career."
"You met a world billionaire in the park,"
Stretch said. "And cooked him lunch."
"Yes. And it has changed my entire life.
Before I met General Kremsky, and won his trust, I was just another
fledgling finance world wanna-be. Just another gopher for the big
shots. I was fetching their coffee and crunching their numbers in
exchange for being allowed to see how the game was played."
"But God had other plans. You showed
Christian charity to an old man. You treated him as a human being
even though he was a stranger. Now you're on your way to becoming a
superstar."
"Yes."
"Are you still lonely?"
"Yes. Yes, Stretch. I am. I've been mostly
all alone for the past couple of years."
"And suddenly, your dad dies and we're
sitting here, eating tacos and having a moment."
"An L.A. moment," she said. "True confessions
in Los Angeles. The City of dreamers. Which makes me wonder. This
town is full of fantasies. Are we just projecting something onto
each other? We must be. I hardly know you. Correction. I don't know
you. I don't know anything about you. I don't know where you live,
or who your parents are. Nothing. I don't know if you've ever been
married, or what.
"Do you want to know those things?"
"Yes. No. I don't know. I don't know anything
right now. I only know you're pretty good at one judo move, and you
make funny commercials. And for some reason, I'm leaning on you.
Because I don't have the courage to go to Forest Lawn by myself.
Because my brother was supposed to be taking care of me and he
isn't because he's sleeping off a hangover. So I'm using you. Is it
because I need a big brother? Or is there something more, like you
say, dropping in on us right out of the blue? What are we doing,
Stretch?"
"We're being moved in a direction," he said.
"Don't you see? We're doing what people have been doing on this
planet for the last 6,000 years. We're seeing each other for the
first time. We're waking up from our sleep, and here I am and there
you are and we're seeing each other and we're saying, Oh! There you
are! I didn't know I was looking for you, but now I see you, I know
I was! It's what I've been trying to tell you. When I saw you for
the first time this morning, it was like I had first awakened and
there you were."
"Game, set, and match. Okay. We're going to
Forest Lawn. We're going to make those final arrangements. And then
we're going to do all the other things that have to be done when
somebody dies. There'll be a finding of the will, and a reading of
it, and a sifting through all the junk Dad has piled up in his
house. And somewhere in the middle of all that, we're going to
attend a Wednesday night church service, and you're going to prove
to me you're for real. You're going to introduce me to your
parents, and show me where you live, and all that other stuff we
humans have been doing for the past 6,000 years."
Chapter 8
Stretch turned the key. For all its power,
the roadster started and ran almost noiselessly. They pulled onto
Toluca Avenue and headed east on Riverside, driving without
talking, the sun shining hard on their backs. Everything around
them was brown. The San Bernardino mountains, the smog--everything.
Until they came to Forest Lawn. It was green. Gated, but open, and
welcoming, an oasis in the middle of the city, not some overgrown
half-acre on the outskirts of a small town nobody ever heard of.
This was a show-stopping, tree-shaded park where the people of L.A.
buried their dead with their feet facing to the east, and buried
them in the hope that the show to come would be bigger and better
than anything thus far seen in this life. In a city of dreams,
where hope for something bigger and better never died, there was,
within that expectation itself, enough hope resident in the
people's hearts to carry the entire rest of the world straight into
Heaven.
They parked near the mortuary and got out.
Shannon looked around at the stately buildings, the meticulous
attention to detail, the plantings of
"You met a world billionaire in the park,"
Stretch said. "And cooked him lunch."
"Yes. And it has changed my entire life.
Before I met General Kremsky, and won his trust, I was just another
fledgling finance world wanna-be. Just another gopher for the big
shots. I was fetching their coffee and crunching their numbers in
exchange for being allowed to see how the game was played."
"But God had other plans. You showed
Christian charity to an old man. You treated him as a human being
even though he was a stranger. Now you're on your way to becoming a
superstar."
"Yes."
"Are you still lonely?"
"Yes. Yes, Stretch. I am. I've been mostly
all alone for the past couple of years."
"And suddenly, your dad dies and we're
sitting here, eating tacos and having a moment."
"An L.A. moment," she said. "True confessions
in Los Angeles. The City of dreamers. Which makes me wonder. This
town is full of fantasies. Are we just projecting something onto
each other? We must be. I hardly know you. Correction. I don't know
you. I don't know anything about you. I don't know where you live,
or who your parents are. Nothing. I don't know if you've ever been
married, or what.
"Do you want to know those things?"
"Yes. No. I don't know. I don't know anything
right now. I only know you're pretty good at one judo move, and you
make funny commercials. And for some reason, I'm leaning on you.
Because I don't have the courage to go to Forest Lawn by myself.
Because my brother was supposed to be taking care of me and he
isn't because he's sleeping off a hangover. So I'm using you. Is it
because I need a big brother? Or is there something more, like you
say, dropping in on us right out of the blue? What are we doing,
Stretch?"
"We're being moved in a direction," he said.
"Don't you see? We're doing what people have been doing on this
planet for the last 6,000 years. We're seeing each other for the
first time. We're waking up from our sleep, and here I am and there
you are and we're seeing each other and we're saying, Oh! There you
are! I didn't know I was looking for you, but now I see you, I know
I was! It's what I've been trying to tell you. When I saw you for
the first time this morning, it was like I had first awakened and
there you were."
"Game, set, and match. Okay. We're going to
Forest Lawn. We're going to make those final arrangements. And then
we're going to do all the other things that have to be done when
somebody dies. There'll be a finding of the will, and a reading of
it, and a sifting through all the junk Dad has piled up in his
house. And somewhere in the middle of all that, we're going to
attend a Wednesday night church service, and you're going to prove
to me you're for real. You're going to introduce me to your
parents, and show me where you live, and all that other stuff we
humans have been doing for the past 6,000 years."
Chapter 8
Stretch turned the key. For all its power,
the roadster started and ran almost noiselessly. They pulled onto
Toluca Avenue and headed east on Riverside, driving without
talking, the sun shining hard on their backs. Everything around
them was brown. The San Bernardino mountains, the smog--everything.
Until they came to Forest Lawn. It was green. Gated, but open, and
welcoming, an oasis in the middle of the city, not some overgrown
half-acre on the outskirts of a small town nobody ever heard of.
This was a show-stopping, tree-shaded park where the people of L.A.
buried their dead with their feet facing to the east, and buried
them in the hope that the show to come would be bigger and better
than anything thus far seen in this life. In a city of dreams,
where hope for something bigger and better never died, there was,
within that expectation itself, enough hope resident in the
people's hearts to carry the entire rest of the world straight into
Heaven.
They parked near the mortuary and got out.
Shannon looked around at the stately buildings, the meticulous
attention to detail, the plantings of
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