California: A Novel (13 page)

“On the Land?” Sailor said.

Frida smiled. “The Land? Is that what you call this place? I guess that’s a little more inviting than the Spikes.”

Even Peter laughed at that one. “Keep walking,” he said. “It’ll become evident.”

The Land. Appropriately vague, vaguely philosophical, a tinge poetic. Cultish, maybe. But, at least, if the place was named, it meant its citizens wanted to stay here, make it into something worthwhile.

The kiosk led to one long dusty road. It was a main street, the kind Cal saw in his mind’s eye when he imagined fledgling mining towns, new settlements of the Wild West. The world of children’s history books, adventure stories. This had once been the kind of place where men settled arguments with bullets, and the rare woman flashed a leg at the saloon; a town that had probably been forsaken in a day, and easily: all of its inhabitants leaving at once, driven away when the wells ran dry or when the gold ran out. Or after an earthquake had unbuckled its foundation, scaring the easterners silly.

“A ghost town?” Frida asked.

That same dopey grin spread across Sailor’s face. “The ghost of a ghost town.”

Cal raised an eyebrow.

“It was built in the 1800s and then reopened a few decades ago as a place to wear a cowboy hat and imagine the past. Closed down about twelve years ago, after it cost too much to keep it running. I guess people stopped driving out of their way to leer at a bunch of abandoned buildings—too costly, and the roads just got worse and worse. We still have some pamphlets, though, from when it was open as an attraction. I can show you later.”

“Sailor,” Peter said, and the kid stopped talking.

The road was lined with sagging wooden houses. There were two larger structures farther down. A few had plank walkways leading to their doorways—some of the doors had long blown off. One of these openings was covered by a large animal hide; it looked coarse and crusty, and it flapped in the breeze.

Near the kiosk stood a single brick wall, freestanding and crumbling, uneven. The other parts of the building must have collapsed and then dissolved. Or, more likely, been reused. The houses on either side of them were part ghostly and antiquated and part rehabbed. The two parts didn’t match. A few of these extensions looked like the house he and Frida lived in.

“The Miller Estate,” Cal whispered to Frida and gestured to the house to her left.

Peter looked like he was about to say something, explain, but Frida grabbed Cal’s hand and said, “Oh my God.” She was looking ahead, down the road.

People. There were people.

They were emerging from the houses and bigger buildings, one of which was a large church, with its steeple wrapped in barbed wire. One more Spike.

Cal pulled Frida to him and kissed her cheek, swept her knotted hair out of her eyes. She smelled of sweat, like the muskiness of the tea she used to like to drink in winter and the canvas of Bo’s rucksack. They would soon be carried away by this tide of strangers, and he didn’t want to lose her. Or was it her familiarity that he didn’t want to lose?

She smiled at him, but her gaze went right back to the people coming toward them. Cal couldn’t blame her; it was mesmerizing to see such a
population.
There must’ve been forty or so. All those faces and bodies. From afar, they looked like Peter, Dave, and Sailor. That is: human. Like Sailor, they had on normal street clothes, if a little torn up: T-shirts, jeans. Work boots or sandals, a few maybe barefoot. There were women, too, and some of them wore long dresses, the kind Sandy had been partial to. Thank goodness there weren’t only men, Cal thought. He didn’t want to enter a world like Plank. He didn’t want Frida to be the only woman.

As they got closer and the people’s faces began to differentiate themselves, in all their unique ways, Cal felt light-headed. It was the same feeling he’d experienced his second year at Plank, when he’d gone to a street fair three towns over and seen so many people he felt drugged by the newness.

He’d gone with Micah and a first-year they hardly knew. And that guy’s cousin—a real live girl. It was Micah’s Toni, though at the time, Cal had called her Antonia in his mind because her nickname sounded too much like a guy’s. She was three years older and lived in L.A.

No one was supposed to sleep on campus except for Plankers, but visitors came so rarely, and female ones never, that everyone let it go. Besides, she’d come with a trunk full of groceries for the students: Cheez-Its, celery, and apples from New Zealand, almost too expensive to eat. Her grandmother had money, though she claimed she never talked to her, that she’d run away years before. After one night on campus, Toni said even the quiet itself was boring, and so she’d driven her cousin, Micah, and Cal to the strange fair she’d seen signs for on the drive over. Cal wasn’t sure how he and Micah had smuggled themselves into that car; the other Plankers had been so envious.

The fair was in a suburb. An exurb, really. Wasn’t that the word? It had been so clean and antiseptic, Cal thought now. It was transformed into a Community soon after.

“How stimulating,” Micah had remarked as they passed beneath a banner painted with a garish rainbow, and Toni had laughed, thrown her head back as if she wanted him to slice open her neck. She’d been smitten with Micah immediately, the lucky bastard.

There were packs of people everywhere: watching juggling acts, eating corn on the cob, dancing to the music of a leather-vested fiddler. Cal wasn’t used to so much diversion, so much information. The colors, the noise, the sugar, and the salt. The fair left him giggling like a stupid drunk.

That’s what Cal wanted to do now. Giggle. He wasn’t happy, and this wasn’t funny; he was just overwhelmed. For months it had been just the two of them, Cal and Frida; even when the Millers were around, and even with August’s monthly visits, they negotiated a very limited universe. The same trees to count and admire, the same gardening routines. Suddenly everything and everyone were new. No wonder Frida didn’t want to look at him.

He would look at her, at least.

She was bobbing her head like a pigeon, taking in the sights, and smiling with her mouth closed. She was trying to appear kindly, he realized. She wanted these strangers to like her. As far as he could tell, they would. Most of the men seemed around their age, or younger, like Sailor, and none of them walked with the defensive stance he’d expect from a culture that did not allow outsiders.

The women were more hesitant, hanging back, and maybe a little older on average: in their forties or early fifties. One of them wore her hair in a thin braid down her back like a second spine.

Frida put her hands to her lower belly as she walked. She was thinking of their child. He could see she already felt safe, protected, that she was fly-casting them into a future in this world. She was being naïve. Again. They would have to talk, and soon.

Dave had left their little posse. Maybe he’d been pulled back to the lookout tower to finish his shift, but Peter and Sailor led the way through the crowd, which parted to let them pass, just as Cal had imagined it would. The people, up close, were so varied: heavy browed or not, ugly or cute, plain or strange and uneven looking, long or pert nosed, fair or olive skinned.

There was a woman with a stripe of gray in her curly black hair, thick red suspenders holding up baggy corduroys. She had a rag in her hand, and when she smiled, she was missing a front tooth. Cal reared back. He couldn’t help it. No doubt this woman had lived out here for a long time.

Cal accidentally brushed past a heavyset man, about his own age, who stepped back with a sneer. That was the only rudeness he encountered, and Cal couldn’t hold a grudge: he and Frida had invaded their space.

A guy with dreads so blond they were almost colorless muttered to his friend, “Would you look at that.” He pointed to Cal’s chest.

Peter turned around and began walking backward. “You do a lot of mushroom hunting, Cal?” he asked.

“I guess.”

“Your shirt,” he said.

“You knew the Millers?”

Peter frowned. “Who?” He spun back around and kept walking.

People had begun to come up to him and Sailor. They were asking the same question—
Who? Who are they?
—and pointing at Frida and Cal.

A woman stepped into Sailor’s path and asked, “Who let them in?”

“You’ll see, Pilar,” Sailor said. He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Someone get Mikey!” The woman in the suspenders took off running down the path.

“Who’s Mikey?” Cal asked. “Do you mean August?”

Peter stopped walking and turned back to Cal. “You better hold her.”

“Me?” Frida said. “Are you about to sacrifice me or something?”

Peter kept his face serious. “Relax, okay?”

At the end of the path loomed the other large building, not as wide as the church but taller if you didn’t take the steeple into account. Like the other original buildings, it was built of wooden planks, but it looked somehow sturdier than its counterparts. Still, the windows on the upper floors were empty holes, most of them covered with cloth. A wide front porch stretched on either side of its entrance, and a slanted awning offered shade and a place to rest; turned-over crates acted as chairs, as did a weight-lifting bench. No one had added on to this building, and from this distance it didn’t look too decrepit. Fetched from another era, it had probably once been a general store, the town’s unofficial beating heart. It most likely still was.

A man stepped out of the building. They weren’t so close that they could make him out, but Cal could tell it wasn’t August: this guy was white and burlier. Long brown hair stuck out from his large-brimmed straw hat. His beard reached his chest. If it weren’t for his jeans and green Polo shirt, he could’ve passed for Amish or a hippie.

“Is that Mikey?” Cal whispered to Frida.

She stopped walking. Her arms hung tense by her sides, and Cal saw that she was clenching and unclenching her hands into fists. But the fists, they were weak, not fierce. She began to shake.

“Hey,” Cal whispered.

She took fast steps toward the end of the path. She stopped again. She was craning her neck forward, as if to get her eyes closer to the sight before her. Cal looked back at the man, to try to see what she was seeing.

“No, no, no, no,” she began. Her voice squeaked out of her in little high-pitched bursts.

“What is it, babe?” Cal asked.

Peter was by their side. “Relax now,” he said to Frida. “It’s okay.”

Sailor was bouncing in place, his eyes wide and glistening.

“What’s going on?” Cal asked. He felt his whole body go cold. But why?

An inhuman sound emerged from Frida, full of sorrow and giddiness. It was as if she had moved beyond words. She staggered forward, and Cal tried to follow her, but his body wouldn’t move. He felt trapped; all he could do was watch. He didn’t understand. What was wrong?

“Is it?” Her voice came out as breath. “Is, is…”

The man at the porch was standing steady, just waiting for Frida to meet him. He wouldn’t meet her halfway. He opened his arms wide.

Cal’s heart beat in his eardrums.
Mikey.

No, not Mikey. And not Mike E.

Mic. E, as in Micah, as in Micah Ellis.

Micah.

The world slipped sideways for a moment, Cal’s stomach lurching with it. He leaned over and vomited into the dirt.

“Easy now,” Peter said, and patted him on the back.

Suddenly there was a canteen of cold water at Cal’s mouth. But he could not swallow. He forced himself to stand. Frida was just a few feet away from the man who looked like Micah. She was weeping, hiccuping.

“You,” she was saying.

The man who looked like Micah held his face steady, as if trying not to betray whatever lay beneath his placid expression. Cal saw it in his eyes; they were darting over Frida’s face, taking in the ways she had changed and aged and the ways she had remained the same and would remain. The man stepped forward finally and took Frida into a bear hug. She collapsed into his arms, her legs giving out. He held her up.

“Yes!” Sailor cried, his arm pumping in victory.

Cal was shaking as Frida had been. He felt like vomiting again, but his stomach was empty. He held on to Peter’s canteen and willed himself forward.

“Micah?” he tried.

The man looked over Frida’s shoulder as he held her.

“Is that you, California?”

H
e smelled the same. She hadn’t hugged him for years; even when he was alive, they barely touched, but now she couldn’t let go. That smell: what was it? Pajamas worn until noon, and potato chips, and the leather band of their father’s favorite watch, and the baby detergent their mother never stopped using, and his old room, the window never open, the blighted avocado tree blocking views and voyeurs alike. Her brother, his smell.

She couldn’t stop embracing this ghost. A ghost in a ghost of a ghost town. Ha. It was a word problem, a riddle, a mirror inside a mirror inside—of course he loved that.

Micah. Her brother was alive.

His shirt was the color of a tennis ball, and she was imprinting its insignia of a man on horseback onto her cheek. She was pushing her face so hard into the ghost’s shirt it was like she wanted to graft the fabric onto her own skin. Not a ghost. Her brother. Micah. He had on such a stupid shirt, and a theatrical beard and a farmer’s hat, and he was breathing deeply, as slowly as a bridge rises to let ships pass. Was she the ship?

“Hi, Frida,” he said into the top of her head, so quietly that no one else heard. And when he pulled away to greet Cal, she almost fell.

Nearly every time Frida tried to open her mouth, the words clogged in her throat, and she stood there dumb and struggling. They’d been following Micah as he led them back up the path.
Is this real?
she wanted to ask.
Are you really here? Will you let us stay?
Instead of speaking, she wandered the Land like a child in a picture-book world: blue sky, brown dirt road, yellow sun, her mouth a flat black line. No text.

Cal was trying hard not to roll his eyes at her. Not hard enough. She could tell he wanted her to get her shit together and help him figure out what was going on, but she was incapable. Her legs still felt rubbery when she walked, and she didn’t think she’d be able to speak ever again. Her hands seemed to belong to someone else, and her mind kept returning to that first sight of Micah, of his green shirt and his long beard.

Her brother!

Cal had already asked him half a dozen questions. Micah hadn’t answered many of them, but that didn’t keep Cal from trying.

“How are you alive?” he’d asked as soon as he could, even with everyone watching.

“It wasn’t a resurrection,” Micah replied, “if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I wasn’t,” Cal said, and Micah laughed.

Cal said nothing. He looked at Frida, as if pleading for her assistance, but she looked away. The truth was her brain was still playing catch-up. Micah was alive. Her brother wasn’t dead. Micah was alive.

She felt a little sick.

When Micah stepped away from her to greet Cal, Frida had slumped forward and caught her balance just in time.

“So you two are still together,” Micah said.

Cal raised an eyebrow. “Don’t act so surprised.”

“Oh, never,” Micah said, and winked at Frida. “First things first: you guys need to wash.”

“We do?” Cal asked.

Micah smiled. “You might’ve seen a little building on the way in—a kiosk-type thing. We call it the Bath. In there we’ve got antibacterial soap and talcum powder. Even though we also have outdoor showers, you’ll probably feel more comfortable with a little privacy.”

Frida had felt a rush of relief then. Clean. They would get clean.

“I’ll meet up with you after that,” Micah said.

He was already nodding at Sailor, turning away from her. Frida couldn’t believe he was leaving them again, and so soon. He very well might disappear. He’d done it once before.

Her brother looked at her and smiled, gently. “You won’t be gone long,” he said, and because Frida couldn’t speak, she followed Cal and Sailor.

Sailor led them to the Bath. Inside, there were two shallow plastic tubs, the size of foot baths, and two plastic chairs that looked vaguely medical; Frida imagined they’d been used in hospitals, for the sick or elderly, people who needed to sit down while showering. An array of products awaited them on the built-in counter where an employee must have once peered out the ticket window: the soap and talcum powder Micah had mentioned, various creams and lotions. Even a bag of disposable razors; Frida’s heart quickened at the sight of them.

“Where did you get all this?” Cal asked Sailor.

“I’ll get you the water,” Sailor said, and ducked out.

He returned with a bulky canvas bag slung onto his shoulder and two big buckets of water, which he poured into the tubs.

“Sorry for the temperature,” he said. “You’re not on the bathing schedule yet—so I don’t have anything sun heated for you.”

“It’s fine,” Frida said. It was the first complete sentence she’d said in an hour, and she couldn’t help but feel triumphant.

“Wash your feet, pits, and genitals,” Sailor said. “Use the antibacterial soap in the back row, and any of the creams, if you’ve got rashes or something.” He held out the canvas bag, and Frida leaned forward to see what was inside of it.

“They’re clean clothes,” Sailor said. “I think they’ll fit.”

“They won’t be necessary,” Cal said. “I can make do with the clothes I already have.”

Frida crinkled her nose and put her hand out. “I don’t know what’s wrong with Cal, but I’m happy to have something clean to put on. Thanks, Sailor.”

Sailor smiled and handed her the bag. “Anyway, I’m glad Mikey said something right off. You guys are rank.”

“Sorry,” Cal said. “August never has this kind of stuff to trade.”

Sailor looked away, his hand already on the door. “See you in a few.”

When they were alone in the Bath, the sun darkening the paper on the windows, Frida kept her eyes on the plastic tubs. She couldn’t look at Cal, absorb that neediness. She knew he wanted her to say something like
Can you believe this?
or
Where the hell are we?
He wanted to be comforted by their camaraderie, but Frida was too zombified to offer him anything of the sort. She would wash herself, and that was all. Cal would follow her lead.

She plunged her hands into water so cold it made her teeth ache and scrubbed her pits until her arms hurt. It felt good to be clean. She stepped into the tub next, to soak her feet.

Cal finished quickly, and she watched as he applied hydrocortisone to the island of dry skin on his arm and aloe to the back of his neck.

Frida grabbed a razor next. Its hollow nothing-weight took her breath away.

Her skin was so dry, and her leg hair so thick, that she winced as she dragged the razor across her skin. “Does it hurt?” Cal asked, but she didn’t reply. She moisturized afterward, rubbing the lotion into her calves and even across the tops of her feet. Her skin looked amazing bare, smooth as a slide. She hadn’t seen her legs hairless in years, and she’d missed it.

“I wonder if I can get waxed here,” she said.

Cal laughed too hard. He’d hang on to that joke for the next eight hours.

He didn’t say anything as she replaced her dirty shirt with the one Sailor had given her: it was powder blue and fit just right.

Sailor knocked on the Bath door then. Time was up.

Sailor was to show them the Land. Frida allowed herself to be led around, but she didn’t ask any questions. Not about the Spikes surrounding them on all sides, nor about the various decrepit houses where all these people lived, nor about the barn and garden beyond. The tour probably would have been more in-depth had Frida allowed it to be, but every time Sailor asked if they wanted to see something beyond this strip of real estate—they had two cows, apparently, and a herd of goats and a place where residents could sleep under the stars, should they so choose—Frida shook her head. It’d been a while since they’d seen Micah.

“I’d like to see the barn,” Cal said.

Frida shook her head again. “I’d like to see my brother.”

“Fine, fine,” Sailor said, and led them back to the building where they’d left Micah.

In the late nineteenth century, its glory days, it had been a hotel, or more than that. Sailor explained that on the bottom floor there had once been a restaurant and a meeting room for locals and a small store at the back that had sold grains, bolts of cloth, axes. Now, the restaurant kitchen and dining room were where food for the residents was prepared and served. When it was first built, guests stayed in the hotel rooms on the three upper floors, usually for a few nights, but sometimes longer if they were waiting for permanent lodging. It was all in the pamphlet, Sailor said. People used to come to view the decrepit buildings, and the Hotel was one of the main attractions.

“A couple of years before the town closed to tourists,” Sailor explained, “money was poured into rehabbing the building, and the Church, too. They obviously ran out of funds before they could finish. But, still, neither is collapsing anytime soon.”

“Where is everyone?” Cal asked.

It was a good question. Frida had gotten so used to being isolated, she had barely noticed that all the people who had crowded the main street just an hour before were now gone.

She looked up; on the second floor of a building, a woman was watching them. When they caught eyes, the woman ducked out of sight.

“Micah told them to make themselves scarce,” Sailor said. “Until later.”

“‘Later’?” Cal asked.

They stepped up to the porch of the Hotel, and Frida could tell that Cal was stalling. He wanted to get as much out of Sailor as he could before the others returned. This kid was a talker.

“So where’s August?” Cal asked.

Sailor smiled and put his hand on the door. It looked solid, obviously part of the renovation. “He’s on another trip.”

Cal nodded, as if he expected this. “When will he be back?”

Frida didn’t think Sailor would fall for it, but he was as carefree as those gophers Cal had planned to capture in his traps.

“In a day or two. Don’t worry, you’ll see him soon. He likes to relax between trips.”

So August lived on the Land. He was one of them. When Frida had told him about her brother, August had known it was Micah she was talking about.

“Let’s go inside,” Sailor said.

On their way in, Frida tried to catch Cal’s eye, but for once he wasn’t looking at her. That, or he was pretending not to care about what he’d just learned.