by R. T. Lowe
“You look very familiar,” Mark slurred drunkenly, jabbing his finger into Lucas’s chest. “Do I know you from somewhere? Like TV or something?”
“Yeah,” Lucas answered cheerfully. “I’m Justin Timberlake. Aren’t you the kid who threw his panties at me at that concert in Vegas?”
It took some time for Mark’s alcohol-sodden brain to process the fact that Lucas had insulted him. As Mark stuttered, “Panties…?” Caitlin managed to wedge her way between them and pushed Lucas through another gap in the crowd.
Allison dug her fingernails into Felix’s arm and half-dragged him down the stairs. Harper followed right on his heels. They pushed their way through the lobby and out the front double doors and between the embassy-like columns. Without saying a word, they broke into a mad sprint as they crossed the lawn—now littered with red plastic cups—not slowing until they came to a path that wound its way through a grove on the western edge of The Yard.
They finally stopped to catch their breath. In the distance, they could hear shouting and a pounding bass—th-thump th-thump th-thump—that seemed to shake the leaves in the branches above. Felix wiped the beer from his face and checked their backs. No one had followed them.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Allison suddenly shouted at Felix. Her cheeks were red, her eyes full of intensity.
“What?” Felix hadn’t expected that. If anything, he thought she would thank him for rescuing her. “What the hell were you thinking? We weren’t gonna leave without you. What were you doing with that asshole?”
“He’s not an asshole!” Allison’s face was nearly purple. Her eyes were on fire. “And what did I tell you? Huh? I told you not to piss him off! His dad’s the Governor of California. And already… Jesus! What the fuck’s wrong with you?”
“I don’t give a shit who his dad is!” Felix shouted back at her.
“Well you should!” Allison said. “Would it kill you to make things easy on yourself? Just once?”
Lucas cleared his throat. “He’s definitely an asshole. You heard him. He was talking like he was the President of the United States, not the president of the Student Union.” He turned to Allison, his expression serious. “Is his dad really the Governor of California?” When she gave him a grudging nod, he looked at Felix and cracked up with laughter. “Dude, that’s not good.”
Caitlin gaped at Lucas with a look that said you must be insane.
Allison narrowed her eyes at Lucas, hands on hips. “How would you know if he’s an asshole? You don’t even know him.” She paused, the anger rolling off of her in seething waves. “I don’t even know you!”
Lucas didn’t appear fazed. “So? I’ve got a ton of experience with assholes. And that dude’s definitely an asshole.”
Allison fixed her flashing eyes on Felix, all the anger gone from her voice. “Why do you even… what does it matter? I’m not having this conversation.” Then she turned and headed in the direction of the dorm. Caitlin chased after her, and then, after a th-thump or two, Harper followed. Lucas stayed back with Felix. When the girls were out of sight, Lucas said to him: “Did you notice how he was looking at us?”
Felix nodded. It was impossible to miss.
“That was probably a very dumb thing we just did.” He laughed and threw his arm around Felix’s shoulder. “It won’t be the last. Welcome to college, buddy.”
Chapter 10
No-Man’s-Land
An hour before Felix was supposed to meet Lucas and the girls for dinner—he’d showered after his last class and applied an extra layer of deodorant in anticipation of seeing Harper—Allison called and asked him for a favor.
Someone calling herself Martha was advertising a pair of cross country skis for thirty-nine dollars on Craigslist. They were brand new, Allison’s size, and they were Rossignols—her favorite brand. Martha even lived within walking distance, just a half mile from the football stadium. Allison didn’t have a car. Felix did. But his Wrangler had just passed the 230,000 mile mark and it had at least one tire in the grave—it was at the shop (again) getting its transmission repaired. Martha had agreed to hold the skis for her if she picked them up today. It was just too perfect for Allison to pass up; she had to have them.
But there was a big black fly in Allison’s bowl of chowder.
To the west of campus was “no-man’s-land,” the most dangerous and crime-ridden neighborhood in all of Portland. Felix hadn’t even known about it until he saw an article in a back issue of the student paper—The Weekly Sturgeon—he’d read in the common room one day while he was waiting for Larry to come down for football practice. The focus of the article was a student group’s attempts to prevent Starbucks from opening a store on 10th Street. The group’s concern was that if one corporation gained a foothold a tidal wave of gentrification (which they made out to be a very bad thing) would swallow up the entire neighborhood. There was a quote from a Starbucks spokesperson about awaiting word from the zoning board on something called a ‘variance’. Felix didn’t particularly care—nor have an opinion on the matter—and the zoning issues seemed complicated. But the rest of the story—the background on no-man’s-land—was enlightening.
From what Felix could gather, the first three or four blocks weren’t terribly dangerous; there were even some PC upper classmen that rented houses there, though the school strongly discouraged it. And then each block grew progressively worse until 22nd Street, which served as the city’s Great Wall. It was there that the city had unplugged the whole thing from the power grid and discontinued all city services—no sanitation, no street lights, no running water and no heat. Just block after block of condemned houses awaiting the wrecking ball.
But even that was a problem. The city was embroiled in a dispute with its unionized contractors who refused to tear down anything until they were given assurances that the sites posed no health risks. The city wasn’t prepared to give such assurances. So for the past several decades the city had attempted to quarantine everything west of 22nd from the rest of the world. The author described the houses that remained there as ‘decrepit little structures that provide shelter for squatters, the homeless, drug dealers and gangs’. When Felix read the article, he’d pictured a post-apocalyptic zombie movie.
And that was just the beginning.
Somewhere beyond the last block of houses—the author didn’t say where exactly—was an industrial wasteland of abandoned warehouses, rock quarries and manufacturing facilities that had been fenced off like a penitentiary ever since the company that had owned the property went bankrupt in the seventies. The company had dissolved long ago, but what it left behind—its legacy—wasn’t so easily erased: toxins and pollutants contaminated the vast tract of real estate where it operated its businesses, rendering the land ‘unusable for the next 300 years’. The author compared it—it being the ‘environmental catastrophe’—to a dirty bomb (or two) detonating just down the road.
No-man’s-land. Not the kind of place Felix wanted to go. Ever.
But twenty minutes after getting off the phone, he was crossing 10th Street—the western boundary that separated the campus from no-man’s-land—with Allison.
“How’d I let you talk me into this?” he said to her with a smile.
“You had nothing better to do,” Allison replied, smiling back at him. “And it’ll be quick. I don’t think Martha’s making us dinner. But I really appreciate it.”
“Like I said, as long as you buy me a pizza we’re even. Tonight I’m gonna eat, listen to some music and get some sleep.”
“You nervous about tomorrow’s game?” she asked.
“Nah. Yeah.” He paused. “I guess. Maybe I should be. I don’t know. First games always make me a little tense. Everyone says we’re gonna suck. That takes the pressure off—weirdly.”
She laughed. “But now the team has you, right? Maybe the Sturgeons won’t suck as much as everyone thinks.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t mean it. He thought everyone had it right.
They were hurrying along a sidewalk so badly damaged by erosion and tree roots that Felix kept catching his flip flops on the broken, uneven concrete. There was a guy and a girl on the opposite sidewalk walking toward campus and two kids standing by a car and talking—all students. There were also two men sitting on the stoop of a little blue house on the corner. “Townies” they would be called if they strayed east of 10th street. Their clothes, among other things, gave them away: sandals that hadn’t been in style in years; jean shorts that had never been in style. And their hair—oily and unwashed, and if not technically mullets, damn close. And on their faces, they wore expressions of envy mixed with resentment for the privileged PC students wandering by.
They walked in silence for a spell, enjoying the perfect weather: mid-eighties, the early evening sunlight warm and bright. As they came up on 13th Street Felix was thinking it wasn’t as bad as he’d expected. The houses were small and neatly maintained, the front yards mowed short like someone cared about their appearance. Cars filled the driveways, and the yards were being used for extra parking space, but that was the norm when you rent houses to groups of college kids. Felix was wondering if Allison was going to bring up what had happened last night at the Beta house. He’d hinted at it a few times as they’d trooped through campus, but she didn’t take the bait. She didn’t seem mad at him; she wasn’t acting like it anyway.
“You look good,” Allison said suddenly. She looked at him and smiled.
“Huh?”
“Last night, too. It was nice seeing you have a good time.”
He thought she might bring up the freak out, or altercation, or whatever that was—not his state of mind. He started sputtering a reply.
“I know you don’t want to talk about it so I’ll keep this short. It’s okay for you to have a good time. Stop feeling guilty about everything. If you’re having fun, that means you’re ready to have fun—and that’s okay. So stop beating yourself up for something that isn’t your fault and just roll with it. And get outta your head.”
Felix felt himself tense up. After so much time thinking nothing but black thoughts, getting through the night without resorting to the lucid fog seemed like a miracle. Last night was fun (parts of it anyway). And so far today, he was feeling better than he had in a long, long time. So he didn’t need anyone, including Allison, ruining it by playing Dr. Freud with his wounded psyche. He knew it was wounded—he just didn’t need Allison reminding him of something so abundantly obvious.
“You think Martha’s the next Craigslist killer?” she asked.
“So that’s why you talked me into this,” he said, relieved that she’d changed the subject.
“No,” she replied with a light laugh. “Martha sounded normal on the phone. I don’t think she’s a killer. And I don’t think this is all a sinister plot to rob me of my thirty-nine dollars. And if she really wants my cash and my fourteen dollar watch, she’s welcome to it.”
“She’s not getting her thieving hands on your watch while I’m here.” He puffed up his chest in an exaggerated display of machismo.
She laughed and the fine lines creasing her forehead disappeared.
“I’m more worried about the Faceman,” Felix told her. “We’re both solo kids, you know.”
Allison understood the implication at once. Her eyebrows knitted together and the lines on her forehead returned. “You talking about last night? Sometimes it’s better to keep things to yourself, don’t you think? You’re all about that. So if you start opening up to strangers, you have my permission to get on my case for being so closed off.”
“I didn’t mean anything—”
“I know you didn’t.” She gave him an apologetic smile. Then she wrapped her fingers lightly around his bicep and rested her head on his shoulder for a moment. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be so snappy. But I’m not worried about that ugly ghoul.”
“Why not? Didn’t you see the news? He killed somebody else. A girl. They found her body in an outhouse this morning. Somewhere down south. Mississippi?”
“Louisiana,” she corrected. “And they found her in a shed.”
“Same thing. So why aren’t you worried?”
“Well, Louisiana’s a long way from Portland and the Faceman drives. I don’t think he can fly coach.”
“Because he can’t fit in the seats or because of security?”
“Probably both. And don’t forget he doesn’t kill more than one person at the same time unless they’re related.”
“Oh.” He nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, I guess that’s right. And we’re not related.”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
They emerged onto 14th Street and Felix’s opinion of the neighborhood rapidly began to change.
Halfway down the block, a bare chested man watering the crabgrass in front of his house (a Coors Light cradled in the palm of one hand) stopped what he was doing when he saw them approach. He stared as he took a long pull from the can. Then he shook his head and gave them a look as if to say you don’t belong here. Go home. Go back to your fancy school before someone hurts you…
Felix felt the weight of the man’s eyes on his back as they continued down the street. He looked over his shoulder, but the man had resumed nourishing his weeds. He was facing away, and Felix could see that just above his love-handles he had two perfectly symmetrical patches of thick dark hair shaped like lungs. He thought about cracking a joke, but the deteriorating state of everything around them seemed to affect even his sense of humor, and he let it go after he couldn’t come up with anything funny. Each house they passed looked worse than the one before and by the time they reached 15th Street, they were all in some state of decay: weather-beaten; broken gutters; driveways in shambles; peeling paint; chain link fences in back as bowed as the roofs; front lawns that were experiments in what happens when nature is allowed to have its way (no angry men with hair lungs tended the crabgrass here). The cars on the streets and in the driveways were older model sedans and dented pick-up trucks, many with gun racks. Some of the vehicles were in such bad shape Felix couldn’t tell if they’d been vandalized. Smashed bottles and trash littered the pot-holed road and the cracked sidewalks. It reminded him of the time he watched the life cycle of a flower on time-lapse video. If this neighborhood was a flower, it would be at the stage where it was losing its petals and turning brown as its short fragile life drained away.
Felix had reached a conclusion: this place sucked. It was even worse than he’d imagined. The author of that article in The Sturgeon Weekly hadn’t quite captured the utter soul-sucking crappiness of this hellhole.
Allison must have been thinking similar thoughts. She moved closer to him, tightening her grip on his arm. “So whadya think Fallon would say about the tree situation here?” She was trying hard to remain upbeat.
Felix had noticed it right away. From 12th Street on there were no trees—just stumps. “I think she’d say there isn’t a single tree in no-man’s-land they didn’t cut down.” He forced a smile. Allison was doing the same. “Maybe a beetle problem? Like back home a few years ago.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
A souped-up, canary-yellow Mitsubishi Eclipse (huge spoiler, modified muffler, windows tinted black) sped past them. It slowed down at the next intersection (the east end of 15th Street and a cross street not identified by any signs). Felix thought it was going to stop. But then the driver, who was concealed by the tint, floored it, and the car screeched down the street, the rancid smell of burning rubber left in its howling wake.
“Drugs?” Allison shouted over the roar of the engine.
Felix shrugged. That was one possibility. There were others—all bad.
“So what’s it like rooming with a celebrity?” Allison asked, her eyes on the car disappearing around the corner. “He seems cool.”
“He’s awesome. We were just hanging at this coffee place you’d really like—the Caffeine Hut. He actually signed some autographs for these girls who were all over him. I s
wear this one chick was gonna jump him right there. But he’s not at all like, you know, all Hollywood or anything. Most of the time, he just makes fun of himself and the whackos on Summer Slumming. How’s Caitlin?”
“I love her. She’s amazing. I mean, she sincerely cares about making the world a better place. That’s what she wants to do with her life. She wants to save the environment, the disenfranchised and anyone who’s down on their luck. She’s really… amazing.”
“Oh.” They crossed the intersection where a cloud of blue-white smoke from the Mitsubishi’s exhaust still lingered. “That’s pretty deep. I’m just hoping to get a job after graduation. And not at the paper mill. So why isn’t she rooming with Harper? They’re like best friends and all, right? Didn’t they grow up together?”
Allison nodded. “Residence life screwed up. They were supposed to be roomies but there was some kinda mixup. Harper’s right across the hall and her roommate’s weird so it’s like she’s rooming with us, anyway. She’s in our room constantly.”
“Oh. How is um… how is she? Harper, I mean.” Felix tried to make it sound casual.
“Harper?” Allison’s eyes flicked up quickly to his face, and then back down. “She’s fine.”
“Fine?”
“Yeah, she seems… um… nice.” Her lips twitched down in a frown. “Harper was, you know, one of the popular kids in high school. Prom queen or homecoming Aphrodite or whatever they call that shit in California.”
“So she’s fine and nice?” He couldn’t help but laugh at that. “That’s what I say about people I don’t like.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Allison’s lips curved up in a hesitant smile.
No one said anything for a while. They stared bleakly at three houses in a row that had their windows boarded up. The next few houses appeared occupied, though they were somehow worse than the houses that preceded them: Their windows peeked out onto the sidewalk, watching them with their dark hollow eyes. There was a palpable sense of despair about this place. The wind shifted, gusting lightly from west to east, and Felix picked up the vile smell of sewage. Soon it permeated the air.