Protectors

by Kris Nelscott

  Pammy wasn’t one of them either, but she didn’t say that. She was going to let Strawberry come to her own conclusions.

  Strawberry straightened her shoulders, and took a deep breath. “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, right?”

  She was paraphrasing one of the slogans that Pammy had seen on a dozen placards. It was one of the main critiques Strawberry’s friends had of the so-called Establishment.

  “Right,” Pammy said, realizing as she agreed that the slogan was actually true. She wondered what Eagle would think if she knew she agreed with something the hippies constantly said.

  “Then I’ll bring the lists,” Strawberry said. “Maybe tonight or tomorrow morning at the latest. You tell Eagle for me, okay? And tell her I’m sorry?”

  “You can apologize on your own,” Pammy said. She wasn’t sure she’d see Eagle before that. She wondered if she should make a point of it.

  Sometimes Eagle needed the space to cool down.

  Pammy would give her that space, before calling and telling her what Strawberry agreed to.

  Maybe by then, Pammy would be calmer too.

  13

  Eagle

  Eagle staggered into the alley, the stench of urine, dog shit, and day-old garbage nearly overpowering her. She cradled her aching fist to her chest and doubled over, her eyes dry, her body shaking.

  She hated it when she got that angry. Hated, hated, hated it.

  The loss of control. Jesus, she had lost control. Again.

  She made herself take a deep breath of the fetid air, and forced herself to be brutally honest.

  She had hit that fucking table because if she hadn’t, she would have punched that mouthy little brat who thought she knew everything. Fucking child. Fucking child with fucking dying flowers in her hair.

  Fucking child who knew more than she was willing to say, and didn’t want to help anyone, except starving children in Biafra or some other place no one had ever heard of.

  It was those places no one had ever heard of that bit back the hardest. They were the ones that people got sent to, places ringed by mountains with names no one could pronounce, and skies so blue they mocked you. Places where Hueys brought wounded, and shell casings decorated the ground. Places where grinning black-haired children played in a fucking sandbag pit, their mothers looking on as if it were normal.

  As if it were all normal.

  Eagle braced herself with her left hand on the warm metal top of a nearby garbage can, not caring that it was coated with some kind of sticky slime. Her right hand was still curled into a fist, one side throbbing from the force of those two blows.

  The violence had surprised her. Her violence had surprised her, although it shouldn’t have.

  She’d been wanting to hit something ever since the damn cops had taken their own sweet time in showing up on Saturday night. Fucking idiots, not caring about anyone. Fucking goddamn idiots.

  And then that girl, not caring either, but pretending to care. At least the goddamn cops didn’t pretend. At least they acknowledged their disinterest. Hell, they were proud of it.

  Assholes.

  Although Eagle had been mad before the cops showed up. She’d been wanting to hit something ever since she had heard that woman, screaming for help in the middle of the night.

  That woman she couldn’t save.

  Add that woman to the nameless people Eagle hadn’t been able to save in the past five years, and maybe it was a fucking straw. All those men, women, and children with their faces gone or mutilated or covered in so much blood she couldn’t see their features. People, dying people, unidentifiable except by their moans of pain.

  Eagle let out her own moan. She could go back to her apartment. She should go back to her apartment, dig that baggy out of the Raisin Bran and just forget it all. The woman, the disappearing people, they weren’t her problem. When did she become responsible for the whole world?

  Why couldn’t she have the same fucking attitude that that holier-than-thou flower-child had? Eagle had to keep reminding herself that it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. No matter what anyone did, people died.

  People died.

  Soldiers died.

  Children died.

  And no one cared.

  She slowly sank to the ground, but before she landed on the filthy concrete, hands caught her waist.

  “Come on,” a soft female voice said. “It’s better if you stand up.”

  Eagle didn’t recognize the voice. She looked down, saw dark hands against her shirt, frowned, not recognizing them. An hallucination? A memory? She didn’t have friends of color here in the States.

  They had all died in that mess over there, or had come back in so many pieces that they were unrecognizable, even to themselves.

  “Come on,” the soft voice said again, with just a bit of strain. “Stand up. You can breathe if you stand.”

  Logic. Eagle hated fucking logic.

  She shook off the hands, but lifted her butt, back into her doubled-over position, wondering if she was going to puke. Those donuts had turned into concrete in her stomach.

  “I’m okay,” she said to the pebbled and garbage-strewn ground. “You can go.”

  She didn’t want to see whoever it was, didn’t want to have the embarrassment of her own weakness come back to her every fucking time she saw this person’s face, whoever this fucking Good Samaritan was.

  The hands returned, not holding her this time, but bracing her.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” the owner of the voice said.

  Fucking goddamn do-gooder. Eagle would’ve thought the do-gooder had come from Pammy’s gym, only Pammy rarely had anyone but white people in her classes. Bigoted white people like that stupid fucking flower child, white people who had no idea that their stupid goddamn questions aimed at “understanding” were really just ways of establishing the difference between Us and Them. Between perfect white people and everyone else.

  “I’m all right,” Eagle said, her tone still measured. It would be better—more believable—if she could stand upright. But she couldn’t. Not yet.

  She’d been through this before. The loss of control made her see stars, made her dizzy and nauseous, and worried that she was going to die. Unrealistic panic, her medical brain told her. Panic couldn’t kill anyone—at least, in a situation like this where there was no real threat.

  In Nam, sure, panic killed everyone, and maybe panic had contributed to that woman getting beaten by the asshole with the truck. But here, on a sunny noon in the middle of an alley in Berkeley in July, naw. Panic didn’t kill at all. Panic just made Eagle want to die.

  “When you can stand up and tell me you’re all right, I’ll leave you be.” The voice was so calm, so patient. So non-judgmental. Like it was trained that way.

  Eagle had been trained that way.

  Fury bit through her, fast and out of control. She remained doubled over, not because she needed to any longer, but because she didn’t want her would-be rescuer to see how fucking angry she was.

  Eagle made herself take a deep breath. C’mon, girl, she thought firmly and strongly, making the thought dominate her brain. You know how to pretend to be calm. Pretending is sometimes the same as being calm. You know that. Get a fucking grip.

  She still didn’t stand up. The woman who had come to her supposed rescue stood close enough that Eagle could see her shoes.

  Brand-new Keds.

  The woman had come from Pammy’s then. Had Pammy sent her? Why would Pammy send someone Eagle didn’t know?

  No. If Pammy thought Eagle needed help, Pammy would have come on her own.

  Pammy was probably pissed as hell at her, anyway. Fucking temper. Fucking out-of-control temper. Eagle couldn’t believe she had called Pammy a Nixon Republican. Pammy, of all people. Pammy was more of an Adlai Stevenson bleeding heart than she was anything else. That Nixon comment had probably cut her to the bone.

  And the very thought of that, of the stupid
fucking insult, sent waves of calm through Eagle. It broke the fury, or maybe turned it inward. Eagle wasn’t going to examine that, and she wasn’t going to analyze it.

  Not with some strange woman wearing brand-new Keds standing right beside her.

  Eagle eased herself upright, and took another deep breath. Her stomach had settled as well.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’m all right now.”

  She still hadn’t turned around. She didn’t want to see this woman, didn’t want to interact with her. They had nothing in common with each other, and Eagle didn’t need the woman’s pity.

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” the woman said, her voice still soft and calm.

  Fuck, who the hell put you in charge of me? Eagle managed to bite the words back before they emerged. Preventing the words from leaving this time was better than she had done in the kitchen, anyway.

  She plastered a smile on her face and turned around.

  The woman standing behind her was short and skinny. Her skin was dark, like a strong cup of coffee, but her features were delicate. Her brown eyes were filled with compassion.

  Eagle hated the compassion. Her smile nearly slipped. But she knew she had to keep it so that this woman would disappear.

  The woman’s mouth twisted upward in a wry smile.

  “Nice try,” she said. “But we both know you’re not really doing better.”

  Fucking busybody, Eagle thought but did not say. She let the smile fall away.

  The woman tugged nervously on her t-shirt, revealing a collarbone that was too pronounced. She was too thin, her bones visible. Who the hell was she to be lecturing Eagle?

  “We both don’t know anything about me,” Eagle said, and then inwardly winced at the tangled syntax. That statement was probably truer than she wanted it to be. Neither of them knew anything about Eagle, including Eagle herself.

  “True enough.” The woman didn’t sound at all bothered by Eagle’s rudeness. “I don’t know anything about you and you don’t know me.”

  Although as she said that, Eagle realized she had seen the woman before. She had stood outside the gym off and on for days, as if she couldn’t make up her mind about it.

  When Eagle had first seen her, she had thought the woman was holding the gym in contempt. But judging by her clothes—that dark t-shirt, light blue shorts, and the brand-new Keds—the woman had simply been trying to get up her courage to go inside.

  The woman took a step forward, hand extended. “I’m Valentina Wilson.”

  “That’s a mouthful,” Eagle said, ignoring the hand.

  The woman—Valentina—nodded. “I prefer Val.”

  “I would too,” Eagle said, knowing she was just compounding her rudeness.

  The woman remained in position, hand out, but she seemed to firm up her posture, as if steeling herself to continue to stand.

  “It’s customary,” she said in that soft, calm voice, “to shake the hand that’s being offered, and to introduce yourself.”

  Eagle snorted. “You think I’ve made it this far in life without knowing that?”

  The woman—Val—still hadn’t moved. “I think you’re being deliberately rude to make me go away. The harder you push, the longer I’ll stay.”

  Eagle felt a chill run down her back. She would have said something like that to someone who needed her, but was using anger to keep her away. Which was exactly what she was doing to this woman, and the woman was bright enough to see it.

  Eagle couldn’t remember the last time anyone had seen her clearly. But this woman seemed to have her number right from the start.

  “What’s in it for you?” Eagle asked because she couldn’t help herself.

  The woman—Val—grinned. “Well, you see, I made a magical deal with a lesser angel. I have to perform one good deed per day or I will go to hell. You’re my good deed today. Live through it, and then we don’t have to bother each other ever again.”

  In spite of herself, Eagle found herself shaking her head at the sheer audacity of the woman. Not to mention the woman’s sense of humor, which was appealing, despite Eagle’s mood.

  “What do you want?” Eagle asked, trying to keep her tone just as rude as it had been a moment ago. “A document from me, certifying the good deed?”

  “A gold star will do,” Val said. “A big gold star. The biggest gold star you can find, in fact. Then I’ll leave.”

  Eagle was still shaking her head and, to her surprise, she realized she was smiling too. “Who the hell are you, woman?”

  “I told you,” Val said. “And I’ll be honest. My arm is getting tired. So shake my hand.”

  Eagle reached out with her sore right hand, and took Val’s, making sure the handshake wasn’t too firm but wasn’t too weak either.

  “June Eagleton,” Eagle said. “People call me Eagle.”

  “Yeah,” Val said. “It suits you better than June. Eagles are strong, but they set their own path. June—that’s the month of weddings and too much pink.”

  Eagle let out a short laugh. She had never thought of it that way, but it was true. She wasn’t a moon-in-June kinda gal. And never had been.

  “Okay,” she said. “You made me laugh. Now can we go our own ways?”

  Val let her hand fall to her side. “I suppose. If you feel like you need to be alone. Me, in your shoes, I’d want to talk to a friend.”

  “That assumes I have friends,” Eagle said, and immediately felt a pang of guilt. Pammy was a friend. It wasn’t Pammy’s fault that they weren’t close.

  It was Eagle’s.

  “Yeah, well, I’m not seeing any of them,” Val said, “and you look like you need an ear. I’m new to Berkeley, and I wouldn’t mind having someone to talk to.”

  “The white women in the gym aren’t good enough for you?” Eagle asked before she could stop herself.

  Val grinned. “They’re just fine, and I think one or two of them might be friend material. But you’re the most interesting person I’ve met since I’ve been here.”

  “You haven’t been here long, then,” Eagle said.

  “A few weeks,” Val said. “So, you’re right. Not too long.”

  “It was easy to tell,” Eagle said, “when the person you want to befriend is a woman feeling sorry for herself in a piss-scented alley.”

  “I’m from Chicago,” Val said. “It just reminds me of home.”

  Eagle laughed, but Val didn’t laugh with her. Eagle’s eyebrows came together in perplexed understanding. Val wasn’t bullshitting her. Val did find her interesting.

  “You’re not one of those rescuers, are you?” Eagle said. “One of those people who find others they consider to be wounded birds and then try to heal them?”

  Val laughed. “No. No one would ever accuse me of that. I mostly like to keep to myself.”

  “Then what’s the interest in me?” Eagle asked.

  Val’s pleasant expression faded. “I don’t know. I guess I recognized the emotion. I’ve had moments like that myself in the past year.”

  Eagle restrained herself from nodding. Of course. The thinness, the visible bones, the soft voice. Arriving, friendless, in a new town. This woman, this Val, clearly had issues.

  Big issues.

  Were they kindred spirits, then? Did Eagle really need a friend as broken as she was?

  “I don’t take care of people,” Eagle said.

  “I don’t either.” Val’s chin was up ever so slightly. She looked strong, despite her frail little body.

  “You stood outside the gym for a week,” Eagle said. “Why is that?”

  Val leaned back almost as if Eagle had pushed her. Finally, Eagle had gotten a real reaction from her. Only this time, Eagle hadn’t been trying.

  Val tilted her head, as if she were trying to speak, but rejecting the initial words. She made the movement twice before saying, “I’ve run all the way to the Pacific Ocean. I can either get on a bus and head back to Chicago or maybe run all the way to the Atlantic, or I can get used
to my new reality, and learn how to live my life all over again.”

  Her tone had a ring of truth. Eagle recognized it. She didn’t recognize the sentiment, though. She hadn’t run anywhere. She had holed up instead, burying herself in that shitty apartment and trying hard not to come out.

  “So, what happened to you?” Eagle was actually curious, which surprised her. She hadn’t thought she could care about anyone else in this mood.

  “That’s need to know, soldier,” Val said, with a businesslike tone. It sounded military and not rude at all. Just the sound of a door closing, in a way that Eagle could hear.

  She started. “How did you know—?”

  “That you’re military?” Val asked. “I didn’t for certain. You might’ve been a retired cop. But you’re awfully young to be retired, plus your eyes are a little too red and puffy, and you’re not the type for tears. That and the seeds stuck to the right seam of your shirt. They look like they were washed in.”

  Despite herself, Eagle looked. There was a small line of marijuana seeds running down the middle of the seam on her shirt. She tugged at one seed. It didn’t come loose.

  Jesus. Sometimes she wasn’t fooling anyone.

  “What were you?” Val asked. “WAC?”

  She knew the acronym for Women’s Army Corps, which also surprised Eagle.

  “Army Nurse,” she said, declining to give her rank, which she would have done in the past.

  Val raised her eyebrows. “Well,” she said, “then Berkeley’s a strange place for you to hole up.”

  “No shit,” Eagle said. “I could say the same for you.”

  Val looked at her arms, as if noticing her skin color for the first time. “True enough. I somehow thought there’d be more people like me. Maybe because it’s summer—”

  “That’s part of it,” Eagle said. “But you’re from Chicago, right?”

  Val tugged on her shirt again, and Eagle looked at it for the first time, starting again. She hadn’t expected a Chicago Police Department t-shirt.

  “Southside born and raised,” Val said. “You don’t have to see white people at all there if you don’t want to.”