Crusader (56 page)

Kristin has stopped working altogether. She wants to spend as much time as she can with her mother. She is also thinking seriously about joining the army.

Uncle Frank pulled himself together and went to talk to Sam. Sam shook hands with him. According to Kristin, Sam even offered him a job at Crescent, but Uncle Frank turned him down. He hopes to use his knowledge of German, and Germany, to get a job with DaimlerChrysler.

Will Royce now works part-time for SpecialTees and part-time at the card shop. He still talks to Kristin a lot, but he seems to be standing more on his own.

All the merchants, including Mr. Lombardo, voted to let Sam control the recap money. He's making many physical improvements. The empty slots are starting to fill up, and pushcarts with names like Seashell Art and the Curry Pot now line the middle of the mallway.

The renovation of Isabel's Hallmark into a Hallmark Gold Crown Store is complete. We now occupy two prime slots, #60 and #61, just off the rotunda. In addition to the store, it turns out that Mrs. Weiss left me a small fortune. I haven't even had time to sort it all out. People seem to look at me differently, but I don't feel any different.

And Archie, believe it or not, came through. He got me into the Latin AP class at school. Latin just seems to come up a lot. I intend to take as many AP classes as I can and to win a National
Merit scholarship. Furthermore, I intend to change the world as a journalist. And I'm not kidding. I have seen myself doing just that.

All of these changes, and these opportunities, have left me with much more to do at school and at work. I have a lot less time to stare out the window at the mallway. When I do now, it is from Isabel's Gold Crown Hallmark. Occasionally I pause and lift my head up from my various duties. I stare, absently, at the windows of Slot #32, the former home of Arcane—The Virtual Reality Arcade.

Mrs. Roman and I left extra-early on Thanksgiving to visit the cemetery. She thought it was to try to catch that guy playing golf again, but I had my own secret plan. I drove the restored Lincoln Town Car down Everglades Boulevard in the first light of dawn.

Mrs. Roman said, "I'm glad there's no traffic. With a car this big, you might hit something."

"It's okay, Mrs. Roman. I've driven it before. I practiced with Mrs. Weiss."

"You could have a little car."

"No, I like this car."

"Did you remember your license?"

"Yes, ma'am."

We turned into the gate just as the sun was coming up. First I accompanied Mrs. Roman to her husband's grave. It doesn't have a headstone, but it has a nice bronze plaque in the ground. The plaque notes that he served in the U.S. Army in World War II. I knelt with Mrs. Roman on the wet grass as she said a prayer. I laid one red rose on the grave.

Then we trekked over to my mom's new crypt, #103A, on
the Eye Level. Mrs. Roman commented on the delicate swirls of flowers carved in the marble facade, and on the thick bronze nameplate. I placed another red rose in the vase that projects from the wall like a Statue of Liberty arm.

As we walked back to the car, Mrs. Roman said, "The roses were a lovely idea, dear. And it was lovely of you to remember my Joe. You didn't even know him."

"I feel like I do."

"It was a very thoughtful thing to do."

When we reached the Lincoln, she asked me, "Now, what is that other bouquet you made? The one in the backseat? Who is that for?"

I said, "That one's for my mom. It's to give thanks to her."

"What? Did you forget to bring it out?"

"No. It's not for here. It's going someplace else."

"We're driving someplace else?"

"Yes. Do you mind?"

"No. As long as I'm back before ten—I have cooking to do."

"Oh, we'll be back before then."

"Leo's coming at noon. He wants to watch some football game. I'm going to ask him to look at the toilet, too. It's making noise. Me, I enjoy the Macy's parade. I like to see Santa come every year."

"We'll be back in plenty of time, Mrs. Roman."

I started up the Lincoln and circled slowly around the rectangle of crypts. Mrs. Roman said, "I like your hair back like that."

"Thanks."

"And is that a little rouge you have on?"

"I think it's blush."

"Same thing. You look very nice today. Very nice for a special day. When is your family coming over?"

"At noon."

"That's nice."

Mrs. Roman actually made our Thanksgiving plans for us. I had told her that no one in my family, including my aunt Ingrid, had ever cooked a turkey. She came into the store the next day with a newspaper ad for the Hollywood Cafeteria. They're having a Thanksgiving Day special—turkey and all the trimmings for $9.95.1 called Aunt Ingrid and mentioned the ad, so now the five of us are going to go eat there. She's picking me up at twelve in her new Mercedes, with "
meiner Kristi, meinen Karly, und meinen Franz.
"

I pulled carefully out of Eternal Rest and drove the big Lincoln all the way down Seventy-second Street to its eastern end, at A1A. Then I turned north. I'm sure Mrs. Roman had no idea where we were going. I doubt she has even heard of the Strip. I parked on the beach side, directly across from the Third Eye Tattoo Parlor.

Mrs. Roman said, "It's here? You wanted to go to the beach? What? Did you want to see your father?"

I answered, "No," and thought,
I intend to never see my father again. And today; I intend to not even think about him. Today is for someone else.
I reached over and brought my memorial wreath into the front seat.

Mrs. Roman commented, "That's lovely. Isabel would approve."

"I know she would."

"She told me that story, too. About the concentration camp. And her mother."

"She did?"

"Yes. That was a sad story." Mrs. Roman looked at the ocean. "There are a lot of sad stories. It seems like everybody has one to tell." She touched the items in my wreath. "So what's the story with this?"

I pointed out different parts of the arrangement. "These
are the books my mom and I used to read together. Especially
The Sneetches and Other Stories
and
The Cat in the Hat.
"

A disapproving look crossed her face. "Don't you want to save them? For your children?"

"No."

Mrs. Roman stared at me momentarily, then said, "Go ahead. I won't interrupt."

"This is a letter I wrote to my mom, telling her that I love her."

"That's nice."

"This blue material is from the smocks she and I wore when we worked together. I worked with her right here, across the street."

Mrs. Roman looked at the other side of the street for the first time. Worry lines appeared around her eyes. I finished up, "And I included some photos of the two of us."

Mrs. Roman couldn't help herself. "Roberta, dear, aren't you afraid you're going to lose all of these things? These precious things?"

I told her as simply as I could. "It's time to lose all these things."

She nodded uncertainly. I opened the car door and grabbed the wreath. "You stay in here, okay?" As I crossed A1A, I could hear the car locks clicking down behind me.

Early as it was, the street kids were already out there. I crossed over diagonally to the 7-Eleven parking lot, clutching my wreath. I saw the chubby girl and her boyfriend take off from their spot by the phone and hurry to cut me off.

The girl said to me, "Are you looking to cop?"

I stopped. "Cop? I'm not a cop."

"No,
cop.
Buy. Buy drugs."

I heard myself say, "No. No, not at all. That stuff destroys lives. Don't you know that by now? Doesn't everyone know that by now? Nothing but evil comes from it."

The two of them nodded warily and started to back away. I said, "Wait a minute. Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah?"

"You know that tall guy who hangs out by the phone? He has a short partner, with a dog collar on? They both deal drugs?"

The boy spoke for the first time. "The dude who only wore cutoffs?"

"Yeah. Yeah. Are they still around?"

"No. Those dudes disappeared, man. They were here every day, and then they just disappeared."

"No one knows what happened?"

"No, man. But I bet it wasn't good. Those dudes were down."

I nodded uncertainly.

The girl looked at the boy, trying to get his attention. When she did, the two of them took off toward the beach without saying another word.

I found myself alone in front of the Third Eye Tattoo Parlor. I closed my eyes and pictured my mother. Then I opened them and carried the wreath forward slowly, stepping like the soldiers on Memorial Day. I focused on the spot, ten feet in front of the entrance. I remembered the video vault, and the hideous stain that became the second story on the nightly news. I remembered the lightning, like flash cameras popping, illuminating a woman's last moments on earth. I remembered a mask, an arm, a serpent.

I knelt at the spot and laid the wreath down. The tears welled up and then rolled out of my eyes. I lowered my face, letting the tears fall on the cement. I stayed like that until they stopped falling. I have no idea how long that was. But then I leaned back onto my heels.

I slid the note out of the wreath, ceremonially, and read it aloud.

Dear Mom,

Thank you for reading to me. And for buying me Slurpees. And for fighting for me when you had to. I'll do the best I can. I'll make you proud of me.

Love, Roberta

Then I slid it back into its place.

I reached up with both hands and wiped my face. I felt good. I felt lighter and younger than I had in a long time. And I felt loved, still loved, by someone who just happened to be far away.

I must have seemed a bizarre sight when the two street kids came back my way. I heard them first, calling out and running across A1A. I looked sideways at them as they approached. They were both soaking wet from jumping in the ocean.

The girl shook her long, curly hair and greeted me with a vivacious, "Hey!"

I said, "Hey."

She studied my face closely; then she turned and looked over at what I had done. She said, "Hey, can I ask you something?"

"Yeah."

"Why do you keep coming back here?"

I pointed at the place where the memorial wreath now lay. "Something happened here. My mother died here. She left the world right here, on this spot."

"Wow. So what's all that stuff?"

"It's our stuff. Hers and mine. It's a wreath to give thanks for my mother. Today is Thanksgiving, so I'm giving thanks. And then I'm moving on."

"Wow. Today is Thanksgiving?"

The boy spoke again. "I liked Thanksgiving. I was in a Thanksgiving play."

The girl said, "No way."

"Yeah. At school. I was an Indian."

"You were an Indian?"

"Yeah. I was Squanto. You know, he helped the Pilgrims?"

"Yeah."

We all stared at the memorial wreath for another moment. I got up on my feet, turned back, and waved at Millie. She was looking at me wide-eyed through the car windows, scared to death.

But I wasn't ready to leave these two yet. I wanted very badly to talk to them. Or at least, I wanted them to listen to me. I said, "My mother is gone, but I have a picture of her in my heart, so she is always with me."

The boy started saying, "Yeah, yeah. That's all you need is friends, man. Someone to watch your back, you know."

I disagreed. "No. That's not it. That's not it at all. You need more than that."

The girl sided with him. She explained to me, "The kids who get wasted out here are the kids with no friends. They say this one chick, she was from, like, Alabama. She went with a guy, and now she's a slave on a plantation, like, down in South America. White slavery. I saw a show about it on TV. They pick up white girls and they drug them, and they wake up in South America and they're slaves."

The boy asked her, "Was that that chick with the Tweetie Bird tattoo?"

"No, that chick OD'd. They found her out behind the Dumpster."

"No, man. That wasn't her."

"Yeah, it was. I saw the tattoo. Don't tell me it wasn't her. I was there when they loaded her on the stretcher."

I interrupted to say, "I'll bet the Greek Isles Family Restaurant is having turkey dinners today." I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet. I took out the folded hundred-dollar bill Mrs. Weiss had given me and said, "Here. I want you guys to have some turkey today."

The boy just looked at it.

The girl took it. "Thanks a lot. We'll keep an eye on your wreath. You know? We'll protect your mom's wreath. We'll, like, Mace anybody who messes with it."

"No. No, don't do that. Just let it happen. Whatever's going to happen, just let it. The important thing is that I did this. And now I am going to go live my life. And I hope you will live your lives, too."

The girl started to get that wary look again. So I just told her, "Good luck to you."

She smiled. I added, "And good luck to you, Squanto."

He laughed out loud.

I retraced my steps across A1A. Mrs. Roman unlocked the doors to let me in. Then she locked them again. She said, "Those children look so sickly. Like they have ringworm. I saw you give them a dollar. What? Did they ask you for a dollar?"

"No, they didn't ask me for anything. They were asking me about my mom and her memorial."

"You shouldn't give money away. It encourages beggars."

I put on my seat belt. I told her, "We all need encouragement sometimes, don't we?"

Mrs. Roman laughed. And she made a dismissive gesture with her hand, like she thought I was kidding. "Ah, you..." She added, "That memorial was a nice thing to do, Roberta. A very nice thing."

I told her, "I'm going to do one for Mrs. Weiss someday, too, with my diplomas and some of my first big stories. I'll leave it outside the card store someday, some Thanksgiving Day."

"That'd be nice, dear."

I looked over, but the street kids were gone. They had disappeared that quickly. I was taken aback for a moment. Suddenly I no longer knew what to do. I said, "Pardon me, Mrs. Roman. I need to think for a minute or two. Okay?"