Little Miss Strange

by Joanna Rose

  I said, “Where’s the bathroom?”

  “Back that way,” Marcus said. “You can’t miss it.”

  I stood up and slid my jacket off my arms and laid it carefully on top of my bag. I went back toward where the cat had disappeared.

  There were two doors. The first one I pushed open was the bathroom. Tangent sat in a corner on a pile of towels and clothes. A litter box was under the sink, and the stink of it made me want to cry. I held my breath, peeing as fast as I could. The toilet wouldn’t flush. It hadn’t been flushed in a while.

  When I went back out, everything seemed the same. Jade sat in the chair, looking at the gun. Marcus sat on the couch, smoking a joint, another joint. I stood there, looking, like I had been gone for a long time, like I wasn’t really there in the room with them, and when I looked at my bag with my green jacket folded there, my jacket from Constanzia, Jimmy Henry’s bag, Omaha, I had to lean against the wall, dizzy in my stomach and wanting something badly. Marcus looked at me smiling, and he held the joint out.

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  I went back and sat next to him, in between him and my bag. He handed me the joint again, and I took it, and smoked it, and when I handed it back to him, he said, “No, go ahead.”

  COMING AWAKE, not opening my eyes, waiting, knowing where I was, on a couch in these kids’ apartment in Omaha. It was hot. My neck ached, and my legs tingled numb and asleep, and my throat burned. Someone was moving, a soft noise.

  The apartment was dark except for the streetlight coming in the window and a dark orange glow from the oven. I lay still. Blinking. My eyes fuzzy. Jade sat in the chair, almost invisible. She was watching me. She pointed the gun at me, and at her own head, going click click with her tongue.

  THE ROOM was empty and cold when I woke up again, and gray daylight showed in the windows. The oven door was still open, cold and black. The cat Tangent sat in the chair, staring with flat gold cat eyes, its striped fur that same color. There was no sound except the heater ticked along the wall.

  My head hammered with hurt when I sat up straight, and my elbow wouldn’t unbend from being curled under me sleeping.

  My hat was on the floor next to the couch. I put it on, and I pulled the strap of my bag onto my shoulder, my shoulder sore in that one spot, and I went out the door, up the cement stairs to the sidewalk, and away, any direction, away.

  Rainy. Not raining, and early gray day. I walked fast, up the empty sidewalk, around a corner and another corner, fast away from the apartment down under the sidewalk. After a while I walked slower.

  It was mostly empty places, painted-over windows of stores and nobody out walking around. Just me.

  One place on a corner was open, with lights on inside, a drugstore, and a long counter inside, a guy reading a newspaper, a lady behind the counter being the waitress. They both looked at me when I pushed through the door. It smelled like bacon. A radio voice jabbered away somewhere, no music, just jabbering.

  I said, “Hi.”

  The guy looked back at his newspaper. The waitress looked at me. I walked along the counter to a stool at the end away from the door and dropped my bag under the counter and sat down. The waitress picked up the coffee pot and came over.

  “Coffee?” she said.

  “No,” I said. “No thanks. Can I get a BLT?”

  She picked a menu out from behind a napkin holder, slid the menu on the counter in front of me, and she said, “There’s the breakfast menu.”

  She walked away, put the coffee pot back, and leaned on the counter by the guy with the newspaper. She picked up a cigarette that was burning in an ashtray and smoked, looking out the window. It was raining now, rain streaking down the dirty window, and I wondered why the rain didn’t just wash the window.

  I looked at the menu, not reading. The aisles of the drugstore were empty. A guy in a white coat was behind a counter at the back.

  “You going to order something?”

  The waitress stood in front of me.

  “French toast?” I said.

  She turned around, to the stove, and she reached into a plastic bag of bread.

  “Is there a bathroom here?” I said.

  “Back by the pharmacy,” she said, not turning around.

  I dragged my bag out and went back through the aisles, past the toothbrushes and toothpaste. I looked at the toothbrushes, all hanging in rows, all different colors. I reached for a red one, a blue one, a green one. I picked one off a hook and went to the pharmacy counter. The guy in the white coat looked up at me over his glasses.

  “Can I pay for this here?” I said.

  “Ninety-two cents, with tax,” he said.

  The bathroom was warm and bright and clean. I dropped my bag onto the floor, shut the door behind me and locked it and slid to the floor, next to my bag, my eyes closed, just a moment, alone in the clean quiet bathroom. The water was hot, and I brushed my teeth hard until the toothpaste turned foamy pink. I washed my face with soap, Jimmy Henry’s soap, the smell of it, the smell of him.

  My hair stuck up all over my head. I put my hat back on and went back out.

  There was a plate of French toast, two pieces, and two squares of butter not melting. I poured on syrup and ate part of one piece. The radio guy was still talking, selling cars maybe. Talking about traffic. He kept saying, “So, folks.”

  The waitress came back and put a piece of paper on the counter next to my plate. She started to walk away.

  I said, “Can you tell me how to get to Belmont Street?”

  “Sorry,” she said, not turning around.

  Not sorry.

  When I went back out there were a few people walking fast in the rain. I stood in the doorway of the drugstore, and then I just went, out into the rain, rain on my hat, on my jacket. My feet were wet by the time I got to the first corner, and from there I saw the sign for the International House of Pancakes, and past it, down the hill, the bus station.

  A BIG map of Omaha was on one wall, and along one side was a list of streets, alphabetical. I found Belmont Street. I found the bus station. They weren’t very far apart. I unfolded the envelope and I drew a kind of map on the back, street to street, the bus station to Belmont Street.

  Me to Tina Blue.

  My heart was hurting from beating so hard, my whole self hurting from my heart beating so hard.

  THE HOUSE was yellow, old, peeling, maybe white. There was a wide porch, and a screen door hanging crooked over the front door. I went up the two wide steps and knocked twice on the wooden edge of the screen door. I started to knock again when the inside door opened and a guy looked out.

  “What is it?” he said.

  He had short gray hair.

  “I’m looking for someone,” I said.

  He said, “Who?”

  “Tina Blue,” I said.

  “No one here named that,” he said, and he started to shut the door.

  “Wait,” I said, a crack in my voice. “Wait.”

  He looked through the screen.

  I said, “What about Christine? Blumenthal?”

  “No,” he said.

  He shut the door.

  The paint along the side of the door peeled up, yellow over gray, over tan. A plastic garbage bag next to the porch railing leaked something wet out the bottom. A three-legged chair sat in the corner. I went down the steps to the sidewalk and looked again at the number painted on the house. Fourteen twenty. The curtain at the window moved, and a face looked out. A different face. The face disappeared, and the front door opened again.

  Her long hair was dark and gray.

  My legs shook and my chest felt like it was opening up to the sky.

  I said, “Tina Blue?”

  My voice was some other voice, barely a sound, the street behind me, barely a sound. The screen door opened, and she stepped out onto the porch. Bare feet. The screen door slammed shut behind her with a loud crack, and my heart jumped inside me. She leaned back onto the door and crossed her arms over h
er chest.

  “No,” she said.

  “Why are you looking for Tina Blue?” she said.

  I said, “She’s my mother.”

  Only those words on the empty street.

  She came to the edge of the porch, came down one step, sat down there, looking at me. She had on blue jeans and a plaid shirt, old flannel. Silver earrings, big silver hoops.

  “You don’t look much like her,” she said.

  “You know her?” I said. “Do you know where she is? Is she here?”

  “Nope,” she said.

  I couldn’t move.

  “She left about a year ago,” she said.

  “You don’t know where she went?” I said in some weird, whispery voice.

  “Nope.”

  She took a cigarette from a pack in her shirt pocket, lit the cigarette with a match, dropped the match to the step between her bare feet.

  She said, “Why you looking for her?”

  “She’s my mother,” I said.

  “Yeah?” she said. “So?”

  “Well, that’s why,” I said. “Did she used to live here?”

  “Once in a while,” she said. “She came and went.”

  “Did that other guy, in there, did he know her?” I said.

  “That other guy in there doesn’t like visitors,” she said.

  The rain started again, heavy cold drops. She stood up and stepped back under the porch roof, leaning there, looking at me.

  “There’s some stuff in here,” she said. “It was hers. You want it?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  She opened the screen door and went in, letting the screen door slam shut behind her. Slamming the inside door. I went up on the porch, out of the rain. I took out a cigarette and lit it, the match shaking in my cold wet fingers.

  Gone.

  The door opened again, and the lady came out holding a yellow envelope. She handed it to me, and I threw my cigarette out into the rain and took the envelope out of her hand.

  “There was some more stuff, some books and shit,” she said. “I don’t know where it is.”

  I pulled out a folded paper. What I unfolded was a birth certificate. It said “Sarajean Blumenthal.” It said “Mother, Christine Jeanette Blumenthal.” It said “Father, John Doe.”

  “John Doe,” I said. “Sarajean Blumenthal.”

  The lady looked at me and shook her head. The rain started to come down heavy and loud, pouring off the roof and splashing into a deep puddle at the corner of the porch.

  There was a photograph in the envelope, a woman sitting on a couch, holding a baby wrapped in a blanket, the top of a small pink head poking out. There was a half a man sitting on the couch, and the edge of the photograph cut him off before his face.

  “Is that her?” I said, holding the picture out.

  She looked at the picture and shrugged.

  “Hard to tell,” she said. “Kind of looks like her. Not a very good picture.”

  I stared at the picture. I couldn’t see the face. I couldn’t see the face that was in the picture. I couldn’t see the face that I couldn’t remember.

  The lady opened the screen door, and she looked back at me once more.

  “Don’t come back,” she said.

  Gone.

  She came and went.

  You don’t look much like her.

  THE FIRST time I called it sounded like Nancy that answered, and I hung up. The second time I couldn’t tell, maybe it was Nancy, and I hung up. The third time it was some guy, and I said,

  “Is JFK there?”

  “Just a sec,” the voice said.

  And then, “Hello?”

  “It’s me,” I said.

  “Sarajean?” he said, and his voice went to a whisper in the telephone.

  “She isn’t here,” I said. “She’s gone. She’s been gone a year.”

  “Sarajean,” JFK whispered into the telephone. “You should come home. Jimmy Henry’s not busted.”

  “Don’t let anyone know it’s me,” I said. “Don’t say Sarajean.”

  “Did you hear me?” he said. “Jimmy Henry’s not busted.”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “It wasn’t cops,” he said. “It was some dope guys. They wanted their money. They just messed him up.”

  “What do you mean, messed him up?” I said. “Dope guys?”

  “Listen, you should come back,” he said. “They all think you went to Los Angeles. Jimmy Henry says he’s going to go there and find you.”

  “Los Angeles?” I said. “What do you mean, messed him up? Did they beat him up?”

  “Well, yeah, sort of,” he said. “He has a black eye kind of. His mouth is kind of smashed.”

  “They beat up Jimmy Henry?” I said. “Is he okay?”

  “I knew you were leaving,” JFK said. “Macaroni and cheese. Sure. Put on the macaroni water, she says. I have to go get my homework, she says.”

  “Jimmy Henry’s going to Los Angeles?” I said. “Don’t let him go to Los Angeles.”

  “Well, what should I say?” JFK said.

  “Tell him I’m coming back,” I said.

  “You are?” he said. “Well, good, ’cause Lady Jane is a wreck, crying all the time. My mom had to work three shifts in a row.”

  The operator came on and asked for more money.

  “I have to go,” I said.

  “Wait,” JFK said. “When are you coming home?”

  I hung up the phone.

  THE BUS got to Indianola at ten o’clock in the morning, and the outside I stepped into was cool, with big, flat-bottomed clouds, and a smoky stink in the air.

  The Indianola bus station wasn’t really a bus station. It was the drugstore, Smithy’s Drugstore, and a sign in the window said GREYHOUND BUS, with the Greyhound Bus greyhound. A bell jingled when I pushed through the door, and a guy behind the counter looked at me over the top of the glasses on his face. A fat lady was in an aisle by the door. She was looking at stuff like she wasn’t looking at me.

  I went to the counter.

  “Where is the Rookery Bend Cemetery?” I said in a low voice.

  “It’s out east of town, out on Highway Twenty,” the guy said out loud.

  He looked at my green zipper bag.

  He said, “You go about two miles after Blaine’s Texaco, and then maybe another half a mile down Rookery Bend Road to the south.”

  East. South.

  The guy said, “Go to your left on Fourth Street here, and you’ll come to Highway Twenty. The old Iowa Road.”

  “Thank you.”

  I looked at the fat lady on my way out the door. She looked at my hat.

  Right next to Smithy’s Drugstore was a restaurant that said BARB’S on a red-painted sign over the screen door. A couple of old men sat at the counter in there, old men in baseball hats. They looked when I walked by the window, looked without moving their faces. Next was a big parking lot behind a fence with yellow and green tractors sitting out in the sun, in a shiny row. The sign said JOHN DEERE.

  John Doe.

  Mack Street was next, and little houses set back behind bushes, walkways leading carefully up to the front porch, and nobody around. Nobody looking out through pale white curtains pulled back inside each window like a bow. Nobody that I could see.

  Jimmy Henry sitting at our kitchen table, in his tie-dye T-shirt, looking out our kitchen window, and him saying, “I don’t think there’s anyone there anymore.”

  The next street across Fourth Street was Euclid Street, and after Euclid Street the sidewalk ended.

  Bumping my bag on my hip, switching to the other shoulder, I walked, watching my feet in the gravel along where the grassy weeds edged in. My hightop was rubbing on my ankle bone, a hot stinging spot every step. At the main road the sign on the corner said Iowa Road. Fourth Street ended, and across the Iowa Road the chopped yellow field went away in neat rows, up the hill of the field, and along the hills past that, and the flat-bo
ttomed clouds filled up the sky as far away as the field went. There was a blue sign a little way up the road that said IOWA 20 WEST. Down the other way was a sign that said IOWA 20 EAST.

  I dropped my bag onto the gravel and both of my shoulders ached. I untied my shoelace and tied it looser so it wouldn’t rub so much on my ankle bone. I didn’t want to hang the strap of my bag over my shoulder again, but I did, and I crossed the Iowa Road and headed east. Out east of town.

  The little streets with houses were on one side of the Iowa Road, and the side where I walked was a grassy ditch, and a sagging line of wire fence, and then the field all cut down. The ditch was busy, and along the fence was rustling in the grasses, little black and yellow birds that never flew up, they hopped to the fence and the weeds and clumps of silvery stickers topped with purple flowers.

  Blaine’s Texaco was closed, and a sign said FOR SALE, and tall dead hollyhocks leaned up around the sign.

  Then there was nothing, on both sides of the road. The gravel glittered with broken glass, and after a while the ditch had water in it, black water that showed the sky in a thin shine of oily color, and a breezy wind smelled like gas. There were trees along the far back edges of the fields. The trees ran in a straight line for a while, way off, and then ended, and the next field began.

  “Always look at what’s far away.”

  My shoulder burned where the strap rubbed, and I switched to the other shoulder again, and the burning switched to that shoulder.

  Behind me, Indianola just sat there, houses and square buildings on the flat of the land, and the roll of the land spreading out, bigger than everything, going on and on under the sky.

  The heavy clouds never moved through the sky, just hung there, dead still, like everything was dead still. Even the bird sounds didn’t count somehow, never came up out of the ditch, part of the heavy quiet. The old men in the restaurant never moving their faces. The fat lady pretending I wasn’t there.

  Jimmy Henry. As quiet as this place was quiet. As quiet as sitting in his chair smoking Marlboros. As quiet as ever.

  The only sound was the crunching of my feet in the gravel, sharp gravel through the bottoms of my hightops. I stepped out onto the blacktop, the blacktop leading away in front of me and behind me.

  The trees at the far edges of the fields came out to Highway 20 East, and another road, a dirt road, led down under them. The ground under the trees was wet, water shining through in places. It was cooler, smelled cooler, and the branches reached over, closing off the clouds and the sky.