Can't Get There from Here (9 page)

“I’m Jack,” he said. “What are your names?”

We told him.

“First time here?” he asked.

We both nodded.

“It’s a good place,” Jack said. “People don’t hassle you. You hear what they have to offer. You don’t like it, you move on. Know what I mean?”

I nodded. Tears didn’t. The bartender came back with two glasses filled with brown liquid. Jack took a thick bunch of bills from his pocket and paid. Each drink had a thin red straw. I sipped mine. It tasted
funny, but not bad, and it was cold and refreshing. Next to me, Tears didn’t seem to mind the taste of her drink, either.

“Wow,” said Jack. “You two really were thirsty.” He motioned to the bartender for two more. The bartender slid new glasses across the bar to us and Tears and I both started to sip through the thin red straws. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a familiar-looking head of blond hair in the dancing crowd. Could it be Rainbow?

“Hey, where’re you going?” Jack asked.

“Be right back,” I said and gave Tears a look that said, “Don’t go nowhere.” She winked and sipped her drink.

I only had to take one step to know that whatever made the Coke taste funny also made me f eel funny. I stumbled and almost lost my balance. But it wasn’t a bad feeling. I felt giddy and bold. I went right to the dance floor and stepped into the crowd of warm, sweaty, moving bodies. I bumped into a few dancers, but no one seemed to care. Some even waved to me to join them. Many weren’t really dancing with anyone. Or, they were dancing with everyone.

It was tempting to stop and dance. Whatever was in that drink seemed to open a door inside me that welcomed the beat and rhythm of the music. And anyway, there was no sign of Rainbow on the dance floor. Thanks to the drink and the darkness and the swirling bodies and the flashing lights, I was sure I only imagined her.

I began to dance. If the other dancers saw me, they smiled. I felt like they liked me. No one seemed to care about my skin condition. Before, when I danced with Tears, I felt like I was dancing only with her. But now I felt like I was dancing with everyone. It felt good. The music. The movement. The sweat. You could lose yourself here. Forget all about the rest of your life. Forget that your ankles itched and your stomach hurt, forget you were sick. Or hungry. Or lonely.

When I did see Rainbow, I thought I was imagining it again. But I looked more closely and knew it was her. She was dancing with someone, only not really dancing. Her face was buried in his shoulder and her arms were wrapped around his neck, hanging on like she’d fall if she let go. On her right wrist were two plastic tags. One was white and the other blue.

The man she was dancing with turned her around. So now I could see him. He was old. Older than Jack. He was mostly bald on top, and the short hair around the sides of his head was gray. His face was heavy and lined.

My heart started to race with happiness and I pushed through the crowd toward them. “Rainbow!”

She lifted her head and rested her chin on the man’s shoulder. Most of the scabs on her face had healed and the new skin was pink. Her eyes opened slowly. Even though she was only a few feet away, it seemed to take her a long time to focus on me. “Hi.” She smiled sweetly, but her voice sounded syrupy.

“You okay?” I asked.

Before Rainbow could answer, the man turned around. His jaw was covered with dark stubble. He had a thin mustache and small, dark eyes. “What do you want?”

“She’s my friend,” I said.

“She’s busy,” the man said.

“I just wanted to say hi.”

“Another time.”

“You don’t have to be so mean.” I don’t know why I said that. Maybe it was the drinks Jack gave me. Maybe I just didn’t like the way this man was holding Rainbow so close.

“Get lost,” the man said.

“Screw you.”

A hand closed around my arm and pulled so hard my feet left the floor. The grip was like a steel clamp and I couldn’t shake it off. I was half-dragged through the crowd, but I couldn’t see who was pulling me. Just a big hand with black hairs on the back and a thick gold double ring around the third and fourth fingers. We left the dance floor and the hand spun me around and shoved me. My ribs hit the hard, rounded edge of the bar, and I lost my breath. The hand grabbed my arm again and squeezed painfully. Now I could see who grabbed me. He was short, but had broad shoulders under a tight white T-shirt. His arms and neck were thick and muscular. His face was square and his head was shaved. His scalp glistened under the lights. He had diamond earrings in both ears.

“Let go.” I tried to break free. Another hand came out of nowhere and slapped me hard in the face. It stung and made me feel dizzy. When I opened my eyes, I saw a bartender in a white shirt down at the end of the bar, watching.

“What your problem?” the short man with the shaved head asked. He spoke with an accent.

“I want to talk to my friend.”

“She not your friend,” the man said.

“Yes, she is.”

“She belong to me,” said the man. “She only do what I tell her. She only talk to who I tell her.”

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Not your problem,” he said.

He was still squeezing my arm. I didn’t try to fight. I didn’t want him to hit me again. “Let me go,
please
.”

“You leave her alone.” He squeezed my arm harder.

“Okay, okay. Just let go.”

He let go. I looked back at the dancers. Rainbow’s arms were still around the older man’s neck. Once again her face was buried in his shoulder.

I walked around the dance floor, back to the place where I left Tears and Jack, but they weren’t there. I looked for them, and for Maggot or 2Moro, who might know where they went. All I saw was Jewel dancing and Rainbow hanging onto the older man. Then I felt tired. I found stairs that led up to a balcony. There were padded booths and tables up there. It was very dark. I could hear people whispering and giggling. I
found an empty booth and lay down.

“Hey, get up.”

Something scratchy brushed against my arm and I opened my eyes. The lights were on and I squinted. A tall thin guy wearing a white shirt and black pants was standing next to the booth, holding a broom.

“Time to go,” he said. He was the bartender who watched while the man with the shaved head hurt me.

“I don’t have anywhere to go,” I said with a yawn.

“You gotta leave,” he said. “We’re closing.”

I sat up, feeling dizzy. Things inside my head were spinning. “Okay, give me a second.”

The bartender started sweeping the floor. I sat in the booth and waited for my head to stop swirling. After a while he glanced at me and I knew I had to go. I stood up, but my head began to spin again and my stomach felt queasy. I sat down, waited a few seconds, then tried again. This time the spinning and queasiness weren’t as bad.

I took the stairs down. With the lights on, the club looked different. The pads in the booths were patched with strips of black tape. Over the dance floor rows of spotlights hung from black metal racks. Above the lights the ceiling was a shadowy patchwork of different colors and peeling flakes of paint. The walls were covered with black curtains. The whole place looked like it was thrown together in an afternoon.

I heard voices from downstairs. The last of the partiers were filing out the door into the cold dark. One
of them was wearing a pink wig. It was Jewel.

“Hey,” I called out.

Jewel turned. “Maybe? Come on, we’re going to Stanley’s.”

I didn’t know what Stanley’s was and I didn’t care, as long as there was a chance I could lie down again and sleep.

It was so cold I started to shiver the
moment I stepped outside. We hurried down the icy sidewalk. Someone said Stanley’s was an after-hours place. We went around a corner and down some steps, and Jewel rapped his knuckles against a red metal door. A slot in the door slid open and a pair of eyes looked out.

“Stanley’s so cool,” Jewel said to the eyes. It must have been a password because I heard the metal clacks of locks being undone, and then the door was opened by a fat man wearing a black shirt. Behind him was a dark basement with music and some sofas and a small bar.

“Twenty bucks,” the man said.

Some of the people who came with us from the club paid him and went in. Then only Jewel and I were left outside.

“I don’t have twenty dollars,” Jewel said.

The fat man pointed back into the basement. “You see the guy with the short brown hair sitting on the couch? I think he’ll like you. Go see if you can get him to buy you a few drinks.”

“My pleasure.” Jewel went in.

The fat man turned to me and stared like most people did. “You don’t have no money, either?”

I shook my head. The man started to close the door.

“Wait,” I said. “It’s freezing and I’m really tired.”

“This ain’t no homeless shelter.”

“Please?”

The man’s sigh came out white. “Look, kid, no offense or nothing, but you want to glom around places like this you gotta have something to offer.”

I yawned and rubbed my eyes. “I could work.”

The man pressed his lips together and closed one eye like he was thinking. “You know how to wash dishes?”

I nodded.

“My dishwasher’s broken. Go back in the kitchen and wash all the dishes in the sink and on the counter. Then find yourself a place to sleep.”

The kitchen was through a door behind the basement. It was tiny and narrow and lit by a bare lightbulb in the ceiling. If the dirty dishes in the sink and on the counter were piled any higher, they would have slid off and smashed on the floor.

Washing the dishes and getting my hands wet woke me up for a while. The fat man came in a few times. Once to make sure I was working. And a second time to make some hot dogs in the microwave. Cigarette smoke hung in the air, and I could hear laughter and talking from the other room. Finally, when I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer, I rolled a smelly kitchen towel into a pillow and went to sleep under the table.

When I woke up, I could see a pair of wide pink feet in green rubber flip-flops. They belonged to the fat man.
He was standing at the sink. I crawled out from under the table. The air was warm and steamy. A big pot of spaghetti was boiling on the stove.

“You got a bathroom?”

“Through that door.” The fat man pointed.

I used the bathroom and came back out.

“You did good work, kid. You can finish doing the dishes,” the fat man said. “Then clean up the rest of the kitchen and the bathroom. Help yourself to whatever’s in the refrigerator. Stay as long as you want.”

He finished making the spaghetti and left. I looked in the refrigerator. It was almost empty, but I found an open container of yogurt. After I skimmed the fuzzy green stuff off the surface, the yogurt underneath wasn’t bad. Then I found some stale bread and made it into toast. There was even some chocolate ice cream in the freezer.

After I ate, I finished cleaning the kitchen. The bathtub in the bathroom was square and half the size of a regular tub. All anyone could do was sit in it. I decided I wanted to take a bath, but the brown ring around the tub was thick and gummy. I was kneeling next to the tub, scrubbing it with scouring powder, when the bathroom door opened. A girl with lots of piercings and bright orange hair came in and sat down on the toilet. She was smoking a cigarette and muttering to herself. She got up and left without washing her hands. I don’t think she even noticed me.

When I finished cleaning the bathtub I took a bath.
Even though the tub was only big enough for me to sit, the hot water felt good around my legs and hips. I scooped it up in my hands and splashed it on my head and felt the water run down my back and arms. It reminded me of when I was little and I would sit in the washtub and play with that black-and-white orca. My mom would squeeze the sponge on my head and the hot water would run down over my shoulders. Sometimes I would ask my mom about my dad, but she always said he was just someone she knew and it didn’t matter because we had each other and we were all we needed.

But then another man started to come around and I didn’t see much of my mom. And then I had a little sister. And that was the way it went. There’d be a man around for a while, and then there’d be a new baby. And there were no more baths. Only trailers with showers sometimes. And always tons of laundry to do. Heaps of baby clothes and sheets and towels and blankets that smelled of pee and poo. And dishes to wash and baby bottles to clean and bathrooms to scrub.

At night Mom would stumble in slurring her words and smelling like smoke, saying I was worthless and stupid and ugly and she wished she never had me. And then there’d be the stinging slap of a leather belt against the backs of my legs, or a pinch so hard it drew blood, and once, a burning-hot iron.

Even then I stayed, like Tears, not knowing what else to do. But then, about a week after the iron, she hit me with a lamp and opened up my head. She told the nurse
at the hospital that I fell down, but they took me to another room and asked if that was true and I said no. I told them what really happened, and after they stitched my head they put me in a home with other kids, and the next time I saw my mom she said she hated me and never wanted to see me again.

Now, sitting in the bathtub, I cupped my hands together and raised some water over my head. But the water was only lukewarm and it made me shudder when it ran down my arms and back. I got out of the tub and realized that there were no towels. So I just stood there waiting and trembling a little, but nothing like the way I felt outside in the frigid cold. And when I was only damp I pulled on my new party clothes again and went back into the kitchen.

I was sitting at the table when the fat guy came in. He was wearing a black jacket and slacks and a white T-shirt underneath. “You still here?” He seemed surprised. I had a feeling he forgot about me. He looked in the bathroom. “Hey, nice job. Thanks. Why don’t you come back again next week?”

“I can’t stay?” I asked.

“You kidding?” he said. “It’s bad enough I’m running an after-hours club. The cops come in and find a minor here, I’ll go to jail.”