She might have nodded, although the motion was mostly noncommittal. I get a sense that she is here for the sunset, along with something else. She reminds me of my grandmother, for some reason, although my grandmother was much taller.
“My name is Jimmy,” I say.
She smiles but offers me nothing in return.
“Most of my friends and clients just call me Booker.”
She smiles some more.
I am about to ask her what her name is but get a strong sense that her name is not important, at least not right now. I let the question go unasked.
The ocean shimmers. The clouds above look unreal, alien. They seem to be glowing, pulsating.
“You can probably see that I am sick,” I say.
She stops smiling and cocks her head a little. I see her breathing steadily. I catch a faint whiff of perfume, old lady’s perfume. My grandmother’s perfume, in fact.
“Truth is,” I add, “I’m dying.”
I do not know why I am opening up to her. Perhaps because she reminds me of my grandmother in some ways; or, at least, she smells like her. My grandmother, of course, forgave me long ago. She always told me that my brother’s death was not my fault, that I should not let it get to me, and that I had to move past it and live. Before she died nearly fifteen years ago, she gave me the money, in fact, to start my private detective firm.
The woman before me is not a ghost. I can see her shadow splash over my fender and even across my own sneakers. She is breathing. Others appear to see her, too, as the two of us generate a curious look here and there.
She says nothing, of course. No response at all to my opening up to her. Still, she keeps her kind gaze on me… and gives me her full attention.
“I’m here to see my last sunset,” I say. “I know, that sounds a bit melodramatic, but you see, I was given six months to live and that was eight months ago. I’m not only on borrowed time, I know I am dying now. I can feel my body sort of shutting down. Even talking to you is exhausting me.”
She doesn’t nod but she sort of bites her upper lip a bit. I sense this is her way of showing me compassion.
“Somehow, I have stayed alive long enough to finish something that is important to me. Maybe that is why I was granted the extra months.”
Seagulls circle above as the wind dies down a little. I catch restaurant sounds behind me, as Ocean Boulevard is lined with many of them. People laughing, the clanking of dishes, dinner and drink orders being given and taken.
“I’m not sure why you are not talking back to me, but that’s okay. Maybe it’s better that way. I don’t have a lot of strength left in me to answer a lot of questions. You remind me of my grandma. I loved her a lot.”
The woman smiles and tilts her head a little. She leans to one side, taking pressure off one of her legs. I wish I could offer her a seat, but there’s nowhere to sit, other than the fender next to me. Also, I am confused as to why she is here, watching me. Kindly, granted. But watching me, nonetheless.
“I probably shouldn’t be telling you this—hell, I know I shouldn’t be telling you this—but something very bad happened to someone I cared about a long time ago—something that I could have prevented—and it’s been tearing me up for a long time now.” I pause, fight for a breath, and then continue. “And I realize I have wasted my life punishing myself.”
The woman shifts her weight to her other leg. Her red sweats flap around her heavier frame.
“No comment, huh? Well, maybe I should get going. I feel stupid talking to a stranger about this—a stranger who hasn’t said a single word.”
Except I don’t leave. I keep sitting there on my fender, alternately looking out over the ocean and at the old woman standing to my side.
I say, “I should have forgiven myself a long time ago. How was I supposed to know that a monster had been so close? I was just seventeen. A stupid kid.”
The tears come and as they do the woman steps forward and puts her arm around me. Now I am embarrassed, too, but her touch feels wonderful, and she smells so much like my grandmother that I am briefly confused.
She keeps hugging me as I speak into her shoulder, my voice briefly muffled, “And then I realize that if I should have forgiven myself long ago, I should have also forgiven the monster, too. But how do you forgive a monster? How?”
I can feel my tears on her jumpsuit shoulder. I can also feel the press of her large breasts against my shoulder. Yes, she is very real.
“But I don’t want to forgive him. I want to hate him and hurt him and destroy him the way he destroyed me.”
I’m not even sure she can understand me, but now she is hugging me even harder. A complete stranger. What has my life been reduced to?
“And then I realize that I haven’t given much to this world, other than heartbreak, and my own self-hate, but there is one thing I can leave behind.”
She pulls away from me and steps back. She’s waiting.
Finally, after a short struggle for air, I say, “I can leave behind forgiveness.”
She holds my gaze for a long time, then smiles and nods once and reaches inside her front pocket of her red sweats. She pulls out a card and hands it to me.
It says: “Hi, I’m deaf. I can read lips but I cannot speak. God bless.”
She looks at me some more, then reaches inside her pocket and pulls out a pen. She asks for the card back and I give it. She turns it over and writes on the back. She puts her pen away, then reaches up and pats me warmly on the cheek.
She slips the card in my hand, steps back, looks at me some more, then continues along the busy sidewalk. She doesn’t look back.
I look down at the card in my hand and turn it over. Her shaking handwriting reads: “You are loved. By God, by your friends, by me. And by your brother.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
When I’m back in my car, breathing as deeply as I can, knowing I might have just seen my last sunset on this earth, I reach over and check my glove box. The .44 Magnum is still there, of course, just as it was when I checked it before coming out to see the sunset.
As I drive, I can feel my body is shutting down. It is a strange sensation, to be sure. The world around me seems to be slowing down. My body seems to be slowing down, too. I could be in a dream, or on drugs. But I know it’s neither. My body is dying, right before my eyes.
I consider pulling over and calling Numi, but I need to do this alone. All alone. So, I grit my teeth and focus all my energy on keeping the car straight and not crashing.
How I get to where I’m going without killing myself or someone else, I don’t know. But I arrive outside of another apartment complex. This one is in Brentwood, not too far from where Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were slaughtered. In fact, if I turn in my seat a little, I can just make out the condo complex where Nicole once lived.