Compromised (22 page)

“What about the nice people? The ones you stole from? What about the ones who are good to kids? The ones who went to Africa to help out? They're out there,” I say.

“It's not your decision to turn Klon in. It's his. If you want to go, that's your deal. But Klon doesn't want that. When he does, then it's his choice, okay?” Nicole rubs her arms. I pass her the coat back. “I'll find Klon on my own. Death is better than going back there, okay?” Nicole says.

“How can you know that, though? How can you know dying is better? We can't know that,” I say. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what happened to you, but Klon deserves to have a chance.”

“Then we have to ask him,” Nicole says.

“How can we do that when we can't even find him?” I'm close to tears. Everything is wrong. I can't reason with her, but she makes sense. In her own way.

“We'll find him,” she says.

“And if we don't.”

“Wait until dark.”

“And then?” I ask.

“If we don't find him before it's totally dark, we go to the cops. Okay?”

“Promise?” I say holding out my hand.

“I'm not going to fuckin' pinky promise you. My word is my word. Okay?”

“Okay,” I say.

The cops turn and look at us. One talks into a hand radio.

Nicole and I set off, walking as fast as we can. “Remember the Hollywood Market?”

“Yeah. The hot dogs.”

“We can find that. It was on Irene Street.”

We look up at the street sign. Brumback Street. “Um, do you remember a cross street?” I ask.

She shakes her head.

“Okay. We can't be far,” I say. “All of this looks kind of familiar.”

And we walk.

The sun slips below the horizon, leaving a purple sky to blanket us in cold. Every part of my body aches. I can't
even swallow because of the burning pain in my throat.

We walk. Night creeps toward us. Nothing looks familiar. We ask for directions but nobody stops to help us. People just wrap their coats around them and clutch their purses to their chests. We walk in and out of shadows, trying to keep to the streetlights.

We find Twelfth Street and walk up the street, passing Ridenbaugh, Lemp, getting stuck on Heron as it runs into a park.

“The street ends here,” Nicole says. “And this park doesn't look familiar. I don't get where we're going wrong.”

I stare at the street signs. “Oh God.” That knot returns to my stomach and tightens inside me. Panic washes over me, and I turn to Nicole. “We can't find him.”

W
e follow the park until Thirteenth Street, then follow its edge. “Heron, Hazel, Bella—it's gotta be close,” I say.

“Fuck,” Nicole mutters. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” She pulls out the worry dolls. “Help us find Klondike. Please. Help us,” she whispers, and hands me one. “Your turn.”

I count my breaths, in and out, in and out, feeling my lungs work and throat burn. My head feels light. “I have to stop. Just a second.” I sit on a curb, slump over, and breathe some more.

We find Irene Street, but nothing looks familiar, so we walk to Harrison Boulevard and find a convenience
store. We go in to ask for directions and the guy hollers, “You keep my business away. Out. Now. I don't wanna see nothing of you and your stupid friend.”

“We're just looking for a park,” I say.

“We're in Boise. The whole fuckin' town is a park. Out! Now!”

We leave the store. Somebody left a half-drunk cup of coffee on the corner. We share, slurping down the liquid, cupping the Styrofoam in our hands. Its aromatic vapors disappear, and we're left with brown sludge at the bottom of the cup.

Nicole nudges me. “Ask the worry dolls for something.”

I hold one in my hand. “Please,” I whisper. “Help.”

“That it?” Nicole slurps her coffee. “I think they need you to be a little more specific than that.”

I'm so tired. It's like in those dreams when you're running away but you can't move. All I can think of is getting to Klon, but my whole body feels like it's shutting down. I rub my eyes.

And it's supposed to be his birthday. But I don't even know the date.

Some birthday.

Flakes of snow spit down on us from the gray sky. I don't feel the cold anymore at all.

“We have to go.” I try to stand. “Just one more minute,” I say. I don't even realize I'm trembling until I look at my hands, blue nail beds, shaking to hold the worry dolls still. “Breathe,” I say. “In and out. In and out.” It feels like someone has wrapped his hand around my throat and constricted, making me work for every last breath.

“Christ, you're not in labor.” Nicole scratches her arms. “Jesus, how could we have blown this? He's counting on us.”

I stand up and throw the cup into a dented trashcan. “Let's go. It's dark, and we have to get to him. I don't know how many blocks it'll take to get to him. I don't know—” I cough and hold my throat.

We pull ourselves up and half jog down Irene Street until we see some familiar buildings. We're getting closer, I can feel it. I recognize things. Then we see the Hollywood Market. We run into a group of teenagers standing on a corner just outside. The streetlight is almost totally burned out, a yellow glow hugging them. I can see the glow of a cigarette being passed around. The sun is gone and the moon rises.

We approach them. I clear my throat. “We're, um, looking for a park. Near here. Can you help us?”

One girl looks up—honey-colored eyes with long, long lashes. She turns back to the group she's with. Nobody says anything.

“Please,” I say. “We're looking for someone. We, um, lost someone. And need help. Please.”

“Depends on who you are and who you're looking for,” the girl says. She takes a long drag and holds in the smoke, then releases it, billowing, into the air. I almost choke on it.

“Jesus, Bambi,” one guys complains. “You're sucking like a vacuum. It's supposed to be for all of us. Take it easy.”

They turn away from us. Bambi smiles over the haze of pot.

“C'mon. They don't know shit.” Nicole tugs on my arm and tries to pull me away.

I watch as the last of their marijuana gets smoked. Light comes from the trickle of cars that drive down the street—yellow headlights reflect off newly sided homes. When we turn to go, Bambi says, “Word is there's a corpsicle on the streets.”

“Corpsicle?” I ask.

Bambi rolls her eyes. “Yeah. A frozen kid. Out in the ball park.”

“He's not anywhere near a baseball field,” Nicole says. I feel a wave of relief.

Bambi flicks a cigarette on the street. “Fucking morons. Ball park is where everybody goes to get laid. Behind some old historic buildings nobody's bothered to repair yet.” She points. “Follow this road ten or twelve blocks, then turn left. You can't miss it.”

“No,” I whisper. The acid from my stomach burns my esophagus, nose, and mouth.

Nicole grabs my arm. “Get it together. We need to go.”

The moon rises higher, and the night is a little brighter. We stumble down the street—a street that looks like every other street. We turn and see the spare park—the swing set looks like some kind of rusty relic—the cement tube a black shadow in the moonlight. “That's it,” I whisper. “Klondike!” I try to shout, my voice nothing but a raspy whisper.

He doesn't respond.

“Klondike!” Nicole hollers. We run to the park and look in the cement tube, but he isn't there.

Please, I think. Please have been picked up by police. Or somebody. Please.

We rush into the trees following Klondike's path in the bright snow.

Klondike sits, leaning against a tree, gripping my box in his cold hands, green eyes staring straight ahead.

“K
lon?” Nicole bends down beside him. “Klon. Wake up.” My throat tightens. “Klondike?”

Moonlight filters through bare branches lighting Klondike's face—the smooth side. The creek bubbles downstream, a thin layer of ice on the top. I rub my chapped hands together.

“He's not moving.” Nicole shakes Klondike's shoulders. “Klon. Please wake up.”

I lean in and put my ear to his lips. Nothing. “Klon?” My stomach knots. “Klon, are you okay?” I ask.

Nicole shakes him harder. “Please, please wake up. Please,” she says.

I move my hand to his wrist. Icy. No pulse. I try to lay
him down, but his body is stiff and I can't put him down straight. I finally get him into a position where I can do CPR. I pull off his coat and push hard on his chest. But when I do compressions, I feel the snap of his brittle ribs under my palms. “Oh God,” I say. “Oh God.”

I breathe into his mouth, but nothing happens. He doesn't move. He doesn't breathe. His heart doesn't beat. I can smell feces and urine and gag on the smell of death.

Nicole rocks on her heels. “Oh fuck.”

I turn to her. “We could've gotten help. Hours ago. He would've been alive, but—Oh God,” I whisper. I hold his hand in mine. “Please, Klon.”

We sit huddled next to him, not talking, just listening to the night. I close my eyes and wonder what death feels like. Maybe there won't be any more cold. Maybe Klon's scars will go away. Maybe Nicole is right. Death is better. But then I remember the million-star hotel and the Devil gettin' married.

Nicole throws Klon's coat over my shoulders and I shrug it off.

“Don't be stupid,” she says. “He's dead. He doesn't need—” She chokes on her words. I slip the coat back on and am assaulted by his smell. I throw up—the burn
coating my stomach and esophagus. I dry heave until my head feels like it will float away.

This is our fault—my fault. I could've gotten help but didn't. And now Klon is dead. We shiver, sitting next to him, waiting for night to go away, hoping to wake up from this. Morning light creeps across the purple sky in streaks of oranges and yellows until splinters of light shine through the trees. I stare at Klon's face. He looks so peaceful. No tics. No twitches.

Bambi and her friends walk by. “Tough break,” says Bambi. “That's two stiffs this week with Limp—'scuse the pun.”

Nobody laughs.

She has an annoying thing about flicking her nails—her pinky nail especially long. “This one was just plain dumb, though. Somebody told him to come take cover before nightfall, and he refused to move. Just repeated, ‘Stay here. Don't move. Stay here,' over and again.” Bambi shrugs. “Fucking weirdo if you ask me.”

Nicole wipes tears from her eyes. Her hands tremble. I hold on to Klon's hand even tighter.

Bambi tilts her head to the side. “Boo-hoo. So he's expired.” Her black eyes are ice cold. “We're all gonna
fuckin' die sooner or later. And with that face, it's probably better he did sooner.”

Nicole turns to her. “Fuck off,” she says. “Who asked you?”

My stomach clenches. “Go away,” I say. “This isn't a show. This isn't okay. It's not okay that this happened.”

Bambi shrugs. “Fucking saps. Oughta start a greeting card company or something. Shit.” The group laughs. But it isn't real laughter. It's just this dead sound that hangs in the morning air.

Nicole turns to me and I look away. I want to blame her for everything, but I can't. I didn't go get help. I knew better. I never had Nicole's life. I have no excuse. But the anger I feel. I can't even look at her because—because Nicole needed me to be strong and I wasn't. I hold my breath, hoping to hear a croak, cough…anything. But he doesn't move. I sit next to him and hold his hand in mine. I try to remember a prayer. Any prayer.

Nicole sits on his other side and says, “I don't know if I believe in you. I don't think so. But if you're there like everybody says you are, you better take care of Klon. He didn't deserve this.” She swallows. “He's just a kid.” She looks up at me expectantly.

“Happy birthday” is all I can think to say. “Yesterday was your birthday.”

Nicole takes out the marshmallows and places them on his lap.

“We'll stay with him. Until—” I can't speak through my own tears.

Nicole nods. She understands that he didn't want to be left alone.

We lay Klondike's body in piles of damp leaves. “So he'll be comfortable,” Nicole says.

I push his eyelids down, and we crouch behind some trees. Then we wait. Nicole holds Klon's hand. Tears brim in her eyes and spill down her cheeks. “You were all I had left,” she says. She cries softly, leaning her head against the tree, its bark biting into her cheek.

What about me? I want to ask. I pull my legs to my chest and lean my head on my knees, trying to keep from breathing his smell.

I'm wearing a dead person's coat.

I want to shout. I want to stomp and pound and stop things. I want everything to be different. I want time travel to be true.

And I want to hate Nicole.

But I can't do any of that. Because all of this is my fault. All of it.

My burning eyes droop shut. I drift in and out of sleep. Nicole and I stay with him all day. We don't talk. No more Mafia stories or science facts.

Klon is dead.

The second night falls and we huddle together. In my dreams, I stare down at Mom's coffin, listening to the frozen earth pound the wood. I shiver and curl into a ball, waiting for the earth to swallow me up.

Sometime late morning, a scream jerks me awake from my fevered dreams. A boy chased a runaway basketball to Klondike.

“They found him,” I manage to say through the pain in my throat. “He won't be alone now.” I turn to Nicole, but she's gone. Her plastic bag of postcards lies next to Klon's body. I pick it up and hold it to my chest.

She's gone.