water down the center. He’d searched several places where roads crossed the “creek” and found Watanabe at last, fifty yards north of the Jefferson Street bridge, dipping a little bottle into the effluent that was dribbling out of a barred orifice on the side of the channel like the exit of a secret grotto.
Tony Watanabe semaphored once and called “Kelly Le Brock!” to him between cupped hands, and Jack Liffey laughed. It had been a long time. They’d lived in back-to-back cubicles at TBW Aerospace, with two other tech writers on the kitty-cornered walls, and one afternoon a voice had asked out of the blue for the name of the luscious British star of some teen film. “Julie Christie?” he had tried. Others had suggested Helen Mirren and Jane Birken, and then a supremely scornful voice laid the hunt to rest with the words “Kelly Le Brock.” And so, for a time, her name had become the general-purpose answer to all their over-the-cubicle questions.
Who was it wrote The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ?
Kelly Le Brock!
What’s the difference between a secant and a cosine? I can never remember.
Kelly Le Brock!
Tony Watanabe stood erect and smiling. The man defied several racial stereotypes. He was six-two, and, with his shoulders, he could have played a creditable interior lineman, at least at the college level. He sealed up his little vial of effluent water and stored it in a plastic eggshell crate with dozens of others.
“Good to see you landed on your feet after the layoff,” Jack Liffey said. They shook hands heartily. “It’s a pretty good bet working for the EPA won’t kill babies.”
At TBW they had divided the products the company developed into those that killed babies (satellites for targeting nuclear weapons) and those that didn’t (in-flight entertainment systems). Some of the tech writers hadn’t minded which ones they worked on, but he and Watanabe had.
“How’d you find me?”
“Your office said you were tracking down some heavy metals leaching into Centinella Creek.”
“And thence Ballona Creek and thence the bay. There’s a lot of light industries that feed into this tributary, and I dig it I get to track down the polluters. It’s almost like being a cop, but I guess that’s your field, too.”
“No, I have a certain talent for chasing down runaway kids, that’s all. Some might call it copwork, but cops tend to be a little too wedded to a world of order. Runaway kids can smell that.”
As if to illustrate his point, a couple of small boys on banana bikes came very fast along the bike trail above the creek, now and then daredeviling a few feet down the steeply angled wall of the channel and back up. It made the hair stand up on Jack Liffey’s neck.
“Jayzuz,” Watanabe commented. “Kids today.”
“How’s your family?”
“Just great, Jack. The kids are both in middle school, getting good grades, and Masako has them going to Japanese school one day a week.” He smiled with a mischievous undertow. “They hate it, of course. They’re normal American kids, and, all of a sudden, they have to gear down and be polite to some old guy in a kimono who’s teaching them stuff like the tea ceremony. Did you know even boys have to learn that?”
“What I know about Japanese culture you could probably put in one Toyota door hinge.”
“The kids didn’t know much more, but they’re learning, even some of the spoken language. It’s far too late for them to learn written Japanese, but Masako says she doesn’t want them to forget who they are.”
Jack Liffey thought of the Xerox of the Japanese playing card he had in his breast pocket, with its rubber stamp runes, but he held off for now. “You know, I can’t imagine my folks shipping me off once a week to learn stiff-arm tap dancing and Gaelic.”
“You don’t have to worry about your heritage as much when you’re part of the dominant group.”
“I never thought of micks as the dominant group.”
A small dog
Tony Watanabe semaphored once and called “Kelly Le Brock!” to him between cupped hands, and Jack Liffey laughed. It had been a long time. They’d lived in back-to-back cubicles at TBW Aerospace, with two other tech writers on the kitty-cornered walls, and one afternoon a voice had asked out of the blue for the name of the luscious British star of some teen film. “Julie Christie?” he had tried. Others had suggested Helen Mirren and Jane Birken, and then a supremely scornful voice laid the hunt to rest with the words “Kelly Le Brock.” And so, for a time, her name had become the general-purpose answer to all their over-the-cubicle questions.
Who was it wrote The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ?
Kelly Le Brock!
What’s the difference between a secant and a cosine? I can never remember.
Kelly Le Brock!
Tony Watanabe stood erect and smiling. The man defied several racial stereotypes. He was six-two, and, with his shoulders, he could have played a creditable interior lineman, at least at the college level. He sealed up his little vial of effluent water and stored it in a plastic eggshell crate with dozens of others.
“Good to see you landed on your feet after the layoff,” Jack Liffey said. They shook hands heartily. “It’s a pretty good bet working for the EPA won’t kill babies.”
At TBW they had divided the products the company developed into those that killed babies (satellites for targeting nuclear weapons) and those that didn’t (in-flight entertainment systems). Some of the tech writers hadn’t minded which ones they worked on, but he and Watanabe had.
“How’d you find me?”
“Your office said you were tracking down some heavy metals leaching into Centinella Creek.”
“And thence Ballona Creek and thence the bay. There’s a lot of light industries that feed into this tributary, and I dig it I get to track down the polluters. It’s almost like being a cop, but I guess that’s your field, too.”
“No, I have a certain talent for chasing down runaway kids, that’s all. Some might call it copwork, but cops tend to be a little too wedded to a world of order. Runaway kids can smell that.”
As if to illustrate his point, a couple of small boys on banana bikes came very fast along the bike trail above the creek, now and then daredeviling a few feet down the steeply angled wall of the channel and back up. It made the hair stand up on Jack Liffey’s neck.
“Jayzuz,” Watanabe commented. “Kids today.”
“How’s your family?”
“Just great, Jack. The kids are both in middle school, getting good grades, and Masako has them going to Japanese school one day a week.” He smiled with a mischievous undertow. “They hate it, of course. They’re normal American kids, and, all of a sudden, they have to gear down and be polite to some old guy in a kimono who’s teaching them stuff like the tea ceremony. Did you know even boys have to learn that?”
“What I know about Japanese culture you could probably put in one Toyota door hinge.”
“The kids didn’t know much more, but they’re learning, even some of the spoken language. It’s far too late for them to learn written Japanese, but Masako says she doesn’t want them to forget who they are.”
Jack Liffey thought of the Xerox of the Japanese playing card he had in his breast pocket, with its rubber stamp runes, but he held off for now. “You know, I can’t imagine my folks shipping me off once a week to learn stiff-arm tap dancing and Gaelic.”
“You don’t have to worry about your heritage as much when you’re part of the dominant group.”
“I never thought of micks as the dominant group.”
A small dog
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