“Sweetheart, this is your home. You are always welcome. But I can’t guarantee as good a future as this track offers. Are you willing to jeopardize your future?”
I’d been at Jedediah Smith ever since. I tried not to let it hurt, Mother wanting me gone. She was just being practical—she needed the room.
I was only four hundred miles north of San Francisco, but it was as if I’d been shot into space or stranded on an island. Those first years were hard. Abandoned, I felt abandoned, yet I had chosen to leave. No, I felt tricked, duped—the word, the feeling, it changed with age and time and experience. I felt many things when it came to that transaction. Even before travel restrictions, the cost of fuel made the trip home impractical, and Mother wouldn’t hear of me wasting credit.
At least I could go outdoors. If I’d stayed in San Francisco with my mother and grandmother, I’d be sequestered in my home, a bubbled existence—airborne virus number whatever letter tag we’ve all heard enough. What I heard when I turned on the news was a low hum, cell death, a certain shade of dying that didn’t seem to matter much in the towering redwoods.
I told James about the companion. “She knew Mrs. Crozier before, when she was alive, I mean, not a companion.”
“Really. I can only imagine what that beast must have been like.”
“The companion, she said something I can’t shake.”
“What?”
“You can’t tell anyone.”
“Not a soul.”
“I think Mrs. Crozier killed her.” And then there was this Nikki—what had happened to her?
“Holy shit.” James choked out a cloud of smoke, wafting up and around the great columns of trees.
“The whole thing, no consequences.” I was shaking my head, shaking all over.
“Hey, you don’t know that. She could have gone to prison for all we know.”
“I read her file.”
“You did what?”
After the companions’ procession back to the van, Tina had called me into her office to give me a good scolding. Then she left me to think about my poor choice. Through the tears and shame, I’d slunk around to her screen and found it unlocked—she must have really trusted me! I felt a tiny guilt stab as I pulled up Mrs. Crozier’s file. No criminal record. No allergies. No living relatives except a daughter-in-law who’d been placed on the do-not-call list. Under career, it said homemaker. “She didn’t go to prison. She was a housewife.”
“Well, according to my mom, that’s a prison in itself.”
“I’m serious.”
“So I see.” He grinned, tousled my hair. We were like that most of the time, playful, buddies. “I’m thinking of leaving.” I could tell by the way he blurted it out that he’d been waiting for a chance to say it. “It’s starting to make me crazy, staying here.” He had only been at Jedediah Smith two years, so the itch to be in the world was still strong with him. Over time, well, it had to fade.
“Have you applied to another facility?”
“No. I’m thinking of going it alone.”
“But—you can’t.” I was practically breathless with reasons. “If you go out there without the proper paperwork—without a job—they’ll—they’ll never let you back and—”
“I don’t want to hear about life expectancy out there. I know.” His voice changed. Frustrated, he was frustrated with me. “Forget it.”
An icy silence wedged its way between us. We never fought. “Uncomplicated,” that’s how James described our relationship.
Maybe we weren’t the best communicators, but I knew some things about him. I knew, for example, that he was from Maryland, that his father was a college football star, that James was a terrible athlete, an embarrassment, a clod of shit, his father called him. It wasn’t the worst of scenarios—he wasn’t beaten or abandoned or orphaned, just bullied, not good enough, never gonna amount to a thing.
James took a mentorship in South Dakota to get away. His exams had put him on the caretaking track, but he swore he’d just bubbled in “whatever.” And it was obvious that it didn’t come naturally. He couldn’t keep the disgust from his face when one of the residents had soiled her pants, and he always overlooked the booze and porn and cigarettes. It was in those small ways I could see that he was not fit for this work, yet I did not want him to go. We sat, shoulder-pressed and still, and I did not tell him not to leave me.
* * *
Three weeks later he was gone. No note, no goodbye, just gone. I cried in the shower, in our redwood grove, in my bunk when I was certain Jude was asleep. I scripted messages to him in my head, furious messages that I would never send—how could I? I had no idea where he’d gone. I found myself getting impatient with Mrs. Crozier’s antics, her awful moods, strangling the happiness right out of Jedediah Smith. She’d zoom into the rec room in her chair, bump into the couch where a resident napped, into the legs of a nurse balancing a tray full of meds or the table where the more alert residents played bridge. She liked to bump into things, people—we all knew she was doing it on purpose. She never bothered to apologize, gliding on as if nothing had happened. When I brought it up to Tina, she told me, “It’s probably senility. I’ll have James—sorry, José—take her chair down a notch. That’ll slow her down.”
Mrs. Crozier didn’t appreciate her chair’s adjustment. As she inched into the rec room, she shouted, “Who did this? I have rights, you know, human rights, even in this place!” She inched up to me, pinning the rubber tip of my running shoe under her wheel. “Fix it.”
“I can’t.”
“Fix it,” she pleaded. I could see it, the sorrow, the everlasting dread—she was drowning in it.
“I don’t know how. José might be able to—”
Her face shifted, going wide-eyed, terrified. “Where is she? Is she here?”
She was talking about the companion—I could feel it—but I said it anyway: “I don’t know who you mean.”
“That fucking mock trial, I had to defend her friend! Harry Truman,” she spat. “Wouldn’t even look at me.” Mrs. Crozier was hitting herself, smacking her head with open hands—I had never seen her do that. I shouted for the orderlies.
“Useless!” she screeched at me. “You’re useless!” And I could think of nothing comforting to offer. She was right.
After that, she started soiling herself daily. It wasn’t my responsibility to change her, but I felt for the ones who did. I found myself fleeing every time she came into the rec room. Afraid, I was afraid of her, repulsed. It was the first time I’d ever felt that way about a resident.
* * *
Tina called me into her office shortly after the incident. She was wearing her pearls, her strawberry jam–colored sweater. Behind her, the sky was an anemic brown, smoke traveling in from the east. The window was closed, but the white sill was filthy with new ash from the latest brownout, some adjacent forest burning. There was nearly always an adjacent forest burning, but never once had the fires come here. In that way, we were lucky. “You’ve been dragging around this place for weeks. What’s eating you? Is it James?”
That was part of it, sure, but no way was I going to admit it to Tina—she wasn’t supposed to know about that. “Have I not been fulfilling my duties?”
“Sure you have. But, how do I put this? You lack your usual warmth, the brightness you bring to the residents.”
“Have there been complaints?”
“Not exactly.”
“Well?”
Something passed over Tina’s face, a tightening effect. “You know full well that this job is about more than meeting responsibilities. You are in the field of care. If you do not fix your attitude problem, we will find a replacement, just as we did for James.”
“What?”
“I thought you knew. He was smuggling in contraband. He had to go.”
I hyperventilated behind the dorms, sucking in the charred air, the redwoods circling above me. A scrub jay hopped down to the ground not a foot from me, whisked away a
discarded candy bar wrapper. I couldn’t go home, not with travel restrictions, not after six years. I’d have to be a San Francisco resident to join my family in the tower where they now lived—my mother so excited it was like she’d won the lottery—and I was no longer a resident. And no other facility would hire me, not once I’d been let go from Jedediah Smith.
I was deep in my despair when I heard the yelling. A shaken Mrs. Hung flung the back door open. I nearly screamed in surprise. Had I left it unlatched? So reckless!
She clutched my hand, her skin dry and paper-thin. I could feel her heightened pulse, veins throbbing on the inside of her wrist. Then I saw the blood on her cheek, the collar of her powder-blue cashmere sweater.
I ran into the rec room, followed the howling to the residents’ quarters. I knew that the sound was coming from Mrs. Crozier’s room. She had cut herself. I could see the gashes from the doorway, along her wrists, somewhere under her housecoat. Blood pooled at her ankles as she stood—by God, she was standing—shaking off José and Tony, howling, a terrible sound, animal frenzy, anguish.
* * *
I did not stay to watch her die, hiding in the kitchen, head planted in the fold of my arms on the crumby counter. The back door whined open, Dr. Tim, knees soaked in mud, a basket full of garden treasures.
I told him what had happened, and he dumped the basket onto the counter. “Why didn’t someone get me?”
“She’s dead,” I said, because what was he going to do, bring her back?
He ran down the hallway toward the infirmary—I had never seen him run, a strange sight, the way he leaned into it as if he were carrying an infant or a sports ball, as if he might tip over.
* * *
No family to call, we followed protocol, incinerating the remains, burying them in the cemetery of uncollected we’d started deep in the woods. Most plots were so grown over that the nameplates marking them had disappeared entirely.
As I boxed up her things for disposal, I found an old photograph, a young girl, high school age, with long orange-yellow hair. “Red,” that was what the companion had called Mrs. Crozier. I could see no signs of ill will, no ill omen; she was beautiful, glowing, smiling—she was smiling. What had happened to her? I slipped the photo into the box for disposal and taped it shut.
That night I fell asleep to some terrible movie starring that smirky Jakob Sonne, about a pirate who falls in love with the companion he’s captured. Seen it a dozen times. I found myself laughing at the serious parts, breaking down during the sex scenes. I went to the kitchen and stood at the back door, daring myself to run, pulled back by my bed, by warmth, by exhaustion and the sweet bloom of dreams no matter how strange, no matter who visited.
GABE
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
It’s the best kinda day for slinkin, streets slick and steamy, smellin like hot piss and ramen, the old doctor’s parcel abouncin in my shirt. She’s always sayin be careful, Gabe! Breakable, it’s breakable, get it?
She tried bringin me in once. I got a bed and everything till she noticed the necklace missin. It’d been her mam’s. I wasn’t gonna keep it and I told her so, but that was that, out in the garage I went. Lucky, she said, you’re lucky I don’t kick you out entirely! She’s been watchin me ever since, afrownin real stern-like, but she won’t get rid of me—who’d do her most important missions?
I go run-slidin down Market Street, past ol Civic Center BART, Main Library, shuttered up and empty. Mam used to take us there to clean up in the bathroom, practice our letters. Bee caught on quick, readin by five, but I never took to letters. Sassin, that’s what Mam said I was good for, but mostly it was drawin. Hours I’d spend at the long library table, shushin Bee cuz she didn’t know about readin in her head, drawin my pages and staplin my books at the checkout counter, the librarians askin me what you drawin this week? I’d tell em bout the screamin boys who live on another planet and are tiny and don’t talk at all. They fight and war and eat eyeball soup and the librarians’d say, well that’s imaginative, and hand me a sticker I’d save for Bee cuz she was always askin for stickers.
But that was before. Now I’m best at thievin and runnin, back street sprints, fence hops, hidey spots in the dayest of light. Mam’s not here to tell me not to.
Cruiser! I duck low. The squaddies stop like they seen somethin. Shit. Tuckin under the half-up gate of an old shop, in some soggy leaf and trash soup. I’m in the shadows and the smell, dead things. I can hear those cops muckin about outside, so I crawl into the darkness, liftin up and feelin with my hands, nearly knockin down a dummy I find in the black. It’s still got clothes on, and boobs. I can feel em as I hold tight to her.
I watch the light comin from under the half-up gate, see their boots castin shadows, and I’m holdin my air, holdin the dummy tight, hopin they won’t follow me in.
They don’t. Too scared, you’ll never catch me! I nearly shout it, but I hold my air, the dummy, till they’re gone. The smell—I gotta get out, rollin under the gate, runnin. They’re down the road and maybe they see me, maybe they don’t, but I’m runnin, slippin down Sixth. I trip over a man covered in cardboard, all swipin arms and angry, and I yelp and sprint down the block.
* * *
I slink into the garage next to the soarin Metis tower on Montgomery, usin the code the man made me put to memory. He’s waitin next to a delivery van, wearin his gloves and mask, all fancy and crisp. Mine are the color of dirt. I’d like to hug him up good, blacken him a bit, but the doctor’s always tellin me stop and take a few deep breaths before I do somethin cuz she knows I’m wild. Hoppin and hollerin when I can. But Mam, she’s the one who showed me how to control it—five dots in each palm, count em out, then big squeezies on the arms, the shoulders. I feel better after that.
The man sticks a gloved hand out. “What do you have for me?”
I pull the doctor’s package out my shirt. The doctor doesn’t tell me what she’s smugglin. She thinks I’m not smart enough. She doesn’t know I’m the smartest nine-year-old on the planet. Mam said, and Mam was a truth teller for sure.
Besides, I snuck a peek. Just some cards of credit wrapped in a rubber band. I thought about stealin em, runnin, but I like the pancakes the doctor makes most mornins, havin a place I can hide in at night, even if it is the garage.
He holds out a package, pulls it back when I grab for it. “I had her shipped all the way down from Crescent City. It’s what the doctor’s been looking for. Tried to kill somebody, then ran off,” he says, almost laughin. “This is all that’s left of her, so you’d better be careful.”
I turn it over in my hands. “What do you mean, her?”
“I mean a consciousness.” I give him spittin face like always when he talks fancy at me. “It’s a person. The inside bits. You know, the thinking part, the feeling part. The brain, essentially, though some people prefer to call it the soul.”
I know that word from church and Mam and stupid Sunday school. Even when we were squattin the underpass she made me go, stink and all. The kids at St. Kilian’s mussed up their noses and made fun, but the nun, she wouldn’t have it. Sister George, soldier of Jesus. That’s what she called herself. And I saw it, her soldierin, the way she cut those kids up for sayin shitty things about me. Hellfires for those who make fun of the less fortunate, she’d scold. Soldier of God for sure.
The man hands me the package and I slip it into my shirt. “You can’t get caught with it either. Stealing a consciousness is a felony offense akin to kidnapping.”
Spittin face.
“They’d put you away. In prison. For a long time.”
“I’ll be careful. I’m awful sly.”
“I know.” He frowns, slips me a candy wrapped in plastic. He always brings me candy. That’s the only reason I don’t rip that mask off and breathe in his face, give him a good scare.
* * *
I slink out the garage, that conshushness tucked into my T-shirt, and check the sky for the buzzin I8s. They’re less up there s
ince quarantine, and sure nuff, the sky’s bright and empty, the late-day sun splashin orange on everything, and I cross the street into shadows. Lots of blocks to Bernal, skip-hoppin and wonderin if I’m invisible. Mam told me once it was so. You’re the slinkiest snake, Gabe, but I see you. She’d say that all the time, but she didn’t see everything. If she did, she woulda known better than to take that bus with Bee, that man acoughin, just before I turned seven. Some birthday. Mam and Bee behind the see-through curtain, tubed up and sleepin, and me on the other side, a sittin stone, a watchin stone, never movin cept when those freak nurses in their head-to-toes took me to a room and needle-jabbed me. Findin out I gotta go to a home for kids with no parents. They shoulda chained me down if they were spectin me to wait, the fox, the slinkiest snake. I was out on the road runnin, long gone before they even knew.
Headlights. I go shadow deep and makin small. Just a delivery van slowin to turn. I could use a ride and they’re headed my way so I jog out the shadows and hop onto the van’s back step, grab hold of the door’s handle. I’m spectin it locked but it comes flappin open and I nearly go off the side. I’m floatin, holdin on by that swingin door, and the driver isn’t goin slow no more, like he’s tryin to lose me, yup he’s tryin, snakin up Market, tires slippin over old Muni tracks.
I hear awhirrin behind me, an I8 starin me right in the eye, its three blades churnin air as it calls in a cruiser. I can’t jump off, not with how fast the van’s goin, so I find the step with my feet and get a good hold. Then I send the door flyin, smackin the I8 in the face, smashin and smokin to the gutter. Awesome! The van is all aswervin and I fall into the back. Feet—I’m starin at feet, a woman’s in some strappy sandals, her toenails pink. There’s a whole row of em, ladies sittin hands on knees, all straight-like, eyes open. They all look the same, no they are the same cept their clothes, and I don’t mean to yelp, but they don’t start or jump or nothin. The van screeches to a stop and I go fallin into lady arms.
The Companions Page 4
