Almost Home

by Jessica Blank

  Squid’s the opposite: I can tell he thinks Tracy’s hot, the way he flashes his not-so-pearly whites and gets all chattery and energetic. Really she looks like a rat or a weasel, but I can see what he means; she’s probably a wildcat, you can tell. She has that thing the way she looks you in the face and leans her hips forward, shows her neck.

  The first night Tracy and Critter are up all night like some perverted slumber party and it doesn’t get quiet till the sky gets light. I’m hoping to get a decent sleep the next night, or the one after that, but instead I lie there with my back to them, curled around my stomach while they laugh the kind of laugh that only happens when you’re having sex. If we had doors they’d probably close them, but we don’t. No doors, no roofs, no walls was the best thing about sleeping out here, but I never had anything get in the space around my ears and stay there like some fucking mosquito. I always could slap it away. Not now.

  At first I’m thinking Tracy’s a temporary condition like a cold or a hangover, but pretty soon she turns into the story of my life. The two of them are always holding hands and shit, when Tracy lets him; when she doesn’t he watches her sideways to see when she’ll change her mind. The times when she ignores him I try to squeeze into the space it leaves between them and crack it open, get Critter to come with me to the Dollar Chinese or anywhere. But he’s glued to her face, waiting, like a guy in a cubicle watching the clock.

  Soon enough she turns back to him, sudden and sharp like the bell at the end of the school day, lets him know it’s time. Then they take off to shoot up, find some Dumpster to duck behind. I guess I can understand it: shit lasts a lot longer shared between two people than it does between five. And I don’t really like junk anyway; it’s too much work, with the needles and the cooking and the blood. Beer’s cleaner: in one end, out the other. But still. When they leave I always feel relieved at first, glad to get a break from their big thick vibe that spreads out and pushes at everything around them like some kind of poison cloud. I’ll inhale smog and feel like I can breathe again. But then I look both ways into the space beside me, and all of a sudden there’s too much air for me to swallow by myself.

  It’s not like I ever have to, though; they always come back no matter what I want or don’t. With Critter there, Squid splits back off into fairy land with Rusty, finally leaves me alone. So it’s the three of us left over. Critter, me, and Tracy. Great.

  Tracy loves Benito’s so we go there for chicken tacos; me and Critter split it. It’s almost like a double date, us guys up at the counter ordering through the bulletproof window, but then I remember there’s only one girl, which kind of throws the whole thing off. When the food comes up Critter brings it over to Tracy and they spin around on their stools and pick at the tinfoil. Steam spurts out of the holes their fingers make and I’m surprised it doesn’t burn them. My burrito isn’t up yet and I stay by the window, watching the big mass of meat sizzle on the grill inside the taco stand. I wonder how long it’ll take for it to turn from red to gray.

  For a while I watch the slab of beef change color and imagine what if Eeyore was around. It would balance things out; me and Critter could kick around the sidewalks while she and Tracy walked behind us, doing whatever girls do when they walk behind guys. Once in a while Critter and I would turn around and holler back, and they’d say something that made us laugh and then we’d all go get a 40. I could get used to it probably, having girls around for sex and whatever. I’m starting to feel okay for the first time in about ten days, waiting for my burrito and thinking about that, but when I crunch up my brain and really try to picture it I can’t imagine Eeyore in the alley with us since now she’s probably wrapped up safe in bed at home by dark, and then I remember that’s because she’s like twelve years old.

  My burrito comes up; I bring it over and sit down. It looks weird when I open up the tinfoil, too big somehow and soggy, not like the neat and perfect tacos that Critter and Tracy are almost finished with by then. I try to remember when was the last time I worried about things looking neat and perfect, and then I decide I like how my food is all big and clumsy and doesn’t fit with anything. Fuck them. I pull apart the gluey tortilla, leave black fingerprints on the dough. All the colors mush together when you eat it anyway.

  Tracy stands up, pulls on Critter’s hoodie, and says “Let’s go.” My mouth is full of tortilla glue so I can’t tell her to hang on. I figure Critter’ll pull her back down to the orange stool, spin her around till I’m done. But he stands right up like she’s some general and he’s started taking orders. I spit out lettuce and sour cream on the pavement telling them to wait.

  Critter puffs up his chest but Tracy points her eyes down her nose and goes “No, it’s okay,” like a fairy godmother granting me a wish. I still wind up choking my food down without chewing so it gums up in my throat and I can’t talk.

  The next day I’m on my way back down from Hollywood with donuts, two whole bags I’ve Dumpstered, rushing before the grease soaks through the paper. Nobody’s eaten since yesterday afternoon; knowing it makes me psyched to hand over my score, like it’s a Christmas present or something. Providing for the tribe. I’m almost even happy thinking how they’ll say “Thanks, man,” and eat.

  The four of them are standing around loose and untied, shuffling on the sidewalks; then Critter looks up and sees me coming. Instead of waving hey or running toward the food, he right away goes to Tracy and wraps his arm around her waist. Tight, without taking his eyes off me. Like someone’s dad.

  If she’d seen the whole thing she’d’ve probably kicked his ass, but she didn’t, so instead she just reaches down and squeezes it instead. He laughs and sinks his teeth into her neck. When I get up to them his face is buried there, his eyes looking up at me over her like Dracula. After a second he pulls his face out of her, but he keeps his arms around her waist, watching me like I’m about to make some kind of move. All I do is put the donuts down. Critter doesn’t reach for them even though I know he hasn’t eaten in a day. But Tracy wriggles out of his arms and goes right for the bag, sticks her grubby skinny fingers in and starts pulling donuts out, one by one. The first one she sniffs; the second she pulls sprinkles off of, the third one which is coconut she actually takes a bite from. Then she throws them on the sidewalk like they’re candy wrappers. She does it with all nine donuts; then she looks up at me and says “The guy over at Winchell’s gives them to me fresh.” I bet he fuckin’ does. “These are gross.”

  I don’t care that she probably has a knife in her boot, I want to break her turned-up snotty little nose. She just stares at me, eyes slitted, wasted donuts ringed around her feet, chocolate and rainbow sprinkles flaked off on the filthy sidewalk. Then she takes her worn-down heel and grinds it into an apple fritter so the white insides smush out of the tan outsides and the sugar mixes up with shit-stains and dirt. She keeps her eyes on me the whole time like some kind of cowboy.

  Rusty and Squid both half laugh in that nervous way you do when there’s a fight starting up that you want to stay out of. I know if she was anyone else but Tracy, Critter’d be on me to kick her ass till her teeth broke, and he’d have my back too. But she’s not. She’s Tracy. So he looks down at her in this almost-proud way, except he’s not even really looking at her, just gluing his eyes to the back of her head so they don’t have to come up and meet mine. I stare right at him for thirty seconds at least. I can’t say his name. Then this weird salty knot plugs up the back of my throat, and behind my eyes gets hot and I feel wet come up in them. I look down at my feet fast, but Tracy sees. “Fuckin’ pansy ass,” she says. Then she laughs.

  The next morning Squid asks me if I want donuts for breakfast. I almost kick his ass but he says “Chill out, I’m not Tracy, man.” So I tell him fuck off and take his 40 from his bag, and he lets me, which evens things out.

  After the whole donut thing I went to Benito’s. Even when the cops rode by three times that afternoon, circled around and drove back, I didn’t leave, in case Critter came. Eve
n when the trannies strutted by in their skanky leopard miniskirts and purple plastic heels and told me get my smelly ass into a shower, I just sat there waiting. I thought Critter’d know to find me there, but after I watched two slabs of beef change color and he didn’t show up I wondered if he thought I ditched him.

  The whole next two days he and Tracy both are gone. I start thinking that it’s maybe my fault, like when you lose your mom in the store and you think you might’ve gone to the wrong place to find her and that’s why she isn’t coming back. So I just wait in the places I know he’d expect me: Benito’s, Winchell’s, 7-Eleven. I don’t even go up to Dollar Chinese. One time I take a piss in an alley I know he’s never been to and spend four hours afterward wondering if he came back and I missed him.

  By the time him and Tracy show up again I’m still ready to break Tracy’s teeth, but she marches up to me all friendly with her hips tilted forward, stands too close and goes “Hey, Scabius, we missed you.” I’m not sure if she’s fucking with me so I look over at Critter. This time he keeps his face up and smiles.

  Tracy goes over to Rusty and Squid, and for a second Critter and me are alone again. I sink into it like it’s a mattress. I didn’t know how wound up I’d been, like when you’re starving and don’t know it till you smell food. Now I know we’ll be back in the alleys tonight when it gets dark, the sky wrapped around us, no walls, and for once Tracy’ll stay quiet enough to let us sleep, and in the morning we’ll scrounge each other breakfast. Maybe pizza.

  I want to ask Critter if he’s mad at me but I don’t know the words. So instead I ask if him and Tracy found somewhere good to sleep. Maybe the crew could use a change of scenery anyway; we’re always looking for new alleys. When I ask him he takes this weird pause, picking at his sleeve, and then says “Yeah, actually, but it’s not someplace we could all go to,” and I say “What do you mean,” and he says, too loud, “Well it’s a motel, it costs money,” and I forget about him maybe being mad and I say “What?”

  Critter and me swore back in Reno we’d never pay for a roof. It was the first thing we ever talked about, on the sidewalk staring at the Slurpee-sucking tourists who worked all day to box themselves up in walls. Critter knew it was fucked just like I did and wanted something truer, something free; that’s how I knew I knew him, why he lent me five bucks and brought me here to Hollywood.

  When you think someone’s mind matches yours, when they tell you it does and you see that it’s true, and then they go and do the opposite, there’s gotta be a reason. Some force that pushes them to make them move the other way. I don’t have to think too hard to know what—or who—that force is here. You could call it whipped, I guess, or sellout, but it’s really worse. Tracy makes him suck up all the shit they say you’re supposed to live by: four walls and bedrooms and boyfriends and girlfriends. Paying money to tuck yourself into their wasteful scared world and pretend you’re so safe you don’t have to try and survive. Playing house in someone else’s soft warm bed with clean-bleached sheets and covers thick enough for you to hide in. She makes him want all of that and believe that he can have it too.

  And the believing is the most fucked-up part of it all, because you can’t have that kind of shelter; not him, not anyone; there’s no place that’s safe, it’s all a fuckin’ illusion, and believing in it eats your life away till there’s nothing left but hollow walls and a hard ceiling.

  I look at Critter and try to think of how to explain it to him, remind him, set him free.

  The problem is he’s a lost cause. I’ve known it since he stepped out of that Escalade with the shit-eating grin and said “Guys, this is Tracy.” He’s too fuckin’ stoned on her to think straight, and he won’t sober up. He doesn’t want to. Just to test it out I ask him where they went. He stutters for a second, but then he puffs up again and says “The Vagabond Inn, you know, over on Vine,” like he’s bragging about some shit he scored, so proud I know it’s hopeless. If I burst his bubble now he’d just blame me for being the pinprick. So instead I crack a smile through my gritted teeth and say, “Oh yeah? That’s cool, man,” and start thinking of another way.

  It takes a couple days, but finally I get the idea: hit her. I’ve wanted to do it since that day with the donuts anyway. I wouldn’t have to break any bones or hurt her even, just piss her off enough that she’d decide it wasn’t worth it and she’d go away. The idea comes together all at once; I guess that’s what they call a stroke of genius. Inspiration. Even when I pick it apart it all works: Tracy likes Critter, sure, but she needs him less than Eeyore did, and Eeyore left when I made her. And it’s not like leaving would be some big loss for Tracy. I’m sure she did fine on her own for a long time before us. So I figure it won’t take that much to make her go.

  I’ll pull her back behind the 7-Eleven just like Eeyore; no one ever comes back there. She and I can have our little talk, I’ll teach her a lesson, she’ll get pissed and take off; the fog will quit clogging Critter’s brain and he’ll be back. It’s perfect, really, the way things sometimes fit like puzzles when you see them in your head. I just have to wait till Critter leaves her side.

  It doesn’t take nearly as long as I think: the next night Critter has to go meet his connection at Donut Emporium, which is fifteen long blocks down. I know it takes him forty-five minutes to walk each way, plus the waiting and the deal. Plenty of time to do what I need to do and solve the problem.

  Rusty and Squid are up on Hollywood, spanging or whatever; I’ve been the third wheel with Critter and Tracy all afternoon, waiting. I keep my eyes on the purple sky while the sun goes down and I don’t even say shit when Tracy calls me Critter’s bitch and laughs. It’s amazing what you can sit through when you know something else is coming.

  Finally the sun sinks below the low buildings and the clock inside 7-Eleven stretches its arms all the way across, 9:15, and snaps into place. Critter grabs Tracy’s ass and bends down to kiss her so her back bows backward and she opens up her mouth. I stand there watching while they of course don’t notice; I think to myself that I hope he likes kissing her ’cause it’s the last one. I feel bad for about two seconds that he’ll miss her, but then I remember it’s for his own good she’ll be gone.

  It’s different pulling Tracy back behind the Dumpsters than with Eeyore. Eeyore was little, and soft, and I knew she’d come with me no matter how much she kicked around on the way. Tracy’s little too, but in this weird way she feels bigger than me, or maybe harder. That dirty too-strong feeling I’d had with Eeyore, like I was made out of rusty metal that could cut her? Well Tracy’s about twenty-seven times rustier than me, and sharpened up too. I know I have to catch her quick and get her back there quicker, before she turns that rusty blade around on me.

  I get her by the arm, not hard enough to make her think I’m hurting her, and say “Come on” calm enough so she’ll maybe feel like it’s normal, and she does. She looks up at me squinting for a second like, What’s this about, but I just look at her like there’s a reason, like drugs or whatever, and she comes with me.

  When we get back there it’s not like I planned, though: I just stand there. I can’t hit her. Not out of the blue. It’s not that I’m scared or anything, it’s just too weird. Like, there we are standing in the alley, facing each other, and I can’t just punch her out of nowhere, go from zero to eighty in two seconds. My muscles won’t do it. I don’t know how to start. Plus weirdly my throat is feeling dry and I’m all jumpy like I took some speed or something, and I don’t know what to do with my hands.

  But she’s looking at me like I’m wasting her time, and I know I’ve got about ten seconds before she gives up on me and goes back to the sidewalk to keep trapping Critter in that cushy fake world, one motel room at a time, and then I’ll be fucked. I have to do something.

  I don’t know how I got her up against the wall exactly. I just know one second my hands were heavy at my sides like they were dead and I couldn’t pick them up, and after that there’s this flash that sort of shoots
through me and I’m on the other side of the alley, Tracy between me and the brick of the building, and I’m pressing hard enough to flatten her out, her razor ribs sticking into my stomach, her sour junkie breath in my mouth.

  Her tongue is like a fish, hardly even flopping around, just laying there all meaty and thick. It makes me want to make her move it. I know she could if she wanted to.

  I try with my tongue but she just keeps hers dead, so then I use my teeth and her blood comes into my mouth all metal-tasting. That wakes her up and she slaps me, hard, one time, in the face. Her eyes look like a cat with rabies and they stop me for a second, just long enough for her to swipe at me. Her fingernails get near my eye and I pull back scared, but then I feel the pain from it spread like hot needles across my cheek and it makes me shove her by the ribs back into the wall and grab her wrist with my other hand. My muscles have that too-strong feeling surging through them harder than I’ve ever felt before, and I know I could let Tracy go right then, send her home like Eeyore and she probably wouldn’t come back.

  I know that’s what I’m supposed to do, the right thing or whatever, and when I think of Eeyore’s big-eyed face there’s this soft little buckle that happens in my chest, squishy and so sweet it’s almost rotten. But then I look at Tracy’s zitty cheeks, her hickeyed neck, her skin washed out like an old paper towel, and I know the difference between her and Eeyore is that Tracy doesn’t have a home to go to, and the even bigger difference is that she wants into mine. My friends, my world, my patch of street. If I let her in she’ll chip away at me and Critter till there’s nothing left between us but a big square of sidewalk that she’ll come in and stand on. Then she’ll grab him by the balls and cart him off to some pretend-safe motel and tuck him in. Away from our roofless world and everything that matters and is real.