Can't Get There from Here (12 page)

He took me back to the cell. The others weren’t happy to see me.

“Look what your friend did,” the fluffy blond said.

Rainbow was lying on the floor, her face at the edge of a small pool of yellowish, smelly puke. I went over and helped her sit up. She opened her eyes for a moment, then closed them again. I used the sleeve of my sweatshirt to wipe the mess off Rainbow’s face and off the collar of her leather jacket. The smell was harsh and strong and made me feel like barfing, too.

The woman with the short black hair came over. “It’s a good thing she was lying on her side. That happens when she’s on her back and she’ll breathe it into her lungs and choke to death.”

“What you gonna do about that?” The fluffy blond
pointed at the yellow puddle on the floor.

I pulled off my sweatshirt and laid it over the puddle. Then I sat with my back against the wall and Rainbow’s head in my lap, waiting for whatever happened next.

I stroked Rainbow’s yellow hair. It was
knotted and filthy. I picked out some of the bigger pieces of dirt and tried to undo some of the smaller tangles without pulling on her hair hard enough to hurt her. Rainbow’s lips were cracked and scabbed. Drool dripped out of the corner of her mouth, and I wiped it away with the bottom of the T-shirt Anthony, the library man, gave me. I wondered where I left that brown sweater with the buttons. I could have used it now.

Around the cell the women talked about what they did and how they were treated.

“When I get out of here I’m leaving town. This is the last night I’m spending in jail.”

“That man takes every penny I make.”

“All I gotta do is kick the junk and I’m outta this life.”

“Anyone know what time it is?” the small woman with the short black hair asked.

“Why, you got a date?” asked the fluffy blond. A couple of women laughed. No one knew the time. I didn’t even think about it anymore. Not in hours or minutes or seconds, at least. Instead there was sleeping time and waking time. There was begging for money time and the time when you ate or scored drugs or drank. There was
day time and night time. Time when you were scared and time when your stomach hurt. There was feeling cold or sick time and time when you felt okay.

Sometimes when Maggot talked about all the poor people and the revolution I would wonder about the rest of the world. The world away from the street. What happened yesterday? Was there a war somewhere? Did terrorists blow up another building? Did they discover life on another planet? I never wondered for long because then I’d get hungry and have to look for something to eat. Or I got cold or I needed money. I guess that’s why homeless kids don’t go to school. They’re too busy just trying to stay alive.

The cell door opened and Officer Ryan and the lady cop with the black hair came in, their black flashlights and nightsticks thumping against their thighs. They started toward us. I stopped breathing. They were coming for Rainbow.

I slid my arms around Rainbow’s body. The policewomen stood over us with their hands on their hips.

“Can she get up?” Officer Ryan asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Tell her you got some rock,” said the fluffy blond. “She get right up fast.”

“Back off,” Officer Ryan warned. She kneeled closer and reached toward Rainbow’s face. “Let’s see if we can wake her.”

“Don’t touch her,” I said.

“We have to see if she’s okay.”

“She’s okay,” I said.

“She could be OD’ing right now.”

I shook my head. “She was okay before.”

“You have to let us take her,” Officer Ryan said. “See those plastic bands on her wrists? That means she left a hospital without permission. We have to follow up on that.”

I tightened my arms around her. Rainbow was all I had in the world. If they took her away I might never see her again.

The policewoman with the black hair glared down at me impatiently. “I’m only gonna tell you this once. Let her go … now.”

I held on, feeling Rainbow’s chest expand and contract as she breathed. I knew she wasn’t OD’ing.

“If that’s the way you want it.” The black-haired policewoman started to reach down, as if she was going to tear Rainbow out of my arms.

Officer Ryan said, “Don’t.”

“For God’s sake, Jane,” the black-haired policewoman sputtered.

Still kneeling in front of us, Officer Ryan spoke softly. “We have to take your friend. She could be sick. She may need medical attention. You have to let her go. Trust me. She’ll be okay.”

She sounded like she meant it. Only, that’s what grown-ups did so well. They knew how to sound like they meant everything they said. But then they changed their minds. Or, more likely, they never really meant it
in the first place. They were just lying to get you to do what they wanted. So you learned not to believe them. You learned to take what they gave when they were nice. But to always be ready for them to turn on you. Because ninety-nine percent of the time that’s exactly what they did.

The black-haired policewoman muscled in. “Look,” she growled at me, “either you let go of her or I get rough. Either way she’s going with us. Just depends on how bad you want to get hurt in the process.”

I hardly cared about being hurt. Been hurt plenty. But letting go of Rainbow would really hurt. Every time she went away I never knew if I would see her again. “She’s okay.”

“That’s for a doctor to decide,” Officer Ryan replied.

“I don’t have time for this,” the black-haired policewoman complained. “Either you let go of her right now or you’re gonna be sorry.”

“Come on, hon, be a good kid and let her go.” Officer Ryan reached toward Rainbow. “I promise we’ll take good care of her. Don’t you want your friend to be okay?” She put her hands on mine. She was still wearing those latex gloves.

“I’ll never see her again,” I whimpered.

Officer Ryan’s eyebrows dipped with sympathy. “You really care about her, don’t you?”

I nodded. “She’s one of us.”

“Like a tribe or something?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“For God’s sake, Jane,” the black-haired policewoman grumbled like this was a total waste of her time.

Officer Ryan looked into my eyes. It was a different look than before. I can’t explain it, but I could feel it. “Listen, I’m sorry I have to do this, but it’s my job. I promise I’ll tell you where she is so you’ll be able to find each other. Okay?”

“You swear?” I said.

“Cross my heart.” Officer Ryan closed her hands around mine and slowly, gently lifted them off Rainbow. She carefully pulled Rainbow to her feet. One of Rainbow’s sleeves slid back.

“Oh!” Officer Ryan caught her breath when she saw all the cuts and scabs on Rainbow’s arms.

“They cut themselves,” the black-haired policewoman explained. “A lot of them do it. The girls especially.”

Holding Rainbow by the arms, Officer Ryan and the black-haired policewoman led her away. Rainbow half walked and half allowed herself be pulled along, sometimes taking a step, sometimes letting the toes of her shoes scrape on the floor.

That wet gust of wind blew through me and my eyes got watery. It was so strange. So long since I felt like crying.

The fluffy blond came over. She put her hands on her hips and turned so that she was looking over her shoulder at me. “Child, do you know how bad you just got played? They ran the oldest cop trick in the book. Good
cop, bad cop. One acts all rough and mean to make you hate her, and the other acts all sweet and nice to make you like her. Next thing you know, you want to do the nice one a favor just to show the mean one whose side you’re on. You really believe that crap about them telling you where your friend is going? Honey, they don’t give a hoot about you or your friend. They just can’t let junkies die in jail. That’s real bad publicity, understand? That girl cop ain’t gonna tell you nothin’. She just doin’ her job. Next time they play that game, I bet the black-haired one’ll be all sweetness and the blond will be the mean, nasty one. They do it to get what they want, honey.”

The tears came faster and I felt my lower lip start to quiver. I didn’t want to believe what she was saying, but I knew it was most likely true.

The small woman with the short black hair came over. “What’s the point of telling her that?” she demanded of the fluffy blond. “You knew they were gonna take that little junky girl no matter what. So why you tryin’ to make this girl feel bad now? What good is that?”

“I’m just tellin’ her how it works,” the fluffy blond replied.

“Oh, sure. Like you know that police lady ain’t gonna come back and tell her where they send the little junky girl.”

“You think she will?” the fluffy blond asked.

“I seen stranger things,” replied the smaller woman.
“And even if she don’t, why you gotta be the one to spread the bad news?”

By then it didn’t matter what either of them said. What mattered was that Rainbow was gone and I felt empty and alone in a cold cell filled with strangers, in a cold city filled with strangers, in a cold world.

I put my hand in my pocket and felt the card Detective Charles gave me. I took it out and tore it into little pieces.

I fell asleep. When I woke up most of the
women who’d been in the cell the night before were gone, and a whole new bunch was there. The fluffy blond and the small woman with the black hair were gone. Rainbow was gone. I had to go to the bathroom really bad, but I didn’t want to use the toilet in front of all those women so I lay on the floor in the corner and waited. I felt dried salt trails in the corners of my eyes and wondered if I’d cried in my sleep.

After a while a policewoman came in. She had red hair and was so skinny that even her heavy gun belt didn’t make her look fat. She pointed at me. “You. Come on, let’s go.”

I got up and followed her out of the cell and into the hall.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Maybe.”

“Huh?”

“They call me Maybe. It’s my name.”

“What about your real name?”

“It is my real name.”

“Okay, Maybe, you know where we’re going?”

I yawned. “To the bathroom, I hope.”

She stopped. “What about the cell? Oh, you didn’t want to go in front of all those ladies, right?”

“So could I go now?”

“Maybe, Maybe, but I’m gonna have to come in there with you. Gotta make sure there’s no funny stuff.”

We went into the bathroom and I let myself into a stall. “Is Officer Ryan here?” I asked.

“Her shift ended,” the policewoman answered. “She’s gone.”

I felt a stab in my heart. It figured that she left without telling me where they took Rainbow. The fluffy blond was right. I got played big time. Back out in the hall the red-haired policewoman said, “Back to my original question. You know where you’re going?”

I shook my head.

“You want to know?”

I shrugged. What difference did it make? At the end of the hall she pushed open a door and I followed her into a large room with a lot of chairs and benches. A woman with long brown hair was sitting on one of the benches. She was wearing a bright red wool cap and puffy light blue parka. When she saw us she got up.

“Hi, my name’s Laura and I’m from the Youth Housing Project. What’s your name?”

I recognized her voice. She was the female flashlight. I told her my name was Maybe.

“You look familiar,” Laura said. “Have I ever seen you before?”

“Maybe.”

She smiled. “I bet that’s your answer to a lot of questions.”

I could have answered maybe, but I didn’t. We went through a door to the outside. Since I just woke up I thought it was morning, but from the way the sun was behind the buildings, I could see that it was afternoon. And cold. I left the sweatshirt in the cell. All I had on was the white T-shirt. Goose bumps rose on my arms, and I began to shiver.

“That’s all you’ve got?” Laura asked as we stopped next to a dented blue van that said Youth Housing Project on the side. She opened the back door and took out a navy blue blanket. “Put it around your shoulders. It’ll keep you warm until we get to the project.”

I pulled the blue blanket around my shoulders. It was thinner than I expected, but I was glad to have it. We got into the van. It smelled like coffee. Some empty white Styrofoam cups lay on the floor between the front seats.

Laura started to drive. “Do you know anything about the Youth Housing Project?”

“You got a lot of rules.”

Laura frowned. “What makes you think that?”

“You told me.”

The lines between her eyes deepened. “That rainy night a few weeks ago you were in that building off Avenue C?”

“Yeah.”

“So which of our rules would be so hard for you to live with?” Laura said.

“I don’t know. All of them.”

“I don’t think we have that many. Just what the state demands in order to get our funding. Don’t you think it’s worth agreeing to a few rules so that you can have a clean bed and clothes and a roof over your head?”

“Maybe.”

“Why not give it a try, okay? We’ll give you a bath and a meal and a comfortable bed. What could be so bad about that?”

“I don’t know.”

The Youth Housing Project was in a four-
story brick building on Avenue B. I got to wash and put on clean clothes. The other kids said hello, and then went back to watching TV They didn’t stare at my skin the way some strangers did. Maybe they were used to kids who looked different. At dinner I sat at a round table with five other kids and ate spaghetti with meatballs. I might have had strange, splotchy skin, but the girl next to me had dyed black hair with blond roots and purple highlights, studs and bars through her eyebrows, nose, lips, ears, and tongue, and tattoos on the fingers of both hands. The letters on her right hand spelled GIVE and those on her left spelled TAKE. Her name was Spyder and when she asked where I was from I said, “Nowhere and everywhere.”

She nodded and said, “Right,” like that made perfect sense.

After dinner we watched more TV and then they told us it was time to go to bed. I didn’t care because I was tired. We went upstairs to a room with five bunk beds and open cubbies for clothes. My bed was in the bunk under Spyder’s. At one end of the room was an office with a big window. A woman sat inside watching us.