Guilt By Degrees

22

Bailey raised an eyebrow. “Which would be?”

“Cletus.”

Bailey blinked. “What’s a Cletus?”

“My homeless buddy. Used to be a minor-league pitcher.”

“And he wound up homeless, how?”

“He tore a rotator cuff and had to stop playing for a while,” I said. “Then his wife decided it was a good time to find another man, and Cletus decided it was a good time to find a bottle.” I gestured toward the street. “Now he lives out there.”

“You know where to find him now?”

“On Wednesday nights, he’s usually on Hill Street or Broadway.”

“This is Thursday,” Bailey pointed out.

“Thus, our dilemma,” I admitted.

“You ever run into him on any other days?”

I thought back. Had I?

“I think I remember seeing him on Spring Street on a Monday. Or was it Main?” I shook my head. “I’m not sure. But doesn’t it seem likely that he’d be staying somewhere nearby?”

In my experience, the homeless aren’t completely so. They don’t usually stray far from a familiar circumference.

“So what’re we going to do, just start walking up and down the streets looking for Cletus?” Bailey asked.

“You got a better idea?”

“Yeah. Tell Eric you need a few more days and wait till Wednesday, when you know where to find Cletus,” Bailey retorted.

“Won’t happen.” I shook my head. “It’s now or never.”

Bailey sighed. “Okay.” She threw down her napkin and stood up. “Better get the lead out. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

“And while we’re at it, we can show around our photo of John Doe,” I said. “See if someone recognizes him. Since this is our day for long shots, we may as well go for broke.”

“In for a penny…,” Bailey agreed.

We decided to start in Skid Row, home to one of the largest stable homeless populations in the country and just a little more than four square miles. It was within walking distance from the courthouse. Skid Row dwellers aren’t allowed to sleep on the sidewalks during daylight hours, but the street is their home, so the area is always filled with people sitting, eating, talking…surviving.

It makes me nervous to drive through there-I’m always afraid of hitting someone-but walking the area is far worse, though for a completely different reason. It’s heart-wrenching to see so many human beings living so hard. The streets are perpetually littered with crushed cans, broken bottles of cheap alcohol, fast-food wrappers, cracked glass vials, and used needles. The stench of urine permeates the alcoves and sides of every building, and the air is thick with the mix of old grease, cheap food, unwashed bodies, and dirty clothes. The feeling in the air is more than abject poverty. It’s the sense of overwhelming despair and defeat. On Skid Row, people didn’t even aspire to living; they struggled merely to exist.

As we walked the streets, I fought to keep from sinking into the misery of it all. Back and forth we walked, up one street and down another, looking for the familiar pile of blankets I knew as Cletus, asking if anyone had seen him, showing the photograph of our John Doe to anyone who looked relatively alert.

We approached a short, squat woman of indeterminate age and race who wore a knitted cap with ears and unlaced army boots. She pushed a full shopping cart.

“Don’t know no Cletus, and I ain’t never seen that dude, nohow. Nohow, no way…” She wandered off, continuing to mutter to herself.

A middle-aged black man in glasses and a torn overcoat seemed fairly together, so we showed him the photograph of our John Doe. “Do you recognize this guy by any chance?”

He looked at the photo carefully. Hope rose in my chest.

“He doesn’t look like any chance to me,” he replied. “Does he look like a chance to you? I see no chance. No chance in France, and not in pants.”

My heart sank back down. “Thank you, sir.”

We walked on. After another two hours, feeling defeated, footsore, and tired, I was beginning to concede that this was a fool’s errand. It was five o’clock and we were losing light. Pretty soon, it’d be too dangerous for two women-even two like us-to be out here.

“I’m sorry, Keller,” I said. “It was a lame idea. I guess it’s time to pack it in.”

“It is a lame idea, but we knew that going in,” Bailey agreed. “Let’s give it another half hour down here, then head over to your usual meeting place with Cletus. It’s on the way home.”

It was times like this that I thought I didn’t deserve a friend as good as Bailey. “Thanks,” I said gratefully. Bailey waved me off.

In the next half hour, the sun sank along with our hopes of finding a lead on either John Doe or Cletus. Time to give up. “I’m pulling the plug, Bailey. It’s getting really stupid now.”

She nodded reluctantly. “I’m sorry, Rachel. We tried.”

“Yep, we did,” I agreed dejectedly.

We headed back down San Pedro to Fourth Street. At the intersection, I noticed an older man with a dog. The dog lay at the man’s feet, his leash tied to the shopping cart. Maybe it was the dog, I don’t know, but I decided to take one last shot and show him the photograph of John Doe.

“Nope. Don’t know ’im.”

“Do you know a guy named Cletus?” I asked.

The man frowned, creating a forest of eyebrows, and puffed on his stub of a cigarette. “You talking about the pitcher?”

I tried to keep the excitement out of my voice. “Yeah.”

“He in trouble?”

“Not at all,” I said. “He’s a friend.”

The man snorted. “Of yours?”

I looked at him steadily. “Yeah, of mine. You know where I can find him tonight?”

“Maybe,” the man said, squinting at me through a haze of cigarette smoke.

I wasn’t thrilled about pulling money out in this place, but I figured between Bailey’s.44 and my.38, we probably had enough firepower to handle any comers. I fished out a ten-spot and held it up. “Take us to Cletus, and you’ll get this.”

The man took another drag on his cigarette and blew an enviably crisp smoke ring. Back in my smoking days, I’d tried to do that. My rings always came out wobbly and messy.

“Deal,” he said. With that, he turned and headed up Fourth Street.

We followed, wary of ambush by the predators who come out at night to stalk the homeless. But I noticed we were moving toward Spring Street and Pershing Square. Safer territory by far than where we’d been. We crossed Spring Street and were approaching Broadway when the old man stopped and pointed. Sure as hell, there on the sidewalk in front of the Bradbury Building was the familiar pile of blankets. Close enough to his usual stomping grounds; far enough that, without help, I could’ve searched all day and night and never found him.

I thanked our guide, paid him…and threw in an extra few dollars for dog food.

He took the money, saluted, and walked off, a cloud of smoke floating behind him, his dog trotting alongside.

I slowly stepped up to the pile of blankets. As usual, they were crowned by a well-worn Lakers hat. “Cletus?”

A thick mop of graying hair poked up, and his eyes glittered in the darkness. “That you, missy? What you doin’ here? What you doin’ here?” The deep, ragged voice sounded as if it had scraped the words from the belly of the earth. It was music to my ears.

I smiled. “Yeah, it’s me, Cletus. And I know it’s not ‘our’ night. But I need your help.”

With effort, he pulled himself up to a sitting position. “Cletus is always glad to help.”

He coughed, an alarming hack.

“Are you okay, Cletus? You don’t sound great.”

He coughed again but waved his hand. “Just a cold. Always get ’em this time of year. What you need?”

“You recognize this guy?” I held out the photograph.

Cletus took it and stared for a long minute. I held my breath.

“No, missy. I do not. I don’t. Sorry.” He handed the photograph back to me.

Cletus had been my last hope. Deflated but grateful for his effort, I replied, “It’s okay, Cletus. I appreciate you trying.” I dug into my wallet and pulled out a twenty.

He looked at it. “I didn’t do it for no money, missy.”

“I know that, Cletus. I just want you to have it,” I said.

He slowly took the twenty-dollar bill and tucked it into his pocket. “You know, I been around here a long time. If I haven’t seen this guy, probably means he ain’t living in this part. But you seen him here?”

“Yeah. So I thought…” I trailed off. It was truly hopeless if John Doe hadn’t been living in the area.

Cletus fell silent.

“I got an idea,” he finally said. “You heard ’a Johnnie Jasper?”

I looked at Bailey, who shook her head.

“No,” I replied.

“Stays up in Boyle Heights. You ask poh-poh up there, they all know ’im. Good guy, good guy.”

Poh-poh, as in police. “He a street person?” I asked.

Cletus nodded. “But he got a fine setup.” He pointed in the general direction of Boyle Heights. “You go see ol’ Jasper, he might help you out.”

“Thank you, Cletus,” I said, suppressing a shiver. The day had been mild, but the night air let us know it was still the middle of winter. “It’s pretty cold out. Why don’t you let me take you to a shelter? We can get you in.”

He wagged a finger at me. “You promised me ‘no grief,’ remember?”

In the past, I’d tried to get him to come indoors several times until finally he’d put a stop to it and made me promise to leave him be. Reluctantly, since I had no other choice, I’d agreed.

“You go, you go. Go see Jasper.” Cletus lay back down and pulled up the blankets. “Let an old man get some sleep. You go, you go.”