Month: June 2013

Syeira was just starting high school and displayed both the bewitching charm of youth and the genuine beauty she inherited from Hormat and Leila.

She had thick, black wavy hair and a shadowy darkness that was deeper than the color of her skin, playful and mysterious. And her mother’s brilliant black eyes, and Bilko’s smile.

Boys were beginning to hang around Aata Bakes to wait for her.

Bilko had been thinking to open an auto repair on the now-empty lot on the corner of Hwy One and Tick. He wanted to specialize in foreign and exotic cars, he had even spent an afternoon with Loathsome Uncle Kusmuk making plans.

But when the Old English Cedar two storey house between that empty lot and the strip mall suddenly became available, he and Hormat took their savings and made the down payment on that instead.

She would open Madam Yasdi’s Reading Room on the ground floor, she and Syeira would live on the second.

The following summer, the market on the corner of Tick and Hwy One burned down. Loathsome Uncle Kusmuk put a deposit on that land along with the adjacent five acres behind the strip mall between Hwy One and the beach.

A few months later, Aata Bakes announced two new products: small sweet cakes with raisins and nuts and broken butter cookies in hawthorn berry jam, the brand was now selling in Safeway Supermarkets throughout Southern California.

About the same time, Saleh opened another Circle S Laundry in the main township of Long Beach. The signs out front now featured a picture of the open-mouthed smile of a European looking man with a thick mustache and fedora.

Aata kept her small bakery in the strip mall on Tick.  She did, however, move her kitchen to an industrial park to the north on Hwy 1.

Hormat bought Bilko some plaid flannel shirts to wear when he was working. His tee shirts didn’t fit anymore.

Syeira’s bra size changed significantly and Mehmet’s voice started to change.

That winter, Bilko quit his job at the gas station and rented space in a warehouse to open a small car repair shop.

Syeira’s period started.

The Aata Bakes brand began selling in some small markets in the Long Beach area.

And Loathsome Uncle Kusmuk Ortrar arrived from Bucharest and opened a bar in the strip mall next to the Circle S laundry.

Hormat predicted change.

That August, Syeira and Mehmet grumpily started attending school at Will Rogers Middle School in Long Beach, California.

With no kids at home, Hormat helped out at Saleh’s laundromat, doing laundry, sewing and some tailoring for customers.

And it didn’t take long for the little shopping center on Tick to become known.

Aata and Hormat both wore the same costumes they wore traveling with Jubilee! Saleh added a fedora to his baggy pants and oversized cotton shirts and adopted a curious accent that took a while for Aata to get used to.

Hormat got Syeira to wear some of the costumes Leila had made for her. Mehmet wouldn’t budge from his simple white shirt and trousers.

People thought they were Gypsies and came by just to see the women in their brightly colored clothes and the men in their loose pants and shirts. When they did, they bought bakery.

After work, Syeira, Mehmet, Bilko and Saleh all arrived at ‘Aata Bakes’ for dinner and backgammon at a pair of small umbrella topped tables by the curb.

It wasn’t long before Hormat started giving Tarot readings in the evening and told Bilko, over a game of backgammon, she wanted to live in the Old English Cedar on the corner behind the market.

It took a while to get used to the verdict. They had all expected to be home in Russian River that Winter. Aata left the court in tears.

Saleh was behind her, polite and embarrassed, feeling that he had somehow gone to the wrong wedding or funeral. Bilko was mad. Hormat was hurt.

Every weekend since he entered Juvenile Hall, they had gone to visit Orguz, but until that day none of it had been real.

When they got home that night, they each did what they always did when they were nervous or upset: Aata baked. Bilko drank. Hormat did reading after reading with her Tarot cards. The kids watched TV and Saleh worked.

Regardless, they were all trying to understand what had happened. It didn’t fit. What did it mean?

Aata was the first to say anything, “I want my own bakery! I hate working for other people!”

On Tick, a short side street in North Long Beach, connecting Hwy 1 and an old fishing pier, JM Investments built a 5-store strip mall meant to serve the fields of Naval housing just across the street.

It stood in the middle of this short block with an empty lot and the pier on one side and an Old English Cedar clapboard house on the other. There was a market on the corner and across the street, more empty lots.

Unfortunately, no sooner was it built than the Department of Navy started pulling men out of Long Beach, relocating them to San Diego and the east coast to support the increasing needs of the Vietnam War.

As the drab faceless houses on the east side of the highway began to empty, the only movement in the whitewashed silence of those 5 empty stores was that of an occasional insect, the glass windows first caked with soap were covered with dust.

Until Saleh and Aata rented two of the stores to open a bakery, Aata Bakes, and the Circle S laundromat.

Judge Murty smiled benignly at the family as he read the sentence, even winking at Orguz as he mentioned the GED. He understood Orguz.

Throughout his career as a prosecuting attorney and then defense attorney, his only goal was to get things right.

He struggled for years feeling inadequate to the job. He struggled with his own arrogance and guilt at not being perfect. He struggled with a system that was broken, letting the guilty go while abusing the innocent. He was dissatisfied, discontent and at a loss.

Then, on vacation with his wife in Hawaii, he re-discovered the Lord and was born again.

He realized that he could do more good on the bench than before the court. There he could make the decisions that counted for both God and man. He could take some of the blindness out of justice and help good men get on their way.

At the start of each day, he asked the Lord for guidance. He was quite willing to admit that he didn’t always understand. But if he erred it was in an effort to do the best, the right thing.

Today had been a good day. Now, on his way home, he felt at peace. He felt in his heart and soul the same warmth and harmony that he felt in the soft purring of his bright red Ferrari. He had done the right thing.

Hijo was tried as an adult, In a plea deal, he accepted a sentence of 10 to 15 years in state prison and the death of Madrigal was quietly forgotten.

The rest of the boys were remanded to the Juvenile Authority and were to remain wards of the court until their 18th birthdays with probation until the age of 24.

Orguz was granted an additional option by Judge Murty, he would be released either on his 18th birthday or when he passed the battery of GED testing the state required to enter junior college.

Subsequent probation would depend upon whether he was able to attain his equivalency documents.

Hijo was the only adult among them. He was kept at Kern Valley State Prison, while the others were at Juvenile Authority in Long Beach. Lieutenant Sauter hoped to use this isolation to his advantage in the QMart robbery.

Anonymous tips placed Hijo and at least three of the other boys at the scene. They had recovered the ring stolen along with the gun from Madrigal’s personal effects.

It looked pretty simple, what Lieutenant Sauter needed was a confession and he could hand this case off to the prosecution and get on with his life. He had a vacation coming up.

So, he let it be known that one of the boys in Juvenile Hall called Hijo the shooter in the QMart robbery.

“This puts you at the scene, Hijo. You, the gun, the ring. Miguel says you were the trigger man,” lieutenant Sauter had a soft, unhurried voice. He could wait.

“Bullshit! He said what? You are lyin’, man. Miho knows I would never go near a gun, man!” Hijo proclaimed.

Lieutenant Sauter shrugged and raised his eyebrows, “I don’t know, man. That’s what he said,” he waved his hand slightly indicating he had no control over it.

Hijo stared at Lieutenant Sauter hard, Lieutenant Sauter in turned gazed at Hijo with the relaxed expression of a man on a martini break.

Finally, Hijo said, “That was Madrigal, man, not me,” Hijo’s eyes were wide, as he stared at the Lieutenant, “I do not do guns, man.” Hijo was serious.

“So Madrigal shot the old lady at the QMart?” The Lieutenant asked, off hand.

“Wasn’t me, man! Jesus can back me on this one, man,” Hijo said with his jaw firm and mouth set in affirmation.

“What about Orguz, Hijo, was he with you guys?” Asked Lieutenant Sauter.

“Gomez?…” Hijo looked a little confused, “Uh, Oh yeah, man. Gomez!”

“Orguz,” said Lieutenant Sauter.

“Right! That’s what I said, Orguz, man, he was there. Bad motherfucker, that Orguz, bad motherfucker,” Hijo nodded intently at the Lieutenant.

Judith Bloome looked out the window of their third floor apartment. Her tightly crimped hair was pulled back in a short gray ponytail and her hands were on the window sill, as she paused on a warm night to enjoy a cool breeze.

Suddenly, her husband was calling for her from his wheelchair. He was thin and frail, his eyes were gray, almost colorless, since he lost his sight to diabetes. He was shaking. It was another of those awful dreams in which he awoke to find himself blind.

She put her arms around his head to comfort him, his face reminded her of a whimpering puppy, his voice strained and hoarse, dragging sound out of the air. He had been such a handsome, robust young man.

When Judith had finally gotten him back to sleep, she went to downstairs to the laundry room to collect their clothes.

She heard screams and thought of her husband, but the screams were coming from outside.

Judith was frightened and hid behind a row of washing machines. In a moment, it was silent again, and all she heard was her neighbor’s TV. They could never sleep and watched Katherine Hepburn, Clark Gable and Jimmy Stewart movies all night long.

To get back upstairs, she had to pass the back door but it was open and she was afraid.

First, she took a peek. There didn’t seem to be anyone around. Then she noticed a mess of clothes laying on the concrete steps leading out to the carport. Judith timidly stepped through the door and looked, pushing at a pair of jeans laying there with the toe of her shoe.

Something fell out. It was a ring.

Judith picked it up and looked at it under the porch light. It was a diamond ring.

Glancing back at the clothes, she saw what might be blood and backed away, turned then ran up the stairs with her laundry and the diamond ring.

When a couple of months had passed and no one asked about the ring, she decided to pawn it and buy something special for herself and her husband.

Judith Bloome was arrested for possession of stolen property.

The ring had been taken in the same robbery as the gun used in the QMart hold-up and shooting.