The Rise and Fall of the Gallivanters

by M. J. Beaufrand

  That heap was being “sirred” by two of Portland’s Finest. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to come with us now, sir.”

  “Isn’t that Terrence?” Crock said.

  This wasn’t right. I didn’t know what was going on, but we passed Terrence every day. We’d gotten used to him. We gave him money when we had it, and he smiled a harmless smile when he took it. He wouldn’t accept money from the girls no matter how sneaky they tried to be, tucking it in his pocket when he was asleep. He always found out and brought the money back to Jojo’s, slamming it on the counter. “I don’t prey on little girls. Not like that sick fuck in the suit.” And he’d spit a gob of green phlegm on the floor for us to mop up.

  As we came closer, Terrence morphed from a swearing pile of poop to a swearing mound of dirty beige clothes with a pasty white knob on top.

  He was almost completely bald. The skin on his shiny dome was pale, uncorrupted by grime or sun damage. He had a fringe of greasy white hair above his ears, but that didn’t hide the hole in his skull.

  Wait, what? I looked again to be sure. And there it was—a hole. It wasn’t bleeding or anything; it was just a circle an inch around where there was no bone, just a dent of scar tissue covering something blue and throbbing. Artery? Brain?

  I really didn’t want to know if it was brain. Brains were only okay when they were cheesy effects in black-and-white movies. You know, the kind that crawled out of jars and chased helpless secretaries—not the kind you could see through scar tissue, or the kind you had to bleach off walls.

  “No wonder he keeps it covered,” Crock said. “That’s nasty.”

  Evan’s hands went to his dreads, and any color left in his face drained out of it. “Do you think he’s had surgery?” he said.

  I didn’t think it looked neat enough to be surgical, but I didn’t say so. This wasn’t the time for us to bystand. I hadn’t had to do that kind of cleanup in years, and I wasn’t eager to do it now.

  The two policemen, in tinted aviator glasses, were trying to get him to move. One of them, the blond, didn’t look much older than us, and he was twitchy. The other guy, the Filipino, was short, but so thick around the pecs that he looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

  They both had their gun holsters unsnapped.

  The Filipino tried to keep his voice even. “Sir, we’re going to need you to come with us. Sir, please, if you’ll come this way . . .”

  Terrence was crying, telling them no. “I have to keep watch,” he said. “I already let one gal slip away. If you lock me up, another one’ll disappear.”

  I felt like I’d just crunched down on a chocolate espresso bean. My brain was suddenly racing.

  I wormed my way through the gawkers. “Who?” I said. “Who’ll disappear?”

  Ev tried to pull me back. “Stay out of it, Noah.”

  I wrenched myself away from Evan, just like Terrence wrenched himself away from the guys with the handcuffs.

  “Who’ll disappear?” I asked again.

  I looked into his face. Crying had carved rivers in the grime on his cheeks. The whites of his eyes were yellow, like someone had peed in them. “I sawr him. I sawr him go out. He’s wearing his suit. On the hunt again. I tried to tell them but they won’t listen. Gotta help the gals.”

  Oh my god. The freak in the suit. He was talking about Jurgen Pfeffer. I’d been sure he’d wait until the PfefferFest to kill again. All this work I’d done to get access to the PfefferBrau Haus, and it never occurred to me that Jurgen and whatever he was brewing couldn’t wait that long.

  I looked back at Evan, the only other one who knew how I felt about the Disappearing Girls. But he was no help. He was leaning on the hood of a Datsun 280ZX like it was the only thing keeping him semi-vertical. He shook pain pills out of his giant turd-shaped bottle.

  I’d have to worry about him later. Right now there was a situation.

  Crock strode forward with his confident businessman’s swagger. “Excuse me, officers. What’s going on here?”

  Crock got “sirred” too. The Filipino put a hand up in a stop gesture. “Step away, sir.”

  “Hey, it’s okay. You probably know my stepdad. Willy MacInnes?”

  Then a bunch of things happened at once. The baby cop made another grab for Terrence, and this time when Terrence jerked away, he reached into his pocket and pulled out something dull and metallic. He swung it in a broad arc through the thick air in front of him.

  The officers pulled their guns from their holsters and trained them on him. The whole thing was so quick it looked staged. Knife, guns. Point, counterpoint. Don’t miss your cue ’cause it’ll be quick.

  But this wasn’t an act. Someone was going to get hurt.

  “Whoa whoa whoa!” Crock said, putting his hands in the air and backing away toward Evan and the girls behind the 280ZX. Random gawkers found something else to do real quick. In an instant, Terrence had changed this from a spectacle to a war zone.

  “Noah.” I heard Evan’s voice as if it were underwater. “Get back.”

  Get back to what? Couldn’t he see I was trying to figure out a pattern here? Because there was one. I knew it.

  “Sir. Put the knife down. Sir, you don’t wanna do this. Sir . . .”

  Terrence didn’t put it down. He didn’t lunge either. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. He only wanted to be heard.

  “You don’t understand. Nobody understands. He’s left. He never leaves unless he’s found a victim.”

  “Who’s left, Terrence? Who is it?” I said. “Tell me!” I would’ve grabbed him and shaken the answer out of him if I could, but his blade was still up.

  Even I wasn’t that stupid.

  I remember seeing something yellow just behind my right shoulder, and the next thing I knew, Ziggy was standing with us.

  Looking at him, I understood what made the real Bowie such a star. ’Cause when Ziggy showed up, there was no doubt who was in command. It wasn’t the guys with the badges and guns, it wasn’t the crazy homeless guy with the knife, and it certainly wasn’t a bunch of teenage punks.

  He walked between the police and Terrence, nodding discreetly at all of them. Then he kept walking. He saw what the rest of us had missed: Terrence’s tinfoil crown, which had rolled down the street and come to rest next to Anteek Comix.

  He picked it up, dusted it off on the sleeve of his silk shirt, strode calmly between the police and the homeless guy, and replaced the crown on Terrence’s head.

  He put a smooth hand on Terrence’s shoulder and, in a voice that would have quieted a raging tiger, said, “Give me the knife, old son. I’ll keep it safe until you get out.”

  Terrence’s hand shook, but it was all right. Soon enough, the blade arm went flaccid.

  Terrence tossed the blade to his opposite hand so he could give it to Ziggy handle first, the way my dad always taught me.

  When it was in the air, the policemen fired.

  Bang! I felt the recoil in my eardrums. I shut my eyes and squatted into a crouch. For a second I thought the sidewalk itself was spinning.

  When the reverb from the gun stopped pounding my head, I popped an eye open. Was I hurt? No pain except in my eardrums.

  But here was the big thing: Ziggy was gone. Not only gone, but I was standing in his place in front of Terrence, between him and the police. How had I gotten there? I hadn’t moved my feet. Something must’ve pushed me. But what the hell happened to Ziggy?

  I’d have to worry about that later.

  I looked at the 280ZX where I’d last seen Ev. “Everyone okay?” I said. Ev waved but kept the girls down.

  Crock jumped up from his crouch and rounded on the policemen. “Assholes! What the hell are you doing firing at a guy on a crowded city street? You could’ve hurt my friend!”

  I had enough time to think, But they didn’t, so everyone’s okay, before Terrence crumpled.

  He sank to his knees, yellow eyes glazing over.

  The blond officer who’d fired looked stunned stup
id. “I just shot a man,” he said.

  My hands balled to fists at my sides. If I hadn’t had years of experience getting beaten around, I would’ve smacked the guy. Portland’s Finest, shooting that poor, damaged old coot.

  “Call an ambulance!” I barked at the other cop. “Crock. Jojo’s got a first aid kit. Go get it. Now!”

  He ran.

  Before Terrence pitched forward, I caught his head and lowered him onto his back. I couldn’t see any blood, so maybe he wasn’t hit. I started stripping off layers of his grimy clothes, which was when I discovered the poppy blooming on his chest near his left shoulder. I pressed my hands over it. “Good news, Terrence, you’re gonna be okay,” I told him. All the while thinking, Oh, crap, this is bad this is bad this is bad. I looked up at all the people gathered around. “Anyone remember what side the heart is on?”

  Something crackled on the walkie-talkies the police were wearing on their shoulders.

  “You saw him,” the blond police kid said. “He was throwing a knife.” He’d started to come alive. And his first thought was about his own ass.

  “It looked more like he was handing it over,” Evan said.

  “Hey, Terrence, how ya doin’?” I could tell how he was doing, and it was not good. The blood kept coming out of him.

  Jaime crouched opposite me. She was breathless, like she’d been aerobicizing. “Do we sterilize it?” she said.

  “With what?”

  She rifled through Terrence’s grimy coat, drew out a flask, and rattled it. “Still half full.”

  I looked at the blood welling up through my hands. Was it a good idea or not? I wished Ziggy were still here to tell me what to do. But he wasn’t, so I had to muddle through. “Okay. On three. Ready?” I counted, she poured.

  That had to hurt, but Terrence didn’t buck or moan. He didn’t do anything. The booze helped clear away the blood, so I got a good look at the hole in his chest. It looked higher than where the heart should be, but what did I know? I hadn’t done CPR since . . . I’d never done CPR. All I knew was that the hole kept gushing. Oh, how it gushed.

  Where the hell was Ziggy when I really needed him? That shit. I was gonna kick his high-thread-count ass the next time I saw him.

  Sonia joined us. “I’ve got the kit.” She showed us a plastic red briefcase.

  “Great. Pull out the biggest bandages you can find and put pressure here where my hands are.” I didn’t hear anything being opened or ripped. Sonia wasn’t moving. “What’s the holdup?”

  “He’s so dirty,” Sonia said. “Aren’t you worried about diseases?”

  “Give me that,” Jaime said, and snatched away the red suitcase.

  Jojo appeared and cradled Terrence’s head on his lap. “Come on, man. You survived months in a tiger cage. You can make it through this.”

  “I got the bandage, Noah. Are you ready?” Jaime said. I nodded and lifted up my hands, and she pressed gauze right into the hole. She kept her hands over the thin gauze and I covered them with mine. It didn’t help. Our hands were covered in red in no time. It was like one really twisted valentine.

  I had no idea how long we were hunched over him, trying to keep him together with four red hands. Then someone in a uniform was pulling me away. I jabbed an elbow at him and screamed, “Let me go! Haven’t you already done enough?”

  “Hey hey hey! Easy, man,” Jojo said, right up in my face. “It’s not the pigs. Different uniform. See the gloves? These guys are here to help.”

  He was right. I looked around. The whole street was lit up like a dance club, red lights flashing in the sky. The guy I’d elbowed had short white sleeves. There were at least five others like him, carrying big kits and barking at each other. One of them slapped an oxygen mask over Terrence’s face. They were working fast, which I figured was a good thing. If they were working slowly or not at all, that would’ve been bad.

  “Come on, man,” Jojo said, urging me away. “Let’s go inside. You don’t need to see this.”

  “But I want to,” I said. I had to know what it was like to save someone. I needed the practice for what was coming.

  I searched the crowd for Evan’s face.

  He was behind the red flashing lights, leaning on Jaime, who looked like she was wearing dripping red opera gloves. Oh god, poor Jaime.

  And yet she seemed to be holding up really well. With all the red around her, the lights, the blood, she seemed solid. There was no one better to have Evan leaning on. And Evan definitely needed leaning. His skin was so white it looked see-through. I felt as though I could see all of him, inside and out. He was fading away. Please stay with me, I thought. You’re Evan. You can’t leave.

  “Get everyone inside,” I told Jojo. “I’m afraid Ev’s going to blow away.”

  “Good thinking, man,” Jojo said. “He don’t look too good. How long’s his aura been all wonky?”

  Behind me, the medics strapped Terrence on a gurney and were hustling him toward the back end of an ambulance. “Wait! He’s calling for the kid!” one of them said. He motioned me closer. “Make it fast. We’ve gotta leave now.”

  I leaned over Terrence. His eyes were open. His oxygen mask was fogging up, so at least he was breathing.

  He tried to take my hand but was having a hard time because he was sapped. So I took him by the forearm. It was like gripping a really weak guppy.

  He motioned me closer. “You’ll tell ’em?” he rasped through his mask. “Everyone’s disappearing.”

  I nodded and squeezed his filthy palm. “I’ll tell ’em,” I said.

  “You’re a good boy.” And he pressed something on me, something I hid in the sleeve of my leather jacket.

  It was his knife.

  THERE WAS A GRIM PARTY at the Maxi Pad that night. Sonia was squirrelly for not wanting to touch Terrence when he needed help. She tried to make up for it by splurging on a Chinese banquet, but nobody wanted her Guilt Moo Shu Pork. Ev had some on his plate but he wasn’t eating it. He was just pushing bits of cabbage around with a pair of chopsticks.

  Jojo gave Jaime and me T-shirts, since the ones we had were ruined. He draped Jaime in David Bowie, of course. It was the image from the Let’s Dance album cover, the one where Bowie wears boxing gloves and there are dance steps floating in the air above him.

  Since I had my pick, I wanted a Clash T-shirt, but Sonia picked out a different one for me. It had a blue-and-red bull’s-eye in the middle, the kind favored by British drummers. Ev had a problem with it, though. He thought I was sending the wrong message.

  “Goddamn, Noah, you’re not a target,” he said when Sonia held it up to me. He pushed his plate of uneaten food away. “You put yourself in the middle of a standoff. With guns, you shithead. Why the hell didn’t you come away when I told you? What if it’d been you with the sucking chest wound? Did you ever stop to think how I’d feel?”

  “I didn’t get between the cops and Terrence. Ziggy did. He’s the one who found the tinfoil hat.”

  Ev threw up his hands. “I don’t feel like playing right now, Noah.”

  Playing? Did he say I’d been playing? What the hell was up his butt? Never mind. He’d been popping pills all afternoon. Let him have his I’m-not-eating-or-making-polite-conversation funk. He’d get over it.

  I took my bull’s-eye T-shirt and ducked into the bathroom to change. One of the girls had put a wicker basket of potpourri on the toilet tank, so the room smelled like cinnamon dried in vinegar—spicy and tart at the same time. Above the sink hung a mirror that was more ancient than Jojo, with curlicues of frosted glass around the borders, and flecks all over where the reflective surface had worn off. Looking at my face in it, I felt like little bits of me were flaking off too.

  I was taking off my jacket, to wash my hands and change my shirt, when Terrence’s knife fell out. I’d actually forgotten about it for five minutes.

  Now I picked it up and took a good look.

  It was eight inches long, with a four-inch drop point. Rubber handle.


  I held it up to the light.

  It was rusted over and sticky, but I didn’t blame Terrence for that. There are ways for homeless men to find beds for the night and showers, but as far as I knew, there were no official funds in the city of Portland for weapons maintenance for the disenfranchised.

  I tested the knife’s edge on my thumb and drew an S shape of blood. Very thin, very accurate. Even Dad would’ve approved.

  The question was, what was I supposed to do with it?

  Jojo banged on the bathroom door. “Hey, Noah, the fuzz is here. They wanna take your statement.”

  “Be right out.”

  Great. The fuzz. I should hand the knife over to them. But after hearing the shot from a policeman’s gun and watching Terrence crumple, I didn’t trust them. Besides, Terrence had given the knife to me. I didn’t know if he was going to live or die, but I’d made him a promise. I’d told him he could rest now, that I’d take over his job guarding the city.

  I set the thing in the potpourri basket, took off my jacket, and scrubbed my arms until the skin looked like the desert, all dry and cracked. I changed into my new shirt, stole one of Jojo’s fingertip towels, wrapped the knife in it, strapped it to my forearm with yards and yards of scratchy medical tape, and put my jacket back on.

  I’d keep it for now.

  When I came out to the Maxi Pad, another fight was going on. The glaring kind, between Jojo and some guy in a uniform with lots of gold gewgaws, gray military-cut hair, and no weapon holster. He was all fake seriousness, like Sonia’s dad, the Appliance King. He looked like some puffed-up white guy whose job it was to shake the hands of other puffed-up white guys.

  I touched my sleeve to make sure the blade couldn’t slip out.

  “. . . for the unfortunate way in which this situation was handled,” the serious guy was saying. “A thorough investigation will be conducted. That’s why we need your help.”

  “You’re gonna throw that pig in the slammer, I hope,” Jojo said from the couch, where he was sitting next to Jaime. Jaime was picking dried blood from under her nails. Good luck, I thought. That kind of stain doesn’t come out.