After a minute I get nervous he’ll see me looking, so I yawn loud, like I just woke up, and stretch my arms. He looks over at me. “Hey,” he goes. “What’s up.”
“Morning,” I go, and then wait. My heart starts thumping in my chest again. I guess I’m expecting him to say something about last night, or at least act different, but he just keeps giving water to Germ.
I guess I must be staring because after a minute he looks over and goes “What?” My whole body is hot and prickly but I say “Nothing.”
He finishes with the dog and goes “I bet Critter and Eeyore are at Winchell’s. Let’s get some donuts,” and gets up. Just like that. The whole way to Winchell’s he doesn’t say anything, and I feel like I’m keeping a big secret from him even though we both know the same things.
Since that night it’s been different and almost exactly the same. Eeyore hangs on Critter’s neck, and we four sleep back in the alleys and eat two-day-old donuts, and Squid sits with me to spange, and grins and buys me food when he’s got cash. But he doesn’t touch me again, and he never says anything about that night. I guess I feel like I can’t either. Every day I spend beside Squid on the sidewalk I can feel my insides lock more into place with his, fitting up perfect like a brand-new puzzle, and so my secrets stretch out past my skin, out there unarmored in the hot air of Hollywood, and I don’t want to point them out to him if he can’t already see. I’m pretty sure it’s not the same for him. Which means that there are lots of things I’ll always have to never say.
But I still don’t get how you can touch someone and act afterward like it didn’t ever happen, like you’re still just two separate people, the same safe pocket of air swelled up between you. When Squid and I are waiting for our food to come up at Benito’s I watch him watch it cook and I think: I know what your breath feels like. I wonder if he ever thinks that about me.
squid
i don’t know how the fuck it got so noisy around here. The last few weeks it seemed so quiet: with Critter here, plus Eeyore and Rusty, I finally was sleeping every night. Critter’d mumble stoned and drunk, Eeyore’d babble through her dreams, Rusty breathed out through his skinny chest and all of it was like a lullaby. But Critter and Eeyore left two days ago to unload junk, and when I came back today with breakfast Rusty wasn’t there.
So tonight they’re gone and I’m alone again and the less people there are around me the louder it all seems to get. Trucks drag by sounding like whole factories, creeping up then peaking and fading away, and I try to imagine they’re waves crashing but the metal grinds against itself too hard for me to believe it’s water. The hookers scream at each other half in Spanish, voices screechy like a girl’s but loud and deep like guys. You can never tell if they’re laughing or about to stab each other.
The sounds don’t come and go; they add up, and closing my eyes just makes it worse. In the inside of my head they turn into a million-petaled metal flower, or a herd of butterflies beating at the inside of my skull. I can feel every single cell of skin and hair on me, crawling. After a while the noise from outside doesn’t even matter anymore: it’s all inside. I count the stars to calm down, but they double up, start multiplying too. There’s too many of everything everywhere and I can’t keep track.
I get this feeling when I’m by myself too much.
Ever since I was a kid I had it. As far back as I can remember once my mom got too tweaked out to keep on running from my dad, and I started getting passed around to strangers. The feeling’s like a rash. Right at the edge of my skin, except inside my mind.
Annabelle made it go away for a while, in Arizona and all the way out here. The quiet came from a place I didn’t even know I remembered. I met her when we were both fifteen. I’d been floating around in foster homes for seven years and dropped out of school for two. She was reading fucking Beowulf for English. I fell right in love with her chopped-up hair and inky hands and faded bruises and made her skip class every day. It took ten months to get her to realize that if she ran away from her asshole dad and the leaky roof he kept above her head the world wouldn’t end, it might even get better, but finally I did, and we took off on the trains. It was me and her and Germ in the open air, finding our own food and surviving. We even had plans.
But within a week of landing in L.A. Annabelle was headed up to Berkeley, following some stupid band she heard was there, and my head started roaring again.
Those first two weeks were pretty goddamn loud. When I met Critter underneath the 101 I stopped noticing the noise so much. First of all, just having another person’s voice there drowned it out. And Critter always makes sure you eat, when he’s around. He strolls down the Hollywood sidewalks like he’s lived on them forever, and everybody knows him. It was nice having someone look out for me a little bit; I’d forgot what it felt like.
But Critter’s just too fucking good-looking to be considered reliable, so things never really quieted down for real. Those four months that it was me and him it used to make me nervous: he’s the kind of guy you might sometimes love but you don’t really want to need, because he’ll never ever need you back.
A month or so ago we found Eeyore back by the Dumpsters. Three days after that Rusty came along. Since then I was happier, and for the first time I could sleep: there’s enough of us now that it’s almost like a little family. Eeyore mostly only talks to Critter, but Rusty and me are perfect. He fits with what I’m missing somehow: our sentences match when we talk to each other. That never happened to me with anyone except Annabelle. I thought you only got it once per life until I bought Rusty some burritos and we started talking. I mean, he’s not a girl, so I guess it’s different that way. But he needs me and that part’s the same.
But now Rusty’s gone and he didn’t say where he was going. I know he’s not used to being out here, and I didn’t think he was the type to just leave. I’ve been wondering what he’s gonna eat since this morning. How he’ll find his way back here, no bread crumbs. And I keep trying to keep track of everything I did and said, in case I made him go away by accident. I can’t stop. I lean over into Germ and listen to him snore, hoping it’ll drown out all the other noise. At least Germ’s not going anywhere. Nobody’s gonna feed him but me.
Of course right when I finally get to sleep, the sun comes up. I roll over into my backpack to stretch out the dark, but one sound gets in, and then another and another, and I’m up. I keep my eyes shut anyway. Against the black-eyelid backdrop my mind picks up where it stopped last night, keeping track. I’m not worried about Critter: he’s always leaving to buy shit or sell it, and he always comes back. I know Eeyore went with Critter because that’s what she does, and she’ll be back when he’s back for the same exact reason. But that still leaves Rusty.
The light gets brighter and brighter through my eyelids while I lie there till everything looks blank and red. Halfway into rush hour Germ hears something near us. He picks up his head. His collars clink together before the leash tugs on my hand; then he’s up and jumping, happy; shitty watchdog. I open my eyes and he pulls me with him: slobbers his face into the bag Eeyore’s holding, rustling the grease-stained white till Critter grabs it away from both of them, takes a glazed donut and gives it to Germ. Critter slaps my hand hi. Eeyore copies his smile. They’re back.
Their voices take the edge off my alone—at least I’ve got something else to listen to—but after hello they mostly talk to each other, as usual. Nobody needs anything from me. I could turn invisible and they probably wouldn’t notice. I pick at the sole of my boot and talk to Germ. Rusty’s still gone. I spend the next two hours wondering if he’s coming back.
At ten the 217 bus pulls up and I get my answer. He’s the fourth one out the door, after two Mexican guys and an old white lady who looks like she’s made out of dust. He seems nervous in a happy way, the way I guess you’re supposed to be before the first day of school, or prom, or whatever shit you’re supposed to do if your mom’s not a tweaker and your dad didn’t beat her up and you live
in a house instead of on the sidewalk. When I see his face my insides finally start to settle and the wings in my head slow down. It’s still loud in there but his face helps, his nose and eyes. He stutters up to us like he wants to run and he’s making his feet slow down. I wish he’d hurry up.
That night in the alley I get up close enough to him that the breathing sounds drown out the hookers and the trucks. I wrap my arms around him so he can’t leave again. My head is just one thing, quiet now, and I can get to sleep.
I think something happened with Critter and Eeyore while they were off selling that shit. All last night and today he’s been keeping her really close but distant at the same time. You can tell that he’s preoccupied, like a dad on TV who’s got something on his mind. He doesn’t say what, though. They never do on TV either.
Critter never says what’s on his mind, but usually he at least says other things instead. Usually he says “Come here” to everyone and smokes us up, or buys us dinner. Always making sure that no one’s hungry. He smiles with those movie-star eyes and laughs about something and makes you feel like out here’s the best and freest place to be, even if you’re only here to run away from somewhere else. Eeyore went right to it like a moth to a lightbulb, the hot glass of him the only bright space in the dark. She hasn’t left him since.
But now Critter won’t talk, and I can tell Eeyore’s lonely. I wish I could take care of her. I like taking care of things that are smaller than me. They remind me of myself a long time ago, I guess. There’s nothing I can do, though; Eeyore won’t let me. She’d rather hide under piles of bravado or else nestle under Critter’s arm like a baby bird. Even when he hardly moves to let her in. I want to tell her to quit it: he could pull out from under any time. That’s what guys like him do, guys like dads on TV who feed everyone and give you drugs and never admit that they need anything. But they always seem like the strongest of all if you don’t know better. And she doesn’t.
Now Critter comes up to us from the Goodwill parking lot, holding on to Eeyore like her arm’s a leash, and plops her down. She scowls.
“Would you take care of her for a while, guys? I gotta go pick up some shit,” Critter goes. I’m glad to but Eeyore looks pissed: this is obviously the middle of something that started already.
“What the fuck, Critter?” Eeyore says. “I told you I want to come.” She lets it hang there for a second, but he doesn’t bite. “C’mon, I won’t fuck anything up, I promise, you can say I’m your little sister—” she’s begging now. But Critter’s got his mind made up, he’s not hearing any arguments.
“I told you, Juan-Carlo’s got his eye on you, he thinks you’re worth money and I’m not taking you back there.”
Eeyore rolls her eyes. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about. You are so paranoid. All he said is I was cute. That’s a compliment.”
Critter just looks at us like we all understand what Eeyore doesn’t, which we do. “Sure,” I go, “she can hang out with us,” and she scowls again. This time at me.
“Thanks,” Critter says, then throws a half-empty bag of Doritos down at us. “That’s for her,” he goes. Germ scuttles over to sniff it.
Eeyore is pissy for the next seven hours. It’s obvious she’s mad because of Critter. He’s trying to protect her, but there’s no way I can say that: I’d rather have her mad at him than me. It gets to where I want to get her drunk just to take the edge off, and I don’t usually feel that way. I’m getting nervous she’ll blow up and leave, or Rusty will, or someone. Finally I have to do something, so I buy us a 40, most of which Eeyore downs almost immediately. We go walking. If I take us somewhere better maybe it’ll help.
On Formosa there’s this huge construction site. I don’t know what they’re building there, a high-rise or a minimall, but they’ve been digging for three months and nothing’s come up but dust and piles of steel. We pass by it sometimes on the way to Whole Foods, the wood walls with the “warning” signs and construction trucks like dinosaurs grumbling around inside. Fluorescents shine down on it like helicopter searchlights but I don’t care. I hand Eeyore Germ’s leash, tell Rusty to give me a boost and slide up the wall, flip over the edge and scrape my stomach on the other side.
Once I’m over, the two of them don’t really have any choice but to follow. Rusty lifts Germ all the way up. I can tell Rusty’s on his tiptoes because all you can see is Germ teetering from side to side, scrambling like a little pig. I hold my arms up to Germ. He trusts me like always, and I catch him. Then there’s a pause for a second before Eeyore’s pink face peeks past the edge. I wave at her: Come on. For a second she looks scared, like the weak kid in dodgeball who’s about to get hit. Then Rusty hoists her up and over and she lands in the red dirt next to me.
When Rusty gets stuck at the top, I reach up and pull him the rest of the way. He lands on his knees, stands quick to brush them off. I ask if he’s all right. He doesn’t say anything, just looks up like he’s glad to be on the same side of the wall as us.
Eeyore is officially almost drunk. Plus she’s excited I think, so she forgets her bad mood and turns cute like a kid. She runs around the edge of the enormous crater pit that the construction dinosaurs dug. It goes down a hundred feet, like the top of a volcano, except there’s no fire at the bottom, just more dirt. Around the edges of the pit, piles of steel beams and wood planks make mountains on the ground, and the yellow and orange creature machines sleep standing up. The wood walls shut out the light from the street. It’s black, except where the work lights shine down like a stadium, and then it’s so bright you can hardly look at it. It’s beautiful. I look at Eeyore and Rusty, both grinning. It worked. I brought them someplace better.
Eeyore stumbles us across the site like we’re astronauts, climbing over hills of lumber, darting in and out of light. For a minute we can’t see her. Then her little voice yells “Guys!” We run up. She’s standing in front of a shack, three-quarters built. It’s dark-green painted wood and flimsy metal. The floor is dust. There are little windows with no glass in them and a door frame with no door. Eeyore shrieks like she found a gingerbread house in the woods; runs into it and sits right down. Rusty and I go in after.
Inside the light filters through the little window holes. None of us are used to being inside anywhere that’s ours. It’s usually either out in open air or in some store that someone owns. And I guess somebody owns this too, but it doesn’t feel like it. The sounds from the sidewalks barely even get in here. Rusty and I grin at each other, trying to hear the quiet.
Eeyore’s drunk, though, so she starts jabbering. It stirs up the air, but nobody minds. She’s happy talking. Mostly we just listen: Critter the asshole should’ve let her go with him, don’t we think so, come on guys (we nod). Man. He always lets her come, she’s never messed it up; Juan-Carlo’d give Critter a deal if she was there. She really thinks Juan-Carlo likes her.
Rusty and I just look at each other when she says that. It’s not funny, but for some reason the look in Rusty’s eyes makes me laugh sudden like a sneeze, too fast for me to stop it coming out. Rusty laughs back, like a reflex. Then it wears off and he looks away from me. I stop laughing too. I look at Eeyore for a second. I see her eyes fill up.
“Shit, man,” I say to her. “I didn’t mean anything—”
“What the fuck are you laughing about?” she goes, in that choky way you talk when you’re trying to get words out past tears. I can’t really answer. I guess we were laughing because Juan-Carlo likes her in a different way from how she thinks, but that’s not funny, it’s more scary if you think about it. Plus I don’t think she’d believe me if I told her that; I think she’d just get mad. So I just say “Nothing.” Which only makes her madder.
“Fuck you, Squid,” she goes. “You guys always fucking laugh at me behind my back. Don’t think I don’t notice,” but it’s really actually not true, it’s really the first time it’s ever happened, and it wasn’t behind her back it was actually right in front of her face, so I go �
��What are you talking about? Are you crazy or something?” which comes out a little harsher than I meant it, and then I think I must’ve snorted, because she gets like ten times louder and yells “Don’t fucking laugh at me!” like she’s a three-year-old trying to stop a grown-up from leaving, squeezing her eyes shut, using every last inch of vocal cord she’s got plus all her muscles, like it’ll actually make a difference. Rusty slouches down like he wants to be invisible.
I start to open my mouth, but she’s yelling now. She’s not gonna stop. “I’m not fucking crazy! I know you all think I’m a loser and I’m not enough of a hardass to hang out with you and I’m sorry my dad didn’t beat me up when I was five or whatever, but I have problems too, you know.” My heart starts speeding up and I try to talk again but she just keeps going, snot running out of her nose all over her upper lip.
She’s freaking out. “I’ve had shit happen that you guys have no fucking idea about, okay? You know what? You don’t know what it feels like to be molested by your fucking stepbrother every fucking night of your life. You don’t know what that shit feels like. So fuck you. Fuck you.” The last “fuck you” she kind of chokes on. And then she puts her head down on her knees and says “Get away from me” into her sleeve.
I’ve got that worried rash feeling on my skin again. I’m sweaty from getting yelled at; my heart’s beating hard in my ears. I must’ve done something bad to make her feel like that. It must’ve been bad when I laughed. I don’t want to be that guy, the one that laughs at kids and hurts their feelings, but somehow it wound up that way and I don’t know how to undo it. I’m sure Rusty thinks I’m a huge asshole. He still won’t look at me. Eeyore will, but her shiny eyes are like a mirror. I’m afraid to look at them.
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