In the Land of Milk & Honey

Hollywood: April 28, 1992 

You’re six. 

The city is a backlot built over a landfill. Hollywood Boulevard where tourists take flash photos of dead stars. Junkies take leaks on dead stars. The Walk of Fame’s pink terrazzo squares shine sticky with gum and spit and hope. Grauman’s Chinese Theatre sells tickets to ghosts. A meth-head in a Batman cowl hisses at pigeons and rollerskates in a speedo through a Ralph’s checkout. His utility belt holds syringes and dope. 

Your mother used to be a queen on The Sunset Strip. Now she serves as a lesson in how fast a woman can dissolve. Her cheekbones press through skin like knuckles in a latex glove. The AIDS pamphlets on the coffee table say LIFE IS PRECIOUS in bold letters. The fine print says your parents won’t see 2000. 

Your stepfather coughs. He coughs like he’s trying to turn himself inside out. You count his coughs. You count the pills for your mother. You count the days since you didn’t have to walk down hospital halls and give information to doctors. 

You’re six. 

Your brothers laugh. The youngest brother laughs because his brain is a pinball machine wired wrong. His eyes are satellites. 

The other younger brother, his twin, laughs because he’s a lit fuse. Because his skeleton wants out of his skin. He climbs the fridge and does a backflip off of it. He licks electrical outlets. He tears curtains into confetti and screams until the neighbors pound the walls. You chase him past the pawn shops, past the dealers, past the Lethal Weapon 2 billboard laughing down at you both. He runs like his shoes are full of hornets. You run like your shoes are full of cement. 

You’re six. 

The TV won’t stop showing the Rodney King tape. Boot. Nightstick. Curb. Flesh. Your mother watches with her old protest face. The face she wore at Berkeley before the world got sick and nobody came. The verdict’s coming. The liquor stores nail plywood to their windows. The cops practice their riot faces in rearview mirrors. 

You sleep on a broken bunk bed in a room with no lights and no blinds. You dream in VHS static. You wake to helicopters stuttering like bad hearts over the boulevard and your younger brother bouncing on your ribs. His breath smells stolen. His eyes glow feral. 

Hollywood sells happy endings. Your Hollywood ends with your mother’s morphine eyes. Your Hollywood ends with your brothers’ crooked grins. Your Hollywood ends with four cops clearing their throats on courthouse steps and your wild brother gnawing the last good spatula. 

The city smells like lighter fluid. 

You’re six. 

###

Hollywood: April 29, 1992 

“Not guilty.” 

Your mother’s lungs whistle like deflating balloons. The city inhales. The city screams. South Central detonates first. Hollywood follows. The riots aren’t riots yet. They’re car alarms. They’re shattered glass. They’re a palm tree along the 101 burning like a pagan effigy. Smoke plumes claw at the sky. The air tastes like burnt hair and gasoline. Your stepfather hacks into a Burger King napkin. It comes up speckled. It comes up red. Four packs of Marlboro Reds a day will do that. Four packs and a verdict that cracks the city’s spine. 

Your mother says “We’ll be okay” like it’s a line from a commercial. Like she’s selling you a minivan. Your youngest brother sits statue-still, eyes wide as saucers. The quiet one. The one who usually yells “Warp speed!” at ceiling stains. Now he’s mute. Now he’s fossilizing. 

The hyper one’s gone supernova. He’s drumming the walls. He shrieks “Let’s go let’s go let’s GO!” like his bones are full of lit firecrackers. If you duct-taped his shoes to the floor, he’d gnaw the tape. Right now, he’s still spitting adhesive. 

The TV shows a Korean shopowner firing a pistol into the smoke. The TV shows Reginald Denny’s face meeting a cinderblock. The TV shows your reflection. Gaunt. Six. In charge of nothing. 

Supplies: Three cans of soup. Half a bottle of codeine. A spatula your feral brother hasn’t destroyed. The streets are a carnival of flipped cars and laughter. You need diapers for your youngest brother. You need applesauce. You need the world to stop being made of fire. 

Your mother’s hand grazes your wrist. Paper skin. Bird bones. She whispers “Don’t” but you’re already at the door. Already lying to yourself about what happens next. Outside smells like a struck match. 

Inside smells like dying. 

You’re six. 

You’re the oldest. 

You’ve graduated to adult.

The landlord comes home smelling of smoke and adrenaline. His LAPD uniform streaked with soot. His patrol car idles outside, trunk crammed with looted VCRs and a mannequin arm still wearing a Frederick’s of Hollywood lace glove. He kicks the door open. Grins with all his teeth. 

“Heard they’re giving out free TVs,” he says. Drops a box of stolen Tagamet on the counter. “Helluva retirement plan.” 

Your mother shrinks into the couch. Her collarbones jut like coat hangers. The landlord’s eyes crawl over her. Over the sweat-stained Madonna T-shirt. Over the AIDS pamphlets. Over you. 

“Could use a lookout,” he says. Nods at your brothers. The quiet one’s gone catatonic. The feral one’s licking the landlord’s nightstick. “I’ll babysit. You rip off Frederick’s. Get yourself something nice.” 

Your stepfather stands. Just stands. Blood speckles his shirt. His cough sounds like a shovel digging gravel. He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t look at you. Walks out past the landlord’s loot. Past the burning dumpster. Turns left on Franklin. 

Vanishes into the smoke. 

The landlord laughs. “Smart man.” He unholsters his gun. Places it on the coffee table between your brother’s applesauce and TV Guide. “You know how many guys I’ve popped today?” 

Your mother’s fingers dig into your wrist. Her pulse thrums like a sparrow’s. “Zero,” the landlord says. “But the day’s young.”

The feral brother screams. The landlord tosses him a roll of duct tape. “Make yourself useful.” 

Outside, the sky glows orange. The landlord’s police radio crackles: All units to Crenshaw. All units— He kills the volume. Grins at your mother. “Tick-tock, princess. Lingerie or tampons. Either way, you’re coming back with something frilly.” 

Your mother stands. Wobbles. Her jeans hang like flags on a windless day. You think: Don’t go. 

You think: I’m six. 

The door closes. 

The landlord leans back. Puts his boots on the coffee table. His socks have holes. His gun has initials carved in the grip. 

The feral brother duct-tapes the landlord’s shoes to the floor. 

The landlord doesn’t notice. 

You count your mother’s pills. 

You count the number of ways this ends. 

On TV, a liquor store explodes. 

In your chest, something smaller does the same. 

A few hours later your mother comes back empty-handed. The landlord’s fist meets the wall. The wall wins. He calls her a waste of skin, takes his gun, takes his looted mannequin arm, leaves to find someone hungrier. 

Your stepfather returns at dawn pushing a shopping cart full of books. “Knowledge is power,” he rasps. Books on Greek myths. Chess strategies. How to build radios from trash. The Hollywood Library on Ivar has a shattered window. The checkout desk has a footprint on it. A librarian’s name tag is ground into the asphalt. 

###

Hollywood: April 30, 1992 

The National Guard arrives in tanks that crush abandoned cars. Soldiers in gas masks shout through bullhorns. No one listens. Your hyper brother tries to lick the tank treads on the screen. 

The pharmacy burns. Your mother’s morphine runs out. She starts plucking hairs from her arms. One by one. Says they’re “splinters.” Your stepfather listens to Quiet Riot, unironically. 

The landlord comes back with a black eye and a looted microwave. He doesn’t ask about the duct tape stuck to his boots. He doesn’t ask about anything. 

The TV says “curfew.” The TV says “contained.” 

###

Hollywood: May 5, 1992 

The tanks stop rolling down Hollywood Boulevard. Tourists return with camcorders. Your stepfather coughs up something that looks like a wet moth. Your mother hums Jefferson Airplane. The landlord watches you all through the scope of his rifle. 

The riots are a “tragic chapter.” The palm trees still smolder. The liquor stores reopen with iron gates. Your family stays cracked. 

You’re still six. 

You still count your mother’s pills. 

You still tie knots in jump rope.

The city learns nothing. The city forgets. 

You don’t.

Robert James Cross’s fiction has been published in literary journals such as Fiction International, The Lit Quarterly, and Tales of the Unreal. His reviews and commentary have appeared in American Book Review and California English Journal. Cross is a graduate of San Diego State University’s MFA program in fiction, and his first book, Shards, is available now on Amazon. He is originally from Hollywood, California.