by Ivy Pochoda
The man sidestepped Ren and pushed the elevator’s call button.
Ren watched the doors open and close, hiding the man from view.
“So you’re looking for someone?”
Ren turned and saw the white kid he’d ridden the elevator with yesterday sitting in one of the lobby’s couches. He hadn’t changed his clothes—short-sleeved shirt over long-sleeved one, baggy black jeans, and skate shoes—but he now had a small string bag slung across his chest.
“Could be,” Ren said.
“This person has a name?” The kid started digging around in his little fabric pouch. He pulled out a battered pack of rolling papers.
Chances were slim that this stoned, skinny white kid with hair like a dirty mop knew his mom. “Laila Davis.”
“I know a Laila.” The kid didn’t look up from the joint he was rolling.
“You know a black, middle-aged Laila?”
The kid was fashioning a filter out of the rolling paper package. “That’s the one.”
“And?” Ren asked. He wanted to snatch that damn joint out of the boy’s hands.
“And she used to live here but she doesn’t anymore.”
“And?”
“You want me to show you her spot?”
Jesus, Ren thought, that’s what I want. That’s exactly what I fucking want. Because why the fuck else would I be looking for her if I didn’t want to find her. “Yeah,” he said. “That’d be nice.”
The kid stuck the joint behind his ear. “I’m Flynn,” he said, offering his hand with its dirt-rimmed nails.
Ren followed Flynn out of the lobby. They exited through a crowd of backpackers speaking a language Ren didn’t recognize.
Out on the street, Flynn held out his wispy joint. Ren waved him off.
“You don’t smoke?”
“Menthols.”
“You’re sober?”
“Something like that.”
That answer seemed simpler than the truth. Shit like smoking weed and drinking malt liquor—rites of passage for most kids like Ren—had simply passed him by. Maybe he had a swig or two when he was twelve and free. He might have experienced a contact high from the older ballers he’d been trying to impress when he fired that damn gun across the housing project’s courtyard. But drinking and smoking and girls—especially girls—were like foreign countries with unknown languages and customs, shit Ren just couldn’t untangle. Add to them the smaller stuff—smartphones and social media—that had blown up when he was inside, things designed to pull people together but did nothing more than keep Ren out.
The sun broke through without apology. It was more white than yellow. By midmorning yesterday’s fog had vanished in a brutal blue sky. All up and down Seventh Street, people fought for slivers of shade. They sheltered in the doorways of the SRO hotels. They pressed against the sides of buildings and flopped behind Dumpsters.
Ren was used to the humidity back east that seeped into his skin and made him feel hot from the inside out. There were days when the air in his old housing project or the juvenile hall felt viscous, when it felt like he was inside a dishwasher. But the sun out west was something else. It burned the back of his eyelids and dried his throat. It sizzled and cooked.
“This usual?” he asked.
“This isn’t even that bad,” Flynn said.
But the way Ren figured, it looked like the sun was bringing out additional crazy. When he arrived yesterday afternoon the neighborhood was jumping. Today it seemed aggressive.
A woman had unfurled a sheet of black plastic and spread it on the ground, baking herself as she insulted anyone who passed. An old white dude in a tattered suit rolled down the middle of the street, sitting backward on his wheeled walker, narrowly avoiding two-way traffic. Two transsexuals were shouting at each other in front of a bus stop. One had a pockmarked face patched with makeup. The other had weight-lifter legs encased in latex shorts.
On the larger east/west streets, most of the tents had been taken down and people stood around with their possessions piled onto shopping carts or wrapped into bundles. “They shake them out early,” Flynn said. “They don’t let anyone sleep past six. They say it’s bad for the business owners.”
Ren checked up and down the street. There weren’t any stores.
He stuck out, this young white kid moving purposefully between the beached addicts, the helpless, and the hopeless. A few people called to him as he passed. A couple bumped fists.
At the corner of Fourth and San Pedro a middle-aged black man in a Clippers shirt hopped off a wall. “White boy, you got something for me? Medi-Cal stonewalled me. They say I don’t have the walking pneumonia.” The man’s voice was rattling gravel. “They say I have smoker’s cough. Ain’t no medicine for that. But it’s my lungs, boy. I’m telling you. Know what I’m saying?” He held out his hands. “Do your magic.”
Flynn reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a plastic Ziploc rolled like a cigar. The hand game was over before you could dial it in. Blink and their palms hadn’t touched at all.
They continued down Fourth, then headed south on Crocker. The block was loud with boom boxes and people shouting over the Department of Sanitation truck that was doing a lousy job of sweeping up the trash slicked to the curb.
“So we’re heading to Laila’s place?” Ren said. Because it didn’t seem they were going anywhere at all, just beating time up and down the fetid streets.
“For sure,” Flynn said. “For sure.” He stopped walking and grabbed Ren’s forearm. His eyes were red-rimmed. “You didn’t think I was going to lead you astray, brother.”
No, Ren thought. But he wasn’t sure where the fuck Flynn was leading him. Because after an hour of pacing these streets they didn’t seem to be heading anywhere good. They crossed Fifth and came to another busy block packed tight with tents. Folks were lined up for free coffee. Two dudes were slow-rolling on old BMXs. Outside a communal commissary a woman was shouting about stamps. They neared the corner of Sixth where a tight cluster of makeshift shelters rounded the corner. Across the street was the darkened neon sign of the Roger Hotel.
“This is it.”
Ren glanced up at the grim façade of the hotel. Compared to this, the Cecil looked downright deluxe. But home is home, Ren figured. And it was more than he had.
He stepped off the curb. Flynn pulled him back. “Where you going? I said, this is it. Here.” He pointed at the corner encampment. “This is her spot.”
A grizzled man was sitting on a camp chair, a small radio pressed to his ear. He was shirtless, his ribs like a xylophone under sagging skin. A woman lay in her tent half dressed, the rest of her clothing drying from a line overhead. A man in a wheelchair was eating from a Styrofoam container.
“She camps on the end,” Flynn said, pointing to an empty space away from the corner. “Guess she’s out.”
“Here?” Ren said. “Like right the fuck here? On the street?”
The man with the radio looked up like who the hell was Ren to comment on any of this shit. Like Ren better back the fuck up or else.
Flynn held up his hand. “It’s cool,” he said. “He’s just looking for Laila.”
“What’s she to him?” the man said.
“Is she here or not?” Ren asked. Hoping the answer was no. No, she’d never been here. No, the guy had no idea who the hell Flynn was talking about.
“Can’t you see with your own eyes her spot’s empty?” The man turned the radio up and pressed it to his ear.
“But that’s her spot?” Ren said.
“The fuck I just told you? That’s her spot. She comes and goes. I’m not her daddy.”
Flynn fished in his bag and pulled out another wrapped Ziploc and handed it to the man. The man sniffed the roll and pocketed it.
“How come you know Laila?” Ren asked as he and Flynn moved away.
“Same reason I know everyone.” Flynn patted his string bag.
Of course, Ren thought. No way his mom could ever s
tay out of trouble. And even when she landed in the lowest of low circumstances, she was still looking for her high.
Flynn stared at the empty square of sidewalk. Something sticky and dark had recently been spilled and was now gathering flies. “You think she’ll come back?”
“People come back to their spots,” Flynn said. “That’s what they do.”
“I’ll wait,” Ren said. Because why the hell else had he trekked all the way cross-country, squandered a few bills on a hotel room, scoured the streets of Skid Row if he was going to walk away?
“It’s your day, brother,” Flynn said, pulling him into a brief hug. Then he was gone, leaving Ren on the street corner staring at the spot where his mom lived.
HE WATCHED FROM A DISTANCE, A LITTLE WAY UP THE BLOCK WHERE HE could keep an eye on the camp but remain out of sight of the man with the radio and his friends. A young hustler was working the block, the kind of kid Ren had looked up to when he was twelve and stupid as shit. He was a foot shorter than Ren and about the same age. He was dressed like a street tough—baggy jeans, bright high-tops, a Lakers jersey, and an all-black baseball cap twisted to the side. His face was round, his eyes bug wide. He made up for his lack of height by bouncing up and down like there were springs in his shoes.
Five times he passed Ren, their eyes meeting before Ren looked away. On the sixth pass he stopped.
“I can help you with something?” The kid bobbed and dipped and stepped closer. Ren thought he’d be able to take him down if need be, but you never could be sure with the hyper freaks. Chances were they were crazy enough to think they could tussle with dudes twice their size.
“Not that I can think of,” Ren said.
“You new?”
“I’m nothing.”
“How’s that?” The kid jumped forward, his chest bumping into Ren. He was buzzing like a live wire.
“I’m just minding my own.”
“Well, I’m minding you. I keep an eye on this block. My block, my turf.”
“You can have it,” Ren said.
“I can what-what?”
“I said—” But then he saw her, or someone who could be her coming up the block, passing right in front of him, crossing to the spot that was supposed to be hers.
Ren stared, tracked her as she dodged a police car, skirted a man in a wheelchair. The little hustler watched him watching. “The fuck you want with Laila?”
“That’s Laila? For real?” Because it was his mother and it wasn’t. Like someone had taken Laila and pulled all the softness and style out of her.
“No shit, that’s Laila.”
Ren moved a little farther down the block so he could get a better look at his mother.
“You walking away from me?” the hustler said. “You got better things to do? You got better things to do than talk to Puppet?”
Ren glanced over his shoulder, hoping this Puppet kid wasn’t following. But the little hustler was just staring at him, jumping foot to foot, like he couldn’t decide whether to pounce or bounce. Then someone else up the block caught his eye and he hopped off.
Ren stood across from Laila’s place. He took his sweatshirt out of his backpack, put it on, and pulled up the hood just in case she glanced his way, just in case she happened to recognize him even though she wasn’t expecting to see him.
He watched his mother—or rather, the woman who seemed to have replaced his mother—reach into one of the shopping carts behind the man in the camp chair and pull out a tent. It was yellow, streaked and stained with dirt. She popped it up, arranging the poles and pins in a flash. His mother, who used to have nails so long she made him do the dishes. His mother who spent more money than they could afford on having her hair foiled and colored. His mother who thought a barbecue in the park outside their housing project was nasty.
He watched her unroll her sleeping bag, set up her bed. Then she came out. She was wearing a pink velour sweat suit with a rhinestone heart on the back that was missing most of the jewels. Her hair was cut above her ears, a natural frizz, streaked with gray. Ren had never seen her without her purple or gold coils; he barely remembered seeing her without makeup. When he was a little kid, he’d known enough to see that although she’d been a mess—lit on booze half the day, weed at night—she had still been fine. Whenever she’d come up to visit him in juvie all the other boys would turn their heads, catcall his mom, dare him to step to them for their cheek.
Laila crouched down in front of the man with the radio. He offered her the weed. Ren watched her roll a joint, her movements quick and expert. She sparked it, sucking in her cheeks, amplifying how gaunt she’d gotten. She held in the smoke, then exhaled. She coughed violently, doubling over, her hands on her knees.
He curled his toes around his bankroll. There were cheaper hotels than the Cecil, places outside the city where he could take Laila, buy them a few weeks until he figured out the next step.
Four times Ren stepped off the curb. Once he made it halfway across the street. But each time he tripped up and staggered back to his spot. His mom thought of him as that little banger wannabe, the kid who got caught up in stuff way out of his league. She’d never listened when he’d tried to explain that he’d just been fooling, that he didn’t know what he was doing, that the older kids played him. She didn’t believe him that he’d never been a bad kid at all.
But what should it matter now that she was living on the street? What should she care who and what he’d been, only that he was there to help. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to cross Crocker, reintroduce himself.
One of the women in camp was cooking over a small stove, heating up hot dogs that she served to the group. Someone else passed around leftovers in a greasy box.
Afternoon slipped into evening and evening into night. The street settled in, people tucked into their bags and tents and crawled under tarps. Ren watched Laila zip her flap shut.
Tomorrow, he told himself. Tomorrow he’d come down first thing. He’d pack her tent. They’d get on a bus either back east or out of town. Or they’d find somewhere else to camp, outdoors but clean. But first he’d take one more night at the Cecil, one more locked door. One more shower.
Ren headed back to Main. Things might have been crazy and chaotic during daylight, but at night the streets turned sinister and savage. Sure, it was quiet, but there was a feral element about—prowlers slinking under streetlights and darting from shadow to shadow. It didn’t take much to see that the hustle was on in the dark.
Ren had never been to the jungle or any sort of forest. In fact, the closest he’d ever come to countryside was a field trip to Prospect Park in the middle of Brooklyn. But he imagined this is what it would be like to be lost in the woods or rain forest at night—the eyes that watched you, the things that breathed and slithered, the shadows that stretched long then slipped away, the footfalls that followed, the crack and snap of things at your back.
He heard the hiss, followed by the chemical burn of a crack pipe. He passed two guys cocooned in their sleeping bags, rolled toward each other snorting something off a dirty envelope. Someone called out as he went by, demanding a fix, a hit, anything.
Women—missing teeth, dirty hair—worked the bigger streets in ripped and saggy dresses that were meant to be sexy but just signaled their trade. Their steps were jerky, uneven. They blew smoke toward the yellow streetlights as they bent into cars, leaning into the windows like that was all that came between them and falling over.
An orderly row of tents had appeared on a side street on the northern edge of the neighborhood. A few men were standing guard, accepting cash or swaps from customers before ushering them through an open flap.
Someone whistled. A coded call came in response. A tall guy in a baggy tracksuit pedaled by on a too-small BMX making slow motion circles across Fifth. There was another whistle. Then an exchange shouted in Spanish. Someone grabbed Ren’s backpack, yanking his head back. His neck jerked. He caught a glimpse of smudged sky and they were on him.
They brought him down easy. First came the kick to his side, sending him sliding from the sidewalk into the street. He smelled blood and sewage and all sorts of bodily odors that didn’t belong in public. Then came the blow to the face followed by one to the chest that kept him flat. Ren was aware of folks pulling back into the shadows to watch. In the distance a siren wailed. The beating went on.
In lockup he’d had worse. But he’d also known that sooner or later the guards would arrive, pull the boys apart, and punish everyone involved. So inside he gave as good as he got, knowing he was screwed no matter. But the guys out here had the jump on him. This was their beating to give and his to take. So he didn’t even try to fight back. He didn’t give them the satisfaction, hoping they’d grow bored and move on.
One of the guys reached into Ren’s pocket and found the few bucks he’d stashed there. The others began ripping through his clothes, searching for more. They tore the pouch pocket of his sweatshirt. They ripped the seam of his jeans. Ren knew that it was only a matter of seconds before they reached his shoes.
His head throbbed. His eyeball had a pulse. His jaw felt crooked and swollen.
His attackers were speaking Spanish, barking orders at one another. They stripped off his shoes. They peeled back his socks. They found his bankroll. He blacked out as they pried the cash from his sweaty sole.
It was still dark when Ren came to. Someone must have dragged him out of the street and onto the sidewalk. He was sprawled in the middle of the pavement. He wiped the dried blood out of his eyes and blinked. Two men stepped over him as if he wasn’t there.
His backpack was next to him, his clothes scattered around it. Ren got to his knees and collected his shit.
He put a hand to his jaw. It felt like a melon, soft and swollen. He prodded inside his mouth, checking for loose teeth. But everything was in place—a small, goddamn miracle.
He stood up. His head throbbed with each movement. Each step rattled his jaw. He pulled a T-shirt and a half-empty bottle of water out of his bag and tried to clean his face. But the pressure was too much. He fumbled in his pockets and the bottom of his backpack looking for a bill his attackers had missed. He found a couple of quarters and two pennies—all the money he had in the world.