by Billie Letts
She agreed to a drug test, which involved nothing more than giving up a clipping of her hair. And she signed a form consenting to a background check, which, she trusted, would show no evidence of a felony conviction. Since “Belinda Ferguson,” the new name on her documents, had died at age three, there was a strong indication she’d had no criminal history.
Lutie didn’t know until the conclusion of the test, signing the consent, and the end of the interview that a job wasn’t available then, wouldn’t be available until at least the following month. And she and Fate couldn’t survive that long without money.
Their needs, including toothpaste and deodorant, products they could share, and tampons, soon to be an immediate necessity for her, could be provided by some quick maneuvers at a grocery or drugstore, but food was a different problem.
Lutie knew she could manage to slip a couple of candy bars into her purse or pockets, maybe even a banana or two, but they couldn’t get by for long on that kind of diet.
Then, sitting in “Central Park” at New York–New York, wondering what her next move would be, she saw two elderly women, both in polyester pantsuits, both with the same permed, short gray hair. Respectable-looking grandmother types.
“Excuse me, ladies.” Lutie lowered her gaze as if she couldn’t meet the eyes of these two strangers. “But . . . well, I was wondering, uh, hoping that . . . maybe you might, uh, be able to help me.”
Stammering and with her fingers fidgeting with the straps of her purse, she trusted that her gestures would convey her humiliation in asking for help.
The taller of the two women put both hands on her belly bag, a protective measure. “Help you with what?” she asked suspiciously.
“See, me and my little brother . . . well, we’re stranded here, but—”
“Stranded at this casino?”
“No. We’re stranded in Las Vegas.”
“Where are your parents?”
At this question, Lutie managed to work up a couple of tears. “They’re dead.”
“Oh, my,” the other woman said.
“And we don’t have any money for food or for a bus ticket to Sacramento, where our aunt lives.”
“Where is this little brother of yours?”
“He’s in a library. He loves books.”
The belly bag woman, who’d been conducting this interrogation, whispered to her partner, “Remember what Walter told us about Gypsy kids? He said they work in groups—little con artists, purse snatchers, quick-change artists.”
“Oh, give it up, Inez. You see a gang of Gypsies around here?”
“No, I’m not a Gypsy. Honest.” At that declaration of truthfulness, Lutie squeezed out a few more tears.
“No, honey, I don’t believe you are,” the short woman said as she pulled her billfold out of her purse.
“You’re so gullible, Molly.”
“Might as well give it to her as to those damn slot machines.”
“Okay, okay.” Inez wasn’t happy about this, but she unzipped her belly bag and took out three one-dollar bills.
“You’re going to give this girl three dollars? You know what three dollars will buy in this town?”
“No, but I’ve only got seven dollars left of my gambling money for the day, Molly. If I give her that, then I’ll have to start on the money I put aside for tomorrow and—”
“To hell with tomorrow’s money. You could be dead by tomorrow. Give the girl some real money.”
Minutes later, when Lutie walked away, she had forty dollars in her pocket and renewed confidence in her acting ability.
As she was passing a Denny’s, she saw a Help Wanted sign in the window, but inside she discovered she’d be required to have both a TB and an HIV test to work as a food handler. And though she felt certain she carried neither disease, nor did her three-year-old, long-dead cohort, Belinda Ferguson, she knew those tests would send her back to T. for more fake documents.
At the next shop she approached, a store that carried everything from lettuce to luggage, she momentarily gave up her newly created and only partially completed list of resolutions to be a better, more truthful person as she slid a box of tampons, a tube of toothpaste, and a package of Gummi Bears into her purse. But she bought, actually paid for, a denim backpack with a picture of Albert Einstein, a gift for Fate—$14.04 of Inez and Molly’s money.
A few blocks off the Strip, heading back to the car at the library, she saw the Las Vegas Blood Bank with a notice that said, “Immediate Payment for Your Donation of Blood.” But a Hispanic man working at a central desk in the lobby told Lutie she’d have to have a letter postmarked at least six months prior to today’s date in order to provide proof of residency in Vegas.
Lutie didn’t need a fortune cookie to tell her that she’d soon have another photography session with Philo . . . or worse.
As she gathered up the papers outlining the rules of the blood bank, she didn’t, at first, see the handprinted scrap of paper that had seemingly been tossed beside her purse. She recognized the penmanship, the same as what had been printed in the note left on the hood of Floy’s car, but the message she held in her hand now was different:
St. Vinsents Shelter, L.V. Bulvd. No.,
breakfast from 10½ to 11½ ever day
L.V. Reskue Misscion, W. Bonanza,
supper from 5 to 6 ever day
L.V. Salvacion Army, W. Owens No. L.V.,
free food ever day.
Just after they met back at the car, Lutie shared with Fate the odd note she’d gotten at the blood bank. And since it was nearing six, they agreed to go to the Salvation Army for supper to see if the meal was really free; and to look for the stranger who continued to connect to their lives.
Lutie followed the directions Fate read to her from the street map he’d copied at the library the day before, staying on Las Vegas Boulevard until it intersected with Owens on the north side of the city.
The shelter, they discovered, was only one of a number of buildings in the Salvation Army complex, but after parking, they simply followed the broken trail of the homeless heading in the same direction.
Funny, Lutie thought, how quickly she’d learned the look of the homeless. Regardless of how they were dressed, or how clean they were able to keep themselves, independent of the way they walked—sometimes bent by an unseen weight or sometimes moving with a pretended pride—their eyes betrayed them. Though they had no place to live, no place of their own to come home to, desperation and humiliation had come to live with them. And their eyes—dreamy, vacant, hopeless, lost, defeated—gave them away. Knowing this made Lutie wonder how long it would be before she and Fate, a boy of eleven, began to take on that look.
When they finally arrived at the shelter, they discovered that a meal was, indeed, being served, and no one who ate was asked to pay.
Their trays contained plates with a salad, baked chicken, pinto beans, and sliced white bread spread with butter. They had their choice of tea, water, or lemonade.
They ate at one of several long tables seating as many as ten, a table they shared with a family of three—the father and two especially quiet, small girls; an elderly man named Ray who kept up a constant conversation with a salt shaker, referring to himself in the third person; and a middle-aged woman wearing a soiled cotton hospital gown and a rather clean housecoat a size or two larger than she needed.
A man who appeared to be homeless himself delivered a blessing, interrupting the meal already half-finished by most. Even so, the majority stopped eating, then bowed their heads until “Amen” sounded from table to table.
The food was good and plentiful. Diners were invited for seconds; dessert was also available—one-layer chocolate cake served from a dozen cookie sheets.
Lutie, suffering from a reluctant appetite tonight, ate what she could. But Fate cleaned his plate, all the while describing the UNLV campus where he’d spent most of the day.
“And besides the museum, it has a recording studio, a café called the
Book n’ Bean, a fitness room, computer lab, more classrooms than I’ve ever seen, libraries—a whole bunch of libraries—and a mall with a flashlight thirty-eight feet tall. It weighs seventy-four thousand pounds and—”
“A flashlight?”
“It’s called ‘the Beacon of Knowledge.’”
“That’s awesome,” she said without a trace of enthusiasm. “You gonna have cake?”
Afterward, with Fate still jabbering about the university, Lutie drove them back to the library, where they’d parked for five nights without incident. And though they hadn’t noticed anyone watching them at the shelter, Lutie had felt a presence she couldn’t describe.
“So, you think maybe I can go to school there?”
“Where?”
“Lutie, do you listen to me? Ever?”
“Help me get our stuff out of the trunk.”
“I told you, it’s called the Paradise Elementary School, and it’s right on the campus. An elementary school with a university all around it.”
As they converted their seats to beds, Lutie realized that Fate’s voice had an eagerness she hadn’t heard from him in days.
“You think I can go there, Lutie? Now, it might be that only the kids of university students and teachers can be admitted. I don’t know. And I suppose we’d have to have a real address to enroll, but—”
“We have one.” Lutie pulled out her driver’s license, showed it to Fate.
“Who is Belinda Ferguson?” he asked.
“That’s me now.”
“And you’re twenty-two?”
“Don’t I look it?”
“Where did you get this, Lutie?”
“Well, I traded some work for a guy who takes photos and makes documents like this. Whatever you need.”
“What kind of work?” Fate asked suspiciously.
“I cleaned his studio.”
“How’d you meet him?”
“Oh, it’s a long story. But he gave me an advance against my first paycheck, and I bought you something.” Lutie pulled a large sack from behind her seat and handed it to Fate.
“Gosh,” he said when he pulled out the backpack. “This is keen, Lutie. Really keen.”
“Fate, don’t use the words gosh and keen in Vegas.”
“Why not?”
“Makes you sound like the dweeb you are. No need to advertise it.”
“Lutie . . .” Fate hesitated. “You didn’t steal this, did you?”
“The receipt’s in the sack. Go ahead. Look at it, I know you want to. And here’s something else.” She handed him a ten-dollar bill.
“Gosh, thanks, Lutie. I mean, thanks for the backpack. If I get to go to Paradise, I’ll need this. All the students I saw on the campus today had a backpack.”
“Oh, you’re going to that school. Before long, we’ll be in our own apartment, with a real address. Not this one.” She waved the driver’s license, then put it in her jeans.
“What about you, Lutie? What about your school, huh?”
“I’m going to check on that. I think I’ll get my GED. That way I can keep a job and study at night.”
As Lutie bunched up an afghan for a pillow, she said, “Fate, don’t you think it’s weird that Daddy and Floy died on the same day? I mean, I wonder if they died at the same time, at the very same instant? Like they had some kind of connection. You know what I mean?”
Fate avoided a direct response, choosing not to tell her that he’d read Exodus, looking for an answer to the same question.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Yeah, I guess if there’d been a connection, it would’ve been between Daddy and Mom. Not Floy. She wasn’t his wife, not his one true love.”
“Lutie, you’re not going to get all creepy on me, are you? Not like one of the Harlequin romance books you and Floy used to read?”
“No, but I just can’t stop thinking about him. All the questions I’ve got in my head. For instance, they said he died of hepatitis. And I don’t even know what hepatitis is. Do you?”
Fate gave Lutie a vague answer, saying there were different kinds of hepatitis, but he didn’t tell her that because their father was a drunk, he had most likely died of hepatitis B. And he didn’t tell her that from what he’d read in the library, their daddy’s last hours—or days—were filled with agony . . . vomiting, diarrhea, a bloated belly, distended veins that ruptured, chest pain, the collapse of his kidneys. His skin the color of a yellow highlighter. And finally, drowning in his own blood as it filled his lungs.
“I just hope he didn’t suffer,” Lutie said.
“I don’t think he did.”
“Seems like we oughta do something for him, Fate. Don’t you think so?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t get to go to his funeral. We don’t even know where he’s buried.”
“I saw a show on TV once, about old convicts who get sick and die in prison. Their bodies are sent home if they’ve got families, so they can bury them. But with Daddy, well, he’s probably buried in the prison cemetery.”
“That’s what I mean. We couldn’t have a funeral, but I think we should do something to say good-bye.”
“You got any ideas?”
“Why don’t we go to a church? I don’t mean for Sunday school and all that, but let’s just go into a church where we can sit and think about Daddy. Think about good times we had with him, like the time he played Santa for us when he put on a pair of old red long johns and—”
“Lutie, he was drunk. Don’t you remember? He fell into the Christmas tree, broke most of the ornaments, smashed the box with the vase in it that he’d got for Floy. They had a big fight over it.”
“Fate, you always remember the stuff that went wrong. Why don’t you try to focus on the fun times, like our camping trip to the Badlands National Park. That was fun.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“Bet we could think of lots of nice memories.”
“I suppose.”
“Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s do it tomorrow.”
“All right.”
They were quiet for a long time, as if respecting each other’s private thoughts.
Fate was hoping Lutie had fallen asleep when she said in such a soft voice, he could barely hear her, “You suppose he was thinking about us when he died?”
“Yeah. I bet he was, Lutie. The last thing on his mind would have been us. You and me.”
CHAPTER TEN
LUTIE HAD TO wait six days for her next photo session while Philo finished a project in Los Angeles. Six long days and nights of dread, imagining what T. would ask her to do. So by the time she went to “the studio,” she was a wreck. She knew when she’d told T. back at the Carnival Court that she needed more documents, even more than the last time, that she’d be required to show more skin than she had before. She just didn’t know how much.
Philo wrote down what she said she needed: TB and HIV test results, a food handler’s permit, a registration form and Vegas tag for Floy’s car, and school records for Fate’s fourth grade from Miami, Florida—a city about as far away from Spearfish as she could get. She asked Philo to show that her brother was an A student in advanced classes, which she assured him was the truth, a fact that mattered to Philo and T. not at all.
Lutie was so jumpy when they went back into the photography room that she wrapped herself in her arms as if she were freezing.
“Okay, sweet thing,” T. said, “Philo’s gonna use the same head shot he used on your driver’s license for some of these forms that require a picture ID, then he’s gonna shoot you in your little birthday suit.”
“I, uh . . . I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Sure you can. Here.” He fished a capsule from his pocket. “Take this,” he said. “It’ll help you relax.”
Philo, setting up his equipment, said, “I don’t think she’ll need that, T. I believe I can get these without—”
“You shut your mouth, Philo. I’m still pay
ing your salary, and don’t you forget it,” T. snapped. Then, to Lutie, he said in a softer voice, “Take this, sugar.” He grabbed a bottle of water off a counter, then handed it to her along with the capsule.
While looking directly at T., without a glance at the water or the pill, she swallowed it.
“Good girl. Now—”
“Okay, T.,” Philo said. “You got what you wanted; now, why don’t you go out for a smoke and let me take care of this.”
“Whatever you say, Mr. Tarantino.”
As soon as the door closed behind T., Philo asked Lutie if she’d like to take a few minutes to get ready, then change behind one of the backdrops.
She nodded, already feeling the effects of the drug T. had given her.
“Take off all your clothes, then put these on.” He handed her a pair of see-through thongs with black lace, then said, “And would you put your hair in two ponytails and tie them with these?” The bows he gave her to tie her hair were made of pink ribbon.
Minutes later, when she emerged, Philo was ready to shoot. He handed her a pacifier that looked like a small penis and asked her to hold it in such a way that she looked about ready to slide it between her lips.
Feeling as if she were floating somewhere above her own body, she did exactly as Philo asked, and he clicked off the shots in rapid succession. Then, when he asked her to take off the panties and let her hair down, she didn’t give a thought to going behind the backdrop again.
“Would you like me to get you a kimono to put on while I get these next shots set up?”
“No. I’m fine.”
Philo brought her a chair and asked her to sit down with a lollipop in her mouth and one hand holding an opened book, then he told her to touch herself while she tilted her head back, her eyes closed, her mouth open as if she were in a period of ecstasy.
“Lutie,” Philo said in a voice just above a whisper, “you seem like a good kid . . . but most of the girls I meet are ‘good kids’ when they start. And this is none of my affair, but I’m going to tell you anyway. If you have to do business with T., and maybe you’ll have to ’cause Vegas is a tough town to live in when you need help—stay away from the pills and the powder . . . the dope T. will offer you. Free. In the beginning.”