White Man's Problems Part 2

She steps back. She is a nice girl, now sad and upset at the vulgarity directed her way, not the kind who fights back, or files a civil rights case.

"This is how it comes," Klezak yells at her, moving away.

She lingers a second and looks at him, but he has headed on, over to Automotive. There are dozens of tires stacked. He runs his fingers over the white circ.u.mferential line of a steel-belted Michelin. More rubber. "Rubber is what you want from a f.u.c.king Sears." He breathes in deep. "So clean now." He opens his eyes, angry now. "Not the rotten smell. Not the rotten smell of f.u.c.king burning tire piles where it will end. f.u.c.king burning f.u.c.king tire piles where it will end. f.u.c.king fire." He looks for the exit. "f.u.c.king fire and fire and fire and burning, burning smell."

He follows Broadway down to Ocean and gets out on the gra.s.s of the park paralleling the beach. By one of the palms, he closes his eyes again. He feels the grease on his face and hair and presses his hands into the grimy legs of his pants, which have the color and texture of trampled gum on high school hallway floors. "Klezak f.u.c.k." He opens his eyes. "Klezak fuuuuuuuck." He is yelling it louder now. He heads north on the walkway, dodging skaters and couples. He pays no attention to the shadowy b.u.ms lying on the gra.s.s and next to the trees, the sunburned, drunken homeless. He faces the ocean just beyond the statue of Santa Monica, at the fence that guards pedestrians from the cliffs overlooking the beach. "Please let it come now," he says. He starts to loosen.

He focuses first on the horizon and talks to it. "Where do you think this came from, this notion of harmony? Do you think it came from G.o.d or from some other source? Do you think it is right and just? Do you think it is just that this happens? That these f.u.c.king monkeys get it and you get nothing?"

The icy feeling is receding. His stomach, so sour and grinding all morning, is of no bother. He picks up the pace. "You and your G.o.dd.a.m.n money, thinking it is so much. I will tell you one thing: you don't bring it to me or to America and think that there is nothing to do. You can't do that, man. You can't do that without hearing from me. I will speak for the people."

A runner comes down the path as Klezak approaches Colorado. An older, trim, and suntanned man, he looks like Stetson. As he bears down on Klezak, the Stetson runner makes eye contact.

"Is there something? Is there something you want?" says Klezak. The Stetson runner breezes by. "Get out of my G.o.dd.a.m.n way!" Klezak screams. The man looks back and gives a little grin.

Klezak turns right at the light at Colorado and glides onto the Third Street Promenade. He scours left and right for targets, but slowly the monologue takes hold again. He arrives at the intersection of Santa Monica and the Promenade. It is still early. Pa.s.sersby move east and west, going for bargain movie show times or burgers or to buy Gap T-s.h.i.+rts. He prowls. It is an old, worn groove. He begins to yell. "It all starts with the Bible, you stupid motherf.u.c.kers. That was the basis. Hamilton, Jefferson, Adams...Was.h.i.+ngton, you idiots. All before you get to anything else. You don't know Th.o.r.eau; you don't know Aquinas. You don't know Steiner and Kafka. You don't even know that. You don't even know what it means to be living. You are ants, you are caterpillars, you are f.u.c.king insects."

My name is Torres, and I am a Santa Monica cop. "Only you, Torres-only you could get this one," Noah said when I turned it in. Marcello Noah-100 percent p.r.i.c.k. I asked him what kind of cop has a twenty-four-foot fis.h.i.+ng boat in San Pedro. "Dude," he said, "my name is Noah." He used to do the same beat as me when I was new to SMPD. But he had a lot of seniority, and one day I look up and he's been b.u.mped up to sergeant. I guess he saved his money, and with lots of OT, lots of benefits, who knows? He managed his s.h.i.+t. Good for him. I know he thought I was soft. But that's another story.

Ten years ago, it became obvious that the Third Street Promenade-the big commercial area downtown-was a problem for us, logistically speaking. We couldn't take a patrol car in there because it is a crowded walk street. When we drove a unit on the walkway-it's a big walkway-everybody freaked out. That meant we had no clear way to get the bad guys and the nuts and the b.u.ms in line, always stopping on Santa Monica or Broadway and jamming up traffic.

So they decide to put us on foot, in shorts and golf s.h.i.+rts. Except not exactly golf s.h.i.+rts-bigger, big enough to put the vests under. Anyway, it becomes obvious that that's not going to work. Let's imagine that an incident goes down on, say, Wils.h.i.+re, and we're over on Broadway. Now we got to run down the f.u.c.king Promenade, all Five-O, blazing through like maniacs. Gives you two problems: one, we've got everyone on the streets all freaked out again; and two, we're running. Oyame, chico. We could be a quarter mile or a half mile away from that call, and we'd have to all run down through the crowd, getting everyone crazy watching the chase. And then what? Be so tired we're worthless whenever we get to the perp? Pretty soon there's a complaint from ten people who say we smashed into them running by, and the city council starts saying it's really dangerous. Next thing you know, n.o.body's shopping, and it's all our fault, yada yada.

Point is we ended up on bikes. Bicycles. The union stopped it at first, but then some guys-and this included me-said, "What the f.u.c.k?" It made us more mobile, and once we saw that the bikes weren't so bad looking-they were black and kind of cool-we got on board. And there we were: on the bikes patrolling Third Street. Better than trolling around all day in a worn-out unit with some n.u.t.s.a.c.k. And I'm still in Santa Monica, entiendes? It's safer being a cop here than teaching social studies at Crenshaw.

When you cover the TSP in the morning on the bikes, it's kind of peaceful. You want to let the driver on the street cleaner get done, or if you have to be out there, you stay clear. I like to think of the Promenade as my beat, my neighborhood, like an old-school cop. I talk to regular people: waitresses, kids who make the drinks at Starbucks, and the trash guys. Due respect, they let too many low-end retail places come in, like bad stores with s.l.u.tty clothes and Foot Locker. Doesn't make sense to me that they don't put in upscale stores like Gucci, Dolce, and s.h.i.+t like Whole Foods. A better cla.s.s of people would follow. But what do I know?

The day I'm talking about, I'm moving along from the Broadway Deli up to Borders, where I usually stop in to look at the books, read magazines a little, and get some coffee. There's a girl working there with orange streaks in her hair and a nose ring; she's a good kid. We're catching up, saying hi and whatnot, when I hear yelling. I head out. It's a guy, who I figure is from a shelter, looking pretty rough, on a rant.

He's all "Insects-you're all a bunch of insects." He's screaming it. You have to be careful with that profile; when someone begins yelling in a street, it's a sign that they've lost touch with the rules that govern people. This one looks like a typical tinfoil-gla.s.ses, the End is Near type. We get them often in the morning. High percentage of psychotics. The drunks sleep late; the ones walking around and yelling before lunchtime are usually pretty far gone. PSs-paranoid schizophrenics. Referential mania, too. Really jumpy.

It was right at noon, so I can't rule out that he's a drunk or a junky. He shut up once he saw me riding over. I put the bike against the bench. "Good morning," I say. He backs up against the wall of the J. Crew. Almost puts his f.u.c.king hands up. He stinks like b.o., but not like alcohol. Loud and clear, I say, "How are you today, sir?"

"I'm fine," he says.

"Well," I say, "you're making a lot of noise. You're yelling, sir. Do you know that?" There was no response. "Have you been drinking?"

"No."

I poke around him a little, getting closer to smell him again. Still he stinks but no booze, so what he says about drinking appears to be true. This presents a problem for me, because to send him away with more than a ticket-say, a PC 647-instead of just writing him up for a PC 415 disturbing the peace, he needs to be visibly intoxicated. And even for a section 415 I have to see an actual fight, an unreasonably loud noise, or something intended to provoke an immediate violent reaction. You wouldn't believe the s.h.i.+t I've taken from judges not being able to put a b.u.m on one of those three.

"Where you staying?" I say.

"SA."

That dampens my desire to bust him even more. We get lots of nuts out of the Salvation Army on Fifth Street. Cots, no toilet seats, stabbings, hypodermic needles. PSs, drunks, junkies. I think about it. My s.h.i.+ft is almost over, so I can be back to the station soon, turn in the bike, and be on the way to the gym and then home within an hour. Plus, truth is that I don't want to put this guy down. His face has something about it. The eyes are clear. That you never see: clear eyes. He's dirty-like greasy dirty-and his skin and clothes are covered in the kind of sc.u.m you get sleeping in driveways and bushes. But this guy does not have that dark red-brown color the real drunks get-the ones who've spent twenty or thirty days at the beach all day and night, just taking breaks to get loaded or find the soup kitchen. The true homeless have a deep sunburn that tells their story better than any ID card or medical records I ever saw.

I make a decision. "Why don't you head back that way, sir?" I say. "And no more yelling. If I have to run you down again because you're yelling at people, I'm gonna put you in jail, you understand me?"

"Yes, officer," he says.

"Ok," I say, "don't let me hear about you."

Torres finishes his s.h.i.+ft and changes his clothes at the precinct headquarters adjacent to city hall, site of the O.J. Simpson civil trial and the steady stream of court appearances of pop stars busted for drunk driving. Torres gets in his truck. He stops at the light coming out of the Civic Center, at the entrance to the freeway. To his left, a man sits in a Lexus with sungla.s.ses and a baseball cap over long hair, waiting for the arrow to go onto the highway. Torres squints. There is a glare against the winds.h.i.+eld from the LA sun that overexposes the image for a moment, and it doesn't make sense. Here is a very dirty man in a nice car. Then the light softens, and suddenly everything becomes clear.

"Holy s.h.i.+t," Torres says out loud to no one.

Torres follows Klezak down the I-10 freeway for several miles to Overland and eventually to a high-rise in Century City. Torres checks the office listings, and after he shows his badge to the guards, he makes it to the thirty-third floor. The receptionist gets the same badge flashed to her, and Torres walks through the offices one by one.

Klezak is sitting behind his desk when Torres comes in. He looks as though he were expecting the cop.

"You found me," Klezak says.

"Yes, I did," says Torres, slowly crossing the threshold. They look at each other in silence. Torres can see no trace of Klezak's dirty skin and clothes. His hair is slicked back and conforms with the office environment-long but not too long. With a s.h.i.+rt and tie, he looks normal.

"What now?" says Klezak.

"I don't know. Can I sit down?"

"Please." Klezak gestures at the chair in front of his desk. A few bad pictures hang on the walls, a lamp sits on the corner of the lawyer's desk, and stacks of paper crowd the corners.

Torres sits and stares at Klezak, whose face, s.h.i.+rt, and blue-and-white-striped tie explode at him in their nattiness, their Pentecostalness-none of it has a speck of dirt.

"You followed me," says Klezak.

"Yes, I did."

"Well, what can I do for you? Should we discuss this morning?"

Torres studies his eyes, looking for signs of mania, paranoia, or danger. There are none. He does not know what to make of this strange, sad man. "Well, first, just tell me...man, are you...like, ok? It's a little scary."

"I'm fine, Officer Torres. I'm not homeless. I work in this office. I have my own practice. I'm just a lawyer." He smiles. "And I did nothing illegal. You and I both know that."

Torres takes this in. "You were close." He waits for a reaction. "I could have written you up easy. Sent you away for the seventy-two-hour dry out."

Klezak is unfazed.

"It's really weird," Torres says finally. "You have to admit that."

"Maybe so," says Klezak. Then, in an instant, he seems to lose his confidence, as though revealing a bluff. "I can't keep paying you guys. My deal was that I'd only have to pay once for the whole force."

Torres thinks for a second and then nods. "Noah."

Klezak doesn't respond.

"This is how Noah got the boat, right?" Torres says. "The one in Long Beach. We could never figure that out."

Klezak offers a small, nervous smile. "A boat is what he wanted."

Torres stares more. Klezak is serene again, caught but not guilty.

Suddenly Torres has a feeling he does not recognize. A powerful sense of being swept away. He blinks his eyes, but nothing changes. Now there is a b.u.t.tery yellow light behind Klezak's head. Torres stands and moves a few steps to see if it is an illusion.

"But you're not Noah," says Klezak as Torres moves. "We both know that."

Torres continues walking, circling Klezak at his desk. The light stays above the lawyer's head. Torres goes back to his seat.

"I'm really starting to lose it," Torres says.

"No, you're not," says Klezak. His voice is soothing. "You're waking up."

"But Noah...Noah's fine. He just took the money and went back to work?"

Klezak says, "Noah could not see it."

Torres considers this, and in doing so he feels hopeful and then excited. Then he starts to relax, like a patient who has just taken a needle. "Maybe so."

Klezak gets up from behind the desk and walks to Torres at his seat. The light remains. He extends his hand to Torres, who takes it and rises. Klezak's secretary, well trained, comes to the threshold and closes the door.

"Will you pray with me, Eddie?" says Klezak.

"How'd you know my name?"

"I know a lot more than that."

The light is fuller now. Klezak's eyes are a deep blue. The two bow their heads against their interlocked fingers. Torres closes his eyes, and in his earthly eyelids he sees light, followed by an open field. He knows he is in the presence of angels. "It is here for me," he thinks. It is a transcendent, translucent feeling, the G.o.d of the preachers, the long-held power of his native soul. He opens his eyes.

"Will you follow me?" says Klezak.

Here Comes Mike.

If you go back through the tunnel of time to when basketball was holy, you will find that Mike Donegan scored thirty-six points against Cardinal O'Hara in the Southeastern Pennsylvania Diocese champions.h.i.+p game of 1966. He took over in the last five minutes, with clutch buckets, bruising defense, and a coast-to-coast three-point play that lit up the gym, got the bench dancing, and made his coach, Brother Francis, close his eyes and punch the air.

Mike was the best player in the history of Nativity BVM Junior High. It was not just that he could shoot and was a step faster; it was his personality. Like any great ballplayer-any truly great player-he was emotionally detached, a bit of an a.s.shole on the court. He had no choke in him. In close games against Saint James and Archbishop Prendergast or when they played public schools like Media or Eddystone, or even against the all-black teams from Chester, as the game wore down, the crowd, the scorekeepers, and the janitors would say quietly to themselves, like a pious flock, "Here comes Mike."

John and his mother and sisters went to every game, sitting on old bleachers in church gyms with half-moon backboards and floors of loose wood or even cement or tile. Snack stands served red licorice, Bazooka bubblegum, and hot dogs boiled in plain pots of water. The snackstand ladies wore double-knit cardigans from Sears, and their giant bosoms. .h.i.t the heads of any five-year-olds standing too close. When they talked it was to say things like: "'Scuse me, hon," and "You need another quarter, love," and "You can't take that soda in the gym." John's job was counting Mike's points.

Margie starting asking him, "How many does he have now, Jackie?" for the first time in the third quarter of the O'Hara game early in the season. Everyone got into it as the games went by. "How many does he have, Jackie?" they would yell. His brother wanted the ball any time it mattered. On wintery playgrounds anywhere in the Diocese, as imaginary clocks ticked down in imaginary games, boys pretended to be Mike Donegan taking it to the house.

Mike was the oldest of Mickey and Rosemary Donegan's five children, followed by Donny; the two girls, Annemarie and Margie; and John. Nine years from oldest to youngest, the difference between growing up in the sixties and the seventies. Rosemary Donegan loved all her kids, but Mike was her angel from G.o.d. Before church on Sunday, she stood in front with a trash can and collected food for the orphanage at Saint Ignatius. The priests knew she brought in more than anyone else in the parish. She was beautiful, with thick black hair, thin features, and a curvy cupcake of a body, which, in light of her five kids, must have been a reward from the saints.

She was urgently, pa.s.sionately Catholic, saying the Rosary every day and novenas twice a month. She was a barrel of energy, going to ma.s.s at half past five and forever visiting aunts in nursing homes. Part and parcel went a sense of doom. Rosemary could not watch the kids' games or even the Eagles or the Phillies when things got too close, hiding her eyes or sneaking looks at the television from behind the wall. She put sugar in spaghetti sauce and salt on her oatmeal.

Her kids loved her first above all other things. She had a special language with each, private and kind; a dialogue about bodies, clothes, schedules, favorite colors, and things wanted most for Christmas. And with Mike, whom she could not take her eyes off since the day he was born, she had quiet conversations and shared the gentle connection between Irish mother and son that ran all the way through the ages, all the way down to the sad, stubborn, and reluctantly consecrated core.

John never forgot waiting with his mother on a cold Friday night for his father to get home from the police station. Mike had been caught drinking behind the Lenni Firehouse with his cousin Peter. Annemarie was just about to put John to bed when their father's sister, Aunt Marian called.

"Mickey, the boys are in jail," she said.

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?" said Mickey.

"Peter and Mike. The state cops just called. You have to go get them. They're at the station on Route 352. Hurry."

"Christ, Marian, they're fifteen."

Times changed. Mike lost interest in sports, feeling the natural order of things drawing him toward steel-toe boots and flannel s.h.i.+rts. He spent most of his time in fields and in cars smoking pot. He smoked big fat bowls of ragweed homegrown dope that burned the throat and caused him to not care about basketball or college or Bobby Kennedy. He started hanging around a girl named Ginny DiMeo, who dressed the same way he did and always seemed to have a runny nose whenever she came over to the Donegans' house. One night before bed, John heard Donny tell Annemarie that Peter told him Mike had licked Vicki DiMeo's t.i.ts in the woods by the football field at the high school.

After Mickey drove away, the four younger kids and their mother did not speak, as though talking would bring bad luck. They were all the same, the other Donegans, besides Mickey and Mike. Taking Rosemary's lead, they worried for the world and obsessed over the oldest son, the big brother, who was a broad canvas on which they painted all their fears. There were differences, but they were the subtle differences between apples from the same tree. Donny had a bad temper. Annemarie had red hair and Rosemary's big hips and love of rosary beads. Margie was dark; she was the one the boys liked. John was the youngest but the smartest, separated somehow. Even then, when he was six years old, the family knew, with a strange, unspoken clairvoyance, that he would leave.

Though Mike was quiet, he was unfailingly nice to John, even as he became alienated and silent when at home. Mike never did well at school, but Rosemary could not discipline him, leaving enforcement of rules as a matter between father and son. Mickey Donegan was a simple guy, a plumber who liked a sandwich and a shot and a beer. Even before his first arrest behind the firehouse, Mickey was convinced the kid would go wrong. Truth be told, he preferred his daughters.

The Pontiac parked at the curb, and Mike got out of the pa.s.senger's side. "Oh thank G.o.d," Rosemary said to the other kids. "Here comes Mike." John looked out the front side window of the family's row home to see if his father's grip on Mike's collar was the painful kind or the loving kind. It was actually not so tight-not the kind that said "get the f.u.c.k in the house"-and John could tell that Mickey was relieved. But by the time they got through the door, Mickey's anger had risen. Rosemary ran to them, all hustle and bustle, and said, "Michael Christopher, are you ok? What in G.o.d's name were you doing?"

"He's fine," said Mickey. "But he's a dumb son of a b.i.t.c.h. And he's gonna be a tired son of a b.i.t.c.h, too."

Mike's eyes were gla.s.sy, and he was maybe a touch wobbly, but he was peaceful. If he was scared, John couldn't see it. His hands were bleeding.

Mickey continued in a raised voice, "With the fine and court costs, it was one hundred and thirty-three bucks."

"Oh Jesus," said Rosemary. "Michael."

"A dollar an hour. That's what it's gonna be, pal," said Mickey. "One hundred and thirty-three hours of work for me. I know your math's not too good, so I've done the calculations for you. It starts tomorrow and will go every day till it's worked off."

"What happened to your hands?" said Rosemary. Mike seemed not to know. "Go to your room and get washed up. I'll get you a bandage."

"A dollar an hour. Add it up," said Mickey.

"The rest of you get to bed, too," said Rosemary. "Jackie, you should have been in bed hours ago. Annemarie, I told you to put him to bed."

The kids shared the second floor and its bathroom. Their parents had the stuffy third-floor bedroom that sat atop the small house like the bridge of a s.h.i.+p. John peeked in on Mike, who was in the room he shared with Donny. Mike had stripped down to his boxers and was lying in bed, wrapping ACE bandages around his hands.

"You ok?" asked John.

"I'm ok."

"Did you really get arrested?"

"Kind of," Mike said. But then he said, "Just got into a little hot water, Jack boy. It'll blow over."