“Exactly what do I get if I help you?”
“A place to live.”
“What kind of place?”
“A house, with enough of a yard for a nice garden.”
“In the school district?”
“Yes. So, are you going to help me, or not?”
“If I do, how do I know you’ll keep your half of the bargain?”
“I’ll have no choice. You’ll know something about me that I won’t want anyone else to know.”
“I see . . . all right. I think I can put you in touch with the kind of person you’re looking for.”
21
Whap! The pistol-shot smack of the catcher’s mitt reverberated through the air when Noah caught the pitch I’d just thrown. In my mind my conversation with Buddha the day before was more motivation to begin pitching again.
But while things felt good on the pitching mound, they didn’t feel so great back “home.” It was the Friday of our second week in Dignityville and Mom had started working on the new garden, planting fall vegetables like cabbage, carrots, and beets. Later that evening in the dim light of the dining tent you could see that her face was rosy and glowing after a day of physical labor. But beside her Dad looked pale and grim as he told us the Subaru’s transmission was shot and we didn’t have the money to repair it.
“The guy at the junkyard will give me a couple hundred bucks for it,” he said.
We’d lost our house. Now we were losing our car. A couple hundred bucks wouldn’t last long. It was starting to feel like we’d be stuck in Dignityville forever. With Talia’s voice echoing in my ears, I asked if he’d come across any job possibilities.
“There’s nothing out there,” he said.
But there has to be something, I thought. “You mean, nothing that pays better than unemployment?”
Dad and Mom exchanged a furtive look, then Dad said, “Unemployment ran out.”
That’s how I learned we were applying for food stamps and something called TANF—Temporary Assistance for Needy Families—which was basically just another name for welfare. My parents said they would use the food stamps for their breakfasts and lunches, but I wished we could have used them that night, because someone got the Dignityville menu mixed up and the result was hot dogs, creamed spinach, and beets.
“Remind me not to be homeless in my next lifetime,” our neighbor Fred grumbled good-naturedly when he and his wife, Diane, joined us in the dining tent.
“Now, now, Fred,” Diane teased. “You’re the one who’s always saying beggars can’t be choosers.”
“Maybe, but you never heard me say it when I was hungry.”
Meg sat down with us and had started to eat when Joel came by.
“Know where Aubrey is?” he asked.
“He’s working tonight.”
Joel made a face. “I was hoping he could help me with the bikes.”
“I’ll help you,” Meg said. “Just let me finish dinner.”
“You’re a good little sister,” Diane said after Joel left.
“I’ve been well trained,” Meg replied, and then told us stories about what it was like having Aubrey for a big brother. Like how, when she was eight, she had to be a vegan because he was going through his vegan period, and when she was eleven he made her feel so guilty about her favorite leather cowboy boots that she’d stopped wearing them, and everything else that came from animals.
Meg could be pretty funny when she felt like it, and everyone except Dad laughed. At the end of dinner she asked me if I wanted to join her helping Joel, but I was on cleanup detail again and after that Talia and I were supposed to go to Jen’s birthday party at Wally’s Wowza-Burger. Gradually the others left the table. Fred and Diane headed back to their tent and Mom went to babysit Stella so that Mona could go to work. Soon it was just me and Dad, who sat with his head in his hands, looking morose.
“You okay?” I asked, concerned.
He looked up. Maybe it was the dim light, but his eyes looked deep and hollow. “Oh, yeah, for a total failure I’m great.”
That caught me by surprise. He’d never sounded so utterly defeated before.
“No,” I said. “You’ve been a damn good father.”
“And look where we’ve wound up.” He gestured around the dining tent.
“It’s not you, it’s the economy.”
Dad shook his head slowly. “I let this happen. I know Mom says she’s happy, but she just wants to see the good side of everything.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. We’ll figure something out.”
Dad stared at the table and didn’t reply.
“Listen,” I said. “If you’re a failure, so is every parent who ever stayed home to raise their kids. And how can you say you’re a failure? What about all those inner-city kids you kept from joining gangs?”
“The program’s gone. What do you think those kids are doing now?” He hung his head. Seeing him so depressed made me feel guilty that I’d ever gotten angry at him for allowing us to wind up here. Not everyone was born to be a great businessman. In his own way he’d done the best he could, and no matter what he said now, he probably had made a difference for a lot of those disadvantaged kids.
And there was something else. “Hey, I wouldn’t be going to Rice next year if it wasn’t for you.”
Dad looked up and the corners of his mouth rose with pride. “Yeah.” But the smile was brief and was soon replaced by a faraway look. “I ever tell you that senior year of high school was probably the best time I ever had? From the second I got accepted on early admission it was one big party.” His lips firmed. “Meanwhile you get to spend senior year in a tent. . . . You deserve better, Dan. You really do.”
I’m not sure I’d ever seen Dad so down. Even though I was supposed to be cleaning up the dining room, I sat there with him, afraid to let him be alone. Outside, people were still coming home from work. I couldn’t get used to the idea that you could have a full-time job and still be homeless, but the evidence was all around us. Of course, there were the others—disheveled, with tattered clothes, missing teeth, unshaven and unsteady, the ones you suspected weren’t exactly following the Dignityville rules about sobriety.
I’d once looked down on people like that. To be honest, I’d felt superior. But not anymore.
Dad rose up from his seat. “You better get to work.”
“Sure you’ll be okay?” I asked.
He smiled weakly. “Don’t worry about me.”
As I started across the dining tent, I glanced at the TV in the back. Now that dinner was over, the usual crowd had gathered for the evening’s entertainment. The local news was on and they were reporting that the police had just discovered a beating victim behind Ruby’s Bar and Grill. He’d been identified as the restaurant’s bartender.
PART TWO
22
It’s pouring outside the emergency room. Meg and I stand under the canopy, chilled by the cold mist as rain roars down. Dignityville is nearly three miles away, and we’ll get soaked if we try to walk. There’s a cab at the curb . . . if only I had money for the fare.
Meg digs into her pocket and I feel like crap. Her brother’s been nearly beaten to death and now she’s got to pay for the ride home?
She counts what she pulls out of her pocket. “I’ve got enough.” We run out into the rain.
The cabby needs to know where we’re going.
“Know Dignityville?” I ask.
“Who doesn’t?” he answers. I expect him to start driving, but he looks over the seat at me. “Sure you got the fare?”
“Yeah.”
In the back of the cab I put my arm around Meg and she sniffs miserably. Could things be any worse? If I’ve read between the lines correctly, her brother may not even make it through the night. Back “home” in Dignityville her father’s deathly ill. I wish I knew what to say, but anything that comes to mind feels like some movie cliché.
There, there, everything’s going to be okay.
; Yeah, right.
“I can’t stop thinking about them hitting him with a baseball bat,” she sniffs.
The cabdriver looks at us in the rearview mirror. “That beating tonight?”
“You know about it?” I ask, surprised.
He holds up something that looks like a walkie-talkie. “Police scanner. He gonna be okay?”
Our eyes meet in the rearview mirror and I shake my head, not because I know what’s going to happen to Aubrey, but because this isn’t the time to talk about it. He nods back.
Ten minutes later we stop in front of Dignityville. When Meg tries to pay, the driver shakes his head. “Forget it. I was heading in this direction anyway.”
We thank him multiple times and then run down the muddy path in the dark, the rain making pocking sounds on the cloth roofs of the tents. When we get to Meg’s she turns to me, her hair plastered to her head and rainwater dripping down her face. “Thank you, Dan. I . . . I don’t know what I would have done . . .” She seems so frail and wounded, and the next thing I know, even though we’re standing in the rain getting drenched, I take her in my arms and hug her.
* * *
Jogging back to my tent through the rain, my feet are soaked and squishy in my shoes. Here and there in the dark bikes are propped against the fence or leaning against tent posts—the results of Aubrey’s bike drive. My phone vibrates again. Talia. That makes seven messages from her, and I’ve got that dismal feeling like when I’ve thrown a bad game and in the locker room the reporters from the local newspaper and radio station are going to ask what happened. As if I ever know how to answer.
Gee, guys, guess I just didn’t have my good stuff today.
According to my horoscope, Venus in Capricorn forms a square to Saturn in Libra, which tends to make my curveball hang.
Our tent is empty. Inside I pull off my soaked jacket and shoes, dry my head with a towel, pull on a fresh hoodie and dry socks.
Then, as much as I dread it, I call Talia back. “Hey.”
“Where are you?” She sounds hurt. “Why haven’t you answered my texts?”
I make up a lie about how I was waiting at the Gerson Street bus stop when Meg passed on her way to the hospital and told me about what had happened to Aubrey. And how I could tell she needed support and I went with her.
“Aubrey?”
“Her brother. The one who’s kind of the leader of Dignityville.”
“Is Meg there?” is all Talia wants to know.
“She’s in her tent. But think about it, Tal. The guys who beat up Aubrey couldn’t have known he lived in Dignityville unless someone told them. It really sounds like they beat him up on purpose.”
As if she hasn’t heard a word I’ve said, she says, “Can you still come to the party?”
It’s almost eleven and I’m toast, but that never stopped me from going out before. Sooner or later you catch a second wind. That’s not what’s holding me back. It’s just hard to imagine partying after what happened to Aubrey. “Better not, sorry.”
Silence on the other end of the line. Then Talia says, “I have to go,” and hangs up.
She’s never done that before.
* * *
The patter of rain against the tent is slowing, and I wonder where my parents are. It’s not like they can afford to go out. Not wanting to be alone, I go over to the dining tent. Mom’s sitting by herself, reading a book. She gives me a puzzled look when I sit down. “Aren’t you supposed to be out with Talia?”
I tell her about Aubrey.
“Oh, God.” She puts down the book. “That’s awful.”
“Dad around?” I ask.
“I think he’s refereeing a softball game.”
They play softball under the lights on Friday nights, but . . . “Mom, it’s been pouring.”
She blinks with slow surprise as if she hadn’t put together the weather and Dad’s plans. “Basketball?”
“I don’t think the season’s started yet. And it’s eleven at night.”
She shrugs. “Well, whatever.”
Because of the damp chill inside the Grand Ballroom, they’ve turned on the heaters. The radiated warmth provides a tiny bit of comfort in an otherwise seriously uncomfortable situation. I’ve managed to reach seventeen years old without ever knowing anyone around my age who’s died. Not that I didn’t think it could happen, but until it becomes a real possibility for someone you know, I’m not sure you truly believe it.
As if she’s read my mind, Mom presses her lips together sympathetically. “People recover from comas all the time.”
We talk about Meg and what it must be like for her and her mother with Mr. Fine already sick and Aubrey now in the hospital. Just when I feel like I’ve gotten out most of what’s on my mind, I realize there’s still one more thing: “Talia’s mad because I didn’t go to the party. But after what happened to Aubrey, how could anyone feel like partying?”
“Do you know what that’s called?” Mom asks.
There’s a name for it? “Partyitis?”
“Social conscience. The injustices of life bother you.”
I raise my hands in a gesture of wonder. Like, what did I do to get stuck with a social conscience?
“I know,” Mom agrees. “It’s not always fun, but it’s good. The world could use more of it.”
Her comment makes me think back to the night my friends and I made chili in the basement at Saint Stephen’s, and how Tory and Ben, two of my least favorite people, were the ones who showed the most concern for the folks in Dignityville. I think of how Mom is trying to get some of the residents of Dignityville involved in gardening instead of spending all day watching TV, and I tell her I’m proud of what she’s doing.
She nods, but not with great enthusiasm. “Now, if only you and your father were happier.”
“Why doesn’t Dad take a job? I mean, any job? Even pumping gas?”
“I think he’s depressed, sweetheart. It’s hard for him to find the motivation.”
He’s given up.
23
A phone vibrating somewhere in the tent wakes us the next morning. Mom and I search through our things until she finds it and squints. “ ‘C U in 5?’ ”
“It’s Noah,” I groan. “Sorry.”
I drag my butt out of my sleeping bag and start to pull on some running clothes. Dad came back late last night, but now his sleeping bag is empty, which means he must’ve gotten up early and left. What’s he up to?
I trudge toward the entrance where Noah’s waiting, and we start to jog. The rains have mostly passed, but the sky is still overcast and the ground is wet, so we stick to sidewalks. “What happened last night? Tory said Talia was really upset.”
I tell him about Aubrey.
“Holy crap,” he mutters. “But wait, how would beating up one guy change anything about Dignityville?”
I tell him how—despite what Mayor George said about Dignityville being temporary—Aubrey was working toward making it permanent. “A lot of people are convinced the value of their homes will go down if the town is crawling with homeless people. It’s all about money.”
“So you kill the beast by cutting off its head,” Noah says.
“Exactly.”
“Shouldn’t be that hard to figure out who’s behind it,” he adds, almost offhandedly.
As we continue to jog, I stare at him, dumbfounded. “How?”
“It’s a seriously desperate act, right?” he replies as if the answer is obvious. “Something only someone who had an awful lot to lose would even consider. So you start with those who have the most to lose.”
He’s right. It’s a shockingly simple deduction. Except there could still be so many possible suspects—including those I don’t know and may have never heard of—that trying to figure it out feels futile.
We jog through town. A light drizzle begins to filter out of the clouds, but it doesn’t bother us. My thoughts drift back to Talia. What if, by tonight, she and I still haven’t spoken? The idea of s
pending another Saturday night hanging around Dignityville is seriously less than appealing.
I ask Noah if he’s got plans.
He shoots me a look out of the corner of his eye. “Tyler, Zach, and I are going to see Narconna.”
That catches me by surprise. He knows they’re one of my favorite bands.
“The tickets are, like, pretty expensive,” he adds.
Ouch! How sucky is this?
“Yeah, I probably couldn’t have gone anyway,” I agree, trying to smooth it over.
It’s time to head back to Dignityville, and we talk about the World Series for the rest of the way. Neither Noah nor I care much for either team, but at least it’s something safe to discuss. At a stoplight I look to my right. About a block away a guy with a big plastic bag is going through garbage cans. He’s wearing a hat and sunglasses, which is strange because it’s overcast and misty, and besides, when was the last time you saw a bum wearing sungla—
Wait a minute. . . . There’s something disturbingly familiar . . . Is that . . . No . . . no way . . .
I turn away before Noah notices what I’m looking at. The light changes. We start to jog again. Inside, my stomach twists and churns.
Couldn’t it be someone who just looks like him?
With those sunglasses you can’t really be sure, right?
Things can’t be THAT bad, can they?
A block later I realize my hands are clenched so tight the fingernails are digging into my palms.
Face it, Dan. It was Dad.
* * *
At the entrance to Dignityville I tell Noah to have fun at the concert and we say good-bye. I’m still in shock over what I just saw. Why shouldn’t things be that bad? Dad’s unemployment has run out. He mentioned food stamps and TANF.
Should I tell Mom what he’s been up to? Or let Dad know I know? I need to think about this. Meanwhile, stepping back into Dignityville is such a weird, jarring experience, like passing through a Stargate wormhole and coming out in some Third World refugee camp where people live in tents and the sidewalks are muddy.
It really is The Grapes of Wrath all over again.
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