Pestilence

6

Howie Burke finished shooting hoops at the park by his house, then lay on his back in the grass after chugging half a Gatorade. At forty-three, he thought he should feel younger than he did. He sat up and watched a few minutes of the other game going on, a five-on-five, and then made his way over to his jeep and headed back home.

The 405 was packed, and he occasionally thought it was quicker to drive to Las Vegas than to get around within LA. And it seemed even more crowded than a few years ago, as though a large migration into Los Angeles had happened. He wondered why anybody in their right mind would move there.

As a kid, he remembered clean parks and plenty of role models. An old man who’d lived in his apartment complex had been in the 101st Airborne, the division that had guarded the first black students to integrate into white schools. He remembered the man telling him stories of what people put those poor kids through. They hung black dolls with their genitals cut out from trees and threw bottles at their heads. The teachers wouldn’t teach and forced them to sit in the back, away from the other students.

Howie also remembered a woman who had slept with Jack Kennedy, or so she’d claimed. She went into detail about it, and for a twelve-year-old, that moment was pretty gross but fascinating. In that little apartment complex, which was really his entire universe, he found all the villains and heroes he needed, and the outside world didn’t seem to matter much. He had his friends, his family, and his neighbors. And every lesson of life he needed was learned there.

But the city had changed. The sense of community was done. He felt as if he could have lived in any apartment complex in Los Angeles, and no one would even have said two words to him if he didn’t initiate the conversation. People were growing more distant from each other, and he wasn’t sure why.

The drive to his house in Malibu took almost two and a half hours. His home was right on the beach. He parked in the driveway, unlocked the door, and turned off the alarm. The maids hadn’t come yet that week, and a couple of beer bottles stood on the coffee table, and a few dishes sat in the sink, but other than that, no one seemed to live there.

The apartments he’d lived in growing up were always cluttered and messy, but he’d preferred a more sanitary environment ever since going out on his own at seventeen. His father, a raging alcoholic, hadn’t noticed he was gone for months, and when he did finally raise himself out of his drunken haze enough to track Howie down, the only thing he did was ask for money. Howie gave him every cent he had on him and hadn’t seen him since.

As he showered, he thought about where his dad might be. His mother had run off when he was a teenager. His father always told him she went to live on a ranch with her sister, but he’d later learned that was a lie. She was a secretary and had struck up a romance with someone at work. They fell in love, and she abandoned her son and husband for the beaches of Florida. When Howie’s mother left, his father turned to the bottle. It began with beers at every meal and then turned to hard liquor and eventually to a Bloody Mary every morning for breakfast.

Howie didn’t remember how old he’d been when he uttered those words that every child does-I won’t be my parents. He was rich, sober, and full of confidence. Everything his father hadn’t been. He dated beautiful women… but his relationship with his only daughter was no better than his relationship with his own father. Despite all his effort and all the different roads he’d taken, in a lot of ways, he had become his father. And a part of him hated himself for it.

Howie changed into a polo shirt and Dockers shorts, then put on Italian leather shoes and no socks. He went to his dresser and chose his watch, opting for the silver Rolex his ex-wife had bought him for his thirtieth birthday.

His ex-wife. Howie remembered that it was Friday and his one weekend a month to take his daughter, Jessica. He hadn’t seen her for two months. Her mother and her mother’s new husband, David, flew her around the world, took her on cruises, and kept her busy with private schools, cheerleading, and whatever else Jessica was into. David had two boys of his own, and they, from what Howie could tell, were as happy as could be.

He checked his cell phone and saw a text from his ex. Where the hell are you????

Replying that he would be right there, he headed to the fridge and got a bottle of cold water before dialing the girl he was supposed to see that night. He’d been dating Brandi off and on for over three months, which was a personal record since the divorce. It went to voice mail.

“Hey, Brandi. Um, listen, can’t make it tonight. I’ve got my kid. I mean, my neighbor, Sandy, might be able to watch her, so I’ll see if I can dump her off, but if Sandy’s got plans, I’m kinda stuck. If you want to come over here and watch a movie or something, that’s fine.”

He hung up and headed out the door.

It was a forty-minute drive to Bel Air, and that was pushing it. Howie didn’t want to rush, but the traffic was actually light compared to how it had been on his way home. Maybe it was just because it was three in the afternoon on a Friday. He called in to his company, an advertising firm, and asked his secretary to clear his schedule for Monday and Tuesday. He was going to take Brandi to Mexico as soon as he dropped Jessica back off at her mother’s on Sunday.

His phone rang, and it was Brandi.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey. So no show? Sarah’s one of my best friends, and this is her first gallery, Howie.”

“I know. I’m sorry, but what do you want me to do? It’s my weekend, and her mom said she had something planned that she couldn’t get out of.”

“This is disappointing. I’m very disappointed right now.”

Howie thought she sounded like a four-year-old, and he wasn’t sure if he found it cute or stomach-churningly disgusting. “I’m gonna make it up to you. How ’bout we go down to Cabo on Sunday?”

“Really? You can get out of work?”

“I own the place. What’s the point of being the owner if you can’t play hooky sometimes?”

“That sounds amazing. I’ve been itching to get out of the city. I have a shoot on Thursday, though.”

“We’ll be back before then. Pack that little outfit I really like. The one with the garters.”

“Oh, I got something new for you. If you’re a good boy.”

He grinned. “Come over and watch a movie with us tonight.”

“I can’t. I have to be there for Sarah. She would have a panic attack if I wasn’t.”

“All right, fine,” he said sluggishly. “I’ll see you Sunday then.”

“Okay, see you then.”

The home in Bel Air was immaculate, and a gardener was tending to the rose bushes. Howie pressed on the horn rather than bothering to go to the door. No one came out at first, and he laid on it again. Eventually, the door opened, and his ex, Kaila, was there with ten-year-old Jessica. Kaila kissed her, said something to her, and then shut the door as Jessica walked across the lawn and got into the Jeep.

She sat in the passenger seat and didn’t say anything.

“Hi to you, too,” Howie said.

“Hi.”

Howie pulled away from the curb and thought to himself that this was going to be a long weekend.