chapter*Dad
textsc“I’m gonna tell you what happened.”
“Why don’t you do that.”
“I work with that guy.”
“The fat one?”
“Yeah, Jacobi.”
“Do you know Mr. Knowles?”
“Cock?”
“His name is Dennis Knowles.”
“We call him Cock.”
“Yeah: Cock, Candy: we know this house. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
They’re taking the baby away in the background. There’s Cock. Mega Cock is going away in someone else’s arms. Dennis Knowles. He’s cussing someone out. They take the baby anyway. I wonder what his name is.
“What happened is me and Candy—”
“You and Candy and your daughter—”
“Right: Liss.”
“And who’s this Wynne Maddox?”
“She works with me.”
“And do you all work with Mr. Knowles?”
“We were here..socially.”
“Right..”
The guy is making notes. On an old-fashioned clipboard.
Cock’s house is halfway to the ground. You can see the pool from the front yard. It’s sunny now. Today is going to be a beautiful day in LA. Saturday. It might be a good day to eat outside. Maybe at that little Italian place I love in Hollywood. Yeah. Eat outside. Get a table. Maybe Wynne can come along.
“Here’s the problem,” this guy is saying. “I need a statement from you.”
“Okay.”
“We’ve got a dead cop here. A girl drown’d.”
Cock is in the background screaming.
They’re taking him away.
They don’t put him in handcuffs.
He’s gesturing with the officer. They disagree. Then somebody says something and the officer opens the back of his cruiser. Cock gets in, no cuffs, the officer shaking his head. Cock says something to the officer. The officer drives Cock away.
“So you know this house.”
“Yeah.”
“Cock seems okay.”
“Yeah. That’s cause he’s high.” The officer is looking in my eyes, looking at my face. What’s he see? “In about a day, Cock—Mr. Knowles—Dennis there is gonna sober up and realize his girlfriend is dead—got drowned in a pool..and then..Mr. Knowles is gonna go right back to doing what he always does, okay? It’s my job to make sure you and..Liss..don’t end up back here again.”
“I just met Cock today.”
“What about Candy?”
“What emphabout Candy?”
“How did you say she died?”
“How do emphyou say she died?”
The guy gives me a long look. Liss is playing by the hydrant. Water is leaking. Winnie sits in her Honda, waiting, staring at her nails.
“Is Cock going to jail?”
“Right now he is! He’ll be out by noon. Cock..has..friends. There’s no reason he shoulda killed this girl, but he’s not going to jail for emphthat. Our job is to keep these motherfuckers emphsafe. We can’t have that guy roaming around this morning, while he’s high. He’ll kill somebody else.”
“You think he killed Candy?”
“I don’t think he emphmeant to! He may not have killed her in the emphtraditional sense,” this cop is saying. “Look. We’re at fault too here.” The cop shakes his head. Jimmy. “One a emphours..” The cop shakes his head. “This neighborhood has a problem. This whole side of the hill. From the exit up..this whole cul-de-sac. It’s meth everywhere.”
“What about Jimmy?”
The cop is angry: “What emphabout Jimmy?”
“Who chained him to the TV?”
“You tell emphme. You were here, motherfucker! Did you emphsee that asshole chain him to the TV?”
I shake my head.
“emphCandy prob’ly did it, you ask me—but that’s not my emphjob. You emphsaw somebody do it, you speak the fuck up.”
He waits.
He looks at the house.
“I’m gonna tell you something now.” I start speaking. I start speaking about the night. I start speaking about Candy. I tell him how we met. I talk about the shark, about meeting at Rosa’s, about the Escalade. I tell him about Becca, going to get her—about how we needed someone to look at the baby (“His name is Callis.”—“You know Cock’s baby’s name?”—“I said I know this house.”) “..so Callis is crying, we need someone to watch him, we drive to Westlake, we get Jacobi.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Jacobi lives emphnext to Becca!”
“What a coincidence.”
“Jacobi emphchases us over here—did you get any calls about high-speed chases last night?”
“No.”
I tell him everything. I tell him emphmy version though. I leave out that we’re shooting speed. I leave out everything involving Liss. I tell him about the fighting. I tell him we ordered Chinese. I tell him about the blow.
“Yeah. We know about that,” the guy says. “Were you doing anything else?”
I tell him no.
“Did you have sex with Candy? Yeah? Well you might want to get yourself checked, my man.”
“Are you guys doing fingerprints on the taser?”
Whoops.
The guy puts down his clipboard.
“What do you have to say about the taser?” The guy motions to his friend to come over.
Liss’s prints are on the taser. They have to be. I’ve seen CSI. They can get prints from underwater. Why did I say that? I’m clenching.
The other cop sits down.
“So. The taser.”
The other cop waits.
I’m watching Liss play in the water.
It sprays from the fire hydrant.
She has her shoes off.
She smacks her foot into the puddle.
It was self-defense. “It was in defense,” I say. It was in defense. “I was..”
They wait.
They have their clipboard.
I look them in the eyes.
“They were going crazy. We all did, okay?” I know I’m clenching. “Candy was trying to emphkill my daughter, she was dragging her in the pool! Right! So I had Jimmy’s taser—”
“Fuckin’ Jimmy lost his taser,” the one says to the other.
“—she was trying to emphkill my daughter.”
“Did you tase her in the pool? Was she in the water?”
I dip my head.
The one cop takes the other’s clipboard. “That would do it.” He takes the top sheet of paper off, straightens the remaining sheets, re-clips it. He hands the clipboard back to his friend.
“So she drowned.”
“Yeah.”
This is the two of them talking.
“Jimmy got chained to the TV by..”
They’re asking me.
“Candy,” I say. I think it’s true.
“emphCandy? You’re sure.”
They wait.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Fantastic fucking night,” the one guy says.
“Yeah,” and the other cop leaves.
“Where’s your car?”
“Winnie’s driving me.”
“That’s not what I asked you. Where’s your car.”
“It’s at work.”
“You mind if we take a look in your car?”
“No. I don’t mind.”
“Tell me where you work.”
I tell him.
“We’re gonna search your car. Am I gonna find anything in there?”
“No.”
“Good deal.” He stands.
I stand too. I can hardly move. Everything creaks.
“You alright?”
“Yeah.” My muscles feel like they flexed for a week.
“Pretty girl.”
I don’t know if he’s talking about Winnie or Liss.
I don’t know. But he’s right. Winnie sitting in her Honda. There’s nothing wrong. She’s wearing her own clothes again. She’s wrinkled, but fine. That black hair. Those amazing eyes. We should all be on a mountain somewhere, herding goats, instead of here.
And Liss. My Liss. I’m never doing this again. Liss is simple enough as she is—simple enough and good. We don’t need any more terror for her. Jumping in the water fountain. Streaking water out with her foot. Making a system of waterways, all of which eventually sink back to the source. She looks at me. She sees me standing with the cop. I’m free. We’ll take her to Pilates. I’ll sleep. Someday, I’ll sleep. On Monday I’ll go to the doctor. I’ll get a check up. He’ll check a few things. I might stop drinking—no, I will. If you’re not gonna do hard drugs then what’s the point of drinking? Never smoke another cigarette again. Start running. Get healthy for Hannah. Lose this belly. We’ll have to move. We’ll have to get a better place to live. We might have to move to Montana, someplace clean. Somewhere with clean water, somewhere with open skies. We have to have a simple life.
And Liss looks at me. And her face is open. She smiles. She smiles! Children have a way of smiling, when they do simple things. Like when Liss puts on sunglasses, every time, she smiles—like it’s the most delightful thing that could happen—putting on sunglasses! Getting out of the car at the beach! Opening a car door in a giant parking lot in Santa Monica! Like that’s the most beautiful thing in the world.. And maybe to her it is. Maybe to her the sand, and the sun, is really all there is. I was like that the first time I went up the PCH, for a minute. Driving along that coast. The world is so simple. Mountains on one side. The ocean on the other. Some railroad track. A thin beach—some strip of sand. Light. Sandals. Bare feet. Sun. And smiling. Smiling cause the sun’s so bright you squint your eyes. It warms you. Warms your shoulders. Looking at the edges of some minor waves. Too weak to surf. Just children, and blankets, and women, and wives. Just husbands, and boyfriends, and coolers, and beer. Restaurant up the coast. Train crossing. Cutting us off from the highway. For a moment, this is all there is: just Liss, and me, and puddles. Just Liss, my girl! My beach book—looking over the pages. Wonder! Kids! New friends. And playing. Simple playing. And miles and miles of sand.
“Liss. Let’s go.”
I’m in the car with Winnie.
Liss is on my lap.
Winnie turns the key. It starts with no problem.
Becca’s in the back. She lies down. “Becca’s sleeping.”
“Okay,” I say. Liss is smoothing out my hands. She’s keeping them from clenching.
“You can drive?”
Winnie gives me a look.
She pulls us through the engines and an ambulance.
Jacobi makes a few steps over to us.
He’s only muffled sounds from through the glass.
The clock on the dash says 6:08.