What We Keep Is Not Always What Will Stay (19 page)

“And I haven’t even told you the worst thing!” The thing I really need to tell someone.

“Yeah?”

“It’s Jesse.”

He sighed.

“You were right. I can’t handle this.”

“What happened?”

“I thought I could make it all be okay if I just didn’t upset him, you know? And it was fine for a while. He was doing really well.”

“Until?”

I told Felix all about the otter’s cave and the picnic, even the silly hats. “It seemed like such a great idea for his birthday. To start with.” I sniffled because I’d liked the otter so much and Jesse had spoiled it.

“To start with, and not later?”

The heater made another pinging noise and shot sparks out of its back. Then the whole basement went dark.

“Oh, crap.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“It blew the fuse. I can go fix it if you want.”

“No, it doesn’t matter.” I didn’t want him to leave.

“It’ll get cold.”

“You can fix it when it gets cold.” I wanted to tell him about Jesse. That was spooking me more than the dark.

“Okay. So what happened later?”

“We made out.”

“What kind of making out?”

I was glad the lights were out. It was easier to talk about it in the dark. “Kind of extensive making out. And he wouldn’t stop.”

“I don’t like that ‘wouldn’t stop’ part,” Felix said.

“I didn’t either. And I got really scared and I bit him and made him let me go, and I ran off and walked home. He followed me in the car and made a scene and backed up traffic.”

Felix gave a kind of chuckle. “You bit him, huh? You’re going to be just fine.” He chuckled again. “It feels awful now, but you’re going to be just fine.”

I thought about how I knew how that bar girl in his dream had felt, and how I hadn’t wanted to be her. I didn’t say it though. He was only about Jesse’s age then. But the dream suddenly made more sense to me. All of Felix’s other dreams are things he feels guilty about. I bet he feels guilty about that one, too.

“And I saw Jesse’s mom in the Stop-In this morning. She said she was so glad Jesse had me for a friend, but I could tell she meant girlfriend. She thinks it’s great.”

“I expect she’s pretty desperate.” Felix was quiet for a long time then, just holding me snuggled up against him where I felt safe. “I assume you know it would be a good idea to not hang out with him alone anymore,” he said finally.

“I won’t just abandon him. I’m not going to be like Mom.”

“You aren’t abandoning him.”

I sniffled again. “I really care about him. But now he scares me. I hate that.”

“Go ahead and feel bad for him. I feel bad for him, too. You can even care about him. But pay attention to your gut instincts, okay? They’re probably more reliable than your emotions.”

“I really wanted to help him.”

“Fix him up?” I could hear Felix smiling in the dark.

“He seemed better when he was with me,” I said.

“Until he wasn’t,” Felix said. “Ange, if anyone is going to fix Jesse, it will have to be Jesse.”

“I’m afraid he’ll be worse after this. That I made him worse.”

“He may be worse, but it won’t be your fault. Or your responsibility.”

I felt a little better, even if I’m getting counseling from a crazy homeless guy who lives in a basement. I think the only person Felix can’t figure out is himself.

Then we heard voices and people bumbling around at the top of the stairs. Felix started to get up. “Better fix that fuse.”

Before I could move to let him stand up, someone shone a flashlight down the stairs right in our eyes. I heard a kind of shriek and a gasp.

“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s just us.”

Felix stood and felt his way to the fuse box and the lights came on in a minute. He must have to do it all the time if he runs that heater much.

It was Altar Society ladies at the top of the stairs, Mrs. Beale and Mrs. Rausch. They’re friends of Wuffie’s.

“Angela!” Mrs. Beale said. She kept the flashlight trained on Felix as if it was a gun. “Call the police!” she said over her shoulder to Mrs. Rausch.

17

I finally persuaded them not to call the police, but I don’t think I really convinced them that Felix wasn’t molesting me or doing something else awful. I told them that Father Weatherford knew he was living here, that Felix was doing the gardening. Felix just stood there in his bathrobe, looking sad.

It’s not fair. Now they want to throw him out. They’ve all seen him in the garden, and at the Posadas parade, and even said how nice everything is looking, but now they’ve decided he’s dangerous. I know it’s because of me, and nobody will listen to me. I went to talk to Father Weatherford, and he acted like he was going to pat me on the head and gave me some story about insurance liabilities that is totally smoke and mirrors. I guess the church is pretty sensitive about people molesting people, but that was priests. I didn’t say that to Father Weatherford. I said it to Ben, and he laughed and said, “ ‘Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself to this: Great God, grant that twice two be not four.’ ”

I said, “What?” and he said that’s what Ivan Turgenev, who was some Russian writer, had to say about prayer. Helpful.

I thought maybe Wuffie could do something, but she says the Altar Society won’t listen to her and maybe it’s a better idea if Felix sleeps at the Rescue Mission or some shelter. And this is the man who bathes her dog when it has fits! And he doesn’t want to sleep at the Rescue Mission, where they try to convert him. He likes the church.

So now he’s sleeping under a tree in the park.

I took him a better sleeping bag and one of Ben’s sweaters and some socks. Ben’s socks. I didn’t ask and it serves him right.

Felix says he asked Father Weatherford if it was still okay if he came around and took care of the garden during the day. I think Felix needs that garden.

My whole life is like one of those tables with a wobbly leg. You prop up one side and the other side gets off kilter and slides your soup into your lap. Jesse wasn’t in school today, which was a relief, but I keep wondering what he’s doing, if he’s sitting in his room drawing mazes again. I just want everybody back where they belong: Felix in his basement and Mom home with Ben. Really home, not hooking up with him, which I don’t think she would do if she intended to come back and live with him.

She called before I went to school this morning to say she wanted to have a little chat with me after school. She probably wants to tell me the divorce is final and she’s enrolled me in a convent while she goes to Paris to write poetry.

Oh God. The world sucks. The world totally sucks. Wuffie picked me up after school instead of Mom and took me to her house. I don’t know whether Mom had planned to explain New Year’s Eve or yell at me some more about Jesse, but now she’s forgotten all about it. She’s in bed at four in the afternoon, crying. Darren Hardison, who was in her English class when I was little and always called me Punkin, is dead.

He was killed in Afghanistan last night. She just found out. He used to come back to see her after high school, and when he was at college, he’d send her funny cards and strange news clippings. Once he sent her one about a man who drove all the way to San Diego on a riding lawnmower.

Mom couldn’t stop crying. She was crying so hard she was choking. Her face was red and she sounded like a dog howling. I’ve never heard anyone cry like that.

Finally she stopped. She sniffled and wiped her face with the sheet and held her arms out to me. I hugged her, remembering Darren, how he used to slip me candy bars. She sniffed again and I handed her a tissue from the dresser. She blew her nose and leaned her head against my shoulder.

“But why are you in bed?” All her old stuffed animals were piled around her, including First Husband’s rabbit.

“I don’t know what else to do. I just want to pull the covers over my head and stay here.” Her voice sounded like somebody else. I’ve never seen Mom like this. The Mom I’m used to would organize an anti-war march and call her congressman.

“Why don’t you come home?”

She didn’t answer that. She said, “I’ve been trying to say a rosary for him, but I keep ending up just crying.”

I told her I thought the Virgin could figure out what she meant, and she said, “Yeah,” kind of sadly.

I thought about the time Darren sent Mom flowers when he got an A on his college Shakespeare final because he remembered something she’d taught him, and I felt sad to my bones. He was her favorite and he was always nice to me. He recognized I was
there
. Usually big kids don’t recognize little kids are there.

“When is the funeral?” I asked her.

“I don’t know,” she said. She closed her fist around the rabbit’s ears and shut her eyes. “It doesn’t matter. Funerals don’t bring them back.”

Now all I can think about is what the Chumash thought about the dead going away over the water and how you can hear the doors of the underworld bang shut after them. I keep seeing all the dead boys—and girls too—walking across the water like Jesus to the Underworld. The door sounds like it’s metal, like prison doors closing. I wonder if Jesse knew Darren. I’m scared to ask. Jesse came to school today and when I opened my locker, about a hundred little drawings fell out. They were all mazes. Some of them had his face in the middle and some of them had mine. I scooped them up and stuffed them in the trash, and then pulled them out again for fear someone would see them.

Darren’s obituary was in the paper this morning and everybody at school is talking about it.

In English, Mrs. Larsen told us to write what we felt about loss and death, so I wrote a poem for Darren.

The Path to the Underworld

leads across grey swells.

Beyond the seal rocks off Anacapa Island

the dead travel light of foot.

You can hear the doors bang shut

behind them, stone on stone

reverberating inside what is left:

feathers, bones, flame, sand.

It’s like something Mom would do. Mom, on the other hand, called in sick this morning and is still in bed. I talked to Wuffie on the phone and Wuffie says she won’t get up. I told Ben before I left for school, thinking maybe he’d go over there, and he just said, “She’ll get up when she wants to.”

I saw Jesse at lunch. He was hunched over his tray, by himself. He didn’t look up and I was kind of relieved. I sat down with Lily at a different table.

“Don’t go near Jesse,” she said.

“Huh?” I wasn’t going to if I could help it, but still.

“I asked him if he knew Darren Hardison and he said to go fuck myself.” She didn’t look insulted. I guess you understand things when your mom’s a shrink. Sometimes I think I could tell Lily I fantasize I’m a blue baboon and she would just say “uh huh” and go on eating her sprout sandwich. I wish I was like that.

“I’m scared,” I said. “Wuffie says to pray, but I don’t know what to pray for. Comfort, I guess. Wars to stop. But I don’t think God’s even listening.”

“My dad says, give a man a fish and you’ll feed him for a day. Give him a religion and he’ll starve to death while praying for a fish,” Lily said. Considering that her folks lived in a monastery, they’re pretty cynical about organized religion. Lily says the monastery wasn’t organized.

I don’t want a fish. I want two and two to be not four, and Darren Hardison not to be dead. I want Jesse to be okay.

Jesse went home after lunch. He didn’t come to art class. After school I went to see Felix in the park. There’s a live oak with a huge low limb that sticks straight out, about four feet off the ground, at the place where the park runs into the scrub brush near the old railroad tracks. He’s made a little cave under it, out of a tarp. When the city notices him, they’ll probably make him move too. I keep telling him how sorry I am about the church throwing him out, and he keeps saying it’s not my fault. But I feel like it is.

“Sit down. Have a pomegranate. Your grandmother gave me some.” He handed me one and I dug my fingernails into the skin. He’s swept all the oak leaves away from in front of his tree, and he has a hibachi set up on the dirt, with a dishpan to wash things in.

“You’re like a mobile home,” I said, smiling. He even has art—there are pictures cut out of magazines pinned to the back wall of the tarp: a close-up of a red and green frog and a bouquet of poppies.

“It’s hard to find a good hobo jungle anymore,” he said. “Gotta make your own. I miss my nice coffeemaker, though.”

I picked seeds out of the pomegranate, watching my fingers turn purpley-red, and told him about Darren Hardison and Mom lying in bed crying.

“It’s tough on her, having all those kids,” he said.

“They aren’t hers,” I said.

“Yeah, they are.”

And he’s right. Darren Hardison might as well have been. “Is that how you felt about the soldiers you were with in the army?” I asked. “Like you wanted to save them all?”