I’m not that particular about what I read. I just like the stories. Danielle Steele or Dostoyevsky, Somerset Maugham or King—doesn’t make much difference. Just so long as I can get away in the words.
But Tommy likes his magazines, and he likes them with his name on the cover—you know, the subscription sticker? There’s two words he can read: Thomas and Flood. I know his first name’s Tommy because he knows that much and that’s what he told me. I made up the last name. The building we live in is on Flood Street.
He likes People and Us and Entertainment Weekly and Life and stuff like that. Lots of pictures, not too many words. He gets me to cut out the pictures of the people and animals and ads and stuff he likes and then he plays with them like they were paper dolls. That’s how he gets away, I guess. Whatever works.
Anyway, I’ve got a post office box down on Grasso Street near Angel’s office and that’s where I have the subscriptions sent. I go down once a week to pick them up—usually on Thursday afternoons. It’s all a little more than I can afford—makes me work a little harder at my garbage picking, you know?—but what am I going to do? Cut him off from his only pleasure? People think I’m hard—when they don’t just think I’m crazy—and maybe I am, but I’m not mean.
The thing about having a post office box is that you get some pretty interesting junk mail—well, at least Tommy finds it interesting. I used to toss it out, but he came down with me to the box one time and got all weirded out when he saw me throwing it away, so I bring most of it back now. He calls them his surprises. First thing he asks when I get back is, “Were there any surprises?”
* * *
I went in the Thursday this all started and gave the clerk my usual glare, hoping that one day he’ll finally get the message, but he never does. He was the one who sicced Angel on me in the first place. Thought nineteen was too young to be a bag lady, pretty girl like me. Thought he could help.
I didn’t bother to explain that I’d chosen to live this way. I’ve been living on my own since I was twelve. I don’t sell my bod’ and I don’t do drugs. My clothes may be worn down and patched, but they’re clean. I wash every day, which is more than I can say for some of the real citizens I pass by on the street. You can smell their B.O. a half block away. I look pretty regular except on garbage day when Tommy and I hit the streets with our shopping carts, the dogs all strung out around us like our own special honour guard.
There’s nothing wrong with garbage picking. Where do you think all those fancy antique shops get most of their high-priced merchandise?
I do okay, without either Angel’s help or his. He was probably just hard up for a girlfriend.
“How’s it going, Maisie?” he asked when I came in, all friendly, like we’re pals. I guess he got my name from the form I filled out when I rented the box.
I ignored him, like I always do, and gathered the week’s pile up. It was a fairly thick stack—lots of surprises for Tommy. I took it all outside where Rexy was waiting for me. He’s the smallest of the dogs, just a small little mutt with wiry brown hair and a real insecurity problem. He’s the only one who comes everywhere with me because he just falls apart if I leave him at home.
I gave Rexy a quick pat, then sat on the curb, sorting through Tommy’s surprises. If the junk mail doesn’t have pictures, I toss it. I only want to carry so much of this crap back with me.
It was while I was going through the stack that this envelope fell out. I just sat and stared at it for the longest time. It looked like one of those ornate invitations they’re always making a fuss over in the romance novels I read: almost square, the paper really thick and cream-coloured, ornate lettering on the outside that was real high-class calligraphy, it was so pretty. But that wasn’t what had me staring at it, unwilling to pick it up.
The lettering spelled out my name. Not the one I use, but my real name. Margaret. Maisie’s just a diminutive of it that I read about in this book about Scotland. That was all that was there, just “Margaret,” no surname. I never use one except for when the cops decide to roust the squatters in the Tombs, like they do from time to time—I think it’s like some kind of training exercise for them—and then I use Flood, same as I gave Tommy.
I shot a glance back in through the glass doors because I figured it had to be from the postal clerk—who else knew me?—but he wasn’t even looking at me. I sat and stared at it a little longer, but then I finally picked it up. I took out my penknife and slit the envelope open, and carefully pulled out this card. All it said on it was, “Allow the dark-robed access tonight and they will kill you.”
I didn’t have a clue what it meant, but it gave me a royal case of the creeps. If it wasn’t a joke—which I figured it had to be— then who were these black-robed and why would they want to kill me?
Every big city like this is really two worlds. You could say it’s divided up between the haves and the have-nots, but it’s not that simple. It’s more like some people are citizens of the day and others of the night. Someone like me belongs to the night. Not because I’m bad, but because I’m invisible. People don’t know I exist. They don’t know and they don’t care, except for Angel and the postal clerk, I guess.
But now someone did.
Unless it was a joke. I tried to laugh it off, but it just didn’t work. I looked at the envelope again, checking it out for a return address, and that’s when I realized something I should have noticed straightaway. The envelope didn’t have my box number on it, it didn’t have anything at all except for my name. So how the hell did it end up in my box? There was only one way.
I left Rexy guarding Tommy’s mail—just to keep him occupied—and went back inside. When the clerk finished with the customer ahead of me, he gave me a big smile but I laid the envelope down on the counter between us and didn’t smile back.
Actually, he’s a pretty good-looking guy. He’s got one of those flat-top haircuts—shaved sides, kinky black hair standing straight up on top. His skin’s the colour of coffee and he’s got dark eyes with the longest lashes I ever saw on a guy. I could like him just fine, but the trouble is he’s a regular citizen. It’d just never work out.
“How’d this get in my box?” I asked him. “All it’s got is my name on it, no box number, no address, nothing.”
He looked down at the envelope. “You found it in your box?”
I nodded.
“I didn’t put it in there and I’m the one who sorts all the mail for the boxes.”
“I still found it in there.”
He picked it up and turned it over in his hands.
“This is really weird,” he said.
“You into occult shit?” I asked him.
I was thinking of dark robes. The only people I ever saw wear them were priests or people dabbling in the occult.
He blinked with surprise. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing.”
I grabbed the envelope back and headed back to where Rexy was waiting for me.
“Maisie!” the clerk called after me, but I just ignored him.
Great, I thought as I collected the mail Rexy’d been guarding for me. First Joe postal clerk’s got a good Samaritan complex over me—probably fueled by his dick—now he’s going downright weird. I wondered if he knew where I lived. I wondered if he knew about the dogs. I wondered about magicians in dark robes and whether he thought he had some kind of magic that was going to deal with the dogs and make me go all gooshy for him—just before he killed me.
The more I thought about it, the more screwed up I got. I wasn’t so much scared as confused. And angry. How was I supposed to keep coming back to get Tommy’s mail, knowing he was there? What would he put in the box next? A dead rat? It wasn’t like I could complain to anybody. People like me, we don’t have any rights.
Finally I just started for home, but I paused as I passed the door to Angel’s office.
Angel’s a little cool with me these days. She still says she wanted to help me, but she doesn’t quite trust me any
more. It’s not really her fault.
She had me in her office one time—I finally went, just to get her off my back—and we sat there for a while, looking at each other, drinking this crappy coffee from the machine that someone donated to her a few years ago. I wouldn’t have picked it up on a dare if I’d come across it on my rounds.
“What do you want from me?” I finally asked her.
“I’m just trying to understand you.”
“There’s nothing to understand. What you see is what I am. No more, no less.”
“But why do you live the way you do?”
Understand, I admire what Angel does. She’s helped a lot of kids that were in a really bad way and that’s a good thing. Some people need help because they can’t help themselves.
She’s an attractive woman with a heart-shaped face, the kind of eyes that always look really warm and caring, and long dark hair that seems to go on forever down her back. I always figured something really bad must have happened to her as a kid, for her to do what she does. It’s not like she makes much of a living. I think the only thing she really and honestly cares about is helping people through this sponsorship program she’s developed where straights put up money and time to help the down-and-outers get a second chance.
I don’t need that kind of help. I’m never going to be much more than what I am, but that’s okay. It beats what I had before I hit the streets.
I’ve told Angel all of this a dozen times, but she sat there behind her desk, looking at me with those sad eyes of hers, and I knew she wanted a piece of me, so I gave her one. I figured maybe she’d leave me alone then.
“I was in high school,” I told her, “and there was this girl who wanted to get back at one of the teachers—a really nice guy named Mr. Hammond. He taught English. So she made up this story about how he’d molested her and the shit really hit the van. He got suspended while the cops and the school board looked into the matter and all the time this girl’s laughing her head off behind everybody’s back, but looking real sad and screwed up whenever the cops and the social workers are talking to her.
“But I knew he didn’t do it. I knew where she was, the night she said it happened, and it wasn’t with Mr. Hammond. Now I wasn’t exactly the best-liked kid in that school, and I knew what this girl’s gang was going to do to me, but I went ahead and told the truth anyway.
“Things worked out pretty much the way I expected. I got the cold shoulder from everybody, but at least Mr. Hammond got his name cleared and his job back.
“One afternoon he asks me to see him after school and I figure it’s to thank me for what I’ve done, so I go to his classroom. The building’s pretty well empty and the scuff of my shoes in the hallway is the only sound I hear as I go to see him. I get to the math room and he takes me back into his office. Then he locks the door and he rapes me. Not just once, but over and over again. And you know what he says to me while he’s doing it?
“‘Nobody’s going to believe a thing you say,’ he says. ‘You try to talk about this and they’re just going to laugh in your face.’ ”
I looked over at Angel and there were tears swimming in her eyes.
“And you know what?” I said. “I knew he was right. I was the one that cleared his name. There was nobody going to believe me and I didn’t even try.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Angel said. “You poor kid.”
“Don’t take it so hard,” I told her. “It’s past history. Besides, it never really happened. I just made it up because I figured it was the kind of thing you wanted to hear.”
I’ll give her this: she took it well. Didn’t yell at me, didn’t pitch me out onto the street. But you can see why maybe I’m not on her list of favorite people these days. On the other hand, she doesn’t hold a grudge—I know that too.
I felt like a hypocrite going in to see her with this problem, but I didn’t have anyone else to turn to. It’s not like Tommy or the dogs could give me any advice. I hesitated for the longest moment in the doorway, but then she looked up and saw me standing there, so I went ahead in.
I took off my hat—it’s this fedora that I actually bought new because it was just too cool to pass up. I wear it all the time, my light brown hair hanging down from it, long and straight, though not as long as Angel’s. I like the way it looks with my jeans and sneakers and this cotton shirt I found at a rummage sale that only needed a tear fixed on one of its shirttails.
I know what you’re thinking, but hey, I never said I wasn’t vain. I may be a squatter, but I like to look my best. It gets me into places where they don’t let in bums.
Anyway I took off my hat and slouched in the chair on this side of Angel’s desk.
“Which one’s that?” she asked, pointing to Rexy who was sitting outside by the door like the good little dog he is.
“Rexy.”
“He can come in if you’d like.”
I shook my head. “No. I’m not staying long. I just had this thing I wanted to ask you about. It’s…”
I didn’t know where to begin, but finally I just started in with finding the envelope. It got easier as I went along. That’s one thing you got to hand to Angel—there’s nobody can listen like she does. You take up all of her attention when you’re talking to her. You never get the feeling she’s thinking of something else, or of what she’s going to say back to you, or anything like that.
Angel didn’t speak for a long time after I was done. When I stopped talking, she looked past me, out at the traffic going by on Grasso Street.
“Maisie,” she said finally. “Have you ever heard the story of the boy who cried wolf?”
“Sure, but what’s that got to do with—oh, I get it.” I took out the envelope and slid it across the desk to her. “I didn’t have to come in here,” I added.
And I was wishing I hadn’t, but Angel seemed to give herself a kind of mental shake. She opened the envelope and read the message, then her gaze came back to me.
“No,” she said. “I’m glad you did. Do you want me to have a talk with Franklin?”
“Who’s that?”
“The fellow behind the counter at the post office. I don’t mind doing it, although I have to admit that it doesn’t sound like the kind of thing he’d do.”
So that was his name. Franklin. Franklin the creep.
I shrugged. “What good would that do? Even if he did do it—” and the odds looked good so far as I was concerned “—he’s not going to admit to it.”
“Maybe we can talk to his supervisor.” She looked at her watch. “I think it’s too late to do it today, but I can try first thing tomorrow morning.”
Great. In the meantime, I could be dead.
Angel must have guessed what I was thinking, because she added, “Do you need a place to stay for tonight? Someplace where you’ll feel safe?”
I thought of Tommy and the dogs and shook my head.
“No, I’ll be okay,” I said as I collected my envelope and stuck it back in with Tommy’s mail. “Thanks for, you know, listening and everything.”
I waited for her to roll into some spiel about how she could do more, could get me off the street, that kind of thing, but it was like she was tuned right into my wavelength because she didn’t say a word about any of that. She just knew, I guess, that I’d never come back if every time I talked to her that was all I could look forward to.
“Come see me tomorrow,” was all she said as I got to my feet. “And Maisie?”
I paused in the doorway where Rexy was ready to start bouncing off my legs as if he hadn’t seen me in weeks.
“Be careful,” Angel added.
“I will.”
* * *
I took a long route back to the squat, watching my back the whole time, but I never saw anybody that looked like he was following me, and not a single person in a dark robe. I almost laughed at myself by the time I got back. There were Tommy and the dogs, all sprawled out on the steps of our building until Rexy yelped and then the whole pack of the
m were racing down the street toward me.
Okay, big as he was, Tommy still couldn’t hurt a flea even if his life depended on it and the dogs were all small and old and pretty well used up, but Franklin would still have to be crazy to think he could mess with us. He didn’t know my family. You get a guy as big as Tommy and all those dogs…well, they just looked dangerous. What did I have to worry about?
The dogs were all over me then with Tommy right behind them. He grinned from ear to ear as I handed him his mail.
“Surprises!” he cried happily, in that weird high voice of his. “Maisie bring surprises!”
We went inside to our place up on the second floor. It’s got this big open space that we use in the summer when we want the air to have a chance to move around. There’s books everywhere. Tommy’s got his own corner with his magazines and all the little cut-out people and stuff that he plays with. There’s a couple of mismatched kitchen chairs and a card table. A kind of old cabinet that some hoboes helped me move up the one flight from the street holds our food and the Coleman stove I use for cooking.
We sleep on the mattresses over in another corner, the whole pack together, except for Chuckie. He’s this old lab that likes to guard the doorway. I usually think he’s crazy for doing so, but I wouldn’t mind tonight. Chuckie can look real fierce when he wants to. There’s a couple of chests by the bed area. I keep our clothes in one and dry kibbles for the dogs in another. They’re pretty good scavengers, but I like to see that they’re eating the right kind of food. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to them. One thing I can’t afford is vet bills.
First off I fed the dogs, then I made supper for Tommy and me—lentil soup with day-old buns I’d picked up behind a bakery in Crowsea. We’d been eating the soup for a few days, but we had to use it up because, with the spring finally here, it was getting too warm for food to keep. In the winter we’ve got smaller quarters down the hall, complete with a cast-iron stove that I salvaged from this place they were wrecking over in Foxville. Tommy and I pretty near killed ourselves hauling it back. One of the bikers helped us bring it upstairs.