Hope reached into the ridiculously small pocket of her jeans where she had five twenties rolled tight inside of a straw. That money would never be spent unless things blew up and they had to get out of town fast. Getting out of town seemed more and more likely, since they had already used up most of the favors they had coming from the girls they were down with; they were left with Aunt Thelma and Manny the Perv. She wouldn’t consider help from people she didn’t know well ever since that social worker tried to take Chauncey away. Hope had called her because she thought she had no choice; Rika and her boyfriend at the time were squabbling in front of the house and it got to the point that Rika had pulled her duce-duce on him.
That’s when Hope figured that she had to do something, so she unfolded that barely legible number for Child Protective Services she had saved to do the right thing, but the right thing turned out to be so wrong. The social worker arrived the next day, a small, dark-skinned Asian woman who listened quietly and took a lot of notes. Soon, it became clear that she knew all about Rika and that she already had a thick folder on her. Hope realized that the social worker wasn’t going to take Rika away, just Chauncey. Hope changed course and threw out the incontestable fact that Rika was the best fucking mother in the world and that she’d made up the thing about Rika chasing her fool boyfriend in the street, trying to shoot him in the ass.
Rika had realized that Hope was on her side and came on strong with lies knowing that she was a fly’s finger from losing Chauncey.
“Oh yeah, the house is messy because I been working long hours — I don’t own a gun and I’ve never shot at anybody — I’ve been off drugs and living a healthy life.” Rika continued lying her ass off with the best butter-couldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth routine. Hope nodded with fake enthusiasm at all the right places. The social worker shrugged, realizing that she didn’t have a case and left with a bitter look on her face. After the social worker cleared out, Rika charged Hope and brutally slapped her. Rika was a relentlessly neglectful parent, not a physically cruel one, and rarely hit Hope, but this time she looked murderous. “If I had time, I’d beat your ass good,” she had said, and disappeared into the street. That was just the start of the times when it went from really bad to unbelievably fucked up.
Hope wanted to fall asleep; it just wasn’t going to happen. What she needed more than anything was a chance to catch her breath; she didn’t see how she could. She had to calm down, to rest, maybe even sleep, though she didn’t like her dreams.
First headlight beams flooded the room, then steps, a key in the lock. The chair stopped the door from opening.
“Open up! Don’t keep me out here!”
“Oh shit, he’s here,” Hope said, still whispering as though Chauncey could possibly sleep through all the shouting. He wailed and Maria put her hands on top of her head as though she were trying to keep it from flying off.
“Hey, I hear you. Open the door!”
Hope knew the voice though she didn’t want to. Not him, not now.
“It’s Manny, he’s early,” Hope said, fear and anger in her voice.
Maria turned on the light and reached for the diaper bag and held it close to her chest. Hope held Chauncey in one arm and with her free hand pushed the chair away and opened the door.
Manny stood there in the doorway, silhouetted by the ample off-street lighting radiating from the parking lot — lighted parking lots supposedly kept gangsters away like sunlight did vampires, though vampires didn’t shoot the lights out.
Hope ignored him as she cooed to the baby, doing her best to calm him. For whatever reason he didn’t close the door behind him. Hope couldn’t bring herself to do it either. Somehow it closed itself.
With liquor stink all over him, Manny stumbled over to the bed, sat on the edge of it, and unlaced his boots. Suddenly this room with all the mirrors and purple everywhere looked like what it was: a place that pervs like Manny could get their freak on. He was a little man who walked with a cowboy swagger when he wasn’t staggering, and who drove a SUV so big it had a ladder. Brown-skinned and weathered like he earned a living outdoors, he was a building inspector for the city of Los Angeles. The owners of the motels around the bedraggled central city, all Patels and Kupuys — South Asians trying to make a living on some of the worst streets of Los Angeles — knew Manny’s kind, and comped him rooms to keep him smiling and happy as he had his way with underage girls.
“Where’d you find the boy?”
“He’s my brother.”
“Good, good. Didn’t know you had a white mama.”
“My mother’s not white.”
Manny grimaced like talking to Hope was too much work. He looked away from her and focused on Maria. “I finished my vacation early, just so I could get back here and spend time loving on you.”
Maria looked stricken, and it didn’t help when Manny reached into the bag and came out with a brown leather jacket with fringes like you see on girls who dance to ranchero music.
“I got this for you. Come over here and try it on.”
Maria took one step and, like a dog snapping at a fly, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her down onto his lap.
“I... wait,” Maria said, still clutching the diaper bag.
Manny didn’t wait; he clamped one of his hands onto Maria’s leg and squeezed it. He tried kissing her on the mouth, but she turned her head, and he caught her ear. It didn’t seem to bother Manny that Maria cringed every time he touched her. Actually, he seemed more than comfortable with her discomfort. Hope, though, was losing her mind. Maria put up with Manny because she felt she had to — of all the bad shit she had to deal with he wasn’t the worst — but she really didn’t have to live like that anymore. They both swore that they’d never let that kind of shit happen to them again.
Maria held out the diaper bag for Hope to take.
“You could party with us, but the baby would probably yell his ass off.”
“No, I don’t party.”
“You don’t?” Manny said with a frown while massaging Maria’s leg.
“No, I’m watching my brother. I don’t have time to party.”
“Oh well. Maybe you need to give us privacy. Take the kid into the bathroom or something.”
Maria pleaded with her eyes for some kind of help as Hope walked away into the sanctuary of the bathroom. What was wrong with them? They should have seen this coming. Manny had done it before to Maria, but times had changed, or at least that’s what they wanted to believe.
Hope sat on the toilet and rocked Chauncey asleep, glancing up at herself in the mirror and feeling disgusted as she listened to what was happening on the other side of the door, whispers that weren’t whispers; the grunts of a drunken-ass old fool and the sounds of Maria protesting.
Soon as Chauncey was sleeping, she put him into the tub on top of a nest of bath towels, and then took the .38 out of the bag and looked it over. Would it work if she pulled the trigger? Unsure, but determined to make things different, she swung the door open and stepped into the other room.
Manny was on top of Maria, grinding his tattooed body into her, grunting mightily. Maria had her arms across her face to keep his nasty mouth from kissing her, and Manny was too into it to notice Hope kneeling down and rolling the bat from beneath the bed.
Hope thought about what she would do next. Should she shoot him or hit him? She had promised Maria that she’d get her back, just like Maria said she’d get hers. Hope stepped forward, lowered the gun, and lifted the bat high, then came down on the back of Manny’s head; the sound was sick like a coconut cracking, but at least Manny stopped with the grunting.