A Small Crowd of Strangers

by Joanna Rose

  “Rubbing will make it worse,” she said, her face close to Maya’s face, and she could taste the hair spray. “Just blink.”

  Maya did. Tears gathered on her thick eyelashes, and her eyes were red. The irises of her eyes were so dark they were black, no pupil, just big black eyes full of tears and red.

  She said, “You said the F word.”

  Pattianne pulled her head close to her heart again. Holding a child, and here it is, more pain in the world. Hearts don’t break. She had said the F word. She was a fuck up.

  “I shouldn’t have said that,” she whispered. She was hiding her face from both of them. She was hiding her face from the world. Maya was so small. Pattianne was so afraid for her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. She touched Maya’s tears. “You want a cookie?”

  “What kind?”

  She had shortbread cookies in a tin and stale gingersnaps.

  Lakshmi said, “We should go get chocolate-chocolate-chip cookies at Ruby’s.”

  Maya looked hopeful. But no way was Pattianne going back out into the world. She was exhausted. She stood up tall and wrapped one of the dish towels around her head and put her hands on her hips.

  “No dogs at Ruby’s Roadhouse,” she said, in a tall-woman, dark-skinned, singsong voice. “Says so there on the sign.”

  They laughed and she was redeemed for a moment, until they left and she was alone again. She cried then, for a while, wiping her face with the dish towel, crying softly.

  She put more wood on the fire, built it up to a small roar, watched the fire, went back to the waiting. She got the blue glass vial from her jacket pocket and set it on the floor in front of the fire, and they waited together.

  It was Josie’s birthday.

  The place they called Josie House was behind Ruby’s Roadhouse, a white cement building, long and low, the building Pattianne had seen from the beach on that first day. Now she angled across the road toward it, and what she saw was a big window that looked onto a bit of yard and a fence, to the back of Ruby’s Roadhouse. An old toilet sat decoratively under the window, pink plastic flowers potted on the back of it, and she kept walking, but slower. Three cement turtles along a chain-link fence, one whose head was broken off, all headed the same way, even the one with no head. Bullfrog sniffed at them through the fence. They were bigger than he was.

  “Careful of those turtles,” she said.

  Around the back corner of Ruby’s Roadhouse, the yard turned into an L shape, and there was Mr. Bleakman and two other men, watching a skinny piece of lumber that stuck a few feet up out of the ground. Then the door opened and Josie herself came out, carrying pieces of tinfoil that blew in the wind with a sound like small thunder. One of the men took the tinfoil pieces and lay them on the ground around the stake. Mr. Bleakman sat on a shiny metal trash can that was upside-down on the ground. Pattianne stood at an opening in the fence just past the turtles. There was no gate.

  Josie yelled, “Hey, you’re early. Come on in.”

  “No, I’m not early. We’re just out for a walk.”

  But Josie came over, a red T-shirt stretching across her pregnant belly.

  “We’re just about to start the bird,” she said. “Come on in and have some spicy mulled wine. I’m having some myself. Just a tiny bit. Hello, Sugarlips.”

  Bullfrog wagged his way into the yard, and one of the men said, “Hey, Sugarlips, how’s it hanging?” and they all cracked up.

  Bullfrog sniffed at the trash can, sniffed at Mr. Bleakman’s feet, and then headed for the piece of lumber, and all three men jumped up, saying “No, get away there,” all of them shooing Bullfrog away from the stake and the tinfoil on the ground. “Wouldn’t be Josie’s birthday without one of the dogs getting a squirt at the two-by.” And they all laughed some more. They looked like a TV commercial for Moosehead beer.

  “We’re really just going for a walk. Mrs. Taskey said four o’clock?”

  “She’s inside greasing down the bird,” Josie said.

  “Well, I have to take Bullfrog home anyway.”

  “I’m just getting started on the beans, mushed-up green beans with mushroom soup. I tell the kids that’s why it’s called mushroom soup, ha! Cal, weight down that tinfoil. There’s the rocks, use them.”

  “I have to get my muffins too.”

  “You can smash up the almonds if you want,” Josie said, heading back toward the door. “Cal, where’s your hammer? Pattianne is going to help smash up almonds for the beans.”

  “Green beans and almonds,” one man said, and the men all looked at each other. Then one said, “Hey, Pattianne, glad you can come over. There’s beers over there,” and he pointed to the toilet. It was full of ice and cans of Moosehead. He said, “My hammer’s already in the kitchen.” He seemed to be the one called Cal. He had black hair, a lot of it, on his head, down his back in a ponytail. In his ears. It seemed like she’d remember ever meeting such a hairy person.

  Bullfrog joined the men staring at the stake in the ground, which was now surrounded with tinfoil weighted down with rocks. The third man, who was really just a kid, a high school kid maybe, took out a pack of cigarettes. He looked a lot like Cal. Not quite as hairy. He shook out a cigarette and offered it to Bullfrog. They all laughed, and it was easier to follow Josie than it would have been to leave.

  The door was painted yellow. Instead of a doorknob there was a water faucet, HOT, which Josie yanked and then held the door open. Pattianne went in and didn’t know why. She could swear she’d just said she was going for a walk. The short hallway was hung with yellow raincoats, denim jackets, sweaters, long knitted hats, a plaid wool shirt, and a pair of overalls, the paneled walls on both sides bulging with clothes. On the floor under the clothes were black rubber boots and red rubber boots and hiking boots and sneakers and one small red saddle shoe in the very middle of the floor.

  Josie said, “You can hang your coat up here,” and she went past, and Pattianne pressed against the wall of clothes to make room for that stomach. A red-and-black team jacket with something heavy in the pocket dropped to the floor. Josie kicked a blue high heel with a rhinestone bow out of the way. It bounced off a day-glow pink backpack and ended up in the middle of the floor next to the small red saddle shoe.

  “Mary Louise,” she yelled. “What’s my shoe doing down here?”

  “It wasn’t me. It was Francie.”

  “That’s a dirty lie. I was right here since breakfast, watching this stupid TV that don’t come in.”

  Josie kept moving and yelled, “Turn that thing off, Francie, and get that baby dressed.”

  “It’s Carolyn’s turn. I did it yesterday.”

  “That’s a dirty lie. Janey did it yesterday.”

  “Carolyn, you stick to your business,” Josie yelled, and she turned a corner out of sight, still yelling. “Which I believe is rounding up all the dishes. I want every dish down here in the sink, pronto.”

  Pattianne thought if she lost sight of Josie, she might be stuck forever in this hallway with all this stuff falling down on her.

  The kitchen was a long, wide room with an old gas stove and a counter with a deep sink, and Mrs. Taskey standing at the sink. The counter next to the sink was filled with a leaning stack of plates, rows of glasses and a mixing bowl with a blue plastic cow standing in it. A little girl in a Batman cape and underpants stood at the open refrigerator door.

  “Look who came early!” Josie was not yelling now. “Tammy, I thought you were teaching Barbie how to play that card game.”

  Mrs. Taskey picked a turkey up out of the sink and said, “What a bird.”

  Josie said, “Ha!”

  The little girl in the Batman cape and underpants said, “Barbie won’t come out of the bathroom.”

  Mrs. Taskey set the turkey back down in the sink. “You tell Barbie I said come out of the bathroom.”

  Pattianne found her voice trapped somewhere deep in the panic in her stomach.

  “My biscuits,” she said. “Bullf
rog. Four o’clock.”

  A door next to the refrigerator banged open and two, maybe three, large teenage boys with large sneakers crowded the doorway. “Okay, Ma.”

  “Don’t yell,” Josie said. “Did you hose it off?”

  “Yeah, it was covered with bird you-know-what.”

  “Ooh.” The little Batgirl slammed the refrigerator door shut. “I’m not eating off a table that has bird doots.”

  “Well, take it on over,” Josie said. “Francie, get that baby dressed. Tammy, come help Mama.”

  The Batgirl ran over to Mrs. Taskey, covered her nose and most of her face with her Batman cape, and said, “Bird doots.”

  The boys, there appeared to be four of them now, dragged a piece of plywood through the doorway, scraping the refrigerator. A calendar and a painting of a yellow circle landed on the floor. One boy stepped on the painting of the yellow circle, and Tammy let loose a yell. “My potty picture, you wrecked it.”

  The boy dropped his corner of the plywood and picked up the painting and went on over to Tammy who had covered her whole face with her Batman cape and was wailing, “Ooh, ooh.” He got down on his knees and said, “Don’t worry, kiddy, you can make another one, I promise. Maybe we’ll even add some doots.” And Tammy’s face came out all teary and said, “Your doots or mine?”

  “Yours,” he said.

  “Yours are bigger,” she said.

  “Come on, dude, get this,” one of the other boys said, and Dude told Tammy, “Okay, mine,” and he dropped the potty painting on the counter and got back over to the plywood.

  Mrs. Taskey was drying her hands on her apron, plaid with pink hearts along the hem.

  “Now, boys, wouldn’t it be smart to just drag it around the outside instead of through here?” she said. “Miss Tammy, let’s go see if we can get Barbie out of the bathroom.”

  “I think she probably locked the door,” Tammy said. “On accident probably.” She followed Mrs. Taskey, who went one way, and the boys went backward out the door with the plywood.

  Pattianne was suddenly standing alone in the middle of the kitchen. The TV set blasted louder and then went off. Mrs. Taskey was singing “Oh, Barbie Girl” to the tune of “Oh, Danny Boy,”—“the pipes, the pipes are calling”—and a toilet flushed. A sharp, pinched voice in the corner of the kitchen went “Ha!”

  It was a bird. A parrot type of bird, long green and red feathers, sitting on a perch. Newspaper was spread on the floor around it, covered with seeds and bird doots. It stared at her with one round yellow eye and then the other. “Ha!” It sat there on its perch, which was next to the door, which was open.

  Pattianne went through the open door.

  A gravel path led around to the front. When she rounded the corner, Bullfrog jumped up and came toward her, his tail all, My god, where the hell have you been?

  “See you folks in a bit.” Pattianne waved and the guys waved back. She was all perky, la la la, biscuits, four o’clock.

  Ha.

  A sandy trail ran behind Ruby’s Roadhouse to the beach. Driftwood and small round rocks, and then the smooth sand. The wind had picked up, blowing hard and warm from the south, so they walked north. The beach didn’t go very far north. She could see ahead where it cut in to an inlet with big rocks and the woods edging out to the beach. Bullfrog pranced from rock to rock.

  She could see Josie House from the beach and didn’t want to look back—they might be watching her escape—but she looked back anyway, and the windows that faced the beach were open and empty.

  The tide was out, easy walking around tide pools, going almost in circles sometimes around clear, deep pools full of shells. She reached to get one and the water was warm. She dropped it back into the pool.

  They were all in the kitchen with the parrot, or in some other room with a piece of plywood with all the bird doots hosed off. Josie seemed to think she was in charge, but Pattianne’s thinking was that it was the little girl in the Batman cape. Barbie seemed to have a good deal to do with what was actually going on too.

  Closer to the big rocks, tiny things lived in the pools, dark shoots and pale fleshy sea urchins caught in black strands of grass. Bird tracks circling.

  Behind her, down the beach, people moved in the edge of her vision. She caught words on the wind, a laugh, a presence that anchored her. She wondered what she looked like to them―a woman with her dog on the beach―whether they were looking, whether they saw her. She wanted them to see her.

  The small, thin-legged birds raced around in groups, pecking at the sand with no one in charge. She stood close to the curve of a huge rock, where water dripped down through crusted barnacles and limpets and mussels, water that made a small sound right by her ear. Bullfrog shook his head, his tags jingling, and the thin-legged birds rose, all turning on one dark wing. They vanished in the air above the surf, and then they were there again on a white wing, gliding to a spot up the beach. A limpet shell bounced down the side of the rock. The first thing she thought was bird doots, but then another limpet shell dropped, and a round, speckled orange bird jumped away from the rock above her, the way some birds will walk and hop and jump instead of just lifting away on their wings. She used to watch the crows in Cranbury, when they first moved there, the way they hopped around in the road, and she would think, Just fly.

  This bird had a white face with black stripes. She walked around the big rock, following the bird, that striped face, and here were more of them, speckled birds with bright masked faces, pecking and chattering. They didn’t really sound like birds, more like water on the rocks. And there, out of the wind, a rich, rotten smell gagged her. The birds scattered into the air over the rocks, one of them carrying a long, stringy piece of bloody gut. They had been swarming over a dead sea lion, the stinking carcass hopping with tiny bugs, its side pecked open. Bullfrog headed straight for it.

  “No!” Loud enough for him to really hear. She grabbed his collar and dragged him back, her eyes watering, the stink, good Lord. She hooked him to his leash and dragged him back around the rock, back out into the wind. He really wanted to check out that sea lion, and she went fast up the beach to the end, to the last of the rocks, where the inlet lapped gently and prettily at the smooth sand. She breathed deep, and spit and spit, wanting the dead stink out of her nose, her throat. Her eyes were still watering.

  It didn’t seem very big for a sea lion. It looked like dirty melted plastic.

  She climbed up on a rock, and Bullfrog sat on the sand, his leash still hooked to his collar, an insult, his nose bobbing on the wind.

  “I’m watching you,” she said.

  The ocean was a hard, black, glittery surface, like something solid broken apart. Flocks of birds lifted into the wind, and she wouldn’t look at them, hating them.

  It’s just death.

  Ha.

  Then Father Lucke and the proprietress appeared, coming toward her rock now, and there went Bullfrog, all friendly, like he was saying, Hey, did you see that sea lion back there? Cool, huh?

  “So,” he said—Father Lucke, not Bullfrog—“enjoying the sunshine?”

  He said it to her, not Bullfrog, and she said, “Did you see that dead sea lion back there?”

  The proprietress said, “Everybody gets a feast on Josie’s birthday.”

  A scarf of lumpy knitted green-and-yellow stripes was wrapped around her head.

  Father Lucke said, “Birds of the fields and whatnot,” and he tipped a silver flask to his mouth, and then he handed it to the proprietress.

  She sipped and offered it to Pattianne. “Schnapps?”

  “You guys are drinking peppermint schnapps?”

  Father Lucke said, “We are under the illusion that the peppermint fools the kids.”

  Pattianne jumped off the rock, landing hard on the sand. She took the flask and sipped. Perfect. The death was cleared from her throat.

  The shell earrings swung as if they were ringing.

  Pattianne said, “I don’t even know your name.�
�

  “Marie.”

  “Thank you, Marie.”

  They moved toward the surf, wide around the sea lion, Pattianne holding Bullfrog’s leash and Marie passing the flask to Father Lucke and him passing it to Pattianne.

  When she passed it back to him he tucked it away inside his canvas jacket. He wore jeans and a black shirt with his collar tab.

  He said to Marie, “So, see you in a bit?”

  And Marie said to her, “I suppose you’ll be bringing this dog along to dinner?”

  And he said, “All creatures great and small.”

  Marie said, “Oh, please,” and they both stood there in the sun and the wind, laughter around them like death around a rock, easy.

  “So, what’s the deal with Josie House?”

  The wind went still, but not really, and Father Lucke said, “It’s about love.”

  Marie said, “It’s about getting that lobby ready for dinner.” She nodded at Pattianne, her bells swinging, and headed up toward Ruby’s Roadhouse, the wind flapping her shirt like she was a pale blue stork.

  Father Lucke was not very tall, and not fat really, just one of those round people, especially in his cheeks, which made him seem rounder all over than he really was.

  “Josie takes care of the folks, that’s all.”

  His blond hair was wispy and flew all over his pink head, and he squinted at her, or maybe at the sun.

  “What folks?”

  “In the house.”

  “Are those all her kids?”

  “No. Most of them, but no.”

  “They just all live there?”

  He took her elbow and turned her south, and they walked into the wind. “Josie runs the house, does for the folks that live there. Well, there’s Marilyn, and Tuck and Parker. They don’t get out much. That’s all for now. There have been more. There’ll be others.”

  They stopped and looked up to the back of Ruby’s Roadhouse, where Mr. Bleakman was no longer sitting on the trash can. It was now turned upright and shining silver in the sun.

  Father Lucke said, “Just watch.”

  Mrs. Taskey was there with the pale pink turkey in a pan. One of the men took the turkey and upended it onto the stake in the ground, and its wings hung down like the limbs they were, like death, but this was too weird to take seriously. It looked like a doll with no head. Pattianne went, “Hmm.”