I'm Ok

by Patti Kim

  I push open the door. It creaks. And there stands Cyclops. She slips between my legs, walks down the stairs, sniffs around, meows in judgment, and walks back up into the house. I follow.

  The sunlight beaming in through the cracks of the boarded-up windows shows dust gently floating in the air. Except for the cat and me, the house is empty. I walk through the rooms on the first floor. More dust. More emptiness. Any appliances and cabinets, any signs of the room having been a kitchen, have been stripped out, leaving nothing but the imprints of what used to be. In the bathroom the tub sits perched on talons. The vessel is cracked and stained all shades of brown, reminding me of the Grand Canyon. It must’ve been a fancy tub once upon a time. The toilet’s been removed, leaving a black hole in the floor. The sink was once fancy too, with its curvy edges, but it’s now chipped and caked with filth and grime. I turn the faucet. Nothing.

  Next to the sink is a door. I turn the knob, open it, and peek inside. “Ahhhhhhh!” I scream. I shut the door, back into the tub, and fall in, bumping my head against the rim. Did I just see what I thought I saw? I get back up and slowly open the closet door again and look inside. It’s only me. Me inside a full-length mirror with an X cracked across it. No zombie closing in on me from behind with a knife in hand. I quick-draw my imaginary pistol out of my pocket, point it at my reflection, and say, “About time this town had a new sheriff.”

  forty-seven

  The Shelter 365 is pitched in the living room. Its opening faces the fireplace, which has a fire in it, and in the fire is a hot dog roasting on a stick, which I slowly rotate so the skin evenly browns and blisters to perfection.

  I bite into the hot dog and eat it the way it was meant to be eaten. Hot. It’s so good. It’s the kind of good that makes you forget your problems and count your blessings. So what if I took the Jergens? They got nothing on me. So what if I lied to my mother about the school play? So what if I took that ten? So what if Mickey got smacked for it? They can’t find me. I’m gone. So what if Asa’s better than me? Better words, better friends, better with the ball, better family . . . I don’t care. I got space, while he’s cramped up sharing a room with a village. I got my own place. So what if there’s no electricity and running water? So what? There’s a real roof over my head.

  As I chew my hot dog, I take inventory of all my food and water. If I ration and skip breakfast, I can go for about two months. I’ve got twenty-seven dollars, which is plenty for supplies to last me another month. That’s three months covered. By then it’ll be spring. Maybe I can plant some seeds out back. Maybe I can fix the plumbing in here, get some water running. Maybe I’ll grow tomatoes on the windowsills. Maybe I’ll grow mushrooms in the basement. When the weather warms up, I’ll grow cucumbers on the roof.

  A door creaks.

  I drop the last bite of my hot dog on the floor. I dash into the tent and zip it shut. I listen. I hear soft footsteps. I peek out. It’s Cyclops again, walking toward my tent, her tail meandering in the air like a finger wagging, Naughty, naughty, naughty. She meows, coming closer to me. She sniffs the last bite of my hot dog and eats it.

  The sun sets, darkening the room. The beams of light disappear, taking with them the warmth and the floating pixie dust. The fire dies down. I don’t have enough wood to keep it going all night, but this is warmer than last night or the night before that, and I crawl into my tent to rest up for tomorrow, because tomorrow I will need more food, more water, more wood, more strength, more ways to go on. It’s quiet.

  I’m about to fall asleep when I hear scratch-scratch-scratch. I pull my hat over my ears and bury my head under the blankets. I hear, “Meeeeeeoooooooow.”

  “Shut up!” I shout.

  “Meow,” the cat responds.

  There’s no way I’ll fall asleep with that cat whining all night. As soon as I unzip the tent, Cyclops slithers inside and curls into a ball in a corner, cleaning her paws.

  “Fine! Just this once, I’ll let you stay, but you better be quiet. One meow out of you, and I’m throwing you out,” I say, and crawl under the blankets. “No way am I feeding you. It’s every man for himself around here.”

  The cat meows, as if to correct me that it’s every cat for herself around here. She curls up next to my cold nose. Her fur is warm and soft. I’m so tired. I close my eyes. The cat purrs, reminding me of Mickey. I can see her roller-skating on the school stage. She looked amazing gliding back and forth in her red dress. She moved kind of like a flame. I meant to tell her she did a great job. I picture Mickey and her dad reuniting after the talent show. She screams with glee at the sight of him. He hugs her, giving her the flowers and stuffed animal. She hugs him back. She drags him around, showing him off to all the teachers. This here’s my daddy. Hey, have you met my daddy? I hear her voice. I miss her.

  forty-eight

  I’m set. This is the life. I got a good fire going. I got a pile of wood next to me, a hot dog roasting on a stick, a good book to read, a one-eyed cat to rip on. Hey, Cyclops! See this hot dog? Well, it’s mine. Okay, so I let her have the last bite. It’s useful to have a cat around. Keeps the rodent population under control. The cat stretches and lounges in front of the fire.

  I read about the heirs of Samuel W. Westing, playing the game of figuring out his death to win $200 million. I wish I had a chessboard. I wish I had someone to play with. I sure could use a checkmate.

  There’s a knock on the front door.

  I freeze. I stare at the fire, trying to turn off the flickering flames with my mind. It crackles.

  There’s another knock, followed by slow footsteps across the porch. The boards creak. As the figure moves, the beams of light coming through the boarded windows shift on and off like search lights.

  I quickly crawl to the front door and press myself against the wall, wishing I could sink in through the cracks and join the stains. I press my ear against the wall, listening for clues.

  A thump comes from the basement. I know I’m not imagining any of this, because the cat perks up her head and meows. They’re coming for me. I’m surrounded.

  I’m about to dash for the steps leading upstairs when I hear, “Open up! Open up in there! This is the police!” Then I hear giggling.

  “Seriously, Ok. Open up! I know you’re in there. There ain’t no hiding from me.”

  It’s Mickey McDonald. Something in me cheers up. I feel relieved. I feel warm. I feel joy. I feel found. I hurry to the window and peek through the crack. There she is, wearing her raggedy green retro coat, her hair teased out high and wide like it’s generating electricity.

  “How’d you know I was here?” I say through the crack.

  “If you trying to hide, you better turn off them smoke signals, Pocahontas. You letting me in, or what?” she says.

  “Pocahontas? Really? Why can’t you be nice and call me Geronimo instead?”

  “More like You’re Wrong You Know,” she says.

  “Man, I missed you, Mickey,” I say.

  “Knew you would,” she says.

  “Judging from your do, I see you got yourself electrocuted again,” I say.

  “Shut up and let me in, ’cause someone’s going to see me out here and call the cops, ’cause I got a news flash for you, Ok—there’s this ‘No Trespassing’ sign out here,” she says.

  “Everything’s nailed shut. Go to the back. There’s a basement window,” I say.

  “Shoot, I owe Asa a buck,” she says.

  “Asa?”

  “In the flesh,” Asa says, emerging out of the basement.

  I want to hug Asa Banks, but I restrain myself and instead ask, “What’re you doing here?”

  He punches my arm and puts out his hand. I give him mine, and he leads my hand through a special handshake, something I’ve seen him do with his friends. He says, “Saving your badass self. Nice digs. Cool tent.”

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “Man, I need me a tent. I got no privacy in my own home,” Asa says.

  “I got plenty. You’
re welcome to mine,” I say.

  He looks inside my tent and whistles. “Now that’s how you do it.”

  It feels good to have Asa’s approval, but I try not to smile too hard.

  “Hey, Mick’s going to need help getting through that window,” he says.

  “Why? ’Cause I’m too big to fit through?” Mickey says, stomping up the stairs.

  “No, ’cause you a delicate, fragile, beautiful flower,” Asa says.

  When Mickey reaches us, she takes a good look at me and says, “Oh my Lordy. You look like one of them poor Chinese babies on them UNICEF commercials. All you need is a bunch of flies swarming all over your filthy face, and people be sending you donations. What is that smell?”

  “Hi, Mickey,” I say.

  “Hi? Is that all you got to say for yourself? Hi?” she says, pushing me in the chest with both hands. I fall back into my tent and land butt-first on the floor. “That’s for scaring me to death. I thought you were dead! I thought you were mad at me ’cause we didn’t win that stupid talent show. We didn’t win ’cause of you, Ok, you and your sorry skating skills, or lack of, and ’cause Asa here played the stupid audience like a ukulele. Ok, I thought we was friends.”

  “Did you write that yourself ?” I ask Asa.

  “Hell yeah,” he says.

  “That was one lame poem. Didn’t even rhyme,” I say, standing up.

  “Yeah. Maybe I should’ve put on some girl’s roller skates and thrown trash at people,” he says.

  “Confetti, Asa. That was confetti. And they loved it.” Mickey points her finger at him. Then she turns, wags her finger in my face, and says, “And you. Friends do not go away like that, and if they do, they pay the courtesy of saying good-bye. You are one rude little snothead.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, and put my arms around Mickey. She feels warm and soft. Her coat smells like cigarettes and shampoo.

  “Oh my Lordy, get off me! You stink worse than Charlie’s breath after he’s licked his butt,” she says, squeezing her nose and pushing me away.

  “Sorry, but no running water here. I got dogs, though. Want a hot dog?” I say.

  “Yeah,” Asa says.

  “No, I can’t eat in this stink,” says Mickey.

  “I’ll take hers.”

  As Asa roasts his hot dog, he says, “What’s going on, man? Why you run off like that? Whole school be looking for you. All them girls asking when you coming back to do them dumb braids. Them girls’ hairs is a big mess. They all be looking like your girlfriend here. Like they touch a live wire. ’Cause of you, I had to talk to Old Mickey D, and you know I can’t be talking to her ’cause of my reputation and all.”

  “Stop embarrassing yourself, Asa, and shut up,” Mickey says, noticing the one-eyed cat in the corner of the room. She sits down in front of the fire and coaxes her out. The cat meows, walks over, and rubs against Mickey’s knee.

  “How’d you guys find me?” I ask.

  “Your mom and dad, man. They be sick with worry. You know they come to school today and put out this announcement to everyone saying you gone all missing persons. Your dad, he be talking to the whole class, looking all businessman in his suit and tie. He made us bow our heads and pray so you could be found. Then we’re riding home on the bus and passing this place and I see the smoke coming out of the chimney and Mick look over at me at the same time, and you know I never look at her on account of my eyes don’t deserve to behold such beauty and all, but we know it’s you in here,” Asa says.

  “The only reason I looked at you was ’cause you let out a big gasp so loud you had to cover your own mouth to shut yourself up. Man doesn’t know the meaning of ‘discreet,’ ” Mickey says.

  “You pierce me, woman. But I do thank you for calling me a man,” Asa says.

  “That’s not my father.”

  “Then who is he?” Mickey asks.

  “He your uncle?” Asa asks.

  “My mother’s fiancé,” I say.

  “Then where’s your daddy?” Mickey asks.

  “Gone.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  I shrug.

  “What happened?” Mickey asks.

  I look down at the floor.

  “Did he leave y’all?” she asks.

  I run the nail of my thumb along the grain of the floorboard.

  “Did he pass away?”

  A lump forms in my throat. My eyes water up, and a big piece of snot forms on the tip of my nose.

  “Hey, Oprah, can’t you see the man don’t want to talk about it?” Asa says, chewing the hot dog.

  “Of course he don’t want to talk about it, but you can’t not talk about it, or else you going to get sick in the head and end up camping out all by your lonesome in some dead family’s living room.”

  “That’s deep,” Asa says.

  “So when’d your daddy pass away, Ok?”

  I wipe my nose with the cuff of my sleeve and answer, “In August.”

  “What happened?”

  “He was working. He was fixing a roof. That was his job. It was a really hot day. And he must’ve slipped, lost his footing, I don’t know, but he fell.”

  “Harsh,” Asa says.

  “I’m so sorry,” Mickey says.

  “That day? When it happened? It was around noon, and I was sitting at home by myself, watching The Price Is Right and blasting the AC. I wanted to go to the pool so badly, but I didn’t know how to swim, and my father kept promising me he was going to teach me, but he never got around to it, and I remember watching that stupid show and seeing all those happy people jumping up and down because they won a new refrigerator or a new car, and I remember feeling so sore at my father because he couldn’t get us nice things. The least he could’ve done was teach me how to swim. I was mostly sore at him because he’d yelled at me that morning.” I take a deep breath.

  “My daddy yells at me all the time,” Mickey says.

  “What your pa yell at you for?” Asa asks me.

  “I don’t know. Nothing really. Just the usual stuff. You know. How I’m lazy and all,” I say.

  “You? Lazy? I got plenty of words for you, Ok, but lazy?” Mickey says.

  “Well, I was lazy because I didn’t take care of something for him. He asked me to get him new laces for his boot because the lace broke off. He gave me money for it and everything, but I forgot. Well, not really. I didn’t forget. I just didn’t feel like it. It was so hot outside. Why couldn’t he get his own laces? So that morning he couldn’t tie his boot right, and he was really mad about it, and he left, saying something about, I don’t know, something about a son being useless or something like that.”

  “Yeah, a daughter probably would’ve taken care of it,” Mickey says.

  “Man, that’s so sexas,” Asa says.

  “What?” Mickey says.

  “Sexas.”

  Mickey laughs and says, “Asa, it’s not pronounced like Texas. It’s sex-ist.”

  “No, it ain’t, woman. It’s sexas. I know this for a fact. Hey, Ok, help me out here.”

  “Who cares? You know what he means,” I say.

  “Oh, Oak here suddenly doesn’t care about saying things wrong,” Mickey says.

  “Fine. She’s right,” I say.

  Mickey smiles smugly and then gets serious again. “So hold it, Ok. You’re taking on the blame for your daddy falling?”

  The cat sleeps on Mickey’s lap. She strokes her back. The small flame in the fireplace flickers among the ashes. Asa breaks twigs and lines up the pieces on the floor in a long zigzag. I bite my lip.

  “Ain’t your fault,” Asa says.

  “Yeah, don’t beat yourself up, Ok. I’d tell you to forgive yourself, but there ain’t nothing to forgive. You didn’t do nothing wrong,” Mickey says.

  “I’m sorry, Mickey. I’m really sorry, but I have to tell you something. I did do something wrong,” I say.

  Mickey furrows her brow and tilts her head. I take a deep breath. “Remember that ten tha
t went missing from your mom’s purse?”

  “What about it?”

  “That was me. I took it,” I say, and reach into the tent for my wad of cash. I pull out two fives and hand them to her.

  “What?”

  “Ooooooh,” Asa says.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “I got smacked for that,” she says.

  “I’m so sorry. Here, please smack me. Smack me hard.” I show her the side of my face.

  “Ok, you are so lucky I am so full of pity for you right now. I don’t want your money,” Mickey says, pushing the bills back to me.

  “Please take it. I don’t know what else I can do. What can I do?” I ask.

  “I’ll tell you what you can do. You are going to return that money to my mother with a full confession,” Mickey says.

  “Justice served,” Asa says.

  “I can do that,” I say.

  “And I want my hair done for a year, whenever I want, however I want,” she says.

  “Cruel and unusual, man,” Asa says.

  “You got it,” I say.

  “And I want you to go back home, Ok. If you care a lick about anyone but your own sorry self, you need to go home to your ma and soon-to-be pa, ’cause they are worried to death about you,” Mickey says.

  “Yeah, they look real sad, especially your ma. She couldn’t even talk ’cause she was crying and everything. You wanted bad. Go home, man,” Asa says.

  “I can’t,” I say.

  “That’s what you said about dancing and roller-skating. I’m not saying you’re any good at it, but you did it,” Mickey says.

  “This here’s cool and all, but you don’t want to live here. It ain’t home,” Asa says.

  “You don’t understand. That man, that man pretending to be my father, is bad,” I say. “He steals!”

  “Judge not, lest you be judged,” Mickey says, shaking her head.

  “Amen,” Asa says.

  “He steals from our church,” I say.

  “And you stole from a friend. How you going to take a speck of dust out of his eye when you got a big old two-by-four in yours?” she says.