South Central Noir

Olin rode shotgun as Garcia steered over the metal tiger teeth. He waved to the guard and drove onto Eastlake. He passed the food truck selling carne asada to some USC health-care workers. He cursed the road construction. “I drive on surface streets to avoid traffic. Easier for me to supervise my passengers. Some boys fight. Some try to hurt themselves. Best part is you get the nickel tour of South Central just like Huell Howser.”

With the downtown Los Angeles skyline in his rearview mirror, Garcia drove south on San Pedro. The day was weary and dismal. The officer reminisced about growing up in the hood, the dark days he witnessed, and how he prayed for better ones. Olin looked out the window. He saw a couch on the curb. He saw homeless encampments near and far. He saw shopping carts filled with trash.

Garcia stopped short and swung the van to the right. One, two, three black-and-whites sped past them. The vehicles came to a quick stop diagonally across the oncoming lanes. The LAFD engines and trucks followed with sirens blaring. “Ay, Dios mío. I hope no one is hurt,” Garcia said.

With traffic blocked by the LAPD, Olin had a front-row seat to the incident. He leaned out the open window watching the emergency unfold. A fireman stood in front of a single-family residence within earshot of the probation van. He barked anxiously into a handheld radio.

“Task Force 33 on the scene assuming incident command. Smoke showing at a dwelling on San Pedro and Vernon. Search and rescue in progress.” The swarthy man wore an orange helmet and a yellow jacket that was smoke-stained and worn. He looked grizzled, with a deep scar on the side of his face.

“Roger, 33,” said a woman’s voice on the other end.

Olin could see smoke seeping out of the upstairs window and a sudden flash of hungry flames. A crowd of people appeared in front of the burning house with their necks craned upward. “My baby is still in there!” screamed a woman standing on the lawn. A man held her back.

“Metro, I’ve got fire throughout with people trapped inside, request ALS rescue unit!” the fireman shouted. A blur of yellow and red ran toward the structure under the blackened sky. Uniformed police officers waved the traffic forward. Garcia merged into the lane. Olin looked back to see a fireman handing a crying baby to its thankful mother. In the gray of the day, the silver soot smudged out what was left of the sun.

The June gloom that hung in the air earlier in the day had turned into precipitation. The light rain mixed with the oil residue on the road created a slick surface. Garcia hit the intermittent wipers and grumbled that Angelenos hate rain, drought or not. He reached behind his seat and propped a clipboard between the console and the dash. It sat on top of an old spiral-bound Thomas Guide. Olin saw his name and the address of the new group home. His heart pounded and his palms got sweaty. He breathed hard and fast.

“I’m not going back there,” he said.

“Where, amigo?”

“I’ll just run away like I did before.”

“My responsibility is to drive you to the address on this paper.”

“Let me out,” Olin cried. “Bad shit happened to me there.” When there was no response from Garcia, Olin panicked and yanked the handle of the door. It swung open and ricocheted against its greasy hinges, knocking him off-balance. He fell out and hung by his seat belt. The van began to hydroplane. It skidded and slid across the wet surface. Garcia struggled to control it.

“Grab my hand!” he yelled.

“I can’t reach it.”

Garcia pulled the wheel down hard with his left hand and did his cross with his right. The bulky behemoth lurched into the center lane, cutting off the car behind them. The momentum sent Olin flying back inside the cab as it careened into northbound traffic.

“Watch out!” he hollered.

Garcia reacted and the antilock brakes locked. He swerved and smashed into a parked car. The force thrust them forward then dropped them back. They looked at each other, dazed.

“Don’t make me go back to those people,” Olin said.

Garcia took a deep breath before he spoke. “Could be un gran problema at my work, but I feel you deserve a second chance. I can’t take you to a place where there’s abuse or neglect. I have an idea.”

The van was crunched and crippled but still running. The windshield was cracked. And the body and frame damage made it limp and squeal. The unlucky parked car fared even worse. Garcia scrawled a quick note and stuck it under the wiper. It simply began, Lo siento. Beneath it was his name, rank, and main number to County Probation.

Soon after, he turned into a strip mall in the Vermont-Slauson neighborhood, on the corner of Figueroa and Gage, called Angel’s Plaza. “We’re here,” he announced proudly. Olin followed him to some glass doors. “This might be the solution to your problem.”

“This is a laundromat.”