“Not in O.B.”
As I gave directions to Old Town, he shook his head and shrugged. “You’re one weird guy, Mapstone.”
Fifteen minutes later, I was on a half-full 35 bus, rolling down Rosecrans Street, turning onto Midway Drive for the ride across the hump of Loma Portal and into Ocean Beach. Behind us was the bay, ahead was the ocean. I counted twenty Arizona license tags and quit counting. This time of year, San Diego was Phoenix West. Native San Diegans hated the invasion. When I lived here and rode this bus almost every day, I learned not to let on where I was from. The bus started downhill, with the sun beginning to burn off the clouds behind me, toward downtown. But ahead, it was still gray, the vast expanse of the Pacific a sheet of lead blending into the overcast. The Pacific played a trick of the eye, seeming to rise into the horizon, even though we were merely descending a long slope to the ocean.
If you stay on Interstate 8, you’d run right into O.B. But most tourists didn’t. They went north of the San Diego River to Sea World, Mission Bay and the more popular neighborhoods of Mission Beach or Pacific Beach, or they went south on I-5 to downtown. San Diego had changed substantially since I had lived here, but Ocean Beach looked much the same: the narrow streets, quaint and pricey cottages, one-story businesses lining Newport Avenue and the long municipal pier jutting into the ocean. I had lived two lives in San Diego: pre-Patty in Ocean Beach and with Patty in La Jolla.
It reminded me of the old days, getting off at Cable and Newport, and then walking past the business district down to Santa Cruz Avenue. A couple of guys carrying surfboards walked past me, going west. Seagulls passed overhead making their distinctive calls. The old apartment building was still two stories, painted white, and shaped like a U surrounding an interior swimming pool. My unit had been on the second floor. The boyfriend’s apartment was directly beside it. I felt an involuntary urge to check my mail, smiled at it, and walked up to No. 205. The windows were open, as was common here, and the drapes were drawn and partly hanging out.
The loud, angry voice coming from the apartment wasn’t surprising, either. O.B. was an eclectic place, where CPAs lived alongside bikers. Once I had been kept up all night when one of the latter had engaged in an all-night screaming fight with his old lady. Now I would put a stop to it, but I was different then.
The voice was deep and menacing, the dispute involving a woman, money, and perhaps more. The dialogue was generally, “I want Scarlett, motherfucker, and your white ass is out of excuses. Where is she? I need her ass back out making money,” on and on. “You think you can hide from me? Nobody gets away from me. I own her sweet little booty. Now where the fuck is she? Tell me now or I stomp your white ass to death and find her my own self.”