She stepped back nervously, glanced around, nodded. “We're having a few problems.”
“Listen, if you need money, I've got some.”
“That's what he said when we first met.”
“I just want to help.”
“I don't need anyone's help.”
As if speaking of him had summoned him, Cupid appeared with two of his friends. They made no sound. It was as if they were on a high-gravity planet, with no atmosphere for sound. Pam's mouth opened, but no sound came out.
“I heard about this,” Cupid said to Pam, “but I didn't believe it.”
Tom stepped in front of Pam. Cupid pushed him, hard. He was heavy in high gravity. Tom pushed back, remembering that he could fight. One of Cupid's friends hit Tom in the face. Two of Tom's molars came into his mouth. He spat them out, and they rolled like dice on the pavement. He could feel his mouth filling with blood. Someone kicked him in the back, and another, from the side. He hit the pavement, and his head bounced. No sound.
It was like a movie with the sound turned down. He saw the police car, lights flashing but no siren. Cupid tried to drag Pam away with him, but she ran in the other direction. Then Cupid and the others were running away, not making a sound.
Now come and play on the flute!
It will guide us along the grim pathway.
Act 2, scene 8
He woke up in a hospital bed.
When the policeman spoke to him, he heard his voice, but as if it was from far away. He looked in alarm at the nurse standing beside his bed. “Barotrauma,” she said. “You got hit on the ear so hard that it busted your eardrum. Turn your good ear to the officer.”
Tom turned his head.
“Do you know who did this to you?” the officer asked.
Tom shook his head. He could hear gravity seeping in through the tear in his eardrum, leaking into his brain. It was whispering to him, something close by his eardrum, but he couldn't quite get it.
“Who do you want me to call for you?” the officer said, pulling out a notepad.
“Um . . . I can't remember. I must have a little brain damage, too,” Tom said. The officer and the nurse exchanged looks.
“Yeah? Well, you're likely to get a lot more if you keep hanging out with those friends of yours,” the officer said.
Tom nodded.
The officer was talking, but Tom wasn't really listening.
Gravity was whispering something to him, and he concentrated, trying to hear. Something about the fight with Cupid . . . except it hadn't been a fight. It had been a beating. He hadn't thrown a single punch.
Couldn't he fight? He'd been pretty sure that was a memory . . . No, the memory was of getting punched in the face. He'd just guessed about the punching back part.
He'd written in his book, Tom can fight. But . . .
He could hear the voice seeping into his broken eardrum, now. It said: what if it's not true? What if none of the words in the notebook are true?
The nurse left the room and returned in with a tray of steel instruments. The policeman said, “I'll be back shortly,” and left.
“What are you going to do?” Tom asked her, knowing he couldn't run with all that gravity in his brain.
“Just cutting off your hair, young man.”
“No.”
“What, you want freezing for that? It's got tenants. Lice. Stayed at a shelter lately? We'll shampoo you, too, but you kids never do the follow-up treatment, so we'll just shave it off. Be glad it's not scabies.”
“Where's the girl they brought in with me?” Tom asked. “Pam.”
“No girl. The police saw her, but she got away.”
What if it's not true?
As soon as the nurse went out of the room, Tom dressed and left the hospital.
His heart couldn't beat as fast as his feet could run. The sky was lightening from a purple black to a deep gray. The wind began to blow, and the leaves rattled on the branches.
Tom knew every street. He knew where all the regulars slept: War Hero under the skirts of the giant pines at the library; Red Shoe on a bench across from the doughnut place; the one who sniffed glue in the window well of the old CP hotel. The holes and cracks were full of eyes.
Jenks was in his usual spot, asleep on an old blanket he'd spread out on the sidewalk.
He shook Jenks awake, and the old man came up punching.
“Whoa, hold on. It's just me, Tom.”
Jenks relaxed. “H'lo, ghost,” he said.
“I'm alive,” Tom said.
“S'what they all say.”
“If I was looking for a ghost, where would I go, Jenks?” Tom asked.
Jenks waved his hands at Tom. His hands were covered in socks. “You like my mitts? Look, there's holes for my middle fingers.” He poked the fingers out for Tom's benefit. “That means leave me alone. I know what I say when I'm juiced. Right now I'm dry.”
“I will, I will,” Tom said. “Just tell me where to find Daniel.”
“Told you. Go 'way.”
“Acorn told me you know where he is, he takes care of you sometimes.”
The old man swore at him and curled into a ball.
Tom squatted to be at eye level with the old man. “Listen, Jenks. Daniel's father's been looking for him for months. He won't eat anymore until he finds his son. When he dies, his ghost is going to find you, Jenks. Now there's a ghost that won't go away when you sober up. Believe me, Jenks, Samuel's a ghost that'll stick with you.”
Jenks unfolded himself and looked up at Tom, his eyes wide with alarm. “The dead don't hide under roofs. The dead don't care,” he said finally. “Besides, they can't read their street survival guide. Some never could. If you're looking for ghosts, you just look in the shadows. They are alone. Nobody can sell them anymore. Damaged goods. You just go down any old dark street, and you'll see them.”
He pointed with his two middle fingers, which poked out from his socks. Tom looked over his shoulder at the alley Jenks was gesturing toward, and swallowed. Jenks pointed again and nodded his head. “Don't worry, boy. You blow on them, they fall over,” he said.
“Thanks,” Tom said.
Jenks shrugged. “Coulda told you a long time ago.”
Tom searched the shadows in the alley, picking his way among broken beer and Listerine bottles, among trash and human waste. He found the dead, the drug dead, the drunk dead, the dream dead. He found them standing, sitting, squatting, sleeping in the shadows of back doorways and dumpsters, tar babies, sucked so far into the street that she gave birth to them againâhelpless, crying, hungry, and without language.
The sun was almost up. They shrank from the light.
Tom found one warrior.
Standing tall, hands in pockets, wide-shouldered. He was street leanânot the spa leanness of the downtown workers, but the leanness that looks like it's been dried out in the wind too long, the leanness that comes with long periods of not much to eat. He was standing, just standing. Beside him was a dumpster with the words RIP ROSIE painted in red on the side of it.
“Daniel?”
The young man looked at Tom. “Who are you?”
When he spoke, Tom knew it was Daniel. His voice was like his father's. He was thinner than his picture, and his hair was longer.
“I'm Tom. Your dad, Samuel, sent me to find you. He's waiting for you at the park. He needs to talk to you.”
Tom could see the young man translating in his head, sounds to symbols, words to meaning, school English to street English.
“You're the one who's been asking about me,” he said slowly.
“Yes,” Tom said. “That's me.” He realized that he was standing on his toes for sheer joy. He lowered himself, but a moment later he was on his toes again. “Oh, man, you have no ideaâI've been looking for you forever. Your dad, he told me when I first came that I was a Finder, and, well, at first I thought he was crazy, but you won't believe this, turns out I found all this stuff, stuff I needed, like a job, and money and food and, well, it worked like this: if I wrote it, I found it, and I wrote that I was going to find home, but your dad said I had to find you first and then I'd find home . . . . Oh, man, I was getting scared there for a while because I wrote that I could fight and then I got, you know, beat up by this guy, Cupid, so I was starting to think none of it was true and I couldn't write after all and I'd never get home . . .”
Tom stopped. He was chattering. He waited a moment, but Daniel didn't speak.
“It wasn't just for that. It was for your dad, too. He was good to me . . . So, well, if you want to go now, I'll show you where he is. I can't wait to see the look on his face.”
Tom reached out to guide Daniel's arm, but Daniel drew back.
Tom felt gravity pull his forehead and the corners of his mouth down.
“He doesn't eat anymore because he knows you're hungry,” Tom said. “He gave away his coat because he knew you were cold. He cries for you.”
Daniel looked up at Tom.
“He told me about you when you were young, how when you were little you broke your arm and your leg at the same time while you were stunt biking. He calls you a warrior.”
Daniel took a step deeper into the shadows.
“I wrote a poem for you,” Tom said, trying to keep the panic from his voice. He'd dreamed of finding Daniel, but he'd never dreamed about what he'd do if Daniel wouldn't come with him. “I'll tell it to you, if you'll come.”
Daniel didn't move, but he didn't tell him to shut up either.
“It goes like this: This is what to remember: Remember that you were strong and wild when you were a child. Remember all your good dreams. Remember what he did for you, too. Tell him: this is what you did for me, and this and this. Remember to fight for what you need. Remember that you are a warrior . . .”
He stopped. Gravity was squeezing all the air out of him.
“So? What do you say?”
“Leave me alone,” Daniel said, and he walked away.
Tom couldn't move. He couldn't wade in gravity this thick. He wanted to grab Daniel, wanted to tackle him and scream and shake him. But he didn't do anything. He just stood there and let Daniel disappear into the shadows.
Tom walked to the river where he knew Samuel would be. He was going to ask:
Does it count? I found Danielâdoes it count? You never said I had to bring him to you, you only said I had to find him . . .
But when he saw Samuel from a distance, sitting on the bench, hunched and cold by the river, his mouth moving soundlessly, Tom stopped.
He couldn't do it. He couldn't tell Samuel that he'd talked to his son and he wouldn't come. Tom folded his arms over his head and screamed through gritted teeth. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know what to do.
What if none of the words were true?
Tom turned and walked away from Samuel. He walked, not knowing what to do or where to go, until he came to the billboard.
T
HE
M
AGIC
F
LUTE
, S
EPTEMBER
12â15.
From where he stood, Tom could see the electronic sign flashing the date: SEPTEMBER 15.
He glanced from the electronic sign to the billboard. Today would be the last performance of T
HE
M
AGIC
F
LUTE
.
Maybe that day when he'd seen the billboard from the tower, he'd made a mistake. Maybe it wasn't a billboard he should have been looking for. Maybe it was the opera, all along.
Tom smiled. Something about that opera had to do with home . . .
It was working! He'd found Daniel, and now he'd find home. It did count! He couldn't think about Samuel now. He had to think about getting to the opera.
It was too late to find a ticket. He'd have to find another way. If there was one time when he had to be a Finder, it was now.
You had to look like you belonged to go to an opera, Tom thought. He knew he looked different from everyone else. But maybe if he thought,
I am a writer, I am a poet,
he could pass for belonging. Poets probably went to operas. Maybe at an opera, though, the less you belonged, the more you fit in. He could pass for a musician, perhaps, or a singer or a set designer. You just had to walk in with confidence.
First he had to find clothes.
He went to the drop-off bin at Sally Ann's. He found a black shirt, and a black jacket only a little too big for him. He also bought an almost-brand-new pair of jeans. They had a cowboy label, but the jacket covered the label. He wasn't sure cowboys went to the opera. He had enough money left over for a pair of clean socks. He'd given up on underwear a long time ago. He couldn't hear gravity in his ear when he was thinking about what to wear.