Orange County Noir (Akashic Noir) (37 page)

Fred worked at a nationwide income-tax preparation company. After ten years, the job was routine enough for him to
sneak online and daydream-that's how he'd found InmatePlay-
mates.com. In his free time, he'd toss back a few Coronas with his cop buddy and across-the-street neighbor Manny Delgado,
maybe go to a Ducks game, whatever.

These days Fred was interested in working off a beer belly,
not drinking it. Since Angel had soon asked pointedly about a
picture, he dug one out taken at a workmate's wedding a few
years earlier. Fred was quite a bit thinner back then-but he
knew he'd be at least down to that weight by the time he could
go on a visit. If he laid off the energy bars and bottled Frap-
puccino and used the stairs at work, he'd be back into his old
clothes in no time flat. Old clothes, nothing-he'd buy the
new ones he'd budgeted for. During tax season, he couldn't
get away. He'd be working long hours including weekends, so
he and Angel would have to wait awhile. Besides, they hadn't
even discussed a visit yet.

In the picture, he'd taken off his glasses and held them
behind his back. He wore dark slacks, a white shirt, and a narrow black tie. Now he smiled, realizing that to her he might
look like a slightly plump Mormon on bike patrol. He could
have altered it electronically to include sunglasses so he'd
look more like John Belushi as a Blues Brother, but changing
an image for his own entertainment and deceiving her were
two different things.

He wanted Angel to see how he was and think he was still
okay, so her next letter was a huge relief. She even said something that gave him a hot shiver of anticipation:

Hi Fred.

Your picture was a pleasant suprise. I always thought
men who can wear plus sizes are more attractive, they are
fun to cuddle. At certain times you just need something to
grab on to and who wants a hand full of skinny ribs and
no butt? Your so cute I feel more lonelier now!

Kisses and big bare hugs,

Angel

Bare or bear, either was fine with him.

That next week was a blur of work: run home and see
if there was a letter, eat something "healthy" from the microwave, take a quick walk, go to sleep, and get up to do it
over again. Fred had explained to Angel about tax season but
began to take work home so he'd be there in case she called.
Soon the letters were pouring through the door slot. Twice
they passed in the mail because they had so much to say. He
was getting pretty good at flirting and double meanings, if he
did say so himself. In fact, he'd never felt better, like on a
high, full of energy, smiling. He was rocketing through the tax
forms. He told Angel to call him, and soon. Her next letter
said, Thanks for the offer, I will call you March 1st Friday so, dont
go on a date just kidding lot!

Did she really think he'd do that to her? With everything
she'd told him about the abuse and terror her parents and exboyfriend had made her endure, all he wanted to do was protect and care for her. He didn't expect more than gratitude, at
first, but he knew she would want to show it, someday, when
she had the chance.

Friday arrived. Because he didn't want to get stuck in evening rush-hour traffic, Fred left work early and undetected.
He kept his cool on the freeway. There was the usual nasty
honking and flipping off, but he drove just under the speed
of traffic and in the slow lane, thwarting any thug who tried
to use it to pass on the right. Pretty soon, he was almost to
the intersection he secretly called White Trash Corners at
the southern edge of his neighborhood. Twice every workday, Fred's freeway shortcut took him through the four-way stop.

Uh-glee! The first house had gray paint, gray trim, a
never-watered grayish tan lawn, and a gray fence that looked
like it was put together without nails in a wind tunnel, leaning
this way and that. Not to code. The old guy who lived there
with a mousy little wife often put up handwritten screeds in
his window about politics or the Bible. Fred didn't bother
reading them.

The second house had peeling, dirty white paint and trim.
The residents were a guy and his two grown sons. It seemed
all they did was watch over their beer cans as the original
asphalt driveway cracked, separated, and disappeared under
the thatchy so-called lawn, where a truck and two cars were
parked. The truck never moved.

The third house took a woman's touch to be bad. In front,
right on the corner, were three stumps of what had probably
been palm trees. The lady there decorated those stumps for
every holiday, small and large, and usually left them up until it
was time for the next holiday. Just so you wouldn't forget her fat
ass, she had a country-style garden decoration, really just some
painted plywood, that showed the back view of some damn
woman bent over, probably picking up dogshit decorations.

The last house was the kind that even solicitors would
pass by. The cinder-block wall running along the street was
disintegrating a brick at a time, especially since the kids in the
area started helping them. All covered with ivy up and over
the roof. Big security-alarm posting by the front door. Never
a sign of life; someone could be dead in there for all anybody
knew.

It was like the four houses were in a worst-yard contest, like the opposite of those shows that told you how to
make your place look good. Fred decided he'd push back. He picked up some business cards at a home-improvement store
and went around the corners late one night-tree trimming,
painting, driveway repair, landscape, masonry-even an autoshop card under the truck's windshield wiper and a therapist's
card for the religion nut jammed behind one of his window
screens.

Whenever he left that place, Fred felt glad he lived in
West Garden Grove, which was totally safe. He liked coming
up his street, with its parkway trees controlled by regular severe pruning. Of four models in the tract, his was the Alpine,
which he kept nice with maintenance and inventory schedules for everything from A/C filters to Ziploc bags.

His neighbor Manny Delgado, who had just made sergeant
at the GGPD, liked to joke about all the old farts working the
west end just before they retired-because nothing ever happened there.

Kind of true. It was a strange city, like somebody said about
Oakland, no there there. Only a mile or so north to south but
stretched out west to east, Garden Grove was sandwiched between other cities like a slice of cheese. He wouldn't want to
live in midtown, which might as well be Westminster and its
Little Saigon, where teenage Asian gangs roamed. The east
end, same thing, but with Latino gangs. He'd been meaning
to ask Manny what it took to qualify for the police, be part of
the solution to crime. He felt ready for a change, and he was
getting in shape. Of course, Angel might not like it, but he'd
talk to her.

Fred hurried home, unlocked the front door, and looked
for a letter, finding instead the visit application Angel had
sent. Man, he could feel it now. It was really happening. No
phone messages except for a gym manager returning his call.
Parking the cordless phone on the toilet tank, he took a quick shower and changed into loose-knit pants and a comfy old
Angels baseball shirt. He switched on the TV, grabbed a diet
cherry soda from the fridge, and opened a cabinet to get some
microwave popcorn-but then he heard the weird twangy intro music for Cold Case Files and hurried in to see if he could
outguess the detectives.

Somewhere, his cordless phone was ringing.

Fred stared for a split second at the remote in the palm of
his hand. He shook it and put it to his ear before he grasped
the problem. Running down the hall to get it before it went to
message, he snatched up the phone atop the toilet tank and,
trying not to sound breathless, gasped, "Angel?"

There was a pause, then a click. A mechanical voice said,
This is the California State Department of Corrections with a collect call from-pause, and another voice saying, Angela May
Winkler, then the machine again, Please choose from the following options ...

The first option was to take the call and accept charges, so
he waited no longer and pressed that number.

Another pause. Then a real voice silky as butter dripping
and slithering down between kernels of fresh popcorn: "Hey,
Fred, this is Angel. Are you there?"

He took a breath. "Oh, yeah, I'm really here. How's Daddy's little Angel girl?"

Some weeks later, Angel sent Fred his approved visitor's permit. Even though the phone calls had given him a sense of
what Angel would be like, he wanted to be face-to-face, touch
her, feel her touching him.

Mother's Day Sunday, Fred got up at dawn because he
couldn't sleep. The prison had a whole load of restrictions on
visitors, and he'd skimmed the booklet-but they were guide lines, not ironclad laws, right? Most sounded like they made
sense-no medicine, even over-the-counter. No hats. No tobacco or alcohol. No food; you had to buy it from their vending machines. No chewing gum? That one made him wonder.
You couldn't go in there dressed like an inmate, like in a movie
he saw where two guys switched places. He laughed out loud
at the rule that said women who set off the metal detectors
with an underwire bra had to go in without it.

Fred showered and weighed himself, proud to be ten
pounds and one belt-notch smaller than before, and put on his
new khakis, loose Hawaiian shirt, and Brand X huarachesthe finest sandals made in Mexico, according to Manny.

Glad he started early, he joined the slow-moving line
of cars leading into the prison, showed his pass at the gate,
parked in the visitor area, and followed the obvious paththey weren't taking any chances on somebody wandering
away. Everything was drab, institutional, painted government
green, but the lawn and flower borders were surprisingly well
tended, the windows spotless.

The path ended in a slow-mo line of people and a sign
that read:

Inmate Visiting

Friday, Saturday, Sunday

8:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m.

Reception

Fred got in behind a granny with two little girls maybe
four and six, who ran around on the cracked, dusty asphalt
and ignored her yelling their names every few minutes. She
finally gave up, peering down at what looked like birth certificates. Maybe she was embarrassed how they disobeyed her. He'd have suggested she pop them good once in a while instead of calling them, but he didn't know any Spanish. Amazing how often people could miss the obvious solution to their
problem.

Right behind him, someone did that ahem kind of throatclearing, so he turned around to see a grim-looking, scrawny,
straight-lipped redneck nodding at the candy-shop bag Fred
was carrying.

"You must be a first-timer," the man announced. "They don't
let anybody take in gifts like candy. Afraid of contraband."

"I know," said Fred, trying not to sound defensive. "I read
the guidelines, and it isn't candy. Thought maybe I'd take in a
few women's magazines-Mother's Day and all."

The man smiled, and his lined face-more sandblasted
than chiseled-seemed surprisingly kind. "Mama's contraband is still contraband. If I was you, I'd go back to your car
and send'em through channels, because those guards will just
toss 'em." Know-it-all was still sort of smiling.

"Well, maybe they will and maybe they won't," Fred muttered and turned away. Guy was probably right, but Fred wasn't
about to lose his place in line.

He was closer to the front now, everybody getting out their
IDs, women carrying see-through plastic pouches instead of
purses, watching what they said but trying to act friendly.
Visitors with kids produced birth certificates. A few teen girls
buttoned up their blouses, smoothed down their skirts, and
covered their stomachs. Not because they respected good
old Mom; it was the rules. He remembered Angel saying that
whenever a guard didn't like what girls had on, they got to
cover up in old baggy thrift store clothes, or leave. "This place,
all they want to do is control everything you do. Everything.
Even when it makes no sense-hell, 'specially then-just to show you how they can. Shit." He wished she wouldn't swear,
but those words came straight from the heart.

She'd added that having so few choices was why it was
important to keep money in her canteen account since they
couldn't have cash. "Thanks, sweetie," she'd said after he sent
a couple-hundred transfer to her with the usual bureaucratic
hurdles. "With a little canteen account, now I can get myself
shampoo, deodorant, makeup-girly things. I'm so lucky to
have you."

Poor kid, so alone. His eyes had watered a little then. He
knew what it was like to be lonesome. After numerous humiliating ordeals called "dates," Fred took his sex life private,
getting along with toys and DVDs. Cheaper and safer.

Fred went through a metal detector like at an airport,
then finished the check-in routine at the desk, where a guard
counted his money, stamped his wrist, looked closely at the
pass and his ID, and confiscated the bag, saying, "Nothing
from outside comes inside, nothing inside goes out."

Inmate visiting was in a big boxy room with picnic tables, walls punctuated by vending machines behind heavy
yellow stripes on the floor. Prisoners weren't allowed to
handle money, he remembered. He sat, twisted sideways on
the assigned bench, since his seat faced the back wall and he
wanted to watch Angel come out. A guard unlocked a door
and brought out a group of women, but none of them could be
Angel, so he calmed down and waited.

About fifteen minutes later, another group came out and
he spotted her. She looked like her picture-a little shorter,
maybe. She was dressed like a nurse, scrubs the same color
as the tired green buildings, some painfully white new running shoes. He stood and watched as she approached. Angel
didn't wait, just said, "Aloha, FRED!" threw her hands around his neck and kissed his cheek hard, saying in his ear, "Sorry I
can't give you a lei." He didn't hesitate and kissed her on the
mouth, carried away to another place, blissed out, breathless
and trembling and ready to keep right on going where it led,
and to hell with everyone else.