by Debra Busman
when the men arrived to put the freeway in, time shifted irrevocably. i could not find the wise, scaly friends that kept me in this world, and i wandered, my spirit broken as a bulldozed tortoise shell. i learned again to harden focus, glare out my intent, and never move too slow. and as i watched the freeway cars race by, sometimes held inside their cyclone cages, i noticed how the screaming sirens passed more quickly than they arrived, and i found my adolescent comfort knowing death was just a fence away.
The Story of david
All she wanted was to get a look inside that open casket and see if David really was in there. Before he died, he had lived next door. He’d been hit by a car when he was seven but that wasn’t what killed him. Last week Taylor had seen the medics wheel something out of the house. The ambulance had screeched up fast and loud, then crawled away slow, its sirens silent. Still, she needed to see for herself if the boy was in that box.
Taylor sat up in the front pew with David’s family, the Doyles, sweating and squirming in her itchy yellow church dress, the dingy, permanently starched ruffles grating into her neck. She didn’t think you were supposed to wear yellow to funerals but she only had one church dress and her mom said God didn’t care what color her dress was.
“Well, if he don’t care what color my dress is, then why should he care if I even wear a dress at all?” Taylor had asked, neither expecting nor receiving a reply. She hated dresses. She hated God. And she hated church. Unfortunately they all went together; plus now she had a hundred-degree day, a pee-leaking baby— David’s little brother Bobby—on her lap, and an old man in a robe talking forever about Purgatory, captive souls, deliverance, and damnation.
Taylor felt Mike, the oldest of the six Doyle boys, nudge her shoulder. “Okay, we’re gonna go look at him now.”
“What about the baby? He ain’t supposed to see, is he?” Taylor whispered. She looked over at Mike’s mom, sitting with her newly dyed black hair pulled back tight, staring out the crucified Jesus stained-glass window. Mrs. Doyle’s hands gripped together in her lap, the fingernails all cut short except on the baby fingers where the slightly yellow nails curled long and crooked. Taylor shivered slightly, pulled the baby closer. Mr. Doyle sat next to his wife, alternately holding her elbow and wiping his palms on his pants, pulling at his tight white collar and looking for the door. He was a tall, thick man who moved slow and didn’t talk much but could whip off his belt quicker than you could spit. Kids usually stayed out of his way.
“I don’t know,” Mike said. “I guess you hold him while I look and I’ll hold him while you look.” The borrowed grey suit hung loose on Mike’s skinny frame. The pants were cinched up tight, revealing dark mismatched socks and his father’s stiff black shoes. At thirteen, he was still waiting to grow into his ears, which looked even larger than usual with his new buzz haircut.
“Okay,” said Taylor. “I’ll hold him first. But watch out, he’s pretty wet.” She and Mike stood up, joining the slow-moving procession past the open coffin. Tommy, the next oldest, came with them, leaving the nine- and six-year-olds, Ryan and Sean, sitting stiffly on the bench by themselves, leaning like a couple of bowling pins left after a missed strike. Nobody moved to fill in the gap. Across the aisle, their neighbor Mrs. Jablonski gave a slight tsking sound, gathered up her girth and took the leaking baby from Taylor. Making her way over to the two boys, Mrs. Jablonski plumped herself down next to Sean. Taylor was relieved that the scent of rotting rose petals left with her.
Waiting for the line to move, Taylor watched Sean squint sideways up at the big lady holding his baby brother and squishing him up against Ryan. Taylor couldn’t remember ever having seen Mrs. Jablonski without her hair curlers in. Blond at the ends, her hair turned into an orangey black up close to the scalp, reminding Taylor of David’s favorite marble. She held back a smile as Sean wrinkled his nose and looked down at Mrs. Jablonski’s legs, straining against the damp floral dress, forcing her knees far apart. Each thigh was bigger around than the whole of Sean’s body. Taylor watched Sean look down at his own legs, skinny and straight, knees touching easily. He bounced them together a few times, glanced over at Bobby asleep in between the folds of Mrs. Jablonski’s stomach and breasts, and then closed his eyes. Bobby snored softly.
Tommy, Mike, and Taylor moved up the line, closer to the open casket.
“He looks like somebody colored his face all up with crayons,” whispered Tommy. Taylor peered in at David’s white, waxy body, lying stretched out straight, hands to his side, dressed in a Navy blue Goodwill suit. She’d seen enough animals die to know that bodies look different without their souls, and her mom had warned her that David wouldn’t really be “there” in the box. Still, she hated to see him this way: head sculptured, lips painted, scars covered, body straightened out into the narrow child coffin. She longed to carry him outside and lay his body down on the grass the way he used to like—curled sideways, legs tucked up, crooked arms making a pillow for his head. Each day, after they finished exercising his legs, Taylor and Mike would set David up on his side so he could watch them play. Across the street, out behind Lucky’s, the other kids would race his wheelchair against the shopping carts.
The best times were in the summer, when they could get David into the city pool. He loved the water and had gotten so he could use his arms pretty good, flapping them around like the busted-up crow Mike let Taylor feed worms to. David was so skinny that Taylor could wrap her fingers up around his chest, lacing each one in between a rib. She’d hold him up against her chest while Mike worked his legs under water, hollering out, “Yeah, King David! Kick it harder! Ha! I think the little fucker just tried to kick me in the balls!” David would laugh, his head rolling back against Taylor’s shoulder, bumping her cheek. After his swimming lesson, Taylor would lay David out curled sideways on a towel so he could watch her and Mike practice backflips and cannonballs off the high dive.
Before David got hit by the car, he was just a snotty-nosed little kid named Davey who got in everyone’s way. After he became crippled, though, they started calling him David, sometimes even King David because of how he looked with the fancy red pillow headrest Taylor and Mike had made for his wheelchair. Taylor remembered the day she and Mike stole the pillow from Sears. It was the day she almost flew and Mike got sucker-punched by a biker.
“Tilt him back so he can watch too, okay?” Taylor had hollered down as she prepared to fling her ten-year-old body off the top of the tallest tree in North Hollywood Park.
Mike leaned David’s chair against a small pine, bracing the wheels with a couple of rocks. David’s scarred and shaven head rolled over to one side.
“No, man, you gotta look up,” Mike told him. “Taylor’s gonna jump. See her? She’s way the fuck up there.” Mike made a cushion out of his jacket and propped David’s head up, carefully wiping away the thin trail of spit gathering on his brother’s chin before he ran back over to spot Taylor’s jump.
The first time she fell out of the fifty-foot pine had been an accident; the second time—a jump—was a sucker’s dare she couldn’t resist. This time it was strictly business. They had made a bet with a couple of bikers, putting down five dollars each that said the barefoot girl with the wild hair and crazy eyes wouldn’t jump out of that tree. Mike and Taylor already had the money spent. They were going to buy David a pillow and make a headrest for his wheelchair.
Crouched down on the strongest branch she could find that high up, Taylor was ready. “Okay, David. This one’s for you!” she hollered. She took a deep breath and leapt straight out. It was a perfect jump, far enough out so when she fell she hit the boughs of the branches rather than the unyielding limbs nearer the trunk. For a few blessed moments time stopped. Taylor didn’t have to do or think a thing, just relax as gravity sucked her down and the branches bounced her up, breaking her fall and giving her a small taste of freedom. Eyes closed, she smiled to herself and soared. The boys below watched in awe as a skinny body in a torn striped shirt and blue jeans
plummeted down, spinning, slamming into branch after branch. Mike, who had seen it all before, began to worry that she was going too fast and sliding out too far on the branches. Nervous, he made the call.
“Taylor!” he yelled. “Taylor, grab on!” She heard his call from far away, waking as if from a dream. Slowly, she reached out to break her fall. The branches that moments ago had softly caressed her now tore through her grasp, slapping against her face. Sensing she was close to hitting the ground, she grabbed on with hands, arms, legs, feet, and toes, curling around the next branch with her entire body, even tucking her chin into her shoulder hoping to catch hold of something. Clinging fiercely to the final branch, she held on tight, bouncing up and down, head spinning, waiting to regain focus. She opened her eyes. Looking back over her shoulder she saw Mike ten feet below, shaking his head.
“Dammit, Taylor,” he scowled. “Why you gotta wait till the last fucking branch? I thought I was gonna have to catch you.”
“Well, catch me now, okay?” Taylor swung her legs around and dropped down. Mike caught her around the ribs, letting go when he felt her feet touch ground. Dizzy, she fell over. David laughed, “Aaaaah ah aaaaahh.”
Mike reached down and picked up the money. “I told you she’d do it, didn’t I?”
The older biker slapped Mike up the side of his head, then grabbed him in a half nelson. “Fuck you, punk. You think I’m gonna pay money to watch some crazy bitch jump outta a tree? I think you need to be paying us $10, that’s what I think.” Tightening his grip on Mike’s neck, he lifted him up in the air. “Hey, Jimmy. Take the money.”
“Aw man, let him down. The bitch did what he said she’d do. Let’s get outta here.” Jimmy turned toward his motorcycle. Mike kicked backward, trying to throw an elbow at the same time. The biker yanked Mike’s head to the right, bringing his left fist hard into Mike’s ribcage.
Taylor ran over and jumped like a monkey onto the guy’s back. “Let him go, you stupid motherfucker,” she cried, grabbing his hair and reaching for his eyes.
The biker dropped Mike, threw Taylor to the ground like she was a tick he’d picked off his neck, and pulled his knife. “Don’t even think of messing with me, you fucking punks, or I’ll slit your scrawny throats.”
Mike and Taylor froze, crouched on the ground. They could probably outrun the guy by themselves, but they’d never get David out of there. Taylor watched the red-faced biker out of the corner of her eye, remembering how the guy on Wild Kingdom said never to look a wild animal straight in the eyes because it will take it as an act of aggression.
“Oh, big man. Taking out a couple of ten-year-olds. What a stud.” Jimmy laughed. “Come on, joker, let’s go.”
“I’m eleven,” Mike muttered, rubbing his neck as the two guys rode off with the money, revving their engines.
“Damn, and that was my best jump ever.” Taylor stood up and took inventory. “Yeah, that ol’ mama tree cut me up a little this time. She don’t like it when us mere human beans think we can fly.”
“It’s be-ings,” Mike said. “Human beings.” She knew he hated the way she talked about the tree like it was a person. Sometimes, when things were rough at home, Taylor would sleep out in the huge old pine, tucking into the tree’s thick lower limbs like they were some kind of cradle, oblivious to the beer cans, rubbers, KFC boxes, and partying bikers in the park below.
Mike went to get David. The jacket had slipped loose and David’s head was lolling to the side again. Mike kicked one of the rocks. “Goddammit, you think they’d at least get him a wheelchair with a fucking headrest.”
Mike had been the oldest in the group of kids walking to school the day his little brother got hit by the car. When David came home from the hospital, senseless and scarred, Mike quietly gathered him alongside his other crippled charges—broken winged birds, tortoises with cracked shells, cats with busted legs from cars and kicks—and solemnly set to fixing him back up so he could walk again.
“Come on, let’s work his legs some before we take him back,” Taylor said. They had been working with David almost every day since he’d gotten out of the hospital, exercising his legs like they’d seen on a television show once. The doctor had said the boy might learn to talk again, but he would never walk. Taylor and Mike didn’t really care if David talked or not. They understood what his eyes said and knew how to read all his sounds, from the backward laughing “ah ah aaahh”s to the high-pitched train noises he made when he was worried—”wooo ooooh oooh.” They also had come to know the complete silences of his terror. Talking didn’t matter so much, they thought, but if you were a kid you definitely needed to know how to run.
“Nah, I got something else I want to do,” Mike replied. Taylor picked at a scab on her elbow, waiting for Mike to continue. Something was up. He always wanted to work on David’s legs, no matter what. Mike started walking back home, pushing David along with his right arm. She could tell that biker had really hurt his ribs, but he would never say anything.
“What you gonna do?” Taylor finally asked.
“I’m gonna get him a pillow like I said I was.” Mike kicked a small rock out into the street.
Oh, man, thought Taylor. This is gonna be trouble. “You know you’re gonna need my help,” she said. Mike was really smart and her all-time best friend but he couldn’t steal worth shit.
Mike kept walking. “I can do it on my own,” he muttered.
“Yeah, you can get caught on your own. That’s what you can do on your own,” Taylor said. “Dang, Mike. You can’t hardly even steal a candy bar from Joe’s.” Joe’s was the liquor store where both of their moms sent them each week with signed notes authorizing them to buy cigarettes and whiskey. It was the easiest thing in the world to pocket a Snickers when the clerk turned around to reach for the Pall Mall unfiltereds, but somehow Mike had managed to get caught. Too old for his mom to hit, Mike missed school for a week after his dad got hold of him that night. Bringing up Joe’s was a low blow, but Taylor needed to make her point.
“Besides,” she continued, “why you so mad at me anyway? It’s not my fault that asshole stole our money.”
“I’m not mad at you,” Mike said. “I’m just mad, that’s all.”
“Forget it.” Taylor reached over and started pushing the left side of the wheelchair. “Come on, let’s just get David a pillow. You got a plan?”
“Nah, not really,” Mike said. “But I did see a really cool pillow over at Sears.”
Taylor looked over at him, raising an eyebrow. “Sears?”
“Yeah, upstairs in the furniture section,” he said. “It was on a couch. The sign said, ‘Cushions of Crimson Velvet.’”
“Christ,” Taylor laughed. “Okay, let me think.”
Mike smiled, beginning to relax. Everybody knew Taylor could steal anything that wasn’t chained down. They turned the corner by Taylor’s house so she could get cleaned up, stopping short at the sight of the battered old ’61 Chevy parked sideways across the lawn. “Uh oh,” Mike said. “Your mom’s home. We’d better not go in.”
Taylor looked at her mom’s car, searching for clues. She thought she saw a new dent in the right front fender. She squinted up at the smoggy sky and figured it was close to noon.
“It’s okay,” Taylor said. “She’s probably resting. I’ll go in the side window. Wait here, I’ll be right back.”
“Resting,” Mike grumbled as Taylor scrambled up the peeling stucco into her bedroom window. “Yeah, right.” He reached through the Chevy’s open window and took out the bottle of Jack Daniel’s lying on the front seat. Pouring out the little that was left, he started to throw the bottle against the back alley wall, but instead quietly stashed it in the bottom of the Jablonskis’ trashcan and walked back to wait for Taylor.
A few minutes later she came out, all cleaned up, hair combed, wearing a long-sleeved pink shirt and carrying her grandma’s shawl. “Let’s go,” she smiled. She spread the burgundy shawl over David’s lap. “Perfect!”
&nbs
p; Sears was just a few blocks away in the Valley Hills Shopping Center. Taylor and Mike took David upstairs to the furniture section on the elevator. Taylor looked around for clerks and plainclothes detectives. Guess they don’t hang out up here in furniture. The place was empty except for a man and woman looking at dining room tables while their kids jacked the reclining chairs back and forth, spinning each other around.
“Okay, I got it figured,” Taylor whispered. “Just hang tight and do what I tell you.”
Taylor positioned David’s chair right in front the velvet crimson couch and pretended to look at one of the fancy pillows. When she saw a clerk come out to tell the kids to quit playing in the recliner, she whispered to Mike, “Okay, now, pick him up for a minute, okay? Quick.”
Mike lifted David up and Taylor jammed the pillow under him, covering up his lap with the shawl. Quickly, she sat back down. Leaning back into the remaining “Cushions of Crimson Velvet,” she looked at the price tag and wondered who would ever buy a couch for $300. She smiled at the clerk when he looked their way and then made sure nothing crimson was sticking out from under David’s butt.
“Let’s go,” she whispered.
They took the elevator down and were walking through households toward the exit when Taylor spotted the shiny-shoed detective following them. “I think we’d better buy something,” she whispered to Mike. “We look too suspicious.”
“We don’t have any money. Remember?” Mike said, starting to panic. The detective moved in closer, clearly keeping his eyes on them. They would never be able to run with David with them.