘You’re not being very professional, Ms Lusk,’ he said. ‘My soul is weak, like most men, but it doesn’t change what I believe.’

  She snapped off the recorder ostentatiously. ‘Screw what you believe, man. I’m in heat. Hurt me a little and call me a slut, and I’ll write you up in Loft Living like you’ve never been written up. You’ll be a humanist hero of the whole housing world.’

  Gloria wheeled Jack Liffey toward the bedroom. ‘It wasn’t a terribly bad day for me, as they go,’ she explained. ‘The Jackson murder investigation is as stalled as ever, and they dumped a new burglary on me that’s probably the guy from the Rancho that we call the Black Shadow. You know, the guy I’ve been after for weeks. I think Davis Davis has finally decided I’m good enough to risk being my partner for a while, and he’s stopped asking every ten minutes if I’m on the rag. He’s a lot less of a woman-hater than Ante Bratos, that’s for sure.’

  She pushed open the bedroom door and horsed the wheelchair around in the narrow hallway. ‘Elbows.’

  He gave her a thumbs-up and she knew he was with her. But it wasn’t enough. She had to admit to herself that she desperately wanted the old Jack back; she wanted to hear his voice and his jokes. He could always make her laugh.

  ‘I’m a little worried about Maeve,’ Gloria said as she sealed the door behind them. ‘I have a feeling she’s going Nancy Drew again. And, of course, pretending it’s all for your sake.’

  He waggled a hand in mid-air and made a gargling sound. This was all so intolerable, she thought. He’d better recover soon or one day she’d drive him out past Barstow and drop him in the middle of the Mojave. But, of course, she wouldn’t. Any more than she’d dump him on The Nickel, the way several hospitals had been caught dumping their indigent patients.

  Before she could begin undressing him, he held up his notebook.

  WHAT’S THIS NANCY DREW!!!

  ‘Oh, Jack. Don’t press it right now. Maeve is just trying to help you, I think. I really don’t know anything much, but I’ll stay on top of it. You’ve got my word.’

  He nodded and gave the thumbs-up again.

  ‘I can give you a blow-job tonight,’ she said, but it must not have been very convincing, because he just shook his head. It was never very satisfying because nothing much worked at a hundred per cent these days. And then he pointed at her crotch and gave a questioning smile. She thought about it and decided, why the hell not? It would do them both good.

  ‘Yeah, Jack, I want you to eat me, but only if you really feel like it.’

  The Greyhound station was on Seventh, a fairly new but battered and evil-smelling place with cordoned-off areas meant for nothing recognizably human. Several men were sleeping slumped forward on plastic chairs or on benches with humps that were meant to make it hard for sleepers. Conor claimed his backpack off the bus and headed out into the darkly overcast evening. A lot of obviously poor people were out and about, pushing shopping carts, chatting and laughing, trading cigarettes or selling something more furtive. Most of the people he saw seemed to be African-Americans. He found himself drawn toward the bright skyscrapers maybe a mile or more away. West? All the other directions looked dark and semi-abandoned.

  All at once as he walked a bell began to clang, and he halted to see a half-dozen black men in sweat shirts and assorted jackets, who’d been reclining amongst tents and cardboard shelters, leap to their feet and form up in a precise line blocking the sidewalk, their backs to him. A wide garage door trundled open mechanically, and a Fire Department ambulance rolled out, winding up its siren. Conor was astonished to see the rag-tag squad along the sidewalk snap to attention and salute the vehicle. A fire truck followed the ambulance out of the station and the salute was repeated.

  Both vehicles passed him and he was astonished to read the words on their doors. They said Los Angeles City Fire Department Station No. 9, but underneath, each one added: Skid Row.1 Whoa, he thought. A real place, not a myth, and somebody was actually proud of it. The ragged squad who had saluted the firemen were just settling back down against their shelters as he approached.

  ‘Do you guys do that every time the fire trucks go out?’ Conor asked.

  ‘Say what?’ A hard-looking man down at the end of the platoon glanced at him, from under one of those shiny black do-rags.

  ‘Just off the bus,’ his neighbor said.

  ‘Everybody loves firemen, kid. They’re the true good guys in this world.’ This second man looked and acted like their leader, with an unruly grizzled beard. He wore an old army camo jacket and a green beret with a patch that had diagonal red and yellow stripes. Conor didn’t dare ask if he’d actually been Special Forces. Normally, people didn’t intimidate him, but he knew he was almost comically out of his depth, a suburban boy facing a half-dozen older homeless black men down here where things were bound to be a bit raw.

  ‘Ever since Nine-Eleven,’ Conor agreed.

  ‘True dat. Where you from, son?’ It was almost kindly.

  ‘North San Diego.’

  ‘Sure you shouldn’t go on home now?’ another man said. ‘After dark somebody here boil you down for the small change.’

  ‘Rat do a mambo on you ass,’ Do-rag said. ‘What are you, sixteen and cherry ass?’

  ‘I’m not afraid.’

  ‘Kid, ain’t a question of ‘fraid. You’re just the fucking new guy for the whole world. Ain’t no TV movies here. You fell down the hole to the lan’ of crack and bad-lucks and psychos.’

  For some reason, Conor was determined not to seem to turn tail. ‘Can you tell me a good place to spend the night?’

  The man with the beret thought for a moment. He obviously lived in the blue tent pitched against the fence, standing amongst a jumble of possessions that spilled out of it. ‘Fortnum ain’t so bad, if you got cash money. It’s up San Julian, that corner there. Some of us won’t be trapped nowhere inside at night. Too much incoming.’

  ‘A truth-tellin’ man.’

  ‘Thank you, sir, for the advice. What’s your name?’

  ‘Carl. Carl Roosevelt. Son, you tell Dusty at the Fortnum that I sent you. He’ll find you something.’

  ‘Then I owe you a favor, Mr Roosevelt. My name is Conor Lewis.’ He almost let slip the name of his band. They’d actually distributed two CDs and a lot of downloads, but all of a sudden the name Raging Homeless seemed obscene.

  Roosevelt smiled briefly. ‘Nobody don’t owe nothin’, Conor. We’re a community here, and we’re all doing our damn best.’ He waved his hand d
own the row of tents and cardboard shanties. ‘Federal do his best, and Cubic, and the General, and even Felix the Cat. We’re proud men, but we all know, no matter how hard you try, you can’t shine shit. This is just The Nickel. This ain’t the way to live if you got a choice, son.’

  ‘I thank you again, sir.’

  ‘Protect yourself out here. Try the Fortnum.’

  The guy at the end of the row with the do-rag, possibly Felix the Cat, said, ‘Try not to scuff up our street with those nice Chuck Taylor All-Stars, boy. It was important back in the day.’

  Deep in his self-respect, Conor felt it was OK to wander on now, probably to the Fortnum.

  Los Angeles County has approximately 73,000 homeless human beings looking for shelter on any given night, far more than any other county in the United States. That number is twice the population of Beverly Hills. In L.A. County the price of an average home is over half a million dollars.

  [See endnotes for the sources of these statistics.]

  1 This inscription has recently been changed to ‘Central City East,’ by roughly the same people who invented the expression ‘differently abled.’

  TWO

  The Overture

  ‘He was dialing into some mysterious frequencies,’ Turtle said. ‘Uh, what does that mean?’ Maeve asked on the phone. As soon as she’d got out of bed and got the information she needed in Mike Lewis’s e-mail, she’d started contacting Conor’s friends.

  ‘Yeah, I know. Say what? I think we could feel him detaching, you know, like the capsule coming off the mothership to go into descent to the alien world. He still gave his guitar hand to the band when we was practicing but not his head no more. There was a plain vanilla weird faraway shit in him. I hate to say it – he was acting like he felt he’d just totally used us up, and we weren’t worth shit anymore. It hurt.’

  ‘Was he good in school?’

  ‘Absolute-a-mente. But I know school was boring him to death. He was carrying around these weird French writers. Lacan?’ The boy pronounced it Lake-un. ‘I don’t know who the shit they are.’