Almost Home (10 page)

She doesn’t seem embarrassed that we’re here. In front of Critter she felt like a loser even saying she had parents, worried he would think she wasn’t cool. She has no idea probably that he’s just jealous. Now she’s puffed up and brave-acting, like kids who break into houses in movies. All tough shoulder swagger, one hand in her magenta hair. Her other hand shakes gripping the key in the lock.

She wiggles it open anyway, though, and it creaks. We go into the front hall which is covered in beige carpet, so clean it’s almost shiny. We both get boot prints on it. I tell her sorry and bend down to rub mine out with my shirt: I’ve stolen enough to know you don’t leave tracks. But she just goes “It’s cool, man” and motions me back up before I’m done. I let her be in charge, even though I know it’s not a good idea. It’s funny how she acts like Critter when he’s not around.

She says “Come on” and heads upstairs to the living room. I’ve never been inside a house like this. Some of my fosters had money, but just the small-town-in-Arizona kind, never like people in big cities have. The best I’ve seen is stucco ceilings, little wooden tables, and a comfortable plaid couch. Mostly the houses I’ve been in have holes in the walls. But this one has fancy peach paint and a big leather couch and a TV that’s stretched out flat like a movie screen. Part of the floor is cold gray marble and the other part is wood, and lights hang from the ceiling like the kind you see through windows inside fancy restaurants. There are even miniature palm trees growing inside in pots. I feel like I’m in a TV show.

Eeyore goes to the kitchen. The refrigerator is huge and shiny silver. She grabs my backpack off my back and starts stuffing it. Peanut butter, hummus, juice. She’s taking so much I get scared someone will notice, but when I look in the refrigerator it’s still packed so full that you can’t really tell. I know she’s still mad at me from yesterday: she hasn’t talked to me except to tell me what to do and where to go. The more she takes, though, the happier she seems. She’s proud, I think, is what it is.

Between jars clinking in the fridge there’s a clunk from down the hall. She doesn’t stop until I put my hand on her wrist, my breathing slowed way down, and tell her “Shhh.” She slides some cheese into my bag and stops to listen. My ears are like a rabbit.

There’s another clunk. And then a doorknob twisting, and then footsteps. “Shit,” I whisper. I look for windows we can climb out of. There aren’t any; all of them have screens. The feet get fast and louder.

Then they come into the kitchen. I guess the lady’s Eeyore’s mom, even though she doesn’t look a thing like her. She’s in a business suit and panty hose, no shoes, like she was taking a nap in the middle of work. Her brown hair is blow-dried and she’s pretty in that brittle sort of way. Her eyes go wide open when she sees us.

She looks at Eeyore: her face crumples up like she’s about to cry, and she yells “Elly!” She starts to run to her, tears spilling out. But then she looks at me.

Her eyes narrow into little slits. I’ve gotten that face before, but usually from cops. I follow her gaze down onto my shirt and shorts and boots. I watch as her lip curls at the dirt. There’s almost as much on her own kid’s clothes, but she can’t see it. All she can see is me. I watch it take five seconds for a story to click into place: for everything to become my fault inside her head. Then she turns right back to Eeyore.

“Is this what you ran away to be with?” she says. Like it’s hardly a question, like I’m hardly a person. She’s giving Eeyore that slit-eyed cop look now.

“No,” Eeyore goes, like
Duh
, and makes a face like
That was the stupidest question on earth
. Her mom doesn’t buy it. She turns back to me.

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen,” I tell her.

“Do you know how old Elly is?” she asks me.

“Thirteen?” I guess.

“Twelve. She’s twelve years old. You have taken a twelve-year-old out of her house and put her in God knows what kind of danger. I don’t know who you are or what you think you are doing, but you are not going to do it with my daughter.”

“I’m not your daughter,” Eeyore mutters.

The woman flips around.
“What?”

“You’re not my fucking mom, Linda,” Eeyore says. Her voice is quiet and mad.

It’s obviously true, because it stops Linda for a second. But just a second: “You know what, young lady? I don’t care. I’m tired of you raking me over the coals because I’m not your mother. I’ve had it. Your father and I work ourselves to the bone to give you
everything
. And then you run off with—” She can’t even say it; she just looks at me. When I look back her eyes ricochet right off my face and land on Eeyore.

“You don’t give me anything,” Eeyore says. She’s angry like the cherry of a cigarette, but also small, and scared. Everyone else in the room is bigger than her, could rub her out beneath our shoes.

“Aside, of course, from the food you’re stealing from my refrigerator. That’s it. You’re staying here, and this”— she looks at me like she doesn’t know what to call me, like she wants to spit—“
boy
is leaving. Right. Now.”

I’ve got no objections to leaving. In fact, I’d like to do it immediately. But I can see on Eeyore’s face that she can’t stay. And I remember from last night the reason why.

There’s a face-off. Eeyore just stands there, silent. Her body’s like steel but her face is trembling. I can see tears start to well up in her eyes. I know once they spill out it’ll be over: she’ll crumble and stay. Eeyore is little and Linda is bigger and Critter’s not here for Eeyore to run to and I’ve been in enough bad houses to know what it means if she stays.

“She’s leaving.” I hear myself say it: my heart’s loud in my ears like last night and blood runs fast into my fingertips.

Both of them turn to look at me. Linda’s still in charge: she squints at me like I’m a bug she wants to step on. I try again, louder—“She doesn’t want to stay with you”—and before I can even finish the words she’s yelling at me. She says “Get out” and “I’m calling the police.” But she doesn’t make a move for the phone.

“Fuck you,” I tell her, just to call her bluff. Then her eyes flash and she’s angry, all of her, not half of her like Critter in the parking lot. She calls me a bunch of names, lips curled, flecks of spit flying out of her mouth. Dirty, ugly, criminal. I recognize the words: they jolt me back inside my ears to a place that’s familiar and old. Now she doesn’t sound like cops. She sounds like a way-back feeling inside my ribs, and her words tunnel around me in the kitchen. All I can see is right in front of my eyes and everything goes clear like glass and I feel weirdly calm. Linda finishes with “—she ran away to be with filth like you.” I didn’t even hear what came before that, but I know what to tell her.

“No she didn’t.” I notice Eeyore’s watching me, but I can’t tell what her eyes look like. “You want to know why she ran away?” I think Eeyore might be crying. “She ran away because your kid, whatever the fuck his name is, was raping her for fucking years. Did you know that? Did you do anything? Probably fucking not. So don’t blame me that Eeyore ran away. She ran away from you.” My face is hot and when the words are done I notice that I’m panting.

She just stands there like an idiot. Her mouth is a little open, like she’s sleeping in a chair. Eeyore’s not moving, except for her face: she’s definitely crying for real now. Snot and tears mix on her chin. I watch her out of the corners of my eyes. She looks at me to see what I’ll do next; I keep my eyes on Linda.

Linda reminds me of a cow, heavy and blank. Like if you tipped her over she wouldn’t know how to get back up.

She doesn’t say anything. It’s just a few seconds but it seems like forever. The silence swells up the room. I glance over and Eeyore’s face is like a little kid’s, wide open, waiting. All her street-kid bluster is gone and she’s staring at Linda, stripped down to a place I haven’t felt since I was five, so soft I wouldn’t be surprised if she stretched out her arms and asked to be picked up.

“You’re lying,” Linda says. She says it to me but then she looks at Eeyore, testing her out. Eeyore doesn’t talk— she can’t, I think—but after a second she shakes her head, just an inch, the smallest, softest answer she can give.

Linda’s voice gets louder now, hard and strong like a boss at work. “You’re lying,” she says again, this time to Eeyore.

It’s like a door slides across Eeyore’s face and slams shut hard enough to lock itself. Her mouth stitches up and her jaw clamps down. The only thing left from before are her eyes, wet and warm. That feeling of wanting to take care of her swells up in the middle of my chest, pressing against a hot fierce kind of mad that comes from farther below.

Sometimes Germ’ll go nuts like a watchdog when some random guy walks too close on the sidewalk, barking and whining and jumping around. That’s never when I worry. When someone’s really dangerous he lets out this slow growl, too soft for anyone to hear except for who it’s meant for. “She’s not lying,” I say to Linda. It comes out quiet and low.

Her voice just gets higher. “She’s my daughter, I should damned well know when she’s lying.” I want to remind her that Eeyore’s not her daughter, but she just keeps going. “You think you know better than her own family?” and points laser eyes at me.

“Yeah, I do,” I say. It’s not a fight, it’s just true.

She can’t really say anything back to that, so she starts talking to me like I’m five. Her voice turns singsong like nursery school except there’s metal behind it. “Okay, I’m going to explain this to you, even though I know you’re not going to understand. Eleanor is a rebellious teenager. She has to hate her parents. And you’ve obviously brainwashed her into thinking that you and whatever the hell you do are a lot more fun than living with us and going to school. We’re a good, healthy, happy family here, so in order to run off with you, Eleanor has to invent a problem. That’s what’s going on. Eleanor is lying, and you believe her lies; or maybe you came up with them in the first place, I don’t know. But I’m the adult here. My job is to protect her. And protecting her means getting her away from you.”

“It does not!” Eeyore yells. It breaks the lock Linda and I have on each other. We both turn around. Eeyore’s face is pink and her feet are stomped down. Her eyes are bright and mad. “Squid and Critter and Rusty take care of me. You don’t. You don’t fucking do anything. All you care about is your job and my dad and stupid Brian, and you do anything any of them tells you to and you don’t give a shit about me. You just pretend you do so my dad will like you. You’re a liar. You don’t give a shit about protecting me. If you did you would believe me.”

Eeyore stops there, almost surprised that last part came out of her mouth. She stares at Linda, chin still tilted up, feet still planted. Linda stares back until she can’t. She stammers and her eyes brush the floor for a second. Then she points them up at me and opens her mouth to start in. I’m an easier target.

Before she can think of what to say, I shrug. “She’s right,” I tell Linda. “If you were protecting her you’d believe her.”

And then I turn around to Eeyore and I say “Wanna go?” and she looks at me with the surest eyes in the world and says “Yeah.” I grab her backpack and she grabs my hand, and we turn and go downstairs and out the door, headed back toward Winchell’s and Benito’s and our little sidewalk family. Linda doesn’t try to stop us. On the way out Eeyore stops to put the key back. Then she changes her mind and pockets it.

“
When the shit finally goes down we’re gonna be
the cockroaches,” I tell Critter, and he grins at me with his gnarly chipped tooth and passes me the 40. “Shut the fuck up, man,” he says, but I know he knows it’s true. We’re the toughest motherfuckers in this silicone Babylon, and when all the yuppies finally melt down in their PT Cruisers, soft as wadded-up tissues and just as fuckin’ flammable, we’ll still be here to live off their burnt-up waste. We already know how.

He’s always busting my balls when I talk about the way it’s all laid out, what’s coming down, but I don’t give a shit. We’re on the same page. Like: here we are spare-changing up on Hollywood by the Ripley’s museum and the parasites have been passing us by for three hours with their “get-a-job” fat tourist shit, and I know Critter hasn’t eaten in more than half a day but he gets up to take a piss and comes back with a Dumpstered slice of pepperoni, all intact, no mold, and hands it over to
me
. I’d tell him thanks but he already knows so I just say “You fucker” and offer him the crust.

Altogether I’ve known Critter ten months and two cities, which out here is going on forever. When I met him in Reno I’d been there three weeks and knew I wasn’t staying: Tahoe tourists could suck my dick and plus it was summer, so no guilty college kids to drop their quarters in your cup. I’d hitched from Cedar City, Utah, a.k.a. “home,” a.k.a. Hell; finally ran for good when my drunk-ass dad knocked out three of my teeth and went for his gun. I was used to the blood in my mouth: we’d been cooped up in that rusty trailer since Mom took off when I was eight. But the gun was new.

I was planning on Vegas but a ride north on 15 came first, so Salt Lake for half a year, then west on 80, and before I knew it I was stuck in scenic Reno, old-fart vacation paradise. Everyone in pastels getting ready to die, and I was out of cash. Critter came up on me spare-changing by the A&W, sat down, and told me fuck all of fuckin’ Nevada. He’d come out there following some girl who’d since fucked some guy and now he was homesick as shit for L.A. I told him fuck that girl. When he took off he lent me five bucks and told me I could pay him back in Hollywood.

Next time I saw him was at Benito’s on Santa Monica. I bought him five rolled tacos for $2.99. I still owed him two more bucks, but he said he wasn’t thirsty.

In Hollywood you can see it coming better than just about anywhere. Back in Utah everyone’s always talking about the end times, battening down their hatches, but they don’t really know. They can stockpile all the Costco shit they want, build chicken-wire compounds for their sixty wives out in the orange dust desert and pray to their big daddy God, but when the shit hits the fan they’ll be lost without Wal-Mart. It’s all a big bedtime story to them anyway. But in L.A. you can see it. Stretch Humvees with blue neon on the bottom, mansions big as Marriotts, the same twenty faces pasted on seven hundred billboards posters magazines: they narrow down what you can look at till the parts of your brain that know how to survive shrivel up and you’re left driving from Staples to Rite Aid to Vons, feeling really fuckin’ concerned about Cameron Diaz’s love life. I mean, not that I’m not concerned with Cameron Diaz’s love life. I could maybe help her out with that. But you know what I mean.

I don’t look at billboards. No airbrushing for me. The L.A. I live in is the same now as it will be afterward: alleys, underpasses, Dumpsters, trash. Smashed glass, crumbled concrete, holes in fences. It’s all about finding the cracks in things and shoving them open till they’re big enough for you to squeeze in. That’s where Critter and me crash most nights, in between buildings or up against cars, practicing, I guess, for when the whole world is roofless.

We were wedged between the 7-Eleven and a chain-link fence the night that Mr. Drunkfuck came to steal my shit. Critter and me’d been hanging out a week by then but only from convenience: there wasn’t anything about it that was realer than just being in the same spot as each other every day. I sort of tacked on to Critter’s crew: Rusty, Squid and Germ, this little chick called Eeyore who couldn’t’ve been more than twelve but had tits already and burgundy hair like a two-day-old bruise. Eeyore’d hang around and spange for us, buy us 7-Eleven hot dogs, extra relish. She had some home to go to when she wanted: she’d leave sometimes in the afternoons, come back before five smelling like warm food and detergent, but she was all right. The mascot, kinda.

Anyway the night of Drunkfuck it must’ve been five in the morning because the sky was halfway between dark and light, still blue like a pair of clean jeans with no smog or sun to yellow it, sunrise creeping up from underneath. This fucker came up the alley yelling “Eeyore,” sounding like a donkey, waking us all up. I could taste the Mad Dog from last night in the spit-strings between my lips, and I smelled the same shit coming off of Mr. Drunk except he had a fresh bottle in his hand at five in the morning; plus he was at least forty, so he had no excuse. A beard, too. One of those guys.

He slurred, tipping sideways like a top that just stopped spinning, “Eeyore said she’d buy me breakfast.” Critter and Squid sat up, rubbing their eyes; Germ perked his ears up and Rusty rolled over. Eeyore must’ve woken up early, gone for donuts. “Where’z she go?”

Squid laid back down on his pack, closed his eyes halfway: good-bye, Mr. Drunkfuck. But the guy kept on talking: she promised she’d be here to buy him eggs and he was hungry, man, and what was he supposed to do. Fuckin’ Eeyore. She was always talking to losers like this, thinking she could make them her friends. Something about the smell of his breath pissed me off, even though mine probably stank the same, and I looked up at him from under my eyebrows and told him “Get the fuck outta here, you nasty fucking wino.”

He fixed his eyes on me, little blue rings smushed between big blank pupils and swollen bloodshot red, and slurred “Fuck you, fuckin’ orangeface.” Then he swayed around like Stevie Wonder and reached down and grabbed my pack. I jumped up, blinking back the head rush, then lunged back at him, gripping one of the straps. He wobbled and I was sure I could just pull him off his feet, kick him away and be done with it, but then he broke his bottle on the wall and shoved it in my face. He waved it right beneath my nose, close enough to clink against the metal of my septum pierce and make me jump backward.

The shit is, when that happens, no matter who’s around, you’re on your own. Everyone knows everyone and the last thing you want is a beef that’s not even yours. Yuppies just give the guy their wallet, cut their losses, call it even. But that shit was my sleeping roll, two pairs of underwear, socks and a knife. I couldn’t call an 800 number to get it back. And getting my face slashed up by some infected wino was not on my to-do list either, but Germ wasn’t much of a watchdog, and Squid was pretending to sleep on the asphalt behind me, Rusty curled up next to him like some kind of fag.

Then Critter stood up with his chain. He had to be a full foot taller than Drunk, even if he was skinny enough to disappear when you saw him from the side. The chain was tucked in Critter’s knuckles and the lock at the end of it swayed more than Mr. Drunkfuck trying to get his balance, backing up and stumbling. Drunkfuck dropped my pack beside me; then he turned and ran.

Critter yelled out at his saggy denim ass: “Hey, man, aren’t you gonna buy us breakfast?” Squid and Rusty just looked up at Critter like they wished they thought of it.

After that Critter and me were brothers. I don’t mean that in the hippie way, like the lice-infested dreadlocked fucks hitching their way to the Rainbow Gathering who say “Hey, brother,” all soft and smooth like you’re long-lost family, when really they just want to know if you’ve got weed. I mean it in the for-real way, the way that’s not the kind of shit you talk about, the way that you just do.

Pretty quick the days start blurring together. It’s weird how that happens here and I think it’s the weather, seventy-five degrees each day and sunny like someone set the thermostat for the city and it just runs, like a machine. Back in Utah it was desert: hot enough to cook you in the day and cold at night, wind blowing sand into your face till the sun came up, and there were seasons. Something at least to help you count the days. Not here. The weather in L.A. is like a cradle, the changes in it just enough to rock you back and forth and keep you sleeping.

I haven’t gotten hungry since I got to Hollywood, mostly ’cause of Eeyore. It’s a good thing her pockets are so deep; otherwise I’d get pissed off at the way she hangs around and tells us stories we all know are lies to make us think that she’s a hardass, which we don’t. But she’s the money. It’s amazing how that shit’ll give you patience.

Eeyore pays for all kinds of crap: cigarettes, Del Taco, hot dogs, and people always give her change on the street because she looks so young they’re scared for her. Everyone is. Bianca the trannie loved to say that just the smell of us alone could scar that child for life. Then Bianca disappeared to jail or wherever. But she must’ve told her little gum-snapping posse of whores to keep an eye on Eeyore between tricks, because they do. Plus the soccer moms pull up beside the sidewalk in their SUVs, call Eeyore over to their passenger windows, away from us big scary guys. They all want to find out what happened to her mom and dad, give her a ride someplace, adopt her ass, but she won’t go over to the cars; Critter says the cops’ll think she’s tricking.

Eeyore doesn’t need soccer moms or trannies, though; she’s got Critter looking out for her. Some days I half expect him to help her with her homework. I could mind it but I don’t, not at first at least: Critter lets her sit there, but he talks to me. When I’m around, Eeyore chills out on the bullshit braggy stories, gives us cash and sits there quiet. If she gets bored she goes over to Rusty and Squid and pets Germ. Works for me. As long as she’s seen and not heard.

The old-school pimps stroll by each day at three, tricked out in James Brown hair and shiny shoes, all orange and snakeskin. The day they spot Eeyore they suddenly get interested; they slow down when they pass us, putting manners on and calling her “young lady.” Eeyore just looks up at them with saucer eyes that would’ve got her thrown in the back of someone’s Town Car if us guys weren’t there. Rusty gets all squirmy like he’s scared of them; Squid pulls Germ closer and looks the other way.

But Critter stares the pimps down like they’re not forty years tougher than his pretty white ass. He gets right in front of Eeyore and covers her up with his shoelace-skinny shadow, shading her eyes so she won’t see what they want from her. His face is brave, like nothing matters except keeping Eeyore in the dark behind him. The pimps look Critter up and down and walk on by, figuring she’s spoken for. Once they’re gone Critter puts his arm around Eeyore and says “Let’s go get a Coke,” knowing she’ll pay.

The whole thing makes me realize how different it is if you’re a girl.

* * *

In L.A. everyone’s always locked up in their little air-conditioned metal boxes; nobody’s ever on the sidewalk for more than twenty seconds except us and trannies and the drunks. We hardly ever see civilians unless we’re spanging, and when we do they never look at us. I guess you get used to only seeing the people who look like you. All of this to say: unless we want some ancient junkie hooker, there’s no opportunity for girls.

But a week after the pimps, this whole load of high school chicks pulls up to 7-Eleven in their yellow Hummer. These girls are insane, with shampoo you can smell, low-cut show-the-thong jeans, the whole shit. Half of them is silicone that Daddy bought—they’ll melt when the shit goes down and the city burns up—but it’s not like I mind, in the meantime.

When they first pull into the parking lot they’re trying to pretend we’re not there, like the spot of sidewalk where we’re sitting is a place their eyes won’t go. Everybody does it; you can see it through the windshield. But then the one with the dyed-blond hair elbows the one with the dyed-red hair and now they’re all looking at Critter and you can tell they’re just creaming in their pants about how cute he is, staring at him. He’s skinny as fuck but he’s tall, taller than me even, and he’s got one of those faces with the cheekbones and the jawline, all sharp angles and symmetry, stupid puppy-dog eyes. They’re still looking sideways around me like I’m an ugly building, but they’re ready to take Critter back to Daddy’s mansion. They probably think they can save him from his sordid life of crime. Girl shit.

The way I see it Critter’s got an opportunity, but Eeyore’s stuck to his side. She’s curled into him like he’s some pillow, smoking her cigarette down to the filter; she looks up at him when she thinks he can’t see, trying to tell if he’s gonna cut her loose. Her face is all open, like she needs something from him so bad she doesn’t have anything left to hide it with. It kind of makes me sick to my stomach, how much of her shows on her face. Like she’s asking to get hit. But Critter just stays there, doesn’t look down at her but doesn’t look away either, his arm around her shoulders all buddy-buddy, solid, and the girls wash up onto the sidewalk like a wave, hang there a second like they’re waiting for someone to stop them, and nobody does so they push through the door and keep going. The door shuts slow on its hinge, muffling their too-loud girl laughs till you can’t hear them anymore, and the whole time Critter’s still got his arm around Eeyore, just staying there, and I think to myself this little kid has no idea how lucky she is.

Of course she has to push it, though. After the pimps and then the Hummer girls, Eeyore gets the idea that she’s Critter’s special something, and starts being heard as well as seen. She shoves her way into any conversation Critter’s having, and if me and him go off, she somehow manages to always find us. Like some kind of psychic shit, how she appears at Benito’s, Winchell’s, Koo Koo Roo exactly fifteen minutes after we do. She’s like a tick you can’t pull out without the head staying stuck in your skin.

She starts showing up not just with money, but with food: Fruit Roll-Ups, Doritos, whole bags of McDonald’s. Which is cool with me. The way I see it, eating her stuff is just another way of Dumpstering, living off the extra from whatever family she goes and gets her shit from. Redistributing the wealth. Critter mostly won’t take the stuff she brings, though. He’ll put the greasy white paper bags down on the sidewalk, nod for us to dig in, keep his hands clean. Eeyore always looks a little sad; she wants him to eat it all himself, like she cooked it for him. But she never says anything.