squid

i don’t know how the fuck it got so noisy around here. The last few weeks it seemed so quiet: with Critter here, plus Eeyore and Rusty, I finally was sleeping every night. Critter’d mumble stoned and drunk, Eeyore’d babble through her dreams, Rusty breathed out through his skinny chest and all of it was like a lullaby. But Critter and Eeyore left two days ago to unload junk, and when I came back today with breakfast Rusty wasn’t there.

So tonight they’re gone and I’m alone again and the less people there are around me the louder it all seems to get. Trucks drag by sounding like whole factories, creeping up then peaking and fading away, and I try to imagine they’re waves crashing but the metal grinds against itself too hard for me to believe it’s water. The hookers scream at each other half in Spanish, voices screechy like a girl’s but loud and deep like guys. You can never tell if they’re laughing or about to stab each other.

The sounds don’t come and go; they add up, and closing my eyes just makes it worse. In the inside of my head they turn into a million-petaled metal flower, or a herd of butterflies beating at the inside of my skull. I can feel every single cell of skin and hair on me, crawling. After a while the noise from outside doesn’t even matter anymore: it’s all inside. I count the stars to calm down, but they double up, start multiplying too. There’s too many of everything everywhere and I can’t keep track.

I get this feeling when I’m by myself too much.

Ever since I was a kid I had it. As far back as I can remember once my mom got too tweaked out to keep on running from my dad, and I started getting passed around to strangers. The feeling’s like a rash. Right at the edge of my skin, except inside my mind.

Annabelle made it go away for a while, in Arizona and all the way out here. The quiet came from a place I didn’t even know I remembered. I met her when we were both fifteen. I’d been floating around in foster homes for seven years and dropped out of school for two. She was reading fucking Beowulf for English. I fell right in love with her chopped-up hair and inky hands and faded bruises and made her skip class every day. It took ten months to get her to realize that if she ran away from her asshole dad and the leaky roof he kept above her head the world wouldn’t end, it might even get better, but finally I did, and we took off on the trains. It was me and her and Germ in the open air, finding our own food and surviving. We even had plans.

But within a week of landing in L.A. Annabelle was headed up to Berkeley, following some stupid band she heard was there, and my head started roaring again.

Those first two weeks were pretty goddamn loud. When I met Critter underneath the 101 I stopped noticing the noise so much. First of all, just having another person’s voice there drowned it out. And Critter always makes sure you eat, when he’s around. He strolls down the Hollywood sidewalks like he’s lived on them forever, and everybody knows him. It was nice having someone look out for me a little bit; I’d forgot what it felt like.

But Critter’s just too fucking good-looking to be considered reliable, so things never really quieted down for real. Those four months that it was me and him it used to make me nervous: he’s the kind of guy you might sometimes love but you don’t really want to need, because he’ll never ever need you back.

A month or so ago we found Eeyore back by the Dumpsters. Three days after that Rusty came along. Since then I was happier, and for the first time I could sleep: there’s enough of us now that it’s almost like a little family. Eeyore mostly only talks to Critter, but Rusty and me are perfect. He fits with what I’m missing somehow: our sentences match when we talk to each other. That never happened to me with anyone except Annabelle. I thought you only got it once per life until I bought Rusty some burritos and we started talking. I mean, he’s not a girl, so I guess it’s different that way. But he needs me and that part’s the same.

But now Rusty’s gone and he didn’t say where he was going. I know he’s not used to being out here, and I didn’t think he was the type to just leave. I’ve been wondering what he’s gonna eat since this morning. How he’ll find his way back here, no bread crumbs. And I keep trying to keep track of everything I did and said, in case I made him go away by accident. I can’t stop. I lean over into Germ and listen to him snore, hoping it’ll drown out all the other noise. At least Germ’s not going anywhere. Nobody’s gonna feed him but me.

Of course right when I finally get to sleep, the sun comes up. I roll over into my backpack to stretch out the dark, but one sound gets in, and then another and another, and I’m up. I keep my eyes shut anyway. Against the black-eyelid backdrop my mind picks up where it stopped last night, keeping track. I’m not worried about Critter: he’s always leaving to buy shit or sell it, and he always comes back. I know Eeyore went with Critter because that’s what she does, and she’ll be back when he’s back for the same exact reason. But that still leaves Rusty.

The light gets brighter and brighter through my eyelids while I lie there till everything looks blank and red. Halfway into rush hour Germ hears something near us. He picks up his head. His collars clink together before the leash tugs on my hand; then he’s up and jumping, happy; shitty watchdog. I open my eyes and he pulls me with him: slobbers his face into the bag Eeyore’s holding, rustling the grease-stained white till Critter grabs it away from both of them, takes a glazed donut and gives it to Germ. Critter slaps my hand hi. Eeyore copies his smile. They’re back.

Their voices take the edge off my alone—at least I’ve got something else to listen to—but after hello they mostly talk to each other, as usual. Nobody needs anything from me. I could turn invisible and they probably wouldn’t notice. I pick at the sole of my boot and talk to Germ. Rusty’s still gone. I spend the next two hours wondering if he’s coming back.

At ten the 217 bus pulls up and I get my answer. He’s the fourth one out the door, after two Mexican guys and an old white lady who looks like she’s made out of dust. He seems nervous in a happy way, the way I guess you’re supposed to be before the first day of school, or prom, or whatever shit you’re supposed to do if your mom’s not a tweaker and your dad didn’t beat her up and you live in a house instead of on the sidewalk. When I see his face my insides finally start to settle and the wings in my head slow down. It’s still loud in there but his face helps, his nose and eyes. He stutters up to us like he wants to run and he’s making his feet slow down. I wish he’d hurry up.

That night in the alley I get up close enough to him that the breathing sounds drown out the hookers and the trucks. I wrap my arms around him so he can’t leave again. My head is just one thing, quiet now, and I can get to sleep.

I think something happened with Critter and Eeyore while they were off selling that shit. All last night and today he’s been keeping her really close but distant at the same time. You can tell that he’s preoccupied, like a dad on TV who’s got something on his mind. He doesn’t say what, though. They never do on TV either.

Critter never says what’s on his mind, but usually he at least says other things instead. Usually he says “Come here” to everyone and smokes us up, or buys us dinner. Always making sure that no one’s hungry. He smiles with those movie-star eyes and laughs about something and makes you feel like out here’s the best and freest place to be, even if you’re only here to run away from somewhere else. Eeyore went right to it like a moth to a lightbulb, the hot glass of him the only bright space in the dark. She hasn’t left him since.

But now Critter won’t talk, and I can tell Eeyore’s lonely. I wish I could take care of her. I like taking care of things that are smaller than me. They remind me of myself a long time ago, I guess. There’s nothing I can do, though; Eeyore won’t let me. She’d rather hide under piles of bravado or else nestle under Critter’s arm like a baby bird. Even when he hardly moves to let her in. I want to tell her to quit it: he could pull out from under any time. That’s what guys like him do, guys like dads on TV who feed everyone and give you drugs and never admit that they need anything. But they always seem like the strongest of all if you don’t know better. And she doesn’t.

Now Critter comes up to us from the Goodwill parking lot, holding on to Eeyore like her arm’s a leash, and plops her down. She scowls.

“Would you take care of her for a while, guys? I gotta go pick up some shit,” Critter goes. I’m glad to but Eeyore looks pissed: this is obviously the middle of something that started already.

“What the fuck, Critter?” Eeyore says. “I told you I want to come.” She lets it hang there for a second, but he doesn’t bite. “C’mon, I won’t fuck anything up, I promise, you can say I’m your little sister—” she’s begging now. But Critter’s got his mind made up, he’s not hearing any arguments.

“I told you, Juan-Carlo’s got his eye on you, he thinks you’re worth money and I’m not taking you back there.”

Eeyore rolls her eyes. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about. You are so paranoid. All he said is I was cute. That’s a compliment.”

Critter just looks at us like we all understand what Eeyore doesn’t, which we do. “Sure,” I go, “she can hang out with us,” and she scowls again. This time at me.

“Thanks,” Critter says, then throws a half-empty bag of Doritos down at us. “That’s for her,” he goes. Germ scuttles over to sniff it.

Eeyore is pissy for the next seven hours. It’s obvious she’s mad because of Critter. He’s trying to protect her, but there’s no way I can say that: I’d rather have her mad at him than me. It gets to where I want to get her drunk just to take the edge off, and I don’t usually feel that way. I’m getting nervous she’ll blow up and leave, or Rusty will, or someone. Finally I have to do something, so I buy us a 40, most of which Eeyore downs almost immediately. We go walking. If I take us somewhere better maybe it’ll help.

On Formosa there’s this huge construction site. I don’t know what they’re building there, a high-rise or a minimall, but they’ve been digging for three months and nothing’s come up but dust and piles of steel. We pass by it sometimes on the way to Whole Foods, the wood walls with the “warning” signs and construction trucks like dinosaurs grumbling around inside. Fluorescents shine down on it like helicopter searchlights but I don’t care. I hand Eeyore Germ’s leash, tell Rusty to give me a boost and slide up the wall, flip over the edge and scrape my stomach on the other side.

Once I’m over, the two of them don’t really have any choice but to follow. Rusty lifts Germ all the way up. I can tell Rusty’s on his tiptoes because all you can see is Germ teetering from side to side, scrambling like a little pig. I hold my arms up to Germ. He trusts me like always, and I catch him. Then there’s a pause for a second before Eeyore’s pink face peeks past the edge. I wave at her: Come on. For a second she looks scared, like the weak kid in dodgeball who’s about to get hit. Then Rusty hoists her up and over and she lands in the red dirt next to me.

When Rusty gets stuck at the top, I reach up and pull him the rest of the way. He lands on his knees, stands quick to brush them off. I ask if he’s all right. He doesn’t say anything, just looks up like he’s glad to be on the same side of the wall as us.

Eeyore is officially almost drunk. Plus she’s excited I think, so she forgets her bad mood and turns cute like a kid. She runs around the edge of the enormous crater pit that the construction dinosaurs dug. It goes down a hundred feet, like the top of a volcano, except there’s no fire at the bottom, just more dirt. Around the edges of the pit, piles of steel beams and wood planks make mountains on the ground, and the yellow and orange creature machines sleep standing up. The wood walls shut out the light from the street. It’s black, except where the work lights shine down like a stadium, and then it’s so bright you can hardly look at it. It’s beautiful. I look at Eeyore and Rusty, both grinning. It worked. I brought them someplace better.

Eeyore stumbles us across the site like we’re astronauts, climbing over hills of lumber, darting in and out of light. For a minute we can’t see her. Then her little voice yells “Guys!” We run up. She’s standing in front of a shack, three-quarters built. It’s dark-green painted wood and flimsy metal. The floor is dust. There are little windows with no glass in them and a door frame with no door. Eeyore shrieks like she found a gingerbread house in the woods; runs into it and sits right down. Rusty and I go in after.

Inside the light filters through the little window holes. None of us are used to being inside anywhere that’s ours. It’s usually either out in open air or in some store that someone owns. And I guess somebody owns this too, but it doesn’t feel like it. The sounds from the sidewalks barely even get in here. Rusty and I grin at each other, trying to hear the quiet.

Eeyore’s drunk, though, so she starts jabbering. It stirs up the air, but nobody minds. She’s happy talking. Mostly we just listen: Critter the asshole should’ve let her go with him, don’t we think so, come on guys (we nod). Man. He always lets her come, she’s never messed it up; Juan-Carlo’d give Critter a deal if she was there. She really thinks Juan-Carlo likes her.

Rusty and I just look at each other when she says that. It’s not funny, but for some reason the look in Rusty’s eyes makes me laugh sudden like a sneeze, too fast for me to stop it coming out. Rusty laughs back, like a reflex. Then it wears off and he looks away from me. I stop laughing too. I look at Eeyore for a second. I see her eyes fill up.

“Shit, man,” I say to her. “I didn’t mean anything—”

“What the fuck are you laughing about?” she goes, in that choky way you talk when you’re trying to get words out past tears. I can’t really answer. I guess we were laughing because Juan-Carlo likes her in a different way from how she thinks, but that’s not funny, it’s more scary if you think about it. Plus I don’t think she’d believe me if I told her that; I think she’d just get mad. So I just say “Nothing.” Which only makes her madder.

“Fuck you, Squid,” she goes. “You guys always fucking laugh at me behind my back. Don’t think I don’t notice,” but it’s really actually not true, it’s really the first time it’s ever happened, and it wasn’t behind her back it was actually right in front of her face, so I go “What are you talking about? Are you crazy or something?” which comes out a little harsher than I meant it, and then I think I must’ve snorted, because she gets like ten times louder and yells “Don’t fucking laugh at me!” like she’s a three-year-old trying to stop a grown-up from leaving, squeezing her eyes shut, using every last inch of vocal cord she’s got plus all her muscles, like it’ll actually make a difference. Rusty slouches down like he wants to be invisible.

I start to open my mouth, but she’s yelling now. She’s not gonna stop. “I’m not fucking crazy! I know you all think I’m a loser and I’m not enough of a hardass to hang out with you and I’m sorry my dad didn’t beat me up when I was five or whatever, but I have problems too, you know.” My heart starts speeding up and I try to talk again but she just keeps going, snot running out of her nose all over her upper lip.

She’s freaking out. “I’ve had shit happen that you guys have no fucking idea about, okay? You know what? You don’t know what it feels like to be molested by your fucking stepbrother every fucking night of your life. You don’t know what that shit feels like. So fuck you. Fuck you.” The last “fuck you” she kind of chokes on. And then she puts her head down on her knees and says “Get away from me” into her sleeve.

I’ve got that worried rash feeling on my skin again. I’m sweaty from getting yelled at; my heart’s beating hard in my ears. I must’ve done something bad to make her feel like that. It must’ve been bad when I laughed. I don’t want to be that guy, the one that laughs at kids and hurts their feelings, but somehow it wound up that way and I don’t know how to undo it. I’m sure Rusty thinks I’m a huge asshole. He still won’t look at me. Eeyore will, but her shiny eyes are like a mirror. I’m afraid to look at them.

I want to do what she said, just get up and get away from her and go, but I can’t leave her and Rusty here. They wouldn’t know how to get back without me. So I just go, “You know what? Fuck you, Eeyore.”

I don’t even know why. It’s not really what I mean. I just want to push her away because she makes me feel so bad. I hear the edge in my voice when I say it: I remind myself of someone else, although I’m not sure who.

Rusty looks up at me then, with this look I can’t quite read, half disappointed and half scared. Like I suddenly have someone else’s face. “Squid?”—he says it like a question.

“What?” I go. My voice sounds hard and sudden. He flinches. Then he doesn’t talk.

“What?” I go again. I can’t stand not knowing what he’s going to say. His mouth stays shut. He looks like he just got busted and doesn’t have an explanation for it. But I want to make him give me one. I keep staring at him.

Finally he just says “Nothing. It’s cool, man.” It sounds weird in his mouth, like he really wants to say something else. I can’t tell what, though. Then he looks at Eeyore, then at me. “Right?”

After a minute I go “Yeah, I guess.” Eeyore’s still got snot on her lip, but she doesn’t say anything. Germ flops over on his side. No one talks. I lie down next to Germ, my back to them, and listen to him pant. After a second Rusty and Eeyore lie down too, first him, then her. My eyes are closed but I hear them. I keep my eyes shut, slow my breath so they’ll think I’m asleep and the whole thing can be over. That noisy itchy feeling starts to creep up inside again, even though I’m not even by myself, not really. The car sounds outside layer on top of each other, building, and I brace myself for another night awake. I must be tired, though: before the noise can take over I pass out.

I’m awake already when the dark starts to lift. Little streams of light leak in through the cracks in the wood of the shack.

The windows make squares on the ground; dust swirls around inside them. I lean in and shake Rusty’s shoulder. He opens his eyes right at me, surprised to see my face so close. He blinks twice and then looks at me normal. “Hey,” he goes, and smiles a little. I can tell there’s nothing else he wants to say instead. My heart’s been high up near my throat since last night, but now it settles back into the right place in my chest. Rusty glances over at Eeyore, who’s still sleeping on the red dirt floor. She looks like a little kid, curled up on her side, one hand up by her mouth and one between her knees. “Do you think she’s okay?” Rusty whispers.

“Yeah,” I say, because I don’t really know any other answer.

By the time it’s bright out I’ve bought everybody breakfast. We even went to Jack in the Box, which costs way more than donuts. It took me down to the last fifty cents I panhandled this week, but I wanted to make sure everyone knows I’m not an asshole. At the register Rusty went digging in his sock. I saw he had some cash wadded there, but I told him to quit it. Eeyore just took the food without looking at me and her cheeks turned red.

When we get back to Benito’s Critter’s already there, squatted down on the parking lot curb. He’s with this other guy. The guy’s probably seventeen and he’s that kind of redhead whose eyelashes and eyebrows are all orange too, freckles blanketing his face and arms over the sunburn. He’s wearing black patched-up Carhartts and a bull ring through his nose. His T-shirt says Crass. He’s fiddling with the hardware knotted into his crusty red dreadlocks, steel rings and black rubber and nuts without the bolts, and he won’t look at us. I can tell he’s mean. Critter’s pissy too, in some mood about something. The two of them just sit there in that mood like it’s a couch.

I have to walk right up to the guy and stare him down before he’ll even look at us. “Hey,” I go. “I’m Squid.” And he doesn’t even talk, just raises his eyebrows like there’s something I’m supposed to do. I don’t do anything. Finally Critter says “I know Scabius from back in Reno. I ran into him on Hollywood this morning.”

Rusty slouches back behind my shoulder, chewing on his hand. At first Eeyore does too, and it’s like there’s two little groups, them on the curb and the three of us standing. I spread out my shoulders so there’s room back there for Eeyore and Rusty both. Eeyore stays back there. For a minute I think maybe she might be okay with me again.

But then she darts out and squats down by Critter on the curb. Even though he seems mad, way madder than yesterday, and even though Scabius is coiled beside him like a guard dog, she goes right back to Critter. I know she’s got a crush on him, but it still makes me feel bad. Like even Critter pissed off, with some weird guy, is better than me buying breakfast.

As soon as Eeyore sits down he starts swearing: JuanCarlo stiffed him last night, took all his money but didn’t give him his drugs. Eeyore looks over at Scabius and starts to say something about how if she was there Juan-Carlo wouldn’t have done that, but Critter’s eyes flash hard and it makes her shut up. She scrunches up her shoulders and leans away but watches from the side, like Germ does with me when he’s in trouble. She knows not to push it any further once she gets caught. All she can do is try and make herself invisible so he won’t turn it on her.

It’s obviously not the first time Scabius has heard the story of Juan-Carlo. He doesn’t say anything, but you can feel him backing Critter up, feeding it. Critter swears some more and then finally jumps up and starts tearing around the parking lot, like water that was heating up and heating up and all of a sudden boiled. He throws his backpack down, yells how he’s got nothing left now. His face is pink, like in a movie when the main guy gets mad and hurls a chair against a wall. And it’s a pretty noisy show he’s putting on, but I can tell he’s sort of acting. Half of him is actually mad, but the other half is doing it on purpose. Part of him has got the whole thing under control. If he was really all that angry, my stomach would crawl and my head would get noisy and I’d feel that hit-dog thing that Eeyore did. And I don’t.

The hookers turn their heads to watch; the tallest one in leopard print and purple shoes puts her hand in her purse, and a guy parking his BMW nearby looks nervous. Critter notices the guy and gets louder. I think I know why he’s pretending to be the mad guy in the movie. I can guess what he’s thinking: if he freaks out loud enough, one of us will offer to put up cash so he can buy another round of shit to sell. Just asking would be a whole lot easier, but guys like Critter never think anyone will give them anything unless we’re scared.

I’d help him, maybe, but I’m tapped out after Jack in the Box. He’s not going to get much from anyone else here either, I don’t think. Eeyore never has money, even though she can always find food. Rusty’s clutching his sock from the side, and I know what’s inside it but he’s not talking. And Scabius doesn’t seem the type to help anyone out with anything. He just watches all of us like a wolf figuring out where everyone is in the pack.

Critter bounces back toward us, his face red, breathing heavy. “Fuck,” he goes and collapses, acting like he’s giving up so one of us will tell him not to.

Eeyore’s watching him. She’s not hunching like a scolded dog anymore. She’s standing up. All of a sudden. “Come on,” she says to him. “Let’s go back to my house. I’ve got money there.”

Of course that stops everything. “You have a house?” Critter asks her.

She stammers a little, pulls back, quits standing up so straight. “Well, it’s not my fucking house,” she says, throwing the fucking in to make sure she sounds tough. “It’s my stepmom’s. And my dad’s.”

“They live here?” Critter goes. Eeyore nods. “Fuck,” Critter says. There’s a minute where we all look at each other: it’s a little fucking weird that Eeyore has a house, especially one she can go back to. It sort of makes her not exactly one of us. And we all know it. And it looks like Eeyore just figured it out too. And there’s this long pause. Then Critter looks at Scabius and goes “Well, I’m not going to anybody’s fucking house.”

Eeyore gets this look like she wants to reach out into the air in front of her mouth and swallow it all, like she wants to take back time, but she knows she can’t and so she’s frozen there, panicked. Her mouth moves a little but she doesn’t say anything. It hardly looks like she’s breathing. I wonder if she’s going to cry.

I say, “I’ll go with you.”

Critter’s still pink in the face and he throws a little of it in my direction. Scabius catches it and copycats, shooting me a scowl like an echo. I don’t mind, though. I know Critter had to say he wasn’t going and stick to it, just like I have to say I’ll go. I peek over at Rusty: that look he had in the shack last night, the half-disappointed and half-nervous one, is all gone now, and now his face is something more like admiration. I hand him Germ’s leash.

“Here,” I go. “Will you watch him?” I never leave Germ with anyone. But right now I know he’ll be okay with Rusty. And I know Germ’ll look out for Rusty too.

I pet Germ on the head and leave his water bottle. I say to Eeyore “Come on.” Her face is still half frozen and I know she wants to hate me, except that I just saved her ass.

Eeyore and I walk up Vine until the street narrows and the fast-food places turn into expensive coffee shops. Then grocery stores, and then just hills. After a while there aren’t any sidewalks so we walk in the street. We pass the Scientology Celebrity Centre that looks like a country club from the outside or a fancy hotel, green hard hedges flat and tall, high enough to keep out the people like us. The guards in their weird old-fashioned uniforms glare at us with blank eyes, white marble pillars tucked behind them. The whole time we’ve been gone, Eeyore hasn’t said anything to me.

To tell you the truth, I’m happy to not talk to her. I still don’t know how to explain last night. It still feels weird and knotted up in my chest like hair in a drain, and the best I can do to rinse it out is come with her and let her lead the way. I don’t know how to do any better than that. Even though it’s probably not enough.

She keeps seeming like she wants to say something, looking over in my direction and then down at asphalt or out at palm trees and parking lots. I can see when she’s looking at me, but I pretend I can’t. I’m like Annabelle right before she left for Berkeley: I knew she knew when I was looking at her, even though she pretended not to. I used to hate that. And now I’m doing it. It’s funny how easy it is to do the things you hate, the things you promise yourself you’ll never do. You look at grown-ups, tucked into their falling-apart houses, lying till they hit each other and you say you’ll never be like that but who knows? It’s easier than you think.

It just happens. Even when almost everyone who showed you how to do things showed you wrong, and screwed you up, and left; even when you have promised yourself in fifteen different sets of sheets and in freight trains and on sidewalks, staring up at stars, that you will do it different from all the people who have done it wrong and hurt you, still you do it the same. Still you do the same shit to everybody else that they have done to you. I know it must be possible to keep promises. There must be people who say things and mean them and who can make the words turn real. But I’ve never met one. I keep trying to be something I’m not even sure exists. I’ve promised myself so many times that I won’t be like so many people, and I still do it anyway. I still make people cry, and laugh at them, and I know as soon as everyone really sees me they’ll all leave again and I’ll be left with the noise not being able to sleep.

The clouds are graying the sky and we’re up at the top of a hill. You can see the smog blanket and the blinking canyon of Los Angeles below. My legs hurt. Eeyore steers us through a gateway into a corridor of flowers, hot pink and orange with the petals shaped like leaves. It’s weird how L.A. is a city but once you get into rich people’s yards it’s like you’re in a crazy jungle forest made of flowers. You can hardly see the house.

I follow her up to the front door. She already looked in the driveway. There’s no car, so she doesn’t try to be quiet. She digs under a flowerpot for the key. I make a note in my head where it is, even though I know I’ll never come back and steal from here without her. Habit, I guess.

She doesn’t seem embarrassed that we’re here. In front of Critter she felt like a loser even saying she had parents, worried he would think she wasn’t cool. She has no idea probably that he’s just jealous. Now she’s puffed up and brave-acting, like kids who break into houses in movies. All tough shoulder swagger, one hand in her magenta hair. Her other hand shakes gripping the key in the lock.

She wiggles it open anyway, though, and it creaks. We go into the front hall which is covered in beige carpet, so clean it’s almost shiny. We both get boot prints on it. I tell her sorry and bend down to rub mine out with my shirt: I’ve stolen enough to know you don’t leave tracks. But she just goes “It’s cool, man” and motions me back up before I’m done. I let her be in charge, even though I know it’s not a good idea. It’s funny how she acts like Critter when he’s not around.

She says “Come on” and heads upstairs to the living room. I’ve never been inside a house like this. Some of my fosters had money, but just the small-town-in-Arizona kind, never like people in big cities have. The best I’ve seen is stucco ceilings, little wooden tables, and a comfortable plaid couch. Mostly the houses I’ve been in have holes in the walls. But this one has fancy peach paint and a big leather couch and a TV that’s stretched out flat like a movie screen. Part of the floor is cold gray marble and the other part is wood, and lights hang from the ceiling like the kind you see through windows inside fancy restaurants. There are even miniature palm trees growing inside in pots. I feel like I’m in a TV show.

Eeyore goes to the kitchen. The refrigerator is huge and shiny silver. She grabs my backpack off my back and starts stuffing it. Peanut butter, hummus, juice. She’s taking so much I get scared someone will notice, but when I look in the refrigerator it’s still packed so full that you can’t really tell. I know she’s still mad at me from yesterday: she hasn’t talked to me except to tell me what to do and where to go. The more she takes, though, the happier she seems. She’s proud, I think, is what it is.

Between jars clinking in the fridge there’s a clunk from down the hall. She doesn’t stop until I put my hand on her wrist, my breathing slowed way down, and tell her “Shhh.” She slides some cheese into my bag and stops to listen. My ears are like a rabbit.

There’s another clunk. And then a doorknob twisting, and then footsteps. “Shit,” I whisper. I look for windows we can climb out of. There aren’t any; all of them have screens. The feet get fast and louder.

Then they come into the kitchen. I guess the lady’s Eeyore’s mom, even though she doesn’t look a thing like her. She’s in a business suit and panty hose, no shoes, like she was taking a nap in the middle of work. Her brown hair is blow-dried and she’s pretty in that brittle sort of way. Her eyes go wide open when she sees us.

She looks at Eeyore: her face crumples up like she’s about to cry, and she yells “Elly!” She starts to run to her, tears spilling out. But then she looks at me.

Her eyes narrow into little slits. I’ve gotten that face before, but usually from cops. I follow her gaze down onto my shirt and shorts and boots. I watch as her lip curls at the dirt. There’s almost as much on her own kid’s clothes, but she can’t see it. All she can see is me. I watch it take five seconds for a story to click into place: for everything to become my fault inside her head. Then she turns right back to Eeyore.

“Is this what you ran away to be with?” she says. Like it’s hardly a question, like I’m hardly a person. She’s giving Eeyore that slit-eyed cop look now.

“No,” Eeyore goes, like Duh, and makes a face like That was the stupidest question on earth. Her mom doesn’t buy it. She turns back to me.

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen,” I tell her.

“Do you know how old Elly is?” she asks me.

“Thirteen?” I guess.

“Twelve. She’s twelve years old. You have taken a twelve-year-old out of her house and put her in God knows what kind of danger. I don’t know who you are or what you think you are doing, but you are not going to do it with my daughter.”

“I’m not your daughter,” Eeyore mutters.

The woman flips around. “What?”

“You’re not my fucking mom, Linda,” Eeyore says. Her voice is quiet and mad.

It’s obviously true, because it stops Linda for a second. But just a second: “You know what, young lady? I don’t care. I’m tired of you raking me over the coals because I’m not your mother. I’ve had it. Your father and I work ourselves to the bone to give you everything. And then you run off with—” She can’t even say it; she just looks at me. When I look back her eyes ricochet right off my face and land on Eeyore.

“You don’t give me anything,” Eeyore says. She’s angry like the cherry of a cigarette, but also small, and scared. Everyone else in the room is bigger than her, could rub her out beneath our shoes.

“Aside, of course, from the food you’re stealing from my refrigerator. That’s it. You’re staying here, and this”— she looks at me like she doesn’t know what to call me, like she wants to spit—“boy is leaving. Right. Now.”

I’ve got no objections to leaving. In fact, I’d like to do it immediately. But I can see on Eeyore’s face that she can’t stay. And I remember from last night the reason why.

There’s a face-off. Eeyore just stands there, silent. Her body’s like steel but her face is trembling. I can see tears start to well up in her eyes. I know once they spill out it’ll be over: she’ll crumble and stay. Eeyore is little and Linda is bigger and Critter’s not here for Eeyore to run to and I’ve been in enough bad houses to know what it means if she stays.

“She’s leaving.” I hear myself say it: my heart’s loud in my ears like last night and blood runs fast into my fingertips.

Both of them turn to look at me. Linda’s still in charge: she squints at me like I’m a bug she wants to step on. I try again, louder—“She doesn’t want to stay with you”—and before I can even finish the words she’s yelling at me. She says “Get out” and “I’m calling the police.” But she doesn’t make a move for the phone.

“Fuck you,” I tell her, just to call her bluff. Then her eyes flash and she’s angry, all of her, not half of her like Critter in the parking lot. She calls me a bunch of names, lips curled, flecks of spit flying out of her mouth. Dirty, ugly, criminal. I recognize the words: they jolt me back inside my ears to a place that’s familiar and old. Now she doesn’t sound like cops. She sounds like a way-back feeling inside my ribs, and her words tunnel around me in the kitchen. All I can see is right in front of my eyes and everything goes clear like glass and I feel weirdly calm. Linda finishes with “—she ran away to be with filth like you.” I didn’t even hear what came before that, but I know what to tell her.

“No she didn’t.” I notice Eeyore’s watching me, but I can’t tell what her eyes look like. “You want to know why she ran away?” I think Eeyore might be crying. “She ran away because your kid, whatever the fuck his name is, was raping her for fucking years. Did you know that? Did you do anything? Probably fucking not. So don’t blame me that Eeyore ran away. She ran away from you.” My face is hot and when the words are done I notice that I’m panting.

She just stands there like an idiot. Her mouth is a little open, like she’s sleeping in a chair. Eeyore’s not moving, except for her face: she’s definitely crying for real now. Snot and tears mix on her chin. I watch her out of the corners of my eyes. She looks at me to see what I’ll do next; I keep my eyes on Linda.

Linda reminds me of a cow, heavy and blank. Like if you tipped her over she wouldn’t know how to get back up.

She doesn’t say anything. It’s just a few seconds but it seems like forever. The silence swells up the room. I glance over and Eeyore’s face is like a little kid’s, wide open, waiting. All her street-kid bluster is gone and she’s staring at Linda, stripped down to a place I haven’t felt since I was five, so soft I wouldn’t be surprised if she stretched out her arms and asked to be picked up.

“You’re lying,” Linda says. She says it to me but then she looks at Eeyore, testing her out. Eeyore doesn’t talk— she can’t, I think—but after a second she shakes her head, just an inch, the smallest, softest answer she can give.

Linda’s voice gets louder now, hard and strong like a boss at work. “You’re lying,” she says again, this time to Eeyore.

It’s like a door slides across Eeyore’s face and slams shut hard enough to lock itself. Her mouth stitches up and her jaw clamps down. The only thing left from before are her eyes, wet and warm. That feeling of wanting to take care of her swells up in the middle of my chest, pressing against a hot fierce kind of mad that comes from farther below.

Sometimes Germ’ll go nuts like a watchdog when some random guy walks too close on the sidewalk, barking and whining and jumping around. That’s never when I worry. When someone’s really dangerous he lets out this slow growl, too soft for anyone to hear except for who it’s meant for. “She’s not lying,” I say to Linda. It comes out quiet and low.

Her voice just gets higher. “She’s my daughter, I should damned well know when she’s lying.” I want to remind her that Eeyore’s not her daughter, but she just keeps going. “You think you know better than her own family?” and points laser eyes at me.

“Yeah, I do,” I say. It’s not a fight, it’s just true.

She can’t really say anything back to that, so she starts talking to me like I’m five. Her voice turns singsong like nursery school except there’s metal behind it. “Okay, I’m going to explain this to you, even though I know you’re not going to understand. Eleanor is a rebellious teenager. She has to hate her parents. And you’ve obviously brainwashed her into thinking that you and whatever the hell you do are a lot more fun than living with us and going to school. We’re a good, healthy, happy family here, so in order to run off with you, Eleanor has to invent a problem. That’s what’s going on. Eleanor is lying, and you believe her lies; or maybe you came up with them in the first place, I don’t know. But I’m the adult here. My job is to protect her. And protecting her means getting her away from you.”

“It does not!” Eeyore yells. It breaks the lock Linda and I have on each other. We both turn around. Eeyore’s face is pink and her feet are stomped down. Her eyes are bright and mad. “Squid and Critter and Rusty take care of me. You don’t. You don’t fucking do anything. All you care about is your job and my dad and stupid Brian, and you do anything any of them tells you to and you don’t give a shit about me. You just pretend you do so my dad will like you. You’re a liar. You don’t give a shit about protecting me. If you did you would believe me.”

Eeyore stops there, almost surprised that last part came out of her mouth. She stares at Linda, chin still tilted up, feet still planted. Linda stares back until she can’t. She stammers and her eyes brush the floor for a second. Then she points them up at me and opens her mouth to start in. I’m an easier target.

Before she can think of what to say, I shrug. “She’s right,” I tell Linda. “If you were protecting her you’d believe her.”

And then I turn around to Eeyore and I say “Wanna go?” and she looks at me with the surest eyes in the world and says “Yeah.” I grab her backpack and she grabs my hand, and we turn and go downstairs and out the door, headed back toward Winchell’s and Benito’s and our little sidewalk family. Linda doesn’t try to stop us. On the way out Eeyore stops to put the key back. Then she changes her mind and pockets it.