James mounted and they pedaled on.
“That was… that was a good thing you did.”
“Triage,” said James. “Goddammit.”
Hu didn’t answer.
They traveled past the line of old men, castoffs in a younger world, all of them struggling in the rising heat. As they turned right to go up the ramp to Wilshire Boulevard, even more old and frail men were gathering in a crowd. Some of them were weeping. Others were stepping into the traffic lanes, knocking on the windows of slow-moving vehicles. Others stood silently on the sidewalk, sunken in despair, gaunt and resigned in the heat of the day. Two looked like they were unconscious on the sidewalk. Here and there, car doors were opened for them—but not enough.
It was a nightmare.
They pushed past. Most of the old men ignored them. They were just two more bodies in the passing parade of people who couldn’t or wouldn’t help them.
A couple of the old men were shouting obscenities—mostly at the cars, but a few directed their streams of abuse at James and Hu. One hollered at Hu, “That’s right, you dirty Jap, run away, run away—or we’ll get you again like we did at Pearl Harbor—”
“I’m Chinese,” said Hu, but the old man didn’t care, or didn’t hear. Hu followed James; they pushed on.
There were officers working the underpass here too, but without the same frustration and confusion that they had seen a mile further south at Santa Monica Boulevard. The officers here were also directing traffic up onto the southbound lanes of the 405, pointing cars up the off-ramp, shouting and waving them forward, even demanding they use that side of the highway as an additional northbound escape. Some drivers looked reluctant, this felt wrong, but they followed the officers’ directions and headed up the off-ramp anyway
The traffic inched along slowly, jerking spasmodically, filling every spare foot of space—but it moved—only a little at a time, but it moved with a single-minded purpose. If these vehicles could get far enough north, far enough up the Sepulveda Pass, these drivers would likely survive.
James and Hu lowered their heads and pushed themselves forward as quickly as they could. They blinded themselves to the naked desperation and pushed east, somehow getting through the traffic at the ramps and into the cooling shadow of the underpass. They didn’t linger, the place smelled of fumes. Finally, they were out to the other side and across Sepulveda. They threaded their way through the cars on this side.
When they came to the giant Federal building on the south side of the boulevard, a massive white monolith, Hu looked to James, an unspoken question in his glance. They looked to the crowds gathering at the structure, surrounding its entrances, including another legion of old men. James shook his head, an unspoken reply. Bad idea. Not gonna be enough room for everyone… and still too close to the shoreline.
They pushed on.
A long row of tall buildings lay ahead of them, not quite skyscrapers in the modern sense, but tall enough to be imposing—tall enough to look like safety. Already, the foot traffic was getting thick—businessmen, residents, students from the UCLA campus a mile north—the buildings were filling up. The top floors would be crowded.
When James and Hu finally got to the intersection of Westwood and Wilshire Boulevards, they hit a new obstacle—a huge gaping hole in the ground that was the excavation for the Westwood terminus of the Purple Line, the latest extension to the Los Angeles subway system.
If it had been completed, if the tracks had been laid and energized, the city could have evacuated another half-million people. But today, it was a gaping promise. Unfinished. Empty. And shortly to be flooded, inundated, and scraped away by a bulldozer of debris—
James stopped himself.
Don’t go there. Just don’t.
He checked Google Maps, nodded, pointed to the right. “We’ll take the side streets.”
A block south, along Wellworth Avenue, they could easily pedal east again. It was a residential area, mostly one- or two-story houses. Traffic was thick here, but not impossible—just a steady stream of cars, pushing slowly east. James and Hu kept to the sidewalks; there weren’t many other riders here, and they made the best progress since leaving Venice.
James glanced at his watch. They were behind schedule, but there was still time. They were going to make it.
If there were no more shootings.
They followed the side streets—Wellworth, Warner, Ashton, Holmby—past the worst of the jams, and then they were back on Wilshire. It cut easily through the golf courses, but it was an uphill slog, and the bikes and trailers were heavily loaded.
Halfway up the hill, Hu called for a stop. He opened a fresh water bottle, drank half of it, and passed it to James, who finished it… and tossed the bottle over the fence onto the green. “Always wanted to do that.”
“Jimmy—?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s awfully hot.”
“Yeah—” But he knew that wasn’t what Hu meant. Their shirts were sweat-stained, they were both damp with the effort of pedaling with the extra weight. The uphill part was just an excuse to stop.
“The bike-trailers,” said Hu. “The tanks—”
“I know—”
“They’re holding us back—”
James fell silent. He took a deep breath, then another, tried to compose himself. Hu was frustrated. And when Hu was frustrated, then James got frustrated, because he had to talk Hu down. But this was different.
“I think we can make it.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“We have to try.” James pointed. “This part is all uphill. Once we get to the top, it’ll be an easy ride down the other side.”
Hu looked past James, up toward the crest. It really wasn’t that far. He knew he could make it—but it wasn’t the top of the hill he was worried about. It was the rest of the distance, to Pearl’s house and then to safety. He felt overwhelmed, almost to the point of tears.
“Jimmy, you know I’d never ask you to—”
James leaned his bike against the fence, went quickly back to Hu. “Squeak, I know, you wouldn’t ask unless there was no other way. And it’s the same for me. I wouldn’t ask you if I could see any other way. But I don’t think we can leave any of this behind.” He stopped himself. “Wait—”
Beside them, the traffic chugged slowly past. James ignored the curious stares of several small children leaning out the open windows of a passing SUV.
“Okay, look,” James said. “Let’s put only our must-haves into our backpacks, okay? All our paperwork, money, phones, your computer, all the stuff we can’t leave behind. The stuff in the dry bags, right? And then let’s see how much farther we can get with the rest. Is that okay?”
Hu nodded reluctantly. It was a concession. Not the one he wanted, but he had to trust James—James was the better planner. He started thinking what he could repack. It wasn’t much. He’d already put the most important things in his knapsack. Some of the weight was water bottles. He felt damp and sweaty all over. For a moment, he dreamt of the long luxurious shower he could take when they got back home.
Then he realized he would never see that shower again. Abruptly he realized he had to pee.
Hu looked around. They were at least a mile from anything that might serve as a rest stop—the hell with it—he turned to the chain-link fence, lifted up the left side of his shorts and let loose a personal torrent, splashing at the fence. James joined him, yanked down his own shorts, and for a moment, their two streams arced toward the silent green of the golf course.
Hu giggled.
“What?”
“Don’t cross the streams—”
“You see too many movies.”
“You watch ’em with me.”