Wild Awake

by Hilary T. Smith

  Not a place I expected to be after dark, either. Wasn’t Columbia supposed to be a few blocks back?

  I keep riding east, pedaling so slowly my bike starts to wobble. I can see crowds of homeless people ahead, thick knots of them. From a distance, they almost look like nightclubbers: the same unsteady motions and drunken shouts, the odd woman in a short skirt and smeared makeup lurching down the street in high heels. I don’t want to keep going, but somehow my bicycle carries me forward, its tires whispering against the pavement, until I’m stopped at the intersection.

  While I’m waiting for the light to change, this dude on a rusty kiddie bike pulls up next to me. He’s wearing an old jacket with faded green sleeves. He has sandy yellow hair and caved-in cheeks, and he looks like a cadaverous duck.

  “Nice ride,” he says.

  I fiddle with my gear charger. “Thanks.”

  “Got a smoke?”

  “Sorry.”

  He grimaces, gives his bike a kick-start, and wobbles through the intersection against the red light. I watch him go, trying to quiet the alarm bells clanging inside my chest. Don’t freak out. He wasn’t going to hurt you. The light changes to green. I start to ride through, but instead, I make a ragged right turn and pedal up Gore Avenue into Chinatown. Somehow, the sight of the red lampposts makes me feel safer, as if the Chinese dragons carved into them can protect me from the freak show going on a block away.

  By now it’s past dark, and I’m mad at myself for coming down here without looking up directions first. I thought I knew where Columbia Street was, and I was sure it came before Main Street, but now for all I know I’ve been riding parallel to it this whole time.

  Should have called Lukas. Should have tried Mom and Dad. Shouldn’t have come down here at all.

  I’m so busy debating whether I should just go home that I don’t notice the broken glass on the road when I ride right through it. I hardly hear the soft hissing sound of my back tire deflating. Nope—I don’t notice anything until the thump of my rim riding the pavement jerks me back into reality.

  I get off my bike and drag it onto the sidewalk to inspect the damage.

  The back tire is completely flat. When I run my fingers around it, I find a tiny green shard of glass lodged in the rubber.

  Shit. Shitshitshit.

  I start walking, dragging my bike beside me like an awkward, clomping, injured horse. It thumps along beside me, but I try not to slow down. As dodgeball has taught us: Slowness shows weakness. Weakness means a ball in the face.

  I don’t think I need to elaborate any further.

  A couple more guys on bikes reel past me, carrying bulging garbage bags full of empty pop cans on their backs.

  “Hey!” I shout after them. “Where’s Columbia Street?”

  The one on the left turns his head. He’s wearing a denim jacket with a black hoodie underneath. With the trash bag on his back, he looks like a punk-rock janitor.

  “Two blocks thataway.”

  “Thanks.”

  He gives me a lopsided salute, and they disappear around a corner. I hurry my bike in the direction he pointed. When I see the green sign that says COLUMBIA in white letters, my knees go loose and weak. I recognize this place. I don’t know why, but I do. Something about the red brick buildings makes my memory spit and cough like an engine that can’t quite start up. I stand still, straining my ears, as if someone might whisper the answer.

  Nothing. Just car sounds, tree-hush, the hoots and squeals of police cars two blocks away.

  My hand moves to my pocket for the piece of paper with the address, but it’s not there. I check the other pocket. Empty. I rack my brains for the street number, but draw a blank.

  Suddenly, this doesn’t feel like an adventure anymore.

  Actually, it feels a lot like I’m standing on a sketchy block in the Downtown Eastside with a flat tire and no idea where I’m supposed to be or who I’m supposed to be meeting.

  Nice work, Kiri. Way to be a badass.

  I’ve stopped in front of a Chinese grocery store with a metal screen pulled down over it for the night. There’s a bakery next to it, and across the street there’s a six-story brick building with an old plastic sign above the door that says IMPERIAL HOTEL. There’s some classy-looking buttressing around the first-floor windows, but whatever its former glory, it now looks like a National Register of Historic Places building crossed with a meth lab.

  Where are you? I plead silently, but Sukey doesn’t answer, and Doug doesn’t appear.

  There’s a pair of crouched figures in the doorway of the hotel who look at me and mutter to each other in a way I don’t like. A moment later, one of them takes out a needle and starts shooting up right in front of me.

  Just when I think things can’t get any more messed up, the yellow-haired homie who asked me for a cigarette at East Hastings rolls up on his bicycle and hovers next to me, his body so close I can smell the stale sweat on his jacket.

  “Can I ask you a personal question?” he says to me with breath so thick with liquor it makes my head spin.

  I strangle my handlebars.

  “I’d rather you didn’t, dude.”

  His face twists up.

  “You’re an uptight pussy.”

  That’s it. That takes the freaking cake. I grab my bike and run the hell away from Columbia Street.

  chapter four

  “Got a flat?”

  The guy who just spoke to me is standing outside a club where a speed metal band is thrashing away. I can hear the muffled bass and shrieking vocals, like they’re murdering something onstage. I nod without making eye contact, thinking, I’ve dealt with enough sketchy dudes for one night. I feel like I’ve been trudging along for hours, but I’ve only just made it back to the part of East Cordova Street where I can finally stop pretending to be holding a can of pepper spray.

  His voice wafts after me. “I’ve got a spare tube at my place. If you need it.”

  I tell myself this is some kind of sleazy trick to get me to go home with him, but I can’t help glancing back just in case.

  He’s huge. Hagrid-esque. A bulldozer crossed with a gorilla. So big you can’t take him in with one glance. He’s like one of those enormous Group of Seven paintings at the art gallery—you have to back away to get the whole picture. Which I do. Rapidly.

  I’m guessing he’s Denny’s age, maybe a little younger. He’s wearing a black T-shirt and black pants ripped off at the knees, and a stud belt circa 1999. He has a broad, pale face, spiky black hair, and brown eyes. His wallet is attached to his belt loop by a chain, and his industrial-strength arms are sleeved with tattoos.

  So very not the type of guy whose spare tube I want in my tire.

  “No thanks,” I say.

  I keep walking. Now that I know someone’s watching me, I get all clumsy. When I yank my bike to the right to avoid what looks like a pile of human feces, the handlebars buckle in toward the frame, and one of the pedals scratches my shin. I feel like kicking my stupid bike. Stop it. I’m just trying to get us home.

  The number 17 bus blows past, its weird fluorescent lighting making the passengers inside look like items in a vending machine. I can see a bus stop up ahead on the corner, so I grab my bike by the handlebars and run for it. The bus slows down, and I’m so relieved I start mentally composing the grateful speech I’m going to give the bus driver. Something that will flatter his or her heroic nature while playing down the fact that I don’t have my bus pass or $2.25 in exact change.

  The light on the corner turns green, and the bus roars on with an insulting discharge of exhaust. I stop, panting, dizzy with disbelief.

  That’s when I reconsider Homefry’s offer to fix my tire.

  No, “reconsider” implies careful deliberation.

  That’s when I say screw it and turn my bike around. I swagger down the sidewalk, trying to look like that whole chasing-a-bus thing was just something I did to be ironic.

  “Hey,” I say, wheeling my bike to a halt
in front of him.

  He’s looking down at the pavement, squashing his cigarette with a skate shoe. I decide to be brave. At least the guy’s close to my age. If he turns out to be a mofo, I’ll just whip out my imaginary pepper spray and blast him to smithereens.

  “I changed my mind about the tire. If the offer still stands.”

  When he looks up, I fix him with my best don’t-mess-with-me stare. I run through a quick mental checklist: not drunk, not homeless, not obviously a crackhead. Even with the stud belt, that puts him head and shoulders above pretty much everyone else within a twelve-block radius of where we’re standing. His brown eyes flicker over my bike before looking at me. He nods his chin toward the door of the venue.

  “You wanna hear the set first?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t have ID.”

  “It’s all-ages.”

  “No thanks. I need to get home.”

  He glances into the venue, and I can tell he’s weighing his desire to hear more screamo with his desire to deal with and possibly rape-murder me.

  I decide to cut my losses. “You know what? It’s cool, I’ll just walk.”

  He turns his eyes back to me, his expression still curiously flat. I’m starting to wonder if maybe he is on drugs, one of those evil downers that steals your soul.

  “Nah. Let’s go.”

  I waver. “You sure?”

  “Yeah. I’m just a block away.”

  I glance down the street. On the one hand: stud belt. On the other hand: trudging all the way back home with my stupid busted bike.

  Well, if it comes down to it, I’m pretty sure I could out-run him.

  I nod. “Okay.”

  “It’s this way.”

  He starts walking, and I lope along next to him, wheeling the bike between us. He doesn’t talk, so I fill the heavy silence with charming banter.

  “What band was that?”

  “Pax Satanica.”

  “You into metal?”

  “Not really.”

  I wonder why he offered to fix my tire if he’s just going to be surly and monosyllabic. Maybe he’s not used to talking to people. Maybe he’s on a bad trip and I look like some kind of bicycle-wielding demon.

  Either way, I shut up.

  We turn onto a residential street lined with old wooden houses with rotting porches and bars on the basement windows, the kind of neighborhood that used to be dignified but now feels beleaguered, like a scuffed antique nightstand at the Salvation Army.

  “I’m Kiri.”

  “Skunk.”

  That shuts me up again.

  We stop in front of a white stucco house with a drooping pink roof and sagging white gutters, like a wedding cake left out in the rain. There’s a little lawn in front of it, bordered by a dilapidated fence that comes up to my waist. Skunk lifts the metal latch on the gate, and I follow him through. There’s a flower bed next to the house with a few bedraggled clumps of those pink and purple flowers they sell outside the hardware store for ninety-nine cents—pansies or posies or something like that. It looks like an animal’s been digging them up.

  Perhaps, I think to myself, a skunk.

  Instead of going up the stairs and through the front door, Skunk goes down a concrete walkway along the side of the house. A motion-sensitive light comes on a few seconds later, and I see old cigarette butts in the gravel on the side of the path. I’m half expecting to see three or four more Skunk lookalikes hanging out in the backyard, drinking Jack Daniels while their pet pit bulls growl and strain against their chains.

  We come around to the back of the house, where there’s a small concrete courtyard with a couple of rusting chairs, a toolshed, and some potted plants. There are no pit bulls—at least, none outside. His meathead friends must all be at the Pax Satanica show. The house backs out onto a gravel alleyway with chain-link fences smothered in blackberry canes. There’s an old brown van parked behind the house, next to the garbage and recycle bins. Skunk takes out his keys and unlocks a sliding glass door. I’m all set to refuse to come into his creepy rape-hole, but he doesn’t invite me in.

  “I’ll be right out.”

  He slides the door open and goes inside, coming out a moment later with a cardboard box. He puts the box on the ground.

  “Can I see your bike?”

  I hand over my bicycle. He flips it over as if it weighs nothing and pulls up the lever to release the back tire. I watch incredulously. Skunk’s hands look like they were made to demolish buildings, not disassemble delicate bicycle parts with the grace and fluidity of a heart surgeon.

  “You a bike mechanic?”

  “Nah.”

  He roots around in the cardboard box, pulls out a little plastic hook, and pries the tire off the metal rim. It’s unnerving and a little gruesome, like watching someone skin a rabbit. I wince when he reaches under the tire and pulls out the rubber tube like a long black piece of intestine. He holds it out to me.

  “You want to take this home and patch it?”

  “Uh, sure.” I take the tube.

  “It’s not a big tear. Should patch up just fine.”

  “Yeah.”

  Now I’m the one being monosyllabic. I stuff the damaged tube into my pocket.

  He reaches into his box again and pulls out a new tube. He uncoils it and sticks the plastic stem through the stem-hole in the tire, then wraps the tube the rest of the way around the rim. He picks up the plastic hook again and starts forcing the edge of the tire back onto the rim with the new tube nesting inside it. His motions are so quick and smooth you can tell he doesn’t need to think about it at all. He looks like one of those Japanese chefs you can watch making sushi rolls through the glass window at Miyako on West Fourth, who pat down the rice, lay down avocado and crabmeat, roll it into a cylinder, and chop all in one seamless motion.

  In ten seconds Skunk has the tire back on the wheel and is filling it with air from a wheezing hand pump. He pops the wheel back onto the bike, locks down the lever, flips the bike upright, and hands it to me without saying a word.

  “Thanks for the fix,” I say.

  He nods.

  A breeze blows through the courtyard, and I shiver. Time to be going home. But just when I’m about to say so, Bicycle Boy talks to me.

  “Where’s your helmet?”

  I can’t help it. I am an Eyebrow Person from a tribe of Eyebrow People; I raise my eyebrows. “You smoke cigarettes and you’re asking me where my helmet is?”

  He shrugs. “People drive like jerks.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  I squeeze the brake levers on my bike and glance toward the walkway. Suddenly it feels very, very late.

  “I should get home. Thanks for helping.”

  He nods again. I stand there for a second to see if he has anything else to say. He doesn’t.

  “All right. Peace, man.”

  I turn my bike around and wheel it toward the side alley. The tires feel firm and healthy. My bike feels whole and reassuring, back to its old reliable self. Even though I’m worn out, I’m kinda looking forward to the ride home.

  “Hey.”

  I stop and turn my head. For a second, I think he’s going to ask for my number, but instead he takes something out of the cardboard box and tosses it to me. I catch it. It’s a little blinker light. When I press the button, its white LEDs start to flash on and off.

  “Thanks.”

  I snap it onto the seat post of my bike and give Skunk an awkward wave good-bye. He picks up his box and stands there watching as I walk my bike down the side of the house, as if to make sure he put the wheel on right.

  I get to the street, hop on, and don’t stop pedaling until I can see the lights on my front porch.

  chapter five

  “I can’t believe you went down there. You do realize that guy who called you was running a scam.”

  Lukas unscrews the glass jar with the fuzzy green nugget of weed at the bottom. He reaches in, breaks off a tiny chunk, and places it in a silv
er grinder. Lukas packs a bowl like it’s a Japanese tea ceremony: formal, lengthy, and full of cryptic little steps that absolutely have to be done the right way.

  “Oh, come on, Lukas—”

  He cuts me off. “Let’s see. Calling people on the phone, telling them you have valuable heirlooms belonging to their dead relatives and all they have to do is meet you downtown alone at night to pick them up. Sure, Kiri, doesn’t sound like a scam at all.”

  “He didn’t say he had anything valuable, he just—”

  “He could have knifed you. He could have stolen your bike. I mean, no offense, but wasn’t your sister kind of a druggie? What if it’s one of her druggie friends?”

  “Sukey wasn’t a druggie. What makes you think she was a druggie?”

  “Didn’t she die of an overdose or something?”

  “No!”

  “How’d she die, then?”

  “She was in an accident.”

  “What kind of accident?”

  “What kind of accident do you think? There’s a reason I’m still not allowed to drive.”

  I say it a bit too vehemently. Lukas glances up.

  “Sorry. I’m just saying maybe it’s a good thing you didn’t find him.”

  My cheeks flush. At the time Sukey died, I was a giggly seventh grader whose idea of a good time was playing my favorite Disney songs on the keyboard over and over with my equally giggly friends. I know there are details about the accident that Mom and Dad have never told me, and a pathetic little part of me is grateful for that. Just thinking about the possibility of details makes my mouth go dry and my stomach clench like I’m going to throw up—if I knew exactly what she had been doing, or where she had been going, or who she had been fighting with on her cell phone before she crashed, I’d feel sick for the rest of my life.

  Lukas takes the lid off the grinder and taps the weed out onto the book on his lap. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I gave it to him for his birthday. He unzips his pencil case, takes out the teak pipe he got at the Balinese import store on Commercial Drive, and packs the weed into it carefully like he’s tucking it into bed. His eyes narrow in concentration.