Anonymity (12 page)

HIS ASSIGNMENT had gone from the dry subject of drought to the juicy job of writing about the aftermath of a major flood.

The last great flood ripped through Austin back in 1981. That event took Shoal Creek from ninety gallons of water per minute to six million. Just like then, thunderstorms had ringed Austin for miles, and the city had gotten ten inches of rain in four hours. Dark purple clouds spun out tornadoes that eviscerated the area. The capital city was a raw sore waiting to be examined.

Like rescue workers and the military, reporters and photographers ran toward events and places everybody else tried to escape—fires, war zones, natural disasters.

If it bleeds it leads. Loss of life is always first on the agenda, followed by the number of people forced to flee. Next is the dollar amount of property damage.

Travis needed a photographer, but their chief photojournalist was trapped outside of the city with his family in a flooded house. The other
BHN
photographer was in the hospital delivering her first child. None of the stringers were answering calls.

“Bob,” Travis said as he flung himself into the editor's office chair, “I'm getting nowhere with photographers. I got my own stringer. Mind if I bring her on board?”

“Just get me a cover shot.”

“Will do.”

“Do whatever you have to do. Deadline is three on Tuesday.”

He'd just finished packing his reporter paraphernalia when in walked Emily. She said she had wheels for the situation, so Travis had agreed to let her drive.

She stopped at the front desk and talked to Lily, who looked back at Travis, a little frown on her face that made him smile. She pointed Emily toward his desk.

“Hey,” she said. “I'm ready. Let's do this thing.”

“Did you just drink a triple espresso or are you an adrenaline junky?” he asked.

“Both,” she said.

He followed her outside to an enormous SUV.

“Whose wheels?” he asked as they got in.

“My mom's.”

“The dashboard looks like the cockpit of a 787.”

“I know, right?”

A press pass dangled from the rearview.

“Where'd you get credentials?”

“Those are my mom's too.”

“She a reporter?”

“Public relations.”

Travis wondered where the woman had snagged a precious press pass, but there was no reason to bring this up to Emily.

“So? Where to?” she asked

All business. He liked this side of her.

“Drive down to the waterways. Pease Park first. You know, down by Shoal Creek.”

“Where we went that first day?”

“Exactly.”

“Bet it's all underwater.”

“Guess we'll find out. Things will probably go by fast, so if you don't mind, I'm going to talk into my recorder while you drive.”

“Fine by me.”

Travis grabbed a digital recorder from his pack. Within a mile, he had clicked it on.

“Too much water,” he said. “In all the wrong places.”

BARBARA'S SUV plowed through deep pools awash with debris that would have thwarted a lesser vehicle. At the top of a rise, Emily abruptly halted. The slope was steep and the road below ended in dirty coffee-colored river roiling with plastic bottles, clothing, lawn furniture and general yuck.

“Whoa,” she said.

“Can you make it?” Travis asked.

Emily swallowed hard and gripped the steering wheel when she realized where he meant.

Stranded at the bottom of the hill, two guys and a girl huddled on the roof of a car. Water spiraled above the tires.

She checked to make sure the all-wheel drive was engaged and then slowly plowed on.

“Where's your camera?” Travis asked.

“In the back, in my bag.”

He took it out and began shooting the marooned storm victims as they approached. Something about his actions seemed callous, but Emily shook it off. There was no reason he couldn't get his story at the same time they helped the kids.

The SUV shuttered in the current. She fought to keep a straight path.

“Shit,” Emily said. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

“You're doing fine. Just keep moving.”

She maneuvered up next to the car. Water was forced into the wedge between the two vehicles and rushed over the hood of the stranded car.

“Back up. This won't work,” Travis said.

“If I get parallel can they climb in the back window? If we open the door water will come in.”

“I think that'll work,” Travis said.

Emily repositioned the SUV. When they were in a solid spot, Travis thrust the camera at Emily.

“Take pictures.”

“Now?”

“That's your job. Do it.”

He crawled behind the driver's seat and let the back window down on the side near the car. Suddenly, the SUV lurched with the full of force of the water against its side.

“Come on!” he yelled. “You have to crawl through! I'll help you.”

Cold and in shock, the three marooned kids moved like arthritic old people. The boys held on to the shaking girl as she straddled the distance between the car's roof and the SUV's back window. Travis grabbed her, and she fell inside on top of him.

“Get in the back,” he said.

She moved back to the third row of seats. Travis turned to the window in time to see the first boy's grip fail on the window's lip. He had jumped and missed. Travis grabbed his forearms, but the crush of water pushed the boy under the vehicles.

“Pull him up for God's sake, Travis!” Emily cried. She had been getting a few shots, but she flung the camera up on the dash, reached out the driver's window, grabbed a handful of pants and yanked as hard as she could. That raised the boy out of the swirling suck enough that he could wedge his feet against the outside mirror. Travis let go and Emily pulled the boy inside. Water rushed in with him and filled the floorboards.

They sat panting, dripping water.

“My mother…my mother's…going to kill me,” Emily said, looking at the sludge and water everywhere.

“Just tell her you're a hero,” Travis said. He turned back to the last boy on the car's roof. “Come slowly. Put your hand on the roof, then your foot on the window ledge,” he yelled. “Don't dive.”

The last boy was tall and lanky, and he made it inside with little effort. They had a hard time moving around so that the three kids were in the back and Travis was back up front with Emily.

“Are you guys okay?” Travis asked when they had finally settled.

“Thank you so much,” one boy said. “We've been sitting there for like, a day or something.”

“Surely not that long,” Travis said.

“No, really man. First we were down there where those picnic tables are, and then we, like, waited for the water to go down and we came up here, and then, like, this big whoosh of water came through again and we were lucky to get on that car. They stopped traffic on this road yesterday. There's been nobody down here.”

“Anybody need a drink?” Emily handed them a bottle from her mother's stash in the console.

“Yes, oh thank you,” the girl said, coming from the back seat to grab the bottle. She drank and then passed it to one of the boys.

“I'm Emily. This is Travis.”

“I'm Star. That's Monkey and Skittles.”

One boy finished the water and handed the empty bottle back to Emily.

“So where do you guys need to go?” Travis asked.

None of them seemed to have a plan of action. They looked at each other for a good proposal. Finally, Monkey said, “I guess the drop-in.”

“Okay.” Emily put the Acadia in reverse and pushed back against the current until she could turn around and be somewhat confident that the brown creepy water didn't mask a ditch.

They held a collective breath as Emily maneuvered up out of the chewed up creek corridor. She thought of the crazy people with four-wheel drives who think they're invincible. Those were the people rescue workers would find dead in their vehicles.

In only a few minutes they reached Guadalupe, but by then the rain had returned with conviction. They sat on the street, nobody wanting to brave the downpour. It occurred to Emily that she could park wherever she wanted with the press pass.

She pulled onto the sidewalk and crept along the wall of the plaza outside of the drop-in.

“Think I'll get a ticket?” Emily said.

“In this rain? I doubt it,” Travis said.

When they stopped, he said, “Come on, I'll help you guys get inside.” The kids ran for the entrance. Travis grabbed the camera bag and gave Emily a wink.

“Jackpot,” he said.

She had no choice but to follow. They sprinted down a few concrete steps to a door. Inside, she was surprised by a couple of scraggly dogs in a playpen. Off the entryway a main room opened up, and as she stepped farther inside the body odor hit. Every inch of floor and every piece of furniture was taken. All eyes turned to the new refugees.

Star, Monkey and Skittles vanished into the room.

Travis tried to hand the camera to Emily. “Here.”

“No,” she said, and pushed it away.

“Do it,” he hissed. “I'll do the talking. You get the shots.”

A man came toward them. He had the beginnings of a beard and his brown hair curled down inside the collar of his biker jacket. He extended a hand to Travis.

“Hey, man. What's up?” he said.

“Hey David. This is Emily.”

“Hello,” she said and shook his hand.

“David's the director here,” Travis said.

“Thank you for rescuing the kids. They told me what you guys did. I'm grateful for your help,” he said.

“Absolutely,” Travis said. “No problem.”

“I'd offer you a cup of coffee, but we're fresh out.”

Somehow, Emily didn't believe that. She suddenly sensed tension between the two.

“So, if there isn't anything else I can do for you,” David said.

“Can I talk to a few of the kids? Find out about their experiences with the weather?”

“Not now. They're pretty shaken.”

“Come on, man. Just a quick interview. I'm on deadline,” Travis said.

Emily doubted that too.

“Maybe you can come back tomorrow when we've got things sorted out. Right now, we just have to get everybody fed. You understand, right?”

“Sure. I understand, man. I'll come back later.”

“Nice to meet you,” David said.

“Yes. Nice to meet you.” That's when Emily heard a shout and turned to see Travis snapping pictures of the room.

“Hey! I asked you nicely,” David said. He stepped between Travis and the room, blocking further attempts at photos.

“Yeah, you tell him, Mr. D.,” a kid shouted.

Travis put up his hands and backed away.

“I changed my mind. Don't come back tomorrow,” David said. “Stay away from my kids.”

“All right,” Travis said. “All right, man. I'm just trying to do my job.”

David gave Emily a look that implied she was guilty by association. She opened her mouth to protest, but there was nothing to say in her defense. She had known Travis's intentions.

Outside, the rain had eased. The interior of the SUV grew clammy with their damp body heat. Their breath clung to the windows.

“Well, that went well,” she quipped.

“Don't worry about David,” Travis said, undaunted. “He's overly protective of his kids. I can find us plenty of places to shoot storm damage. Hopefully, we'll scare up some other people to interview.”

Emily had intended to tell him about Lorelei, but the day had clicked by so rapidly that she hadn't had a chance. Now she knew it was good he didn't know. She couldn't allow Travis to descend on Lorelei like he had those kids. She had to protect her a while longer.

A LAYER of mud covered the concrete porch to Emily's house. Her welcome mat would never recover, but the flowerpots could be saved. Lorelei found a rotted garden hose coiled in the mud beside the house and a ratty scrub brush in the mildewed shower.

She threw out the welcome mat. With clothing detergent and elbow grease, she scoured the concrete. She cleaned all the pots and the two tiny steps, and by midday, the porch looked presentable again.

She never stopped for lunch. Lorelei cleaned the entire house from the kitchen floor to the bathroom shower.

While she cleaned, Lorelei opened the occasional drawer without finding anything the least bit racy or verboten. No giant dildos or bongs hidden in a corner. Emily had beer and wine and a couple of ashtrays, but it didn't look as if she smoked. In the back of a drawer Lorelei found rolling papers, but no weed.

There were a few family photos scattered around, one of Emily's parents and another of a really old couple Lorelei took to be grandparents. There was even a snapshot of a thin cat stuck to the mirror in her bedroom, but there was nothing to indicate she had a boyfriend. No clunky man shoes under the bed. No oversized sweatshirts. The bathroom was a wreck, but there were no telltale bits of man hair stuck to the sink. Emily seemed to be a loner. That was good for Lorelei.

It was after five and dark was closing in when the big white SUV pulled around behind the house. Lorelei almost laughed when she saw the shape it was in. Mud stuck like thick chocolate to the undercarriage and splashed in wide swaths down the sides. The windshield was opaque except for the arching paths of the wipers, and even that space was streaked with muck.

Emily took a few minutes to get out and cautiously pick her way through the bog of a yard. She toted the camera bag and balanced a giant pizza box. Lorelei relieved her of the pizza at the door.

“Thanks,” Emily said as she pushed past. “I'm exhausted.”

Emily kicked off shoes and stripped off dirty clothes, shedding them into a pile by the back door.

“Oh my God, I'm so tired I could pass out,” she said. “I really need to take a shower. I'll be out in a few minutes. Help yourself to the pizza. Don't wait on me.”

Lorelei heard the shower turn on. She found plates, forks and paper napkins. In the refrigerator she found a couple of cold Cokes and a shaker of Parmesan, and in a cabinet, some hot pepper flakes.

A few minutes later, Emily emerged, a towel wrapped around her head. She wore a thin white nightshirt, her breasts moving freely underneath. She rubbed the towel against her hair, and thong underwear peeked from beneath the shirt. Lorelei didn't see any tattoos or piercings.

“Lorelei,” she said. “I can't believe you cleaned my house.”

“I was bored.”

“Really? Thank you, but you didn't have to.”

“It needed it.”

She grinned. “Yeah, the bathroom was nasty.”

“I've seen worse.”

“Guess you think I'm a total slob. Hey, want to see my shots?”

While her images loaded into the computer, Emily shoved pizza into her mouth. “Wow. I took five hundred,” she said around a wad of dough. Her eyes scanned the laptop. “Look,” she said, and slid the monitor around. “This was freaky. That's somebody's shirt.” A man's white dress shirt was twisted around a pile of driftwood, but it looked like somebody was still inside.

“That
is
weird.”

Emily hit
slideshow
and suddenly the story unfolded. Shot after shot of a contorted world.

“Wow. You're wicked good.”

“Thanks.”

“You see people. You really see them.”

“I can't wait to show these to Travis. Help me pick a couple dozen good ones.”

An hour later, thirty possibilities were e-mailed to Travis at the paper. When she hit the send button, Emily took a deep cleansing breath and let it out slowly.

“All right then,” she said.

She took the flashcard out of the reader and inserted it back into her camera. She picked up the Canon and pointed it at Lorelei, but the girl put her hand up to block the shot.

“Come on. Why don't you want to have your photo taken? You're such an interesting person.” She adjusted the lens and a red light winked at Lorelei.

“I have my reasons.”

“But what if I never showed anybody. What if I just took them for me? For us to see.”

“People always want to take pictures of the homeless. It's exploitive.”

Emily lowered the camera. “I'd never exploit you. I want these for art's sake. Look, it's true that Travis wants to write about the homeless and I'm working for him, but I'd never show them to him or anybody else. I spent all day with him, and I never mentioned you.”

“Really?”

“Look, we can even erase any shots you don't like right after I take them. Don't you at least want to see what you look like?”

“You'll erase them if I say so?”

“Yes.”

“Promise.”

“I promise.”

She hesitated, considering.

“Well, I guess it would be okay.”

Emily slowly raised her camera. “Look out the window.”

Lorelei turned her cheek to the camera. Emily clicked and the camera whirred. Emily considered the camera's tiny screen and said, “Check this out. You look awesome.”

Lorelei studied her image, then she handed the camera back. She unzipped her sweatshirt, and underneath she wore a stained sleeveless tee. Emily now had a chance to study the girl's arm tattoos up close. She had railroad tracks, an owl, tribal armbands, a silly little dog.

“So you'd never show these to anybody?” Lorelei asked.

“Never.”

Emily raised her camera again. “Just relax. Be yourself.”

Lorelei leaned her shoulders against the kitchen's stucco wall. She raised her shirt to reveal a tiny yin and yang peeking from her jeans. Emily turned her camera vertically and adjusted a setting.

“Let's try you in black-and-white.”

Lorelei let her unruly hair fall forward. “Okay” she said. “Take it.”

The camera whirred again and Emily checked the LED.

“Wow. Black-and-white really makes your tats pop. Look.”

“That's cool.”

“Okay, ready?” Emily said.

She snapped off a couple more and Lorelei stared into the lens, her pupils wide and empty.

Emily lowered her camera to consider a different angle.

“You're so skinny, I can see your ribs.”

She reached up to move a stray piece of hair when Lorelei stepped forward and kissed her. The kiss was firm but gentle, and long enough to raise her heart rate. The girl didn't back away, but ran her hands up and down Emily's arms.

“Lorelei,” Emily said, their breath mingling. “I think you have the wrong idea.”

“Isn't this what you want?”

“No. I just want to take your picture.”

“There's usually a price.”

“For what?”

“If somebody helps you.”

“I told you before. You don't owe me anything.”

“I like you. It would be okay.”

Finally, it was Emily who stepped back. “Look, I'm not a lesbian and I'm certainly not into kids, so no offense, but I prefer dudes my own age.”

“I've had sex with lots of people. I want to.”

“Sorry. I don't do girls.”

“So…pictures are really all you want?”

“Look. Let's forget about the photos for now. I'm going to make some tea. Why don't you tell me why you got those tattoos?” Emily busied herself with the teapot. Lorelei, amused, could tell she had rattled her.

Lorelei stood against the wall, rolling her shoulders from side to side in a sexy way, twirling her hair. It was a while before she answered. How much should she tell her? How much could she reveal and still be safe?

“People take your stuff,” she said. “Things get lost. But you can never lose your body art. Nobody can take it away from you.”

“That makes sense.”

“They help me remember. See, I'm a storyboard, like a comic book, like
The Illustrated Man.
You ever read that? It's about this dude covered in tattoos, and his tats move and each one tells a different story. That's sort of how I feel. Every one of these is something about me.”

“Like what?”

“Okay, like this owl.” She turned her right arm toward Emily. “That's my name from a camp I went to once. I was ‘Whispering Owl Running.’”

The bird was a stark geometric graphic in black with dark-red details. It was upright with its wings open to each side in a perfectly balanced design. Fat tail feathers anchored the bottom. Large eyes studied you.

“I like it. Really unusual. I recognize that style. Isn't it Indian?”

“Haida. His tribe is from Canada. He was sort of my boyfriend, for a while. Then he took off.”

“What's that one?”

“My little dog.”

“Cute.”

“Yeah. He's cool. I swear sometimes he'll move around on my skin and make me think about home. I know it sounds crazy, but I can feel them sometimes. Like they're trying to tell me something.”

“What's that?” Emily asked, pointing to a skinny one that ran down her left forearm.

“Railroad tracks.”

“You hopped trains?”

“I've done it. The tracks mean I'm a traveler. All travelers get one.”

It had started at the community house in Oregon, a foreboding old structure outside of Portland where she had met up with friends. There were living spaces on the first floor and men and women's floors above. It had been fun at first. She was from a big family and had grown up in a house filled with loud older brothers eating everything and being gross.

But after a week, the kids she knew from camp had developed a darker side. Lorelei watched in fascination and horror as drugs and alcohol morphed them. Some grew twitchy, while others became morose. Some were energetic, while others slept all day. There was dejection and anger, punctuated by runs of happiness and friendship.

On one nice mellow night, they were all sitting around the big den downstairs. Somebody had scored some wood and the fireplace was roaring. Girls were braiding each other's hair. A blunt was being passed around. A guy said, “Who wants a tat?” His own body was littered with ink. A couple of kids raised their hands.

The guy sterilized a sewing needle and metal soda cap with a lighter. Somebody produced a bottle of India ink. He wrapped the needle in dental floss and bunched it to the end to hold the black dye.

Under her right eye he had scraped her first stick and poke, ten connected lines that formed an open star. Four others got the same design that night.

She hadn't known it at the time, but once your face was tattooed, nothing held you back from decorating the rest of your body. Later, Lorelei had let the guy scrape an armband into her, but she immediately regretted the poor design.

That was when her Haida wolf boy showed up and fixed everything. A tribal artist, he was traveling down from his native land, exploring the world. He had amazing animals inked on his arms and chest, each one significant to his people.

When he saw Lorelei's botched arm art, he asked if he could make it right. With his face bent to fixing her arm, she had fallen in love with his raven hair and his smooth brown skin—like the wolf boy's in her favorite novel. Later, as her arm tingled as if from sunburn, she gave herself to him. She had been with boys at home, but it had never been good. The first time she truly made love was on a dirty bed in a community house with the boy of her dreams.

His name was Joe, and he didn't like living at the house, so she had followed him into the realm of giant trees cloaked in green velvet moss. They lived on the berries and mushrooms from the Columbia River Gorge outside of Mount Hood. They zipped their sleeping bags together and were so warm they paid no attention to the cold that enveloped their dank Oregon woodland. It was here, one starry night, that he broke her heart.

“You need to go home,” he'd whispered to her. “You're too young for this life. It's dangerous. Go home while your parents will still take you back. Finish school.”

The next morning, she awoke to find her wolf boy gone.

“He gave me my owl. It's my favorite.”

“Did your Haida artist do your phoenix too?” Emily asked.

Lorelei touched her baby smooth cheek. Like switching off a light, her mood shifted dark.

“This tat. The guy that did it. He's looking for me.”

“Really?”

“I thought he was cool at first. I thought he loved me. But we were drinking one night and had a fight, and the next thing I know I wake up with an outline of this bird on my face. He said I begged him to do it, but he's a liar.”

“Oh, man.”

“I tried to run away, but you know, Phoenix isn't that big of a city. He found me.”

“He gave you a phoenix because you were in Phoenix?”

“Yeah, something like that. Anyway, I ended up living with him for a year. So see, that's why you can't take my picture. He might see it. He'd come looking for me. That's why you can't ever let anybody see those photographs.”

“I promise. But he's in Arizona. That's a long way away from Austin.”

“Not far enough.”

“Why didn't you go to the cops if you were afraid of him?”

She twisted her lips in a way that said Emily was naive.

“Because cops send runaways home. Duh.”

“You can't go home?”

She rubbed her face roughly with both her hands and gave a weary sigh. “No. I can't. I can never, ever go back.”

“Why?”

The past clouded her eyes. “You know that camp that I told you about?”

“Uh-huh.”

Emily waited.

Finally, the girl said, “That's where they send kids that are problems.”

Lorelei watched Emily's eyes for a reaction.

“You know,” she continued. “Kids who do things they aren't supposed to do.”

“Like what?”

Lorelei's bottom lip quivered. “Stuff.”

“Drugs?”

She nodded. “Some kids.”

“Sex?”

“It doesn't matter why. Look, I'm sorry I even brought it up. Everybody's got something wrong with them. My parents just don't like me is all.”

“Oh, Lorelei, what would make you say that?”

“Trust me. You know when your parents wish you'd just disappear.”