The old man had creeped back toward them, rummaging in his pockets even as he kept his eyes on Esskay. Again, he whispered to the doorman, his voice so soft that Tess couldn't make out a word of what he was saying.
"Your dog bite?" the doorman asked.
"Only if you're a hot dog or a rodent."
"See, Howard? Her dog don't bite, and I don't think she does either. Go ahead, ask the sister what you want to ask."
The old man shook his head bashfully, then pulled a can of orange soda from his pocket and held it out to her. The back of his hands were filthy, but the palms looked recently scrubbed.
"A guy from the Superfresh donated a couple of cases of sodas today, and we're giving each diner a can as they leave," the doorman said. "Howard wants you to take his. Says it's a long walk over to Bea Gaddy's place, and you'll get thirsty on a hot day like this."
Tess looked at the soda can in the gnarled hand, the yellowed, ridged fingernails rimmed with dirt. The bright orange can—America's Choice, the Superfresh's generic brand—was still beaded with condensation. It couldn't have rested in that pea coat pocket for long. She felt the doorman's eyes on her. America's Choice, her choice. She took the can, trying not to flinch when her fingers brushed against his, popped the top and took a long drink.
"Thank you, Howard," she told the man, who began walking away from her backward, then turned and ran up the block.
"You made his day," the doorman said.
"By taking his soda and scaring him with my dog?"
"By letting him do something for someone else. Nobody wants to be on the receiving end all the time, you know. Howard smuggles bread out of here every day, just so he can feed the birds, just so somebody will need him."
Sure enough, Tess saw him standing in the middle of a flock of birds as she turned east on Bank Street. The pigeons and seagulls circled close to him, but he wasn't scared, she could tell. He cooed at them in their own language, crumbling the slices of bread and tossing them into the air like bright white pieces of confetti.
Although summers were a slow time for Bea Gaddy, who put most of her energy into putting on—and promoting—a Thanksgiving dinner for thousands, she kept a table outside her rowhouse for the donations that trickled in every day. Today, the table held only some sweaters and a box of used videotapes. Amazing the kind of junk people sloughed off on the local charities, Tess thought, as if they were tax-deductible dumps.
A young man was examining the videotapes with great care, as if he were at his neighborhood Blockbuster Video and choosing his night-time entertainment. Maybe he had even had a VCR once, but his wasted frame told the story of many pawnshop tickets, of a life plundered of anything that could yield a dollar or two.
"‘Dorf on Golf,'" he said, putting the tape down. "Aw, there ain't nothing here. I heard you had TastyKakes today."
"We did," said a woman watching over the table, making sure people didn't carry off armloads to sell, not that these clothes would fetch much. "You're about ten minutes too late. You know sweets go fast."
"Aw, man." He drew the syllables out in the fretful whine of a disappointed child, stomped his feet a bit. "Did they have Butterscotch Krimpets? Don't tell me they had Butterscotch Krimpets."
"Why do you care? They're gone. You're not getting any."
"A man likes to know what he's missing. You get me? Now did they have any Butterscotch Krimpets or not?"
"I don't know," the woman said sullenly. "It was mostly Juniors and fried pies."
Tess had hung back politely, waiting for the man to wind up his snack cake inquiry. When he started sifting through the used sweaters, she asked the woman, "Do you know Treasure Teeter?".
"Huh."
The one syllable, although not particularly friendly, was more or less affirmative. "Has he been here today?"
The woman said nothing, just turned her back on Tess and began folding up several brown grocery bags. The man was still picking through the clothes, but he was studying Tess from beneath his heavy-lidded eyes. She took a five-dollar bill out of her jeans pocket and fluttered it ostentatiously in her hand, then began walking away with Esskay. She turned the corner off Collington and waited, out of sight. Soon enough, the man came around the corner, jogging to catch up with her.
"I know that guy," he gasped out when he caught up with her, his breathing ragged from running even that short distance. "Treasure Teeter. He calls himself Trey, though, but there's this girl who comes around sometimes, calls him that. A good-lookin' girl. I don't know what she's doing with him."
"You show me where to find him, I'll give you this five-dollar bill and you can buy all the Butterscotch Krimpets you want." Tess knew he wouldn't, though. With cash in hand, he would forget his sugar craving and start thinking about the junk that made him want sweets in the first place.
"I'll take you right to him for ten."
"Right to him? Deal."
He put his hand out—not to shake and seal the deal, but to take the bills.
"After I see Treasure," Tess said.
He took off almost at a trot, heading west, then south onto Chester Street, stopping about midway down the block.
"Here," he said, holding out his palm insistently.
"This is a boarded-up rowhouse," Tess said. "How can I know if Treasure hangs out here?"
"He's here right now." He pounded on one of the windows so the plywood shook and rattled. "Trey, man. It's Bobby. Got something for you. Something good."
The window board swung slowly to one side. The boy whose head poked out looked much younger than seventeen, with a sleep-filled cherub's face like a small child awakened in the middle of the night. There was crust in the corner of his eyes and his hair was flatter on one side than the other. A yellow smear ran down one side of his mouth, lemon filling from his fried pie.
"What you want, man?"
But Bobby had already gone, sprinting away with Tess's five-dollar bills tight in his fist.
"Hi, Treasure. I'm Tess Monaghan. I've been looking for you."
"My name's Trey."
"I'm still looking for you."
"I know you?"
"No."
"I didn't do nothin'," he said automatically.
"I didn't say you did."
"What you want with me, then?"
"Someone asked me to check up on you, see how you're doing."
He was too affectless to evince true skepticism, but she could tell he didn't believe her. "My aunt hired some white woman to come ask me how'm doing? She knows how'm doing. I asked her for money last Wednesday, the day Beans and Bread was closed and I couldn't get me no hot meal. Man, she was cold. Said if I was hungry, she would make cornbread for me. That woman can't cook for shit, though. What I want to eat her cooking for?"
"You live with her, don't you?"
"When I wanna. When I have to. Her place is nice in the winter. Other times, I'd rather be on my own."
"What about your sister, Destiny? Does she live there, or here with you?"
"Destiny's gone."
"Gone where?"
"I ain't seen her, but she'll be back soon, and then everything will be all right. That's what she told me, everything going to be cool. We gonna get our own place as soon as she gets back."
"Where'd she go?"
"Dunno." A giggle. "I think she went to Burma."
"Burma?"
"Or maybe she dug all the way to China this time. Yeah, maybe that's it." More giggles.
Junkie humor. An acquired taste. Then again, Tess had always found herself hilarious when stoned.
"When is she coming back?"
"When she done."
"How long has it been since you've seen her?"
Treasure held up his hands, as if to count the days off on his splayed fingers. Instead, he began to laugh again, as if he had glimpsed something hilarious in the palms of his hands. Maybe it was his lifeline. Then he held up his palm, flat, like a traffic cop, and looked over his shoulder, holding the pose for quite some time.
"I'm doin' the Heisman."
"What?"
"Doin' the Heisman. You know, like in football." He repeated the movement, and Tess understood then that he was suppose to be the trophy, straight-arming his way through life. "I could run. Man, I could run. I could have had me a scholarship if I wanted one."
"I was asking you about Destiny. I thought twins were close, closer than ordinary siblings."
Treasure just stared at her blankly. "We're close. We're real close. Destiny 'n' me, we always stick together. Look, you want me, or you want my sister? What you doing here, anyway?"
A good question. What could Luther Beale do for Treasure Teeter, besides buy him more crack, perhaps set him up in a nicer place to smoke it?
"You interested in kicking your habit, maybe getting your GED? I know someone who will help you if you are."
"Man, I knew you were full of shit. You're from that clinic, ain't you? The one that sends those social workers out on the street to bring people in. Everybody knows there's no slots for detox now, even if you want to get clean. The state waiting list just goes on forever. 'Less you're a vet. Then the VA has to take you. But I'm no vet. Not officially, anyway." He giggled. Yes, Treasure Teeter sure could crack himself up. "I'd go to war, if they wanted me to. It can't be any tougher than where I been. Yes, ma'am, I'd go to war any time they want me to."
"I could get you in a private hospital. I know a…program that will pay the full freight. If you're interested. Private room, good food. Not a state hospital."
Treasure propped his chin on the windowsill. He actually seemed to be thinking about her suggestion. Then he was distracted by a centipede inching its way along the flaking paint. He held out his finger and let it crawl onto his nail, pulled his finger close to his face, staring at the centipede until he was almost cross-eyed. Then he shook his finger, flinging the bug to the ground.
"Naw, that's not for me."
Tess handed him a business card. "If you change your mind, call me. The offer will stand, at least for a while."
Treasure took her card and began picking his teeth with it. "That pie sure was good," he said. "I wish I had taken me two."
Kitty was preparing to open the store when Tess and Esskay arrived home. The dog, who hadn't had the benefit of a homeless man's orange soda, slurped ravenously from the bowl Kitty kept behind the counter, displacing more water than she actually consumed.
"Do you ever feel like there are two Baltimores out there?" Tess asked her aunt, trying to mop up after Esskay's sloppy drinking.
As usual, Kitty understood what Tess meant, even if Tess wasn't quite sure. "More like three or four, maybe five. But it's always been that way, Tesser. Rich Baltimore, poor Baltimore. Black and white Baltimore. Old Baltimore, those folks who can trace their blue blood all the way back to the Ark and the Dove, and immigrant Baltimore."
"I just never thought I'd feel like I was in a foreign land less than a mile from my own apartment. I was scared today, Kitty. Scared of an old man who wanted to do nothing more than give me a soda. Scared to stand in front of a vacant house on Chester Street and talk to some stoned kid inside. The city's dying. It's not going to exist a hundred years from now."
"You're too young to be so disillusioned, Tess. Once you start to think like that, there's no turning back. Remember, in last year's nests, there are no birds this year."
"Say what?"
"You still haven't finished Don Quixote, have you?"
Reminded of her literary bête noire, Tess scrubbed harder at the floor, although she had soaked up most of the water spilled there. "I finished the first part. It took Cervantes another decade to write the second, so I thought I might take a ten-year break before I read it."
"It's the second part that really matters, more than all that tilting at windmills stuff in the first." Kitty unlocked the store's double doors, where some of the Sunday regulars were already lined up, cups of coffee in hand. These were her devoted customers, the ones who waited until noon each Sunday to buy the out-of-town papers here and then settle into her faded armchairs to read them. Few of them managed to leave without picking up a new book that Kitty had pressed into their hands. Kitty Monaghan, queen of the hand-sale.
"You know, I'm wrong," she said suddenly, straightening a pile of Anne Tyler paperbacks on permanent display by the cash register. It was Kitty's quixotic quest to lure the reclusive local writer to a signing at the store. It hadn't happened yet, but Kitty's hopes never flagged.
"You were wrong about something? Alert the media, I don't recall ever hearing that particular statement come out of your mouth before."
Kitty ignored the dig. "It's not illusions you lack, Tess. It's a Sancho. With Whitney in Tokyo and Crow in Texas, you need a sidekick. There is no Don Quixote without Sancho Panza, you know."
"Whitney will be back. As for Crow—I never think about him."
"Liar."
"Probably. At any rate, Esskay is all the Sancho I need."
The dog looked up at the sound of her name, jowls dripping, chest heaving, tongue lolling from her mouth in an antic grin. One ear stood straight up at attention, while the other flopped forward at half-mast.
"She'll do," Kitty said. "Until the real thing comes along."
Chapter 12
"I think coffee is getting better," Tess said, sipping a cup as she and Jackie waited for the Adoption Rights meeting to get under way. "When the prices were raised—when people became accustomed to paying two, three dollars, expectations went up, too. Now places that used to serve that overscorched, underbrewed crap have to offer something decent. Even places like this, where it's free."
Jackie said nothing, just wrapped her arms tighter around her middle and shoved her long legs backward beneath her plastic chair.
"Then again, there's this whole instant coffee mystery," Tess kept prattling, hoping it might calm Jackie down. "I read in the paper that the vast majority of people who drink instant are senior citizens. When asked why they drink instant, they said it takes too long to brew a fresh pot. Takes too long! Like, they have something better to do than wait the ten minutes it takes to make real coffee."
Jackie bent forward at the waist. She now looked like someone with severe abdominal cramps. Tess was beginning to think Jackie wanted her here in case she lost her nerve and bolted from the room. Then again, the Columbia Interfaith Center made her stomach ache, too. The ecumenical, all-religions-welcome-here place of worship was part of the original Columbia vision and the building still had a touchy-feely vibe.
"They're not going to make us form a circle and hold hands, are they?" Tess asked Jackie. "And sing those Jesus songs that sound like bad folk music?"
"Don't be silly, we're just meeting in the community room here, we're not going to a service." Jackie's tone was snappish and impatient, but Tess was happy just to get a response.
Still, Jackie continued trying to fold herself like an origami swan, as if she might be able to disappear if she made herself small as possible. But Jackie couldn't help being noticed. There was the fact of her clothes, casual for her, just navy slacks and a matching sweater, but nicer than anyone else's here. There was the fact of her beauty. There was the fact that she appeared to be practicing yoga.
And there was the fact she was black, the only nonwhite person in the room.
A brisk-mannered woman with graying sandy hair approached the podium at the front of the room. She turned on the microphone, made all the usual tapping tests, then turned it off.
"I guess I don't really need this tonight," she said in one of those clear, bell-like voices that carry easily. Most of the crowd laughed, Tess included, but Jackie looked impatient and edgy.
"My name is Adele Sirola and this is Adoption Rights, a support group in the best sense of that much overused term. We help reunite adoptees with their biological parents. We also lobby, at the state and federal level, for increased access to adoption records and more resources for mutual consent registries.
Last month, as we do every May, we marched on Washington for ‘Open My Records Day.'" She smiled ruefully. "And last month, as they do every May, the media ignored us. We've had what you might call something of a public relations problem over the last few years."
A hand waved down front. "A friend of mine warned me not to come here tonight. She said you were really a radical fringe group that thinks all adoptions should be banned."
Adele sighed. "That's the legacy of Baby Jessica, Baby Richard, and other totally aberrant cases in which a remorseful birth mother wants to reclaim a baby before the adoption is final and some loophole in the law—often her flat-out lie about paternity—provides the opportunity she needs to take the child back. The television cameras gather 'round and record the moment when the screaming, confused child is torn from the arms of the adoptive parents and placed into the arms of virtual strangers. It makes good television, but it's not what we're about."
Adele was pacing back and forth behind the podium, off-script now, but on fire.
"My hackles go up when someone tells me I don't understand something because I haven't experienced it. I like to think of myself as the empathetic type. But the fact is, people who aren't adoptees don't get it. They don't know what it's like to have two wonderful, loving parents and still stare in a mirror, wondering who gave birth to you. Why did they give you up? What is their legacy? Given all the ground-breaking research in genetics, how can you not want to know who your biological parents are?"
Another voice piped up from the left side of the room. "The agency that arranged my adoption said I was entitled to medical information, but that if they couldn't guarantee lifetime confidentiality, the whole system would fall apart."
"Let me guess, you were placed through Catholic services," Adele said. A few people laughed with indulgent familiarity. Every group has its own language and folklore, its own private jokes, Tess thought.
"Yeah, I know that argument," Adele continued. "Kind of outdated, don't you think? I mean, it rests on the assumption that adoptions result from shameful secrets that can be revealed only at great risk to the parent or the child. Well, last time I checked it was almost the twenty-first century and an out-of-wedlock pregnancy is nothing more than a career move. From Ingrid Bergman to Madonna in one generation. When they use the ‘shame' argument, they're saying in essence, ‘You're a mistake. You're an embarrassment.' Ridiculous."
Butchers Hill Page 11