Can't Get There from Here Read online

  “Don’t it scare you?” Tears asked.

  “Naw, Country Club was old,” said Maggot.

  “How old?”

  “I don’t know. Just old. Like in his twenties,” Maggot said. “You know he was lucky? A thousand years ago, like in the Dark Ages, you were lucky if you lived even that long. Now everybody thinks they’re supposed to live forever.”

  A woman in blue tights and a red down vest jogged toward us. Maggot held out a dirty hand. His fingernails were painted black. “Spare a little change, ma’am?”

  “Sorry, don’t have my wallet,” the jogger answered.

  “It’s hard to think about living past eighteen,” I said.

  “Who’d want to?” added Maggot.

  A police car came around the corner. Tears took off down the sidewalk and disappeared. The car stopped at the curb, and the cop in the passenger seat rolled down her window. She had streaked blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. I’d never seen her before, but I’d seen her partner, the one who was driving. His name was Officer Johnson and he was mean. He leaned toward the passenger-side window. “Hey, Maggot, what you dealin’ today, oregano or baby powder?”

  “Neither, Officer Johnson. I’m just out here spanging,” Maggot answered. Spanging was street talk for spare-changing. “Hardly worth arresting me for. With the way our legal system works, I’ll be back on the street before you can say misdemeanor.”

  “You got it all figured out, don’t you, Maggot?” Officer Johnson said with a smirk. The policewoman with the streaked blond hair just looked at us. The black nametag over her badge said Ryan.

  “We got report of a dead body around here,” Johnson said. “You kids know anything about that?”

  Maggot gave me a look, then glanced over at the entrance to Piss Alley. That was all it took. Officer Ryan got out of the patrol car and put on her dark blue police hat so the ponytail stuck out of the back. The hat looked too big for her head. She was about my height and not fat, but the thick black gun belt with the radio and gun and nightstick made her hips look wider than they really were. She looked down Piss Alley, then pulled the black radio off her belt and spoke into it. She hurried back to the patrol car and said something to Johnson, who was still inside. Then she rushed around to the trunk and got out an orange first aid kit and dashed back to the alley. You could kind of tell she was a new cop. Maybe Country Club was the first dead person she’d ever seen, too. Or maybe she wasn’t sure he was really dead.

  Meanwhile, Officer Johnson turned on the flashing lights and backed the car up so that it blocked the alley.

  They’d just finished putting up the yellow crime scene tape when the orange-and-white EMS truck arrived, siren blurping and lights flashing. From down in Piss Alley came OG’s raspy, liquid cough. Two EMS people with white shirts and dark pants got out of the truck and ducked under the crime scene tape. In the alley they talked to Officer Ryan. No one touched Country Club.

  A crowd gathered on the sidewalk behind the crime scene tape. A green sedan pulled up. It had a flashing red light on the dashboard. Two men in dark suits got out and ducked under the tape.

  “Detectives,” Maggot said.

  One of the detectives talked to Officer Ryan. The other told OG to get out of the alley. OG got up slowly and trudged away, the frayed bottoms of his jeans dragging along the ground. He was so skinny, his pants were always sliding off his hips. Went past us and down the street. One of the detectives pulled on white latex gloves and began to feel around Country Club’s body. The other one walked around the alley, looking at the ground and moving pieces of garbage with the tip of his shoe.

  The two EMS people went back to the ambulance and got a stretcher with wheels and a long black bag with a zipper.

  “Think I could talk to you for a second?” Officer Ryan asked Maggot and me, flipping open a notepad.

  “It’s a free country for those who can afford it,” Maggot replied. “First week on the job?”

  Officer Ryan looked up and blinked. “How’d you know?”

  “Lucky guess,” Maggot said.

  “Either of you know his real name?” Officer Ryan pointed her pen at Country Club.

  We shook our heads.

  “Where he came from?” she asked.

  We shook our heads again.

  Officer Johnson came over. He was a tall cop with a long face and a black mustache. “What are you doing?” he asked Officer Ryan.

  “Trying to get some information,” she answered.

  “From them?” Johnson shrugged. “Don’t waste your time.”

  Officer Ryan flipped her notepad closed and followed Johnson back to the patrol car.

  “Hey,” Maggot called behind them. “What’d he die of?”

  “Exposure,” Officer Johnson said over his shoulder without stopping.

  “To what?” I asked.

  “To the cold,” Officer Johnson said as he pulled open the car door. “To drugs, drink, disease, and hunger. Basically to life on the street. If you kids had any sense, you’d go home.”

  “What if you don’t have a home to go to?” Maggot asked.

  “You’ve got no parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, relatives?” asked Officer Ryan.

  “You think I’d be living like this if I did?” Maggot said.

  “You could go into a shelter.”

  “No, thanks,” said Maggot. “Last time I spent a night in a shelter they robbed me of everything I had. I’d rather take my chances out here.”

  “As long as you’re out here,” Officer Johnson said, “you don’t have a chance.”

  THREE

  It was the middle of the night and the Good Life Deli was the only place open. Not that we could go in since we didn’t have any money. My stomach hurt and some food would have helped, but it was the deli’s light we really needed. In the light we weren’t gonna get rolled or cut or killed. The really bad ones, the junkies and weirdos who’d slit your throat as soon as look at you, they didn’t like the light.

  2Moro leaned against the wall, wearing black fishnet stockings and a short red skirt and her orange-and-red patchwork jacket. She was smoking a cigarette. When she first showed up, her skin was a delicate olive tone, but it was more yellow now. Sometimes she forgot to go to the clinic to refill her HIV medications. Most days she spent more money on cigarettes than on food.

  Rainbow sat against the wall with her eyes closed, wearing her black leather jacket with the collar turned up. She was nodding over, bending at the waist, her tangled blond hair falling into her lap.

  “Why doesn’t she just go to sleep?” Tears asked. Her breath was cloudy. We were wearing coats we found on the fence outside the church, but we had no hats or gloves.

  “She’s not sleepy,” I answered.

  “She can hardly keep her eyes open.”

  It was hard to believe Tears was so innocent.

  “How old are you, really?” 2Moro asked.

  “Sixteen.”

  “How come you run away every time the cops come around?”

  “I don’t know.” Tears lifted her shoulders and let them drop.

  “Listen, girl,” 2Moro said, “I’m fifteen and you sure ain’t no older than me. Tell the truth. What you afraid of?”

  “Okay, I’m fourteen,” Tears said.

  “What year were you born?”

  “Uh …”

  “If you’re gonna lie, you gotta be faster than that,” Rainbow said without lifting her head. She did that all the time. Acted like she was totally out of it, but she was really right there, listening. “You’re twelve, right?”

  “I’ll be thirteen in March.”

  “Where you from?” 2Moro asked.

  Tears stared at her with those big round eyes.

  “Girl, you can tell us,” 2Moro said.

  “I thought you’re not supposed to tell,” Tears replied.

  “Who said?” Rainbow asked.

  “Ain’t it a rule?”

  “We don’t have no rules,
” Rainbow said. “I come from North Miami Beach, Florida. Maybe, tell her where you come from.”

  “Uh, I don’t know,” I said.

  “How can you not know where you’re from?” Tears asked.

  “It wasn’t one place. It was all over.”

  “Maybe’s mom was a carnie,” Rainbow explained. “Traveled with a circus. What exactly your mom do, Maybe?”

  “Lot of things,” I said. “Sometimes she fed the animals. Put up and tore down the tents. Took the tickets for the freak show.”

  “This whole city’s a freak show,” 2Moro said.

  Rainbow turned to Tears. “So where’re you from?”

  “Hundred, West Virginia.”

  “A hundred West Virginias?” 2Moro teased.

  “No, it’s called Hundred,” Tears explained. “That’s the name of the town, and it’s in West Virginia.”

  “Why’s it called that?” I asked.

  “Everybody says something different,” Tears said. “Like it’s the speed limit or how long you have to count with your eyes closed to miss the whole town. Or it’s the average IQ.”

  “So what happened?” Rainbow asked. “What are you doing here?”

  “Brent moved in.”

  “Let me guess,” Rainbow said. “Your mom’s new boyfriend? Or your new stepfather?”

  Tears’s eyes went wide. “Stepfather. How did you know?”

  “Happens all the time. So what’d he do? Start beating you?”

  Tears shook her head. “He touched me. Mom would go to work and he put his hands inside my clothes. Said if I told her he’d say I asked him to do it.”

  “So you left?”

  Tears’s eyes got watery. “One day when Brent wasn’t around I told her what he was doing. She didn’t believe me. Said if it was true then I musta wanted him to do it. Then she called me a lot of names. I couldn’t believe it.”

  “So you ran away?”

  Tears shook her head again. The tears left streaks on her face. “I was scared. Didn’t know where to go so I stayed. Only then it got worse. I guess Brent found out I told my mom and that she didn’t believe me. So then he figured he could do anything he wanted. That’s when I left.”

  “No aunts or uncles?” Rainbow asked.

  “I got grandparents.”

  “Where?”

  “In Hundred. But my grandpa got this disease. I think it’s called Harkinson’s or something. Makes him shake all over. So he can’t feed himself or get dressed. My grandma has to take care of him. I asked my mom if I could go live with them, but she said no, they already got enough problems without me around.”

  A boxy white truck pulled up. It had a picture of a fish on the side. The driver got out. He had a beard, but he wasn’t old. He was thin and wore a red baseball cap, a blue plaid shirt, jeans, and scuffed brown cowboy boots.

  “Spare some change?” I asked as he crossed the sidewalk toward the Good Life.

  He stopped and stared at me. People always stared the first time they saw me. “Why? So you can buy dope?”

  I shook my head. “No, sir. Coffee and doughnuts.”

  He raised an eyebrow and went into the deli.

  “My ears hurt it’s so cold. Can’t we go somewhere?” Tears put her hands over her ears to warm them.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe we could find an unlocked car.”

  “No way,” I warned her. “They find you in their car, they beat the crap out of you.”

  “Then what about—”

  “Hush,” I said, sensing something.

  “What?”

  “Someone’s coming,” I said.

  Tears looked down the sidewalk. Except for the streetlights it was dark and empty. “Where?”

  If you lived on the street long enough you could sense things in the night before you saw them. A moment later a man appeared down the sidewalk. The leather soles of his shoes scraped lightly against the ground. He was wearing a long dark coat. His slacks were pressed to a sharp crease and his black hair was combed neatly back. Could have been just another person out late at night, but he wasn’t. That’s what you sensed. When they were looking for something.

  He stopped in front of us and his eyes fixed on 2Moro. She pushed herself away from the wall, and crushed her cigarette with the toe of her shoe. The man started to walk back the way he came, and she followed him into the dark not saying good-bye to us.

  “I’m never gonna do that,” Tears said. “Don’t care how cold or hungry I get.”

  A siren wailed somewhere in the dark. In a building across the street, a light went on. Through the window I watched a bald man in a blue bathrobe pull open a refrigerator door and look inside.

  “So what about you?” Tears asked me. “What are you doing here?”

  “My mom told me to go.”

  “Why?”

  “She drank up all the food money. I was the oldest and she said she couldn’t afford to keep me around anymore. Said I was the biggest so I had to go.” It was worse than that. Way worse. But I didn’t like to talk about it because then I had to remember.

  “How come your skin’s like that?” Tears asked.

  My skin was a blotchy patchwork of dark and light color, like a dog with a brown and white face. A doctor told my mom it wasn’t a disease; it was a “condition.” The color in your skin is called pigment, and the pigment in my skin is light brown. But I also have big patches where there’s no pigment and the skin is whitish pink. If you think hard you might remember once seeing someone who looked like me.

  “It’s just the way I was born,” I said.

  “Did you get into trouble a lot?” Tears asked next.

  “Where?”

  “With your mom.”

  “I tried to be good, but she was always mad at me anyway. Said I forgot to do this or I shouldn’t have done that. She wanted me to take care of the little ones. Feed ’em and clean ’em and stuff.”

  “Didn’t you go to school?”

  “I was supposed to, but most of the time we were too busy moving from one place to the next, and she needed me to stay home to look after the kids. You ever take care of little kids?”

  Tears shook her head.

  “It’s a pain. They don’t stay still or do what they’re told.”

  “How many were there?” Tears asked.

  “She got four besides me. All littler.”

  “Do you miss them?”

  “One or two. I’m the only one who’s all mixed up colors.” And the only one with a scar on her back from being burned with a hot iron.

  The door to the Good Life swung open and the truck driver with the red baseball cap came out. He was carrying a gray cardboard tray with four white paper cups filled with coffee and a white paper bag of doughnuts neatly folded over at the top.

  “Where’s your friend?” he asked, counting only Rainbow, Tears, and me.

  “She had to go somewhere,” I answered.

  “Well, here you go.” He handed me the tray and bag and turned toward the truck.

  “That’s it?” I asked. “You don’t want anything in return?”

  He stopped. “You gonna listen if I tell you to go home to your parents?”

  Tears and me didn’t answer. The truck driver touched the brim of his cap. “I’ll look for you the next time I come by. That is, if any of you are still here.”

  FOUR

  The building had dull sheets of metal where the windows once were and a black metal door locked with a chain across it. Scaffolding rose up the front and a big blue Dumpster sat at the curb. During the day workmen were fixing it up. At night the building was empty. We stood in the rain while OG pulled a metal sheet off a window. It was dark inside and the steady downpour outside sounded like tambourines. We lit candles in a big room on the second floor. The air inside was damp and chilled, but at least we were dry. From other rooms we dragged in an old mattress, some broken chairs, and an upside-down pail to sit on. Here and there patches of
yellow wallpaper clung to the walls, and Maggot covered them with black spray-painted signs of anarchy, a circle with a capital A inside, and his tag, CLASS WAR, in big black letters.

  Rainbow lay on the mattress, wrapped in a tattered pink baby quilt she’d found in the garbage. The quilt had bunny rabbits on it, and white stuffing leaked out of rips. Rainbow’s eyes were closed. I sat on the corner of the mattress and watched a candle’s flickering light dance on her soft, pale skin. A few strands of blond hair fell across her eyes. Rainbow was the only kid I knew whose blond hair was real. I thought she was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen.

  In another corner, 2Moro and Jewel were on their knees in front of a big shard of broken mirror propped against the wall. Small bunches of candles on the floor provided light. It looked kind of religious. Like in a church. All together, the candles made enough light to cast huge, hulking shadows of 2Moro and Jewel against the far wall.

  Under her patchwork jacket 2Moro was wearing a tight purple tank top, a short black leather skirt, fishnet stockings, and leather boots. Her bright red hair stood up straight. Next to her Jewel patted rouge onto his dark cheeks. He’d dyed his hair Manic Panic Purple and the highlights shined in the candlelight. He wore a long black leather coat and under it black pants and a white shirt.

  “You finished with the eyeliner?” he asked 2Moro.

  “Almost,” she answered.

  “Don’t be a hog,” he said.

  “Go put on lipstick,” 2Moro told him.

  “First I want to wait to see how the eyeliner looks,” Jewel said.

  “Then you gonna have to wait,” said 2Moro.

  “Did you take your pills today?” he asked. Every day 2Moro was supposed to take eight pills for her HIV.

  “Get lost.”

  “The doctor at the clinic said if you don’t take those pills, it’s going to turn into AIDS.”

  2Moro rolled her eyes and ignored him.

  Jewel’s cell phone rang. He reached into his small black leather handbag and took it out. “Hello?” he answered in a singsong voice. “Oh, hi, Suzy. I’m home getting ready for tonight. What? She’s on TV right now? Oh, God, I’d love to see her, but my little brother’s watching and he’s such a monster. Another TV? Oh, sure, we’ve got lots of them, but you know, that means going to a whole other floor and this house is just too big. So you’ll tell me all about it when I see you at the club, okay? Great. Your number’s in my Palm Pilot, silly. See you later. Ciao!”