The Care and Feeding of Exotic Pets (15 page)

Oren's hand went to his cheek. Pride wasn't exactly the right word, but he did know Marcus was special. A special kind of asshole. The carnies stayed out of his way. Even the marks got quiet when he was around. Only Oren's mother would stand up to him. She'd yell or sometimes try to hit him and he'd catch her hand and bend her wrist backward. He smacked her sometimes too, but she didn't stop fighting him until that night. Oren was thirteen, still working at the hot dog stand, still fucking up. It was late. The rides had stopped and the games and stands and booths were all shuttered. The incessant tinny music was turned off and the workers had gone to bed in their pick-ups and RV's and trailers.

“My mom didn't want to work.” Oren told Winnie as he drove down a rutted, pot-holed street. He saw her wince with the bumps. To his right, over the tops of the decrepit warehouses, the skyline of downtown LA glittered like the Emerald City. “My dad called her a princess. She was lazy. Never cleaned or cooked much. But she was beautiful, and people liked her. And she liked them. Boy, did she. She used to say she was born lonely. She was born missing someone and none of us made up for it. She said she had been looking all her life for that one special friend to fill her up. Marcus, my dad, made her the carnival clown. Jilly Bean he called her. Her name was Jill. Jilly Bean. My sweet Jilly Bean. She dressed up in a clown costume with a red nose and big shoes and sold balloon animals to kids. Mostly she just stood around and smoked.”

“Where did you go to school?”

Winnie's voice startled him. He had forgotten she was there. He had forgotten what he was doing. For one blessed fucking moment he was somewhere else.

Up ahead a traffic light guarded an intersection that looked as if it had been empty forever. It turned red just as he drove up. He thought about running it, but he could not risk it. Good thing too: he and Winnie watched a dark-skinned girl, a kid really, in shorts and a Mickey Mouse T-shirt push a grocery cart filled with cans and bottles across the street. Where was she going? Why was she here? It made Oren sad. Some Emerald City. Crowded with poor people who would never get a chance to see the Wizard.

“Every night,” Oren continued as the light changed to green, “my dad checked the locks on the trucks. Every night, last thing. It was not a surprise or it should not have been for my mother. I was with him, making the rounds. He went to the last semi, to the passenger side first, grabbed the door handle, swung himself up on the running board and tugged. Locked as it should be. He jumped down. I remember he grunted as he hit the ground and complained about the burrito he had eaten for dinner. He was not quiet. My mother should have heard him. She should have sat up then. She could have looked out the truck's door, explained that she fell asleep. But he walked around to the driver's side, hopped up on the running board, tried the door, and it opened.”

Oren remembered the blue patterned curtain swaying behind the seats. He heard the boy first, his high teenage squeals ending in a question mark, ‘Ooo? Ooo?' as if to ask, is this really happening to me? And then his mother's voice in response, “C'mon, baby. That's it. C'mon, baby.”

“My mother was in there with a boy. A boy. Not as old as I am now. My dad reached through the curtain and grabbed
whatever body part he could find. He yanked that kid right over the seat and tossed him on the ground. He was pink and naked, like a hairless baby mouse, a pinkie, the kind they feed to snakes. Then my father reached in and grabbed Jilly Bean. She was screaming, but he didn't care. He fell backwards out of the cab with her on top of him. Her ruffled collar was still on, and her wig and make-up, but she was naked from the waist down. Her pubic hair was as curly as the pom poms on her shirt. Her legs were all bubbled with cellulite. My sister, Fiona, came running. We watched Marcus beat the hell out of her. Her clown white smeared all over his big knuckles. The red smile around her lips turned to liquid and dripped onto her shirt. That pink rat boy ran away to his car in the parking lot, left his clothes behind. My father gave them to me, but I wouldn't wear them.”

He looked over at Winnie. She was staring straight ahead. Had she heard what he said?

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm sorry for you.” She turned and looked at him, and he was surprised her eyes were so angry. “If you kill me, it won't make your mother a better person. It won't change any mother, anywhere. Is that what you want? To make a statement about mothers? This isn't the way to do it.”

“You're not listening.”

“I heard. Your mother was a horrible person. Your father had a temper.”

“A temper?” Oren felt the blood fill his face. “He killed her.”

“Oh my God.”

“He killed her.”

“I didn't know. You didn't say.”

“You weren't listening. Blood. Blood everywhere.”

“What happened? What happened to her?”

“He said he was driving her to the hospital, but he came back with dirt on his pants and on his hands. I saw the shovel in
the back of the car. He buried her in a cornfield.”

He watched Winnie start to shake, to tremble all over. It wasn't like before, it wasn't on purpose or like a fit, but as if she was freezing to death. Her teeth were chattering together in her mouth. The snow days were the best in the carnival. They'd hole up in someone's trailer, playing cards, making chili. The grown ups would drink and tell stories. His mother would rub his arms when he came in cold and wet from checking the rigs. She would sling one arm around him, pull him to her. Popsicle, she called him. My little popsicle boy. The sunlight through Winnie's window glowed golden around her. Strands of dark hair stuck to her cheek and looked like wet branches against the snow. There were goose bumps on her thighs; even on the purple bruises just the size of his finger. He reached for her hand and held it even though it was damp and kind of slimy.

His cell phone rang and they both jumped. He dug it out of his back pocket, looked at the number and tried to turn away from her to answer, “Hey.”

“Help!” Winnie screamed. “He's holding me prisoner. Help me!”

She grabbed his arm, reaching for the phone. A girl's voice came through loud and clear, “Oren! Who is that? Oren? Are you there?”

“Help me!” Winnie yelled. “It's not a joke.”

He pushed her violently. She slammed against the window. He heard her head crack one more time against the glass. He stopped the car in the middle of the empty street.

“It's just a joke,” he said into the phone, “I have to go.”

He put it back in his pocket. Winnie was looking all around, but Oren had checked, there was no one to help her. He got out the gun and pointed it at her. He wished his gun was real.

“Now,” he said. “Now.” But he had nothing after that.

She pulled her arms in front of her chest. She stuck out her bottom lip, like a child. “Okay. Oren.”

He froze. He didn't realize she had heard that. “Isn't that your name? Oren?”

“I was going to introduce myself. I was. Later.” He had that part planned too, but it wasn't supposed to go like this. They should be home, sitting on his couch, talking it out. He looked at his watch. He was late. This trip to see Kidney, the money, this stupid woman was ruining everything.

“So,” she said. “Hi. I'm Winnie. Nice to meet you, Oren.”

“You're Winnie Parker,” he said. “Your husband is Jonathan Parker. Your mother is Daisy Juniper.”

He slammed his fist into his thigh as he started driving again. Damn his eyes for filling up with tears. He shook his head, rubbed his eyes, and forced himself to smile. He sang a tuneless little song, “Winnie, Winnie, don't you wanna? Cuddle up with my iguana?”

“I'll help you get the money, Oren. I will. It's for Cookie, isn't it?”

“Why do you think that?”

“He's sick.”

“He's not sick.”

“He's that funny color. I thought iguanas are green.”

“It's mating season, that's all. He gets rusty like that to attract the female. The girls like that color.” He laughed. “Like my red hair.”

“Cookie needs a girlfriend. Of course he does. Everyone needs someone special to love. I bet you need money to buy Cookie a friend.”

He was stunned. And then grudgingly impressed. She had figured it out.

“You can't be such a bad mother,” he said.

“Who told you I was?”

“Do you lock your daughter in her room at night?”

“Her door doesn't lock.”

“Do you tell the servants to not speak to her?”

“I don't have any servants. I live in a little house, a bungalow, in Echo Park near Dodger Stadium. Two bedrooms. One bath. Your house is bigger than mine.”

“And that fancy European car you drive?”

“A fifteen-year-old Peugeot.”

“One of two ever made.”

“One of two still running maybe.”

“I wish I could believe you.”

“It's the truth.”

It could not be. Because if it was the truth, then Lacy was lying to him and if Lacy was lying to him then everything he was doing meant nothing. No. Winnie was lying to him. She had to be. And he hated liars.

Buster filled the pipe.

“More, man,” the leader said. “There's a lot of us.”

Buster obliged. Lacy watched him, afraid to look anywhere else. The pipe was a small, carved and polished piece of something, black and gray with flecks of blue. Lacy didn't think this kind of stone was really found in nature. She wondered how she could be thinking about this right now. She wrapped her hands around her knees. She felt the scarier, quiet guy looking at her. She tried to see him with her peripheral vision, without turning her head, but he was a little behind her. When she finally turned to him, he was staring at her arms.

“Girl,” he whispered, “you are white.”

She blushed.

“Whoa, watch that!” the fat boy exclaimed. “Now she's red.”

“Such a drag,” Lacy said. “I hate my skin.”

“Uh huh, I can see why.” Fatty laughed, but his friend just stared at her.

The leader had a lighter. He took the pipe from Buster and lit up. After a few tokes he passed it to the fat one. The other one did not partake. Lacy didn't either.

“C'mon, white girl,” said the leader.

She shook her head.

“It's good for you,” he said. “Make your toes twinkle.”

“Let her be,” the quiet one said. He held out a hand to her.
“Let me show you what's really cool.”

Buster frowned. Lacy waited. Did she have to go? The guy gestured, “come on” with his hand. Everybody was staring at her.

“Babe,” Buster began.

Lacy cut him off. He would not do well in a fight. “I'll be right back.” She took the offered hand and stood up. She tried to smile. “I love this place. I do. Can't wait to see more.” She wished she were back in school, that she had gone to see the principal, braved Marissa and her friends.

She let herself be pulled away from the others, through the garden until she couldn't see Buster anymore. They went up some steps and down another little path. Clouds had slipped in across the sky and without the sun nothing shone or sparkled.

“Look,” he said. “Reject land.”

Hidden in among the bushes and dirt were small glass mistake animals. They were misshapen and lumpy, freaks of nature, missing legs or eyes, with one ear twice the size of the other or a hump back covered in glass tumors. There was even a two-headed animal, one end a rat, the other end a bird or something, as if the glass blower had changed his mind in the middle. Her guide held her hand tightly. His grip was firm, but narrow and long-fingered like a girl. She could not help but notice how dark his skin was next to hers. His hips were slim too, almost feminine in the cheap jeans she recognized from Target. He stopped abruptly and she tumbled into him. He let go of her.

“Sorry!”

“Shh!”

She waited and listened. The wind was picking up and there was a clattering of palm fronds. She shivered. It had been so warm earlier sitting in the sun with Buster. She looked back over her shoulder. The clouds had changed the light. A greenish tint as if the day had spoiled.

“I should go,” she said.

She turned to head back and he grabbed her arm.

“My mother,” she whispered, “is picking me up."

“And what if you're not there?”

She held her breath. She stood as still as if she were made of glass. The breeze blew a hair into her face, but she did not brush it back. She was his height. Her blue eyes looked right into his, a lighter brown than she expected, golden in the odd winter light. His hand slipped down her naked arm and held her wrist.

She stood up straight. “Why did you want me to see this?”

“It's good for you.”

“What is?”

His gaze went down and up her body slowly. Then he said, “It's good for perfect girls to see something ugly. I bet everything is pretty in your perfect life.”

“I'm not perfect,” Lacy protested. “I'm not.”

“You don't know what you are. You don't know what I am. You don't know what any of this is.”

She waited for him to tell her. His long fingers easily circled her wrist. Over his shoulder she could see a misshapen dog, or maybe it was a bear. One side of its face caved in, making a bubble in the other cheek.

“Don't you see?” he asked. His eyebrows went up. He leaned in close enough to kiss her. He smelled of aftershave and soap, minty fresh. Then, abruptly, he stepped back and grinned. His teeth were straight and white and clean. Obviously he'd had braces. He let go of her and she exhaled.

“Where do you go?” he asked.

“Kennedy."

“That arts magnet?”

She nodded, both feet back on safe ground. “You?”

“UCLA.”