The Last Tomorrow

FIVE

1

Candice stands in the parking lot behind the nightclub at which she works on the corner of Venice and Hauser, just northwest of Sugar Hill, where the moneyed Negroes live. They started moving into the neighborhood, taking over the mortgages of dried-up oil barons and derailed railroad magnates, during the Great Depression, and the neighborhood’s northern border, Washington Boulevard, still stands as a sort of racial equator, with colored folk living primarily to the south. The nightclub is closed and silent, the voices and laughter which earlier enlivened it now only drunken memories, the neon-tube sign out front — which can normally be read from six blocks in either direction, pinning a name on the place, the Sugar Cube — is dark as the night itself, and but for two cars, the lot in which Candice now stands is empty. She leans against one of them, a blonde woman with her lips smeared red, her hair pin-curled, her dress inappropriate for a woman in almost any other profession.

She works as a B-girl, flirting with men, dancing with them, getting them to buy her watered-down drinks at premium prices. A hand on the knee. A kiss on the corner of the mouth. A suggestive look. It can be a difficult job. You must laugh at stupid jokes. You can’t allow yourself to cringe at the stink of garlic on breath. Your feet get bruised as the clumsier ones are always tenderizing your meat out on the dance floor.

And the men get grabby. Sometimes they get violent.

She’s been accosted on more than one occasion in this very parking lot by drunken men who wanted to take what she was unwilling to give them — or sell them.

Men are animals. You have to be careful with them. You have to tempt them, let them hope they might get to see what’s hidden under your skirt without ever letting them believe it’s a promise. If you let it get too far you’ll find yourself in a dangerous situation.

It’s made worse by the fact that some of the girls have a price. There’s a dressing room upstairs, and it’s a rare night that Candice doesn’t see men get dragged up there by their ties like obedient puppies on leashes.

Only once was she unable to fight off an attacker. He left her torn and bleeding in this very parking lot, a mere twenty feet from where she now stands, took the money she’d earned that night, spit on her, called her a cunt and a whore.

For two weeks afterwards she looked like she went several rounds with Rocky Marciano, and though she couldn’t afford the time off, she stayed home until the bruises healed. Once she returned to work the mere thought of walking out here in the dark was traumatizing. She couldn’t do it alone. She tried to be strong on her first day back, to put on a brave face, but halfway to her car she found herself shaking and crying, unable to force her feet further into the darkness. She stood paralyzed until one of the other girls saw her and walked her to her car.

It took months before she could walk out here by herself.

She’s more cautious now, more careful. Men are animals. And she has a boy to raise, a boy whose father is already absent. She doesn’t want him to lose his mother as well. She wants him to retain some innocence for as long as possible.

She lights a cigarette, inhales deeply, looks toward the Sugar Cube’s back door. Vivian said she’d only be a minute, said she just had to use the ladies’ room, but it has to have been a quarter hour now, and Candice isn’t dressed for this chill night air.

She looks up at the moon, bright behind a thin film of disintegrating clouds, and feels a small surge of anger. Directed neither at the moon nor at Vivian, but at her husband Neil, who’s probably asleep on the couch in their little falling-down house on Bunker Hill. Once again he left her stranded. When he gets off work — he’s head mail clerk at a downtown office building — he often hops on a streetcar and takes it here to the nightclub, says hey, just wanted to see your pretty face, I’ll only stay a few minutes, but minutes turn into hours, and by the time he’s pushing out the door, the streetcars have stopped running. So what does he do? Sometimes he gets a cab, but too often he stumbles to the car, drives it home, collapses onto the couch, and falls into a drunken sleep without even realizing he’s once again left her without a way home. It happens at least once a week, usually after a busy Saturday night when she’s at her most tired, when her feet are killing her, when she’s been grabbed one time too many by one chump too many, and wants nothing so much as the comfort of her own bed.

She cares for Neil, despite his flaws, despite the way he treats her son, but sometimes she feels like strangling him till he’s dead. He can be so thoughtless, and all tomorrow’s apologies mean nothing to her now. They’ll mean very little then.

Vivian finally pushes through the back door and sways across the parking lot toward her, saying sorry about that, had to get some money out of Heath.

‘Money for what?’

‘Leland did some work for him couple weeks ago, asked me to collect it.’

Candice nods, takes another drag from her cigarette, offers it to Vivian, who pinches it between two fingers, sucks the last drag from it, and flicks it out to the asphalt. It hits the ground and a small scattering of orange embers flash on the air, briefly looking like a miniature fireworks show — one for the ants and beetles — before going dark.

‘Where’s he been lately, anyway?’

‘Leland?’

She nods.

‘Had a movie last week, five full days of work.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Twelve hours a day every day.’

‘Was it a speaking part?’

‘Not this time. But maybe soon. It’s about building relationships with producers. You know, it’s less to do with talent than knowing the right people.’

‘Come on,’ Candice says, pulling on a locked door, ‘my lady parts are freezing off.’

They get into the car and Vivian starts the engine.

‘You need to do something about Neil. The way he leaves you stranded is rotten.’

‘He doesn’t mean it.’

‘If it only happened once I’d believe that.’

Candice shrugs, and as Vivian pulls the car out of the parking lot and into the street she turns to the passenger’s-side window and looks through it, out at the city, her breath fogging the glass in front of her.

She likes this part of the night. The bars have closed and the night owls have gone home, everyone from the zoot-suited Mexicans to the Negro-speaking hipsters, but it’s too early yet for even the earliest risers to be pushing through their front doors. The city is still and silent and possesses the feeling of possibility, like an unhatched egg. You can almost forget it was long ago parceled out and sold. You can almost forget that crooks live in its mansions while honest people live in tarpaper shacks. You can almost forget that racial violence rages everywhere, from Hollywood Stars games at Wrigley Field to burning crosses in the yards of Negroes who dared to buy homes in white neighborhoods. You can almost forget that gangsters dine with famous actors and grin from newspaper photographs while honest, hardworking men die unknown.

You can almost forget, but not quite.

She knows the chief of police, William H. Parker, has promised to clean the place up, but she knows too that the Bloody Christmas beatings were only three months ago now, and if the man can’t control his own cops, how is he supposed to control a city?

The answer’s simple. He can’t. And in truth she doesn’t blame him for that. Los Angeles is a monster, a beast whose primary nutrients are Hollywood glitter and dumb violence. No one could control such an animal.

They drive north till they hit Sunset Boulevard, then head east, past the point where it hooks right and becomes Macy Street. A few minutes after that Vivian turns the car left onto Bunker Hill Avenue, and Candice finds herself surrounded by the comforting familiarity of her neighborhood, crumbling though it is.

The car rolls north on a street punctuated by potholes. Up ahead, on the right, in front of their small house, their small crumbling house with its asphalt-shingle roof, sits their car, a 1948 Chevrolet Fleetmaster. The driver’s-side door hangs open. Key’s probably still jutting from the ignition as well. It wouldn’t be the first time. Lucky the car wasn’t stolen by some leather-jacketed hoodlum looking to joyride.

Sometimes she could just-

Her thought is cut off by the sight of something on the asphalt beside the car, something about the size of a man. Not only the size of a man but the shape. A man on his back with his head tilted to the right, toward the parked car.

Whatever it is, the sound of the approaching vehicle doesn’t cause it to stir. It simply lies there, still as a mountain.

‘Oh my God,’ she says.

‘Maybe he’s just passed out.’

Candice doesn’t respond. As the car slows down she pushes open the door and steps out into the chill April air. She walks toward the sedan, moonlight reflecting off the chrome grille. Looks down at the man lying on the asphalt beside it. Looks at his left hand. The fingers are curled and dirt is crusted under the nails, black crescents lining the tip of each one. She looks at his face, looks into his eyes. He doesn’t look back. He’s incapable of looking back. He’s incapable of anything. The left side of his face is covered in blood. There’s a black dot like a wormhole in his temple. A five-pointed star carved into his forehead. The gashes deep and red, white bone visible beneath them.

She steps back. She puts her hands over her mouth. Her face feels numb. Her legs feel numb. She can’t feel her legs at all, and no wonder, they must have disappeared, they must have simply vanished out from under her, because now she’s sitting on the cold asphalt in the middle of the street, and the only way that could have happened is if her legs vanished. A second ago they were holding her up.

Why is Neil outside? Why is Neil lying in the street? That’s such a silly, stupid thing for him to be doing.

‘Neil,’ she says, ‘we have to go inside. It’s late.’

2

Sandy stands looking through the dirty glass of his bedroom window. He watches his mother push her way out the passenger’s-side door of Vivian’s car. He watches her walk toward the place where Neil lies. He watches her face contort. Watches the eyes go glossy, and the mouth open and close, open and close, like a goldfish that’s just been fed. He watches her put her hands to her mouth and collapse to the asphalt. Under normal circumstances it would make him sad to see his mother in such a state — he loves her and doesn’t like to see her hurt — but right now all he can think about is getting caught. And getting locked up.

He tried to make it look like his stepfather was murdered by a serial killer. He read a story about a serial killer not too long ago and tried to make it look like that, like one of those killings, and if he did, if he was successful, maybe he won’t get caught. But he isn’t sure. He did it in a panic. He didn’t think about how to cover up his crime until it was committed, and he might have done a poor job of it. All he knows is he did the best he could. In a panic, his mind spinning, his heart racing, he did the best he could. If he’d planned he’d have done better, but he didn’t plan. He didn’t really believe he was going to do it. Even while he did it he didn’t really believe it was happening. It was as if the part of his brain that could tell fantasy from reality went black in those moments, just turned off completely. I’m tired, good night. If he’d believed it was real he would have planned.

But right after the second shot, the shot that sent his stepfather slumping to the floor in a strange motion that seemed somehow deliberate, as if he’d simply decided to lean forward and rest on his head with his behind in the air, reality came back to Sandy and he panicked. He paced the floor. He prayed to God to let him take it back. He promised he’d never hurt anyone ever again if only God would take it back. But still the body remained, dead as ever, and Sandy realized he would have to do something with it. He would have to make it look like someone else murdered his stepfather. Unless he wanted to get locked up. Unless he wanted his mother to know what he’d done. And he couldn’t stand the thought of that. That was the worst.

His mother could never, ever know.

At first he could think of nothing. All he felt was panic and he couldn’t get his mind under control enough to form coherent thoughts. Red crayon in an angry fist scribbled across the walls of his mind. Then he got an idea. He walked to the front door and opened it and looked around, afraid that people might have heard the gunshots, afraid they might be outside talking, wondering what had happened. Did it wake you up too, Sandy? But the street was silent. The windows in the other houses and apartments were black. If anyone had heard they hadn’t come outside to investigate. And probably no one had heard. These gunshots were not like in the movies.

He might be able to do this. He might be able to get away with it.

He dragged the body outside. It took a lot of work. He had to stop to catch his breath more than once. Neil weighed twice as much as him, maybe more. If it weren’t for the terror coursing through his veins he probably wouldn’t have been able to do it at all. But finally he managed. He got the body out to the street and next to the car. He opened the door to make it look like it happened as Neil was stepping out of the vehicle. He went back inside and grabbed a straight razor from the bathroom. He leaned over the body and carved long gashes into its head. They came together to form a five-pointed star. Neil didn’t even seem to be a person anymore when he did it. Sandy could have been carving into anything. Had he thought about it he wouldn’t have been able, the image in his mind would have made him feel ill, but by moving without thinking, by simply acting, he managed without hesitation.

That’s what the serial killer had done in the story he read: carved stars into the foreheads of his victims.

He went back inside again and washed the razor and put it away. Then grabbed the keys from the table by the front door and a pair of shoes from the floor. He put the keys into Neil’s hand and the shoes on his feet. He tied the shoes, making bunny ears from the laces and looping them through one another.

His third trip inside was his last. He locked the door, then turned to face the room. He flipped over couch cushions to hide the bloodstains, then moved the couch forward a couple feet to cover the stains on the carpet. He undressed, hiding his now-bloodied T-shirt between his mattress and box-spring. He put the gun and the spent shells into a shoe-box under his bed. He lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. Everything he’d done caught up to him. He lay there and felt sick to his stomach, afraid, like he should just run away. But running would be an admission of guilt. His mom would know what he’d done. And the police would know. He had to stay and simply hope she never found out.

He prayed again to God to please let him take it back, please.

He looked out his window, saw Neil’s brown shoes jutting past the front end of the car, knew nothing had changed and nothing would, no matter how many times he said please, no matter how sincerely.

God’s silence was an answer and the answer was no.

His mother’s eyes are glossy like when she’s been drinking. Her mouth is open. She looks like a little girl to him right now, a little girl who’s just been slapped in the face and doesn’t know how to react, confused by the shock of what’s happened.

He’d do anything to take it back, but can’t, so he simply stands there and watches as Vivian helps his mother to her feet and guides her toward the front door. Then the angle is wrong for him to see anything. They disappear from sight.

The front door unlatches. He hears it.

He walks to bed and crawls into it. He holds his pillow tight to his chest, feeling like a little baby, helpless and alone.

All he can do now is wait to see what happens.

3

Candice walks toward the front door. She feels lost, detached from everything, a rudderless boat adrift on the sea. Vivian reaches out and grabs the doorknob, turns it, pushes open the door. Candice can see it all happening, can feel Vivian guiding her into the house with a gentle hand pressed against her back, can feel her legs moving under her, step after step, but she also feels that she’s very far from all this, feels that she’s not a part of it at all.

She walks across the living room to the couch. Vivian helps put her into a sitting position. She sinks into the couch and stares across the room to the wall.

The wall is white.

Vivian walks to the telephone. She calls the police. She says hello, there’s been a murder. A man’s been killed. Yes, killed dead. I think he was shot in the head. She gives the address. She hangs up the telephone.

She looks at Candice and says, ‘Do you want me to make some coffee?’

Candice thinks no, no I don’t want any coffee, it’s late, and how could I drink coffee while Neil lies dead in the street, but instead of saying that, instead of saying anything, she nods her head.

‘Okay,’ Vivian says. ‘I’ll put the percolator on.’

‘Can you check on Sandy first? Can you make sure he’s okay?’

‘Oh, God,’ Vivian says. ‘Yes — of course.’

She disappears into the hallway.

4

Three quick taps on the door, the rattle of the knob. Sandy sits up expecting to see his mother, but when the door swings open it instead reveals Vivian, the right half of her face splashed with light from the living room, the left half covered in shadows. He’s glad it’s her. He wasn’t ready to look into his mother’s eyes. He wasn’t ready to lie to her.

‘Sandy?’

‘I’m here,’ he says in the darkness. ‘Is everything okay?’

He wonders what’s next. He heard their voices but couldn’t make out their words. He wonders if somehow they already know what he’s done, if his pretending at innocence will only make it worse for him. He knows it’s a possibility, but the alternative is to admit guilt before anyone has expressed suspicion, and that he won’t do, can’t do. The consequences are far too great.

‘No,’ Vivian says, ‘everything isn’t okay. Why don’t. . why don’t you come out to the living room?’

‘Did something happen?’

‘Come out to the living room.’

‘Okay. I have to get dressed.’

‘Get dressed, then come right out, okay?’

‘Okay.’

She pulls the door closed.

Sandy turns on his lamp and gets to his feet and pulls on his pants and a shirt.

He walks out of his bedroom, down the hall, to the living room.

His mother sits on the couch, her back to the hallway entrance. He can see her blonde hair, her slumped shoulders, the way her head hangs forward, but not her face. Vivian sits at the dining table on the other side of the house, looking at him sadly.

‘What happened?’

His mom turns around. Her eyes are very red and swollen, her lipstick smeared, and when she tries to smile, to comfort him despite her own pain, he sees lipstick on her teeth.

‘Sandy,’ she says.

She reaches an arm out toward him beseechingly. He walks around the couch, walks to her, feeling sick in his stomach. If everything else hadn’t yet made it clear, his mother’s face lets him know it: the shock in her eyes, the way her mouth is turned down, and the crease between her eyebrows all tell him the same thing: he was wrong and wrong and wrong.

But it’s strange. He still feels nothing for his stepfather. He knows he should, but he doesn’t. He’s sad because his mother’s sad, and he’s afraid he might get caught, and because of those things he would take back what he did, but if she weren’t so sad, and if he knew he would never be found out, he’d kill him again.

He hated the man almost as much as he loves his mother.

She wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him close. She kisses his cheek and his forehead and says his name. She cries.

He sits silently beside her, afraid to speak. Afraid his mother will find out he’s responsible and will hate him. She will hate him forever if she finds out, and he’s sure she will find out.

In his heart, where he keeps his secret fears, he’s certain of it.

She’s going to find out, you know she will. She has to. She’s your mom. She knows when you’ve lied about doing your homework; how could you ever have thought you would get away with this? How could you have possibly-

He swallows back his fear.

He tries to block all the worries from his mind, all the bad thoughts. He imagines them being shoved into a chest and the hasp slammed into place and a lock through the staple and the lock latched with a click.

He manages to say, ‘What’s wrong, Mom?’

‘It’s Neil,’ she says. ‘He’s. . he’s been murdered.’

‘What?’

Mom nods. ‘I know.’

He can’t stop looking at the lipstick on her teeth.

Then the windows flash with red and Sandy knows the police have arrived. Mom gets to her feet, but Vivian tells her to sit down, then walks to the door herself. Mom does sit down. She collapses back into the couch.

Sandy wants to be sick. He thinks he might be sick all over himself.

He looks at Vivian. She stands in front of the door, staring at it, waiting. He doesn’t know why she doesn’t just open the door, but she doesn’t, not for what seems like a very long time.

Sandy closes his eyes and imagines himself far away from here. He imagines himself as a bindlestiff, clothes on a stick flung over his shoulder. He imagines himself walking alongside rusty railroad tracks, surrounded by trees, the sun shining down on him, birds singing, a dog trotting alongside him, another outcast befriended, and the sky as blue as it’s ever been, so blue it hurts your eyes to look at it. He could disappear into that world and never come out. Everything would be perfect in that world. There would be laughter and friendship and no one would ever hurt him ever again.

There’s a knock at the front door.

Sandy opens his eyes.

Vivian grabs the doorknob, turns it, and pulls.