by Amy JONES SEDIVY

Janet texted: Miguel might not show up, And I have rehearsal.

Kit texted: Text me back. I’m a lit­tle drunk. ttyl.

…

Car­olyn clos­es her lap­top, fin­ish­es off her Tecate, and turns the lights off. She goes out on her bal­cony and eas­es on­to the chaise lounge. So much for the cel­e­bra­tion she planned to have, for get­ting a raise and a pro­mo­tion; three friends and none of them com­ing over. Across the court­yard, past the arched en­trance to her com­plex, she sees Vine Street, be­low Hol­ly­wood Boule­vard. Wish­ing she still smoked, Car­olyn bit her fin­ger­tip. Smok­ing would ease her frustration.

Miguel al­ways had an ex­cuse for not com­ing to her apart­ment and late­ly, he just didn’t both­er with ex­cus­es. If she want­ed to see him, she would go to his place or meet at some restau­rant. Maybe she should call him and sug­gest his fa­vorite taqueria. 

He is sup­posed to be her boyfriend, but Miguel is as fussy about la­bel­ing their psy­cho­log­i­cal dra­ma as he is about align­ing the forks and knives and spoons at the ta­ble. At every restau­rant. Every time they go out to eat. Things need to be straight and par­al­lel and just so, and some­how their re­la­tion­ship needs to be just as ex­act. Kit tells her that Miguel is not the one for her, that he is in­ca­pable of hu­man in­ter­ac­tion, pre­fer­ring the com­pa­ny of his vi­o­lin. But then Kit has been see­ing a bassist for an ob­scure LA band who is a hero­in addict. 

A po­lice car races past the en­trance and she lis­tens to the siren, fol­low­ing its whine as the car turns east on Hol­ly­wood Boule­vard, and comes to a stop. Great, she thinks. An­oth­er one of those cos­tumed id­iots caus­ing trou­ble. She hears voic­es, yelling. Star­ing out past the arch, she sees some­one elud­ing the se­cu­ri­ty lights. A move­ment in the bush­es, some­one sidling along the front build­ing and duck­ing through the arch. A vil­lain, she thinks. A bad guy has come to her courtyard. 

When she moved to this apart­ment, her fa­ther helped bring a bed. He hat­ed the place, said it wasn’t safe. He of­fered her a hand­gun. “Keep it near­by,” he said, but she re­fused. It had been years since she shot a gun at a shoot­ing range. She was on­ly four­teen the last time she went with him to prac­tice gun safe­ty. What would she do if she had that gun now?

She watch­es the sup­posed bad guy as­sess his sur­round­ings. Where will he hide? Where can he go? He looks up and sees her watch­ing. She al­most waves. He dash­es across the court­yard and opens her door down be­low her bal­cony. Of course, she re­mem­bers, she hadn’t locked it. She rarely did. The court­yard of­fered her false se­cu­ri­ty, as if the arch­way had an in­vis­i­ble shield to keep out the Hol­ly­wood riff-raff.

…

“Come in here,” says a voice from her liv­ing room. She obeys and leaves the bal­cony. She does not close the slid­ing glass door. Briefly, she hears Miguel’s voice nag­ging her to close it.

Her vil­lain is a short, stocky white guy who could be in his for­ties. He’s in jeans and a den­im shirt, and a t‑shirt un­der­neath for some heavy met­al band. As far as she can tell, he does not have a gun. He tells her to sit down. He asks where her phone is.

“It’s on the ta­ble.” She nods to the cof­fee ta­ble and he takes it. Puts it in his pocket.

“I would like that back when you leave,” she says. “I have my life on there.”

He snorts and she thinks it is a dis­gust­ing sound. 

“You can hide here un­til they are gone,” she of­fers. “But I want my phone back when you leave.”

He goes to the open slid­ing door and peers out. They can hear more po­lice sirens, and they can hear squawk­ing ra­dio voic­es in stac­ca­to bursts. When he leans over to check the court­yard, she sees he has a gun in the back of his pants. 

She won­ders, what would Janet do? Janet — Miguel’s clever sis­ter — has a great deal of self-de­fense train­ing. She was at­tacked once, near­ly raped, and she is de­ter­mined nev­er to let that hap­pen again. Mar­tial arts. Gun lessons. Mace. If this was Janet’s apart­ment, she would have the guy sprawled face down on the ground by now, cry­ing from the mace and the dis­lo­cat­ed shoul­der Janet would have in­flict­ed on him.

Car­olyn has no such train­ing. She wish­es for a cig­a­rette. She asks the in­trud­er if he wants a beer. He comes in and looks at her.

“You some crazy cat lady?”

“Do you see any cats?” She gets up and goes to the re­frig­er­a­tor, takes out two Tecates. Pops the tops off and hands him one. He takes it. She sees he is re­luc­tant. She won­ders if she can hit him over the head with her bot­tle. She de­cides she is not strong enough nor is the bot­tle, so she drinks from it instead. 

“Any­one else live here?”

“No. Just me.” Oh, she thinks. She should sug­gest that a man is com­ing home any minute. Too late. But even if Miguel did live with her, what would he do? The man would prob­a­bly just shoot him as he came in the door. Be­sides, Miguel would nev­er live here; there are too many things that need re­ar­rang­ing or straight­en­ing or just need to be tossed. 

She set­tles in­to her couch and watch­es him pace the small liv­ing room, go­ing to the bal­cony and com­ing back again. He drinks his beer. She finds some odd sat­is­fac­tion in that.

“What did you do?” she asks.

“Noth­ing. Shut up.” He paces. She bites her fin­ger and fin­ish­es her beer.

“I’ve al­ways won­dered what it is like to be a crim­i­nal,” she says. He ig­nores her. “I’ve al­ways fol­lowed rules. What is it like to toss all those rules away? Is there free­dom in that?”

He keeps pac­ing and looks more ag­i­tat­ed. That might not be a good thing. 

“It’s like I used to think about be­ing a hobo. Just trav­el­ing the coun­try. Rid­ing the rails. Maybe get a lit­tle work here and there, get some mon­ey to buy a hot meal. And mov­ing on. Seems like you could see a lot of the coun­try that way. Meet a lot of peo­ple.” She feels her body start to quiver. “My grand­fa­ther did that when he was young. He told all these sto­ries about be­ing a hobo. It sounds ro­man­tic. But I think I wouldn’t like it re­al­ly. You get dirty, can’t take a show­er every day. Be­sides, I don’t think there are ho­bos any­more. Just home­less peo­ple.” She rests her bot­tle on her leg to steady it as her hand shakes too much.

“Shut up. I’m tryin’ to hear.” He stands with his head at the edge of the door, lis­ten­ing to the ra­dio voices.

She waits. He has his back turned. She could walk up be­hind him and hit him with some­thing. She looks around her room. Noth­ing is hard or heavy. She has pil­lows. She has pa­per­back books. She has one of Miguel’s less­er valu­able vi­o­lins that he loaned her to use for an il­lus­tra­tion. In the kitchen, she has a big cast iron pan. That would do it. But the kitchen means she would have to walk past him, draw his at­ten­tion to her. She could be get­ting an­oth­er beer. 

“An­oth­er one?” she says, stand­ing up. She sees he has on­ly had about half of his. “Well I want an­oth­er one.”

He steps far­ther out on­to the bal­cony. Car­olyn makes out a few words from the ra­dio: Armed. Last seen. 

Last seen right here, she men­tal­ly telegraphs the po­lice. Come around the cor­ner, she tells them. Check our court­yard. Look up at my balcony.

He comes in.

“Go sit down,” he says.

“I was get­ting an­oth­er beer.”

“Now you’re not.”

“Did you kill someone?”

He snorts again.

“Well, did you?”

“You’re one fuck­ing odd chick.”

“My boyfriend says so.”

“Where is he? Is he com­ing here?”

She won­ders what the best an­swer is. But ly­ing seems wrong, it is wrong to lie to a man with a gun. “No. He hates com­ing here.”

“Sounds like a re­al win­ner.” The man sits down on the edge of a chair. His leg is pump­ing up and down with his nerves and he keeps look­ing out the slid­ing door.

“So. Why are they af­ter you? The police?”

“Yeah. I killed some­one. A to­tal ass­hole. A los­er. Guy would kill me if I didn’t kill him first.”

“Wow. You did kill some­one. Have you ever done that before?”

“What are you, se­cret po­lice? A lawyer? What?”

“No, I’m a graph­ic artist.” She wants to tell him that she just got a raise, that she is an ex­cel­lent graph­ic artist; she wants some­one to hear about her raise and promotion.

“I’ve killed sev­en peo­ple. Went to jail for one of them. Manslaugh­ter. They was all mur­der though. I mur­dered them be­cause I need­ed to. They all need­ed to be dead.”

“Oh. Do I need to be dead?” She leans back in­to the couch.

“Not if you shut up.”

By now Janet would have the po­lice hand­cuff­ing this guy and tak­ing him to the hos­pi­tal. By now Janet would have called her, Car­olyn, and told her in a tri­umphant­ly shak­ing voice that she foiled a would-be rapist. Car­olyn did not think this man was a rapist. Are mur­der­ers al­so rapists? Or are they two dif­fer­ent things, like two dif­fer­ent call­ings or ca­reers? She won­ders what Kit would do. Then she re­mem­bers. She is sup­posed to text Kit. In fact, that an­noy­ing lit­tle ping­ing noise she keeps hear­ing is her cell­phone, send­ing out tiny vi­bra­tions in­to the room from the man’s pock­et. Kit. And if Kit doesn’t get an an­swer, Kit — who lives two blocks away — will show up at her door.

“My friend might come over,” she says. “If I don’t text her back, she might come here.”

The man looks at her. “Then I have to kill you.”

“Oh no,” she says. “No, no, no. If you let me text her, she won’t come.”

The man pulls his gun and points it at her. “You have a car?”

“Yes. In the alley.”

“Let’s go.”

She picks up the keys. “Here,” she says, “it’s a red Honda.”

“You’re dri­ving.”

Janet said, nev­er get in a car with a stranger. Fight back, yell or scream, lie down on the ground but nev­er get in a car. Sta­tis­tics are grim, she said. Once a vic­tim gets in the car, she’s pret­ty much dead.

“I can’t get in the car,” says Car­olyn. His gun is now pressed against her stomach.

“Re­al­ly?”

“Okay.” They walk down the back stairs to the al­ley. Her car, fresh­ly washed, shines in the light of the mo­tion de­tec­tor. This brings tears to her eyes.

…

With the man crouched down in the pas­sen­ger seat and his gun point­ed at her, Car­olyn dri­ves the car out of the al­ley and on­to Vine Street. She turns north. She turns east. She pass­es the po­lice cars. She wants to wave to them but there’s the gun. Maybe she could crash the car. She con­tin­ues driving.

“East L.A.” he says. “Drop down to Sun­set and head east.”

“Okay.” She dri­ves. “So tell me. Just tell me be­cause I want to know. How does it feel to be free of rules? To not fol­low them. To do what you want.”

He does his snort. “Fuck­ing great. That’s what it feels like. Ex­cept for when the cops are af­ter you. Oth­er­wise. I do what I want. Make my own world, you know? Make it my way. I don’t like some­body, I re­move them. I do like some­body, I take care of them.”

“You do? Like, you have a girl­friend? Or a wife? How do you take care of them?” Car­olyn makes a care­ful left on­to Sun­set, wish­ing that some­one would run the red light and hit her car. On the pas­sen­ger side.

“My chick, she’s in jail now. Shit’s bad, I tried to take care of her, but she blew it. But she didn’t bust me. That’s good, you know. Good she didn’t bust me.”

“I just want to un­der­stand. What do you mean, you take care of them?”

“I buy her shit. I spend mon­ey on her. She want­ed a Lexus, I stole some shit from this id­iot deal­er I know, caught the mon­ey and bought her the Lexus. Paid for like every­thing is le­gal. Didn’t have to steal a car for her. Just bought it.”

“You are proud of that.” She thinks, but doesn’t say, that he was fol­low­ing the rules by ac­tu­al­ly buy­ing the car and he was proud of that. Prob­a­bly if he was rich and could do what­ev­er he want­ed, he would fol­low more rules; or maybe he would just be bet­ter at killing peo­ple and not get­ting caught.

“Damn right.”

“Would you re­al­ly kill me?”

“Just dri­ve. I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

Car­olyn dri­ves. She won­ders, what will make up his mind? Should she keep talk­ing to him? She thinks she re­mem­bers some­thing Janet once told her, about mak­ing your­self more hu­man and re­al to your at­tack­er, so he feels like he knows you and can’t hurt you. What else can she ask this man? 

“What’s it like to kill a per­son, watch him die?”

“You talk too much. Shut up and drive.”

“My boyfriend says I talk too much.” She thinks of Miguel. If she dies, how will he feel? Will he be up­set? Will he cry? Or will he very con­sci­en­tious­ly make arrange­ments for her fu­ner­al, in­vite her friends, ex­press sym­pa­thy to her fa­ther, play the ap­pro­pri­ate mu­sic at her ser­vice, and re­mem­ber that she wants to be cre­mat­ed not buried?

“Where are we?”

“We’re al­most to Alvarado.”

“Echo Park Lake?”

“Yes. It’s up ahead.”

“Pull over there.”

She parks. They get out and walk down to the edge of the lake. Car­olyn sighs. I’m go­ing to be shot and drowned, she thinks. And my body will sink and no one will know where I am. 

“This is not right,” she says to the man. “I don’t want to be in the lake.”

“Not your choice, is it?” He takes the keys from her, drops them in his pock­et with her cell phone. Then he draws his hand back and whacks her on the side of her head with his gun. She falls down on the wet grass, clutch­ing her head, the pain shoot­ing stars across her eyes. He yanks her by her arms and hauls her in­to the lake, hold­ing her head underwater. 

She has a brief mo­ment of clar­i­ty: the wa­ter makes the pain on the side of her head feel bet­ter. Re­lief. Un­til she pass­es out.

…

Car­olyn wakes and there are lights and peo­ple all around her. The man is not far from her. He is on the ground. Blood trick­les out of his mouth and his eyes are wide open as if he has seen the scari­est sight of his life. Po­lice ra­dios squawk. Kit leans over her, as para­medics clean her temple.

“What are you do­ing here?” she asks Kit.

“You didn’t an­swer my texts. I saw you get in your car with that man. Po­lice were every­where. I told them. They fol­lowed your car. But they weren’t fast enough — ass­holes,” she looked around at the cops who paid her no at­ten­tion, “to stop him from hurt­ing you.”

“You’re amaz­ing,” Car­olyn says. “Like Sher­lock Holmes or NCIS or something.”

They lift Car­olyn on­to a stretch­er and start mov­ing her across the rough grass, up a hill to a wait­ing am­bu­lance. Kit walks along­side, hold­ing her hand. 

“Car­olyn!” they hear. A voice, a man’s voice, shouting.

“It’s Miguel,” says Kit, and she points. 

Car­olyn turns her head and sees Miguel run­ning to her with a look of ter­ror on his face. Yel­low light­ning bolts shoot pain through her eye­balls when she laughs at his mis­matched shoes.

Filed under Fiction on August 2nd, 2024

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