Isaac tapped his chest by way of belonging. “Nerves,” he said, as simple as he could state it. He knew something about each of them, too; by sight, by story, by the place from which they’d fallen. John had been a hotel banquet manager. Gravy spent a lot of time after a shower getting his curls right. Isaac had seen the teardrop tattooed on his cheek but hadn’t known what it signified. Doug came to the library daily, dressed like he was preparing for an office job interview. Terrell sometimes played the Day Center’s guitar on the smoking patio and sang in a high, sweet voice. His pecan color was not welcome everywhere and in some places on the river it was dangerous to be a black man. A white icicle scar rose up Wesley’s spine to his hairline. Isaac had seen more when they were in the shower room. A swath of his back wrinkled and brown like beef jerky.
“Where will you go after they tear out the tamarisk?”
“Not far. There’s a plan. Once you go rentless, you got to be relentless.”
Isaac had heard that line from Wesley before and thought it was true. Living unsheltered never truly let you relax. Even when it seemed you were doing nothing, your mind was churning. Living on the river brought the freedom of being undomesticated. Like a deer or a bird or a field mouse, you were free to have a shorter life.
Terrell plucked a browned ear of corn from the grill. He peeled back a portion of the husk and watched the steam escape, then pulled all the leaves down to the shank so the cob had a handle.
“Fresh Olathe sweet corn. Off the truck today. Plenty for y’all.”
“That crate must’ve fallen off the truck when they weren’t looking,” said Gravy.
Terrell shook his head. “Nah, they gave me one for helping unload.”
“Is that all they paid you?” said Gravy. “That’s only worth about twelve bucks and you can’t buy anything with it.”
“See, here’s what you white boys don’t understand. They paid me some, but I also got to spend my afternoon in a ice-packed truck and a grocery store cooler, while you were out scooping dog shit in a hundred degrees.”
Gravy scowled. “I’m not doing that any more. That job was just temporary.”
“Well maybe you could get on full-time now. I hear the Poo Patrol’s business is picking up.”
Everybody laughed but Doug, who sat outside the circle reading.
Terrell handed over the ear to Gravy. “Hey, no disrespect, man. We all scooping shit down here.”
“Not me,” said John, a rangy, pale man who moved around camp with the caution of an old lady on ice. “This methadone, I only get to grunt about once a week.”
Wait, Wesley had said no substances. Wasn’t methadone a drug? Or was it a medicine if it was prescribed? Isaac took medications sometimes. Would he and John have to turn them in like they did at the shelter? Wesley’s rules couldn’t be as simple as he’d said.
“You need fiber!” Terrell said. “Come here, have some of this. It’s fresh.”
Isaac explained how Olathe corn tasted better because it was handpicked, packed in ice so the sugars didn’t break down and shipped the same day.
“You work in produce?” Terrell said.
“Not for a while. I’m between positions right now.”
“I hear you. We all somewhere between get up off your ass and bend over.” Terrell peeled another ear, passed it to Wesley and took one for himself. “M-m-m-m. You heard the man. It’s the best, sweetest corn there is. You don’t even need butter. This corn’s half syrup, half whiskey.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t stick with that vacuum cleaner deal,” Wesley said. “You sure got a patter.”
“Yeah, I can talk slick right off the okra.” Terrell tempered his smile. “Wasted two months dragging around a vacuum, dressed like a Witness and chattering like a tweaker.”
“Selling’s not for everyone,” John said.
“Wasn’t selling. It was scamming. I scammed people, the company scammed me.”
“You shoulda known a vacuum cleaner job had to suck,” Wesley said.
Isaac wished he talked more their way—the words slow and slathered in their own juices, the jokes striking fast and easy.
Terrell said, “It seemed okay at first. They train you and tell you how great the product is. You’ll get five hundred bucks for doing fifteen demos in a week, plus commission on sales, and you can win trips and prizes. You think hey, let’s go make some money! Then they give you maybe ten crappy leads and if you can’t prove you did fifteen demos, you get zip. Where’m I gonna find five extra people a week who want to try a twelve-hundred-dollar vacuum?”
“Who you know wants a vacuum, period?” said Wesley.
Terrell brandished a stripped corncob. “You just give me an idea of what to do with this.” Then he tossed it on the fire.
“They do suck you in. Once you figure out there’s no money in the demos, and you’ve already put two months in, you’ll do anything for a sale. You try every trick they taught you. Never let the customer get you out of their house until they’re in their PJs turnin’ out the lights. Then the supervisor says, now you’re a big boy, an independent contractor, and we’re not driving you to appointments any more.”
Terrell flexed his fingers and raised his chin, a gymnast readying for the leap to grab a horizontal bar. “Then it’s like, how’m I gonna get all that shit to my sales calls?” He threw up his hands. “A brother with a fancy new vacuum cleaner biking through Grand Junction at night. On my way to an appointment, officer. Oh, yeah, that’ll go down.”
“Did you ever sell any?” Isaac asked.
“One time. Old lady bought one on payments, hundred and fifty off, with her Electrolux in trade. Trade. We take it to the dump so the customer won’t have a vacuum if they try to cancel. Her son stops payment anyway. I didn’t get dollar one. You think that company’s giving you a shot, taking a chance on a felon. Damn, that’s one reason I busted my ass. They don’t think I’m a loser. But then you realize, no, it’s because they think you are a loser who’ll do anything. That you got no morals.” He stepped back for his third ear of corn. “I be shittin’ gold nuggets tomorrow.”
“You know who owns that company?” Doug had put down his book. He must have turned up his hearing aids. “Warren Buffett—richest man in the world, give or take. Those guys who hired you were a distributor, I bet, and you’re an independent contractor. And then there’s another business that owns the brand but doesn’t really make the vacuum cleaners, they just sell products to distributors, and somewhere buried in a holding company inside Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett owns everything. He collects the profits and thinks he never cheated an old lady in his life.”
Doug seemed like someone Isaac could talk to. Somebody like Herbert Hoover, who would understand about how Edison and GE and RCA and NBC created the depression, nukes, Ronald Reagan, capital credit and everything since.
Wesley sat apart from the fire. He said, “That’s why we need Thistletown.”
“What’s Thistletown?” Isaac said.
“Wesley thinks he’s Braveheart,” said John. “Don’t get him started.”
“It’s a self-governed camp. I’ve seen them out west. I hear it worked here on The Point,” Wesley said.
“You may hear that,” said John, “but you wouldn’t have liked it.”
“We’ll be respectable, with support from the Homeless Coalition. Us here had nothing to do with Dexter’s meth lab. We start small, with our own little city where they can’t kick us off. We show it works and build up from there. Do the things shelters won’t do. Couples can stay together. You can be home in the daytime. No religion pushed on you. Keep your pet. Get rid of the bullshit. Let people live in dignity the way they choose. I know a building we can fix up. Put in a workshop with shared tools to build furniture, fix bikes. Bring in services, so our people don’t spend the whole day walking around to get what they need.”
“Good idea,” said Gravy. “Let’s start with a test lab. Free condoms with every UA.”
�
��I’m serious.”
“Dude, maybe you like all that structure because you got it in the Army, not prison. I’ve had my fill of hoops for a lifetime.”
“There’s no hoops in this camp,” said Wesley.
Not that anyone saw. But the system was everywhere and Wesley couldn’t keep it out. It didn’t ask permission or even announce itself. It was on you like the soft water that left Isaac feeling slimy after his shower, trying to get the soapy feeling off his skin. You can’t control it or choose it. The system has no knob to adjust the hardness, just this bargain: If you want to be clean, you have to slime yourself. And the funny thing? The water softener system was not there for the guy in the shower. It was for the one who owned the building. It took out the iron and the minerals that plugged pipes and stained the porcelain. It made Isaac feel like a kidney bean out of the can just so the man’s toilet bowl stayed white.
Isaac spread a blanket over a piece of carpet on the sand. The night was sultry and he didn’t mind sleeping uncovered. He stripped down and put on a pair of sleep-soft sweatpants. A breeze snuffled through the tamarisk and brought fresh riffles of sound. Wesley and Terrell’s lowered voices like birds crossing the water. The long zip of a sleeping bag. A downshifting semi’s deep chuckle as it hit the business loop. He could see the sky through the brushy crown above his head but the constellations were washed out by the city lights.
Thistletown, named for the Scottish national symbol, Wesley said. He wanted to declare independence without saying it, without promising too much. Every camp had its settlers and transients, leaders and followers, dogs running wild and coyotes going tame. All thinking they were free and wise, the ones beating the system. Then something always came up to ruin things—the weather, the law, a bad element, paranoia, power games. But just wait, Wesley said. We won’t ask for too much, won’t take the bad seeds or the easy riders. Thistletown’ll be good people like you and me.
Something shook the tamarisk. A quavering Knock, knock.
And Wesley: Who’s there?
JJ.
Ah, buddy, you’re lost.
Isaac crept to the opening of his pad. A figure just inside the clearing, planted like a tree swaying in the wind. The man’s head rocked back, showing eyes puffed to purple slots, and he staggered a step to keep from toppling. Jimmy Johncock. A quack came from his swollen lips and he twisted to the ground. Wesley and Terrell moved toward him. Jimmy braced himself with one arm and tried to get his legs under him. Halfway up he fell back and rolled onto his shoulder. He gathered himself in slow motion. His head rolled up toward Wesley but kept going until it reached the end of its travel, snapped forward and eventually fixed on the men’s knees.
“You still with us, Jimmy?” Wesley said. Jimmy raised his hand as if he knew the answer. Wesley grasped above his wrist and leaned back while Terrell stood braced with arms wide. Jimmy wrapped around himself like a washer load of wet sheets and came up to slump against Terrell.
“He looks beat up,” said Terrell. “You think he needs detox?”
“Everybody’s sick of him. They might just tell him to crawl there,” said Wesley. “Let’s get him to bed.”
The two men wobble-stepped Jimmy away. Seeing Jimmy this way was sad, in the way inevitable things were. From the time Isaac knew him in middle school, an invisible force had been winching Jimmy out the door. He would get his footing but could never seem to keep it. A sweet boy from a feeble family with a mother who believed the cure for alcoholism was drinking at home. Everyone had tried with Jimmy. Teachers. Cops. Sister Rose. They’d chipped in to send him to his last rehab in Denver and brought him back to a job with a carpet cleaning business. He did okay. But now his old drinking buddies knew somebody with money and before long Jimmy had returned to doing at least half a gallon of vodka a day with his friends.
Wesley and Terrell talked softly for a while after they returned and put the cookfire to bed. Isaac could hear only snatches about how if an uninvited drunk walked into your house, you could shoot him and get off free. That was state law. But if one came in your camp and you clubbed him with a piece of firewood, you’d be the one in jail. After they settled, he listened to the long lapping breath of the Colorado and thought of all the machine keepers who had never heard the earth’s night shift at work, who slumbered through its rotations of sound and temperature and light, and missed the nocturnal critters punching out and passing the morning to the sentinel birds, and heard instead the clock’s crow that released a lemming surge of tires to hum on distant highways.
He woke to a disturbance in the brush, reached for his hunter knife and listened, hearing only Wesley’s regular pin-prick wheeze. That’s right, he was in Thistletown now. New Jerusalem. Salt Lake City on the river, where everybody’s water’s not too hard and not too soft. He burrowed the knife back under the carpet and returned to sleep.
Someone yanking his arm. Come on! Confusion. Cauteries of light. Stinking smoke. Wesley yelling, Isaac fumbling. Backpack? Where are my jeans? Leave it! Let’s go. Go-go-go. Bike locked. Fiii-errr! Cursing, splashing, people stumbling in all directions. Move! On bare feet. Sirens. Shadows flattened by searchlights carving the black air.
Are TRO infestations, dry conditions, human-caused fires and/or altered disturbance regimes responsible for the increased frequency of fires in riparian areas?
—Colorado River Basin Tamarisk and Russian olive (TRO) Assessment
From across the parkway, Isaac and Wesley watched red flames gulp the thickets pinched between the river and the park’s hardpan. Black-backed billows lazed to and fro, a fire beast lacking the strength to escape its cage. The firemen watched, too, their hoses aimed to stop the advance rather than extinguish the flames. When it became clear the fire was controlled, the refugees straggled to Whitman Park to wait out the remains of the night.
The police ignored the curfew and let them sit trading tales of escape and theories of the fire. It was kids, it was drunks, it was a careless smoker. It was revenge by the cops for Amy Hostetter. It was the same ones who firebombed the Day Center years ago. Some said it was too hot for campfires that night and others swore there were some. Irene proclaimed it the devil’s work and Edward argued everything was God’s will.
Thurman Trowbridge was the first to filter in from the south camp further downriver. Every TV station had Thurman “Trow” Trowbridge on tape for when they needed two seconds to illustrate the plight of the homeless: his eyes sunken deep; greasy hair Medusalike; his beard a tumbleweed scrawl over a golf ball complexion. His teeth had long ago left the gums to fend for themselves. Grime, wood smoke and glass pipe burns tattooed his cracked hands. The county had lots of his pictures on file as well; Trow and law enforcement were on a nickname basis. His legal infractions mainly involved having the wrong things in his pockets and his bloodstream, and being in the wrong places doing the wrong things with the wrong attitude. Trow had the tweaker’s unpredictability but little of the anger. He had renounced driving because he didn’t want to be a menace. Now, he was simply a caravan of trouble no one wanted to park close by.
“This is it,” said Trow, “this is it. Sylvia’s been telling me the time was coming and I had to get ready.”
Trow pivoted in a complete circle, face upturned, reaching to the sky. “She says: What about it, Thurman? You can’t live outside forever. Getting your own place is the road to independence. But I’m already independent. She said, this time, they’re serious. If I don’t accept help…it’s the Koran or the sword. Off to the concentration camp with you. Bus ticket to Pueblo, your last rodeo. Or—I can still be saved!” He counted the steps, little finger to thumb. “All I got to do is go for a mental health assessment, then do treatment, go to meetings, pass a million UAs and I can get on the VA housing list. Wooohooo! Can you see me living in housing? Some little efficiency? I was in the army for four years and I never saw one place I wanted to live in. I haven’t lived in a house since I was fourteen. Indoors, okay—barracks, apartments, motels, shelters, ab
andoned places, jail—but it never worked out. Because every indoors is a box and the box comes with rules. The VA apartments, you sign a contract, give up all your friends, your blessed sacraments, even the mushrooms. Put me inside, I wouldn’t be Trow any more. I’d be this little dried-up vet named Thurman with his VA teeth washing dishes at Starvin’ Arvin’s, taking a job away from some poor Mexican trying to feed his family. With a caaalendar. Going to meeeetings. Efficiency!”
Trow snorted and a rope of snot rapunzeled to his chin. He was laughing at himself but his choices had a certain integrity. It mattered to him that he had not sunken to the bottom of the barrel. He had dived in and swum there all by himself.
“There’s only one home I want.” Trow seized the army surplus web belt around his waist and shook it with both hands. “This is what you need when the clouds part and God says who’s coming with me? Everybody’s jumping around—Take me! Take me!—but if you got one of these, He’ll go for you first ’cause it’s easier to grab you right up to heaven.” He inspected Isaac’s sagging sweat pants. “You need to get you one.”
Trow rummaged in his pack and tossed Isaac a pair of Crocs. “That’s my problem right here.” He pulled out a fist-sized chunk of what looked like melted metal. “Ever seen a meteorite? Feel it. Heavy. That’s why you can float in outer space. All the matter’s sucked into the meteors. You ever find one, people’ll say, that’s no meteorite! You know why? Because a meteor is like gold and diamonds from space—and they don’t want you to own it just for picking it up off the ground. They tell you it’s worthless so they can talk you out of it. Or they tell you it’s too valuable for a guy like you to keep care of it.”
Isaac didn’t say anything. He hadn’t told anyone about the eye he found in the canyon. People would want to see it. At least a meteor wasn’t like a glass eye. The comet wasn’t going to want it back. He didn’t think it was valuable but they might try to take it anyway if they thought a glass eye was magic. Some guys with no luck had funny ideas about how to get some. Now it was lost again. Probably burned up with his stuff left behind last night, the beautiful colors melted into a blob.
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