Sia (4 page)

Carol smiles at all of them and advises me to do the same. “If they like you, they’re more likely to give you more to eat.”

So I smile at the volunteers, but only a couple smile back. Most of them look slightly confused, staring at me with hostility. As if I shouldn’t be there. And I can’t meet their eyes. Maybe they’re right and I shouldn’t be there. But where am I supposed to be?

“
No! I can’t have that!” howls a woman. “I told you! I’m on a diet!”

Her voice is huge, overpowering the clanking din of the place, and everyone turns to stare. An obese black woman sits in the middle of the room, her bulk completely swallowing up her chair. An aproned volunteer stands beside her table, holding a tray of food.

“
It’s soup, Mabel,” says the volunteer. “Just like yesterday.”

“
Yeah, I know that. I ain't stupid. But I can’t eat that today. I’m on a
diet
. No carbs—and this soup has noodles. Do you even know what a carbohydrate is? I need meat and vegetables. No carbs. Can you get me that?”

The volunteer sets one fist on her hip, looking skeptical. “You’re on a diet?”

“
Uh-huh,” is the indignant reply. “For two months now.”

“
But yesterday, you ate everything we put in front of you and came back for more.”

“
Sure, sure. But that was yesterday. I diet on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I eat whatever I want on those other days. Today’s Wednesday. So I want soup with no noodles!”

The volunteer looks skyward. I hide a smile, silently commending her for keeping a straight face. “I’ll see what I can do,” she says, then heads back to the kitchen.

My soup is a murky yellowy broth, and a couple of the noodles Mabel had waved away float like flat white logs at the surface. No gourmet cuisine here. But it’s hot and fills the hole in my belly.

Across the table from me, Carol munches on a sandwich. Her soft brown eyes flick around the room and take in the activity. I don’t think she’s aware of the smile curling at the side of her lips while she listens to one person or another. I reflect on how lucky I am to have been discovered by her the night before.

As if she hears my thoughts, Carol focuses her gaze on me. “Better, Sia?”

I nod and lick my lips.

“
Good. Once you’re done here, we’ll head off and get some new clothes for you.” She frowns, thinking. “I think I got a bit of money set aside—”

“
Can I sell this?” I ask, holding out my iPod.

Carol’s eyes brighten. “Well, yes indeed. Could be worth some good money. And I know just the fellow to make you a deal on that.”

The fellow in question is peddling small electronics outside. He’s got two suitcases full of cell phones, chargers, etc. He looks too young to be doing this, yet his confidence is high. He stops yelling his specials when he sees Carol.

“
Hey! My guardian angel! Long time no see.”

“
I know it, Mikey. How’ve you been?” she replies.

Noticing me, he clears his throat. “Whoa, whoa, it’s Mike now, Carol. I’m a man now. I just turned thirteen,” he says, winking at me.

I just smile while Carol laughs.

“
Oh, you a man, now? Okay. Well,
Mike . . .
my friend, Sia, needs to sell this.” She gives him my iPod.

“
Ohh. This is the latest model. Yeah, I can sell this. How does fifty dollars sound?”

I act offended. “Come on, Mike. You can do better than that . . . ”

He shakes his head and laughs. “All right, all right. Only cuz I’m a sucker for pretty girls. Eighty dollars. We got a deal or what?”

“
Deal.”

We shake hands and let Mikey go back to work. I discover that for $80, I cannot only outfit myself but pick up a backpack and two sleeping bags—including one for Carol, of course. It’s the least I can do.

“
And whatever’s left over, I want to give to you,” I say.

Carol laughs and sets her dry palms on either side of my face. “No, no, my darlin’. Keep the money. Living out here, you never know when you’re gonna need a dollar. Put it somewhere safe now.” She plucks at the rolled up sleeping bag on her lap. “But I thank you so much, truly, for this. It’s gonna give me a lot of comfort, and don’t you know it!”

CHAPTER FIVE

Carol leads me through the world of the homeless. Mornings and evenings, we visit the soup kitchen. Carol shows me the little ways street people learn to survive. At one point, she teaches me the importance of collecting the soda and beer cans Tito had been so concerned over. We bring a garbage bag full of them to the recycle depot.

“
Sometimes, if Tito’s looking down, I’ll drop a couple in his cart,” she says. “I try not to, though. It’s better if he does it for himself.”

I have to wonder how one can tell if Tito is “down” or not. I’d met him on a good day, she says, and he’d looked pretty rough.

A couple days after our first meeting, Carol takes me to a public bathroom we’ve visited before when nature has called. Now she has a different reason for visiting.

“
If we’re going to get you properly fed,” she says, “we’re gonna have to get you some work. Pretty girl like you won’t get shooed away so long as you’re all cleaned up.” She stops and frowns at me. And that’s because I'd stopped to frown at her. “What?” she asks.

“
When you say ‘pretty girl like you,’ you’re not suggesting . . . ”

Carol frowns, confused, then awareness pops into her large eyes and she looks almost angry. “I cannot believe you’d think that I . . . ” She shakes her head. “Have I not been your friend? Why on earth would you think that?”

“
I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “That’s just the first thing that was suggested to me when I got here. And I know a lot of girls do that, but—”

“
Not you, I hope.” Carol’s voice is soft. “Well, all right. To be fair, life out here is hard. That’s just another way folks learn to survive. Me, well, I’m proud of the fact that I’ve lived without a home for many years, and though I’ve had some bad times, I’ve never once had to sell what God gave me. And I sure hope you’ll be able to say the same thing.” She heaves a deep sigh, then starts walking again. “Now, what I was going to tell you is that people sometimes will hire us to do little jobs, but if you’re looking and smelling like the underside of a shoe, they ain’t even gonna look your way.”

“
Okay,” I say. “Hey, Carol?”

“
Yeah?”

“
I really am sorry.”

“
That’s okay, child. Just don’t worry yourself when you’re with me.” She then tells me to wet down a bunch of paper towels, then lock myself in one of the stalls and wash everything. When I come out, Carol hands me a stick of deodorant from her backpack. “Now, you put this under your arms like you normally would, but then I want you to rub it on the inside of your shirt, all right? Anywhere your underarm might touch. That’ll keep you smelling cleaner a little longer.”

I pause in front of the mirror, staring at my forlorn reflection. The loose navy t-shirt I’d picked up at the Salvation Army is splotched with whatever, and I’d long since lost the elastic for my hair. Now it hangs in strands halfway down my chest, looking more brunette than blonde. I try to run my fingers through it, but a nasty tangle takes up most of the back of my head.

On impulse, I turn the sink’s tap on full and dunk my head into the small bowl, splashing to reach my whole head. The water is cold, but the little rivers of it tickling over my scalp feel wonderful. Glancing up through a curtain of dripping hair, I spot a hand soap dispenser, and I squirt some into my palm. I work my hair into a lather, digging into my scalp with grimy nails so they are cleaned as well, then I dunk my head in the water again. My back aches a little, since I’ve been leaning over for so long, but I can’t stand up yet because I haven’t rinsed all the soap off. The small stream of water coming from the tap makes it difficult.

When I feel an unexpected rush of water flood over me, I gasp.

“
It’s just me,” Carol assures me, pouring more water over my head. We finish up quickly, then press more paper towel against my head to dry some of it. When I am all taken care of, I hear a pop can plop into Carol's bag.

“
You used that to rinse my hair?” I ask, horrified. “Won’t that just make it dirty again?”

“
I rinsed it first, of course,” Carol says, indicating a second sink. “Didn’t want to stand around here all day waiting for your fancy hair stylist to finish up.”

I comb my fingers through my long, soaked hair, still cold from the tap water. I smile at Carol. I feel refreshed for the first time in two days.

The door to the bathroom opens and a woman with two little girls walks in. The mother is speaking as they enter. But at the sight of Carol and me, her jaw snaps shut.

“
Who’s
that?
” one of the little girls exclaims, staring at us with round eyes. “And why’s she all
wet?
”

The woman’s lips press tightly together and she tugs the little girls back to the door. “Let’s go, girls. We’ll find someplace
clean
.”

“
But, Mommy, who
is
that?”

“
Nobody.” Just as they’re passing through the door, the woman glances back over her shoulder at me, her expression hostile. “They're just some lazy bums who can’t be bothered with a job.”

I stare at the closed door, feeling sick to my stomach.

Carol, meanwhile, is at the sink, calmly washing her face. “You dry enough now?” Carol asks with a smile. She seems oblivious to the insult.

I nod dumbly.

“
Good,” she says, straightening and patting at her face with a dry paper towel. “Let’s go get some sunshine.”

The woman in the bathroom isn’t the last to insult us or walk pointedly away, pretending we don’t exist. One warm afternoon, while I’m taking a short nap in a clump of bushes beside a building, someone actually stops to spit on my face. Whoever it was runs off, laughing, and I sit in the dirt, disgusted. I wipe the mess off my cheek, then wash any trace of it off with tears.

Carol finds me later and comforts me. She tells me it’s up to me to find forgiveness in my heart for the ignorant bullies. But I struggle with the idea of forgiving anyone who could do that to me, or to anyone else.

CHAPTER SIX

Most nights, we sleep under the bridge where we first met. Over time, I get used to the concrete mattress, though I’m thankful for the slight buffer of my sleeping bag. My backpack has become my pillow. The same people congregate under the bridge almost every night, clustering in twos and threes, and I watch friendships form between people. Living on the street is uncomfortable. I’m usually hungry, and I’m always exhausted. But somehow, the spirit of gathering here at the end of a day, knowing no one will spit or urinate on me and that I’m relatively safe and among equals, feels oddly comforting. For me and many other homeless, the bridge has become home.

Then, in one night, everything changes. We jerk awake at the sound of violence, and Carol grabs my wrist. She whispers that a group of teenage boys have discovered our quiet space. They gather around a man I know as Patch. The noise of their frenzied punches and kicks, like pounding meat, echoes around the space, thick and ugly. They swear at poor, defenseless Patch, screaming and yelling while he howls. He covers his face and tries to roll away, but the boys have worked themselves into a froth. Like sharks smelling blood in the water.

No one goes to Patch’s aid. Instead, everyone else under the bridge runs into the night, clutching their meager possessions against their chests, trying to flee the danger.

“
Shouldn’t we help him?” I ask Carol as we run.

“
God forgive me, child, but there’s no way we can. They’d kill us.”

“
Should we call the police?”

“
They won't do anything to stop it. Another bum off the street is how they’ll look at it. Sometimes they’re just as dangerous as the gangs.”

“
But, Carol—”

“
Just keep running, Sia. Thank the Lord they didn’t start with you.”

Patch’s cries grow fainter as we run. I can’t help sobbing. The images and sounds I’ve just witnessed are stuck in my head. How can anyone treat another human being that way? I’ve seen people kick dogs, seen a cat tossed in a garbage can—and that’s awful enough. But to beat—maybe kill—a man just for fun? How can they?

We stop behind a mall and huddle in a protected space between two brown dumpsters stacked high with cardboard boxes. Carol mutters unhappily as she sets out her backpack and sleeping bag. I quickly understand why. Though we are hidden, being between the dumpsters gives us no escape route. We have to hope the attackers are satisfied with only one wretched victim tonight.