Parable of the Talents (38 page)

Down south and in the Bay Area, a laborer's life would be harder. People are too distrustful of one another, too walled off from one another if they can afford walls. But up here, men are hired, and then at least decently fed. They might even be allowed to sleep in a shed, a garage, or a barn. And they might—often do—get a look at the kids of the family.

They might—often do—hear talk that later proves useful. For most laborers, useful means they might be steered to-ward other jobs or away from trouble or let in on where peo-ple keep their valuables. For me, useful might mean rumors of adoptions, fosterings, and children's homes.

I'll wander around the Eureka-Arcata complex and the surrounding towns for as long as I can. Allie has promised to go on collecting information for me, and she says I can crash in her rooms at Georgetown when I need a rest in a real bed.

Also, if I'm picked up and collared, Dolores will vouch for me—for a fee, of course. She knows what I'm doing. She doesn't think I've got a chance in hell of suc-ceeding, but she's got kids and grandkids, so she knows I have to do this.

'I'd do the same thing myself," she said when I talked to her. "I'd do all I could. Goddamn these so-called religious people. Thieves and murderers—that's all they are. They should wear the collar. They should roast in hell!"

There are times when I wish I believed in hell—other than the hells we make for one another, I mean.

************************************

I’ve spent my first week doing other people's scutwork. Odd how familiar all the jobs are—helping to plant vegetable or flower gardens, chopping weeds, pruning bushes and small trees, cleaning up a winter's accumulation of trash, repairing fences, and so on. These are all things I did at Acorn where everyone did everything. People seem pleased and a little surprised that I do good work. I've even earned some money by suggesting extra jobs that I was willing to take care of for a fee. People warn their kids away from me most of the time, but I do get to see the kids, from babies in their mothers' arms to toddlers to older kids and neighbor kids. I haven't seen any familiar faces yet, but, of course, I've just begun. I've gone to as many Black or mixed-race families as I could. I don't know what kind of people I should be check-ing, but it seemed best to begin with these people. If they seem at all friendly, I ask them if they have friends who might hire me. That's gotten me a couple of jobs so far.

My problem has turned out to be having a place to sleep. A guy offered to let me sleep in his garage that first night if I'd give him a blow job.

I wasn't sure whether he thought I was a man or had spot-ted that I was a woman, and I didn't care. I bedded down that night in a shabby park where a few redwood trees survive. There, among a small flock of other homeless people, I slept safely and awoke early to avoid the police. People in Georgetown have warned me that collaring vagrants is what cops do when they need some arrests to justify their pay-checks. It's also what some of the meaner ones do when they've had no amusement for a while.

It was cold, but I've got warm, lightweight clothing and a comfortable, shabby old sleepsack that I'd used on the trip up from Robledo. I woke up aching a little from the uneven ground, but otherwise all right. I needed a bath, but com-pared to the amount of crud I used to accumulate back in Camp Christian, I was almost presentable. I had already de-cided that I'd wash when I could, sleep sheltered when I could. I can't afford to let myself worry about things like that.

On Tuesday, I was allowed to sleep in a toolshed, which was a good thing, because it rained hard.

On Wednesday I was back in the park, although the woman I worked for told me that I should go to the shelter at the Christian America Center on Fourth Street.

Hell of a thought. I've known for weeks that the place existed, and I've kept well clear of it. Laborers at Georgetown say they avoid the place. People have been known to vanish from there. I'm afraid I'll have to go there someday, though. I need to hear more about what the CA people do with or-phans. Problem is, I don't know how I'll be able to stand it I hate those bastards so much. There are moments when I'd kill them all if I could.
I
hate them.

And I'm terrified of them. What if someone recognizes me?

That's unlikely, but what if? I can't go to the CA Cen-ter yet.

I'll make myself do it soon, but not yet. I'd rather blow my own brains out than wear a collar again.

On Thursday, I was in the park, but on Friday and Satur-day, I slept in the garage of an old woman who wanted her fence repaired and painted and her windowsills sanded and painted. Her neighbor kept coming over "to chat" I under-stood that the neighbor was just making sure that I wasn't murdering her friend, and I didn't mind. It turned out well in the end. The neighbor wound up hiring me herself to chop weeds, prepare the soil, and put in her vegetable and flower gardens. That was good because she was my reason for going to her part of town. She was a blond woman with a blond husband, and yet I had heard through my contacts at Georgetown that she had two beautiful dark-haired, dark-skinned toddlers.

The woman turned out to be not well off at all, and yet she paid me a few dollars in addition to a couple of good meals for the work I did. I liked her, and I was glad when I saw that the two children she had adopted were strangers. I write now in her garage, where there is an electric light and a cot. It's cold, of course, but I'm wrapped up and warm enough ex-cept for my hands. I need to write now more than ever be-cause I have no one to talk to, but writing is cold work on nights like this.

SUNDAY, MAY
13, 2035

I've been to the Christian America Center. I've finally made myself go there. It was like making myself step into a big nest of rattlesnakes, but I've done it. I couldn't sleep there. Even without Day Turner's experience to guide me, I couldn't have slept in the rattler's nest. But I've eaten there three times now, trying to hear what there might be to hear. I re-member Day Turner telling me that he had been offered a bed, meals, and a few dollars if he helped paint and repair a couple of houses that were to be part of a CA home for orphaned children. He had not known the addresses of the houses. Nor had he known Eureka well enough to give me an idea where these houses might be, and that was a shame. Our children might not still be there—if they were ever there. But I might be able to learn something from the place. There might be records that I could steal or rumors, memo-ries, stories that I could hear about. And if several of our children had been sent there, then perhaps I could find one or two of them still there.

That last thought scared me a little. If I did find a couple of our kids, I couldn't leave them in CA hands. One way or another, I would have to free them and try to reunite them with their families. That would draw such attention to me that I would have to leave the area, and, I suspect, leave my Larkin. This is assuming that I would be able to leave, that I didn't wind up wearing another collar.

The food at the CA Center was edible—a couple of slices of bread and a rich stew of potatoes and vegetables flavored with beef, although I never found meat of any kind in it People around me complained about the lack of meat, but I didn't mind. Over the past several months, I've learned to eat whatever was put in front of me, and be glad of it If I could keep it down, and there was enough of it to fill my stomach, I considered myself lucky. But it amazed me that I could keep anything down while sitting so close to my ene-mies at the CA Center.

My first visit was the worst. My memory of it isn't as clear as it ought to be. I know I went there. I sat and I ate with several dozen other homeless men. I managed not to go crazy when someone began to preach at us. I know I did all that, and I know that afterward, I needed the long, long walk to the park to get my head back into working order. Walk-ing, like writing, helps.

I did it all in blind terror. How I looked to others I don't know. I think I must have seemed too mentally sick even to talk to. No one tried to make conversation with me, although some of the men talked to one another. I got in line and after that I moved automatically, did what others did. Once I sat down with my food, I found myself crouching over it, pro-tecting it, gulping it like a hawk who's caught a pigeon. I used to see people doing that at Camp Christian. You got so damned hungry there sometimes, it made you a little crazy.

This time, though, it wasn't the food mat I cared about. I wasn't mat hungry. And if I'd wanted to, I could have changed my clothing, gone in to a decent restaurant, and bought a real meal. It's just that somehow, if I focused on the food and filled my mind with it as well as my body, I could keep myself still and not get up and run, screaming, out of that place.

I have never, in freedom, been so afraid. People edged away from me. I mean crazies, junkies, whores, and thieves edged away from me. I didn't think about it at the time. I didn't think about anything. I'm surprised that I manage to remember any of it now. I moved through it in a cloud of blank terror and an absolute readiness to kill.

I had wrapped my gun in my spare clothes and put it at the bottom of my pack. I did this on purpose so that there would be no quick way for me to get at it. I didn't want to be tempted to get at it. If I needed it inside the CA Center, I was already dead. I couldn't leave it anywhere, but I could unload it. I took a lot of time earlier that evening, unloading it and wrapping it up, watching myself wrap it up so that even in the deepest panic I would know I couldn't get at it.

It worked. It was necessary, and it worked.

Years ago, when my neighborhood in Robledo burned, when so much of my family burned, I had to go back. I got away in the night, and the next day, I had to go back. I had to retrieve what I could of that part of my life that was over, and I had to say goodbye. I had to. Up to that moment, and long afterward, going back to my Robledo neighborhood was the hardest thing I had ever done. This was worse.

When I went to the CA Center for the second time several days later, it wasn't as bad. I could look and think and listen. I have no memory of any word said during the first visit. I tried to listen, but I couldn't take anything in. But during the second, I heard people talking about the food, about em-ployers who didn't pay, about women—I was in the men's section—about places up north, out east, or down south where there was work, about joints that hurt, about the war....

I listened and I looked. After a while, I saw myself. I saw a man crouching over his food, spooning it into his mouth with intense and terrible concentration. His eyes, when he looked up, looked around, were vacant and scary. In line, he shambled more than he walked. If anyone got close to him, he looked insanity and death at them. He was barely human.

People kept away from him. Maybe he was on something. He was big. He might be dangerous. I kept away from him myself. But he was me a few days before. I never found out what his particular problems were, but I know they were as terrible to him as mine are to me.

I heard almost nothing about orphaned children or Jarret's Crusaders. A couple of the men mentioned that they had kids.

Most don't talk much, but some can't stop talking: their long-lost homes, women, money, brave deeds and suf-fering during the war.... Nothing useful.

Still I went back for the third time last night. Same food.

They throw in different vegetables—whatever they happen to have, I suppose. The only inevitable ingredient in the stew is potatoes, but dinner is always vegetable stew and bread. And after the meal, there's always at least an hour of sermon to bear. The doors are shut. You eat, then you listen. Then you can leave or try to get a bed.

My first sermon I couldn't remember if my life depended on it. The second was about Christ curing the sick and being willing to cure us too if we only asked. The third was about Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.

The lay minister who delivered this third sermon was Marc.

It was him, my brother, a lay minister in the Church of Christian America.

In fear and surprise, I lowered my head, wondering whether he had seen me. There were about two hundred other people in the men's cafeteria that night—men of all races, ethnicities, and degrees of sanity. I sat toward the back of the cafeteria, and off to the left of the podium or pul-pit or whatever it was. After a while I looked up without raising my head. Nothing of Marc's body language indicated that he had seen me. As he warmed to his sermon, though, he did mention that he had a sister who was steeped in sin, a sister who had been raised in the way of the Lord, but who had permitted herself to be pulled down by Satan. This sis-ter had, through the influence of Satan, done him a great in-jury, he said, but he had forgiven her. He loved her. It hurt him that she would not turn from sin. It hurt him that he had had to turn from her. He shed a few tears and shook his head. At last he said, "Jesus Christ was your Savior yesterday. He is your Savior today. He will be your Savior forever. Your sister might desert you. Your brother might betray you. Your friends might try to pull you down into sin. But Jesus will always be there for you. So hold on to the Lord! Hold on!

Stand firm in your faith. Be courageous. Be strong. Be a sol-dier of Christ. He will help you and protect you. He will raise you up and never, never, never let you down!"

When it was over, I started to slip away with the crowd. I needed to think. I had to figure out how to reach Marc out-side the CA Center. At the last minute, I went back and left a note for the lay minister with one of the servers. It said,

"Heard you preach tonight. Didn't know you were here. Need to see you. Out front tomorrow evening where dinner line forms up." And I signed it Bennett O.

One of our brothers was named Bennett Olamina.

Olam-ina was an unusual name. Someone in CA might notice it and remember it from records of the inmates at Camp Chris-tian. Also, it occurred to me that signing the name I was using, "Cory Duran," might be cruel. Cory was Marc's mother, after all, not mine. I didn't want to remind him of the pain of losing her or hint that she might be alive. And if I had written Lauren O., I thought Marc might decide not to come.