by Alec Cizak
In the distance, Charlie hustled around the corner clutching a bottle and a bag of chicken. He booked into an alley behind a barbecue joint. A cream-colored SUV roared across the lanes, followed him. I said, “Shit,” stuffed my Twinkies and smokes into my pants, and took off running. Then I heard screams. Women, shouting in Korean. Orange light danced from the alley. Got bigger and bigger, like a monster in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Koreans filled the parking lot with their cell phones raised, like weapons. They looked confused and terrified. Then I heard Charlie, howling for his life.
The SUV screeched from the alley, raced past me. The little shits from SC tossed an empty gas can at me. “Suck on this,” said Larry, or Moe, I wasn’t sure. He was close enough I could have reached out, grabbed the motherfucker, pulled him from the car, and stomped him into the pavement. Wouldn’t have lost a moment of sleep if I had. But they were gone, racing up Western. I thought I saw them turn on Melrose.
When I made it around the corner, a couple of young Korean cats were throwing newspapers on Charlie. I’d never seen anything like it. He’d become a shadow, wearing fire like a suit. He wouldn’t stand still.
“Charlie!” I said. “Drop, motherfucker, drop!” My vision blurred from the heat.
He ping-ponged off of walls and garage doors, hollering, “Lord, help me!”
I grabbed one of the Korean girls who’d been waving her cell phone like a tennis racket. “9-1-1, now!” I said.
She looked like she had been slapped.
“Please,” I said, my voice cracking, “call 9-1-1.”
She nodded. “Yes, yes,” she said.
Charlie must have been exhausted. He finally collapsed. His body shook, as though he were cold. As soon as the Korean girl finished her call, I heard the sirens. Not nearly close enough to make a difference.
Cops showed first. Talked to me for about five minutes. I told them to go to the Ralphs on Third and Vermont. “People saw them,” I said, “ask Gustav. He’s probably got a better memory than me.”
They asked me to describe the SC boys. I didn’t know what to say. The lone white cop grunted, actually said, “Oh, so we all look alike?”
How I wanted to put my foot in his ass right there. I calmed myself and described Moe. I said, “And, yeah, the other two looked the same. Exactly the same.”
“You’re just full of stereotypes,” said the white cop.
Stereotype...unbelievable. I’d have bet my Kools and my Twinkies that was the biggest word that cop knew. Probably heard it on a talk show. I felt like calling him a dumb piece of shit, since no one else had ever done him the courtesy.
But I still remembered what those motherfuckers did to Rodney King.
And all this went down while Charlie convulsed and died. When the smoke cleared, there was nothing but charred meat and black gravel. Like he had never been a human being.
After the Riots
You could make the argument that Koreatown didn’t ever recover from the riots. But things got back to normal after a few months, you know, mostly. I remember in the fall of ’93, Charlie, Wendell, and me were picked up by three chicks in a BMW. Two of them were actresses, said they’d just shot a movie about ass-kicking cowgirls. The other one was a weather girl named Jill. Smoking hot. They said they wanted to get dirty. Rich girls always said that. They said, “We’ve never done anything like this.” Rich girls always said that, too.
We didn’t give a shit. Women out for a thrill fuck were good for sex, booze, and food. Sometimes they had blow, too. In those days, when the women still paid attention to Charlie, I had to watch out, make sure he didn’t get down with some girl who’d turn him right back on to the dangerous shit. That night, though, everything was sweet.
The ladies drove us to a beach house in Malibu. Jill, the weather girl, said it belonged to her benefactor. Charlie fucked up, said, “You mean your Sugar Daddy?” I thought they’d eighty-six us, make us walk back to Koreatown.
She said, “Don’t be offensive,” and shrugged, like she hadn’t been offended in the first place.
The house had big, gorgeous windows looking out on the Pacific. The waves rolled onto the beach so steady, made me think of time, made me think nothing would ever really change. We went into separate rooms, per the ladies’ choices, gave them what they wanted, then spent the night drinking beer, sitting on a giant, u-shaped couch, in front of a fireplace, just talking. Wendell spun a heap of bullshit about playing horn with John Coltrane, back in the day. All that effort, then one of the actresses said, “Who’s John Cold-train?”
The women said they wanted to know how we ended up homeless. Charlie got around to rapping about Vietnam. Spoke about the Vietnamese women, the dope, and how he knew he had been afraid all the time he was there, but couldn’t remember how that actually felt.
“You were in a war?” said the weather girl.
“Yeah.” He looked down. He always did when he talked about the war, like he had done something so terrible, even the Padre at Our Lady of the Angels would never forgive him.
“Did you kill anybody?” said one of the actresses.
“I don’t know,” he said.
The weather girl said, “Hope you didn’t. Because, you know, karma.”
Charlie sneered. “Do you even know what that word means?”
“Duh,” she said. Then she stood and said, “Who needs another beer?”
About the Author
Alec Cizak is a writer and filmmaker from Indianapolis. His short stories have appeared in several journals and anthologies. He recently completed post-production on his third feature film, Kato Therapy. He is also the editor of the fiction journal Pulp Modern.
