“Who …?” Punky stopped cold and whirled to face apartment nine. She pointed her finger. “That weirdo did it!” She turned back to the two men. “Does it look like there’s any beating in progress? That asshole in nine is harassing me. He even spied on me to find out my real name. He follows me around and grabs me … .”
Florence put a hand on Punky’s shoulder. “Calm down, love.”
“We don’t ask for names,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “We don’t know who made the report, ma’am, but we do have to ask some routine questions, even though, obviously, there’s not a beating in progress … now.”
“Do you want to see my child?” Punky shrieked. “There’s not a scratch—” She halted, remembering the nasty fall on the asphalt. The nut had caused that, too. A fall. She could imagine how that would sound. Isn’t that what they all said? She felt as if she’d pop. Because of one crazy person, these men had approached her with half-baked ideas about her character and their heads full of unoriginal plots. If they could fit her into their scripts, they would. “I do not beat my child,” she said, each word brittle as ice.
The bulky deputy hooked his thumbs into his service belt laden with weapons to combat bad people. “There are other kinds of abuse.”
“What are you implying?”
“The person who made the report said your child, a two-year-old, correct?”
“Yes.”
“He said the child was regularly left alone.”
“That’s absurd. I was right there,” Punky pointed toward the trash bin, blocked from view by the other apartments, “and my child is asleep. Can’t a person step outside while her child’s asleep? I didn’t know there was a law against that.”
“I’ll vouch that she takes good care of her kid,” Vince said.
“This man your husband?” Deputy Smith glanced suspiciously at Vince and then coldly at her.
“I’m a friend. We’re neighbors.”
“What were you doing out there?” the deputy pressed.
“We were catching a cat,” Vince said as though it weren’t any of their fucking business.
“Catching a cat?”
Vince reached into the bag and hauled out the tom by its scruff. It exploded into a scratching, spitting, and growling gray flurry that leaped toward the tan uniform. The man jumped, reaching for his gun. The cat streaked toward Lostart.
“My Tom!” Florence cried. “What were you doing with my Tom in a sack?” She backed away from Punky and stared at Vince, as if, indeed, they might be child abusers.
Punky squeezed her eyes shut. If only she could get through this evening without the police arresting her for moral turpitude or marijuana possession she’d be lucky. She took two deep breaths and silently chanted her koan.
“If we keep talking this loudly,” Vince said, pivoting from Florence’s glare, “we’re going to wake the kid. Would you like me to bring him out here so you can inspect him, gentlemen? I think I can do that without waking him.”
Punky could have kissed him.
“It would be a good idea to see the child,” Julio Gutierrez agreed, frowning around at all of them.
Vince went into her apartment and emerged with Todd in his arms.
The tousled head turned to find a comfortable spot against Vince’s shoulder, but his eyes stayed closed.
Julio Gutierrez shrugged. Clearly the guy could see a beating could not have been going on even when the call was made unless she’d drugged Todd or knocked him into oblivion. But Punky’s heart hammered as Julio Guiterrez approached her baby.
“Most calls contain some validity,” the man said. He slid up the legs of Todd’s Mickey Mouse pajamas. “How’d he get these bruises?”
“I was trying to get away from that crazy guy and Todd had my leg. He fell in the driveway.”
Punky chewed her lip, tears sprouting in her eyes. In truth, she’d twirled her baby onto the hard surface and even dragged him a bit. She struggled to view the situation as Julio Gutierrez must. Hired to protect children, he no doubt viewed the “adults” of the world with suspicion, as a pretty shitty and very deceptive bunch.
“We would like to see the child’s environment.”
Deputy Smith, wiping at the front of his uniform as though the cat had spit on it, said gruffly, “The job’s not done until the paperwork is finished.” A person could find the quip in every other public restroom, but the man smiled thinly as though he’d been witty.
When they turned toward the steps, Punky started shaking uncontrollably. Vince opened the door for the men and her heart burped.
She followed them in. As soon as she entered, she noticed that Vince had shut the bedroom door behind him. What a guy!
Florence hung back at the doorway, looking indignant and insulted, as if unsure she wanted to be associated with catnappers.
“Florence,” Punky said, “please believe there’s an explanation for the cat thing.”
“Oh, there’s an explanation for everything,” Florence said hotly. “That doesn’t mean there’s an excuse.”
“I wanted to use him to catch some mice,” Vince said quickly, but softly, since Todd’s ear rested near his mouth. The little gesture of sweetness melted Punky completely.
Julio Gutierrez lifted his eyebrows and eyed the mouse in the terrarium while the deputy shifted his weight and sighed at the sight of futons.
“I knew he’d be a great mouser,” Vince said out the door to Florence. “He’s clearly the strongest, toughest cat around.”
“You can bet your bippy on that, love.”
Vince motioned toward the futons with the hand cradled around Todd’s bottom. “This is your total choice of seats, gentlemen.”
Florence moved away, down the steps. “I have to get my cigarettes.” The tone of her voice indicated they weren’t forgiven just because she didn’t intend to miss the action.
As Julio Gutierrez edged around the living room, stopping to open the toy box and inspect its contents, Punky forced herself to breathe.
The Morning After
In the morning Vince forgot to sign in at work, rammed a pallet with the forklift, and spilled coffee down Jose Martinez’s undershirt.
“Ah, chit, man.” Jose Martinez smeared the coffee with the palm of his hand. “You need to be laid, man. You’re as nervous as a stud, you know, before they let it with the woman horse.”
“Mare,” Vince said. He strode to the back office with Martinez at his heels. Vince picked up an empty water bottle by its neck.
“Mare, tha’s it.” Martinez snapped his fingers.
Mr. Pasty Face barely raised his head, indifferent to the two men and to the fate of the Alhambra bottle.
Sometimes Vince felt like knocking down Martinez because the thin, tiny man with the pencil mustache acted as though he’d fried his brain with hot sauce, when, in fact, he was sneaky. Like now, the guy’d struck the exact nerve. With cocky assurance, Martinez had guessed … no, not guessed, stated, exactly what was ailing Vince. It was uncanny; it reminded him of Punky’s ability to pull thoughts from his brain.
Vince had been with Punky all night and images, like a surreal film, tortured his mind—first a strand of hair in candlelight, then a pliable mound of breast under his hand, next the arch of her neck under his lips, tasting like her exotic scent. Not leading anywhere. In frustration, he jetted air through his nostrils.
Then he smacked his forehead because that sounded exactly like an aroused stallion.
He forced himself to think of reality to avoid a hard-on as he walked through the basement. After the police had gone, he’d wanted to sleep with Punky, but they had sat talking on the futons. She’d lit a candle to soothe herself, and her features flickered in the soft light and the scent of her hair, that harem smell, mixed with the odor of burning wax. She nestled against him, wanting to be held after the ordeal, but unable to relax. Every time she rose to check the child, his cock rose with her.
The cheeks of her butt were larger than those of any woman h
e’d been with. Catching the fabric of her drawstring pants, her ass divided like an apricot. He wanted to bite the fleshy roundness down to the seed, to explore her most secret spots. But Punky feared Lefty Hunt might be watching, that he might fabricate another report, and she kept popping up, rigid with vigilance.
Vince hoped she’d call the manager about that guy this morning. Water bottle in hand, he stopped at the broken pallet.
“Whatcha doin’, man?” Martinez asked.
“I’m going to construct a mouse trap in my car,” Vince said.
“Oh, yeah,” Martinez said as though he didn’t even wonder why someone would make a mouse trap in a car.
Vince wrenched a plank from the cracked pallet.
“You’ll get in big trouble, man,” Martinez said, “if someone sees you doing that.”
“You’re someone,” Vince said. “See, I’ll put the bottle in my car with this plank running up to the neck, and then I’ll put cheese down inside the jar and the mice will jump in after it, and they won’t be able to get out because they aren’t so good at climbing up glass. What do you think?”
The man laughed, making noises through his nose. “You’re nuts, man.”
That was a response Vince knew all too well.
Her hair uncombed and her eyes bloodshot, Punky sat on the futons and thought about the large plant of Colombian in the bedroom. A decent lid of weed could cost two hundred dollars, and she wondered why she could possess an ounce or less with little worry, but a plant, raised solely for her use—cheaper, purer, and not contributing to organized crime—constituted a felony. Maybe Vince was right and one plant didn’t count.
If she uprooted the plant and draped it upside down in the closet to dry, she wondered if that would be a felony since the marijuana would not, technically, be growing. It was a shame to pick it now when in two more weeks that plant would be perfect, but she had to get rid of it before she called Bobbi Headland about Lefty Hunt. There was no telling who might show up at her place.
Fear and Trembling
Force feeding my seniors The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock for the perverse, egotistical reason that I love the poem, (appropriate for our fall weather, I told them), I trembled at the heart of it:
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
The lights blinked and the floor trembled. The poem must be affecting me more deeply than I thought. By the time the first dictionary hopped from the shelf, all the students had ducked and covered.
Because I didn’t dare disturb the universe, it had decided to disturb me.
Elisa Dorado called from under a counter, “Come on, Ms. Knutsen. This is for reals.”
The quake itself was deadly quiet, but desk bottoms clicked against the tile, pencils rolled, and the Plexiglas panes over the fluorescent bulbs rattled in warning. Squatting under a desk, I smiled meekly at the other bodies huddled and crouched on the floor under other desks, and I had the profound, humbling, and yet, quite ordinary realization that I was more frightened and just as vulnerable as my students, and, not only that, it was glaringly apparent to them. We were all at the mercy of the earth.
When the shaking stilled, after a couple of minutes, we stiffly unfurled and the students picked up objects that had fallen and then sat down, whispering assurances to one another and joking a bit about “The End.”
They seemed alert and excited as they gradually gave me their attention. Then I made a stupid mistake. I asked them to pick a segment of the poem, anything from a line to a stanza, and to respond to it in writing. The excitement dissipated; it left the classroom like air from a balloon. Disappointment settled in its place.
The students could understand that I might have been too shaken to discuss the experience, but I could have asked them to write about it. Instead, I was afraid they might say something about what they’d seen in my face, so I had asked them to stuff their feelings. To get back on task.
Although there was no power after the tremor, and I was not fit to teach, school stayed in session. I was thankful the earthquake had not happened during my third period class with my brightest, largest, and most cruel group of juniors. They would have used it as an excuse for a major disturbance or would have ridiculed my ignorance.
Our campus served as an Earthquake Emergency Center so in theory I couldn’t be in a better place, even if my legs kept registering aftershocks until the final bell rang.
At home, the power was out. My favorite vase had leaped to its death on the linoleum and a red rose lay in the shards of glass. A bottle of vinegar had fallen from a shelf into the sink and the sharp smell filled the apartment. The earthquake didn’t damage much because I didn’t have much.
The banging of Mrs. Bean’s screen door startled me, and I watched out the window as Florence made her way around the unperturbed Buddha Belly. “Are you going to be okay now?” she asked back into the apartment.
“Yes, that’s just fine,” came Mrs. Bean’s loud voice. “Thank you for cranking that thing up for me. I guess the knob was rusty.”
“No problem. That’s what neighbors are for.”
Florence crossed the drive to The Invisible Lady’s window. “Hello,” she called. “How you doing in there?”
The usual pause.
“You have candles or a kerosene lamp for tonight?”
Another pause.
“That’s good. I was helping Mrs. Bean turn up the wick on hers. Do you have a radio with batteries?”
Another pause.
“Good. Sounds like you’re all set, but if you need anything, you call me. You have my number.”
I wished that Florence would cross back over to my place, but she probably figured I didn’t need anything. I put on a good front.
When the World is Still
I had no battery-operated radio, and when I picked up the receiver of my phone, it crackled with static, so I sat in silence with my students’ papers. As it grew dark, I lit my one candle.
My cheap pine rocking chair creaked, and the papers rested on my thighs like an old woman’s lap rug. Since I’d lived now in California for ten years, I’d experienced other earthquakes, but they’d either been tiny tremors or I’d slept through them or I’d been in a car and hadn’t felt them. This one had moved the floor under my feet and vibrated the ceiling of the classroom.
Now, as I sat in my apartment, I glanced at the top paper in the stack. The irony of having left a dying paper mill town only to be deluged with papers struck me. Anger resurfaced for how I’d handled the earthquake at school.
The student had written neatly across the top:
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Wriggling. Sprawling on a pin. The words evoked the image of my fetus. It had been a bit over an inch, a fraction of an ounce, a worm-like creature, but with face and features, arms, elbows, forearms, hands, thighs, knees, calves, feet, a creature the size of the top joint of my little finger, ugly cute like E.T., wriggling, helplessly, for a millisecond at the tip of the suction.
Get a grip, I told myself angrily, closing my eyes and rubbing my eyebrows. Eliot was not talking about what we did to other people, but about the way Prufrock and people in general bathe in formaldehyde and hang their own carcasses over labels.
I was skewering myself on a pin of guilt. Anti-abortionists made a big deal over the beating heart, but a corpse on a pump could have a beating heart. They didn’t ever focus on the less romantic, but equally important, brain, which in my fetus would have been essentially non-existent. Could you be a human without a brain? What about the idea of brain dead?
“I don’t think any woman thinks it’s not alive,” my friend Imogene had said. “You just do what you have to do and then try to live with it.”
Below the copied passage, the student had written. “School makes me feel ‘formulate
d.’” I couldn’t read any more. I cried noiselessly, feeling unutterably miserable, like a stupid perpetrator in the crime of the century, pickling brains with codified knowledge.
I put aside the papers. The doctor’s vacuum had sucked the life out of me, left me dried up, without enough juice for tears as I rocked in my solitary case in the stillness of a powerless night.
Lefty Hunt
Lefty Hunt huddled in the dark, terrified. He wondered if the trembling and darkness had happened because he’d forgotten to take his meds. But he didn’t think he’d forgotten. His mother had bought a plastic dispenser for him with each day of the week labeled, and every Sunday she organized his pills. But maybe it was Wednesday and he just thought it was Tuesday.
His mother would be angry if he’d forgotten to take them. His mother’s eyes looked like shattered marbles. Her smile looked like a red stick you could break. Even her yellow hair was stiff and furious.
Lefty sat in the corner with his legs drawn up. He chewed on his knee and wished it weren’t dark. Then he could check the calendar and the pill dispenser again. Maybe something would tell him for sure it was Tuesday.
Lefty wished he had a flashlight.
Of course, even if the Tuesday pills were gone, somebody could have stolen them. Somebody was taking stuff like Mrs. Bean’s jewelry. At Tranquility House, Carl always said people took his clothes, but Carl was crazy. Lefty hoped nobody thought he was the thief just because he was different.
It was so much easier at Tranquility House where Teresa Galera gave him his meds. That was better. Then he was sure. Then he had people to talk to. People like himself. Carl and four other guys. And Mama Galera. And Joe, her husband, who did things like paint the splotches on the ceiling after the inspector came. And put on the new toilet that rocked. Mama and Joe’s kids lived there, too. Anabelle had her crib in his room. Lefty liked to hear Anabelle’s soft, sweet breathing at night. It calmed him better than meds. He didn’t know why that facility had to close. He wished his mother had put him in another facility. Nobody here wanted to talk to him.
He wished his mother would come even though he didn’t like her to come. Always he felt like that time when she’d caught him playing with himself, like she was ashamed, sorry he was ever born, like she was glass that could crack right in half.
Lostart Street Page 6