Tropic of Orange Page 22

  Finally Arcangel juggled the only orange in the city that had not been hidden or confiscated. The crowd surged forward at the sight of the orange, maybe the last good orange in the world. At that moment, its value was incalculable. Its very presence resonated with several thousand oranges rotting in toxic landfills, hidden under floorboards, sweltering in drawers filled with lingerie, or frozen behind the Ben & Jerry’s, hidden in dozens of obvious and ridiculous places because they were now illegal. Customs officials who now chased after their stretching border scrambled forward to confiscate a single orange. Public health officials judiciously counted the orange and posted warnings. The FBI got out its stinking badges. But Sol, who loved the orange, grabbed it and ran in circles. And everything in that geographic nexus churned around and around and around.

  CHAPTER 37:

  The Car ShowFront Line

  Buzzworm made his way up to the overpass, nonchalant-like. He was totin’ a thing lookin’ like a baby replica of a beer cooler. Igloo Playmate. Coulda been a cold six-pack. Meantime, he was tuned in to some radio talk.

  “This is KPFK The Car Show. You’re on.”

  Caller said, “Yeah. I got me here a ’64 Impala. I did the paint job myself. It’s like a Diego Rivera. You know the man?”

  “Mexican muralist,” said host Frank.

  “Married to Frida Kahlo? Yeah we know him,” said other host Retsek. It was one of those astute radio car shows. Buzzworm sauntered on. Car Show was like a cookin’ show. You got filled up just listenin’, without havin’ to buy or eat nothin’.

  “So it’s something else, man. I gutted the insides, put in a new 502 with a six speed, lowered it, disk brakes, black leather upholstery—the works.”

  “Did you blueprint the 502?” asked Frank.

  “Yeah, how’d ya know?”

  “Sounds like a masterpiece,” said Retsek.

  “The thing hauls. Hey, didn’t you have a guest on sells cars like mine big-time to Japan?”

  “Yeah, the Japanese are collecting American muscle cars, but production models.”

  “It’s like, they’re into tattooing, aren’t they? It’s like my car’s tattooed.”

  “That’s an interesting observation.”

  “Wish we could see it.”

  “That’s just it. You wanna see it? It’s down there.”

  “Down there?”

  “Yeah. Got a homeless mother and her child living in it. I mean I actually went down to talk to her. At first I thought, shit, if they screw up the upholstery . . . I was gonna go down there, blow ’em away. I put my life into that car. But then, I thought, she might actually take care of it for me. You know, in return for finding her a place.”

  “That’s very good of you.”

  “Hey, whaddya guys think about this situation? I hear people bitching that they can’t get to work. But I been down there. Sat in the car and held the baby for her. It’s not so bad. And I think that baby likes me.” What did this have to do with cars? What happened to the dirty talk about pistons, lug nuts, camshafts, and drive lines? What about the engine specs and the zero-to-sixty times? But Buzzworm had to give it the nod. He knew the tattooed car and the mother. She was storing baby food and diapers under the trunk hood painted with the calla lilies.

  By now, he’d got up to the overpass and made eye contact with Manzanar. Manzanar opened the cooler, pulled a drawstring bag from the melted ice and opened it. Inside there was a Tupperware filled with solution, another bag, and a Ziploc filled with more liquid. “Saline, potassium,” he muttered. “Twenty cc dextrose,” he added and squinted at something floating in the liquid. It was a tiny purple slimy thing padded tenderly by what was now tepid refrigeration. “Newborn,” he said without battin’ an eye. “Human heart’s consistently the size of your fist. In this case, a newborn’s fist.”

  “Human? Damn. What happened to the rest of the newborn goes with it?” Course, Manzanar didn’t have to answer that. Can’t nobody live without a heart.

  “How did you get this?” Manzanar asked. “I imagine it was harvested for transplant.” Buzzworm noticed him grippin’ the baton.

  Pager went off.

  Buzzworm zipped the Ziploc, pushed in the lid on the Tupperware, and pulled the drawstrings. Stuffed it all back in the Igloo. “Thanks for your opinion, doc. I gotta go.”

  He started to saunter away, but not before looking over that podium and getting a sighting on a constellation of palm trees in the distance. Used to be he could fix his sights by those palms, but weren’t the same no more. Manzanar looked at him and confirmed his confusion. “Things are shifting,” he said simply.

  Buzzworm walked down from the overpass casually gripping the Igloo like it was a lunch box—baby heart sloshing around inside its own baby sea.

  Pager was either Mona or baby sister telling him to beat a track to his next assignment. Like the promos said, the Buzz waz: “The Reverend Jesse Jackson, actor Edward Olmos, the Police Chief, and the Mayor have agreed to an open forum to be conducted on Limousine Way . . .”

  Buzzworm made connections to the same ol’ big guns come ’round every time there’s trouble. He didn’t call them; they called him. Big guns were gonna do the political hip hop. Gonna tell us there’s more black men in jail than in college. Gonna let us know the man is glad to see us out here killing our brothers. Gonna be preaching the gospel of hope not dope. Gonna let us know change is in the air. Gonna let us know the real word for riots is uprisin’. Get down and preach the gospel of uprisin’. Gonna let us know the situation is under control. So don’t get no ideas.

  Then all the rappers gonna be there doing the chorus and the raparounds. Gonna be bad-mouth baby rappers cussin’ low-ridin’, crack, automatic weapons, and drive-by, smoochin’ for the record deal. Then there’s the original stuff: Ice-T, NWA, STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON. Dispatchin’ the action from the urban front line. Ghetto blastin’.

  Buzzworm’d been taking a hard look at the urban front line, trying to figure where exactly that line might be drawn. It was all war talk. Even the years he’d been in Vietnam, never was clear. You had to have eyes in the back of your head; you never knew where the enemy might be. Line wasn’t something drawn on the ground. When he came home, he realized he was considered the enemy. If he stepped over the invisible front line, he could get implicated, arrested, jailed, killed. If he stepped back, he’d just be invisible. Either way he was dead. Gone to heaven. Become an angel.

  Politicos came to the edges to take a look. Take a look into something looking like a big border town. They projected their words in the general direction. Mostly they looked good for the cameras. Whole world watching ’cept the ones concerned. Only bodies in the valley could see their TV images were the folks in the TV van and a bunch packed into the limousine on Limousine Way. Rest had to get a glimpse of the real thing. Buzzworm held the mike and commenced the tour.

  Along the way, folks came up to put in their two cents. Brother in a ’78 Pontiac said, “Mayor, sir, I consider my occupation of this vehicle a short-term one. I’m just borrowing it. But I want the man or woman who owns it to know I’ve made considerable home improvements. Washed it good. Waxed it. Spiffed up the insides. There’s not a speck of dirt. Made it downright homey inside.” Sure enough: photos sat on the dash on either side of an arrangement of California poppies and the Bible; stuffed bear in the back window, decorative hanky over the steering wheel.

  Next-door neighbor showed them how he got a tomato plant growing in the dirt coming up through the concrete. “You see here, these blossoms? And here’s baby tomatoes. Call it urban gardening. We gonna be feeding ourselves, don’t you worry.”

  Mother with a two-year-old said, “Chief, sir, other day, had a poor woman keel over. Looked to be a heart attack. Did CPR on her and it was a miracle we got her out of the valley. It’s a shame. Nine-one-one don’t service us down here.”

  One of the entourage said, “Actually, I’m surprised to see how clean it is down here.”

  So an
other brother popped in, “We got regular trash pickup once a day. Bottles, cans, and plastic already get separated.”

  And another, “We carted the outhouses from the construction work and distributed them at regular intervals, but we could use more. We’re gonna be needing running water and a sewage system.”

  And another, “Every morning at 3:00 a.m., the landscaping sprinkler system goes on like clockwork. Mamas all run out with their kids at the break of dawn to take advantage of the shower. Could the system be timed for the afternoon when the weather’s warmer? How about it?”

  Políticos didn’t say much. That is, they said a lot, but not much. It was a quantitative sort of thing. Not qualitative. It was promises and pledges—sort that could be broken, misinterpreted, or never paid up. Maybe the entourage was prestigious, but they weren’t stupid. Wasn’t the time to let the axe fall. Not while they were down there in the middle of it. Not in front of the cameras. They knew what Gil Scott-Heron knew: The revolution will not be televised.

  Buzzworm was still packin’ the baby heart under his left arm. No time to lose it before. Maybe he could just hand it over to one of these politicos like it was a gift. But which one? Who was gonna do right by it? Who knew the value of a human heart?

  Baby heart. Might as well be chicken livers. What was he supposed to do with this? Balboa was gonna pay big-time. Who was gonna believe a thing like this could just come in the mail? Easier to account for a bomb. And all the time he’d been touring the bigshots through the valley of the homeless with a baby heart cradled in a cooler like it was a box lunch. Maybe he could lose it under the hood of a car. Maybe he could bury it under a palm tree. He followed the politicos up Limousine Way and, out of some kind of frustration, just kept going. At least no homeless were gonna be implicated in this mess.

  Amazing thing was everybody in L.A. was walking. They just had no choice. There wasn’t a transportation artery that a vehicle could pass through. It was a big-time thrombosis. Massive stroke. Heart attack. You name it. The whole system was coagulating right then and there. Some of the broadest boulevards had turned into one-way alleys. Cars so squeezed together, people had to climb out the sun roofs to escape. Streets’d become unrecognizable from an automotive standpoint. Only way to navigate was to feel the streets with your own two feet.

  So people were finally getting out, close to the ground, seeing the city like he did. He even noticed a couple examining the base of a palm tree, then looking upward with some kind of appreciation. Well, how about that?

  Seemed like a crowd was being drawn to the old Bunker Hill, the all-new Angel’s Flight. Nothing but an old fellah doing some juggling with some corn and an orange. And damn if it wasn’t the last orange to appear in the entire city. People went crazy, grown adults chasing a two-year-old who grabbed the fruit and ran around in circles. They were gonna trample the poor kid. Buzzworm pushed his way in and scooped up the child. Now they ran with Buzzworm’s advantage of longer legs, but he began to notice that no matter how fast or slow his pace, something kept the crowd at the same distance. Still, there had to be a way to lose them. He tucked the orange under the boy’s shirt, handed him back to the old juggler, and nodded. No one could see the orange, but the old juggler threw his trick voice into the air. “There it is! Under that man’s arm!” And everyone chased Buzzworm with his baby heart tucked like a football against his ribs.

  Buzzworm ran like a fool. Crowd ran like fools behind. Buzzworm’s live heart went ticky-tocky like a charmed watch. Who’d a known he was in such prime condition? Loping along. Blockin’. Twistin’ and turnin’. Slippin’ by the defense. Some dude was out there like a tight end headin’ for some imaginary touchdown. What the hell. Buzzworm took a look back to gauge his elbow room, cupped the cooler with the heart, and let it fly. Tight end twirled up like a damn ballerina, bagged the thing with precision timing, and was off. Buzzworm watched the tight end disappear with the crowd behind. Could be it was miles to the next down, miles yet to a touchdown. Baby heart just kept on going.

  CHAPTER 38:

  NightfallAztlán

  The villain pressed Rafaela’s elbow into the small of her back and jerked her head back by the hair. The sound of her screams traveled south but not north. He jammed her into the leather cavern of the black Jaguar—suddenly a great yawning universe in the night. Springing upon her writhing body, he clawed her throat and pawed her breasts, tearing her soft skin. Her writhing twisted her body into a muscular serpent—sinuous and suddenly powerful. She thrashed at him with vicious fangs—ripping his ears, gouging his neck, drawing blood. He screamed but returned snarling, pounced, eyes bloody with terror, claws and teeth, flashing knives, ripped into the armored scales of her tensile body. Her mouth gaped a torch of fire, scorching his black fur. Two tremendous beasts wailed and groaned, momentarily stunned by their transformations, yet poised for war. Battles passed as memories: massacred men and women, their bloated and twisted bodies black with blood, stacked in ruined buildings and floating in canals; one million more decaying with smallpox; kings and revolutionaries betrayed, hacked to pieces in a Plaza of Tears, ambushed and shot on lonesome roads, executed in stadiums, in presidential palaces, discarded in ditches, tossed into the sea. And there was the passage of five thousand women of Cochabamba resisting with tin guns an entire army of Spaniards, the passage of a virgin consecrated to the sun-god buried alive with her lover, of La Malinche abandoning her children and La Llorona howling after, of cangaceira Maria Bonita riddled with lead by machine guns at the side of her Lampião, of one hundred mothers pacing day after day the Plaza de Mayo with the photos of their disappeared children, and Coatlalopeuh blessing it all. But that was only the human massacre; what of the ravaged thousands of birds once cultivated to garnish the tress of a plumed potentate, the bleeding silver treasure of Cerro Rico de Potosí, the exhausted gold of Ouro Preto, the scorched land that followed the sweet stuff called white gold and the crude stuff called black gold, and the coffee, cacao and bananas, and the human slavery that dug and slashed and pushed and jammed it all out and away, forever.

  As night fell, they began their horrific dance with death, gutting and searing the tissue of their existence, copulating in rage, destroying and creating at once—the apocalyptic fulfillment of a prophecy—blood and semen commingling among shredded serpent and feline remains.

  When Rafaela awoke, the sky above was a shroud of black-feathered creatures, a million pairs of eyes staring down. She focused dimly, through the narrow slit that remained of one eye, on the pebbles embedded in the dirt near her face and the flashing tail of a snake disappearing into the undergrowth. She pushed out a chunk of something fibrous between her teeth with her tongue and was horrified to see a wad of black fur emerge and shift along the dirt like scattering feathers. Retching and gagging, the remaining hair and pieces of skin spilled into a small pool of blood. More blood dripped from her forehead along with handfuls of her own hair, falling into her vomit. The pain of her convulsing body reached from her head to her feet—every part seemed bruised or torn. Despite the heat, she hugged her nakedness, tugging at the few shreds of clothing left covering her battered body.

  The villain and his Jaguar had disappeared. Rafaela crawled around in the dirt exploring. A shattered piece of what seemed to be the steering wheel, still encased in its leather cover, and the gold figurine snapped from the hood, were all that remained.

  A sharp sting of new pain ran along her arms to her hands, and suddenly she was aware of her fingers clutched in two hard fists. Carefully bending her fingers backward, she stared in horror at the pocketknife in one hand—its inlaid handle thick with blood—and the crumpled leaf of a human ear in the palm of the other.

  Suddenly the sky was a chorus of heavenly chanting, a terrible blessing, and a great fluttering of millions of wings withdrawing nightfall, away. Rafaela crouched on her hands and knees in the dirt and bore her nakedness under the malign scrutiny of the now blue sunlight.

  CHAPTER 39:

&n
bsp; Working WeekendDirt Shoulder

  I was making good time on my way from the Mazatlán airport to my place in a rented Nissan called a Tsuru.

  I was thinking about Emi and Manzanar; it just didn’t figure. No two people could be further apart, much less related. For some reason, Emi was refusing to finish the interview with Manzanar. I’m like you, she had typed. Strictly noir.

  But he’s your grandfather.

  So I’m in denial, okay?

  He’s probably not going to recognize you. What did your folks say?

  Said they didn’t want him institutionalized. That he’s not crazy-crazy, see? Just stubborn.

  What else?

  They don’t want to talk about it. They want their privacy. Hey, all these years, they kept it from me. Me! If you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave my family out of this.

  I stared down the two-lane road and thought about Emi’s warning. It would have to wait. This time of year outside Mazatlán, the landscape was lush, the humidity oppressive. No air conditioning in the Nissan. Just a continuous flow of heated air raking through my hair and open shirt.

  I don’t know why I even recognized her body on the side of the road. I skidded suddenly onto the dirt shoulder; I was sure it was her. She could have been a corpse in the postmortem proceedings of a grisly police investigation. Perhaps I was ready for this considering what I thought I already knew. Perhaps it was the slight curl of her dark hair matted against her cheek, the curve of her neck and bruised shoulder. Maybe it was her scent. Maybe I had always been crazy for her. Her dim pulse pressed against my fingers. “Rafaela?” I carefully opened the palm of her hand, wondering what she herself had read in the now grimy crevices there, wondering if she knew her own danger.