Almost Home (12 page)
Then the other door opens.
I know Tracy is trouble the first time I see her, before I even know her name. Just for a second, and then I forget I knew it. But when I see her slam the car’s back door and twitch her eyes toward Critter, I can feel this bitter bile tightness that comes up in my throat, then goes away as quick as the guy in that Escalade drives off. Critter and Tracy watch the car till it’s gone; then they turn toward us at exactly the same time, like someone planned it. Critter’s got this shit-eating grin and his arm around her shoulder like he’s some suburban husband. She has her fists stuffed deep in her pockets, pulling her pants down so you can see her hip bones sticking out like thorns.
Tracy’s a full foot shorter than Critter and just as skinny, maybe skinnier. Her hair’s that dingy blond that’s almost green, hanging in stick-straight strings down to the bra straps on her bony shoulders, and the neck of her T-shirt is cut out so wide you can see the tops of her tattoos. She’s smaller than her clothes like a kid playing dress-up, but nothing else about her is remotely like a kid. She can’t be more than sixteen, but she throws off a vibe like she’s older than all of us. “Hey,” she goes, and tips her chin at me. I say hey back but it’s weird that she talks to me before Critter does. He doesn’t even ask about Eeyore.
“Guys, this is Tracy,” he goes; the way he says it I half expect him to be wearing a varsity jacket. I think he’s joking and I start to laugh, thinking he’ll laugh too, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t even look up from her, but Tracy shoots me a look like I’m her stupid kid brother.
Rusty stares at her, even more retarded and mute than usual. He stutters like he’s about to talk, but then he doesn’t, and he keeps glancing over at Squid. I don’t know what Rusty’s being so freaky about: she’s just a fucking girl.
After about five million seconds of this she finally says to him “What’s up, I’m Tracy,” and his face turns cherry-flavored red and he mumbles something stupid and goes back to his apple fritter.
Squid’s the opposite: I can tell he thinks Tracy’s hot, the way he flashes his not-so-pearly whites and gets all chattery and energetic. Really she looks like a rat or a weasel, but I can see what he means; she’s probably a wildcat, you can tell. She has that thing the way she looks you in the face and leans her hips forward, shows her neck.
The first night Tracy and Critter are up all night like some perverted slumber party and it doesn’t get quiet till the sky gets light. I’m hoping to get a decent sleep the next night, or the one after that, but instead I lie there with my back to them, curled around my stomach while they laugh the kind of laugh that only happens when you’re having sex. If we had doors they’d probably close them, but we don’t. No doors, no roofs, no walls was the best thing about sleeping out here, but I never had anything get in the space around my ears and stay there like some fucking mosquito. I always could slap it away. Not now.
At first I’m thinking Tracy’s a temporary condition like a cold or a hangover, but pretty soon she turns into the story of my life. The two of them are always holding hands and shit, when Tracy lets him; when she doesn’t he watches her sideways to see when she’ll change her mind. The times when she ignores him I try to squeeze into the space it leaves between them and crack it open, get Critter to come with me to the Dollar Chinese or anywhere. But he’s glued to her face, waiting, like a guy in a cubicle watching the clock.
Soon enough she turns back to him, sudden and sharp like the bell at the end of the school day, lets him know it’s time. Then they take off to shoot up, find some Dumpster to duck behind. I guess I can understand it: shit lasts a lot longer shared between two people than it does between five. And I don’t really like junk anyway; it’s too much work, with the needles and the cooking and the blood. Beer’s cleaner: in one end, out the other. But still. When they leave I always feel relieved at first, glad to get a break from their big thick vibe that spreads out and pushes at everything around them like some kind of poison cloud. I’ll inhale smog and feel like I can breathe again. But then I look both ways into the space beside me, and all of a sudden there’s too much air for me to swallow by myself.
It’s not like I ever have to, though; they always come back no matter what I want or don’t. With Critter there, Squid splits back off into fairy land with Rusty, finally leaves me alone. So it’s the three of us left over. Critter, me, and Tracy. Great.
Tracy loves Benito’s so we go there for chicken tacos; me and Critter split it. It’s almost like a double date, us guys up at the counter ordering through the bulletproof window, but then I remember there’s only one girl, which kind of throws the whole thing off. When the food comes up Critter brings it over to Tracy and they spin around on their stools and pick at the tinfoil. Steam spurts out of the holes their fingers make and I’m surprised it doesn’t burn them. My burrito isn’t up yet and I stay by the window, watching the big mass of meat sizzle on the grill inside the taco stand. I wonder how long it’ll take for it to turn from red to gray.
For a while I watch the slab of beef change color and imagine what if Eeyore was around. It would balance things out; me and Critter could kick around the sidewalks while she and Tracy walked behind us, doing whatever girls do when they walk behind guys. Once in a while Critter and I would turn around and holler back, and they’d say something that made us laugh and then we’d all go get a 40. I could get used to it probably, having girls around for sex and whatever. I’m starting to feel okay for the first time in about ten days, waiting for my burrito and thinking about that, but when I crunch up my brain and really try to picture it I can’t imagine Eeyore in the alley with us since now she’s probably wrapped up safe in bed at home by dark, and then I remember that’s because she’s like twelve years old.
My burrito comes up; I bring it over and sit down. It looks weird when I open up the tinfoil, too big somehow and soggy, not like the neat and perfect tacos that Critter and Tracy are almost finished with by then. I try to remember when was the last time I worried about things looking neat and perfect, and then I decide I like how my food is all big and clumsy and doesn’t fit with anything. Fuck them. I pull apart the gluey tortilla, leave black fingerprints on the dough. All the colors mush together when you eat it anyway.
Tracy stands up, pulls on Critter’s hoodie, and says “Let’s go.” My mouth is full of tortilla glue so I can’t tell her to hang on. I figure Critter’ll pull her back down to the orange stool, spin her around till I’m done. But he stands right up like she’s some general and he’s started taking orders. I spit out lettuce and sour cream on the pavement telling them to wait.
Critter puffs up his chest but Tracy points her eyes down her nose and goes “No, it’s okay,” like a fairy godmother granting me a wish. I still wind up choking my food down without chewing so it gums up in my throat and I can’t talk.
The next day I’m on my way back down from Hollywood with donuts, two whole bags I’ve Dumpstered, rushing before the grease soaks through the paper. Nobody’s eaten since yesterday afternoon; knowing it makes me psyched to hand over my score, like it’s a Christmas present or something. Providing for the tribe. I’m almost even happy thinking how they’ll say “Thanks, man,” and eat.
The four of them are standing around loose and untied, shuffling on the sidewalks; then Critter looks up and sees me coming. Instead of waving hey or running toward the food, he right away goes to Tracy and wraps his arm around her waist. Tight, without taking his eyes off me. Like someone’s dad.
If she’d seen the whole thing she’d’ve probably kicked his ass, but she didn’t, so instead she just reaches down and squeezes it instead. He laughs and sinks his teeth into her neck. When I get up to them his face is buried there, his eyes looking up at me over her like Dracula. After a second he pulls his face out of her, but he keeps his arms around her waist, watching me like I’m about to make some kind of move. All I do is put the donuts down. Critter doesn’t reach for them even though I know he hasn’t eaten in a day. But Tracy wriggles out of his arms and goes right for the bag, sticks her grubby skinny fingers in and starts pulling donuts out, one by one. The first one she sniffs; the second she pulls sprinkles off of, the third one which is coconut she actually takes a bite from. Then she throws them on the sidewalk like they’re candy wrappers. She does it with all nine donuts; then she looks up at me and says “The guy over at Winchell’s gives them to me fresh.” I bet he fuckin’ does. “These are gross.”
I don’t care that she probably has a knife in her boot, I want to break her turned-up snotty little nose. She just stares at me, eyes slitted, wasted donuts ringed around her feet, chocolate and rainbow sprinkles flaked off on the filthy sidewalk. Then she takes her worn-down heel and grinds it into an apple fritter so the white insides smush out of the tan outsides and the sugar mixes up with shit-stains and dirt. She keeps her eyes on me the whole time like some kind of cowboy.
Rusty and Squid both half laugh in that nervous way you do when there’s a fight starting up that you want to stay out of. I know if she was anyone else but Tracy, Critter’d be on me to kick her ass till her teeth broke, and he’d have my back too. But she’s not. She’s Tracy. So he looks down at her in this almost-proud way, except he’s not even really looking at her, just gluing his eyes to the back of her head so they don’t have to come up and meet mine. I stare right at him for thirty seconds at least. I can’t say his name. Then this weird salty knot plugs up the back of my throat, and behind my eyes gets hot and I feel wet come up in them. I look down at my feet fast, but Tracy sees. “Fuckin’ pansy ass,” she says. Then she laughs.
The next morning Squid asks me if I want donuts for breakfast. I almost kick his ass but he says “Chill out, I’m not Tracy, man.” So I tell him fuck off and take his 40 from his bag, and he lets me, which evens things out.
After the whole donut thing I went to Benito’s. Even when the cops rode by three times that afternoon, circled around and drove back, I didn’t leave, in case Critter came. Even when the trannies strutted by in their skanky leopard miniskirts and purple plastic heels and told me get my smelly ass into a shower, I just sat there waiting. I thought Critter’d know to find me there, but after I watched two slabs of beef change color and he didn’t show up I wondered if he thought I ditched him.
The whole next two days he and Tracy both are gone. I start thinking that it’s maybe my fault, like when you lose your mom in the store and you think you might’ve gone to the wrong place to find her and that’s why she isn’t coming back. So I just wait in the places I know he’d expect me: Benito’s, Winchell’s, 7-Eleven. I don’t even go up to Dollar Chinese. One time I take a piss in an alley I know he’s never been to and spend four hours afterward wondering if he came back and I missed him.
By the time him and Tracy show up again I’m still ready to break Tracy’s teeth, but she marches up to me all friendly with her hips tilted forward, stands too close and goes “Hey, Scabius, we missed you.” I’m not sure if she’s fucking with me so I look over at Critter. This time he keeps his face up and smiles.
Tracy goes over to Rusty and Squid, and for a second Critter and me are alone again. I sink into it like it’s a mattress. I didn’t know how wound up I’d been, like when you’re starving and don’t know it till you smell food. Now I know we’ll be back in the alleys tonight when it gets dark, the sky wrapped around us, no walls, and for once Tracy’ll stay quiet enough to let us sleep, and in the morning we’ll scrounge each other breakfast. Maybe pizza.
I want to ask Critter if he’s mad at me but I don’t know the words. So instead I ask if him and Tracy found somewhere good to sleep. Maybe the crew could use a change of scenery anyway; we’re always looking for new alleys. When I ask him he takes this weird pause, picking at his sleeve, and then says “Yeah, actually, but it’s not someplace we could all go to,” and I say “What do you mean,” and he says, too loud, “Well it’s a motel, it costs money,” and I forget about him maybe being mad and I say “What?”
Critter and me swore back in Reno we’d never pay for a roof. It was the first thing we ever talked about, on the sidewalk staring at the Slurpee-sucking tourists who worked all day to box themselves up in walls. Critter knew it was fucked just like I did and wanted something truer, something free; that’s how I knew I knew him, why he lent me five bucks and brought me here to Hollywood.
When you think someone’s mind matches yours, when they tell you it does and you see that it’s true, and then they go and do the opposite, there’s gotta be a reason. Some force that pushes them to make them move the other way. I don’t have to think too hard to know what—or who—that force is here. You could call it whipped, I guess, or sellout, but it’s really worse. Tracy makes him suck up all the shit they say you’re supposed to live by: four walls and bedrooms and boyfriends and girlfriends. Paying money to tuck yourself into their wasteful scared world and pretend you’re so safe you don’t have to try and survive. Playing house in someone else’s soft warm bed with clean-bleached sheets and covers thick enough for you to hide in. She makes him want all of that and believe that he can have it too.
And the believing is the most fucked-up part of it all, because you can’t have that kind of shelter; not him, not anyone; there’s no place that’s safe, it’s all a fuckin’ illusion, and believing in it eats your life away till there’s nothing left but hollow walls and a hard ceiling.
I look at Critter and try to think of how to explain it to him, remind him, set him free.
The problem is he’s a lost cause. I’ve known it since he stepped out of that Escalade with the shit-eating grin and said “Guys, this is Tracy.” He’s too fuckin’ stoned on her to think straight, and he won’t sober up. He doesn’t want to. Just to test it out I ask him where they went. He stutters for a second, but then he puffs up again and says “The Vagabond Inn, you know, over on Vine,” like he’s bragging about some shit he scored, so proud I know it’s hopeless. If I burst his bubble now he’d just blame me for being the pinprick. So instead I crack a smile through my gritted teeth and say, “Oh yeah? That’s cool, man,” and start thinking of another way.
