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  “I don’t care. I want to fight. I want somebody to fight for me. You’re getting paid, aren’t you?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You don’t want to rep me, I’ll find somebody else.”

  “Frosty the Snowman’s free,” I said.

  Carl Richess said nothing. A couple of minutes later he started snoring. He sounded like a leaf blower.

  4

  IT WAS A modest, two-bedroom home on Corbin Avenue in the part of the Valley called Winnetka. I pulled into the driveway next to a blue Civic that looked like it had seen a lot of miles.

  I got out and went around and opened Carl’s door. I shook him awake. He snorted and sat up. “Wussgoinon?” he said.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “You haven’t missed it.”

  “Huh? Missed what?”

  “Christmas Eve. Come on.” I grabbed his arm and hauled him out. We went toward the front door. A light was on in the window. The door opened before we got there. A large woman, backlit, stood in the doorway.

  “Carl,” she said, distress in her voice.

  “Hi, Mom,” Carl said, like he was ten years old and had been caught picking the neighbor’s flowers.

  She put her arm around him and walked him inside. She looked back at me. “Please come in. I’m Kate.”

  I went in, closed the door, and waited as Kate took Carl toward a bedroom. I stayed by the door and looked around. The place seemed too small for the Richess family. This was more Mickey Rooney size.

  But it had a warmth to it. Tidy, simple, and, I could imagine, full of laughter at one time. Before drunk driving charges. There was a wall with some family pictures, a few black and white that hearkened back to the forties or so. I could see a brick fireplace in the living room and a sandstone hearth.

  Kate came back alone. “He just fell asleep in his old room,” she said. “Was he very drunk?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Please, come sit a moment.”

  Kate Richess looked in her late fifties. She had short brown hair with gray streaks, and wore a voluminous, orange-flowered muumuu above blue slippers. Her face had a kind of dignity. Immediately I thought she was a straight shooter, and one who expected you to be the same. In that way she reminded me of my own mom.

  She had me sit in a recliner in her living room. I saw a couple of framed photos on the mantel. One was of a large kid in a football uniform. I assumed it was Carl. There was another one of a woman in a numbered jersey of blue and white.

  She saw me looking at it. “I was on the Roller Derby circuit for a while,” she said.

  “No kidding,” I said. “My mom used to watch that in Florida.”

  “She a fan?”

  “Was. She passed away.”

  “I’m sorry. How long’s it been?”

  “I was fifteen,” I said.

  “That’s hard,” she said. Her eyes were sympathetic, inviting me to talk about it if I wanted to. That we had come to this level of intimacy so quickly told me a lot about Kate Richess. She was the kind of woman who opened her arms to the world, and sometimes got slapped for it. But would do it again if she thought you were hurting.

  What she didn’t know, and what I barely knew at the time, was that I was incapable of talking about my mom’s death. That event was hidden away behind a locked door in a dark corner of my mind.

  My dad’s death was different. That was vivid to me. Maybe because I didn’t see it, and my imagination took over. He died in the line of duty as a Miami cop. I was ten and remember all the details from the finding out, to the screaming into my pillow until I wore out and fell asleep, to the fear of the unknown, the wondering how I’d ever get along in life without him.

  All those things I could see and hear, usually without willing it. Anything could set the visuals in motion. A black-and-white driving by. A cop movie trailer. Anything about cops, in fact. Or frightened boys, or funeral processions through city streets. Anything like that and then there they’d be—the pictures of Dad leaving my mom and me, spilled out all over my brain’s landscape like a batch of color photos dropped from a plane.

  Not so with Mom’s death. All I had there were fuzzy images of hospital rooms and IVs and neighbors paying visits. And that’s all I ever wanted to see.

  It doesn’t take a psych to know it was a defense, that at fifteen I wanted to push it all aside. I never talked about my mom dying to anybody. The family I went to live with after—my friend Vincent’s—wasn’t the warm, open kind, so it never came up.

  Now, for some reason, with Kate I felt the key in the lock of that closed door starting to turn. I heard a click, and stopped it right there by saying, “I’m impressed. Roller Derby’s not for wimps.”

  She smiled.

  “Ever miss it?” I said.

  “Sometimes I hear the sound of skates in my head. But then I remember I have two blown-out knees and my right shoulder will never work like it used to. Still, I was one great blocker in my time.”

  “If you ever want to go down to Hi-Fi, catch a match, let me know.” Hi-Fi is Filipinotown, northwest of downtown Los Angeles. A warehouse down there has become the center of a resurgent Roller Derby circuit in L.A.

  “I don’t know,” Kate said. “The girls are a little different these days. Names like Eva Destruction and Broadzilla and Tara Armov. They’re more into hurting each other than good theater.”

  “A little more punk than back in the day?”

  “Not to say that in my prime I couldn’t have taken one of these little wisps out. That was always fun. But fun doesn’t last, and you get old.” She sighed. “I gave it up when I got pregnant with Carl. He needed me because I’m all he has. Me and his brother. His father was not exactly present. He left for good when Carl was seven.”

  I said nothing. If she wanted to go on, she could.

  “Donald was a big man,” she said, “but not in the character department. He was a wrestler who never quite made it. And a drunk. Carl is like him in that way. He can’t handle alcohol.”

  “That’s the way it is for some.”

  “Can you help him at all?”

  “I’ll do what I can, Mrs. Richess, I—”

  “Kate, please.”

  I nodded. “But I have to be up front. His breath test came out really high, and that’s almost always the whole thing. If he pleads no contest, he’ll get the standard first offense package.”

  “Will he have to go to jail?”

  “No. But he told me he wants to go to trial. I have to do what he wants, but you need to be aware that if he loses at trial, the judge’ll get a little mad. He’ll think we’re making him work for no good reason, clogging the system. They toss people in the can after all that.”

  She shook her head. “You know, Carl just never seems to get a break. Ever since he got out of the navy. He was going to get married, but when she left him, he kind of went into a spin. That’s when he really started drinking a lot.”

  “Has he tried AA?”

  “It didn’t take.” She looked at the window without looking out of it.

  “Tell you what,” I said. “Let me take a look at everything and see what’s there, and I’ll let you know.”

  She turned back, relief on her face. “That would be wonderful.”

  “Done.”

  “How much do I owe you?”

  “You’re one of Father Bob’s parishioners?”

  “I go to mass up at St. Monica’s.”

  St. Monica’s is the little Benedictine community in the Santa Susana Mountains where I get to stay, for the time being, in a trailer. The one next to Father Bob’s.

  “I know they’re trying to raise money for their homeless shelter,” I said. “Why don’t you give a donation and we’ll call it square?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “They’re treating me nice up there. I offer some legal services for them. It all works out.”

  “I can’t tell you how much that means to me,” she said. She reached out her han
d and I took it. It was delicate. So unlike what I would have associated with a Roller Derby queen. It reminded me of my mother’s touch. Mom was a smallish woman, but fought like a tigress if she thought I was in need.

  “It means a lot to me, too,” I said.

  And that was how I came to represent Santa Claus a little before Christmas.

  5

  SATURDAY MORNING MEANT my usual game of one-on-one with Sister Mary Veritas.

  The sparky nun who had once run the hardwood of Oklahoma high school gyms likes to shoot hoop on the court in the back section of St. Monica’s. It’s right outside my trailer.

  If I’m not up and ready by 7 a.m. on Saturday morning, she dribbles around and throws the ball against the board, until I get the message.

  There was also something going on beneath the surface. In both of us. Sister Mary had told me a while back that she didn’t want me to leave St. Monica’s. I ran after her and turned her around in an alcove and almost kissed her.

  “Will I go to hell for this?” I said.

  There was a second where it looked like she wanted to cross the line too, forget her vows, and in that second I felt sick.

  We’d looked at the ground at the same time. Sister Mary muttered something about being late, and walked off.

  I let her go that time. We hadn’t spoken about the moment since. But there was always a little thread pulled taut between us. And I was afraid if there was one more tug the whole thing could unravel, in a way that was bad for both of us.

  As usual, Sister Mary was in her sweats, with an OSU top (the orange and black of Oklahoma State, not the black and orange of Oregon State), and a pair of well-worn Converse All Stars.

  And elbows of fury.

  Even though I’m six-three and Sister Mary a little over five and a half feet, you don’t want to get on her wrong side. Especially when playing hoop.

  You don’t often think of sisters of the Benedictine order pounding you in the paint or bodying you out of bounds. The Benedictines follow the Rule of St. Benedict, which is supposedly known for hospitality. They are compelled to receive guests as “Christ himself.”

  Which is not a feature of Sister Mary’s game. Unless elbowing for Jesus is some form of acceptable piety.

  Today, her game was extra intense. Her flashing blue eyes were concentrated, twin lasers. Even her short, chestnut-colored hair had attitude this day.

  She really wanted to win this one, more than usual.

  I played ball in college and know my way around the court. I’m deadly from twenty, and dangerous from downtown. Even have a spin move or two, and that after arthroscopic surgery on the left knee.

  This morning, though, I could not get near the basket.

  Sister Mary hipped me every time I got close.

  At first, I laughed.

  But then she started with the elbows and I got a little miffed.

  “You trying to make the Olympic team or something?” I said.

  “Bring it,” she said.

  Bring it?

  I tried, but I was off. Every time I put up a shot, I had this terrier nun in my face.

  It was, in its way, admirable. If she had been a litigator, I would have approved. I would have wanted her in court with me. I would have gladly let her cross-examine any hostile witness.

  I staged a comeback and tied the score 10–10. “Are you sure you have the holy calling?” I said.

  “You sure you want to keep playing?”

  “You bring it.”

  And she did. She backed me into the paint, the way Charles Barkley used to do it.

  Then she tried a little Magic Johnson hook, and I blocked it.

  That brought a cry of frustration from Sister Mary.

  I got the ball. She was snorting like a bull. I guess I was the cape.

  I stayed outside. At the freethrow line I faked right, crossed over, stopped, and put up a fadeaway. It was beautiful. Nothing but net.

  11–10.

  As per the rules of one-on-one, I got the rock again. I took the ball to the top of the key and let Sister Mary check it. She dropped it back to me.

  And got in a crouch. Her lips were tight. Her eyes were beams of blue flame. I thought, if she’s this tough against sin, the Church is going to be perfect in a couple of years.

  Boom, I gave her my best move, a stop and go, and was on my way to the hoop. It would be one for the highlight film. I went up.

  And she undercut me.

  Sister Mary Veritas, Catholic nun, speaker of Latin, gentle little lamb of the flowers of St. Monica’s, went low bridge.

  I landed on the asphalt. Hard. Little sparklers went off behind my eyes. I couldn’t believe what just happened.

  As I lay there, looking up at the sky, I said, “What was that?”

  “Charge,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You lowered your shoulder.”

  “What are you talking about?” My right arm was starting to throb.

  “You fouled me,” she said.

  “I’m the one on the ground!”

  “Oscar nominated.”

  Now I was hacked off. I scrambled to my feet. I’d started taking Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu at a studio in Canoga Park, and was thinking about practicing a hip throw on this overexuberant nun. Instead I said, “What is up with you today?”

  “What is up with you?”

  “You mean what is down with me, don’t you?”

  “It’s my ball.”

  “How can it be your ball when you almost broke my neck?”

  “You want to play or not?”

  “Not until we review the Geneva Convention.”

  “Just forget it,” she said. She broke into a jog and headed off toward her quarters.

  6

  I SAT ON the edge of the court in some grass and weeds and looked at the sky. At least, in the immortal words of Randy Newman, it looked like another perfect day.

  When the sky is clear in L.A., when the sun shines in the winter, there’s no better place on earth.

  That’s what I said.

  See, it’s days like this that bring out the envy in other cities. When we’re tossing Frisbees on the beach in the winter, sub-zero curmudgeons dip their pens in bile and write things like Truman Capote once did—“It’s redundant to die in L.A.”

  Or the wag who, no doubt with frostbitten digits, typed, “What’s the difference between L.A. and yogurt? Answer: Yogurt has an active culture.”

  Will Rogers called it Cuckoo Land. H. L. Mencken dubbed it Moronia.

  I call it home.

  Even though I’ve been beat up and beat down here. That doesn’t matter, because you can get beat up and beat down anywhere. That’s the great thing about America.

  But if it has to happen, it might as well happen in L.A. You can douse yourself in the Pacific or snowboard down a mountain.

  You can regain your soul.

  Which is not something I used to think about much. But I have been lately. Jacqueline thought about the soul and I want to think she lives on, somewhere.

  That’s why I’m reading Plato. I’d dipped in a little philosophy in college. It was kind of a goof then. Now it seemed to me maybe those Greeks had a window on something.

  Father Bob came out of his trailer, the only other one on the grounds, and joined me. He’s the only priest I know, the only black priest I’ve ever met, the only one I’ve ever heard of who can play jazz drums. He was sent to St. Monica’s as a sort of exile, having been falsely accused of sexual abuse. I helped him clear his name, but the archdiocese wanted this sleeping dog to lie. Father Bob saw it as God’s plan. I didn’t.

  “Game over so soon?” he said.

  “What, were you watching us or something?”

  “Just listening.” He sat next to me. He was in jeans and a black T-shirt. He looked like a Beat poet. He pulled some grass and played with the blades. “You playing a little rough?”

  “Me? That little nun of yours went all Spanish Inquisition on me.�
��

  He tossed the grass in the air. “You need to cut her a little extra slack.”

  “Maybe she needs to stop throwing elbows.” I was half joking, half not.

  “Lighten up.”

  “Hey, I’m fine.”

  “You sure?”

  I just looked at him. He obviously wanted to say something to me, so I waited for him to say it.

  After another grass toss, he said, “I want you to consider something your friend Plato said. About love.”

  “You’re bringing Plato into this?”

  “You’ve been reading him, haven’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “Not all love is the same,” Father Bob said. “There is the love that the body longs for, which can also be called lust. There is the love for another human being in a deep and meaningful way. And there is the love of knowledge and wisdom.”

  “What about the love of good pastrami?” I said.

  “Plato did not include that, though he well could have. What I’m getting at is that the love of wisdom is the highest and best, because it directs the others. In dealing with Sister Mary, I ask you to be wise.”

  “All right, you’ve tiptoed around this long enough. What’s wrong?”

  “Sister Mary is quite vulnerable right now. She has an agile mind and creative spirit, as you well know.”

  “And sharp elbows.”

  “Be that as it may, she is under the all-seeing eye of Sister Hildegarde, and that is not a pleasant place to be.”

  “You’re telling me.” Sister Hildegarde is the head nun of this little community, and she runs the place like Castro’s sister.

  “I fear she is going to be driven from the community,” Father Bob said. “That she will be found to be ‘recalcitrant.’ It’s a black mark for a nun.”

  “Then we’ll take it to the archdiocese, like I did with you. We’ll fight.”

  Father Bob shook his head. “It is much more than that. It strikes directly at her calling. This is what she may be questioning. And you, my legal friend, complicate matters.”

  “How?”

  “You know how.”

  I paused before answering. “You think I’m going to put a move on her?”