Los’s Long Day in LA – By R.L. Merrill #2
An hour later, Los found himself in a hole in the ground, staring up at the blue sky, and alternately shouting for help and cursing his cousin.
He was covered in dirt and scratches and could hardly catch his breath from falling on his back.
The rim of the hole was at least five feet over his head, and it was pitch black beyond the circle of light under the hole.
He’d managed to break his watch, he had a headache, and no one except his pinche traitor cousin knew where he was—his cousin who’d run off when Los fell.
Would he bring help? That remained to be seen with Chuy.
Los was well and truly fucked.
It had been a long time since he’d been roped into one of Chuy’s cockamamie schemes, but Los was feeling nostalgic after breakfast with his family, something he hadn’t felt in years, and the twinkle in Chuy’s eye had Los thinking about the old family rumors. No way they were true. ?Verdad?
A face finally appeared in the hole above him; a frowning face atop a navy-blue-uniform wearing, brown-skinned person of unknown ancestry. Los rarely tried to guess since people usually got his ancestry wrong. He never wanted to assume. Same with gender.
“Find anything interesting down there?”
Their dark hair was buzzed close to the scalp, voice husky, tanned arms clear of tattoos and quite muscular. When they spoke, the corner of their lips turned up playfully. Los breathed a sigh of relief.
“I know this looks bad. My cousin brought me here to show me where he’d been digging, and the ground caved in.”
“You know it’s illegal to dig in the park.”
Los opened his mouth to respond and then sighed.
Yeah, he was going to jail. He’d prided himself on never being arrested or put in jail.
Silas had been. His good friend Ryan spent a year and a half in prison.
Los would now have a criminal record at age thirty-three, when most people had grown out of stupidity. Awesome .
“Are you hurt?” The officer’s voice was kind when they asked. They were moving around the perimeter of the hole, probably looking to see how to get Los out. Hopefully?
Perhaps the Los Morales charm would work on them.
“Not seriously? Got the wind knocked out of me. I’m a little scraped up, but I’m okay. Thanks for asking.” He gave a half smile, fully realizing he looked like a dipshit.
“Great. You see a way out of there?”
“It’s rather dark down here. I don’t want to move and fall deeper. What the hell is this place?”
“A crushed dream. You got a phone? Use your flashlight.”
“Why didn’t I think of that?” he muttered, and reached his hand into his back pocket, yanking it right back out. “Fuck!”
“What’s up?”
“Must have landed on my phone. It’s crushed. Cut myself.”
“Here, use my flashlight.”
They dropped a small flashlight. Los reached up to catch it, but when they moved, the sun hit him in the eye and he flinched, missing the flashlight, which hit him on the forehead.
“ Ow! ”
“You got it?”
He crouched down and felt around, biting back a snotty retort.
He’d avoided trouble with the police for the most part, except for the few times he got busted drinking with his older cousins.
Then there was the time he and Gavin got caught tagging an underpass before Hush moved to Oakland.
He’d been let off with a warning then. Could he be so lucky today?
“You good, sir?”
“Yeah, hang on.” He moved his foot, and his toe connected with the flashlight, sending it rolling. He caught it before it got too far, but in the process, his foot slid in the loose dirt and he fell to a knee, ripping his pants.
“Got it.”
He heard the officer talking to someone on the radio as he clicked on the light.
He saw a rocky wall before him, cobwebs, and behind him was darkness as far as he could see…
“I gotta get out of here,” Los called up, his voice high like he hadn’t gone through puberty. What if he fell farther? What if this was a fault line and there was an earthquake? What if the blackness swallowed him for good this time?
Los tried to breathe like his therapist taught him, but he’d started to sweat profusely, and he needed to move. Pacing wasn’t an option. He bounced his leg and cracked his knuckles. He wished Brains was there to talk him down, but nope. He was on his own.
“I’ve gotta go meet fire. They’re going to get you out of there. I don’t see a safe way to pull you up.”
“Okay?” Shit. Don’t leave me alone, please?
Freaking Chuy. Their fathers used to get drunk and tell stories.
Supposedly the old families in the area, the ones who’d owned the land when it was still part of Mexico, like the Morales family, had done very well for themselves, and in 1846, they weren’t happy about becoming part of a new country full of white men.
Rather than keep their riches with them, they chose to bury their loot in the area that became Elysian Park.
The problem with that theory was that treasure hunters had been visiting the park for decades—even Unsolved Mysteries came and found evidence that looters had already been there—and nothing of value had been found. Chuy never gave up hope, though.
Los had no need for buried treasure. He had everything he could possibly want. Well, except for his parents, but that was complicated. How cool would it be to have a piece of Morales history that wasn’t tainted with awful memories?
Well, they would be now, that was for damn sure.
No, Los should have left the family rumors alone and focused on his band’s success.
Hush continued to grow their audience and receive more respect from their peers with each new album.
They won a Best Rock Performance Grammy the previous year, their third nomination, and their last album hit a million streams in its first month.
They were on an upward trajectory, and they were co-headlining the benefit that evening with some of the biggest bands in their genre, including Bring Me The Horizon and Sleep Token, as well as Black Velvet Machine, the reunion of Shady Grace, Untamed Coaster, Broken Wing, Sam’s Song, and an all-star tribute to Los Angeles-based bands featuring Tom Morello, Wolfgang Van Halen, Dave Navarro, Dave Grohl, and Corey Taylor.
Thinking about the event kept Los from hyperventilating over his current situation. He was running through the medley of SoCal punk songs Hush had put together in his head, his hands shaking and his teeth chattering, when the angelic face reappeared above.
“Fire is here. They’re going to do their thing. I’ll be up here when you get out.”
Los barked out a laugh. “And then the fun begins, huh?”
They smiled for real that time. The way the sun shone around them was like a halo. He could almost believe he’d been sent an angel.
“What’s your name?”
“Officer Salvador. Now, make space for the ladder if you can.”
A minute later, two firefighters stuck their heads over the rim and talked to him like a kindergartener as they lowered the end of a ladder. A buff blond guy came down with safety ropes, and he shined a bright spotlight around, blinding Los.
“You certainly got yourself in a pickle. Thought you’d find that mythological Mexican fortune, huh?”
“My cousin thought so. Old family rumors.”
The firefighter looked Los up and down and snorted. “Right. Your family. Uh-huh. Okay, white boy. Think you can make it up the ladder?”
Los cursed under his breath and started to climb. La misma mierda. His bandmates might have loved Los’s blond hair, but they didn’t understand what it was like for him, having family make fun of you for your light skin and hair and your funny way of speaking.
He spoke fluent Spanish, but his mother was from the Netherlands, and she’d only spoken Dutch to him when he was little. The Spanish came next, and English he didn’t learn ’til he’d started school. Yessenia only learned Spanish before school. At least she had their father’s coloring.
Los hated standing out then, and he still hadn’t totally gotten over it. He’d dyed his hair black since starting high school at fourteen. His English hadn’t been great, and the Mexican kids in Stockton and LA knocked him around when he tried to hang out with them.
Meeting Silas, Gavin, and Brains had changed his life for the better, and he needed to remember that whenever he doubted himself. Like now.
He had no idea how long he’d been down in the hole, but the light hurt his eyes when he reached the top of the ladder, and another firefighter helped him to his feet.
There stood his angel, his savior. Their eyes were the lightest shade of hazel he’d ever seen, and they had super-long lashes. The cop watched with interest as the firefighters took care of the “boo-boos” on his elbows. “There. Hope this cures you of digging in the park.”
“Thank you,” he said, gritting his teeth. It wouldn’t do to tell these guys off, but Los was nearing his breaking point. They packed up their gear, made a few more cracks, and then left in a cloud of Axe body spray. At least the cop hadn’t joined in with them.
He tried a smile as he waited for his fate, but he wasn’t feeling it. He was too close to tears. What a clusterfuck.
“Are you going to arrest me?” he asked, when he couldn’t take it anymore.
“Should I? Are you going to try this again?”
“No way. I’ll be sure my cousin doesn’t either.”
“Fine. How about you give me your ID?”
“Sure.” He reached into his back pocket, cursing again when he cut another finger. Man, playing tonight is not going to be fun. He went for the other pocket—and froze. “Oh no.”
“Oh no?”
“My wallet. It’s not here.” He squeezed his eyes shut, and his teeth started chattering again. This is not happening . “I think… I left it at the hotel. Shit. ”
The officer had been cool until that point, but then they sighed. “No ID. Oh. Kay. What hotel?”
“Uh, someplace in Beverly Hills? I think it starts with a P? We got in late last night. My band is playing the benefit tonight.”
“Your band.”
“Yeah. My band. Hush. Metal. You ever listen?”
“How about, what’s your name?”