“No.”
“Motherfucker!” The bum poked the air between them with the knife. “Give me your stuff or I’ll stick you.”
Marty knew he would, too. But there was no way he was giving up his survival kit. Certainly not in exchange for a pile of piss-drenched rags he never wanted to begin with. No, he was not giving his pack up.
“You want it?” Marty asked, slipping it off his shoulders. “Fine, you can have it. Motherfucker.”
And with that, Marty lunged at him, holding the gym bag out directly in front of him. Marty pushed himself right into the point of bum’s knife, which sunk harmlessly into the bag.
The surprised bum staggered back and, just as he realized he’d lost his weapon, there was a loud crack and he spun around, shoved aside by some invisible linebacker.
It took a moment for Marty to figure out what happened, to make sense of the sound, the bum on the ground, the blood pooling underneath him.
He’d been shot.
Marty whirled around to see Buck marching up, holding the gun casually at his side, a cocky grimace on his face. “Never fear, the professional is here.”
“What the hell is the matter with you?” Marty immediately dropped his gym bag and knelt beside the bum, who was still alive, semi-conscious, groaning in pain. The wound was in his shoulder.
“I just saved your life,” Buck said, “you inconsiderate fuck.”
“I was handling it!” Marty tore open the man’s blood-soaked shirt, recoiling at the smell and the flea-bitten skin.
“You couldn’t handle your prick to piss.” Buck peered down at his victim.
Marty gently turned the man over and saw the exit wound. The bullet had passed right through him. That was a good thing, wasn’t it? He had no idea. Shit!
“You can’t just go around shooting people!” Marty yelled at him.
“I can shoot whoever I want whenever I want,” Buck replied casually. “I’m a licensed bounty hunter. Besides, this was self-defense.”
“He wasn’t threatening you,” Marty snapped. “Get me the first aid kit in my bag.”
“I was talking about your self defense, asshole,” Buck picked up the bag. “Did he or did he not threaten you with a knife?”
“I disarmed him!”
“Your method of disarming an individual is almost as impressive as your method of delivering a punch,” snorted Buck, dropping the bag dismissively, the knife still impaled in it, at Marty’s feet. “You’re owed a refund on your manhood.”
Marty unzipped the bag, tore open the plastic first aid kit, and flipped frantically through the ridiculously small brochure. Bee stings, blisters, broken arms-where the hell was the chapter on bullet wounds?
Buck sighed wearily. “What the fuck are you looking for?”
“Instructions!” Marty retorted. “How do I stop the bleeding?”
“Like this, dumb fuck.” Buck yanked the bum up into a sitting position, grabbed some gauze in each fist from the first aid kit, and applied pressure to both wounds. “Where have you been living?”
Marty looked at the two of them-the deranged, bleeding bum and the homicidal maniac who shot him-and stood up slowly on shaky knees.
“In another world,” Marty said, “and I’m anxious to get back.”
He snatched up his gym bag by one of the straps, plucked the steak knife out of it, and tossed it as far as he could. “You can keep the medical kit. You’re going to need it.”
“Where are you going?”
“Home. Haven’t you been listening?” Marty pulled a fresh dust mask out of his pack, zipped it up, and looped the straps over his shoulders. “You’re staying here and taking care of this man until help arrives.”
“Like hell I am.”
“Oh, you’ll do it, Buck. Because when this is all over, I’m going to tell the police what happened here today, that you shot him in cold blood. So, for your sake, you better hope he doesn’t bleed to death.”
Buck shook his head. “Twenty, thirty thousand people probably died today. You really think anyone is going to care what happened to some filthy homeless guy?”
“We’re all filthy homeless guys now, Buck,” Marty pulled the dust mask on and adjusted it over his nose and mouth. “Don’t forget to give him back his blankets. He really wants them back.”
And with that, Marty headed off once again. Reeking of sweat, cordite, gasoline, and another man’s piss. Feeling the pain of a dozen scrapes, countless bruises, and one passing bullet. Carrying the fresh memories of one dead woman, one terrified boy, and one homeless man wielding a rusty steak knife.
A lifetime of horrible experiences crammed into one morning, and he still wasn’t out of this yet. It didn’t seem possible. It certainly wasn’t fair.
He didn’t know how much more of this he could take. The earthquake and the extreme damage it caused still seemed distant, unreal, even though he’d walked through it. But all of this, the smells and pains he carried with him, were far too personal and almost too ugly to face. He didn’t do a thing for Molly, leaving her trapped to die in a fireball. At least he made up for that failure with Franklin.
He’d done his big, daring, heroic act. He was sitting out the rest of this catastrophe.
All Marty wanted to do was clear his head, to forget the suffering he had witnessed and the suffering he had caused, to make his mind a blank until he got to his doorstep.
Failing that, he’d settle for just an hour of peace, a chance to regroup, maybe find the strength that was cowering in some dark corner of his soul and coax it to come out.
All of his misfortune, all of the danger he’d been in, could be traced to his inability to abide by his own rules. That was going to change, starting now.
Marty rejoined 1st Street, which became Beverly Boulevard as it rose up hill on the other side of the overpass. To his left, a block-long mural had been painted on the retaining wall that held together the soil of the old Belmont High School’s football field, where hundreds of frightened kids were now gathered outside.
He was beginning at the end of a mural charting the life of man. It started in the future, showing a smiling, multi-ethnic group of Los Angelenos walking hand-in-hand into a Jetsons’ future of streamlined buildings and flying cars. And as Marty moved west, the mural took him back in time, past Indian camps and buffalo, past cavemen and saber-toothed tigers, right back to single-cell organisms floating blissfully ignorant in puddles of muck and the cosmic explosion that started it all.
B eth straddled him, her hands flat against his chest, her face crinkled with concentration, working steadily towards her climax. He liked watching her like this, her skin flushed and damp, her eyes lids heavy, her mouth slightly parted, her small breasts swaying with the urgent motion.
And when she finally got there, there was a sharp intake of breath, her jaw dropped, and she ground even more hurriedly against him, chasing the moment, not letting it escape until the last possible second, her entire body tensed up, her nipples drawn into hard points.
He grabbed her then, giving up to it, because for him it wasn’t a pursuit, but a losing battle, a fight against an ever strengthening force that he always knew would, and he desperately wanted, to overpower him.
Beth collapsed on his chest, breathing heavily, fresh perspiration on her back. Max thumped his tail excitedly on the hardwood floor, almost like an audience stamping their feet with applause. The dog loved it when they made love. He lay there, his head on a pile of scripts, watching them like an approving teacher. Marty hated having the dog in the room, he found it distracting. More than once the damn dog stuck his nose in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“We can’t do this forever,” she said huskily.
“Why not?” he whispered back, kissing her head.
“Because it’s two o’clock in the afternoon on a Thursday. We should be working.”
“I am,” he said. “The deeper I explore our relationship, the deeper I understand the characters I write.”