Are You Seeing Me? (14 page)

“You should call it The Demarcle.”

Jus bursts out laughing, then pulls me into a weak headlock. When she releases, her face is transformed: normal; open and bright, like a flower that has found the sun.

“Okay, time to catch a fish,” she says, pretending to put on a pair of gloves and slapping her hands together. “My best chance at not embarrassing myself might be those swordfish steaks.”

She gives me a kiss on the cheek and lets go of my arm. The instant we separate, I feel like a passenger without a seat belt in a speeding car. I edge back a single step. My feet prickle. My heart is a boxer’s punching bag. Jus stands at the counter. After thirty seconds or so, she is told by one of the staff that she will be served real soon. I take another step back. The ground doesn’t slip; the earth doesn’t open. I am steady and solid. The skinniest of the orange overall men talks to my sister, and she points to a display of silver-and-gray fish. The skinny man shouts, “Sockeye salmon!” and the rest of the overalls repeat the shout. Another talk takes place and Justine is escorted behind the counter.

I am on the street.

If she looks for me now, if she finds me putting distance between us, I won’t give up. I will remain calm. I will wave. I will give her a thumbs-up. I might even tell a joke:
I’m standing over here so I don’t get hit!
But it’s not necessary. There is no need to flick my spiked tail. Justine is smiling, laughing, preparing her hands for a fishy catch. She is herself. And she has forgotten about me.

As the crowd counts down, I jog down Pike Place, headed for Pine Street.

My target: the Seattle Police Department’s West Precinct.

I MOVE QUICKLY PAST POSTAL ALLEY, toward 1st Avenue. The intersection is busy and there’s a wait at the crossing light. I flick my hands, then concentrate on the sound—a rubbery
chid-chid-chid
—and the feeling of blunt needles poking at my wrists and knuckles. My thoughts fight to overcome the urge to peek over my shoulder at the image of Justine’s panicked face. The light turns green and I set off like a walker in the Olympics, but without the stupid high arm swing and the equally stupid bum wiggle.

After one hundred strides I feel calmer and less like Jackie Chan escaping to Hong Kong in
Supercop
. My senses are keen. A whiff of popcorn drifts out of an office block. A frizzy-haired busker near a restaurant called Yummy Bowl is playing one of Dad’s favorite songs—“Heart of Gold” by Neil Young. The city buses—eight have passed by since my entering Pine Street—are painted green and gold. At the intersection of Pine and 4th Avenue, one of the interesting features from my Google Maps research moves into view: hundreds of different-colored bricks in the road, creating a giant quilt pattern of lines and squiggles and zigzags. I walk along one of the gray brick lines on 4th before hopping over to a red stripe near a fire hydrant. It would feel good to touch the pattern with my hands, to view it from all directions: north, south, east and west. Maybe on the way back from the police station.

Farther along Pine Street, at the site of the Paramount Theater, I stop and look behind me. Pedestrians are wandering the sidewalks. Traffic is cruising the street. Trees are shifting to and fro in the breeze. No running, no shouting voices, no sirens and lights that might ruin the rescue. No sign of my sister.

“The shaking won’t last forever, Jus,” I murmur.

Thoughts of her losing it are not as stark now. The picture of her tense, desperate face—it’s like a reminder note or a shopping list. I can hold it at arm’s length and read it without feeling anxious. I can fold it in half and put it in my pocket, keeping it safe until she is set free; when that time comes, I can scrunch it up into a ball and throw it away for good. That time is soon. The distance from 9th Avenue to Virginia Street will require ten minutes, fifteen tops. It won’t be long before I see her angry face.

I feel strong as I stride onto 9th. Brave and strong. I am Robinson Crusoe leaving footprints in the sand. I stand straighter, taller. I think about how others might be seeing me. Often, people notice me for the wrong reasons. Perhaps, in these moments of bravery and strength, I am standing out in a good way?

Three girls across the street seem to think so. They’re staring, talking behind their hands and giggling. The middle one—blond-haired with tight-fitting clothes and large breasts—blows a kiss at me. Why? I guess she likes the way I look and she’s paying me a compliment. If it were me, I would do something different. Many women don’t like a blown kiss or a wolf whistle or a pelvic thrust from a stranger. They see it as the man wanting to have sex with them, not understanding they have brains that can think about things other than shopping for shoes, and bodies that can do a lot more than give birth to babies.

“Thank you!” I call out. “That’s very nice of you!”

The talking and giggling behind hands continues. Then the blond girl shouts, “Noice! Noice! Hey, put anotha shrimp on the bah-bee, sexy Aussie man!”

I have no idea what she’s talking about, except for the last bit. I also have no clue about the age of these girls. Are they eighteen? Are they twenty-eight? It’s always so hard to tell. If they’re under eighteen, I don’t feel comfortable with them calling me sexy. “How old are you?”

“Old enough, Aussie hottie!”

More giggling. The two on either side of the blond share a fist bump. I realize it’s my turn to speak, but I don’t know what to say. And this is a ridiculous way to have a conversation—shouting over the tops of passing cars, from one side of the street to the other. Luckily, I have a good excuse to move on. “Well, I must get going. I’m walking to the police station and I don’t want to be late. Thank you, again. Goodbye.”

Before my sentence is finished, the girls have turned away. They walk toward the 9th–Pine intersection, swaying their hips and loudly singing a rap song with a lot of swearwords in the lyrics.

There is a lot of construction happening on the left side of 9th. Several buildings are little more than frames, skeletons waiting for their concrete muscles and their particleboard organs. Cranes stand over their heads. Pallets of bricks lie at their feet. Cyclone fences surround them, making sure people understand the danger in getting too close. It’s like a repair job after a quake. That’s what I’m doing—a repair job after the tremor Marc brought to Justine. Her heart was damaged and now it needs to be fixed. It will be, once she has been set free. She will fall in love again. Hopefully not months after my move to Fair Go. Weeks would be good, or, even better, days. If I had my seismometer I could maybe get a proper idea of the time.

No lie, I think love is like a Jackie Chan stunt—everything must be right for it to work. Love is a very complicated action scene. Much more complicated than Candice May asking me for a kiss outside the school library in eighth grade. Much more complicated than the drunk waitress at the Normanby Hotel giving me a “groin grope” (that’s what Justine called it) on our nineteenth birthdays. Jus has said many times I am handsome. When I was sixteen, she told me I was a ladies’ man and I had a look women liked. She wouldn’t be surprised if I told her I had a kiss blown my way and I was called sexy by an unknown girl on a Seattle street. But how does she feel about me falling in love? Dating and sex and marriage… Does she believe they will happen for me sometime in the future? I’m not sure I want them to happen. Love has lots of unspoken words, so much silent communication. Reading and understanding unspoken language is difficult enough at the car wash, let alone in a bar or on a dance floor or in a chat room. And Dad never had another wife or a serious girlfriend after Mum left. Whenever Justine brought up the subject he would say,
I’ve got a daughter’s love—that’s good enough for me.

I’ve got a sister’s love, even though we’ll be apart. That’s good enough for me.

The Urban Rest Stop—a place for homeless people to shower and brush their teeth and do their laundry for free—is my final landmark. Two men in hooded sweaters are outside the first door of the Stop—one, bearded and smoking a cigarette, leans against the bike rack; the other is sitting cross-legged next to the metal garbage bin. Both look scary, but I am calm. The police station is close. I know what to say if they ask for money: “Mo’ money, mo’ problems.” It’s not needed; neither man watches me or changes his behavior or says anything as I pass by.

Then I am at the corner of 9th and Virginia Street, standing before the Seattle Police Department—West Precinct. The rectangular building occupies the entire right block, all the way to 8th Avenue. Along the main body are concrete columns. Directly above each is a stacked trio of windows joined to an overhang by two short poles. They look like a team of Transformer guards tucked away, standing watch over Virginia Street; and when called upon in times of crisis, they will step out of their nooks, assume their true identities and stomp any bad guys on the loose. At the far end of the building, an American flag is tied to the top of a pole, fluttering in the breeze. From my study of Google Maps, I know the flag is outside the main entrance. I head for it, passing four different varieties of police car along the way. When I enter the courtyard, I sit down on one of the concrete blocks near the steps. Going inside is not part of the plan. In my head I can see the crazy-busy scene with phones ringing and keyboards clacking and investigators discussing clues to a baffling case and handcuffed criminals shouting for their one call. I think I can complete my mission here, outside the building. And to make sure I am not ignored, I decide to behave the way my disability is shown in movies and on TV. I bow my head, cup my ears with my hands, slowly rock backwards and forwards, and groan loudly.

It doesn’t take long—not even three minutes. A pair of black boots appears on the strip of concrete occupying my field of vision. A female voice asks the exact question I was hoping for.

“DO YOU NEED SOME ASSISTANCE, SIR?”

“Yes, Miss Officer. I do.”

“O-kay. What can I help you with?”

The policewoman is not very tall, maybe five feet three inches. Several white hairs—most likely from a dog—are stuck to the cuffs of her trousers. I can see the outline of a bulletproof vest under her blue shirt. Her round face doesn’t have any freckles or wrinkles. There is a small mole under her chin. Her expression is even, not angry or upset, but not cheerful either. She wants to know I’m not wasting her time.

I sit up straight and focus on the tip of her nose. “I would like to get in contact with my sister, Justine. We got separated at Pike Place Market.”

“Okay. Can I ask your name, sir?”

“Perry Daniel Richter. Like the scale.”

“Perry Richter. Age?”

“Nineteen years old.”

“Judging from the accent, I’m guessing you’re new to this area.”

“We are on holidays from Australia.”

“I see.” The officer lifts the baton from her belt and holds it up. “That’s not a knife!”

The reply is both surprising and confusing. More random outbursts? First the girl on the street, now the policewoman. Is it just them, or is weird behavior normal in the USA? I think I would have to stay awhile and meet a lot more Americans to know for sure.

The officer puts the baton away and gives a small cough into her closed fist. There’s redness in her cheeks. I don’t want her to feel embarrassed, so I direct my vision toward the tag on her pocket. It shows her name: Pam Bassi.

“Your sister?”

“Yes.”

“Does she have a cell?”

“A prison?”

“A cell
number
. A mobile phone number.”

“Yes.”

“And what’s your sister’s name again?”

“Justine.”

“Okay. Well, if you’d like to come with me, we can call Justine from the barn.”

Officer Bassi mounts the first step leading to the station house. I clap my hands twice and shake my head three times. She freezes the way I used to when I played Statues in elementary school.

“I want to stay here,” I say. “I have a brain condition that causes me to feel anxious or upset in different places and circumstances. I have trouble with people—mixing with them and communicating with them—and it sometimes results in inappropriate behaviors. I appreciate your understanding and patience.”