California Fire And Life

32

Hector Ruiz is pulling a rare doubleheader.

Or a double rear-ender, to be more precise, because he has a new old van in position on the Katella on-ramp onto the 57 in Anaheim. New fake license, new cargo of wetbacks, Octavio behind him, Martin in front of him, Dansky on the freeway.

A doubleheader is rare because two of these things are hard – not to mention tiring, ese – to pull off in one day, but Hector and his wife are moving into a new apartment and she has her eye on this bedroom set, so…

And Hector has never been afraid of work.

He checks his speedometer and eases it down to thirty.

Sees Martin kick up his Dodge Colt to hit the highway.

Just as Dansky's Camaro swerves into the merge lane.

Dansky hits the horn.

Martin slams on the brakes.

Hector hits his own brakes, cranks the wheel to the right, and just nicks Martin's right rear bumper.

I am sooo good, Hector thinks.

Looks into his rearview and here comes Octavio.

Hector blinks and looks again because it isn't Octavio, it's a gas tanker and he's got to be doing sixty-five and the driver is standing on the brakes and you can hear those big truck brakes compressing down but they ain't gonna make it, man.

"It's show time," Hector says to himself about a half-second before the fuel tanker crashes into the van and both vehicles explode in a fireball that reaches high into the soft California night.

Channel 5 Eyewitness News gets lucky and has a helicopter out there doing traffic so they get a SkyCam picture of the multiple-fatality crash and lead with it on the 11 o'clock news.

It makes a hell of a teaser.

Blue Suit leans over in his chair and asks, "Is that one of ours?"

"Could be one of ours."

When they see Jimmy Dansky out there explaining to some blond reporter that there was "this flash in the sky and I'm just lucky to be alive," they know it's one of theirs.

Standing near the wreckage, the reporter says something about at least eight people dead, all appear to be Mexican Americans.

Flower Shirt looks at the burning van and says, "Hey Refried beaners."

"You're disgusting," Nicky Vale says to him.