Sketches (20 page)

“Hey, girls! This is Gizmo. Have you met him before?”

“No,” I said. Of course I'd seen him around, but the guys who worked in the design and tech studio didn't tend to mingle with the other artists that much.

Gizmo reached out a dirty, greasy hand for us to shake. I really didn't want to but I didn't have much choice.

“Gizmo here is a genius!” Brent declared.

I didn't know about genius, but he did have a kind of deranged, mad scientist thing going on, with his hair sticking up, thick glasses, and strange clothes.

“He made this incredible scooter,” Brent said. “Tell them about it.”

Gizmo started blabbering on about engine displacement and speed, gear ratios, two-stroke engines, and a bunch of other stuff. I knew he was speaking English— I recognized the actual words—but he might as well have been speaking a foreign language for all I understood.

What I saw was a motorized scooter. A very cool motorized scooter with a custom paint job. It looked as though it would be fine to ride on.

“And do you know what's even more amazing?” Brent asked. “He made this whole thing from spare parts and pieces.”

“Pretty amazing,” Ashley said, and I nodded encouragingly.

“And what's even more amazing is that he can put one of these scooters together out of parts that are worth less than
three hundred
dollars, and he can sell them for up to a
thousand
dollars. Isn't that something?”

“That's a good profit,” I agreed.

“That's a
great
profit,” Brent said. He turned to Gizmo. “Do you think you could leave so that I could talk to the girls?”

Gizmo nodded and left us alone in the studio.

“I wanted to talk to you two about something. A way to more than double our money in the next two weeks,” Brent said.

“What did you have in mind?” Ashley asked.

“You've met Gizmo, and you see his scooter,” he said, patting it on the seat.

“You want to
buy
a scooter?” I asked in shock.

“Not buy one.
Build
one. Gizmo is willing to teach me how to build these.”

“That would be incredible!” Ashley said.

“It
would
be incredible . . . it's just that . . . I'd have to use some of the money to buy parts.”

“Some of
our
money?” Ashley asked.

“Yeah. A couple of hundred dollars. That much is mine anyway, right?”

“But . . . but . . . we're saving to get an apartment . . . an apartment for all of us . . . we're almost there,” I reminded him.

“I'm just planning for the future,” he said.

“But the apartment is our future. Together,” Ashley said. “Don't you want to be with us?”

“Of course I do . . . it's just that I'm looking farther ahead. I have to figure out where I'm going to be, what I'm going to do. Even after we get the apartment we're going to have to keep making the rent, plus money for our food and other expenses. I have to do something . . . I don't want to end up right back on the street, with no way to make a living except scrounging for cash.”

“But it sounds like you're telling me it's a choice between our apartment and you taking a chance on this scooter business, and I think—” Ashley began.

“Can't we do both?” I asked.

They both looked at me.

“We just keep saving. If we can save a thousand we can save twelve hundred. So we stay at Tent Town a week or so longer. There are worse places to be.”

They both thought for a moment, then nodded their heads in agreement.

“Deal?” I asked.

“Deal,” Ashley said.

Brent reached over and wrapped one arm around me and the other around Ashley and pulled us close.

“Thanks for understanding. This will all work.”

“As long as we work together,” I said, “I think we can all have what we want.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I WAS STARTLED AWAKE
by the sound of a loud, angry engine, shattering the quiet of the night. What could that be? You'd think, living by the expressway in the middle of a city, I'd get used to loud noises, but they still bothered me. The engine roared again. This was
really
loud. So loud that I could almost feel the ground shaking underneath me. It sounded like a truck. An
enormous
truck just outside our tent.

“I can't sleep with all that racket,” Brent said, his voice barely audible over the rumbling outside. I wasn't surprised that he was awake—how could anybody sleep through that noise?

“It sounds awfully close,” Ashley said, poking her head out from under her blanket.

“It'll go away,” Brent said. “Just roll over and go back to sleep. It's not time to get up yet.”
He was right. There was barely any light coming in through the nylon of the tent, so it was still before sunrise . . . sunrise happened around six in the morning. I wondered what time it was, but there was no way I could make out the dial of my watch in the dim light.

Suddenly the sound of the engine got even louder and there was an explosion—a crash—the sound of metal against metal! All of us sat bolt upright.

“What the hell was that?” Brent exclaimed.

Before anybody could think to answer, or even think about anything, the noise of the engine was punctuated by the sounds of men yelling and feet running on gravel. Then the whole tent was bathed in bright light.

“Get out!” Brent screamed.

I threw off my blanket and scrambled for my shoes as Brent fumbled with the zipper of the tent. The flap opened up and even brighter light flooded in. I looked away from the glare. Brent popped out through the opening and Ashley scurried out on all fours. I grabbed my shoes and crawled out after them. I got to my feet and then froze in place, stunned by the scene.

There were men, dozens and dozens of men. They were all wearing uniforms. Police . . . no . . . more like security guards. And each man was carrying a big flashlight, the beam dancing and jumping as they walked and ran. Moving down the street was a gigantic bulldozer, its lights blazing. It inched along the road. I
looked past it to the fence. There was a gaping hole where the gate had stood, and the fence was mangled. That was the sound, the bulldozer crashing through the locked gate and the fence.

The security guards, in pairs, were stopping at each tent or shack. They pounded on those dwellings that had doors, hammering them with their big flashlights. Tents were unzipped, the flaps ripped open, and the flashlights aimed inside.

“Get out! Everybody get the hell out!”

Weary, confused, tired, stoned, stunned, hungover, half-dressed people crawled out of their tents or shacks and into the dim early-morning light. The sun was just starting to push its way over the horizon. The people stood in complete silence, watching the scene unfolding before them like it was a terrible dream, or a bad drug experience, or just part of the delusions that normally haunted them. It was none of those. It was real—terrible and real.

The men—the security men—started herding people forward. I felt a sense of overwhelming panic. I was desperate . . . I had to get away. I scanned the scene around me, searching for a way to escape. Past the line of security guards sweeping people along was another line of men, standing at the fence, beams from their flashlights marking their spots. There was no way out. I moved forward, staying very close to Brent, hoping that somehow he could save me, that he could protect me.

“What's happening?” I gasped.

“Isn't it obvious?” he answered.

“Not to me. Are they going to hurt us?”

“Not if we don't give them a chance. Don't argue with anybody, don't push even if they push you, and keep your mouth shut,” he said.

“But what are they doing, why are they here? What's going to—?”

“Can I have your attention!” a loud, amplified, metallic voice boomed out. Each word echoed back at us off the buildings before flying out over the lake and sinking beneath the waves. I looked around, trying to search out the source of the voice. There he was—a man standing on the back of a flatbed truck, just outside the fence, a bullhorn in his hand. There was already a crowd of people by the truck and we were being herded in that direction to join them.

Just over to my side a man spun around and pushed one of the security guards. Before he could even move two more security guards materialized, knocked him down, and pinned him to the ground beneath their feet and knees!

Almost as quickly a pair of police officers were on top of the scene. Thank goodness, they ordered the security guards off the man. They helped the poor man to his feet and then they spun him around and started to handcuff him! What were they doing? He was the one who was attacked, and they were arresting him?
The two police officers led him away, one holding each arm.

“I am here this morning,” the bullhorn man shouted, “as the legal representative of Helping Hands Hardware Incorporated, the owner of this property.”

He was standing high above everybody on the back of the truck. At his side were two large, burly security men, flashlights in hand. Another half-dozen guards stood by the truck, between him and the crowd.

“I am notifying all of you that you are
illegally
trespassing on private property. You are hereby ordered to leave said property—”

“This is our land!” screamed out a voice, cutting him off. It was the Mayor! He pushed his way to the front of the crowd until he was stopped from going any farther by the security guards. “And I order
you
and your
thugs
to leave immediately!” the Mayor yelled.

The crowd, which had been sullen and sleepy and silent, suddenly sprang to life and cheered for the Mayor.

“This,” the bullhorn man blared out, “is the legal property of Helping Hands Hardware Incorporated and we have a court order, issued yesterday, to clear the property of all possessions and people!” He held a piece of paper above his head, like somehow waving a few words would be enough to make us leave.

“Stay close to me in case something starts,” Brent said. “And if it does start, you and Ashley make sure you
keep your arms and hands wrapped around your heads, for protection.”

“Protection from what?”

“From getting your brains splattered all over the ground. Why do you think all those guards have those big flashlights? Those are clubs they're going to use to bust heads open if people resist,” he explained. “And you can expect some flying rocks and bricks to be coming in the other direction. No telling who they might hit.”

“We don't believe in you or your courts or your orders!” the Mayor screamed. “In here, I'm the law!”

“You are trespassing,” the bullhorn man yelled back. “You are on our property
illegally
and you are ordered to leave within the hour.”

“And if we don't leave?” the Mayor demanded. “What are you going to do then?”

“We hope you will leave co-operatively,” came the amplified answer.

“We ain't doing anything co-operatively,” the Mayor screamed back. “So what are you going to do?”

“You have one hour to gather your things and go. If you remain, then we will have no choice but to execute the eviction notice by
force
.”

“You think you can evict us?” the Mayor yelled. He was sounding angrier with each passing word. “You and what army?”

It was obvious even to me what army—the dozens and dozens of security guards who surrounded us. I
watched now as each of those security guards held his flashlight in front of him—not for light, but as a weapon. It was like Brent had said, they were going to use them as clubs. And I knew that practically everybody in the crowd had a weapon on them . . . and men like the Mayor were prepared to use them. I could see people puffing themselves up, ready for a fight, and others, like me, trying to shrink away, bracing for what was going to come.

“We have to get out of here,” I hissed at Brent. “We have to get away from—”

“I want everybody to just stop!” yelled out a voice. A large police officer, stripes on his shoulders, moved past us and to the front of the crowd. The security guards stepped to the side as he climbed up on the truck and took a position beside the bullhorn man. He was big, bigger than the bullhorn man, bigger than either of the two security guards who flanked him.

“I'm Sergeant Malik, and my men and I were sent to see to the safety of the people . . . all the people,” he said. His voice was so big and booming that he didn't need the bullhorn to be heard. “There will not, I repeat,
not
be any use of excessive force.” He turned and directly faced the bullhorn man, who looked away.

“These people do have a duly executed court document,” the Sergeant continued. “They have the right to ask you to leave this property.”

“Leave it to go where?” a woman asked in a desperate voice.

“Behind you you'll notice that there are buses.”

I turned around. There were four big yellow school buses sitting on the road just outside the fence.

“These buses are for your transportation. They will bring you and your possessions to one of a number of shelters where you can—”

“I ain't going to no shelter!” yelled the Mayor.

“Me neither!” screamed another.

“I'd rather sleep under a bridge than go to a stinking shelter!” came another voice.

The Sergeant held up his hands to silence the crowd. “That is your choice, and maybe I can't blame you. You are free to go elsewhere for the night, if you choose. The city and Helping Hands Hardware have also set up an emergency fund. Those of you who are eligible can receive money to spend the next week in a motel selected by Social Services until you can find other accommodations.”

There was grumbling from the crowd as people discussed what they'd just heard among themselves.