by Heidi Ayarbe
Purpose: Find Aunt Sarah
Hypothesis: If I find Aunt Sarah, she will take me into her home and I won’t have to be in foster care, and we will be a happy family.
But that hypothesis doesn’t work. Because it doesn’t include all the constants: me, Nicole, and now Klondike.
Hypothesis: If I show up at Aunt Sarah’s door, old locket in hand proving I’m her niece, with two other runaways, she’ll close the door on our faces and call the police.
We’re two too many and too much baggage. I hate this hypothesis. It’s way worse than my others, and then the procedure will have to include convincing her to open a kind of foster home for runaways from Nevada. I sigh.
“God, what’s that smell?” Nicole asks.
Klondike skips up to us. “What did you want me to do, let it crowd up around my heart and kill me?”
I inhale and then pinch my nose. “Gross, Klondike.” But I can’t hold back a giggle.
Nicole and I exchange a glance. She hands him a piece of beef jerky. “Come on.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I’ve decided I’m being pretty negative about the plan—and absolutely unscientific. There’s no proof to show that Nicole and Klon will want to stay with my aunt Sarah. Actually, Nicole wants to find her dad. And Klon? I’m not sure. Moreover, there’s no proof to show Aunt Sarah will even want me to stay. My scientific procedure has, so far, been a big shot in the dark. So I think about it all afternoon. We finally get a ride in the back of some guy’s sheep truck, minus sheep, to Jackpot, Nevada. And I come up with something that will work.
I think.
Purpose: Find Aunt Sarah and Nicole’s father
Hypothesis: If I can find Aunt Sarah and explain the situation to her, she might let me stay with her on a trial basis with Nicole until Nicole finds her father.
Materials: Nevada library card, the locket and box of letters, Nicole’s postcards
Procedure:
1) Get to a library to research more about the Boise restaurant connection
2) If I can’t find more about Boise, get to Boise
3) Find somebody who knows Aunt Sarah and get her number
4) Call collect
5) Say, “Surprise! It’s your long-lost niece. I’ve got a locket to prove it.”
6) If that all works, look for Nicole’s dad once we’re living with Aunt Sarah (procedure to come)
Variables: Klondike: Will he want to stay with us? Will he find a new place to live? Information on the net: Will I find a phone number for the restaurants? I can’t very well call any restaurants collect and ask for Sarah Jones, so I need to be pretty certain. Aunt Sarah: Will she even care? That’s a variable I hate to think about. But people are so unpredictable.
Constants: Me, Nicole
I can see the glaring problem. The new hypothesis doesn’t include Klon. But I’ve decided he’s too new to the trip to include in the method. Maybe he just needs a change of scenery. Maybe he’ll find somebody else to travel with. No sense in getting all fussed over him. My details are pretty shaky when I think about the whole procedure, but I can’t imagine all scientists having everything cut and dried from the beginning.
I sigh. I’m thinking the scientific community ought to come up with another method. Or maybe social scientists do something different altogether. I should look into that.
We make it to Jackpot, the last town in Nevada before Idaho. Klondike can’t walk too fast. And he’s always stopping on the side of the road to check out rusted cans, abandoned campsites, road kill. He’s especially interested in road kill.
He’s a little boy.
Klondike sleeps on a pile of cardboard boxes we found. His threadbare coat hangs midstomach, too small to button. His stomach is concave, an empty cavity beneath his covered rib cage.
“What’s the big deal? So instead of two, we’re three,” Nicole says. “And he needs us.”
So when did Nicole go all UNICEF? Geez. “The more people, the more complicated,” I finally say. “He looks younger than ten years old. And nobody wants to pick up kids unless they have some kind of weird porn ring in their basement or something. And I’m not particularly interested in showing up on a carton of milk.”
“You’re so clinical,” Nicole says. “It’s like you don’t give a shit about anybody but yourself and your Goddamn locket.”
“Why is looking out for myself so bad?” But that’s what Dad did. And look where that got us. I clap my hands on my arms and rub up and down. Stupid weather. Too bad Dad didn’t get caught in summer.
“You know what happens to people who don’t look out for others? Watch each other’s backs? They end up alone.” Nicole straightens her back and huffs.
“Well, you’re certainly the model of being surrounded by friends and loved ones,” I say, and hold back from mentioning the clear absence of friends her age at Kids Place.
I stare at Klondike. He shivers and coughs. Nicole’s right. I take off my coat and put it over him. “He doesn’t have any clothes that fit, and that cough sounds pretty nasty.” I turn to Nicole. “You think you can get some cold medicine at the drugstore tomorrow?” I wouldn’t mind some either.
Klondike coughs so hard, I worry his ribs will explode through his paper-thin skin. His eyelids flutter open; then he curls up into a ball, wrapping my coat tight around him. Nicole and I wait until the coughing subsides. All we can hear is the quiet wheeze of his breathing.
“A drugstore,” Nicole mutters. “With all the meth heads it’s not easy anymore—Sudafed freaks.” She talks to herself and sighs.
“I’ll help you,” I say.
“Help me what?”
“Shoplift.”
Nicole raises one eyebrow. “We’re not doing some kind of chemistry lab here. It’s shoplifting.”
“So?”
“So I’m gonna have to teach you.”
“Okay, fine. You teach me.”
“In return for what?”
“I’ll show you how to read.” It’s something I’ve been thinking about. Another procedure, another hypothesis.
Nicole sucks in air. “I know how to read.”
“Okay,” I say. I pull a piece of newspaper from the pile I have on top of me. “Read it.”
Nicole stares at the paper in my hand. She pushes it away. “Whatever. I don’t have anything to prove. I’m not stupid,” she mutters.
“Just because you can’t read doesn’t mean you’re stupid. It just means you never learned.” I shiver and cover myself with the newspapers. “You don’t have anything to lose,” I mutter.
“What’s the theme?” Nicole asks.
“Can’t we drop it today?”
“The rules were one theme per day.” Nicole rubs her hands together and puffs on them.
Yeah. And my original method didn’t include either Nicole or Klondike or living on the streets or the cold or the hunger. I hate that Nicole’s rules are easier to follow.
“Okay,” I say. “Something we wish we did before. Something we regret.”
Nicole fidgets with her coat buttons. “I don’t regret not being able to read. So get off your My Little Pony and stop looking down on me. You’re such a fuckin’ snob.”
“I’m not a snob.”
“Yeah, you are.”
“I am not.”
“You think you’re better than me. So you can vomit science facts. Big deal. So your daddy’s a ‘white collar’ criminal.” Nicole shoved her hands up the coat sleeves. “He’s no better than me shoplifting hot chocolate at the convenience store. He just wears a tie doing it.”
I want to defend Dad. I wish I could tell her that’s not the way it is. But it is. I’ve known it all along. And I like the nice house and clothes anyway.
I lean my head back against the cement wall.
“I tell you,” Nicole says, “you gotta be pretty fuckin’ smart to get through school not knowing how to read. Plus who needs it? Capone didn’t get through school, and look where he ended up?”
“U
m. Dead. I figure.”
“Yeah,” she sighs. “But he was untouchable. He never got killed in all those years. He died of a heart attack, at his home. The greatest mob leader of all time died of a heart attack. In his home. Brilliant.”
“A bit anticlimactic,” I say. I was hoping for something more mobster-like. Pablo-like.
She shakes her head. “That’s the genius of it. Simplicity.”
Her knowledge of how mobsters have died is slightly disturbing. “So what does this have to do with him not finishing high school?” I ask.
“He was making over one hundred million dollars a year at one point. In the nineteen thirties. Who needs high school?”
We sit in silence. I rub my arms and ask, “So how do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Get through school without reading,” I say.
“Memory,” she says.
“Memory?” I ask. “Like how?”
She pauses, then says, “The Bodele Depression. Billions of grains of sands are moved by the wind all around the world, blown across the Atlantic on trade winds. It’s a place where all travel begins.”
I stare at her.
“Close your mouth. I told you I’m not stupid.”
“No kidding,” I mutter. I feel a pang of jealousy. If I had that memory, I wouldn’t have to study so hard. “How do you do that?” I ask.
“What?” she asks.
“Remember. I only said that once. When I thought you weren’t listening.”
“I dunno. I just do.”
“But I don’t get it. How?”
“Okay. When I listen, I picture my brain opening up. My brain’s one of those nineteen twenties bars. You know, filled with flappers and smoke and jazz music. The golden Mafia age, okay?”
“A bar? Your brain is a bar?” I ask.
“You wanna hear it or not?”
I nod.
“So anyway, each person in the bar holds information for me. So when somebody says something, I create a new person depending on the information. The Bodele Depression is a cleaning lady, sweeping up the dust, peanuts, and trash. She’s a descendent of slaves but sings blues and jazz when everybody leaves the speakeasy at dawn. Maybe later on she’ll become famous. I just need more facts to build her up.”
I stare at her. In awe.
“But I have to be interested in the topic to make up the person.”
“You were interested in the Bodele Depression?” I ask.
“Yeah. Hitchhiking sand.” She smiles. “You oughta see the ones I cooked up in sex ed—especially when we went through the venereal diseases. Real characters.”
“I’ll pass,” I say. “You know. Technically nothing is ever forgotten, physiologically speaking. It’s just a matter of recall and retrieval from the wrinkles of the brain. It’s like you’re a master. Think of what you could do if you could read.” My voice fades. Part of me likes having the upper hand there.
If Nicole learns how to read, she won’t need me. My stomach burns more than my throat for a second. Isn’t that what I want, though?
Nicole wipes her nose and leans against the cement building. I watch as she gnaws her fingernails down to the nub. In a weird way, I’m glad Nicole is here. It makes everything less lonely.
“So do you want to learn?” I finally say.
“To read?”
“Yeah. To read.”
“What? So you can save me from myself? So you can feel good about stooping to my level? Maybe you can even put it on your college résumé in bold letters: TAUGHT RUNAWAY TO READ THE NEWSPAPERS SHE WRAPPED HERSELF IN DURING THE NIGHT. Yeah. That’s way Nobel-worthy. For sure. At least I can read the headlines and stock reports before I freeze my ass off and die. Real useful.”
“Look who’s got a chip on her shoulder now,” I say.
“So what’s it to you whether I can read or not?”
“I just don’t want to eat another piece of colon cleaner jerky. And I want to learn how to shoplift.”
Nicole doesn’t say anything for a while. “Okay. Deal.” She pauses and pushes up her sleeves to scratch on a scab. “So what’s the theme of the day?”
“Regrets.”
“I don’t like that theme.”
“My choice,” I say.
Nicole leans back against the building and closes her eyes. Her jaw tenses. “Do you have any sisters or brothers?” she asks.
I shake my head. “Not that I know of.” I rattle the box. “Maybe something here will tell me otherwise.” I laugh.
Nicole doesn’t.
“I did,” Nicole says. “And now I don’t. That’s my regret.”
“How?” I ask.
Nicole looks away. “Crackhead mom in Yerington. Brought all sorts of freaks home. Stupid whore.”
I don’t say anything for a while. “I’m sorry,” I finally say.
She says, “Kids are supposed to have normal, you know? Macaroni and cheese and lemonade stands and all that shit. Not what we had. Not what she had.”
Normal. That would be nice. “Yeah.” I pile another bunch of newspapers on top of me. At least I’ve never felt unsafe with Dad. He might be a con, but he never hurt me. Not really. Does it count that I was sometimes his decoy? So I fell down a few times on slippery floors at banks and office buildings. Four fractures and one serious break—all ending up in cozy settlements. Does that make him a monster?
I look at her arms and remember the cuts she has—two big ones on her wrists—lengthwise.
I wonder who found her. In time.
Will she find her dad after I get to Aunt Sarah? Will she be safe?
“And you, Jeopardy. Your big regret?” Nicole interrupts my thoughts.
I pick at a hangnail. “Five minutes of chasing Jimmy Sanchez around for a hair ribbon.”
“Huh?”
“It was satin. Pink. I remember my mom had braided it into my hair that morning, and he yanked it out.”
“A hair ribbon?” Nicole sneers.
“So I came home late after kindergarten. Five minutes too late. And they couldn’t bring her back. Science,” I say, “like magic, is all about timing.”
“Oh.” Nicole looks in my eyes and looks away.
We sit in the cold alleyway. There’s a pizza restaurant around the corner. Garlic and tomato sauce almost cover the smell of cat crap and pee. Maybe someone will throw out a half-full box. I’ll go look later. I shiver and lean against the wall, trying to find a way to get warm.
“It was cool of you to give Klondike your coat,” Nicole mutters. “We can share mine.”
I move to her side. “You got paper and a pencil?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you tired?”
She shakes her head.
“Tonight we can start,” I say.
“Start what?”
“Reading.”
“And stealing?” she asks.
“Tomorrow.”
“Deal.”
“Deal.” I guess this will be our normal.
Klondike lies next to us curled in a ball. His hair is matted and flops down over his face, covering the leathery skin. His chest rattles when he breathes.
We crouch together under the light of the neon pizza sign. And we begin, one letter at a time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Get up!”
The heavy boot lands on my back. Dizzy with pain, I roll away and crouch in the corner. Nicole and Klondike scramble over to me.
“Who left the cage open so these animals could get out?” The skinhead kicks again, his boot crushing Klondike’s side. I can hear the sickening crack of bone and pull Klondike toward me. He whimpers.
“Fuck, you’re ugly. Nobody should let you out during the day,” a second says. The three of them wear black army boots and painted-on blue jeans. They have chains for belts and their knuckles are chapped and scarred. They all have serpents tattooed on their necks. I stare at the tattoos, trying to distinguish what snakes they’ve chosen. It’s like they’re clone
s—three of the same being. I wonder which one is the original and which ones are copies. I stare at their tattoos and label them Cobra, Rattler, and Mamba.
“Jeopardy,” Nicole elbows me. “Snap out of it.”
Klondike tucks the scarred part of his face against my chest. “Tallywhacker, asswipe.” He coughs, holding his hand out toward them.
I jerk it back. “Don’t touch them,” I say.
Klondike’s body trembles and he taps my shoulder frantically. “Asswipe, asswipe, asswipe,” he repeats.
“What did you say to me, you microwaved piece of shit?” Cobra asks.
“Asswipe. Tallywhacker,” Klondike says, cradling his side. He coughs six times, then hiccups.
“Shut up, Klondike,” Nicole says. “Jesus Christ, Klon. Just. Shut. Up.”
Klon snaps his mouth shut and his whole body tenses up until he has another flurry of fits and tics. “I can’t help it. Asswipe, tallywhacker. Goddammit.” He clenches his fists tight then trembles all over. Every time he says something, his voice drops to that gravelly, creepy sound.
I try to cover Klondike’s mouth, but he jerks away, repeating himself over and over again.
“You’re human shit, littering up this place.” Cobra steps forward.
I look down the alleyway. We’re at least two hundred yards from the street. Cars trickle by.
Nicole flashes me a look. She has her lighter out. I grab onto my piles of newspaper and twist them together. “Hold on to me, Klondike,” I say. “Don’t let go.”
He coughs, blowing on his hands.
The three move toward us, their fists closed. “Now,” whispers Nicole. She lights up the pile of newspapers and each of us holds our torches in front of us. Klondike shrieks and cowers in the corner, blocking himself from the fire; Nicole turns to him and loses her footing. Rattler grabs her hair and throws her to the ground. He punches her in the mouth, blood spattering his shiny black boots.
“Looks like we’ve got ourselves a prize here, guys.” Rattler starts to unzip his pants. “Breakfast with a filthy slut.”
Cobra and Mamba laugh, their bald heads glistening with sweat.
Nicole’s eyes turn dead then. I look from Rattler to Nicole to Klondike kneeling behind me, whimpering about the fire. The snakes are focused on Nicole, holding her down. My stomach burns. Nicole dropped her lighter, and I edge toward it until it’s within my reach. Nicole has turned away from us. Mamba is on his knees, pinning her down.
