Almost Home

by Jessica Blank

  I want to do what she said, just get up and get away from her and go, but I can’t leave her and Rusty here. They wouldn’t know how to get back without me. So I just go, “You know what? Fuck you, Eeyore.”

  I don’t even know why. It’s not really what I mean. I just want to push her away because she makes me feel so bad. I hear the edge in my voice when I say it: I remind myself of someone else, although I’m not sure who.

  Rusty looks up at me then, with this look I can’t quite read, half disappointed and half scared. Like I suddenly have someone else’s face. “Squid?”—he says it like a question.

  “What?” I go. My voice sounds hard and sudden. He flinches. Then he doesn’t talk.

  “What?” I go again. I can’t stand not knowing what he’s going to say. His mouth stays shut. He looks like he just got busted and doesn’t have an explanation for it. But I want to make him give me one. I keep staring at him.

  Finally he just says “Nothing. It’s cool, man.” It sounds weird in his mouth, like he really wants to say something else. I can’t tell what, though. Then he looks at Eeyore, then at me. “Right?”

  After a minute I go “Yeah, I guess.” Eeyore’s still got snot on her lip, but she doesn’t say anything. Germ flops over on his side. No one talks. I lie down next to Germ, my back to them, and listen to him pant. After a second Rusty and Eeyore lie down too, first him, then her. My eyes are closed but I hear them. I keep my eyes shut, slow my breath so they’ll think I’m asleep and the whole thing can be over. That noisy itchy feeling starts to creep up inside again, even though I’m not even by myself, not really. The car sounds outside layer on top of each other, building, and I brace myself for another night awake. I must be tired, though: before the noise can take over I pass out.

  I’m awake already when the dark starts to lift. Little streams of light leak in through the cracks in the wood of the shack.

  The windows make squares on the ground; dust swirls around inside them. I lean in and shake Rusty’s shoulder. He opens his eyes right at me, surprised to see my face so close. He blinks twice and then looks at me normal. “Hey,” he goes, and smiles a little. I can tell there’s nothing else he wants to say instead. My heart’s been high up near my throat since last night, but now it settles back into the right place in my chest. Rusty glances over at Eeyore, who’s still sleeping on the red dirt floor. She looks like a little kid, curled up on her side, one hand up by her mouth and one between her knees. “Do you think she’s okay?” Rusty whispers.

  “Yeah,” I say, because I don’t really know any other answer.

  By the time it’s bright out I’ve bought everybody breakfast. We even went to Jack in the Box, which costs way more than donuts. It took me down to the last fifty cents I panhandled this week, but I wanted to make sure everyone knows I’m not an asshole. At the register Rusty went digging in his sock. I saw he had some cash wadded there, but I told him to quit it. Eeyore just took the food without looking at me and her cheeks turned red.

  When we get back to Benito’s Critter’s already there, squatted down on the parking lot curb. He’s with this other guy. The guy’s probably seventeen and he’s that kind of redhead whose eyelashes and eyebrows are all orange too, freckles blanketing his face and arms over the sunburn. He’s wearing black patched-up Carhartts and a bull ring through his nose. His T-shirt says Crass. He’s fiddling with the hardware knotted into his crusty red dreadlocks, steel rings and black rubber and nuts without the bolts, and he won’t look at us. I can tell he’s mean. Critter’s pissy too, in some mood about something. The two of them just sit there in that mood like it’s a couch.

  I have to walk right up to the guy and stare him down before he’ll even look at us. “Hey,” I go. “I’m Squid.” And he doesn’t even talk, just raises his eyebrows like there’s something I’m supposed to do. I don’t do anything. Finally Critter says “I know Scabius from back in Reno. I ran into him on Hollywood this morning.”

  Rusty slouches back behind my shoulder, chewing on his hand. At first Eeyore does too, and it’s like there’s two little groups, them on the curb and the three of us standing. I spread out my shoulders so there’s room back there for Eeyore and Rusty both. Eeyore stays back there. For a minute I think maybe she might be okay with me again.

  But then she darts out and squats down by Critter on the curb. Even though he seems mad, way madder than yesterday, and even though Scabius is coiled beside him like a guard dog, she goes right back to Critter. I know she’s got a crush on him, but it still makes me feel bad. Like even Critter pissed off, with some weird guy, is better than me buying breakfast.

  As soon as Eeyore sits down he starts swearing: JuanCarlo stiffed him last night, took all his money but didn’t give him his drugs. Eeyore looks over at Scabius and starts to say something about how if she was there Juan-Carlo wouldn’t have done that, but Critter’s eyes flash hard and it makes her shut up. She scrunches up her shoulders and leans away but watches from the side, like Germ does with me when he’s in trouble. She knows not to push it any further once she gets caught. All she can do is try and make herself invisible so he won’t turn it on her.

  It’s obviously not the first time Scabius has heard the story of Juan-Carlo. He doesn’t say anything, but you can feel him backing Critter up, feeding it. Critter swears some more and then finally jumps up and starts tearing around the parking lot, like water that was heating up and heating up and all of a sudden boiled. He throws his backpack down, yells how he’s got nothing left now. His face is pink, like in a movie when the main guy gets mad and hurls a chair against a wall. And it’s a pretty noisy show he’s putting on, but I can tell he’s sort of acting. Half of him is actually mad, but the other half is doing it on purpose. Part of him has got the whole thing under control. If he was really all that angry, my stomach would crawl and my head would get noisy and I’d feel that hit-dog thing that Eeyore did. And I don’t.

  The hookers turn their heads to watch; the tallest one in leopard print and purple shoes puts her hand in her purse, and a guy parking his BMW nearby looks nervous. Critter notices the guy and gets louder. I think I know why he’s pretending to be the mad guy in the movie. I can guess what he’s thinking: if he freaks out loud enough, one of us will offer to put up cash so he can buy another round of shit to sell. Just asking would be a whole lot easier, but guys like Critter never think anyone will give them anything unless we’re scared.

  I’d help him, maybe, but I’m tapped out after Jack in the Box. He’s not going to get much from anyone else here either, I don’t think. Eeyore never has money, even though she can always find food. Rusty’s clutching his sock from the side, and I know what’s inside it but he’s not talking. And Scabius doesn’t seem the type to help anyone out with anything. He just watches all of us like a wolf figuring out where everyone is in the pack.

  Critter bounces back toward us, his face red, breathing heavy. “Fuck,” he goes and collapses, acting like he’s giving up so one of us will tell him not to.

  Eeyore’s watching him. She’s not hunching like a scolded dog anymore. She’s standing up. All of a sudden. “Come on,” she says to him. “Let’s go back to my house. I’ve got money there.”

  Of course that stops everything. “You have a house?” Critter asks her.

  She stammers a little, pulls back, quits standing up so straight. “Well, it’s not my fucking house,” she says, throwing the fucking in to make sure she sounds tough. “It’s my stepmom’s. And my dad’s.”

  “They live here?” Critter goes. Eeyore nods. “Fuck,” Critter says. There’s a minute where we all look at each other: it’s a little fucking weird that Eeyore has a house, especially one she can go back to. It sort of makes her not exactly one of us. And we all know it. And it looks like Eeyore just figured it out too. And there’s this long pause. Then Critter looks at Scabius and goes “Well, I’m not going to anybody’s fucking house.”

  Eeyore gets this look like she wants to reach out into the air i
n front of her mouth and swallow it all, like she wants to take back time, but she knows she can’t and so she’s frozen there, panicked. Her mouth moves a little but she doesn’t say anything. It hardly looks like she’s breathing. I wonder if she’s going to cry.

  I say, “I’ll go with you.”

  Critter’s still pink in the face and he throws a little of it in my direction. Scabius catches it and copycats, shooting me a scowl like an echo. I don’t mind, though. I know Critter had to say he wasn’t going and stick to it, just like I have to say I’ll go. I peek over at Rusty: that look he had in the shack last night, the half-disappointed and half-nervous one, is all gone now, and now his face is something more like admiration. I hand him Germ’s leash.

  “Here,” I go. “Will you watch him?” I never leave Germ with anyone. But right now I know he’ll be okay with Rusty. And I know Germ’ll look out for Rusty too.

  I pet Germ on the head and leave his water bottle. I say to Eeyore “Come on.” Her face is still half frozen and I know she wants to hate me, except that I just saved her ass.

  Eeyore and I walk up Vine until the street narrows and the fast-food places turn into expensive coffee shops. Then grocery stores, and then just hills. After a while there aren’t any sidewalks so we walk in the street. We pass the Scientology Celebrity Centre that looks like a country club from the outside or a fancy hotel, green hard hedges flat and tall, high enough to keep out the people like us. The guards in their weird old-fashioned uniforms glare at us with blank eyes, white marble pillars tucked behind them. The whole time we’ve been gone, Eeyore hasn’t said anything to me.

  To tell you the truth, I’m happy to not talk to her. I still don’t know how to explain last night. It still feels weird and knotted up in my chest like hair in a drain, and the best I can do to rinse it out is come with her and let her lead the way. I don’t know how to do any better than that. Even though it’s probably not enough.

  She keeps seeming like she wants to say something, looking over in my direction and then down at asphalt or out at palm trees and parking lots. I can see when she’s looking at me, but I pretend I can’t. I’m like Annabelle right before she left for Berkeley: I knew she knew when I was looking at her, even though she pretended not to. I used to hate that. And now I’m doing it. It’s funny how easy it is to do the things you hate, the things you promise yourself you’ll never do. You look at grown-ups, tucked into their falling-apart houses, lying till they hit each other and you say you’ll never be like that but who knows? It’s easier than you think.

  It just happens. Even when almost everyone who showed you how to do things showed you wrong, and screwed you up, and left; even when you have promised yourself in fifteen different sets of sheets and in freight trains and on sidewalks, staring up at stars, that you will do it different from all the people who have done it wrong and hurt you, still you do it the same. Still you do the same shit to everybody else that they have done to you. I know it must be possible to keep promises. There must be people who say things and mean them and who can make the words turn real. But I’ve never met one. I keep trying to be something I’m not even sure exists. I’ve promised myself so many times that I won’t be like so many people, and I still do it anyway. I still make people cry, and laugh at them, and I know as soon as everyone really sees me they’ll all leave again and I’ll be left with the noise not being able to sleep.

  The clouds are graying the sky and we’re up at the top of a hill. You can see the smog blanket and the blinking canyon of Los Angeles below. My legs hurt. Eeyore steers us through a gateway into a corridor of flowers, hot pink and orange with the petals shaped like leaves. It’s weird how L.A. is a city but once you get into rich people’s yards it’s like you’re in a crazy jungle forest made of flowers. You can hardly see the house.

  I follow her up to the front door. She already looked in the driveway. There’s no car, so she doesn’t try to be quiet. She digs under a flowerpot for the key. I make a note in my head where it is, even though I know I’ll never come back and steal from here without her. Habit, I guess.

  She doesn’t seem embarrassed that we’re here. In front of Critter she felt like a loser even saying she had parents, worried he would think she wasn’t cool. She has no idea probably that he’s just jealous. Now she’s puffed up and brave-acting, like kids who break into houses in movies. All tough shoulder swagger, one hand in her magenta hair. Her other hand shakes gripping the key in the lock.

  She wiggles it open anyway, though, and it creaks. We go into the front hall which is covered in beige carpet, so clean it’s almost shiny. We both get boot prints on it. I tell her sorry and bend down to rub mine out with my shirt: I’ve stolen enough to know you don’t leave tracks. But she just goes “It’s cool, man” and motions me back up before I’m done. I let her be in charge, even though I know it’s not a good idea. It’s funny how she acts like Critter when he’s not around.

  She says “Come on” and heads upstairs to the living room. I’ve never been inside a house like this. Some of my fosters had money, but just the small-town-in-Arizona kind, never like people in big cities have. The best I’ve seen is stucco ceilings, little wooden tables, and a comfortable plaid couch. Mostly the houses I’ve been in have holes in the walls. But this one has fancy peach paint and a big leather couch and a TV that’s stretched out flat like a movie screen. Part of the floor is cold gray marble and the other part is wood, and lights hang from the ceiling like the kind you see through windows inside fancy restaurants. There are even miniature palm trees growing inside in pots. I feel like I’m in a TV show.

  Eeyore goes to the kitchen. The refrigerator is huge and shiny silver. She grabs my backpack off my back and starts stuffing it. Peanut butter, hummus, juice. She’s taking so much I get scared someone will notice, but when I look in the refrigerator it’s still packed so full that you can’t really tell. I know she’s still mad at me from yesterday: she hasn’t talked to me except to tell me what to do and where to go. The more she takes, though, the happier she seems. She’s proud, I think, is what it is.

  Between jars clinking in the fridge there’s a clunk from down the hall. She doesn’t stop until I put my hand on her wrist, my breathing slowed way down, and tell her “Shhh.” She slides some cheese into my bag and stops to listen. My ears are like a rabbit.

  There’s another clunk. And then a doorknob twisting, and then footsteps. “Shit,” I whisper. I look for windows we can climb out of. There aren’t any; all of them have screens. The feet get fast and louder.

  Then they come into the kitchen. I guess the lady’s Eeyore’s mom, even though she doesn’t look a thing like her. She’s in a business suit and panty hose, no shoes, like she was taking a nap in the middle of work. Her brown hair is blow-dried and she’s pretty in that brittle sort of way. Her eyes go wide open when she sees us.

  She looks at Eeyore: her face crumples up like she’s about to cry, and she yells “Elly!” She starts to run to her, tears spilling out. But then she looks at me.

  Her eyes narrow into little slits. I’ve gotten that face before, but usually from cops. I follow her gaze down onto my shirt and shorts and boots. I watch as her lip curls at the dirt. There’s almost as much on her own kid’s clothes, but she can’t see it. All she can see is me. I watch it take five seconds for a story to click into place: for everything to become my fault inside her head. Then she turns right back to Eeyore.

  “Is this what you ran away to be with?” she says. Like it’s hardly a question, like I’m hardly a person. She’s giving Eeyore that slit-eyed cop look now.

  “No,” Eeyore goes, like Duh, and makes a face like That was the stupidest question on earth. Her mom doesn’t buy it. She turns back to me.

  “How old are you?”

  “Sixteen,” I tell her.

  “Do you know how old Elly is?” she asks me.

  “Thirteen?” I guess.

  “Twelve. She’s twelve years old. You have taken a twelve-year-old out of her
house and put her in God knows what kind of danger. I don’t know who you are or what you think you are doing, but you are not going to do it with my daughter.”

  “I’m not your daughter,” Eeyore mutters.

  The woman flips around. “What?”

  “You’re not my fucking mom, Linda,” Eeyore says. Her voice is quiet and mad.

  It’s obviously true, because it stops Linda for a second. But just a second: “You know what, young lady? I don’t care. I’m tired of you raking me over the coals because I’m not your mother. I’ve had it. Your father and I work ourselves to the bone to give you everything. And then you run off with—” She can’t even say it; she just looks at me. When I look back her eyes ricochet right off my face and land on Eeyore.

  “You don’t give me anything,” Eeyore says. She’s angry like the cherry of a cigarette, but also small, and scared. Everyone else in the room is bigger than her, could rub her out beneath our shoes.

  “Aside, of course, from the food you’re stealing from my refrigerator. That’s it. You’re staying here, and this”— she looks at me like she doesn’t know what to call me, like she wants to spit—“boy is leaving. Right. Now.”

  I’ve got no objections to leaving. In fact, I’d like to do it immediately. But I can see on Eeyore’s face that she can’t stay. And I remember from last night the reason why.

  There’s a face-off. Eeyore just stands there, silent. Her body’s like steel but her face is trembling. I can see tears start to well up in her eyes. I know once they spill out it’ll be over: she’ll crumble and stay. Eeyore is little and Linda is bigger and Critter’s not here for Eeyore to run to and I’ve been in enough bad houses to know what it means if she stays.

  “She’s leaving.” I hear myself say it: my heart’s loud in my ears like last night and blood runs fast into my fingertips.

  Both of them turn to look at me. Linda’s still in charge: she squints at me like I’m a bug she wants to step on. I try again, louder—“She doesn’t want to stay with you”—and before I can even finish the words she’s yelling at me. She says “Get out” and “I’m calling the police.” But she doesn’t make a move for the phone.