Love in the Present Tense (7 page)

Most cars don't have the keys left in, but one always will. If you look into enough cars, for enough days, one will always have the keys left in.

Then you can go wherever you need to go.

On our way up the coast it was night, and Leonard looked over at the moon and said it was racing us. He wanted to know who I thought would win. I told him I thought it would come out a tie.

Then he slept the whole rest of the way.

LEONARD,
age
5:
dangling dog

When I got dropped at Mitch's house, he was watching the six o'clock news. After Pearl left I sat down and we watched together.

It had been raining for a long time. Days.

On the news they were showing this guy being helicoptered out of the big concrete river thing. He'd been walking his dog in there, and then the water came up and the save-you team had to go in and get him. And get the dog. Saver-guy put on a harness and they lowered him on this rope, and he held on to the guy and the guy held on to his dog and then they just flew on out of there.

I put my hands over my eyes. Well, over my glasses. I cupped my hands over my glasses so I couldn't see, but so I wouldn't have to take them off and clean them after. You learn these things.

“What?” Mitch said.

“I can't look.”

“You afraid he's going to drop that dog?”

“Don't tell me,” I said. Last I'd seen, the dog was just kind of dangling there. Swinging. And the guy had him under the arms. A big dog, like a German shepherd but maybe some other things, too. I'm sure the guy was holding on fierce tight, but it looked iffy. “Only tell me if it turns out okay.”

A few seconds went by and then Mitch said, “It's okay.”

I took my hands down off my glasses.

They were already on to another story.

“What was wrong with your mom?” he said.

“I dunno,” I said. “I thought everything was fine.”

Later that night he had put me to bed on his couch downstairs. But he was still watching TV. It was this cop show.

The cops were all the good guys.

He was sitting next to me on the couch and I think he thought I was asleep. I could hear Pebbles and Zonker making little happy noises in the corner.

I guess I must have started to sing. But I wasn't really thinking about the fact that I was singing. I was just doing it.

“What's that?” Mitch said.

“What's what?”

“Why aren't you asleep? What's that thing you're singing?”

It was the song Pearl and I used to sing at bedtime.

“It's nothing,” I said.

“Why aren't you asleep?”

“I dunno,” I said. “Just can't.”

I sat up and put my glasses on and we watched the rest of that cop show together. You could tell exactly who the bad guys were, and they got theirs in the end.

Then the eleven o'clock news came on, and they showed the guy with the dog again, hanging from the helicopter.

I put my hands over my glasses again.

“Leonard,” Mitch said. “Buddy. If he didn't drop that sucker on the live footage, he's not going to drop him on the video replay.”

“Yuh,” I said. “I knew that.”

I woke up late. I think I was having a dream about Pearl. But I couldn't hang on to it. It kept sliding away. It was like trying to grab a handful of water.

I sat up and couldn't find my glasses in the dark. I couldn't find my inhaler. I couldn't breathe and I couldn't see to find my glasses without my glasses. I'd never been at Mitch's house in the night before.

I knew Pearl was there with me, but I didn't really know what that meant yet. And besides, I needed my inhaler even worse.

PEARL,
age
18:
it's something

Two things I worked very hard at during those five years after Leonard came. One was talking better. The other was not getting arrested.

I figured, I more or less knew how to talk. I just didn't really practice. You know, what with spending so much time on the street with those people who don't know, or don't know how to use what they know. But I went to school almost eight years. I thought I could do it if I tried, and Leonard was my reason to try. A boy looks to his mother. Anyway this is what I believed.

As far as getting arrested, at first I was even scared to go see Rosalita in jail. But she paid cash for that apartment every month and the landlord did not know her name nor care. But I was that careful at first. Then after a while, since you never get arrested, you start thinking maybe you never will.

So for five years I practiced this good talking thing and did not get arrested. And then one day I did.

I was running an errand for Mrs. Morales, in her car. She has a very nice car, which I think is why I got pulled over. I didn't look nice enough to go behind the wheel. Anyway I pretty much knew how to drive from Rosalita and her car, which she let me use while she was in jail until it died. It was not nearly so nice. But I did not have no license. Any license, I mean.

They took me down to the station and took my pictures front and side and my fingerprints. This is bad, I thought. This is really really bad. But then they said, we are going to cite you out. I didn't know what that meant. Turns out it means I get this ticket. They said I had to come back for court and pay a fine. And when I went to court, they said, I would have to show ID, which I did not have on me that day. But I lied about my name. So I could not ever show any ID in that phony name. I thought real hard which was worse, a lie or the truth. I ended up with the lie, but I still don't know what was better. I don't know that it matters either way. It was all over as of that day.

I thought, I will take Leonard and we will go away. Only even farther this time. Maybe up to Oregon or Washington State, which they say is real nice. So long as we could be together I thought it didn't matter much where that was.

On the day I had to go to court, I left Leonard at Doc's house. He stayed there a lot and he seemed to like it. I think they were all pretty nice with him. Except that one bird.

I took the bus.

I thought I'd be out of that town and on to Oregon before I had to go to court, and of course now I know I should've been. It's always easy to look back later and see what you should've known. Anyway I asked the judge for another thirty days to earn the money. It was true I needed more time, but the money I earned I was never planning to give to any judge. Me and Leonard we were going to buy a bus ticket and get the hell away. Judge asked about my ID and I told him my mother had it and she'd gone out of town and I did not know how to get in touch with her, but I'd bring it when I came back. I know how it is with them. Cops, judges, they are pretty much the same. If they want they can say that's not good enough. Or if they want they can shake their head and say I don't care, just go away. He shook his head and said I had thirty days to straighten it all out.

When I got back on the bus it was raining. There was this big dark American car. It was just sitting there. I don't even know why I noticed it, except when I got off the bus at my street it was there again. Or maybe it was another big dark American car. Don't get spooky, I said to myself. Pearl, don't tell those stories to yourself.

I got Leonard back and we went home, and I put him to bed and sat there with him, stroking back his hair and singing and telling him how we would go live someplace new. What would it be like? he wanted to know. I didn't know myself, but he wanted to know, so I made stuff up for him. All of it was pretty and good, and I stroked back his hair and sang and told him about it until he went to sleep.

I didn't have to work the next day. Only for Mrs. Morales. But sometime around six in the afternoon we had to walk down to the drugstore to get her prescription filled. I thought Leonard could just come along. We stepped out of the house together. It was a pretty afternoon. The rain had stopped and the air smelled nice. Then a car pulled up behind us. It was a big dark American car. I looked over my shoulder. I didn't see who was driving the car but I saw the man in the shotgun seat. He had his window down, looking right at me. I knew him right away. I'd been waiting to see him. Every day I stepped out of the house, every house we'd lived in since that birthday when I was thirteen, I had looked up thinking he'd be there. And now he was.

I took Leonard hard by the arm. Usually I don't like to yank him around, but I was scared and upset. My stomach was all cold and strange, and I felt like maybe I had to pee and couldn't stop that if it happened. But it didn't come to that, thank God.

“Come on, Leonard,” I said.

And he said, “Ouch. My arm.”

I took him to the door at Doc's place and then inside, and as I did I looked back. The car pulled up and stopped in front of the house and I knew he was going to wait for me.

Doc looked at me. “Pearl,” he said. “What happened? What's wrong?”

I had thought I was being so cool about things. I said, “I'm not really sure how long Leonard will have to stay this time. It's an emergency. Okay?”

Then I got down on my knees and grabbed hold of him and held him tight. Really really tight. “Ow,” he said. “When are you coming back?”

I knew then that I was scaring him, so I let go and I walked away without looking back. I didn't want him to see my face.

The man with the lip was waiting for me. Watching for me to come back out the door. He could see me through the window the whole time, so he was just waiting. I thought maybe I should run, but my knees felt funny and I thought he would catch me anyway.

“Gonna get in the car on your own?” he said.

I thought about my dignity, and the promise I had made to myself, and I walked over to his car and got in.

We been driving a long time now. First I thought, he is taking me to jail. Now I don't think so. It's getting dark and we are driving south I think. Maybe he is going to take me to jail in L.A. But I don't really think so. I think then they would stay on the big road. The freeway. We are going way out in the middle of nowhere. It's dark out and we're going up high, like in the mountains, where I never been.

Nobody has said nothing so far.

Then the guy with the lip, he looks back at me. He has his arm over the seat and he turns around and gives me this look. His face is set hard like a mountain. I guess he needs it to be. He looks at me with so much hate.

Something funny happens when he looks at me. I can't probably explain it right, but it feels like I get outside me and I can still see all this, but not from inside where I always live. More like from a place over my shoulder.

The guy who is driving has blond hair and he is nice to look at. At least on some other day he might be. I look at the rearview mirror and see his eyes there. He doesn't hate me as much. He wants to, but he can't quite hate me as much and that's bothering him.

The lip man says, “Sooner or later you were gonna get arrested. Didn't I say that, Chet?” Chet I guess is the pretty blond man. “I went through every mug shot of every girl under twenty-one, everywhere in California, every week. It was only a matter of time.”

I think, it takes an awful lot of hate to do that. That must've been a lot of trouble. But the part of me over my shoulder says, no. Don't say that. Don't say nothing. It won't help. And also, dignity. It says, remember that.

I am sitting in the dirt. In the dark. But there is some moon, and some stars. It has been raining nearly five days, so this night is real clear. The ground is wet and soaks through my clothes. My hands are in cuffs behind my back so I won't run away.

Right now the blond man is sitting on a rock and the man with the lip is standing near me holding his gun. I can't see the lip in this light, but in another way that's all I can see. I just close my eyes and I see it.

“Christ, Benny,” the blond pretty man says. Nobody has said nothing until now. He says, “She's just a kid. For Christ's sake.”

The lip man says, “He wasn't your partner.”

“Let's just take her in.”

“And put his family through that? Put his wife and kids through knowing what happened with her? I don't think so. I think they deserve better. She's gonna get her story straight right here and now. Or she won't ever be going in.” All that hate is still right there. But it feels to me like he's having to work harder now to make it stay.

I think they are trying to start by getting me really scared so I will do whatever they say. But I don't know what they will say. So I don't know if I'll do it.

Right now I'm not really thinking anything, being more over my shoulder and calm. Not normal calm, though. Too calm. Kind of scary calm. But I'm not thinking much. After a while I guess I start to sing. I don't even think about it while I'm doing it. I don't know I'm singing until the lip guy, he says, “What is that?”

Nobody has asked me any straight-out questions until now. I was thinking I would not have to talk. Now that he reminds me, it's the song I used to sing with Leonard at night before he went to sleep.

But Mr. Lip does not need to know this. This is between me and my boy.

“It ain't nothing,” I say.

“Ain't nothing,” he says, like an echo. He is making fun of me. “Don't you know how to talk?”

Yes I do but you made me forget again. I practiced hard but you scared me into a place where I forgot.

“It isn't anything,” he says.

Yes, it is. It is everything.

Blond man looks like he wants to get this over with, whatever it is. I can see his face in the light from the moon. Not all that good, but I can. He is scared and not sure. He doesn't have nearly enough hate. He is reaching for more but it fails him. I can tell this. I can see.

“Jesus Christ, Benny,” he says. “Let's just take her in already.”

“And put his family through that? No fucking way. I don't think so. Not when all they have is their memory of him. Not when so many good cops worked so hard to make sure they never had to know he died with his pants off. No, she's gonna get her story straight. And then we'll see whether or not we're going in.”

I can tell by his voice that he's making it sound as bad as he can to scare me.

I'm looking up at a star. I can feel the cuffs behind me, and I try to rub my wrists where the cuffs are cutting in and hurting. But I really can't.

I'm not over my shoulder anymore. That's too bad. I thought that would keep up. This is a bad place for that to leave me. I feel the end of his gun, right in that little hollow at the back of my neck. Either the gun is shaking or I am shaking. I didn't know I was shaking but maybe I am.