Southland by Nina Revoyr

about how her family didn’t talk. None of them, including her grandfather. No words laced together into a chain of intertwined stories that connected her to anyone’s past. More than gaps in the narrative; there was no narrative. Whole years, like the years of World War II, dropped cleanly from their collective history.
    “People thought it was a cop,” Lanier continued. “A white cop, Nick Lawson. He had a history of beating up black kids. Anyway, a while later, some other boys in the neighborhood took it upon themselves to shoot him. They didn’t kill him, but it got him off the street. I heard he stayed with the police, on a desk job, but no charges were brought against him. No one ever did shit.”
    Lanier remembered those first few weeks, after. The weariness and sorrow among the people he knew as they tried to piece together their broken neighborhood. The tanks rolling down Crenshaw, through the tense, watchful silence. And Curtis wasn’t there to help him through it. Jimmy hadn’t understood why his cousin was gone. Knew he was dead, but still expected to see him taking the front stairs of the Lanier house, two at a time, and hear him yelling through the broken screen. When it finally dawned on Jimmy that he wouldn’t see Curtis again, or feel his wiry arm around his shoulders and sharp knuckles rubbing his skull, he dove into a thick depression he wasn’t sure that he’d ever come out of. It hurt worse than when his father left, because Curtis was dead, not just AWOL, and Jimmy was old enough now to feel it. With an eight-year-old’s impotent rage he wanted to kill the man responsible, but instead he took it out on everyone else. Most of all himself. Banging his head rhythmically, obsessively, against his bedroom wall, punishing himself for being alive and for not helping Curtis, until his mother couldn’t leave him alone. Cutting his arm with razor blades, steak knives, scissors, pens, so he would feel the pain there and not inside him.
    “But you’re sure it was him,” Jackie said.
    “I’m sure.” Lanier looked down, then looked up again. Uneasiness flickered through his eyes. “There were some people— not a lot, but a few—who believed that your grandfather did it.”
    Jackie started to stand, and then sat down again. “Jesus Christ.”
    Lanier put up his broad, squarish hands. “I know he didn’t,” he said. “Most people didn’t even know the kids were murdered in the store. And even the ones who did, just about all of them blamed Nick Lawson. But there were some, you know, who never liked that your grandfather had a business here. Crenshaw was mixed back then, much more than it is today, but there were a few people—white and black—who still hated the Japanese. So even though just about everyone knew he wasn’t involved, your family still took some flak.”
    “Which explains,” Jackie said, more to herself than Lanier, “why they shut down the store and got out of here so fast.”
    Lanier nodded. He remembered the “Closed” sign hanging in the window of the empty store for months, the Sakais vanishing like apparitions before the smoke had even cleared.
    She looked up at him. “Why are you telling me all this?”
    “So you won’t waste your time looking for Curtis. And so you’ll know.” And because I need to share this with someone, he thought, hand over half the burden. He leaned across the desk and looked at her intently. “I want to build a case against Lawson. I want the motherfucker to pay. I’ve been carrying Curtis’s murder, all those murders, around with me for years.” He knew his burden, his sense of urgency, were heavy in his voice; he felt accused by the image of Frank there in front of him, for not doing anything until now. Jackie leaned back, away from him, so Lanier eased off a little.
    “Well, what about his brother?” she asked. “Or his parents? Where are they?”
    “Dead. All of them. His parents both died a few years ago, and Cory was