Finding Alice

by Melody Carlson

  “Riot?”

  “Well, things got a little out of hand. No one’s totally sure what happened yet, but the peace rally forgot the peace part. It got sort of ugly. A number of more serious injuries have been transported to the hospital. We’re trying to handle the less severe ones in here.”

  “Oh.” I struggle to sit up, but my head throbs with the motion.

  “How are you feeling?” she asks as she looks into my eyes with a little flashlight. I vaguely wonder what she sees in there.

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “Do you have friends here?”

  I consider the proper answer and finally decide on the affirmative. I am guessing that will lead to fewer follow-up questions.

  “Do you know what the date is today?”

  I frown at her.

  “How about your name? Do you know your name?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is it?”

  I frown again. No way do I want some nurse writing down my name.

  “Okay, a lot of kids don’t want to give me their names. Let’s see. Can you tell me how many fingers I’m holding up?”

  “Four,” I answer. “Five if you count your thumb as a finger.”

  She laughs. “How about the president? Can you name him?”

  I comply, and she seems satisfied.

  “Make sure you get a good night’s rest and drink plenty of fluids.”

  I tell her I will as I slowly climb down from the examining table. My head hurts, and the lights shine too brightly in here. All I want to do is to get away from all these people. I see a girl throwing up in a wastebasket, and it makes me feel I could do the same. I rush toward the green Exit sign and am relieved to step outside into the damp, chilly evening.

  Suddenly the humid interior of the smelly old van sounds comforting to me. I am eager to crawl between the blankets and just sleep. I hope nothing has happened to Cammie and the baby. As much as I disliked Poppy’s crying last night, I would feel terrible if she was hurt in the riot.

  I walk to the area where I thought the van was parked but am unable to locate it. I wander around and around in search of the blue van with the Whirled Peas bumper sticker, but it seems to have disappeared. Has it fallen into a rabbit hole? Was it ever here at all? Am I simply asleep and dreaming now? I walk and walk, and before long I am desperate. I am so exhausted that I begin to cry. I stand next to the parking lot with my arms wrapped tightly around myself, just rocking back and forth and sobbing.

  “You need some help?” asks a guy who’s walking by me. He has a cardboard takeout tray of steaming cups. He’s wearing a white mock-turtleneck sweater that seems to glow in the lamplight.

  I look at him suspiciously, but somehow with his hands balancing the tray, I think he might not be too dangerous.

  “I’m lost,” I finally tell him.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “A Volkswagen van.”

  He laughs. “Well, there are a lot of those here this weekend.” I rub my head and groan. “I know, I know. I got knocked out during the riot, and the van I came in was blue with bumper stickers, and it’s not there anymore, and—” Then I start to really blubber. “I just wish I were dead,” I sob.

  He comes over and puts a hand on my shoulder. This makes me jump, and I eye him with fresh suspicion. “Hey, it’ll be okay,” he assures me. “You want a hot chocolate?”

  I look down at the steaming cups and slowly nod.

  “Come on over to our camp, and tell us what’s going on.”

  So I follow him. I know that this could be a trick, or the cocoa could be poisoned, but I am so weary I don’t think I care.

  I sit down on a canvas campstool and drink the hot chocolate while the guy in the mock-turtleneck sweater proceeds to tell his friends how he found me.

  “A lot of people cleared out of here after the riot,” explains a girl with mud-brown dreadlocks.

  “Yeah, that’s probably what happened to your friends,” agrees Mock Turtle. He blows on his cocoa. “Some people get a little freaked about being arrested. They’re the ones who usually just split when the going gets rough.”

  “Not me,” says Dreadlock Girl. “I’d love to be arrested.”

  “Really?” I stare at her in wonder. “Why?”

  “Just to make a statement.” She nods. “I’m not afraid to be persecuted or locked up for something I believe in.”

  I consider this and wonder what exactly I believe in and if I would be willing to go to jail for it. Then I realize that I was recently locked up. Come to think of it, that was because of my beliefs. “Yeah,” I finally say. “That’s cool.”

  “So where are you from?” asks another guy who’s been quiet until now. He has long dark hair that hangs down over his shoulders.

  “Portland,” I answer, trying to sound like one of them and not just an impostor fresh from the loony bin who happened to get picked up by a van going the wrong direction.

  “Hey, that’s where I’m heading tomorrow,” says Mock Turtle. “You can ride with me if you want.”

  I study his short bleached hair and light-colored sweater. In some ways he looks out of place with this motley crowd, as if he’d be more at home on an Ivy-League campus somewhere. Even so, I’m not sure I want to ride with him. Yet at the same time I’m afraid I won’t get any better offers. For some reason the idea of hitchhiking is beginning to unnerve me. I can’t believe I did that—was it only yesterday?

  I look at Mock Turtle again and try to assure myself he doesn’t look too bad. And the mere idea of getting back to Portland, back into my old apartment, suddenly seems well worth the risk. “Sure,” I tell him. “I’d appreciate that.”

  “You need a place to sleep tonight?” asks Dreadlock Girl.

  I shrug.

  “Well, we’ve got room in our tent,” she offers. “There are three of us already, but it’s supposed to be a four-man tent, and you don’t look too big, so we could probably squeeze you in.” She laughs. “Besides that it might help increase the body heat temperature.”

  So this is how I find myself wedged between two sleeping bags—complete strangers—with nothing but a spare army blanket to keep me warm. However, Dreadlock Girl was right. Packing the bodies in does manage to create some heat. Somehow I manage to sleep in short spurts throughout the night, but most of the time I’m awake, and once again my mind is racing in all directions at once. I know there are things I must do—a calling on my life. God has started talking to me again. Since leaving the makeshift medical area, I’ve heard his voice become louder and clearer. There is so much that I must write down. I need to get back to Portland. I try to count myself to sleep and get to 1,782 before I give up.

  The following morning Mock Turtle is ready to go as soon as we are up. I am relieved. I can’t wait to get away from this place. He asks if I have a bag as we climb into his Subaru.

  “No, I like to travel light.”

  “That’s cool.”

  As he heads down the freeway, I tell myself I am playing a game. The just-be-normal game. I will pretend that I am who I used to be, back in BC, back before everything changed. I hope I can carry it off.

  “So are you in school?”

  “Yeah.” I try not to cringe as I watch the signs and trees and other vehicles whizzing past us at what seems the speed of light. The fluid colors speeding by are making me a little queasy. “How about you?”

  “I’m about to get my master’s at PSU.”

  “Me too.” I think about this. “Well, not the master’s part, but I am at PSU. A senior.”

  “What’s your major?”

  I try to remember. I know it has to do with books. “English lit,” I finally manage to say. Then as a cover-up, I throw in, “I think getting knocked on the head has scrambled my brain a little.” I am clever to have thought of this.

  He laughs. “Yeah, you should probably take it easy. I’ll try not to ask so many questions. I’d put on some music, but my CD player got ripped off last
month.”

  “Bummer.”

  “Yeah. I forgot to take it out one night, and the next morning it was history. But at least they didn’t get my CD case. I’ve got this really great collection of jazz and R&B, but it was under the seat, and they didn’t see it.” He turns on the wipers as it begins to rain, and I amuse myself by watching them go back and forth. The rhythm is hypnotic.

  “This was my first peace rally,” he confesses as he moves from the fast lane to the center lane. I am slightly relieved that he’s slowing down a little.

  “Yeah, mine too.”

  “What did you think of it?” Then he slaps his forehead. “Sorry, I was going to lay off the questions. Okay, I’ll tell you what I thought of it. But first I have to confess that I only came out of curiosity. I mean, it’s not that I don’t want to be socially conscious, because I do. In fact, it bothers me that so many people—like my parents for instance—are materially wealthy when millions of others are literally starving.”

  He turns the wipers on fast as a huge semi splatters us with greasy spray, but he continues driving at the same speed, as if he can actually see through the streaky window. My fingers dig into the upholstery of the seat as I focus my mind on listening to his words.

  “Like my dad is this big executive at Nike and really rakes in the money. Man, he and I have gone around dozens of times about labor practices in China and human rights and all that stuff, but it just never does a bit of good. He and his executive buddies have their own special theories about why it’s perfectly fine to force children to labor for just pennies …”

  My mind begins to wander, and I can no longer follow his thread of reason. Oh, it’s not that I don’t care about Mock Turtle’s story, because it actually sounds rather interesting, but it’s too hard to make my brain focus on his multitude of words, much less digest what they mean. I try to string his words on a cord, like brightly colored beads, but I keep dropping them and mixing them up. Somehow they just don’t want to hang right.

  Not only that, but the sound of his voice going up and down is giving me a headache, and the swish-swish-swishing of the windshield wipers is making me so tired and sleepy. I think Mock Turtle is actually a hypnotist, and for some reason he is telling me, “You are getting sleepy. You are very, very sleepy.”

  I try to resist, but it’s useless. I am going under. I wonder what Mock Turtle will do to me when I’m completely within his hypnotic powers. Maybe he’ll whisper the magic words that will make me all better.

  It seems more likely that he will transport me back to Forest Hills where Dr. Thornton will reward him for my recovery. Then I will be strapped down, and the nurses will put wires into my brain and extract all the hidden messages that I have collected since escaping from there. Or else give me electrotherapy or perhaps a lobotomy. I’m not sure which would be worse.

  I know I should try to fight this thing, to resist. Maybe I could make some sort of plan to leap from his car the next time he slows down, but the wipers have taken control of my brain, and I am so tired I don’t even care anymore. I think I can hear Amelia whispering to me. I think she is telling me that it’s time to go now. But I’m under the Mock Turtle’s spell. I cannot move. I may never wake up again.

  chapter FIFTEEN

  Neither Here nor There

  I feel a gentle nudge on my shoulder and open my eyes, unsure of where I am or why I am here. I feel the motion of a moving vehicle and hear the sound of wet pavement hissing beneath the tires.

  “Where do you live?” asks Mock Turtle as he exits from the freeway.

  It takes me a moment to remember how I know this guy, or if I even do, but I can tell we’re in Portland now, and this is a relief. Finally it comes to me. The peace rally. Salem. I see that we are heading downtown now, toward campus, but I have no desire to tell this person where I live. So I just ask him to drop me at the coffee shop on the next corner. He complies. I think he is relieved to be rid of me. I wonder if perhaps he wasn’t the enemy after all. I just wish I were better at telling the difference.

  I can’t remember if I thanked him or not as I climb out of his car, so I simply duck my head out of the rain and pretend to be going into the coffee shop. I am hungry and would like to get a bagel breakfast sandwich there, no meat of course, but then my pockets are empty. I pull my sweatshirt hood over my head and hurry along toward my apartment building. I long for the dry warmth and safety of my bed even more than I long for food. I think I will sleep all day. As I turn the corner, up ahead I see that Amelia is already there. She is waiting for me by the front entrance.

  “It’s about time you came back,” she says as she leans against the wall by the door, hooking her thumbs into her jeans pockets. “So how do you plan to get in?”

  I reach for the door handle, then stop. It suddenly occurs to me that I have no key. I have no purse, no backpack, nothing. I peer at Amelia. “Can I stay at your place?”

  She leans her head back and laughs. “Don’t be ridiculous, Alice.” Then she points over to the brick wall and up to my second-story window. “Why don’t you just scale that wall and break in through the window? Don’t worry, I’ll keep watch for you.”

  “I’m not much of a climber,” I admit to her. “Besides, I’m a little scared of heights.”

  She looks exasperated by my lack of bravery.

  “Maybe Mr. Scoggins will let me into my apartment,” I suggest.

  She rolls her eyes doubtfully. “You know he can’t be trusted, Alice. Have you forgotten the day he let your mother in?”

  I consider this. And I must admit that it bothers me to think that this guy can simply pull out his magic key and walk right into a private apartment. There should be a law against that kind of intrusion.

  “But I’ve got to do something,” I tell her.

  She nods to the wall again. “Just climb, Alice. It’s simple.”

  I shake my head and go into the building and down the hallway toward the apartment that has the Manager sign. I take a deep breath as I knock quietly on the door. When it opens, I can tell that I woke him up. His gray hair is sticking out every which way, and his normally beady eyes look bleary and bloodshot. I forgot that it is still early, and according to the newspaper on his doorstep, it’s Sunday. I had no idea.

  “Huh?” He scratches his head and looks at me as if he’s seen me somewhere before but doesn’t quite remember when or where. I politely tell him my name and my apartment number, apologetically explaining that I forgot my key. He begins to chuckle as if this is some kind of a joke.

  “Sorry, but you don’t have an apartment no more. Your mama settled with me last month when she arranged to have all your stuff put into storage.” He begins to close the door, but I keep talking, hoping I can get him to understand my problem, but he just looks through me.

  I plead with him. “But I need to get back in there—”

  “Look.” His voice grows firm now. “You stay away from this building, or I’ll call the cops. You understand?” Then he narrows his eyes at me. “Does your mama know where you are right now?”

  I step away from his door and move down the hall. Now I hear him calling after me, telling me to wait. But I keep going. When will I ever learn?

  Amelia is standing by the front door with a dark scowl. “I told you so,” she says.

  I chastise myself for being so stupid, then look at Amelia. “What should I do?”

  “Why should I tell you? You never listen to me anyway.”

  I look back to see Mr. Scoggins quickly approaching.

  “Run, Alice,” urges Amelia.

  And so I do as she says, and I run.

  I head down Burnside, down to where the homeless people hang out. I know there are missions and places where people can get food and maybe a bed. And yet this frightens me. Everything is so dirty and gross along those streets, and I can’t imagine myself sleeping on a cot in a room filled with strangers. Instead I go to the waterfront park, down by the river. The rain has let up and is just a
steady drizzle now, and I sit on a damp bench and look out toward the gray river and the maze of bridges that crisscross it. It looks like a giant spider web, and I wonder how anyone can ever find her way across without getting stuck like a fly that’s waiting for its predator.

  I am cold and tired and hungry now. I ask myself what is the point of existing like this. Why should I even go on? Who needs to live in such desperation? I lean forward and put my head in my hands.

  “You’re absolutely right,” says Amelia. I look up to see her standing in front of me. “You might as well call it quits, Alice. Before things get worse.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She narrows her eyes. “I think you know what I mean.”

  Her answer surprises me a bit because I always thought she was the one looking out for my best interests.

  Then she smiles. “It’s easy, Alice.”

  Perhaps she still cares about me.

  “Look over there.” She gestures toward the river and the tallest of the bridges. “There’s your ticket out of this mess.”

  “You mean I should walk across that bridge?” I ask. “Is there something on the other side that will help me?”

  “There’s something over the side.”

  I don’t know the name of the bridge, but I think I’ve heard of people who have jumped to their deaths below. I wonder how long it would take me to walk over there, to make my way across the bridge until I reach the middle and climb over the railing—that’s assuming the height wouldn’t overwhelm me—and then simply jump off. What would it feel like to fall? Would it be like going down the rabbit hole? Down, down, down? And then what?

  “Then, nothing,” she answers. “The end of your troubles.”

  I’m not so sure I can trust Amelia right now. She seems to be acting strangely today. Something about this dismal scenario of leaping from the bridge is quite unsettling. The age-old question that begs for an answer, What will happen next? Once I hit that cold gray water, breaking my neck or plunging to the depths of the tugging icy current until I finally run out of air and drown. But once I’m dead, what comes next? It’s the not knowing that stops me.