Love in the Present Tense (6 page)

I closed my eyes and I was pretending it was a real horse, and that my boy Leonard and me were riding up and down hills with the ocean right down the hill from us. Which I could see really good with my eyes closed. I could smell the real ocean, which made it easy to pretend.

Leonard was kicking the horse's sides and telling him, “Go faster.”

There was music.

When I opened my eyes that guy with the red hair and freckles was there watching, and he had a stuffed giraffe. He had traded in all his tickets for that nice stuffed toy, I guess. It didn't seem like the type of thing a guy would pick.

When the ride stopped we got off and he came up to us and tried to give the giraffe to Leonard. “For the birthday boy,” he said.

First I wondered how he knew that, about Leonard's birthday, but then I remembered that I'd been yelling about it a lot.

I knew Leonard really wanted that giraffe, but half of those tickets were from that drunk asshole.

“We don't need nothing from you,” I said.

And I turned my back on him once and for all.

The only money we had left was for the bus home. But then we would go home with nothing for Leonard to keep.

I turned back around, and the guy with the giraffe was gone.

There was a picture booth on one side of the merry-go-round building. The kind where you put in money and sit inside and pull the curtain. And it takes pictures of you and spits them out.

I felt kind of sick because I didn't know that before I spent all our money. We could have played a couple less Skee-Ball games and got our pictures took. That would be so perfect because it was us. And he would always have that, to remember the bigness of today.

I went over to that machine and put in the rest of our money. Maybe I should not have. Because now how would we get home? But I thought I would work that out somehow. I thought this mattered more.

We went inside and pulled the curtain behind us. There was a mirror. Leonard liked seeing us in a mirror. It made him smile. His front teeth were still gone. His glasses looked so big and thick. I wished he could have better ones. The lighter kind.

His hair was messy but it was okay. It looked sort of cute.

“Look at the mirror and smile,” I said.

“And then what?”

“You'll see.”

There was a big flash in our eyes and we both jumped.

Then I leaned my cheek down on top of his head. I did not want the camera to see in my eyes, because I was thinking how we'd get home. It flashed again and I kissed him on the side of his head because he is my boy. I knew we should get a picture of how much I love my boy.

Then there was one more, so I smiled at the camera and tried not to look scared.

Why can't people just be safe?

Especially when they're trying hard to do the best things they can.

We were walking on the pier and Leonard was looking down but it was too dark now. You couldn't see nothing between the boards.

Leonard was carrying that strip of pictures in his hand. Every now and then he would squint to see them again.

I was thinking maybe we would spend the night under the boardwalk and hitchhike home in the morning. I don't like to hitchhike at night. It isn't very safe.

I asked Leonard what he thought of that.

“What would it be like?” he wanted to know.

“Well,” I said. “It would be an adventure.”

“What's a venture like?”

“It might be cold,” I said. “But it might be fun and exciting.”

We went down the stairs and under the pier.

The night was cool now but a nice cool, and it was weird and nice to hear the ocean without seeing it. It was dark enough that you could only just barely see the white parts of the waves but you knew they were there from the sound. The sand was cold between our toes, and I was thinking it might not be a half bad adventure.

But we did not stay long, on account of there were people having sex down there. I took my boy by the hand and we walked away again.

“Those people looked like they were fighting,” Leonard said.

“Well they weren't.”

“Were they having a venture?”

“Maybe,” I said. “I don't know.”

This is when I decided once and for all that we had to go live some other place. Something about the drunk asshole and the people doing it under the pier. And that other thing. That older, worse thing. There had to be another place to live. Someplace that would be better for me and my sweet boy.

Where, I wasn't sure. But it should have an ocean. And it should be safe.

I said to Leonard, “Pretty soon we're going to move.”

We were walking back toward the street, which is probably why he said what he did.

“We're moving now,” he said.

“No, I mean to a whole new city.”

“What one?”

“I don't know,” I said. “A small one. With an ocean.”

“Like Sanna Momica?”

“No. Much smaller. And safer.”

“When?”

“I don't know. Soon.”

We walked under the big arch sign and across the Pacific Coast Highway. I was thinking maybe I could pan-handle money for the bus. But for a while we just walked.

We were walking along Santa Monica Boulevard when the red-haired guy pulled up beside us. He had the window of his car down on our side. The giraffe was on the front seat with him. I could see the top of its head sticking up.

“You need a ride?” he asked.

I knew he would not hurt us, but I didn't want nothing from him. All the same. His car was one of those old ones. The kind a guy will buy to fix up. The kind a guy will cherry out and be real proud of. But his wasn't cherried out yet. Just real old.

“We don't need nothing from you,” I said.

I looked down at Leonard and he still had those pictures in his hand, but he wasn't looking at them. I'm pretty sure he was looking at the giraffe. It made me feel bad.

“So you got a way to get home?”

We just stopped walking. I was feeling tired and sad. I wanted to be home. I wanted Leonard to have that giraffe. I wanted to live in a small place and be safe.

“We live far,” I said. “Real far. All the way in Silver Lake.” And we were lucky to live there. We had moved way up.

“I'll drive you. If you want.”

We got into the backseat of his car.

He got on the freeway without talking.

His window was open, with his bare arm sitting on the edge of it. I felt the wind coming in. It blew my hair around. I watched the palm trees go by in the dark. I watched the shiny orange reflectors on the freeway flash by.

Leonard watched the head of the giraffe where it stuck up over the seat.

After a time the guy took a cigarette out of a pack and reached the pack back over the seat at me.

“Smoke?”

“No,” I said. “I never would. It's a filthy habit if you ask me.”

Instead of lighting his own cigarette he put it back in the pack.

“Real sorry about my friend,” he said. Like he hadn't ever said that before.

“Get new friends,” I said.

And we rode without talking nearly all the way to Silver Lake.

I had him drop us about three blocks from home.

“Why are we getting out here?” Leonard said.

And the guy said, “Because your mom doesn't want me to know where you live.” We sat without talking for a minute. I did not get out because of that giraffe. I wanted him to offer it again so I could say yes this time. “Which is okay,” he said.

Then I remembered that he was the guy who pulled the asshole away from me and told him I had a kid and to stop it. I was thinking I hadn't been very nice to him.

“Where would you move to,” I said, “if you wanted to be safe?”

“Safe from what?” he asked.

“I don't know. This city, I guess. Everything.”

“Oh. You mean like Don.”

“Yeah. Like Don.” And some others things I was not about to tell him.

We were sitting off to the side of Silver Lake Boulevard at a red curb where you are not supposed to park. Leonard was looking at the giraffe.

“No place is really guaranteed safe,” he said.

“Some might be better.”

“Maybe a small town.”

“Has to have an ocean,” I said.

“Well, maybe up the coast a ways. Santa Barbara is still pretty safe. There's a little town called Lompoc that's near a military base. And if you want really small you could try Morro Bay. That's probably a pretty safe place to live.”

I was trying to learn those names in my head.

“Why can't people just leave me alone?” I said.

I looked up, and his eyes were watching me in the rearview mirror. “Maybe because you're nice-looking,” he said. Then his eyes slipped away again.

“That's no good excuse,” I said.

“No,” he said. “I suppose not.”

We sat quiet one more minute, and then he said, “I got no use for this at my house.” He held the giraffe up by its neck. “I just got it for the kid. You sure he can't have it? He's been looking at it.”

“Say thank you to the man for the present, Leonard.”

“Thank you, mister,” Leonard said. And he took the stuffed giraffe into the backseat with us.

For a minute I felt bad. Because what about what I gave Leonard? That didn't seem so important anymore.

Only then Leonard said to the guy, “Look what else I got.” And he showed him the pictures we took of us in the merry-go-round house.

I felt better then.

“Hey, nice,” the guy said. “You and your mom. That's a nice thing to have to remember today.”

“Yuh,” Leonard said. “I know. You want one?”

“Me?” the guy asked. Kind of surprised sounding.

Leonard is a very generous boy. People aren't always ready for how generous he can be.

“Yuh. I got four. See? We'd have to have a way to cut one, though.”

“No,” the guy said. “I think you should keep all four, because it's your birthday.”

“'Kay,” Leonard said. “Bye.”

“You're a lucky boy. To have a mom who takes such good care of you.”

“Yuh,” Leonard said. “I know.”

We got out and walked the rest of the way home.

The night felt good on my skin.

I looked around once and the guy was watching us go. He had lit a cigarette and was smoking and watching us walk home.

But then we turned a corner and he didn't try to follow. He let home be a secret thing from him.

He let us be safe.

Leonard slept with the pictures on his pillow. He slept all wrapped around the giraffe. In the morning I asked if I should put the pictures somewhere safe.

“Where?” he wanted to know.

“I don't know. Somewhere they can't get hurt or lost.”

“Can I still see them whenever I want?”

“Anytime you want.”

“'Kay, then,” he said. “I think so.”

For days I looked into every car I walked by.