But I said no and not even no thank you just no.
He said, you’ll come begging for it
I’ll make you beg, you know that—
and don’t think about getting it somewhere else,
they all know you’re mine
and I’ve put the word out.
He said, get out there,
we’ll see if you can do your job without it—
no skin off my nose.
But it is, I can tell it scares him.
And me.
He said, get out there
and take her with you.
You don’t want her to work, fine,
but you make double.
So I held Melli’s hand as we walked
to the gate of ten thousand happinesses
and I said, sorry, sorry, but it’s better you are with me
than alone with Call.
She patted my back when I coughed
and didn’t mind when I yawned and yawned at her.
I said, Melli, even my fingertips are sick
even my toes are sick
even my hair is sick.
On the way to my corner
we stopped at the Carnegie library
and I wrote a note for the message board
with my hands shaking from lack of candy
Dear owner of Melli Smith,
I know where your little girl is.
Please leave your phone number.
You have done a very good job with her.
Angel
I folded it and pinned it to the message board.
On the outside I wrote,
Looking for Melli?
I thought,
this is the kind of plan you get
when you don’t do candy even if you are sick,
and I thought, stained-glass Milton would be proud.
Widow said, not you again
I’m nobody’s babysitter.
What the—!
She said, get that baby home to its mama.
She said, where did you get it?
I said, Call. He says finders keepers.
Widow saw how it was.
She stared at Melli, no blinking,
until tears came out.
I said, don’t cry Widow,
I’m going to return her as soon as I get a good plan.
I wrote a letter to my dad.
When he comes to get me
he’ll take Melli too.
Widow said, who’s crying?
She said, tell her about the line.
Widow said, looks like Call got himself a twinkie,
sweet and soft, all cream on the inside—
Widow said, that’s how you started out,
wrapped and fresh, iced for the kiddie stroll—
but everybody eats twinkies up
and throws the wrapper in the garbage
and nobody cares
and that’s what you get
for being a twinkie.
She said, I might have been a twinkie once
but I don’t remember.
I stood at my corner
and Melli in the shadows
and me in my yellow tutu
and mismatched shoes,
but tonight even my shoes couldn’t make me feel better.
My shoes said,
what are you doing here?
what are you waiting for?
And I said, shut up.
I have to make up for Melli.
I said,
Widow, I gotta make double tonight.
Call said.
She said, maybe thinking angels will help.
And I said, maybe,
and she snorted.
So I said, angel, angel,
just like Serena said to do,
and just then a car pulled up.
In it was twins, two little men dressed the same,
and one said, we pay double,
and Widow’s mouth fell open.
I said to her, will you watch Melli?
and she didn’t say no.
When I got back
Widow said, you just got lucky,
just luck.
I threw up on the sidewalk, all white.
She said, gack, lucky you did that
on your side of the line.
Then the man who had dirty hair
and the teenage boy who was scared
and the man who thought halfway through
I was somebody he knew from Seattle
and he called her name over and over
and the man who never said a word
but hated with his eyes
and the man who told me what his suit cost
and his watch cost
and said, you’re burning up, I like it that way—
and every time I came back Melli was okay.
Without candy
I saw how every time
I was only in the man’s wishes, not a real girl,
just a guess, a question, a story he made up—
but every time I got out of a car
Melli was in the good hiding dark,
clean and smelling of wind and rain,
and she was real, a real girl,
and not even a story I made up.
After the man in the expensive suit,
Widow said, take this baby home,
you’re too sick to work.
She said, I’ll give you all my cash if you can guess my name.
So I said,
Ruby?
Elsie?
Yvonne?
Sharon?
Tania?
Widow bit down on each one
and said,
no
no
no
no
no.
She said, here’s my cash anyway
just for trying
and don’t think I’ll ever do this again.
I thought of Serena’s money under my mattress,
but I couldn’t use it because what if she came for it?
So I said, thanks Widow.
She pointed to the line
and my toe which she owned.
I said thank you and took her hard-work money
and that gave me more shame
than all the money I took from men.
On the way back to Call’s place,
holding Melli’s hand
we passed where Sarah wasn’t there anymore
and she wrote poems and drew unicorns crying always crying.
We passed where Janet wasn’t there anymore
and she was a member of a champion softball team.
They both liked things
before they came to Hastings and Main.
Now they were missing
like Serena,
and they never came back.
My bones creaked while I thought,
Serena . . .
bone on bone,
while my stomach folded up
and all the shiny, slimy stuff
that should have been in my brain
was running out of my face—
but I knew then, I knew then
that Widow was right.
Serena wasn’t coming back.
Melli and I came in
and I gave the money to Call
shaking, my whole body shaking and aching.
I threw up again so hard
I thought I threw up a bit of liver,
a piece
of me sliding invisible
out of my mouth
and down the drain.
Call said, you want your candy now?
and I said, in a minute,
but I thought, no no no not yet.
I drank some water
and threw it up with what felt like a piece of lung
and I drank some more
and rinsed my face
and brushed my teeth
and why didn’t Serena’s body wash up on shore?
why didn’t joggers find her bones in the woods?
why didn’t garbagemen find her in a dumpster
all red with blood and ketchup?
I knew why now.
It was because our girls
all went to the same place to die—
the secret place,
they dropped down to the underplace,
with bones and worms and rot—
Serena was dead.
I lay down on the bed
and I said, Melli, Serena is dead.
She didn’t answer. Surprise.
I said, they never come back,
somebody should tell the police they never come back.
Melli didn’t answer.
I said, you think someone is going to save you?
my voice shaking the snot out of me,
you think if you just sit there all big blue eyes
and blue tears coming out
not swearing, not stealing,
keeping the commandments like jewels in a box
like they’re made of gold
you think an angel is going to save you?
you think that?
And then I hugged her and said,
don’t be sad, Melli, don’t be sad, don’t—
I told her about Serena
and how she said, friend, you are welcome
for hot dogs and church.
I said,
Serena—I bet she’s serene now.
I bet she’s not hungry in heaven.
I bet God gave her a good address:
Cloud Nine, even.
The worst thing was
Serena ending up being stolen
by someone else’s story—
just a character in his story,
and the ending she wanted to have
got him instead,
just a part of his stupid story . . .
that was the worst thing of all.
I threw up again,
maybe with a chunk of heart,
and Call came in and I said,
do you see any bits of heart in there?
He said, you’re losing it,
said, this could all be over in a minute
if you take your candy,
and I forgot to answer because I was thinking,
he can’t have her anymore,
I’m writing a new end to her story,
I’m taking Serena’s story back.
I lay by Melli, yawning, yawning, and my legs jumping,
trying to be still and not cough or shake.
I whispered, Dad must have my letter by now
and what if he came for us?
Because I knew a girl whose family did that—
I didn’t tell Melli
that when that girl got home people looked at her
like they look at people whose faces have been burned off,
whose faces have melted,
people looked at her like they wondered
why she would want to live—
so she came back to Hastings and Main.
But what will not ambition and revenge descend to?
Melli and I woke up
and I made breakfast for her,
cream of wheat, which I ate a little.
Call was stroking the pages of names on his petition
signed by people who want us off the streets,
people who worry about their children.
He said, see, Angel?
I can do this.
He said some of the names out loud,
read them like poetry,
admired their curly t’s and y’s,
did not fold the pages.
He was in a good mood
like the Call I met at the mall
like the one who gave me my first kiss
so I said,
Call, maybe there are angels.
He ran his fingers down the list of names
and didn’t answer, so I said,
maybe we should take Melli back
because of possible angels,
because an angel would mean God
and he would want us to give Melli back.
Call said, you are crazy dopesick.
He sat on the broken-bone couch
trying to be patient with me.
He said, you think there’s God?
You think when you die you go to a good place?
You get to meet the head universe maker?
Get real, he said, get real.
He said, God is a crutch.
He said, religion causes all the wars.
I said, what religion was Hitler?
He said, I can’t have a conversation with you.
God is an imaginary friend for grownups.
People like you will believe anything, Call said.
I bet you believe people went to the moon.
But that was a trick to explain
what they did with all that money.
Look at the footage, he said—the flag is waving . . .
What’s wrong with that picture, Angel?
No air, that’s what. There’s no air on the moon
for a flag to wave in.
He said, I’m glad we had this talk.
Then Asia came over to see Call’s name collection
and show him his.
I did not understand what they were talking about,
something trying to get backing
from a member of the taxation committee,
something imposing an entertainment tax
in exchange for movement toward regulation,
something the right to advertise the product
which would normalize the business.
They could give complimentary services to legislators . . .
They started laughing together
and Call shouted at me,
Supply! you’re in demand.
I said, Melli and me, can we go for milk and bread?
And he said, hey it’s okay between us, right, Angel?
I can trust you, right?
He plumped up Jeremy’s rhino,
said, I know you’re my girl,
buy me some ham while you’re there,
said, why don’t you stop by the library.
Which was weird.
We walked downstairs
and I held Melli’s hand because I wobbled
and I explained to Melli with coughs
and my face on fire
and my hips out of joint
about why I couldn’t run away.
I said, if I leave, Call will hurt my brother Jeremy.
And if I saw Jeremy in heaven
I would be so sorry,
I would say, it was all my fault.
Melli, I would die of Jeremy
if anything happened to him.
But there’s that letter to my dad,
in which I told him about Serena and my vow.
I checked the mailbox,
but nothing.
Not yet, Melli, I said.
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Just not yet.
But soon.
In the window of the store where we bought milk
we saw a missing children’s poster,
each little child in her own square
as herself and as the computer aged her
and with new computer hair.
Melli’s picture wasn’t on it.
Neither was mine. None of the faces were mine.
I wondered how those kids felt,
stars of the missing children’s poster club,
but not being anywhere, just missing.
I wondered if they ever said,
I would never wear my hair like that.
After we bought milk and white bread
and tomatoes because Call is allergic,
I took Melli on the coal harbour walk.
Showed her my favourite gingerbread houseboat
and told her about how I dreamed of floating it out to sea
and how I would have kelp for my garden
and waves for my winter.
I showed her how to feed the pigeons
with our bread,
and they let her touch them,
let her stroke their necks
shiny as purple-glitter nail polish.
The pigeons never let anyone touch them . . .
It’s a wing thing, I guess.
She held my hand while we walked,
held me up,
and I didn’t throw up once.
In a vacant lot
some people were making
a pop-up storybook park
all out of throwaways
and scraps and string,
all out of finders keepers
and losers weepers,
out of duct tape and rags,
cartons and castoffs . . .
Melli and I looked at it through the fence.
On the way back
we stopped at the library
and I showed her Mr. Milton
in stained glass.
I checked the message board without belief
but then I almost screamed
because there was the note
with my name on it!
I opened it, shaking,
and it said,
Nice try.
Call
My Book of Life By Angel Page 5
