Crusader

by Edward Bloor

  "No."

  Mrs. Roman stared at me momentarily, then said, "Go ahead. I won't interrupt."

  "This is a letter I wrote to my mom, telling her that I love her."

  "That's nice."

  "This blue material is from the smocks she and I wore when we worked together. I worked with her right here, across the street."

  Mrs. Roman looked at the other side of the street for the first time. Worry lines appeared around her eyes. I finished up, "And I included some photos of the two of us."

  Mrs. Roman couldn't help herself. "Roberta, dear, aren't you afraid you're going to lose all of these things? These precious things?"

  I told her as simply as I could. "It's time to lose all these things."

  She nodded uncertainly. I opened the car door and grabbed the wreath. "You stay in here, okay?" As I crossed A1A, I could hear the car locks clicking down behind me.

  Early as it was, the street kids were already out there. I crossed over diagonally to the 7-Eleven parking lot, clutching my wreath. I saw the chubby girl and her boyfriend take off from their spot by the phone and hurry to cut me off.

  The girl said to me, "Are you looking to cop?"

  I stopped. "Cop? I'm not a cop."

  "No, cop. Buy. Buy drugs."

  I heard myself say, "No. No, not at all. That stuff destroys lives. Don't you know that by now? Doesn't everyone know that by now? Nothing but evil comes from it."

  The two of them nodded warily and started to back away. I said, "Wait a minute. Can I ask you something?"

  "Yeah?"

  "You know that tall guy who hangs out by the phone? He has a short partner, with a dog collar on? They both deal drugs?"

  The boy spoke for the first time. "The dude who only wore cutoffs?"

  "Yeah. Yeah. Are they still around?"

  "No. Those dudes disappeared, man. They were here every day, and then they just disappeared."

  "No one knows what happened?"

  "No, man. But I bet it wasn't good. Those dudes were down."

  I nodded uncertainly.

  The girl looked at the boy, trying to get his attention. When she did, the two of them took off toward the beach without saying another word.

  I found myself alone in front of the Third Eye Tattoo Parlor. I closed my eyes and pictured my mother. Then I opened them and carried the wreath forward slowly, stepping like the soldiers on Memorial Day. I focused on the spot, ten feet in front of the entrance. I remembered the video vault, and the hideous stain that became the second story on the nightly news. I remembered the lightning, like flash cameras popping, illuminating a woman's last moments on earth. I remembered a mask, an arm, a serpent.

  I knelt at the spot and laid the wreath down. The tears welled up and then rolled out of my eyes. I lowered my face, letting the tears fall on the cement. I stayed like that until they stopped falling. I have no idea how long that was. But then I leaned back onto my heels.

  I slid the note out of the wreath, ceremonially, and read it aloud.

  Dear Mom,

  Thank you for reading to me. And for buying me Slurpees. And for fighting for me when you had to. I'll do the best I can. I'll make you proud of me.

  Love, Roberta

  Then I slid it back into its place.

  I reached up with both hands and wiped my face. I felt good. I felt lighter and younger than I had in a long time. And I felt loved, still loved, by someone who just happened to be far away.

  I must have seemed a bizarre sight when the two street kids came back my way. I heard them first, calling out and running across A1A. I looked sideways at them as they approached. They were both soaking wet from jumping in the ocean.

  The girl shook her long, curly hair and greeted me with a vivacious, "Hey!"

  I said, "Hey."

  She studied my face closely; then she turned and looked over at what I had done. She said, "Hey, can I ask you something?"

  "Yeah."

  "Why do you keep coming back here?"

  I pointed at the place where the memorial wreath now lay. "Something happened here. My mother died here. She left the world right here, on this spot."

  "Wow. So what's all that stuff?"

  "It's our stuff. Hers and mine. It's a wreath to give thanks for my mother. Today is Thanksgiving, so I'm giving thanks. And then I'm moving on."

  "Wow. Today is Thanksgiving?"

  The boy spoke again. "I liked Thanksgiving. I was in a Thanksgiving play."

  The girl said, "No way."

  "Yeah. At school. I was an Indian."

  "You were an Indian?"

  "Yeah. I was Squanto. You know, he helped the Pilgrims?"

  "Yeah."

  We all stared at the memorial wreath for another moment. I got up on my feet, turned back, and waved at Millie. She was looking at me wide-eyed through the car windows, scared to death.

  But I wasn't ready to leave these two yet. I wanted very badly to talk to them. Or at least, I wanted them to listen to me. I said, "My mother is gone, but I have a picture of her in my heart, so she is always with me."

  The boy started saying, "Yeah, yeah. That's all you need is friends, man. Someone to watch your back, you know."

  I disagreed. "No. That's not it. That's not it at all. You need more than that."

  The girl sided with him. She explained to me, "The kids who get wasted out here are the kids with no friends. They say this one chick, she was from, like, Alabama. She went with a guy, and now she's a slave on a plantation, like, down in South America. White slavery. I saw a show about it on TV. They pick up white girls and they drug them, and they wake up in South America and they're slaves."

  The boy asked her, "Was that that chick with the Tweetie Bird tattoo?"

  "No, that chick OD'd. They found her out behind the Dumpster."

  "No, man. That wasn't her."

  "Yeah, it was. I saw the tattoo. Don't tell me it wasn't her. I was there when they loaded her on the stretcher."

  I interrupted to say, "I'll bet the Greek Isles Family Restaurant is having turkey dinners today." I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet. I took out the folded hundred-dollar bill Mrs. Weiss had given me and said, "Here. I want you guys to have some turkey today."

  The boy just looked at it.

  The girl took it. "Thanks a lot. We'll keep an eye on your wreath. You know? We'll protect your mom's wreath. We'll, like, Mace anybody who messes with it."

  "No. No, don't do that. Just let it happen. Whatever's going to happen, just let it. The important thing is that I did this. And now I am going to go live my life. And I hope you will live your lives, too."

  The girl started to get that wary look again. So I just told her, "Good luck to you."

  She smiled. I added, "And good luck to you, Squanto."

  He laughed out loud.

  I retraced my steps across A1A. Mrs. Roman unlocked the doors to let me in. Then she locked them again. She said, "Those children look so sickly. Like they have ringworm. I saw you give them a dollar. What? Did they ask you for a dollar?"

  "No, they didn't ask me for anything. They were asking me about my mom and her memorial."

  "You shouldn't give money away. It encourages beggars."

  I put on my seat belt. I told her, "We all need encouragement sometimes, don't we?"

  Mrs. Roman laughed. And she made a dismissive gesture with her hand, like she thought I was kidding. "Ah, you..." She added, "That memorial was a nice thing to do, Roberta. A very nice thing."

  I told her, "I'm going to do one for Mrs. Weiss someday, too, with my diplomas and some of my first big stories. I'll leave it outside the card store someday, some Thanksgiving Day."

  "That'd be nice, dear."

  I looked over, but the street kids were gone. They had disappeared that quickly. I was taken aback for a moment. Suddenly I no longer knew what to do. I said, "Pardon me, Mrs. Roman. I need to think for a minute or two. Okay?"

  "You go ahead. You think. I'm not here to stop you."


  I stared in rising confusion at that spot, the spot where the three of us had just stood.

  It's funny. Ever since Stephen Cross asked me to pray with him, and I refused, I have had the urge to do just that. But I don't know how. The best I can do is think about things, really hard. That's what I call praying. So that's what I did.

  I looked out the window onto the Strip, and I prayed like this: I thought hard about all the kids who were gone—about the ones who didn't make it, and about the ones who weren't going to make it. I thought about the Brazilian street kids who left their favelas. I thought about the American street kids who left their broken homes. I thought about Hawg and his Arkansas T-shirt. I thought about the girl sold into white slavery, and about the one behind the Dumpster, with the Tweetie Bird tattoo. I wished them all well. I wished they could find their way, somehow, out of the void.

  When I was finished praying, I checked up and down the Strip again for my two street kids. They were still nowhere to be seen. I thought for a moment, really hard, about them. I envisioned them sitting down to a big Thanksgiving dinner. I envisioned them trying, and then finding, something in their lives to be thankful for.

  Then I looked back at the site of the old Family Arcade. I stared at the Dr. Seuss memorial for a long, long moment. It looked cheerful sitting there, a cheerful package on a gray sidewalk. Once I was certain that I would never, ever forget what it looked like, I turned my head away. I would not be turning back. I put on the left signal, checked the mirror, and pulled out onto the empty morning highway.

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  READER CHAT PAGE

  1. How are the "muckraking" journalists Roberta learns about in school different from journalists like Angela del Fuego?

  2. Why doesn't Roberta tell Griffin that she saw Ironman and Hawg with red spray paint? What would you have done if you were in her position?

  3. In the beginning of the book, Roberta is sort of a doormat—she works for free, puts up with her father's negligence without complaint, and does Suzie's insulting "Before and After" promotion at the mall. Name some times when Roberta actually stands up for herself.

  4. Many characters in the story feel guilty about some of their actions. For example, Griffin feels guilty for apprehending Hawg, and Uncle Frank feels guilty about what he did to Sam's property. How do these characters—and others in the story—deal with their guilt?

  5. How do Nina and Kristin grow apart? How are they different from each other at the end of the story?

  6. Many times in this story, adults make the wrong choices, and the kids are left to protect one another. Name some times when this happens.

  7. Why does Roberta defend and cover for her father even when it means sacrificing her own comfort?

  8. What does Mrs. Weiss provide that the other adults in Roberta's life do not? What does Roberta learn from Mrs. Weiss?

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