They called her ‘the Angel of 61st and Beaumont’. No one could remember exactly when or how she got there; she just appeared one day, a Virgin Mary mannequin strung up between two fence posts with barbed wire, draped in a white dress spotted with red, like a napkin after a nosebleed. 

It was a nondescript part of the street for the Holy Mother to appear on; she was perched at the entrance to the parking lot of the Dick’s Sporting Goods, just before Beaumont turned into 61st, waving in moms buying catchers’ mitts for their little fourth-graders, the freshly homeless blowing their final bit of dough on a tent to shiver in under the freeway. Some of the older women from the neighborhood would cross themselves when going past, but most people stopped noticing her pretty quick. Soon enough, she was just another piece of the street furniture.

*

Carlos and Marcus lived opposite the Dick’s in a little bungalow with a deck and overgrown bushes either side, and they had a palm tree in the front yard that Carlos was oddly proud of. They had a pretty good view of the Angel from the deck, her outstretched arms reaching out towards them. 

Carlos’s mom, Julia, lived a little way down the street, and he used to lean off the deck and wave at her while she was doing her roses. She would wave back and say, ‘Carlos, mi caro, are you wearing your sunscreen, baby?’, and he would reply, ‘Si, Mama’, and rush inside to put some on.

Marcus was from the next neighborhood over, but he and Carlos went way back, to just before middle school. They met when some bigger kids were beating on Carlos about his daddy being in jail, and Marcus stood up for him. Even though they both got their asses kicked—or maybe because they both got their asses kicked—they were thick as thieves after that. 

When Marcus’s mom had to leave the city to take care of her sister, Marcus couldn’t make rent on his own, so Carlos took him in; he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Marcus had to take the small room, but at least it was somewhere to call home, and Carlos only charged him $50 a month and asked him to help out with the cooking and cleaning.

*

‘Hey, man,’ said Marcus once. ‘Why you have your own place if you livin’ so close to your mom?’

‘Bro,’ said Carlos, ‘I have to keep an eye on her. She’s a lil’ old lady. But if I had to live under the same roof for one moment longer…’ he waved his finger around his ear, ‘I would go crazy. ‘Sides, it’s good to have somethin’ of our own, no?’

‘It ain’t mine, though, it’s yours.’

‘Is is yours, homes. This is our place. Mi casa es su casa, my friend.’

‘F’you say so, man.’

‘Know so. Stop tripping.’

*

The heat that summer was unbearable. The residents of 61st had long since busted open the fire hydrants, and the city was in no mood to come out to fix them—at least not in these parts. The only thing left to do was take cold showers and sit out on your deck, wriggling every couple of minutes to stop the plastic sticking to your back and giving you a rash. 

Carlos and Marcus lived right next to the 7/11 on the corner, so they had dibs on ice; as soon as they saw the ice truck coming down the street, one of them (whoever’s turn it was) would leap up, hop the fence, and pace it across the parking lot to get to the dispenser. He would pick up as much ice as he could carry, bags loaded up on each shoulder, and lug it the short distance back to the bungalow, dumping it into a huge bucket that they used for keg parties. It reminded Marcus of the riots, people rushing into the stores and grabbing what they could, and it made him uneasy. 

‘You boys are some assholes,’ people would yell at Carlos and Marcus as they sat on their deck, their legs sticking out of the ice bucket like bottlenecks. If people asked nicely, the boys would lend them some ice for a lemonade, or they’d slip a beer into the bucket for 10 minutes to chill it. When the ice was almost melted, the boys would slide completely into the bucket in their drawers, sitting in there like it was a tiny hot tub, and then get out to lay on the front lawn and dry. 

There were no jobs that summer—the only money they could make was retail for Marcus’s weed guy—so days and days passed like this, the only difference being the date on the calendar and the mercury creeping towards to absolute boiling, sending people crazier and crazier.

*

The boys could only smoke at night, once Carlos’s mother had turned in, because you never knew when she might come over, and she didn’t much like Carlos smoking weed. It was cooler at night—not by much, but enough for the boys to move their chairs out onto the front lawn to look up at the stars. 

The power cut in and out because so many people were running their aircon units. If they were lucky, Carlos and Marcus would be lighting up just as the neighborhood lights powered down, and they could look at the purple sky above the city, trying to tell the difference between satellites and stars. For some reason, the darkness made you higher, so the boys would end up cackling, coughing, barely able to breathe, and crusty old Mr. Franklin from down the block would shout, ‘Would you boys shut the hell up? Tryna get some damn SLEEP in here!’, but that just made them laugh harder. When the lights came back up, they would go inside and watch talk shows until they fell asleep on the couch.

*

One weekend, Marcus had to go up to the hills to see his girl, Tonya. She was house-sitting for a record industry mope she knew through her mom, and besides, she didn’t like coming over to Beaumont; she’d been spooked by a story going around about werewolves in the city, but instead of turning into wolves they turned into coyotes. ‘Ain’t that a type of wolf?’ asked Marcus, but she just sighed and gave him the address. 

‘In the hills? Damn!’ said Carlos. ‘Can I come?’

‘Nah, man. She’s still mad after what we did at the party.’

Carlos puffed out his cheeks and rubbed his belly. ‘Some people really need to learn to let go, dog. For real.’ And they slapped hands and Marcus headed over to the bus stop.

*

Carlos had never minded living alone before Marcus arrived, but now he got antsy whenever Marcus was out. The house was too quiet without his heavy feet clunking around, or those awful Eazy-E records he was always blasting. ‘What you want me to play, motherfuckin’ mariachi?’ asked Marcus. Carlos would have preferred some Otis Redding, but he kept that to himself. 

The night that Marcus headed out to the hills, Carlos spent as long as he could at his mom’s house, until way after dark, but she’d long since drifted off to sleep in her armchair and kept waking with a start, saying, ‘Carlito, I have to go to bed, baby,’ so he took his cue and left. 

The block was quiet, the low buzzing of aircon units harmonizing with the crickets, but the roads were slow and there were no sirens yet. Across the street, a homeless guy pushed an empty, rusty shopping cart along the sidewalk, limping slightly because he was only wearing one shoe. Carlos shivered and set off home.

He rolled up a big blunt inside the bungalow, forgetting that Marcus wasn’t around to share it. He thought about breaking it up and starting again, but his hands were sticky and it was sweaty inside, so he just headed out, picking up his chair off the deck on the way. After he sat down on the lawn, he waited a while to see whether the lights would go out. Two girls on their way to (or from) a party strolled on by, and Carlos said, ‘Where’s the party at, girls?’, but the shorter one, whose curls fell down her back and towards her jean shorts, said, ‘Oh honey, y’all look a little preoccupied,’ and the girls giggled and ran off. ‘Their loss,’ whispered Carlos to the blunt. Then the power went out.

Carlos liked to use matches instead of a lighter because you knew where you were with matches: three left? Okay, go to the store and pick up some more. Sure, lighters lasted forever, but you never knew when the flint was going to bust, or when the fluid would run out of a Bic. They were too damn risky. He also liked the little flash you got when just striking a match, and the fssss sound it made if you dropped it in a beer bottle. So he struck a match and held it up to the end of the blunt, sucking in and hearing the crackle as it ignited. In the far distance, Carlos heard a smattering of pops and a siren start up. He wondered what sounds Marcus and Tonya could hear in the hills. ‘Probably just listening to each other’s bullshit,’ said Carlos to the blunt. 

When he was halfway through his smoke, all the lights went out. At first, he didn’t think much of it—after all, the blackouts happened pretty much. But hadn’t the blackout already happened? He stretched his hand out in front of him and found that he couldn’t see it anymore. ‘What the fuck…?’ said Carlos to the blunt, but the blunt wasn’t there anymore. He started to wonder whether he’d blacked out, but then his eyes were bathed in searing white light, and a wild screeching filled his ears for all of a second, then silence. His vision resolved and he was looking out across the street at the Angel of 61st and Beaumont, who was now glowing. 

Carlos blinked furiously. He realized that he wasn’t actually looking out across the street—the street wasn’t there anymore. In between him and the Holy Mother was pitch blackness, the only remaining parts of Beaumont being Carlos, his chair, the glowing Holy Mother, and, Carlos noticed with relief, his blunt, which had reappeared in time to start burning his fingers. ‘Damn!’ said Carlos to the blunt, at which an ear-splitting ‘Shh!’ filled his ears. He looked up and saw that the Holy Mother had shifted position: one of her outstretched palms had moved to her face, and her index finger brushed her crude lips. Carlos squinted across the void at the Holy Mother, and he could see tears falling down her porcelain cheeks, but the tears left rusty streaks in their wake. 

Then it was over. Carlos fell back into his chair as if dropped from a great height, and he found himself sucking on the blunt hard enough to swallow it. The lights were back on in the neighborhood, and the neighbors’ beagle was sitting across from him on the lawn, head cocked, whining. Carlos coughed and spluttered, hacking up his lungs, staring at the Angel so she wouldn’t move again. Finally, when he was done coughing, Carlos looked down at the blunt and said, ‘That’s enough of you, man,’ and ground it out. Then he went inside, fell on his bed, and slept like the dead. 

*

When Marcus came back home, he didn’t want to hear any of it. ‘You were just high, man.’

‘I’m telling you, bro. I never saw anything like that in my life.’

‘Your bitch ass just couldn’t handle your shit, man.’

‘She was looking at me just like I’m looking at you right now; I swear, dog!’

‘Whatever, man. What you tryna eat tonight?’

*

Marcus was glad to be back on Beaumont, despite Carlos seemingly losing his damn mind. He had been in the hills for less than an hour before Tonya started complaining. ‘Marcus, I swear to god,’ she said, ‘try and be cool, damn.’ 

He couldn’t stop doing laps of the place. It was cavernous, all glass and stainless steel built into the side of the escarpment. Everything was open plan, with mezzanine staircases up to the bedrooms, a bathroom in a translucent cube in the middle of the ground floor, and a baby blue pool on the gigantic balcony outside (Tonya said it was Olympic, but Marcus had seen the Olympics on TV and this one didn’t look so big to him). 

Every time he stopped for breath, his head spun. The staircases clung onto the exposed cliff face that made up the far wall of the house; standing with his back to the vast glass windows facing towards the city, Marcus gazed up at the stairs and tried to track them from room to floating room, but he would get dizzy and have to start again. It reminded him of counting bathroom tiles when he was fucked up at a house party and trying to get his head straight.

‘Why you ridin’ me?’ he asked Tonya after she rolled her eyes at him for the nineteenth time. 

‘Y’all so overwhelmed. That’s why you never gonna live in a place like this, Marcus. You got that little man mentality. You and Carlos the deadbeat. People talk, you know?’

‘What you mean?’

‘What I said. When you gonna get a real job and stop livin’ with that creep? You might be stayin’ in the hood forever but not me, be-lieve dat.’

Marcus stood up a little straighter. He wanted to come back at her, but he couldn’t get his thoughts in order. Eventually, he said, ‘So what you wanna do now?’, and they fooled around before ordering pizza and eating it in the hot tub. 

*

Marcus was acting strangely when he came home, but Carlos didn’t say anything, and Marcus went to bed early anyway. Carlos watched a jar of weed for a while, contemplating rolling a blunt, but he didn’t much feel like rolling the dice on another encounter with the Angel. Still, he had to sleep, so he put a bud in a little one-hitter and smoked that, then watched Arsenio for a while, dozing. 

*

He was sitting on a dusty rock on top of an outcrop, looking out across a parched and desolate desert below. Mountains rose and fell in the far distance, their curves blurred by the haze as the sun beat down on them. Tumbleweed skittled across the scorched earth. There was a single tree down on the plain, the leaves lush and verdant. It cast a wide shadow, a haven from the blazing sun. Carlos very much wanted to be in the shade, but he couldn’t see a way to get down. His bare feet sizzled.

A beautiful woman was sitting beside him. She was wearing coffee-colored robes, and her skin was golden brown. Her eyes were bright green, and they shimmered. Carlos tried to speak, but he couldn’t make a sound. The woman turned to him and held out her arms; they were bound with rope. Carlos began to work the rope with his fingers, easing the knots, his fingers slick with sweat. When he was finished, the woman clasped his hands in hers, smiled, and kissed his palms. Carlos looked back down across the desert, and he could see that the tree was in flames. 

*

When he woke, the TV screen was static and all the lights were off. The neighborhood was quiet. Carlos rubbed his eyes, stretched, and moved over to the window, which was being rattled by a light wind. The Angel stared back from across the street, exactly where she had been that morning, and the morning before that, and as long as Carlos could remember. Her arms were still outstretched, entreating. Carlos whispered, ‘Fuck off, man.’

*

Marcus woke early because it felt like someone was using a nutcracker on his head. It was already hot, so he took a 7 Up from the fridge and rolled the sweating aluminum across his forehead. Looking out of the kitchen window, he could see pearls of dew coating the lawn. A beat-up old van rolled lazily by. He had an itch somewhere, but he couldn’t scratch it. 

There was thudding at the door. At first, Marcus thought it was the cops, but then he remembered that they didn’t usually knock. The door thudded again. He ambled over and opened it. Standing before him was old Mr. Franklin from down the block, Mrs. Brown, his next-door neighbor, and a congregation of old Hispanic women who Marcus didn’t know.

‘What have y’all done with her?’ asked Mr. Franklin.

‘S’cuse me?’

‘What have y’all done with her?’ Mr. Franklin repeated. ‘You boys are up to some foolishness, I swear.’

‘Dios mio,’ said one of the women. She was wearing a shawl and clutching rosary beads.

‘What y’all talking about?’

‘She’s gone, boy!’ said Mr. Franklin. ‘Look!’

Marcus peered over the old man’s shoulder. The Angel of 61st and Beaumont had vanished; there was an empty space where she should’ve been, her only remnant being a torn scrap of white dress flapping around the fence post in the breeze.

‘You lost your mind, old man?’

‘Old man! I…’ Mr. Franklin looked like he’d swallowed a bee.

‘Please, mister. Is a joke, yes?’ One of the Hispanic women looked up at Marcus with pleading eyes that brimmed with tears, her hands clasped together in prayer. ‘Please, mister, put her back!’

‘I ain’t know nothin’ about nothin’. What the fuck would we want with some damn doll?’ said Marcus. He yawned and scratched an eyebrow with his thumb, patted his stomach.

Mrs. Brown, who was built like a wrestler, was looking at Marcus like he was a sixth-grader who’d forgotten his homework for the tenth time in a semester. Wordlessly, she climbed the stairs onto the deck and went on tip-toe to look past Marcus’s shoulder into the house. Sinking back onto her heels and looking deep into Marcus’s eyes, she said to the others, ‘She’s not in there.’ Marcus felt six inches tall. 

‘Listen here, boy,’ said Mr. Franklin, who had regained his composure. ‘Y’all upset these nice ladies. I don’t know what y’all playin’, but put her back or there’ll be hell. Understand?’

Marcus said nothing.

‘She’s watchin’ over us, and y’all steal her away for what? A prank? Foolishness!’

‘She’s watchin’ over us, huh.’

‘You need to clean your ears out, motherfucker,’ said Mr. Franklin. The old ladies gasped and crossed themselves.

‘Answer me this, old man,’ said Marcus. ‘If she’s watchin’ over us, why is this street such a fuckin’ dump?’

‘You think y’all got the answers to everything, but y’all don’t,’ said Mr. Franklin, jabbing his finger at Marcus. 

Marcus shrugged. Mr. Franklin turned around and said, ‘Come on, ladies.’ As he walked away, he muttered, ‘Old man… Ain’t no old man… Kick his ass and his boyfriend’s! Wait ‘til Pastor Michael hear about this.’

Marcus’s headache was pushing the space behind his eyeballs, trying to force them out of their sockets. He sighed and turned back into the house, slamming the door behind him.

*

Carlos didn’t wake until eleven, by which time the heat was unbearable. There was no-one out; everyone was trying to stay out of the sun. Even with the AC cranked up, Carlos had sweated through his sheets. He sat on the side of his bed, trying to gather the strength to start the day; he noticed that Marcus was leaning in the doorway, looking at him with furrowed brow.

‘What y’all done,’ he said.

‘Huh?’ Carlos rubbed sleep from his eye. 

‘You took that stupid mannequin, huh.’

‘What are you talking about, dude?’

‘Had the whole damn neighborhood hittin’ up the door this morning. Thought it was the police.’

‘What did they want?’

‘What you think? The motherfuckin’ mannequin, statue, whatever the hell it is. The wooden bitch from across the way.’

Carlos straightened up. ‘She’s gone?’

‘Dude, don’t even try and say you had nothin’ to do with it. You and all that craziness when I came back the other day.’

‘I don’t… It wasn’t me.’

‘Whatever, man. This is some shameful shit. You lost your damn mind.’ Marcus turned around and headed back to the kitchen, leaving Carlos blinking hard, trying to remember how he got into bed. Across the room, propped up against the stuffed wardrobe, was a pair of shiny bolt cutters; next to them were Carlos’s sneakers, which were scuffed and muddy. 

*

It started to come back to him in the early afternoon. He was buying beers from the 7/11, rolling a sweating can from the pack back and forth across his forehead while the cashier eyed him suspiciously. 

All he was getting was flashes, but he knew he hadn’t gone to bed after waking up on the couch. He could remember being somewhere quiet and cool. He was dragging something across grass. He could smell churned up turf and hear chains clinking together. He saw something falling into water. His gold watch glistened in the moonlight. His muscles ached; he had lifted something heavy.

‘You going to buy that or make love to it, my guy?’

Carlos snapped back to reality. ‘Sorry, dude.’ His cheeks burned as he turned a crumpled note over to the cashier, who shook his head and said something under his breath.

*

Marcus was gone when Carlos got back from the store. The weathergirl said there could be storms, so Carlos decided to wait for them—it was too hot to do anything else. He set the chairs out on the lawn, under the shade of the porch, with his bare toes digging into the grass. He tried to read a copy of Sports Illustrated, but he couldn’t focus and the beer wasn’t helping, so he covered his face with the magazine, leaned back, and napped.

He woke with Marcus kicking his ankle. He stretched, yawned, and said, ‘Yo.’

‘Yo. You got more?’ He pointed at the upturned beer can on the lawn.

‘Sure, hermano. In the fridge.’

Marcus said, ‘Cool,’ and went inside. He was in there for a long time, so Carlos watched some cars go past, low-riders gleaming in the baking sun, crawling past on their way to a meet. 

Marcus finally came out and sat down in the chair next to Carlos. Carlos tried to think of something to say, but everything he thought of seemed pointless, awkward.

Eventually, Marcus just said, ‘Y’all need to put it back, man.’

‘I… I don’t know where she is.’

‘So you did take it! Man, you a liar.’

‘Believe me, brother, I don’t remember. I swear. I was high, okay? Last thing I remember is falling asleep on the couch.’

‘You can’t handle your shit, bro, for real.’

‘Why do you even care, man? Why you sniping at me like a bitch?’

‘Because the whole block is gonna hate us now, all ’cause of your religious bullshit. You really think God wants you to sell weed and get high as fuck every night? Your mind is polluted with that shit, I swear.’

‘Watch it, bro.’ Carlos’s fists were clenched.

‘You need to find it and put it back, man, otherwise we finna get run off the block.’

Carlos’s mom was coming up the street.

‘Oh shit,’ said Carlos.

‘Carlos!’ she cried. ‘Is it true? What they are saying?’

‘Mama, please.’

‘Is it true, Carlito?’ She was on the verge of tears. She was wearing her house coat despite the heat, strands of grey hair sticking to the sides of her face. 

‘Mama, I swear! It was probably kids from down the way.’

‘Carlos, if you lie to me… Dios mio.’

‘I swear!’

‘You better hope she comes back. She watches over you! Dios mio what a silly prank to pull. If your papa was here…’ She turned to Marcus, who had his head down, playing with the ring pull on his beer can. ‘You should know better too, Marquinhos. Lead my nino down a better path.’ And then she stomped off back to her house. 

After a beat, Marcus said, ‘I told you, bro.’

‘Lay off, homes.’

‘Foolishness indeed.’

‘How would you like being strung up on the street, ese? In this heat? All tied up and shit?’

‘Dude…’ Marcus pushed his palm against his forehead. ‘It’s a fuckin’ doll, man.’

‘Whatever, man. I’m bored of this shit.’ Carlos’s knee was bouncing up and down. ‘What we doing tonight?’

‘I don’t know, man.’ Marcus sighed. ‘Whatever’s good.’

The sound of a truck drifted over from a few blocks away.

‘Ice truck,’ said Carlos.

‘Ice truck,’ said Marcus. ‘Go get it, man.’

‘What? You go get it. It’s your turn, man.’

‘Bullshit. I went last time.’

‘Can’t believe you’re trying to pull this shit, man.’

‘Man, you need to go now or we’ll miss the drop!’

‘Fuck you. I’m stayin’ right here.’

‘Say what?’ It was Marcus’s turn to clench his fists. 

The noise of the engine drew closer, but now it was accompanied by a harmony of screeching tires. It didn’t sound like the ice truck anymore.

‘Oh, damn,’ said Marcus. ‘Here we go.’

A beat-up old van came careening around the turn onto Beaumont, with a glossy black sedan in hot pursuit. The two cars raced up the street, and an arm reached out of the passenger window of the sedan and seemed to explode, and Marcus realized that the passenger was holding a nine and shooting at the van, trying to get it to crash. For a moment, the street was a cacophony, furious engines, tires screaming in protest, and the crack, crack, crack, crack of the pistol. In the blink of an eye, they were past the bungalow, all the way down Beaumont, and then gone—someone else’s neighborhood, someone else’s problem. 

‘Damn,’ said Marcus. ‘You see that shit?’

But Carlos didn’t answer. He was holding his right hand up, looking at his palm. He held it up to the sun, and a shaft of light came right through it, shining on his face. Blood started to streak from the hole, falling down his arm and dripping from his elbow.

‘Oh shit, dude. You got hit?’ Marcus started to get up, but then Carlos held up his other hand. He showed it to Marcus: there was an identical hole in his left palm, both holes maybe the size of a quarter, both clean through. Marcus’s breath caught in his throat.

‘See, man?’ said Carlos. He was grinning. 

And Marcus couldn’t think of anything to say.

*

Marcus decided to move up to Oregon at the end of the summer. His mom wasn’t coming back any time soon, and he was just treading water in LA, watching time go by. When the heat of the summer died down, he found that he was able to think again, breathe again, and he needed a fresh start.

He waited as long as possible before he told Carlos; they were sat at the kitchen table, Carlos rolling a blunt, and Marcus didn’t know how to bring it up, so in the end he just rushed in with, ‘Man, I’m thinking of movin’ up to Oregon with my moms.’

Carlos paused, his tongue on the rolling paper. His hands drifted down to the table and he set the blunt down, looking at the scars on his hands. They didn’t even hurt anymore. ‘For real?’

‘For real.’

The silence between them was unbearable, so Carlos said, ‘That’s cool, man. When you thinking of going?’

‘End of the week.’

‘You need a lift to the airport?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, thanks man.’

They went outside and smoked the blunt, passing it wordlessly, stargazing. Every now and then, Marcus would steal a glance at the space where the Angel used to be, but he didn’t want Carlos to see him looking. He thought he could see her outline between the fence posts if he squinted, but maybe he was just high.

*

There was no traffic on the way to LAX because everyone was watching the news, so they glided down the freeway, the sun setting over the Pacific, the heat of the day rising off the asphalt, free at last. 

Marcus had never been to the airport before—he had no call to—but for Carlos, the lack of traffic was surreal; it was like people had fled the city, or as if they’d been raptured. He found himself wishing for tailbacks; he wanted to sit in the car and listen to the radio with Marcus for a while. Instead, the ride went as quickly as summer turned into autumn.

At Departures, Carlos parked in the loading zone and pulled Marcus’s sole dusty suitcase from the trunk, placing it at Marcus’s feet. Marcus looked over his shoulder at the glassy terminal, people drifting in and out, and puffed out his cheeks. He started to say something, but stopped. 

‘Write me a postcard, eh dude?’ Said Carlos. 

‘For sure, bro.’

They embraced, beating each other’s backs. Marcus picked up his suitcase and turned, looking back one last time before the revolving doors swallowed him up.

*

Carlos sat in his car in the parking lot, right up against the fence to the runway. He was watching the planes drifting around, and he was trying to guess which one held Marcus, but they all looked the same. He picked one anyway, and when the plane drifted around to the bottom of the take-off strip, like a sprinter at the starting line, Carlos sparked up as the engines kicked up, and he only exhaled when the plane’s wheels left the ground and started to soar. Then he threw the blunt out of the window, put the key in the ignition, and turned it. 

*

Everyone has an opinion about what happened. 

Mr. Franklin maintained that Carlos and Marcus, the lay’bouts at the end of the block, stole the Angel when they were high on reefer. The pious Latina mothers turned their suspicions on a group of youngsters from across 61st Street who had started throwing up tags on the back wall of the Dick’s Sporting Goods. Helena Gutierrez, who lived next to Carlos’s mom, claimed that Dick’s Sporting Goods executives had ordered the removal of the Angel because they were covert satanists. Carlos’s mom decided to believe her son, and she imagined that the Angel fled the city because of the terrible violence, but also that she might return one day.

When Carlos’s mom passed away, he left the neighborhood too, moving all the way over to Echo Park. After he packed up his car, he went back inside the bungalow and walked around every room, listening to the percussion of his sneakers on the floor. He stopped at Marcus’s door for a while, trying to remember what it looked like when he lived there—the posters on the wall, the unmade bed with the sheet riding up over the mattress.

Carlos got in his car and drove away. He left the deckchairs behind in case the new owners wanted to use them (maybe they didn’t know how hot it could get in the city), but the next occupants were a young white couple, and they didn’t have a clue.