Outrun the Moon (21 page)

Maybe I need her a little, too.

‘‘I WON'T LOOT,'' ELODIE MARCHES WITH HER fists clenched like snowballs. She brought her pearl bag, which swings pertly on her wrist.

“We never loot; we borrow. And anyway, they might be giving the meat away.”

“I don't take charity, either.”

“Then I'll be sure to have Forgivus start a tab for you.”

She scowls. I walk at a fast clip, passing folks clustered under cypress trees, eyes vacant, expressions hungry. Children linger around the broken carousel, held back by their parents. A snowy tiger, flamingo, and bear have dominoed onto one another, and the concrete dome housing the ride looks a sneeze away from collapsing. A few of the swing sets are still standing, while others are twisted heaps of metal and wood.

Jack would've loved a chance to ride those swing sets and that carousel. I never brought him here. Ten years have passed since they refused our money to ride the boats at Stow Lake—the only way to get to Strawberry Hill—but time did not blunt my anger. A girl with cloud-like curls and a bonnet with daisies was given the boat I wanted to ride. The girl and I traded stares,
hers confused and mine resentful, until her mother pulled her away. The girl could've been someone like Elodie.

“You ever been to Stow Lake?” I ask.

“Hasn't everyone?”

A wine bottle lies broken in the pathway, along with a gunnysack of what looks like onion peelings. Tidiness seems such a luxury now, as the park fills up with traumatized masses. I stop to retrieve the glass shards and drop them in the gunnysack. “It must get tiring for your mouth to always be throwing out jibes.”

Her gaze cuts to the sack in my hand. “What exactly are you planning to do with that?”

“Put it in the rubbish bin, of course.”

“The whole city is a rubbish bin right now. You're just shifting the garbage around.”

“I'm saving someone a few stitches in their heel, which is a lot more than—”

“You have to save everyone, don't you, Mercy? Save the world, save Headmistress Crouch, save the leeches even. I know what you were up to, you and those three sheep that
baa
when you tell them to. I saw you dump those”—she shudders—“
things
back in the river.”

My bossy cheeks flush. “Why don't you mind your own business?”

“I have a mind to tell Headmistress Crouch what you did. It would serve you right.”

That stops me cold. “If you did, you might kill her of shock.”

“I doubt that. She's as tough as a buffalo hide.”

She must be bluffing. I erase all emotion from my face and
march onward. “Well then, go right ahead. No skin off my chin. There is no St. Clare's to get expelled from now. And I was only trying to help her, not that I expect you to understand.”

The path zigzags down a grassy knoll to Lincoln Street, the park's southern boundary. We cross into the inner Sunset District, which is made up of mostly sand dunes, with the occasional building. This part of town is typically cold and blustery, but today, swirls of hot air mingle with the cold. Ma would say this kind of uneven weather weakens energy because our bodies are forced to constantly adjust.

At the bottom of the hill, I find an overflowing rubbish bin. I place the gunnysack beside it.

Elodie
tsk
s her tongue, and the sound is like the scrape of a match.

“Imagine, if everyone picked up a few bricks and put them back where they're supposed to be, we'd have this city rebuilt in no time.”

“That would never happen. Everyone is out for themselves in the end, even the ones you think you can trust. You think I'm heartless, but I'm just speaking the truth.”

“I never said you didn't have a heart. But it would be nice if it beat every now and then.”

We finally arrive at a redbrick building with the words
Burkhard's Butcher Shop
painted across the wall in overly sophisticated scrolled writing. How fancy can a side of beef be, anyway? Behind the writing sprawls a clover-studded mountain range, split up the middle by a crack in the facade. Besides the crack and the blown-out windows, the structure appears mostly unharmed, as
do the few around it—an electric-lamp store and a place selling feather mattresses for five dollars.

People mill about the dirt streets, kept moving by a handful of soldiers who must think temptations abound here. The butcher shop might attract the hungry, but how far can you get with a feather mattress? Where exactly can you plug in an electric lamp with all the cables busted?

If I were running the show, I'd spend the manpower setting up a medical center and temporary shelters. People are too busy trying to survive to scheme.

In front of the shop, a man sweeps glass into a pile. One long stroke, and then two short ones.

We cross the street, drawing a wide arc around a dead mule. Elodie steps delicately over fallen bricks and glass.

A couple approaches the sweeper. “Can't even spare some jerky? We've got mouths to feed.”

The sweeper rests his arm on top of his broom. “They gave away all the jerky yesterday.” His voice is hard.

“What are they going to do with all that meat? It's just gonna spoil.”

The man shrugs, then puts his elbows to the task again. “Making more jerky so they can give it away,” he says in a testy voice.

“Let me do the talking,” I tell Elodie. Her head lolls back as if she is bored.

The sweeper sees us and plants his broom in front of the doorway. I peer inside the shop, where a man with a sock cap hacks a cleaver into a slab of meat on a white counter. Above
him, carcasses hang on hooks—beef, pork, and lamb, but no fowl. Maybe they gave that away already. Fowl fouls as fast as fish, as the saying goes.

“Good afternoon. We wondered if we might have a word with the proprietor.”

The sweeper lifts his cap a notch, not out of respect but so that he can get a better look at us. “Let me guess. You want a handout, too.”

I glance at Elodie, who's examining the ends of her hair.

“Well, the fact is, people are starving out here. And there's no better feeling in the world than helping—”

He holds up his hand, showing us a palm studded with callouses. “Save me the guilting, I've heard it all before. The answer is no.”

“But, if we could just talk to the proprietor—”

“I
am
the proprietor.”

“But
 . . .”
I glance again at Miss No-Help-At-All, now brushing a lock of dirty hair against her cheek, “we heard you tell those other folks—”

“I say what I need to say to send them on their way. I'm a busy man, and I can't afford to give away my inventory on charity. Nothing's going to waste here. All I need to do is dry my meats and get the hell out of this dice cup of a city. Now move. I won't be gulled by a coupla girls.”

He starts to sweep again, forcing us to move to avoid being hit by flying glass.

I should go; he could easily call the soldiers over. But those
bossy cheeks of mine begin to flare once again. One day, they may get me killed, and today might very well be that day.

His broom stops again, and he groans louder than is natural when I don't leave.

I quickly say, “It wouldn't be a handout, just a loan. We'd repay you. Plus, giving us some meat would be good for business. We would tell everyone where we got it, and how generous the proprietor was in the giving.” I manage to say that part with a straight face. Generous as a bald man with his last hair, more like. “When San Francisco is rebuilt, people would remember the good-hearted butcher Burkhard.”

He continues to frown. “I'm
not
giving away meat for free, and that's final.”

“This is tiresome,” comes Elodie's bored voice. “We'll buy it from you. How much?” She twists the clasp of her pearly purse.

She's got
money
in there?

“Well now,” Burkhard says, his voice becoming sly. He tries to get a look into her purse, but she snatches it away. “That depends on how much you want.”

“Enough to feed fifty people,” I say.

“Fifty? Your best bet is to get a split side. That'll feed a good crowd.”

“How much is that?” I ask.

“Fifty dollars.” His grin spreads to his earlobes.

“
Fifty dollars?
We could buy two cows and a pig for that.”

“These are good meats. Nothing off the horn like the other boys sell.”

“They don't look too good to me. That one's full of gristle,
and how long has the other been sitting out?” It clearly has a green sheen.

Elodie waves a hand at me. “We'll take it.” She holds up something between her fingers, but it's not money. It's her pearl ring. “Here you go.”

“A ring? What am I supposed to do with this?”

“You can't give that away,” I hiss. “It looks like an heirloom. It's not worth it.” Chinese place great value on heirloom jewelry, which helps us venerate our ancestors.

“It's
my
jewelry,” she says grandly. “I can do whatever I want with it.” With a heavy sigh, she holds the ring up so Burkhard can see it clearly. “If it'll feed all those people, I'll gladly part with it.”

“No, I can't let you. Let's go.” I pull her toward the street.

We don't even step off the curb before Burkhard says in an indulgent voice: “Well, if it's that important. I'll take the ring, and you can have the beef.”

Elodie hands it to him, too quickly in my opinion. I bet we could've wangled some salted pork out of him as well. The man drops the ring into his shirt pocket. “Follow me.”

She puts her mouth close to my ear and whispers, “It's paste, you idiot.”

I nearly smile but catch myself in time.

The iron scent of meat hangs heavy in the shop, and flies buzz around the carcasses now that the ceiling fans have ceased running. Burkhard says a few words to the man with the sock cap in a language full of hard sounds. I think it's German.

The man grunts, then grabs a pole with a hook. I only spot two split sides, and one is definitely bigger than the other.

I point to the bigger slab. “We'll take that one.”

Burkhard's thin lips part, and I think he's going to argue again, but to my surprise, he nods and points at the chosen piece. The German hooks our slab and sets it on the counter.

“And we'll need a receipt,” Elodie says primly.

With an exaggerated sigh, Burkhard scratches up a receipt while the German begins to work a sack over our meat.

“Aren't you going to cut it for us?” I ask.

“That'll cost extra.” Burkhard passes the receipt to Elodie, who tucks it into her purse.

“My butcher never charges extra for cutting!” I protest.

“Today, it's extra. See all these flies? We've got to get our product cut before we get maggots.”

“How much to cut it?” I ask.

“A dollar.”

Now
that's
looting. “But we just gave you an heirloom ring!” I almost stamp my foot, feeling more indignant than I have a right to feel. It's the principle of it.

“I don't usually accept jewelry for my meat. I'm doing you a favor.”

Elodie shoots me a warning glance and folds her arms. “Fine. Please have your man deliver this to Alvord Lake.”

Burkhard snorts. “That'll be another dollar extra. And seeing as you don't have it, I guess you'll have to carry it yourself.”

“
Carry
it?” Elodie explodes. “No one said anything about carrying it. I don't want it anymore. Give me back my ring.”

The German heaves up the quarter-carcass and brings it around the counter to us.

“Sorry. We have a strict no-return policy.”

I fix Elodie with a hard look—we need this meat—but before I can protest further, the German drops the burlap sack in front of us. We catch it, but only barely. It must weigh more than either of us.

He salutes us with the tip of his broom. “Good day, ladies.”

Elodie fixes him with a piercing look. “This will be the last time my shadow crosses your doorstep.”

“Me too,” I agree emphatically.

We stumble out into the hazy sunlight, dragging the carcass. This might be the first time Elodie and I have ever agreed on anything.

WE HAUL OUR LOAD ACROSS THE STREET.

The uneven weight of our burden requires us to constantly adjust our holds. To pile on the agony, I've developed sore spots in my boots from all this walking on uneven streets.

People stare as we pass. Let them. We have our receipt, thanks to Elodie's quick thinking. In fact, if it were not for her, we would not have our main course at all. I just focus on not dropping my end. The burlap has developed wet, bloody marks where I've been gripping it.

“You had to pick the heaviest one,” Elodie pants.

“You were going to give it back!”

Elodie stops to wipe her bloody palm on her dress. “Can you blame me? This is the most revolting thing I've ever done.” She blows hair out of her face. “There is no way I am eating this tonight.”

“Tell that to your stomach in a few hours.”

We rest at the foot of the path into Golden Gate Park to catch our breath. We'll never get back to camp at this rate. “How about we take the shortcut up that hill instead of zigzagging around? Or is that too challenging for you?”

“What is challenging for me is hearing you boss everyone around nonstop for the past two days. It's enough to put anyone in the nut hatch.”

It didn't take long for us to return to bickering.

Up the hill we go, each step a labor, and I immediately rethink the decision to take the direct route. But Elodie seems determined to plow ahead, and I would rather jump into a barrel of leeches than back down first.

There's not a lick of shade on this knoll, and the smoke-filled air is too warm, like the inside of an oven. I would give a year of my life for a drink of water. But on we climb, bearing our burden as if this were the last side of beef on earth, and we, its chosen protectors.

A fly buzzes around my head, and I try to blow it away. So intent am I on shooing the damn fly that I step on a loose rock and stumble. I grab for something to steady myself, but there's only the carcass, and Elodie. With a yelp, I fall backward, pulling the engine and the cargo with me.

Before I can form a clear thought, I'm tumbling down the hill.

I roll and roll, managing to find every painful rock or stick this knoll offers. Elodie finds them, too; I can hear each of her yelps a few moments after mine. My head continues to spin even after I've stopped rolling.
So this is how it feels to be bread dough.

Something lands on top of me, and then another something follows, shrieking loudly in my ear.

Elodie and I lie heaving in a tangle of limbs, bruised and bloodied. The sky looks like the eight-treasure
juk
I once made
of black sesame and millet. I boiled it too long, and it became eight horrors, with little specks and brown clots floating in the ashy liquid.

After a moment, I sit up with a grimace and pick hay from my hair. Lincoln Street lies twenty feet to my left. Elodie shakily sits up as well. Grass stains cover her uniform, and one sleeve has torn away from her dress under the arm. A clump of mud sticks to her ear, and there's a reddish-purple bruise developing on her cheek.

A sneeze wracks her body. She managed to hang onto her purse, and from it, she pulls out her peacock handkerchief that she embroidered for the Wilkes boys. She dabs at her eyes, blots her face, then finishes the job with a loud honk.

When she's done, she stares at me. “Tell me I don't look like you.”

“You don't. You look worse.” I glance at the meat, which is lying in silent repose between us. “But not as bad as him. You think he cracked any ribs?”

Her face twitches, and then a smile elbows its way out. Her shoulders begin to quake, and I realize she's laughing. It's as contagious as applause. We snort and guffaw, seized by a kind of fit that is hard to shake off.

“So that's—” She tries to get it out, but another wave of laughter shivers through her. “That's”—
gasp
—“how you make a rolled rump roast!”

A fresh wave of giggling consumes us, and I wipe tears from my eyes.

Oh, Jack would've laughed to see me at the bottom of this knoll covered with grass and bested by a beef.

Before I realize it, my throat tightens, and the tears of laughter run bitter. I dreamed of the day I could afford to buy Jack not just the bones of the ox, but the meat, too. Now that day will never come. His bowl will never again need filling.

To my surprise, Elodie begins to weep, too.

How fine the line is between hilarity and grief. I've seen it happen at the cemetery, where in the middle of a service, someone will be hit by a funny thought, and then the laughter will spread like wildfire, made funnier by the inappropriateness of it all.

Maybe sorrow and its opposite, happiness, are like dark and light. One can't exist without the other. And those moments of overlap are like when the moon and the sun share the same sky.

A middle-aged couple has stopped to stare at us. The woman puts a black-gloved hand to her mouth and turns her wide eyes to her husband. Untucking his arm from her, the man crosses the lawn to us. Elodie stops crying and begins to quietly hiccup.

The man's horrified gaze flits from the bloodied burlap sack to each of us, with our puffy eyes and tearstained faces. “We're so sorry for your loss. Take this, and God bless.” The man tucks a five-dollar bill in each of our hands, then hurries back to the woman.

He thinks we're mourning a body.

The woman twists her head back a few times as they leave. Elodie stares at the money in her dirty hand, then lifts her astonished eyes to me.

I smile, and she grins back. It's funny how one little moment of truth can undo hours of hostility.

“Well, now we have enough money to get this cut and delivered,” I say.

“Are you kidding? I'm not giving Blowhard another red cent. We can handle Brisky, as long as we don't climb any more hills.” She gives me a firm look, but it is hard to feel chastened by anyone who names her meat Brisky.

We haul ourselves up and take the gentler zigzagging path. Somehow, Brisky feels lighter than when we started out.