Find Me I'm Yours (13 page)

I never feel comfortable accepting anything unless I give something back, so I put one of my last dollars in the tip jar. I'd be getting my paycheck in three days anyways. As we started to walk away, the guy called out, “Hold on a sec.” We turned back.

“This is for you.” He handed me a T-shirt. Oh, and not just any T-shirt.

The graphic on it featured the same background that was on the Craigslist ad, AND the blank name tag that had been on the first tape in the camera bag was now filled out with DESTINY. This kept getting better and better!!!!

“You have to wear it for the rest of the hunt. And GREAT JOB so far! Here's your next clue.”

Then he gave me a map.

Coco started in on her interrogation. “Who's behind this? Is it legit? What do you have to do with it? What's his name? Are we in any danger?”

Of course the guy didn't break. “You want some Korma Kugel for the road?”

We took the food and walked back over to the parrot. We sat and ate the most delicious Jewish-Indian Street Noshes I've ever had (yeah, the only!), and gave ourselves mad props for getting this far.

“What about this brilliant shirt?” I asked Coco. “How can you think this guy's not real, and that he's not my total destiny?!”

“Well,
maybe
…”

At least she gave me that. We checked out the map. It was of downtown Los Angeles, and there was a bright neon-orange
X
spray-painted over an area. Coco and I quickly deduced that it was Chinatown.

As we headed back to the car, I expected the parrot to screech one more greeting. But instead, he squawked something that I hope he didn't mean for me!

Did he know something I didn't know?

“SO LONG, SUCKER!”

DAY 5—AFTERNOON

We turned onto Broadway and drove under the Chinatown gates, its two dragons posing as if they were hissing
WELCOME
. Veggie and fruit stands, ginseng and herb stores, fish markets, trading companies, pinwheels, and lanterns lined the blocks. There was a sign—SHOES: 1 for $7.00, 2 for $10.00. Was that one PAIR for $7.00 or one SHOE?

“So, now what?” I asked Coco.

“Not a freakin' clue,” she answered.

I had on the shirt the DELHI guy gave me. “Maybe with this on, someone's now supposed to find ME?”

“Well, they're not gonna find you in the car.” She pulled over and parked across the street from an old-timey plaza, surrounded by pagoda-style buildings. We walked into it—nothing looked out of place, except for a cluster of all-age mannequins and a building with an odd sign—HOP SING TONG: BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION—with clacking sounds coming from inside. Kindly men and women playing billiards? Oh, hello, probably mah-jongg! There were stores filled with money trees—if only I had the money to buy one to get money. And a fortune-teller in a folding chair reading a newspaper.

But no clues, and nobody stopping me in my shirt. We left the plaza and walked down the street back towards the entrance gates. We searched for anything that stood out, that didn't belong. It was like looking for a noodle in a haystack.

And then I saw it. Like a beacon of light.

Mr. WTF had given me the magnifying glass just before I saw the giant boot car. Now there was an enormous rooster on the roof of Superior Poultry.

“That's got to be it!” I yelped to Coco.

We both ran to the shop and then slowed down to walk in nonchalantly. I was expecting to see a display case with packaged chicken breast, thighs, and other poultry items. Instead, there was just a counter where you presumably ordered. And the only thing above the counter was a long sign that showed eight pics of cute animals.

The Eight Cute Animals Featured on the Sign at Superior Poultry

By Mags Marclay

1). American Chicken

2). Indian Chicken

3). Rooster

4). Old Hen

5). Peking Duck

6). Quail

7). Squab

8). Rabbit

I still didn't quite understand where we were until I saw workers behind the counter, all in slick yellow aprons dotted with red spots and smears. And then I spotted one more sign that read: “LIVE POULTRY AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST.” O……M……G…… The colorful aprons weren't just fashion statements, they were slaughter attire! And the cute, cuddly pics of animals were representative of the ones that they were about to off—for your dinner! OR you could take it home live and kill it yourself! How DIY!! Before I could say anything, the woman behind the counter wrapped up a chicken (already dead, thankfully), put it in a plastic bag, and handed it to me.

“Thanks for shopping here.”

Then she walked away.

WTF?! What kind of clue was a chicken??? We went outside to spy a little further, but someone was spying on us…. A FREAKIN' RAT!!!! I screamed a typical “EEEEEK!” and would have jumped on a bed if there were one on the sidewalk. Growing up in NYC, you'd think I'd be used to rats. But they still creep the shit out of me. We scurried away faster than it did, and saw a sign that said “STAY OUT. BIOSECURE AREA.” Apparently, the rat hadn't read the sign, either. And that's when I heard squawking, clucking, and even a motherfuckin' cock-a-doodle-doo! The LIVE POULTRY. I got so nauseous and so upset.

“Let's get out of here. Now.” We ran back to the car. “What the hell was that all about? Is someone trying to turn us vegan?” I asked, as we drove back to Silverlake. “If so, it worked. That was so disturbing.”

I guess it didn't bother Coco as much as it had me, cuz all she said was, “Hey, unwrap the chicken. Is there anything weird about it?”

“Like what? A message spelled out in the chicken's own blood? Its little wing clutching another video?”

I obliged, trying not to think that the chicken was alivenot that long ago, and was relieved to report that it appeared normal. But then something caught my eye. In the bag. A receipt. On the front it showed that $9.37 was what I should have paid. But there was something written on the back.

“Check this out!”

“There's a phone number handwritten on the back of the receipt!”

We high-fived and, per usual, missed and had to keep doing it until we had full contact, which took six attempts since Coco was driving.

“So, am I just supposed to call this random number?” I asked.

“OF COURSE you call the number!”

So I did. There was a recording. It sounded like an old woman's voice after smoking three packs of cigs a day for the past sixty years. Seriously. Go call the number and you'll hear exactly what I'm saying.

888-554-3273.

I redialed and put it on speaker so Coco could hear.

“Hi, this is Sylvia. I knew you were going to call.”

(It sounded like she took a drag off of a cigarette, unzipped a zipper, and then dropped something on the floor!) She was so old I was hoping it wasn't Sylvia herself that had dropped to the floor. Her gravelly voice returned.

“See (cough) there's a side (cough) to you, a part (cough) of you, meant (cough) to shine. Namaste.”

Click.

Coco was laughing hysterically. “That was CRAZY!!!”

“So, what do you think?” I asked.

“I think Sylvia should try a little Nicorette!”

“Obvs, but what does it all mean?”

“We're having chicken for dinner tonight? How the hell are we supposed to figure out what that means?”

“The way we've figured out everything else so far.”

So I played the message over and over, about twenty times until we got back to our hood. And neither one of us had a clue about the clue.

WTF, MR. WTF!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

DAY 5—EARLY EVENING

When we returned to Coco's, Blake was:

Q: Where else? Doing what else?

A: On the couch. Playing guitar.

For some reason this time hit a nerve. “Are you gonna spend the rest of your life on that fucking couch?” Coco exploded.

“Well, hello to you, too,” Blake said, barely looking up.

“Jesus, it's all you ever do anymore.”

“Hard day at the office?”

“We actually got to leave early,” I interjected, trying to normalize the tone. Coco shot me a look that said I had done otherwise.

“I just can't stand it anymore, Blake. We're in our fucking twenties and it's like we're some old married couple.”

“If that's how you feel, why don't you go hang out with Mark? That's all you've been doing lately anyway.”

“That's because he's doing something with his life and gets off the couch!”

Blake stopped playing the guitar. It was eerily quiet.

“Besides, Mags is dating him now,” Coco added.

I am?

“We can talk about this when you calm down.” He got up. “And in private?”

“Oh my God, I'm sorry. I'm out.” I went to the door. “Be gentle, guys. Remember you love each other.”

I guess they forgot because as I hit the street, I could hear them fighting, even from a block away.

Maybe this coupling thing isn't all it's cracked up to be. Coco and Blake have both warned me. What the hell is my hurry? Why do I feel so obsessed with finding my soul mate now? I could end up like Coco when I'm twenty-eight. Or in the same boat as my mother, and lose him anyway. Maybe it's just time to freakin' live a little now—date, hook up, sample lots of things at the buffet rather than order the same one meal all the time hoping it'll finally taste good one day.

And of course, the second I even considered that, I stumbled upon something (literally—I tripped!) that told me otherwise:

I kept walking past my apartment. I couldn't bear to go home and see the Stabtress (as in Stab-me-in-the-backtress) getting ready to go do another lap dance, this time on Jason's face.

I wandered back and forth, up and down, across and over, really seeing the details in my hood, pretending I was in a foreign country.

The street art was off the hook. And I looked to see what other messages there could be for me.