I Will Save You (3 page)

I listened to people talk as they walked along the path
outside my tent. Mostly kids. A girl voice said some girl named Blue looked too skinny. And maybe that was why she always went to the bathroom after she ate.

Another girl voice said she brought a big bottle of aloe this year.

A little later a man’s voice said: “She’s not depressed, Mary, she’s insecure. There’s a difference.”

A woman’s voice answered: “She’s sixteen and she’s a girl, Ron. What do you expect?”

“Jesus, why do you think I’m taking her to New York?”

“I understand, but until then …”

Their voices trailed off and I looked back at my book and right that second a name popped in my head:

Kidd’s Philosophy of Life Book
.

I laid in my tent that night, on top of my sleeping bag, writing my first-ever philosophy about how people are asleep even when they’re awake and about seeing colors and being on autopilot. I addressed it to myself, like a letter to me, thinking I could read it later on and remember all the important things I learned from Mr. Red.

As a regular person.

Outside of Horizons.

And then, I don’t even know why, but I started writing about this time me and Devon had to run for our lives out of this liquor store downtown.

 … You weren’t even close to being done peeing, though, when you heard a deep growling sound and when you turned around there was a huge pit bull crouched down and showing his teeth, saliva dripping onto the grass exactly how it’d be in a cartoon. And remember how paralyzed your body got? It was frozen. You couldn’t even breathe air in your lungs.

Devon shouted: Come on!

You zipped up midflow and raced back through the liquor store with the rabies dog chasing you, barking so loud you couldn’t even hear what the liquor-store guy was yelling. You and Devon flew out the store and up the street, not looking back or stopping or saying anything until you were at least fifteen blocks away.

Then you ducked behind that big black truck and leaned over laughing and trying to catch your breath. And even though it probably doesn’t seem like that big of a deal now, getting chased by a dog and having to stop your pee in the middle, to this day you’ve never run so fast in your life or laughed so hard. You just sat there on the sidewalk next to Devon, bent over laughing and laughing and laughing. People walking past gave you dirty looks probably thinking you guys were on drugs or crazy, but it’s just how close you came to getting attacked by a killer dog in the middle of peeing in his yard.

Maybe it goes exactly with what Mr. Red said today: that you should always remember how awake you feel when you’re running or laughing with Devon or even when you’re just cleaning a campsite bathroom as part of your job. You always have to remember how lucky you are, to be away from Horizons. And to be free.

And alive.

And awake enough to smell everything.

I can’t remember
what happened after the grunion came. I don’t know if Devon died when he hit the sand, or if Olivia understands how I did it for her, or if anybody saw the police club me and push me in their backseat with handcuffs. I have no idea what I thought about as I stared out the window while they drove me here.

Either I blocked it out or they gave me drugs like the ones I got at Horizons after my mom died and they said I had post-traumatic stress.

I’ve been laying here this whole time, in the dark, trying to remember the summer and everything that happened before I pushed Devon off the cliff. Like my mom said. ’Cause then I could know if I was right.

But so much of my mind is missing.

And the way I feel is missing, too.

That’s why I think they gave me pills. It’s the same as after they sat me down and said my mom was gone and gave me drugs that would supposedly make me better. Except I didn’t feel better at all. I just got hollow, like a chocolate bunny in your Easter basket. Which is how I am right now.

You know those stories they have about cats coming up to babies’ pillows when they’re asleep and stealing their breath? That’s what it feels like with me. Only the cat that came to
my
pillow left my breathing alone and stole how I feel.

What I Remember About My Mom

All you can do in prison is think. And your mind goes to bad places if you let it think whatever it wants, so you have to picture certain things. Most of the time I try to remember the summer, before the grunion night, to decide if I was right about Devon. But today I’ve just been laying here picturing things about my mom.

How she never looked you in the eyes when she talked to you. She’d stare at the top of your forehead. Or in your hair. Or at something past you.

She never picked up the phone. She’d stand there watching it ring, waiting for the voice-mail light to start flashing.

This time we did miniature golf and she hit a hole in one and all the spotlights came on and the workers announced it over the loudspeaker and gave us a bucket of free tokens. How on the bus ride home she told me she just aimed for the green wall, that was her secret, nobody else knew to aim for the green wall, and she called me her good-luck charm.

The last letter she wrote. Me memorizing every word.

How she’d fall asleep in front of the TV and I’d wake her up and take the empty wineglass from her hand and help her to her feet and watch her stagger to her room. Me carrying her glass to the sink, staring at the red stain at the bottom, wondering what was gonna happen to us.

Me as a little kid waking up and finding her standing over me as I laid in her bed. Looking at me. Saying: “You can still sleep, baby. Mommy’s just watching you.”

My dad coming over and them smoking on the fire escape. Laughing and sitting close. Him staying over. The next morning her dancing to the radio in the kitchen, making pancakes and bacon. Bringing out our plates, setting them down. Rubbing Dad’s shoulders while he took his first bite and then winking at me.

Me standing behind her in court when she got the restraining order. And then later that night how she let him in ’cause he said he was sick. Pulling money from her secret cookbook stash and slipping it into his hand. Them hugging and crying and her telling me: “Go on back to bed, baby. Mom and Dad are talking.”

Her on her knees by the bed in her room one morning, praying. Then when she saw me, acting like she wasn’t.

But mostly I remember every morning before school. How she’d say “Hey, honey!” just as I was walking out the apartment door. And me stopping and turning around and saying “What?” And her saying: “I love you.” And me rolling my eyes like I just wanted to hurry up so I didn’t miss the bus. I’d start going again and she’d say “Hey, honey!” and I’d say “Mom, come on!” and she’d say “I love you,” and I’d pretend I was so annoyed ’cause she was wasting time and I had to go catch the bus. And how secretly it was my favorite part of every day.

Philosophy 2:
About Saying the Truth to People

Dear Kidd:

You should always tell the truth to people you care about, even if they won’t like what they hear. You just have to say it. Like Mr. Red does with all the women he meets. Like Mom did when she sat you down and tried to tell you about your dad and your genes.

Except with that time, even though she was telling the truth, you already knew ’cause your last memory was when he showed up at your apartment in the middle of the night and started banging on the door and begging for money and saying: “Jesus Christ, Darla! Open the door! I’m dying out here!” And your shaky-hands mom undid the locks, slowly, and cracked open the door, slowly, and told him in a trembling voice how he had to go away and about the neighbors and the restraining order, but he pushed himself in and went down on his knees and begged for just a little money, as much as she could spare, he needed it so bad, she didn’t understand how his body felt, he probably wouldn’t survive even one more night.

You snuck out of your room, remember? And watched everything from the hall. How Dad grabbed the hem of Mom’s nightgown and put it to his face and breathed it and said how nobody could understand how bad he was ’cause they’d never felt it for themselves and they’d never been inside his body. She was the only person who cared at all, the only person who was willing to sacrifice for him.

You can never forget the serious look on Mom’s face that night. Like she knew she was wrong to let him in, and she knew something bad was about to happen, something that would change things forever.…

Five blond girls were sitting
in a circle of lawn chairs, talking and laughing and eating colored cereal out of plastic bowls with their fingers. I watched them from the railroad tie on the next campsite over, waiting for Mr. Red to come out of his tent and for us to start working.

It was my fourth day, and I was still getting there an hour early for two reasons. First, I was so excited to have a real job I could barely sleep (which was weird ’cause during my last six months at Horizons all I did was sleep). And second, I was so thankful Mr. Red hired me in the first place and I thought the best way to show him was to always be there when he came out of his tent.

One of the blond girls got out of her chair and stood on a skateboard with her cereal bowl, looking back in the tent and saying: “Come on, Olivia. You can’t stay in a tent the rest of the summer.” Her friends said stuff, too, and then everybody shrugged and the girl on the skateboard stepped off and sat back in the chair with her friends and they kept eating their cereal.

I was watching them, thinking how they were the kind of pretty you could never actually meet, when Mr. Red’s voice scared me.

“There he is!” he shouted.

I spun around.

He climbed out of his tent yawning and stretching, wearing a T-shirt that said
CARDIFF BY THE SEA
, which is where we were, and black surf trunks that went down to his knees and no shoes.

“I see you, Kidd,” he said. “Dawn patrollers have hardly set their boards in the water and here you are ready to mop more sewage.”

“I’m ready, sir,” I told him, standing up.

“Fortunately there won’t be any actual mopping today.” He held open his tent flap and out of it climbed a black-haired woman in a long white T-shirt, holding an open duffel bag with a black dress hanging out. She stopped and pushed the dress the rest of the way in and zipped the zipper.

Mr. Red looked at me and shrugged.

“Donna,” he said and pointed to me. “I want you to meet a colleague of mine. Mr. Kidd Ellison from Fallbrook, California. Dude would cheat his own grandmother out of a game of speed chess, but he works his butt off around the campsites.”

“Hi there,” Donna said, smiling at me.

“Hi, ma’am,” I told her back. And then I turned to Mr. Red and told him: “I never cheated you in—”

“Come on, Kidd,” he interrupted. “We don’t need to rehash this again. One minute I have you down four pieces, the next you’re knocking off my queen and I’m mated.” He shook his head and turned to Donna. “I’ve played a lot of speed chess in my day, babe. A board doesn’t change that quickly without a little foul play.”

“I don’t know, Red. Kidd doesn’t look like the cheating type to me.”

“It’s all an act.”

They both sort of laughed so I laughed, too.

•  •  •

How I Got the Job in the First Place

Me and Mr. Red met at Horizons in Fallbrook when he used to come visit Maria, this nice counselor lady who worked there. He’d show up on most Sundays and we’d all watch football games on TV and throw the Frisbee and eventually me and him started playing speed chess and I always beat him and he always said I cheated.

Then before last summer started two things happened. First, Maria got laid off because of the economy and they only had two counselors working at a time. And second, Mr. Red filled out some paperwork for me to have a job with him for the summer, and even though he said he’d bring me to my counseling as much as they wanted, they rejected him. He appealed and had a meeting with the board of directors and explained how it’d be great experience that I could take into the workforce. But the directors turned him down again saying it was too far from their headquarters and how I was an “at-risk” case and needed closer supervision, at least through the completion of my therapy program.

Mr. Red came to see me right after, this time without Maria even being there, and told me everything they said and how sorry he was.

A whole year passed.

Then at the start of this summer I packed a bag without even asking, snuck out at four in the morning and hitchhiked all the way down to the beach.

When I finally made it to the sand, the sun was just starting to rise. I sat and watched it for a while and thought about my new life. Then I walked north along the tide with all the
morning joggers and people walking their dogs, asking every few miles how close I was to Cardiff by the Sea, until eventually I found the campsites and this lifeguard named Christian took me to Mr. Red, who was eating breakfast on the campus picnic table with a pretty black woman.