Pause. “God helps those who help themselves.”
I am speechless after this bon mot from a servant of the state, so it is she who speaks next.
A huge sigh and then, “Well, I’ll see what I can do. Might take a few days. Can you give me your name and number?”
Without a shred of hope that I’ll hear from her, I give it to her and she promises to get back to me, adding, “Did you ever consider coming out here to help her out? Your mother, I mean.”
I hang up the phone.
But that’s what I do—fly west.
I can ill afford this trip, and have to use my last three vacation days. If I can’t resolve whatever it is that needs resolution, I will probably have to quit my job or take an unpaid leave. And our office has no unpaid leaves as far as I know.
My Fiesta rental gets me to Pacific Beach at around one o’clock. The streets look as benign as ever—certainly not the locale for a serial killer. I don’t see a single woman wearing a braid, not that this is a common hairstyle. Perhaps it’s more popular on the beach than elsewhere though—a way to deal with wet hair, or to keep hair out of the eyes. But I imagine any woman with a braid has changed her hairdo after those newspaper photos. Except, of course, the sort of women who don’t follow the news. Like my mother.
The street in P.B. that Mom favors is Garnet, where ethnic restaurants, several supermarkets, and a Trader Joe’s offer the opportunity to pick up food, rest on a bench, and watch the foot traffic. Mom’s usually too out of it to panhandle, and if she does, the money probably ends up in another person’s pocket. Most of the time, she’ll be somewhere on this stretch running from I-5 to the Pacific Ocean. Other times, I can find her on the boardwalk that runs along the beach. Her cronies usually occupy the nest of benches there, and like the birds that badger outdoor diners, the homeless sweep in for discarded food too.
Today she’s in neither place. I stop a few people who look like they might know my mother and ask, “Have you seen Audrey? Audrey Delaney?”
I try to describe her, but my words sound insulting. I approach people on benches, the ones shuffling down the street, a guy lying comatose in an alcove, several on the beach, two propped up against the back wall of Vons. Head shakes, frowns, shrugs. Obviously it’s not a name they know. But do they know her face?
For God’s sake, why don’t I have a picture? Why has this never occurred to me before—the idea that I might need such a thing? Do I want to leave her behind—or at least her image—when I fly back east? Or is it that her face, after years of living rough, is just too disheartening to hang on to, to immortalize?
“Check out the food bank,” someone advises. He looks like a man who’s spent decades on the street too—so tanned that the hue looks like mud on his face, so whip-thin that no size pants will fit him. I offer him one of sandwiches I bought, but he waves it away.
“I’m on disability now,” he says. “Save it for—what’s her name—Audrey?”
“A reddish braid, a San Diego Padres cap, skinny, about five foot five, a shopping cart?” I pause, thinking. “Although it might not be a Padres cap now.”
“Lots of places she could be,” he says, “but probably out on the street. Supposed to get a shelter here, but it never happened.”
I nod, having read about this in the local newspaper.
“She could be in a thrift shop, or a church, a donation center or a recycling place, a food kitchen, going through the trash somewhere. The cops could’ve picked her up. There’s a guy comes by couple times a week and gives people a lift to a food bank. Try there.” His eyes light up. “Maybe she has a boyfriend.”
I run across a couple—maybe twenty years old—with a sign that says, “Help send us back to Houston.”
“How long have you been here?” I ask, nearly tripping over the tambourine they’re using to collect cash. I add a buck. Then another.
“’Bout a week,” the guy says, looking at his girlfriend. “Right?”
“Yeah, our break started about then,” she says, nodding. They are too attractive to have been here long. Did they set out knowing they’d have to panhandle their way back to Texas or did some bad stuff happen? I don’t ask.
When I finally get to the boardwalk, I find an artist doing caricatures nestled between a burger place and a surfboard shop. He’s seated on a high stool with an umbrella attached to it, his long legs dangling.
“Think you could do a picture—the way a police artist does?”
“I can give it a try.” He picks up a pencil. It takes me an inordinate amount of time to summon up my mother’s nose, the shape of her eyes, her chin. I have poor facial memory I decide. Perhaps my mom does too and that’s why she calls me Suzie.
But after ten minutes, it’s a reasonably close facsimile. The baseball cap and braid nail her.
“This is your mom then?” he asks as I trade ten bucks for the portrait. “Wasn’t till I got the eyes right that I recognized her.”
“You know her?”
“Seen her around. Folks call her Brady.” He looks down at the drawing. “The braid, I guess. Never thought about it till now.”
“Have you seen her lately?”
“Wish I could tell you exactly when. One day blends into the next, same blue sky, same seventy degrees.” We both look up. “It hasn’t been very long though. She and her boyfriend…”
“Boyfriend?”
I don’t know why it strikes me as so improbable. Just because she can’t hold on to a cell phone or a TV doesn’t mean she can’t hold on to a man. “Do you know his name—or where I can find him?”
The artist purses his lips. I am waiting for the “one day blends into the next” sentiment again when he suddenly comes up with it. “Name’s George. He’s usually at that recycling center over on Lamont St. People who run it are pretty cool about lettin’ a few of the homeless drop in. Folks like it better than the shelters downtown where their junk gets stolen and they catch head lice. Center is just a backup place—for when someone’s hasslin’ them. Or if the cops are givin’ them a hard time. You know. You can usually just hang on the street. Or the beach, of course.”
I thank the artist and drive to the recycling center on Lamont, where an employee in a tiny office at the far end of the huge facility says she doesn’t know anyone named Brady but thinks she might know George. “Big guy with a tat on the top of his head?” she asks, and then laughs. “That tat makes me chuckle every time I think of it.”
Now why didn’t the sketch artist mention this tattoo? Maybe George wears a hat outside? “Why does it make you laugh?”
“You never seen it then, honey?” I shake my head. “It looks like steam—like steam coming out of his head. Don’t know how they did it, but that’s what it looks like. Like ole George is blowing his top.”
“Is George the kind of guy who does that—the sort who gets angry?”
“Just the opposite. Nicest guy in the world.”
“Do you know where he might be?”
“Geez, no. I’m stuck in here all day. I don’t know where folks go when they leave here. Don’t know where they come from either.” She laughs harder. “They’re kinda like those zombies that just turn up—coming across the warehouse floor real slow.”
In the years I’ve come to check up on Mom, I’ve never had this much trouble finding her. Is it because of the murders that she’s keeping out of sight? Is it because she has a boyfriend? I am halfway to the Olney Street Police Station when something occurs to me. Usually when I get to Pacific Beach I sit down on a bench and wait until Mom turns up. I read a book, have some iced coffee, take in some of the sun that’s scarce in Chicago a lot of the year, enjoy the street action, watch the sun set over the ocean. And sooner or later, Mom strolls by. Always. She favors that stretch near Trader Joe’s. It’s like her home. Why did I approach it differently today?
So that
is what I do. I park the car, buy myself a cappuccino, pull out a paperback, and sit down on a bench. It takes about forty minutes. In fact, I am pulling out my map to consider other destinations when I catch a glimpse of her turning a corner. Her cart is fuller than ever. The boogie board is gone, but she seems to have picked up a number of other goodies. As she grows closer, something unusual happens: she spots me and cries out, “Suzie!”
I rise smiling, and wave. As she grows close, I pull out the item I bought in an airport shop as soon as my plane landed. I was so relieved to find it—had worried about its availability the entire flight. As soon as she’s near enough to me, near enough to put my hands on her, I reach out. Scissors in hand, I cut off that braid.
Scrapped
“Aunt Marge? That you up there on the porch?”
Quickly raising the window against the spew of March air, Jerzy Fields looked for a place to park. Her aunt’s driveway contained more potholes than asphalt, and she’d wrecked at least one pair of shoes and a practically new tire tussling with it. Auntie never did have a car so there was little reason to tend it.
“Who else?” Marge said, her voice muffled by the Happy Meal binoculars held up to her face. Pointing the glasses at her niece, she said. “You gettin’ old, girl. Add a little more coffee to the cream and I be lookin’ at my sister.”
Seated on a balding raffia chair, Aunt Marge wore an elbow-less lilac sweater and a faded Tigers cap. The curly auburn wig under the hat was slightly askew, giving her a loopy look. The electric heater sitting on the porch rail shone orange, its cord pulled tight through an open window.
“What you doin’ planted on the porch on a cold day like this?” Jerzy said. “Can’t be no more than forty degrees.” She shivered to illustrate.
“Watchin’ for those boys,” Marge answered, training her binoculared eyes on the street again. “Saw ’em cruising by before I was half done with my sugar pops. Drove by a second time when I was fixin’ up this heater. They up to no good. Uh-huh.”
“Those boys been harassin’ you, Auntie?” Jerzy stamped her feet, trying to warm up.
Marge shook her head. “They jus’ doin’ what they do, which is no-good trashy stuff. Driving too slow to be passing through. They lookin’ for something all right.” Several clucking sounds followed this observation.
A baseball bat sat next to her chair. There was also an old cot with a broken leg propped up against the porch railing, and a rusty old grill with a layer of mummified charcoal from who knew when. What could anybody want from Auntie?
“Look here, this cord’s frayed, Auntie. You gonna set your house on fire.”
“Better get me a new one, then, Jerzy. You’ll have to do it. If I don’t watch the street, who will?”
There were only six houses on a street once home to twenty. None could stand up to a January blizzard or a July tornado. So why the interest from these boys? Someone must be selling crack. She’d seen some skanky girls ’round the corner on John R. Looked like a ho stroll in progress with their getups of high heels, short skirts, bare midriffs, dirty fur jackets. Men like this? Nope, only want what’s under it.
Jerzy was abruptly overcome by the craving to have both a cigarette and a drink. It came over her lightning quick sometimes. She’d sworn off both a few years back, but the old lady sitting in front of her in her broken-down house on this God-forsaken street brought back that craving—the itch only certain things could scratch. Bad things. She steeled herself by thinking about how much money such weaknesses took from a pocket. And “the human cost,” as they called it at the meetings. Maybe it was time to go to one again.
“Look, Auntie. I’m gonna check things out inside the house long as I’m here. See what needs doin’. Make me a list.” There was no one else to see to Aunt Marge since Jerzy’s mother died.
Marge nodded slightly and continued watching the street. Good Lord, her teeth weren’t in her mouth, Jerzy realized, hoping she hadn’t lost or broken the plate. Medicare didn’t give a good goddamn about your teeth.
Inside, the house was tidy enough in a peculiar way—piles of folded clothes not put away; cans of food stacked neatly on a counter; magazines, lifted from doctors’ offices, fanned on the coffee table. It was nearly as cold inside as outside. A half-eaten bowl of sugar pops sat on the kitchen table next to a cup of half-drunk coffee. Thankfully, Auntie’s dentures sat there too, looking ready to take on the cereal. Jerzy rinsed out both dishes, and the dentures for good measure, then made the bed. She pushed a blanket up against the crack in the window; repairing it would have to wait. Auntie appeared to be out of toilet paper, and a lot of the food in the fridge seemed past the sell-by date. She tossed a few of the worst offenders into a garbage bag, setting it by the door. She didn’t put too much faith in sell-by dates anyhow.
The thermostat, set at eighty degrees, read only fifty. In the cellar, the octopus, looking to be eighty years old, occupied most of the room. Water puddled in two spots on the concrete floor. The water heater might be broken too, or perhaps it was the ancient washer a few feet away, which would explain the unwashed clothes. How much would a new furnace and water heater cost? Auntie was looking at several thousand dollars to set things right. No way she had that kind of money. Lucky there was a used appliance store in Highland Park.
Jerzy sighed and climbed the stairs, going back outside. “Got a furnace man, Aunt Marge? Your house is fairly freezin’.”
Her aunt screwed up her face. “Thought it seemed a bit brisk. Well, just call up Detroit Edison. They’ll fire it up.”
“It’s called DTE now, Auntie, and I don’t think they can fix it. You probably need a new one. Or at least a new used one.” She picked up her aunt’s hand. Pure ice. She made a quick decision. “Better come along home with me. We’ll call us some help from my house. Get you nice and warmed up.”
“You know I can’t do that, girl. Who’ll watch the street?”
Her aunt’s head continued to swivel back and forth, lips set. Jerzy wanted a drink more than ever as she pulled her aunt to her feet. Two fingers of Jim Beam on the rocks would put some backbone into her. Did Marge’s eyes look funny? Her mother died from Alzheimer’s five years back. Did Aunt Marge have it now too? Did it run in families or just plain run?
“Easy, old girl. I’ll get someone over here lickety-split. You’ll be home in a day or two. Soon as we get some of this stuff sorted out.”
“Still got cable television over at your house? Channel with all those movies?”
Jerzy nodded. Auntie’s unwillingness to leave her spot on the porch suddenly vanished, and the two women went inside to pack a bag.
“Think I need my Sunday dress?” Marge asked, headed for the closet. Her mood had picked up with a vacation in the offing. She shuffled through the wire hangers, pausing to remove a few items. “Like me in this?” she said, holding up a Red Wings jersey Jerzy found for her at a flea market last year. “’Bout the warmest thing I got.”
Sunday was five days from now. James would go Nam on her if Auntie stayed more than a night or two. He didn’t like outsiders in his house. Didn’t like to share his precious commode.
“I want a direct bee-line when I need it,” he had told her countless times. “Don’t need to be findin’ some stranger sitting on my spot.”
“I’ll come back and get you a dress if you need one.”
A lady from the Jesus Tabernacle congregation picked Marge up for church every Sunday. Ladies in bright flowered dresses and extravagant hats filled every pew with the rare rooster crowing his bass. Only black women wore hats to church nowadays, Jerzy thought, noticing several sitting on the closet shelf. Peacock colors. She’d kept two of her mother’s. Reminded her of Mama like nothing else.
As they pulled away, Marge looked back at the house, the binoculars still hanging from her neck.
“All by myself,” she said. “How I always done it.”
Jerzy reached over and patted her knee.
Marge came to Detroit from Alabama in ’59, working off and on in upholstery installation at automobile plants for forty years. Never married, never had kids. Made a decent living when she wasn’t laid off, and bought her house on Robichaud Street when the neighborhood was still respectable. Neat houses with mowed lawns, a porch on each one. Marge’s sister, Mildred—Jerzy’s mother—was her only kin in Michigan. Now Jerzy and Jerzy’s brother, Rufus, were it. And Rufus was hardcore. Not even good for lickin’ a stamp.
James was standing in the doorway when they pulled up, the mail in his hands. He looked at the two of them like he’d never seen them before, his lips a grim line. Shaking his head, he turned and went inside, sitting down on the corduroy ottoman to lace his boots. James worked for the city, spending most of his time in the city’s sewers. The city called him an engineer, but he was really a handyman trying to keep those ancient pipes from leaking, holding back the flood. He’d probably circled Detroit with duct tape ten times over.
“What’s this all about?” he asked now, eyeing Marge with something close to repugnance. “Why we having company on a Tuesday?” He’d never much cared for Marge, who kowtowed to no man. James liked his women meek.
“Auntie’s furnace broke,” she told him, ushering the old woman past him and onto a seat. The woman sank down, sighing loudly. “She’ll just be with us a few days,” she told him in a low voice. “Think you got time to take a look?”
He shook his head. “Already late. And I don’t know a damn thing about furnaces.” He looked over at Marge, dozing already. “You aiming to be a nursemaid, Jerzy? Looks like that’s what she needs. You best start thinkin’ what you gonna do with her.”
“Just for a few days,” she repeated. “I dragged her outta there. She’ll be beggin’ to go home by tomorrow.”
James rolled his eyes. “Tell me that on Saturday.”
Proving James right, Aunt Marge had a head cold the next morning.
I Bring Sorrow_And Other Stories of Transgression Page 2
