Didn’t Happen in Downtown

By H. G. Quintana

When you remove everything rational and explainable from an event, and only the mysterious remains: what then? This is the basis of these stories that take place in different scenarios in the city of Los Angeles, California.
In these stories there are no monsters, nor extraterrestrial or aberrant beings that produce more repulsion than fear. We are dealing with rational people in situations that they cannot—nor do they know how to—explain with the laws of science or logic. And when no reasonable arguments can be found to explain something, we become restless.
Disturbing characters in hotel corridors, old attics that hold unexpected and disturbing secrets, distressing scenarios in the Angels Flight funicular, disconcerting stories in the desert of Joshua Tree National Park, and phone calls that should not have happened. All of this, and then some, is Didn't Happen in Downtown.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Realificción
• Release date: Dec 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215009093

Book preview

Title

Quote

Dedication

The Girl of Harbor Wilshire

An Empty Photo in Angels Flight

Under the Joshua Tree

A Turtle in The Garden

Didn't Happen in Downtown

Lauren Bacall at La Brea

That Afternoon in San Fernando

Branston and the Kittens

Two Nights in Santa Monica

My Tengu's Books

Who Plays Hide and Seek?

Back cover

Other books

DIDN'T HAPPEN IN DOWNTOWN

H. G. QUINTANA

© H. G. Quintana, 2022

© From this edition, Realificción, 2022

ISBN:

www.realificcion.com

Layout design and Proofreading: Realificción

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to [e-mail]

Printed in Spain

Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

Arthur Conan Doyle

... She got the moon in her eye

She held me spellbound in the night.

(Don Henley & Bernie Leadon. Eagles, 1974)

To Olga

To Los Ángeles, the city she showed me

THE GIRL OF HARBOR WILSHIRE

The first time I saw her was around seven in the evening outside the Harbor Wilshire restaurant. We had gone out for a cigarette in the middle of dinner with colleagues from the translation conference. A generous meal, with several glasses of Silver Oak, from Alexander Valley Cellars. It wasn’t a bad red, a far cry from the wonders I knew when I was in Spain and France, but exquisite to accompany the pleasures of the Californian barbecue.

We were almost fifty translators, writers and specialists who met yearly to talk about our experiences and learning in the world of translation and language interpretation. In 2018 it was Los Angeles, and those of us who were now at the Harbor Wilshire numbered just over thirty people, about the same as those who each year ended up with a potluck at a place chosen by Mary Stantton, our diligent manager, who never missed the mark for the big farewells.

We were several outside the restaurant. Julia, a sweet poet from Los Angeles, Edgar, the translator who lived in San Francisco, Elton, a journalist from London, and Marie, the French Goncourt Prize-winning writer. They finished their cigarettes before me and returned to the restaurant. I stayed a few minutes longer, but not wanting to lose track of Julia, I took several final sips of my cigarette and was on my way in when I saw her.

To be honest, I heard her first. The hotel was on a huge esplanade. It had a large parking lot full of cars; beyond it was a big grassy area. I looked around trying to locate the sound. It was a moan between human and animal, like a fox trying to imitate a child, but with less force, a choked and dry sob. It was then that I actually saw her for the first time. She was standing next to a white Ford Transit, her eyes half-reddened, as if she had cried, though there was an uncomfortable calm in her Chicano-featured face. He was about eight or nine years old, or so it seemed, I couldn’t tell. I was struck by her pinkish-magenta polar coat, it was mid-June and the temperature wasn’t exactly low, even as it was then near seven o’clock in the evening.

There was nothing special about it. I mean, there was a little girl crying next to a pickup truck, which wasn’t normal, but nothing unusual caught my attention at the time.

Hello, are you okay? I asked her, but she didn’t answer. She just nodded and ran off.

I tried to follow her unsuccessfully, she got lost turning around the van at an angle that I could no longer follow her with my eyes. I was worried. In my interest to know, she had run away abruptly and perhaps scared, and I didn’t want an upset a father to misunderstand that I had frightened his daughter with some inappropriate gesture.

I was still a few minutes trying to see if she was coming back. Maybe she was nearby and returned with more interest in being helped, but she didn’t show up for another ten minutes that I was out. I went back to dinner more relaxed, I wanted to continue enjoying the barbecue and a few more glasses of wine, but my joviality was different. The idea that at any moment that girl could show up with a disgruntled father to ask me for an account didn’t leave my head. What was she doing there alone? Why hadn’t she answered? She probably needed help and I hadn’t done enough to help her. Worse if they thought I had done something to upset her.

Dinner went on almost non-stop until nine o’clock in the evening. Receptions of this kind are strange, but we didn’t realize it until the next day. We had known each other for at least eight years, and had fewer qualms about moving from the professional to the personal. We talked, yes, as in previous years, around our experiences, tried to make contacts with new people who could help us, but here the important thing was to eat, drink and, well, whatever came up. So for the next two hours I forgot the girl again. I forgot all concerning her and enjoyed the chat and dinner without losing sight of the fact that the next day I would have to catch an early flight to New York and I had some details to take care of.

Around nine o’clock, those who lived in Los Angeles, a little far from the hotel, were leaving gradually. Julia too. Those of us who came from other cities and countries stayed longer, almost until ten o’clock, knowing that we had the shelter of a roof over our heads that night and that we didn’t need to drive to quit Harbor Wilshire.

I stayed a while longer, but after Julia’s departure I lost interest in continuing and began to feel some fatigue. As soon as I could I apologized to the remaining six or seven and left the restaurant to go to the room. I got on the elevator with my head full of new ideas. Earlier that morning I had attended the lecture by the prestigious Malcolm Prest, who had spoken about the new theories on dubbing and the consequences of political correctness in film.

When the elevator reached the fifth floor, I reached into my jacket pocket for my electronic key. When I was out, I stood petrified on the carpet in the hallway. Very faint, but latent, there in the air was the muffled whine I had heard earlier in the parking lot. It was an uncomfortable moment, an unpleasant surprise that forced me to ponder my options.

I didn’t know whether to follow it or retrace my steps and return to the restaurant. The corridor was well lit and there was no reason to feel frightened, but there wasn’t a soul in the whole floor and not the slightest sound could be perceived except for that disturbing wailing between human and animal. And I