California: A Novel

by Edan Lepucki

  “Who’s there?” Cal called out. His voice was steady, and it gave Frida confidence.

  “We’ve come for help,” she yelled, trying to sound as calm as he had.

  Nothing. They waited. And waited.

  A tightrope of anxiety strung itself sharp across Frida’s body. Her poor baby. This feeling, if it remained, would ruin him. He’d come out of her trembling.

  Frida looked up. The Spike next to her was the tallest one yet, and at its top sat an orange traffic cone, bent over in defeat as if a big rig had run over it.

  She was still looking at it, wondering if it was a signpost for these people, when she heard a whistle like a catcall, and a man stepped from behind a Spike a few feet away.

  He was more of a boy. He couldn’t have been older than twenty, and he was thin, small framed. Frida was shocked by how normal he looked; he didn’t wear a gown of feathers or chain mail or a silver space suit. He had on a dingy white T-shirt; the elastic around the neck was shot, so that it ruffled flaccid at his collarbone. Brown corduroys, the hems frayed. His sandals looked like they’d been made from tires.

  “Go away,” he said. He carried a rifle, but he held it against his thigh, as if he had no intention or desire to use it.

  Cal stepped forward and put out his hand slowly. “Please. My wife and I have come to find out who’s out here…We’ve settled so close to you.”

  The man looked Cal up and down. He did not take his hand.

  His hair was dark brown and pulled into a scraggly ponytail. His eyes, also brown, were clear and focused. There was nothing shifty or unpredictable about him, Frida realized.

  “Go away,” he repeated.

  “No,” Frida said. “Not until we get some help.”

  He shook his head. “You need to leave. I can give you water, but that’s all.”

  Frida put a hand to her chest. “That’s it?”

  The man raised an eyebrow and turned to Cal. “What’s with the shirt?” he finally asked.

  “Pussy is a kind of mushroom,” Frida said.

  Cal blushed, and the man just looked confused.

  Frida looked away from his face and to his hand, the one that was wrapped around the gun. It was calloused and dry, his fingernails caked with dirt. The man lifted his left hand to scratch his smooth cheek, and Frida saw that his fingertips were peeling, almost chapped.

  Tattoos had been so common by the time they’d left L.A., Frida hadn’t noticed the ones on this stranger at first, but then they were all she could see. A single blue party balloon floated across the inside of his wrist, and what looked like an octopus tentacle, suction cups and all, peeked from his shirtsleeve. There was an old-fashioned anchor, too; it was no doubt ironic, this kid hadn’t been on a ship in his life.

  The line of anxiety that had been strung so taut across her snapped; she thought she could feel her baby, falling from that uncomfortable balance, back into an easy sleep.

  “We don’t want water,” Frida said.

  “Look,” Cal said. He laughed. “I was almost about to say, Take me to your leader, but that makes me sound like some kind of alien invader.”

  “Please,” Frida said. “We just want to meet you all and get some help.”

  “Not going to happen,” the man said, shaking his head. Frida saw that his ponytail had been secured by one of those hair ties with two red plastic balls, as if he were a little girl.

  “We believe in containment,” he said.

  “So we’ve heard,” Frida said.

  The man raised an eyebrow. “Is that right?”

  “We know August,” Cal said.

  Recognition passed over the young man’s face, but he said nothing. He was holding the rifle tighter now, as if more conscious that the weapon was at his disposal.

  Cal wasn’t giving up. “I’m Cal.” He put a hand on Frida’s back. “This is my wife.”

  “My name is Frida.”

  It was if she’d said, Open sesame. The young man looked up suddenly. “Frida?” He shook his head as if he were emerging from a cold pool of water.

  “That’s me,” she said.

  “Frida? That’s your name? Really?”

  “Why does it matter?” Cal said. “You don’t know us.”

  The young man bit his lip. “You better come with me.”

  8

  The kid’s name was Sailor. “That’s my real name,” he explained, after Frida asked if he’d been christened that by friends. She had gestured to his forearm, and Cal saw that it was tattooed with a solid black anchor fit for Popeye. Sailor shook his head, told her his parents had been whimsical people. “Child as art project, that kind of thing.”

  Cal wouldn’t have noticed the tattoo if Frida hadn’t pointed it out. But she had probably recorded everything about Sailor; she probably liked his narrow shoulders and his nervous bravado and the way he just kept saying, “Follow me,” whenever Cal asked where they were headed. Frida was obviously smitten—she couldn’t hide it.

  Or maybe she just felt protective of the kid, her maternal instinct kicking in. He looked so young. Sailor had told them he was twenty-two, but that seemed impossible. He reminded Cal of certain first-years at Plank who ate and ate and never gained an ounce, who had yet to grow chest hair or even a passable goatee. In other words, a Planker like Cal had been. He hadn’t been malnourished when he arrived for college, just young, boyish.

  Cal was relieved to have a guide, at least. Someone who understood these Spikes and the labyrinth they formed, who wasn’t intimidated or enamored by them. The latter was Frida’s problem; she walked around each one with awe, as if the Spikes were brilliantly rather than sloppily constructed, as if they were any better than the découpage and found art projects his mother had done with her friends every other Tuesday night when he was a teenager.

  Her salon, she’d called those get-togethers.

  Cal was impressed with how mazelike the Spikes were, though: how they could confuse and terrorize a stranger, keep him out, force him to give up, go home. He longed to see the intricate route from above. He wondered if together the Spikes formed a beautiful design, like a crop circle. Or maybe a word. Boo! Or a phrase. Crown of thorns.

  The words had shot across his mind as if from Sailor’s rifle, catching him by surprise. The crown of thorns that surrounds the city of God.

  “What’s that?” Frida said.

  He hadn’t meant to say the phrase aloud. If he remembered correctly, the quote was about Rome, about the shantytowns that encircled the city. He couldn’t recall who had said it.

  “Pasolini,” Sailor said. He was walking just ahead of them and turned to smile.

  How had this kid known that reference? Because he didn’t want to betray just how impressed he was, Cal simply nodded at Sailor and kept walking.

  “What are you guys talking about?” Frida asked.

  “Famous words by famous men,” Sailor said. “That’s all.”

  He led them around another series of Spikes, and then another. For a moment it seemed they were doubling back unnecessarily, and then Cal realized they had done so to avoid a veritable castle wall of Spikes, built so close together their trunks kissed.

  And then Sailor pointed to the ground and said, “Careful.”

  Before them, in various places, pieces of glass protruded from the dirt and grass. Cal had read about places in Latin America where they lined walls with bottle shards to keep people from climbing over. These pieces of glass, which he and Frida tiptoed warily around, had clearly been placed for the same purpose: to slice people’s feet, to maim them or, at least, wreck their last pair of shoes.

  Because this trail of glass required that they keep their eyes to the ground, Cal stopped walking and looked up. He wouldn’t follow the maze’s implicit rules just because he was afraid of a torn-up heel. These people, they didn’t want him to take stock of location, perspective. Well, he would.

  The sky was blue but hazy in the way it got when it was hot, and only one crimped ribb
on of cloud interrupted the solid color.

  From behind, Frida tapped his shoulder. “Go on,” she whispered. She thought he’d stopped because he was afraid. He kept moving.

  Sailor seemed almost giddy as they reached the edge of the maze, and Cal wondered if anyone had ever done what he was about to do: bring outsiders inside. Sailor wore a stupid saggy grin on his face, like he’d just won a first-grade spelling bee. Cal could hear Frida behind him, her breath loud and shaky. She only breathed like that when she was nervous.

  Cal trusted Sailor; the kid was obviously guileless, and he didn’t seem cunning enough to do them any harm that Cal wouldn’t see in time to prevent. But maybe Sailor was unknowingly leading them into danger. His compatriots might not agree with his choice to accept two more people. The only person who could have been talking about them was August, and Cal couldn’t imagine what August had said that made Sailor suddenly so welcoming. One second he’d been telling them to get lost, and the next they were the guests of honor. And it was Frida’s name that had been the magic password. Cal didn’t like that. He didn’t like that he didn’t like that. It meant, if he had to be honest with himself, that he didn’t trust his wife.

  All at once, sudden as a hiccup, they reached the end of the labyrinth. Sailor had led them around one more Spike, and it was over. They were back on flat ground at the edge of a field. There were no trees in the distance—they must have been razed. Were it not for the Spikes behind them, it might feel like they were standing at the center of any large suburban parking lot, and maybe they were. Cal looked up once again at the wide-open sky and remembered his one and only trip to Cedar Point with his father, before the amusement park had been shut down. At the end of the day, his father had forgotten where they were parked, and they’d ridden the lot tram for forty-five minutes until they finally discovered the truck, tucked into a line of minivans. Now, Cal rubbed a foot along the grass before him. It was dry and striped with brown, the kind that sprouted like tinsel out of asphalt. If left to prosper, it could grow into a field. Cal shuffled at the grass, and sure enough, it gave way to a patch of concrete beneath.

  “Don’t move,” Sailor said.

  Across the field loomed a wooden platform. It was a lookout tower, the kind prison guards watched from, but rudimentary, as if it had been built in a rush. But it was certainly in use: at the top stood two figures, binoculars in front of their faces.

  Sailor stepped forward and waved his arms, the one with the rifle in it a little lower and slower moving than the free arm. Frida laughed. She had probably noticed that the gun was too heavy for the poor kid. Cal winked at her.

  Sailor began moving his arms in a choreographed sequence that must have meant something to his compatriots. He looked like a majorette, and Cal felt transported home, to the Midwest, with its flag girls, its chilly autumn evenings, and what felt like the whole world preparing for winter. But it wasn’t the whole world, because Frida didn’t have any of those memories; she’d once told him that they didn’t make those kinds of nights in California. Or those kinds of girls.

  Cal watched as the men in the tower above them waved their arms back at Sailor. One of them reached behind his back, and Cal stepped in front of Frida. But the man had pulled out not a weapon, but a whistle, and he blew it three times, each note long and piercing.

  “Does that mean ‘intruder’ or something?” Frida asked.

  Sailor laughed. “Nah,” he said. “It means I’ve come back, with two strangers. He’s telling the others. But don’t worry, it’s not the panic whistle.”

  Frida nodded. “I like you better when you’re forthcoming.”

  Was she flirting?

  “Just wait till he sees you,” Sailor replied.

  The whistle blew again, five quick bursts, and Sailor nodded, flung his arms up once more. “Follow me,” he said. He had turned official once again.

  As they crossed the field—A parking lot, Cal told himself—Sailor moved his rifle so that he was holding it diagonally across his chest. This was probably how he was supposed to carry it; he’d get in trouble for letting down his guard, even if it was for Frida. Maybe she was their god.

  Two men jumped from the bottom of the tower’s ladder. One was about Sailor’s age, Cal guessed, but broader in the shoulders and bearded. The other looked about forty. They wore ripped-up jeans and old T-shirts. The older guy’s had a picture of the Olympic rings.

  All at once they were running at them, like soldiers.

  “Hey now,” Cal said, and once more stepped in front of Frida.

  “Be cool,” Sailor said. Cal didn’t know if the comment was directed at him or the others.

  The Olympian put out a hand, covered in cuts, thumbnail black and warped. “Your bag.”

  Cal turned and saw that Frida had already handed the rucksack to the other one. “I need it back,” he said.

  “He’s just searching it,” Sailor said. “Relax.”

  The Olympian actually said thank you when Cal handed over the backpack, which Cal appreciated. They could all be civil.

  “You should also know,” Cal said, “I’m carrying a pistol.” He put up his arms immediately, so that it wasn’t perceived as a threat.

  The Olympian nodded, and Cal pulled the gun from the back waist of his pants. Sailor took it with a smile. “I knew we could trust you.”

  “What’s your name?” the Olympian asked. “I’m Peter.”

  “Cal.” He grabbed for Frida’s hand. “This is Frida.”

  “Frida!” Sailor repeated fiercely. Peter socked him in the shoulder.

  The other man was named Dave. Cal was glad they didn’t all have cutesy names like Sailor. Dave had chosen to kneel and go through Frida’s rucksack item by item. Cal turned just as Dave was pulling Frida’s shirt out of the bag like a magician’s endless scarf. He shook it out and, satisfied that it didn’t hide any knives or bombs, tossed it to the ground.

  “Come on,” Frida said. “Really?”

  “Let’s not get too security guard on her, Dave,” Peter said.

  Dave looked up at Peter and scowled. Unlike Sailor and Peter, he had shorn off his hair, and his scalp was pink beneath the blond bristle. What an idiot, Cal thought. Not even a hat.

  Dave was rooting around deep in the rucksack, his brow furrowed. Cal imagined him as a former mechanic, diagnosing car parts.

  “What is this?” Dave said.

  Frida stepped forward. “Please, it’s meant as a gift.”

  From where Cal stood, it looked like Dave had pulled out a discarded page from a magazine, wrinkled as a pirate’s map. It was just paper, but it was wrapped around something.

  Frida looked at Cal, and then to Sailor. “Please don’t.”

  Dave stood up as he unwrapped the paper. Cal saw it was old wrapping paper, shredded at its edges, from a Christmas long ago. Was it possible that he recognized those anthropomorphic gingerbread men with their demonic red eyes and meaty fingerless hands?

  Cal turned to Frida. “What is that?”

  “You don’t even know?” Sailor asked.

  Frida tried to take the package out of Dave’s hand, but he stepped away from her.

  “I told you,” she said. “It’s a gift. Please just leave it be.”

  “If it’s a gift,” Dave said, “then I’m excited to open it.”

  “Maybe it’s for you,” Sailor said to Cal, smiling.

  Dave unfolded the paper and pulled out a turkey baster. “This?”

  Frida nodded. “I don’t know who it’s for. It’s an offering. I guess.”

  “Where’d that come from?” Cal said.

  “One of my artifacts,” she said, under her breath.

  “What are those things called again?” Sailor asked.

  “It’s a turkey baster,” Cal said.

  In another life, this would have been any other piece of kitchen equipment, though rarely used; his mother had only trotted theirs out on major holidays, and once, as part of his fine arts credit, she’d h
ad him draw it, first in pencil, and then with charcoal. He didn’t remember owning one himself. And this one was new and fancy, its cylinder made of glass. It still had its tag.

  In another life, Frida would not be in love with this object, but he could tell, by the heat that colored her neck pink, that it meant a lot to her. More than it should.

  He imagined taking the baster from Dave and cracking the cylinder in two over his thigh.

  “We’ve got one of these already in the kitchen,” Sailor said, taking the baster. He held it up to the sky. “But that one’s cloudy and made of plastic. This one’s a beaut!”

  Peter took the baster from Sailor and handed it back to Dave. “Wrap it back up. Let her choose who to give it to.”

  Dave folded the paper around the baster and shoved it along with her sweatshirt back into the rucksack. “We’ll keep these bags for the time being,” he said, and Cal was about to protest when he saw that Frida was merely nodding. She looked at the three men, then at the ground, once at the sky, and back at the Spikes. She was looking everywhere but at Cal.

  All at once, he pitied her. His dear wife. When had things gotten so bad? He remembered something his father had once told him. “People get sad.” It was true. Maybe sadness was where they were all headed.

  “Let’s go,” Peter said, and blew his whistle three more times, the same message as the first. After a pause, he blew it once more, quick and sharp. His whistle was a train station announcement, a grandfather clock, an emergency broadcast system.

  Cal and Frida were led onward. As they passed the lookout tower, Sailor grabbed one of its wooden girders and spun around it as if it were a telephone pole and he were the star in a musical.

  “Calm down,” Peter said.

  “How can I?”

  Dave grunted.

  Past a few spindly trees, they reached what looked like a kiosk at a movie theater or a small visitors’ center. Cal was all at once back at Cedar Point, the line to buy tickets not as long as it should have been. He remembered the way his father had leaned into the windowed booth to give the uniformed woman cash for two tickets. On their way out, a different woman had stamped their hands with fluorescent ink that smelled of lemon cleaning spray. “So’s you can get back in,” she’d explained.