Can't Get There from Here (8 page)

“Okay, let’s make a place for you,” he said, carrying one of the shopping bags over to a small round table. He put out a red plastic plate and a plastic cup, which he filled with Hawaiian Punch. On the plate he put one chocolate, one sugar, and one cinnamon doughnut.

“If you want anything more to eat or drink, I’ll be over in the children’s section.” He pointed toward the side of the library where there were smaller tables and chairs and colorful posters on the walls. He picked up the shopping bags and left.

I ate the doughnuts and drank the punch in no time, but didn’t ask for more right away. I was afraid he might say that was enough and I should leave. I wanted to get warm first. With food in my stomach I got warm faster. I watched the library man spread red tablecloths on the little tables in the children’s room and then put out plates and cups. Now and then he looked in my direction and smiled.

Finally, I picked up my plate and cup and went over to him. The library man was putting books on the tables. Most of them showed a round-faced black man on the cover.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Martin Luther King,” the library man answered. “A very good man who made a difference for many people.”

I held up my empty plate and cup.

“I thought you might still be hungry.” He filled my cup again and gave me three more doughnuts. I went back to the table at the front of the library and ate them. No one would ever write books about me. I would never make a difference to anyone.

Outside cars, trucks, and buses started going up and down the streets, their windshield wipers swiping back and forth. The snow was still coming down in big white clumps, but the streets slowly turned into gray slush. The same with the sidewalks where more and more people were now walking. I sat at the small round table and watched through the big windows. It felt good to be in a warm place.

After a while the library man came over. “Still hungry?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“I want you to know that Bobby will be coming in soon. If you want to stay I promise that he won’t hurt you. You have as much right to use this library as anyone else.”

“I think I’ll go. Thanks for the doughnuts.” I got up
and started to take off the brown sweater.

“No, I want you to keep it,” he said.

“Okay, thanks.” I took my sweatshirt from the radiator. The cuffs were frayed and it had holes in it, but it was only damp now and even the dampness felt warm. I pulled it over my head. The library man looked outside at the falling snow. The lines in his blotchy freckled forehead deepened slightly. “Do you have somewhere to go?”

“Sure,” I said, and started toward the doors. He walked with me. I pulled the doors open. The air smelled cold and fresh.

“Wait,” he said. “My name is Anthony. Come back here any time you want. If you don’t see me by the computer tables you can go to the front desk and ask for me. They’ll get me, okay?”

“Okay.” I left.

By the time I got to the empty building, I
was wet and shivering again. Pest barked when I came up the steps, but everyone else was asleep on the mattress or the floor, covered with blankets, discarded clothes, and rags. I looked around for Rainbow, but she wasn’t there. I pulled together a bunch of clothes—pants, shirts, sweatshirts—and made a nest on the mattress and crawled into it. I’d been up most of the night looking for Rainbow. Now that I had those doughnuts in my stomach, it was easy to fall asleep.

“Maybe, wake up.” Someone touched my shoulder. I opened my eyes. I was lying on the mattress, trembling from the cold. My breath was a white cloud in the dim room. I couldn’t stop shaking and had to clench my teeth to stop them from chattering.

It was Tears who woke me. “2Moro got us free passes to The Cradle tonight.”

“How?” I yawned. The Cradle was the hottest club in the world and impossible to get into.

Tears looked over at 2Moro, who was kneeling in front of the broken mirror, putting makeup on Jewel, who was wearing a pink wig. “How’d you get the passes?”

“The bartender likes me,” 2Moro said.

I sat up. My head was spinning and I felt dizzy. My ankles started to itch something fierce and I had to scratch them hard. It was the bedbugs. Even the frigid cold didn’t stop them.

“I’m not going to some club,” I said.

Maggot was reading a newspaper. “Here’s something that might change your mind. The weather forecast is for record lows tonight. Like in the teens.”

“You sure that’s today’s paper?” OG asked.

Maggot turned it around and looked at the front page. “Yeah. And with the wind chill it’s supposed to feel even colder.”

“What’s wind chill?” Tears asked.

“You know how the wind makes it feel colder than it really is?” Maggot said. “That’s wind chill.”

I scratched my ankles so hard my fingernails broke the skin and my fingertips became damp and sticky with blood. But the pain made the horrible itching easier to take. The thin shafts of light squeezing past the window frames cut through the dim room like sabers. Dust floated in the shafts and shimmered. All the different tiny shapes caught the sunlight and turned white like snowflakes. When I breathed out, the cloud of my breath mixed with them and made them swirl and dance.

“Now do you want to go?” Tears asked me.

“Are you going?” I asked Maggot.

“Oh, yeah.” He grinned devilishly.

“I sold all those roofies there. They all think I’ve got good stuff. This
time I’ll sell a couple of spoonfuls of baking soda for hundreds of bucks.”

“Can I go?” Tears asked.

OG was feeding Pest leftover ramen noodles. “Hell, yes. They like ‘em young in the clubs. Younger the better.”

Tears bit her lip nervously.

“Not to worry, sweetheart,” Jewel told her. “We’ll make you look twenty-one.”

“What’ll we wear?” I asked. All I had was my sweatshirt and the white T-shirt and brown button-down sweater the library man, Anthony, gave me. Tears was wearing a furry black and orange sweater that made her look like one of those caterpillars you sometimes saw on roads.

“I can get you clothes, too,” said 2Moro.

Everyone except OG went. He was too old and crusty. With that beard and hair and missing teeth he could never get into the club no matter who 2Moro knew. It was dark when we left the building. Outside the snow and slush had turned hard and icy. I kept slipping on the sidewalk. Jewel had such a hard time walking in his platform shoes that he needed 2Moro and me to hold his arms so he didn’t fall.

2Moro led us to a building on Avenue A. It was five stories tall and made of brick. A rusty fire escape zigzagged down the front. The front door was unlocked and the mailboxes in the hallway were dented and broken. Light came from a bare lightbulb hanging by a wire from the ceiling.

“My, how luxurious,” Jewel joked.

2Moro led us up the stairs. On the second flight a group of Goths were coming down. They had dyed black hair and black eye makeup and lipstick and nail polish and were wearing black leather coats and high lace-up black boots.

“Looks like the cold forced the street scum inside,” the lead Goth snickered when he saw us. He was tall and wore black makeup. A wooden cross hung from his left ear.

“If it isn’t the bridge and tunnel crowd,” Maggot shot back. “How’s life in the suburbs, kids? Where’d you stash your regular clothes? In a locker at the train station?”

“Drop dead,” the lead Goth snarled. “Anybody can be a bum. It don’t prove nothing.”

“Proves that I’m not pretending to be something I’m not,” Maggot said.

I thought there might be a fight, but we passed each other without another word. From the floor above came voices and thumping music. The air started to smell sweet and smoky.

“Is this the club?” Tears asked.

“Oh, no, my dear,” Jewel answered. “This is just the warm up.”

2Moro led us into the apartment. It was filled with smoke and kids. Most of them dressed in fashionable clean clothes. In the living room people were draped over the couches and chairs, or sitting on the floor
watching a DVD of one of the
Lord of the Rings
movies. The air was so smoky it was hard to breathe.

Shimmying to the music, 2Moro took Tears and me by the hand. “Come on, let’s see what we can find for you to wear.” She led us down a narrow hallway. It seemed like every room was filled with people.

“What are they all doing here?” Tears asked.

“Waiting,” 2Moro said. “It’s not cool to get to the club before midnight.”

She led us into a bedroom where some kids were sitting around, drinking beer and smoking. Someone was in the bed, sleeping with earplugs and a black mask over his eyes. One of the smoking kids raised a finger to his lips, warning us to be quiet.

“Over here,” 2Moro whispered, pulling open a closet door. The closet was stuffed with silk shirts and blouses and black slacks. The floor was covered with shoes.

“Whose clothes are these?” I whispered to 2Moro.

“That bartender I told you about,” she answered. “His girlfriend works in a clothing store.”

“He has a girlfriend?” Tears asked. “I thought he liked you.”

2Moro shrugged. “Come on, we’ll get you dressed.”

It didn’t take long for Tears and me to find clothes that fit. Some of them still had sales tags attached. The bathroom was crowded with kids, but we managed to squeeze in and wash our hands and faces. Then 2Moro started to make us up.

“Ow!” I yelped in pain when she tried to pull a
plastic brush through my hair. “Stop! It hurts,”

“You can’t go to the club like this,” 2Moro said. “YOur hair’s disgusting. We have to do something with it.”

“Well, not that,” I said.

“Okay, let me try this,” she said. Working more gently, she managed to free enough hair to cover the hopelessly matted, tangled parts. Then she used mousse to make it stiff so it would stay in place. “You can fake it for tonight, but you ever want to do something with this mess, all the detangler in the world ain’t gonna help. This is hopeless, girl. You got to cut it all off and start over.”

“Maybe,” I said.

2Moro moved over to Tears, whose hair was short and not so tangled.

Looking at myself in the mirror, with my face washed and my hair brushed and those new clothes, I began to feel excited about going to the club. We left the bathroom and met Maggot and Jewel near the front door. A lot of people had left their coats in the hall. Maggot picked one out and handed it to me. “This looks like it’ll fit.”

“But it’s not mine,” I said.

“These are rich kids,” Maggot said. “They lose a jacket, their parents’ll buy them a new one.”

With new clothes and warm jackets we left the apartment and went back down to the street. The cold stung my nose and ears, and I hugged my new coat tightly around me and wished I’d taken a hat and gloves, too.
In the dark our breath came out in long white streams of mist.

The Cradle wasn’t far away. A long line of people stood outside in the bitter cold. Everyone was made up. Wigs and feathers and fingernails in every possible color. Shoes and boots with heels that added six inches. I felt good being in a crowd like that. Hardly anyone stared at me. 2Moro led us toward the front of the line, but we couldn’t go more than a few feet without someone stopping Maggot.

“Hey, Mag, you got any roofies?”

“What you got, Mag?”

“Hey, roofie boy, you got any?”

“Inside,” Maggot answered every time. “Inside.”

We got to the front of the line. A big guy wearing a huge brown fur coat and a fuzzy black hat was blocking the door. He raised a hand the size of a bear’s paw. “Far as you go.”

2Moro reached into her little black handbag and pulled out some orange slips of paper. The furry bear studied them, then nodded. “Okay, the five of you, go in.”

He pulled open the door and a gust of music, flashing lights, and hot smoky air blew into our faces. A moment later we were inside and the door banged closed behind us. At first the music was too loud, the flashing lights blinding, and the smoke even thicker than in the apartment. But we got used to it. Maggot was surrounded by people asking what he had and how much he wanted. Jewel and 2Moro disappeared into the
dancing crowd. I felt a hand close around mine and squeeze tightly. It was Tears.

“You ever been to a club before?”

I asked. She shook her head.

“You know how Jewel and 2Moro sometimes disappear for days?” I said. “This is where they go.”

“How do they eat and sleep?” Tears asked.

“Other people have money. Sometimes a lot of it. They pay eight dollars for a bottle of beer and twentyfive dollars for a little frozen pizza.”

“What about sleep?” Tears asked.

“Sometimes they don’t,” I said. “Sometimes they nap in a corner. Or people let them live in their apartments for a while.”

“For free?”

“Sometimes.”

I wasn’t sure Tears heard my answer. She started bouncing to the music. “Want to dance?”

“Okay.”

We moved into the crowd and started to dance. Like a little kid at the zoo, Tears kept looking at all the exotic creatures around us, but she stayed close to me. A man started to dance with us. He was older, but not old, and wore a shiny black shirt and a gold chain. His shirt was open and we could see his curly black chest hair. On one wrist was a gold watch and on the other a gold bracelet, and he wore three gold rings.

“Haven’t seen you two around here before,” he said over the music.

Tears and I kept dancing.

“Pretty hot in here,” he said. “Want something to drink?”

He was right. I was thirsty, and my throat was dry from the smoke.

“Come on, I’ll buy you both a drink,” he said.

I figured as long as Tears and I stuck together we were safe. We followed him away from the dancing crowd to a long bar in the shadows. Except for the glow of cigarette embers and the ghostly outline of the bartender’s white shirt, it was almost completely dark.

“What’ll you have?” the man asked.

“A Coke,” said Tears.

“Me too,” I said.

The man said something to the bartender. It was hard to hear above the music. Then he took out a pack of cigarettes and offered some to us. Neither of us wanted one. He lit a cigarette for himself.