We Live in Water: Stories

by Jess Walter

  We Live in Water

  Stories

  Jess Walter

  Dedication

  To Warren and Cal

  Contents

  Dedication

  Anything Helps

  We Live in Water

  Thief

  Can a Corn

  Virgo

  Helpless Little Things

  Please

  Don’t Eat Cat

  The New Frontier

  The Brakes

  The Wolf and the Wild

  Wheelbarrow Kings

  Statistical Abstract for My Hometown of Spokane, Washington

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Jess Walter

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Anything Helps

  BIT HATES going to cardboard.

  But he got tossed from the Jesus beds for drunk and sacrilege, and he’s got no other way to get money. So he’s up behind Frankie Doodle’s, flipping through broken-down produce boxes like an art buyer over a rack of paintings, and when he finds a piece without stains or writing he rips it down until it’s square. Then he walks to the Quik Stop, where the fat checker likes him. He flirts her out of a Magic Marker and a beefstick.

  The beefstick he eats right away and cramps his gut. He sets the cardboard on the counter and writes carefully in block letters: ANYTHING HELPS. The checker says, You got good handwriting, Bit.

  The best spot, where the freeway lets off next to Dicks, is taken by some chalker Bit’s never seen before: skinny, dirty pants, hollow eyes. The kid’s sign reads HOMELESS HUNGRY. Bit yells, Homeless Hungry? Dude, I invented Homeless Hungry. The kid just waves.

  Bit walks on, west toward his other spot. There are a few others out, stupid crankers—faces stupid, signs stupid: some forty-year-old baker with VIETNAM VET, too dumb to know he wasn’t born yet, and a coke ghost with tiny writing—Can You Help me feed My Children please. They’re at stupid intersections, too, with synced lights so the cars never stop.

  Bit’s headed to his unsynced corner—fewer cars, but at least they have to stop. Streamers off the freeway, working people, South Hill kids, ladies on their way to lunch. When he gets there he grabs the light pole and sits back against it, eyes down—nonthreatening, pathetic. It feels weird; more than a year since he’s had to do this. You think you’re through with some things.

  He hears a window hum and gets up, walks to the car without making eye contact. Gets a buck. Thank you. Minute later, another car, another window, another buck. Bless you.

  Good luck, the people always say.

  For the next hour, it’s a tough go. Cars come off the hill, hit the light, stop, look, leave. A woman who looks at first like Julie glances over and mouths, I’m sorry. Bit mouths back: Me too. Most people stare straight ahead, avoid eye contact.

  After a while a black car stops, and Bit stands. But when the windows come down it’s just some boys in ball caps. Worst kind of people are boys in ball caps. Bit should just be quiet, but—

  You stinking fucking drunk.

  Yeah, I get that sometimes.

  Why don’t you get a job?

  Good advice. Thanks.

  A couple of nickels fly out the window and skitter against the curb; the boys yell some more. Bit waits until they drive away to get the nickels, carefully. He’s heard of kids heating coins with their cigarette lighters. But the nickels are cool to the touch. Bit sits against his pole. A slick creeps down his back.

  Then a guy in a gold convertible Mercedes almost makes the light but has to slam on his brakes.

  I think you could’ve made it, Bit says.

  The guy looks him over. Says, You look healthy enough to work.

  Thanks. So do you.

  Let me guess—veteran?

  Yep. War of 1812.

  The guy laughs. Then what, you lost your house?

  Misplaced it.

  You’re a funny fucker. Hey, tell you what. I’ll give you twenty bucks if you tell me what you’re gonna buy with it.

  The light changes but the guy just sits there. A car goes around. Bit shields his eyes from the sun.

  You give me twenty bucks?

  Yeah, but you can’t bullshit me. If I give you a twenty, honestly, what are you gonna get?

  The new Harry Potter book.

  You are one funny fucker.

  Thanks. You too.

  No. Tell me exactly what you’re going to drink or smoke or whatever, and I’ll give you twenty. But it’s gotta be the truth.

  The truth. Why does everyone always want that? He looks at the guy in his gold convertible. Back at the Jesus Beds they’ll be gathering for group about now, trying to talk one another out of this very thing, this reverie, truth.

  Vodka, Bit says, because it fucks you up fastest. I’ll get it at the store over on Second, whatever cheap stuff they got, plastic in case I drop it. And I’ll get a bag of nuts or pretzels. Something solid to shit later. Whatever money’s left—Bit’s mouth is dry—I’ll put in municipal bonds.

  After the guy drives off, Bit looks down at the twenty-dollar bill in his hand. Maybe he is a Funny Fucker.

  BIT SLIDES the book forward. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. What’s a hallow, anyway? he asks.

  The clerk takes the book and runs it through the scanner. I guess it’s British for hollow. I don’t read those books.

  I read the first one. It was pretty good. Bit looks around Auntie’s Bookstore: big and open, a few soft chairs between the rows of books. So what do you read?

  Palahniuk. That’ll be twenty-eight fifty-six.

  Bit whistles. Counts out the money and sets it on the counter. Shit, he thinks, seventy cents short.

  The clerk has those big loopy earrings that stretch out your lobes. He moves his mouth as he counts the money.

  How big are you gonna make those holes in your ears?

  Maybe like quarter-size. Hey, you’re a little short. You got a discount card?

  Bit pats himself down. Hmm. In my other pants.

  Be right back, the kid says, and leaves with the book.

  I’m kind of in a hurry, Bit says to the kid’s back.

  He needs to stop by the Jesus Beds, although he knows Cater might not let him in. He likes Cater, in spite of the guy’s mean-Jesus rules and intense, mean-Jesus eyes. It’s a shame what happened, because Bit had been doing so good, going to group almost every day, working dinner shifts and in the yard. Cater has this pay system at the Jesus Beds, where you serve or clean or do yard work and get paid in these vouchers that you redeem for snacks and shit at the little store they run. Keeps everything kind of in-house and gets people used to spending their money on something other than getting fucked up. Of course, there’s a side market in the vouchers, dime on the dollar, so over time people save enough to get stewed, but Bit’s been keeping that under control, too, almost like a civilian. No crank for more than a year, just a beer or two once a month, occasionally a split bottle of wine.

  Then last weekend happened. At group on Thursday, Fat Danny had been bragging again about the time he OD’d, and that made Bit think of Julie, the way her foot kept twitching after she stopped breathing, so after group he took a couple of bucks from his stash—the hollow rail of his bed—and had a beer. In a tavern. Like a real person, leaned up against the bar watching baseball. And it was great. Hell, he didn’t even drink all of it; it was more about the bar than the beer.

  But it tasted so good he broke down on Friday and got two forties at the Quik Stop. And when he came back to the Jesus Beds, Wallace ran off to Cater and told him Bit sold his vouchers for booze money.

  Consequences, Cater is always saying.

  I feel shitty, Bit�
�s always saying.

  Let’s talk about you, Andrea the social worker is always saying.

  When you sober up come see me, the fat checker at the Quik Stop is always saying.

  Funny fucker, the guy in the gold convertible is always saying.

  The bookstore kid finally comes back. He’s got a little card, like a driver’s license, and he gives it to Bit with a pen. There, now you have a discount card, the kid says. On the little piece of cardboard, where it says NAME, Bit writes, Funny Fucker. Where it says ADDRESS, Bit writes: Anything Helps.

  BIT STARTS walking again, downtown along the river. For a while, he and Julie camped farther down the bank, where the water turns and flattens out. They’d smoke and she’d lie back and mumble about getting their shit together.

  Bit tried to tell Cater that. Yes, he’d fucked up, but he’d actually been selling his vouchers to buy this book, to get his shit together. But Cater was suspicious, asked a bunch of questions, and then Wallace piped in with He’s lying and Bit lunged at Wallace and Cater pulled him off—rough about it, too—Bit yelling Goddamn this and Goddamn that, making it three-for-three (1. No drinking, 2. No fighting, 3. No taking the Lord’s etc.), so that Cater had no choice, he said, rules being rules.

  Then I got no choice either, Bit said, pacing outside the Jesus Beds, pissed off.

  Sure you do, Cater said. You always have a choice.

  Of course, Cater was right. But out of spite or self-pity, or just thirst, Bit went and blew half his book money on a fifth, spent a couple of nights on the street and then shot the rest of his money on another. You think you’re through with some things, picking smokes off the street, shitting in alleys. He woke this morning in a parking lot above the river, behind a humming heat pump. Looked down at the river and could practically see Julie lying back in the grass. When we gonna get our shit together, Wayne?

  Bit walks past brick apartments and empty warehouses. Spokane’s a donut city, downtown a hole, civilians all in the suburbs. Donut City is part of Bit’s unifying urban theory, like the part about how every failing downtown tries the same stupid fixes: hang a vertical sign on an empty warehouse announcing Luxury Lofts!, buy buses that look like trolley cars, open a shitty farmers’ market.

  Very interesting, Andrea says whenever Bit talks about his theory. But we talk about ourselves at group, Bit. Let’s talk about you.

  But what if this is me? Bit asked once. Why can’t we be the things that we see and think? Why do we always have to be these sad stories, like Fat Danny pretending he’s sorry he screwed up his life when we all know he’s really just bragging about how much coke he used to do? Why can’t we talk about what we think instead of just all the stupid shit we’ve done?

  Okay, Wayne, she said—what do you think?

  I think I’ve done some real stupid shit.

  Andrea likes him, always laughs at his jokes, treats him smarter than the group, which he is. She even flirts with him, a little.

  Where’s your nickname come from? she asked him one time.

  It’s because that’s all a woman can take of my wand, he said. Just a bit. Plus I chewed a man to death once. Bit right through his larynx.

  It’s his last name is all, said Wallace. Bittinger.

  That’s true, he said. Although I did bite a guy’s larynx once.

  You think you’re so smart, Wallace is always saying.

  And do you want to talk about Julie? Andrea is always saying.

  Not so much, Bit’s always saying.

  We’re all children before God, Cater is always saying.

  But Cater isn’t even at the Jesus Beds when Bit stops there. He’s at his kid’s soccer game. Kenny the Intake Guy leans out the window and says he can’t let Bit in the door till he clears it with Cater.

  Sure, Bit says, just do me a favor. He takes the book from the bag. Tell him I showed you this.

  BIT WALKS past brick storefronts and apartments, through nicer neighborhoods with green lawns. The book’s heavy under his arm.

  Another part of Bit’s unifying urban theory is sprinklers, that you can gauge a neighborhood’s wealth by the way people water. If every single house has an automatic system, you’re looking at a six-figure mean. If the majority lug hoses around, it’s more lower-middle class. And if they don’t bother with the lawns . . . well, that’s the sort of shitburg where Bit and Julie always lived, except for that little place they rented in Wenatchee the summer Bit worked at the orchard. He sometimes thinks back to that place and imagines what it would be like if he could undo everything that came after that point, like standing up a line of dominos. All the way back to Nate.

  Bit breathes deeply, looks around at the houses to get his mind off it, at the sidewalks and the garden bricks and the homemade mailboxes. It isn’t a bad walk. The Molsons live in a neighborhood between arterials, maybe ten square blocks of ’50s and ’60s ranchers and ramblers, decent-sized edged yards, clean, the sort of block Julie always liked—nice but not overreaching. Bit pulls out the postcard, reads the address again even though he remembers the place from last time. Two more blocks.

  It’s getting cool, heavy clouds settling down like a blanket over a kid. It’ll rain later. Bit puts this neighborhood at about 40 percent sprinkler systems, 25 percent two-car garages, lots of rock gardens and lined sidewalks. The Molsons have the biggest house on the block, gray, two-story with a big addition on back. Two little boys—one black, one white, both littler than Nate—are in the front yard, behind a big cyclone fence, bent over something. A bug, if Bit had to bet.

  Hullo, Bit says from his side of the fence. You young gentlemen know if Nate’s around?

  He’s downstairs playing Ping-Pong, says one of the boys. The other grabs his arm, no doubt heeding a warning about stranger-talk.

  Maybe you could tell Mr. or Mrs. Molson that Wayne Bittinger’s outside. Here to see Nate for one half-a-second is all.

  The boys are gone a while. Bit clears his throat. Shifts his weight. Listens for police. He looks around the neighborhood and it makes him sad that it’s not nicer, that Nate didn’t get some South Hill fosters, a doctor or something. Stupid thought; he’s embarrassed for having it.

  Mrs. Molson looks heavier than the last time he stopped, in the spring—has it been that long? More than half a year? She’s shaped like a bowling pin, with a tuft of side-swooped hair and big round glasses. A saint, though, she and her husband both, for taking in all these kids.

  She frowns. Mr. Bittinger—

  Please, call me Wayne.

  Mr. Bittinger, I told you before, you can’t just stop by here.

  No, I know that, Mrs. Molson. I’m supposed to go through the guardian ad litem. I know. I just . . . his birthday got away from me. I wanted to give him a book. Then I swear, I’ll—

  What book? She holds out her hands. Bit hands it over. She opens the bag, looks in without taking the book out, like it might be infected.

  Mr. Bittinger, you know how Mr. Molson and I feel about these books. She tries to hand it back to him, but Bit won’t take it.

  No, I know, Mrs. Molson. He pats the postcard in his back pocket—picture of a lake and a campground. It was mailed to their old apartment. Bit’s old landlord Gayle brought it down to the Jesus Beds for him, what, a month ago—or was it three months now?

  Dad – I’m at camp and we’re supposed to write our parents and I’m kind of mad (not really just a little) at the Molsons for taking away my Harry Potter books which they think are Satanic. I did archery here which was fun. I hope you’re doing good too. Nate.

  I respect your beliefs, Bit tells Mrs. Molson. I do. It’s probably why you and Mr. Molson are such good people, to open your home up like this. But Nate, he loves them Harry Potter books. And after all he’s been through, me being such a fuckup—Jesus, why did he say that—I’m sorry, pardon my . . . and losing his mother, I just . . . I mean . . . Bit can feel his face flushing.

  Mrs. Molson glances back at the house. For what it’s worth, we don’t pus
h our beliefs on the boys, Mr. Bittinger, she says. It’s all about rules. Everyone here goes to church and everyone spends an hour on homework and we monitor closely what they read and watch. We have the same rules for all the boys. Otherwise it doesn’t work. Not with eight of them.

  No, I could see that, Bit says. I could.

  Bit read the first Harry Potter to Nate when he was only six, even doing a British accent sometimes. Julie read him the second one, no accent, but cuddled up in the hotel bed where they were crashing. They got the books from the library. After the second one, Nate started reading them himself. Bit kind of wishes he’d kept up with the books, before the dominos started going: before CPS came, before Julie got so hopeless and strung out, before . . .

  We’ve been doing this a long time, Mrs. Molson is saying. We’ve had upwards of forty foster kids, and we’ve found that this is what works: adherence to rules.

  Yep, that’s how we saw things, too, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate him having a stable home like this. I really do. My wife and I, we did our best, and we always figured that once we got everything back together, that, uh . . . but of course . . .

  Mrs. Molson looks down at her shoes.

  This wasn’t what he meant to do, this self-pity. He wanted to talk like real people, but Bit feels himself fading. It’s like trying to speak another language—conversational Suburban—and it tires him out the way group does: everybody crying their bullshit about the choices they’ve made and the clarity they’ve found. And he’s worse than any of them, wanting so bad for Andrea to like him, to think he’s fixed, when all he really wants is a pinch, or a pint.

  Bit clears his throat.

  It’s just . . . you know, this one thing. I don’t know.

  Mr. Bittinger—

  Finally, Bit smiles, and rasps: Anything helps.

  She looks up at him with what must be pity, although he can’t quite make it out. Then she sighs and looks down at the book again. I guess . . . I could put it away for him. For later. He can have it when you can take him again . . . or when he’s on his own, or someone else—