My tires protest with a disturbing nails-on-chalkboard screech. I come to a stop but not before tapping the bumper of the car in front. Shit. A stench of burnt rubber fowls the night air. An arm pokes out of the driver's window and motions forcefully for me to turn right. I follow the car around the corner, and we park along the curb, ignoring the ‘No Stopping Any Time’ sign.
As I rummage through the glove compartment in search of my registration and proof of insurance, I try to control my breathing and my racing heart. It's a minor accident, I tell myself, nothing to get flustered about. I find the two slips of paper and prepare to exit the car, but before I do I see all four doors of the car I just hit swing open.
The driver and his four passengers step out. All five are young, Hispanic males in their late teens, early twenties. They're short with slight builds and shaved heads. They're heavily tattooed. They lean casually against their car and wait for me.
I have second thoughts about stepping out. I could restart my car and speed off, but what good would that do? They would just follow me until I stopped at a light, and then I'd be in a worse situation. I can picture the headline: “Seventy-Two-Year-Old Man Beaten to Death by Unknown Assailants.” Better to push through the alarm bells clanging in my head. Maybe I can impress them with my Spanish. I'm fluent in the language even though I'm not Hispanic. I learned it during my nearly forty years as a front-line county worker for the Department of Public Social Services.
I step out of my car and into the crisp night air—late autumn in Los Angeles.
‘Disculpame. Fue mi error. Es que iba de prisa por que llevaron a mi esposa de emergencia al hospital, y con la preocupación que tengo, no me fijé en el alto. Yo tuve la culpa, obviamente. Perdón.’
The driver stares. ‘What the fuck? Speak English, man.’
I'm taken aback and become a bit flustered. ‘Oh . . . I'm sorry. Don't you . . . I mean . . . I assumed you . . . that is . . . uh . . . I was just saying it was my fault. I was in a hurry because I just got word my wife was rushed to emergency—emergency hospital. I was preoccupied and didn't pay attention to the traffic light when it turned red . . . well, actually, yellow. Not that it matters,’ I add quickly, ‘red or yellow—it was still my fault.’
I had been at LAX waiting to board a flight for Philly when my daughter called. She had taken her mother to the hospital. The emergency physician initially suspected a heart attack, but an EKG quickly ruled that out. A cursory examination and a check of her vitals revealed nothing obvious, so an X-ray was ordered. That's when they spotted an unknown mass on her left lung.
Her breast cancer had already metastasized and destroyed two of her cervical vertebrae. Those corrupted bony structures were removed only last month and replaced with a titanium apparatus. Has the cancer now spread to her lungs?
The young driver mad dogs me—as my grandson would say—a cold, dispassionate stare. I grow uneasy but hold his gaze. He finally breaks away and cuts his eyes over to the rear of his car. It's a Chevy Impala that has seen better days but likely won't see them in the future. To call it ‘vintage’ would be generous but a lie. It's just old.
Mad Dog walks over to the rear bumper. Under different circumstances, his languid swagger would be comical, but in the present situation, his walk is just grotesque. He crouches and runs his hand carefully—almost a caressing gesture, which does not bode well for me—over an obviously scratched and dented area of the bumper.
‘You fucked up my bumper,’ he says without looking up. His calmness is chilling, and his words are like the appearance of dark clouds on the horizon. They portend an ominous change to this encounter.
I become aware of just how exposed and vulnerable I am. Of all the places to have stopped, it had to be here, in an industrial area with no pedestrian traffic. The weak light from the overhead streetlamp gives me little comfort.
I'm hesitant to move, but I can't stand here forever. I have no choice but to check the damage for myself. Mad Dog stands as I approach the bumper. My unease amuses him. He casually steps back a few paces.
I set my glasses on top of my head and bend over, bracing my hands on unsteady legs. I look at the damage. It doesn't match up with my bumper. Clearly I didn't cause this.
I straighten up and say with an even and calm voice—though my heart is pounding with such force I'm sure they can all hear it—‘There's definitely damage here, but honestly, I don't think that slight tap I gave you could have caused this.’
Mad Dog says nothing, but he doesn't have to. His long silence speaks of his displeasure. As I consider my options—none of which are good—one of the passengers shouts to him, ‘Hey, Sicario!’
My heart pounds ferociously as I brace for an attack. A sudden cold sweat bathes me.
The young passenger walks over and says to Mad Dog, ‘That chingadazo was already there! You backed into the post outside my apartment like three days ago, man!’ He points to the bumper. ‘Look you can still see yellow paint.’ He bends down and flicks off dried specks of the paint. ‘This viejo's car is blue, ese, not yellow!’
Mad Dog glares at the young man and says, ‘But he made it worse.’
‘Naw! How could he make it worse?’ The young man waves his hands theatrically toward the car. ‘Come on! Look at this chingadera! This car is no fucking beauty! It has more dents and scratches than Spider's pockmarked face.’
One of the other young passengers—presumably Spider—takes offense and shouts back, ‘Hey! Shut up, Payaso!’ The other two passengers laugh.
Mad Dog is adamant. ‘He made it worse.’
Ignoring Mad Dog and turning to me, Payaso says affably, ‘Ah, don't listen to him. He's just fucking with you, man.’
And to my surprise, I reply, ‘Yeah. I thought he was fucking with me, but I wasn't sure. I've never been fucked before.’
Payaso laughs a machine-gun staccato. ‘Hahahahahahahah.’
The other two passengers also laugh, but not Spider—and definitely not Mad Dog.
‘That's funny! You're funny, man. Hey, Flaco,’ Payaso calls to one of the other young men. ‘He says he's never been fucked before, so why don't you tell him what it's like since you have the experience.’
More laughter, accompanied by hoots and hollers, but this time from Spider and the fourth passenger.
‘Shut up, pendejo,’ replies Flaco. ‘Or I'll fuck you!’
With feigned sincerity, Payaso replies, ‘Hey, don't be mad. It's okay if you like it homeboy on homeboy.’
Even more hoots and hollers.
‘Shut up!’
‘Like they say, you know, “live and let die,” ese.’
Live and let live, I think to myself, but I don't correct the young man.
‘Everybody, shut up!’ yells Mad Dog.
The laughter dies quickly, and the sudden silence puts us right back to that ominous mood of before. Mad Dog once again fixes me with his eyes. I sense the situation is in a fine balance and fear the weight of my breath could tip the scales against me. I stop breathing. After a brief, tense moment, Mad Dog says, ‘Everybody get the fuck back in the car.’ I slowly exhale.
Payaso turns to me, offers a wide smile, and says, ‘Take it easy, man.’
‘You too,’ I say with a feigned ease.
Then he drops his smile and says in a low, conspiratorial whisper, ‘Tuviste suerte. Me acuerdo de ti.’ You were lucky. I remember you.
I look at this young man—as if seeing him for the first time. Do I know him? I scrutinize his features carefully, but his face is not at all familiar. Is it possible our paths crossed when I was a Social Worker? And if so, what kindness did I give him that now prompts him to give me one in return? Or did our paths cross under different circumstances? I search my cloudy memory but come up empty. I offer him a subtle nod of ‘thank you.’
I turn to Mad Dog and say, ‘Again, I'm sorry.’
He shoots me a piercing look before getting in his car. All the other young men—Payaso, Spider, Flaco, and that nameless fourth passenger—pile back in, laughing and joking. I watch as they pull away from the curb and drive off.
Tuviste suerte. You were lucky. The words echo in my head. I certainly don't feel lucky. Instead, I feel exhausted, lightheaded, and nauseous.
As I walk back to my car, a sudden pain starts in my left shoulder and spreads down my arm. There's also a vice-like tightness in my chest, and I'm short of breath. I suppress an urge to vomit, but a little bile comes up anyway, and I reluctantly swallow it back. It burns my throat.
***
She stands just outside the hospital's emergency entrance, her left hand pressing the phone to her ear, her right arm hugging her chest against the cool, crisp night air. Still no answer. She decides to text him: Dad, are you almost here? Less than four miles away, the phone in her father's pocket emits a double chirp, but the sound, muffled into the pavement, never reaches his ears.
About the author
Héctor Hernández received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. He lives in California and is now retired. His short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine, After Dinner Conversation, Bright Flash Literary Review, and Literally Stories.
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