At the Edge of the Haight

by Katherine Seligman

  “I’m just saying, it’s what I heard, that Pops didn’t want him hitting on some chick,” said the girl, starting in on a red and green bracelet, twining the two strings together. “I saw that kid the last time I was here. I love every single person in this city. It’s all love, you know?”

  “Pops?” I repeated like I couldn’t hear.

  “Right,” she said. “I saw him the other day, so if he did it, you know, killed that kid, then the kid must have started something.”

  “Shane,” I said. “That was his name.”

  “I can’t remember calling him anything,” she said. “But he was hanging around a chick and that, if you want to know, is where the problem started.”

  “What problem?” I said.

  She shrugged. “I hung with Pops a few times. He was super mellow. I never talked to the kid. But I saw him around. I don’t think he was here that long.”

  Merlin took a guitar propped against the tree and started tuning it, tightening strings and plucking them, then readjusting the knobs. He was strumming and I half recognized the melody, up and down, grindingly low, and back to up and down.

  “Merlin, stop,” said the girl with the bracelets. Then to me, “I can’t stand him playing unless I’m totally out of it.”

  Merlin played louder and started pacing with the guitar. He put down a paper cup for change, even though we were in the park and no one was around. I was going to tell her it didn’t bother me, but Merlin paused. He looked pissed off and then he started jamming on the strings again, until one popped. I watched him bunch his mouth up tight. He put down the guitar, stomped over to the girl and hit her in the face with the back of his arm. One long quick smack.

  “Maniac creep,” she said. “Get off me.”

  “Bitch broke my string with her negative energy,” he said, and turned to me like I was going to back him up. She crouched low over her bracelets. Root growled.

  “Hey,” I said. “I got money for another string.”

  He turned to face me, eyes empty, like he didn’t remember me being there.

  “There you are,” he said.

  He slung the guitar around his back and I handed him a few ones and fives that Dave had carefully folded and given me last time I saw him. I regretted it as soon as he shoved the money in his pocket. Why was I acting like I was going to save everyone? But the girl, who was wrapping up her bracelets in the scrap of fabric, looked relieved.

  “I should leave his ass,” she said, after he walked off toward the street. “Let him go back up north. He’s good in the woods, but he’s a freak around people.”

  “Hey, Sara Moon,” Hope called from across the grass. She sat next to me, her spikey hair twisted into sharp points. “She knows everyone. We worked a harvest last year.”

  Sara Moon leaned over and hugged Hope, and then started arranging the bracelets in a row. A bruise was getting ripe under her left eye, but she seemed to have forgotten about Merlin’s outburst.

  “She knows about Shane,” I said to Hope.

  “I just told her what I heard,” said Sara Moon. “You had the guy staring at you from those posters and everything.”

  I’d been combing through the park, marking off every inch where Shane might have stayed. I’d talked to everyone and gotten nothing. I’d been to the playground and the dell, the botanical garden, even to the pen where they kept the bison, which looked like cows in freak costumes. They stood there in the field watching me with their hooded eyes and I’d watched back. They were living in the park, same as me, and they knew about as much.

  “Who was the chick, the one with Shane?” I said.

  “She’s obsessed,” said Hope, nodding toward me. “You don’t have to pay attention.”

  “How much for the one on the end?” said a man walking toward us, holding a bag from the smoke shop with a foot-high bong poking out the top. “Just got this for myself, but I need something for my girlfriend.”

  Sara Moon picked up the bracelet, which was red, blue, purple and yellow, and held it out to him. “Usually ten dollars, but five for you,” she said.

  He pulled a bill out of his wallet and passed it to her. “Tie-dyed, like the neighborhood,” he said, pocketing the bracelet. “I’m digging it.”

  “I have no idea who the chick was,” said Sara Moon. “I’m just saying what I heard, which is that he hung around her. She was really young, which is always creepy. But like I said, I didn’t know him. Why are you so into his business?”

  “She saw that kid killed, over in the park,” said Hope, like it was part of her tour guide talk.

  “Is it possible to keep you from blabbing about everything in the world that doesn’t have anything to do with you?” I said.

  “She’s been crazy since it happened,” Hope said to Sara Moon. “But basically she’s cool.”

  “Thanks,” I snapped. Why was Hope taking up with Sara Moon? She was supposed to be on the same side as me.

  chapter 21

  Ash ran up the hill a week later, a pink stuffed monkey sticking out of his pack. His smile was exaggerated, but I could see he was glad I was there. He handed the monkey to me, which couldn’t make up for him blowing up and disappearing. I stood with my hands on my hips. He held it out to me, but I didn’t take it. He tossed it to Root, who shook it back and forth, like he’d caught a gopher or a raccoon and was trying to say, look here, see what I can do. I tried to take it away, but he ran away. He circled back and dropped it to tease me, then picked it up and took off again. Ash held out a string of red licorice so Root would let go.

  “Don’t give him that shit,” I said.

  Ash laughed. He was wearing a fresh white T-shirt that said dell on the front and had a new nose ring. “At least he hasn’t changed,” he said.

  He said he’d gone to Arizona and visited his mom, which only lasted two days. He couldn’t take it there. He’d thought maybe things had changed. In Wyoming, they’d told him his mom was trying to do her best. Not everything had to do with him. But she was the same. Or worse. She said he could stay and she’d give him an allowance while he looked for a job. She didn’t pay for him to go to wilderness camp and then come dragging home like the world owed him. Why couldn’t he ever finish anything? He would have to cut his hair and take a drug test every week or else go back to Wyoming. She never asked him what he wanted to do.

  “You still playing detective?” he said. Root was running in circles again. “Sorry,” he said. “I know. I’m a jerk.”

  I told him I’d worked through all the squares on my map and hadn’t found anyone who’d seen Shane, except for the kids from Eureka. I left off the part about Sara Moon because no one knew if she was telling the truth. She had stayed around until Merlin got busted for shoplifting. Then she took off to visit friends in Santa Cruz. Hope went with her and came back a few days ago so strung out that someone had called 911 and the cops gave her a choice, the hospital or a trip back up north. You’d think she would want to go visit her kid, chill with her parents, and they’d want to see her. But she called them and they’d gotten her into a halfway house. She had been sleeping there at night but hung with us and worked tourists during the day. That left me with Fleet, who was behind me all the time, waiting to see where I’d go. It seemed like all the bad parts of having a kid.

  I set the pink monkey in the lowest branch of the tree where I’d tied a bag with my extra clothes and that seemed to make Ash happy. “King Pink,” he said. It had already lost half its yarn mouth. We took Root around the Children’s Playground and then to the shelter for dinner, even though I could tell Ash wanted to stay outside with me. I wasn’t going for that, not yet.

  “I missed you,” he said, while we stood in line for dinner. “Honest.”

  I knew what he wanted, but I wasn’t going to say it back. I reached for a plate and moved forward in the food line. He sat next to me at a table on the far side of the room. We were the only two until Hope and Fleet, who was carrying the rabbit, sat down, followed by the
group from Colorado. I could see Hope’s T-shirt, even though she kept trying to cover it up under her sweatshirt. Jay House.

  “I’m starting a class at City College after Christmas,” she said.

  “What? Introduction to halfway house?” said Ash.

  Hope flashed him a fuck-you, but she laughed. “Well, close,” she said. “The psychology of addiction.”

  “I want into that,” said one of the Colorado guys. “But I’m not sure where I’ll be after Christmas.”

  Hope said to screw us all, that she’d be learning about what happens in the brain to make people crave drugs. Her caseworker told her that it was a disease, that people didn’t become addicted randomly. If you tried something and your brain was up for it, you didn’t have a chance. “It’s not like some moral flaw,” said Hope. Someone should tell his mom that, Ash said. The caseworker also told Hope that maybe she could go to college and be a psychologist. Help other kids on the street. Break the pattern. Fleet sat next to her, quietly eating dinner, cubes of meat and potatoes in a yellow sauce. She looked like she was thinking about something, maybe counting the number of times she chewed.

  “Well, I will be here,” said Ash, putting out an arm and smashing me in next to him.

  “We’re having Thanksgiving dinner at the house and I can invite two guests,” said Hope. “I guess they’re thinking we could invite our parents. But who would want to do that? Mine are up in Mendocino with their turkey. They pay more attention to it than they did to me. Or my kid. They write down what it eats every day and how much weight it’s gained.”

  “Then they kill it and eat it?” said Ash. “That’s perverted. Make friends and then eat them. It would be like feeding Robo,” and he put his hand on the rabbit’s head, “and then eating him.”

  Fleet laughed, one long snort, and then she was snuffling and carrying on like it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. Ash slapped her on the back, but she kept laughing until the tears started pooling in her eyes and running down her face. She was crying and laughing and it sounded like she was choking. I passed her my cup of water. She took a sip and coughed, the mist shooting out on all of us.

  “There’s still something wrong with my kidney so I don’t even think I could eat turkey,” said Fleet. “They said to watch how much protein I eat. But I could eat everything else on Thanksgiving.”

  “Weed and potato chips,” said Ash.

  “I’m not doing that again,” I said.

  Last year we’d waited in line for hours to get into dinner at the church downtown. First there was a long sermon and choir music that filled up every space in my head. The preacher wanted us to thank god and then everyone in our family, then everyone in the room, until we were hugging on people next to us, most of them we’d never seen before. When we finally got to dinner, I was on overload. There were trays of meat, potatoes, and green beans that went on forever. Girl Scouts quietly handed out tiny pumpkin pies at the end of the tables. They all deserved a badge because there were hundreds of us there, one giant room of need. We sat down and said grace with everyone and yelled “Praise God” before eating. We were not total bums. The food might have been good, but we ate so fast I couldn’t tell. There were people behind us, waiting with their plates. When we left, volunteers handed each of us a can of Pringles, which, suddenly starved, I ate back at our spot. Happy Thanksgiving, Ash had said, and pulled out a joint as big around as his thumb.

  “Maybe you want to take that class with me,” said Hope.

  She dropped her empty plate in the compost and waved over her shoulder at us without turning her head, saying she had to get back before curfew. It didn’t sound like Hope. I picked up my pack and got in line for a bed at the shelter. Fleet followed me, holding Robo. She was quiet again, like she didn’t want anyone to try and talk to her.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Ash, nodding toward the door.

  “I’m staying tonight,” I said. Fleet, flush up behind me, half smiled.

  “Catch you tomorrow, if that exists, along the continuum.” Ash reached out and took the end of Root’s leash and walked out with him.

  I wanted to jump on his back and pound him, but I didn’t want to lose my place in line, which stretched across the room. No one was going to let me cut, even if they could see what Ash was doing, stealing my dog. The worst part was watching Root bobbing along beside Ash, as if that was where he belonged. What was the point of letting someone inside the circle you drew around yourself? This was always what happened. If I’d had a small knife, one I could use to slice between Ash’s ribs, into his heart, I might have used it.

  chapter 22

  Marva fussed over a long table in the living room that she’d covered with a bright orange tablecloth and matching napkins. “I couldn’t resist this,” she said, pointing to a gravy bowl shaped like a pumpkin. “I thought that’s exactly what we need, but now I realize it looks all wrong.” She smoothed out fake fall leaves she’d scattered around the pumpkin.

  I sat on the minimalist couch wondering why I’d agreed to come. Dave had pleaded with me, said Marva was back for Thanksgiving and wanted me to meet their oldest kid and his family. They had heard all about me, he said. Marva was cooking, which was a good sign. She hadn’t been in the kitchen since they’d gotten the news about Shane. He was hoping we would all show up. I told him I was going to Jay House to be with Hope, but he wouldn’t give up. “Just for a while?” he said. He would bring me back early and I could go to Hope’s later, with leftovers. I found myself getting into his car with Root, who must have remembered he’d been there before. He burrowed into the back seat and went to sleep.

  “At home, I have a ceramic turkey the size of an actual bird,” said Marva. “My grandmother used it every year and she’s passed it down. We’ll just have to imagine it this year.”

  Dave put his hand on her arm, thinking he could turn the channel, but Marva kept going about how she usually decorated the Thanksgiving table, with the giant turkey in the center of everything.

  “You probably had your own traditions growing up,” said Marva, sitting down next to me on the couch. “Everyone gets used to what they have at home and then that’s what they want. Sometimes they don’t think about it, but then they’re disappointed if it’s not the same way, over and over. Tell me how your family spent Thanksgiving.”

  I told her we didn’t make a big deal about it. Sometimes my mom had to work at Safeway early that morning, so we’d eat when she got home. I didn’t say that Karen and Chip didn’t care about Thanksgiving; it was on a Thursday so we had hamburgers and baked beans. And I didn’t say that I liked how my mom brought part of a cooked turkey home the day after Thanksgiving when she got it half price. She opened a can of cranberry sauce that sat on a plate, shining, still in the shape of the can, and some mashed potatoes from the deli counter. She could afford turkey on Thanksgiving, but she didn’t like the idea that they marked up the price right before. It was a crime. But people were sheep, she said, so let them pay a premium. On Thanksgiving, we ate TV dinners sitting side by side on the living room couch watching whatever was on, with our little trays of fried shrimp or chicken strips. Honestly, I liked those more than turkey, but I wasn’t going to tell Marva that I wished I could heat up a frozen dinner.

  “You must miss your family,” she said. “I hope you’ll like being with us.” She wiped her face, which was pink from cooking, and went back into the kitchen. The whole room smelled like turkey.

  Marcus’s two boys ran in from the back bedroom, chasing each other and scooting under the table. They were four and six, with identical blond bowl-shaped haircuts, light blue button-down shirts, and red clip-on ties. “Mana,” the younger one cried, in escalating bleats. “Mana. Mana.”

  Marva peered out from the kitchen, closed the oven door and rushed to the table. The kid was underneath it, tears running down his face. “My head,” he whined.

  “You bumped it?” She reached for him.

  “Here.” He pointe
d to the top of his head. Marva patted his hair and kissed him. “Can you read me a story?”

  “But who will take care of the turkey in there?” Marva said. “Your mom and dad have gone to get more firewood.”

  “I will,” said the six-year-old. “Where’s Grandpa?”

  “He is going to take Root for a walk,” she said. Both boys looked at me for the first time but were more interested in Root. He showed his teeth to strangers on the street if they made a move on me, but he was backing up like he was scared. They didn’t seem to notice that I was in jeans and a clean but stained T-shirt, which I’d grabbed at the shelter when I thought I was headed to Jay House with Hope. At least I would have looked like I fit in there.

  “It might take him a while to get used to you,” said Dave. “But not her.” He turned to me. “This is Maddy. She knew Uncle Shane.”

  “I didn’t really know your uncle,” I said to them, my back to Dave, in a voice that only a kid could hear. “Your grandpa made that up.” The kids looked at me like they didn’t get it. Or maybe they didn’t care.

  “Can you read to us?” said the older one.

  “How about if we let Maddy get settled,” said Dave. He showed them how to hold out their hands under Root’s nose so he could get used to them, but neither boy did it. Dave took Root by the collar and led him out the front door.

  “You know how to make gravy?” Marva said, holding out her arms for the boys.

  “That’s silly,” the smaller one said. “Gravy.”

  He ran into the back room and came out with a book. Marva sat back down on the cream-colored sofa and read a story about a green caterpillar that ate too much fruit and still turned into a butterfly. She held them, one on each side of her lap. The trees blew back and forth against the big picture windows.

  “Mana, read more,” said the younger one. He had one hand on her wrist. She covered his hand with hers. It was like I wasn’t there. Marva forgot she’d invited me. The kids forgot they’d asked me to read. I half listened to the story. I thought about the bird that Dave had shown me, the one that had forced the fish down its throat. Did it fly home for the winter or was it out there in the wind? Either way, it was where it was supposed to be. It was born in a nest and stayed there until nature meant for it to leave. What would that be like? It didn’t seem like there was any place I fit, not here, not with Ash or at Hope’s halfway house.