All the Angels Come

Copyright 2015, 2016 Jim Alabiso – Not for Distribution 

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All the Angels Come 

Jim Alabiso 

REVISION 9.0 

DRAFT 

Not for Distribution 

Copyright 2015, 2016 Jim Alabiso 

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Copyright 2015, 2016 Jim Alabiso – Not for Distribution

This page intentionally left blank 

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Part I 

The Walk 

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5 


Chapter 1 

William 

3.3 

Ankle deep in the surf. That’s his place. Not knee deep, waist deep or no deep. Ankle deep. Yet 

after several hours, his jeans are soaked right up to the knees. He is shuffling in small bursts, 

north and south, with his long slender legs in his narrow territory. He’s wearing a heavy brown 

coat, collar turned up around his neck and a blue wool cap, covering a large mound of dark hair. 

And that’s his summer clothes. 

Just above the sound of the breakers, onlookers can hear him talking. He’s got a walkie-talkie in 

his left hand, antenna fully extended. He drops it in the water then bends his tall frame to pick it 

up and continues talking, saltwater dripping out of its works. 

“Is serious?” he asks. 

His eyes squint tightly in the rising sun. 

“Is serious,” he says deeper. 

He’s looking out over the ocean, left, then right, then back out to sea. 

“Take the walk? Take the walk,” in his hoarse voice. 

A young woman walks close, heading toward the water, surfboard tucked under her arm. His 

spider eyes open wider than they’d been in years. 

“Is her,” he says, holding the dripping radio up to his lips 

He shuffles his way into her path, arms stretched out like a barricade, radio in his right hand, his 

left hand up, fingers together in a stop sign. She stops abruptly and falls in the sand in the ankledeep 

water. 

“What’s wrong with you?!” she yells without mercy. 

Getting to her feet, her surfboard stuck in the sand, fin down, she runs to the lifeguard stand 

yards away. 

“Asshole,” she says. 

The lifeguard is putting up a red flag. Rip currents today. He’s seen Kristina surfing this beach 

all summer and taken a liking to her. 

“Is serious.” His black calloused thumb presses firmly down on the talk button. “Take the walk. 

Take the walk. Is serious,” he says. Looking down, making sure he is ankle deep, he shuffles his 

way south. 


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Kristina yells to her lifeguard friend high up on the red platform. 

“Did you see that shit?” 

Smiling down he explains, loud over the surf, “That’s William. Is William, William is, is 

William," he laughs, "Way off,” drawing a circle around his ear, “Never seen him fuck with 

people, though.” 

Overhearing, William looks back. “Is serious,” he says, when a gust comes out of the east, 

creating a fine mist atop the breaking swells. Shuffling on, William tucks his walkie-talkie into 

his coat pocket shaking his head. The sound of the increasing turbulence obscures the static from 

inside his coat. 

Later that afternoon the young lifeguard finds Kristina’s surfboard tossing in the surf a mile 

north by the church in the high tide. 

*** 


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Chapter 2 

Masuyo 

3.1 

On the calf of her leg is a tattoo. It says “Masuyo”. The neighborhood calls her Massy. Living 

this block for years, Massy ceaselessly works her territory, pulling a luggage cart behind, packed 

with cardboard boxes, trash bags and a small weekender suitcase strapped with frayed 

multicolored bungee cords. When she’s not pulling, she flips the hoodie off her head, revealing a 

face fit for a model, streaked with dirt and sweat. 

It's her seventh round. Sleepy, she jumps up on the window ledge outside of the sushi café 

and lies down straight and rigid. I mean rigid. Every tendon taut. Legs parallel, arms at her side. 

Rigid. Then on the hour, pop; she jumps down off the ledge onto the shaded easement and scans 

the leaves that have fallen to the ground. She places them in order. Arranges them carefully, just 

so, on the sidewalk in a pattern no one else can see. Then she sleeps again, for another hour, this 

time under the tree. 

Under a tree, Massy sleeps differently. Like a little girl, covering her stained feet in the striped 

socks she keeps in her pocket. Her lower lip pouts just a little, her eyes, gently closed, in the fetal 

position under her heavy red coat, knickers bunched up around her knees. She pulls her hoodie 

back over her black hair, knotted, matted, and littered with debris. 

While she sleeps the leaves are rearranged by the wind and the footsteps of passersby. 

On the hour, she wakes abruptly and perfectly executes a cinematic kick-jump to her feet. Bam. 

Onlookers sometimes wait for that moment, often bringing friends to watch. But Massy’s eyes 

are fixed on her leaves. 

She re-scans, mumbles and argues to herself. No one understands. 

Then shifting her eyes; quickly, like the kick-jump; she glares at the onlookers. Her face gets 

stern. 

She demands, “You got change. You got change.” 

Some people toss coins, but she throws them back as quick as she catches them. They know it. 

It's why they do it. 

Three shirtless guys walk by, "Hey, Miyagi," one shouts. 

"You eggroll?", one asks with an accent. 

The other, yelling "Lemonhead!", throwing a quarter to test her skill. It came back fast, bouncing 

off his head and falling squarely into his pants pocket. 

During the onslaught old bruises reappear on her face. 


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“You got change!”, she yells as the onlookers leave laughing. 

Then in a beat, after the last one walks off, she bounces back up on the sushi café ledge. 

She gets rigid, and whispers, “You got change”, she sleeps again and the bruises fade. 

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Chapter 3 

Jay 

3.0 

“I’m Jay,” she says. “Jay.” 

Jay is pacing the sidewalk, around the coffee shop, pale and freckled, and slightly bent under her 

own weight. The pacing keeps her shivering body warm. Even now in the 98-degree 

heat. Looking in the windows, double checking her shopping cart filled with empty bottles, and 

white drawstring bags stuffed with clothes. 

Some believe there are a few phones and laptops under there, stolen from coffee house patrons 

but no one has challenged her. 

She reaches in her pocket, fumbles around for a good minute looking up occasionally, then pulls 

out a few coins. She gives them a hard look in her cupped hands, shakes her head back and 

forth. She looks up and around again and repeats the dramatization. 

Finally, a police officer, nametag “Lieutenant Holmquist”, exiting the coffee shop, places a 

twenty-dollar bill in her hand and continues on to cross the street. 

The twenty drifts to the floor like a leaf, but Jay’s eyes are fixed on the nametag. 

Jay stops the show, her head still, her shoulders pull back, her posture straightens. She looks 

down at her chest as it expands like it has a mind of its own. 

Under her breath, conserving air, “I’m Jay,” she assures herself. 

Her eyes follow the generous officer, now on the far side of the street fumbling for keys with one 

hand, to-go cup in the other. Jay’s chest inflates impossibly more and looks straight across at 

Lieutenant Holmquist. 

“Watermelon!”, she yells. 

The lieutenant looks up from her keys, Jay is beaming right at her. 

“Watermelon”, again. This time, so loud people are stopping on the corners. 

Shaking her head, as if awakening from a dream, she takes her shopping cart with both hands 

and heads north on Stockton Street, wheels rattling on the sidewalk. She pauses and turns, walks 

back to the donation still on the ground. 

Slowly she bends, top-heavy, almost falling over. Her breath is labored with an audible rattle. 

Her right hand pressed, stabilizing against the cement, her left hand groping for the bill. 

One of the patrons is sitting at an outside table carefully sipping a cappuccino and inhaling an 

extended nicotine hit from his vaporizer. He chuckles and snorts over a cough. 


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“That’s some triple chin there,”, he says across the table. 

Still bent, Jay turns to the coffee aficionado. 

“I’m Jay”. “Jay,” she sings. 

“Whatever you say bitch,” he chokes. 

Lieutenant Holmquist watches the altercation carefully. Jay, with one giant breath, heaves her 

body straight and retakes her cart. 

“I'm Jay,” she sings. 

“Don’t fuck with Jay!” the lieutenant commands from the window of her police car. 

Cappuccino boy bolts back into the coffee shop choking on his vape as he goes. 

“And I’m Sharon,” the lieutenant whispers with a laugh. 

Driving to the station downtown, Lieutenant Holmquist is craving watermelon. 

*** 

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Chapter 4 

Ricardo “The Rock” De Los Rios 

3.1 

Tucked under the bridge Ricardo “The Rock” De Los Rios can hear the cars on the interstate; all 

night. The frequency, slowing in the middle hours, provides respite from pains of the past and 

hard days ahead. There is a creek below, that leads to a river. Given his name he knows that there 

is work to be done there, by the river, but he is waiting for instructions. The trickle adds to the 

comforting collage of sound. 

His oversize duffle bag is very heavy. Too heavy for most people. Ricardo travels heavy. That’s 

why people call him “The Rock”. “Here comes the rock,” they’d say. Ricardo thinks he is “The 

Rock” for other reasons. The overstuffed bag contains mostly cans of food, one tube of 

watermelon lip balm and his voluminous comic collection. In the middle of his circa 1960 Archie 

comic, sealed in a Ziploc, he keeps his papers. Maybe someday he can become a citizen. At 

thirty-two years he has a long life ahead. 

Ricardo is just enough distance from the homeless center and the mission for solitude, yet close 

enough for a meal. Then there is his church, which encompasses most of downtown. It’s 

important work. 

On this particular hot summer evening in July, under the bridge, when the moon is full, he sleeps 

differently. Somehow his body is cold. He has no coat. His head stays warm under a blue cap 

meant for a logo, but there is no logo on it. Tonight, under his cap, old connections are 

reconnecting. Memories resurface in dreams that, this time, he will remember. 

Cerro de la Popa, Cartagena, the church up on the cliffs. Colombia, his birthplace, but some 

missing disjointed memory just won’t jig. Ricardo doesn’t know how he got here. Mom, she is 

somewhere, alive, he knows, but he recalls that her brain misfires worse than his during her 

extreme bipolar swings. His eyelids half-mast, the synapses from a previous life, link to this one, 

like lightning in his head. He was married once. 

“Veronica, it’s 9:30,” he’d say. 

*** 

“I’ll be ready in a few minutes,” she replies, as she touches up her lipstick in the mirror. 

From the cliffs of Cerro de la Popa, you can see the water from both sides. Young, in love and 

thrilled in the sea wind, they are laughing across to each other. Ricardo, binoculars focusing on 

the Caribbean Sea, Veronica, Cartagena. When Ricardo turns around Veronica is gone. 

“I’ll be ready in a few minutes,” he says in his sleep. ‘I’ll be ready”. 

While searching the chambers of the church Ricardo finds himself standing in front of the image 

of La Virgen de la Candelaria. 

“El otro lado”, she says in a clear voice. Clear as the voices his mom would hear. 


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Does La Virgen mean my Veronica is on “the other side” and has met her maker? He kneels 

before her and weeps. 

The Policía Nacional de Colombia has questions and go looking for him. Ricardo doesn’t have 

enough money to pay them off so he must hide. That night he sleeps under the Roman Bridge 

searching for Veronica in his dreams. As far as Ricardo can tell, he fell asleep there and woke up 

here. Getting from Cartagena to the states, a complete blank; but he is sure La Virgen had 

something to do with it. 

*** 

In the morning, he wakes with the moon setting opposite the sunrise. He stirs and wonders why 

he feels colder when it is warm outside and warmer when it is cooler in the early morning. 

Things have been feeling opposite. He walks to the creek and sees his reflection and commences 

his daily rehearsal. He notices his face isn't reversed. 

“Things are unfolding into the world today,” he begins, “El otro lado. From the other side.” 

"There-fore, I ad-dress you”, as he attempts to soften his accent. 

He’s gotten better at it. He prefers being called, “The Rock”, rather than pool-digger. Downtown 

can be a cruel place, and he doesn’t understand the dark in people, given that this is the time of 

the awakening. 

“You must seek to be open”, he declares, his face distorted in the ripples. 

“In this life, what you fear is what you must face,” he proclaims. 

In the residue of his dream, he cries for the first time since his arrival. The tears of Ricardo De 

Los Rios mix with the creek and find their way out to the sea by way of the river. In a few hours, 

they touch the body of one surfer girl that went missing at the beach just a day ago. 

He looks at the sun. Time to head downtown. 

“Veronica, it’s 9:30,” he says. 

Ricardo “The Rock” De Los Rios lifts his heavy duffle bag and walks out of the woods. El otro 

lado. 


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Chapter 5 

Lieutenant Sharon Holmquist 

3.2 

Lieutenant Sharon Holmquist parks in her grass driveway. Hearing static on her handheld police 

radio, she shuts it off. Off. It must be nice to be off, she’s thinking. 

The sun is far in the west and sits like a pink crown on her circa 1940’s house. The jays scatter in 

the trees as she walks the pathway, blue wings, throwing shades of purple in the twilight on the 

pond bordering her yard. 

There are four steps up to the verandah. She walks them on automatic, and with each, Lieutenant 

Holmquist becomes Sharon. She retrieves a week’s worth of mail from the mailbox. Screen door 

at her back, she leaves the front door open to let the air in. 

Dropping her keys, badge, radio and firearm on the side table, there is an echo down the hall. It’s 

not feeling good to be Sharon today. Tired of “lonely”. Tonight the jeering of the birds outside 

isn’t enough dither. 

Standing in the kitchen, palms down on the counter Sharon can’t keep the tears back. So she 

weeps. It’s one of those nights where she lets it all go. When she does, Skye, her four-year-old 

feline BFF comes to comfort. Skye might know that the distraction gives Sharon some cheer. 

There’s the hunger incentive too. Sharon’s hand leaves the counter and stretches up to the pantry 

for a noisy bag of food and somewhere in the motion the tears stop and a chuckles ensue when 

Skye jumps on the counter. 

They both make their way to the couch. On the way, Sharon puts the needle down on Magical 

Mystery Tour. The walrus album cover is still recognizable, despite Skye’s scratching it into 

colorful confetti on the Berber carpet. Horizontal, propped by an oversize pillow, Sharon sifts 

through the mail in the remaining twilight. Most of it hits the floor. Skye jumps down and sits on 

it because he is king of the mail. 

Sharon opens the one piece she’s dreading. Spending thirty minutes in an MRI chamber is 

stressful enough. Waiting for the results sucks. The doctor says she wants Sharon to retake the 

MRI to investigate a suspicious lesion. More waiting. 

“What the fuck,” under her breath. “Love that shit away, Lennon.” 

Skye confirms, jumps up on Sharon’s stomach and they both fall asleep. 

She dreams of counting coins, and watermelon fields. In the morning, she remembers hearing the 

police radio in her sleep, but distinctly recalls turning the thing off. 

The jays are jeering full force. The uniform that she never took off is wrinkled. 

Lieutenant Holmquist. Not into it today. A walk by the pond first. The air is cool. Skye is already 

scratching at the screen door and something left over from a dream encourages the thought. 


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"Take the walk," she's thinking. 

With that Sharon and Skye, head through the damp morning grass to the pond. Skye sits on a 

boulder overlooking the water because he is king of the pond. Sharon kneels on the bank to get a 

closer look at her odd reflection. 


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Chapter 6 

William Walks West 

3.2 

It's 98 degrees, and William’s face is cold. He rubs his hands together and places them on his 

face. 

Today the tides are the highest this month. The moon turns full as it swings around the earth, 

opposite the sun, pulling a peaking tidal bulge with it. The extreme east winds push the swells 

into the dunes capturing the beach debris with it. Plastic garbage cans surfacing occasionally in 

the breakers, logs, bottles and sea grasses, creating a scene that makes William uncomfortable. 

The lifeguard stands are surrounded by water. This morning there’s no shoreline to walk. The 

water funnels through the drifts down the sandy pathway to the parking lot. The sunrise tricking 

the eyes with orange reflections on the moving ground. 

William’s highway is giving up on him. Frustrated and confused, he follows the ankle deep 

streams out into the parking lot. He looks at the sidewalk, measures his foot against it and 

decides it’s close enough to ankle high. So he steps up and begins to walk on the narrow cement 

path. 

On this hot summer morning, deep underneath his coat, he finds his walkie-talkie. It’s still wet 

and caked with sand. 

“Take the walk?” he asks, holding it to his ear. 

William looks to the rising sun, then west. He is shivering when he should be shedding. His feet 

feel cold on the hot concrete. Things are feeling opposite these days. William thinks of the young 

surfer. 

“Is her,” William declares holding the button down. 

William is worried but he has signs. The winds blow strong out of the east. William knows the 

wind. The wind is not his friend, but he listens. The sea oats point west with each gust. 

“Is west,” he says, surprising himself with the word. 

“West!” excited to say it again, watching the leaning sea oats. 

William turns a corner and sees a street sign. “Beach Blvd,” it says. He looks down at the sandy 

sidewalk and begins a slow squat. Every muscle in his long slender legs feeling the stretch. 

Looking at the surface thoughtfully, he scans the sidewalk, tenderly grazing it with his gentle 

fingers. There is electricity in this ground. From his walkie-talkie, a burst of static. 

"Is West," he says. 


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He straightens, unwavering in the high winds. His orange shadow is long in the morning 

sun. Content in the narrow territory, he begins his ankle high trek across the city, checking the 

“Beach Blvd” street signs every few miles. 

“Take the walk. Is serious," he says. 

Reaching the intracoastal waterway bridge, he takes a momentary pause, breathes deeply to 

summon the courage. Making his way to the top in long strides, he looks out over the marshes, 

then the road ahead. Heat waves radiating from the asphalt distort the lane line. Shades of New 

Orleans come and go in the dithering air. In the mirage, William sees a skyline, but Place St. 

Charles is a month’s walk away. The winds are picking up. He squints and scans, and the illusion 

is gone. A strong gust, out of the east, blows his cap off. He catches it before it touches the 

ground. It is at that moment he remembers Katrina. 

*** 

One single day before landfall, WWL-TV has a Special Bulletin. 

“Neighborhoods are scrambling to evacuate while some are refusing to leave,” the anchor says, 

“This is a serious storm,” The anchor presses his earpiece. “The evacuation is now mandatory. 

It’s serious,” he announces. 

William is pissed. A New Orleans walking-tour guide doesn’t need this shit. “Serious, yes,” he’s 

thinking. Raising Claira alone is hard as it is. He picks up his walkie-talkie and calls dispatch, 

but there is no one listening. He looks for Claira who is at a weekend slumber party. A good 

father would have had the phone number and certainly the address, he’s thinking. William walks 

for days, searching, calling her name, seeking shelter where he can. 

William reaches out to anyone listening in the white noise with his walkie-talkie. He is too late. 

Ahead is the Florida Avenue Bridge, its towers, blue, cutting the grey NOLA sky. This is not the 

walking-tour he imagined today. Soon William finds Claira face down, lifeless, in ankle deep 

water. Just ankle deep. 

That is when William begins his longest ever walking tour. Following the persistent east wind 

that took Claira, he walks until he reaches the sea. 

*** 

The memories come and go like the heat waves on Beach Boulevard. He pockets his cap. His 

long jatas, wrapped in a bundle atop his head, see the sun for the first time in weeks. He’s feeling 

his clearest in years and is certain about his walk. 

“Downtown, 15 Miles", the sign says. In his clarity, William calculates five hours for this 

walking tour. William fills his lungs and presses the talk button. 

“West,” he says. 


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*** 

Miles away, on the west side of town, Lieutenant Sharon Holmquist’s radio echoes the words. 

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Chapter 7 

Masuyo Leaves 

3.2 

Masuyo shivers in her sleep on this hot summer day, unconsciously tightening her red coat, 

while the neighborhood regulars know a show is about to begin. The patrons in the sushi cafe 

sitting at the window, check the time on their phones, anticipating the hourly leap. The servers 

know that customers who witness the spectacle tip better. On the hour, Masuyo awakens and 

executes an Olympian jump off the sushi café ledge. The patrons clap from behind the glass. 

“Massy!” they cheer. 

Masuyo pays no attention to the onlookers as she scans the leaves, her eyes darting back and 

forth so quickly you can almost hear the swoosh, like in a Kung Fu movie. Surprised by what she 

sees, Masuyo gets rigid. Her shoulders up to her ears, her eyebrows tight around the bridge of her 

nose. Her leaves have been rearranged and stacked in a pile. 

Two brothers in tank tops, hide around the brick corner whispering, with rakes in their hand, 

trying to silence their laugh. Masuyo is disconcerted; patterns and messages missing. She 

loosens, shaking the tension down her arms. In one graceful leap, and with cat-like precision, 

Masuyo lands square on the top of the mound without scattering a single leaf. 

Her facial scars reappear, so she pulls her hoodie back over her head. Masuyo leaves her striped 

socks in her pocket and remains still on her throne. In the café window patrons are laughing. 

“Fix the leaves Massy!” they say. 

She sits on the pile, eyes closed. The sushi café patrons assume the glass muffles their slings, but 

Masuyo hears everything. 

“Fix the fucking leaves!” yell the boys on the corner. Loud and clear. “Fix the leaves Ching 

Chong. Ching-Chong, Ching Chong, Ching Chong!” they chant. 

Her nose begins bleeding over the bruises, fading in on her upper lip. Tears move around her 

high cheeks and mix with the blood. Today it’s too much, but it serves to recreate old 

connections. The scars of a hard life connect in her scattered, but agile mind. As quick to think as 

she is to jump, her mind leaps from one memory to the next. She tucks her hoodie closer to her 

face and remembers what she has worked hard to forget. 

*** 

“Stack the fucking dishes,” her husband" Masato yells, drunk from his flight. He taps his fingers 

on the counter. 

Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. 


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Masuyo sits on the kitchen floor, unmoving except for the tears. She doesn’t remember why she 

fell in love with this man she has known since she was a little girl, and the first to touch her. 

Why she can’t imagine life without him. Masato inhales deeply from his fresh cigar. His golf tee 

patterned tie in a perfect St. Andrew Knot. 

“Stack - the - fucking – dishes – Ma-su-yo,” he screams, shoving her bungeed textbooks from the 

kitchen table. Her books hit the tile, open and scatter. Masuyo knows she is next. 


Masuyo remains as Masato swings a fist from above and behind, breaking her nose. He’s proud 

at his precision swing, left arm straight, so not to rob power from the shot. Then one more drive 

to the back of her head. The short but powerful little man has things to prove. He heads down the 

hall grabbing his bottle of Shochu on the way. Masuyo falls slowly to the floor trying to hang on 

to consciousness. 

Masato likes all the forks and knives facing the same way. He wants the couch pillows straight 

and the curtains pulled. He wants Masuyo’s diplomas and modeling photos face down. He is as 

particular about his trophies being perfectly aligned on the shelf as he is about his golf swing. 

That includes the swing that meets Masuyo’s head. 

Masuyo ignores the warm blood on her face, it is trivial, because this week she reads a book for 

school about the holocaust. It’s on the floor, on top of the pile, open to the page, and she reads it 

as she regains consciousness. 

“Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but, above all, thou shalt not be a 

bystander,” Professor Yehuda Bauer writes. 

Today she is keeping two of those commandments. The other would have to wait. From a swift 

jump to her feet, she walks down the hall, bungee cord in hand, shaking and loosening her arms 

at her side. Standing above the couch, red highlights in her black hair, she faces Masato. 

“Fuck you bitch,” he says, disturbing the smoke curling from the ashtray. 

He barely gets the words out when Masuyo has him on his feet by his balls. Swinging the bungee 

cord around his neck, she pulls him to the front door facing Riverside Avenue straight across 

from the sushi café. With a swift kick, he is on the sidewalk stumbling. 

“You will never change Masato,” she states. 

“You’re a fucking bitch,” he laughs straddling the curb, the Schochu challenging his balance. 

“That,” he declares at the top of his lungs, “will never change.” 

These are Masato’s last words as he falls in the path of a car going fifty mph in thirty-five mph 

zone. He flies over the windshield and lands by the tree. By the time rescue gets there he is 

covered in leaves and his heart is still. Masuyo watches from behind the curtain. 


20

“There you go Masato, you got change.” 

“Par,” she declares. 

Bringing his still smoldering cigar to her mouth, she takes a deep hit then snuffs it out. She walks 

back to the kitchen; her heart is also still. The heart of a murderer, she thinks. Masuyo the 

perpetrator, unaware of her brain injury, stacks and restacks dishes until dawn. 

As the sun rises opposite the moon, Masuyo leaves her apartment for the last time, crosses the 

street, sits by the tree, and sleeps like she did when she was a little girl. Before Masato touched 

her. 

*** 

The sushi cafe patrons are tapping incessantly on the window attempting to stir Masuyo from her 

trance. 


Her eyes open, waking with more clarity than she’s had in a long time, 


She bounces up and moves so fast it seems like she disappears from her throne of leaves, and 

reappears by the café window. 

“You-will-never-change,” she shrieks through the glass, scaring the patrons. 

“Ching Chong!”, the brothers sing, rakes in hand, running north on Riverside Avenue. Masuyo 

dismantles her luggage cart, leaving all but the bungee strapped suitcase, sitting in the leaves. 

She looks at the curb in front of her old apartment on the opposite side of the avenue and she 

remembers. 

“Thou shalt not be a victim,” she says. “Thou shalt not be a bystander.” 

Suitcase in hand, she runs in leaps just minutes behind the boys. The leaves scatter around her 

abandoned belongings as Masayo the perpetrator closes in on them, heading toward the river. 

One of the sushi café patrons calls 911. 

*** 

Soon thereafter, Lieutenant Sharon Holmquist’s radio wakes up again, interrupting Skye, who is 

scattering the pile of mail still on the living room floor. His legs are straight and hind quarters up, 

eyes darting back and forth waiting for Sharon, who has her own scars to think about but escapes 

them in her sleep. 


21

Chapter 8 

Jay I Am 

3.1 

Jay is happy to see Lieutenant Sharon, manifesting positivity. The simple joys in life, like eating 

watermelon. Pushing her shopping cart Jay rattles up Stockton Street. She briefly steps up on the 

back rail and rides, as the front pops a wheelie under her weight. Knowing your center is 

important, she thinks, stepping down. When a low flying jumbo jet passes over for a landing at 

the international airport, she slows, taking in each line in the sidewalk with an empty stare. Pain 

radiates from the crescent shaped scar high on her forehead. 

“But in the midst of these joys fear would strike her,” she quotes. Her mind fills with the roar of 

spinning turbines, negative space, dollar bills and coins. 

“I’m Jay,” she says. 

She stops on the next corner, looks up, eyes riveted on the sky. She is cold, but her shivers stop. 

Old axons find new pathways to consciousness like vines. 

*** 

Taxiing to the gate, the suit in the aisle seat is just about done with this big woman’s frequent 

trips to the toilet. They really should assign her two seats, he’s thinking, with a tap, tap, tap on 

the top of the seat with his perfectly manicured fingers. Jay lifts herself up, pressing both hands 

on the armrest, and steps out into the aisle to retrieve her luggage in the overhead. Unwilling to 

wait, passengers attempt to make way around her large frame. The suit drops a loud “Really 

lady?” in protest. Tap, tap, tap again. Jay’s hypothyroid can’t protest back. The young woman 

standing next to him, suspiciously at the ready, passes him a glower, then helps Jay get her 

belongings down. 

“You’re the sweetest dear. Thank you!” Jay says. 

Bending slightly, as not to topple over, Jay extends the handle of her watermelon pattern 

luggage, then reaches over the seat and grasps her oversize watermelon purse. 

“Let me guess. Single?” he quips, under the influence of gin, eyes rolling at the purse. 

Feeling the sting in her heart, she drops the purse, and coins scatter the aisle, and under the seats 

along with her watermelon lip balm that rolls to a rest. Grabbing the edge of the seats on either 

side of the aisle Jay lowers herself to her knees to pick it up. 

“Never mind that lady,” the suit says, stuffing a neatly folded twenty-dollar bill into the back of 

her blouse, tugging at the collar to coerce her up. 

The young woman assists and retrieves the watermelon lip balm. 

“Here you go Miss,” she says, introducing herself to Jay. 


22

“Roxanna, and happy to be home,” extending her other hand. 

“I’m Jay! Ditto, ditto, happy to be home!” she returns, reaching for the twenty and tossing it on 

the suit man’s seat. 

“Keep it, young man,” she says, “and have a great day.” 

“I’ll have a great day when I get passed your fat ass. Maybe you should stop eating watermelon,” 

he says, glancing at her luggage. 

He squeezes and pushes his way around her, then tucks in his golf ball tie. His tee shaped tie clip 

has an “M” on it. Jay smiles thinking maybe it’s an upside down “W”, or it should be. 

“Fat bitch,” he says under his breath. 

“Jay. My name is Jay,” she says sweetly, hoping love will show him the way. 

“I’m so sorry Miss Jay,” the young woman says, helping her get organized. “People can be so 

heartless.” 

“Oh, he’s not heartless Roxanna. He just doesn’t know how sweet life could be if he could just 

let go.” 

“Sweet like a watermelon miss Jay?” she asks smiling. 

“Sweet like a watermelon Roxanna.” 

Reaching in her large watermelon purse, Jay retrieves a book. 

“Thank you for being so kind. This is for you, dear.” 

Without looking Roxanna knew in Jay’s hand would be a copy of Mark Twain’s Pudd'nHead 

Wilson. 

“I know this like bible verse, dear,” Jay says enthusiastically. 

“Pudd’nHead says that watermelon, and I quote, ‘is king by the grace of God over all the fruits 

of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat.’” 

Roxanna laughs and smiles as Jay places her watermelon embossed Life Coach card in the book. 

“I hope you have a chance to read it, dear,” she says. 

Jay manifests a smile, grinning like a watermelon slice, as they leave the plane, happy that some 

good came of this negative space. 


23

Roxanna is finding it hard to hold back what she knows to be true and speaks out. 

“Jay?” Roxana asks, accompanying her down the ramp. 

“Yes, dear?” 

“Life is not always so sweet. There are trials ahead. Stay close to yourself, to your center. It will 

serve you,” Roxanna explains sadly. 

“What in heavens do you mean?” Jay retorts as they exit to the transportation area. 

Roxana concedes, she will know soon enough. With Pudd’nHead Wilson tucked under her arm, 

she leaves waving and flags in a yellow cab. 

Jay finds her car in the lot feeling satisfied she turned the tide and made good. She rests her 

heavy frame on the seat and takes her thyroid pill lest she forgets, and wonders why Roxanna 

had no luggage. 

On her way home, Jay is hit broadside by an accelerating pickup truck entering the interstate just 

before the overpass that bridges the creek where she played as a little girl. The pickup, with a 

“Jesus Saves” sticker in the window, and a pink ribbon on the bumper, speeds off. As her car 

tumbles over the embankment toward the creek, she remembers her childhood reflection in the 

water. Now her blood spills here. It flows east toward the river, along with her floating 

watermelon purse and luggage. 

Jay barely remembers the arms of an angel carrying her up the embankment. She knows he had 

to be a strong angel to lift her three hundred pounds up to the street. 

As he gave her up to the sirens of Fire and Rescue, he whispered lovingly, "El otro lado." 

The intracranial pressure left her some damage, creating some negative space. So Jay spends the 

next six months in the hospital by the river side. The dappling reflections dance on the walls by 

the crucifix. Jay does not understand why she is staring out the window for her luggage, but she 

knows she must stay close to herself. 

She repeats “watermelon”, sometimes for an hour. It helps Jay center. 

She dreams of her luggage floating down river, maybe to the sea. If she finds it, she can get her 

life back. If only she can remember what that is. The nurse, a tall, handsome man, checks on her 

during his day shift, and, with a bowl of watermelon cubes and good looks, lures her back to 

bed. Lacking identification, no one knows who she is, yet her name is well known on the floor. 

“I’m Jay,” she says. 

Disabled but stable, Jay, the watermelon lady, is released. Wearing her donated clothes with 

dignity, she stands on the sidewalk. Confused at this river that has taken her identity, with no 


24

memory of her home or office, she walks the opposite way, away from the negative space, up 

Stockton Street. 

Jay stops by the coffee shop because there is a poster in the window announcing the river side 

farmer’s market. It’s colorful, with various vegetables, and fruits, including that of the angels. 

Jay walks in, and hands the server the lieutenant’s twenty-dollar bill to buy a pastry and a decaf 

latte. 

Zack, the owner, intervenes handing her the bill back. He knows how poor folks live, just 

returning from South America, looking for the best beans. He hands her a gift card so that way 

she’s got something to eat and money to spend. 

"You manifest kindness," she says. 

"Thank you, Miss," Zack says compassionately. 

"Oh, you can call me Jay!" she says. 

The meal was perfect. The day was perfect too. Jay knows how sweet life can be if she just let’s 

go. Sometimes she does, when she naps in the alley where the old coffee grinds smell 

sweet. She dreams of her previous life, a life to come, but barely recalls these brief glances 

when she wakes. 

*** 

As the jet passes, Jay finds herself gripping Sergeant Holmquist’s twenty-dollar bill. When the 

rumble of the turbines fade Jay is released from her pain. 

“I”, she yells happily, “I am," She remembers the words from the plane. Her chest expands, "I 

am the fat bitch!" 

Passersby hoot, “You go girl!” 

Taking their good advice and encouragement, she turns around and heads back down Stockton 

toward the river. So much negative space to turn. 

Feeling less chilly as she gets closer, Jay removes her coat and puts it in her shopping cart, 

wheels rattling over each line on the sidewalk. 

Love will show me the way, she knows, because love is close to her center. Besides, there’s a 

farmers market just ahead, and they will more than likely be serving angel food. 


25

Chapter 9 

Ricardo’s Redemption 

3.0 

Under the overpass, the sound of the creek drowns in the rush hour. Carbon monoxide obscures 

the parade of morning fragrances from the woods. Ricardo “The Rock” De Los Rios is tired of 

the clouds that obscure his thoughts, and his Veronica. Penance, take pause, he thinks. It feels 

good to remember her again, letting the tears go, setting aside the shadow of guilt for taking her 

to Cerro de la Popa that cloudless day. 

“The Rock” has a purpose in the world, now that he is a hero. I have a life to live. La Virgen has 

made it so. She delivered the watermelon lady unto me to redeem my sins, lost in his stream of 

thoughts. Ricardo reaches the clearing by the embankment and looks up the grassy slope to the 

highway, arms wide. 

“You must seek to be open,” he says. “We are in the clearing. The age of awakening.” 

Just then the sun breaches the trees and he stops. It looks different, he thinks. So far away. 

Ricardo De Los Rios feels the distance from his life, his life interrupted by endless thinking and 

compulsions. It becomes clear to him at that moment that he’s been talking to himself for a long 

time. 

“Am I one of those?” he asks. 

Ricardo shakes his head to scatter the clouds that occlude his short term memory. Things come 

back more often now and he can see, see beyond the cliff, but swears La Virgen still speaks to 

him. He feels for the tube of Watermelon Lip Balm in his pocket. 

*** 

It is at precisely 9:30, a week ago, heading out of the woods, by the clearing, Ricardo hears the 

crash above in the morning traffic. Rubber on the pavement, and the explosive sound of crushing 

metal. Looking up, the massive hunk of steel is tumbling down, fast, directly at him. 

“It is our time Veronica. I am ready,” he says to the oncoming tonnage. Just seconds away from 

his salvation, the spinning vehicle strikes a concrete slab, skips over Ricardo, inches above his 

head, and tumbles into the creek. 

Luggage falls out from a swinging trunk into the shallow moving water and floats in the current. 

A large woman falls out the driver’s side door. Her dress, red with blood, mixed with a pattern of 

red watermelon slices. Her chest expands and contracts and expands again. 

Veronica, falling from the cliffs; it must have been like this, he thinks, watching the watermelon 

patterned luggage float downstream. Maybe she is downstream. 

Ricardo “The Rock” De Los Rios decides it is no longer time to repent. His life spared for his 

redemption. He breathes deep, the smell of rubber, and electric fumes, running down to the 


26

creek. The watermelon lady, amazingly pulling herself out of the vehicle, her breathing louder 

than the traffic above. 

“Estás herido?” he asks, his accent thick. “Are you hurt ma’am?” 

“I’m Jay,” she says, barely pulling herself onto the wet leafy ground by the creek. 

The Rock grabs her under her wide shoulders and pulls her to drier ground. My duffle bag, he 

thinks, cans of soup and comic books, it is my training, my muscles adapting for this very 

moment. 

“Puddin’head Wilson,” she mumbles, her head bleeding from an open wound on her forehead in 

the shape of a crescent. 

“I am The Rock,” he proclaims, “I will go up to the highway to get help,” assuring Jay, giving 

her hand a squeeze. Rock bolts up the embankment, glancing quickly at the concrete slab that 

says “not just yet Ricardo” as he passes. Reaching the highway, he waves his muscular arms in 

the air at the cars and semis, but no one pays him attention. Not the attention he is hoping for. 

“Ayuda! Emergencia! Help!” he yells, wishing his lungs were big as the watermelon lady's. 

Drivers turn their heads, and quickly back to front. 

“Get a job,” someone yells out from a passing car. 

Another throws quarters that land near his feet. 

Ricardo knows that he is one of “those people”, those that talk to themselves. People fear me, he 

thinks. Ignoring the quarters, “The Rock”, feeling worthy of this world, runs back down the 

embankment. Jay is still bleeding, and the puddle is expanding in the morning leaves. I can do 

this. It is time. 

Drawing from the power of La Virgen, breathing the air from the other side, Rock slides under 

Jay, wraps her arms tight around his neck, and slowly lifts her three hundred pounds. He finds 

she is much heavier than his duffle bag, but there is magic when one seeks to be open. 

“El otro lado” he declares. 

He makes his way up the incline, slowly, foot step, by foot step. 

“When ill luck begins, it does not come in sprinkles, but in showers,” Miss Jay quotes, her 

delirious voice shaking with every step. 

“No mierda,” he mumbles under labor. 


27

Reaching the highway Ricardo takes an involuntary breath of the exhaust-laden air. Traffic slows 

down to a crawl at the sight of him carrying a large bleeding woman. 

“Stop him!” someone yells. 

“Llama al 911,” Ricardo cries, but he knows what they think. He is a murderer. 

“The Rock” lowers Jay to the ground. He gently rests her head in the grass, relaxing his muscular 

frame. Kissing her forehead, he whispers, “You will be okay, Miss. El otro lado.” She lies silent, 

her chest moving in big expansive breaths, the blood camouflaging the remaining watermelon 

prints on her blouse. Her cheeks are pale, as white as an angel, he thinks. 

Ricardo slips down the embankment knowing she will be taken care. I have saved an angel. 

Perhaps La Virgen forgives me. 

“Hey, you! Cheech!” he hears from above. 

Ricardo laughs out loud. “Dee whole latino worl eees from Meh-hee-co,” he says, sarcasm 

dripping like the sweat from his chin. 

Ricardo swings his duffle bag over his shoulders. It is light compared to Miss Jay. He treks 

downstream into the woods to find her luggage. By now it is far downstream, out to the river. At 

his feet, he sees a small tube and picks it up. Watermelon Lip Balm. He opens the cap and smells 

it. 

“Sweet,” he says out loud, and spreads it heavy on his lips, rejoicing in his good works. 

*** 

In his moment of clarity, the memory of Miss Jay reassures Ricardo. There is a reason he 

remembers. La Virgen brings her to me to repent and redeem. He knows this is a message from 

the other side. 

Follow the signs, he thinks. The signs say go to the river. The signs being a watermelon suitcase 

and oversized watermelon purse. 


28

Chapter 10 

Blue Jay Way 

3.2 

In the pond’s glassy, morning reflection, Sharon sees the jays flying overhead. They swoop and 

turn, opposite the water’s mirror. Following their inverted reflection, she considers that possibly 

the lesion in her head is confusing her vision. By her side Skye is watching their antics too. Four 

of them glide down across the pond just skimming the surface, directly toward them. As they 

near, the four pair off on either side and make another go around. The unnatural movement 

reminds Sharon of the Blue Angels. Skye’s head turns as they roll through with each pass. 

Sharon knows that if it was his toy bird on the end of a string, he would be jumping and 

pouncing. Today he’s just as enamored as she is. In their final pass they fly to her back porch, 

and sweep to a perch on the railings, two on either side of the steps. Sky jumps off his throne and 

paws Sharon, then rolls in the leaves. Jumping up, he runs toward the house and sits on the first 

wooden step, between the pairs. Sharon surrenders to the scene of feline and fowl in this 

unnatural arrangement. 

Today, I’m open to anything, she’s is thinking. Tired of crying in the kitchen, worried about if 

she’s going to be alive a year from now, wondering if the world sees any value in her anyway. At 

the precinct, she is invisible. Sharon despises the empty, shallow “how are you?” pass in the hall. 

“Oh, just great. Life is good. Too much fun.” It’s all bullshit. They never listen to the answer, 

and now they don’t even ask because the lieutenant can’t take a joke. 

*** 

Last month, life took a sweeping turn. Six a.m. Sharon gets a text, “lunch? Sushi? xo.” Skye is 

still curled at her feet. Skye protests with several head-butts on Sharon’s hand, causing numerous 

typos in her reply. Six hours later, Sharon is at the sushi café on her off time with Kiley, her 

girlfriend, best friend, the new love of her life. They always sit on the same side of the booth. 

They both like ginger dressing, and chopstick sword fights, with a playful kiss in between each 

bout. Sharon is thinking that this might be the right time to tell Kiley about certain medical 

issues. Not just now, she decides, holding back, enjoying their precious moment. 

Through the window, they see a woman. They can’t make out her face under the red hood, but 

they see her there often. She is counting and organizing leaves under a tree. 

“I hear she’s quick on her feet. I bet quicker than you, even with a chopstick,” says Kiley. 

Sharon looks up from her plate of dragon rolls, “I offered her a meal once and she turned me 

down. She lived in the apartments across the street. Her husband was killed right there, drunk, 

fell off the curb in front of a car. Rumor has it she may have helped that along.” 

“She doesn’t look like the killing type. I’ve seen her with her hood down, honey. She’s beautiful 

you know. Better watch out,” Kiley says pursing her lips. 

Captain Yarborough is overhearing in the adjacent booth. He’s eating with a fork, swallowing his 

steak hibachi, without chewing, in noisy gulps. He pauses only to communicate a look of 


29

disapproval. When he gets to his last mouthful of rice, he apparently changes his outlook, casting 

a sexy eye their way. He’s alone thinking it’s sexy. Sharon rolls her eyes at Kiley, but has 

nothing to say. She is used to that at the precinct. Kiley, on the other hand, flips back her long 

hair and slowly uncurls her middle finger to the Captain. Sharon quickly pushes her hand down. 

Kiley is pissed. So is Captain Yarborough, walking heavy steps to the register to cash out. 

Kiley’s steps were heavy too, not happy with how Sharon handles this jerk. Sharon’s been acting 

distant lately anyway. Keeping secrets, she suspects. 

The next day, at the precinct, Captain Yarborough is watching Lieutenant Holmquist as she takes 

comments from a Roxanna, investigating the curbside demise of an abusive plane passenger with 

an “M” on his tie clip. 

“Hate spending hard earned taxpayer money on dyke cops,” he opines. 

“I’m sorry miss Roxanna,” Holmquist says, embarrassed, and blushing because everyone heard. 

“I’m thinking he’s the one that needs to apologize, lieutenant,” say Roxanna. 

Sharon maintains her “do not engage” policy with Yarborough. She says nothing to her 

misogynist superiors who would think is not man enough to take a joke. Sharon has enough to 

think about. Serious matters of life expectancy and mutating cells. Yet Yarborough is 

immediately placed on leave that afternoon, pending further investigation, and her peers fall 

silent. Sharon assumes Roxanna said reported it to the Sheriff. Sharon doesn’t discuss the issue 

with anyone, except for Kiley. Kiley wants to sue the department. When Sharon tells her she 

should let it go, Kiley gets pissed, says she’ll find somebody with no secrets, that is proud, and 

that she, for one, is not a bystander. Then Kiley’s phone calls and texts stop, and Sharon’s go 

unanswered by the only person in the world Sharon can confide in. 

*** 

Sharon is feeling empty on her pond walk, remembering when it was the three of them, Skye 

running in between their legs. Skye has a way of making Sharon feel like she is worth something 

in the world, especially when he is sitting on the end of the bed, purring by her legs. When he 

snuggles up to her chest, she feels like she’s worth more. 

Open to anything, Skye is. He sees things as they are, and Sharon is thinking more like Skye, 

king of the pond. So today is the day, to rise above, and find joy. Today will be fun because 

Sharon is on duty at the farmer’s market by the river. She finds it ironic that she is taking over 

Yarborough’s Saturday assignment. There’s definitely some joy in that. 

Sharon meets Skye at the steps. The jays still perch on the railing, unafraid at arm’s length. She 

hears her police radio crackle and call from down the hall. Sharon opens the screen door, looking 

back at the jays as she enters. They are looking back and sounding their call too. Sharon checks 

the switch, confirming that it is in the off position. Open to anything, she thinks. 

“Farmers market, two bridges is,” the radio blares, startling Sharon. 


30

“Who is this? Name please!” flipping the switch back and forth. 

“Will - is,” she hears in the static. 

31 


Chapter 11 

The Will-is Touch 

3.1 

William eyes the blue bridge, squints, thinking he may have walked back home. Shuffling his 

way up the sidewalk, he’s shaking his head, remembering the blue Florida Avenue Bridge in 

New Orleans where he found his Claira ankle deep. Blue bridges, he thinks, separating them 

carefully. 

“Working hard has its rewards,” he would say to Claira. 

William works extra hard to distinguish his anguish from the outside world, but the scars run 

deep, they surface and turn. Today, as the earth swings far from the sun, the rewards come. His 

radio belches with feedback and whine, the volume increasing as his neurons re-connect. 

William’s cap falls to the ground as his jatas twist and turn, dancing in the escalating 

frequency. Then it goes silent, and for the first time since the rage of Katrina, William stirs from 

this decade’s long sleep. 

“Is serious,” he declares from high above the river, fully aware that his mind has been windy, 

blowing this way and that. 

William looks down at the swift current. There are no barges on a busy canal, no Mississippi 

River ahead and not smelling any N’awlins King cake. 

“Claira,” the words fall out his lips. 

“Claira,” he says, talking to her, “a better father teaches his child the ways of the water”. 

He shakes out the thought. His long dreads are restless as they loosen and stretch with his waves 

of guilt. William bends his long frame, picks up his cap, stuffs it in his coat pocket, and looks at 

his feet. No longer stuck in the ankle deep. It is time to let my Claira go, he thinks. William 

stands, and from the top of the blue bridge, cars passing, people moving, William sees himself 

for the first time through the eyes of Claira. A good daughter would want her father to live a fine 

life. Claira, a good daughter is, he thinks. William lowers his head over the railing, dreads 

hanging, moving in the wind, and cries for his girl as he lets her go. His tears fall into the river, 

carried to the ocean with the ebb tide. 

“Is love,” he says, clearing his throat. 

“I love you Claira,” yelling out over the sounds of cars and current. 

As he straightens, his dreads braid themselves behind his back. 

“Claira,” he whispers. 

William’s posture aligns, and he feels taller as he reaches the other side on the north bank. 

Landing on the river walk, just under the blue bridge, his radio awakens again in loud popcorn 


32

ursts, as if picking up an important signal. His dreads tighten around his head, giving him 

pause. The swift moving current reflects the underside of the bridge in blue ripples, much like 

the current that Kristina met yesterday in the surf. 

“What’s wrong with you?” he hears, remembering Kristina on the beach, wondering if they are 

still searching for her. 

The water and wind have taken so much, he thinks. His radio riffs with static and pops. The 

sounds remind him of the wild dogs of New Orleans left after Katrina, barking for his attention 

as he walks the streets looking for Claira. William understands now that his radio wants him to 

listen, and so he does. 

*** 

His jatas release, and fall around his tall body, and William touches the future for the first time. 

Here. Under this bridge. In his touch, he sees Kristina, in the water, not now, but soon, when the 

moon is far from the sun. He takes comfort knowing she is alive. 

*** 

A passerby shouts, “Jump in, Rastaman!” snickering with his friends. 

William momentarily falls back, confused, shuffling his feet on the river walk, much like he does 

in the ankle deep surf. He fights the compulsion, hanging on to his trace of clarity that comes 

long and goes shallow like waves at low tide. William fights to understand, but concedes to the 

knowing, that Kristina is alive. William also knows he can touch beyond what is now. Work hard 

to learn the touch, and it will have its rewards, he thinks. 

Knowing he will be returning to the blue bridge William continues west, down the north bank 

river walk. His jatas are calm, and the cold doesn't feel so intense. William begins to feel the 

summer. 

“Walk. Is what I do,” he says with a bounce in his voice. 

Two days without food, William knows he needs to feed his weak body, to support his 

strengthening mind, wanting to hold on to the rewards of working hard. He asks a playful couple 

walking in the opposite direction sharing chicken on a stick. 

“Food is?” he asks, pointing to the charred and fragrant meat. 

“At the farmers market,” the man says, avoiding eye contact. 

“Give him some money,” she says, poking at his pocket. 

He pulls out some change, and a twenty, and holds out the change to William. William bows. 


33

“Grateful is,” William says. 

She yanks the twenty out of her boyfriend’s hand, steps in close to William, and slips it into his 

pocket. 

“Eat well, sir. The farmers market, it’s two bridges down. I love your dreads. Love them,” she 

says, looking up to him, stroking one. 

Her boyfriend drags her away. She whispers to him as he pulls her down the river walk, “Did 

you see that? His dreads. They move!” 

William could hear her, but it wasn't with his ears. His shuffle turns into a walk, his gate 

becomes smooth and long as he heads two bridges upriver. Happy and wide-eyed, he presses the 

talk button on his radio, and like a walking tour guide, announces the destination. 

“Farmers market, two bridges is,” loud and proud, passersby turning to hear. 

Lieutenant Sharon Holmquist finds it difficult to distinguish the chirp of the jays perched on the 

patio railing and those of her radio. Walking down the hall, it sounds like a duet. Stranger still, 

the switch is still in the off position. Skye is standing, paws hanging in the air, anxious for 

Sharon to do something. 

“Hello? Who is this? What’s your Ten-Twenty,” she asks, slow and deliberate. 

William hears an audible voice. He is not surprised, always hearing voices on his radio. The 

walking tour guide welcomes the familiar codes that further calm the winds settling in his mind. 

“Who is this? Name please!” he hears. 

The past tugs hard, but he knows this isn’t a search party announcing that Claira has been found. 

He can separate these things in his mind now, like the blue bridges. He can touch, and he knows 

that she is pleased with his progress. 

“William is,” he says louder, the signal breaking and strengthening in waves. 

“Willis?” she asks. 

“Farmers market. William is,” he says. 

“Ten-Nine. Repeat. Willis? What is your location?” Sharon asks. 

“Farmers market. Is serious, hungry serious,” he says and puts the radio back in his pocket. 

His chills seem to be going away. William unbuttons his coat all the way down and feels the 

comforting heat of this summer day. 


34

Part II 

El Otro Lado 

35 



36 


Chapter 12 

First Slice 

3.4 

“You look like an angel, walk like an angel, talk like an angel. But I got wise, you're the devil in 

disguise.” -Elvis Presley 

Masuyo the Perpetrator stands behind the winged statue in the park by the riverside. The wings 

seem to move, but she ignores the visual disturbance, finding it hard to focus. The sound of the 

river makes her dizzy. Masuyo eyes the hater brothers who stop for a smoke reminding her of 

asato’s cigar. Didn’t mean for Masato to fall off the curb, she thinks. He was always drunk. He 

stumbled like he always stumbles. Things change like he said. She is happy to be free. Free to 

take the haters of the world, and there are two in her line of sight. They are talking in each 

other’s’ ears about lifting a booth at the farmers market. 

“Easy money,” one whispers, but Masuyo hears everything. 

Masuyo makes her way to the wooded end of the park by a tree and sets her weekender on the 

ground under a bush. Her eyes immediately fix on the leaves, darting back and forth. For the first 

time, Masuyo stands back, witnessing her brain, ready to count, organize, find the pattern. I got 

change, she thinks, ignoring the compulsion. Instead, she unhooks the bungee cords and feels 

around for Masato’s Swiss golf knife but comes up with his divot tool; all while keeping an eye 

on the boys. Her focus comes and goes, but today things are looking bit sharper. She pockets the 

tool, ties one bungee back around the suitcase, and the other, she wraps around her wrist. 

Bungees are all-purpose, perfect for strapping down stuff, and to take down the life of a 

hater. The brothers head for the easy money and Masuyo executes a flawless kick-jump to her 

feet. 

*** 

The suspended Captain Yarborough thinks it might be fun to visit the farmers market on his free 

day. Years of the wife busting his chops about cleaning out the garage. She’s not there anymore 

but her voice still echoes. So instead when he backs the car out he pulls intto the street and heads 

toward the river. After all Lieutenant Lesbian will be there filling in, and it would make a great 

story to tell the guys. Besides, Saturday is me time now, because being a deacon means his entire 

Sunday is spoken for. He likes the church, and he’s fond of the lighthouse built into the façade, 

symbolizing the light of Jesus. “Still other seeds fell on fertile soil,” Jesus said, “and they 

produced a crop that was thirty, sixty and even a hundred times as much as had been 

planted! Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.” Bless the farmers of the earth, 

he thinks, but other seeds, like the lieutenant, were planted among the thorns and in shallow 

ground. He is good with Jesus though because the captain stays extra at church on Sunday 

praying about his lust. 


37

“I am now a single man oh lord. My wife did not serve me as you commanded. Now I am lost in 

the flesh, desiring the women sinners. They have desecrated their temple. I pray to thee I will not 

do the same.” His lips are move so the congregation can see. 

The Captain’s ex-wife now sits far in the back. She loves the Lord too but believes with all her 

soul that he is captain only at the precinct, not in our once blessed home. Yarborough’s prayers 

go unanswered because when he sleeps he still ruminates about the pretty Roxana girl he saw 

Holmquist questioning at the precinct. He heard from an experienced fellow at the department 

those salts and peppers know their way around. With at least one seed planted in fertile soil, 

she’s not half bad. Anyone with eyes could understand that, he thinks. 

*** 

Jay reaches the end of Stockton Street and heads down the riverside avenue in the direction of 

the farmers market under the bridge. Pedestrians step off the sidewalk onto the grass to make 

way for her large figure and shopping cart. The sun seems warmer than it has in days and she is 

feeling more joyful too. That is until a pickup truck with a Jesus sticker in the rear window 

rushes by dangerously fast. A lot of negative space in the bed of that truck, she thinks, pausing 

on the uneven sidewalk, the rattle of her shopping cart wheels falling silent. She thinks hard and 

to make the connection with her healing brain. On the opposite side of the street is a sign, “Life 

Coaching, Redesign Your Life,” with a watermelon-like logo. Many signs, she thinks, 

remembering a card she slipped into a book. The card looked like a miniature version of the sign. 

This means something, she thinks, but it wasn’t surfacing. Soon it will come she knows. Nearing 

the farmers market, she can hear the crowd. The closer she gets the warmer she becomes. The 

sun looks far and high in the sky, casting a shorter shadow. For the first time since the accident 

Jay sweats, and with it comes the memory of a sweet angel. 

“Stay close to yourself, to your center. It will serve you,” Roxanna said. 

Manifest my center, she thinks. The connections will come, the signs. It’s close she thinks, then I 

can Redesign My Life. Two pedestrians attempt to step around her. 

“I don’t believe semis belong on the sidewalk,” she overhears. Stopping her cart, blocking their 

way she looks them in the eye. 

“Elvis says don’t be cruel,” she points out to the naysayer, and steps aside. 

Ricardo “The Rock” De Los Rios reaches the clearing on the north bank, where the creek 

empties into the river. 

“El otro lado,” he says into the river breeze. 

*** 

There are no signs of Miss Jay’s watermelon luggage along the banks. Perhaps at the farmers 

market, he thinks. He heads up river following the smells of the food vendors but has no money. 


38

He nods purposefully at passersby on the riverwalk, wanting to appear and feel normal. Proud of 

his new clarity, today he will not be one of those. La Virgen, she hears me in my thoughts, he 

thinks. The Rock does not need to speak to her aloud. He is feeling warmer as he closes in on the 

market. He looks down at his shirt, tucks it in, buttons his sleeves, and unbuttons the collar. His 

cap with no logo shades his eyes on this cloudless day. His shoes are caked with dry mud from 

the creek so he squats by the grass and scrapes it off in chunks with his thick fingernails. A long 

shadow casts over his body. A shadow that moves with the wind. Before he looks, he anticipates 

that this is a visit from La Virgen, and wants to prepare his soul. Instead, he sees the twisted ends 

of long dreads almost touching the sidewalk near his shoe. He looks up at the long figure. The 

dreads move like they are touched by a spirit. He is not sure if he should rise or pray. The figure 

stares down at him and Ricardo ‘The Rock” De Los Rios looks up, prepared for his rapture. The 

man extends his hand, his long fingers inviting him to rise. 

“Farmers market. Is serious, hungry serious,” he says, smiling, holding up a twenty-dollar bill 

with the other hand. 

*** 

The boys are walking their way up the avenue. The streets are filled with people and families 

coming to the market, feeling good about buying local. The brothers have little to feel good 

about except to maybe stir up some trouble now and again. Mom said she needed space to find 

herself so they get to find themselves too. Besides, Dad is depressed and his occasional kick back 

with a blunt became a twenty-four-hour obsession, the house always smelling like weed. They 

would scrape a bit off the top of Dad’s stash. He never notices, hardly notices them. Mom had a 

stock of her favorite finger size zip-lock bags in the cupboard which were perfect for a dime. 

Selling them on the corner by the sushi café, that money buys refills for their nicotine inhalers. 

As they pass the art museum and gardens the younger brother suggests a run through to see 

what’s up. There’s a guy playing guitar out there. His fur-lined case says, “Joseph” embroidered 

on the inside lid. People throw cash in there. Easy money, they think. Dad has a guitar he strums 

when he’s wasted. Sometimes the shit he makes up sounds good but he doesn’t think so and 

refuses to play in public. Maybe someday he’ll give a crap. So for Dad the brothers spare Joseph. 

They climb the brick wall and walk chest proud through the gardens, scanning as they go. There 

are people leaning on the railing watching the river, their pockets right out there, positioned for 

the taking. 

*** 

Masuyo is scanning too, and moves in darts in the boy’s direction, leaping in one elegant move 

over the brick wall, landing silently in the grass. Before her is a tall statue cast in bronze of 

Diana of the Hunt. Masuyo admires her long slender figure, an archer poised, bow to the sky. 

Standing just to the side, she gracefully imitates the pose. 

“You have a phone? I can take your picture?” a courteous staff member offers. Her name tag 

says “Hope”. 


39

“Thou shall not be a bystander,” Masuyo says ignoring her. 

Masuyo stretches her slender frame, her right arm cocks back, pointing her imaginary bow 

skyward. 

“Diana the Huntress is pointing her arrow to the moon,” Hope explains. 

Masuyo swings down and around and aims at the brothers by the wall. 

“This,” she says, “is hope.” 

“Dianna is the Roman goddess of…” begins Hope. 

Before Hope can finish her sentence Masuyo is midway across the gardens, creating a cloud of 

pollen in her dash as she rushes passed the flower beds. 

Landing on the path by the river she finds herself in the sunlight. Feeling warm, she notices. It’s 

good to feel the summer again. We got change, she thinks. Masuyo unbuttons her red coat all the 

way down revealing a slender and athletic frame under the same yoga tights she wore the night 

of her last beating and Masato’s demise. A gust comes over the water out of the east and her coat 

flies behind her waving in the wind like a cape. 

“The shalt not be a victim,” she says at the top of her voice. 

The patrons agree and some even clap. “You go, girl,” she hears. The boys spot her and run to 

the north end of the garden, hop the brick wall and disappear in the crowd. 

*** 

Jay, she is sorting through thoughts and memories. She imagines the wires connecting because 

that’s what the law of attraction says. Manifest the connection, she thinks. The lines on the 

sidewalk thump under each wheel. Cracks emanate from the gentle grass that somehow breaks 

through the concrete. Find the sun, she thinks. Distracted by her manifesting exercise, she bumps 

a man on crutches just ahead on the sidewalk. He pivots on his crutch, swinging around, saving 

his fall. 

“Oh my, I am so, so sorry mister,” she says, startled and eyes beaming at his swimmers build and 

broad shoulders. 

The man leans, resting his weight on her shopping cart, embarrassed and avoiding eye contact. 

It’s obvious to Jay he’s holding back the waterworks. Putting her hand on his shoulder Jay 

realizes that there is a flood of negative energy, and her bump has tapped the well. 

“It’s all good,” the man says, clearing his throat. “I’m fine,” his voice, slow and slurred. His shirt 

is wet revealing a toned back. 


40

“Fine? I don’t think so mister.” 

“Michael, name is Michael,” barely lifting his head, rubbing the back of his hand across his 

cheek. 

“I’m Jay,” she says. “Jay. I’m a fat bitch,” not knowing why that slipped out. 

“Oh my Jesus,” she says, looking down at his scarred legs. “What in heaven’s name?” 

Stabilizing on his well-worn crutches, head buried in his arms to hide the remaining tears, “Yeah, 

it got caught between the tail pipe of my motorcycle and a car bumper. Crash, crush and burn. 

Long time ago.” 

“A man once said ‘stars are the scars of the universe’” she quotes, not knowing where that came 

from either. 

“Yes ma’am?”, he slurs, his pitch rising along with his head at the familiar words. 

“Been on those a while dear?” 

‘Thirty years’ ma’am.” 

“My name is Jay. I’m Jay.” 

“Yes ma’am, on them a long time. Jay ma’am?” his hands shaking, unbelieving. 

“I mean the drugs dear, not the crutches. The painkillers. On them a long time?” 

A bit of spark and smolder went crackling under the crescent shaped scar just behind Jay’s 

hairline. Jet engines, tumbling cars, and a creek. Jay holds tightly onto her cart. 

“Have we met dear?” she asks, shaking her head to assimilate the confluence of memories and 

signs. 

Only one person knows about his problem, Michael thinks. Looking up, face to face, her white 

skin and bountiful cheeks decorated with freckles, there is no doubt. 

“Coach Jay? Coach Jay?” he begs. Michaels opiate eyes are suddenly alert, his pupils shrinking 

to a pinpoint. 

Jay’s eyes fix on the sidewalk, the cracks and splinters. Michael notices the wet beads emanating 

from her pores and the scar deep above her forehead. 

“What happened to you? Are you okay?” 

He looks at the shopping cart, old blankets, coffee cups to go, clothes and old shoes. 


41

“Do you remember me Coach? Coach Jay?” he asks. She tightens her grip on the cart. 

“Jay! It’s me, Michael!” 

He tucks one crutch tight under his armpit pulling his wallet. He extracts a business card, damp 

with the sweat. She sees the card, “Redesign Your Life, Life Coaching by Jay. Manifest your 

destiny.” The card is marked with a watermelon logo. 

“Down the street, your office. Jay? You went missing. Showed up for our appointment and 

nobody knows where you went. Went back every week for a while. I still keep a journal, just like 

you told me.” 

Jay’s hand sweats around the bar of her shopping cart. Manifesting a breath her chest expands 

and releases a loud purposeful sigh. She shakes her head, staying the flood of intrusive thoughts 

and short circuits. 

“Let’s get you some water. The farmers market has cold ones.” Michael says. 

“I bet they have watermelon,” he tempts. 

Jay’s swollen feet start slowly, the cart carrying her weight, her body sweating like summer rain. 

Michael walks beside her on his crutches. Pedestrians are impatient with the unlikely pair 

blocking the sidewalk as they make their way slowly to the farmers market. Michael is sweating 

too. He’s working hard to make it through withdrawal. With each step, Jay can hear his 

hydrocodone bottle shaking like maracas in his pocket. 

“Watermelon,” she says. 

As they pass the art museum and gardens, two boys come hopping over the brick wall and run in 

the direction of the market moving swiftly by. They are followed by a fast moving woman, her 

red coat trailing in her own wind. While Jay looks distracted Michael reaches into his pocket, 

holding the crutch in his armpit. Just one more day, he thinks. One more day, cold turkey. Four 

white pills go down his dry throat. He welcomes the bitterness on his tongue anticipating relief 

and all those good feelings that come with it. As they near the entrance to the market Jay notices 

the maracas are sounding a bit lighter. 

*** 

The walking tour guide from New Orleans and the widower of Cartagena step side by side up the 

riverwalk. They both sense that this meeting has implications, and Ricardo thinks the thin black 

duke may be a blessing from La Virgen. The passersby have a sense of this too, as Willis’ dreads 

braid themselves into a magnificent bundle atop his head. The Rock, his wide shoulders spread, 

his chest rising in the heat, feeling worthy and forgiven. Their walk is a harmony, and their gate 

matches perfectly. A gust blows east across the bank. 


42

“Es sólo en viento,” declares Ricardo, comforting his new friend. 

“Is just the wind”, Willis says looking straight ahead. 

They approach the farmers market shaded under the bridge. The smell of fresh produce is 

overtaken by the hot grills and steaming pots of food vendors. The sounds of music, laughter, 

babies and a few drunks among the various artists hawking their work from colorful booths 

sprinkled throughout. In front of the bulkhead, a magician is pulling an endless stream of silk 

handkerchiefs from his throat in the river breeze. No match for the dancing dreads. 

“I am hungry, but I am looking for something,” says Ricardo. 

Willis reaches for Ricardo’s hand and holds it gently and tests the touch. 

“Is this way,” Willis says, “Watermelon is.” 

*** 

Sharon’s thinking that possibly she is being guided, being open and all. The message about the 

farmers market on her radio, and the fact she is going to be on duty there today. Sharon slips into 

her wrinkled uniform and becomes Lieutenant Holmquist. The lieutenant straightens her name 

plate, holsters the gun, and clips on her radio turning it to the on position. Not that it mattered, it 

talks to her in either position. Checking herself in the mirror, the letters of her name aren’t 

reversed. Open to anything. Skye takes the cue from the jingle of keys and determined not to let 

her leave without a treat jumps on the kitchen counter. Lieutenant Holmquist retrieves a small 

bag from the cabinet and shakes a few treats out. It reminds her that she stood here weeping the 

last night, palms down on her crying counter, the counter becoming her wailing wall of late. 

Today we rise above like the blue jays, she thinks, looking at Skye. Today the tears stay in the 

well. Walking out to her police car, the screen door slamming behind her, the lieutenant is not 

surprised to see the four blue jays perched atop the light bar. Unlocking the door, she looks up at 

them. 

“What!” she says, “I get it! I’m going!” surrendering with a laugh. 

When she starts the engine, the blue jays take to the sky and head east. The wheels crunching 

over her gravel driveway, Lieutenant Holmquist follows, to the farmers market, rising above and 

feeling open. 

*** 

Avoiding the crowds Michael and Jay hobble their way over the stone side street on by the 

farmers market, Jay’s cart is bouncing on the uneven surface. Michael is feeling a bit euphoric 

now. His breathing slower, his heart rate kicking back to a relaxing pace. Anxiety slipping away 

into the calm. He’s feeling one with everything. The river is still and lazy, in between the slack 


43

and the tides. Michael leans his crutches down on the bulkhead and imagines himself swimming 

in the eddies and confluences. Jay understands confluences. 

“In life you need either inspiration or desperation,” she says. “Tony Robbins. Love that man. 

Looks like you have a bit of both dear. You rest here hon, rest with the water, I’ll go fetch us 

some watermelon. It will make you feel better. Tony says the rind is the best part.” 

Jay manifests reconnections in her confluence of old memories, and Michael. Something about 

redesigning his life. It feels like summer, grass breaking through the concrete, the sky clearing. 

The universe unfolding, she thinks. 

“Make an appointment,” Jay says, but the meaning goes as quickly as it comes. 

Michael nods in his stupor. On top of the world with his eyelids half shut. The sound of four 

wheels clattering, soothing and comforting as it fades under the brush-like percussion of water 

striking rock. Michael drifts in and out when his leg gives out from under him. Two strong hands 

come up under his arms and hold him from behind before he falls. Ricardo has been carrying a 

lot these recent days. It suits him in this age of the awakening, he thinks. A tall figure squats in 

front Michael and looks up into his pinpoint eyes. His gentle hand touches Michaels cheek and 

things to come. Impressions, static and more impressions. 

“You, Michael, you are part of the water system,” Willis says. 

Willis turns to Ricardo and nods his head. “Is okay. Let him sleep,” he says. 

Ricardo The Rock De Los Rios lowers him down gently in the grass by the bulkhead, rest his 

head gently on his arms. Willis and Ricardo and leave him I his bliss and head into the farmers 

market. Their stride, rhythmic and perfect. 

Michael dreams of the warm sand on the beach and, in his waves of euphoria, dolphins and 

mermaids. 

*** 

Jay approaches a produce vendor. “FreshFarm, Buy Local!” it says on a chalkboard in front of 

the booth. Alanis Morissette is singing “Hand in My Pocket” on their speakers. 

I'm broke but I'm happy 

I'm high but I'm grounded 

I'm sane but I'm overwhelmed 

I'm lost but I'm hopeful baby 

What it all comes down to 

Is that everything's gonna be fine fine fine 

'cause I've got one hand in my pocket 


44

Jay thinks of Michael. Hand in his pocket, lost and hopeful. On the back table is a mountain of 

watermelon. A pile of heaven. Food of the angels. 

“Everything's just fine fine fine,” Jay sings along. “I've got one hand in my pocket,” reaching in 

her pocket for that twenty-dollar bill, wet with summer sweat. 

“Great tune,” says the young girl from behind the booth standing in a tree pose. “Local grown,” 

she says glancing at the watermelon. “Grew them with our students in the community garden. 

I’m Val, the director there. Your local purchase benefits their education.” 

Jay holds out her twenty toward an open basket of bills. 

“They look beautiful Val! Can you halve it dear? I have a friend down there. We’re going to 

have a little chat and share,” says Jay, always excited to share food and feelings. Both nourish 

the soul. 

Val drops the twenty into the basket, pulls out a crumpled ten and a five, and hands it to Jay. The 

brothers standing by the funnel cake stand watch the flow of cash. They nudge each other’s 

elbows simultaneously and laugh because they’re thinking the same thing. 

Val retrieves a red serrated watermelon knife with a green handle from under the counter and 

gracefully slides off the cover like a move from her gentle yoga class. She brings the blade down 

on the fruit and in one graceful motion, slices it down the middle. The watermelon halves 

separate, wobble and settle. The cross section facing Jay causes her to gasp for an extra breath, 

her chest expanding and holding. 

“What’s wrong ma’am? Is it rotten?” she asks. 

“Jay, my name is Jay,” she mutters in disbelief, her chest deflating. 

In the cross section of the watermelon are four perfectly arranged seeds. Three of them white, the 

other black. 

Ricardo stops short of the FreshFarm booth ahead, freezes mid step, and holds his arm out in 

front of Willis. 

*** 

“It is her,” Ricardo whispers, recognizing her large frame, the one he carried up the embankment 

to the highway with strength from the other side. 

Willis places his hand on Ricardo’s firm shoulders, nods, and reflects back, “Is her,” his lips 

unmoving. 

*** 


45

Masuyo hides behind Jennie’s Family Jams and Jellies spotting the hater boys sharing a funnel 

cake. They are discussing the booth, calling it “easy pickings”. The one with the bucket of cash 

and the yoga girl. 

“Looks fresh to me,” one laughs. “We just need to get around the fat one,” he suggests as they 

scope their surroundings preparing to move in. 

Masuyo tightens the bungee cord around her left wrist, then slips her right hand into her red coat 

retrieving Masato's divot tool. The two sharp forks shine, just like he left them. She remembers 

how he would pierce, then carefully slide the blades into the turf. 

“Not a bystander,” she whispers, eyes fixed on the perpetrators. 


46

Chapter 13 

Next Slice 

3.2 

“He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food” - Raymond Chandler 

Captain Yarborough is drooling for a bacon blue cheeseburger at the Burger Blues booth. Tired 

of the sushi shit down the road. Way too gay for a cop, even a suspended one. The burgers here 

are grass-fed, but whatever. Plain Jane for me. He sees the lieutenant’s vehicle pulling onto the 

stone access road beside the market under the bridge. Nothing plain about this Jane. His buds say 

a lot of vagetarians hang out here. His civvies are already soaked with sweat, especially around 

his thick neck. He unbuttons his shirt halfway down. This should be fun, he thinks, as four blue 

jays do him a flyby. 

Holmquist exits her car, her eyes immediately scanning the crowd for the mysterious caller. “Is 

serious,” she recalls and switches her radio to the off position. There is a bounce in her stride. 

She catches herself walking on her toes under her black hard shoes. Rising above, being her 

Saturday resolution. She spots a woman across the next row of food vendors flipping her dirty 

blond hair to one side. Just like Kiley. Sharon’s heart stings and she takes a first step in her 

direction. Tears will stay in the well today, she reminds herself reversing her step. But water 

gathers in puddles in her eyelids anyway. In the refraction, Sharon sees her blue jay friends 

flying low under the bridge, follows their path, and she disappears into the crowd. That’s what 

Skye would do. 

Yarborough spots a woman crouching behind Jennie’s Family Jams and Jellies. She’s wearing a 

red coat, hands in her pockets, in the heat of summer. One of them homeless criminal types 

looking for a freebie, he thinks, wondering if God has punished her for whoring. She shifts 

position and retrieves a shiny object from her pocket. Suspicious he thinks, as his adrenaline 

starts an upward climb. May have to be the off-duty hero, he thinks, imagining the lieutenant is 

distracted elsewhere scoping the market for butch nature girls. 

*** 

The brothers come out from behind the funnel cake vendor over-acting a “walk and talk” 

heading toward the FreshFarm booth. They stop short at an artist hawking mosaics he made from 

colored guitar picks. 

“Pick one,” he says. 

They roll their eyes at his loser pun. But they do like the mosaic of the Dark Side of the Moon 

album cover. They wipe the powdered sugar off their hands, leaving white streaks on their shorts 

and fondle the mosaic by the frame made of braided guitar strings. 

“Way cool. Dad loves the Floyd,” the older brother suggests, mimicking a toke from a joint 

while the other beatboxes cash register sounds mimicking the Money song. 


47

“Money, it's a gas, grab that cash with both hands and make a – make a dash,” sings the older 

finishing with a big grin, displaying teeth plastered with cake. 

Walking ahead they discuss buying the art for Dad after they “acquire” a few bucks. They stop 

just a few yards away from FarmFresh, licking the remaining sweetness off their fingers one by 

one. Good lickin’s easy pickin’s, pointing with sticky hands at the bucket of bills. The younger 

one blows his cheeks up, pops his belly out, and hold his arms out like a barrel. 

“We could so do this behind the chunky one. No one will ever see.” 

*** 

Masuyo steps across the front of Jennie’s Family Jams and Jellies knocking a jar off the table 

with the tail of her red coat. Invisibly fast, her palm is below the falling jam before it can hit the 

ground while her eyes simultaneously follow the boys. Without looking, she places the jar back 

on the table from behind her back, while concealing her shiny weapon against her chest. Jennie 

turns to her mom assisting her in the booth. “You see that?” she says, stashing that particular jar 

under the booth, hoping she can levitate it herself later. 

Yarborough’s adrenalin kicks up another notch watching little red riding hood. He’ll be back in 

the precinct in no time. The Lord has opened the door. “Make the most of every opportunity in 

these evil days, Ephesians 5:16,” he whispers, breathing faster. He imagines his ex-wife, rising 

from the back pew, taking her place beside him once again. "Wives, submit yourselves to your 

own husbands as you do to the Lord," embracing his favorite book of the bible. The off-duty 

captain tightens his belt. 

Masuyo, eyes on the brothers, begins her approach, gradually picking up speed as she closes in, 

her red coat flying behind. I got change, she thinks, I got big change. Her pinpoint focus 

beaming on the hater brotehrs that think they can fuck with her, like her trophy husband. 

The brothers step in close to the booth, and the beatbox stops. The younger one, with both hands, 

rubs his index fingers and thumbs together. The older one slaps him on the back of the head and 

nods his head toward the bucket, their eyes steadying on the cash. 

Jay, eyes are on the watermelon. She reminds herself she must pay attention to signs, like the 

dark seed, and that while evil often manifests itself in the world, good still overcomes. 

“It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil,” Jay preaches to Val without looking up. “That’s 

Henry David Thoreau,” she says, waving her hand, signaling that she won’t be eating that 

particular slice. 

*** 

Ricardo’s eyes are fixed on Jay. Her back drenched with sweat, her large frame obscures most of 

the FreshFarm booth. “El otro lado,” he whispers. From the outside of his trousers, he feels for 


48

the watermelon lip balm still in his pocket hoping she will remember him as he approaches her 

from behind. Willis’s grip grows tight on his shoulder, stopping his progress. 

Willis’s eyes close, as he lifts his radio, “Is serious”, he says. 

Lieutenant Holmquist’s radio belches loud and clear, “Is serious,” as the four blue jays perch 

themselves atop the FreshFarm booth. Today is the day to be open. To listen, to birds and broke 

radios. 

Masuyo approaches the boys raising her two-pronged divot tool in her stride as they close in on 

the bucket of cash next to Jay. Yarborough sees Holmquist nearing the booth, but figures he can 

get there first, embracing the opportunity the lord has given him. Overcoming the weight of his 

beef and beer belly he makes a run for Masuyo, love handles bouncing over his tight belt. 

Lieutenant Holmquist spots him Yarborough running toward the FreshFarm booth and 

recognizes Masuyo from her visits to the sushi cafe. Yarborough here on suspension can only 

mean trouble. The blue jays sounding their alarm perched atop the booth, Holmquist gets the 

message, wipes the remaining tears and makes a dash toward Yarborough and Masuyo. 

The boys turn from the cash bounty in the commotion and see the blur of Masuyo’s red coat. 

Yarborough closes in on Masuyo before she strikes and wraps his bulky arms around her 

shoulders to take her down. 

Masuyo rolls her eyes and slips down and out. She executes a swift turn and swings her leg 

behind his knees. His head smacks the cement and in an instant, Masuyo is straddling his belly, 

the divot tool at his throat. She presses in with Masato-like precision, slicing out two puddles of 

blood under each fork. In seconds, Lieutenant Sharon Holmquist grabs Masuyo by the hair and 

swirls her around, inadvertently landing her in the arms of one Ricardo the Rock De Los Rios, 

who holds her off the ground, legs kicking the air. Willis gently removes the weapon from 

Masuyo’s hands. 

Jay, startled, raises her arms palms up. “So much negative energy,” she says under her breath, 

shrugging her shoulders, with a long surrendering sigh. Val in a panic drops the red watermelon 

knife in Jay’s palm and calls 911. Behind her the brothers make off with a bucket of cash 

resuming their Pink Floyd, Money beatbox duet. 

Yarbrough, scared and out of breath is flat on the ground, eyes wide, and fingers around his 

bloody/ throat. Sharon descends, one knee to the ground next to Yarborough examining his 

superficial wounds. Satisfied that he is not critical she pokes her finger in his forehead. 

“Your tax dollars at work, asshole,” she says. 


49

Chapter 14 

Quartet 

1.1 

Masuyo’s rebellious kicks fade to an occasional twitch, her eyes closing in the arms of Ricardo. 

Her facial scars appear and disappear in slow waves. 

“Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a bystander,” Masuyo trails. 

Ricardo lifts her legs and cradles her. Masuyo’s heart warms, unaccustomed to this place. 

Comfortable and safe. She knows this man’s arms will not be swinging at her head. Masuyo 

curls into fetal position, Ricardo’s bulky biceps firm against her back. Wrapping her small, 

gentle hand around Ricardo’s neck, tears trace narrow trails on her cheeks while she dreams of 

cliffs and a church she has never seen. 

“Got change,” she affirms in a whisper. 

Ricardo adjusts his arms and tilts his head against her warm hand. Warm, just like dear Veronica. 

Maybe I am not such a rock, he thinks. 

Jay’s eyes are fixed on the familiar man with the logo-less blue cap holding a woman in his 

arms. Manifesting our destiny, she thinks, replaying how he carried her up the embankment with 

supernatural strength. A day of ill luck that did not come in sprinkles. “You will be okay, Miss,” 

remembering Ricardo’s gentle kiss on her forehead. Curious how the universe balances itself, 

she thinks, to see her angel at last. Miracles occurring this very day. Ricardo acknowledges her 

stare with an affectionate and affirming nod. 

Yarborough gurgles attempting to respond to Lieutenant Holmquist. Small drops of blood trickle 

around his fingers and seep into his collar, his brows curling down around his eyes. Wheezing as 

he inhales, he tries again, his tongue reaching his front teeth for a word. Sounding like a kid 

blowing bubbles through a straw, he dramatically surrenders, and relaxes his body on the hot 

cement. His hands fall from around his throat revealing two small bloody marks on his neck. The 

back of his hand thuds on the ground and Yarborough slowly uncurls his middle finger at the 

lieutenant. Just like Kiley at the sushi cafe. Lieutenant Holmquist presses her finger harder into 

his forehead and glares at him deeply. 

“Captain!” she scolds. 

His middle finger relaxes while his thumb goes up. In a long scratchy “thank”, and a barely 

perceptible and well dramatized “you”, Yarborough manages to offer his first ever kind 

sentiment to one of these seeds planted among the thorns. 

Willis’s shadow extends over the two as he offers his free hand to the lieutenant. 

“Serious tin,” he says, nodding at her badge with a half-smile. 

“Willis?” she asks, still one knee on the ground reaching for his hand. 


50

Their radios light up in a burst of feedback as their fingers touch. Eyes locked and curious Willis 

wraps her wrist with his long hands, and lifts her to her feet. The move scored in stereo by the 

oscillating frequencies of four blue jays mimicking from their perch atop the booth. 

“Willis,” he affirms, giving in to his new name. 

Willis tightens his grip around Sharon’s wrist, their eyes meeting just inches away. Trusting his 

touch, he knows that she is open to anything, that today she is rising above. There is a serious 

undercurrent he notices, just beyond, ankle deep, a lesion buried inside. Willis lets her wrist go 

as she steadies and the radios settle into silence. 

“Lieutenant Holmquist,” she replies. “Sharon,” she sighs, with an exhale he could feel on his 

face. 

“I took the walk, Willis. The walk to the pond. That was you, right?” 

“Is me. Yes,” he says, “Is good to take the walk.”. He nods toward Yarborough on the ground. 

Sharon laughs, “Bad actor. The captain’s wounds are minor.” 

The lieutenant points to the divot tool in Willis’ hand. 

“Is that the weapon?” 

Willis raises a pausing finger and turns to consult with Ricardo. Masuyo is half asleep in 

Ricardo’s arms adjusting her position against his chest, the tails of her red coat swept by a river 

breeze. 

“Es sólo en viento”, Ricardo says, comforting her. 

Willis touches the bottom of her dangling bare foot. Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. “Stack – the – 

fucking – dishes,” and flinches in the echo of a disabling blow to the head. Masuyo connects to 

the walking tour guide that can walk through another’s hardened heart. Willis feels this touch is 

serious powerful. The circuit closing from Ricardo through Masuyo to himself. Without words, 

Willis and Ricardo agree that Masuyo is one of them. Jay follows and bridges the divine 

connection, resting her hand on Ricardo’s shoulder. 

“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it,” says Jay. 

“Mark Twain,” she points out, shaking the watermelon knife at Yarborough with her other hand. 

“Is best,” Willis whispers to Lieutenant Holmquist, hiding Masuyo’s divot tool in his coat 

pocket, and out of Yarborough’s line of sight. 

“On your feet Mr. Officer Man,” Jay commands looking down at Yarborough. “I’ve been to 

drama class fella. Now hop to it and embrace this moment.” 


51

Jay extends her free hand, and Yarborough raises one eyebrow. 

“Get over it, I’m a big girl. Bigger than most. The universe always finds balance.” 

The captain takes Jay’s hand as she counterweights him to his feet. Yarborough shakes the few 

drops of blood off his hands and clears his throat. 

“You know Mr. Hero, ‘it is not good to eat much honey, nor is it glorious to seek one's own 

glory.’ Proverbs 25:27,” she instructs. 

“Yes, ma’am,” he grunts. 

“Jay, my name is Jay.” 

“Yes, Jay. Apologies ma’am. I read the word. ‘Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous 

things out of your law’, Psalms 119”, he brags in his bogus scratchy voice. 

“Everybody r-e-a-d-s the word Mr. Know-it-all, but your eyes are not open big man. Now behold 

this wondrous thing,” slicing off a wedge of watermelon on the booth she hands it to 

Yarborough. 

“Food of the angels,” she explains. 

*** 

The sound of tires crunching gravel overtakes the buzz of the farmers market as a police cruiser 

speeds in and stops with a skid. The sound echoes off the underside of the bridge momentarily 

silencing the crowd. Two armed officers, a young rookie patrolman, and an older detective, exit 

the vehicle, doors swinging, and run toward the group. Their overreaction is obvious to 

onlookers. They holster their weapons and take it down a notch, Lieutenant Holmquist signaling 

“calm” with her hands. 

Val at the FreshFarm booth motions the cute patrolman over her way, hands waving her phone in 

the air. 

“I’ve got pictures,” Val exclaims bouncing on the soles of her feet. 

The tall rookie stops to flip through her phone photos of the altercation. He glances back up 

twice because he thinks Val is so fine. 

The detective approaches Holmquist and Yarborough looking them up and down with a sardonic 

grin. He shakes his head at the captain. Captain Yarborough, with blood on his neck, watermelon 

juice dripping from his mouth, and he’s chomping clear down to the white in the rind. 


52

“So either of you officers ID the big bag lady and the other food stamp junkies?” one hand on his 

hip the other waving his palm across the scene. 

“The captain is off-duty sir,” Sharon explains eyes wide. 

“What you mean to say, lieutenant, is that Captain – Yarborough - is - suspended,” declares the 

detective, purposefully stern. “And what I want to know is precisely why the captain is here, why 

he is bleeding and why he is jaw smacking watermelon to an annoying level,” he says, eyes 

darting between Yarborough and Holmquist. The captain, mouth too full, raises his hand to 

answer, but the detective puts an index finger to his lip. 

“Detective, apparently the captain enjoys the farmers market,” says Sharon, eyebrows raised, 

making excuses for him. 

“Don’t bullshit me Holmquist. He hates fruit, and apparently your kind.” 

“A fruit? My kind?” Sharon reflects rolling her eyes. “Jesus.” 

“Frankly, I’m surprised to see yiz two talking. But not all of us are siding with this old boy 

Holmquist. They’re just afraid to speak. There're all kinds of fruit at the market lieutenant. I 

don’t give a hoot or holler which one tickles your happy place.” 

“It is the Holy Spirit's job to convict, God's job to judge and our job to love. Billy Graham,” Jay 

affirms, raising the watermelon knife in the air like a pointer. 

“Ma’am. Put - the - knife - on - the - ground,” the detective commands, word by word. 

“Jay. Her name is Jay,” blurts Yarborough still chewing. 

“I knew there was a nice church going young man in there somewhere Mr. Captain!” she 

declares. 

Jay lowers her large frame, gently setting the knife down. Her eyes low to the ground, she sees 

the miracle of miracles beneath the table drape of the booth. Sitting next to various crates of fruit 

is her watermelon patterned suitcase stained by river tannins and silt caked in its works. The 

universe manifests. It is a sign. A previous life returns in a makeshift lifeboat, waiting under the 

latch. It is the law of attraction she is sure. 

“Gravity got ya lady?” the detective quips sternly as Jay hesitates. 

Jay rolls her eyes and in one impossible inhale lifts herself erect. 

“That’s mine,” yells Val pointing to the watermelon knife, nudging her new blue uniformed 

friend. 

“And under there honey, that’s mine,” says Jay, pointing to the suitcase, still catching her breath. 


53

The young patrolman turns and smiles at the opportunity to respond to fine Farm Fresh lady. 

“It’s evidence Val ma’am, but I’ll be happy to return it later if we decide not to use it,” he says, 

hesitating to rest a reassuring hand on her shoulder under the watchful eye of the detective. 

Holmquist picks up the knife, drops the knife in an evidence bag and slides the watermelon 

suitcase out from under the table setting it aside. Holmquist extends Jay a comforting glance 

tapping the suitcase with the toe of her shoe. Jay audibly touches her hand on her heart, then 

presses her palms together, bowing her head to Holmquist. She turns to Ricardo and repeats. Fill 

this negative space, she thinks, by manifesting positivity. She turns to Willis but he is distracted, 

his dreads revealing a restless heart. 

Willis presses his fingers into his temples to hear the weak signal from her former patient. 

Walking tour guides are always aware of their surroundings. Michael feels the grass under his 

back through his sweat soaked shirt. The sun, a couple degrees higher in the sky, fills the back of 

his eyelids with an orange glow., Michael hears some commotion, but he’s feeling good right 

now. His blood delivering an opiate rapture to every cell in his brain. There is no pain, at least 

for now. He rolls over on his stomach, the rattling bottle of pills pressing painlessly deep into his 

thigh. This is the last time, he’s thinking. He’ll be redesigning his life just like Coach Jay said. In 

the confluence of consciousness and bliss, he hears “Last time Michael. Serious. Take the walk 

soon. Is time.” Michael drifts back off to sleep wondering if the audible words are just the drugs 

talking. 

Willis’ focus is disturbed when the detective, a finger on either side of his mouth, whistles an 

excruciating note. Even the blue jays momentarily ruffle their wings. 

“Driver’s license or identification. All of yiz!” the detective commands. 

Val is thinking maybe the young patrolman might want her ID too. Shading the phone in the 

bright light with his palm, the patrolman likes that their hands are close, even touching 

sometimes. The Alanis Morissette loop repeats. 

What it all comes down to 

Is that everything's gonna be fine fine fine 

'cause I've got one hand in my pocket 

Lip synching the words, Val dips her free hand into her pocket timing the motion with the lyric, 

and pulls out a deck of business cards bound with a hair tie. She swings out a hip and a sexy 

smile. The enamored patrolman, eyes fixed on the body move and her exposed midriff is 

thinking maybe later things will be very fine. Val palms him the card when the detective raises 

his voice. 

“Officer!” throwing him a sarcastic bewildered look, turning his palms up. 

‘Identification!” the detective yells, holding up his two fingers threatening to whistle again. 


54

*** 

Identification, Willis thinks. Katrina took that in the flood waters, washed my Claira away. He 

has nothing to say to the detective about identity. Willis is grateful for Val, her flirtatious 

distractions, and checks for the bloody divot tool in his pocket. Is serious. His jatas wave restless 

as he tries to touch what’s next. 

Jay looks around at her friends, her chest rising and falling in waves at the edge of knowing who 

she is. She glances in the direction of her faded watermelon patterned suitcase. She recalls a 

foggy image of a business card Michael showed her. Michael knows me, she’s thinking, but he’s 

asleep by the river with a bottle of bliss on his person. Willis, shakes has his head at Jay with a 

serious look. In good time, he signals. This revelation will have to wait. Destiny has brought us 

together, she thinks. It is coming, a manifest of miracles. 

Ricardo considers his papers stashed in an Archie comic book in his duffle bag in the woods. 

Papers best kept hidden for now. Deportation back to Cartagena, the city that took his Veronica 

and the policia that think he did it? Better to be here on the other side, he thinks. One of “those 

people”, those that talk to themselves. Muttering “el otro lado”, he shrugs his shoulders toward 

the detective, disturbing Masuyo in his arms, her legs hanging by the knees at his elbow. 

“Let’s search yiz then,” the detective shouts. “Holmquist! Looks like lover boy over there is busy 

interviewing a witness. I’ll take the jumping bean and sleeping beauty. You take the other two.” 

Ricardo thinks that maybe the officer could, at least, be original. Holmquist eye rolls the 

detective mouthing the words “jump-ing-bean?” 

“Wha?” he belches with a smile, but he knows precisely whah, as he approaches Ricardo and 

Masuyo. 

“I am here to protect you,” Ricardo The Rock De Los Rios whispers deep, his lips touching 

Masuyo’s ear, still quiet in his arms. He looks up at the cross section of beams, contemplating his 

destiny under bridges where his paths cross too. The bridges of Cartagena and the overpass 

where the watermelon lady came tumbling down into his life. A life of missing parts, like Jay, he 

considers. The tall dark man that crosses the bridge to his soul stands close. There is meaning to 

all this here on the other side, he thinks. 

Ricardo places Masuyo lightly on her feet and grazes her cheek softly with the back of his dark 

hands. The face of La Virgen. His compassionate touch quells Masuyo’s inclination to escape, 

her legs tensing then relaxing. “Thou shalt not be a perpetrator”, she thinks, still finding 

satisfaction in pressing rewind on the image of Masato falling off the curb and the thud of the 

vehicle that killed him. 

The detective stands with his arms crossed, staring down the lieutenant, then Ricardo and 

Masuyo, scanning back and forth. 


55

“Are you two ready for the pat down, or would yiz like some watermelon before we begin? I 

mean it’s a beautiful day, even for criminals,” he says, his lips curling to match the sarcasm. 

“Let’s get on with it Holmquist!” he shouts. 

*** 

Holmquist heads quickly to Willis. She hunts for a smile in his expressionless face as his dreads 

move in subtle waves, then pats him down beginning with his shoulders. Their thoughts conjoin 

and surface with each pat. Today she sees things as they are, like Skye, King of the Pond, open 

to anything. There is no static here, reading things loud and clear. Lieutenant Sharon Holmquist 

turns to make sure the detective isn’t looking, but he hasn’t taken his eyes off the scene, 

supervising every move, including that of the preoccupied patrolman. If he would just look the 

other way, she supposes, when her feathered deputies begin chirping like a street-corner quartet. 

The detective turns toward the blue jay’s commotion, and Sharon quickly reaches into Willis’ 

pocket, extracts the divot tool and slips it under her shirt. Then, without pause, she reaches into 

his other pocket for the walkie-talkie, the speaker crackling until she is clear of him. 

“You’ll be needing this later I imagine,” she whispers up at Willis, smiling. 

Sharon clips the corroded radio to her belt and acts out the rest of the search while Willis stays 

alert to the minutes to come, jatas restless. 

“You’re next. Miss Jay,” Sharon says sweetly, being careful not to say “ma’am.” 

“Lots of padding to cover hon. Take it slow though dear, the patrolman needs more time to 

manifest his courage to ask the young lady out,” Jay quips winking at the tall amorous rookie. By 

this time, it is obvious to all present that the motions of flipping through evidential photos on 

Val’s phone is together time. Val turns a coy chin as it meets her shoulder. 

The detective sends a flippant glance at Jay and then the patrolman as he commands Masuyo to 

raise her arms. 

“Hands up Yoko!” he shouts. 

“Be gentle with her, she is healing,” Ricardo warns. 

“Healing from what Doctoro Meh – hee - co?” the detective asks in a poorly executed accent. 

Ricardo has some words to throw back at the detective that thinks he is so hilarious but decides 

to take a breath. That’s what Jay would do. Let’s not put more negative energy into the universe. 

The detective pats down Masuyo’s petite frame. Discomforted and manhandled, her scars 

reappear like soft shadows. 

“She’s clean,” he calls to Holmquist, opening a blood collection kit. 


56

“I’ll need to take a specimen,” he declares, looking down at her red-stained hands. 

Dotting the blood off her fingers, he looks back up at her face discerning the scars. The not so 

funny detective doesn’t recall seeing marks on Masuyo’s face. Shaking his head, he’s thinking 

maybe his investigative skills need sharpening, or he could be working fewer hours. 

“You’re next doc-tor-o,” he says under his breath, carefully sealing the fresh sample. 

Masuyo repositions herself directly in front of Ricardo so fast it startles the detective. He 

instinctively reaches toward his baton, but stops bewildered and confused when he sees 

Masuyo’s scars have disappeared. 

“What’s happening here? Yiz see that? Is this a farmers market magic act?” the detective asks, 

raising his voice trying to make sense of things that don’t make sense to investigators of his 

tenure. 

Ricardo rests his hands on Masuyo’s shoulders and nudges her to the side. “Gracias dear lady, 

it’s okay, there is no danger here.” Masuyo bows her head and relaxes her expression. 

“It is the heat detective,” says Ricardo in his best Mexican doctor’s voice, holding his arms up 

for the search. 

Patting Ricardo down, dust blooms off his dusty pants. The detective feels a small tube in 

Ricardo’s pocket. 

“What’s this? Coke? Meth? You with the cartel? Take it out! Slow!” the detective commands. 

The detective stands back, hand resting on his baton. Ricardo reaches into his pocket and reveals 

a tube of watermelon lip balm, glancing guiltily at Jay who immediately blows a kiss his way. 

“It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected, Mark Twain,” 

she says forgivingly. 

“Yiz know each other?” the detective asks as Ricardo attempts to hand him the lip balm. 

“No thank you doc-tor-o. You keep that.” Ricardo looks straight at the detective and uncaps the 

tube near his mouth, twists the bottom and spreads the balm. 

“The lady and I have met,” he says, smacking his lips. 

Lieutenant Sharon Holmquist could care less about searching the watermelon knife-wielding 

woman who is everything sweet could be. 

“Are you good?” Holmquist asks Jay as she pretends to search her, going through the motions. 

“Dear, everything I have is tucked in my soul and in that suitcase,” Jay explains. 


57

Holmquist runs her fingers through Jays hair, primping with both hands adjusting the way it 

falls. Noticing the thin scar just below Jay’s hairline, she reaches up and lands a gentle kiss on 

her sweaty forehead. Yarborough clears his throat a couple times, louder with each primp. 

“Find anything, lieutenant?” the detective asks, rolling his eyes. 

“She’s fine,” Lieutenant Holmquist answers. 

“Jay is not a bystander,” Masuyo whispers. 

“Then let’s get some names starting with you, dreadlocks,” pointing with a dismissive arm and 

lazy finger at Willis. 

The quartet pass reassuring glances like dominoes. Willis to Ricardo, Ricardo to Masuyo, 

Masuyo to Jay. 

The detective pulls his pad and pen out of his shirt pocket, licks his finger and flips to a blank 

sheet a dozen well-worn pages in. 

*** 

“Let’s have it,” he blurts impatiently, not looking up from the pad. 

Willis exerts some effort to still his dreads so not to call more attention to whatever is happening 

to him and his new friends. 

“Now!” the officer yells, tapping his gun strap with the pencil looking straight at Willis. Willis 

checks again with his new friends, and they all agree with their eyes. 

“I’m,” Willis stutters deepening his voice. “I am Rasta-man,” he says, drawing a circle around 

his ear, like the lifeguard did not long ago. “Serious.” 

“I am doc-toro,” Ricardo says, accent purposefully thick, “from Me-hee- co,” with a grin 

creasing the side of his mouth still shiny from the watermelon lip balm. 

“I stack the fucking dishes,” blurts Masuyo, standing like Diana the Huntress, swinging her capelike 

red coat behind her. 

Jay’s inhales deep, the sound of rushing air commanding attention as her chest expands. 

“I’m the fat bitch,” she sings with a big smile, like a crescent of watermelon across her entire 

face. 


58


59 


Chapter 15 

PREVIEW 

Dark Side of the Moon 

1.1 

Jay, smiles ear to ear, and locks pinkies with Ricardo. Ricardo, chin up, shoulders back, reaches 

for Masuyo’s hand. Masuyo squeezes back gently while her hair flies in a sudden river gust, and 

with her other hand, links fingers with Willis, tall and serious. Four blue jays fly in place above 

their heads drafting the wind, and the police radios scream. 

“Bendiciones en el viento,” prays Ricardo as Lieutenant Sharon Holmquist collapses to the 

ground. 

*** 

The brothers are strutting their stuff home with a bounce in their gate. The guitar pick mosaic for 

Dad tucked under the older brother’s arm. The younger brother with the stash of cash from Val’s’ 

FreshFarm bucket stuffed in his pockets. 

“The leaf stacker was awesome eh? She got moves!” they laugh. 

“The lunatic is on the grass,” they sing anticipating they will be on the grass as soon as they can 

roll one. 

The laughter trickles when Dad’s pickup isn’t in sight when they turn the street corner. The black 

macadam driveway burns through their sneakers. Together they jerk the single car garage door 

with an extra tug because it always gets stuck. 

The afternoon sun floods the inside illuminating swirling dust particles accelerated by the gust 

from the opening door. The sound of rust against rust sends chills up both their spines. They 

grimace at each other and shake it off. The smell of aged oil and greasy rags fill the room. The 

pile of boxes labeled “Mom” have been moved to the far wall. The junk and yard tools are stacked 

to the side and Dad’s truck with the Jesus sticker in the window and a pink ribbon on the bumper 

sits with the tailgate down. On it are two marine radios and a nautical map. 

To be continued. 


60

All the Angels Come

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