Veiled on Redondo Pier

“I wouldn’t be here if I could talk about it” he said. “I need some time.”

“Maybe later then. And Damn, that looks pure as hell.”

“Well it’s not pure. You need other ingredients for the best experience.”

“I’ve seen the pure-pure before, buh.” She leaned her back up against the wall, but quickly made a face and leaned forward back to standing.

“No you haven’t. Too pure and the coke gets too rocky. The taste is off too.”

“Horse-shit. Remember the weekend in Chicago? We went to that jazz club.”

“I remember.”

The toilet paper canister the man crouched beside was metal and well-constructed, with a flat top. Form follows function. This wasn’t the first time lines had formed in this handicap stall. He admired the shimmering surface and put the white bag away in his pocket.

“Here, go for it.”

She smiled and took out her hundred dollar bill, rolled and ready. The man heard the music playing out in the bar. Nirvana. Nirvana was always playing somewhere in this town. He’d been in Redondo Beach, California for two days. No one knew he was here except his host and savior, this woman now breathing in an emotion carved for her. She was short for a woman and had long brunette hair. She was of Nepalian descent – her father was a refugee. Her father was always so positive and eloquent even in his second language. But there was no accent in the woman’s voice. Her demeanor was more white-male than anyone wanted to admit. The “she” pronoun didn’t seem to fit her. Two pronouns aren’t enough. And they were in the men’s handicap stall, after all.

“You’re next, Cam.”

“Two lines were for you?”

“One’s all I need.”

He took out his silver vacuum. The three inch tall, pure silver vacuum was designed to snort up cocaine in the fastest, most fashionable way. He was quite fashionable.

For those who live their lives to serve and impress others, whose self-worth is measured by the words of all who speak, cocaine awakens an inner confidence so powerful that the pride outweighs the shame for long enough to believe they’re as important as they know they are. At least that’s how he saw it.

“That’s not a burner phone.” He said as he tucked his vacuum back into his pocket.

“Those bastards can’t find me. The FBI have been after me for three years and haven’t come close.”

“One more beer?”

“Apparently we’re both criminals. Of course we need another beer. Tittymilk!”

“Yes, tittymilk.”

She returned to turns of phrase that he hadn’t heard in years so easily. Familiarity is a joy. Cam went first and the girl followed behind, making sure no one saw her exiting the men’s bathroom.

They took their seats back at the bar.

“Please, tell me.”

“No. Two more Pacificos please.”

Cam pushed the empty pint glasses from before towards the bartender. Did the bartender suspect anything? Probably, but good bartenders don’t show emotion. Hiding is a fulltime job, he thought. Cam scratched his messy hair and looked towards his old friend. She met his gaze.

“The last time you sent me a GPG message you had $160,000 cash to deposit. Then out of the blue you show up at my front door with no suitcase or anything. Not even a credit card or a phone.”

“Feba, no one can know I’m here.”

“Are you being chased?”

“Not yet.”

Cam’s eyes scanned the bar. No new guests. He was the only man in the bar wearing a button up shirt. Come to think of it, he was the only one with a jacket too. It wasn’t cold, but he needed the pockets for his keys and cash. It was neither too cold nor too warm, but everyone here at least pretended they were in the tropics. We love to act like we’re on vacation, he thought. Even Feba had a care-free air about her, despite being one of the most successful money launderers in Southern California. Yet she wore a button-down shirt as well. She did this in college when they had gone out drinking. They were button up shirts in a sea of t-shirts. The two pints of beer arrived, with limes neatly on the side.

“Are you still in Atlanta these days? How is it?”

“Sticky.”

“How long will you be in town? For a famous planner, it sure seems like you don’t have a plan.”

“I haven’t done many weddings in the last year. I have a new business.”

Feba shifted closer and took a long sip of her beer. She would always finish her beer first. He’d forgotten that.

“Tell me.”

“You know how weddings are a day to celebrate the union of a couple? Now I plan days that celebrate individuals. I coordinate spiritual journeys. Experiences that change my clients’ outlook.”

“Uhuh, for boujie white girls?”

“Well, I guess, mostly.”

“How much do you charge?”

“As much as weddings, sometimes. I put my heart into it. I manicure the entire trip just like a couple designs their wedding day. A couple knows what they want. I craft the spirit journey from beginning to end, and they trust me as an artist. They barely know the plan – they come on a ride. I care. You know I care about my clients.”

Cam took a sip of his beer. His throat was numb.

“What a business model. God damn I want a spirit vacation”

“It’s a journey.” He spoke faster.

“I learn about my client, then there are phases in the journey. Phase one, anchor: forgo the image of yourself. Phase two, compass: know who you are inside. Phase three, purpose: ask for what you want.”

“Phase four, trip acid!”

“No. Phase four, act. start the habits. Every journey is custom curated. I’m surprised you didn’t see any of my posts.”

“I was off social media for a while. But I remember all about your weddings.”

His mind turned suddenly to the first big wedding he planned, where he stood behind a grand staircase as the bride turned the corner and stepped out into a ballroom smothered in florals and smiling faces. He watched as her expression changed from nervousness to pure acceptance. He watched her eyes as they let go of any remaining ounce of doubt. He had done it. Back then, his confidence was a façade, and here was something to prove. Watching that bride walk down the aisle was credibility; here was the armor of experience. When the processional music stopped, he sat and cried. He had prayed by himself, “Thank you, thank you.”

“How much does a new identity cost?” he asked his friend as she took the last sip of her beer in a bar on a pier, on the other side of the country. Cam noticed her undo a button at the top of her blouse.

“You still unbutton your shirt the more you drink? I had forgotten.”

“Only when I’m with friends I guess. It’s been a while. But it’s how I count the drinks I’ve had.” She stood up grinning and leaned toward him.

“Believe me, you don’t want a new identity. Whatever you did.”

She pulled out four crisp $20 bills and laid them on the bar. Whatever the bartender thought won’t matter now.

“Come on. I have to show you the most famous food on the pier.”

They stood and walked out of the bar into the pushing breeze of the Pacific. Cam looked up and saw seagulls floating above him, barely moving, just balancing on the wind. To his right he could see all the way down the pier a few hundred yards as it ended on the horizon. Yellow light reflected blankly off the rows of glass windows. He followed her to the left, inland, among a colorful bustling of June tourists. Maybe there’s always tourists here? Maybe they’re locals acting like they’re on vacation. It was surprisingly hard to tell.

Beneath him, he stepped on bright silver nails, spread out like shining quarters, protruding from the worn wood. Do people trip on the hardware as the ancient wood erodes away? His mind was wandering as it often does when he’s had cocaine. Or maybe he was hungry. He caught up and walked beside her.

“Dinner’s on me – I appreciate you exchanging my crypto for cash. Crypto is all I can use right now.”

She laughed. “No worries buh. It’s wild you made it out here with no phone or suitcase or anything. I’m glad you could access your account without your phone. How do you have so much Bitcoin?”

“An accident actually. I used it for what it was made for, buying drugs online back in 2015. Then I never emptied one of my bitcoin wallets. Then the price exploded. Total accident.”

“Well I’m the queen of cash. That 10K in your pocket should last you a while.”

She laughed.

“You’re going to love this place. And it’s cash only.”

He did love cash. Cash is real. It’s harder to spend. Life doesn’t hold together naturally, and chaos will get the best of you if you can’t remember what’s real. Cash is real. It’s easier to use to rebuild.

OO

“Here we are.” She gestured.

He looked up and saw a yellow and blue shack with barely enough space for the teenage girl inside. It was a small, exposed kitchen with windows, and inside was a lemonade machine and a workspace with a fryer and cutting board. Above the shack were huge letters: “Hotdog on a stick since 1962.” =

That’s when my dad was born, he thought.

“I’m not all that hungry.”

Feba laughed and pushed him to the order window.

“That’s just the Sniff-Sniff talking – you have to try a hotdog on a stick.”

He peered into the corndog stand.

“Two please.” Feba said.

Inside the shack, he could see simple hot dogs, pink and cold, stacked into a pyramid shape. The employee slid the hotdog onto a wood stick, then dipped the dog into a thick cornmeal batter. She dipped the dog over and over. Her eyes moved quickly beneath long synthetic eyelashes. Those eyelashes were thicker than truth. She placed the corndog upside down into a vat of hot oil which popped and sizzled, and leaned the stick into a small groove with a metal clip. He placed a $20 on the counter, then put the change into the tip jar.

He looked back at the stack of raw hotdogs. They reminded him of himself somehow. He was without his watch, his phone, his plans. Even as he was hiding, he wanted an identity. He rubbed his left wrist with his right hand where his favorite watch should be. An Omega Seamaster Chronometer with a blue ceramic face accented in 18k gold. He knew it was meaningless, but couldn’t help obsessing.

The corndog attendant lifted the corndog upwards and the oil slipped off the rounded edge. She paused and then splashed the corndog back into the fray. Up and down a few more times. Crispier and crispier. She lifted the corndog one last time and laid it diagonally in a square paper tray. In the top right corner she gave a dallop of ketchup, and the bottom left corner was a squirt of mustard. Perfect little dallops. Was this art? No, that was just the best place to put ketchup and the best place to put mustard. Form follows function.

He took a bite. This was undoubtedly the best corndog of his life. The outer shell was taut and crisp with the cornbread buttery and moist, as if it was fresh from a cast iron skillet.

Now in his thoughts he saw a rundown hut in Nepal and he was crouching with his backpack as the sun set behind the mountain behind him, waiting. There was no telephone service, and he held a paper map in front of him. The map was beautiful and simple and he had used highlighter weeks before to outline the pilgrimage. They had reached their destination. Lha-Chyogu: a tattoo from an indegenous tattoo artist. His client was inside, as the artist preferred to work in silence. His client had no say in the tattoo itself, only the location on her body. At this moment, a spiked hammer was pricking her skin with a charcoal-black tip. He was scared to get a tattoo. Yet he had his client do it. His client trusted him. He didn’t want a tattoo at all, he had told himself.

When she came out of the hut, he shone a flashlight on her forearm, revealing the fresh black pattern on her skin. Neither of them said a thing. His client smiled – it was more than the tattoo being perfect. It was knowing that his plan worked. It was validation that he had earned what he was paid.

They were walking towards the end of the pier, corndogs in hand. A light breeze funneled through the path lined with little shops and lookout points. The sun was lower now, and fishermen dotted the edges of the pier as sea birds stood on wooden beams along the edge. Massive steel installations floated above in the shape of sails. These thin triangles probably had the purpose of offering shade to pedestrians, but he had seen them before. They were the logo of Redondo Beach. They likely didn’t give much shade at all.

The pier had three connections to the mainland and wound through the ocean in a zig zag shape. They passed a few teenagers talking on a picnic table, then a young couple huddled over a white to-go box. A loud family walked past with a double stroller at its nucleus.

As they approached the railing of the westmost point of the pier, there was a large pelican strutting slowly about the deck. It shuffled its feathers and eyed the fishermen with their fishing poles along the rail. The bird’s long shadow crept down the boardwalk. It stretched its featherless neck out and then coughed up a few small fish bones.

He had just picked his client up from the airport and they were driving. Her name was Kate and he’d been in communication with her for months. She was the young wife of a tech founder in San Francisco. She was delightful. Her bubbly excitement for her spirit journey was contagious. This was going to be a special one, and he had a whole list of questions prepared for the drive. Oh the things he could teach her. Oh the trauma he could uncover. But this was a detour. He saw two young girls behind a foldout table, off to the side of a neighborhood. He pulled over and they read the small sign. “Free mulberries.” Kate had smiled and they hopped out of the rental car. Walking up to the stand, the girls were brimming with glee and clearly proud of their pile of delicious berries.

“How much?” He had asked.

“Oh, they’re free.” One of the girls responded.

The girls looked to be around nine or ten-years-old.

“How sweet of you!” Kate said

She cupped her hands and the girls worked together to scrape some berries up and drop them into Kate’s palms. The berries were all different sizes and most had a long green stem still attached. These stems would end up in the car’s cup holders shortly.

Cam placed a $20 bill on the table gently

“This is a tip for both you little entrepreneurs.”

As they drove away, they saw the two girls high five. It was the last time he heard Kate laugh.

“I love this little city.” Feba said.

He turned his gaze from the purple sunset. She was smiling at him.

“And no one knows this, but I just completed my biggest deal ever a few days ago. To reward myself, I booked a flight to Hawaii. And now I get to hang with you. What a time to be alive.”

“Congrats on the deal.”

“I created a non-profit and moved a mountain of cash through it. It’s hard to celebrate when I can’t tell anyone.”

He knew what she was doing. She was trying to get him to give up his secrets by revealing some of her own. She took the last bite of her corndog and flicked the wooden stick into the ocean. She was completely in the moment, and he loved that about her. Her dark brown hair blew back behind her and she suddenly seemed fierce.

“More sniff-sniff?” he asked.

“No thanks.”

“Your client’s cash – what was it from?”

“I try not to dig too deep.”

The bottom tip of the sun touched the water now. The sky was filled with purples and pinks. The ocean reflected the colors upon the tips of the waves, but this wasn’t so off to the North. The long breakwater barrier made its way through the sea, and all the ocean on the inside of this line was still and calm with only a simple blue color. More people were walking up now to watch the sunset. He had gone through a lot of phases as a child, but he’d always loved sunsets. Sunsets could never get old. It was one thing he would always love. The onlookers around him were visibly excited for that moment when the final beam of sun cut over the water’s edge. He could feel it too. Behind them, a baby was crying.

“You ever want kids?” Feba asked him. She wasn’t concerned with the sunset.

“If I ever have kids, I want to break the cycle. My codependent parents made a lot of problems for me. I have to fix people. I have to always be in control. I’m constantly living my life for affection and the appearance of success. All codependency symptoms. I’m scared it will splash onto my kids.”

Feba stared at him.

“My point is that parenting for the benefit of the parents is easy. Parenting for the benefit of the child is tough.”

The sun was dipping into the ocean and light was fading.

“Do you want kids?” He asked.

“No.”

OO

As the last sliver of the sun disappeared behind the ocean, there was a hush all around them. Even the crying baby stopped. It was as if this brief moment was sacred, and something primordial kept each witness from disturbing the stillness. Cam’s eyes fell to the rocking ocean waves below.

“Cam, I want to help you. Please tell me what the fuck happened to you.”

He rubbed the back of his teeth with his tongue.

“It’s my last client. She’s missing.”

Cam swallowed hard.

“Was this a spirit vacation client?”

“Journey. Yes. Kate. Originally she was from a small town in Iowa. The journey plan was to follow the Des Moines river up to its source to Lake Shatek. There’s an island in the middle. Kate was to stay there. When she learned she was flying back to Iowa she was stunned, but I had it all planned out. The cottage by the edge of the lake, the daily canoe to the island with a different experience waiting for her. On the second evening she told me she wanted to go skinny dipping. I gave her some privacy. I figured she’d make it back alright without me.”

Cam closed his eyes and spun around to put his back against the railing.

“I searched for 48 hours straight. There was a big rain a few days before. I shouldn’t have let her swim. There was no trace. She was-”

He grimaced, and then swallowed dryly.

“She was the essence of innocence. I should have called the cops the second I first suspected her drowning. But I didn’t. I fucking froze. I’ve never froze like that. I put myself first, and then I kept putting myself first, then I lost it. The further I drove the more I fucked I became.”

“Are you sure she’s dead? What if they find her body?

“I didn’t sleep, and I searched every shoreline near where she went in at. But no one suspects a thing. She’s informed everyone who cares about her not to worry about here or ask where she’s at for three weeks. It feels like a perfect storm. Like anarchy. I feel that she’s dead. I left everything in my hotel room as if I went missing too. I don’t know why I did it like that. It made sense at the time. I took all my cash and the rental car and I booked it. I’ve never fucked up like this. This isn’t me, you know? But I failed her.”

“Fuck.” Feba said as she closed her eyes.

As they walked back on the darkened pier, Feba stopped by a small window store and bought two beers. They moved in silence through a thinning crowd and bright white lights of the light poles. Feba lived a few houses back from the pier, and they walked in thought back towards home. Without noticing, the pier became mainland, and mainland became a sidewalk. Feba popped a third button open on her shirt.

Cam was the first to speak.

“I’ve always wondered if I was a fake. What makes me an authority on anyone’s growth? You know?

“It’s never too late to come clean. Or to buy a new identity.”

She looked down then at her phone. “What the fuck?”

She stopped walking.

“There’s someone at my door. It’s on my security camera.”

They were only a block away from her house. She placed her empty beer on the ground and used both hands now to search the lit screen with an incredulous expression.

“God dammit,” she whispered.

Feba started to back up when out of the darkness came a police car driving slow. The policeman rolled down his window. Act cool, he thought. Suddenly, and without hesitation, Feba began to run. Why did she run? “Follow me!” Feba said. Cam was behind her in a flash. The police car’s lights popped on and he was after them.

They darted back the way they had come and then turned abruptly into a long black parking garage. He was breathing hard and running fast. This was not the time for a puffy jacket and a belly full of beer. Cam ran through the garage as fast as he could. Feba’s long black hair was bouncing and was curiously symmetrical. He knew he needed to focus. Her hair reminded him of a lion’s mane. He deserved to be caught, he thought. What’s it matter?

At the end of the parking garage, they paused beneath a staircase leading up to a second level parking lot above. All he could hear at first was his own breathing. They crouched low and listened. The sound of the siren was growing louder. They looked at each other. Her expression had changed. It was serious and with conviction as her eyebrows tightened together.

“Looks like we’re in the same boat now. There’s police at my house,” she said.

“Stay close.”

They moved quickly out of the parking garage and into the open. He could see the ocean again. They ran down a small staircase and out into an open walkway with more shops. The pier opened up before them. The siren was much louder now.

“Run.”

They took off onto the pier. Why are we going to the pier? There’s no escape on the pier?

The stone turned to wood planks. Their running took on a new sound and Feba dashed a short distance further, then sidestepped through a wooden gate. Cam followed. Inside was a small platform on the side of the pier which held the trashcans for the adjacent restaurant. His heart was racing and his throat felt raw. He was standing by a short railing directly above the waves, about 50 yards from the beach. He saw waves crashing up against the sand while further up was a tall line of massive rocks forming a stone seawall before the walkway and parking garage from which they came. Further up the pier near the main entrance, he could hear more sirens.

The hour had come and he could feel there was no escape. Feba seemed to be herself again.

“They’re after me. They don’t know about you.”

“They saw me with you.”

“They don’t want you. You need to jump. Jump off and hide beneath the pier. Hide in the rocks and get out. I’ll run the other direction.”

“Feba, it’s over for me too.”

“Fuck you Cam, jump off.” She grabbed him by the jacket and pushed him against the wood railing. It was a 25 foot fall off the side. The water had to be freezing. He imagined being dragged out of the water by the police.

“Feba let’s –”

“Don’t drown.” She said and pushed him hard against his shoulders. He tried to keep his balance, but instead found himself falling backwards and spinning in the air off the edge of the pier.

The water swallowed him in a black instant. Which way was up? He struggled in the blackness and felt the biting cold on his face. In another instant his thoughts were wiped away like a glacier across an empty plain. He popped to the surface, bobbing but still unable to gasp for air. The pull of the waves was around him but he found his balance using his arms and saw the shape of cement beams to his right. Swim, he thought. He put all his effort into swimming motions, weighted down by his soaked clothes and the numbing cold. Before moving directly beneath the pier he looked up to an empty railing. No one had seen him fall, and Feba was gone. He focused once more on the shore and tried to keep beneath the pier itself.

Waves sucked him under and side to side. After a short time struggling, a large wave brought him close enough that he felt the sand on his feet. His breaths were jagged. He dragged himself to shore and dropped to his knees. He looked up towards the pier and could make out a figure running. It was Feba, running in her bra with no shirt. What a distraction, he thought. It was a distraction. She was followed by four police officers. There’s no way she’ll make it. He climbed up the stones, each one taller than he was. The stones were massive, rounded boulders stacked in random, jutting formations. He climbed up ten feet into the wall of stone and found a small crevice jutting straight downward and lined by the sharp edges of three rocks. Squeezing inside, the hole was warm from the day’s heat. Or maybe anything was warm compared to his shivering fingers. It smelled of seaweed. He found that he could lay down with his back against the flat side of a rock and with his head close to the opening. He wedged his thighs between two rocks and laid his head down on the rock behind him. He was shivering and couldn’t feel his face. He hugged his torso and closed his eyes, trying to take longer breaths.

He opened his eyes and could hear a humming sound beyond the sirens. Out of the blackness of the sky, a helicopter suddenly came into view through the center of his porthole. Two white lights and a red light on the tail. It was arched at an angle, circling toward somewhere close. A white beam came from the front of the chopper and then it disappeared from sight once more.

OO

In that moment as the helicopter vanished, he knew he had never been more alone. The salty smell of the ocean reminded him of iron and his mouth tasted like copper. “Make an ask,” he thought to himself. Out loud and in a wearied voice he spoke what came to mind.

“I am just a body. I am asking to not be found. I am asking to be warm and to live.”

He coughed suddenly and his chest felt constricted like the stones above him were instead pressed directly on his ribs. Part of him wanted to be found. But the cold was enough to abate his sense of guilt. He opened his eyes and saw the helicopter whirled above his vantage point once more. Its light beam sliced through the darkness down to some unknown scene. There was no symmetry to a helicopter he realized. The tail was imbalanced, with a rotor on one side and not the other. And yet it moved with such precision. He placed his hands in opposing armpits and shivered.

It was his first time in Cairo, Egypt. He and his client were brought from the airport directly to the top of the hotel via helicopter to best see the sprawling city. The spires of the mosques and buildings were ancient and felt eternal. That night, he had seen how kings must have partied. It was a style so natural to his hosts that he wished it was natural for him as well. In a large ballroom, he sat smoking hookah and watching singers who sounded as if they had endless breath. The nicotine made him lightheaded. Vodka was the liquor of choice by everyone in this club, and it was served in ice buckets straight to the table. Course after course of different foods had come. He finally mustered up the courage to dance on the dance floor. It’s not an embarrassment if you’re being true to yourself. He didn’t know any of the traditional dances, but he could feel the music in his body. When he left the party, he watched the sunrise in shades of yellow reflected across the ancient city.

He couldn’t feel his feet, but the warmth had returned to his torso. He wanted to make it. As he listened to the rocking roar of the waves, sleep took him then. When he awoke, seagulls were cawing and circling with the gray morning light. His head screamed. His legs ached and his back felt like hell. He couldn’t feel his right foot at all. They didn’t find me after all, he thought. A thankfulness took him for a brief moment, and then the dread flickered: what about Kate? What about Feba? Could this have been his fault too? No. He took the biggest breath he could take and found hope. He made a plan as he shook his legs free from their stony sleep. He had to go back.

“Conviction.” He whispered to himself.

His hands shook as he reached for the edges of the exit. With great effort he emerged into a brisk morning and found his lungs full of mist.