Carte Blanche by MC Etcher

Carte Blanche

By MC Etcher / Mike Kurilko


"So we're here - why again?" Donna asked in disgust, spitting her gum onto the grass in uncouth punctuation.

It was an old block in the oldest part of Los Angeles County. Shabby, once-proud apartments dating from the 1920's were crowded next to seedy car repair shops, a coin laundry and a heavily barred Checks Cashed Here NO ID!

"This is where I lived when I was eighteen." Matt said. "Right after my folks gave me the boot."

"I thought you got along with them." She shot back, wondering why his parents would punish him like this. A couple of teenagers were across the street, waxing a street-racing abomination.

"We got along fine. But it was time for me to move out."

"That explains why it's a shithole." She watched as one of the teenagers sized her up and nudged his buddy. The taller one was actually pretty hot - he was shirtless, his well defined muscles on public display.

"It's not. It's just old." Matt shook his head. "You didn't have to come, you know. Could have stayed at the hotel."

"Wish I had." She tugged her too-short midriff shirt down, perfectly in place to barely graze her ribs.

"Why didn't you?" Care for some fish with your whine?

Because I'm a nosy and jealous bitch and you have ex'es in this neighborhood. "I was bored and thought this would be better than an empty suite." She adjusted her bra, sliding her thumbs under shirt and bra from sides-to-front. The teenagers loved this and debated breaking into applause.

"I tried to tell you." He muttered, irked.

"Uh-huh." She wandered off about ten feet, under the shade of a tree and began playing with her cell phone. We're done talking, by the way. Yes, she was gorgeous - and selfish. It was over, but they had yet to schedule the exit interview. Not now, though - it would be inconvenient.

He sat down on the steps and looked up at the nearest second floor window, his old apartment. The window was gone, replaced by a weather-greyed piece of plywood.

He bit his lip and considered. He'd planned to go up and knock on the door, ask the tenant to let him in and poke around the old familiar nooks. But the neighborhood had really deteriorated in the last ten years. If the inside of the apartment looked anything like the outside, he was better off with his memories.

He checked his watch. Almost four PM. He glanced across the street. The hot-rodder teenagers were trying and failing to catch covert pics of Donna with their camera phones. He felt a vague zap of jealousy, more possession than love. Her tits feel like curdled Jell-O, boys - you're welcome to them. And the rest of her.

"There he is!" He chirped out loud without meaning to.

An old man had come around the corner, pushing a heavily laden shopping cart. The shopping cart was an antique, a discolored metal artifact that seemed to date to the 1950's. The cart was bent and battered, only two wheels touching the sidewalk at any one time. Rare and random flecks of chrome glittered like stars forcing their way through the glare of streetlights.

The man pushing the cart didn't look much better. At least seventy, he was much more stooped than Matt remembered. He wore what seemed the same faded baseball cap and plaid work shirt as a decade before. He strained to keep the heavy cart on track, more by force of will than application of physics.

The cart was piled with consumable consumer goods - elotes, or grilled corn, churro's - sugary fried dough, and twin coolers of precious cargo - paletas, or Mexican ice-cream bars of fruit and milk, and of course, tamales.

Matt rushed over like a kid sprinting for the ice cream truck.

Hector was startled to see a man running straight for him. Kids he was used to. Women he was used to. But the only men he dealt with were muggers or cops. His right hand twitched for the baseball bat he once kept tucked in a cardboard and duct tape scabbard at the back of the cart, but then remembered that he'd stopped carrying it years ago. Now the scabbard was filled with twisty-torn paper slivers, Pythagorean wrapper shards from hundreds of rolls of Rolaids.

"Hector!" Matt yelled, screeching to a stop. Hector still didn't recognize Matt, and was seriously considering disappearing ninja-like in a confetti storm of heartburn wrappers.

"Aigh!" Hector yelled, groping for the nearest weapon - a churro.

Matt backed up a pace.

"Hector, I'm sorry. It's me, Matt. Remember? I used to live right there?"

Donna watched as the old fart gave Matt a giant hug. You could tell the old guy used to be pretty strong, because in his enthusiasm he tried to pick Matt up. If I ever get that old, fucking kill me. When you were so old, you forgot how sad and feeble you were, damn. If Matt knew this guy from ten years ago, that meant the poor old fool had been peddling his Salmonella-sharing cart crap for a long time. Maybe his whole life. Suicide IS an option people. He's probably Catholic though, right? Oh well.

Matt and the old guy were chatting away in Spanish, and Donna felt a stab of irritation. Since when could Matt speak Spanish? And when was the last time he had used his hands like that when he was talking with her? Actually and totally into what he was saying. He looked like he was conducting the Loony Toons Orchestra.

The clincher was this morning. She'd sneezed, and he was sitting right there, and he didn't say 'Bless you'. She'd read an article about how it was the polite niceties that went first - the please's and thank you's, the subtle nods to thoughtfulness. They weren't thinking of you anymore, so what - whom - are they thinking about?

She saw Matt gesture in her direction, and she dropped her eyes and chin, pretended to look at her phone. Through her bangs she glared from under her brow and watched Hector wave at her. She pretended not to see, very absorbed in her phone.

Matt shrugged an apology, shook the old guy's hand, and returned to her with two churros.

"Here, they're still warm." He offered her one.

She fought the urge to back away. "Had a big lunch." Her smile was a grimace.

Now that Matt had left him alone, Hector began his chant, a musical, lilting cadence listing his goods. To Donna it was noise, and to Matt was home. Kids scampered to all sides of the cart, several climbing aboard to get a closer look.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Once the cab picked them up - the speed, tinted windows and air conditioning caused Donna to feel better immediately.

Umm. "He seems like a really nice old guy." She prompted.

"Mmn-Hm." Matt replied, unwilling to forgive her so quickly.

"So you knew him when you lived here?"

"Yep."

"Seems like a dangerous neighborhood for him." Golly.

"It's his neighborhood. He's fine."

"He seemed really happy to see you."

Matt was silent, looking out the window.

Shit. "How did you two meet?" She held her eyes open, unblinking, letting her eyes burn and tear up a bit. Even on a subconscious level, no one can resist a dewy-eyed damsel.

"I used to buy tamales from him."

"I didn't know you liked Spanish food."

"It's Mexican food. And I do. But it hurts my stomach, so I don't have it very often any more." Don't you remember?

"Yeah Mexican food. I love those chawloopy things. How did you two get to be so close? I've been shopping at the same organic market for five years and I've never hugged the guy who sprays the veggies."

"I did a story on street vendors when I was at The Daily Breeze. I spent a week with him as part of the story."

She blinked and bit back the urge to make a crack at the name of the newspaper. She knew he'd worked for a paper when he was first starting out, but.

"Right, right." She said, nodding. "So why did we -"

"I based the character in my first book on Hector pretty strongly. He's a really interesting guy and did some pretty crazy stuff during the Korean War. He was a POW, escaped, and was recaptured. They tortured him. He's got a lot of character. By the time he came home, his wife had run off with another guy, he never saw his kids again."

"Damn." Donna breathed.

"Yeah. He doesn't open up to many people, and if it weren't for him, that first book wouldn't have existed. Or the second book. No movie deal, no big contract." No trophy girlfriend, shucks and darn. "We wouldn't be on our way back to our suite at the Beverley Wilshire, yeah?"

"Ok. Sorry." She clipped the words with annoyance. "You could have told me what to expect. We just show up in a crummy part of town and those punks across the street were leering at me, and you didn't seem to care at all. And you left me alone. So excuse me for getting stressed out."

Crap. I did, didn't I? "I was distracted, I'm sorry.'

She glared at her nails, lips pressed tight. Now he felt guilty, which is where she liked him. Owing her.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

She squinted the crate with disdain. "Is this research for like, a book or something?"

"Everything is research." He returned, as if the phrase were a mantra.

They were in the delivery bay of the Beverly Wilshire, watching as two bellhops worked with pry bars to open the crate.

A wave of styrofoam peanuts splashed in all directions, revealing what looked like a stunted riding lawn mower with a two-pronged fork at the front.

"Matt. What the hell is this?"

"It's a motorized, ride-on pallet lifter." He waved his arm like one of those girls on The Price is Right. "For Hector." He finished proudly. "It's rechargeable!"

Ohh kay, "Uh-huh. Is it street legal?"

"It's not for the street, see he can use this on the sidewalk." Matt explained reasonably. "I owe this man, Donna. I want to help him." After years of living paycheck to paycheck, he was finally able to do something important for other people. It made him want to dance a personal private jig.

"Yeah, all right. If you want to help him, move him into a nursing home. You can afford it."

"What? He doesn't need a nursing home. Why would he be happy in a place like that?"

"No, like a good one. Where they actually take care of you." Donna explained. Matt gave her a disgusted look. He was always so damned empathic: 'When you're old, how would you feel if.' She knew she wouldn't live that long.

She tossed her hands up. "Well shit - buy him a new shopping cart then. He's not gonna be able to use that motorized thing. He'll run over a little kid or kill a dog or something."

Matt shook his head angrily.

"My ideas are always bullshit to you. It's a good thing you weren't around when I came up with the idea for Circumspect. The book would never have been written, and that huge sparkly rock on your finger would belong to some other haute couture bitch."

"Hey watch your French." She closed her fist protectively, in case he was tempted to reclaim his ring. This was a paranoia of hers, The Ring-Taking. She was fully prepared to swallow it, if necessary.

He held his hands up as if to stop traffic. "Just... Go back to the room, okay? I'm gonna head on over, give this to him today."

"Fine." She left him ankle-deep in styrofoam, forgetting her immediately, happy as a clam.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

They ate their room-service dinner in near silence, which made the fork-on-plate-teeth-scraping, scotch-swilling noises nearly unbearable.

To avoid pouncing across the table and gagging him with a linen napkin, she resorted to give a shit mode. How Was Your Day, Dear?

Avoid yes or no questions: "What did he say when you gave it to him?"

Now primed, Matt was too excited to punish her with silence any longer.

"He cried." Matt looked a little embarrassed, even now.

Why? Because his buddy had shed tears over a lumpy go-cart?

"He thanked me and hugged me and cried and I showed him how to run it. I actually drove it back to his house for him."

"He has a house?"

"Lives with his grandson and daughter-in-law, yeah." Wait, grand-daughter-in-law?

"That's great, Baby. Sounds like you made his day. Do you mind if I turn on the TV?"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Two days later Matt was driving a rental car stealthily through the twenty-two block route Hector had followed for twenty-eight years.

The Bose satellite radio was off. The air conditioner was off. He was in quiet mode, don't-see-me posture. His BMW was about as nondescript as a limo at a garage sale.

He wasn't here to talk, he just wanted to watch from a distance. He wanted to see Hector cruising along in his powered cart, some refreshing drink in the cup-holder, Hector proud and happy and not pushing the damned rock uphill for once.

And he didn't want to talk because Hector might cry again. Yesterday was hard. Hector hugging him tight and saying his name and the crying out names, Jesus and Mary and Vincent de Paul and tears streaming down his too-tan face. Melanoma spots speckled his nose and cheeks.

Crying, because someone reached out to help, crying because he had needed help, because his hands trembled and were weak and because this simple machine was over his head and he knew he would never learn anything complicated again. Crying because Matt had remembered him, across novels and movie deals and trips to Italy and years and miles and not even his own family was so thoughtful.

There!

Matt couldn't see Hector, but he saw the tell-tale throng of kids crowded tight as only ice cream can inspire. Too tight.

The throng broke up to reveal the same old battered cart. It had been dressed in a half-hearted coat of silver spray-paint which was now enthusiastically flaking off.

Matt let out a long sigh.

He couldn't confront the old man about it. Maybe Hector had left the machine on overnight, and the battery had run down. Maybe he had been touched, but didn't like it. Maybe he had sold it to help pay for prescriptions.

Matt's hand was on the door handle, but he stopped himself. This wasn't the time or place. Tomorrow morning, at Hector's house.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Why did I bring her? Matt asked himself.

Because awkward social situations were often softened by a feminine presence. The navigation computers in fighter planes had female voices for a reason.

Not that a lot of awkwardness went down at fifteen thousand feet: "Dad, I think I'm gay." - "Great son, can we not discuss this while I'm bristling with warheads and rocketing along at twice the speed of sound? Thanks."

Donna was deeply involved with her eyebrows, a magnifying mirror in a compact capturing huge reflections of the tiny hairs below her eyes. Matt caught glimpses of this and was turned off - she looked like a Venus Flytrap.

There's the house. A sun-faded Honda Civic occupied the driveway, so Matt parked on the street.

He let out a big breath.

"Okay - uh Donna, I'm gonna need your help here. Hector's a proud guy, and we're not really all that close. I mean, I knew him for a year like ten years ago. So it's not really my place, you know. To question or pressure him at all."

"Right." She continued to probe her eyebrows.

"So if while we're here, you can be that beautiful, charming and disarming girl I love most of all in the whole wide world." He paused as she finally looked up and caught his gaze. " - That would be great."

I'll get to work on those TPS Reports too, Chief. "Sure," She flashed an almost-genuine smile at him. "I've just been you know, jetlagged. I'm having a good hair day."

"Cool.' He leaned over and kissed her ear.

They approached the house, what looked like a one-bedroom cottage built in the 1930's. The roof and driveway were new, the yard prim and well kept.

The pallet lifter was sitting in the front yard with a large For Sale sign precariously masking-taped to its side. A tacky, cardboard, hand-scrawled sign. In nearly unreadable blue ballpoint pen, no less - Donna noted.

"That's gratitude." She muttered.

Matt sighed. "It's his to do what he wants with it."

He pressed the doorbell but heard nothing. He leaned closer to the door and pressed it again. Nothing. He pounded on the door with the heel of his hand, harder than he meant to.

"It's his to do what he wants." Donna mimicked in a whisper.

Matt threw her a sharp glare over his shoulder, just as the door opened.

"Yes?" A woman of about thirty opened the door, baby on her hip.

"Uh. Hi I'm Matt. I wanted to speak to Hector."

A voice came from inside the house, the words too muffled for them to hear.

The woman called back, "Some people want to buy the cart I think."

Matt was getting frustrated as a shirtless man in jeans and work boots came to the door. The woman backed off a few paces, but stayed to watch.

"Yeah? You want to buy the cart? Five hundred." He jerked his chin in a curt guy-nod.

Matt shook his head, releasing a frustrated breath. "I already bought it once. Was about three thousand."

That's Dollars, buddy - not Pesos. Donna wanted to say, and then scolded herself for the thought.

"Huh?" The man wasn't getting it.

"Look, I bought the cart for Hector. I just want to talk to him."

"No, man. Can't. He's dead." He frowned to himself, wishing he could have said 'passed away'.

Matt brushed this aside. "What? No. I just saw him yesterday."

The man chuckled darkly, pulling on a work shirt. "Yeah, it doesn't take long." Seeing that his morbid joke had belly flopped, he tossed up his hands in apology. "Look, he was an old man, all right? Seventy-seven years old. He'd been sick a long time."

Stunned, "What happened? When?" Matt had to know.

Airy wave: "His heart. Last night, after dinner. We were watching Jeopardy and he fell off the couch."

Matt recoiled. We watched Jeopardy last night. I wonder which question was being asked as he died. Matt knew he would never ask.

They jotted down the date and time for the funeral, and moved away from the door. Matt stood stock still in the driveway, staring at the heat wavering from the new asphalt.

After about a minute, Donna touched his arm. He didn't respond. Donna looked up to see the woman peek at them through the curtains of the living room.

"Matt. Hey." She put a hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah." His autopilot replied.

"We should go." She squeezed his shoulder.

"Yeah." His mouth was open, his eyes fixed.

What the hell? "Matt, is there something about this guy you didn't tell me? Is he your long lost uncle or something?"

"No," He answered finally. He was suddenly very aware of the sun beating down on his face and arms. WeatherDotCom said the UV index was level 8 - Very High today. Hector had been too deeply tan for a reason. He felt no urge to move.

Donna guided him back to the car. She remembered the day she'd had her eyes dilated, he'd led her like this, she was blind. The sun was too bright, even though she was wearing huge granny shades, even though her eyes were clenched tightly closed.

She put him in the passenger seat and started the engine, cranked the AC to high.

Matt stared at the dash.

"Matt. So. Back to the hotel?"

No answer.

She made an annoyed but forced-indulgent chuckle: "Honey, snap out of it. Talk to me. What's wrong?"

He blinked. He caught her eye. She looked away, since his eyes were wet and she couldn't bear it.

"What if I killed him?" He confided softly.

"Huh?"

"What if I did it? He was weak, and I came along and pushed him over."

"No, Honey." She breathed. "He was - an elderly man. Seventy-seven years old! It was his time."

"I hurt his pride. Sometimes that's all a person has. He was managing, he was working, hell, providing a public service. He was doing fine, and I came along."

Donna was silent. What to say?

"I came along and said 'You're old and slow and you need help. You can't do it. You're limping along like a fool. You're lost and you don't know it.' "

Donna shook her head with certainty. "No." You did a great thing. You showed him that there were people out there who remembered him, people he'd touched and changed."

Matt clenched his teeth, defiant. Eyes narrowed, considering.

Donna knew that look.

Uh-oh. "Matt, what?" He wants to pay for the funeral. Fine, whatever makes him happy.

"I want to work his route." He said slowly.

Silence for two or three beats as she absorbed this. The air conditioner pumped freezing air into the tiny space and she felt goosebumps all over. She couldn't be bothered to turn it off.

"You mean, go tell all the kids and housewives that he won't be coming back." She knew this wasn't what he meant. That would be too simple.

"No, I want to work his route. Sell churros and elotes and see the neighborhood and the kids rowdy from sitting in class all day, and the housewives damp from work and chores. The little old ladies with their ridiculous, cute rat-dogs. The sun and the wind and the traffic."

She knew he didn't mean to do the job for just a day or a week. How do you respond to crazy-talk? If she tried to talk him out of it, she would become The Enemy and he would do it to spite her. Despite her.

All she could do was agree. "All right, you should do that. He would like that. You're going to have a pretty full schedule. The deadline for the next book is just a month away."

"What?" He spat back in disbelief. Wasn't she listening at all? He wanted to punch something, smash it to bits, and prove his point with bloody-knuckled fists.

Part of him trembled to be called away from this foolish plan, so simple and scary. She would leave him, the cart peddler. She loved the worldly author-author! not the simple frightened man.

"Well, you've got obligations." She nodded reasonably. "Obligations to your publisher, to yourself." To ME.

She calmly tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and widened her encouraging blue eyes at him. "I mean, we're supposed to be in Boston on Tuesday."

He opened his mouth to tell her and everyone else to go to hell, when reality hit him with a sigh. Being here in the old town had made him feel eighteen again. Free. Free enough to make mistakes and follow the foolish path.

But he wasn't eighteen or a wounded war veteran. War veterans could do anything they pleased. Wow, he's really out there - yeah well, he's a War Veteran. Oh, well then, I didn't know.

Matt wasn't a cart peddler, he was a professional with contracts and responsibilities and a surprisingly patient woman. For once he didn't question her motives. At a mere twenty-eight, he suddenly felt old and limited - hemmed in by his choices, each decision a door that was now locked with a metal-on-metal CLANG of finality.

He closed his eyes and shook his head. A small laugh escaped him, a 'gosh-I've been silly' sound. Surrender.

"Let's get back to the hotel."


END