POINT ARENA, CALIFORNIA | 1995
It was after midnight when Palacios left The Slab, the bar that she and her partner had started in the old temporary Vets Hall, and turned right toward the ocean. Her 1984 Ford Ranger balked when she tried to put it in gear, but she was persistent, and—powerless against an unbroken stream of invectives—it finally relented.
Ever since they started having punk shows on Wednesday nights, she found herself leaving her club later and later. Something about the rawness of the young bands appealed to her. All the things that she wished she had said when she was younger was now being shouted out by kids with no chance of ever making a record deal or even being on the radio. They did it just because they felt they had to, and she was glad to provide a venue for them to do just that.
The Ranger, meanwhile, rethought its position, and as soon as the opportunity presented itself at the town’s singular red light, it died; purely out of spite.
“Sonofacocksuckingpieceofmother…” Palacios was just getting warmed up when an all-too-familiar pair of red and blue lights appeared in her rearview mirror, needlessly announced by a quick yelp.
“Driver, move to the side,” Chief Burton’s voice came over the police car’s siren speaker.
“You are just loving this, aren’t you,” she growled through gritted teeth into the mirror.
“Driver…”
Palacios rolled down the hand-cranked window and shouted back at her ex-husband. “Don’t you think I would if I could, asshole? Why don’t you give me a push instead of just sitting there?”
“Isn’t that what you said to me on our first date?” Burton broadcast out to the empty streets. “Driver, put the vehicle in neutral.” Slowly, the police car crept up on the dead Ranger, until it finally kissed it with its push bumper.
“Nice decorum, officer,” Palacios shouted out the window as the truck began to roll. Coasting toward the side of the road, she cranked what would have been the power steering, had the truck not expired, and stood on the unassisted brakes, finally pulling up the emergency lever.
“Are we having some trouble this evening, little lady?” Burton appeared at the open driver’s side window, not worried in the slightest about standing in the lane of non-existent traffic.
“Warren, dear,” Palacios gave in to the situation, “I don’t remember saying your name three times.”
“What’s the Bogart line? ‘Just put your lips together and… blow.’ ”
“Now, I remember our first date! How are you doing, Warren?”
“A bit better than you seem to be right now, Benita. I told you to get rid of this rust bucket years ago.”
“Yea, well, there are three things a financial advisor would talk you out of buying if you don’t want to end up stranded at a stoplight in the middle of the night: a boat, a horse, and a club.”
“Why don’t you let me give you a ride home? I’ll have the boys at the corp yard tow this piece of shit to the shop in the morning.”
“My knight in shining brass. Let me get my things.”
Palacios followed Burton to the idling police car, stopping only to kick the Ranger’s back tire.
“You’ll never guess you I saw at the café this morning,” Burton mentioned once they were moving.
“Warren, it’s late,” Palacios began before noticing a hurt look threaten to steal across the weathered policeman’s face. “Alright, who?”
“If you don’t want to know, that’s fine…”
“Warren, goddamn it, it is late! Tell me.”
“Charlie.”
“Charlie?”
“Charlie.”
“You saw Charlie Perigo in the Lighthouse Café?”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
“I call bullshit.”
“You can call whatever you want, but he was sitting there, real as your ass.”
“Warren, leave my ass outta this. Charlie hasn’t set foot in that place since the mid-’70s. You of all people know what happened.”
“That’s why I thought you would want to know, but that’s not all.”
“Jesus, Warren…”
“He wasn’t alone, there was some kid with him, a documentary filmmaker. Teacake or something.”
“The guy’s name was Teacake?”
“Yea, I don’t know, fucking artists, right? The bigger question is who the hell would want to interview Charlie?”
“You don’t think it’s about the commune, do you?”
“No, it’s probably about Charlie’s work with unwed mothers… of course, it’s about the commune, Benita!”
“Christ.”
“Have you talked to Chae recently?”
“Warren, she doesn’t want to talk to you.”
“That’s OK, Benita,” Warren stopped the patrol car in front of Palacio’s house. “Just tell her that whatever this is, I’ll make sure and keep her name out of it.”
“I’ll tell her,” Palacio said, looking down at her hands. “Thanks, Warren, and thanks for the lift.”
Burton watched his ex-wife walk up the path and disappear into the house before driving off into the night.
Román Leão 
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