Finding Alice (15 page)

Panting with exhaustion, I sit down on the edge of a planter box and try to catch my breath. My feet hurt now, both from being cold and wet and then from running so hard with no shoes. I sit there for a long time, alternately rubbing my feet and wondering what to do.

Finally I remember that I was going to try to panhandle in the shopping district today. Now I am about ten blocks away, and my feet hurt. Still there seems to be no choice other than to walk. Amelia points out the way, and this time I obey. I walk and walk and walk, but it seems I am getting nowhere, just climbing some kind of a hill. Then I realize that I am nowhere near the shopping district. I’m not even sure where I am. It seems to be a residential neighborhood.

This is very upsetting. When I try to place the blame on Amelia, she’s not there, and so I begin to think it’s all my own fault. It’s as if I can’t even figure out the simplest things anymore. I used to pride myself on knowing this city like the back of my hand. So I look at
the back of my hand to discover that my skin is pale and splotched with grime. It doesn’t even look like my hand anymore. I haven’t seen my face in the mirror for days, and I wonder if I look like me anymore. Would I even know me if I saw myself on the street? I am completely lost, both inside and outside. I wish I could just cease to exist somehow. Perhaps that would stop all this pain.

Now I’m lost, so I sit down on a rock wall that’s surrounding someone’s garden area. The garden looks mostly brown and dead right now with dry, spindly things poking out of the ground. I stare at it and think that is exactly how I feel.

“Do you need something?” calls a woman’s voice.

I look over to see a woman in a pale gray suit standing next to a silver BMW. Her face looks perplexed, or maybe she’s just irked.

I shake my head and stand up, slowly moving away from her rock wall as if it’s made of precious stones. I’m afraid she’s going to yell at me for sitting there. But she doesn’t. She just stands for a moment with her car keys hanging loosely in her hand. She frowns as though she doesn’t quite know what to do. I wonder if she’s thinking I’m going to break into her house the moment she leaves. I must admit it appears to be quite a nice house with its freshly painted siding and trim, in three different shades of mossy green. The antique hardware on the door and the old-fashioned windows appear to have been completely restored. The place literally gleams with money and care. I wonder how it is some people have it so good. Maybe it’s just because they are good people and I am not. Who can understand such mysteries?

It’s clear that this is the old section of town where houses are very expensive and real estate is desirable. I’m sure this woman has lots of
expensive things in her house that she wouldn’t like to have stolen. So I move along, hoping this will reassure her that I’m not a thief who’s casing her house. I certainly don’t want her to call the authorities on me. And it’s likely she has a neat little cell phone in that black designer purse of hers, the fancy kind of phone that flips open and closed. I move more quickly now. I want her to be positive that I am no threat.

After several blocks I sit down again. This time I sit on the curb next to a lamppost. Hopefully, this won’t bother anyone. I think that curbs are public property. I watch as a front door opens across the street and a man comes outside with some kind of a terrier. The man picks up the morning paper, then stands and waits as the dog relieves itself on the front lawn. Then the man calls the dog in a childish sounding voice, promising a treat if it will “come to daddy.” I think how great it would be if someone would promise me a treat for relieving myself on their lawn. Dogs have it so easy.

Naturally, this reminds me that I could really use a bathroom break. I think it must be nearly time for Pioneer Plaza to open, and their bathrooms are located quite handily next to an entrance, so I decide to make my way over there. If I can remember the way, that is. My sense of direction seems more confused than ever today. Finally I remind myself that it is toward the river, and that means I must go downhill.

I tell myself that if I can just keep moving my feet downhill, I will get there. I imagine myself as one of those cheap plastic walky toys that can wobble down an incline without any batteries. I watch my dirty socks as I go, the soggy toes flopping like dog tongues on the ends of my feet now. Flop-flop-flop. Only the dampness is keeping them on my feet. I trudge, step by step by step, downhill. Just
put one foot in front of the other, I tell myself. One foot ahead of the other. After a while I realize that my floppy socks are literally disintegrating right off my feet. I sit down and peel them off to discover that they are nothing more than filthy, shredded rags.

“Who did this?” I ask, looking around for the culprit. Perhaps even Amelia has pulled a fast one. But no one is around to take the blame. So I shove the tattered socks into my giant coat pockets along with the other miscellaneous items I’ve collected during the past few days. This includes a broken shoestring, a bottle cap, a safety pin, an empty Tic Tac box, a golf pencil, and a brand-new book of matches. I smile to myself to think how Tweedle Dweeb won’t like that I got away with his matches.

Now that my feet are completely bare, I can feel the skin on my soles peeling away layer by layer. I wonder if my feet will be shredded up just like my socks, only bloody. Then I suppose I will have to put them into my pockets too. I try to remember where I set my shoes but cannot. I decide that they must’ve been stolen. Maybe it was Tweedle Dumb. He never did seem to like me.

By the time I reach the bathrooms at Pioneer Plaza, my feet are red and actually bleeding in places. I sit down on the floor in a corner of the bathroom and try to clean them with soap and wet paper towels, but it is useless. The dirt is ground in so deep that I’m certain it will never come out again. And so I decide to wrap them up. I make soles out of folded paper towels, and then I attach these to my aching feet with my shredded up socks and the shoestring, sort of like sandals. But every time I stand up and walk a few steps they start to fall apart. It is hopelessly hopeless. So I just sit there with my head hunched down on my knees, and I cry.

“I want to disappear,” I keep saying over and over. “Just disappear.” I believe if I chant these magic words enough times, it will actually happen. Finally I sense someone is watching me, but I’m afraid to look up. Afraid that I have finally been caught. I know that I am cornered here in the bathroom, and there will be no escaping because my ruined feet cannot run. Not very far anyway. I refuse to look up.

“Do you need help?” It’s a woman’s voice, but then this is the ladies’ rest room. Finally I look up and just shake my head without speaking. I look back down again, my heart pounding so loud that it echoes off the ceramic tile of the bathroom,
boom-boom-boom
.

Just go away
, I think, or maybe I say these words out loud. If I had given it more thought, I might have held out my hand and panhandled. At the moment I just want her to go away and leave me alone, and thankfully she does. But now Amelia is back, and she is telling me that the woman was really a spy and that she has just gone to security or the authorities or whomever, and she is going to tell them I am hiding in the bathroom. Amelia tells me to get up and get myself out of there, and I know I must obey. Despite the stabbing pain that comes with each step, I hobble out.

Tears blur my eyes as I slowly make my way to the park across the street. It seems to take me forever to get there, but finally I do. At last I sit down on a bench and cradle my bleeding right foot in my hands, rocking back and forth as if that might somehow ease my pain. All the voices are yelling at me now, including Amelia’s. They are calling me names and telling me how stupid and worthless I am. And it’s not that I disagree; I just want them to go away—to leave me alone with my suffering. I am trying to tell them this. I want to
explain it and make it perfectly clear, but I can’t remember the right words, or perhaps they are just scrambled in my head. I suspect this is Amelia’s doing, trying to get back at me. Perhaps it was that woman in the bathroom. Did she do something to my words? Or maybe my words have been encoded so that others won’t understand what I’m saying. I’m not sure.

I sit in the middle of the city, removed from everyone and everything, separated, quarantined perhaps. I see people passing by, a blur of winter coats and blank faces, going places I cannot go. I am not welcome there. I am not part of them, and they are not part of me. Maybe they don’t even exist. I am utterly helpless, but those busy people cannot help me. They will not. I am encased in Plexiglas, a specimen to be gawked at. It is too late. No one can save me now. I cannot even save myself. I know I can’t walk another step. I can’t go on. I decide I must simply stay here on this park bench. Forever, I guess.

I imagine myself turning into a bronze statue. There are many artfully placed around this park but mostly animals, I think. I don’t recall a human. I particularly like the little otter with the oyster shell on his tummy. And the bear cub. I think humans don’t matter so much around here. We are more expendable, disposable, replaceable. Not endangered like the spotted owl or muddy tree toad or whatever it is they’re trying to protect here in Oregon these days.

I hold very still now and imagine they will name my statue
The Street Girl
. I see her hunched over on her park bench wearing an overcoat that seems to swallow her whole, with her skinny wrists protruding from sleeves too long, arms wrapped around her middle as if she’s trying to hold in all the pain—to contain it so it doesn’t spill over and touch or soil or contaminate. Of course, I cannot think
these thoughts in real sentences or even in actual words since they are encoded. I can no longer process the events of my life in such a congruent and literary fashion. Instead it’s just a long string of jumbled feelings, random thoughts, broken syllables, all coated in layer upon layer of confusion. But who really cares?

I care
.

W

The sky is getting dusky, and I am cold when I feel her standing near me. I cannot see her, but it’s as if I can sense her presence. Maybe it’s just her body heat, or maybe it’s her smell—a mixture of mothballs, old newspapers, and something unfamiliar. Or maybe Amelia has told me she is here, but somehow I know. Even so I am afraid to look up, and yet I’m afraid not to. When I finally force my eyes to focus, I see that it is only Betty Grable, and somehow I don’t think she’s here to take me away. Not that I would really care. I don’t care about much of anything right now.

Betty still has her rusty grocery cart from this morning, but she is holding something out toward me. I try to focus my blurry eyes to see what it is, and for a moment I think it’s a gun. Is she going to shoot me? Am I relieved? Then I see it is something wrapped in a gray metallic-looking plastic bag.

“Huh?”

“Here.” She nods to the bag.

I take in a deep breath, then reach for the bag.

“Go on, open it.” She’s frowning at me as if I’m a half-wit.

I untwist the top of the bag and look inside. It is something red.

Two somethings that are red. I take them out. It’s a pair of red satin bedroom slippers. The kind with open heels that you slip your foot into. I can see they are slightly used but not badly. And they look clean.

“Put them on.”

I study her carefully, wondering if this is some kind of a trick. I remember a story from a lit class about a pair of red shoes, and when the girl puts them on, she can’t quit dancing. I think she dies dancing, but I’m not sure at the moment. I imagine myself dancing with my worn-out feet. I can imagine that it would kill me, but I don’t know if I would mind.

Carefully I slip them on my raw, aching feet. They are a bit too long in the back but feel comfortable on the cracked, bruised soles of my feet.

“Thanks,” I mutter, my eyes still staring in wonder at the shiny red slippers. Then I look up to see that she is smiling. I just stare at her face for a long moment. It looks like a miracle all lit up like that. I’ve never seen her smile before. Then she grabs hold of her shopping cart and wobbles away. I am amazed. Part of me wants to go with her, to ask her about her million-dollar legs. But then I am not sure if I could keep up or if she would even want me. So I remain on the bench, still pretending to be a work of art, only the title has changed.
Street Girl in Red Slippers
.

chapter
EIGHTEEN

In the Mean Time

D
ays and nights blur into the gray fog of my memory. I am not sure of much of anything anymore. How much time has passed? Who is trustworthy, and who is not? Where will I sleep tonight? I cannot remember when I last ate or where I went yesterday or what I did. Of course I have no idea where I am going. Besides running, that is. My life is all about escape these days. The voices are my constant companions now. So much so that I almost don’t even notice them sometimes. Then they start screaming and demanding that I pay attention, and so I do, or I pretend to; I’m not sure anymore.

I do have a few fleeting memories, like the evening Betty Grable gave me these red slippers, which now are stained and threadbare. And I remember the old man in the tweed three-piece suit who bought me a cup of coffee with real cream in it and a whole-wheat bagel. At first I thought he was from the CIA but then maybe not.

I also remember quite vividly the time I was grabbed and then dragged into a dark alley by a big guy in a cologne-soaked leather coat who thought I “wanted some.” I tried and tried to scream for help, although I’m not sure that any actual sounds came out of me.
I begged for Amelia to rescue me, but she was nowhere to be seen. The creep had my neck painfully pinned against the cement wall so tightly that I could barely breathe. With his free hand he clumsily unbuckled his belt just as Tweedle Dweeb and Tweedle Dumb turned the corner. When they realized what was going on, they ran over yelling and cussing at the stupid pervert and then pulled him off me. They even threatened to beat him up, and together I think they might’ve actually been able to do it. More important, the jerk was convinced and took off in the other direction.