Genny jogged along the shoreline. The churning water, dark and cold, lunged at her feet only to be dragged back by some unseen force which lived beneath the surface.
Country had gone back to his apartment to work on his computer. He spent so much time probing and examining every file he had taken from Principal Lizardo that he often forgot to eat. There was something he was looking for, something which Genny didn’t understand. Perhaps, he didn’t either.
It had to do with her dad, at least, in part. Her dad. Almost a year since she had seen him. His face had already begun to vanish, distort, as all memories do. The contours of his jaw. The sharp, yet thick nose. The square chin and deep voice. The kindness in his eyes which battled with the sadness he carried inside. All of them blurred into a somber caricature of the man she used to know.
Her mind drifted as it was prone to do. Other topics, related or not, clamored for attention. She tried to focus on the happy ones, but the harder she tried, the louder the fear, the disquiet, cut through and filled her thoughts.
Blake and Jorge. She woke up to see their faces staring through her window. She blinked and they were gone. Was it just part of her dream? The one in which she watched the angels dressed in white as they fell through the sky to wreak havoc on the earth. Shooting stars who turned wishes into nightmares.
She jogged for another thirty minutes. Sand turned to sidewalk. Lazy, meandering ocean roads to busy streets. Preoccupied, she didn’t notice the change. Past boutique shops and exotic cars. Through well-maintained neighborhoods. Crossing an empty lot with spray-painted warnings, which only a person with a degree in gang cryptography could understand.
Her shoes kicked up clouds of dust as she ran, filling the air around her and making it more breathable. It was Los Angeles, after all. The city where the air was so thick it could be cut into little squares and sold as ozone hole plugs.
She took a left down a side street, an alley blocked at the end by a chain-link fence stretching from one side to the other. Not that she noticed. The fence groaned as she hit it at full stride. The metal posts flexed, the chains starting to give way, before they recoiled and shot her back down the alley. A final thought of her favorite Road Runner episode flashed through her mind, and for the briefest of moments, she empathized with the coyote.
Standing up to brush herself off, she laughed quietly. She fell silent but the laughing continued.
“That was quite the spectacle,” a voice called out from the end of the alley.
She looked up. A half dozen semi-attractive faces stared at her.
“In fact, it was so funny, there’s a small possibility we may not kill you,” the voice said.
A shiver, like squirrel toes, ran down her spine. “I … I’m sorry, sir, if I have offended you in some way,” Genny said. Her eyes fixated on the knife which fluttered effortlessly in his hand.
“Oh,” he said, “you have not offended me. You have simply entered our territory without permission, and for that, we must cut you.”
The knife slashed through the air, chopping off an ozone plug, which dropped to the ground with a thud.
“Pick that up,” the man ordered. “We’ll sell that to the environmentalists later.” He turned to Genny. “You have seen the ease with which I handle my blade, and you know I will have no trouble making tiny pieces out of you if you don’t explain your presence to my satisfaction.”
“I was running,” she said. “Nothing more. I sometimes get lost in my thoughts and don’t realize where I am.”
“You did not see the warning signs telling you to stay out of AGR territory?” the man said.
Genny thought hard. She remembered the stop sign. The one that said, ‘Bridge Out Ahead.’ She looked at her shoes. “Ahh. No wonder they’re wet,” she said to herself. Then, there was the one advertising hair conditioner. A red one like blood. Another, blue like a crip. Then, purple.
The sound of a metal pipe slapping hand thundered down the narrow alley. “We’re waiting,” another man said.
“Think, Genny. Think.”
No Littering. No Loitering. Duck Crossing. Indoctrination Zone. (There were a lot of school-aged children by this one). Homeless Camp. Feces District. Put Your Used Needles Here, Please. Spotted Leopard Newt Sanctuary.
Houses with iron rods in the windows huddling around a health clinic with a Ferrari parked outside. Bars. Broken glass. Girls! Girls! Girls! Vote Democrat … or Republican – Does It Really Matter? Adoption Center. Jesus Saves.
There it was. She found it in the farthest cubicle of her brain. The place where the mental accountant was forced to sit. A confused expression crossed her face.
She looked at the man. “You mean the sign which said, ‘Welcome to AGR?’”
“That’s the one. You should not have entered when you read it. You did so at your own peril.”
“But it said, ‘Welcome.’”
“We wrote it ironically,” he said.
“Oh,” she said. “I don’t get irony.”
He rolled his eyes. The switchblade twitched in his hands. “You should never have come here,” he said and took a step towards her. “In fact, crossing our boundary was the last mistake you’ll ever make.”
“Really?” Genny said. “That’s great! I’ve made so many mistakes in my life. One year, I dressed up as Mr. T. for the Halloween costume contest. So did Country. That was awkward. He won, although I think I did a better impression. ‘I pity tha’ fool.’ Then, there was the time I ate that giant eraser. Or was it tofu? Either way. Mistake.” She put her hand to her chin and looked up at nothing in particular. “$42.95 for prosthetic bunions. Found them the next day at Nile River Supplies for $25.99. Getting into the white van with the sign that read free puppies …”
“Shut up!” he yelled in a way that made Genny pause. For about two seconds.
“Sending away for the do it yourself sumo kit. It was a hundred-pound bag of rice. Came in second at the Tokyo Invitational, so I don’t know if I should put that in the category of mistake or not.”
“I think you misunderstand,” he interrupted. “Your life is in our hands.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“No.” His face turned beet red. His hair turned fiery orange. The person next to him retrieved the unfortunately thrown cigarette and tossed a bucket of water on his head. “That is not what I mean. I’m saying … Ah, never mind. I have no more time for your foolishness. Get ready to kiss yourself goodbye.”
Genny’s upper lip puckered, then bowed out in a great arc and kissed the lower one. “Goodbye, Genny,” she said. “Alright. I’ll be going.” She headed towards the exit.
“Look around you,” the man said, holding up a hand. “There is no way out.”
Genny’s face scrunched both up and out. She was more confused than a socialist searching for utopia – and his next meal – in the garbage bin.
“I could walk that way to get out,” she said, pointing behind him, “if you and your friends would kindly step aside.”
The man grabbed Genny by the throat and pushed her against a brick wall. The silver blade in his hands pressed into her ribs. For the first time since she arrived, Genny realized that not everyone in L.A. was friendly.
“Let me put this in words that cannot be misconstrued,” he said. “I’m going to kill you. And after you’re dead, I’m going to kill you again. How do you like that?” His face was a snarl.
“Oh. I don’t like that much at all,” she said. She felt inexplicably sad.
The man roared in anger and plunged the silver blade into her side. He pulled it back and jammed it in again. And again. And again. Genny watched him, lifting up her arm occasionally to see the progress he made. There was a strange lack of pain as if …
“Gol dang it, Tatum! You handed me the prop knife again. Give me the real one!”
A portly man, no more than forty-two, with hands too large for his wrists and the savage gaze of an enraged koala, approached.
“Oops,” he said, his eyes ablaze and apologetic at the same time. “Here you go.”
The man’s sneer returned. “Ahh. There it is,” he said to Genny. He twisted the knife around and around. “This feels better. Just like it will when I kill you for real.”
“There will be no keeling today.” The voice came from behind the gang. It was indignant, commanding, familiar.
The man with the knife spun around as if he, too, recognized the voice. The rest of the gang followed suit. Their black denim jackets with the brown AGR embroidered into the backs faced Genny now. The whoosh of pocketknives unfurling, metal pipes smacking, and perhaps a toenail clipper clacking disturbed the chalky air. A loud, cracking noise ensued, and, like Moses parting the Red Sea, the men and women wearing the black denim jackets with the brown AGR, split apart. Half went to the left of the alley. Half to the right. Half fell in the crack. Twenty seconds later, the earthquake stopped. Across the way, ten buildings collapsed to the ground, nothing but a pile of smoky stubble remaining. The police immediately came and ticketed the building owners for creating an environmental catastrophe, then drove away.
“Mild one,” the leader of the AGRs said.
“Where were we?” the authoritative voice insisted. “Right. No keeling today.”
Genny peered through the dusty haze. Illuminated by the few rays of light, which dared to pierce the sooty cloud, stood a man in a finely drooped beret. A cigarette hung out the corner of his lips with all the panache of ennui.
“Pierre,” she whispered.
“I don’t think you understand,” the man said. “We found her in our territory, and now she must die.”
“That seems a wee beet harsh doesn’t it?” Pierre said. “After all, we are een your terreetory. Does that mean we must die too, Chastain?”
“N…no,” Chastain stuttered. “Of course not, Monsieur Bacón.”
“Señor Bacón,” Pierre corrected, more agitated than instructional.
“No, Señor Bacón. I did not mean to imply that you deserved the penalty of death.”
“I deed not theenk so.”
“I was simply saying that we found this intruder, and I was, I mean we were, claiming our Constitutionally protected right to poke her full of knife holes.”
“I’m not a lawyer,” Genny spoke up, “but I don’t think that’s in the Constitution.”
Chastain sidled up to Genny. Pulling out his pocket-sized Constitution, he directed her attention to a line in Article 8. “See. Right there. After the paragraph on collusion.”
“Oh,” Genny said. “I stand corrected. Well, if Country were here, he’d want you to do it.” She lifted the side of the shirt and pointed at a spot between her intercostals.
“There weel be none of zat,” Pierre ordered. His face was as cool as a kangaroo’s. “She weel come weeth me.”
“With all due respect, Monsieur, err, Señor Bacón. She is, at the very least, our prisoner, and we have either the right to do what we want with her or to receive compensation.”
Pierre stared into Chastain’s eyes. “What ees eet you want?”
“Uh … nothing much. Just, well, um ….”
“Speet eet out,” Pierre said.
“We want a six pack of your finest Chablis.”
“Can do,” Pierre said.
“And a guaranteed seat at the next Gang Council.”
“Zat, I cannot promeese, but I weel see what I can do.”
“And that fancy pistol you carry on your waist.”
Pierre seemed displeased. “Zat was a geeft from my grandfather, Louis. Eet has been een zee family seence zee last century. Zat ees a hard no.”
“In that case, I must demand ….” Chastain stopped and looked at Pierre’s narrowing eyes. “That is, I request tickets to the traveling company of Cats.”
Pierre scoffed. “I was going to take my friend, Jorge here, but I suppose eef he doesn’t mind.”
“Not at all,” Jorge said. A look of what can only be described as relief, or perhaps sheer joy, crossed his face.
“Zen eet ees settled?” Pierre half asked.
“It is settled.” Chastain paused and, then, said. “May I ask you a final question?”
Pierre frowned the way a Persian king might when he’s deciding whether or not to feed a captive to the lions. “I suppose,” he said.
“Why is this one so important to you?” Chastain asked.
With a quick flip of his hand, Pierre removed the beret from his head. Clumps of hair intermixed with jagged lines carved deep into his skull in precisely the shape of rogue hair clippers. Fresh stitches held back tides of blood, which dreamed of bursting through the sutures. A single unshaved portion of brown locks grew just long enough to cover what was most likely a failed scalping attempt. Ooohs and aaahs rose from the crowd.
“Where’d you get that?” Chastain asked with unbridled envy.
“A masterpiece,” another AGR cooed.
“Like Van Gogh painting the Mona Lisa,” a third one observed.
Pierre nodded in obvious pleasure. “She’s my styleest,” he said. “And you mess weeth her, you mess weeth me. Now, eet’s time you left here.”
A flock of black jacketed, semi-attractive individuals scurried away, leaving Genny alone with Pierre, Jorge, and about fifty of the wildest savages she had ever seen, all wearing berets, horizontally striped shirts, and pants which ended mid-calf.
“You are one lucky girl,” Pierre said. “Do you even know who you were messeeng weeth?”
Genny shook her head.
“Besides us, zee Esnapping Tortugas,” Pierre said, “zey are zee fiercest gang zees side of Beverly Heels.”
Genny’s eyes grew wide in awe, then shut instinctively as though an optometrist was trying to teach her how to use contacts for the first time. “Who are they?” she asked through spasming eyelids.
“Zee AGR. Zee Actor’s Guild Rejects. Not quite good looking enough to be zee hero. Too pretty to be zee villain. Filled with zee anger of a thousand rejections. Even Weinstein couldn’t help zem.”
“In that case, thank you for saving my life, Pierre,” she said. “One day, I hope to return the favor.”
“One day, you weel,” Pierre said. “And, please. Call me Cris.”
“Cris Pierre?” Genny said.
“Cris Pierre Bacón.”
“Crispier Bacon.”
“Bacón.”
“Bacon.”
“Cris. Pierre. Bacón!”
“Crispier Bacon.”
“Just call me Pierre,” he said with a huff.
“Got it,” Genny said.
“Have yourself a nice day,” Pierre said and made as if to leave.
Jorge whispered something in his ear. Pierre stopped and looked at Genny. Up. Down. Measuring her with his eyes or perhaps contemplating something more profound.
“Hmm,” Pierre murmured. “Perhaps, we could make eet work.” He took a card out of the chest pocket of his horizontally striped shirt. “Zees evening at 7:30 sharp. Meet us at zee address on zee card. And breeng a sponge.”
Genny read the card, turning it around to the back to see if there was more information. “Why? What’s happening at 7:30 sharp?”
Pierre let out a haughty laugh, just long enough to show contempt without condescension. “You weel be eenducted eento zee Esnapping Tortugas.”
“Why the sponge?” Genny asked.
“For zee blood,” he said. “For zee blood.”