Silent Echo (15 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The sun is warm on my face.

I am sitting in my car near the Santa Monica Pier. The plan had been for me to go for a walk on the beach, but I never got as far as the parking space along Ocean Avenue.

The plan, of course, didn’t involve Numi.

He didn’t like it. He insisted he come along. He claimed I was too weak to drive. I had an extra shot put in my espresso. I am hopped up on coffee beans and never before has the sky looked so beautiful.

I’ve spent my life ignoring the sunset. Sure, I might have caught a glance of it here and there. Someone might have pointed it out here and there. But I only casually look at it. Barely a second thought.

My car is parked facing south, and so I find myself leaning across the seat and looking out the passenger’s side window, until I realize how ridiculous that is.

A last sunset surely deserved better, right?

So, I unfasten my seat belt and open the door. It takes more energy than I care to admit to get out of the car and walk around to the front end, where I lean a hip against the fender.

A cute girl on rollerblades is about to smile at me, before she thinks better of it. There are some joggers. Most with headsets on. Most ignoring the magnificent sunset to the west.

The Santa Monica Pier is alive and well, bustling with activity and life and lights. A stream of pedestrians crosses onto the pier from the bridge overpass. Most are laughing. One or two point towards the sunset. Those one or two have it right.

It takes what little energy and skill I have to leap up on the fender and sit cross-legged. My bony ass just might have put a dent in the Camry. I could give a shit about the dent in the Camry.

I close my eyes and rest my hands on my knees and feel the sun on my face. Mostly, I feel it on my forehead. Most of my medication warns me to stay out of the sun. Most of my medication can kiss my bony ass.

It’s been a few days since I have been in the sun. And even longer since I spent any real time in the sun.

I enjoy the warmth—it makes me feel alive, reminds me that I still have a body that reacts to the elements. A body that isn’t just dying.

People come and go. Many people. Most are walking, although some are jogging and a handful are rollerblading. Most ignore me. That’s okay. I want to be ignored.

I lift my face to the sun and close my eyes. I feel the wind on my face and in my hair. I smell the salt and brine. The wind picks up and thunders over my ears and I notice it has a sort of rhythm to it, and I find myself swaying to the wind, and when I open my eyes again, I see the sun has inched closer to the far horizon. Reds, oranges, and yellows streak the evening sky. A smattering of low-hanging clouds explodes with iridescent beauty. They look otherworldly, and beautiful beyond words.

The wind continues blowing over me, lifting my hair, flapping my T-shirt. I feel cold but I hardly care. That I am close to confronting my brother’s killer is far from my mind. That I know this is my last sunset on this earth, however, isn’t very far from my mind.

That I am experiencing it alone isn’t very far from my mind, either.

I take in as much air as I can and try not to panic when my lungs fill to only half capacity. I am slowly suffocating to death. I know and there is no escaping it.

Shitty way to die,
I think.

My only comfort is in knowing that someday soon I will not have to worry about my lungs not working. Or that I have AIDS. Or that people look at me funny, or avoid me altogether. Or that my own mother has shunned me all my adult life. Or that I am going to die alone.

Not alone,
I think.
There is Numi.

Always Numi.

A fraction of the sun has now slipped behind the ocean, and as it does so, I feel a mourning in my soul. And when the sun is finally gone, leaving behind a fiery trail that still lights up the evening sky, I know there are tears on my cheeks. But no one sees them and no one cares.

My life feels wasted. I am thirty-nine years old and dying. I have done little to better myself or the world. I have spent all of my adult life grieving for my brother and hating myself.

It’s no surprise that I am dying of a disease that could have been avoided. No, I am not dying of AIDS, but the AIDS and the cancer go hand in hand, in ways that doctors are still trying to figure out.

Too late for me.

A wasted life. A useless life. Yes, I have helped find the missing. Yes, I have given comfort to those who needed comfort. But I failed the one person who mattered the most, and I have failed myself, too.

I am tired of having these thoughts. I am tired of hating myself. I am tired of thinking of death. It is time to take the next step. I know this.

More importantly, I want this.

The sun is gone and the wind picks up, thundering over me, flapping my hair and jeans, and scuttling a used napkin over the sidewalk that stretches from here to Malibu and beyond to the right of me and Venice and Marina del Rey and beyond to the left of me.

I reminisce about the last two years Numi and I have spent together. In the beginning, I told him the basic facts. Facts that were merely facts but
not yet reality. It was as if Numi knew what was coming before I did. Perhaps because of Numi’s heritage and upbringing in Africa he understood from the very beginning what I was in for. He foresaw the denigration, the humiliation I would have to face and the strength I would need to live my life to its fullest. Perhaps he made a silent agreement with whatever god he worships that he would see me through the last phase of my life with more grace and beauty than I deserved.

I suddenly feel a prickle that I am not alone.

It occurs to me that the old woman has been watching me for some time. She’d been walking along the sidewalk with the others, when she had paused. I assumed she was waiting for someone, or looking at the brilliant evening sky herself. Truth was, I didn’t give much thought to her until I looked over at her, and saw her staring at me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

She nods and smiles, and before I can react, she is coming towards me. I groan inwardly. I want to be alone with my last sunset. Despite the pity party I am having, I really do want to experience my last sunset alone.

The old woman, who is dressed in a red jumpsuit, stops when she’s a few feet from me. Her back is to the ocean and her face is mostly hidden in shadows. From what I can see, she has a very pleasant, plump face. She smiles and nods. I think I hear her say hello, but I’m not sure. A passing Harley-Davidson thunders by and drowns out anything that might have been said.

So, to be polite, I say hello back.

She nods again, smiles again.

The ocean glistens under the darkened sky, and I am weakening. The old woman is still standing in front of me, her hands clasped together just below her waist.

“Are you waiting for someone?” I ask, despite a strong need to not exert myself in any way. I still have to drive back. It’s a good half hour back to my apartment in Los Feliz.

She shakes her head and I wonder if she is homeless or mentally ill. She doesn’t look homeless and despite not talking, I don’t sense that there is something wrong with her.

“Are you here for the sunset, too?” I ask.

She might have nodded, although the motion was mostly noncommittal. I get a sense that she is here for the sunset, along with something else. She reminds me of my grandmother, for some reason, although my grandmother was much taller.

“My name is Jimmy,” I say.

She smiles but offers me nothing in return.

“Most of my friends and clients just call me Booker.”

She smiles some more.

I am about to ask her what her name is but get a strong sense that her name is not important, at least not right now. I let the question go unasked.

The ocean shimmers. The clouds above look unreal, alien. They seem to be glowing, pulsating.

“You can probably see that I am sick,” I say.

She stops smiling and cocks her head a little. I see her breathing steadily. I catch a faint whiff of perfume, old lady’s perfume. My grandmother’s perfume, in fact.

“Truth is,” I add, “I’m dying.”

I do not know why I am opening up to her. Perhaps because she reminds me of my grandmother in some ways; or, at least, she smells like her. My grandmother, of course, forgave me long ago. She always told me that my brother’s death was not my fault, that I should not let it get to me, and that I had to move past it and live. Before she died nearly fifteen years ago, she gave me the money, in fact, to start my private detective firm.

The woman before me is not a ghost. I can see her shadow splash over my fender and even across my own sneakers. She is breathing. Others appear to see her, too, as the two of us generate a curious look here and there.

She says nothing, of course. No response at all to my opening up to her. Still, she keeps her kind gaze on me… and gives me her full attention.

“I’m here to see my last sunset,” I say. “I know, that sounds a bit melodramatic, but you see, I was given six months to live and that was eight months ago. I’m not only on borrowed time, I know I am dying now. I can feel my body sort of shutting down. Even talking to you is exhausting me.”

She doesn’t nod but she sort of bites her upper lip a bit. I sense this is her way of showing me compassion.

“Somehow, I have stayed alive long enough to finish something that is important to me. Maybe that is why I was granted the extra months.”

Seagulls circle above as the wind dies down a little. I catch restaurant sounds behind me, as Ocean Boulevard is lined with many of them. People laughing, the clanking of dishes, dinner and drink orders being given and taken.

“I’m not sure why you are not talking back to me, but that’s okay. Maybe it’s better that way. I don’t have a lot of strength left in me to answer a lot of questions. You remind me of my grandma. I loved her a lot.”

The woman smiles and tilts her head a little. She leans to one side, taking pressure off one of her legs. I wish I could offer her a seat, but there’s nowhere to sit, other than the fender next to me. Also, I am confused as to why she is here, watching me. Kindly, granted. But watching me, nonetheless.

“I probably shouldn’t be telling you this—hell, I know I shouldn’t be telling you this—but something very bad happened to someone I cared about a long time ago—something that I could have prevented—and it’s been tearing me up for a long time now.” I pause, fight for a breath, and then continue. “And I realize I have wasted my life punishing myself.”

The woman shifts her weight to her other leg. Her red sweats flap around her heavier frame.

“No comment, huh? Well, maybe I should get going. I feel stupid talking to a stranger about this—a stranger who hasn’t said a single word.”

Except I don’t leave. I keep sitting there on my fender, alternately looking out over the ocean and at the old woman standing to my side.

I say, “I should have forgiven myself a long time ago. How was I supposed to know that a monster had been so close? I was just seventeen. A stupid kid.”

The tears come and as they do the woman steps forward and puts her arm around me. Now I am embarrassed, too, but her touch feels wonderful, and she smells so much like my grandmother that I am briefly confused.

She keeps hugging me as I speak into her shoulder, my voice briefly muffled, “And then I realize that if I should have forgiven myself long ago, I should have also forgiven the monster, too. But how do you forgive a monster? How?”

I can feel my tears on her jumpsuit shoulder. I can also feel the press of her large breasts against my shoulder. Yes, she is very real.

“But I don’t want to forgive him. I want to hate him and hurt him and destroy him the way he destroyed me.”

I’m not even sure she can understand me, but now she is hugging me even harder. A complete stranger. What has my life been reduced to?

“And then I realize that I haven’t given much to this world, other than heartbreak, and my own self-hate, but there is one thing I can leave behind.”

She pulls away from me and steps back. She’s waiting.

Finally, after a short struggle for air, I say, “I can leave behind forgiveness.”

She holds my gaze for a long time, then smiles and nods once and reaches inside her front pocket of her red sweats. She pulls out a card and hands it to me.

It says: “Hi, I’m deaf. I can read lips but I cannot speak. God bless.”

She looks at me some more, then reaches inside her pocket and pulls out a pen. She asks for the card back and I give it. She turns it over and writes on the back. She puts her pen away, then reaches up and pats me warmly on the cheek.

She slips the card in my hand, steps back, looks at me some more, then continues along the busy sidewalk. She doesn’t look back.

I look down at the card in my hand and turn it over. Her shaking handwriting reads: “You are loved. By God, by your friends, by me. And by your brother.”