by Sarah Bird
It takes two seconds for me to bid farewell to the last wisp of a shred of a molecule of a hope that I might ever have anything approaching my old life back; then I yank the burka out from under the feet pinning it down, jerk it off, and stride to the front of the room. No matter what will come, it is worth it all just to be able to breathe again.
“Oh God, no! What is she doing here?” Kippie Lee speaks for her group in a tone that could have curdled concrete. It is nothing less than I deserve. But I’ll deal with all those snarls later. Right now I have a candle to light.
I step to the front of the room. Sanjeev smiles as he hands me a taper. “I don’t know why Millie has remained my friend for all these years. I didn’t deserve her friendship, but she gave it to me anyway. From this day forward, I will try to do what I can within my limited capabilities to be worthy of it. The candle I light is for the brightest, purest part of my life. It is for my friendship with Millie Ott.”
I wish I could say there was an abrupt harmonic convergence in which all was forgiven and forgotten in the golden glow of the candle I light for Millie. But, in fact, it is a toss-up as to who hates me more: the Pemberton Princesses who believe, rightly, that I have pulled another gigantic fast one on them or the residents who believe, even more rightly, that I have just flushed away all their slave labor efforts of the past week to save the house. There is no way now that even a fraction of those fat checks will remain in our possession.
I regret deeply how rarely the right thing is ever the convenient thing.
There is a second of silence as the two stunned factions regroup before loud—hysterically loud—unpleasantness erupts. I am waiting for the princesses to call dibs on the wishbone before I am ripped limb from limb when Sanjeev’s phone tinkles out its trademark version of “Rule Britannia.”
“Everyone! Please, silence!” Sanjeev orders. “It is Baba.”
We all hold our collective breath to hear every word, but Sanjeev answers in Bengali. A frantic, high-pitched conversation follows. The group scrutinizes Millie’s expression as we try to decipher whether what Sanjeev is now yelling into the phone is good or bad, but Millie is as lost as we are. With an abrupt farewell that does not seem to bode well, Sanjeev ends the conversation and snaps his phone shut. He stands, staggered and wordless, before the silent group. For once, we are all united, connected, by a single desire: let Millie be happy.
Cookie sniffs back a hiccuping sob as she interprets the look of devastation on Sanjeev’s face.
Millie puts her palm against Sanjeev’s cheek. “It’s all right. You tried and that means the world to me. The world.”
Sanjeev opens his mouth, but instead of his usual imperial rolling tones only a strangled squeak emerges. Then, to everyone’s astonishment, Sanjeev, the epitome of controlled rectitude, begins blubbering. He puts his head on Millie’s shoulder, and, smiling with beatific stoicism, she wraps him in her arms.
Sanjeev finally lifts his damp face from Millie’s damp shoulder, collects himself, and speaks. “No, please, everyone, I’m sorry. The news is good. Too good to believe. My brother and Bhavani Mukherjee have fallen in love. The date for the wedding that was to be mine is even more auspicious for them. Bhavani Mukherjee will marry my brother, and I will marry Millie Ott. If she will have me.”
A Natural Affinity for the Larcenous
DOG, IT’S HOT!”
“Curtis, you ever get tired of stating the obvious?”
“Jesse, you ever get tired of being a drunk asshole?”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen.”
“Oh, pardon my French, Miss Blythe.”
“It’s not the French I object to, Mr. Curtis; it’s you calling Mr. Jesse an asshole.”
That is good for a laugh. Jesse has been smiling a lot more and drinking a little less since I got him some new front teeth. He uses them now to chomp decisively into a Thai chicken salad wrap donated by one of the restaurants I’ve recruited.
Carl joins in. “Heat’s nothin’. Rather have the heat than that danged old cold. You ever live through a winter in Casper, Wyoming, in the back of a camper, I tell you what, you do that, boy, you ain’t never gonna complain about no heat no more.”
It’s my turn. “Of course, in the cold, you can just keep putting clothes on. In the heat, once you’re down to tank tops and flip-flops, there’s not much else you can take off.”
“We’d like to see you try, though, Miss Blythe.”
Even though we’ve been doing a version of this routine every day for most of the summer, the line still gets giant yuks, and I still have to say, “Mr. Jesse, Miss Millie wouldn’t like that kind of talk.”
Invoking Millie’s name causes the bawdy talk to cease immediately. Like everyone whose life Millie changed, the men miss her. I will never be Millie. I knew that going in. I bring an entirely different skill set to the arena. For instance? For instance, could Millie have taught Curtis, Carl, Jesse, Joe, and the rest of the rotating gang here on Dog Crap Lane how to function while blasted out of their skulls? I think not. Which is sad, since maintaining is an underrated skill that, if nothing else, will get my guys in the door at the Salvation Army mission when the weather turns dangerously cold or even more dangerously hot than it is now.
In fact, my little flock seems to have a natural affinity for the larcenous take I bring to the endeavor. Showers, hygiene, the whole water-touching-skin deal, were always a hard sell until I showed the guys how to sneak into swimming pools, dorms, and health clubs to shower. Once they felt like they were pulling a fast one, sticking it to the man, they couldn’t suds up fast enough. After that it was a breeze getting them into the subversive fun of underwear and front teeth.
The latter are being provided as part of the reparations package Kippie Lee inflicted upon Philandering Asshole during their divorce. I planted the idea of hiring the dentist the second Mrs. Teeter used to work for. K.L. liked the double whammy of not only publicizing her new role as Austin’s Lady Bountiful, but also spotlighting the second Mrs. Teeter’s roots in dental hygiene. The spite and revenge angle is one that Millie would never have thought to work.
The problem with doing good, I have discovered, is that it is too often done by the good.
Curtis sniffs his Thai chicken salad wrap. “Does anyone else think they put too much tarragon in again?”
Carl chews thoughtfully. “I was just about to say that.”
Over the months since I came out of chador, I have discovered so many pockets of expertise among the men—Jesse can rebuild lawn-mower motors, Carl can get a squirrel to take a peanut out of his hand, Curtis once taught English and can still recite big chunks of Langston Hughes by heart—that opinions on tarragon no longer surprise me.
“Did you talk to Miss Millie?” Jesse asks hopefully.
“Sorry, Jess, she’s still out in the field with Sanjeev and Dr. Chowdhury giving vaccinations.”
“Them Chowhounds—”
“Chowdhurys,” I remind Carl.
“Anyway, San Joe’s family better appreciate what they got there. They don’t their turbans is wound a little too tight.”
“The Chowdhurys are Brahmans; they don’t wear turbans. And of course they’re falling in love with Millie.”
“How could they not?” Curtis asks.
No one can think of a single reason, and after a long moment, I announce, “All right, clean up.” I start the timer on my watch, and the men snap into action, collecting the real plates, silverware, and cloth napkins that we’d used. “A new record,” I declare as they stow the last spoon in the Dorkocycle’s cart.
“So when does Pease Park Catering get its first gig?” Curtis asks. “We’ve been practicing all summer.”
“We’re close, Curtis, very close. If you’re all shaved and bathed when I come tomorrow you’ll be ahead of fifty percent of the servers I used to hire. We’ll print business cards and I’ll pitch Pease Park Caterers to the Democrats or one of your other less-discerning groups.”
This cheer
s the guys, and a few of them raise containers in small brown bags in a toast to our new venture. Even though there are fewer brown bags than there used to be and they are hauled out slightly later in the day, I don’t entirely believe that any of us, especially me, will ever be in the catering business. But it is good to have a goal, a dream, a total and complete delusion. They all serve to keep us moving forward. And me and the guys, we need that forward propulsion.
I say my good-byes and head on down the road thinking how odd it is that, hard as I struggled to avoid it, as much as I lived in mortal dread of the prospect, I have ended up here on Dog Crap Lane. Odder still, I am pretty happy about it. Very happy, considering the alternatives. My thoughts are snapped sharply back into the present when I cross the dreaded leash-free zone. As usual, I am set upon by dogs whose owners chirp out, “Don’t worry! He’s friendly!” I know by now that you can never count on “friendly” in a dog. Deep down they’re all wolves waiting for the genetic twig to snap. What you have to hope for is “slow.”
I make it past the last snarling cur, and my thoughts return to the chain of events that brought me here.
Three months ago, on that fateful final night of the Pemberton Princesses’ stay, I knew that my unveiling would be quite the buzz killer. And it was. Once I fumbled my way out of the burka, it was a miracle I didn’t end the evening in tar and feathers. My continuing salvation was, of course, Millie. That evening, her white magic was operating on a nuclear level. Whether Kippie Lee, Jerome, Nikki, whether any of us willed it to happen or not, we had all been bonded by our desire to see the one purely good person we had ever known get what she wanted. Then when, after aeons of bad calls, the universe finally did the right thing and totally delivered the goods and Sanjeev asked Millie for her hand, and she said yes, the delight that united us all was so immaculate that it even managed to lap over onto me and my sins.
Once the princesses and residents decided that stringing me up would, as Yay Bombah suggested, “totally harsh the buzz,” worlds opened. There was immediate agreement among all parties that Millie’s work had to continue. A newly vocal Missy Quisinberry made a strong case for keeping the house open as well. She pointed out that not only was it essential as a base of operations for Millie, but that “If we can save just one girl from becoming a naive, unsuspecting Pi Phi or one boy from becoming a lying, cheating Sig it’ll be worth it.” Kippie Lee agreed and proposed that the Platinum Longhorns turn all the fat checks the ladies had written over to Millie and the house, and, in exchange, the ladies wouldn’t sue the Plat Longs back to the Stone Age.
There was still the little matter of the RIAA’s lawsuit, though.
Kippie Lee brushed that annoyance away. “Not a problem. I assume my asshole husband’s firm is handling the case. This week has shown me clearly what I have to do in regards to that son of a bitch. I’ll have lunch with him Monday and point out what a gigantic crack he put his tail in bringing his hygienist-whore to Jeffrey’s. We’ll just see how much he likes the idea of living off of what some trollop makes telling people to floss. Don’t look so surprised. It’s always been my family’s money. Hunt gambles away every cent he’s ever made. That’s how the Dixes got their hooks into his firm. Don’t worry, I’ll convince Hunt to convince the RIAA to go after the university and leave you little fish alone. The case will be tied up in litigation forever. That should keep all the lawyers happy.”
“But what about Trey?” I had to ask. “His family’s White House connections? Aren’t you worried about alienating him?”
Kippie Lee and Bamsie popped their eyes at each other, then burst out laughing. “Girl, where have you been?”
“Uh, well, pretty much right here.”
“‘Shock and awe’ is turning into ‘the crock of it all.’ Things are bad over there, and, according to our sources in Aramco, they’re only going to get worse. We’re distancing ourselves. Last thing anyone wants anymore is ‘White House connections.’”
Bamsie agreed. “We never really liked Bush anyway. We liked Laura. Every Southern girl in the country knew a hundred frat guys just like Bush and every one of them was smarter and better-looking.”
“Yeah, and even those guys were all dumb and ugly.”
That left one item on the agenda: me. Oddly, from the moment I stepped out from under the burka, nothing seemed as terrible anymore as going back into hiding. I was even starting to see the upside of prison. I’d do my time, clear the books, and make a fresh start. But as the group discussed whether or not to turn me over to the IRS, a much better idea popped into my head. More of a vision, actually; I saw clearly and in fairly elaborate detail exactly what I had to do. “You should let me take over Millie’s work.”
When they hooted derisively, I suggested, “Perhaps one of you ladies would like to take over Millie’s work with the homeless men in Pease Park? The street kids on the Drag? How about the day laborers? Be a great opportunity for you to brush up on your Spanish.”
Although newly sanctified by their week with Millie, the ladies recoiled as if they had just sucked in a giant, aromatic whiff of Eau de Homeless Guy. Without my putting too fine a point on it, they saw that they could either step into the breach and take over Millie’s work themselves after she left for India with Sanjeev or do what they did best and hire good help. I was offering to take on the work they didn’t want to do and I would be punished in the process. It was a win-win. Instead of turning me in, they decided to pay me minimum wage and deposit my salary directly into an account that would be used to start paying off the IRS.
The surprise was what an innovative and generally good dogooder I turned out to be. For example, I took my day-labor flock from the site to Goodwill, where I kitted them out in polo shirts, fishing hats, and boat shoes. My mojados ended up looking like they were heading to Nantucket. Suddenly the suburban ladies were specifically requesting my guys. They didn’t know why exactly, but they just liked having Jesus or Innocencio or Heriberto around. The ladies believed that they did better work than those “other ones.”
But I feel my talents are most useful with the street kids. The first thing I did was tap the princesses for a big clothes drive. That was inspired. The ladies got to clean out their closets, make room for the new season, and tell their husbands they didn’t have a thing to wear because they’d given all their clothes away to the needy. Not that any of the street kids wanted to panhandle in a pink-and-green-flowered Lilly Pulitzer sundress. No, I dressed some of the more promising ones in L.L. Bean and then had them distribute our haul to an assortment of consignment stores where the designer castoffs were received with delight and dollars.
It was good training for the kids to pass in the straight world and to see how much more people liked you right off the bat when your death’s head tattoo was covered by a perky Abercrombie blouse. The kids decided to make clothes drives a regular thing. They used some of the proceeds to start a scholarship fund at the beauty college where Kat and Nikki are studying, then spent the rest of the money on dozens of little bottles of hand sanitizer to pass out on the street, rooms for sick kids, and unauthorized purchases of Bacardi Breezers.
My real gift to them, though, is that they know they can never put anything over on me. The ones who’ve been on the street the longest recognize me for the scammer/grifter I will always be. So they listen when I impart the sort of wisdom Millie never had access to. Like how to charm and flatter when you need to; how to get Mom’s boyfriend off you; how to pretend to be a lot better person than you are until you actually become a better person. With the aid of the little dodges and scams I guided them through, they started helping whoever needed it the most.
Jaguar was their first candidate. Unfortunately, he disappeared without a word, or even a growl, before we had a chance to do much for him. I cruise the alleys at night searching for Jaguar, but so far have had no luck. The street kids leave out saucers of milk. Others who’ve never known Jaguar or his story have been picking up the tradition. The Drag is now do
tted with dozens of little saucers of milk, like offerings to the elephant-headed god Ganesh.
After their stay at Seneca House, the ladies’ lives changed as well. Kippie Lee gave up on trying to hold her wrecked marriage together and went for the jugular, reclaiming as much of her family money as she could, then quickly became the biggest star among Austin’s philanthro-socialites. Cookie Mehan moved out full-time to the family ranch to grow heirloom tomatoes and run an underground railroad for illegals passing through the dangerous country. Her weight remained the same, but she lowered her body fat to seven percent leading mojados safely across the border. Morgan Whitlow found a girlfriend, and they raise miniature horses together in Bastrop. Bamsie and Jerome continue a mad monologuing affair via telephone that keeps Bamsie’s marriage afloat and Jerome hanging on to the sunny side of sanity.
For most of the ladies, however, their interlude at Seneca House was nothing more than a brief recess, an unexpected vacation from their real lives. For a few days, they enjoyed the weightless feel of not caring. Then they went right back to obsessing over carbs and wrinkles, polished nickel fixtures and powder rooms.
As I grind my way back up the long hill from Pease Park to Seneca House, sweat brims over the dam of my eyebrows and spills across my sunglasses. I hit a bump in the pavement and hard-boiled eggs clank in the tin pans, pots rattle in the metal cart. The terrain flattens when I approach Nuts Street. Drenched and out of breath, I glide to a stop in front of the house.
Three new residents, Amy, Megan, and Joe—I call them the Little Women—are sitting out on the front porch drinking iced tea and smoking cigarettes. They are part of the new crop that moved in after I found decent jobs for Olga, Juniper, Doug, and Sergio at salaries large enough to allow them to vacate Seneca House.
