THE PURPLE EGG GAME pt. 2
New parts published weekly
It took almost an hour to get to the Bird Dog, and even with Enya's Dark Sky Island calming Frank's nerves as he worked through traffic, he had to lay on the horn now and again. As stupid as the bubbly little self-driving AutoUbers look, they'd done a good deal to get LA's avenues flowing. Today, the mess of cars darting all over the place reminded Frank of the early twenty-twenties, back when everyone was like him—master of their own steed, driver of their own car.
When he got to the Bird Dog, Frank was exhausted from traffic. He turned on the TV and flipped around through the channels looking for something innocuous and stupid to take the edge off. Exactly what TV was invented for. Instead, he found himself tangled up in the sordid little NEWS channels. NEWS from the left, the right, the middle. All of it proclaiming to be the bold and salacious, capital-T Truth, none of it even coming close.
Everybody was talking about Griffith Park, about the lost gold. Reporters who varied only in hairstyle interviewed a variety of bedraggled citizens about the brand-new confirmation that “yes, it’s true, there are gold bars just sitting there in Griffith Park.” Changing channels fast like this was like flipping through a deck of maniac's faces. White and black and brown and the rest with eyes narrowed and fierce, wide and mad, steely and cold. They wore gang tattoos and bandanas, sunglasses and N95 masks. They were a multitude but one as they echoed the same simple sentiment into the microphones thrust to their lips. "Gold," they said. "Gimme that gold." Some said it eloquently, some dumbly. Most spoke in English, others in Spanish or Tagalog. But the din of voices, like the faces, was one—base and hungry and blunt. "Gold," it said. "I want that gold."
It annoyed Frank, infuriated him really. Bunch of morons. Bunch of assholes looking for a free lunch and then some. He turned off the TV.
The second he did, the one paying customer in the bar, a spindly moron wearing a gigantic Lakers bomber jacket despite the ninety-degree heat, leapt up and started towards the door.
"Where're you going?" Frank asked.
"Going to get that gold," he said. And, swish, he threw back the curtain and dashed out the door.
That night, after Green Mean and beef, whole milk and a Hershey's bar, there was a knock at Frank’s door. He opened the little tarnished peep-hole to see JJ standing there, his gray pompadour all wild and askew.
"What're you doing here?" Frank said, opening the door, giving his brother a half hug.
"Just, uh," JJ stuttered, moving towards the kitchen. "You got anything to drink? Any booze."
"Don’t keep it at home. Milk?"
"Yeah, yeah. Milk's good."
Frank walked into the kitchen, filled a milk glass for JJ and refilled his own.
JJ took a sip, sighed. "Just, uh, got in a fight with Sabrina."
"’Bout what?"
"Folding socks. Er, like, how when I fold her socks, I don't put them away correctly. But she keeps them in a bunch of different little cubbies, you know. Like one for regular socks and another for fancy socks and I can't always tell the fancy socks from the regular ones so... S'like you always say, Frank, men got two options in life, to be lonely or in-trouble. Anyways, I just went for a walk and here I am." JJ tapped his ruby pinky ring against his glass of milk. Tink, tink, tink. "I got an idea, Frankie."
“Yeah, I know you do.”
“Don’t act like that, man.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m stupid and transparent and dumb. You don’t know what I’m going to say.”
“You want the gold.”
JJ stared hard at his big brother for a second before looking away. “No, that’s not what I was going to say. I was just going to ask you about stocks. The stock market.”
“Don't know nothing about it.”
“All right then. Guess I'll ask somebody else.” JJ sipped his milk, opened and closed a cabinet. “Got any treats?”
“Nope. I got treats, sweets, I eat ‘em. I can mix you a glass of Mean Green.”
“Ugh. No thanks.”
“Wanna watch a movie? I just got City Lights on Amazon.”
“Naw, I’m good.” JJ took another sip, a deep breath. He stared straight ahead like there was something right there in front of him. Something to really reckon with.
"JJ, going into that park would be absolutely idiotic," Frank said. "Bar none, the dumbest thing a man could do."
"You know how much one of those bars is worth?"
"Who even says that they’re in there? The news? Some blathering idiot on the nightly news? They’ll say tap water will make your teeth fall out so long as you don’t change the channel."
"Seven hundred and fifty grand, bro. A piece. And there’s seven of ‘em. That’s five million dollars total."
"Listen, I want you to hear something." Frank walked to his little stereo, turned down Enya.
"What? You gonna fart? You gonna fart and say 'haha.'"
"No. I'm not going to fart. Just listen."
In the distance there was a long burst of sudden and sustained gun fire.
"That ain't my neighbor making popcorn. Every broke idiot in LA is in that park looking for that gold. And I'd reckon more than a few of them have guns."
"We lived through 'Nam, dude."
"When we were kids."
"Okay, sure, but you only retired, what, ten years ago? And when I was working security I got into more than a few very hairy situations."
“I don't even know what to say, man."
"Say, yes. Say yes to adventure. To a treasure hunt. With your brother.”
“You know how big Griffith Park is? Forty-three-hundred acres. Forty-three-hundred acres of hills and canyons and mountains and caves covered in trees and brush and grass.”
“Okay, you’re right there. I’ll give you that. The park's huge. But I think that can actually work to our advantage. Look.” JJ reached into his pocket, took out half a dozen folded-up sheets of paper and smoothed a few out on Frank’s kitchen counter. “See. I’ve collected all these screenshots from different angles from when the robbers dropped the gold. I’ve done triangulations. It’s simple math, and all of it points to the same place. Cathy's Corner. Look. You just park your car at Forest Lawn Cemetery right here, say you want to lay some daisies on Stan Laurel's grave, hop the fence, and boom, we're there. I've seen it on the news, dude. Everyone's all clustered around the zoo and shit. They all think it's on the south side, but they're wrong. It’s right here."
“Hm,” Frank said, "let me see that.” He looked down at the grainy photos covered in precise, multi-colored triangles. Frank made more sounds through his nose, planted his fists on his hips. “Okay, I see it. I do.”
“You do?” JJ said.
“Yup. You’re out of your damned mind.”
“Ah, screw you,” JJ snatched up his papers and stuffed them back into his khakis. “I’ll go it alone. I'm not afraid of a few morons with pea shooters.”
Just then, the rat-a-tat-tat of a machine gun rattled the windows.
"That sound like a pea shooter to you? You might not be afraid to die, but these kids in there, they’re not afraid to kill."
JJ paced back and forth, huffed and puffed and smoothed down his pompadour. "I need that money, Frank. I need it."
"You remember the purple egg?"
"Absolutely. Primo childhood memory."
"Really? You think it was primo the time that little Henry just about broke your nose and trying to get it out of your hand?"
"Boys will be boys."
"What about the time that Greg kicked Doug down into that ravine, broke his collar bone? Was that primo?"
"It was a game. A fun game."
"You remember what you did when Uncle Troy decided things had gotten too rough and decided to take the fifty out of the egg and retire it?"
"Yeah."
"What did you do?"
"I was disappointed."
" You were more than disappointed, JJ. You didn't believe him, remember? After all the other eggs had been collected and we were all inside playing Ouija board and eating jelly beans you were still out there in the dark and the rain with a flashlight. You just about froze to death looking for something that wasn't even there. Don't go and do that again. With strangers. With guns. In a park that's forty-three-hundred acres."
"I’m so God damn broke right now."
"You can’t get any broker than dead."
JJ stared at his brother with scary intensity, his eyes flicking back and forth as he reckoned with the deadly opportunity of gold, gold just sitting there for the taking. He bit his fingernails.
"You got a little baby on the way," Frank said. "Be that baby’s daddy. Love that baby. Kiss its porky little toes one at a time. The rest’ll work itself out, I promise. But stay the hell out of that park."
JJ stared at Frank, his eyes narrowing even tighter. "Yeah, but. I just..."
Frank took his little brother's shoulders. "Please, JJ. You think I want to turn on the news and see a couple of little pricks with face tattoos playing soccer with my brother's head? The answer is no. I do not want to see that."
"Fuck!" JJ barked. "I'm just… I'm so fucked right now."
"You can't go into that park."
"I know."
"What?"
"I said, I know. You're right, it's dumb as hell with my little triangle doodles. Stupid. Don't worry. I'm not going in."
"You’re a dreamer. It’s a good thing. Just not always. Not right now."
"Yeah, you’re right. Seeya tomorrow."
"Seeya, bud."
JJ started towards the door. Frank grabbed his shoulders again, said, "Hey, you gotta promise me that you’re not going in there. Say, I promise I won't go into Griffith Park."
JJ raised his right hand. "I promise I won't go into Griffith Park."
"All right. Goodnight, brother." Frank hugged JJ, who put up a mock protest before settling into the embrace, as was their tradition. JJ smelled strongly of Old Spice, same as their dad did when they were boys, which was the only time they had a dad. Frank took a deep breath of the comforting, peppery smell as he held his brother tight.
Frank arrived at the Bird Dog at eleven the next morning. JJ was scheduled to come in at noon and Frank was going to buy him lunch as a sort of olive branch. There was nothing to apologize for, per se, but still, he felt like he rained on his brother's parade a little harder than necessary last night. Lunch would smooth things over.
After a quick inventory of the stockroom, fixing a broken stool with duct tape, busting up another beyond repair, and throwing the pieces in the dumpster, it was noon.
Frank knocked on Pete's office door and stuck his head in to find the little gray man balled up around an adding machine as old as he was, paper tape tickling his ankles.
"JJ was supposed to come in now, right?"
"I guess, sure. But when's your brother ever been on time?"
Frank posted up behind the bar—big arms crossed, old dish towel slung over one shoulder. He was so focused on the clock in the Budweiser sign that he didn’t even notice when a hip young kid walked in and ordered a beer.
"Sir!' the kid shouted. "You're open, aren't you?"
"Yeah, yeah. Sorry. What'll it be?"
"Corona light."
Frank slung a coaster, fetched a beer, and set it on the coaster, all the time his eyes on the clock, the blood-red second-hand efficiently sweeping second after second into the past. Soon, it was twelve-fifteen.
JJ was always late, true, but never more than five, ten minutes. Frank rapped his knuckles on the bar. "Son of a bitch." He took out his old-as-hell Nokia phone. No missed calls, no new texts.
"Hey, Pete," Frank called out.
The office door squeaked open. Pete's white head popped out. "What?!"
Frank waggled his phone. "Gotta make a quick call. Handle the customer."
"Who you gotta—"
But Frank didn’t hear the rest. He was out past the Bird Dog's heavy velvet-curtain, on Western Avenue.
Gunshots popped off in the park just a couple miles north as police helicopters fluttered above the park and broadcast, "EXIT THE PARK AT ONCE OR BE ARRESTED FOR TRESPASSING! ¡SALGA DEL PARQUE DE INMEDIATO O SERÁ ARRESTADO POR TRASPASAR!"
Frank dialed his brother's number, hit the TALK button. He had to push the shitty old phone deep into his ear just to hear it ringing.
A cute young woman in turquoise jewelry walked past him, pulled back the curtain of the Bird Dog, and entered.
On the fifth ring, JJ's voicemail picked up. "Leave a message, Amigo." BEEP!
"You're twenty—" Frank checked his watch. "Twenty-five minutes late. Pete's pissed. I'm pissed. Get your ass down here." Frank hung up, called again. No answer. "God damned idiot."
He pulled back the Bird Dog's curtain to see furious Pete shaking a cocktail shaker while the girl in jewelry recorded him with a translucent phone shaped like slice of white bread. "Frank, get your ass in here. I'm not Johnny Cocktail."
"I gotta go run an errand, Pete. Sorry."
"You son of a—"
Swish. The curtain fell back into place.
Frank pulled up to his brother's place in Koreatown. The street had been squeezed tight and narrow by dozens of AutoUbers parked bumper to bumper along both curbs like two giant strings of pearls. They sent signals to each other and efficiently consumed every last inch of LA's street-parking so that truck-owners like Frank couldn’t park anywhere. The damn things had turned the whole city into one of those Pac Man mazes. Only I'm the ghost, Frank thought. Every old man with a truck, we're the God damn ghosts in this new techno-schematic.
Frank parked in a driveway besides a little village of run-down Mediterranean style bungalows with spade-shaped archways and red-tiled roofs. He jogged through the dusty, junk-strewn courtyard to bungalow number eleven—where JJ had lived since his divorce.
Frank knocked and Sabrina answered, her swollen belly and breasts barely covered by one of JJ's old, gauzy t-shirts. A long braid of black hair, thick and sturdy as mariner's rope, hung down over bold and bulbous contours.
Her face lit up when she saw Frank. "Hey, Hammie!" She pulled him in close into warm, dewy arms.
Frank reared back, looked at her belly. He was trying to hide his worry and overcorrected a bit. "My my my! Look at you! A little life factory."
"I know," she said. "Eight months. I’m so fat."
"Fat with life. That’s the good kind of fat. So, hey, I was just wondering if JJ's around. I got the day off, wanted to hit some golf balls with him at DeBell and he's not picking up his phone."
"Yeah, okay. He might not have service."
"Why wouldn't he have service?
"He didn't tell you he was going camping?"
"No, he did not tell me he was going camping. On a Tuesday."
"I know. He's so weird. I woke up and he was putting a tent in a backpack, saying, I got to go Sabrina. I just got a hankering for them wide open spaces."
"Idiot," Frank said, furious.
Sabrina looked at him funny.
Frank forced a smile. "Would you, uh, mind if I used your phone, try to call him. My ancient hunk of junk phone sometimes doesn't satellite-connect, you know."
"Sure, sure," Sabrina said, receding into the apartment. "Come in."
Frank followed. There were baby toys all over the place, stuffed animals and playpens canopied by plastic animals dangling on bungee cords. The place was dewy and warm like Sabrina's arms. There was something in it that made Frank feel terribly lonesome, but he pushed that feeling down deep to concentrate on the task at hand.
He followed Sabrina into the kitchen where she dug through a giant wicker purse. "You want something to drink?"
"No, thanks. I'm good."
She took her iPhone out, tapped her code into it, and handed it to Frank. "Here you go."
Frank pulled a cigarillo from his front pocket. "Gotta nasty little craving'" he said, waggling it. "Mind if I make the call outside?"
"Go ahead," Sabrina said, resting back against the kitchen counter and rubbing a bruised elbow. "Take your time."
Out in the courtyard, Frank walked a good distance from the bungalow, lighting up on the way. Cigarillo clenched tighter than usual between his teeth, he dialed JJ's number into the screen, tapped the big green TALK button.
JJ answered after two rings. "Baby! Hey, you oughta see the salmon out here! They’re really leaping!"
Frank took a deep breath.
"Baby? You there?"
"Yeah, baby, I'm here. You went into the park, didn’t you, you dumb, stubborn bastard?"
There was a long silence. Frank could almost hear his brother's obstinate little brain sparking and fizzing. "Yes," JJ said. "And I’ve already got a couple of leads. Working with a real smart kid in here who knows this place like the back of his hand."
"Get out of there, Jonathon James. You get out of there right now you dumb son of a bitch."
Another long pause before JJ said, " No. No, Frank. I’m sorry. No."
Something rustled the broad, tropical leaves of an overhanging loquat tree, and Frank looked up to see a young, underwear clad boy perched in its branches.
"JJ, You don’t come out, I’m going to come in there and drag you out by the scruff of your neck."
"Same Frank as always. JJ needs training wheels, dad. Don't take 'em off yet, Daddy. You think I can’t take care of myself. Don’t act like I’m some sort of a child."
Frank was full of that special kind of fury reserved for family and his words came out raw and unstrategic. "But you are a child, JJ," he said. "You just made a child’s decision."
"Look, man, I told you I’ve got leads in here, so—" JJ's voice was cut off by gun shots echoing through the phone.
"JJ! JJ!" Frank shouted. "JJ, are you there?"
His little brother panted and whinnied. There was a clunk and a fumble.
"JJ! JJ!"
Then JJ, out of breath. "Look, man, I’ve got to go. I’ll be out in a couple of days. Don’t rat me out. Don’t tell Sabrina."
"Come out right now. You’ve got a pregnant girlfriend."
"That’s exactly why I’m staying in here!"
"You got a death wish?"
"I got a rich wish!"
"Come out!"
"No. No no no no no no no." And the line went dead. Frank just looked at the phone in the palm of his hand for a second, the cursed and confusing future-object.
The little boy dropped from the loquat tree and dashed away, padding up dust.
Frank dropped his cigarillo, ground it under the sole of his shoe, and walked back to bungalow number eleven. Sabrina answered before he could knock. "You guys have a fight?"
"Yeah, yeah." Frank handed Sabrina her phone. "Just pissed he didn't tell me he was going camping. I would've wanted to go with him, but now I'm just covering his shifts at the Bird Dog. Thanks for the phone, honey."
"De nada," she said. Then, after a breath, "He didn't talk to you about going into the park, did he?"
"No, no. I mean, I think when we saw that gold on the news, I think we both kind of thought, whoa, be pretty cool to go and get that. And we joked about it for a second, but JJ's not dumb enough to do something like that."
Sabrina just looked at Frank for a second. "Good," she said. "Come see us again soon, okay?" She kissed Frank on the cheek and smiled sadly.
As soon as she was back in the bungalow, Frank ran back to his truck, jumped in it, and sped away so fast he always crashed into an AutoUber.