" THEY CALL IT THE CITY OF ANGELS " / CHAPTERS 11 To 22





"THEY CALL IT THE CITY OF ANGELS"


Editor and Publisher of BUREAU of ARTS and CULTURE Magazine

Announces a New Experimental Serial Novel about Los Angeles. 


Mr Joshua Triliegi wrote a chapter a day for several few weeks and 

posted the results immediately in various languages at the three blog 


blog spots 

that regularly showcase Art, Music & Cultural Community events.



" I thought it would be a good writing exercise to simply write about 

what I see and hear everyday on the streets of the city. To simply 

create a chapter a day based on the people and things going on 

in Los Angeles. Since we all come from so many backgrounds, 
styles, cultures and languages, I decided to structure the multi 
character novel to represent all of Los Angeles. I simply write a 
chapter a day by allowing the characters to unfold & the story to 
reveal itself based directly on the things I see and hear."

" Its pure fiction based on generalities. For instance, Chapter Three, 
which was inspired by a girl I saw on the bus earlier in the day, she 
had a sketch book with some nice artworks and I thought about her." 
Or Chapter One, based on a conversation I had with a guy who was 
entering back into society from a long stretch in the penitentiary. 
I thought about what other people in his life may have been thinking."

" Its a challenge to simply introduce a character and follow the creative 
line as it flows into something structured and complete. I usually know 
the beginning and the end of each Chapter, and simply let the middle 
fill itself out. I like the daily discipline as well as the audience being in 
on the process. In this particular case, I don't really take notes. I just 
start with an idea and let it flow. This is not a normal novel by any 
means, but it is a new and interesting challenge for both the writer and 
the readers. We are publishing it in three cities and a wide variety of 
languages, English, Italian, French, Chinese, Armenian, Chinese, Hebrew, 
Japanese & Korean so far. Its been a lot of fun I hope the people of Los 
Angeles and the world will follow it out as it reveals itself. As the writer, 
in this particular case, I am just as curious as the reader as to what will 
happen and how things will go. The cool thing about this project is how 
quickly the characters began to take on a life of their own. "

" Its an interesting way to work. I am putting together several other writing 
projects and decided that this would be a good warmer upper. We get 
anywhere from a 50 to 400+ views a day on our website for our Articles, 
Reviews and especially our Audio Interviews, so this particular literature 
project should be good exercise and at the same time, allow people to 
see how a novel is actually created day by day."



"They Call It The City of Angels"
A New Serial Novel by Joshua A. TRILIEGI


CHAPTER 11 : JUNIOR      Written & Published Sept  6TH 2013

CHAPTER 12 : MOON        Written & Published Sept  9TH 2013

CHAPTER 13 : FRED         Written & Published Sept  10TH 2013

CHAPTER 14 : TURTLE     Written & Published Sept  11TH 2013

CHAPTER 15 : DORA         Written & Published Sept  12TH 2013

CHAPTER 16 : HOME         Written & Published Sept  13TH 2013

CHAPTER 17 : STONES      Written & Published Sept  16TH 2013

CHAPTER 18 : HOLE          Written & Published Sept  17TH 2013

CHAPTER 19 : ROOT          Written & Published Sept  18TH 2013

CHAPTER 20 : HEART        Written & Published Sept  19TH 2013

CHAPTER 21 : JOB            Written & Published Sept  20TH 2013

CHAPTER 22 : ASHES         Written & Published Sept  23RD 2013






They Call It The City of Angels
Chapter Eleven: Louis Junior  



The day you get out of the joint, they bring you into a room,
and bust out a bag of things that were in your possession 
the day you got arrested. Fifteen plus years was a long time.
He didn't even recognize the things they pulled out of the 
bag, kids stuff, some cash, the keys to his car, the key to 
his Mom's old house, a leather belt with his name inlaid, a 
pack of smokes, they didn't even make that brand anymore.
A wallet with a velcro strap along the top, inside it, a picture 
of his car, his mom and a school picture I.D. card of Josie.
He look at the wallet and tossed it back in the bag. 'F*%#'.
He walked outside and was waiting for a feeling of relief, 
some moment of freedom, but nothing happened. He looked 
at the sky and for the first time in a decade, he felt safe 
enough to cry, so he did. That was his freedom, the ability 
to show his feelings and not care who saw him. Junior had 
built up his armor, he was untouchable, nobody could get to 
him. He had been tested at every level. He'd been betrayed,
robbed, beat up, stabbed, lied to, yelled at, locked in the hole,
stripped naked, reprimanded, punished & poisoned, but he 
had passed every test that came his way. He learned about 
loyalty, strength, inner silence, concentration, focus and to 
some degree, friendship. During the first few years, people 
entered and left, that was difficult. He later realized that 
the only people worth getting to know were those who were 
doing as much time or more than you were. They'd always 
be there. You had to bond with someone dependable. Not 
that you could ever really depend on someone, but, having 
a connection in the kitchen or laundry or yard helped out.
Most of the stuff couldn't even be understood by anyone on 
the outside. He had become an animal in a human zoo. It 
took him a couple hours to get use to the fact that no one 
was watching him, no doors were shutting in front of and 
or, behind him. It didn't matter what time it was anymore. 
He had lived a life of clockwork bells, alarms, shouts and 
announcements on a p.a. system from the nineteen thirties.
It was hard to fathom that he could do whatever he pleased.



Louis Junior had not been the first or only member of his 
family to do time. Many of his Uncles and cousins had done 
a few years, here and there. But nobody had ever spent more 
than a decade. The first day in prison, he remembered a story 
that his uncle Ray had told him about spending time in prison.
"The first guy who even looks at you sideways, or calls you out,
no matter what color, no matter how big, no matter how crazy,
no matter if he's a prisoner or a guard, no matter what, you 
have to beat the living s+*t  out of the guy, no matter what."
So that's what he did. It worked, everyone left him alone, for 
a while. He eventually gave his mom permission to sell the car 
when she needed some money, as long as she promised to send 
him a few bucks every now and then. A guy needed things and 
you had to pay someone sometimes just to get by. Years 
past where he wouldn't even hear from anyone on the outside.
Not even his dad, after Juniors Mom had a stroke, things 
were hard for Louis Senior, when he recovered, they began 
to write each other regularly  and Junior would find that the 
old man had deposited a few dollars in his account. Which 
meant he could buy paper, stamps, a candy bar, this type of 
thing. Junior had been someone who really loved women. 
He had always loved his Grandmother, his Aunts, his Mom & 
of course Josie. During his stretch in the joint, it was the worst 
thing in the world to not spend time with a woman or a girl.
All those years deprived of the basic and simple touch of a 
woman's hand, the sound of her voice, the smell of her clothes.
Junior built up a world in his mind that was like a television 
show or a film or movie that he could repeat over and over: 
"The Summer of Junior and Josie". Not unlike one he saw 
in school during a social studies class, the teacher wheeled 
out a television and everyone watched a show that had 
been produced for boston public television, he never forgot 
it, it was called, "James at Sixteen", where this kid is trying 
to get through life and he's in love with this girl. One night,
they steal away and spend the night together out in the wild.
He and Josie had done that, they'd gone swimming, they'd 
gone to see The Shylites, they'd seen Fernando pitch for the 
Dodgers, they even went to a freaky punk rock concert at 
a burnt out church in Hermosa beach one night. So, in his 
mind, he just relived it all, night after night, day after day, 
month after month, year after year. It was like a regular 
show with different episodes, a mix between "Chico and the 
Man", "The Partridge Family"  and  "James at Sixteen".
That was how he survived it all. There were about a dozen 
or so episodes & he just watched them over and over again.
Of course there was that tragic last episode & unfortunately,
he was forced to watch that one just as many times as the rest.



The one thing he realized right away was the fact that he had 
no friends, knew nobody and nobody really knew him. Alone.
He had his dad, but that was not very solid. He had his sister 
and now she had three girls, but all they had heard of him 
was probably tainted. People feared ex-prisoners, mistrusted 
them, were suspicious and often blamed them for whatever 
went wrong in their lives. He had heard a thousand different 
stories through the years about guys returning home and coming 
right back due to some family member who dropped a dime 
because something had gone wrong, a valuable item had been 
misplaced or any number of things. He promised himself that 
he would never, ever go back, no way, no how, no, no, no. 
So as soon as he hit the street he headed straight over to the 
outreach where he had been receiving letters from a priest. 
It took him half the day to get over there by bus and the other 
half to get back down to the harbor where his Dad, sister and 
little nieces lived.  The priest had explained that they needed 
guys like Junior. Everything on the streets of Los Angeles was 
changing. There had been a truce between several rival gangs 
and guys like Junior had a place in the church. "All right 
Father", he had said. " We have work for you, come back and 
see me tomorrow morning, we have a lot of work to do."
The Father gave him five dollars for bus fair home, they shook 
hands and Junior walked back out into the street, a bit blinded 
by the light. He'd been living in dark grey hallways and closed 
quarters for years now, all this sunlight and open sky was new.
He wasn't ready to see his old man and hadn't seen the old 
neighborhood where they had grown up, so he made it a point 
to check it out. When he got there, the house was gone, in fact 
the entire block was gone, it had been razed by the city and 
nothing at all had been built on it, just a chain link fence.
Then he remembered hearing about how the local chemical 
factory had been polluting the fields directly behind their home 
and had to pack it in. They bought out anyone who could prove 
that they or their property had been damaged. They had never 
even owned the property and by the time his mother found out 
she had ddt in her blood, a year had passed and it was too late 
to collect. She had been visiting a sister in Texas when it all 
went down, never even heard about until after the fact. "Mom",
he said out loud. He stared at the open field & looked above him.
A red tailed hawk circled over his head several times, it landed 
on the only tree left in the entire field and screeched at him. 




The bus dropped him off in the harbor well after dark, he 
had been given the address and knew it was blocks away 
from where his Mother was buried. His old man had 
written that he would walk to her grave all the time. 
When Junior found their house, it was fully lit. A big 
house out of an old movie. He could see the table set 
for dinner through the windows and what must have been 
his niece's bicycles and toys splayed across the front yard. 
Music could be heard from the house next door and then 
he saw his sister Celia in a white cotton dress and what 
must have been her new husband, bringing food from the 
kitchen into the living room. The house glowed with a 
picturesque energy that looked like something he couldn't 
relate to. It was almost too perfect to the point where, it 
seemed fake to him. He became scared that maybe he 
would say the wrong thing. What did he have to talk 
about ? Junior realized all of this was happening too 
soon, he wasn't ready for this at all. He walked back 
down the street toward the waterfront and stared at 
the water for the next few hours. When it got past 
midnight, he strolled back up the hill, opened the front 
gate and found a yard chair under the tree in the backyard. 
He didn't really sleep anymore, so he just rested, looked 
at the stars and wondered what he would do with his life. 
After all the planning and scheming to stay alive and out 
of trouble while inside, Junior hadn't had much time to 
plan what to do when he finally got out. Well, he had his 
appointment with the Father tomorrow morning, guess 
he'd just take it one day at a time, as those dudes in the 
program say. Then, he couldn't help it, just like clockwork, 
he decided to watch an episode from "The Summer of 
Junior and Josie". The one where she can't stop laughing 
at his stupid jokes and they end up asleep in each others 
arms. When Junior awoke , it was morning, his new 
brother-in-law handed him a cup of coffee in a big white 
mug that said ' Support Your Local Police ', he looked 
kind of familiar.







They Call It The City of Angels
Chapter Twelve: Moon



Moon was once a lifeguard. Her older sister had been 
a forester and later joined the piece corp. They were a 
Venice Beach family from as far back as the late 1950's. 
Moon was what they now call old school, she baked pies, 
mixed her own essential oils, her special patchouli, sandal-
wood, mint and lemon with a touch of rosemary, was 
especially popular.  She sewed quilts, grew her own 
tomatoes, and occasionally imbibed a few herbs, but 
only for ceremonial purposes. One late Summer or was 
it early Fall ? Moon had been working the coast as a junior 
lifeguard, she was still in high school when a giant swell 
hit the Southern California beach side. It was strange to 
have such big waves so early in the season, tourists, locals, 
amateurs and professional wave riders all came out to try 
their luck. Every registered junior lifeguard was called in 
to watch the beaches. Already several kids had drowned 
along the coast. From Swami's surf spot down South, to 
the County line up North, there were reports of near 
drownings, accidents of all sorts. Moon had only been 
working officially a few weeks when the waves hit Venice 
Beach. She knew the locals were not going to sit this one 
out, swells in Venice were gigantic. Boards were being split 
in half by the pylons along the piers most notorious break. 
It was not unusual to see even the most seasoned locals 
washed up along the shore with a wound of some sort. 
Some of these boys considered it a right of passage.
One of them would soon become her most intimate 
companion.  


Mickey was not the best surfer in his crew, in fact he 
was most likely the worst. But he had guts. No one could 
judge him on style or bravery, he just needed a few more 
seasons in the water. Having been more of a so-called, 
grease monkey, rather than a beach bum, delayed his 
experience as a kid. While his dad was still around, he 
could always be found just about two or three yards from 
wherever and or whatever the old man was doing. Usually, 
fixing someone's Harley. These were not regular motor 
cycles, per se, these were incredibly complicated Rube 
Goldberg type contraptions that just happened to also 
be vehicles. Were talking about choppers with chrome 
beyond chrome, candy coated paint jobs with more coats 
of varnish than anyone could imagine. These were complete 
works of art. Upon inspection, it was hard to believe anyone 
actually rode the things. There were a good number of 
bikers who actually parked their bikes, inside the house. 
That was how important a man's bike was in his life.  If 
their wives or girl friends ever got jealous of anything, it 
was seldom another woman. Time, money, care, pride, 
attention, all seemed to be focused on the ride. When 
Mickey's old man disappeared, he started hanging out 
with the older surfers in his neighborhood, gravitated 
towards the older brother types, most of them had been 
surfing since childhood, many had even started shaping 
their own boards and some had gone professional, suffice 
it to say, he had some great teachers. But every man rides 
the waves alone, having a good teacher only got you so far, 
in the same way that having your bike tuned by another 
man only meant that if it broke down out on the highway, 
you might not know how to get it home yourself. The day 
Mickey paddled out on eight foot waves with ten foot swells, 
none of his pals could teach him the lesson only mother 
nature could provide. He dropped in on a wave that was 
so powerful, so beautifully shaped, so massive, that it gave 
him the ride of his life. People were shouting from the 
coastline, tourists took pictures and locals were in awe. 
And then, he had to pay the piper, hadn't gaged his exit 
properly, just by a few seconds too many, like cinderella, 
boom, way past midnight pal. The wave picked him up, 
about six feet mid-air, swiftly and without warning 
slammed his body into the grey sea, he might has well 
have been dropped from a roof onto concrete. That was 
just the beginning, from there, he was thrust under water, 
hit the bottom, bounced back up to the surface and back 
down again. And then, as if being spit from the mouth of 
giant, he was thrust upon the shore, like an octopus might 
shoot out the remains of a recent meal. Onlookers gasped, 
he was, as they say in the movies, dead in the water. Moon 
was the first person to reach him. She lifted his arms, 
cleared his breathing canal, pumped his chest three times, 
and for the first time in her life, began to push the life force 
from her body into another human being. Alternating the 
three point pressure pushes on his chest with the air in his 
lungs, for all of twelve minutes, she had been taught well. 
Mickey coughed up a half a gallon of salt water before 
coming back to full awareness. Looking up to see what 
appeared to be an angel of some sort. He was overcome 
with a strange mixture of fear and thankfulness. He reached 
up like a child might reach out of a crib, wrapped his arms 
around Moons waist and cried. He cried just like a new born 
baby. She joined him.



Some years later, Mickey would claim that he did the 
whole thing on purpose, just to meet her, some of his 
pals believed him, but Moon knew better. He had almost 
died on the beach that day and she was well aware of his 
appreciation. Not just for his actual life, but for all of the 
other things she was. Moon was the type of person who 
completes a man. Respected by women and admired by 
men. A lot of people fell for her. Mickey's family had never 
been able to deal with the girls he had dated in the past. But, 
to his Grandmother, Moon was a homemaker. To his Mother, 
Moon was loyal and trustworthy. To his little sister, Moon 
was supportive, caring and didn't judge her for being such 
a tomboy. She fit right into their family. The only thing she 
had to give up was being a lifeguard. Mickey became extremely 
insecure. He thought that maybe everyone who she might save 
would have the same reaction he did and begged her to quit. 
She eventually, a Summer and a half later, granted his 
immature request, on one condition, they move in together. 
She moved in with him and together, they looked after his 
grandmother. Mickey's Mom was often on tour with bands 
during those early years. So Moon and Mickey were like 
parents to his little sister. Grandma added a bit of old world 
spice to the mix. She was the original rebel. Grandma had 
opened one of the first and longest running bookstores in the 
beach area. Moon started working there part time and slowly 
began to manage the place. It was one of those historical 
literary spots where all the beat poets had read their work. 
There were two literary institutes in Venice beach, Beyond 
Baroque and their store. European writers, New York writers, 
San Francisco writers, Chicago writers, all had done readings 
there through the years. From Henry Miller to Arthur Miller, 
it was a great place to buy a book and had a long standing 
tradition with edgy, respected authors of all sorts. Moon 
became a familiar fixture. She was the go - to - Gal.  



When the phone rang, Moon answered it, she had been 
ringing up a couple from Europe who had heard about the 
bookstore from their hometown of Paris France. There had 
been a poster in the window of a bookstore up the street 
from their apartment called Shakespeare and Company. 
The two stores were like sisters. They shared an equal 
history and created an unofficial exchange program. 
Moon didn't know what to think of Mickey's quick and 
deliberate statement that his dad was alive and he would 
call her back later. She had never met the old man and 
wondered what it would do to Mickey. For years, that was 
all he talked about. His old man this, his old man that. 
She packed up the couples five vintage paperback novels 
and hoped he'd call back. All of the stories she had heard 
through the years about Mickey's infamous dad began to 
sift through her mind. She knew that everything was about 
to change. The entire life they had built up together. Moon 
got the sense that a new storm was about to hit the beach, 
she could only hope that Mickey wouldn't paddle out the 
way he tended to do when things got crazy. How many 
times could she save him ? When she got home that night 
Mickey and the old man sat at their table in their kitchen. 
Talk about Shakespeare and company. Moon got the sense 
that a king had returned and a prince was handing back his 
crown. She didn't like it one bit. " Moon, this is my father." 
His Old man looked up, smiled and said, with his trademark 
sarcasm, "The Son and the Moon ? Now all I need are the 
stars and I'm good to go." He took a shot. Moon tilted her 
head and quietly stared like a cat might look at a sparrow. 
She smiled & poured herself a shot, " Heres to you."






They Call It The City of Angels
Chapter Thirteen: Fred




Fred was not his real name, but like a lot of immigrants,
he had wanted to represent America, by becoming a real 
American and so, he started going by Fred. You know, 
like Fred McMurray, he would say to people. He knew 
three different guys from his region who had taken the 
name Sam. You know, like Uncle Sam, they would say. 
Mostly unaware that not everyone in America in the late 
sixties & early nineteen seventies related very much to 
either Fred McMurray from the television show, 'My 
Three Sons' or Uncle Sam, who had just sent thousands 
of young men to their deaths in Vietnam. But, these new 
immigrants had to believe in America, and they did.
Many bought property, businesses, and encouraged their 
first born to join the armed forces. Fred and one of his 
partners from back home had invested in a liquor store 
located in the center of Los Angeles. When they first 
purchased it, they had both been working in the local 
factories in the day, and by night, they held jobs as 
security guards. Full time all day, part time all night, 
for about a decade. Finally, they bought the store, put 
up a big neon sign, Fred & Sam's Neighborhood Market. 
Since the initial purchase the neighborhood had changed.
Los Angeles had grown into the proverbial melting pot 
that is always talked about in Sociology classes at big 
universities. In the old days, its was New York or Chicago 
that was often used as the example of a new America, 
now it was Los Angeles and Fred was happy to be a part 
of it. That was until Sam had a heart attack and Fred was 
left to not only run the store full time, which meant he often 
had to pull all nighters, but also keep the books, order the 
product and find a way to either, buy out his dead partners 
in-laws, who knew nothing about the store or business in 
general or continue to cut them checks. He was in a quandary 
and more and more the relationship between he and his wife 
became strained. Losing Josie was the beginning of a chasm 
that only deepened in time. On somedays, they worked in 
tandem.  




When Fred got word that Louis Junior was to be released 
from prison, he started thinking of ways to deal with it.
Imagined the worst things he had ever imagined, that he 
would like to run him over, shoot him, stuff like that. It 
was terrible, he knew it. The boy had been locked up for 
years and had paid his debt to society and still Fred was 
unable to forgive. Every thing he had ever been taught, 
philosophically speaking, had been thrown out the window.
He just couldn't get over it and it began to gnaw at him.
The liquor store was situated in a part of Los Angeles 
that bordered three different groups of people and within 
those three groups, there were sometimes factions between 
the groups themselves. There might be three rival territories 
for one particular group. Which meant his customers were 
sometimes clashing over issues he had no knowledge of.
For instance, The Strolling 40's might come into the store 
at say, 1:30 AM before closing, to buy a case of Cold Duck 
for a Ladies Night party that just wouldn't quit. Well, if it 
just so happened that some dudes from the 12th Street crew 
were looking to buy a pack of blunts and a tall sixer of Malt 
Liquor, 'Don't let the smooth taste fool you' , the advertising 
stated just above the register, with a half naked woman who 
had probably been paid less than a months rent to bare her 
body for the sale of this fine, cold beverage, than, there might 
be a problem. One night, just before closing, a Chevy Impala, 
full of locals, rear ended a group of kids in a VW, while one 
of them was exiting from the back seat through the drivers 
side door. The VW was thrust forward and the door slammed 
shut while the kids arm was still in its path, so he was standing 
outside the car, but his shoulder was pinned between the window 
and the door jam. No matter what they did, the door wouldn't 
open up. The kid is screaming, the dudes in the chevy don't want 
to stick around to meet the man, and all this is happening in 
Fred's parking lot.  What could he do about it ? Nothing. 





These incidents became more and more frequent and he 
became well schooled in the ways of street life in L.A. 
He had left his country to get away from things like this 
and here he was in the middle of a territory not at all unlike 
the very place he was brought up in. Killings in his region 
were rampant, there had been fields of dead bodies eventually 
discovered. Sometimes he would get home and have nothing 
to say, just plain numb from the day, didn't even want his wife 
to know about what was going on out there in the world.  
Eventually, he was forced to buy bullet proof glass, cameras 
and a permit to buy a gun. Then he had to learn how to shoot. 
On Saturday mornings, from eight to ten in the morning, he 
went to a local shooting range and slowly began to meet some 
of the local cops. When he told them where his store was 
located, they started to fill him in on a few inside tips. Fred 
learned about 'sweep days', certain days of the month when 
local cops scrutinized certain areas. He learned about quotas,
and which days would be especially, what they called on the 
streets, ' HOT '. Fred had heard his customers talking about 
these things through the years, but it was like a code he 
didn't understand, now he was in on it. Fred was wising up.




Through the years, Fred would be forced to call the police.
He knew there was a code and yet there were times when 
he absolutely had no choice but 'call the man'. He had met 
a bunch of these guys in the parking lot of his store in the 
early days and later would see them at the shooting range.
Fred and Chuck became friends outside of their official 
business and realized that they both had things in common.
Namely: Louis Junior. It was a high profile case, Chuck 
was a witness, but Fred had been in shock, he didn't really 
remember the faces of his lawyer, his judge or even Chuck. 
The only face that stuck in his mind during that entire ordeal,
was that of his dead daughter, "Daddy", he could hear her say. 
There was nothing comparable to losing a child to Fred. He 
had lost a piece of himself. That child, to him, was his Mother, 
his Grandmother, all the women in his family, it was his 
future and all of it had been taken away, over nothing at all.
Fred called Chuck at his home office the week before Louis 
Junior was released. He thanked him for the good work he 
had done and expressed that maybe they should talk some 
time soon. When Chuck got the message, he remembered 
the scene that night, thought about his own daughters and 
realized that no matter what, he still had to follow through.
Chuck got in his car, drove downtown & requested a wiretap.
He couldn't go directly to a judge, but he went to his pals at 
the division and they put forward a formal request. On the 
way back home , he exited the 110 freeway and walked into 
Fred and Sam's Neighborhood market, he was in plainclothes,
" I got your message and don't worry, were working on it. "
Fred smiled for the first time in a few months, said nothing.
He didn't charge him for the soda pop either. It was a 'HOT' day.  






































They Call It The City of Angels
Chapter Fourteen : Turtles


Turtles lived a long time. Ancient and modern Native 
Americans know that some turtles live over a hundred 
years. In fact, if circumstances allowed, just about any 
living being could live an extraordinary amount of time.
Jordan had been given a set of brushes that was his 
grandfathers from the early nineteen thirties. It came 
in a black leather case that housed two or three brushes, 
a glass container for some type of hair tonic, a stylized 
scissors and a container that might have held a bar of 
soap. He had never used the family heirloom and now 
that he had some time off, he unpacked it. He decided 
that this would be a safe place to put this newfound 
package of dollars bills he had recently acquired.
When he opened the container for soap, what appeared 
to be the oldest and largest daddy long legs spider ever, 
peaked from out of the soap container. It was ancient 
and had a vibe to it like no other animal of its kind. 
It's eyes had lids and lashes, it's face, expressed some 
kind of emotions: pain, regret, loss, just plain tired. 
Jordan right away knew that this was a spider that 
must have been living in the kit as far back as the 
nineteen thirties, when his own granddad was just a 
boy . He'd heard of things like this and immediately 
and quite carefully put the spider back into the soap 
case, zipped up the brush kit and as far as he was 
concerned, that spider actually was his grandfather. 



 Jordan drove up the coast to where the accident 
happened, pulled over and just sat there. He began 
to study the landscape from every imaginable angle 
and point of view, there was the derelict in the trailer 
who pulled out without looking, there was the beach 
comber, there was the turtle and of course his own 
point of view. He'd been having some strange dreams 
ever since the thing with the turtle happened. It all 
had something to do with nature and his connection 
or maybe disconnection with the elements, the basics. 
Maybe he just had too much time on his hands. Or, 
maybe it was the money. Either way, he was noticing 
things that had never meant much in the past. Jordan 
had never gone to the bookstore in Venice Beach 
when he wasn't driving a bus, but for some reason, 
he decided to head down there. They had a whole 
section on native americans and animal medicine, 
he bought a book on turtles. He had been experiencing 
a recurring dream of swimming with a group of turtles, 
but the image was from a whole other lifetime, it was 
weird, you know how dreams can be, a whole other set 
of rules. 



Apparently, animals had been popping up all over 
Los Angeles in strange and unexpected places. 
There had been a coyote sighting in the middle 
of downtown, a family of raccoons had been seen 
swimming across a pool which had been built for 
the nineteen-eighty-six olympic games, a rattle 
snake on the streets of Westwood, these were not 
your run of the mill animal sightings, something 
was going on. What was the deal with that turtle 
and where did it go ? As he was walking out of the 
store, he noticed Moon getting off the back of a 
motorcycle in the front of the store. This was 
probably her boyfriend and he didn't want to 
make a big deal out of anything, so he just 
smiled and waved, but she jumped off the bike 
and pulled him over to the edge of the street.
"Hey, I want you to meet my old man, Mickey."
Jordan was a little embarrassed but felt obliged,
" Mickey, this is one of our customers ..."  He 
extended his hand, looked into Mickey's eyes and 
said, "The names Jordan, nice to meet you." But 
he was thinking, 'Damn, that's the dude who was 
on the bus that day.' Mickey recognized the face, 
but didn't make the connection right away, "Nice 
to meet ya." Mickey drove off thinking that maybe 
they had met somewhere before. Jordan drove 
off thinking that life was pretty weird and getting 
weirder by the day. When he pulled up to the stop 
sign, he looked down at the cover of the book and 
noticed that the tile on the turtles back was the 
exact same shape as the stop sign, it had eight 
sides. Like a Pythagorus pattern he had admired.
Some of the ancient tiled patterns through the 
centuries utilized the octagon as a sacred symbol.
They hinted at the idea that we are all connected 
in one way or another, the patterns of life.
He hadn't smoked anything for over a year, not 
since the quartet disbanded, but he was beginning 
to feel kinda, out there. He looked left, than right,
then left again, put his foot on the gas pedal and 
noticed a group of fire trucks parked a block down,
they were spraying water onto a giant palm tree.   



He didn't know what to do with himself, nor did he 
make any decisions as to what he might do with 
the money. He hadn't counted the bills but he did 
peel back the brown paper, which, upon inspection 
had lots of little designs and was broken up into 
squares in perforated form, like a postage stamp.
They were hundred dollar bills, so he had to guess 
that it was a hell of a lot of money. He got nervous 
thinking about it. When the cops had showed up,
he had seen them scoop up the other packages 
along with the guys other things, a bag of clothes,
a few blankets, they gathered  everything into a 
bag marked 'evidence' which had been dated with 
a black marker. When they tossed it in the trunk 
he wondered if a guy like that would even miss it.
Since then, he had been talking to some of the 
more experienced drivers about incidents such as 
these and several had suggested that he ought to 
get a lawyer. You could never be too careful. 
Jordan figured that he could definitely afford one 
if he needed to and wouldn't it be ironic that he 
would be using the funds to protect himself from 
the very dude who he might go to court with. But 
that wasn't what the other drivers meant. They 
were suggesting that he get a lawyer in case the 
transit authority fired him. They might just use 
this as an excuse to can him, even if it wasn't his 
fault. He was already the odd man out. What 
his fellow drivers didn't know was that Jordan 
had gained a few franklins recently and didn't 
really care about his job driving a bus. He had 
become fixated on the turtle. He was tripping.







They Call It The City of Angels
Chapter Fifteen: Dora 


Dora worked for a very big firm, right out of 
college. Their clients were large corporations,
food chains, car dealerships, hospitals, major 
sports teams and entertainment personalities.
She would often be one of a dozen different 
lawyers assigned to a case. They were extremely 
powerful people who had ways of influencing 
decisions that went far beyond what everyday 
people could even comprehend. If her firm had 
been defending a food chain for say food poison,
then they had the power to have articles placed 
in newspapers, opinion pieces on the radio, even 
news stories on how that particular company 
was doing good community work and improving 
its nutritional value or helping kids with polio or 
donating funds to a particular recent tragedy.
She learned a lot about how things worked 
and after five years, became so disgusted with 
the firm, that she flat out quit. Dora had watched 
hundreds of individuals cheated out of situations.
They had been poisoned, they had driven cars that 
were ill equipped, they had been plagiarized, they 
had been injured and still sent out to play the game,
they had been operated on the wrong bodily organ,
all sorts of situations where the individual was 
wronged and her firm defended the large company. 
She realized that after all she had learned in school, 
she had been working on the wrong side, for the 
wrong people. So she went back to school for three 
years and came out a new human being. She had 
learned in those first five years how the big boys 
wielded their power and was ready to take them 
on for the sake of the individual and she did. 
  


Dora took on cases that involved most of the same 
types of issues that she had worked on those first 
five years, but now, she was working for the person 
who had been wronged. When a football player 
had been injured, an employee had been crippled,
a resident had been stricken with a disease which 
had been prolonged by chemicals, she prosecuted 
the big companies. She never spoke about cases in 
public, was aware of illegal wiretaps, never met her 
clients in public places, she had learned well. Dora 
knew that there was nothing the large firms wouldn't 
do to win a case. During the first five years she had 
seen it all. Placing individuals at designated locations 
to get information on a witness, getting the low down 
on a certain assistant's personal habits and indeed 
utilizing any technical device to further the source 
of information for one side or the other, it was a 
game of one-up-man-ship with no regard for the law.
At least not until the actual day in court, prior to 
that day, anything was possible and just about every 
one could be influenced, scared, cajoled, even bought.
As soon as she found out who was being sued in a 
conversation with a new client, she would hold up her 
hand and pass the victim a blank sheet of paper, as 
if to say, 'Here, write it down for me.'  She trusted 
no one. That is why she won so many cases and 
became well known for being extremely dedicated.
Even feared. She had friends in the universities, 
forensic scientists, professionals who trusted her 
opinion on wether the fight was worth it or not.
People knew that if Dora thought it was a worthy 
cause than, it was indeed, a worthy cause.




When she got a call from a bus driver who said he 
had recently been in an accident that was entirely 
the other persons fault and feared he was actually 
being fired for his religious beliefs, she met with 
him. Sure enough, as soon as he mentioned the 
Transit Authority, Dora raised her hand and passed 
him a piece of paper with a pen. There had been a 
series of cases involving the transit authority and 
most of them had settled out of court. There was 
even a current case involving a group of people 
suing over the schedules not being met, a union 
had been created among the actual riders and they 
were seeking to keep the transit authority honest 
about the hours in which they claimed to be servicing.
Dora knew that religion had become a point of 
reference in not only the united states armed forces,
but also in many large companies, corporations 
and even in schools. She had been raised believing 
that church and state were a separate institute 
all together. Dora had once been surprised, even 
shocked to find a sculpture of Moses and the ten 
commandments attached to the side of a courthouse 
where she sometimes worked. After a few days of 
investigation, she told Jordan that if indeed he was 
fired, that she thought he may have a case. She was 
not a trial lawyer anymore, but knew one who had 
specialized in this rather successfully in the past.  
The events he had sited in his casual deposition had 
exposed a system of favoritism that was based on 
affiliations and not on seniority or performance. She 
wanted to know if some of his friends or fellow workers 
would back him up. She called a friend who had tried 
this type of thing in the past, some were race related, 
others were systematic. They needed to get witnesses 
who had been retired early for the same type of charge. 
Witnesses who had nothing to lose by testifying for a 
just cause. Dora put the word out among her circuit.



That night, after picking up Cliff , Dora and Stan 
discussed how best to handle this recent event at 
Cliff's school. They decided it was best to correct 
the school and request a change of policy before 
taking it any further. They liked the school, it was 
close to home and her office. If the school were to 
utilize trained employees with certifications during 
outings, then they would not sue. Cliff had friends 
there, they felt it was more important that they make 
changes rather than waves and indeed they did. The 
school swiftly rid the volunteers and hired three new 
employees to handle the excursions. Dora was disgusted 
that someone would do such a thing, who were these 
people that would dress her child a certain way to send 
a personal message to someone else ? Unfortunately,
one of the volunteers got a copy of the letter Dora had 
drafted with her letterhead and the address of her office.
Not only was Dora about to find out what kind of person
does such a thing, she was about to find out just how 
disgusting some people will go to attempt to make two 
wrongs a right. There was a sickness in society and 
Dora had always been someone who had worked to 
heal that disease. She had been tested thousands of 
times and had almost always achieved her goal, but 
coming up against a vindictive ex volunteer would 
soon prove to be more challenging than her previous 
accomplishments. This particular volunteer was insane. 
Dora put Cliff to bed and her and Stan shared a glass 
of sherry as they had done customarily for many years.
He told her about the recent release of this kid he had 
put away fifteen years ago, the boy had been Cliff's age 
and had been tried as an adult. He was now having some 
second thoughts about the whole case. Dora reminded him, 
' Once the decision has been made, there is no turning back, 
your a judge. Evidence is presented, a jury made a decision, 
end of story.'  He didn't want to tell her about the wiretap 
request, so he simply let it go. He was good at that. He also 
knew, deep down inside that the only places where stories 
actually ended were in movies, plays and books. This was 
real life, where the story never really ended, it just lingered.







They Call It The City of Angels
Chapter Sixteen: Home



God had a lot of different definitions to a lot of 
different people. Junior wasn't exactly sure if he 
totally understood the concept of what god was.
He had seen how people who believed in god had 
sometimes transformed themselves. He had been 
accepted by a group of firm believers and felt a 
certain amount of gratitude for being accepted.
Deep down inside, he still had some real doubts.
For the past two weeks, he had settled into his 
new home, had been given a key, so he could 
come and go as he pleased, but had no idea of 
the kind of culture shock that pervaded his 
every thought. That many years away, locked 
up, had taken away his identity as a person.
He had become a unit within a machine and 
was now searching for who he actually was.
Louis Senior had brought out boxes of old 
family photographs that junior sifted through.
He rebuilt his existence by putting together a 
sort of road map of his life before the accident.
He had taken a series of odd jobs, but none of 
them seemed to fit. The priest had introduced 
him to a social worker who gave him a bunch 
of temporary job options, a program wherein 
you could work for three days at various jobs 
to see if you had the skills. He had tried his hand 
at cleaning windows on skyscrapers downtown 
with a crew of guys, but the height prove too 
much for him. He spent a few days cleaning out 
the public bathrooms all along the harbor, grunt 
work that only reminded him of prison. He had 
gutted fish in one of the last canneries that still 
existed in the harbor, came home smelling of guts.
None of it meant anything to him, but he was thankful 
for the opportunities and had, on several occasions 
spent time in the church to show his gratitude.
The priest explained that, on some days, even he 
had questions about faith that could not always 
be answered directly. He would tell Junior that,
"It's an ongoing relationship, have patience my son."



Junior had seen a lot of different types of faiths,
while in the joint. There were all types of believers,
he was very interested in the native american dudes 
who believed in the animals, let their hair grow long 
and had ceremonies that allowed them to practice 
their own belief system, they fasted, held prayer circles 
and chanted during certain moon and sun phases. He 
had also respected and became friends with a group 
of Buddhists who shaved their heads, meditated and 
had found a way to tolerate just about any type of abuse 
that the system or other inmates could dish out. There 
were plenty of Muslim's who had strict rules on what 
to eat, when and how to bathe, what direction to pray.
Of course, he had plenty of friends who were down with 
the Jesus thing and having been raised in that faith 
himself, naturally gravitated toward it. Most of the 
people in that circle believed that Jesus was the only 
way, but somewhere in Juniors mind, he had built a
map that had more than one way to get home and he 
quietly tolerated those who felt differently about it.
He had a common sense about him that allowed for 
there to be a, 'constant maybe', to just about anything.
There were no guarantees in this world, that was clear.
One of the big boys had given him an address, that if,
in case of emergency, he could go to, for work. He had 
done enough favors, cooperated enough with heavies 
to gain their trust and respect. He had the address 
memorized. It was the kind of work that no one actually 
talks about, no applications to fill out, no supervisor 
to report to, no waiting two weeks for your first check.
You were paid in advance and you did the job quickly.
It was the last thing he wanted to do. Since finding 
out that his brother - in - law was a cop, he became 
cautious about anything he said or did at all times.
He still hadn't put it together that Chuck was the cop 
who had testified against him. Back then Chuck was 
clean shaven, with a full set of hair, no glasses. Now,
Chuck was balding grey, with a mustache and specs.
Junior had come to admire what his sister had done, 
built a family, bought a home, taken in their father 
after his mother had passed away. His little nieces 
were funny, sarcastic, nerdy, the way that kids can 
sometimes be, they said stuff that had more truth 
to it than some of the adults. He respected people 
who told the truth more than those that put up a 
front. Chuck and Celia had done something with 
their lives, they had created a family. Junior was 
almost positive that he would never do such a thing.



One day, while Chuck was at work, Celia and Junior 
were having lunch in the main house, she ran out 
front to catch the delivery driver who was just down 
the street. Junior had walked down the hall towards 
the bathroom and accidentally opened the door to 
Chucks office which was normally locked. He entered 
the room to find himself surrounded by a litany of facts 
and graphs regarding the things going on the city. 
Recent arrests, murders, rapes, drug busts and the 
recent palm tree burnings that had pervaded L.A. with 
news clippings, photographs and police reports. When 
he looked at the top of Chucks desk he read a tear 
sheet that had been faded and worn. It was a headline 
that read, 'Local Teen Tried as Adult for Manslaughter'.
He had never even seen the paper the day he was 
convicted, but there it was in plain sight. He looked 
closer and studied the photographs, one of him, the 
day of his arrest, one of the vehicle, a picture of 
both Josie and Ryan from the high school yearbook 
and a picture of a young Officer Chuck. 'MotherF*#@'.
He looked out the window which faced the guest house 
and saw a cord that ran from the guest house roof 
over to Chucks window and into a phone jack unit 
that looked freshly installed, pieces of paint had been 
scraped away, exposing wood slivers around the jack.
He closed the door and rushed to the dinner table 
before Celia came back in with a big box containing 
some dresses she had ordered for one of the girls 
upcoming birthday party. He smiled and said he 
had some work to do down at the church. It wasn't 
a total lie, he had promised the father that he would 
stop by and mow the lawn sometime in the next few 
days. But instead, he got on a bus and headed for the 
address he had been given. He was scared for the 
first time since leaving prison and it wasn't the fear 
of god.



Junior remembered a story he had been told long ago.
It was about the town where his people had come from.
Back when his grandfather had been a small child, there 
had been a sort of Robin Hood, who was an outlaw, but 
had protected his townspeople, had gotten rid of a local 
merchant who had been abusing his power. When the 
authorities came to arrest him, the people of the town 
got together and decided to do what they could to assist. 
From his window in the local jail, they would put on a 
sort of show, 'Teatro de la Calle'. By wearing certain 
costumes, affecting certain body types, they were able 
to send him messages about what was really going on. 
It didn't take him very long to learn how many days he 
had left and where and how his fate was to be sealed. 
It was an amazing effort how the citizens were able to 
communicate in this way and he felt honored. He did 
escape, but was eventually killed in cold blood. Since 
that time, the system that had been created was still 
in existence. Whenever there had been an injustice by 
the authorities, the people had gathered to help inform,
in one way or another the Robin Hood's of the region.
Word got out and this way of communicating became 
well known. It was exported and utilized throughout 
the regions where oppressed peoples had little power.
Junior began to relate to that story and decided that 
he had to tap into that same type of tradition. How 
could they have not told him? His own father ? His 
own Sister ? He felt betrayed and indeed, he had been.
He walked up to the house, checked the address again,
rang the bell, the door opened, he walked inside, the 
door closed.  'Welcome back', a voice softly said. He 
was finally home.   


  









They Call It The City of Angels
Chapter Seventeen: Stones



The Stones had been reunited. For the past few weeks, 
with Charles back at home, the house became full of 
energy. For years, it had been more like a place with 
a large memory. Now it was, once again, a real home.
Charles, Maggie, Micky, Calley, Grandma and Moon 
found themselves thrust into the public eye, due to the 
sudden return of Charles 'Big Daddy' Stone, as he had 
been known throughout the art world all those years.
He had been a part of the nineteen sixties counter culture 
revolution that included guys like Robert Crumb, who 
had famously designed the 'Keep on Truckin'  image 
which had been tattooed, reprinted & even bootlegged 
ever since it's inception. Charles had been made famous 
around the time that Andrew Wyeth' s son Jamie had 
painted a biker riding one of Charles' famous choppers.
Charles began to sell drawings and became collected 
by the top notch musicians & later by everyday hippies. 
Mickey had kept the legend alive by reprinting his fathers
famous, 'Dude on a Chopper' logo on stickers, t-shirts 
and posters. It was the family business, helping to pay 
the bills, as well as make ends meet at Grandma's 
bookstore and of course, it payed for the house they 
were all now living in. Since Charles' return, a slew of 
interest in his art had created a bit of a controversy.
When an artist either retires or dies or in this case 
disappears, the value of the work goes up, since there 
will most likely be no more new works. Charles 'Big 
Daddy' Stone's sudden arrival had coincided with an 
interest in counter culture art and graphics worldwide. 
His generation' s contribution to the art world was now 
being celebrated, accepted, lauded. A new credibility 
was being attributed by the current art critics. Due to 
his mysterious disappearance and sudden return, the 
'Dude on a Chopper' logo was slated for the cover of 
Artforum magazine, he was about to be rediscovered. 
Charles had disappeared in nineteen-eighty one. At that 
time, there was absolutely little to no interest in his work.
Since then, people began to realize that American Rock 
& Roll and the images that defined it, were valuable. His 
generation had changed the way we think about our lives.
People all over the world had been influenced by guys like 
Charles and the bands that his wife Maggie had taken on 
tour. It was a new world and for whatever reason, Charles 
was being welcomed back with full honors across the board.
Rolling Stone magazine had called recently for an interview.




Before the kids were born, Charles had been a roadie 
and later handled security for bands up in Woodstock. 
He had met Maggie while she was managing Bob Dylan. 
It was rumored that Dylan had written the famous lyrics,
' Everybody must get stoned ... ' for Maggie and Charles.
They had become an item after being married on the road, 
with Robbie Robertson as their witness in Nashville, they
had become known as ' The Stones '. When the film, "Easy 
Rider" hit theaters and Peter Fonda was seen riding one 
of Charles' trademark choppers, he became the man, with 
a new waiting list for client orders and enough financial 
security to actually have children. When Mickey was born, 
they moved  to Venice Beach, closer to Maggie' s mom. 
The center of the music business, by then, was shifting 
from New York to Los Angeles and they moved with it. 
After the disaster of Altamont, the last place they wanted 
to be was in Northern California. They had plenty of friends 
there, but by nineteen sixty-nine, the whole movement 
peaked & Maggie was touring with a new group of bands. 
By the time Calley was born, she was working with a new 
writer who just penned a tune that personified everything 
that had happened in America in the past ten years. ' Bye, 
bye Miss American pie, drove my Chevy to the levy, but the 
levy was dry and good ol' boys were drinking whiskey and 
rye singing this will be the day that I die, this will be the 
day that I die. For ten years we were on our own and moss 
grows fat on a rolling stone ...' . Music now, had a sadness. 
Vietnam, the Kennedy's, Martin & Malcolm, Hendrix, Janice, 
Kent State, had all left it's mark and artist' s like Carol King, 
Burt Bacharach & Don McLean were explaining to the world 
what we were going through. Bands from the sixties, like the 
Rolling Stones, the Who & the Beatles were all going through 
a transitional period. Phil Spector and his 'Wall of Sound' 
vibe ended, Brian Wilson & the Beach Boys took it's place. 
Maggie had managed Wilson's tours, up until he lost it.




The person most happy to see Charles was his daughter.
Calley had recently become a hair dresser & esthetician. 
She sat Charles down, trimmed his hair and beard, cut 
his nails, soaked his feet and even gave him a pedicure. 
His toe nails had grown over his toes like talons. Like 
so many homeless men who drift through life unnoticed, 
Charles had let himself go. Calley had immediately forgave 
him for disappearing. 'You bad boy, how dare you run off 
like that.', she said to him jokingly. Maggie was struck by 
how handsome he still was. A full set of hair, tan skin, he'd 
lost his beer belly and after Calley cleaned him up, Maggie 
got rid of the boyfriends and found herself admiring Charles 
in a way that she had years ago. By the first week of his 
return, they had slept in the same bed together. That 
Sunday morning the entire family ate breakfast together. 
The only doubters among the group were Moon & Grandma, 
like a couple of birds on a wire, that chortled and fidgeted 
their way through the morning, before driving off to the 
bookstore together. They had wanted to ask Charles the 
obvious questions like, "Where the F@%! have you been 
for the past ten years ?" But they didn't want to ruin the 
family reunion, so they talked about it on the way to work.
Calley was so happy to see Charles, she brought her girl 
friend to the house for Sunday breakfast and announced 
they were moving in together. Everyone knew that Calley 
had been more than disinterested in men. Mickey always 
figured it had more to do with the line of men his mother 
had brought home since Charles' disappearance. In any 
event, Charles' return gave Calley a new found strength 
and she used it to be herself immediately. She announced 
that they wanted to open their own shop and needed some 
help from the family. Charles donated five thousand dollars 
on the spot, it was the least he could do .




Mickey and Charles sat in the back yard playing catch up.
Charles' old studio had been preserved with a few minor 
updates which included a modern hydraulic rack to lift 
the bikes six feet high. Mickey had poured a slab of new 
concrete inside and out. They had an account with Snap-
On tools & endorsements from a dozen small companies 
that had created accessories of one sort or another. 
Charles explained where he had been and what had 
happened.Mickey didn't really want to know, "It doesn't 
matter." But Charles knew it did , he had abandoned 
the kid without word, without warning, just up and left 
the boy to fend for himself. Charles had been around the 
world and back again. He had a post office box in five 
different cities where his partners sent him his cut of a 
business he had long since walked away from. Charles 
had been a dealer of various substances back in the day. 
Nothing lethal, never anything heavy, he didn't believe 
much in poison. He had once taken the fall for a famous 
rock & roll star. He did a year & a half for possession of 
illegal substances while crossing the border from Canada 
into the United States. Since then, he had been supported 
and respected by that particular person. By taking the fall, 
Charles saved the entire North American Tour which netted 
over eighty-five million dollars. It was well known, among 
the underground, that he was royalty and because if this, 
received royalties. He had spent a good amount of time in 
both Amsterdam & Mexico, finally drifting closer to home 
along the coast of California for the past few years. Once, 
he told Mickey, he saw a group of kids wearing his art on 
T-shirts. When Charles inquired wear they had gotten them, 
the kids said, 'From a department store'. That's when Charles 
knew that Mickey had preserved the catalog. But, it wasn't 
that simple. Charles had no idea how hard Mickey had 
fought bootleggers and rip off artists. Constantly sending 
cease and desist letters to protect Charles' legacy. Mickey 
didn't bother to set him straight. Not now anyway. Father 
and son sat in the back yard, drinking beers & telling stories 
late into the night. The Stones had finally been reunited. 
  















They Call It The City of Angels
Chapter Eighteen: Hole



Fred hadn't been home in days. He had no reason to be.
Running the store on his own now was his only purpose.
When he did go home, it was just a reminder of what 
once was, a daughter and a wife that he had survived.
Fred had set up an old army cot in the back of the store.
It was easier to just stay there, especially since he had 
begun to smoke and drink. He hadn't been golfing for 
over a month and his pals began to get concerned. He 
was a great golfer, the best in his circle of friends. They 
all owned shops along the central portion of Los Angeles. 
Serving the community by supplying liquor, furniture, 
toys, glass, sporting goods, all kinds of small businesses.
Fred's ex-partners in-laws had been pressuring him to buy 
them out. But he had no way of keeping the store together 
and buying them out at the same time. He would either 
have to sell his house or sell the store to do so. Fred and 
his wife had never been particularly close to his ex-partners 
family. Through the years and especially since her death, 
his relations with them had gotten worse. He had no idea 
how desperate they had become for money. They had a 
bunch of grown children who knew that if Fred would buy 
them out, that they could put down payments on their own 
homes. One of the young men was especially distraught 
about his own dilemma, he had recently gotten engaged 
and was expecting a child in the next few months. Every 
one in their house seemed to blame Fred for their problems.
The young man had been hearing his mother & uncles talk 
discouragingly about Fred ever since their dad had died.
The young man had been rummaging through his dead 
dad's legal documents for the past year, thinking of ways 
in which he could get Fred to buy out their partnership.
They had made a false complaint a few years back, which 
got Fred audited by the Internal Revenue Service and only 
ended up hurting their own income. His books were clean 
and in the end, he proved to be an upstanding and loyal 
business partner. When the young man came across the 
insurance policy, he noticed that they had full coverage 
for theft, disaster and for fire. Strangely enough, the policy, 
which had originally been drafted way back when, also 
included the parking lot as well as any living creature on 
it's premises. That would include a security dog, which they 
once had, back when the store first opened and the giant 
palm tree which was not like the other trees that were 
planted along the sidewalk. Those trees were owned by 
the city. Their palm tree was situated behind the store,
it had cost them a pretty penny to trim it once a year 
and in itself had raised the value of the property by about 
fifty thousand dollars. The insurance on the tree would 
give Fred enough money to buy out the partners, or so 
thought the young man, who was not entirely educated.
He heard about the famous 'Palm Tree Burnings' in the 
papers and on the news and got a bad idea in his head.





 Fred was awoken by the rattle of the chain link fence.
It was four in the morning. He took out his pistol, climbed 
the ladder in the rear supply area & unlocked the skylight.
He could see a young man pouring water all around the 
base of his palm tree which sat just feet away from the 
cinder block store and inches away from the power lines 
up above. He shouted to the figure, "Hey you, what are 
you doing there?" The young man lit a book of matches,
tossed it on the ground and the entire base of the tree 
lit up in flames. Fred was a perfect shot, he could have 
easily, taken the life of this person, but instead, he shot 
him in the leg. The bullet passed through the young mans
calf and entered the palm tree. The young man ran toward 
the fence. Fred climbed back down the ladder, opened the 
back door and ran toward the young man, "Stop right there."  
Fred ripped the hat off the young man's head & recognized 
him right away. He was the splitting image of his dead 
partner Sam. "What are you doing ? Why would you do 
this ? Why ?"  The young man had no proper answer. 
The roar of the fire was immense, it was reaching the top 
of the palm tree and was beginning to melt the power lines.
Fred opened the padlock on the back fence and instructed 
the boy to leave. He owed it to Sam, who had been a life 
long friend, to take care of the boy, even under this type 
of circumstance. " Don't go to the hospital, you'll have to 
just sweat it out. Don't tell anyone you were here either.
Don't even leave your house until you hear from me.
Understand ?"  The young man said nothing. "Understand?"  
Fred repeated, the boy was now openly crying, he shook 
his head, yes, that he understood and limped down the 
side street out into the darkness, leaving an orange orb 
of light that could be seen from miles away, it lit the sky 
like a giant torch, by now the power and phone lines were 
on fire and fred had to run across the street to call for help.





By the time the fire department showed up, all the power 
lines had been downed and half the block, including the 
street lights, had gone dark.  Fred explained what had 
happened in all it's detail, except for the last part. There 
was a police report. Several detectives were assigned 
to the case. Because it was a part of the famous, "Palm 
Tree Burnings", he also had, not only the Feds, but a local 
reporter for The Weekly, which had been following the case 
since it's original inception. She had solved a series of cases 
through the past ten years and got the sense that something 
was different about this particular burning. Fred didn't get 
to sleep that entire next day and the store had to remain 
closed for the next few days. Of course, all the news teams 
came out and it became another item for conversation.
When the insurance investigators came out, they asked 
to view the video. Fred had installed three video cameras,
one inside, at the register, one out front and one out back.
The cameras took stills every ten seconds or so. Fred could 
only hope that the power lines had been severed before he 
had opened the gate and let the boy run to safety. When 
he finally got back inside the store, he looked up, there 
on the wall, was a picture, it was a snap shot which had 
been enlarged and framed, a smiling image of both Fred 
and Sam, with cigars in their mouths, wearing sports shirts 
out on the golf course. They had both been so hopeful of 
their new enterprise. Fred looked closely at the picture, 
Sam seemed to be looking at his partner from the grave, 
saying, "Thanks."  Sam had always been lecturing Fred 
about this new generation. "You have to believe in these 
kids Fred, their the future."  Fred thought to himself, 'If 
this was the future than were in a hell of a lot of trouble.'
Little did he know, that this was the future and yes, he 
was in a hell of a lot of trouble. He closed up and for 
the first time in a month or so, he went golfing.




Fred hadn't golfed alone for years. But he was in no 
mood to talk to the other members of his unofficial 
golf club. He would have to lie to them and didn't feel 
like acting. He had done so over five times since the 
fire and hadn't the energy to do so over a game of golf.
He had repeated the story to the fire department, the 
police, the feds, the detectives and the insurance guys. 
Later,he had the choice to talk to reporters & had a 
feeling that the lady from The Weekly knew her stuff. 
Maybe it would be good for business, he figured that 
he would do as he had always done. Go with the flow.
Fred had always prided himself on only needing three 
clubs while playing golf. He used a putter, you had to 
have a putter, a Three Iron, for Bogies and the like & 
a Nine Iron. He had an awesome swing that seemed to 
utilize all of his frustrations and anger and loss into a 
single guided focus that harnessed his concentration.
He had been called a lot of names through the years.
The kind of monikers that people gave to foreigners. 
Things that had enraged his friends only solidified his 
resolve to be successful, to be good at what he did, to 
be what he considered a good American, a good father 
and in the case of Sam's youngest son, to be a good 
partner. His pals were enviable. Fred was not the 
jealous type, if a guy was better, he would simply 
study his technique. The sun was setting, Fred was 
the last guy on the course. He had the green all to 
himself. The course was peppered with palm trees 
and he had to laugh, otherwise he would have to 
cry, he laughed and laughed and laughed. If anyone 
was there with him, it was the spirit of his pal Sam.
They had been golfers from the first week they came 
to this country. It was the thing you did in America.
They had seen it in the movies and on television. All 
great business men in America played golf. Business 
deals all went down over a game of golf, everyone 
knew that. They had decided to buy the liquor store 
together at this very golf course and had made a pact 
that they would get the hell out of the warehouse 
together. He stepped up to the Eighteenth Hole, 
the sunset glowed, the sky seemed to speak to him.
Fred swung, he watched the ball as it hurled toward 
the green. It landed in the hole. The flag shook for a 
second or two and settled. He slowly and methodically 
walked toward the green. Fred was an American.







They Call It The City of Angels
Chapter Nineteen: Roots




"Gimme some skin." , his Dad's friends would say as they 
walked in the door. Jordan would put out his palm flat 
and the dudes would slide their hands across his as they 
walked past and into the living room to hang with Pops.
Jordan had lost touch with all of that in the past decade 
and was now making up for it. He had ' Gone Native '. 
That is what the fella' s in the park called it. Shook off 
all that urban vibe and was searching deep for his roots. 
He'd been dipping into his new found savings in the past 
few weeks. Every time he opened the black case where 
the money was hidden, he would unwrap the brown paper 
that it was encased in and, like his dad often did, he 
would lick his thumb and count out a few bills, than he 
wrapped the money back up, in that funny paper design 
and stashed it away where it couldn't be found by Wanda.
Jordan had no idea that the bundle of cash was actually 
wrapped in a very precious substance that had not been 
on the market for decades. It was a sheet of the purest 
L.S.D. that had ever been produced, the very best.
The money had originally sat in a post office box before 
the beachcomber picked it up and had been carrying it 
for the past few years. So, although Jordan didn't exactly 
know why he was having strange new ideas about life, 
he was actually, 'Tripping - the - light - fantastic' as it 
was commonly known in the old days. Every time he even 
touched the paper it absorbed into his skin. He had never 
partaken in anything like that voluntarily before, so he 
had no reference point for what was going on. It wasn't 
like he was ingesting it fully, but this stuff was so strong 
that he was definitely 'Out There'. So much so that, when 
he went to the pawn shop to pick up his bass guitar, he 
saw a ring, bought it for Wanda and totally forgot about 
the instrument. Another time, he had gone down to the 
park to pick up that incense she liked and ended up buying 
a drum that had been made in Mali and stretched with a 
real goat skin by an ancient shaman, or so he was told.
He bought a bunch of fabric and some rugs, original 
bamboo tiki lamps and started digging up a fire pit in 
the back yard. Wanda had seen this kind of thing before,
but she was still concerned for him. He borrowed Old 
Man Withers truck the day they were cutting down an 
Oak tree, grabbed a bunch of the stumps and created 
what they called a tribal circle around his new drum-
circle-fire-pit. When she got home, he was in the back 
yard stripped down to almost nothing, playing his drum 
with a bunch of cats he had met in the park. The house 
was full of new plants, a few sculptures, he had even 
redesigned the living room with all of this original fabric 
from the motherland. Bought a bunch of weird vegetables 
that even she was unaware of, some kind of macrobiotic 
root vegetables made from lotuses. When he gave her the 
ring, she really got scared. It was a real diamond with 
little rubies set all along the top and emeralds all along 
the bottom with some kind of amber along the sides. 



She hoped he wasn't doing anything illegal, getting into 
trouble or messing up. Of course, she was also elated, 
proud, even turned on by this new identity thing he was 
going through. When she asked him where it all was 
coming from, he said that one of his uncles had passed 
away back East and had left him some money. "What 
Uncle?" she asked. "On my Daddy's side, he had a piece 
of property that they sold and I got a piece of it, just in 
time too."  It sure was on time, because the Transit 
Authority still had him waiting for an answer. Wanda 
made good money, but they depended on his income too.
During the past year, Jordan had seen a lot of weird 
things and heard a lot of strange stories related to 
bus driving in Los Angeles. There had been a stabbing 
on Alameda, a lady had broke water up on Wilshire, 
an old man had a stroke down in the Harbor. Some 
times a group of people would aggravate someone,
all along the route, a different person would bump,
push, start an argument with some unsuspecting 
person. The drivers were sometimes aware of it and 
even worse, they were sometimes a part of it. It was 
a battle ground for all kinds of people. Homeless folks 
used the night lines to have some shelter, they would 
ride all night, and who could blame them ? Religious 
groups used it to recruit stragglers of all sorts. Drug 
dealers were sometimes peddling. A Driver was some 
times briefed by the Transit Authority prior to a shift, 
if there had been any recent or on going incidents. 
The drivers were expected to do a whole lot more 
than simply drive a bus, they were expected to role 
play, ask questions of certain riders and even get 
information. Jordan wasn't interested in being a 
soldier for the man, he simply wanted to drive a 
bus, take a check and have a regular life. Half the 
dudes he grew up with were being shipped out to 
fight a war in The Gulf. Now he got a call to have 
his vision tested again. He had already done all of 
that before. The beachcomber was not even pressing 
charges, it turned out that he had been missing for 
years and the entire incident had reunited his family.
Why were they stressing me ? He wondered. He knew 
drivers that were cool, but he also knew some pretty 
mean dudes that, one way or another, for whatever 
reason, just didn't like the job and therefor didn't like 
the people and ultimately,  were not good drivers.
Maybe they were just unhappy at home or were going 
through a tough time or had recently had some illness.
Whatever it was, they would tend to take it out on 
the passengers. If a driver was a racist, he or she 
might just pass someone by, in the middle of the 
night, in the rain, on the last route. Or if they saw a 
mixed race couple or some regular passenger who 
had once complained, they might not make a stop.
Jordan was the youngest driver and so he was most 
likely the least jaded. Some of his fellow drivers had 
been doing it for thirty years, they had been either 
burnt out or had become excellent. He knew both 
types. He wanted the certification after sticking it 
out for a year, so he played along with the process.



He was told that the goat skin would eventually speak 
to him. Drums were the original way that people would
communicate with, back in the day. "Get in touch with 
yourself." , the dude had told him, play that skin." Skin. 
Skin. Gimme some skin. Give - Me - Some - Skin. He 
kept thinking about his Mom and Pop and all that sh*t 
they had gone through. All that history. He had some 
deep history, part Indian and part French, they had all 
kinda names for it, be it didn't matter to him anymore.
He stared to get in touch with his roots, not just H-I-S 
roots but the real roots, the roots of primal energy. 
Sound, light, color, taste, the sky, the wind, the earth,
fire, back to the elements in a big m*%$+*@&!ing way.
His lovemaking had become absolute. Wanda had always 
appreciated his attentiveness, his sensitivity and all of 
that. He had once shared a story with her, the first time 
they had ever stayed the night with one another. Jordan 
had been just a boy, his mother was in the kitchen making 
breakfast, she looked down at him & said matter of fact,
" Jordan, when you become a man, don't you ever pass 
out on the woman you love." He looked up at her and 
although he had no idea what she actually meant, he 
looked her straight in the eyes and said, "I won't."  It 
was one of the few pieces of advice he had ever received 
from the woman. Now that he was rediscovering this 
whole new way of being, he would look at Wanda like   
she was the first woman who had ever walked the earth.
The women at work noticed how she began to carry 
herself. "What's up with you?", they'd ask, "Oh Nothing", 
she lied. Jordan was 'up with her', sometimes late into 
the night. Now that he wasn't working, he would make 
breakfast, a salad for her lunch and when she got home, 
he already had dinner on the stove. Not always. There 
were some nights where he was off on some adventure. 
He'd gone to some sweat lodge with a bunch of guys or 
went walking clear across the city. He'd gotten in the habit 
of using a walking stick and wore a pair of old sandals.




One day, he drifted downtown, walked into a bank, got 
change for a hundred dollar bill, "Gimme-a-bunch-a-ones." 
The teller gave him the change and walked the hundred 
dollar bill over to her manager. She explained that she 
was having second thoughts about the recent exchange.
He took down the serial number and made a call. The 
bill had been put on a circulation list twelve years ago.
By now, Jordan was down on Main street handing out 
dollar bills to every person on the street. People were 
downtrodden all up and down that area: homeless, run-
a-ways, hungry, strung out, drop outs, stragglers, drug 
addicts, the forgotten. Who knows what had possessed 
him to do such a thing. Maybe the goat skin had spoke to 
him. The man at the bank called the authorities and they 
downloaded a picture of him walking out of the bank. 
It wasn't a very detailed rendition. You couldn't see his 
face. With his ancient outfit and walking stick, he looked 
like Moses parting the Red Sea, one of the disciples or 
even Jesus himself. The image was reprinted & sent out. 
It became another item for the strange and regular events 
that seemed to happen only in Los Angeles. A week later, 
the photograph was reprinted in The National Inquirer, 
right between an article on a recent UFO sighting and 
a baby that saved a dogs life in the family swimming pool. 
The headline read in bold letters, "Jesus Passes Counterfeit 
Bills to Feed Homeless". They had never actually found 
'Jesus' and Jordan never even knew what had happened. 
He got home late that night. The Moon was full. A few 
clouds had splayed across the sky. He had been reading 
the clouds and the landscape like a student might read a 
textbook, it all had a new meaning. One of the clouds was 
shaped like a giant turtle, he smiled. After all, he had 
recently found himself. Jordan had finally found his roots.










They Call It The City of Angels
Chapter Twenty: Heart


Cliff was up all night. He'd been working on the 
largest painting he had ever created. The entire 
wall had been covered with large sections that he 
would attach with stickpins. It was Sunday morning 
and Dora had several appointments at the office. 
Many of her clients were nine to fivers who were 
unable to visit during the week, so she had begun 
to take hours during the weekend. Plenty of days,
Cliff would accompany Dora, he would draw, listen 
to music on his headphones, he had a little area in 
the back with toys, a table, a stereo system with a 
lot of Stan's old records: live recordings of the L.A. 
Philharmonic, The Who, Oldies but Goodies, Early 
Jazz, all kinds of odd recordings from The Poetry of 
Robert Frost to Stan Friebergs satirical stuff. There 
was even a recording of Richard Pryor Live at the 
Forum. Once, while Dora made pancakes and Stan 
grabbed a cup of coffee, Cliff looked up and said,
"The God Damn M*$%#@^&F+!@# just sat 
there staring at the B*&^%!, Now what you gonna 
do with a White C*^&%$#@!%* like that, F*&^!"
It took them by surprise to say the least. They eventually 
had to remove that particular album. Cliff was funny 
like that. He had a lot of heart, is how Dora put it.
Stan decided that he wanted to take Cliff for the day.
He hadn't spent much time with the boy and wanted 
to maintain an open channel of communication.
So, after Dora went off to work, Stan and Cliff made 
breakfast. Cliff would crack the eggs into a big bowl 
and Stan would stir them up. They made it a point to 
do things with Cliff instead of for Cliff. Stan hadn't gone 
into the boys room, so he had no idea he'd had up all 
night creating, 'a new masterpiece', as Dora often put it.
After breakfast they jumped into Stan's car and headed 
through Topanga, down towards the coast.



Stan had been a professor at U.C.L.A.  after receiving his 
law degree. It was a wild time to be teaching there. You 
had Vietnam, Richard Nixon, Chicano and Afro American 
Cultural Issues, Kent State, The Hippies, Tune in turn on 
and drop out, The Black Panthers, Patty Hearst and a sort 
of Native American resurgence. One of his former students 
had become a Professor there and he invited Stan to the 
campus. He was receiving an award and felt that without 
Stan's help, inspiration and guidance, he might not have 
made it out of his neighborhood, let alone, become a teacher.
It was to be a short presentation and then Stan figured, he 
and the boy would drive down the coast to a place where 
Dora and Stan had spent a lot of time prior to Cliffs birth.
The radio was blaring, '... Roll down the window, take down 
the top, crank up the Beach boys baby, don't let the music 
stop, look at these women, ain't nothing like 'em nowhere,
I love L.A. ... ' Cliff sang along until Stan joined in. They 
both kept singing the chorus together. He loved this kid.
They drove down the coast, past the Malibu pier and into 
Sunset Boulevard, a sharp left hand. Down a few miles 
and a quick right into the campus. There were signs that 
read, NATIVE AMERICAN POW - WOW WEEKEND.
Not much changed around here, Stan thought to himself. 
They parked in the faculty only space and headed inside.
Cliff could hear the drums and immediately tapped into it.
They walked over to the law library and sat in the back row.
The presentation was short, an introduction had been made 
and Stan's ex student came to the podium and made his 
acceptance speech. Stan had not been expected to make a 
statement, but when his ex student asked him to step up to 
the microphone, he looked at Cliff and said, "Hold tight kid, 
I'll be right back." Stan told an anecdotal story about the 
first time this particular student had walked into his class 
and how he knew right away that the man had potential. 
Stan was honored to see that some thing good had come 
from those first few early years. He met the man's family, 
added a few more stories to round things off, then looked 
in the back row to see Cliff. But the back row was empty.




He looked around the library, ran out front, than back 
inside, checked the restrooms, then out back. The boy 
was nowhere to be seen. He ran outside to the kiosk and 
asked the security guards, had they seen a young man ? 
No they hadn't. "Would you like us to call it in sir ? What 
was he wearing ? Could you give us a description ?" Stan 
could hear the drumming from the Pow Wow and said, 
"No, thats o.k ." He ran to the other end of the campus, 
the Pow-Wow was taking place on the football field. 
Teepee's had been set up in a circle and in the middle, 
Native American dancers were competing from all 
across the U.S. They alternated between the Fancy 
Dancers competition, the blessings & donations and 
then onto to best drummers, costumes, singing, chanting 
and honoring the elders. Stan ran down the hallway which 
was normally an entry way for star quarterbacks and 
entered the field. He asked the guard if he had seen a 
young man with long hair, wearing a pair of blue jeans, 
white converse tennis shoes & a black turtleneck sweater. 
The guard, who was giant, looked like the classic model 
of what people all over the earth had thought of when 
they pictured what a Native American Chief might look 
like: dark skin, deep, thoughtful eyes, a nose like an eagle, 
long hair, in this case, in a pony tail, strong hands, with 
just a touch of sorrow on his forehead's brow. The man 
laughed at Stan and pointed to the center of the teepees.
Stan slowly walked towards the middle, the drumming  
became faster and louder as he approached the circle.
He could smell burning sage, meat and the sounds of 
instruments here and there: flutes, rattles, sticks. A 
group of women were clapping and chanting. Furs,
dream-catchers and antlers hung along strings that 
surrounded each teepee. He got closer an there in the 
middle of the circle, dancing among the best fancy 
dancers in the entire country, was his son Cliff. No 
one seemed to mind. The young man was dancing next 
to a very famous dancer who had been in movies and 
on television. The men were wearing giant eagle, hawk  
and turkey feathers. Their costumes were extremely 
colorful. They danced in elliptical semi circles. Cliff 
was holding his own and then the drumming ceased. 
The dancers began to walk back to their respected 
tribes teepee's, Cliff looked around and walked over 
to Stan. The man didn't know what to do, he reached 
over, grabbed the young boy and lifted him high.
A Woman walked by and handed Cliff a piece of fry-
bread on a paper plate. "This is for your son, he's 
got a lot of heart."  With her accent, Stan had thought 
she said, He's got a lot of Art. "Yes, he does, thank you."




Stan and Cliff got back into the car and drove down 
the coast. There had been a Lighthouse down at the 
edge of the harbor. It sat high on a cliff at the southern 
most point of the city. He and Dora had spent a lot 
of time there and had thought that maybe they had 
conceived Cliff the weekend they had been invited to 
stay with Stan's brother, who had been working there.
There was a beautiful guest house attached to the 
main house and then the actual lighthouse tower with 
a powerful beacon light that once had guided ships  
through storms along the rocky coast. They had 
named him CLIFF because of this particular place. 
A beautiful and picturesque location that somehow 
defined their welcoming life together as a family.
They were jumping into the ocean of life and had 
promised to weather the storm together. Stan 
pointed to the lighthouse and said to Cliff, "We 
made you here."  Cliff looked back at him, cocked 
his head, looked back at the giant white house and 
smiled. They walked down toward the cliff and Stan 
pointed at the rocky mountainous edge, this is your 
cliff. This is where we came up with your name. The 
boy smiled again and said nothing, but he knew 
exactly what Stan was saying. They had lunch at 
a local cafe, it was the longest running Cafe in the 
Harbor. Truckers, cops, locals & tourists frequented 
this spot. When they got ready to sit down. Louis,
who had been a busboy there since way back when,
cleared their table and smiled at Cliff, He remembered 
when his own son had been that age, before all the 
troubles had started and he lost Junior to the system.
The two men looked at one another , neither men had 
any idea how their lives had originally intersected.
By the time Stan and Cliff had made it back home,
the boy was sound asleep. Stan lifted him out of the 
car and carried him to his room. He put the boy 
on the bed, turned around and noticed the giant 
work of art on the wall. It was an entire mural of 
Los Angeles. Stan's heart began to beat when he 
saw that the boy had painted everything they had 
just experienced. The entire day had been crudely  
documented, the freeway drive along the beach,
the lighthouse to the south and in the middle 
a circle of teepees. Stan didn't know what to 
think. When he looked closer, parts of the city 
were on fire, a multitude of buildings were topped 
with orange and red tipped flames and whirls of 
black and grey wafted high above like smoke 
signals. He looked closely at the image in the middle 
of the teepees. There, in the center was a small 
drawing, a self portrait of Cliff. He appeared to 
be dancing right in the middle of a giant heart. 
Stan looked over at his son, sleeping in the corner 
and said to himself out loud, "He sure does."









They Call It The City of Angels
Chapter Twenty One : Job



Junior had been invited into a world that he had 
only heard about through, sometimes, unreliable 
sources. Fifteen years locked into the system and 
who knew what to believe anymore. He had no idea 
what to expect by entering into it. On day one, he 
was briefed on what was happening in his father 
and sister's house, of course, he had already figured 
most of that out for himself, that's how he ended up 
making the decision to make a left instead of going 
straight. Who could blame him ? If you saw a disaster 
up ahead in your path, would you keep going, stop or 
make a quick swerve ? Junior flipped a U turn, straight 
out, burned rubber, foot to the peddle, peeled out quick.
He still had to keep things cool at the family house, so 
that know one became suspicious. He was directed 
to keep a somewhat regular schedule and stay close to 
his new brother-in-law, whom had recently made a big 
mistake. If Chuck had only waited for his wiretap 
request to come through from the boys at the division 
and the judges downtown and throughout the circuit,
everything would have fallen into place, but because he 
jumped the gun, installed his own version of a wiretap,
Junior got hip to what was happening and Chuck ended 
up squashing his own better interests and the interests 
of the State. He wasn't the first person to 'push the river'  
as it was commonly called and probably wouldn't be the 
last, but one thing was sure, he would never make it to
Detective, if this was how he planned to get there. One 
might do this sort of thing 'after' you made detective,
but to overstep on your way into it, was disastrous.
Chuck was going to learn this lesson the hard way.




Junior's first assignment was a three day experience.
He was given a series of envelopes and directed to 
use the one way bus ticket that was in envelope number 
one, which also had a new identity card that he would 
use in the event that anyone hassled him. When he got 
into town, he was to report for work as the janitor of 
a large hotel on the strip. The identity card was that of 
a man who actually was the janitor and had also been 
instructed to, 'Take a day off '. They had searched for 
look-a-likes for Junior, ever since he had been released 
and had found a dozen or so, from here to half way 
across the world. Look-a-likes were extremely important, 
everything was switching from physical enforcement to 
psychological. In the old days, it was all strong arm, 
more and more, things were being done differently. 
Junior had tapped into that mythical story he had been 
told about, the old world robin hood character, or so he 
thought. He had been given a room number and a time 
of day in which to enter the room. He was directed to 
give envelope number two to whomever was in the room, 
tell the person that their services were no longer needed,  
they were free to leave town by using the bus pass and 
the currency as soon as possible and to communicate 
with no one prior to doing so. Then he was to stay in 
the room and wait for another visitor. When that person 
arrived, Junior was to empty the contents of envelope 
number three and explain to this person that if indeed  
he was interested in staying in his current position than 
he should highly consider a reversal on his current case.
Junior would return the contents of envelope number 
three, hand it to the second party and exit the hotel 
room. It all sounded matter of fact, to the point, step 
by step. And, for the most part, it was. When Junior 
got into town,he checked in for work, spent the morning 
emptying trash cans and at noon, he walked up to the 
designated room, opened the door with his pass key and 
saw, laying on the bed, a twelve year old girl who looked 
like she had been dressed for a beauty contest. She looked 
at him, became startled, she had been expecting someone 
else & ran into the bathroom. Junior slid the envelope 
under the door and told her that she could leave, it was 
all over. This wasn't what he had expected at all, he 
found himself sweating.  The little girl began to cry, 
Junior tried to assure her that she could leave, go back 
home, use the bus ticket, as he was directed to tell her. 
She was scared, explaining that the people she had been 
living with would hurt her if she left without telling them. 
Junior assured her that she was safe to leave and that 
there would be no problems. Even as he spoke the words, 
he knew that people didn't just let others walk and he 
became conflicted by the situation. Speaking through 
the door didn't help any. When party number two arrived, 
Junior instructed the girl to stay in the bathroom and 
everything would work out. Already things were getting 
complicated. Such was the job. Party number two entered 
the room. When he saw Junior, he backed out and looked 
at the number on the door, Junior assured him that this 
was the correct room, pulled him in and threw him to the 
floor. Junior slapped him around simply out of reflex, 
lifted him up and sat him on the edge of the bed. He 
hurriedly emptied the envelope & together they viewed 
it's contents, a series of photographs with party number 
two and other lunch dates such as the girl in the bathroom. 
Now Junior really lost it. He had been directed to simply 
empty the contents, suggest a reversal decision and hand 
the envelope to party number two. Instead, he began to 
beat the man about the face, Junior was disgusted by  
the photographs, he began to pound the man with every 
ounce of anger that had built up over the years. Junior 
realized that he had swayed from the assignment, he 
had lost control and had to get out of there quickly.
He convinced the girl to open the door, she saw the 
man on the bed, his face was swollen, bloody, he was 
passed out. Junior, washed his hands, noticed the little 
girl and whispered to her, "Don't you dare cry for him." 
He had to put on the janitor gloves to hide the broken 
skin on his knuckles. "If anyone asks, your my niece, 
I'm taking you to the bus station to send you home,
understand ?" She nodded yes. He had no idea where 
her ticket had been bought for, nor did he know for 
sure where she was headed. He had to put his trust in 
the assignment now and found the resolve to do so.
When she got on the bus, his work was completed.
Junior did as he was directed and returned to work, 
he completed his duties as a janitor and clocked out 
at the end of the day. The whole thing had been a lot 
more complicated than he had imagined. He promised 
himself not to cross the line next time, be in control. 
Wether there was to be a next time, he didn't know.




When Junior returned, he was taken to a room and 
given a copy of a video cassette with a visible time 
code. He watched himself beat the man to a pulp, 
then he watched himself deliver the girl to the bus 
station. When the movie was over, he was told that 
if he ever veered from exact directions again that 
he'd end up back in the joint. They'd toss him over 
to Chuck and the boys downtown so quickly, he 
wouldn't know what happened. Then they had 
congratulated him on a job well done. Gave him 
his payment & suggested he lay low for a while, 
"Get out of town, take a breather."  What they 
didn't tell Junior was that after he left party number 
two in the hotel room, an entire clean up team had 
been brought in to fake the man's car accident, some 
how explaining his recent facial injuries. It turns out, 
he'd gone right through the wind shield. Lucky for 
Junior, the man was well enough to return to work 
and reverse his decision as directed. The little girl, 
who had been working for a rival group had been 
returned to a trusted family member who had 
promised to care for the girl privately. Junior's 
bosses had paid her families debt and they had 
killed two birds, so to speak. Maybe cleaning 
windows downtown wasn't so bad after all. At 
least now he could put a down payment on a car. 
They didn't want him moving out of his fathers 
guest house. A plan was being cooked up involving 
Chuck's phone line.  




After a few days, Junior returned home driving an 
early model car not unlike the kind he drove as a 
younger man. It was a straight standard model. 
Nobody at home had suspected anything. He brought 
flowers for Celia and some trinkets for the girls. 
The people Junior worked for wanted him to start 
making phone calls about deals that were supposed 
to be happening in the city. He was given phone 
numbers to three different phone booths and a very 
simple and easy to remember schedule. They directed 
him to small talk for a few minutes, then begin to 
discuss exact times, locations and describe participants. 
They were setting Chuck up. A situation would be 
discussed based on an everyday 'Joe Citizen type' who 
held a regular schedule. So for instance, if a particular 
up standing person was known to frequent a certain bar 
on his lunch break and could be relied on like clockwork, 
then Junior and the person on the other end of the phone 
would begin to discuss how that person, with a full 
description, was involved in some illegal action.  At 
first they started with small stuff, "Oh yeah, I heard 
about that guy. Isn't he the dude supplying so and so 
with such and such ?" Usually their targets were totally 
straight people who had never done anything wrong in 
their lives. Entirely false leads that confounded whoever 
was listening to them. What better way to get back at 
people who shouldn't be listening to private conversations, 
than to bullshit ? It was beautiful, Junior was good at it. 
They did this for the past few weeks and already several 
people had been hassled for no reason at all. The boys 
downtown got word that Officer Chuck had implanted 
his own wiretap system just days before the judge actually 
granted them permission and he was docked. Junior had 
to play it cool at home and he did so. After all, Junior 
had a job to do.





They Call It The City of Angels
Chapter Twenty Two: Ashes



By the Fall, Mickey and his extended family had adjusted 
to Charles' return relatively well. Except for his grandma,
who had been waking at odd hours, sometimes leaving the 
house, wandering about the streets of Venice aimlessly. 
On Halloween, she had taken a walk along the beach, on 
her own and somehow fallen into the water. Now she was 
in the hospital with hypothermia, in and out of awareness.
Moon spent most days at her bedside, Mickey spent most 
of his evenings there and everyone else dropped in when 
their schedules allowed. Calley and her new girlfriend were 
taking care of the bookstore. Maggie, who had always had 
a tempestuous relationship with her mother & had mixed 
feelings about her parents relationship and the early death 
of her own father, went awol. Moon could never understand 
this part of Maggie, nor could she adjust to Charles new 
presence in their lives. She had always been torn between 
Mickey's adoration of the man and Maggie' s stories of the 
man's neglect of his responsibilities as a father. Moon was 
stuck between two viewpoints and couldn't find any middle.
Grandma's most recent incident had brought all of these 
issues to the forefront and Moon finally confronted Mickey.
"Your grandmother's in the hospital and your own parents,
can't find enough decency to come to her side. What the 
f@#$ is wrong with them ? Jesus christ Mickey, do some- 
thing." He just looked at her, "Do something? Like what ?
Everyone in this family has a different relationship with a 
history all it's own. What can I do about it? You and I are 
doing all we can. You can't change, history or people or 
what they've been through or how they do or don't relate.
Look, I love the way you can stand up for what's right, 
but my parents come from a whole other world. I can't 
even pretend to understand what they went through.
Either can you. So if you've had enough, if you don't want 
to be here or put up with it, I understand. But Charles is 
my dad, he put me on the planet. I have to respect that." 
Moon just stared back at him for all of a minute. "Were 
not talking about respect here, were talking about an old 
woman who is on her way out. Your parents need to get it 
together enough to overcome all their bulls*&% and stand 
by her side."  Now he was upset. "Stand by her side ? Who 
do you think helped that bookstore to survive ? Do you 
know how many times my Mom and Dad bailed that place 
out through the years? When Maggie couldn't make a 
payment, Charles gave her the money. It was always a 
big secret, because Gram wouldn't take any support from  
him, so he did it on the sly. They've been there for her 
all along. I don't know why things are the way they are,
I just know that it's our turn to take care of her and that's 
what were doing. Stop trying to change everyone else, 
these people won't change, so forget about. To be honest,
I don't think the old gal even cares about them being here.
So lets just deal with it ourselves."  Moon wasn't satisfied 
with that response, she walked back into the room with 
grandma and sat next to her side. Mickey followed her.  
The last place in the world the old girl wanted to die was 
in a hospital. A week later, they took her home and she 
gladly let go of her body while sleeping in her own bed.
It was the same bed she had created the child who had 
created Mickey who had met Moon and so on and so 
forth.  "We are gathered here today to pay tribute to 
a woman who singlehandedly championed the great 
writers, poets and artists of her time... "  Everyone 
was present at the ceremony. Moon had insisted on it.




A few days before Thanksgiving, Fred got a call from the 
detectives downtown, apparently, the video camera had 
captured more than a few seconds of the exchange between 
Sam's youngest son and Fred, the night of the fire. If Fred 
didn't come clean about what really happened, they were 
going to charge him and the boy together. They knew 
Fred had no part in the burning of the palm tree, but 
how else could they get him to cooperate? He had  
opened the gate and let the boy escape. He had lied to 
everyone including the feds. The insurance company had 
it's own investigating team and if they got word or were 
given the videotape, any number of things could happen.
Fred came clean and explained what had happened. He  
said that if worst came to worst, he did not want to press 
charges against the boy, it was his dead partners kid,
how could he ? The detective explained that the situation 
had become much more dire than Fred realized. The boys 
downtown, the Mayor and the federal team were going to 
pin more than this palm tree burning on the boy. They 
needed to wrap the case up and were willing to provide 
evidence that would put him at more than several of the 
burnings. "You'll lose your license. You'll lose the store.
It's not just about your property here Fred. This is about
solving a much larger issue. Are you willing to lose it all 
over something you didn't even do ? You are going to have 
to testify in a court of law about everything that happened 
that night."  Fred shook his head in disbelief, "The boy 
made a mistake" The detective countered, "He sure did. 
Thats a fact. But you made a bigger mistake. You tried 
to cover it up. That makes you an accessory. We need you 
to come with us downtown." Fred closed up the store and 
locked the back gate. The detective took out his handcuffs, 
placed them on the man's wrists, put him the back seat. 
The boy, who was actually in his early twenties, was 
already in lock up. He had denied the entire event, even 
while watching the footage. "That's not me." He had said. 
The scar on his leg begged to differ. Before Fred even got 
downtown, a call was made to the reporter at The Weekly, 
the headline read: "Palm Tree Burnings, Case Closed ?" 
Hardly. The Weekly had a tendency to dig a little deeper, 
they felt that something wasn't right about the official story.
It would be just an opener to an ongoing series of articles.
Fred was out on bail the same day, his golfing pals had 
pitched in, the boy, on the other hand, was sweating it out.






In early Spring, Wanda got tested and came up positive. 
Jordan was gonna be a Poppa. He had been back on the 
bus line now for several months. Certified at last. Things 
had mellowed out in their lives and with a regular paycheck,
he had no reason to dip into his new found savings account.
They did all the things that couples do when expecting, 
except for marriage. They made a list of names, they had 
a few customary parties and they notified their parents.
Well, Wanda notified her parents, Jordan wasn't so sure 
he wanted to open that door just yet. So, he told the dudes 
down at the park and over at Transit and Old Man Withers.
They had rented the place and had jokingly told the old man 
that if he ever wanted to sell, they were interested. Now it 
wasn't a joke. Jordan thought that whatever happens to 
animals when that ol' stork comes to town was not a myth.
He was feeling the roots pretty strong now and the idea of 
having his own place was tugging hard at him. Wanda was 
all for it. She was not a young woman and saw this is a 
sorta pleasant surprise. Everything was falling into place.
Jordan was back on his regular route when the verdict in 
a high profile case was announced on the radio. A man 
had been beaten severely by authorities, someone had 
actually caught it on camera and it had been played over 
and over and over on news channels and outlets through-
out the world. It was brutal. The man had been pulled over,
resisted arrest and was beaten with clubs by a group of 
men mercilessly. It had been talked about for the past 
six months and when the verdict was announced that the 
men had been innocent of any charges. The people of 
Los Angeles, everyday citizens became confused. Every 
person, no matter what color, what age, had seen the 
footage. It had been the focus of conversations since 
the footage had been released and repeatedly shown 
everywhere. Jordan heard the news on his break and 
instinctively knew that something was going to happen. 
He had five more rounds to make before his shift was 
over. Already people were talking about it on his bus.
By the time he made his second to last round, the sun 
was going down and their were now several reports of 
protesters who were doing more than carrying signs. 
A kiosk at a police station downtown had been turned 
over, several bricks had been thrown through windows.
As the local news channels reported each incident, the 
people of Los Angeles watched and eventually, joined in. 
Quickly, the reports of violence became a sort of map,
people watched it spread, stores were sent ablaze and 
the decision had exploded into a full on riot. Jordan's 
bus was empty, he had one more round to make before 
heading back to Transit. When he got word that people 
were attacking and burning liquor stores, pawn shops 
and 99 cents stores, he immediately thought of the 
bass guitar that his uncle had given him. It still sat 
in the window of the pawn shop. He made a left hand 
turn, veering from his routes schedule on Martin Luther 
King Boulevard and onto Crenshaw. Three blocks away,
he could see a pick up truck ramming into the front 
door of the pawn shop. On the first try, it broke open 
the metal gated door, on the second try, it broke off 
the corner of the stucco beam, by the third try, the entire 
corner of the building had fallen away, leaving a gaping 
hole large enough for a group of people to enter and exit.
That's exactly what they did. Jordan pulled the bus to 
the curb directly across the street. He ran up to the shop,
climbed in and over the pile of metal, stucco and broken 
wood. He jumped up and over the glass barrier, grabbed 
his uncles red bass guitar, strapped it on his back, climbed 
back over the bullet proof glass window and out onto the 
street. While Jordan ran back across the street to his bus, 
a news camera transmitting live footage pointed its lens 
directly at him. He was back in the spot light once again.
He climbed back onto the bus and headed straight for 
the transit authority. The fact that he had a pawn ticket 
for the item in question sitting directly in his wallet didn't 
mean much to his superiors. To Jordan, the red bass guitar 
was a precious item that would one day belong to his son. 
It was an heirloom. He and Wanda watched the city burn 
to the ground. People elsewhere couldn't understand why 
anyone would do such a thing. Jordan and Wanda didn't.
They knew exactly why. Some time later, they bought the 
house from Old Man Withers for a fraction of the price it 
would have gone for the year before. This was their 'hood,
this was their city, this was their country. They were here 
to stay. Jordan plugged in his bass and played a lick he 
had learned while working with a rock band back when 
he was a kid. Some dudes who were deep into the MC5.
Doot - Doot - Doo - Doot - Doot - Do - Do - Doot - Doot -
Do - Doot - Dooooo , and the lyrics went, 'Smoke on the 
water, Fire in the Sky, Smoke on the Water', Doot - Doot 
- Doo - Doot - Doot - Do - Do - Doot - Doot - Do - Doot - 
Dooooo . 





Stan was given a high profile case that had been moved 
to his district. The lawyers had chosen their jury carefully, 
cautiously, selectively, judiciously. Stan knew very well 
that this was a case that everyone was watching. He had 
seen the footage as had everyone else in the world. Dora 
and he had discussed the case almost everyday of the trial.
It was hard not to. the man had been beaten by clubs more 
times than stan would actually pound his gavel during the 
case. the pounding of the gavel and the pounding of the 
man had become an image in Stan's mind. He had been 
through so much in the past year that sometimes he 
thought of doing something else altogether. But these 
were ideas that quickly came and went. He had made it 
to the big time. Presiding over a case like this was every 
law students dream. Stan knew very well that when the 
dream becomes a reality,all the real work begins. He was 
presiding over a trial that the entire world was watching. 
Every question, every answer,every objection, every ruling 
would be scrutinized by law professors and students for 
years to come. Not just here in the United States, but 
around the world. This had become a human rights issue. 
He knew exactly where Dora's heart was, on this particular 
issue, but, as a judge, he felt the need to separate his own 
personal opinions. He was the king of departmentalizing, 
always had been, even as a kid. He would never judge his 
dad for being distant, nor his mom for being authoritarian. 
Stan had a keen sense of equal balance. But when the jury 
announced their verdict, Stan was flabbergasted. He looked 
over at the jury and his eyebrow lifted several inches.
He did a sort of comic double take, but there was nothing 
funny about it. He looked over at the man who had been 
beaten. Visible scars both physical and otherwise were 
obvious. The men had been found not guilty of overstepping 
their authority. Their lawyers had argued that the man had 
struggled. The man had threatened. The man was dangerous.
They argued that what you saw on camera was not the entire 
story. They had explained carefully, quietly, diligently and 
they had won their case. It was over. The men were given 
back their jobs and that was the end of the story. Or so  
they thought. When Stan and Dora had dinner that night,
they watched the reaction with everyone else, on television.
Well, not everyone, those on the streets: the angry, the poor,
the forgotten, the struggling, the downtrodden were in it.
Dora felt terrible for Stan. She hated to see the city divided 
into sections and colors and categories that would put it 
back for decades. They stayed up all night. Cliff was 
surprisingly quiet, peaceful, rested. He had already seen 
and drawn it the same week that Stan had been appointed 
the trial.  By now, Cliff was way ahead of the game.






Louis had kept busy in the past few months. The recent 
strike down in the Harbor hadn't affected business much.
But it sure was affecting everyone else. The Longshore 
Locals had gone on strike for its dock workers. It had 
been years since they had a pay raise. More ships lined 
the Harbor than had been seen since the beginning of 
World War II. Full of product: Electronics, toys, house-
hold goods, automobiles, leather goods, just about every 
thing you could think of that was imported came through 
the port. Ever since the Air Traffic Controllers union had 
been busted up, the powers that be had been attempting to 
dismantle every union in it's path. What was once a proud 
American tradition was now being trashed by a group of 
powerful entities, including some in government. Why 
would anyone ever try to break up a union that ensured 
people a safe place to fly a plane? Safe for the worker, 
the controller, the pilots and ultimately the passengers ? 
It took everyone by surprise and was really only the 
beginning. The longshore union was strong. Several ports 
along the West Coast decided to back up the harbor workers. 
It looked like the entire public as well as distributors were 
going to learn a serious lesson this Christmas. No new cars, 
electronics or toys. It was as if Santa Claus wouldn't be 
coming to town. Maybe it was time for Celia and the girls 
to appreciate the elves that did the hard work. Louis had 
bigger problems, his cataracts had gotten so bad, he could 
hardly see. He had begun to walk to and from work because 
he was afraid to say anything. Of course there were operations 
for this sort of thing, but he had concerns, had never been 
in a hospital a single day of his life. Besides the day his wife 
had the stroke. He was of the generation that sweated it out.
When Junior noticed that his father was having trouble, he 
looked into it and found a place that would do the operation,
which was a relatively new process. He paid for it himself.
When Louis Senior asked how he could afford it, Junior said 
he had an old friend who would help out. The truth was, he 
had a new friend. She was a divorced lady he had met at 
a meeting recently, he was now in the program. All the 
stress of his new job had given him concerns about falling 
into some bad habits that he needed to avoid. She lived 
in the Palisades. They didn't seem to have a whole lot in 
common, but as they began to discuss things, they slowly 
realized that his fifteen years in prison & her fifteen years 
in marriage, were somehow corollary. When her girlfriends 
asked what he was like, they didn't mean his personality.
Louis senior had the operation just days before the union 
settled its differences and that was just as well. The cafe 
extended its hours, due to the now twenty-four hour a day 
work load to get the long armada of ships onto shore and 
products into the homes of citizens, not just in Los Angeles, 
but from here to the Mid West. Millions of dollars had been 
lost on a daily basis. Officer Chuck had learned a serious 
lesson about overstepping his boundaries, but was at least 
back in a patrol car. When the verdict came across the air-
waves, he and his buddies had all cheered in celebration.
But within a matters of hours their district was being overrun 
by angry protesters, several stores had been vandalized and 
the department was once again put on alert by the people 
who paid for that coffee he drank everyday. When Chuck 
drove up into Ma Fritters that night, Louis senior had put 
his order together. "Tell Celia, I 'll be working late tonight.
How did the operation go, everything All right ?"  Louis 
Senior stared into Chucks eyes and yes, "Yes my son, Yes. 
I can see clearly now." 

END OF PART ONE 



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