Safe Zone
“We’ve taken in a man and his dog. He’s lost everything! I knew not to buy in Malibu, we’re so lucky to be in a safe zone.”
A safe zone. He had to smile hearing his hostess’ description. His cute, plump, bouncy hostess in her bright, exercise clothes looked like a lot of contended mamas he saw on the street. Though in her case, the boobs looked real. She was standing by a marble counter at one end of the huge room, yakking on her big gold cell phone for him and everyone else to hear. Her fingernails were bright purple and so were her toes. Maybe she and her family would have been better off in Malibu wearing gasmasks than here in Brentwood —O.J.’s old hood—with the likes of him.
Photo: Joel Goodman
The fires in Malibu had been an incredible piece of luck for him. And so was finding the stray white poodle with no collar. At the community center where they were fed he was given new clothing. They fit right in with the people who were burnt out of their homes, wandering around with nothing but shopping bags full of family photos and their cell phones. He filched a photo when its owner was standing in the coffee line and stuck it in his jacket pocket. It was of old-fashioned couple from another time that could be anybody’s great grandparents. Also lucky for him, his twin brother in San Francisco had arranged for him to pick up a cell phone a few weeks before so they could stay in touch. His new iPhone—not fancy, but good enough—was another passport to respectability.
After 24 hours in the shelter, where they’d made a few friends and he had managed to cop drugs—people left their burning houses with photos, drugs, their computers, and one man, a wooden mask. He and Destiny were now at a host home. A nice guy with a round baby face had come up to him and Destiny, and she had licked the guy’s hand. What a great partner she was. Maybe the best partner he’d ever had!
Before he knew it, they had a room off the kitchen—the guy explained, their “live in” was gone for the weekend. There was a bed, a small flat screen, and the best bathroom he’d used since the woman who had mistaken him for his twin brother had died some months ago. She too had been a good soul, a kind soul, and when he thought about it, that death made him sad. The one before that had been necessary. And the one before that too.
Now a little later, at the long table in the kitchen area, he raised his glass.
“Here’ s to family!” he clinked the heavy glass with the tiny ice cubes.
“You taking me and Destiny in like this. A real act of mercy, yes, you are true Christians.”
“But we’re Jewish, giggled the daughter.” The mom and dad were smiling too.
Of course he knew they were Jewish, they couldn’t have been mistaken for Italians as some Jews could. He could smell a Jew a mile away.
“Family!” His host raised his glass in the air.
The little one was still giggling. She was about thirteen, the little Jew girl, and though her square chest was fitted with a bra, she was still clutching a teddy bear. At a similar age his older sister, big round boobs, two abortions under her belt, was torturing him and his brother with matches and pins, cakes made out of fertilizer that she had promised was chocolate. He had been so dumb and trusting; hungry too, that he ate the cake and was sick afterwards for days. Even now the smell of fertilizer made him want to puke.
He reached in his pocket and brought out the old fashioned picture he had filched at the community center.
“My great grandparents!” he said proudly. “At least I still have their picture.”
The mom clucked her tongue; his host reached over and patted his arm.
He passed the picture around the table. And everybody oohed and awed. Then they had take out pizza. The men had beer, the mom, a glass of white wine. They all watched a movie on the big couch, and Destiny, he noticed, curled right under the feet of the mom. Brilliant!
Now, it was late at night, everybody had gone to sleep. Elated, having the downstairs to himself, first he went to the fridge and took a beer. Then he found his way to the food pantry and marveled at its contents: expensive prepared food in glass jars, chips, crackers, every kind of snack food imaginable. People actually lived like this.
Back in the maid’s room, in the drawer of the bedside table, he found a rosary, a spare key and a Spanish language magazine with some dark haired beauty on the cover.
The key as he suspected fit the back door. He had already found the alarm code in the kitchen drawer.
“Would you mind if I left Destiny here for a few days?” He and his host were having coffee and bagels the next morning. The girls—including Destiny—were still in bed.
“What are you going to do?” asked his host.
He had his phone in his hand. And gestured to it. “I’ve been in touch with my brother. He’s going to meet me at the community center and we’ll go from there.”
“I’ll never be able to thank you for what you’ve done. You gave me a whole new lease on life.”
“Do you need money–or a lift?”
He looked down; there was at least five hundred bucks in the guy’s hand. As much as he didn’t like Jews, he had never found them to be stingy. Other things, yes. Stingy, no. Always trying to buy their way out of everything.
“You don’t have to do this—and I’m happy to have a walk.”
“I want to! You lost everything. But for the grace of God and all that!”
He took a hundred, and thanked his host again.
Then he looked him square in the eyes, “I’ve always liked Jewish people.”
Fingering the stolen key in the pocket of his sweat pants, he wondered what he would do with it. He headed out the door into the air where the smoke was blowing in from Malibu.
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