Sisters (Part 1)

     Jane was at home in Encinitas by seven p.m. Friday, much to our joy.  The flight from Oakland to San Diego was easy, as was the cab ride up to Encinitas....  Almost.  "White cab drivers are starting to piss me off," she grumbled into her bottle of Anchor Steam.
     "Please, unpack that statement," said Bekka.
     "Ugh!  I call for a cab in Berkeley, or flag one down in the City, and if the driver is a Middle Eastern dude, I get in, give him the destination, and away we go.  If the driver is white, he'll be all, 'You have the fare, right?'  Duh, if I didn't have the fare, I wouldn't be getting in the cab, stupid.  I've had some of them demand to hand over cash before they'll move!  The fucking white cab drivers assume that a punk rocker is gonna ditch them on the fare.  The Arabs and Afghanis and Egyptians don't give the mohawk a second thought.

Sisters (Part 2)

     The police sideshow started in.  Ambulances had arrived, gingerly arranged the injured onto back boards, then gurneys, and split, lights flashing.  Del Mar doesn't have its own police department, law enforcement is provided by the sheriff's department on contract.  Four patrol cars arrived, the occupants getting out and behaving exactly how I expected them to: they immediately began antagonizing witnesses by treating them like criminals.  And I knew, at the end of their shift, they'd sit around in the locker room and bitch about how uncooperative the public is.

Sisters (Part 3)

     Ring, ring, ring....  "God bless, this is World magazine, how may I direct your call?"
     "To your legal department," I replied.  "My name is Leonard Schneider."
     "One moment."
     Hold music, a couple clicks, then "Wilcox, legal.  Hello?"
     "Good morning, Mr. Wilcox," I greeted him.  "My name is Leonard, or Lenny, Schneider.  Do you recognize the name?  Any clue as to who I am?"
     First silence, then a quick gasp for air.  Another couple moments while he collected his wits.  Then, "I believe so.  May I help you?"

Sisters (Part 4)

     Jane had a routine down.  No matter what classes she had in the morning, she would be at Haas for her undergrad classes every day.  Her classes started at 1:30, and she was invariably out of her last morning class at just after noon.  She'd hit one of the small restaurants on Oxford Ave. for a bite to eat, get a large coffee, then walk to the business school, where she'd park on the small grassy area just outside the business library.  She would sip coffee, smoke Newports, double-check any work she needed for her class that day, then thumb through her reading material.  She read Barron's, Fortune, and the Wall Street Journal.  The only time she broke this routine was when she would head straight home to meet either Kristen or Nadir for a quick nooner.

Sisters (Part 5)

     "Oh, I tell ya, this thing is a hoot," said Gladys Krebsbach from behind the wheel.  We were rolling down San Vicente Blvd. towards Fourth St. in Santa Monica.  "The man I bought it from had it set for storage.  Wheels off, fluids and gasoline drained, tarped, and sitting in his garage."  She laughed.  "Heck, he was asking so little for it because he'd stored it correctly, but figured anyone interested wouldn't want the bother of getting it running again.  I wrote him a check then and there, then Fang and I took a good long look at it, then went to Pep Boys and bought a new battery, oil, Dextron, coolant, and a big gas can.  We got everything filled, hooked up the battery, and the darn thing fired up like it had just come off the assembly line!  We got the wheels on and rolled out.  I tell ya, I think that man was mighty disappointed to see this thing leave his garage under its own power."