doctor says he needs the exercise – or else. He is listening to Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three play a song that makes him want to drift down a river on a raft with one hand in the water and the sun in his eyes.
The man in the work pants (who lives in a very expensive house with a really terrific view) is an example of what Remedios means when she says it’s easier to build a swimming pool than capture bliss. Drifting down a river on a raft is something this man always dreamed of doing when he was young. Just throwing some things in a bag and going wherever the current took him. Being free in the moment, with no ambitions and no plans; no things he felt he had to be or do. Indeed, it’s something he often dreams of doing now. But now, of course, his life is full of ambition, plans and things he has to do. Responsibilities. Expectations. He sits in his beautiful living room or on his shaded deck, gazing out on the terrific view, but it doesn’t make him happy. He wants to hear crickets and woodpeckers calling; the splash of fish jumping; the crackle and rustle of deer along the shore. He wants to be that boy again, to get back his dreams. And, as he comes around the next bend, he is imagining dragonflies grazing the water; leaves rattling; the sighing of trees. Which is why he doesn’t see Gabriela and Delila as he passes.
And they don’t see him because they are arguing about whether or not they’re going the right way. Except that they both know it should be in the sky, they can’t agree where the sun should be. Over there? Over here? Over there? They remember different landmarks, when they remember any landmarks at all. Gabriela would bet her favourite boots that they passed that lime-green house with Roman blinds on the way up; Delila would wager her favourite books that they didn’t.
“I hope you speak some Spanish,” grunts Delila as they round another twist in the road. “Then you’ll be able to get a job as a cleaner or something when we never find our way out of this place.”
“It’s not like we’re lost in the Amazon jungle,” Gabriela snaps back. “I mean, God, Del… The rate you’re going, you could probably make the Olympics worrying team.”
“Only since I met—” A sudden agonized scream from behind them cuts Delila short. “What the hell was that?” She looks around. “Do they have wild boar up here?”
But although there are wolves and coyotes in the Hollywood hills, there are no wild boars as yet. The agonized scream came from the jogger they don’t remember passing, whom they find lying on the ground, breathing heavily and groaning.
“Are you all right?” they call as they hurry over to him. And, because he has his eyes closed and doesn’t respond, shout again, “Sir! Sir! Are you all right?”
He should have known something like this would happen. Die if you don’t exercise; die if you do. He’s afraid to move. Everybody knows that the people in this neighbourhood don’t walk anywhere unless you count to and from the car. And most of them run first thing in the morning or on machines. So if he can’t walk, then he may be here for hours before someone finds him. Finds him, or runs over him. But then, feeling them more than hearing them, he realizes that he’s already been found, and opens his eyes expecting to see someone’s gardener or housekeeper.
Two teenage girls stand over him, looking vaguely concerned. He doesn’t really like teenagers. He doesn’t really like most people, but teenagers he finds especially depressing. At an age when they should be wild and irreverent and kicking up dust, they worry instead about what they’re wearing and what people think of them.
“I’m all right.” He pulls off the headset. “I just slipped.”
“We’ll help you up.” Hands reach towards him.
He bats them away. “I’m all right, I tell you. Just got a little winded.” He doesn’t like being ignored, but he doesn’t like people fussing over him, either.
The large, flamboyant girl says, “You always have that green tinge to your skin?”
The skinny, flat-looking girl says, “You sure you’re OK?”
“Yes, I always have a green tinge to my skin. And of course I’m OK. I didn’t land on my head.” But when he tries to stand the pain knocks the breath right out of him. “My ankle—” he gasps. “I must have sprained it…”
Gabriela kneels down beside him. “It’s swelling fast.”
He winces as the accidental movement of his foot causes another jolt of pain. “I’m not blind. I can see that.”
“You’re not exactly Prince Charming, either,” says Delila, as she kneels on his other side. “We’re only trying to help you, you know.”
He does know that; he just wishes he didn’t need any help. “I’m sorry. I’m just—” He’s never in a very good mood lately. He holds out a hand. “I’m Joe.”
“Ga— Beth.”
“Delila.” She starts untying his laces. “It doesn’t look broken.” Delila has three male cousins who live next door to her grandparents and is, therefore, something of an expert on limb injuries. “It probably is just a sprain. But we should get this sneaker off.”
“It could be a fracture.” Gabriela and her friends have sustained any number of clothing-induced injuries, so she is something of an expert, too. She forages through her bag and pulls out the scarf Beth carries in the event of sudden drafts or dust storms. “We can bandage it with this. But you’d better not try to walk on it.”
“No fear of that.” His smile comes out more as a grimace. “I couldn’t walk on it if I wanted to.” He looks from one to the other. “I left my phone at home, but maybe if one of you could call my housekeeper—”
“My phone’s kaput,” explains Delila. “And Beth left hers at the hotel.”
Gabriela smiles as if she’s used to life without a cell phone. “How far away do you live? We can help you get there.”
“Just a couple of blocks, but I don’t think two young—”
Gabriela waves this away, too. “It’s not a big deal. I’ve done this dozens of times. Really. It’s all about balance.”
“Besides,” says Delila, “you’re not that much taller than I am. And my granddad, Johnson? He sells old bottles. I’m used to lugging heavy things around.”
“We had to do this one time when my friend Hedda sprained her ankle because she got her heel caught in a crack in the sidewalk,” Gabriela informs him as she and Delila position themselves on either side of Joe. “It was really thin? The heel, I mean. It just wedged itself in. She went down like a bowling pin. You should’ve seen it. It was worse than yours. It looked like she was morphing into an elephant.”
“One … two … three…” counts Delila, and they heave him to his feet.
“You see?” says Gabriela. “And you’re not crying the way Hedda was. It makes it a lot easier.”
“Give me a few minutes,” he grunts. “I may be crying by the time we get to my house.”
He lives close by compared to, say, Las Vegas, but it’s still a good distance to be hauling a grown man, especially quite a large one, under the afternoon sun. Free to talk about things other than books, paintings and foreign films, Gabriela and Delila tell him what they’re doing in LA and keep up a constant stream of chatter to try to distract him from the pain. Delila talks about Brooklyn and her grandparents and recites a poem she wrote about the New York subway called
By the time they get to Joe’s house, they’re all laughing.
His housekeeper is out. He forgot she was going to the market.
“Damn woman,” says Joe. “When you don’t need her, she’s always underfoot; when you do, she’s miles away.”
They drop him on the couch, and Delila props up the bad leg with pillows while Gabriela goes to the kitchen for ice. She comes back with a bag of frozen peas.
“This is what we used on Hedda,” she tells him, not mentioning that what the hospital used on Hedda was traction. “And it really works. Plus you don’t have ice melting all over and you can just stick it back in the freezer and have it for supper.”
