Adrift in the Sound (22 page)

He bopped some more and when the song ended, he collapsed on the couch, rocking side to side and kicking his legs in excitement. Lizette could see he was loaded, could smell the sulfur from the matches used to heat the white powder, saw the tubing and silver spoon on the kitchen table. She thought about how Cadillac Carl had loaded the cotton and took Fuzzy out, how she’d hunkered on the basement steps and watched the whole thing through the crack in the door, afraid to breathe or move. She hated Carl’s callous indifference, but recognized the solution.

“Hey Lizard, give me that kid.” Rocket reached out his arms for Violet and Lizette hesitated, glanced around at the Dogs, at the nearly empty whiskey bottle on the table and the beer cans littering the living room floor. She twittered and took the baby into the kitchen. Fisher came and stood in the doorway, watching her tidy the dishes, the baby peeping at him over Lizette’s shoulder. He came forward and chucked Violet’s chin.

“How’s this little cutie doing?” Fisher asked, hovering around Lizette’s shoulders.

“Good. She can barely fit into the crawler she has on. She needs some bigger stuff.”

“You need money?” Fisher said.

“No. I picked up some county checks at my father’s the other day when Rocket was watching Violet. They’d kind of piled up. I’ve got more than enough for the rent. I was just saying that to show how much she’s grown. What were you playing this afternoon?”

“Schubert. An abandoned work.” He curled Violet’s fingers around his thumb and bounced her hand. “Schubert got bored so he didn’t finish it.”

“Sounded finished to me.” Lizette rinsed dishes with her right hand and secured Violet with her left, wiping splatters on the counter as she worked.

“I saw you in the yard and played it for you,” he said blushing, covering his horse teeth with his fingers. “Anyway, Schubert loved a woman, but they never got married, and he also never figured out the demands of the concerto. Wrote most of the one I played today on dinner napkins, then gave up.”

“He wrote it in a restaurant?”

“How the hell should I know where he wrote it. Basically, the guy was a dog, probably wrote it in a bar, half swacked. The piece has a good melody though, what there is of it, don’t you think?”

Lizette shrugged.

“Guy died of syphilis when he was 31,” Fisher said. “That’s two years younger than me, but he’d already written a ton of stuff by then. A genius.”

“Who’s a genius?” Rocket said, belching as he came into the kitchen and pulled another beer from the refrigerator.

“Schubert.”

“Does he work the docks?”

“Yeah, with the rest of you music critics,” Fisher said and headed for the front door, pulling it closed behind him.

“Give me this little shit pants.” Rocket lifted the baby from Lizette’s arms.

“Don’t jiggle her. She just ate.”

“No problem. I’ll just sit her down in the living room so she can listen. Kids love sea shanties.”

Lizette rolled her eyes and grabbed a chipped enamel bowl from the cupboard. “I’m going to pick some tomatoes and lettuce for salad. Don’t let those animals touch her.” She went out the back door and clomped down the steps.

Fisher appeared around the side of the house, pushing blackberry canes aside, and came to stand above her as she knelt beside the vegetable patch. Lizette said nothing, acting as if he were transparent. He gently held the tomato vines up so she could pick the ripest from underneath, dropping them like marbles into the bowl, layering tender lettuce leaves on top.

“What are you going to do if Sandy comes back?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean are you just going to hand her Violet and go back to living on the streets?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Look, I care about you,” he said and let the vine drop. Several tomatoes fell to the ground. Lizette looked at him oddly. “I, ah … I mean we all do. And, we care about Violet, too. Are you going to let Al just come in and take her? Have you given this situation any thought?”

“Shut up.” Lizette hiccupped. “Crap!” She walked pigeon-like up the narrow walkway, waddling as if she was carrying a heavy load that had squashed her normal long-legged gait.

Fisher caught her arm before she could go up the stairs. “All I’m saying is that you have to take the baby and get out of here.”

“I’m not leaving. I live here.”

“Are you crazy?” he said and instantly regretted it. Lizette glowered at him. “You don’t know where the kid’s mother is. You don’t know who the father is.”

“Are you two done picking shit?” Rocket stood at the backdoor with a suspicious look on his face. “What’s to eat?” Lizette shrugged. “Why don’t you put some heat under those beans?

“I forgot to turn the burner on,” she said, irritated. “Where’s Violet?”

“Chill out. Al’s holding her.”

Lizette charged in to retrieve the baby and halted. Al was saying to the Dogs, who’d packed into the living room now, “Your’re shitting me? Right? This is my kid? With Sandy? She never …”

Rocket, Fisher, and Lizette stood together in the arch that divided the living room and dining room. Lizette held her breath and watched him touch the child.

“You know, my mother, man, she loves kids. That’s how I grew up. Parties, my uncles gettin’ drunk on Sundays,
tamales
. My mother would love another
nieta
. Why didn’t you guys tell me this kid was mine?”

“Ah … We were saving it for a surprise,” Rocket blurted. “I mean you just got out and all. Who spilled the beans?” The Dogs started laughing. “No offense, Al,” Rocket said taking in the group. “Who?” All eyes looked down.

“When was she born?” Al looked at Lizette, who was chirping and subtly flapping her arms, craning her neck, agitation building.

“I don’t know, April, end of May?” Rocket looked around for a more precise answer but the Dogs were silent. “Sandy said she’s a Gemini.”

“I got busted in April a year ago,” Al said. “It don’t add up. This kid’s blonde. She’s got some bitchin’ eyes, though.”

Lizette fixed her stare on Violet tucked in Al’s arms and coiled, as if to pounce.

“Who’s been doin’ my stuff then?” He looked around at the Dogs, squinted. “Somebody here been plowin’ my field?”

“You know how Sandy is,” Stinky piped up from the corner. The room focused on him and he started rubbing his arms and licking his lips.

“Shut up,” Rocket snapped and Stinky pulled his head in like a turtle.

“Let’s look at her pussy,” Al said, unwrapping Violet’s blanket. “That’ll solve it.”

Everyone blinked. Lizette lunged forward, looking like a bobcat, all fangs and claws, eyes bulging. The Dogs reared back in surprise and Fisher caught her around the waist.

“Chill out. I’m just talking like my mother,” Al said. “Take it easy, man.”

“Monster,” Lizette hissed.

“No, no. You don’t understand. My mother says if you want to see how brown a baby’s gonna be when it grows up, you check the plumbing. The coloring is the sign. I’m not gonna hurt this kid. I just want to see if it’s mine.”

Al lay Violet down on the couch. She cried at being set down, at the angry voices, at the cold as Al unwrapped her and took off her diaper. The Dogs clustered around and leaned in to look.

Al put his knarly brown finger beside Violet’s pink labia. “Somebody get a lamp over here.” One of the Dogs on the outside of the cluster lifted a table lamp above the men’s heads. Violet wailed. Lizette cried. Al leaned in, peered.

“I’m tellin’ ya, this kid ain’t mine,” he finally said. “This is some white guy’s baby.” The Dogs exhaled. Lizette crawled between the cluster of legs and knelt beside Violet, who was crying, red-faced in the lamplight. She scooped the baby up and charged out of the room, sobbed up the stairs, slammed the nursery door, scraped a dresser across the floor and shoved it against the door. The Dogs could hear her screeching like a hawk as Violet’s crying ratcheted down and faded away.

The house became silent, the air close. The Dogs drifted home, Rocket left looking solemn. Lucky stumped away toward his mother’s place. Fisher, tall and boney, looked like the very image of death, his skeleton rattling as he walked to work downtown. At the Dog House, they switched on the TV.

CBS anchorman Bob Schieffer looked squarely at the camera. “
And now for the national news. President Nixon has declared war on drugs, announcing formation of the new Drug Enforcement Administration, saying that keeping heroin and all dangerous drugs off the streets of America is every bit as crucial as keeping out armed enemy invaders, noting that heroin use in the United States has more than doubled in the past two years.”

“That’s a lie,” Bomber said.

“
The Pentagon announced the U.S. bombing of Cambodia has ended, halting 12 years of U.S. combat activity in Southeast Asia that has cost the lives of more than 150,000 Americans.

“Yeah, like who’s counting?” Bomber asked the TV screen.

“In Greece, members of the Black September movement opened fire at the Athens airport, here’s footage from the scene. Authorities report three people dead and 55 injured. In Hong Kong,
Golden Harvest
studios has announced the death of actor and martial artist Bruce Lee.”

“Bummer!” Bomber stood up and flipped off the TV, went to the pallet in the basement, reached under the pillow for his bottle of Chevas, took a hit to chase away memories of the jungle, the thwap, thwap of helicopters, the flicker of tracer bullets in the night.

In the stillness at Sandy’s house, Al Munoz found his duffle bag buried in the bottom of Sandy’s closet and, from behind a framed picture of his mother, he pulled out what was left of his long-ago stash. After shooting up a pinch and neatly repacking his drug kit in the duffle, he lay back on Sandy’s bed and tripped. He thought about the day’s events and his family in San Jose, about his new tattoos, Our Lady of Guadalupe on his back, the other tats none of his brothers had ever seen. His mother’s
tamales
. Sunday in the park. Piñatas.

He got up and plotted what he’d do tomorrow as he stood before Sandy’s dressing mirror, pictures of her dancing with her snake tacked to the wall, her plump tits, the snake’s tail winding between her legs. His mouth watered as he played with himself. Above him I-5 smoothed out and settled down. Once, in the blackest hour of the night he startled awake. A scraping sound. A siren screamed, but the noise faded quickly. He fell back into a deep sleep.

Lizette carefully pushed the dresser aside and opened her bedroom door. She crept from her room, listened to the regular breathing sounds coming from Sandy’s room, pulled the nursery door closed, peed with a towel draped over her lap to muffle the splattering and walked spider-like down the stairs, stepping on the outsides of the risers to prevent them from squeaking, arms stretched to wall and railing for balance. She stepped around the rusted floor grate and tiptoed to the basement door. She slowly turned the handle, hearing the click as it unlatched, and headed down the stairs into the basement’s deeper darkness.

Feeling her way to the big glass cage where Bella slept, she switched on the lamp that warmed the big snake. Bella was awake, her head weaving, tongue darting as if seeking prey, expanding and contracting her vivid cream-and-black reticulated girth. The wooden box by the washer where the live rabbits were kept was empty. Busy with the baby, Lizette hadn’t found time to go down to Pike Place Market for a new supply, hadn’t mentioned the need to Rocket or Fisher. She watched the snake watch her back, studied the intricate layering of her scales, the pearly pink of her mouth and the rows of backward raking teeth. They swayed together and Lizette wondered in amazement at how big she had gotten. She tried to guess her weight, but got lost in Bella’s tongue flicking. The snake extended up and pushed at the grate covering the cage, her heavy body heaving, expanding, against the confinement.

Turning to the laundry baskets, Lizette sorted through the clothes, mostly Violet’s little things, some clean, some soiled and smelling sour and ammoniated. Pulling out two pillow cases, she put clean clothes into one, dirty into the other, popped open the dryer and stuffed the things waiting to be folded into the clean sack. She leaned the bulging pillow cases on the bottom stair and looked around. She checked under the stairs where she’d laid a sleeping bag and hidden during the worst times of the past few years. She looked at the dusty bottles and cans forgotten on makeshift shelves, the bicycle frame wedged above her in the crisscrossed floor bracing.

Padding barefoot on the rough cement floor, she went to the narrow windows that looked out at ground level, the panes choked with spider webs and black in the blind night. She checked that the windows were locked. The pilot light flickered in the furnace, a soft hiss coming from the gas. She went to Bella’s cage, turned the latches open on the cover grate, hoisted the pillow cases over her shoulders, quietly shut the basement door and went back upstairs to her bedroom. Violet slept undisturbed. Al snored loudly across the hall, whimpering once or twice, then resuming the sawing noises in the back of his throat. Lizette lay on her side facing the window, stretched cat-like and relaxed into the green neon shimmer of the downtown lights reflecting off Lake Union and waited for morning.