No Place (16 page)

Aubrey’s room is decorated with posters of rock bands, Greenpeace, and a colorful one that says
HATE-FREE ZONE
. Framed photos of family and friends crowd the nightstand. Instead of a hospital blanket, the orange and blue bedspread looks like something from home. Aubrey’s sitting back on a slant with eyes closed and tubes in his nose, mouth, and right arm, while his left is in a cast. His skin is deathly pale and there are scabs on his face where the scrapes and wounds from the beating have started to heal. He looks like he’s asleep, only with neatly combed hair.

A radio is playing rock, a monitor is beeping, and the machine that helps him breathe wheezes robotically. I look back at Meg. “What do I say?”

“Anything. It’s not what you say, it’s the sound of your voice.” She turns down the radio.

An unexpected tightness in my chest makes me realize I’m nervous. I’m not sure why it should feel so weird, but it does . . . the idea of talking to someone in a coma. Meg comes closer. “Hey, Aubs, look who’s here. You remember Dan.” She gives me an encouraging nudge.

“So, uh, must be kind of a drag hanging out here all day,”
I begin. “Bet you really miss Dignityville, huh?” I mean it as a joke, but it doesn’t work when the person you tell it to can’t respond. I talk about Mom’s garden, and how Dad’s gotten involved in running things. Aubrey just lies there slack-jawed and unresponsive. I can see why Meg asked me to come. It’s hard to imagine what she and her mom could possibly spend the hours talking to him about.

“So listen,” I continue. “Know how we hear about machines replacing people and jobs being sent overseas? Get this: They’re creating tables with screens for restaurants. So instead of a waiter, you pick from the menu on the screen. And you still get all the choices—rare, medium rare, well done, dressing on the side, no pickles—whatever you want. And after you place your order, they can estimate how long it’ll take, so you don’t have to sit around wondering. But here’s the thing, what if half a million waiters and waitresses in this country get replaced by tables with screens and a bunch of minimum-wage busboys to serve meals and clean up? Even if the companies that make those tables create ten thousand new jobs, it’s still a loss of four hundred and ninety thousand jobs.”

Meg nods and smiles encouragingly.

“And the Chinese? They have factories with dormitories so the workers can live right on the premises,” I continue. “If a rush order comes in the middle of the night, they wake up three hundred workers and within half an hour they’re in production. So not only do they pay workers less over there, but they’re way faster.”

Meg’s still smiling appreciatively.

“And that reminds me,” I go on. “Do you know your sister’s talking about skipping college and getting a job after high school?”

Meg widens her eyes at me and stops smiling.

“I mean, what’s up with that?” I ask, now speaking to both of them. “You want her to be a waitress who’s going to get replaced by a smart table? Or maybe she’ll wind up in some factory dormitory getting up in the middle of the night to assemble widgets because that’s the only way we can compete?”

Aubrey doesn’t respond, of course, but Meg wrinkles her nose. “There are
other
kinds of work.”

“Where you don’t need a college education?” I challenge her. “School-bus driver? Construction? Lunch lady?”

Meg rolls her eyes dismissively.

“How do you like that?” I ask Aubrey. “She invites me here to talk and then doesn’t like what I have to say.” Then I have a brainstorm and look across the bed at Meg. “Hey, seriously? What about something in the medical field? I mean, considering how much time you spend here, right?”

Meg blinks and her expression crumbles.

Oh, crap . . . her dad’s dying and her brother’s in a coma. What was I thinking?

Her eyes start to glitter and she looks away. I feel horrible. “I didn’t mean it that way. I—”

She leaves the bedside and presses her face into her hands.

I turn to Aubrey. “Listen, man, I know this is going to
sound like sick coma humor, but I really hope you didn’t hear any of that.”

Meg sits down in the only chair in the room, so I have to kneel to her eye level. “Hey.”

She’s making those muffled, snuffling “I don’t want you to see or hear me cry” sounds.

“I’m sorry. Really.”

“I know.” She nods without taking her hands from her face. “You didn’t mean it that way. You just . . . have no idea what it’s like.”

“You’re right. I’m trying to imagine, and at the same time I have this feeling that I’ll never come close.”

She lowers her hands and looks at me with reddened, teary eyes.

I take her in my arms and hold her. The only sounds are the beeps and rasps of the machines that are keeping her brother alive.

*  *  *

It’s turning dark when we leave the hospital to ride our charity bikes back to Dignityville. The wind in our faces is supposed to be the sensation of freedom and possibilities, but at the moment the best we can hope for is not getting a bug in the eye.

We leave the bikes outside the tent that belongs to Joel, the heavyset guy with the bushy eyebrows and beard, who’s appointed himself the Emperor of Bikes. He comes out and asks, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, they worked fine.”

Like Mom with her garden, he seems happy to have a purpose, fixing flats and straightening wheels. The stars are out, and as Meg and I walk down the dirt path, our swinging hands bump and I catch hers and hold it—not just because I think that she needs a boost, but because it feels good to be able to let my guard down and be close and share something . . . even if it’s a downer.

We stop outside her tent, and the next thing I know, we’re in each other’s arms. She whispers, “Thank you, Dan.”

“You don’t have to thank me.” We hug and share a quick impulsive kiss. Meg gives me a puzzled look that reflects the way I feel. A moment later I head slowly back to my tent, not sure why I just kissed her. Except that I felt like it.

Mom’s inside reading her Zen gardening book by the lantern. She looks up, smiles, then must see something in my face. “What is it?”

Here’s a strange question: Does homelessness bring families closer together? If we were still living in our house, I’d probably go up to my room and get online. But here we are in this tent. Who else is there to talk to?

So I lay out the whole situation. It sounds so lame. So much like the plot of a dumb movie no girl could ever get her boyfriend to watch.

See Dan, who’s gotten involved with two girls.

See Dan have no idea what he’s doing.

Run, Dan, run.

 31 

At school on Monday my situation with Talia and Meg is weighing on me. A guilty conscience says I’m being unfair to both of them.

At lunch Talia gestures to the spot she’s saved at the table. As far as she’s concerned, everything’s great. We went to the movies with Noah and Tory on Saturday night. She doesn’t know about my visit to the hospital earlier that day, or that on Sunday, while she was off doing dressage, Meg and I did homework together in the dining tent.

Talia smiles affectionately and presses close. Across from us Noah says, “Throwing today?”

“You bet.”

We’re just one big happy clique.

The conversations angle off in other directions—parties, college, cars. Only, according to Mom, I’m supposed to tell Talia privately that I need “some time off” to think and sort things out.

Yeah, right.

There’s no situation in baseball that I’m afraid of. The more dire the scenario, the more I want to be on the mound, staring down the batter. I wouldn’t care if Willie Mays was at the plate and my whole career was on the line.

But I can’t be honest with Talia.

*  *  *

That afternoon my pitches are popping and I’m feeling good about the upcoming Thanksgiving tournament. Later, stopping at the Starbucks to use the Wi-Fi, I spot a familiar-looking head of half-black, half-orange-red hair. It’s Detective French, sitting at a table with a venti cup. I hesitate, but as if she senses a presence, she turns and sees me.

“Hi. I’m, uh, Meg Fine’s friend.” I approach.

Detective French blinks. No sign of comprehension.

“Her brother Aubrey got beat up behind Ruby’s?”

It clicks. “Oh, yes. How is he?”

“Still in a coma.”

She winces. “I’m sorry.”

A beat passes. She glances at me again, as if thinking,
Is there a reason you’re still here?

“Could I have a moment?” I ask.

Her eyes narrow slightly, then she gestures to an empty chair. I sit and speak in a low voice. “So, I know investigations have to be confidential and everything, but I was just wondering if you’d had any luck?”

“Finding out who assaulted Aubrey?” There’s something flat and defeated in her voice.

Obviously the news isn’t good.

“You hear that the police department is going to lay off twenty-five percent of the force by year’s end?” she asks.

I hadn’t. “You?”

She shakes her head. “Thank God for seniority. But we’ll go from five detectives to three. And our overtime’s already been cut to nothing. You ask about your friend’s brother? Let me ask
you
a question: Should solving that crime take precedence over tracking down a murderer, or rapist, or armed robber who might strike again?”

Welcome to Rhetorical Questions 101. Facing the obvious answer, I gaze away into space.

The guys who beat up Aubrey are going to get away with it.

Detective French studies me for a moment. I bet she feels bad. “Look, here’s something else. How many outstanding warrants do you think there are in Jefferson County right now? That means suspects whom the police have identified and are supposed to track down because they’ve been accused of committing a crime.”

I shrug, not out of disrespect, but because I’ve got no basis for knowing.

“Okay, it’s not a fair question,” Detective French admits. “But here’s the point. Take whatever number was in your head and multiply it by ten. So maybe the typical citizen thinks
there are five hundred outstanding warrants? And now I’m saying that it’s five thousand.”

She pauses. I get the point. . . . There are a lot of people out there who are wanted by the police.

“Now suppose I tell you the actual number is closer to
twenty-eight thousand
,” she says. “That includes everything from failing to pay alimony or a parking ticket, all the way to rape and armed robbery. Of course, some bad guys have a lot more than one arrest warrant out on them. But think about it, Dan. Who’s got the time to track down all those suspects? We didn’t have the time to do it
before
they announced they were cutting the police force by twenty-five percent.”

“So . . . all those bad guys get away?”

Detective French gazes out the window. “Until they get pulled over for something stupid like driving with a broken taillight, and the computer IDs them. You ever wonder why they have those chases we love to watch on TV? Most of the time it’s because the perp knows there’s a warrant out for him, and as soon as the cops run his ID, he’s going to go to jail. So why
not
make a run for it?”

“So no one’s even
trying
to figure out who beat up Aubrey?”

The lines around Detective French’s eyes deepen and she reaches into her bag, lifts out her iPad, and fires it up. “Here’s what we’ve got. Witness states that there were three assailants, but it was dark and difficult to see. Police found gang beads at the scene.” She looks at me. “Three perps come out of the dark, attack your friend, and vanish. The victim’s in
a coma so he can’t provide any information. What are the chances of finding them?”

“So . . . that’s it?” I’m still finding this hard to believe.

Detective French lets out a long, regretful sigh. “You want the truth? Unless something unusual happens? Yes, that’s probably it.” She finishes her venti, checks her watch, says she has to go. I thank her and stay at the table. There’s homework to do.

But it isn’t easy.

The police aren’t even looking. . . .

I stew on it for a while, but the clock’s ticking. My full ride at Rice is predicated on maintaining a certain grade average, so I force myself to study, and manage to finish a good chunk. By now it’s getting dark and I’m packing up my stuff, when I see something out of the corner of my eye. A pickup truck across the street is slowly pulling away from the curb, and there’s Dad on the sidewalk. In the dim light the pickup’s red taillights move away down the street. They’re old and narrow, not like the wraparound taillights on newer models.

Was it Mr. Purcellen’s truck?

Did Dad just get out?

I can’t be sure. Meanwhile, Dad starts walking in the direction of Dignityville.

*  *  *

In our tent Dad’s sitting on one of the camping chairs, bent forward with his elbows on his knees, a deeply pensive look on his face as he stares at another small gauze bandage on
his forearm. When he hears me come in, he nonchalantly rolls his sleeve down to cover it.

My insides are a jumble. I know about the cans and bottles, but this is the second time I’ve seen a bandage over the vein where they take blood. If he were sick, I’d know because Mom would be doing her best Florence Nightingale. So that leaves one other possibility: He’s selling it to a blood bank.

“You okay?” I ask.

“Sure. Just . . . uh, thinking.”

I can’t ask him about the blood, but I can about something else. “Did you just get out of Mr. Purcellen’s pickup over by Starbucks?”

Dad stiffens, then shakes his head. “No.”

“That’s weird. I thought I saw the pickup, and then you were standing there.”

“I was just taking a walk.”

Or coming back from selling blood.

My stomach grumbles. “Want to get some dinner?”

It’s a simple question, yet Dad gazes off and seems to ponder it thoughtfully.