My Abandonment (14 page)

It's stopped raining and the sun is out and there's a couple boats out on the river. I sit on the esplanade closer to the Steel Bridge, between it and the Hawthorne. Down there they're setting up tents for some kind of festival or fair. The fountain over there is on but it's too cold out for the kids to play in it. There's homeless guys drinking, passed out, and a group of street kids with their BMX bikes on the grass. Everyone's smoking cigarettes.

I'd rather be in the forest park but Father says we can't go there anymore. He says we can blend in better in the city. We're meeting at two forty-five and until then he doesn't know where I am and I don't know where he is and I have to be very careful. You have to look like you're going somewhere and if you can you don't ever want to look like you're carrying everything you own. You want to travel light like you have a home and that's where you keep your things. Which we kind of have at the hotel even if I'm surprised at night if even the building is still there.

A girl stands up and trips over one of the bikes and then walks over close to the bench where I'm sitting.

"I thought that was you," she says.

"Thought I was who?" I say.

"Caroline," she says. "Isn't that your name?"

"No," I say.

"That is your name," she says, "or it was, anyway. You changed your hair but I can tell it's you."

This girl's dark hair is all different lengths and the black mascara on her eyelashes is also on her skin around her eyes. She wears a too big down jacket with filthy jeans and rubber sandals with tube socks. A white scar stretches like a tongue up out of her coat, up the side of her neck and around her ear like it must go far down under clothes and hair and be even thicker.

"I don't know who you are," I say.

"It's me," she says. "Taffy. Remember?"

"What happened?" I say. "Where's Valerie?"

I look past her but it's not any members of the Skeleton Family, just street kids I don't know with no adults.

"Your watch is still wrong," she says.

"No," I say. "My watch is right." I've pushed thumbholes in the seams of my black sweater so the arms stay down. Now I pull the cuffs over my watch so she can't see it.

"Something happened," she says. "You didn't hear?"

"No," I say, "but we went away for a while. We're just visiting the city, now."

"It was lightning," she says.

"Are you going to cry?" I say.

"We, the whole family was living under the overpass," she says, "way over there across the river. And we'd got electricity out of a box under there, where Johnny tapped it and got a wire in there so we had a radio and a toaster and an electric blanket. We all had our own orange extension cords."

I look across the river where she's pointing. A man jogs past with a hairy chest and his shirt off. Father is not anywhere close I can see. I'm not to talk to anyone for longer than two minutes.

"They called it a surge," she says. "During the lightning storm we were just sitting there listening to the radio and it came right through the wires and burned everyone."

"I can see," I say.

"Valerie died," she says. "Valerie's dead. We're not ever going to have everyone together again."

"I'm sorry that happened to you," I say.

"I'm staying," she says, "now I'm staying mostly in this guy Jeremy's car. You're still with your father, right?"

"Of course," I say.

"I was thinking," she says. "Could I come with you? I could help out. You'd be glad."

"When we were locked up in the building," I say, "you hardly talked to me."

"That was because of Valerie," she says. "Please."

"It's just the two of us," I say. "Father and me. It's always been like that. We wouldn't know what to do with a third person. I'm sorry about what happened to you. I don't need a little sister right now."

She's gone before she says anything more since Father is here, coming in quiet, sitting on the other end of the bench with a space between us. He talks softly without turning to me.

"Who was that girl?" he says.

"No one," I say.

"She seemed to know you. You seemed to know her. I saw you talking with her for quite some time."

"I met her in the building after we got caught," I say. "She's part of the Skeleton Family."

"Who?" he says.

"She won't talk to me again," I say. "Don't worry."

Father seems to be growing smaller these days even if that cannot be true. The sky looks like it might rain, and after talking to Taffy I am afraid that living in the city like this will make lightning strike us. The mirror taped to Father's cap has pulled the cap sideways so I can see the skin of the side of my face and the dark roots of my hair. He stands then and walks away. I count to thirty and then I follow him.

The trains are a lot bigger up close and even when they move slowly it's not as slow as you think. That's because of their weight. It takes a long distance for them to be able to stop, and sometimes they don't stop but only slow down as they pass through.

We're standing half in the railyard and half out, where the chain-link fence is broken. I look at the city lights and the dark buildings, trying to see the hotel, then the other direction to the dark trees of the forest park.

"Will it be loud inside the train?" I say.

"We'll see," Father says.

"We'll hear," I say.

"Good one, Caroline."

"How can you tell which train is which?" I say.

"The numbers," he says.

"Does it matter which one we catch?" I say. "Where are we going?"

Father doesn't answer. He's wearing black eyeglasses without glass in them. I can't tell if he's trying to slouch or the way he stands has changed. We are trying not to look like ourselves. His red pack is black along the bottom it's so dirty now and there's more duct tape patches and dental floss stitching and the ragged holes where grommets have fallen out. The teeth don't hold on the zipper of my pack so every time I check I have to unzip and zip it again. Randy looks out crushed by all my papers and my underwear and socks. That's all I have that I'm not wearing.

"We're going south," Father says at last. "I don't want you to get any colder than this."

I look up at his face and he's not looking at me. His eyes jerk out along the fence, past the trains, back again.

"What are you looking for?" I say. "Vincent or Victor or whoever?"

"Anyone," he says. "Anyone could be looking for us."

"You're not hiding in a smart way," I say. "All that jerking around draws attention."

Two tracks away a train sits still. It's been here for the last half hour, ever since we came. Now there's a long creak like the train is thinking about moving but nothing happens.

"It's all this light," he says. "It's not dark enough."

"These lamps are on all night," I say. "For the trains."

"Here it comes," Father says. "Stay close to me, don't fall behind. Once I'm on, I'll reach down and pull you up."

"Good," I say.

"Watch your legs, Caroline," he says. "Keep them from getting caught underneath."

We look away from the train as it comes close so the engineer in the front won't see us.

"Now," Father says.

The ground is all black and greasy sharp stones which make it hard to run. The train is sliding by fast enough that the writing is all blurred and we run at an angle aiming for the black square of an open door. But Father slows and circles away then before he even touches the train. I follow him back into the shadows where the fence has come undone.

"What?" I say.

"That wasn't the one," he says. "Were the numbers wrong?"

"I had a bad feeling," he says. "It was an unlucky train."

"An unlucky train?" I say.

"I think there might have already been people in there," he says. "People we don't want to meet. Hoboes."

"Hoboes?" I say.

We wait some more. I've been imagining us sleeping on a pile of straw all night on the train. Now that I'm closer to the trains, I see that it won't be anything so soft. It's cold and feels colder because of the damp. My skin on my face feels dirty from the trains. My hands are fists inside my mittens. I stamp my feet to feel them.

"Why don't we get on that train that isn't moving?" I say. "Then once it starts up we'll already be on it."

"It could be there for days," Father says. "At least the ones that are already moving we know we won't be sitting here waiting all night."

I know that Father is trying and maybe this all will help. At least we have to get out of the city where he has done so many things I thought he would never do. I tell him this over and over which is one reason I think we're leaving. It's hard to be called a hypocrite by your daughter who you have taught everything. It's hard to stay the same while everything keeps changing around you.

"This is it," Father says, and starts running at an angle to get to the next train.

This time I slip on the sharp black stones so I am further behind. Father reaches the train, he jumps up and takes hold as it slides past and I am trying to get there so he can turn and pull me up but instead he falls off flat on his back, on top of the pack and doesn't move for a moment while the metal wheels clatter by next to his head.

He rolls over finally and crawls back toward the fence, getting his feet under him, his arms dangling.

"Are you all right?" I say. "Haven't you ever done this before?"

"No," Father says. "I'm sorry Caroline. I haven't."

The bus station is the saddest place to see. Homeless people are asking for spare change outside and I wait out there while Father goes in. When he comes out he turns so no one can see and he has bills of money folded thick in his hand. He gives me some.

"Go in and buy a ticket to Bend," he says. "One way."

"Where?" I say. "I've never heard of that place."

"Bend," he says. "Actually get a round-trip ticket."

"We're coming back?" I say.

"No," he says. "Just buy it that way. Then sit down on the bench in there, once you have the ticket. The bus leaves in half an hour. Same plan as always."

No one inside looks like they're traveling to anywhere they want to go. The clock on the wall says eight fifteen and the bus leaves at eight thirty-five. My watch says eleven twenty-three and so does Father's. He's sitting on another wooden bench reading a newspaper he picked up off the floor.

The bus is more than half empty. I sit alone on the left side in the middle and Father is behind me, six rows back. I am not sad to leave the city of Portland or even the forest park where we don't belong anymore but then I have never heard of Bend and don't know what kind of place it is. No one sits next to me and I bring my feet up sideways on the seat and lean my face against the cold window. Through the broken zipper of my pack I feel Randy's neck and the blue ribbon which is frayed and coming apart even if the knot still holds it tight around him.

We slip away from the buildings, we cross the river and before long we're out on the freeway with dark fields on every side.

Far away is the shape of a long black train. I can't tell who is moving faster and if we were on that train it would be much colder though Father's plan would have succeeded so maybe it would be harder for people to follow where we're going.

It's raining in Eugene. I follow Father when he gets off and I can also tell by reading my ticket that we have to switch to another bus here. It's only five minutes we stand in the station and then we go through all the smokers standing in the doorway and get on the next bus.

The lights inside are off so it's just the shapes of people's heads sitting in the seats and you can't see their faces or if they're looking at you. Father is in the back again and no one sits next to him since he's so big. I'm smaller though and this bus is more full so a lady sits next to me. She's not fat exactly but her leg presses against mine.

"Hi," she says.

"Hi," I say.

She's shaking out candies from a little box and sucking them into her mouth. The bus goes out of Eugene and down under the highway, cutting up a slope. I can see black mountains against the dark sky ahead.

I close my eyes and there's rain on the metal roof of the bus and then it stops. Later we cross a little bridge and below the edges of the ground slip away and black trees have fallen over around stumps and far below smooth blackness. Water.

"Lake's down," the lady says, leaning across me at the window. "They let out the dam, after the summer. You traveling alone?"

"On my way home," I say.

"How old are you?"

"Seventeen," I say. "Is that candy you're eating?"

"Lozenges," she says. "Want one?"

"No thank you."

"There's so many creepy people on this bus," she says, whispering. "When I saw the seat next to you I just went for it."

"I know," I say.

"The bus is really different in the day and the night," she says.

"Darker," I say. "How old are you?"

"Forty-four," she says. "Why? I was born in Bend. I've seen it change a lot."

"What?" I say.

"The town," she says. "What part do you live in? One of the new developments?"

"No," I say, and turn away to the window and rest my head on my hand.

After a while it's been quiet and on the fogged up window I start to write my name but the lady might be watching so I add a P to the first three letters then draw a fish under them. I wipe that. I think how somewhere tonight Nameless is sniffing at the air or running on all fours or trying out his squirrel language. He's way behind us now.

I can feel the lady breathing on the back of my head and listening I can tell she's asleep. I look back and can see Father's tangled hair, his head taller than anyone's.

"The bathroom," I say, and try not to wake the lady as I step over her thick legs. She shifts and takes up more of my seat by the window but doesn't open her eyes.

Father is careful not to look at me as I come down the aisle. He looks straight ahead and maybe is pretending to sleep.

"Caroline," he says with is voice low and sharp when I sit next to him, close.