Two plus two does equal five, for large values of two. Gretchen could tell her that.
“And, for future reference,” she said, “don’t try to hide a condom from your parents by flushing it.”
Ouch. “Obviously, that won’t be a problem for me.”
Her voice is tiny. “Oh my god, I’m sorry.”
“Whatever. You know, Jill, what I really want is news. Could you tell people to send me some newsy emails?”
“No way. We agreed that email wasn’t safe.”
“Look, I really don’t think he can track me if I just log on to check.”
“He probably can’t, but I wouldn’t chance it.”
Of course she wouldn’t. She’s too busy having parties and enjoying Infinite Summer.
“I think Gary has gone into hiding.”
“Well, then, if he’s in hiding, he’s not going to come out of hiding to go on a wild goose chase looking for me.”
Actually, if Jill is right, and Gary has gone into hiding, I should be going to her party. I should be trying to talk Gretchen into another date. Or a first date. Not getting pushed around by fake cops and sleeping in the woods and eating stale sandwiches and being desperate for a not-job job.
Jill says, “So?”
“So, you can’t have it both ways. Either he’s looking for me, in which case I need to be scared shitless, or he’s not looking for me, in which case, I should be able to come back to Laurel without being put back in Dale Jail.”
“That’s not my decision. It’s Dad’s.”
“Well, then, what do you want? Me in Dale Jail with you, or you without me, enjoying your summer?”
She’s silent.
“I should go,” I say.
“But we’ve hardly talked!”
“I just need to get going is all. Jill, I hope you have a really happy birthday.”
“Uh, thanks?”
“Bye.”
Hanging up without the typical I-miss-you and lament means Jill’s moving on. I feel lamer than lame. And really pissed. If there is any silver lining here, it’s that I know where I’m sleeping tonight.
And now I have the perfect excuse to beg off the freaking Adirondacks trip. I’ve had enough camping, thankyouverymuch.
I head back to the woods. They’re my woods now, really. Halfway there, I realize Jill and I didn’t set a time for our next call. Whatever. At least I don’t feel like a common criminal anymore. No more hat over my face, just me in the air.
Huddled down in my nest—which is probably nowhere near last night’s nest, but who can tell in the dark?—I stuff my darkest clothes under me. It’s a reasonable facsimile of a pillow, but I can’t convince myself this is a reasonable facsimile of a life.
TWENTY-FIVE
Day ten in Burlington, my new routine is on repeat: peanut butter on bread for breakfast, no Internet summons from Jill, quick check at the deli (closed for the fifth day), find a quick gross lunch, check bulletin boards for jobs and cheap places to stay (none), hole up at the library until closing, and back to the forest at dusk for peanut butter on dry bread. Peanut butter gets really old after a while.
Even though I’m out of hiding, I still look out of place, wearing the same four outfits and hauling around my duffel of crap.
I can’t go on like this. Not least of which because I can’t keep walking around town unshaven and stinking.
I’ve resorted to bird baths in the library stalls so I don’t get caught bathing in public again. Today, someone has left a plastic cup on the floor, so I also can fix the unshaven thing. I splash some water on my face and take the cup—filled with warm water—into a stall.
I can’t recommend shaving without a mirror. Now my stuff is still dank, I kind of reek, and my face is all carved up. I am the homeless guy, and I smell way worse than Froot Loops, no matter how hard I scrub.
I need something.
I’ve been thinking: it’s probably safe to check my email. If I don’t send anything, checking can’t really hurt, right? If I send mail, there will be some kind of electronic stamp or something. But if I check, nothing bad can happen, I think.
Sitting in front of my computer at The Byte, behind the yellow backpack girl again, I am ready. I have eleven minutes left on my voucher, so I have to get online and hop right off.
I’m reasonably certain this will be okay.
A few genuine emails lay among hundreds of crap messages. Dozens from people I have never met, but they’re real messages. People wish me well and want to help me and blah, blah, blah.
Several emails from Gary.
Deep breaths.
I thought I was past the whole Gary thing.
He’s not in Burlington. I am safe. Not here. Safe. The mantra helps regulate my breathing.
These are definitely from Gary, though each one is from a different email address. It’s like a trail of bread crumbs. He knows for sure that I’m gone, because the first subject is You Didn’t Need To Run Away.
He sent it two days after my departure. Creepy. A few days later, the subject is I Know You’re Not Staying With Friends. Okay, so he definitely checked that. Some subjects are questions, like Do You Need Anything? What, like I’m going to email him a shopping list or ask for cash?
Stay Safe.
That sounds like a threat. Maybe it includes suggestions for how to remain safe on the lam. I’m not opening it. It could just as likely include threats to my safety.
The subject from the last one, dated yesterday, reads We Really Need to Talk.
What could he possibly want to say to me? I know he killed Mom. He knows I know he killed her. End of story. His words can’t change anything about anything. Screw him.
I don’t know what I expected from email—some sort of relief, or lottery winnings, or something good. More than that, I want something that makes me feel normal. Something obnoxious from Tucker. He knows I’m underground, but he could at least drop a line. Jill could send me something hilarious. Grant Blakely should be sending me notices about midnight soccer.
I want something sweet from Gretchen.
She did send me three messages, none of them sweet. The first two basically say she’s worried about me. That’s sweet, sort of. The third message, from three days ago, is bad: Dear Xander, Even though Jill won’t tell me anything, I know you’ve been talking to her. I know you two are totally platonic, but I also know we were way more than platonic, so I want to remind you that I’m here, too. I can be a good platonic friend to you, too. Please tell me how I can help. I hope you are well, my friend. And I hope you’re home safe soon. <3 Gretchen.
That little heart is good. She said we were more than platonic friends, thank god, but the past tense sours the whole message. We were more than platonic, but what are we now? I want to be more than platonic friends. I want both from her. I want everything from her, but replying is one step beyond safety.
It seems like Gary isn’t trailing me physically. But electronically? I don’t know. Maybe he’s waiting for me to send an email to someone and then he’ll pounce.
Replying is too risky. And calling her phone is way out of the question.
I have other messages to read. One from Bingham in Pittsburgh, where he found some other people who play euchre. I wish I could send him to Jill’s house, or point him toward Quaker Steak, but that will have to wait for next time.
Every one of my relationships is on hold, indefinitely.
And those messages from Gary. What the hell could he want to talk about? Why would I want to talk to him ever again? Deleting all his messages, unread, empowers me. Screw him.
In fact, screw this whole thing. In the café bathroom, I dump my duffel and start soaking my clothes in the sink. Ignoring customers who knock on the door, I methodically wash my socks and shirts and underwear. With almond-and-honey soap, which is a nice change.
Just as I’m finishing up, someone knocks loudly and shouts, “Manager!”
The door swings open and I waltz out of the bath
room, my arms full of wet laundry. “Have a great day!”
On campus, a group of people have just finished playing soccer. I hang my clothes over a bench in full sun and lie next to them in the grass. Maybe I can join them for pick-up tomorrow.
_______
Once my clothes are dry and packed, I swing by the deli. Finally—finally!—it’s open again. I am jonesing for one of Curt’s Reubens, even if I have to spend my last seven bucks to get it.
It’s been six days since he blew me off and closed the shop, but now that I have Cosley Woods, I don’t need anything but a sandwich from him.
But boy, do I need one.
I order from some other guy behind the counter.
“Oh, man.” Curt rushes out to greet me. “Graham, man! Did you find somewhere to stay?”
Like he’s concerned.
“I did. I’m fine.”
“I’m so glad, man. My grandpa died. Like ten seconds after you walked out of here, my grandma called, and we all packed up and got on a plane to Montana.”
I am such an asshole. “I’m so sorry.”
Curt asks the guys in the back to hold down the fort and sits down with a giant mug of coffee. Between sips, he spews the whole story about his family and the funeral and the resulting drama. His grandfather’s secretary showed up and cried all over his grandfather’s body.
“All my grandma can say is, ‘What a cliché.’ Can you believe that? ‘What a cliché,’ like it’s no big deal her husband of sixty years has been snaking it to somebody else.”
“I’m so sorry. You must have been embarrassed.”
“Me? No! I’m not my grandfather’s boneheaded decisions. Feel bad for my grandma, though. She was embarrassed. Frankly, she’s always been a bit of a witch. Abrasive, you know. So I’m not surprised. I mean, good on him for getting some action in his eighties. Most men are dead by then.”
Curt is awfully glib for someone who just tossed some deep family secrets to a guy he’s known all of five seconds.
“So, where are you sleeping, Graham?”
“I found somewhere here in Burlington.” Truth—100 percent truth.
Curt mulls that for a minute. He’s sharp. “But that night I left, where did you sleep? You seemed pretty hard up.”
“I slept outside.” One thing about the actual truth: I don’t even have to try it on for size.
“No way.”
I’m almost proud of myself. “Yeah. Cosley Woods?”
His laugh is huge, boisterous. “No way. Where’d you get a tent?”
“No tent. No sleeping bag. Just me and my duffel.”
He laughs again. “Good on you.”
He’s right: good on me. I’m still waiting out Gary—and that’s a little piece of family history Curt doesn’t need to know—but I’ve made my way five hundred miles from home (or seven hundred if you count actual miles traveled), and now am enduring what I hope is a brief stint as a homeless guy.
Good on me.
Curt doesn’t ask where I’m sleeping tonight, and I don’t tell him.
“Well, Graham, wish I could have found you and given you my couch for a couple nights.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.”
He says, “Coulda used your help with my ma and her caregiver while I was in Montana, too.”
“Oh. What did she do while you were gone?”
“I played to the sympathies of my ex-fiancée. My ma needs a lot of help, and we have a caregiver, but it’s never quite enough. My ex was happy to help.”
I’ve been thinking of Curt as just a little older than me, but having an ex-fiancée relegates him straight to adulthood. Double adult, even.
I don’t want him to see me as a kid. “I’m glad for your ex-fiancée. I mean, not that she’s your ex. Unless you like that she’s your ex, then that’s fine. I mean, sorry.”
Man, am I an ass!
Curt tips his mug to drain it. “No worries. We’re friends. She didn’t realize until after we were engaged that she was a lesbian. So, it wasn’t really her fault.”
Curt drops these bombs like they’re no big deal. Dead grandfather, BOOM. Grandfather’s mistress, BOOM. Bitchy Grandma, BOOM! Lesbian ex-fiancée, BOOM, BOOM!
Here I’ve been burying all my secrets, and Curt just lays them out for the world to see, like there’s nothing to be embarrassed about.
Regarding his ex-fiancée, he says, “She even set up a blog to post stories about what they did while I was gone. It automatically pulled photos and locations from her phone, too, so I knew exactly what they did every day.”
Someone who set up such a fancy blog probably knows about other stuff, like Internet tracking. It’s worth a shot. “Do you think I could meet your ex-fiancée?”
“Why would you want to do that?”
It’s almost a relief to tell him. Curt gets an (admittedly abridged) version of my story. I skip the whole abuse section and don’t mention Mom’s murder, and after I admit that my estranged father may be tracking me online, Curt is intrigued.
“That’s like secret spy stuff.”
“I know! I’m also still looking for a more permanent place to stay, if you know anyone.”
“I’ll keep an ear out,” he says, in a way that means he wasn’t ready to change the subject. “My ex isn’t that kind of computer person—she’s just a blogger—but I know there’s no way to track where email is checked. If he’s hacked into your email, he would know that you’re reading your email, but there’s no way to know from where. And there’s probably a way you could send email, too. Probably.”
Curt studies the ceiling for a minute while I have a little mental party: I probably can send mail!
Dear Gretchen: I hope we still are more than platonic.
No. Dear Gretchen: I miss you a lot.
No. Dear Gretchen: I think of our mini-forest all the time and can’t wait to wrap my arms around you again.
Curt, who isn’t privy to this very important email draft, interrupts my train of thought. “How sophisticated is he? Could he hack into your friends’ emails? Because if he can get into their email boxes, he could get your IP address here.”
Well, that sucks. Gary definitely knows Jill. And if he has hacked into her email, he could know about almost anyone else. If I were Gary, and Jill and Gretchen were emailing about me, I would hack into Gretchen’s email next.
So, yeah. No reply for Gretchen.
Curt cuts into my thoughts. “Hey, my dad said you can at least fill in for a week or two.”
The boulder weighing me down shrinks slightly. “Thanks, man. That’s awesome.”
Curt shakes his head. “Don’t thank me until you’ve heard the details: sinks and toilets. Toilets are always the job of the newest person, so that would be you. Sinks are all the dirty dishes. Grace, that woman who licks the ketchup off her plate every day? Somebody has to clear and wash it.”
Gross. Money, but gross. “I’m on it. I can handle it.”
“Pays minimum wage, in cash. Anyone asks, you say you’re just helping the family out while you’re in town. Free. You can’t tell anyone we paid you anything, or we all get in trouble.”
Who would I tell? “Got it.”
“I’ll put you to work after your sandwich, if you want.” He returns my cash. “Meals are on the house when you’re working.”
Curt clearly doesn’t understand what a huge deal this is; his offer has reversed my cash flow.
Only after I scrub my very first toilet do I realize that I got the shit end of this deal, literally. It’s not just about toilets, because people pee everywhere. There is shit on one of the seats. Pee on the walls, on the floor, in the sinks—really, people?
I mean, washing laundry is one thing, but pissing in a sink is just wrong.
Curt gives me a quick overview of the dishwasher and back of the kitchen. I’ll be handling the dirty part of the assembly line, since you can’t very well handle the clean end after you’ve handled the toilets.
At closing,
Big Curt inspects the toilet, consults his son, and hands me thirty bucks from the register. That’s easily ten lunches from the convenience store, but still not a hotel room.
While Curt’s locking up, he says, “See you in the morning for more of the same. Ten o’clock.”
I desperately want a bed, but I’m too grateful for the money to ask for one more favor.
I just can’t sleep outside again. With an actual job now, earning actual money, I’m not really so hard up anymore. And I need a shower. I can suck it up and go to the shelter for a shower.
_______
In this situation, Mom would say she put on her big girl panties, but there’s no appropriate analogy for guys. Manning up or growing a set would work, except sleeping at a shelter feels more like a cowardly move.
The walk from Curt’s is short, but I am a whole different person when I reach the shelter. Small. Sad. Defeated. This whole thing is surreal.
All the surreal moments of my life are cringeworthy. Like that night in sleeping bags on my parents’ floor. Or banging on Mom’s chest in our kitchen. Pulling away from Gretchen’s kisses at Jill’s house.
The first time Gretchen kissed also me was surreal, but totally pleasurable.
Walking into the shelter is not.
The upbeat staff can probably tell it’s my first time. Mom and I never wound up at one of those battered women’s shelters, even though we definitely belonged. Unfortunately—or brilliantly, depending on how you look at it—Gary volunteered as one of the good Samaritans who showed up with his car and his muscles when a woman needed to leave her home. The shelter called him a protector.
There’s no irony at the Burlington shelter. I actually, legally, belong here. Seven people form a line toward the processing table, where two men are asking questions and passing out forms. Encouraging posters and twelve-step pamphlets paper the walls between naked light bulbs.
The guy in front of me is wearing a freaking suit, for god’s sake. His pants are shorter than they should be, but he’s clean shaven in a suit. Two people have cool spinner suitcases and are far, far better groomed than I am.
Life Before Page 13