No Good Capone asked her to get on the wheel and got Audrey to sit in the front next to her. He and Baby Huey climbed into the back. It felt innocent, like a game of musical chairs, Natalie told a journalist. No Good asked her to circle the parking lot a few times while he got ready. Then they drove back to the dimly lit rear of the mall where the pay phones were. No Good asked Natalie to douse the headlights and drive slowly toward the Persian group.
I imagined Natalie turning to her friend, proud. It wasn’t going to be another boring Saturday night. The car slowed down and started to creep forward. Arash and his friends didn’t see it approaching. They were busy laughing at someone’s joke—laughing so hard that Nadir had tears in his eyes.
Natalie pressed her foot on the accelerator. The car caught up with the group, then slowed down almost to a halt.
“Duck now!” Baby Huey screamed to the girls. Everyone heard that scream, even the Persian kids, but before they could realize what was going on, No Good Capone was already leaning out the window shooting in their direction. He shot ten times, hitting Arash in the stomach six times. Nadir was wounded in the left leg.
“You don’t gangbang?” No Good Capone screamed at Arash as he fell to the ground. “Well you do now!”
He leaned back in the car and they sped out of the parking lot. The girls said the sound of gunfire was louder than they thought, the consequences so much more real. Audrey turned around and saw bodies on the ground. Sirens started blaring almost at once.
Arash was bleeding, squeezing Nadir’s hand.
“My stomach hurts” were his last words.
He died a few hours later in a hospital in Encino, five blocks from Erica’s mansion.
After the shootout, the group scattered. The girls went back to their friend. They told her that no matter who came and asked, she was to say they’d been together that night. Erica agreed, but a few hours later, at dawn, she woke up her parents and told them to call the police. Audrey and Natalie were promised immunity for their testimonies. No Good Capone and Baby Huey would get life sentences.
—
After school I walked by myself to the Woodland Hills Mall. Everyone was there, behind the Cineplex where Arash had been shot. Students, teachers, and relatives lit candles and placed flowers. There were tears. The sidewalk was covered in spray-painted Goodbye graffiti.
“Keep smiling,” “R.I.P. from your homeys,” “We love you.”
TV and print journalists circled the pay-phone area, reconstructing the events from Saturday night.
“They think we’re a gang,” one of Arash’s friends explained to a journalist. “But Persian pride just means we take pride in our native culture. We flip signs and wear baggy pants, but it’s fashion. All kids wear baggy pants. They sell them at the Gap.”
The parking lot got crowded. Arash’s presence was in the air. He had just been there, alive, himself, doing the normal things we all did, except—I now realized—we lived in a place where normal things could get you killed. I stood on the periphery of the mourning human cluster, alone. I could not share my grief with his sisters like the other girls did. I could not say what I thought, that if his friends hadn’t noticed him at the end of that theater’s entrance hall, standing next to that awkward Italian girl—if he’d been alone with me that night, walking with no particular stride, away from that mall—he would have still been here today.
I grabbed a lonely red candle from the asphalt and left the parking lot. I walked to our ghost middle school and hopped the fence. In our classroom I lit the candle for Arash. It was almost Christmas and I was wearing a T-shirt. I thought about that—and only that: That things were not what they seemed. That winter was summer, Christmas was Easter, and death was another incongruous detail that made up the landscape of the city. I did not cry. I thought about the freckled girl from school and pulled my hair up in a ponytail. I hopped on top of the fence and looked up at the sun as it set behind the hills. “Think of the other side. Don’t think of what’s behind you,” she had said. It always worked when I climbed over with Arash. I hoped it would now too.
I left our spot and walked by rich mansions, shitty condos, and family homes. When the last rays of the sun disappeared, the street I was on suddenly lit up. A plastic Santa Claus hovered over my head with a big sign: “Ho ho ho and welcome to Candy Cane Lane. Our holiday display can be enjoyed from the comfort of your own vehicle, but please don’t feed the penguins!”
I’d heard people in school talk about this extravaganza but didn’t believe it actually existed. A manic celebration of Christmas unfolded before my eyes. The entire street was one huge kitsch holiday decoration asserting the city’s right to enjoy a jolly Christmas in spite of the tropical temperatures. A blanket of fake snow had been distributed over each home’s freshly cut front lawn. Insane sums of money and thousands of kilowatts of energy were spent on lights, plastic snowmen, and animatronic Santas. Disney-themed installations—Robin Hoods, Aladdins, Little Mermaids everywhere. Hollywood was a hill away. A life-size inflatable Santa Claus on a motorcycle chased a helicopter with candy-cane blades. Bejeweled, tired palm trees swayed in the hot wind. There were no firs in sight. The street ended under the Ventura Freeway. In front of the last house three Hispanic gardeners carried heavy generators across a yard. They looked up at me and rolled their eyes.
“Crazy, right?” One of them laughed as the other settled a glowing baby Jesus into the earth. He dug holes for Mary and Joseph to rest in, stabbing the lawn with a shovel, chuckling to himself.
At the beginning of the street, cars got in line for a tour of the lane. They couldn’t park and walk to see the show. Shooting people and celebrating Christmas: Everything in LA could be done from the comfort of one’s vehicle.
The gardeners plugged a plastivity scene in to the generator.
Mary’s electric dress sparkled like a holy disco ball. She looked so beautiful shining on that lawn, under the freeway overpass. I got on my knees, crossed myself, clasped my hands, and closed my eyes in front of the sacred family.
Dear Mary, please be nice to Arash’s soul. Help him fly away, out of the Valley, over the Woodland Hills Mall, across the canyons. Move him on a string through the western surf, into the setting sun. Plunge him into the ocean and push him through the depths of the earth, far from the coast of California. Bring him back to Persia. May he be greeted by a potent red sun and a noble lion. May the melodies of lute players from all time resonate when he enters his skies. Undress him. He is so beautiful when he is naked. Cover him in jewels. Throw his baggy pants away. Let him know I plan to join an advanced literature class next semester, a class where people read. We would have had to stop going to the abandoned school anyway. Amen.
I decided that would be my last prayer, the last chance I’d give Mary to make things right. When I reached Sepulveda Boulevard, instead of going home I kept walking. I headed to Henry’s store. I didn’t know why I felt like being with him in that moment. Maybe it was the missing ear. I too felt like an amputee, missing limbs here and there. Missing parts of my heart.
part two
return
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