Southland

by Nina Revoyr

  Cory yelled out his brother’s name and started to dive under the fence, but Jimmy pulled him back and held him.

  “Run!” they heard Curtis yell. “Get outta here!”

  But while they didn’t go back out to the alley, they didn’t run, either. The fence was covered with black plastic, and Cory pushed it aside, and the two boys peered out into the alley. The cop had dragged Curtis out near the couch and stood him up again. He held him by his T-shirt, the white fabric balled in his fist.

  “Who’d you steal that guitar from?” asked the cop.

  “Nobody,” Curtis said, and Jimmy could not believe how calm he sounded. “We found it in a trash bin.”

  The cop yanked on Curtis’s shirt. “Bullshit. That guitar’s in good shape. Even you people aren’t stupid enough to throw out something new.” Curtis did not remove his eyes from Lawson’s face. Lawson shook Curtis again. “What are you looking at, nigger?”

  “I didn’t steal anything,” said Curtis, calmly.

  “Bullshit!” yelled Lawson, and he pushed Curtis back so hard he fell to the ground. Curtis sat there, knees bent, arms supporting his weight, looking at Lawson as if interested in what he’d do next. Lawson stepped toward Curtis as if approaching a football, and kicked him, hard, in the thigh. Curtis made a noise, and Cory gasped.

  “Ssshh,” said Jimmy, tightening his grip on Cory’s shoulder. He pressed hard against the fence, feeling and ignoring something sharp against his cheek.

  On the other side of the fence, Lawson pulled Curtis up with both hands. “I know you, boy. You’re the punk who broke into Audubon. My fellow cop was real upset he didn’t get to punish you himself.” He laughed. “I’ll have to tell him that you’ve moved on to robbery.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Shut up.” Then he leaned back for leverage and punched Curtis in the cheek, and then once more in the jaw. Curtis’s head jerked back again, and spit and blood flew. Quietly, in Jimmy’s arms, Cory began to cry. Jimmy banged his head against the fence in frustration.

  “You just try to tell me again,” said Lawson, “about how you didn’t steal anything. What do you have to say for yourself now?”

  Curtis’s mouth was swelling and there was blood all over his chin; he just turned to Lawson and looked at him. The V of Lawson’s eyebrows got steeper and he grabbed Curtis’s shirt again.

  “Say something, nigger!”

  But Curtis still did not respond.

  Lawson’s face grew redder and his lips pulled back into a snarl. “You fucking smart-ass coon,” he said. “You think you’re too fucking good to talk to me?” Then he let go of the shirt just as he pulled his fist back; it was like he was tossing up Curtis’s head to smash a serve. When he hit Curtis this time, the blow was much harder, and Curtis’s body swiveled a quarter of a turn before falling dully to the ground. He landed heavily and grunted, then brought his hands to his head. He pulled his legs up and curled into himself.

  “Yeah,” said Lawson, shaking out his fist, “you’re not looking at me now, boy, are you? Don’t think I’m so funny now, do you?”

  He stepped up to Curtis and kicked him three more times—twice in the legs and once in the back of the head. Then he leaned over, as if he were about to spit on him, but just glared, enjoying his work. And it was then, as he stood up straight again, that he looked over to the fence. He couldn’t see Cory and Jimmy—they were obscured by the plastic—but the boys both saw him clearly. They saw the thin, sharp nose, the tight lips and narrowed eyes, as the cop yelled out a warning. “Next time, boys, I’m not gonna let you get away!” Then he walked back to the end of the alley and drove off.

  When he was gone, Cory and Jimmy scrambled out from behind the fence and ran over to where Curtis was lying. His lips and nose were bloody, his right eye was starting to swell. There was a growing stain of blood on his T-shirt and spots of blood on the concrete beneath him. He lay very still, and breathed slowly and hard. Cory and Jimmy kept touching him, laying hands on his shoulders, knees, hands, head, less to comfort him than to convince themselves that all of him was there. They were so concerned with Curtis that Jimmy didn’t notice his own blood, dripping from the gash on his cheek where he’d sliced his face on the broken fence. No tears escaped their eyes now, but Jimmy felt them welling in his throat; with the slightest noise from Curtis, he knew he would break. But Curtis did not complain. He didn’t groan or cry. And when, twenty minutes later, he finally pulled himself up into a sitting position, what he said was, “Don’t tell Mama and Daddy what happened.”

  Cory looked him, puzzled. “Why?”

  “Just don’t,” Curtis answered, holding his side. “I’ll say I got into a fight or something.”

  “Well, what are you gonna do?”

  “I’m gonna go see Mr. Sakai,” Curtis said. And slowly, wincing, he made himself stand, and limped off to the end of the alley.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  LOIS, 1965

  BEFORE THE gunshots, before the looting, before the radio and TV newsmen said they’d better stay inside, Lois knew something awful was happening because the sky was filled with smoke. It wasn’t their sky yet, but the sky southeast. And it wasn’t an isolated plume, as if from one small fire, but a thick, gray blanket over Watts. It had started to form on Thursday, the second night of the riot. And by Friday, when the National Guard came, the whole city smelled of smoke. The people who dared to go to work at all left their jobs and stores early, eager to get home before dark.

  Lois slept fitfully on Friday, because of the unusually hot night, and because she feared what would happen tomorrow. By dusk, it was clear to everyone in the Crenshaw district that the smoke was moving closer. On Saturday morning, the Sakais awoke early and the whole family gathered around the kitchen table. Frank, who was baggy-eyed from getting no sleep, instructed everyone to stay in the house.

  “We’re almost out of toilet paper,” Mary informed him. “And milk.” She seemed irritated, whip-folding towels as they talked, as if Frank had cooked up the riots to inconvenience her.

  “I’ll bring some from the store,” he said. “I’ve got to go make sure everything’s locked up safe, and I’ll be back within an hour. Just keep the door locked and the TV on, and wait for me.”

  Lois didn’t want her father to leave. Although both her mother and her sister looked sober and alert, she was downright scared. Would the looters just do what they’d done so far—rob and burn the stores and businesses, abuse the cars that crossed their path? Or would Crenshaw be the place where they finally went further—off the streets and into the houses? Would the boys from the neighborhood jump into the fray or defend themselves against it? And if anything happened to their block, to their house, how would they be able to stop it? No, she didn’t want her father to leave them, so as he walked through the door, she went outside with him and into the hot, hot day. It was so humid the Japanese shutters wouldn’t close. It was so sultry the manicured bushes were drooping, heavy with the weight of themselves.

  “You’ve got to stay here, Lo,” her father said, using the shortened version of her name he only did when they were alone.

  “Let me come with you, Dad,” she pleaded. They were on the walkway in front of the steps.

  “No, honey, I’ll be right back.”

  Then came a low, booming voice from next door. “I’ll protect them,” it said. They turned and saw Bill Acres, a thick red-faced man who looked like the Indiana farmer he once was. He was sitting on a chair he’d pulled out to his porch, a rifle propped up on his knees.

  “What are you doing, Bill?” Frank asked. He looked from Acres’ gun to his face. Lois, frightened, just stared at the gun, fighting off the urge to run inside.

  “I bought this yesterday,” Acres replied. “An M-1 Carbine. Ain’t it a beaut? Hell if I’m gonna let some punk-ass niggers run roughshod over my neighborhood.” He didn’t say the rest, but Lois knew what it would be—bad enough they live here already. Lois could remember a time when he wo
uldn’t talk to the Sakais and forbade his daughters from playing with her and Rose. But their stock had risen considerably, in Acres’ eyes, once the blacks began to move there in earnest.

  “Well, thanks,” said Frank. “But I’ll be right back. Don’t go pointing that thing at my house.”

  “I’ve got another one inside. You want it?”

  “No, thanks, Bill. I’ll be fine.”

  Lois watched her father walk across the street, his quick, slightly forward-leaning stride. After giving a fake smile to Acres, she went back in the house, where her sister and mother were sitting in front of the news.

  “There’s looting over on Western,” Rose informed her.

  “As soon as this is over,” their mother said, “we’re getting out of here. We’re going to Grandpa and Grandma Takayas’.”

  Lois nursed a cup of tea and sat with her family. Just as she was worrying about the time he’d been gone, her father came home with the items that Mary had asked for. He walked into the living room looking grim.

  “The boys were there,” he said to his wife, “wanting to protect it. I had to send them home.”

  “Why? Why not let them be useful for once?”

  He didn’t answer, knowing he’d helped create some of the bitterness he despised, and Lois wondered if he was sorry for trying to talk about the store, which almost always brought such a response. Now he leaned forward and looked at the screen. “Anything happen since I left?”

  “No,” Mary said. “It’s getting closer.”

  This was like a storm, Lois thought—everyone knowing, vaguely, that it was approaching; people locked inside, away from the elements. Her family watching the news to track its progress and destruction, knowing they weren’t going anywhere. Except. Except this storm was personal—it burned buildings and dragged people out of cars. Except this storm recruited, maybe boys that Lois knew. Lois understood the rage, or thought she did, but not the way it was playing out. The problem wasn’t just the lack of jobs, the hunger. It was, as the Yellow Brotherhood always complained, the sense that people were being threatened, watched— even her, even her sister. The police were like an army, and acted that way. In Crenshaw, only the straw-haired Irishman was cordial—the rest, especially Lawson, who’d taunted her sometimes, and even the black ones, trying hard, at the expense of those they policed, to make themselves feel like men, were frightening, and always to be avoided. After another hour or two of near-silent watching, they heard the first whoops on the boulevard. And then the sounds of breaking windows, of people running, of guns fired into the air. They were only two blocks from Crenshaw, and the wind brought it all—the voices, the textured and complicated laughter, bats and crow bars against glass and steel. And the smoke was now filling their part of the sky, too, and the neighborhood was covered in gray. From next door they heard gunshots, and Frank shook his head. “That fool’s shooting into the sky.”

  They weren’t watching the news now, just listening to the street, and Lois began to cry. All the businesses she walked past, the stores where she shopped. She was sure her father’s store would be hit, too.

  When Frank closed the curtain and turned from the window, his face looked pale and blood-drained. He wouldn’t meet Lois’s eyes—he wasn’t looking at any of them—but she knew how he felt. The place where he’d lived since he was a boy. Their neighborhood, their streets, were in chaos. At least her grandmother wasn’t here to see this—she’d passed away the year before—but Masako’s son wasn’t taking it any easier than she would have. He was hurting almost physically, while Rose just looked scared, and Mary, something else entirely. She seemed to be taking a certain pleasure in the fact that this place she so disliked and wanted desperately to leave; this place that had changed so much the last ten years, was falling apart all around her. But Lois felt more like her father. And when he sat down heavily in his upholstered chair, she wanted only to be a little girl again so she could sit in his lap, with her head beneath his chin and her ear against his chest, while he rocked her fears away.

  They didn’t eat dinner that evening—no one was hungry— and the fires burned on through the night. The whole house smelled like smoke, but they hardly noticed anymore. Mary and Rose eventually went to bed and Lois stayed downstairs with her father, who was pouring himself drinks from a bottle of whiskey he’d produced from the back of the linen closet. They watched the news, switching channels, and Frank occasionally looked out the window. All the street lights were out and it was quiet now—on the boulevard, looters might be picking through the dark, but the shouting and shooting were over. Lois was drifting off to sleep around one in the morning when she heard her father speak.

  “You don’t think we should leave here, do you?”

  Lois shook herself awake. “No.”

  “Your mother wants us to leave.”

  “I love it here, Dad,” said Lois, but he didn’t seem to hear.

  “Maybe the store is gone now.”

  “You could call Mr. Conway or Mr. Hirano.”

  He shook his head. “Maybe the store is gone and we’ll have to leave.”

  Lois looked at him—his face seemed strange in the TV light, odd colors and shadows crossed his cheeks and eyes. And as he sipped from his glass, it occurred to Lois that he was drunk. “Dad, don’t talk like that. The store will be OK. You’ll see. We won’t have to move.”

  “Maybe your mother is right,” Frank said. “But a man can’t leave his family.”

  “Dad. You’re right here.”

  “A man can’t leave his family,” he repeated.

  He was scaring her, but she stayed there, and the next thing she knew it was morning. Her mother shook her awake—she had slept on the couch, her father in his chair—and the newsmen were saying that the riot was controlled, the raging fires finally contained. They were just finishing breakfast when someone knocked on the door. Frank went to get it, and when he pulled the door open, they all heard Kenji Hirano.

  “It’s over, Frank. It’s all over. You better come quick.”

  And so he left, and he was gone for several hours. Lois again watched the news. They were reporting damages now—property losses, dozens of deaths, the beginning of clean-up efforts. She called a few friends to make sure they were all right, exchanged stories of fright and adventure, heard a firsthand account of the tanks on Crenshaw, rolling armed and silent down the boulevard. But then her father burst in. And he was wild-eyed, unhinged, his hair sticking up in tufts as if he’d been pulling it. He gestured and paced and wouldn’t talk to anyone, and when Lois tried to approach him to ask what was wrong, he whipped around and yelled at her.

  “Everything! Everything! Every Goddamned thing in the world!”

  And since Frank was a man who neither shouted nor swore, Lois was shocked and began to cry. He didn’t notice or acknowledge the rest of his family, and he stormed out the back and slammed the door, going straight into the garage. They didn’t see him for the rest of the day. And although Lois was terribly lonely, and worried, and confused about what was happening, she didn’t have much chance to work on getting Frank to come inside, because by morning she and Rose had packed most of their things, and their mother drove them down to Gardena.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  1994

  WITHOUT BEING totally aware of it, and without knowing why, Jackie avoided Laura for several days. They talked on the phone every night, though, and Jackie was curt; she could hear in the silences that Laura felt this but tried to ignore it. On Friday, she finally ran out of excuses. She walked over to Sierra Bonita a little after six, feeling grim and pessimistic.

  Laura answered the door quickly, as soon as Jackie finished knocking. “Hi,” she said, hand anxiously turning the knob.

  Jackie considered her from what seemed like a very long distance. Even when she stepped through the door and felt Laura’s arms around her, she didn’t feel any closer. Still, out of habit, she raised her arms and embraced Laura—but awkwardly, as if unused to he
r contours and shape. When Laura pulled back and brought her mouth up to Jackie’s, the kiss felt like something dead against Jackie’s lips.

  “What’s wrong?” Laura asked, pushing a bit of hair off Jackie’s forehead. “Are you mad at me?”

  “No.”

  “Just tired?”

  “I guess. It’s been a really long week.”

  “I’ve missed you,” said Laura. “It has been a long week. My bed’s seemed so empty without you.” She leaned into Jackie, tightening her embrace.

  Jackie kept her hands on Laura’s hips, lightly, conscious of the texture of her jeans. “Where are Rodent and Amy?”

  “Amy’s staying at her boyfriend’s tonight. And Rodney and Lisa, his latest woman—Holly’s upset, didn’t I tell you?—went to Tijuana for the weekend.”

  Above them, Holly, one of Rodney’s girlfriends, was playing the piano beautifully. She was a classical pianist, and now, in the angry, mournful notes that floated down through the ceiling, Jackie heard how Holly felt about the trip.

  “So the place is all yours,” Jackie observed.

  “All ours.”

  Laura squeezed again and then started kissing Jackie’s neck. She tugged lightly on Jackie’s shirt until it came untucked, then slipped a hand beneath the fabric and touched her back. “I’ve missed you,” said Laura again, between kisses. Jackie felt Laura’s hands move over her skin, felt them cup her shoulder blades, touch her sides, trace the hard line of her backbone. But all of these sensations seemed remote, barely real, as if someone were tapping lightly at a thick wooden door on the other side of a very large house. Laura parted Jackie’s legs with her knee and pressed into her. She ran her hand up roughly to Jackie’s breasts. And it was when she pushed aside Jackie’s bra and took the nipple between her finger and thumb; when Jackie failed to respond even to this, that she finally asked, again, “What’s wrong?”