My Abandonment (7 page)

This room has a round table and on one side two bunk beds and on the other side a green chair and a plaid couch with sagging cushions and a television that two girls are watching. When they turn to look I see that one is Valerie from the Skeleton Family so I run over and touch her arm.

"It's me," I say. "Where are we?"

"We're locked up," she says. Her hair is all bleached white and cut ragged at her shoulders. She has six earrings in one ear and five in the other and a ring pierced between her nostrils. Her lips are all chapped and dry from licking them.

"Taffy," she says to the other girl, "this is the chick I told you about before, that girl that lives in Forest Park."

"I do not," I say.

"With her father," she says.

"We have a house but we spend a lot of time in the forest park," I say. "Because we like it."

"Right," she says. "You sleep there."

"A couple times," I say. "Just to go camping. You don't know where I'm from."

"Whatever," Valerie says. "This is Taffy."

They are both wearing the same outfit as I have on only Valerie has dirty sneakers and Taffy has on rubber sandals. Taffy has what looks like blue ballpoint pen scribbled on her cheek and forehead. She's even skinnier than Valerie, with dark hair longer on one side.

"Is that your real name?" I say.

"Yes," she says.

"That's really nice," Valerie says. "That's a really nice way to be. You see how she is, Taffy, growing up in the woods so she has no manners."

"I do so," I say. "I just never heard that name before."

There is no room on the sofa so I try to sit on the edge of the green chair which is cold and slippery.

"Why are you here?" I say.

"Shoplifting," Valerie says. "Taking spray paint and whipped cream for whip-its."

"What?" I say. "Did Johnny and Isabel tell you to steal?"

"Duh," she says.

"How long have you been here?" I say.

"These fuckers have no idea about my parents," she says, "or how a real family works. Johnny and Isabel know."

"Have you seen my father here?" I say.

"Maybe," Valerie says, "just maybe you got luckier with your daddy but you see how this shit works out so the police will try to take you apart from your family every time."

"Right," Taffy says. She is looking at me but still watching the television where a woman in a dress is shouting at and then kissing a man in a doctor's uniform.

"Now stop interrupting," Valerie says, "so we can watch our show."

After a minute I go over and look at the bunk beds.

"That one is ours," Valerie says, pointing and shouting. "Don't touch it. You take the other one."

There's only one window and it looks across to a brick wall. Down below is only an alley with no one in it except a trash can and what looks like the broken part of a bicycle. If I lean close to the glass I can see only a long thin line of sky which is barely blue.

The voices on the television are loud and ridiculous. Everyone is very excited. I want to watch it and I don't want to watch it. I start walking circles around the room, right close to the walls. The window, a corner, behind the television, a corner, past the door, a corner around the beds. The fourth time around I kick the cord out of the wall and Valerie and Taffy yell and I only look at the plug before Valerie leaps up and sticks it into the wall and leaps back to the couch so she won't miss anything.

"Jesus," she says. "Retarded."

I sit at the table and try to remember the game we'd played in the forest park on one of the few times Father let me. Something about driving a car and to a beach and the kitten was part of the game but now I'm afraid to say anything about that since she seems so angry and is watching the television. I wait until the show is over and then I try to talk again.

"I like your hair," I say.

"No you don't," Valerie says. "What a fake thing to say."

"What do you think Nameless is doing right now?" I say.

"That idiot," she says. "Probably eating bugs or worms or something."

"I don't know if he really does that," I say. "At least he's not in here. He didn't get caught."

"Not yet," she says.

"What happened to your kitten?" I say.

"He's gone away somewhere," she says. "Probably the same place as that dumb horse of yours."

Later I take the top bunk and Valerie is in the other top bunk straight across from me in the dark. She is whispering to Taffy and Taffy whispers back and it's in a way where I can't understand the words.

"What are you saying?" I say, and they giggle and after a while start up again.

I wonder how many days it will be and if that will be long enough for all three of us to be friends together. I cannot fall asleep in the same room with them and without Father next to me. I stretch my foot all across the bed and don't touch his hairy leg. I rest there with my foot sticking out in the air until it's cold and I pull it back. Somewhere I hear a dog barking far away. I am thinking hard on Father's face so hard that I can feel him thinking back at me and so I don't worry. Miss Jean Bauer said it was illegal to live in the forest park and I wonder if already Father is in an orange outfit, if he'll be taken out to cut the long grass with the white truck of dogs watching him through their cages, ready to chase.

A wizard is one who practices magic but can also be a person who is clever at a task or test, which is a series of questions, a trial, affliction, crucible, ordeal, tribulation, visitation.

We sit on soft chairs in Miss Jean Bauer's office. She has flowers and a computer. Out the window I can see more tall buildings of the city. She scoots closer and touches my arm with her hand.

"Now Caroline," she says, "how was your breakfast?"

"I liked the orange juice," I say.

"Good. Now is it all right if I ask you a few questions?"

"Yes," I say. "That's what you said we were going to do."

"Your name is Caroline and you are a thirteen-year-old girl who has been living with your father. Correct?"

"Where is Father?" I say.

"He's close," she says. "He's fine. He's doing fine. He misses you, too."

"Can I see him?" I say. "Of course that's my name."

"We just want to make certain we have everything right," she says, "so we can start."

"If I scream," I say, "would he hear me?"

"Please don't scream."

"I wouldn't scream," I say. "There's never any good reason to raise one's voice."

"Really?" she says. "Why do you think that?"

"When will I see my Father?" I say.

"Your physical and mental examinations have been very good," she says. "Excellent, in fact. Would you say you've had a happy and normal childhood?"

"Am I going to stay here forever?" I say.

"No," she says. "Don't worry. I've told you that before. Let's try it this way: I'll say what your father told me and you can tell me if it's not right, okay? He says that you lived in Forest Park for four years because it was safer and better for you than being on the streets and he didn't have the money to rent an apartment or a house. He says you've never met your mother, that she passed away?"

"We have a house," I say. "My father is paid every month. She had the same name as me."

"Caroline."

"Yes."

"But you haven't gone to school," she says.

"My father teaches me at our house," I say. "You said I passed your test, so we should be able to go back home."

"Yes," she says, "you're ahead of where you need to be, but you must understand that you can't live there. And school is about social skills, too, not only intellectual ones."

"I am happy," I say. "I was happy. Where are the dogs?"

"Who?" she says.

"The dogs who found us. Are they here?"

"In this building?" she says. "No. They are search and rescue dogs."

"Are they the ones who watch the criminals?" I say.

"They live in kennels," she says, "at the police station."

"We didn't need to be rescued," I say.

I like Miss Jean Bauer and I like the gray streak in her hair but I don't say this. I can tell she likes me even if she doesn't understand me.

"Is that picture your husband?" I say.

"My boyfriend," she says.

"He's handsome."

"Yes, he is," she says.

"Do you have a daughter?" I say.

"No, I don't."

"Do you have a father that you can see and hear and talk to?" I say.

She touches my hand again and says, "It's amazing to me, Caroline, the life you've had so far. Not many people can tell a story like that and now there's so many new opportunities for you. Still," she says, "I wish I could have just followed you around for a day, just to see how you did it all."

"You wouldn't have been able to follow me," I say. "I'd lose you in five minutes. Even with dogs it might not matter."

"Did you grow all the food you ate?" she said. "Your father says you're vegetarians."

"No," I say. "Yes we are vegetarians but we went to Safeway, too. Everyone goes to a store, or eats things they find in the city that other people leave behind."

"Did you take things from other people?"

"Never," I say. "If someone in the forest park drops something, the rule is to wait and count to thirty. Then you can pick it up. Hide. Count again to fifty, to see if anyone comes back. If they do, try to put it in their path a little further along, so they can find it and so you won't be stealing from them."

"So you went to Safeway every two weeks?" she says.

"Everyone has to buy something sometime," I say. "Only maybe Nameless only eats what grows in the forest park."

"Who's that?" she says. "A friend of yours?"

"Not exactly," I say. "It doesn't matter. Is Father somewhere taking tests like this?"

"Kind of," she says. "They've been asking him a lot of questions. He's been very cooperative."

"We're different than you," I say.

"We're just deciding what is the best thing to do," she says again. "You can see that we have to understand where you've been and who you are, first."

I don't know what to say so I just look out the window again. I button the button on the cuff of the shirt they gave me.

"Please," I say. "I don't know what to say. Those are all the things I can think of. Can I not go in with those girls again?"

"Is there a problem?" she says.

"There's not even any books in there," I say. "I can't breathe. I can't even see one tree out the window."

"We don't want to make a mistake," she says. "How about this? How about we try something new?"

She takes out a bright blue box then, thin but as tall and wide as a piece of paper. From a drawer she pulls out a square machine with black and red buttons on it.

"I am wondering if it's all right if I make a tape recording of our conversation," she says. "Would that be all right? If you like, I can give you a copy of the tape to keep."

"All right," I say. "But I already said I'm out of things to say."

Miss Jean Bauer pushes down the red button and I can see the wheels turning inside the clear plastic window. She picks up the blue box again and takes off the top.

"This is a storytelling test," she says. "Actually, it's more like a game. Think of it like a game. I have some pictures here that I am going to show you, and for each picture I want you to make up a story. Tell what has happened before and what is happening now. Say what the people are feeling and thinking and how it will come out. You can make up any kind of story you please. Do you understand? Well, then, get ready for your first picture. You have five minutes to make up a story. See how well you can do."

This takes an hour almost. She keeps telling me if I have more time or if I'm running out even if I can see the minutes going on my watch. The pictures are not easy. There's a woman coming through a door with her face down in her hand and men asleep on the grass resting with their heads on each other and hats over their eyes and one where a girl in a tree watches another girl in a dress running along a beach and holding up her dress out of the waves. I tell stories for them and mostly Miss Jean Bauer tells me they're good stories. The first one is a picture of a boy and a violin and this is the story I tell:

"There's a spider down in the violin and then he's sitting there wondering if it's going to come out of it and if it will bite his chin if he begins to play. But his mind keeps drifting away so he's not worried."

"Where is his mind drifting?" she says. "What's he thinking about?"

"He wants to go outside, I think."

"And what will happen?"

"He'll probably play that violin for a while and the spider will just listen," I say. "How do you read my answers? You think they mean in a certain way, but how do you know?"

"Don't worry about any of that," she says. "Just tell me the first story that comes in your mind. Have you ever seen an X ray?"

"Yes," I say. "I know what one is."

"Well," she says, "we're trying to find out what it looks like inside you, by the stories you tell."

"You could just ask," I say.

"Yes, but you might not be able to say it."

"So it's a crooked way you're going," I say. "So I'll somehow say what I can't say."

"Right," she says. "That's not a bad way to think about it." And then she shows me a picture of a person turned away with their head on a bench and a gun on the floor and then another with a woman on a couch reading a book to a girl holding a doll and looking away like she might not be listening.

It is so hard to be in the room with these girls. I sit at the round table with the pencil and scratch paper trying to write and then I get up and stand next to the window and I feel like breaking the glass in that room since it seems like it should be easier to breathe and I can't get air. Every time the door opens I think it could be Father and I look up and instead it's Miss Jean Bauer or Mr. Harris coming to get me or Valerie or Taffy.

My feet hurt so I take off my shoes and put the socks inside them. The floor is too hard and smooth beneath my feet. It's cold. The air smells like all the chemicals it takes to keep everything so clean.