Tiny Ripple of Hope (eBook)

1

The sirens blare just a few blocks away, and I freeze up. But it’s not the whirling up-tempo shrill, the pulsing rush of some high-speed chase, that chills me. No. It’s the sound of arrival. The way the noise caves suddenly, the notes dying off at the end, sinking five octaves into oblivion, as I imagine LAPD squad cars slow, then stop. What’s the opposite of crescendo? De-scendo? I have this obsession where I try to be precise with my words, ever since one of my doctors suggested I take up journaling as a proper outlet for my emotions. And sometimes, I accidentally make up words that don’t exist, but I think they should, and so I go on and use them anyway. De-scendo – I’ll look it up later.

Next comes the bustle of people, the murmur of a swelling crowd, and though I can’t see any of it, maybe that’s what makes it even scarier. I rush off, away from the commotion, my fast-twitch muscles pumping my arms and legs like some Olympic racewalker. Besides, whenever I sense the presence of police, I usually just turn and hustle in the other direction. I’ve got a history with them, and it’s nothing good.

I’m cool with crowds, though. Actually, it’s that density of people and the energy it brings that attracted me to Koreatown in the first place. L.A. is sprawling, running on for miles and miles in all directions, and with few exceptions, there aren’t many skyscrapers; the city being built out, not up. And that’s a shame because it has all the big-city issues but none of that dynamic, big-city feel. But I once researched how K-town was the most densely populated area in Los Angeles, and so I thought this would be the perfect place for me. I’d never ventured here before, having grown up in the Valley and then spending a short stint in Santa Monica before the ugly Cup O’ Joe’s incident. But K-town clicked right away because, though it was still L.A., it felt as though I were in another country—a sense of adventure, something new and different—and with so many people out and about, it just felt good to be out in the middle of crowds and activity because it made me feel as though I were a part of something.

My grandmother once told me the appeal of bookstores is their infinite possibilities. With each book, there’s the chance of something larger, an opportunity to learn something new or evoke some new emotion, or change and become a different person—hopefully, a better one—and all the wonderful things a new book can do. And I love reading—though it doesn’t always work for me because it’s, by nature, slow, and I often can’t downshift my mind to that pace. Still, it’s about the possibilities, except instead of books, it’s people, which is what big cities and crowds and K-town do for me too. Yeah, many keep their heads low and plug ahead, looking down at the soft-gray sidewalks, maybe listening to music through earphones, or just being lost in their thoughts, and with their lack of smiles, maybe they have some big worries, but all of that is okay—the humanity, the sheer numbers, give me hope. A lot of lonely people are still a lot of people, and if maybe one or a few are open to connecting, then we can all be a little less lonely.

The sun dips below the skyline, and everything’s splashed in a dull amber shade. I’ve walked a long way, but now I’ve got to head back since I’ll be meeting Ray for dinner at his favorite Mexican restaurant on Olympic—the one with the name I can never pronounce. I take long walks through Koreatown every day. It’s all the energy—way, way too much—that I need to quell—that’s a good word—and so I need to move, need to walk. In the months I’ve lived here, I’ve walked just about every street in K-town. Still, it’s never dull. There are countless strip malls, clearly built around the 1960s and never modernized since then, but they hold a certain charm because the small shops that make up each of these malls hold endless surprises, like sections within a bookstore. I’ve stumbled into herb shops that sold me bizarre pills, and some may have improved my health, while others I’d swear nearly killed me, Pilates classes where the instructors and the middle-aged Korean women pushed me into joining them for a trial class, and then I signed up for six more given how limber and loose I felt after just the one; the pastry shops I can never resist; the countless mysterious storefronts with signs in Korean or Spanish; or the shop on Eighth painted all in black and going through constant renovation with scaffolding covering the entrance beyond which I could never possibly guess what goes on . . . Endless surprises.

I turn a corner and slow, inching forward, realizing I’ve arrived at a street where I can now clearly see in the distance the crime scene that wailed out to me before. I stop hard when I see the police tape stretched taut across a fence just outside an old apartment building, forcing the large huddle of people clustered on the sidewalk to spill onto the street. There are cops everywhere—several LAPD units with lights twirling, a black van that must be some sort of forensics unit. But I’d never seen police tape before. The sting of bright yellow, the hard boundary of some serious event.

I spin around, but as soon as I try to walk off, I feel something hard pushing back against my chest. There’s nothing there, in front of me; nothing I can see anyway. And yet, I can’t move forward. I back off, looking around, searching for anything that might be the cause, searching for an explanation. But there’s nothing there. I step forward, but, again, I’m held back, like hitting some invisible wall. But it’s not flat like a wall. There are two pressure points, as if two unseen hands lean on my themed T-shirt—one right on top of the word Yell and the other covering Care. I wave my arms wildly in front of me, trying to break this force, and though I’m not hitting anything, this pressure continues to keep me back. I stop when I see a young Mexican mother coming down the sidewalk toward me, her two small children tugging her forward to see what all the police commotion is about. Her eyes are on me, the weight of fear and curiosity—the way people look at the homeless here when one suddenly bursts into a crazy, arm-swinging rant. I let them pass.

Relax, Cole. Please, just relax.

I exhale, then try again slowly but forcefully to push ahead. But it’s still no good. I don’t know what’s happening. My breathing accelerates and I rake my fingers through my hair hard and fast, pulling my big, brown waves up and back. I try again, but it’s the same damn thing. I then take slow, small steps backward, giving up. Dazed. It’s clear: the only way is to go back in the opposite direction, past the crime scene.

I walk toward the mass of people gathered on the street just beyond the sidewalk, cordoned off by that tape. Though I haven’t encountered too many police in my life, the few times I have did not turn out good, and though I’m slowing, I do not stop, walking with a steady, deliberate step. But I really start to drag when I see the worried expressions on the faces of everyone standing behind the line. Most of the faces are Hispanic, which used to strike me as odd since it’s Koreatown, but that’s L.A. Some poke their heads above the others to get a better look, while others turn away, head in their hands. Some are crying. This can’t be some minor incident—a petty theft or a homeless guy loitering—or something like campus police escorting my naked body off the cold lawn and handing me a blanket, which I twist around me like a poorly wrapped toga, but that’s another story. These faces all look scared.

The police come in and out of the apartment building, through a door on the first floor, some in uniform and others in crime lab smocks, though not as many as I would have expected for some gruesome crime. Still, I want to keep moving—moving on, moving away from here—but I stay. I reach out to touch the police tape, feeling the crisp plastic in my fingers. It reads: Departamento De Policia De Los Angeles—Linea De Policia—Por Favor No Cruzar. The English translation follows, then back to Spanish, then again English, and it goes on. . .

“What happened?” I finally ask an elderly lady next to me, her face scrunched up, a pained look, to the point it’s hard to tell if she’s Hispanic or maybe Asian. Her eyes are swollen with tears.

“The boy,” she says, shaking her head.

“The boy?”

“Someone has taken the little boy.”

I jump back, my eyes darting all around, the shuffling of the crowd, the police line, the metallic screen door swinging open and closed as police come and go, a gloved hand dusting the window sill for fingerprints, crying and wailing coming from inside the apartment. Though K-town isn’t considered the safest part of L.A., its crimes are usually tied to the night and drunkenness. Something like this, I only hear about these crimes on the news, which, along with gang shootings in South Central or suicide bombings in the Middle East, are just some of the reasons I never watch the news except for occasions when I feel I’ve been disconnected a little too long with what’s been happening in the world, combined with a need to see the beautiful morning reporter on the local news station, but the worst stories are about the kids, and I beat my forehead with my fists as I try to force the thoughts out of my mind, practically running from the crime scene now, the things that should never happen to kids in this...