But it continues. Always. For her and for the rest of the mothers who’ve lost their children. To expect a reprieve, to expect to be released—that’s the true insanity. Because it’s everywhere, this violence. It reaches forward and back.
Dear Idira, I need you to do something for me. I need you to keep shouting as loud as you can because there is tragedy everywhere. I need you to raise your voice against this endless night. You need to illuminate it. You need to root it out and expose it. Because it’s there. It’s everywhere. There’s violence all around us.
Dorian heads home. West on Washington to Western, then south across the 10 into Jefferson Park. If the winds die out, she thinks the parrots might return tomorrow, filling her trees with their antic song, allowing her to watch the fireworks of electric green rise into the sky. The wind is fierce but at least it’s at her back, pushing her home, hurrying her down the hill.
She passes the first bungalows of Jefferson Park, planning to stick to Western until she comes to the fish shack, where she’ll grab some leftovers and check her inventory before heading home. Just before Twenty-Seventh Place she notices a commotion on the east side of the street—a couple of police cruisers and an ambulance with lights on, sirens silent. She recognizes the riveted stance of the silhouetted onlookers and crosses the street.
Crime scene tape.
Something—someone—on the ground, twisted, motionless.
She steps up to the tape that blocks the entrance to an empty lot. There’s a body on the dirt bathed in red lights that circle—circle and circle and go nowhere.
Dorian doesn’t want to look, but she does, she has to. She sees a woman tossed, her throat slit, a plastic bag over her face. She looks exactly as Lecia had. Exactly.
Then Dorian screams. She screams herself hoarse. Screams until someone leads her away, until her heart settles, her mind stops raging, until she finds the words she needs.
Feelia 1999
YOU’RE NOT GONNA COME GET THE DOOR? YOU’RE NOT GONNA open the motherfucking door? You’re not—Well, thank you. No, I don’t have luggage. You think I packed a bag before some motherfucker tried to straight up murder me? You think I was, like, hold on, I need to get my nightgown in case that knife doesn’t do its job? You think I packed my toiletries and some shit?
Yeah, I got money. You think I’d call a cab I can’t pay for?
Calm down? Do I not seem calm to you? I got my throat slit, motherfucker. How’ve you been?
Ten days. That’s how long. You’d think it would be longer. But they tell me I’m good to go, get out the door. Didn’t even wheel me down in one of them chairs. Just handed me my bloody clothes in this plastic bag here.
Take the 105 to the 110. I don’t care you don’t have a FasTrak. I don’t feel like herky-jerking through all of South L.A.
You wanna roll down this window? Don’t mind if I smoke, right?
That’s the one thing my daughter, Aurora, did right. Came and dropped off a few packs of Newports. Girl’s not all bad. Lazy. Head so far up her own ass, she forgets about her mom in the hospital. But at least she brought me enough smokes. Probably show up at my place tonight like nothing at all. Hello and how the fuck are you type shit and can I get some cash or mind if I crash here.
Least she has a job. So she says.
Only other visitors I had were the police.
Two detectives. Cheap suits and all. Ma’am, can you tell us what happened?
What’s it look like happened?
Ma’am, can you take a look at these photos, see if you can identify anyone in them?
Hand me a sheet of pictures of black dudes.
One thing I can tell you for sure, the man wasn’t black. The detectives give me a look, like I lost my mind along with all that blood came pouring out my neck.
You sure? Take another look.
Am I sure? Am I motherfucking sure? Did he slit you ear to ear, assholes?
Are you a sex worker, Mrs. Jefferies?
That one made me laugh. How many hookers you know go by Mrs. anything?
A sex worker, I say, in my best white-lady voice. What exactly are you asking?
Cops give each other another look, then give me one as well. One of them clears his throat like he’s a first-timer asking for a full ride. Mrs. Jefferies, are you a prostitute?
There he goes with the Mrs. Jefferies shit again. If I hadn’t been so goddamn worn, if it didn’t hurt to move every muscle, I would have slapped him. Mrs. Jefferies isn’t any prostitute. Ask me about Pookie. She’s a different story.
But I don’t say that. Instead what I tell him is: What the fuck does it matter? As far as I can see all that matters is that I’m lying in this bed nearly slit ear to ear. I could be an accountant. I could be the president of Mexico. I could be the queen of the motherfucking Nile for all that what I do matters.
It matters is what they tell me.
I don’t have to ask why.
Hey, watch yourself. You got to hit every bump in this goddamn road? It’s like I’m getting stabbed all over again. It’s like the damn 110 is running right through these stitches in my neck.
Now that’s gonna leave one hell of a scar—one ugly motherfucking necklace.
Hold up? What are you asking? Did I ash on your seat? No, I did not ash on your motherfucking seat. Shit isn’t even leather. And don’t you slow down right in the middle of the goddamn freeway.
You don’t listen to the news? You don’t have your ear glued to the radio? You don’t listen to the traffic? You want to be one of those incidents on the news—cab rear-ended on the 110 because a woman ashed her cigarette on the seat?
Where are we now? Manchester? Take the next exit. Head to Western. It’s to the west. You know that? Well, don’t mind me.
Want to know where to go on Western? Can I tell you that at least? Corner of Sixty-Second.
Fucking cops. Fuc-king cops. Not like they offered me protection or anything. They didn’t even offer me a ride home. Shit—that motherfucker could be waiting for me for all I know. Could be sitting outside my house. Ready to finish the job.
Hold up. I said hold up. That means slow the hell down. Take a right. Take a goddamned right. I know I said it was straight up Western. But I need you to take a right. Now. I don’t care it’s one way.
Shit.
What’s wrong? You want to know what’s wrong? Lemme tell you.
That’s where it happened. Right there. That convenience store. That’s where—I told you to turn, didn’t I?
How long’s this light got to be? You want me to relive this shit?
His car was pulled up just there at the edge of the parking lot. Just behind the thing for the free papers. That’s where I like to smoke and mind my own.
Might as well keep going straight now. I’ve already seen it. Still. The fuck was I thinking? The fuck—Nothing in this world worth trusting. That’s the truth. Nothing. That’s the heartbreak of it all.
I’m only three blocks up. White apartment on the right. Just behind the hedge or whatever you call it. It’s not bad. Could be worse. Home is home, you know. You make it what you make it.
Right here. Just over by that white delivery van.
You know what? You want to keep going a little more.
Don’t give me that look. I’m good for the fare.
Maybe just a bit farther up Western. Or maybe don’t take Western at all. Just anywhere. Just not here. Not right now.