The Safety Expert

by Doug Richardson

  Simple.

  And the OSHA guy was from the snapable side of the gene pool. His bad luck, thought Stew. Why the hell Stew was thinking of him during the short walk to the 7-11 was a mystery. Was it just some random switch in the fuse box of his subconscious? Or was Benjamin Whatshisfuckinname hiding somewhere in that lousy-assed dream? All Stew knew for sure was that the more he thought about Ben, the more the cigarettes were calling him.

  So Stew began to jog.

  Across the boulevard, half a block to his left stood the sputtering 7-11 sign. One of the fluorescent tubes needed to be replaced. Going on three weeks now, thought Stew. It annoyed him when simple things didn’t get fixed right. Where the hell was the maintenance crew? All Stew needed was a ladder, a new six-foot tube, and his DeWalt power driver and he would have the sign fixed in no time.

  Then again, maybe the owner was some Punjab immigrant who thought the flickering signage made his 7-11 stand apart from all the other open-all-night convenience marts. Hell if Stew was going to volunteer to help some camel jockey SOB fix his shit. Stew vowed that from this point on, he would never buy smokes from a 7-11 with flickering signage.

  Ahead was a notoriously lingering stoplight. The go-green of the southbound signal appeared to ripple across the wet black pavement. A slight marine layer of ground-clinging fog had crept in from the ocean, leaving the air feeling a notch cooler than normal and every object coated in a dewy sheen.

  Stew had no patience for that particular stoplight and at three-fifteen in the morning, wasn’t one to press the crosswalk button to wait for a signal to tell him when it was safe to cross the street. Still jogging, Stew stretched from the curb into the parking lane and glanced left, but was more concerned about the oncoming traffic three lanes over. All appeared clear. And the signal in Stew’s brain was as green as a sunlit emerald. He made a heading for the stuttering sign, sucked in his last lungful of nicotine-free atmosphere, and kicked his body into another gear.

  He didn’t see the car.

  It was a drifting Toyota Prius, its hybrid engine on electronic stealth mode. But for the faintest hum and the sound of tires spinning over wet pavement, the car was virtually silent. In the police report it said that the driver recalled seeing a tall, darting jogger and hearing the thump of her left front bumper striking him before she had time to apply the brakes.

  Stew was upended, spun in the air, and dropped to the earth with a crunching sound that made him certain his skull was crushed. The Puma that was half-laced to his right foot carried all the way to the opposite gutter. And in the slow motion rewind that followed, big Stew lay motionless, waiting to lose consciousness. Maybe even his life. When that didn’t happened, he groggily started to complain.

  “Just wanted a fuckin’ cigarette!”

  4

  THE CITY OF Simi Valley. Population 119,388. Cradled on the southern slope of the Tehachapi Mountains, bisected by the 118 Freeway connecting to Route 23, and forty miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Home to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, Simi Valley is known for being one of the safest cities in America, if not the safest city in America. More police officers and firefighters call it home than any other place on earth. The valley itself, compared to its vast sister, the San Fernando Valley, is more like a badly warped coliseum bowl built out of hard, craggy terrain with a suburban paradise growing in between the rocky elevations. Famous as a backdrop for countless B movie westerns, it isn’t difficult to look up from any backyard and imagine seeing the likes of John Wayne or Randolph Scott, either on horseback or rising up from behind some rocky outcropping to fend off a horde of advancing Indians.

  Or in Rodney King’s case, looking in his rearview mirror to see he was being chased by the cops. It was late one Monday night in 1991 that the infamous motorist led police officers on a high-speed chase through Simi Valley. When he resisted arrest, his reward was a vicious baton-beating by four LAPD cops. The event was captured by an amateur videographer. Not since the Zapruder film had any moving picture been so scrutinized. Eventually, three of the four cops were later acquitted by an all white Simi Valley jury, sparking what has become known as the Los Angeles Riots.

  The city burned for nearly a week.

  “That beating was the best thing that ever happened to Rodney King,” Ben would say to spice up an ordinary cocktail party conversation or backyard barbecue. It was both provocative and an effective counter-jab to anyone who couldn’t help making jokes or sideways remarks about Ben’s Simi Valley address. No matter where Ben traveled throughout the Southland, the Rodney King beating always seemed to bubble up.

  “Rodney King walked away with what?” Ben would continue, knowing exactly how politically incorrect he was sounding. “A bruised face? Zero broken bones?” Then Ben would drop his kill factotum. “A high speed chase? A hundred-ten, a hundred-fifteen miles per hour? In an ’88 Hyundai? If he had blown a tire, hit a wall, flipped that car at half that speed? Best case scenario, Rodney would be maimed for life, paralyzed, breathing through a tube, or dead—not to mention his two passengers.”

  After that kind of conversation kick-start, Ben was certain to dominate purely because he held the most interesting facts. He wouldn’t need to argue the morality of America’s most notorious home video, the police beating, or the race issues associated with the tragic events that followed. From his own sorry past, he had learned that personal safety struck at the heart of nearly every adult. He had morphed his losses into a great asset, using his unique ability to dissect a dangerous event or situation, reduce it to odds, tendencies and inevitabilities, separate factoids from mythology, and then sell his advice on how best to avoid injury or death, and most importantly, excessive workmen’s comp claims for the businessmen who paid him.

  ****

  Lydia Gonzalez was one of the many cops who called Simi Valley home. When she was but five years old, she flew alone from Mexico City to Los Angeles. From her window seat, the young girl stared in wide wonder at the never-ending blanket that was suburban Southern California sprawl. Below the cushion of air upon which the airliner floated were what appeared to be thousands upon thousands of tiny rooftops divided only by the constant peppering of sky-blue swimming pools. That’s when young Lydia swore she would one day own a pool of her own.

  Thirty-one years later, Lydia owned her pool and the $516,000 mortgage that went with it. Her LAPD pension would kick in in seven more years. That, and a second job, just might make that heavy mortgage an easier pill to swallow.

  “Just added a second mortgage,” said Gonzo. Sergeant Lydia Gonzalez preferred to be called Gonzo by her friends and colleagues. Gonzo had been her official nickname since she broke the single-game scoring record for the Van Nuys High School girls’ basketball team.

  “Price you pay for a fancy-assed private school,” said Romeo Williams, Gonzo’s partner, wannabe neighbor, surrogate big brother, and all around confidante. He was comfortable playing the role of the five-foot-eight roly-poly in plaid shorts and an L.A. Clippers t-shirt to Gonzo’s near six feet of alien elegance. A slimming pair of black Capri pants and a Simi Canyons Lancers shirt elongated her height and grace.

  “You just wait,” she said. “Some girl’s gonna find out Romeo’s got more than a job in his shorts. And she’s gonna own your ass. Then you’re gonna marry her. Then she’s gonna want babies. Then she’s gonna wanna house for the babies. And when those babies are just out of diapers, she’s gonna say, ‘Romeo, oh Romeo, wherefore art thou the good schools?’”

  “Simi’s got good schools.”

  “Privates are better. It’s a retail education. And you get what you pay for.”

  “Where’s the burgers and dogs?” asked Romeo.

  “Freezer in the garage.”

  “Costco?”

  “Smart and Final. All I can afford between payments on my payments,” joked Gonzo. “Make sure you toss the box or my friends might think I’m cheap.”

  “Your friends?” asked Romeo, referr
ing to the eleven-odd couples either milling around the backyard, seeking shade, or keeping cool during the winter heat wave by playing lifeguard to the nineteen six-year-olds making waves in the pool. “Any other cops here?”

  Gonzo pressed her lips together and shook her head.

  “This many bodies at a Sunday barbecue in Simi and only two cops?” Romeo feigned his disbelief. “Where’s the balance of the universe and all that shit. Must be something wrong.”

  “Romes,” smiled Gonzo. “You’re all the cop this woman needs.”

  Gonzo snapped the tongs she was using to turn the chicken. There were ten birds on the hot grill, hand-cut and marinated for two days in her late mother’s favorite Tejada recipe.

  Romeo decided to withdraw from the banter and forage for frozen burger patties in the garage freezer. He knew better than to cross verbal swords with his sarge. She had the looks and game to out-harass just about any fellow officer. And he would sure as hell suffer her wicked tongue the entire following week if he stayed and played on her turf.

  “Need any help?”

  Gonzo recognized the voice. But when she lifted her eyes from the grill to the woman sauntering towards her, she was lost for a name to fit the familiar face. Ben Keller’s wife, Gonzo recalled. But what the hell was her name?

  “I’m great. All good,” said Gonzo. “How are you?”

  Gonzo knew Ben. First from the gym, then two years of summer softball. But mostly she knew Ben for the kindly worded letter of recommendation he had written on behalf of her little boy, Travis. Without Ben’s letter she was certain Travis would never have been admitted to Simi Canyons.

  But what’s her friggin’ name?

  “Travis in the pool?”

  “Think the whole kindergarten is in the pool.”

  Gonzo swung her eyes over to the swimming pool. The pride and joy of finally owning a pool was lost in the mildly panicked moment. Gonzo had a horrible time remembering names. As a cop it had never been a liability because, for the most part, everybody in the PD wore a name tag. Otherwise, for Gonzo it would be to serve, protect, and “What was your name?”

  “Ben was swimming with Betsy. But now I can’t figure out where the hell they went.”

  Ben’s wife, Betsy’s mom! What was her...

  “Alex!” snapped Gonzo, practically spitting the name as it popped into her head.

  “Yes, Lydia?”

  “Gonzo,” spun the hostess, trying to bury herself in the embarrassment of the moment. “Everybody calls me Gonzo. Even Travis.”

  “Really nice of you to have everybody over.”

  “Long time coming. Everybody in the class has been so nice to us.”

  Of course, it was code speak. Everybody in the class had, for the most part, been nice to Travis. But despite her badge and the general politeness afforded a police officer, Gonzo still felt like a misfit at morning drop-off. She in her dinged-up Chevy Suburban waiting to turn 200,000 miles, waiting in line amongst all the checkbook moms in their newly leased Land Rovers, Escalades and BMWs.

  “Looks hot. Lemme take over,” said Alex.

  Gonzo shook her head and smiled. “Oh, I got it. Know what? I could really use a beer.”

  “Coming right up.”

  As Alex walked away, Gonzo finally grabbed an eyeful of the mom whose name she had forgotten. And though it was only a rear view, there was plenty about Alex for Gonzo to memorize. Alex Keller was just north of five feet five and looked rock solid for a woman who had birthed three children, survived the death of her husband, and remarried an oddball like Ben. Alex was both beautiful and confident without looking the part of a grown-up fairy princess, wearing her surf shorts and bikini halter under a sheer white blouse in something of a statement to the other moms. She didn’t appear to sweat either. Alex was clearly socially adept, easily navigating through the crowd of Sunday wine-chilled parents, smiling with the straightened teeth of a prom queen, laughing at unfunny jokes, obligingly flirting with every drunken husband, but never slowing long enough to appear delayed from her mission.

  “Stare at her any longer, people will talk.”

  “Asshole!” spat Gonzo, laughing at herself. She was, indeed, staring. And so very guilty.

  Ben had clearly startled Gonzo, ambushing her from the smoky side of the grill.

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” said Ben. “My wife’s got hot stuff when she wants to show it and you to know it.”

  “I wasn’t looking at her that way,” Gonzo defended.

  “But you’re supposed to look at her that way,” said Ben, holding up his half-supped plastic glass of wine. Gonzo couldn’t tell if it was a gesture or a mocking toast. “Once in the spotlight, always in the spotlight,” said Ben.

  “She was an actress?”

  “Singer, model, performer, whatever,” said Ben. “Look her up on the IMDB.”

  The IMDB was short for the Internet Movie Database. Ben sometimes wondered if it was the most accessed website in Southern California. With so many residents claiming to either be, or have been, in show business, the IMDB was one quick, surefire way to divine a little truth from all the fiction.

  Gonzo turned away from the barbecue and bent closer to Ben. At first it was to check the dilation of his pupils. Off the mark, she already knew he was drunk. How drunk? was her question. And she couldn’t exactly perform a sobriety test right then and there. So it was the pupils she would go by. One point two percent blood alcohol, she guessed. Clearly over the limit. She had been watching her guests and making a mental list of who should and should not drive. Ben was her newest entry.

  “Now, you’re staring at me,” remarked Ben. “Guess I should be flattered.”

  Gonzo whispered in Ben’s ear. “Everybody thinks I’m a lesbian. Don’t they?”

  “Don’t know. Want me to take a poll?” smiled Ben. “I can ask for a show of hands.”

  “Please.”

  “If you’re disappointed in the result, I can also start a rumor.”

  “If they think I am, I get it. I’m a cop. I’m not built like most women. I’m a single mom. Travis’ got no dad—”

  “What about Romeo?” Ben nodded past Gonzo. Romeo was on his way back with a platter of uncooked burgers and hot dogs. “He a boyfriend or a beard?”

  “He’s my partner.”

  “Whatever,” said Ben. “My advice is stop worrying. People talk. You can’t keep ’em from talking. And if they are, at worst, you’re popular.”

  “Kids talk, too. I’m thinking about Travis.”

  “And who knows what kids will ask?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Like, ‘Is Travis’ mom a lesbian?’”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well,” braved Ben. “Is she?”

  Gonzo straightened and twisted her head only slightly. In her politically correct world of the LAPD, it had been a few years since anybody had asked her so bluntly.

  “Are you or are you not a lesbian?” asked Ben.

  “No!” said Gonzo.

  “Have you known or ever been associated with lesbians?”

  “Stop.”

  “Ok. Be happy it’s a Christian school,” said Ben. “Last time I checked, we believed in the Immaculate Conception.”

  Gonzo laughed. It was a big, loud laugh reserved for big women. Few humans could laugh like Gonzo.

  “If you didn’t know, you’re drunk,” she said.

  “Only slightly,” said Ben, who knew he was drunker than he admitted. He figured Gonzo knew, too. He was relying on that.

  “What was so funny?” asked Romeo, looking for a place to set the tray loaded with frozen hamburger patties and hot dogs.

  “Ben’s lit,” said Gonzo.

  “Safety Dude’s got his buzz on?” laughed Romeo. “Ain’t that like the anchor guy reading the news. But backward?”

  Romeo had referred to Ben as “Safety Dude” many times. But never to Ben’s face. He had only made the mocking superhero remark when Gonzo was passing along one of B
en’s famous safety factoids.

  “Romes?” warned Gonzo.

  “C’mon, man,” Romeo continued. “Tell me somethin’ I don’t know about drunks and driving.”

  “Not driving,” defended Ben. “And I’m only slightly drunk.”

  “First mistake of a drunk driver is denial,” said Romeo.

  “Not even close,” corrected Ben.

  “Okay,” said Romes. “You’re right. First mistake is drinking.”

  “Nope. First mistake is the driver putting himself in a position to drink.” Ben raised his plastic cup, swirling what was left of his red wine.

  He continued, “Most convicted drunk drivers, given the luxury of hindsight, would tell you they had a clear choice on the day they got busted. With exceptions to the chronic alcoholics who must drink to function, the modern drunk driver is so well-versed in the perils of his actions, he or she can usually pinpoint the precise moment they chose—not just to drink—but to position themselves in a risky situation. Alone. No designated driver. Not enough time to prearrange transportation or a place to sleep it off—”

  “This is what he does,” interrupted Romeo. “Right? Put a quarter in him and he just goes and goes—”

  “Don’t be an asshole, Romes.”

  “Same behavior applies to most kinds of risk-taking,” Ben continued, undaunted. The wine was making him brave. Not that he needed much moxie to get himself rolling on any precautionary subject. The alcohol, though, made the nails feel sharper and the hammer that much heavier.

  “Like a cheating man,” rambled Ben. “He knows the nature of risk. And every adulterer finds himself at the same crossroads as the drunk driver. Same options. Left, right, straight ahead. Should I or shouldn’t I? And that’s before he even walks out of the house.”

  “Good advice,” said Gonzo, trying to pump some air in the moment. “Good thing for Romeo he’s not married yet.”

  “You know,” Ben added, “not so long ago, Stanford Medical did a study on HIV-infected men. Every one of them knew well before the actual moment they contracted the virus that they were putting themselves in a risk situation—”