Natalie Rogers

The Embrace of Los Angeles

It was the beginning of the evening rush, the hour of blue shadows, when my manager placed a whistle around my neck. I was to collect shopping carts for the rest of my shift.  

“Whistle if you need me,” he said, handing me a neon vest. “But I know you’ve got this.”

I detested his lazy camaraderie about as much as I hated his wingtip mustache, his cherry red lips, the sour tinge of methamphetamine sweat beneath his cologne. With a slap to the back, he sent me outside. I was exhausted and owed what little energy I had to the flask of Yukon Jack tucked into the pocket of my hoodie. Even with the help of the Yukon, my eyes fluttered like moths trapped in a jar, trying to dig through glass with dusty wings.

As I trudged out to the L-shaped parking lot, I sipped from my flask. All the parking spaces were taken. To my right, a line of cars idled in the long end of the lot and spilled out into the street, clogging the right lane. I traced the line back to the intersection, then around the block to the offramp of the 101. Trapped in line, people leaned on their horns and cursed each other. When they caught me watching them, they cursed me, too.

“Do something!” a woman yelled at me from her parking spot near the driveway. She leaned out the window of her SUV, face twisted in anger. She wanted to leave but there wasn’t enough room behind her. It was clear she wanted me to guide her out or ask others to yield when there was a break in traffic.

No one ever yielded in this city. Based on her outrage, I was certain she wouldn’t either. Still, I approached her window.

“I just want to go home, get in bed, and eat my dinner. That’s all. Do you understand?” she said, staring at me with haunted eyes.

I nodded. After a long day of work, I too enjoyed eating dinner in bed, dripping sauce all over the sheets.

“Then tell those assholes to let me out.”

“Sorry, you’ll have to wait,” I said. I offered my flask since she’d be stuck for another ten minutes, at least.

As she swigged it, I explained that my job entailed collecting carts and reporting accidents and casualties to the manager. Directing traffic posed a huge liability to the store if it led to an accident. Plus, I’d taken the job to escape the responsibility of my former position as a substitute teacher, a long-term substitute, I clarified, which came with all the pressures of full-time teaching—such as serving as a role model for young people, giving them hope for a future where their efforts and virtues would be rewarded—without medical coverage for the therapy and medication I’d need to deliver these lies. That was only provided after the first year of employment, and without help, I’d crumbled after a semester. That’s why I was here.

This was my second flask of the day, so I was probably divulging more than necessary, but the customer nodded, taking it in. A reasonable person, I thought—until she began backing out despite my pleas. To avoid getting hit, the car behind her, a classic Volkswagen, reversed a few feet. Still holding my flask, the lady in the SUV inched out again before coming to a stop with her trunk in the aisle. She was now blocking the flow of traffic even though there was no way for her to pull out any further let alone exit the parking lot. When the Volkswagen blasted its horn, all the other cars joined in from the parking lot all the way to the 101.

“Don’t start,” she said, handing back my flask.

I shrugged. They weren’t paying me enough to deal with this, so I headed for the flower display by the entrance.

“Where are you going?” people shouted at me. “Call the manager!”

For the first time in my career, I blew the whistle, blew it with all my might, mimicking the authority of a traffic cop. A middle-aged man stalked out of the store complaining that the free samples had run out, but there was no manager in sight.

Defeated, I blew it again, softer this time, so it sounded like the whistle my nose used to make when I’d come down with a cold as a child. The chirp reminded me of cozy afternoons spent drinking cough syrup, drifting in and out of sleep.

So I blew it again, even softer now, and an angel’s wings swept across my body. Silky feathers caressed my vest and face. A bit of soot clung to the feathers, but they were beautiful in the blue gray light. As the wings embraced me, a dreamy sadness filled my chest, reminding me of something, something slow and quiet. What was it?

It was myself, I realized. I was that slow, quiet thing.

A moment later, when the wings vanished, I closed my eyes to hold onto the feeling. The screaming customers didn’t rattle me. None of this matters, I thought. As long as I collect a few carts, I’ll be OK.

“Hey, Mabel!” a voice called out. It was Carlos, my friend at the gas station next door.

“Stop spacing out. Come get your flock,” he said. He pointed at several shopping carts he’d gathered for me. Our customers frequently disobeyed their tow-away sign and parked at the gas station, leaving carts there, too.

I headed over to chat, stopping at the very edge of my parking lot while Carlos stood at the edge of his. A deep crack in the asphalt divided our lots. It was important that I always stay on the store’s side. My manager wrote me up for abandoning my post whenever I crossed into the gas station—whether to hang out with Carlos or to collect carts, he didn’t care.

I passed Carlos a sandwich I’d stolen from our walk-in, and he offered me a lottery ticket, our daily trade. If I hit the jackpot, we’d split the millions and assume new identities so no one bothered us for handouts.

“Give me a sip,” he said as I chugged from my flask. I did as he asked. He’d just turned eighteen, so he could’ve been one of my students last year, but out here we were equals.

“What’s their problem?” he said, gesturing at the Volkswagen and SUV.

I shrugged. “Who cares? An angel just swooped down to hug me.”

“The one who visited Mary? What’s his name?” He sipped from my flask, then handed it back.

“Not hers. Mine. It came when I whistled.”

Carlos searched his phone for the name of Mary’s angel while he scarfed down the sandwich. “Oh yeah. Gabriel,” he said. “I haven’t been to church in a while.”

“I dropped out after confirmation.”

He laughed, tucking his phone in his pocket. “So what did your angel want from you if it didn’t want to knock you up?”

“It came to save me, to remind me of who I am.”

“Then blow it again. Ask it to save me, too. I can’t take another minute of this.”

His arm arced through the air, indicating his disgust with the gas station, the traffic, the air itself. Like me, he clocked out at seven and found the last hour of his shift especially hard to endure. Time inched along, bumper to bumper, reeking of exhaust, lunch breath, too many days without rain.

I blew the whistle, and we gazed up at the hazy sky, waiting for wings. Again and again, I tried to replicate the magic sound that would save us, but I could only make it squeak. When I finally gave up, Carlos shrugged and finished his sandwich.

Then the screech of tires split the air, jolting us awake. Somehow the guy in the Volkswagen must have convinced the cars behind him to back up, giving him room to lurch part way around the SUV before slamming to a stop. No way could he pass her, so he must’ve been trying to force her back into her parking spot. Now they were stuck.

Hearing their murderous shouts, my shoulders tensed and my eyelids twitched.

“Just ask to clock our early,” Carlos said. “Your shift’s almost over anyway.”

“All I have to do is collect a few carts. If I can’t manage it, what on earth can I do?” I kicked a loose piece of asphalt.

“Whatever you want.” When I stared at him dead-eyed, he said, “What’s your calling?”

“I’d like to lie in bed and drink cough syrup.”

“Grape?”

“Cherry.” As I closed my eyes, tasting the bitter syrup, my shoulders loosened. My drowsiness formed a cocoon around me. “My mouth is sticky but I don’t care. My bed is covered in syrup and crackers.”

“What else do you see?”

“There’s a crepe myrtle tree outside my window.” This was the view from my childhood bedroom. In my mind, the blue sky perched on the tree of magenta flowers like a bird at rest. Any moment now, it’d take flight.

I relaxed even more. This made me uneasy, so I opened my eyes. “What are you doing?”

“Helping you create a safe place.” When I raised my eyebrows, he explained: “I’d like to become a therapist, so I’ve been reading articles online. You can be my first client.”

My heart leaped. “But how will I pay you?” He shrugged like it didn’t matter, but I knew he’d grow to resent me if I didn’t compensate him for his work. I had an idea. “Meet me out back in ten minutes. They’re about to write-off thirty lasagnas that haven’t even expired.”

He grinned. Lasagna was his favorite.

“I’m writing you up!” my boss shouted from the entrance. He pointed at my right foot. In my excitement about the lasagnas, and starting therapy, I’d lost control, letting the tip of my sneaker slip over the crack and into the gas station parking lot.

Once my manager disappeared back into the store, Carlos and I burst out laughing. Despite my fear of judgment and my anxiety about losing my job, nothing beat the thrill of getting written up. Carlos passed me the shopping carts and headed back into his shop. As I pushed my flock past the calla lily display, I admired the dainty white mouths and the long orange fingers they’d swallowed. A manager’s fingers, I mused.

Then I headed for the cart rack at the other end of the parking lot, not far from the roadblock caused by the Volkswagen and SUV. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the drivers leap out of their vehicles and scream at each other, ready to fight. Once they knocked each other unconscious, I’d drag their bodies beneath the storefront awning and move their cars out of the way. But the customers trapped in line shouted for me to call for help, too impatient to wait for knock out. I considered my options and blew the whistle. This time, it chirped just right.

The giant wings swept over me once more, pausing over my head. When I looked up, I saw an angel with a tidy bowl cut hovering over me. She extended a pair of large claws, ready to whisk me far away from this cramped parking lot, this polluted city. I let go of the shopping carts and lifted my arms to receive her embrace.

But she gasped and lunged back as though frightened by my eagerness. Then she vanished entirely, and I glanced down to find the shopping carts flying down the slope of the parking lot toward the idling cars. Startled by the mayhem, a man heading up the driveway in an Oldsmobile shot forward, perhaps confusing his pedals, and rear-ended a Civic, which hit the Volkswagen and then the SUV. The drivers looked on in anger near the cart rack, where they’d gathered to argue about right of way and simple human decency.      

Doors slammed. People jumped out of their cars and a crowd stalked toward me, faces clumped in rage. When I hung my head, the driver of the Volkswagen stole my whistle and blew on it, releasing the shriek of a dying bird. I trembled at the sound, soaked in sweat, but no one else seemed disturbed. Behind the counter at the gas station, Carlos looked my way, but he was stuck helping a customer. I looked up at the hazy sky, praying for my angel to return. Instead my manager rushed out and, with a stricken look around the lot, accessed what the store would be forced to pay in damages.

“She’s responsible for the accident. Your employee,” said the driver of the SUV as though spitting out a gas station hot dog.  

“I understand, ma’am,” my manager said. “I respect your point of view. But I fired her ten minutes ago, so technically, she’s a trespasser.”

“He’s lying,” I said to the crowd. “He only wrote me up. Regardless, I’m sure you’ll enjoy a large settlement if you sue the store.”

“It’s that easy, huh?” the lady said. “Will you meet with my lawyer? Attend my hearings for the next five years? Because that’s what it’ll take. Not only will we all sue the store, but we’ll sue each other, too.” She gazed around at the crowd.

Carlos rushed over and caught the end of her rant.  

The driver of the Volkswagen nodded, clasping my whistle in his hairy fist. “She’s right. I’m a lawyer.”

The lady gave him a grim smile. Now that he’d spoken up on her behalf, the mood had shifted between them. “It’ll take a toll on all of us,” she said, glancing at my manager. “The store as well.”

My manager sighed.

“What’s the point of suing you?” she said to me. “You’re unemployed.”

“No, she isn’t,” Carlos said to my boss. “If you fire her, we’ll sue for wrongful termination.”

“Who are you?” the lady demanded.

“Her therapist,” said Carlos.

“He works at the gas station,” said my manager.

“Your therapist works out of a gas station?” the lady said. “No wonder you’re a mess.”

“Healing can take place anytime, anywhere,” Carlos said. “But what better place than a gas station, when you stop to fill the tank after a long, miserable day?”  

She seemed intrigued. Soon enough she’d stop by his counter to schedule an appointment, I thought.

The lawyer glanced at me, then shook his head at my manager as though to say, Don’t fire her. She might have a case.  

“I believe in second chances,” my manager said, shaking my hand. “You’ll start your shift in the parking lot tomorrow.”

My heart pumped in my chest while my muscles contracted. I felt my body losing control of its tempo, accelerating full speed into a stop. I couldn’t bear repeating all of this tomorrow.

“Whatever. It’s seven. Let’s get out of here,” Carlos said, nudging me.

But my legs were stuck. I needed wings. I longed for the whistle trapped in the lawyer’s hairy fist, but even with the help of Carlos, it’d be impossible to tackle him now that he’d joined forces with the others. I closed my eyes and went back to my safe place, back to my single bed by the window, and gazed at the sky perched on the crepe myrtle tree. All at once, the soft chirp of my stuffy nose echoed through my skull, through my nose and my eyes, and the giant wings swooped over me again. This time my angel’s claws lifted me off the asphalt, and everyone gasped in awe, hatred, and envy as I soared into the air. “Come back,” Carlos shouted. But after a lifetime of inching along, I surrendered to flight.

We swooped over the dry, cracked earth, over a muddy stream enclosed in concrete and a chain-link fence. This was my last glimpse of the LA River. I prayed for it. We sped into the cool evening air, over the strip malls, convenience stores, and fast-food joints, over the grid of golden lights. Flying came easy to me.

When I heard her raspy breathing, I opened my eyes and found we’d stalled just above the Santa Monica Mountains. 

“I’m sorry,” my angel said. “I have asthma and the air is unbearable. I’m letting you go.”

“Can you come back for me later?” I asked. “What about Carlos?”

“I don’t know.” She panted hard. “It’s my first week. I’ll have to check.”

Before I could ask for Gabriel, I was falling backwards through fluorescent smog. My head exploded and cherry syrup spilled from my lips. The walls of my stomach burst. This is what happens when you have a baby, I thought. Everything drains out of you to form a new body.

I opened my eyes to find Carlos kneeling over me. Sirens wailed in the distance. “Don’t worry,” he said. Behind him, the sky unfolded its wings. “Help is coming.”

I believed him, but I was panting too hard to speak. My nose chirped a reply. Then the world shot blue.