Klickitat

by Peter Rock

  The pages after where I’d written with Audra were blank, but I shuffled all the way to the back. I turned the notebook over, and that’s where I found a list, in Audra’s handwriting:

  Gym Membership (showers, training)

  Bank w/Alaska Branch

  Seattle → Ketchikan

  Get V

  Hand strength

  Snare Training Ropes Duct Tape

  Get New Name + SS# for V

  Laundromat

  Practice Knots

  P.O. Box?

  Picnic?

  Socks/Underwear

  I took out the pencil and crossed out Get V so it read Get V. Then I closed the notebook and leaned it against the others in their box.

  I don’t know if it was a lonely day. There was so much to read and think about, and I was simply happy to be with Audra again, yet impatient to see what would happen next.

  That first morning, I slid the curtain of the wool blanket to one side and looked around. The stack of car batteries, the cords stretching from them to the electric blankets, to the toaster. Three black plastic bags of clothes—I looked in them, and found that one bag was for me. Some of the clothes I recognized, Audra must have stolen them out of our house, somehow. Others were new, with tags still on them, my size.

  I found a blue passport in a box. The picture of the girl looked a little like Audra, with her blond hair. The name of the girl was Janine Osgood.

  Against the far wall was a kind of bookshelf, a board and two bricks to keep it off the floor, and on it the books missing from Audra’s room. Near the toaster, a plastic bag of bagels that weren’t too stale, and jugs of water to drink. There were some bananas, I think. We only ate food down there that didn’t make any sound.

  I lay back, closed my eyes, opened them. A little morning light slipped around the edges of the black plastic, where it was attached to the inside of the lattice. I could see the beams of the floor of the house above, and all the egg cartons and insulation attached there to hide any noise we might make. I could sit up, crawl, roll back and forth. Back on my side of the space, I rested with my head on the orange life jacket.

  I read, I slept, I dreamed and daydreamed.

  What did I read, on that first day? I picked up Journey to the Center of the Earth, but I couldn’t get into it right away. Instead, I read Swiss Family Robinson, slowly, from beginning to end. I liked the boat part, the wreck, and the special collars they made for the dogs, even though they killed so many things and even if all the brothers were hard to keep straight in my mind. I liked the animals, too, all the different kinds of animals they tamed and rode. They named the ostrich Hurry, which is a good name for an ostrich. It reminded me of the Boxcar Children’s dog, who is named Watch.

  That was what I was reading when I heard the footsteps. I stopped reading, like reading could make a noise, my thoughts might give me away. I held my breath, listening. Right overhead, they were coming nearer, then wandering away, standing still. Moving again. Could I hear a voice? A radio playing? I tried to imagine the person in the house above me, walking back and forth, but it was hard to know where to begin, with only the sounds. It could be a man or a woman, not a little child. Only one person, who might live alone. I listened for a long time, until I was certain there were no more sounds, that the person was gone.

  As the day went on, thin stripes of sunlight shone in, narrow and bright along the edges of that space, and that’s how I read, leaning close. If I pressed my eye against the edge of the lattice, I could see the green grass of the yard, bright yellow dandelions. A rusty shovel leaning against the wooden fence that was old and faded, some of the knotholes fallen out. Bright blue sky, just a triangle that I could see, clouds drifting past.

  Inside, I followed a spider along the blankets, across the lattice and up, back and forth, watching all the time it took to make her web and also wondering what she hoped to catch, in this small, dark space.

  I imagined Henry stacking boxes at the QFC, wearing his blue apron, his large pale hands going, and Audra out somewhere, hard to imagine because I didn’t know what her job was, yet. Those two were out there working and they were the only people in the world who knew where I was. I wondered about my parents, about Mom and Dad, and it did not make me feel good to imagine them waking up and finding that I was gone. Were they walking and driving through the streets right now? Trying to talk with my teachers or the kids at the school? Making posters with my face on them and hanging them all around the neighborhood?

  The lattice shifted, startling me, and slid aside. All the light shone in, in my eyes. It was Henry, coming back first. I slid back, out of the way, so that he could get through the opening.

  He didn’t say anything; he hardly glanced at me. He unlaced his black shoes and set them to one side, then took a comb from his bag and combed his hair, even though it looked the same when he was done. Reaching out, he picked up a book called The Search, and began to read. Later Audra would tell me that Henry could see in the dark, but that was the first time I saw him do anything like that and I wasn’t sure he was really reading. I thought he might just be pretending.

  Next, he set his reading aside and began to do a series of stretches and exercises. Audra would tell me that it was yoga, but that first day I just watched as he lay on his stomach, lifted his head and shoulders. He reached back to grab his ankles, his face pointing right at me and not looking. He twisted his arms behind his back, his neck all the way around so he could see behind him. He balanced on his hands, his knees on his elbows, his butt sticking up near where the egg cartons were attached.

  I watched him. I didn’t know if I was supposed to do something, to copy what he was doing, or not to watch him. And then he settled, again, and took out the blue notebook, and began to write. He handed it to me when it was finished.

  His writing was all capitals, so small:

  WHERE I COME FROM THERE WAS

  A MAN WHO TALKED TO PEOPLE NO

  ONE ELSE COULD SEE. HE PUT HIS

  EAR TO THE GROUND AND TOLD US

  SHIPS WERE COMING, OUT ON THE

  SEA. SOMETIMES HE MADE SENSE

  AND SOMETIMES HE MADE NO SENSE

  BUT HE COULD READ THE ANIMALS

  AND WAS THE BEST HUNTER AMONG

  US. ONCE HE WENT ON A HUNT AND

  DIDN’T RETURN. THAT’S WHEN OUR

  LUCK BEGAN TO CHANGE, WHEN

  EVERYTHING STARTED GOING

  WRONG AND NOW THERE ARE SO

  FEW OF US.

  “What?” I said, after I read it.

  Henry only put his finger to his mouth, which I took as a sign to be quiet but also that what he’d written was a secret.

  And then there was a sound, the scrape of the lattice, and he tore the page from the notebook and folded it away, hidden in his pocket, just as Audra crawled in.

  She hurried over to hug me. In that dim light her face looked smoother, no pimples or anything, than I’d ever seen it, and when she smiled it wasn’t to tease me or joke about something. It was happiness.

  She took the blue notebook to write to me:

  I can hardly believe you’re here. Did

  you have a good day? The whole time

  at work I was thinking of you. Now

  we’re together. Once it’s dark we can

  go out walking in the night.

  Next she took out a brush and brushed my hair, hard and straight, a sound that made Henry turn to look at us. She pulled back my hair in a ponytail and held it tight at the back of my head, her fingers circled there. It hurt a little, the pull on my scalp, and when she moved her arm, my head turned whichever way she wanted.

  TWELVE

  Later that first night we went out walking. Silently, carefully, we slipped out into the alleyway, into the dark streets.

  The way we walked, we spread out, so we wouldn’t be seen together, so we wouldn’t draw attention. Henry led the way, fifty feet in front, wearing all black, his dark hair shining under the streetlights. His s
trides were long, his arms hanging down, his fingers out wide like he was ready to snatch something out of the dark air around him. He cracked his knuckles, and I heard it, so far away, following. I wore a black hoodie, the hood up, black sneakers and jeans, my hands in my pockets since the night was cold. Audra was half a block away, behind me, practicing all her different walks. On her toes, crouching down, arms out wide. Her blond hair hung down and made it hard to see her face.

  It was only once we were farther from where we slept that we could walk alongside each other and talk. It was always Henry and Audra, or Audra and me, together; I never walked with Henry and I wondered if that was his choice, if he really had nothing to say to me. When we had been alone together, it felt like there was more he wanted to tell.

  When he turned and waved back at us, Audra understood; she caught up to me, her face flashing for a moment under a streetlight, smiling.

  “Now it’s all starting,” she said. “Now we can get going.”

  “Where?” I said.

  “Far away,” she said. “Far from any city. I’ll take care of you.”

  “I thought you left me behind,” I said.

  “I’ll always take care of you,” she said. “No one else can calm you down.”

  We walked in silence, across a schoolyard. Ahead, Henry turned to check on us, then kept going, deeper into a neighborhood.

  “Did you bring your pills?” Audra said.

  “No,” I said. “I haven’t taken them for a long time. Actually, I haven’t felt—”

  “You’ll feel better, now,” she said. “And if it happens again, what happens to you, you can always hold on to me, do whatever you need to do. Henry, too. He knows. He understands. I told him all about you.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “At first he wasn’t sure, I’m the only one he wanted. But when I told him about you, when he saw you, he changed his mind. He says we’ll only really know what’s going on once those chemicals are out of your system, once we get you away from all this—” She waved her hands at the parked cars, the houses around us.

  I tried to touch Audra’s hand, but when I reached out she didn’t see.

  “How did you meet him?” I said.

  “He came looking for me,” she said. “He needs me.”

  “For what?”

  “For everything,” she said. “To help him. To go with him, back where he’s from.”

  “Alaska?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “I read it, in the blue notebook, when you were out.”

  “He’s from way out in the wilderness,” she said. “On the edge of the ocean. That’s where we’ll all be, and we’ll live like we’re supposed to, without all this plastic and cars and billboards and everything else.”

  With that she moved quickly away, catching up to Henry. The two of them moved like shadows, dark overlapping silhouettes. A dog barked, behind a fence. Lights in windows switched off, people going to bed.

  We came to a thicket of trees, up above the river. Down below, near the old train tracks, was a bonfire, the orange flames and the dark shapes of people and bicycles around it, a dog sniffing back and forth. Henry waved to me, and I hurried to be closer to them.

  “Remember,” he was saying, “let me do the talking. This is one of the last things we need to do, and it doesn’t have to get complicated.”

  We followed him, half walking and half sliding down the slope, then came out of the trees at the bottom, together as we approached the fire.

  “Keep to yourself,” Audra said to me. “Tell me right away if anyone tries anything. Just stand by yourself while we do this.”

  Faces looked up, glowing and flickering. A dog rushed at us, sniffed my hand, slipped away. There were more than ten, less than twenty, people around the fire. Some had their shirts off, and some had tattoos on their faces, stretched-out earlobes. Some held pieces of bikes, cans of beer.

  “Henry!” one shouted. “Where you been?”

  Some of them started talking to each other, about Henry or about us, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I stepped closer to the fire, not looking at anyone, staring into the flames. It was nice to feel warm, the front of my body all lit up and my muscles not so tight.

  Henry’s hands were up in the air, as he explained what he needed to explain, as he pointed back at me. He and Audra were close, just a little ways away. They were talking to two men where a cluster of people were standing. Little flames, lighters, flickered there, as the other people tried to light something, to smoke something.

  A person stood next to me. At first I just looked at the feet, rubber sandals and dirty white socks, a hole in one toe. Torn-up jeans, a flannel shirt. It was a girl, shorter than me. Her black hair was all different lengths, jagged, and the mascara and makeup were thick black around her eyes.

  “Who are you?” she said.

  “I won’t be here long,” I said.

  “That’s your sister, over there?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m fourteen,” the girl said. “My name’s Taffy.”

  In the firelight, then, I could see the white line of a scar that stretched up out of her shirt and up around, back behind her ear.

  “Henry,” she said. “One time he talked to me. I still remember it. He reached out and held on to my arm, right here, and he said, ‘It’ll be all right. There’ll be other people for you.’”

  I just looked into the fire, the curling flames. I didn’t say anything.

  “Your sister’s pretty,” the girl said.

  “She didn’t always look like that,” I said.

  “You don’t really look much like her.”

  “I said she doesn’t always look that way.”

  “I had a sister whose name was Valerie,” the girl said. “But she died.”

  “Was she older or younger?” I said.

  “Johnny and Isabel were our parents,” she said. “But they died, too.”

  Behind us, two guys started fighting. The dog barked and people shouted. Henry stepped over into the middle of the fight, then, and everything calmed down again.

  “We’re going away from here,” I said.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I can’t tell you,” I said.

  “And Henry, too?”

  “Let’s go!” Audra shouted, then.

  “Good-bye,” I said, stepping away from the fire.

  I walked with Audra and Henry, out beyond the circle of firelight, past all the people, some calling Henry’s name behind us. We started up the slope, back through the trees.

  “Who was that girl?” Audra said. “I told you not to talk to anyone.”

  “Her name was Taffy,” I said. “Her sister and her parents died.”

  “You didn’t tell her your name?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Her family got electrocuted,” Henry said. “Up under that overpass, right over there. They tapped into an electrical line, and then there was a lightning storm, a surge.”

  It was too dark to see if he was pointing. The bushes and trees were thick.

  “Her whole family?” Audra said. “Her parents?”

  “Those weren’t her real parents,” Henry said. “It was a street family, one they made up.”

  “Is that what we are now?” I said.

  “No,” he said.

  We started up the slope, the three of us finding our way through the trees.

  “Do you have parents?” I said to Henry.

  “Vivian,” Audra said.

  “I did,” he said. “Not anymore. I have two brothers. They’re younger—twins.”

  “In Alaska?” I said.

  “We should get going,” Audra said.

  “Yes,” Henry said. “That’s where they are, but we don’t call it Alaska. We just don’t think of it quite like that.”

  “What do you call it?”

  “Let’s go,” Audra said.

  “Our families used to live in the city,�
�� he said, “in Alaska, and we left the city to live a different way, out by ourselves.”

  “You see?” Audra said to me. “Enough.”

  And then he climbed away, up ahead, gaining distance as we headed into the neighborhoods, out under the moonlight, the streetlights.

  Later I’d find out that what we’d been doing at the bonfire was getting a new name for me, a Social Security number, an older age. The people Henry bought it from spent their days sorting through shredded papers, fitting those names and numbers together.

  That night I didn’t know that, yet. I hardly knew anything at all. All I could see was Audra and Henry ahead of me, their shoulders lightly bouncing together, and I was following them. Not too close, not too far away.

  THIRTEEN

  I saw Audra and Henry hold hands. I saw them lean close together. Beneath the house, the space was tight, so we were never far apart. There was the wool blanket hanging between us, but I could see their bare feet, down at the end, on top of each other, moving around. I knew what they were doing; I tried not to think about it, to imagine it. Sometimes I heard whispers I couldn’t understand, but they never made much noise, even when they were moving around, and I couldn’t see their bodies. I pulled my electric blanket up over my head.

  Lying there, trying not to listen to them, I looked at my own body and I thought about what that girl Taffy had said. I was almost as tall as Audra, and almost as skinny, but my body didn’t look like hers. I could tell it would never really look like hers. My chest would always be flatter, my shoulders wider, my hips not as wide as hers.

  Audra and Henry left in the morning before it was light, and didn’t return until it was dark out. I could read their work schedules in the blue notebook and I wondered sometimes what they did with all the extra time, early in the morning or in the late afternoon, whether they did things together or were alone.

  I waited, and I was ready, but I was impatient, learning only a little at a time about what would happen. We were going to live out in the woods in Alaska, in the wilderness—if I didn’t understand why we needed money to live like that, or why we needed passports, that was because I didn’t know anything about precautions, about preparation.