All Involved
Page 12
If it were up to me though, that one’d be robots versus people.
Cuz at least then we’d have to get together and shit. Damn. I’d love to be here for that too. You know it’d be some straight-up Terminator 2 shit. We could bomb down the L.A. River in a semitruck and motorbikes for real then!
Yeah.
That shit sounds tight, but maybe that’s cuz my headache’s fading and my teeth are buzzing in my fucking head right now, man.
11
I rent another hotel room with the loose cash, one directly across from the room I already got for four more days. Well, now it’s ten. When that’s up, I’ll move to another hotel where no one’s ever seen me before in their lives. Maybe out in Hawthorne or some shit. You know, far.
For now though, the new room’s on the same floor as my old one (the second), across the way, but nobody knows it’s mine. I paid that fucker at the desk not to say shit to nobody. And I think I’m good cuz he barely speaks English and he’s got no Spanish, which means if Fate or Momo ever know to ask him questions, he won’t be any kind of help. I don’t know if he’s Chinese or what. Korean, maybe?
Fuck it. One’s as good as the other to me. The less English the better.
None of the rooms are in my name. One’s for Shane, just Shane, and the other’s under Alfredo Garcia. You know, like them old western-type movies?
I make sure nobody sees me go in the new room. When the door shuts behind me, I lock it and pull the curtains closed. I drag the fucked-up chair over to the air vent above the TV and use the tip of Momo’s knife to undo the screws on it.
It’s fucking dusty as shit in there when I open it up! I cough for like two minutes straight before I grab two hand towels and scoop dust bunnies out of there straight into the trash, saying, “Fuck you, dust bunnies! You’re never any good to nobody.”
Directly after that, I put the H in, the weed, and the rest of the cash. I stack it up neat in there.
In the bathroom, I grab as much coke as will fit into one of them clear plastic Kodak film-holder canisters that I keep around for whatever I’m holding. I tip it in, careful not to spill, but that shit’s slippery. Some hits the sink but I’m on it. The rest I wrap up tight in the plastic bag from the ice bucket and put that in the vent too. Then I screw it back up, hang the Do Not Disturb sign on the knob, and bone the fuck out.
Down in the parking lot, I hear somebody call out to me and I almost have a fucking heart attack as I reach for the gun in my pocket.
“D.B.,” he says, “hey, Devil’s Business! What the fuck, fool?”
I turn and it’s Puppet. Poo-Butt Puppet.
I can tell I got to play this hard. “What’d you say? I ain’t your fucking fool!”
When I first met this fucker, he didn’t think I had a nickname, and he always knew I was up to no good, so he came up with that Devil’s Business shit like it was fucking smart or something. Like it had class. Now even though he knows I go by Creeper, he still keeps up with it. I don’t know why. Ego, I guess? Who knows why people do the fucked-up shit they do?
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he says without sounding sorry. “You holding?”
Puppet wants to know if I got drugs on me. Now, what do you think, I’m gonna tell this fucker the truth?
“No,” I say, “not since like a hour ago.”
“Oh man, you’re fucked up right now, aren’t you, homes? You should’ve fucking shared that shit.”
Like I’d ever share my shit with Puppet on purpose.
When Puppet gets close and I can tell he doesn’t exactly need more cuz he’s looking glazed as fuck, but he doesn’t just want to know if I got shit, he’s also got something on his mind and he’s right about to tell me about it.
When this happens, I make sure to fucking listen hard, to listen like I’m not listening at all cuz the streets hear everything and know everything. If you think they don’t, think again.
“You hear Fate’s crew got Joker and them? Some chick went in last night late and opened up on a party.” Puppet turns his hand into a gun by pointing his finger at imaginary targets across the parking lot. Then he thinks better of it and turns it sideways. “Like, blam, blam, blam. All kinds of cold-blooded, homes!”
Some chick, huh? He must mean Payasa. Couldn’t be anybody else. For some reason, that kind of hits me too, cuz I know she hasn’t rolled that hard before. It’s like she popped her cherry capping those fools. It’s like she’s a new woman now. Not a virgin no more.
“Yeah, I heard that,” I say, even though you know I hadn’t heard that shit.
Still, it’s better if he thinks I did but that’s only cuz this is the only fucker on earth I want thinking I’m smarter than he is so he doesn’t get it into his head that he can get over on me.
After one of them long awkward silences, Puppet finally says, “I bet you I can light more fires than you. We could have, like, a contest or something. What do you think? You man enough?”
He’s got a lighter out and he’s playing with it like it’s something big. I almost laugh in this motherfucker’s face. I keep it inside though. Like he has any clue he’s already one behind, two if you count the handball wall, which I definitely do. He also doesn’t know I got a ton of shit just burning a hole in Garza’s van. I mean, not literally, but it could, you know. But then I think, you know, that isn’t such a bad idea.
Like, I could burn a hole in this city so big that nobody ever did anything like it in the history of America. In the history of the world. Not since, like, a war or some shit. And, fire? Fire’s like a cleaner. It transforms all the dirty stuff and makes room for the new. Cuz bleach burns too, right? It’s like the same thing.
I pause and stare at Puppet before moving my eyes to this homeless dude shuffling through the parking lot, hobbling on a little metal cane with feathers tied to it but keeping his head up like he’s the shaman of Los Angeles or something. He don’t even look at me, but even from far away I can tell he’s got a nasty scar on the side of his nose I can see. For a second I think about giving Puppet one just like it.
Then I turn back to him and talk like I’m Charles Bronson. “You’re fucking estupido, Puppet. Why would I do that juvenile shit?”
Juvenile means childish, like something a dumb fucking kid would do, immature. And Puppet’s still trying to explain to me why it’s not stupid, why it’s not like that at all, but it’s too late cuz I’m already in the van and revving the engine and counting the bottles out the corner of my eye. Forty-four, still. No, forty-two.
Did I tell you I rolled up more rags and stuffed them in the bottles? No?
Well, I did.
And when I pop the shift to drive all I think about is how I’m gonna be the biggest fire starter in the history of the world.
The biggest one nobody ever knew about.
A hero, kind of.
A legend.
12
I got my two best lighters in my lap now (black BICs, motherfucker), and I don’t even give a fuck what neighborhood I’m in. Lynwood, Compton, whatever. South Gate? HP? Who fucking cares? All I know is I bang a right on Western from Imperial and decide I’m gonna drive north till I run out of gas, hucking cocktails all the way.
I’m gonna light this city on fire all by myself. Burn it to the ground so we can rebuild with better shit. So we can start over. Someday somebody’s gonna thank me for this shit.
First thing, I get a routine going.
I pull up to a place that looks like it’ll catch good—maybe it’s got an awning, or the door’s open, or a window, and when I see that, I grab a bottle, light that shit, and chuck it out the driver’s window like the world’s best paper delivery boy. Except it isn’t papers. This shit smashes and goes fwoom like a motherfucker!
I think I’m edging up into Inglewood or something when I start seeing the words black owned and black owners spray-painted on the sides of liquor stores, pawnshops, all that. Big black letters. All caps. At first I got no fucking idea what that’s about.
1.I throw at those too.
2.And I throw at everything else.
I only stop once when I look east on one of them main cross streets (shit, I don’t remember, was it Manchester?) and see what looks like a tank or some shit, all beige and camo’d out with dudes sitting on top with rifles and vests. That shit makes my stomach drop for a second, but they don’t even look my direction. They just keep sitting there in the intersection.
So I cool it for a few blocks, you know, to be safe, and it’s a good thing too, cuz at a red light a bus pulls up to me on my driver’s side and I kind of look up and to the side and I see the whole thing packed with soldiers and one of them looks brown or whatever and he’s scoping me, so I smile and wave, and he nods and waves back, and when the green light goes, I just cool it and go below the speed limit until that bus ups and turns. I keep it low-pro for like seven more blocks, until I see people ripping up stores again. Swear to God, in one Vons parking lot, I even see cops parked there and watching! Like, what the fuck? Not trying to arrest anybody. Just standing there. Doing nothing. Only watching.
After that’s when I decide to bomb it back up. I don’t give a fuck. I light and throw, light and throw.
I hit more than I miss. Pioneer Chicken, boom. Tong’s Tropical Fish & Pets, boom. (I kind of regret that one though.) Tina’s Wigs, boom. A shack with a sign out front that says SHOE REPAIR in red letters—forget it, that shit went up like a firework.
When I’m done with the second box and halfway into the third, I punch the radio on with my fist and it doesn’t even hurt. It pops on, catching on some white boy music, you know the kind, all guitars and screaming, and I ain’t exactly in the mood for that, so I slap the AM button in and pray for some Art Laboe shit. Some smooth oldies. Something with a beat to it.
And I must catch the end of what Art’s saying cuz he’s laying his voice down on the airwaves, telling everybody to be safe and stay indoors, and he says, This right here’s a little something to take your mind off what’s going on out there.
I can’t help laughing cuz I am “out there” and ba-bap-bap, that’s the drums coming in. Snares, I think. And the singer jumps on right after.
I know this song, I think. It’s “Rock Around the Clock,” and what the fuck is a glad rag anyways?
I’ll tell you what it is. It’s these wicks, that’s what.
All these rags I tore up and stuffed down the throats of these bottles. They sure do make me glad. And when that fucking guitar solo comes in, it’s like the song’s playing just for me, only me, all fast and shit as I’m holding the steering wheel straight with my knees, grabbing a bottle out of the box next to me with my right hand, lighting the cloth with my left, then grabbing the neck as I switch it back to my left hand and throw it underhanded, and as it comes to the end of the song, I get sad and just keep driving.
I wish I could rewind it, and play it again and again and again.
13
My shit is running on fumes when I hit Sixth and Western, and I wouldn’t’ve been if I didn’t have to go around a bunch more army-looking dudes, go east on Seventy-Sixth for a bit before riding it to Hoover, then creeping onto Gage until I could sneak onto Western again and head back north. What a detour.
I didn’t really plan for that, and I only got a box left when I see a strip mall on Sixth and I think, Fuck it. Why not? It’s as good a place as any for my masterpiece, cuz I’m gonna burn this whole fucking thing.
All two fucking stories of it.
But it’s weird cuz I can’t focus so good. See, tastes have been pinging back and forth in my mouth for blocks.
Like, one second it’s peanut butter, and I’m thinking when the fuck did I eat peanut butter last? I don’t even like that shit.
I must’ve been, like, what? Fifteen?
And then when I’m sure I haven’t eaten that shit since I was fourteen, I taste tomatoes. Raw tomatoes. And I can smell them too.
Fuck. I’ve done way too much coke, man.
I try to put tomatoes out of my head by taking the tire iron that’s been sliding around in the back since I first started driving this fucker and get out and start banging in some store windows. Once they’re popped, I light a rum bottle and toss it in. I’ve done two doors before I realize there’s a crew of fools across the street.
I can’t tell from so far away but maybe they’re black. Either way, these fuckers are going crazy trying to rip bars off a convenience store window. They’re even going so far as to tie some kind of rope to a rusted-out truck’s tow hitch and try to yank it out the whole window cage, and then I see why.
There’s still someone in there that they’re trying to get at. A shopkeeper with a gun or something cuz there’s screaming and people jumping back and forth in the opening and popping off shots like it’s Beirut or some shit.
That makes me hurry it up.
I bust in a third window, a fourth. I’m only doing the dark storefronts.
Fuck the lit ones. I don’t need somebody to be in there with a gun.
I’m onto my fifth, a video store with posters in it I can’t fucking read cuz it’s got a different alphabet, when I hear screeching behind me, like a car burning rubber and coming to a hard stop, and I’m sure it’s the truck, but then somebody’s yelling something like, “We will shoot, we will shoot!” But I don’t turn around. I bash out another window, figuring it’s for the fuckers on the other side of the street. But when I’m hucking a flaming ron in the window, I hear, “Stop or I’ll shoot,” all loud in English and maybe this one’s meant for me.
If it is, I think, fuck it.
I pick the tire iron back up and go to smash in another window out . . .
But I hear a pop before I can bring the thing forward and smash the glass and my ears start ringing, like instantly. And there’s a hole in the window now, a real little one, like someone threw a pebble through it just now.
I cough and blood hits the glass in front of me.
Like, a spatter.
I know right then that that shit is mine. I’m like, “fuck.” I whisper that shit as I reach out and touch it on the window.
It looks way darker than I thought blood was supposed to look.
And I try to put it back. I actually try.
Estupido, right?
I try to swipe my blood up off the glass and put it back inside me, but when I touch my cheek, I find out I got a hole in it.
A hole as big as my fingertip. I know cuz I feel it.
And I try to plug it.
But when I try, my finger goes all the way through to the other side and I feel whiskers on my cheek . . .
On the outside of my cheek.
That’s when it hits me that I’m almost touching my ear.
When half my hand’s inside my mouth.
Fuck.
That’s not good.
The numbness is starting.
In my head. Like, in my skull, I don’t feel anything.
Not no more.
And that’s weird. Cuz I got no headache.
There’s . . .
Nothing.
Just blackness coming up from the floor.
Grabbing at me like hands.
KIM BYUNG-HUN,
A.K.A. JOHN KIM
APRIL 30, 1992
6:33 P.M.
1
It would be a school night—and I would be at home—if the riot hadn’t spread. Looting has been reported in Hollywood, at some locations in the San Fernando Valley, and even in Beverly Hills, the radio says. It’s everywhere, but it feels like it’s here the most: Koreatown, my family’s home, my home. I bet nobody in those other places is sitting in the backseat of a car with the radio up loud though, scrunched between his dad and his old neighbor who smells like bonjuk, trying to keep a gun gripped tightly between his feet while another gun digs into his hip.
Both actually hurt. I feel rigid metal bruising the arches of my feet, pressing through the leather of my Jordans, but my father’s gun is worse: he wears it like a gunslinger, in a holster at his side. Every time he shifts, its weight grinds into my hip and a hot little pain shoots down my leg.
With what’s going on, my dad is a different person, not the guy who lets my mom talk over him at the dinner table, or the one who watches the Dodgers in arms-crossed silence. My father leans into me as the car banks left and another stinging bolt goes up and down my leg. I hold in my wince. The last thing I need is him accusing me of being soft, not in front of these people.
Mr. Park is driving. He lives in our building too, but I only met him an hour ago in our lobby. It’s his car. He has a big mole on his left cheek and he wears the collar up on his polo shirt to try to cover it, I think. His brother sits shotgun, wearing a flannel shirt and a Lakers cap. He’s got glasses like me. On my left, Mr. Rhee has gray hair, and a grayer sweatshirt with checkered pants pulled way up. Because I am the youngest and smallest, I have to sit in the middle. It’s embarrassing and uncomfortable. I can’t even see out the windows. I know there’s smoke, though, lots of it. I can’t smell anything else now. I might as well have charcoal stuffed up my nose. I also know Mr. Park uses the horn a lot as he drives and curses people in Korean—people in the streets, I guess.
When I did my Modern California History paper on Los Angeles, I found out that there are 146 nations represented within its confines, and 90 different languages spoken. I’ll have to check the library encyclopedia for how many countries there are in the world now. I used to know how many there were, but then the Soviet Union broke up last year, and this year Yugoslavia did too, so that could be as many as twenty more with Croatia and others now independent.
“Ya.” My father elbows me. “Jib-joong hae.”
He wants me to pay attention to Korean Radio USA, 1580 AM. He knows I’m trying not to because it’s depressing. Each story is exactly the same. Everywhere in L.A., Korean businesses have been ignored by police and firefighters. In fact, that’s why we’re here, in the back of Mr. Park’s Toyota hatchback driving up Wilshire, patrolling our neighborhood because no one else will. That’s why I have a gun.