Damn Good Times

[Tess Abrahams]

"Don't be ridiculous," Tess snorted as she poured a mugful of java. "That's a PR stunt used by corporate giants to make a statement, not send a message."

Because there was a great deal of ground to cover and time was ticking away, she decided against her usual bowl of oatmeal and instead veered back to the table to grab a banana from the fruit bowl at it's center. "To make a personal impact, you have to talk to people face-to-face. I'm canvassing the neighborhood."

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan frowned. "I don't think there are this many houses in the neighborhood," he said. "Where were you planning on taking these?"

[Tess Abrahams]

"Crenshaw, Pico-Union, West Adams," Tess shrugged, peeling back bright banana skin. "Pretty much everywhere within the census borders."

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan set the flyer flat on the table. "West Adams. You're planning on walking door-to-door in West Adams."

He searched her face for any sign of a joke. It'd be in poor taste, sure, but anything would be better than -

Shit, she was serious.

"Tess, do you know anything about that part of town?"

[Tess Abrahams]

There was a pause while Tess parsed the question, considering Aidan more than the query itself. His body language screamed a level of incredulity that was a bit much, to be frank.

"Uh, it was founded in the late 1800s and has a great historic district," she said slowly, taking a bite of fruit. She chewed the soft, mealy flesh casually and washed it down with a swallow of coffee. "Though the residential area is pretty sad. Google says there's been a six percent increase in violent crime since '07 alone - ought to be a lot of receptive ears."

[Aidan Fox]

"A lot of receptive ears," Aidan repeated. He stood up out of his seat and took a few steps around the kitchen table, hands on hips.

"Tess, remember when I took you looking for jobs, and I rushed through that one factory district with all the broken windows and the guys in wife beaters? That's West Adams. It's Barrio Boneyard central. And the places the Bones stay away from? They're controlled by the Three Elevens. It is not a place to be walking around, especially not if you're passing out crime prevention flyers. You might as well wear a sandwich board that says 'please shoot me now.'"

[Tess Abrahams]

Tess's face twisted as she watched him pace. "That's a little dramatic, don't you think?"

In fact she did remember the buckling streets now, dry and dusty and sad in a way that smacked of years of desperation and neglect. And Aidan's protest had a certain amount of validity to it, sure - but he was overreacting.

"It's mid-morning, Aidan, and it's not like I'll be shouting through a bullhorn," Tess said. She took another bite of banana and set it down, started to tri-fold a stack of fliers so they'd fit in her messenger bag without getting crumpled. "Seriously, it'll be okay. I've been doing this since I was still in a stroller."

[Aidan Fox]

"Okay, it's midmorning," Aidan conceded. "What time will it be when you get to West Adams? I mean, it's not like the other neighborhoods are the safest places in the world, either."

[Tess Abrahams]

"Which is exactly why I'm doing this. Thank - excuse me," Tess moved past Aidan to drop her banana peel in the trash. "Thank you for making my point. The neighborhoods aren't safe."

There was a stiff snap of paper as she waved a flier in the air.

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan folded his arms. "You haven't answered my question. What time will it be when you get to West Adams?"

[Tess Abrahams]

"Oh my God. I don't know, probably around four? I don't have a detailed timetable. Next time I'll be better prepared, Big Ben."

Clearly annoyed, Tess shook her head. "The point is, it's not going to be dark out. There'll probably be kids outside."

[Aidan Fox]

"Yeah, kids like we saw, who grow up idolizing the murderers who control the neighborhood. Listen, Tess..."

He sighed to let off some steam pressure. Getting petulant would only make her less inclined to listen.

"I respect what you're doing, I really do. And I know you don't want to compromise. But I know these streets, and some of them are dangerous all times of the day, especially if you're a young woman walking alone."

[Tess Abrahams]

That irked a bit on her feminist ideals but mostly because Tess had to admit that there was more truth to it than she liked.

"Noted," she nodded and her face softened a bit. "Aidan, I appreciate the concern. But I can take care of myself."

Before he could take that as a dismissal, she reached into her back pocket and yanked out a pocket-sized Mace dispenser. "And I'm not unarmed."

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan kept his arms crossed. He could think of a hundred situations where that can of mace would be as effective as a bottle of perfume. But Tess was an idealist, not an idiot, and she certainly wasn't a child. So why did he feel such a personal responsibility for her safety?

At last he let his hands drop down to his pockets with a sigh. "Well, it's... it's better than nothing. Would you do me a favor? When you get to West Adams, could you give me a call? I'd just feel more comfortable knowing where you are, and what your plans are."

He laughed suddenly. "Sorry, I must be spending too much time around Anna. I sound like a mother hen."

[Tess Abrahams]

Tess arched a brow. "I was going to go with 1950s domestic tyrant but hen works, too."

Aidan's worry was a little perplexing. Of course, they all looked out for one another in the House and as adults, naturally maintained a more direct interest in the whereabouts and well-being of the kids. But there were natural limits and this felt like...

Felt like what? Tess shook off the odd feeling. They'd been spending a lot of time together lately, had become better friends because of it. That was all this was.

"Yes, I will call you," Tess pulled her phone out and checked the battery, then thumbed the keys rapidly. "Look - I'm even setting a reminder. Call... Aidan... let know... not dead..."

[Aidan Fox]

He had to admit he probably deserved that.

Aidan shouted down the part of him that still wanted to protest, partly because he didn't want to start a fight that wouldn't accomplish anything, and partly because he'd have a hard time explaining his intimate knowledge of the gang traffic in Los Santos and the surrounding neighborhoods.

"Thanks. That's all I'm asking, really."

No, it wasn't, it was a compromise, and the way Aidan was drumming his fingers on a chair back probably made that painfully clear, but he knew a losing battle when he saw one. "I need to get to the garage in an hour, but you need a hand with anything?"

[Tess Abrahams]

"You can pin one of these on the board at work," Tess slipped a flier from the stack and slid it across the table. "Preferably over that 'purely professional' Hot Import Nights sign."

That was a bit of a cheap shot considering the poster in question was curled and faded, it's advertised date preceded Aidan's employment by a good two years. Still, it was the sort of blatant sexual objectification that grated on her nerves like nails on a chalkboard and the one time she'd stopped by the garage - to relay a message from Anna - her eyes had zeroed in on it, homing beacons of offended disgust that had been further insulted when the man behind the desk laughed off her offer to take it down for him. At least Aidan couldn't possibly have an objection to camouflaging such a gratuitous display.

With a good thwack of leaflets in her messenger bag, hunger abated and middle ground reached, Tess prepared to leave. She ruffled Aidan's hair playfully as she passed and grinned.

"Don't worry, buddy," Tess said, backing out of the kitchen. "It'll be a walk in the park."


* * *

"Nobody's home!"

"It sounds like someone is..."

The door eased open a few scant centimeters to reveal fiery, suspicious eyes. "Don' want what you're selling, geura."

"Oh, well, I'm not selling anything. My name is Tess and I'm a volunteer in the area - "

"Not interested."

"I don't blame you, I haven't said anything interesting yet but - oh no, wait wait wait...."

The door closed with enough force to unsettle the crucifix hanging crookedly at it's center and Tess sighed, lowering the invitation that she'd thrust out in a desperate attempt to slow down what was becoming the standard response from householders of all varieties. It didn't matter what she said when the door was opened - if it was opened at all because most were content to either pretend they hadn't heard (even though she could hear them and had seen the curtains twitch) or yell through the two inches of particle board to vamos before they called la policia on her for trespassing.

Which wasn't actually a valid threat. Without posted signs stating that solicitation wasn't welcome and that it was private property, legislature dictated that there wasn't anything they could do except ask her to leave... but try explaining that to the stay-at-home mom whose soap you'd just interrupted.

With a dispirited sigh and an even heavier feeling of discouragement, Tess schlepped back down the buckled concrete walkway of the pastel single-level. Her bag was nearly as heavy as it had been when she'd left the house hours ago but now there was no excited eagerness to buoy it as she surveyed the street that stretched out before her. The farther she'd gotten from their little neighborhood, the less reception she'd received. It didn't make sense. These were the pockets of community who would benefit most from a combined opposition effort toward the gang problems. Why weren't they jumping at the chance to be a part of it?

Volunteering is often a thankless effort that yields rich rewards. How many times had her mother repeated that? And yet, despite a couple of positive responses around noon, all Tess had earned was a sweaty face and a sour reality check.

Battling back the sense of uselessness with a beleaguered determination, she trudged on. Maybe it was time for a shift, a new block. Sometimes that did the trick, changing the scenery and starting fresh on a blank slate. From her bag, Tess tugged out a folded street map and surveyed it as she walked, hand absently straying to her pocket to silence her buzzing phone.

Call Aidan, let know not dead.

[Aidan Fox]

The garage at Angelinos Tire and Auto was a cacophony at the best of times, when the overdriven speakers of the old stereo in the corner had to compete with air compressors, power ratchets, and whining lift motors. It was the sort of noise that solidified the air and wrapped you up like a blanket, comforting in an odd sort of way that made you lose track of time as you labored through the same repetitive tasks day in and day out. Loosen lugnuts, pull down the wheel, inspect, repeat three times, rotate, replace, fasten. Next car. Even when the work required a little more conscious thought, the sound made up a wall that reflected your thoughts inward, focused you on what you were holding in your gritty hands, kept you locked in on the task. When you knew your work inside and out, only your hands had to do any thinking.

Aidan was halfway through disassembling the work of yet another amateur mechanic who'd bought the biggest turbocharger he could afford and inflicted it on a poor, unassuming Honda Civic that had only ever wanted to be a commuter car. Two scorched composite seals had already crumbled in his fingers as he removed them, and the acrid smell rolling off the engine block was decidedly unhealthy.

"'Might need some adjustment,' my ass," Aidan grumbled as he wiped his greasy hands on the rag tucked into his pocket. He looked over his shoulder and yelled, "Hey, Marco - it's like I thought, the turbo's too big. He's lucky if he just fried some piston rings."

The master mechanic on duty threw him a look and shook his head. "Damn stupid kid. Okay, I'll talk to the owner and get you the work order."

"I can get started on it, but you tell him this job isn't getting done today," Aidan said. "It's already..." He glanced at the clock on the back wall and adjusted for the seven minutes it always seemed to lose. "...four thirty."

"You're working until seven, aren't you?" Marco said. "If he can wait, you can get it done."

"Not if I need to rebuild the whole engine - damn it."

Marco had already disappeared to the front counter. Aidan sighed and started building his mental case against another night of forced overtime, and as he glanced over the clock again, he wondered why it made him think he was forgetting something.

Tess!

He reached into his shirt pocket to pull out his cell phone - he'd tucked it here instead of the loose hip pocket of his coveralls so he'd know he'd feel it. He hadn't missed any calls. Of course, it was possible she was running late and had decided she'd wait until she actually got to West Adams. He was considering punching up her number anyway when the phone came alive in his hand.

It wasn't Tess's number.

Aidan ducked out the back door of the garage to the concrete pad reserved for smoke breaks. "Hey. This is Fox."

Jose Marano's reedy voice greeted him from the other end. "Hey, vato, wanted to let you know we're go for Operation Bonebreaker."

Aidan had to reorient his mind from engine components to gang machinations - that was the one where La Raza orchestrated a hit-and-run in the no-man's land between the Tres Onces and the Barrio Boneyard to weaken the uneasy truce between the two of them. Start a turf war between the Elevens and the Bones, and the Elevens might have to pull the last of their assets out of Los Santos. "Okay, fine," he said. "When do you want to do it?"

"Right now. Chingates are out in force in West Adams, lotta gasoline just waiting for a match."

Oh, hell. Aidan felt the whole garage drop away beneath his feet, leaving him in a freefall. "What do you mean, now? It's still daylight!"

"What does that have to do with anything? Onces don't care when they pull their shit. Don't worry, vato, we got it covered, this is just FYI."

"Call it off," Aidan said. "Just... just for a few hours, okay? Marano, I've got a friend in West Adams right now, I need to get her out."

"Look, I'm sorry, man, your friend gonna have to watch out for herself. Slim and Shadow are already movin'. Gotta go."

"Marano--" The line had already gone dead. "Shit."

Aidan punched in Tess's number and listened while the phone rang, then sent him to voicemail. He canceled and dialed again.

"Shit!"

He rushed back into the garage just as Marco walked in with a fresh work order in hand. "All right, Aidan--"

"Look, Marco, I'm sorry, but something just came up," Aidan said. "Family emergency. I have to go right now."

He didn't even bother to wait for Marco's indignant tirade. He rushed through the garage and into the employee lot where he'd parked his Harley, knocked back the kickstand, and raced out of the parking lot into the streets of Los Santos.

[Tess Abrahams]

Go lightly from the ledge, babe. Go lightly on the ground...

There wasn't a single situation in life that couldn't be improved by a little 1960s folk music. While she'd forgotten her iPod - Aimee had borrowed it to use on a run; apparently The Matrix soundtrack was an incredible motivator - the last few years had seen leaps and bounds made in the cell phone department. Verizon had a legion of entry-level models that had astonishing musical capabilities, even on the most basic of their nationwide calling plans.

While the nasal tones of Bob Dylan banjoed through a pair of earbuds attached to her phone, Tess glanced between the map in her hands and the crumbling block around her, frowning. She wasn't the best instinctive navigator but growing up in rural Oregon had provided plenty of opportunities for following plotted courses, many of the wild wooded trails off her family's property unmarked except for diagrams in the state hiking guidebook. City streets should have been simple by comparison.

Yet somehow she had managed to break away from the run of residential properties and into what appeared to be the back end of a row of industrial lots, abandoned warehouses and small banks of office buildings, many of their windows broken in jagged relief, lining the pavement. They were caged in by sagging lengths of chain link fence, a wall of ponch-bellied barrier held up by exhausted support poles that bent toward the ground in beleaguered defeat, as though they were preparing to surrender entirely to the fading neighborhood.

As dismal as the sight was, what caught her attention was the cluster of defiant homeboys nestled against the edge of an old construction supply dealer. There were at least six out in the open air, leaning against a low-riding, long stretch of rusted maroon car and perched on a long-forgotten concrete culvert that was settled in a crop of overgrown yellowed grass. A steady thumping bassline growled through the open windows of the car, a song that was obviously popular by the way it made the men - boys - bob their heads and laugh, jostling each other in a casual and easy way. But as lighthearted as they were with one another, it was clear that they weren't simply chilling for kicks. There was too much of a sharpness to them; they were scouting.

Tess swore under her breath and yanked the buds from her ears. She was more than halfway down the street and it was empty, save for the gangbangers. Maybe she could turn around now and -

One of them, tall and with broad shoulders that angled back in challenge even while the rest of him reposed against the hood, nudged a slim-hipped cholo wearing low-slung pants and a bandana tied around his forehead with his elbow. He jerked his head at Tess.

Crap. Crap. Ignore them. She'd just keep walking and ignore them. The end of the block wasn't -

A shrill whistle pierced the air, leering and drawn out.

"You lost, guera?" the skinny one called. "Come here, I'll show you aroun'!" He grinned, made an obscene gesture with his hips that drew a rousing laugh from his companions.

Tess kept walking and pulled her phone from her pocket. They said you should do that, right? If you felt like you were maybe getting into a sticky situation? Call someone or pretend to call someone, let the other party know that you're not unaccounted for, that you'll be missed and that people are aware of your position. And oh crap, it was already quarter-of-five.

"Hey! Don' play like that, I know you can hear me!"

She scrolled through to Aidan's number and hit send, aware that the group of gangbangers was approaching as a collective pack, their voices high with a kind of excitement that made her stomach clench. The messenger bag on her shoulder felt like it weighed a million tonnes.

And then the ringing stopped and clicked over to Aidan's voicemail. As his bored voice sounded out a perfunctory recording, Tess picked up the pace and tried to keep her voice level. She sensed, rather than witnessed, the gang members behind her shift their trajectory, angling across the street so they could intercept her.

"Aidan, it's Tess. I'm... oh shoot... uh, I'm on Addison right now? Anyway I think you... were maybe a little more right than I gave you credit for. If you could please, please call me. Um -"

"Who's on the phone, chica? Your boyfriend?"

"Man, she ain't got no boyfrien', she trollin' down our streets."


"So if you could do that. That would - "

Tess was interrupted by a cheery computerized female voice instructing her that if she were satisfied with her message, she could hang up at any time. If she wished to rerecord, she could press 2. Thank you for calling.

Tess's mouth went dry and her grip on the slim cell tightened.

[Aidan Fox]

Addison. It very much made a difference whether you were east or west of La Hoya Avenue. To the East was a scattering of low-income housing, convenience stores, and an elementary school. To the West was a depressed commercial district that was right on the firing line between the 3-11s and the Bones. Aidan didn't give it a second thought when he saw the street sign looming - he angled into the left turning lane and sped down Addison's western leg.

There wasn't much traffic this way, and all the traffic he saw merited watching. He caught suspicious glares from the tinted-windows of a gray Chevy Impala as he hurtled past, and more from the storefront windows of an old, disused laundromat across the way. There was no way to move stealthily on a Harley traveling fifty miles per hour over urban streets.

He slowed down marginally when he spotted a cluster of activity on the sidewalk near a sprawling parking lot. It looked like a half-dozen or so gangbangers wearing the black-and-white colors of the Boneyard harassing a young woman like a pack of dogs surrounding a fresh cut of meat. Aidan's V-twin snarled as he overtook the posse and skidded to a halt in front of them.

His eyes found Tess's, which were wide and tight with fear. "Tess, get on," he ordered.

He didn't even spare a glance for the Bones - he probably didn't cut that imposing a figure in his nametagged garage coveralls - but he doubted they'd give up their quarry without some kind of resistance.