Schizo (10 page)

BY LATE MORNING THE
rain has stopped.

The school has rented out a bus for us to take down to the beach. It's part of a community service project where each class has to go work somewhere in the city every month. Going to pick up trash at the beach is definitely one of the easier jobs. And thankfully, Eliza's in tomorrow's group, so I don't have to worry about seeing her today.

Preston, too, is in tomorrow's group.

But I do get Jackie with me. We're sitting together on the bus, playing Words With Friends back and forth on her iPhone.

The sky is silvery gray as the sun breaks through the low-lying clouds in places.

Jackie has a hat pulled back on her head and a big parka zipped all the way up to just under her chin. It's seriously cold, and the heat in the bus is broken, so we can see our breath when we talk. I have on a long-sleeve undershirt, a hooded sweatshirt, and my army jacket, but I'm still fucking freezing. The bus rattles and shakes as it snakes down the winding cliff road to Ocean Beach.

I've actually been avoiding coming here ever since Teddy was taken, just 'cause it's been too painful, I guess. The day has replayed in my brain so many times, I didn't want to be forced to think about it any more than I already do. Besides, there are plenty of other beaches to go to north of the city and on the bay.

But now, as we drive along the concrete breaker wall covered in graffiti—the ocean raging loud so we can hear it over the rumbling of the bus's straining engine—I can't help trying to pick out exactly which bathroom I locked myself in and where it was that I last saw my brother—somewhere out on the very edge of the shoreline.

Through the scratched hard plastic bus windows, spattered with mud and smeared with rain not yet dried, the rocky sand and windswept dunes look like images from some postapocalyptic dreamscape. The ocean seems to be moving in every direction at once, waves washing back out to sea from the sloping shoreline so they slam against the incoming breakers and spray up a hundred feet high.

The bus turns into the deserted parking lot past the entrance to the beach on Noriega, and then I become aware that Jackie has been talking to me for some time now, though I haven't heard one thing.

“What?” I ask, turning back toward her.

She bites down on her lower lip and looks me over. “Weren't you listening to me?”

“Yeah, I was . . . I just . . .”

She laughs at my inability to come up with anything. “Uh-huh. Sure. Are you all right?”

That question again.

Am I all right? Am I all right? Am I all right?

Yes.

Yes, I'm fucking all right. I know I am.

I'm better than all right.

I have hope now. I have hope that Teddy is just a few blocks from here.

And all the rest of it doesn't matter.

“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, totally, I'm fine.”

She studies me a little more, as though not convinced.

“Hey,” I continue, “would you do me a favor? I've gotta go check something out up on 46th street for a second when we get split up into groups. Do you mind covering for me if anyone asks where I am?”

She remains skeptical. “What are you doing?”

“I just gotta sneak away for a little bit to check something out. It won't take me long.”

Her eyes go narrow at me. “Yeah, sure. But what is it?”

There is a moment where I almost tell her. It would be such a relief.

Only I know I shouldn't.

Jackie would worry just like Eliza would. She'd tell my parents and they would freak the fuck out. And then they'd all try to stop me.

I'm sure Dr. Frankel would tell me I'm fucking crazy for even considering doing this. Although he'd say it a whole lot more eloquently than that.

But what he doesn't understand—and what nobody can possibly understand—is that this, doing this now, is the only chance at a sane, healthy life that I'm ever going to have.

So even if this Tolliver guy is a psycho, pedophile, fucking lunatic, I have to face him—and I have to find out. I can't move on with my life until I do. I can't move on until I bring Teddy home. Then I will finally be able to start over.

Telling Jackie is not an option.

So instead I just say, “Nothing. It's a stupid errand I have to run.”

“During a school field trip?”

I nod. “Yeah. It'll only take a second.”

She brings her shoulders up and then lets them drop again. “All right, Mie, I'll try to cover for you.”

“Thanks.”

The chance for me to get away doesn't come until after we've already been given gloves and plastic bags and little grabber tools so we don't get stuck with hypodermic needles sifting through the sand. I bring my stuff up behind the public bathroom (not the same one I was in two years ago, I'm pretty sure) and try to hide it all as best I can behind the sea grass growing tall out of the cracked concrete.

I run fast across the Great Highway, dodging cars and not waiting for the light. No one calls after me.

The sky is clearing—or, at least, the sun is breaking through as the south winds blow the covering of clouds and fog farther inland. I put the hood of my jacket up over my head.

Simon Tolliver's house is number 1921 46th Avenue, between Ortega and Pacheco Streets, just three blocks up from the beach. Honestly, it's not what I expected. I guess in my mind I'd made the house up to be some creepy, run-down, dilapidated shack with rusty tools lying everywhere and taxidermy birds hung out front. But it's not like that at all.

Actually, it's a super nice–looking little Craftsman-style home with a pretty vegetable garden in front and a white picket fence surrounding the entire property. There is even a little trellised entranceway covered in purple morning glories and rosebushes in a tangle around the side gate.

It doesn't look like the secret hideout of a deranged kidnapper.

But, then again, maybe he keeps it nice for exactly that reason. A little house like this would be above suspicion.

If he's smart, this is exactly the kind of place he'll live. And he must be smart if he's managed to evade the police for over two years.

The buildings on either side of Tolliver's are bigger, two-story Victorian-style town houses that are separated into upper and lower apartments, so it's impossible to tell whether anyone is at home to see me sneaking around. I decide the best thing to do is just march right up to Tolliver's front door and ring the bell. If he answers, I can always pretend I'm . . . what? Selling magazine subscriptions?

Something like that.

At least that way I'll know for sure whether he's home.

So I let myself in through the front entranceway and take a deep breath, feeling my hands and legs start to shake.

I walk jerkily past the planter boxes of squash and pumpkins and then up the uneven white wooden steps.

I press the buzzer and the doorbell sounds, echoing through the small house.

A dog barks in the distance.

I wait, holding my breath.

But no one comes.

The door remains closed.

Walking, then, slowly around the side of the house, I try to find a window I can see in through, but all the blinds are closed tight. Pressing my face up close to the clouded glass, I can just barely look into what turns out to be the bathroom, but that doesn't help me any. The bathroom is clean. And I can make out the shower curtain printed with a map of the world done up in different colors.

Around the back of the house is a small yard bordered by a row of hedges at least six feet tall. There are patches of green grass, but it's mostly all dead, and the stairs leading down from the back sliding glass doors are all splintered and broken. There is also, in the far corner, tucked up between the hedges and a low-hanging eucalyptus tree, an eight-by-ten-foot wooden shed—the roof covered in leaves and pine needles. The door is fastened shut with a lock, but the lock is left open. There is a dirty window smeared with something built high up on the structure. I can see movement against the glass—flashes of light in the darkness.

I imagine Teddy in there—tied up, gagged, trying to get free.

The clouds are racing past overhead so the shadows sweep across the yard and over the shed in the back, and I can feel my heart beating faster and faster in my chest, my whole body shaking badly so I have to hold my hands tightly together.

I get up to the shed and look in through the window, but it's so dirty, I can't see anything.

There is a noise, though, coming from inside, like newspapers being crumpled together and torn to pieces.

“Hello?” I whisper, pressing my ear up to the crack in the door. “Hello?”

Suddenly there is this feeling I get that someone is looking at me.

I swing around and freeze.

A dog, maybe fifty pounds, like some kind of border collie, is there, inching toward me, growling low and steady.

“H-h-hi, dog,” I say dumbly.

The dog growls louder, and I back up against the door of the shed.

“Easy now . . . easy.”

I get down on my knees on the damp ground. I avert my eyes and say, “Good dog. Nice, good dog.”

Shaking, I extend my hand out so I can feel the dog's hot breath on the tips of my fingers.

The growling stops.

And then the dog's nose presses up cold on the back of my hand.

“Jesus Christ,” I say, standing up.

I step back from the door and the dog comes over and lets me pet it for a second.

“Where the hell'd you come from?” I ask.

The dog then goes over to the shed and starts digging and pawing at the ground, whimpering.

I take one last look around before grabbing the lock out of the door and opening it wide.

“Hello?” I say loudly.

The dog goes rushing in ahead of me.

And then a whole shit ton of chickens goes flying and scattering back out.

The dog barks and barks and goes chasing after them, getting one by the neck and shaking it, and I yell, “Fuck!” closing the door just so at least a few of the goddamn things don't get out. I manage to grab a particularly slow-moving chicken, but it pecks at me and squawks so loud, I can't help but let it go again.

The dog, content with its one dead chicken, goes running off. And it's at that exact moment that someone comes around the corner and screams, “Hey, you, stop! What are you doing?”

I turn, startled.

The man is wearing a hooded sweatshirt with the word
Texas
printed in orange letters across it. For some reason, that
Texas
is the only thing I can see. My eyes are fixated on it.

And then he yells again. His accent is thick. “You! What are you doing here?”

My mouth hangs open.

“I . . . I . . .”

I take a step back.

My mind turns round, but comes up with nothing.

“You stay right where you are. Don't move.”

“T-Tolliver,” I say. “S-Simon Tolliver? I'm looking for Simon Tolliver.”

The man stops.

“You knew him?”

“N-no,” I stutter. “I . . . He . . .”

The man drops his head. His whole body slumps over like something heavy is weighing him down.

“Did he . . . do something to you?”

I realize, then, that the tears are still coming down, so I wipe my face and try to breathe, saying, “In a way.”

“I'm sorry,” he tells me, then, coming toward me with his head still bowed, he says, “This Tolliver, he was not a good man. We've been here a few months now. The Realtor told us the story. It's very sad.”

My eyes go wide. “He's gone?” I manage to ask. “Do you know where?”

“No. We bought the house from the bank.” He clears his throat. “I'm sorry,” he repeats.

“It's . . . okay. I'm okay.”

And then I turn.

I turn and I run.

The man doesn't call after me.

He lets me go.

THE FOG IS COMING
in fast off the ocean, and the wind has gone still. I take my jacket off and wrap it around my waist.

The concrete sidewalk is all busted up from where the roots of trees have grown through, jutting out in places, nature fighting back against the oppressive onslaught of human development.

I take out the picture of Simon Tolliver again and stare into his black-and-white-photocopy eyes.

“What the fuck do I do?” I ask him, waiting for an answer, but getting none.

There's a liquor store on the corner with flashing beer signs in the window, and I go in to get a bottle of water and some peanut M&M's just 'cause I see the package and it looks good suddenly. The man behind the counter looks Korean, with a broad face and thick Coke-bottle glasses.

“Hey,” I say, pulling out the photo, maybe for the last time. “Do you know this guy? He ever come in here?”

The man looks lazily at the photo. “Oh, yes, he come here,” he says in broken English. “Friday he play lottery.”

My breath catches in my throat. “Every Friday?”

He shakes his head. “No. He here last Friday. Lotto, very big. Twenty million. He only come when lotto very big.”

I thank him and walk out with the water and M&M's.

The fog is thick, so I can hardly see in front of me. I walk carefully back to the beach.

That cool breeze is blowing through my mind.

I'm getting close.

I can feel it now.

Closer and closer.

Now it's only a matter of time—'til the jackpot gets big enough, 'til I find Simon Tolliver. And Teddy most of all.

THE SKY IS STARTING
to clear, so I can see the half pale moon on the horizon. I'm crossing Geary on the way back from having to work a couple hours at Cala Foods, because this other kid, Miguel, called in sick, when I get a text from Jackie, asking if she can come over.

Yeah, for sure,
I text her back.

And then I see that I have a missed call from Eliza.

I press the phone to my ear and keep on walking up the street.

Her voice is soft and beautiful through the electronic distortion. She asks me if I want to come over tomorrow night and have dinner with her. She repeats, several times, that she's cool with taking things slow.

Of course, I'm not sure if I should go. I mean, I'm not sure if I should let myself. Finding Teddy is the most important thing, and I'm so close. I can't lose track of that.

But I guess dinner couldn't hurt.

Or, I don't know how it could.

We can have dinner.

And then, when the jackpot's big enough, I'll go back to that liquor store and wait for Simon Tolliver. It's simple, really. And, in this moment, it feels like everything might work out.

So I cross down to Clement Street and walk up to our house.

Jackie is already there, waiting on my front steps, bundled in her giant parka and big knee-high boots.

“Miles, hey, I'm sorry.”

I can see she's been crying—her eyes are red and swollen, but not from the cold.

“Are you okay? What's going on?”

She laughs, like it just bursts out of her, then she hugs her knees to her chest and looks down at the concrete.

“A fight,” she says.

A fight—with Preston. I take out a cigarette and light it and sit down on the step.

“I'm sorry. Am I bothering you?”

“No, no, not at all. How long have you been here?”

“Just, like, ten minutes.” She puts her head on my shoulder. She smells like incense.

“What was the fight about?” I ask.

“I don't know . . . nothing. He's . . . well . . . Does he seem different to you?”

“Different?”

There's yelling from across the street, and I look up to see two men arguing in front of the Vietnamese restaurant.

“Yeah, different,” Jackie says, ignoring the high-pitched shouting. “Like . . . he's so into partying and stuff and . . . I know he's always kind of been that way, but it feels so much . . .
more
now. Does that make any sense?”

“Sure, yeah.” I smoke and breathe in and out.

“I'm sorry,” she says, taking her hat off and pulling back her long dreads. “I shouldn't be talking about this with you. He's your best friend. It puts you in a bad spot.”

I laugh. “Hell, you're my best friend, too. I mean, sometimes I feel even . . . closer to you than—”

“Yeah, me too,” she says, cutting me off.

I stare down at the scuff marks on my boots.

“My therapist,” I blurt out overly loud. “He tells me this thing about how sensitivity is like a bell curve, you know—like we learned about in school. Basically on one end is someone who's so sensitive they can't even function in the world. And on the other end is, like, a total sociopath, killer, whatever, who can't feel anything. Most people are in the middle—or around the middle. But me, I've always been way closer to the so-goddamn-sensitive-I-can-barely-function side. And I'm not saying you're like that, but you're definitely more sensitive than a lot of people. And . . . and you're a deep thinker, too.”

She laughs then. “You don't think Preston is a deep thinker?”

“No, no,” I tell her. “It's not that. But he doesn't overthink things. And that's awesome. I wish I could be more like that.”

“I'm glad you're not.”

She takes my hand in the warmth of hers.

I swallow something down in my throat.

And then my phone vibrates in my pocket.

Jackie lets go of my hand—not that it means anything—and I check the screen.

Again—of course—it's Eliza.

“What's up with her?” Jackie asks, seeing the name on my caller ID.

“Nothin'. She wants me to come to dinner tomorrow night.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You going to go?”

“I don't know. I'm not sure if I should. I've been trying to . . .”

Again, I want to tell her about Teddy. But I don't. I can't.

“I'm not sure I have time,” I say, hoping that's vague enough.

Jackie kicks the heel of her boot into the concrete.

“Have time? It's one night. I see the way you are, always taking care of everyone. You should go have fun—just do something you want to do.”

I smile then and wonder if she's right—or if I can even let myself.

“What about you and Pres? Are you gonna be all right?”

Her eyes close and open. “Yeah, for sure. He's just . . . goin' through . . . I don't even know. Maybe it's 'cause we're comin' up on senior year. And who knows what the hell will happen after high school?”

I nod. “Well, no offense to you or Preston, but I can't wait 'til we never have to see that place again.”

She laughs. “Me neither.”

I stand and feel a sudden coldness against my cheek. “Come on in,” I say. “You had dinner yet?”

I help her up.

“Thank you,” she tells me.

We walk together inside.