“You know, Maria, ‘Four dead in O-hi-o’?” Adam interjected.
“Oh yeah. I know that song,” Jason said. “But I didn’t know anybody really got shot. I thought it was just a song.”
“They were protesting the war, right?” asked Adam.
“Well, that was part of it,” Jean answered. “They were protesting the war, the government, the American invasion of Cambodia. Two of the students who were killed were just walking to class.”
Charlotte, who had been so quiet, was intrigued. “Did you wear tiedye?” she asked Jean.
“I sure did,” Jean laughed. “Instead of this Old Navy sweatshirt, Wrangler jeans, and New Balance tennis shoes, I used to wear tie-dyed T-shirts, multicolored pleated dresses, and sandals. I wore my hair long—not short like this,” she said, brushing her hand across the side of her hair.
“Were you an antiwar demonstrator?” Charlotte asked.
“Yes, I was,” she responded.
“I never knew that about you,” Charlotte said to Jean. “And I’ve known you for fifteen or sixteen years.”
“I grew up in Pittsburgh, but when it came time to go to college, I couldn’t get into the eastern schools,” Jean said. “But I got into Kent State, and I loved it. Kids from New York, Boston, Philadelphia all went there because it was cheaper than the schools in the east—only a hundred and twenty-five per quarter. We were alive with ideas, art, and music. We were going to save the world.”
Willow’s nose had led her to the s’mores Jean was preparing, and the little dog placed her front paws on the lady’s knee as if to say “How about me?” She gave Jean that irresistible look. “Well, aren’t you just a cutesy little creature?” said Jean.
“That’s Willow. I should have introduced her earlier.”
Jean broke off a piece of cracker and held it out to Willow, who took it gently from her hand and began to crunch on it. It didn’t take her long to finish off that morsel, and she hopped up again on Jean’s leg and cocked her head. “You want more?” Jean asked, as she was already breaking off another piece of cracker.
“Richard calls her the Wonder Dog,” said C, and we all laughed.
“Because she does tricks?” Helene asked.
“Sometimes she will sit or roll over when I ask,” I replied. “And sometimes she just looks at me as if to say ‘Why don’t you sit or roll over this time?’ That’s why she’s the Wonder Dog.”
Helene took the last bite of her s’more and slowly stood up. “Well, I’m sorry to say, we had better be getting back,” she said. “Do you have any laundry for us?” The kids all went to their tents to gather up their dirty clothes and quickly returned with about six bags’ worth. “Wow!” Helene exclaimed, surveying the assortment of bags. “I guess we’ll be busy tonight!”
“We’ll help you carry them out,” C offered to the ladies. “It’s about time for us to go, too.”
Helene went to Adam and gave him a big hug. “If any of you need us, don’t hesitate,” she said. Jean put her arm around Maria, and Charlotte put her hand on Jason’s back. “You have my number. Just get to a phone and call.”
After heartfelt goodbyes, the ladies, C, and I picked up the laundry bags and empty boxes and headed down the trail toward the road. The women were silent as we trudged along with the heavy sacks. When we got to their car, they thanked C and me for our assistance. Helene gave C an embrace. With tears beginning to fill her eyes, she asked, “Are they going to be okay?”
“Yes, thanks to you, I think they are,” C responded.
The ladies all got into their car, and we waved as they pulled away. “Those women have spunk,” said C, watching them drive off.
After a moment, we headed for the van. “Hey, you want to go over and see Andy’s new digs?” C asked.
Chapter 22
ANDY GETS LUCKY
We pulled up in front of Andy’s new abode just before seven o’clock.
It certainly was not the opulent spread that Bill Gates built in Bellevue with a bowling alley, a home theater, and a basketball court, but to Andy it was like Graceland.
C knocked on the door and then opened it slightly. The TV was on. “Andy? You here?” C called out.
“Come on in,” Andy called back.
We walked in, and Willow headed straight for Andy, who was sitting on a mattress in front of the TV, picking at the sores on his feet.
“Willow!” Andy exclaimed, as she hopped on his lap and pawed at his hand for him to pet her. “I’ve missed you!” he said. After just a few strokes down her back from Andy, Willow turned and headed for his feet and started licking in earnest. “She’s a healer, isn’t she?” Andy was smiling.
“Yes, she is,” I replied.
“I don’t think she can fix these feet, though,” said Andy, looking at them. “I should have changed my socks more often.”
“Speaking of socks,” C interrupted, “I’ve got your socks in Richard’s van. I’ll go get them.” He headed for the door.
“It’s good to see you, too, Richard,” said Andy. “Where you been?”
I started rambling on about how I had been here and there as I took stock of the room. There was a large picture window with a view over the water, and I could see the Manette Bridge in the distance. It was a big room with hardwood floors. It must have been a stately place in its day. It had been remodeled with textured white walls, but I could picture pretty flowered wallpaper, a large chandelier hanging from the high ceilings, an ornate sofa and loveseat, oriental rugs, maybe a Victrola, oak chairs with hand-carved legs, and paintings fashionably displayed.
The fireplace was covered over now and the red bricks painted white. And the white walls were bare.
Andy had all he needed. Beside his mattress he had a carton of Marlboros, two Bic lighters, a big ashtray, a pair of broken eyeglasses held together with duct tape, and several books, including The Penal Colony, Sons and Lovers, The Bonfire of the Vanities, Humboldt’s Gift, and the Bible. And a big bottle of Smirnoff, half empty.
“This is a nice place you have here, Andy,” I said.
“I like it,” he replied. “I can relax here. It’s the old Gates mansion, you know. The granddaddy of the richest man in the world lived here.” There was a vague smile on his face, the irony not lost on him.
C returned, carrying Andy’s socks. “I got those Hershey bars you wanted,” he said, dropping the socks on the floor and handing Andy a small paper bag.
Andy reached in and pulled out two plain Hershey bars. “Good. No nuts. I hate nuts!” Turning to me, he added, “Last time he brought me back Hersheys with nuts.”
Willow’s tongue was hanging from her mouth—worn out from licking Andy’s feet. “You need some water,” C said to her, and headed for the kitchen. He took a dirty bowl out of the pile of dishes in the sink, quickly cleaned it, filled it with water, and brought it back to Willow, who lapped up it up as fast as she could.
I noticed Andy’s not-quite-Supercuts hairdo. It was much shorter on one side than the other, and uneven in the back as well. “I see you got a haircut,” I commented.
“Yeah. C cut it a couple of days ago,” Andy said. “Boy, I really needed it. My hair was getting all stringy, but it feels better now. How does it look?” he asked.
“Great!” I lied.
Andy spotted C eyeing the television remote, and he slowly reached out and gripped it tightly. “I got cable, Richard,” he said. “I never had cable before. I get eighty channels. But, you have to keep this”—holding up the remote—“away from C! Every time he comes over here, he flips around too much. He watches five minutes of SpongeBob, five minutes of the Iron Chef, five minutes of the History Channel ...”
“C’mon Andy, give me the remote,” pleaded C.
“No way, C! It’s almost time for Wheel of Fortune,” said Andy, switching to channel four.
“Well, it’s good to see you so feisty today,” C said. “Yesterday you were so weak you couldn’t even push those remote buttons.” He lau
ghed.
Andy picked up his patched-up glasses, slipping them on just as the show began. Pat Sajak was just walking on stage, arm and arm with the queen of all game shows, Vanna White. “There she is—Vanna!” said Andy. He lit up a Marlboro and coughed as he took a deep drag. As the crowd cheered, Vanna walked across the stage to her position before the huge blue-and-white puzzle board. “That’s my girlfriend! When I go to heaven, that’s what I want. I want a Vanna White!”
Pat was introducing and making small talk with the three contestants—Wendy, a dental hygienist from Riverton, Utah; Michael, a banker from Bakersfield, California; and Judy, a cashier at Wal-Mart in Toledo, Ohio—when Andy looked at me and asked, “Richard, do you think I will go to heaven?”
“Have you been good, Andy?” I teased.
He laughed. “Noooooo!” Then he reached for his glass beside the mattress. With shaking hands, he picked up the bottle of vodka and poured until his glass was nearly full, spilling a little on his trousers. “Would you like some?” he asked, holding the bottle out toward me.
“Well, I’m sure you’re going to heaven anyway,” I said, taking the bottle from his hand. “Yes, I will take a short one.”
“I’ll take a glass, too,” C added, as I headed for the kitchen to get glasses.
I found two in the sink and washed them and returned just as one of the contestants won the first toss-up round by quickly identifying the phrase your chariot AWAITS, chalking up sixteen hundred dollars. The audience supplied polite applause. “That’s a good start, Wendy,” said Pat. “Now for our second toss-up round. The subject is ‘animal.’ It’s two words and nine letters.” Quirky music played loudly as letters appeared on a small puzzle board near the players. “Okay, Wendy!” “King cobra,” Wendy said. Pat saluted her. “You have won one thousand nine hundred dollars!” The crowd applauded.
As I poured two vodkas, straight up, Pat pushed the game along, and the three of us were pulled into the glittering world of the Hollywood sound stage, intrigued for the moment by the lives of total strangers playing a game of chance. Andy moaned “Shit” when one player inevitably lost her accumulated winnings by landing on bankrupt, but he was really more enthralled by the hostess than anything. “She has the legs of a goddess,” he murmured.
Actually, millions of minds across the nation were captivated as they worked to solve the puzzle of the moment from their own couches or mattresses. In that way, television is the new great equalizer. Subject: Fun and Games. Eight Words. Slowly, consonants and vowels began to appear in odd places on the puzzle board. We were all rooting for one contestant or another, while trying to win ourselves. Would the Wheel of Fortune be kind to this Wal-Mart cashier?
Andy leaned forward and squinted. “I got it!” he said. “enjoying Wine and cheese at a SIDEWALK CAFÉ. C’mon, Judy!”
On the screen, Judy swallowed hard and looked at Pat. “I’d like to solve it,” she said. She was holding her hands together as if she was praying as she ventured her best guess: “enjoying Wine and cheese at a SIDEWalK CAFÉ?”
“You’ve got it!” Pat cheered as the final letters spun into place, lights flashed, the camera quickly panned to Vanna’s smile, the crowd rose to its feet, and Judy cheered. Not surprisingly, the big prize that day included the “big-meal deal” trip to Paris, worth almost six thousand dollars.
“See!? See!?” exclaimed Andy. “I could be going to Paris right now if I was on that show!”
“You were right!” C said. “And you got it first!”
The Wheel went to commercial break, and I could tell C was getting bored. He wasn’t one to participate in this kind of mindless escapism for long. For someone like Andy, though—whose isolated life on the streets stretched from endless days into endless weeks, months, and years—having a home at last, and a TV with a remote, was a powerful experience and the ultimate in entertainment. C reached over to pick up one of Andy’s books, and Andy recoiled with the remote. “I thought you were going for this,” he laughed. “Don’t even think about it!”
“No. I don’t want your stupid remote,” C chided. “Can I read this?” He held up The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem.
“Sure,” said Andy. “It’s good.”
C picked his pipe out of his pocket, and said, “I’m going in the bedroom to read for awhile.” C was like that. He liked to be alone, smoking his pipe and reading with the noise of people nearby, or in the background. I decided to hang out with Andy.
A commercial for Viagra was just ending as my attention returned to the tube. A glowing woman was embracing her smiling man and the announcer was reading the medicine’s warning: “blah-blah, blah-blah, blah-blah ... and if your erection continues for longer than four hours, consult your doctor.”
“Yeah, right!” chortled Andy. “Can you imagine calling a doctor at midnight and saying, ‘Doctor, my hard-on won’t go down!’?” I laughed. “You ever had a hard-on for four hours, Richard?” I was just taking a sip of vodka, and almost choked. I laughed so hard tears were rolling down my cheeks. Andy continued, “I guess I could call 911.”
I slowly recovered as The Wheel moved into the Jackpot Round; Wendy was on a roll and had piled up forty-three hundred dollars in winnings on lucky spins. “There are no Vs,” said Pat, his voice trailing off. Andy appeared to be getting tired. He took a big slug of his vodka and then lay back on his side.
“I’m going to check on C,” I said, lifting myself off the floor. Willow had fallen asleep on the mattress at Andy’s feet. I found C sitting crosslegged on the floor, puffing on his pot pipe and reading the book he had borrowed from Andy. “Good book?” I asked.
“I don’t know yet,” he responded. “I’m just getting into it.” He took his finger and tapped down the smoke in his pipe and then hit the bud with his lighter. He took a big hit, held it, and finally exhaled. “It’s about a young boy who’s the only white kid in his Brooklyn neighborhood,” C said, holding up the book. “He has to hide his lunch money in his socks, but he still gets ‘yoked’ every day. It’s got possibilities.”
The smell of marijuana filled the room, and C was getting mellow. We could hear Andy yelling, “diamonds are a girl’s best Friend! It’s diamonds are a girl’s best Friend, you dummy!”
“He’s relaxed here,” C said of Andy. “It’s about time he had a place to call home. I try to stop in every day at least for a bit to check on him. He wasn’t very good the last couple of days. He could barely make it to the bathroom and couldn’t even sit up. He just lay on his side. I made him soup and a sandwich.” He paused, thinking back on the past few days. “He’s all worn out. The doctors at the clinic know Andy. They are afraid to give him any strong pain medicine because he drinks so much. But he seems better tonight.”
“It was nice to meet Adam and those kids today,” I said, changing the subject. “Thanks for asking me along.”
“You’re welcome,” C said. “It’s sad to see them living in the woods, but they are better off there. Maria, one of the girls, came home one night after working a double shift at the mall and got in the shower. Her dad climbed in with her and raped her. She ran away that night after her father fell asleep. She’s sixteen, I think she said.
“Then there’s Gentry. He got into trouble at school. I don’t know the whole story, but he appears to be the rebellious type—whatever that is. Anyway, he said school was boring and he quit. He got a job doing construction for some guy. After he spent two weeks putting up drywall eight hours a day, the guy didn’t pay him, and they got into an argument. The boss said he was fired, and Gentry pushed him. So the guy whipped out his cell phone and called the cops. Gentry ran off. He said he found out later that the boss does that to kids all the time.”
“That’s terrible,” I said.
“It happens,” C shrugged. “What’s a kid to do? And Adam—well, Adam was at the wrong place at the wrong time. He got picked up for smoking a joint in a park down by the water in Port Angeles. He’s a longhair, has a medallion with
a leather strap around his neck, and wears sandals all the time. He looks like he just arrived from the sixties in a time machine. Adam has a quick wit, and he admits he said something the cop may have construed as insulting or they might have let him go. But they busted him and took him to jail.”
TV sounds drifted in from the living room. “We are going into the Mystery Round. Are you ready?” Andy must have turned up the volume a notch.
Adam had told C that he had been waiting in his cell when three policemen came in carrying a young guy who was screaming, “I’m from Texas. You can’t do this to me. I’ll whip your ass!” Things got out of control as they tried to put the guy in a cell. They sprayed him in the face with pepper spray, took off all his clothes, hog-tied him with a homemade rope, put a hood over his head, and left the guy naked, bleeding, and unconscious on the cell floor. Then one of the cops looked at Adam and said, “You better be quiet, or we’ll give you some of that!” and they all left. Adam sat in his cell while the man bled to death.
Eventually, Adam’s dad bailed him out. Adam was afraid to tell his parents what he had seen, and the next day he just took off. He stopped here and has been here ever since that day two years ago—living in fear in the woods. “There was an article in the paper a month or two ago that said the county paid the family of the Texas man one-point-six million dollars in a settlement of the excessive force case,” C said. “It was a federal lawsuit. But Adam can’t go home. Not one of the officers was fired. He is still afraid.”
Adam’s story frightened me. What would I have done if I had been in his shoes? I wondered what would happen to the kids when summer ended and the weather turned. There are hundreds of young people like Maria, Gentry, and Adam living in forests and old abandoned houses, praying their parents and the police don’t find them.
From the living room I heard the do-do-do, d’d’do-do-do, dout, d’do-do-do-do-do jingle and the TV announcer saying, “This is Jeopardy!”
Willow came into the room and sat down in front of me. Then she whined and looked at the door. “Do you have to go outside, Willow?” I said to her, getting up.
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