by Anne Pfeffer
So many expressions crossing her face. Anger, despair, puzzlement. “You chased me! You wouldn’t take no for an answer! You made me fall for you!” She shook her head. “Why? So you could put another notch on your belt?”
I shook my head. “No. I meant it. I’m crazy about you!”
“You’re crazy all right.” Then she said the unthinkable. “I’m letting you go. I don’t want to see you anymore, not at home or at work.”
I’d expected her to break up with me, but to fire me, too? She needed me. “I can’t protect you if I don’t work here!”
“Your concern is touching. But it’s my problem, not yours.”
“But Zoey…”
“Go.” Cold, flat, and final.
Three times I’d been fired now. Found wanting, not good enough. And I’d been dumped by the only girl in the world that I wanted.
I drove back to the Ridge, to the same lookout area, crawled into my back seat, and lay there for hours, wanting to die. I could run a hose from the exhaust pipe through the car window, leave the engine running, and asphyxiate myself. But for that, I needed a hose and a full tank of gas, which cost more than I had. I couldn’t even afford to kill myself, at least not that way.
I could go back to the scene of the car accident, drive off the edge and plummet to my death. That wouldn’t cost any money. But what if I didn’t die? What if, all of a sudden, Perkins and Garret rappelled by as I lay there bleeding? No way was I setting myself up for that.
Anyway, killing myself would screw up Mom really bad, which would make me a crappy son on top of everything else. So suicide was just another way to fail.
I would have to suck it up and stay alive.
Fine Dining
“You again?” The caterpillar eyebrows marched across Scotty’s forehead.
“Yeah, uh, I was wondering if that guy accepted the job.” I shifted from foot to foot, hoping my stomach wouldn’t announce its painful emptiness to everyone in the place. Fortunately, the saw started up.
“Why?”
Why did he think? “If he didn’t, I’m interested.”
Scotty looked me over. “He took it.”
“Oh.” Dull hopelessness spread its way through me. Hopeless. Homeless. It was a change of just one letter.
The man laced his fingers together and wiggled them. “Just kidding.”
Ha ha. What an asshole. Still, my emotions ricocheted back in the other direction.
“You’re hired. Start Monday. Ten o’clock.” He waved his hand, dismissing me.
“Sir?” I was desperate enough to ask him, knowing it was a waste of time. “Do you give advances on pay?”
“Do I look like I give advances on pay?”
No. You look like a constipated butt-wipe. “It’s okay.”
“Monday, you start. Friday, you get paid.”
Today was Saturday. I had figured that much out. I had to work five days and survive seven on two dollars. My stomach was empty. My clothes were filthy. My gas meter was on the last white line before it dipped into the red.
My hands started to shake and wouldn’t stop.
As I walked down Las Casitas Avenue toward my car, my eyes caught those of a man, maybe thirty, with a crisply ironed plaid shirt and a nice smile. It was the open friendliness on his face that did it. Before I knew what I was doing, the words were out of my mouth. “Can you spare a few bucks?”
His smile broadened. “For your sweet ass? You bet!”
I stumbled backwards into the side of a building. Lucky for him, he kept going or I’d have thrown him into a car windshield. I careened into an alley and ducked behind a dumpster, which I leaned against, thinking of the billions of filthy microbes on it, but not caring.
Trying to get control of myself, I doubled over and stood that way until my panic had gone down. I missed Zoey. I couldn’t believe I’d worked so hard to get her, then lost her so easily. Not just her, but everything, in fact.
My stomach rumbled again as a smell drifted by.
The smell of food. Coming from the dumpster.
I was so hungry. I tried to remember when I’d last eaten. Not today. Not yesterday.
Just seven more days. Until my first paycheck. I would die before then if I didn’t eat something.
I could go to the Community Center. Zoey might have fired my ass, but she would never turn me away as a guest. I could get in line with Johnnie, Hilda and the others.
It only took one thought of that to make me hook my hand over the side of the dumpster and scramble up and over. I cringed as I fell into the garbage. Trying not to breathe, I looked around.
Fast food bags from what looked like a family of twenty, or a football team. No, it had to be little kids, because there were containers of chicken tenders with bites from a few of them, and many untouched. And unopened packets of ketchup. My foot sank into something squishy, and my stomach heaved.
Could I really do this? Gagging from the dumpster smell, I found a fairly intact shopping bag and filled it with the chicken tenders, a nearly full carton of chow mein, and even an entire intact burger. I climbed out, filthy, hating myself, thinking starvation looked good compared to this.
No way could I eat with these black dumpster hands. I found a bathroom where I scrubbed my arms, hands, and fingernails, then sitting in my car, managed to get down a few of the chicken tenders that were obviously untouched. Not enough to feel full, but enough erase the ache of total emptiness.
##
On Sunday, I drove to The Haven to see Mom. I found her sitting with some women on the front porch, not speaking much but awake anyway and listening.
“Travis!” She put out her arms to give me a hug.
“Hey, Mom!” She looked way happier than before. I felt bad, thinking how crappy it had been for her back at the apartment. At least I’d done this much right, getting her in here.
I recognized a couple of my friends from my morning in the waiting room.
“This your boy, Celeste?” Josefina said. “What a fine young man!”
“He fine awright!” Arlene let out at a raucous laugh and slapped her thigh.
I gave them the best grin I could manage these days. “So what did the doctor say?” I asked Mom. “Did he finally get the blood test results?”
She nodded. “Yes. No. Ask Maggie. I’m not sure.”
“I’ll be back.” I found Maggie in her office.
She clasped her hands together. “Travis, this could be good news! They’ve diagnosed your mother.”
I sank into a chair. She said it was good news, I told myself.
“She has a rather severe case of hypothyroidism. Dr. Mathers said she had all the symptoms, but waited for the blood test results to confirm it.”
“And that’s good?”
“It’s treatable. Medication may relieve a lot of her symptoms and make her partly or wholly functional again.” Maggie beamed at me.
I couldn’t believe it. “They said it was depression. At the Free Clinic.”
“She might have had that too. But this was the real problem.”
The world seemed ten shades lighter to me, as if my mind had been walking around in dark sunglasses until right now. I hadn’t realized just how sad it had made me to watch Mom fall apart.
“I can’t wait to see how your mom does!”
I couldn’t either.
Towed
Three days went by. I started work at the lumberyard and pretended to be a normal person while I grimly ate my dumpster food and showered daily at the Center after work. I kept to myself at the new job, then fought off loneliness later by visiting The Haven and studying for the GED. I found places where I could catch four or five hours of uninterrupted sleep at night.
But now, on Wednesday morning, I was out of gas. Not low, not driving on fumes, but bone dry out of gas. I had to be at work in an hour.
I could have taken the bus, but my car was parked on a residential street where it was sure to get towed if I stayed too long. As usual
, I was completely screwed.
I looked at the green, manicured lawn near my car and wished I could lie down on it and sleep. Maybe I’d just go to sleep in my car and let them tow me along with it. I’d just follow my car to its fate, whatever that was.
All I needed was a few dollars for some gas. A Mercedes drove by and then a Range Rover. I’d have bet that each of those drivers had spent five bucks for a latte and muffin this morning and thrown away half the muffin when calorie-guilt set in.
I would use the john at the corner gas station and pray for a miracle. I would find a five dollar bill on the ground. A little old lady would spot me a few bucks after I helped her cross the street.
The gas station owner gave me a suspicious look. “The facilities are for customers only!” He’d noticed me using his bathroom one too many times. I liked it because it was clean.
“I’ll just be a minute.” Inside, I noticed that, despite my attempts to stay groomed, my hair was dirty and needed cutting. My t-shirt was grimy and my face looked gaunt, with hollow cheeks. No wonder. I’d been lean before I lost my job and home.
A pounding on the door. “Get going!”
“Okay, okay!”
I swung the door open to see the owner’s angry face. I swallowed hard. “Please. I get paid on Friday. If you could loan me five dollars worth of gas….”
“Get outta here, punk!”
Too depressed to do anything else, I decided to guard my car in case a tow truck came by. I trudged back up the street where it was parked, then realized that I’d walked past it. I turned and went back, but didn’t see it. Confused, I stopped. Had I parked on another street? I didn’t think so. No, I knew I’d been in front of that house—the yellow one with the ivy. But my car wasn’t there anymore. Just an empty space. I blinked, staring at it as the ugly truth hit me.
I sank down onto the sidewalk, my mind spinning, unable to think properly, not knowing what to do. In towing away my car, they’d also taken everything I owned. My clothes, my food, my bedding. My cell phone.
And my job. I couldn’t work without wheels, clothes, showers.
“You’re not allowed to be here!” It was an older man in a bathrobe, pointing a garden hose in my direction. What was he going to do with that? Spray me to death?
“I mean it! Take off!”
“Yes, sir.”
I left, heading in no particular direction. I walked for a long time, eyes down, stumbling occasionally. It was getting cold as November arrived, and of course my sweatshirt and jacket were in the car. My feet hurt.
I kept walking. I tried to stop and rest where I could but kept getting chased off. No one wanted a grubby, down-on-his-luck guy hanging in front of their store or home.
I walked all day. Finally, it started to get dark. Some guys cruised by in a car, yelling at me. Whatever they wanted, I wasn’t supplying it. I ducked into the nearest alley and looked around
Sweet. A large, sturdy cardboard box, plenty big enough for me. I arranged it behind a dumpster so its opening faced the wall, then crawled in and curled up, using my arms for a pillow. My body rapidly heated up the small space. I sighed to myself. It was just a cardboard box, but in my despair and exhaustion, it felt good to lie down someplace warm.
I drifted off to sleep, seeing Zoey’s face before me.
Inferno
When I woke the next morning and saw where I was, I sat up so fast that my head hit the top of the box. I lay back down on my side, curling up into a ball and wrapping my arms around my knees. Fragments of thoughts, sounds, feelings passed through me.
A skittering sound across the top of the box. Probably a rat.
So peaceful to just lie here and die in a box.
It’s up to you.
Get up.
Zoey. Her kind eyes, her gentle hands, her sweetness.
Her common sense.
Sirens passing by the alley. A fire, maybe, or somebody in trouble.
I was in trouble.
Shamful. Weak.
Thin ribs pressed against concrete. I shifted position, trying to get comfortable.
What did Dad used to say? Chip off the old block.
Do something. But what?
Don’t look to your next door neighbor.
But I need help.
“You need help,” I said to myself. I tried to focus my mind. “Help. Someone to help me.”
“Shame on you,” the box replied.
“There’s no one,” I said to the box after a minute.
“There must be,” the box said.
Let her in.
Freaking loser.
Let her in.
My heart galloping, I crawled out of the box and to my feet, then, stumbling a little, struck out for The Haven, some three miles from the alley where I’d slept.
At The Haven, they helped people. They would know what to do.
My mind like oatmeal, I let my hurting feet take me there. It was around mid-day when I limped onto Pinecrest Avenue, passing by a large, old wooden house on the corner. I swayed as I walked, my legs so tired that I wanted to lie down right there on the sidewalk. My stomach aching from hunger, I stopped in front of the house. Weeds choked the yard, and a shutter hung from one hinge.
That’s when I smelled it. I looked around. Sure enough, a thin white plume of smoke curled its way into the air from the side of the house. I looked up and down the street, seeing no cars or pedestrians.
No one around but me.
No cell phone.
I blinked a few times. It was probably an abandoned house.
I was good at this. Putting out fires.
Sometimes homeless people stayed in abandoned houses. I looked up at the windows, trying to see inside.
If someone was in trouble, maybe I could help.
Think. Where was the gas valve? I followed the house perimeter until I found it and shut it off. I retraced my steps, picking my way past garbage cans, a wooden crate, an old high chair, and a rickety wooden ladder.
The smoke was getting heavier now, pouring from a second story window. Cursing that I couldn’t call in the fire, I ran as best as I could toward it.
As I reached the smoking window, another one opened two windows over. A women’s head came out. “We’re trapped!” she screamed. “My children!”
Instantly, my mind snapped back into shape, and my thinking cleared. My entire focus and all my failing energy narrowed to one tiny place in the universe, the window where that woman stood. I could save her. I knew it.
“I’ll come up the stairs!”
“They’re on fire!”
I remembered the ladder I’d passed and ran to get it, thinking it was almost as dangerous as the fire. At the station, we had strong aluminum ladders, and procedure called for two firefighters, one to hold the ladder steady while the other one climbed. This ladder was a piece of shit, and I was alone.
“Hurry!” the woman screamed.
I had entered a calm place where I felt nothing, where I moved deliberately, thinking ahead, doing what had to be done. “I’m coming,” I yelled to her. “Hang on!”
I set the ladder against the house, pushing the legs into the dirt as best as I could and testing it. It seemed firm enough. I had to take those few extra seconds to make sure this thing wouldn’t slide when people got on it.
I started to climb. A few of the rungs sagged dangerously under my weight, but didn’t give. I should try to count and remember which ones they were, but the problem was, I was already half way up.
Fortunately, the ladder reached to the second floor window. The woman held a little boy, maybe three years old. “I’ve got a baby! I’ve got to get my baby!” She pushed the boy into my arms and disappeared.
“Mommy!” he shrieked. In a second, he turned into a pinwheel of flailing arms and legs, kicking, hitting, and even trying to bite me. “Mommy, Mommy!”
The ladder tilted dangerously as I tried to balance at the top, holding this terrified little kid. As gently as I could, I squ
eezed him in my arms really tight, so he couldn’t move. “It’s okay, dude. You’ll see her in a minute.”
He stopped for a second, then started up screaming and fighting me again. I struggled to hold him still, wishing I was strong and well fed again. Worming one leg free from my grasp, he kicked me hard in the thigh with his rubber sneaker.
Fingers of smoke reached into the room. I couldn’t see where his mother had gone, but I had to get this screaming kid down the ladder. Now.
A memory came to me.
“Knock, knock,” I said. I put one foot down a rung. Had anyone called the fire department? I heard no sirens.
Surprised, he stopped his flailing.
“Who’s there?” I answered myself, since it didn’t seem like he was going to. He still squirmed, but he was listening, too. I took another step down.
“Orange,” I said, going down to the third rung and then the fourth.
“Orange who?” I kept the conversation going, moving down steadily. Three more rungs, and my foot landed on a weak one that cracked. For a sickening moment, I thought it would break. My left arm, which had started to shake, tightened around the kid. If I fell, I’d make sure to stay under him and break his fall.
His fist came out of nowhere and hit me in the face.
My left arm shaking and painful, I took another step down. “Orange you going to stop hitting me?”
He relaxed a little more and gave me a small smile.
Rung by rung, we descended, my legs shaking now too. I hadn’t eaten for a day. The boy stayed quiet, and a minute later I reached the ground. By now people were in the yard milling around. I handed the kid to a woman at the bottom of the ladder, mentally wishing her luck.
“Where’s his mother?” she cried out, as the kid started to wail.
“I’m going after her,” I said and began to climb again, my legs tired already. Finally, I heard fire truck sirens in the distance, coming fast.
Smoke now half-filled the room, heavier near the ceiling. I couldn’t see anything. “Are you there?”
Her voice was frantic. “I can’t find the window!”
