The Interview (4 page)

“Batman doesn't use a gun,” I said when the stinging in
my lips began to recede.

“Huh? Oh, the mask. Last minute thing. Be glad I found this.”

I took that to mean not a lot of people saw his face and then went on
living. Still, it was kind of hard to take him seriously with his
pointy bat ears. I looked at the gun instead. Nothing funny there. I
waited.

My father taught me the value of patience. We fished a lot when I was
a kid, and fishing is about patience. He also taught me to not fill
silence with the sound of my voice just to end the silence.

I was cool with the silence. The gun was a different story, but I
didn't think talking was going to make the gun go away. In fact,
talking might make the gun go boom. I didn't want that.

He broke before I did, and said, “What's your connection to
Tristan?”

“Don't have one.”

“You were at his home earlier tonight.”

It wasn't a question so I didn't offer up an answer. Besides, my
mouth was so dry. I started smacking my mouth and licking my lips.

“What are you doing?”

“Thirsty.” Smack. Lick. Oh God, I needed water.

Batman shook his head at me. The gun was steady. I swallowed loudly.

“I don't suppose you have any water in here.”

I shook my head, and smacked and licked some more. I could feel my
lips beginning to chap. It was agony.

“Fine. Get up. We'll go in the kitchen. If the little old lady
wakes up, it's on you.” A few years back, a kid with a
driver’s license with the ink still wet and way too much
alcohol and pot in his system kept going straight when he needed to
go left or right. He had gone through the next door neighbor's front
wall. Car ended up in the living room. Sounded like a bomb went off
inside my head when it happened. Fire trucks, police cars, an
ambulance, and the entire block milled around in the street for an
hour. Annette hadn't heard a thing. The little old lady wouldn't be
waking up, that I was sure of.

The gun's angle changed as he stood, but it's aim never varied. I
rolled off the bed, grabbed my cigarettes, and walked to the kitchen.
He stayed in back of me. I could tell he was far enough back so I
wouldn't be able to try any kind of fancy karate spin move to knock
the gun out of his hand. I didn't know any moves like that, and even
if I did, all I could think about was water. I decided that if I
didn't get a drink soon I would ask him to shoot me.

In the kitchen, I grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and
held it out to him. “I can't open it on account of these
ropes.”

Batman spun the top. I heard the plastic safety ring snap and I
started to drool. I was so thirsty. He handed me the bottle, and I
drank it two handed.

“Ahhh. That was so good.” I set the empty bottle on the
counter, then reached back into the fridge and grabbed two strawberry
daiquiri wine coolers. I don't do beer, but wine coolers will do in a
pinch. This seemed like a pinch. I held them out and asked, “Want
one?”

“No thank you.”

“Open 'em both. I'll take care of 'em.”

“No problem.” It was all very civilized and polite.

“Can we step outside so I can smoke?”

“Sure.” I had no illusions about my situation. I was not
in control. He was letting me get away with this little show because
he wanted something from me. Problem was, I had no idea what I had to
give him.

The day’s heat had subsided. The temperature now in the
mid-seventies. I managed to shake a cigarette out and light it
without his assistance. I blew out a lungful, and said, “I
appreciate it. OK.” I considered asking him to ditch the gun
but decided it wasn't worth it. “Go.”

“You were at Tristan's tonight. Why?”

“Good question. I have no idea. Can you see out of that thing?”

“My peripheral is affected a bit, but I can see just fine. It's
hot though, so the faster we do this the less cranky I'm apt to get.”

“Right. Did you have it just laying around or something?”

“I killed the neighbor kid and took it from him.”

“Right. Two of his goons invited me over for drinks. I went. I
got fed up with his act and left. That's it.” I took a drag,
exhaled, and waited to get shot. When that didn't happen, I drank
half of a cooler. Sweet. Delicious. I hoped Annette wouldn't have a
heart attack when she found me.

“Why the invite?”

“I beat up this guy in a restaurant down in Old Towne. I guess
Tristan owns the place. He wanted to thank me.”

Batman thought about this. The gun just stared at me.

“He's got a really big dick,” I threw that out there just
so he didn't think I was holding anything back.

He waved the hand not holding the gun as if to dismiss this
statement. He apparently had never seen Tristan's member. You can't
just dismiss something like that with a wave of the hand. Serious
therapy was what I figured.

“Anybody else there?”

“Alex. I don't know what her deal is but she's super hot and I
think she could probably kick Batman's ass. Not yours, but the real
Batman wouldn't stand a chance.”

“Yeah, she's a tough one.” He seemed distracted by
thought. That gun wasn't though. Just kept staring at me with that
one big eye wide open.

“Jenna, Kristi, and Ashley were there, too. All of them are
gorgeous.”

“They are all gorgeous over there.”

“Were you looking for something else. I can make some shit up.”

I think his bat ears twitched, but it may have been a trick of light.
I can be annoying sometimes.

“Why'd you beat the guy up?”

“Another good question.” I toasted him, then downed the
rest of the bottle. I took a hit then talked with smoke coming out my
mouth. I think it looks cool. “I go there a lot and I know the
waitresses by name. Yolanda was working and this skinhead was fucking
with her. He grabbed her ass. I made a comment. He got mad. End of
story.”

“And you just, what? Punched him?”

“I pushed a table in front of his run. He hit it. Then I gave
him a double-fisted forearm to the back of his head. He broke his
nose and lost a tooth. I kneed him in the jaw.”

“Cops?”

“Nope. Yolanda, I guess, called Tristan or one of his flunkies,
then two guys came and picked him up.”

“So you don't know whether he's alive or dead.”

“Nope.”

“Curious?”

“Nope. Not my problem.”

“So why'd you hit him?”

“I just told you. Batman's a detective. Get with it.”

Batman leaned towards me and said, “You told me what you did.
Not why.”

OK. I saw his point. It wouldn't be the first time my mouth got me in
trouble, although never in enough trouble to get shot. I put a mental
damper on my sarcasm. “Sorry. I get smart when a gun is pointed
at me.”

“Have you ever had a gun pointed at you?”

“No.” I put more of a damper on my sarcasm and said, “I
have two rules I live by.”

“This should be interesting.”

“Now who's being a joker?” Stupid. “Bad word
choice. Anyways, rule number one: I don't involve myself in other
people's problems. Rule number two is: A woman and/or child in
jeopardy is my problem.”

“Noble.”

“Not really. I have never encountered a child in jeopardy. And
there have only been a few instances where I saw a woman in jeopardy.
It's easy to be noble when you never find yourself in a situation
that requires nobility. I was hot and tired. Yolanda didn't deserve
that kind of crap. If he hadn't rushed me, then nothing would have
come of it, probably. I pushed. He pushed back. I knocked him out.
Nothing noble about it.”

“You're remarkably calm considering the situation.”

“I have brain damage.”

“Yes, I know. A childhood accident, correct?”

That stopped me. I can count the number of people who know about my
accident on one hand: my parents, Frankie, and Annette. There are
some doctors, of course, and my therapist. Batman didn't impress me
as a member of the health profession. Undertaker maybe, but not a
doctor. “How do you know that?”

“I know a lot about you, Kelly Jenks. Most of it doesn't
matter, but your calm is interesting to me.”

Batman just became really interesting to me as well.

I was preparing another smart remark when he hit me in the temple
with his gun. Bright, flaring pain all over my skull. Whole lotta
nothing after that.

THE SUN, AND THE PROMISE of temperatures in the hundreds, was just
beginning to lighten the sky as I crossed the 405. There was an early
Tool
song in my ears. Their titles are so random I can
never keep them straight. I had a nasty gash over my right eye and a
headache to go along with it.

The fingers on my left hand kept time on the steering wheel while my
right alternated between bringing a cigarette and a cup of 7-Eleven
coffee to my mouth. I raced a Southwest jet taking off from John
Wayne International, but it left my Ranger in the dust before I
reached the Orange County Fairgrounds. Take-offs from John Wayne were
always exciting. Newport Beach had passed noise ordinance laws that
required pilots to climb steeper than normal before powering back as
they crossed some imaginary line. The result was a stomach dropping
moment for everyone on board when it felt as if the plane was falling
out of the sky. The pilots were pretty good about telling the
passengers what to expect, but it was still startling if you had
never experienced a John Wayne take-off.

The 55 transformed seamlessly into Newport Blvd. Well, it was
seamless at 5:30 in the morning. Any other time of day, traffic backs
up as the free flowing 55 slows to a crawl by the lights at 19th
street that mark its demise. I sat at the red light and stared out to
the left where Mother's Market had moved in. I was still saddened by
the closing of Borders Books. Book stores are becoming extinct in
Orange County. Barnes & Noble is hanging on, but that place
doesn't have a soul. Borders didn't have much of one either, but at
least they still had genre sections. Triangle Square, on the opposite
side of the street, was eighty percent vacant it seemed as I drove
by. Nike Town had given up a few years back and the place had been
dying ever since. It was a shame, because the Triangle had once been
home to the coolest grocery store ever.

There were two levels of parking, all below ground. The third level
was a Ralph's grocery store. It was crazy shopping there. Perpetual
night. I would stand in line at noon and stare out at the parking lot
with only fluorescent bulbs to show the way. A friend of mine used to
say it was like shopping after a nuclear war, everyone forced below
ground. Maybe that's why it went out of business. Who can say?
Businesses close one day and are replaced the next by the latest new
thing.

I haven't lost much sleep over the phenomenon.

I passed Hoag Hospital, crossed over top of the Pacific Coast
Highway, and headed down the Balboa Peninsula. I started praying to
the parking gods as Our Lady Mt. Carmel Catholic Church slipped by on
my right, followed by Newport Elementary. I always wondered what it
would be like to be a kid in that school. They didn't have soccer or
baseball fields to play on at lunch, but they sure did have one big
sandbox. Not sure how a kid could transfer from there to a normal
school. I would think it would be a little bit of a let down.

There were tons of metered parking but that's not me. Two blocks past
the school, I spotted an opening on the opposite side of the street.
I flipped a bitch at 11th, and slipped the Ranger into a spot that
definitely required divine intervention to fit in. The problem with
getting to the beach before six in the morning was that no one is at
work yet. I do not pay to park. I pray to the parking gods instead,
and they have yet to let me down.

Five years ago, this area had been my home. I came to Newport Beach
at the tender age of 18. What followed was a 17-year love affair with
all of the associated vicissitudes. I grew up in Ballard, a small
suburb of Seattle, but Newport was my home the moment my feet touched
the sand. You need to be one of two things to live here: Young or
Rich. When I turned 30, I was neither by local standards. I held on
for five more years, but the glow had gradually faded. A month before
I turned 35, I bid a fond farewell to the room I had lived in for
almost half my life and headed inland to Placentia.

It was a good move for me, but that didn't mean that I missed it any
less. I probably spent more time on the beach and in the water now
than I did the last couple years I lived here. I appreciated it more
now. If it meant that I had to leave the house at five in the
morning, then so be it.

I locked the truck, grabbed my Boogie Board and flippers out of the
back, then crossed the street and walked down to the water.

IT WAS EARLY FOR CRIMINALS to be wandering around the beach, so I
stashed my stuff beneath the closest lifeguard tower. I looked down
the beach in the direction of the Balboa Pier. I could just make out
Kim's small figure jogging towards me in the morning light. I didn't
bother to stretch before I set off in her direction at a light jog.

I am not a “I run therefore I am” kind of guy. I'm more
of a “I smoke, drink, and abuse my body therefore I am”
kind of guy. My feet hurt when I wake up. My back aches. That's why I
run. More to the point, that's why I run on the beach. It makes the
pain go away. I run barefoot along the waters edge where the sand is
firm.

There is a customer on my route that educated me to the evils of
shoes. He runs marathons barefoot. He is a tad psycho if you ask me,
but he's right about shoes. The human foot is one of the greatest
engineering designs of all time. It is so good that the Romans stole
the idea for use in their architecture. The natural arch in our feet
is designed to support our weight without any outside assistance. We
are supposed to run on our toes, not our heels and toes. Shoes get in
the way of all this. The first thing most people do when they get
home is kick off their shoes. There's a reason, and it's not so they
can take off their pants. High heels are the ultimate evil. I'm quite
sure that some man invented heels just to give women aches and pains.