Can't Get There from Here (2 page)

OG let out a gurgly, liquid cough. Put his hands on the ground to brace himself, then coughed and coughed while his thin body shook. Then spit out a mouthful of greenish phlegm.

Maggot, Tears, and me stood nearby, watching. My stomach growled and hurt from hunger.

“He must’ve died during the night,” Maggot said. His nose and the left side of his mouth were swollen purple and blue where the drunk guy had punched him. His sweatshirt had a big reddish brown dried bloodstain on the front.

“How?” Tears asked. The newest and youngest member of our “family,” she had showed up a couple of weeks before.

“Don’t know,” Maggot said. “Doesn’t look like he was killed. I don’t see any blood or bruises.”

Maggot talked different from most street kids. They would have said, “don’t see no bruises.” Maggot said “any.”

Tears looked at me with big round brown eyes almost hidden by the straight black bangs that hung down her forehead. “Ever seen a dead person before?”

I didn’t know. Sometimes it was hard to remember. “Yeah,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure.

“Ever
touch
a dead person before?” Maggot asked. I knew a dare when I heard one.

“Have you?” I asked back.

Maggot stepped closer to the body. Squatted down and placed his hand on Country Club’s dirty forehead. Kept it there for a moment, then stood up and came back to us.

“What was it like?” Tears practically gasped. When you first saw her, she looked like she was around my age. She had a shape—more of a shape than I did. But she acted young, and if you looked close it seemed like she was still growing. Like her eyes were too big for her round face. It gave her this always startled look. Like everything was a surprise.

“It was weird,” Maggot answered. “I mean, his skin’s cold to the touch. But that’s not the only thing. You have to see for yourself.”

Tears looked at me with those big dark little kid eyes. Like she wanted to know if she should do it. Or if I would.

I went over and squatted next to the body. By now I was pretty sure I’d never seen a dead person before. Never even been to a funeral. People said when you died you either went to Heaven or Hell. Maybe there really was a Hell because there was a show on TV about volcanoes, and it said that deep down inside the earth there was red-hot melted rock. But where was Heaven? People said it was up in the clouds. But what about the days when there were no clouds? Where was Heaven then?

Squatting close to Country Club’s body in Piss
Alley, I looked up at the sky. All you could see were gray clouds where the tops of the buildings ended. Then I looked down at Country Club. Those blank, glassy eyes were staring straight up. “You lookin’ for it, Country Club?” I whispered. “Let me know if you find it, okay?”

I reached down and put two fingers on his forehead. Maggot was right. It felt weird. The skin was cold and almost rubbery. I moved it a little with my finger. It didn’t go back when I let go. On TV once I saw a man put his hand over the eyes of a dead person and close them. I put a finger on one of Country Club’s eyelids and moved it down.

“Hey! What are you doing?” OG’s shout caught me by surprise. OG didn’t yell much, but when he did you saw the gaps where he was missing teeth and it made him look scary, like a witch or something. He picked up a beer can and threw it at me. It glanced off my forehead, but didn’t hurt much because it was empty.

“Leave him alone!” OG screamed. I jumped back to where Maggot and Tears were.

“Gee, Maybe, don’t you have any respect for the dead?” Maggot laughed.

OG picked up another beer can and threw it over our heads, yelling, “Get out of here! Leave us alone!”

Tears, Maggot, and me backed down the alley toward the street. We passed the shopping cart Country Club used to push around. It was full of rags and empty bottles. On top was a small black TV set with a dark green
screen. It was broken, but in the reflection I could see back down the alley where OG was sitting next to Country Club. It was the last episode of the
OG and Country Club Show
. But maybe there would be a spinoff.
The Return of OG and Country Club
. Or maybe
Country Club in Heaven
.

“What’d it feel like?” Tears asked.

“What?” I was still watching the end of the
OG and Country Club Show
.

“Touching him.”

“I don’t know. Like a dead person.”

“Was he OG’s best friend?” Tears asked.

“Yeah,” Maggot said. “I think they’d been together for a long time.”

Anyone else would have said, “they been together,” but Maggot said, “they’d.”

We stepped out of the alley and onto the sidewalk. People walked past wearing coats and hats, carrying briefcases and talking on cell phones, like it was any old day and there wasn’t a dead guy a dozen yards away. Tears shoved her hands into the pockets of her gray sweatshirt. Except for the bangs that fell almost into her eyes, her black hair was short.

“Does it happen a lot?” she asked.

“OG throwing beer cans?” Maggot said.

“No, someone dying like that.”

“All the time,” Maggot said, even though it was the first time I could remember. And I’d been around there since the summer. Longer than Maggot, who showed up when
the leaves on the trees were starting to change colors.

“Don’t it scare you?” Tears asked.

“Naw, Country Club was old,” said Maggot.

“How old?”

“I don’t know. Just old. Like in his twenties,” Maggot said. “You know he was lucky? A thousand years ago, like in the Dark Ages, you were lucky if you lived even that long. Now everybody thinks they’re supposed to live forever.”

A woman in blue tights and a red down vest jogged toward us. Maggot held out a dirty hand. His fingernails were painted black. “Spare a little change, ma’am?”

“Sorry, don’t have my wallet,” the jogger answered.

“It’s hard to think about living past eighteen,” I said.

“Who’d want to?” added Maggot.

A police car came around the corner. Tears took off down the sidewalk and disappeared. The car stopped at the curb, and the cop in the passenger seat rolled down her window. She had streaked blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. I’d never seen her before, but I’d seen her partner, the one who was driving. His name was Officer Johnson and he was mean. He leaned toward the passenger-side window. “Hey, Maggot, what you dealin’ today, oregano or baby powder?”

“Neither, Officer Johnson. I’m just out here spanging,” Maggot answered. Spanging was street talk for spare-changing. “Hardly worth arresting me for. With the way our legal system works, I’ll be back on the street before you can say misdemeanor.”

“You got it all figured out, don’t you, Maggot?” Officer Johnson said with a smirk. The policewoman with the streaked blond hair just looked at us. The black nametag over her badge said Ryan.

“We got report of a dead body around here,” Johnson said. “You kids know anything about that?”

Maggot gave me a look, then glanced over at the entrance to Piss Alley. That was all it took. Officer Ryan got out of the patrol car and put on her dark blue police hat so the ponytail stuck out of the back. The hat looked too big for her head. She was about my height and not fat, but the thick black gun belt with the radio and gun and nightstick made her hips look wider than they really were. She looked down Piss Alley, then pulled the black radio off her belt and spoke into it. She hurried back to the patrol car and said something to Johnson, who was still inside. Then she rushed around to the trunk and got out an orange first aid kit and dashed back to the alley. You could kind of tell she was a new cop. Maybe Country Club was the first dead person she’d ever seen, too. Or maybe she wasn’t sure he was really dead.

Meanwhile, Officer Johnson turned on the flashing lights and backed the car up so that it blocked the alley.

They’d just finished putting up the yellow crime scene tape when the orange-and-white EMS truck arrived, siren blurping and lights flashing. From down in Piss Alley came OG’s raspy, liquid cough. Two EMS
people with white shirts and dark pants got out of the truck and ducked under the crime scene tape. In the alley they talked to Officer Ryan. No one touched Country Club.

A crowd gathered on the sidewalk behind the crime scene tape. A green sedan pulled up. It had a flashing red light on the dashboard. Two men in dark suits got out and ducked under the tape.

“Detectives,” Maggot said.

One of the detectives talked to Officer Ryan. The other told OG to get out of the alley. OG got up slowly and trudged away, the frayed bottoms of his jeans dragging along the ground. He was so skinny, his pants were always sliding off his hips. Went past us and down the street. One of the detectives pulled on white latex gloves and began to feel around Country Club’s body. The other one walked around the alley, looking at the ground and moving pieces of garbage with the tip of his shoe.

The two EMS people went back to the ambulance and got a stretcher with wheels and a long black bag with a zipper.

“Think I could talk to you for a second?” Officer Ryan asked Maggot and me, flipping open a notepad.

“It’s a free country for those who can afford it,” Maggot replied. “First week on the job?”

Officer Ryan looked up and blinked. “How’d you know?”

“Lucky guess,” Maggot said.

“Either of you know his real name?” Officer Ryan pointed her pen at Country Club.

We shook our heads.

“Where he came from?” she asked.

We shook our heads again.

Officer Johnson came over. He was a tall cop with a long face and a black mustache. “What are you doing?” he asked Officer Ryan.

“Trying to get some information,” she answered.

“From them?” Johnson shrugged. “Don’t waste your time.”

Officer Ryan flipped her notepad closed and followed Johnson back to the patrol car.

“Hey,” Maggot called behind them. “What’d he die of?”

“Exposure,” Officer Johnson said over his shoulder without stopping.

“To what?” I asked.

“To the cold,” Officer Johnson said as he pulled open the car door. “To drugs, drink, disease, and hunger. Basically to life on the street. If you kids had any sense, you’d go home.”

“What if you don’t have a home to go to?” Maggot asked.

“You’ve got no parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, relatives?” asked Officer Ryan.

“You think I’d be living like this if I did?” Maggot said.

“You could go into a shelter.”

“No, thanks,” said Maggot. “Last time I spent a night in a shelter they robbed me of everything I had. I’d rather take my chances out here.”

“As long as you’re out here,” Officer Johnson said, “you don’t have a chance.”

It was the middle of the night and the
Good Life Deli was the only place open. Not that we could go in since we didn’t have any money. My stomach hurt and some food would have helped, but it was the deli’s light we really needed. In the light we weren’t gonna get rolled or cut or killed. The really bad ones, the junkies and weirdos who’d slit your throat as soon as look at you, they didn’t like the light.

2Moro leaned against the wall, wearing black fishnet stockings and a short red skirt and her orange-and-red patchwork jacket. She was smoking a cigarette. When she first showed up, her skin was a delicate olive tone, but it was more yellow now. Sometimes she forgot to go to the clinic to refill her HIV medications. Most days she spent more money on cigarettes than on food.

Rainbow sat against the wall with her eyes closed, wearing her black leather jacket with the collar turned up. She was nodding over, bending at the waist, her tangled blond hair falling into her lap.

“Why doesn’t she just go to sleep?” Tears asked. Her breath was cloudy. We were wearing coats we found on the fence outside the church, but we had no hats or gloves.

“She’s not sleepy,” I answered.

“She can hardly keep her eyes open.”

It was hard to believe Tears was so innocent.

“How old are you, really?” 2Moro asked.

“Sixteen.”

“How come you run away every time the cops come around?”

“I don’t know.” Tears lifted her shoulders and let them drop.

“Listen, girl,” 2Moro said, “I’m fifteen and you sure ain’t no older than me. Tell the truth. What you afraid of?”

“Okay, I’m fourteen,” Tears said.

“What year were you born?”

“Uh …”

“If you’re gonna lie, you gotta be faster than that,” Rainbow said without lifting her head. She did that all the time. Acted like she was totally out of it, but she was really right there, listening. “You’re twelve, right?”

“I’ll be thirteen in March.”

“Where you from?” 2Moro asked.

Tears stared at her with those big round eyes.

“Girl, you can tell us,” 2Moro said.

“I thought you’re not supposed to tell,” Tears replied.

“Who said?” Rainbow asked.

“Ain’t it a rule?”

“We don’t have no rules,” Rainbow said. “I come from North Miami Beach, Florida. Maybe, tell her where you come from.”

“Uh, I don’t know,” I said.

“How can you not know where you’re from?” Tears asked.

“It wasn’t one place. It was all over.”

“Maybe’s mom was a carnie,” Rainbow explained. “Traveled with a circus. What exactly your mom do, Maybe?”

“Lot of things,” I said. “Sometimes she fed the animals. Put up and tore down the tents. Took the tickets for the freak show.”

“This whole city’s a freak show,” 2Moro said.

Rainbow turned to Tears. “So where’re you from?”

“Hundred, West Virginia.”

“A hundred West Virginias?” 2Moro teased.

“No, it’s called Hundred,” Tears explained. “That’s the name of the town, and it’s in West Virginia.”

“Why’s it called that?” I asked.

“Everybody says something different,” Tears said. “Like it’s the speed limit or how long you have to count with your eyes closed to miss the whole town. Or it’s the average IQ.”

“So what happened?” Rainbow asked. “What are you doing here?”

“Brent moved in.”

“Let me guess,” Rainbow said. “Your mom’s new boyfriend? Or your new stepfather?”