The Walk

CHAPTER ELEVEN

11:12 a.m. Wednesday

West of La Brea, Melrose became the self-consciously funky fashion center of Los Angeles before morphing, just as self-consciously, into the high-end, home decorating district as the avenue crossed San Vicente.

Marty and Buck were in the heart of the funky stretch, where stores with names like Wasteland, Armageddon, No Problem, Devastation, and Redemption competed in Marty’s mind as the Most Tragically Symbolic.

But the greatest accomplishment of these fashion-sellers wasn’t their prescience at picking business names but their skillful repackaging of thrift store hand-me-downs and garage sale castoffs. They discovered you could slap the word vintage on a ratty t-shirt, a rusted refrigerator, a dented Pontiac, or an old pair of reading glasses and suddenly it wasn’t an out-dated, beat-up, broken piece of crap; it was stylish. It was hot. It was cutting edge. Vintage clothes, vintage furniture, vintage records, vintage jewelry, vintage cars, even vintage food, in the guise of a fifties burger stand, could all be found here.

Vintage stuff wasn’t all that was hot on Melrose. Marty was surprised to see that an upscale porn emporium, selling ointments, videos, vibrators, chains, condoms, handcuffs, inflatable women, and anything else that might come handy in the bedroom, was doing a brisk business.

Obviously, no earthquake kit would be complete without a couple dildos.

Buck stopped to look at two mannequins, still standing in the shattered window of a clothing store that once offered “Goth Babe ensembles” and “butt pirate duds.” The female mannequin was dressed in an Edwardian dress with a seatbelt corset. The male mannequin wore a crushed velvet pirate shirt and leopard-print tuxedo jacket.

“What kind of fucking freak wears that shit?” Buck asked.

But Marty was more interested in the store next door, which sold old jeans, old shirts, and new Doc Martens-heavy, no-bullshit shoes that would be perfect for a post-quake journey over buckled asphalt. And a clean shirt, no matter how many people had worn it before, looked pretty good to him right now, too.

Marty stepped through the broken window into the store, wading through the piles of clothes on the floor.

“What are you looking for?” Buck asked.

“Some clean clothes and a new pair of shoes. See if you can find a size twelve.”

Buck drew his gun. “The hell I will.”

Marty looked at him wearily. “What are you going to do, shoot me again?”

“It’s what I do to looters.”

“I’m not going to steal anything. I’ll pay for it,” Marty turned his back on Buck and sorted through some shirts, looking for a large. This was the third time Buck had pointed a gun at him and the impact had worn off. “I’ll leave the money by the register with the price tags of whatever I take.”

“You’re stopping to go fucking shopping? What the fuck is the matter with you? I thought you were in a hurry to get home.”

“I am, but my feet are covered in blisters, my shoes are shredded. I need new shoes if I’m gonna make it. And look at me. What do you think my wife is going to say when she sees me like this?”

“She won’t give a shit how you look, she’ll be glad you’re alive-or the bitch can fuck herself and we end this long walk right now.”

“Fine, forget the clothes. But I need the shoes,” Marty spotted something on the floor. “And socks.”

Marty snatched up the socks, set a fallen chair straight, and sat down, yanking off his shoes. He could feel Buck’s anger without even looking at him. “It’s not about comfort, Buck. It’s about necessity.”

“Yeah, right.”

Marty’s socks peeled off his feet like a layer of dead skin. His feet were red and swollen, covered with burst blisters and festering new ones.

Buck picked up a pair of Doc Martens and tossed them at Marty’s feet. “A hundred bucks, cash.”

“I got the money.” Marty carefully put on the fresh pair of socks, but pulling the fabric over his tender skin stung anyway. He slipped on the shoes and tied up the laces.

Marty stood up and walked a few steps. His feet were sore, but this was an improvement. The shoes were stiff, but in a good way. It was like having his feet encased in concrete. He could walk over anything now.

“You ought to try a pair, Buck.”

He turned to Buck, and that’s when he saw the reflection in the cracked mirror behind the bounty hunter, the reflection of a orange-haired guy stepping out of the back room, cradling a sawed-off shotgun.

Marty whirled around and discovered that having two barrels aimed at him instead of one definitely had an impact-especially when they were held in the shaky hands of a strung-out guy with a face intentionally skewered with a dozen drill bits.

“Hi,” Marty said, his voice cracking. “Nice store you have here. It is your store, right?”

But the guy wasn’t looking at him, he was staring over Marty’s shoulder. Marty knew then, without even looking behind him, that Buck was aiming his gun, too, and that Marty was screwed front and back.

It was a scene out of a Hong Kong movie, repeated in a thousand inferior American homages, remakes, and rip-offs. The stand-off. Two men, standing eye-to-eye, gun-to-gun, the ultimate, obligatory showdown. Only there wasn’t supposed to be an unarmed man standing between them. A woman maybe, preferably the buxom love interest of the hero, but not some terrified network executive quivering in his new pair of Doc Martens.

It was a delicate situation, and whatever Marty said next could very well mean life and death for all three of them. And Marty didn’t want to die over a pair of shoes, so he would have to choose his words carefully.

Unfortunately, Buck spoke first.

“Hey, Ugly, seeing as how you’re so into body piercing, you’d probably enjoy having a couple bullets shot into your face. So, if you don’t drop the shotgun in three seconds, I’ll do you a big favor and start shooting.”

“Wait,” Marty said. “No shooting. Okay? Everybody just relax. This is just a misunderstanding.”

“You’re wearing my merchandise, maggot, that’s my understanding,” the guy with the shotgun lisped. It wasn’t easy speaking clearly with drill bits in his tongue and lips, and he wasn’t trying very hard.

“I was going to pay,” Marty tipped his head towards Buck. “Ask him.”

“One,” Buck said.

“Forget how he looks, Buck, he agrees with you,” Marty yelled, now more afraid of Buck than the guy with the shotgun, who’s arms were shaking even more. “He’s only protecting what’s his.”

“Two…”

“Buck, no!”

“Three.” Buck was about to shoot, when a woman’s voice distracted him.

“If you want to spill blood, good for you,” she said firmly, “Just don’t waste it in here.”

She was standing in the doorway to the street, wearing a Red Cross windbreaker and cap, her long, blond hair tied into a pony tail, her eyes hidden behind aviator sunglasses. Her hands were on her hips, her stance radiating her disapproval and disgust with the three of them.

“I got a couple hundred people who need blood and since you’re so eager to lose yours, why not give it to me instead of the flies? Besides, we’re giving out juice and cookies, and I don’t see either of you providing refreshments.”

Marty didn’t wait for the two men to decide. He immediately stepped aside, out of the narrow field of fire.

“Sounds good to me,” Marty reached into his pocket for his wallet. “Let me just settle my bill first.”

He put some money on the counter then turned back to the woman. “Lead the way.”

She walked out and Marty followed, not waiting to see how, or if, Buck and Drillface resolved their standoff.

N oon, Wednesday

A few blocks west, the grounds of Fairfax High School had become a field hospital, with hundreds of patients laid out on stretchers, sprawled on the grass, or sitting on the pavement, either waiting to be seen or silently enduring their pain. At this point, only the most critically injured were receiving treatment, and they were inside the enormous tents. Helicopters constantly took off and landed, unloading fresh casualties and going off in search of more. It wasn’t a war, and this wasn’t an army encampment, but Marty couldn’t get the theme from M*A*S*H out of his head anyway.

Marty was lying on a cot, watching the blood flow into a plastic bag from the tube in the soft depression of his elbow. There were other donors nearby-Drillface from the store, a Hasidic Jew muttering to himself in Hebrew, and an enormous, fat woman wearing all her finest jewelry, two rings to a finger, twenty necklaces around her throat. Marty assumed Buck was out there somewhere, giving a pint.

The Red Cross woman, Angie, had asked Marty lots of questions about his medical history, but she had to take his answers on faith before sticking him with the needle. With several hospitals destroyed, blood banks depleted, and thousands injured, Angie told him there was a critical need for blood and no time to test it for anything beyond its type. And they were getting to the point where they didn’t even have time to do that.

Angie was forced to go out looking for anyone who was healthy enough to spare a pint of blood. She’d managed to recruit dozens of donors, but it wasn’t nearly enough to fill the growing need. As soon as Marty, and the donors around him, finished giving their pint, she’d go out hunting for blood again.

She came over to Marty now and leaned down to check his blood bag. “How are you doing?”

“Fine.”

Angie wasn’t wearing a bra and he was ashamed of himself for noticing. He was on his way home to his wife in the aftermath of the worst natural disaster in history. Beth could be dead, or critically injured. What kind of guy would leer at a woman’s breasts at a time like this?

Any guy.

Marty shifted his gaze to her face, hoping she didn’t notice where it was before. “I never got a chance to thank you.”

“For what?” she smiled.

Leaning over. “Saving my life. I could have gotten shot back there.”

“It’s what you deserve,” Drillface lisped. “Scumbag.”

Marty turned to him. “I paid for the damn shoes, and I would have paid for them whether you showed up with a shotgun or not.” He looked at Angie again and lowered his voice. “You believe me, don’t you?”

“No,” she said. “And I don’t care one way or the other.”

“As long as you get my blood.”

“Yep.”

“Well, I’m still grateful to you.”

“We’re even.” She gently brushed the hair away from the gash on his forehead and studied the wound. “That’s a nasty cut. Were you unconscious for any period of time?”

“I think so. It’s hard to say.” Especially with her breasts in his face again. He tried to look somewhere else, but his eyeballs were caught by the tractor beam shooting out of her cleavage.

“Uh-huh,” she reached over to a medical kit, poured something on a cotton ball, and dabbed at his cut. That broke the tractor beam.

“Ouch!” Marty squirmed. “Is that soaked with alcohol or bleach?”

“Sit still. Have you experienced any blurred or abnormal vision?”

“Yeah,” he winced.

“Pussy,” Buck said. “A real man would put a horsehair in the wound, cherish the sweet pain of infection, and wear the scar with pride.”

Marty opened his eyes and saw Buck standing beside him, munching a handful of Oreos.

“I’m glad I’m not a real man,” Marty replied. “I’ll live longer.”

Angie dabbed at his wound some more. “Is that what you were trying to prove back there? That you’re a real man?”

“I just wanted to buy a new pair of shoes,” Marty glanced back at Drillface, who sneered at him.

“And what about the guns?” she asked.

Marty glanced at Buck. “That wasn’t my idea.”

She leaned back, looking at him with concern. “Have you experienced dizziness, poor balance, or nausea?”

“Not in the last few minutes, but yeah, I have.”

“I don’t like the look of that laceration, or the bruising and swelling. I wish I’d examined it closer before, I wouldn’t have taken your blood.”

“It looks worse than it is,” Marty said. “It didn’t bleed that much.”

Marty didn’t mention the gunshot wound. His jacket was so torn and dirty, she must not have noticed the bloody rip in his shoulder. If he pointed it out, she’d probably tell the nearest police officer, and then he’d be stuck here for hours.

Besides, it’s just a flesh wound, right?

“I’m going to clean that cut, stitch it up, then give you a tetanus shot. After that, you should stay put for a while.”

“Eat my cookies and juice, I know.”

“I meant until a doctor can take a look at you.”

“I thought a doctor was.”

“I’m a nurse practitioner.”

Buck snorted. “A real man would crawl into an earthen shelter and apply a poultice of cow dung, bacon fat, and crushed leaves. Fuck this cotton ball shit.”

“Ignore him,” Marty told Angie.

“I think you may have a concussion,” she gave him a grave look. As grave looks go, it was pretty good, but Marty still wasn’t worried. He didn’t know anything about medicine, but he was an experienced TV viewer.

“Mannix had thousands of them. All he did was rub the back of his neck and jump into his convertible. How serious could it be?”

“Nothing five Advil and a beer can’t cure,” Buck opined.

She sighed. Not just any sigh, but one that expressed her deep disapproval, frustration, and scorn. Women were particularly good at the sigh. Marty figured it must be genetic, that Neanderthal women sighed in exactly the same way as their mates returned to the cave.

“You really should wait and see a doctor,” Angie said.

“I can’t. I’ve got to get home.”

“Where’s that?”

“Calabasas.”

“That’s too far. You shouldn’t be walking, not until you’ve had a neurological exam.”

“And how many days until that happens?”

Angie didn’t say anything, which told him all he needed to know. She sighed, a completely different sigh than the one before. This one signaled her reluctant acceptance. Marty motioned to the helicopter idling on the field.

“If you’re so concerned about my health, how about having one of those choppers drop me off at home next time they pass over the valley?”

“Unfortunately, it’s not a taxi service. I wish it was.”

“Where would you go?”

“My mother lives in Marina del Rey. A condo two blocks from the beach. They say the ground under everything turned into quicksand.”

“I’m sorry.”

Angie shrugged. “I’m sure she’s alive. I would feel it if she wasn’t, know what I mean?”

Marty nodded, wanting to believe that was true, not only for her, but for himself.

Angie removed the needle in his arm, taped a cotton ball against the pin-prick, and told him she’d come back to take care of his forehead in a few minutes. She left Marty with a pack of Oreos and a small carton of orange juice.

Buck watched her go. “Did you see how she was trying not to look at me?”

“She was ignoring you. There’s a difference.” Marty wasn’t in the mood for Buck right now.

“She wants a slice of the big pie.”

“The what?”

“She needs the incredible Buck Fuck.”

Marty couldn’t believe Buck’s insensitivity, not that he was Michael Bolton himself. “She hates you, that’s why she was ignoring you.”

“You don’t know shit about romance,” Buck hiked up his pants, ran a finger over his teeth, and wiped it on his shirt. “Stay here, I don’t want you cramping my style.”

As Buck marched off to offend Angie, Marty lay back on his cot and sipped some orange juice.

The cut on his forehead stung. He’d need stitches. The scar would give him character. And as he thought about it, Marty realized maybe Buck was right. He didn’t know much about romance, not that the “incredible Buck Fuck” qualified.

Five years ago, Marty was still single and living as a freelance reader, taking a stack of scripts home each week to synopsize and critique for various studios. He was sitting in his apartment one day, reading a buddy-cop screenplay he was going to trash in his report-a script that would, two years later, become one of the highest grossing movies of all time-when his phone rang.

It was the UCLA Medical Center Emergency Room. Beth had been hit by a car in Westwood and gave his name as an emergency contact. They needed him to come down right away.

All at once, he experienced a string of cliches: his heart skipped a beat, his knees wobbled, and he had trouble breathing. Those feelings he expected. What surprised him was the terror. The idea that he nearly lost her, that she might be suffering right now, made him want to scream.

Marty demanded to know details, what kind of injuries she had, how badly she was hurt. But the nurse wouldn’t answer his question; she just told him to come down as soon as possible.

He made the drive from their apartment in West LA up to Westwood in about fifteen minutes, running two red lights and nearly hitting a bike rider himself. Marty could barely see through his tears or think past his terror.

He was her emergency contact? He didn’t know that. When did that happen? When did she decide to give him that responsibility for her? When did he become more important to her than her family?

Marty parked, wiped his eyes on his sleeve, and told himself to be strong. For her. He was her Emergency Contact.

Family Feud was on the TV in the ER waiting room as Marty rushed in. None of the worried people sitting in the stiff, plastic chairs were watching it. He knew his face looked just like theirs.

Marty went up to the desk, told them he was Beth’s emergency contact, and they led him to one of the large rooms. Three gurneys were separated from one another by curtains. A little boy was sobbing, clutching his parents, as a doctor removed a nail from his foot. A woman in her twenties lay in a bed, covered with hives, reading People Magazine. And on the next gurney was Beth, her eyes closed, a big, open gash across her chin.

Her blouse was splashed with blood. Her legs, arms, and cheeks were covered with scratches. He swallowed a scream and rushed to her side, afraid to touch her.

“Beth?”

Her eyes opened and she smiled, grabbing his hand. “Oh, Marty, I’m so sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for?”

“Scaring the shit out of you. I’m fine.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “God, don’t worry about it.”

“I told them not to call you, but they insisted,” she caught him staring at all the blood on her clothes. “It’s nothing, Marty, really. It’s from this cut on my chin. Nothing’s broken, just a lot of scrapes and bruises.”

Marty was so relieved, he thought he might start crying again. He willed himself not to. Emergency Contacts don’t cry. They provide strength and reassurance.

“What happened?”

“I was crossing the street and this car came charging around the corner. You would have loved it, I dived out of the way like T. J. Hooker,” she smiled again, which opened her chin wound like a second mouth. “Only T. J. would have gotten the guy’s license number.”

The cut on her chin was deep, right down to the bone, and still bleeding. His chin hurt just looking at it. He hurt everywhere she did and he wished that was enough to take the pain from her, to transfer it to him. If he could do that, he would.

“What do the doctors say?” Marty asked.

“They want to take a bunch of x-rays, just to be sure, and they want to stitch my chin. I don’t know if they’re listening to me, so promise me you won’t let one of the interns sew me up. Get a plastic surgeon.”

“Okay.”

“Make sure it’s a plastic surgeon. A scar could ruin my acting career.”

If she was worried about that, she really was fine. “A little scar didn’t hurt Harrison Ford.”

“He’s a man,” she said, “it’s different for them.”

Marty smiled and squeezed her hand. He wanted to hug her, to let her know how full of love and relief he was right now.

“What are you smiling about?” she said, stifling a smile of her own.

“Nothing.”

“I’m in pain here.” She squeezed his hand back.

“I know.”

“You’re still smiling.”

“Marry me.”

The words came out of him with no warning, no thought. But when Marty heard himself say it, he didn’t want to take it back or turn it into a joke. He knew it was right and that he meant it.

“What did you say?” she stared at him.

“I said marry me.”

“I’m not going to die,” she said, her lip trembling. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do. I realize now I should have done it a long time ago. I’ve taken you and what you bring to my life for granted. I never will again.”

Tears streamed out of her eyes, but not from the pain or fear. She smiled. “I suppose if the marriage doesn’t work, I can always say I was under duress and on drugs when you asked.”

“Is that a yes?”

She nodded. He leaned down, and as gently as he possibly could, kissed her.

A plastic surgeon did sew Beth up (and, years later, the scar was barely visible) and while she was being x-rayed, a nurse played on Marty’s concern for Beth and got him to donate blood for accident victims not as lucky as his wife. In an odd way, giving blood made him feel a lot better, the same way it did now.

Lying on the cot, on the football field of Fairfax High School, a landscape of destruction between him and Beth, he almost felt as though he could touch her.