by Jodi Thomas
She knew she couldn’t call out for help. The danger would be too great. No one had protected Frank Parker when he said he’d seen the bomber. What if no one protected her? She was safer here in the darkness. In a day, maybe two, the police would find the bomber and this would all be over. She could go home to Mark and pretend these few days never happened.
The patrolman drove away. Within minutes the shadow moved again. Blaine could see the figure as the sky lightened. He moved from tombstone to tree and back in a strange dance of hide-and-seek.
Suddenly she realized that he was only a child. A boy of ten, or maybe twelve.
She didn’t move. Though he seemed harmless, she wasn’t sure she wanted him to know of her. As the day brightened, she picked out details. His clothes were ragged, layered. She knew, without asking, that he wasn’t a child who simply stayed out all night. He was a child of the street. There was nowhere else for him to go.
Suddenly he ran toward the far side of the cemetery.
Blaine didn’t really know why, but she followed. When he reached the fence, he was over it and on the street within seconds. Blaine struggled to keep up, thankful he didn’t turn to look back.
He ran beneath the interstate and down first one street, then another, to where the path turned off into a wooded area running along the creek.
Blaine slowed, staring down at a section of Waller Creek that she’d never noticed before. The city had made the sides of the creeks near downtown beautiful, even building a walking track that wound along the creek’s bank. But only the brave ventured there, and then only in full daylight.
She hesitated, worried about the child, then realized that he was much more in his element than she. Like a shadow she followed, through groves of trees and around picnic tables, along white rock paths that caught the first glow of daylight, down to the stream of water bloated from the rain.
He skipped across a rock and bounded from one side of the creek to the other.
Blaine watched as, once across, he scrambled up a muddy bank to huge pillars bracing up a hotel where the land had given way to the creek. The rocky ground beneath the supports provided a hiding place, with the underbelly of the hotel as a roof. She watched him disappear into the blackness.
Wishing she were brave enough to follow, Blaine squatted low in the brush between two trees. The hiding place beneath the building was perfect, but like sticking a hand down a dark hole to see if there was a snake inside, she couldn’t make herself move. The fear of what waited in the total blackness was far greater than her fear of being out in the open. For the child, the shelter might offer safety, but Blaine wasn’t so sure it would do the same for her.
In a few minutes it would be full light and she could walk the streets once more. Rubbing her hand across her middle, Blaine realized she was starving. It had been a long time since she’d downed her plate of pancakes and half a sandwich.
It was too early for the shelter to be serving breakfast, or “feeding breakfast,” as the homeless called it, but she could move in that direction. She’d be safe in the crowd waiting outside for the shelter to open. Maybe she’d find the two old bag ladies she met yesterday and stand with them.
Traffic was already congested in the streets of downtown, probably cars driven by people like Mark who thought he had to start his day an hour ahead of anyone else. This morning the crowd running past her with briefcases and raincoats over their arms made her sad. They were in their own world. If they pushed a little too hard and she stepped off into the gutter to keep her balance, they wouldn’t notice.
Some passersby carried small bags of doughnuts or rolls bought in one of the shops between the parking garages to their offices. Some juggled coffee. Blaine walked against the flow of traffic.
She weaved into the oncoming stream of people. They shifted and walked around her.
“They don’t see you.” An old man laughed from the doorway of a boarded-up building that looked as if it had been a coffee shop in better times.
Blaine jumped into the doorway as if she were a chess piece taken out of the game, hesitant to talk with a man who looked more like a character from The Hobbit than someone real, but glad someone finally spoke to her.
“Hi.” She liked his friendly, wrinkled face. Weathered with life more than age, it was impossible for her to guess his age. His white beard seemed colored with whiskey at the corners of his mouth and his teeth were badly stained, but his smile was genuine.
She smiled back. “I’m surprised you can see me, no one else seems to. I’m a ghost, you know.”
“I see you, child,” he answered. “Ghost or real, makes no matter to me.”
“How are you?” Blaine felt great saying the everyday greeting to him, realizing how important such nonsense words were when there are no words between people.
The whiskery man laughed. “‘I seem destined to be wed to poverty, but I fear it is not a happy marriage.”’
Blaine laughed, surprised to hear him quote Oscar Wilde.
“You seem lost in your chosen profession of the street,” he added. “May I give you a little advice?”
“Of course.” Blaine would have never believed she’d have talked to a dusty old man probably wearing everything he owned. The layers were thick over him and she wondered if the dirtiest clothing was on top, or next to his skin.
“Walk between the crowds. People in cars or hurrying along on the sidewalk tend to bunch up in groups. Herd mentality, I fear. If you pace yourself, you can walk in the space between and be far safer. When you’re one of the ‘not people,’ the others don’t see you and they won’t notice even if they harm you by pushing you out of the way.”
“Thanks.” Blaine felt the sadness of knowing what he said was true.
“I’d ask for a consulting fee, but you don’t look like you could pay.” He shrugged. “There was a time my advice was valuable.”
“It still is.” She smiled. “But I haven’t a dime. If I did have money, I’d be drinking a cup of coffee right now.”
To her total shock he handed her two quarters. “The place next to the drugstore offers a large coffee for fifty cents and he doesn’t mind if you don’t pay the tax.”
Blaine started not to take the money, but he insisted. “A loan until you find better times.”
“Thanks.” She smiled. “What do I call you?”
“Most folks call me Shakespeare.” The lie slipped too easy off his tongue to be new. “And you?”
Blaine raised her eyebrow, imitating him. “Call me Mary, everyone does.”
Nine
Blaine talked with Shakespeare as they strolled toward the shelter. The little man had a wealth of quotes and a hatred for any type of establishment. He complained about everything from Head Start to Social Security. He would quote Hemingway while he scratched head lice. She guessed he was happy to have found a listener.
The early sun melted the chill from her bones and the stiffness in her muscles as they walked. They were within sight of the shelter when the old man stopped and bowed low before her. “Good morrow, fair lady. Parting is such sweet sorrow.”
“You’re not going to breakfast?” It crossed her mind that he might be embarrassed to eat with her. After all, she looked soiled and wrinkled, with hair burned and matted.
Then she glanced at him and reconsidered. The cuffs of his pants and his jacket were ragged and soiled. His hair hadn’t been combed in days and dark stains marred the already dirty front of his shirt.
“I prefer to drink my breakfast,” he answered, a little embarrassed by his own honesty, “but I thank you for the invitation.”
“I’ll see you again?”
“Perhaps. I make a habit of never being predictable, my dear. The government will find out if I do and tax me for it.” He raised his bushy eyebrow as mirth wiggled across his dirty face. “The question is, will you speak to me when you do see me?”
“Of course,” she said before realizing she may have passed him many times without spea
king. Austin was such a sea of people, homeless, students, government workers, tourists. It would be easy to miss one, or hundreds of faces. “You’re my friend now, I hope.”
“Friends,” he echoed as others walked around them heading into the shelter for breakfast. “One last lesson. Free advice to a friend.”
Blaine leaned closer, ignoring the smell of him.
“‘Be careful who you sit with and call friend, lest you be marked by their dye. Stay silent, your speech gives too much of you away.”’
“Thanks.” Blaine wasn’t sure what he meant about the dye, but he was right about her speech. Mark had often told her he could guess a person’s education by the choice of words he used to describe himself. If she planned to stay lost among the homeless, she would be wise to keep her mouth shut. Also, he was the second person to warn her about the company she kept. First Chipper, at the shelter, now Shakespeare.
Blaine moved down the street into the informal line outside the steps of the shelter. Someone near the front yelled that today they’d be feeding oatmeal. Several groaned, but nobody moved out of place.
The two old bag ladies she’d met yesterday shouted at her to join them. They patted her as if she were an old friend.
No one seemed to care when she cut a few places in line. The one who had given her shoes called her Mary again and asked why she’d stayed at the playground so long when it was getting dark. While the ragged little woman mumbled, she shoved her belongings further into bags and retied each knot as though preparing for a storm.
Blaine could think more clearly today and asked both their names.
The one busy tying her bag said, “I lost my name in a tornado in Lubbock thirty years ago. It’s circling somewhere in the wind but is bound to land one of these days.”
Her friend huffed and answered, “Her name’s Anna, just like mine. Folks call me Chocolate Anna and her Vanilla Anna so they won’t get us mixed up. People think because we hang around together that we’re friends, but it ain’t true. I don’t even talk to her ’less I have too. She’s crazy as they come, bore a person to tears, but at least she ain’t mean to no one. That counts for something in this world. We just travel together. It’s safer that way, you know. The streets are no place to be when you’re all alone.”
Chocolate Anna leaned closer, the smell of cough syrup thick in her breath. “It ain’t her fault she’s not right, miss. I figured out a long time ago she lost more than her name in that tornado over Lubbock. She lost her whole family in one night. Far as I know, she ain’t slept in a building since. She’ll stay in one just long enough to eat, then it’s back to open sky.”
“And you?” Blaine asked the stout black Anna.
“I never liked the smell of too many bodies in one place. If I have my choice, I’ll be outside. Even the cold is better than a bad smell.”
Vanilla Anna moved with the line, losing all interest in the conversation. A group of boys in their late teens passed by, hassling people as they made their way to the end of the line.
“Out of the way, old bag.” One pushed Vanilla Anna into a man trying to light a cigarette. He swore and shoved her back where he thought she belonged.
Another thug mumbled, “Crazy old witch. World would be a better place without ya.” He shoved Anna back toward the smoker just for fun, as though she were no more important than a ball being tossed around.
Blaine started to correct the bully, but a wrinkled black hand touched her arm. “Don’t say nothing. You don’t want to draw attention. They’re mean all the way to their livers. No amount of talking or aging on their parts will change that. Not a place in town will even let them stay the night, fearing they’ll find a body the next morning with his throat slit and ever’thing stolen including socks. They’d kill you for a dollar and not think nothing of it.”
“But why don’t the police…”
“Who’s going to tell the cops? Everyone is afraid of that gang except maybe hairy old Miller. He ain’t afraid of nothing. Plus, the police don’t settle things between the likes of us. They expect us to do that among ourselves.”
Blaine found the class system fascinating. “Is this Miller meaner than they are?” It was like stepping into a case study. Suddenly she wasn’t learning from books and records, but from life.
The boys swore as they moved away.
She found it hard to believe they feared anyone. She wasn’t sure she wanted to meet someone who had no fear of them.
Chocolate Anna snorted. “Miller ain’t none too friendly, but he ain’t mean the way those kind are. He just wants to be left alone. I’ve heard it said that he don’t care if he lives or dies. When folks get like that they’re dangerous to cross.”
The line moved again. Blaine watched the people around her as if she had been set down worlds away in an unknown world. Kids, runaways or throwaways. Families with nothing but one another.
She studied the line carefully. Mostly men, mostly much older then her. Blaine saw no women alone. This was not a world for a woman by herself.
“That’s him,” Chocolate Anna whispered. “That’s Miller. Hairy mess of a man, ain’t he.”
Blaine saw a man in his late fifties standing by the door, hat pulled low, his hands in his pockets. Anna was right about the hair. A stubbly beard darkened his chin and a bush of salt-and-pepper curls poked from his hat. He was stout enough to give the impression that it would take a train to knock him down. He looked solid as a granite statue.
When he glanced toward the back of the line, she noticed a two-inch scar running just under his left eye. The skin was discolored along the scar and reminded her of a single brush of war paint riding high on his cheek. His eyes were alert, not bloodshot from cheap whiskey. He stood just over six feet, with the build of a man who’d worked hard all his life. His clothes were wrinkled and worn, but cleaner than most.
Somehow he didn’t look like the others. He didn’t belong. Yet Miller stood in line, so he must be homeless.
“He don’t like to sit by nobody and we all give him his space. Some folks say he went crazy when his wife died years ago, tried to drink himself to death. Others say he killed a man over in Oklahoma and the police will pick him up as soon as they find all the body parts.”
Blaine studied the man, looking for any signs of a drunk or a murderer. She’d seen a murderer, she thought, two days ago. He had ridden his mower up to the clinic wall and placed a bomb there, then stared straight at her before turning and riding away.
Blaine shivered.
She knew what a murderer looked like. He looked like everyone else.
The line moved and Miller disappeared inside. When she could see him once more in the food line, he’d removed his hat. His hair was graying, but still thick, with deep sideburns bushing out onto his cheeks. Despite his size, he didn’t look at all frightening to her, only sad. Unkempt.
Blaine lost the Annas in the crowd for a few minutes. When she caught up, the two bag ladies stood several people ahead of her in line. She felt suddenly very vulnerable. The man in front of her looked at her as if he thought she might be on the menu.
He mumbled something and winked.
She was glad she hadn’t heard. She wiggled her way back a few people in the line.
Another man, wearing army fatigues, shoved too close behind her.
When she looked back at him, he didn’t appear to even see her, but as the line moved again, the lower part of his body brushed once more against her hip.
Blaine suddenly realized why there were no women here alone. It wasn’t safe.
By the time she filled her tray, the table where the two Annas sat was crowded with people who talked like old friends.
Looking around, she saw several seats open near the boys and a few spots vacant near the head table where the preacher and his small flock sat. The back table with Miller held the only other open spots.
Blaine squared her shoulders and marched to the last table. “Mind if I sit here?” she asked as she put her tra
y down.
He didn’t answer, but waved one huge hand as if shooing away a fly.
“I didn’t think you would,” she said as though he’d agreed. The feel of the man in line pressing against her hip made her shiver enough to lose any fear of Miller. A man who wanted to be alone was someone she understood, even if it didn’t seem practical to grant his wish.
While eating, she talked to Miller as if he were contributing to the conversation. Finally, halfway through her oatmeal, he looked at her and said, “You bother me. Go away.”
Anger welled within Blaine. She only had an inch of planet left to stand on, she could no longer budge. The only choice left to her was to fight. “Well, you bother me too, so don’t think it’s all one-sided.” When he didn’t swing at her, she added, “I can’t go away. I’ve nowhere else to sit. I’m afraid of those hell-raising boys, and that guy in fatigues wants to rub against me, and I’m not sure I could keep down my oatmeal if I sat any closer to that preacher. So you are stuck with me and I’m stuck with putting up with you.”
Miller glanced at her. “If you had any sense, you’d be afraid of me.”
Blaine swallowed a lump of oatmeal. “Oh, I am. You frighten me half to death, but half to death is better than what might happen if I went near that gang of delinquents. I’m living in a state of half to death so it’s nothing new to me at this point in my life.” Her bravery surprised her. “If I get pushed much more maybe you’ll be wise to be afraid of me for a change.”
