The Humanity Project (13 page)

She had to go to the bathroom; she hadn’t gone since she’d left home, and now the smoothie was weighing on her bladder.
NO PUBLIC WASHROOM,
a sign said, so she bent over suddenly in her chair, cradling her eye with one hand. “Aaaouch! My contact is killing me!”

The counter girl said, “You must have the gas-permeable kind, huh?”

“Uh-huh.” Not wanting to ham it up too much, she poked around her eye with one finger. “Could I go rinse this thing out?”

“Yeah, go ahead.” She lifted a hinged gate to let Linnea pass behind the counter. There was a back room with a walk-in freezer and refrigerator, metal shelves lined with paper towels and jugs of disinfectant, and behind a door, a small, dank bathroom.

“Thanks.” Linnea closed the bathroom door and ran water in the sink for a while, then, as if it were an afterthought, peed. She wished she was somebody who could just come straight out and ask for things.

Feeling she’d been hanging around the shop too long, like a jerk, she took the last of the smoothie with her and stepped outside. A little milky sunlight tried to burn through the clouds. There were more people out walking around now, but Linnea had the depressing sense that they were all of them just like her and came from other places. Everybody in search of some exotic good time that didn’t exist anymore, or maybe they just wanted to buy souvenirs.

If you walked far enough along Haight, not that many blocks, really, past the taquerías and the African drum shops and vintage clothing places, you ran out of interesting street and it turned into an ordinary depressing neighborhood, more punk than hippie, with tax shops and industrial-looking clubs and the kind of hole-in-the-wall restaurants that made you think of food poisoning. But before then you came to a grassy space Linnea thought of as Bum Hill, because of the skanky men—and sometimes women—who slept there day and night, a coat over their heads, or maybe just sprawled in some passed-out, lewd heap.

There could be nasty things in the grass, wadded-up Kleenex glued together with suspect fluids, broken glass, needles. The first time she’d seen a needle she’d stared at it until she figured out it wasn’t anything else. Today she was tired of walking and discouraged and didn’t much care. Besides, the bums had arranged themselves in rows, each of them with a space around them like a substitute for privacy. She climbed halfway up the steep slope, inspected the ground carefully, then sat with her knees pulled up to her chin, her backpack beneath her. She wished she had a cigarette.

Her phone buzzed. It was Art, trying to do the Dad thing and check in with her. She’d ignore it like she always did, and then she’d get a few more calls and some texts, and after a while she’d text him back, some variation of, what’s the big deal? It was so easy to get around him. She didn’t think any real father would let her get away with it.

Two boys climbed up the hill and sat a little ways behind her. Linnea heard them goofing around talking, nothing she could make out. Then they got louder.

“Maybe she’s deaf or something.”

“Something.”

“Doesn’t want to play.”

“Or she can smell you. She is downwind.”

“Shut up.”

“Maybe she’s strung-out. So young too.”

“Yeah, tragic.”

Linnea turned around. “You guys are so, so funny.”

“Hey! Not deaf!”

Linnea said, “No, but I kind of wish I was.” Pretending to sound disgusted. One of them was sort of cute, but she didn’t know yet if she wanted to talk to them.

“Look what you did. You got her mad.”

“You haven’t seen mad yet.” She was glad to have a salty answer for him.

“What? Can’t hear you.”

“Now who’s deaf?”

“Stay there, OK?”

The two of them scooted downhill until they were sitting one on each side of her.

“Much better.”

The cute one said, “You got a name?”

They were sitting close enough to her that she had to turn her head from one side to the other to see them, like a tennis match. “Sadie,” she said. She had decided on it right then and there.

“That’s pretty.”

Linnea shrugged. It wasn’t one of her favorite names, she wasn’t that attached to it.

“I’m Axe, like an axe,” said the cute one. He made a chopping blade with his hand.

He had black hair with a blue piece in front that fell into his eyes. He wore a black T-shirt printed with white ribs to make him a skeleton.

The other boy said, “It’s more like, Axe like a guitar.” He was sort of fat.

“That’s Jarhead,” said Axe.

“Jared.”

“Whatever. So what are you up to today, Sadie?”

“Just hanging.” She decided she wasn’t going to say that much. It was when she started talking a lot that she got into trouble.

“Yeah? Where you from?” Axe was bobbing around where he sat, like he was hearing a song in his head, so that sometimes his face was pushed close to hers and sometimes she had to swivel around to see him.

“Seattle.”

“Yeah? You just get here? What did you do, hitch?”

“Uh-huh.” Linnea said it like, no big deal. In her head she was already seeing herself hitching, standing by the side of a highway in the rain, probably. Somebody creepy had picked her up, but then somebody nice had.

“You going to stick around for a while? You got a place to stay?”

“With some friends,” Linnea told him.
Friends.
It was a word that filled up space and explained things for you.

Axe jumped up and strutted, stiff-legged, as if he was on a stage. He threw his head back and sang an old Bruce Springsteen song in a grinding wail: “Glory days! They’ll pass you by, glory days, inna wink of a young girl’s eye, glory days, glory da-ays!” When he danced, the skeleton ribs did too.

Jared looked at Linnea. “He’s deep.” He was either mad at Axe, or just pretending to be.

Axe stooped, still in motion, put his mouth up to Linnea’s ear, slurped at it with his tongue.

“Hey!” Linnea said, but he was already capering away from her. “Glory days, glory dayhhs!” Then he was done with the song and he sat back down, looking bored.

“What the hell,” Linnea said.

“Real deep,” Jared said. “Sometimes I just sit and marvel.”

Axe said, “Because that’s what he’s good for. Sitting on his fat ass.” He started singing under his breath, wah wah wah, some song Linnea couldn’t make out. He had a skinny, paintbrush mustache and goatee and she thought he was probably a little older than her but not much. She couldn’t decide if she liked him or not. Him douching out her ear was kind of gross. But she didn’t want to give up on him yet.

She said, “Hey. Where would I go if I wanted to get some pot?”

Axe stopped singing. “You got a doctor’s letter?”

“A what?”

“Forget it, you have to be twenty-one,” Jared said. “Medical marijuana. If you have AIDS or something. You can go to a dispensary.”

She’d forgotten about the medical pot. It was a disappointment, it probably meant hers, or rather Art’s, wasn’t worth as much. “Well I don’t have AIDS.”

Axe bent toward her, made his fingers into drumsticks, and did a quick drumroll on Linnea’s knee. “That’s good to know.”

“What if,” Linnea said, determined to get through it, “you have some to sell?”

They hadn’t seemed to hear her. They were talking across her and they had started an argument, or maybe it was an old argument they were getting back to.

“Told you. Now we gotta pay up.”

“Shut your fat face.”

“Told you and now look.”

“Shut up. I got it under control.”

“Sure. Like you always do.”

Linnea’s phone buzzed and she pulled it out. Art again. Really, the guy had no life.

“Hey, can I see that?” Axe grabbed the phone from her. “Who was that, your boyfriend?”

“Give it back.”

“This a pretty nice phone, Sadie.” He flipped it over and spun it around. Linnea reached for it and he held it over her head.

“Give it back right now.”

Axe let it drop and she snatched it up. He said, “Oh come on, what are you, mad? I was just messing with you.”

Linnea didn’t answer. She was beginning to think they were creeps.

“I’m sorry, Sadie. I’ll make it up to you. I’ll write a song about you.”

“Don’t bother.” She got to her feet and swung the backpack around so she was holding it in front of her.

Jared said, “Hey Sadie, you got any money? If we had a little money, we could all go get some burritos.”

She headed off down the hill. She had to get through two rows of bums to reach the sidewalk. There was a roll of toilet paper set on its end, unrolling in the wind. Some of this stuff was just gross.

She started walking back toward Stanyan. There were more people on the sidewalks now and it was slower going. She’d only gone a block when Axe and Jared caught up with her, once again walking on either side of her. She sped up. “You guys should just leave me alone.”

“Come on. I said I was sorry.” Axe danced along ahead of her, walking backward. “Is it OK if we just walk together? Since it’s like, a public sidewalk?”

“Do whatever you want.” She had a feeling it was a mistake to say anything to them, but for the moment at least they were quiet, walking. She still didn’t have anywhere to go, and she was starting to feel stupid.

She slowed down and examined the window of a bookstore. They had arranged the books on pedestals, like it was jewelry they were selling. None of them were books she’d ever heard of. What she was really seeing was her own reflection. Her hair had grown out some and she’d just dyed it a bright, cellophane red. (Art had looked stricken at first, but he’d come around to a cautious compliment, telling her the hair was “nice all one color.”) She had on her favorite dark green T-shirt and her best jeans. She looked all right. She really did. And here was Axe beside her, looking in the window to see what she was looking at, and for once he was quiet and not being an asshole so you could see what was cute about him, and they were together in the reflection and he might have been her boyfriend, she looked like a girl who might have a boyfriend just like anybody else.

“Hey Sadie. Want to go see a friend of mine? Hang out?” Axe asked. She had to remember she was Sadie. She shook her head. She wondered what Axe’s name really was. She didn’t see Jared. She was glad he was gone so it was just the two of them and people would think they were together, a couple, for a little while longer. “Why not? Huh? What’s so important you’re doing instead?”

Linnea didn’t answer. He was getting annoying again. They walked another block. She was going to have to go to the bathroom pretty soon, it was embarrassing she had to go so often. She didn’t want to have to do it in the park, like the bums.

Axe saw somebody he knew, some guy and girl. He stopped to talk to them and they huddled together, ignoring her. Linnea walked on ahead, glad to be rid of him, mostly, but a little sorry too. Why couldn’t she even have a pretend boyfriend?

She crossed the street and doubled back, and here was Axe walking toward her with his pals. “There you are,” he said, like he’d been looking for her, though it was hard to see how he had been. “Let’s go. Hop on the party train.”

Her first thought was, bathroom. She could use whoever it was’s bathroom. But she made a point of looking like she didn’t want to go with him. She said, “I dunno,” and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. The girl was pretty, with black hair and black-lined eyes and what could have been a little kid’s party dress worn over leggings. The guy with her had plugs in his ears, which was always kind of gross, and a ring through his septum, ditto, but the rest of him was sort of normal-looking, a normal, goofy-smiling boy, like maybe somebody had done the piercings while he was asleep and he just woke up that way.

“I don’t know,” Linnea said again. “I should probably get going.” Her phone buzzed again. It would either be Art or her mother. Nobody else called her. She was such a loser.

“Oh come on, Sadie. It’s real close to here. This is Sadie. We call her Red. Ha!”

Nobody else thought it was funny either. “Let’s go,” the black-haired girl said. “This is boring.”

“And you could be Black. Ha-ha.”

“Hilarious,” the black-haired girl said.

Crowds were trying to get past them on the sidewalk. Axe hooked his elbow through Linnea’s and steered her around. Linnea just sort of started walking with them. She hadn’t decided anything, but maybe you didn’t have to. Maybe once in a while you could just
go along
with things and have them work out, come away with the kind of stories you could tell people, make them wish they were you. The next time Art called, she could text him back, say she was with friends.

They straggled along on Haight for another block, then turned onto one of the side streets. Axe had dropped her arm and was up ahead, talking with the boy with the plugged ears. The black-haired girl yawned. She didn’t look especially friendly. “I like your dress,” Linnea said, because that was something you could always say.

“Yeah?” The girl pulled the skirt out in front of her to see it better. It was yellow, with puffy sleeves and rows of fancy stitching across the bust. She was flat on top, even flatter than Linnea. She looked like a fancy doll come to life and walking around. “These leggings are crawling up my butt,” she announced.

Linnea couldn’t think how to keep a conversation going from that, so she just trudged along, hoping they weren’t going much farther. The houses around her all looked old, in an interesting way, like anyone might live there, musicians or magicians, witch doctors, dancers, anyone who had already found a place in the world. Because weren’t you allowed to have that, or at least want it? Somewhere that drew a line around you, a line you could put a name to.

After a minute she tried again. “So, who is this guy we’re going to see?”

“Sinbad,” the black-haired girl said, unhelpfully. “He’ll tell you he’s called that because he sins and he’s bad. Make sure to laugh.”

“Is he, uh . . .” She didn’t have a real question in mind besides the one she’d already asked, and so she said, “Cool?”

“Oh yeah. He’s kind of older.”

“Older, what, twenty?”